I’m an elf? What? How? When? I’ve been healing my body into growing… Reshaping my body since birth…

Liam paused, realizing his mistake.

Reshaping my body to be more like the human bodies I studied in anatomy class and the dissection lab. My life magic has been overwriting my genes and I never knew! Ah! It's not like we have a mirror. Thought Liam, suddenly believing the first Paladin.

“My ears are… pointy… No!” Snapped Liam, deciding his personal lineage could wait. “Stop the executions!” He shouted, voice cracking as he spun.

His tiny feet propelled him into the stalwart company of paladins.

“Let me through!” He shouted again, toddler fists pounding on their armor like leaves in the breeze, and wondering if children always felt this helpless. Leaves falling on a mountain had a greater gravity than his fists. Two gauntlets wrapped around Liam’s waist, levitating him like the toddler he was.

“I think this warrants an investigation. Ahem, a dozen have already been hung. They’re about to start the next round, which we can pause– Velena,” Thaddeus nodded to the female paladin, who departed, pushing through the crowd. “But some have already died, I cannot in good conscience let an elfchild witness such a scene. However necessary it might be. For now, give me the name of the person you wish to see, and I’ll have them– ow!”

Liam didn’t have time to play with prissy paladins, so he grabbed Thaddeus’s blond chin hairs and yanked his mouth open, interrupting him. [abbreviated cast] skipped the chant for shadowshield and black mana enveloped Liam, forcing the paladin’s armored hands away from him. A very important step because Liam focused on the first letter of the first word for the invocation of lightning, and tazed Thaddeus right in his –prominent– cleft chin.

The knight spasmed involuntarily, electricity making every muscle in his face tense at once, creating a horrific rictus grin as muscular antagonists worked in electrical harmony with primary agonists in ways a human body would never actually flex.

Then it was gone.

Liam bounced off Thaddeus’s silver breastplate, landing headfirst in the sand. Yeah, the shadowshield was a good call. Thought Liam, rising to his feet without injury.

“ightnnnnggg” Groaned Thaddeus, choking on a half severed tongue.

Blood dripped out of his mouth, preventing the man from speaking. If Thaddeus lacked the talent to skip chants, then Liam had accidentally crippled the first captain of a duchy’s church.

“Ew, another problem I don’t need right now.” Muttered Liam, extending his hand and skipped the healing chant, repairing Thaddeus’s tongue before he could think better of it.

Four nearby paladins became statuesque wardens. Not even breathing as they beheld the miracle of a dark affinity healer. While the other nine failed to understand the significance of Liam’s mystical affinities, marking them as nonmagical knights.

Uh oh, this is an ‘I just fucked up’ moment isn’t it…

“Thaddeus, I’m ordering you to stop the executions. Don’t drag my name into it.” Said Liam.

Swords left their sheathes, and found their way to Liam’s shadowshield, point first.

“Shut your mouth you knife eared runt! Treaty or not you must show the captain respect! We won’t kill you, but the treaty doesn’t prohibit us from dicing you into bite sized ribbons and healing you back together.” Snapped the gray bearded paladin, his sneer of contempt becoming a mustachio of embarrassment as Thaddeus knelt in front of Liam, head bowed.

Like a prodigal son might do when returning home. His sudden humility knocked the knights back a pace, confusing them beyond reason.

“My Lord, I’m sorry! Remy! Oliver! Go halt the executions this second, stab the executioner if you must.” Cried Thaddeus.

“But captain!-”

“GO NOW!” Screamed Thaddeus.

Both men spun and jogged through the crowd, knocking people aside in a mad sprint to reach the gallows. Thaddeus possessed the composure of a king, and to see him frazzled, no, worse than frazzled, Thaddeus had been desperate. Such a thought terrified the men. So they pushed their way through the crowd.

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Liam tried to pursue them, only to have the crowd close ranks against him. Their resistance came from their reaction, first bashed aside by knights, then panicked into a crush of people by a dick-tall mass of shadows advancing towards the men and women. Some drew knives to ward him away, and all pressed backwards, seeking to escape the unidentifiable mass of ‘evil’ and compressing the crowd instead.

Great, I’m now forced into the church of broken traitors… Ugh… Hopefully deep frying Mr. Goldie the Lord of Biscuits in front of the king’s court led to some reforms.

“Thaddeus, Carry me to the stage, this isn’t the first time I've seen the dead and I must be completely certain my mother is not among them.” Said Liam.

“Yes sir. Let me assure you, There were no elves among the convicted.” Answered Thaddeus, dutifully obeying Liam.

