Laryn arose before dawn. He rallied a few of the villagers and had them carry all the goods stolen from the elves over to the rope bridge across the river, piling them visibly atop the boulders.

  Everyone spoke softly in the cool, morning air. Tense voices hinted at fear among the villagers. Laryn hadn’t explained everything to them, but they knew things weren’t looking good.

  He crouched beside a boulder, out of the morning breeze. His sword was strapped to his side, and he wondered if he would have to use it today.

  The truth, that he hadn’t expressed to Gaten, was that peace with the elves wasn’t possible. Not truly, not in any way that Ilydia had proposed it. Laryn knew that his kingdom core was incredibly powerful. Sooner or later, someone was going to try and take it from him. It might be elves. It might not.

  But he needed to be prepared to protect Vallor from attack. He needed to be strong enough to defeat any enemy. The only way to do that? Capture more land. Claim more hextiles. Complete more rings. And the elves were right in his way. Even if a temporary peace could be made, they’d still be driven to conflict, eventually.

  Right now, in this moment, he’d found an opening. He intended to use it.

  The sky, already glowing with the first light of dawn, grew brighter. The sun would soon appear, visible above the treetops in the east.

  Was Ilydia hiding in the woods across the river, waiting for the appointed time?

  The first brilliant arc of the sun rose, sending shafts of light down the river.

  Ilydia stepped out of the woods, at the far end of the boulder. Two other elves came with him this time.

  Laryn rose from his position and waved, gesturing for the elf to cross.

  He avoided looking at the places where his men were concealed, weapons ready.

  When Ilydia stepped onto Laryn’s side of the river, Laryn offered the elf a gracious bow.

  “Where are the prisoners you promised me?” Ilydia demanded. Laryn eyed the two elves, noting the pendants of jet black stone dangling from their necks.

  “Yesterday, five of my people disappeared,” Laryn said, working up accusation in his voice. “I believe they were the culprits.”

  “You let them flee?” Ilydia asked, face reddening.

  “Did they flee?” Laryn countered, offering his best glare. “Or would a casual search discover their bodies in Annar?”

  Ilydia’s face darkened.

  “What is the meaning of this,” he growled, hand moving to his blade.

  “Here are all the stolen goods that I could recover,” Laryn gestured to the provisions and equipment he’d collected. “I meant to return it to you. But first, I need an explanation.”

  “You deserve no explanations!”

  “What is this?” Laryn produced the void heart ring, taken from Savena, the murdered elf.

  Ilydia recoiled slightly, his eyes seeming to slide off of the black gem in Laryn’s hand. One of Ilydia’s body guards gasped slightly.

  “What… what do you mean?” he asked.

  “As I feared,” Laryn said. “You have been betrayed.” He watched Ilydia’s guards carefully. They appeared astonished by the appearance of the ring.

  “Touch it,” Laryn said. “And you’ll understand.”

  Even now, Laryn heard the faint whispers of the void in the back of his mind.

  Ilydia raised his hand.

  The bodyguards sprang into action.

  “Don’t touch that!” one exclaimed. The other reached for the ring.

  “Why not?” Ilydia asked.

  “It is a trap of some kind,” the guard said. Laryn closed his fingers around the ring, keeping it from the grasping hand of the guard.

  “It’s a ring taken from your fallen comrade,” Laryn said. “She was a void cultist. This stone is made from a void heart.”

  The bodyguards drew their weapons.

  “Ilydia, you have been betrayed.”

  The elf’s eyes widened. “Give that to me,” he said, snatching the ring from Laryn’s hand. As he clutched the stone, one of his guards lunged forward with his blade. Laryn’s sword flashed from the scabbard, moving like lightning to deflect the attack.

  Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

  But the strike had not been aimed at Laryn. The body guard plunged his sword into Ilydia’s side.

  Ilydia gasped, and turned to face his attacker. The touch of the void heart had opened his eyes. Laryn saw realization on his face as he felt the pulsating call of the black gem around the man’s neck.

  “Elyear?” he breathed. He found the face of the other elf, and saw the void gem at his neck. “Adan? My friends?”

  Ilydia fell onto his face.

  Laryn watched the elves, readying himself for a fight.

  Instead, they both turned and ran back across the bridge, shouting. “Ambush! Ambush!”

  Laryn swept forward and moved to cut the rope. The nimble elves moved too quickly, and reached the other side before his blow could fall. Laryn pulled back the strike. If he couldn’t dunk cultists in the river, it would be better to keep this passage up.

  His concealed fighters emerged, watching the far bank.

  Kenna ran up and examined Ilydia’s injury.

  The situation hadn’t exactly gone as Laryn envisioned it. He prayed to Ishtoran that Ilydia would survive.

  The elf gripped Laryn’s arm. “I cannot believe it,” he muttered. “How could I have been so blind…”

  “Void heart is not obvious,” Laryn said. “Until you have been touched by it, it conceals itself from your sight. Your ignorance shows your purity.”

  “How many of them?” Ilydia asked. He coughed. “How many in my village? Why didn’t you warn me?”

  “You would not have believed me,” Laryn said. “I don’t know how many are in your village. Those two are the only ones that I saw openly wearing void heart gems.”

  “Please…” Ilydia breathed. “I know they are not all traitors.”