“Mom is human. Whatever these are,” he flapped his ears, though the shadowshield distorted around him to compensate and conceal them, “will need to be explained by her.” Said Liam, allowing himself to be carried while he turned his thoughts inward.

I remember being born, but Sirin, why would you lie about who my father was? Did you even know?

The paladins took all of five minutes to force their way through the crowd, bringing Liam –still obscured by his shield– to the gallows. Eight bodies lay in the sand, piled haphazardly after their necks had snapped. Four were men, and all were felinids, tails, ears, claws and teeth visible despite rigor mortis.

But Liam never saw them.

His eyes were locked on the four figures who were still hanging in their nooses. Velena had cut down three, her naked sword sawing through the fourth’s rope, giving Liam a nightmare that would haunt him for eternity. A woman, both eyes blackened, her lip busted open and a ‘T’ branded onto both cheeks, forehead and hands. They’d tortured her, branded his mother in public, beat her almost to death and then hung her.

Liam’s body moved of its own accord, fire severed the rope holding her aloft, making Velena’s eyes flash with her sympathetic power.

“You dare interrupt the magistrate’s execution?” Shouted a Ducal guard, announcing himself as a target.

A bolt of lightning hit him full in the face, whether from Liam or Quetz was unknown, but the guard died before Liam reached his mother’s side. Head exploded just like the antlion’s.

Life affinity flowed from Liam into Sirin’s throat, seeking for any sign of life and finding her cold. Already dead. Cervical vertebrae fractured, zero brain activity, heart stopped. Healing magic was an instant miracle, but there was nothing it could do to restore the dead. Even if he restarted her heart, the soul was gone.

“Mom?” Whispered Liam, “No, no no nonoNo!”

His magic reset her spine, probing deeper. He was Taloc’s chosen Lightning Lord, destined to change the world! There had to be something he could do, some magic to heal Sirin, to bring her back!

He recited the incantation of healing in full,

“Heaven’s grace, a lightning god’s decree,

With fervent faith, I call on thee.

Wounds mend, pain’s grasp shall cease,

In sacred light, we find our peace.”

A dozen ribs crunched into place, her heart beat once then clogged. Like an engine full of molasses. A half-assed attempt at restarting frozen blood. She was gone, her life extinguished at the hands of mortal men. Liam knew it was futile, but he had to know, he healed her once more, this time scanning her body in full. Broken pelvis, both arms broken, at least two concussions, repeated branding, but they’d spared her more demeaning treatments. Sirin had gone down fighting. Liam swallowed, wondering if she’d begged them to stop, to have mercy for the sake of her son, or if that had only spurred the ducal guards to greater wrath.

“What’s all this ruckus!” Snapped a man in flowing purple robes that bore the crest of the desert duke. Liam recognized him as the magistrate of Kheresh city, the mayor, and the only one with the authority to judge and execute prisoners while the duke was away.

The man who’d slain his mother, to save his own worthless hide.

If only he’d been ten minutes earlier, then Liam wouldn’t be an orphan for the second time in his existence. But unlike the first time, he wasn’t powerless.

‘Quetz, kill every ducal guard involved with the executions. Don’t touch the paladins or bystanders, but make sure Kheresh speaks of this day a thousand years from now in hushed whispers.

For fear that I might return.’ Ordered Liam, raising his index and thumb in the iconic fingerguns of his past life.

He no longer needed to chant the spell or speak “pew”, he only needed to point and the guards fell dead. Half of them exploded from his unregulated fury. Struck by a lethal bolt of lightning. Eyeballs burst as the vitae within them evaporated from the sheer cascade of electricity. Liam couldn’t remember how many died, or how many he killed. His only concern was making them pay. They had caught and executed a woman within the span of six hours! These people weren’t human. They weren’t even animals. They were barbaric demons and thus did not qualify for his mercy. So they died like dogs, Quetz slaying a dozen with bolts from the sky and Liam chaining his lightning through each guard while the paladins froze. Following Thaddeus’s example as he prostrated himself before Liam.

Not that it mattered. The guards were dead in seconds, bodies sizzling with the last ounces of Liam’s mana. He collapsed backwards, slumping onto Thaddeus’s outstretched arms.

Later historians would cite forty seven adults slain on that day. A trifling number of heretics who were purged in proper order to avenge the unjust execution of a Lightning Lord’s mother. Some would even call the act a mercy, since it settled the affair and saved Khereshetal from suffering the fulminonimbus’ crusading armies.