  “If they come against us, we will fight,” Laryn said.

  “My mother is not a cultist. Lawal. Many must be innocent.”

  Blood dripped from the corner of Ilydia’s mouth.

  A loud boom from the south drew everyone’s attention. A thick column of purple-black smoke billowed into the air over the trees, in the direction of Annar.

  “A void bloom,” Ilydia groaned. “We are finished.”

  “A void bloom? But I haven’t seen any spores passing overhead!”

  “The cultists. They must have planted a spore.”

  “It will be weak,” Laryn said. “Without time to spread its roots… We can stop it. We have to get across the river and join with your people. We will defeat the cultists.”

  Ilydia’s grip tightened on Laryn’s arm. “You are a good ruler, Laryn,” Ilydia said. “Please do what you can for them.”

  “Wait—”

  But Ilydia’s grip slackened, and his breathing stilled. His head lolled to the side.

  “I’m sorry,” Laryn whispered to the corpse. “I think you would have been a good ruler for your people.”

  Two more explosions split the air, and the column of smoke swelled, tripling in size. Two more void spores planted. Three might be a problem.

  Kenna, kneeling beside Ilydia’s body, turned large eyes to Laryn. “What will we do?” she asked.

  “We’re going to help the elves,” Laryn said. “And we’re going to kill the cultists.”

  Laryn lead his small strike force of men across the river. They quickly secured the far bank of the river; no elves appeared to contest them.

  The five men remaining on the island—Thatch, Jarik, Fenric, Ollen, and Vand—wore what armor they had; leather vambraces, caps, and jerkins. A few had put on pieces of stolen elven maille. Along with Gaten, this was the army Laryn would lead.

  He’d left Kenna in charge of the island, though he worried about what would happen if voidlings crossed the water.

  “We need to destroy the spores before they spawn too many voidlings,” he said. “The faster we go, the easier it will be!”

  Grim nods from his squad. He lead them through the woods to Annar.

  The further they progressed without reaching opposition, the better Laryn felt about their odds. If the cultist operation in Annar was small, perhaps not more than the two traitors, they might get a lot of backup from the elves here.

  Smoke filled the air as they reached the fields and clearings surrounding the village. Crops burned. No elves ran to extinguish the flames.

  No longer fearing a trap, Laryn picked up the pace, leading his men straight into the heart of Annar.

  Smoke clogged the air as trees and huts burned. A few elves scrambled around, using water magic to try to extinguish the flames. A group of five elves huddled together, fighting against a large voidling with long, twisting vine-like limbs.

  Laryn charged in. His men leveled their spears, and they slammed into the voidling from the side, piercing it multiple times and knocking it to the ground. Laryn leapt atop the voidling and brought his sword down hard, a killing blow that shattered carapace and sank deep into the bug-like creature.

  The elves cheered as Laryn pulled his sword free. Lawal stood among them, her face spattered with gore. She wore a bow and quiver over one shoulder, and held a bright, two handed sword before her.

  “We meet again,” she declared as Laryn stepped down from the voidling’s body. “Where is my son?”

  “He is dead,” Laryn said. “Killed by traitors among you. Void cultists.”

  “How?”

  “I revealed them to him,” Laryn said. “And they killed him.”

  “Elyear and Adan,” Lawal said. She did not seem surprised.

  “Are there more among you?”

  “A few others are unaccounted for. They might be cultists. They might be dead.”

  “We must hurry and destroy the voidblooms,” Laryn said. “Before they root too deeply.”

  “We will go with you.”

  Lawal and her four warrior elves fell in with Laryn’s men. They plunged into the woods, hurrying toward the billowing smoke marking the direction of the rooting voidblooms.

  “They will try to stop us,” Lawal said. “The cultists.”

  “They’re insane,” Laryn groaned.

  “I don’t understand it either. Maybe there are enough of us—” she stopped abruptly as arrows zipped through the air. They mostly clattered off of armor. One elf screamed as his leg as pierced.

  “There!” Lawal shouted, pointing through the trees. Laryn and the other humans took cover behind large trees. The blurred as they moved, unslinging their bows and returning fire.

  “I see five,” Lawal said. “They’re sheltered in that outcropping.” Laryn peered around the tree, noting the location.

  “We need to keep going,” he said. “We can’t let the voidblooms grow!”

  “They will follow,” Lawal said.

  An arrow zipped past, whistling as it nicked Laryn’s ear, then ricocheted off a trunk. Laryn hadn’t seen the elf who fired it, but Lawal returned fire.

  Laryn reached for his magic and cast a Water [Shield]. The new tier three spell gathered a thin layer of water in front of him, forming a disc about a meter across. A pair of arrows struck the shield, splashing through the water but losing most of their momentum and falling harmlessly to the ground.

  “We can’t help you much here,” Laryn said, glancing over his poorly armored force. “They’ll cut us to shreds. We’re going to fight the core.”

  His water shield dissolved.

  “Fare well,” Lawal said. “May your paths run straight.”

  Laryn and his squad sprinted away through the trees, weaving and ducking. A few stray arrows flew their way, but none hit their marks.

  They entered void claimed tiles. Blight tainted everything around them. Trees wilted, leaves blackened, and even the soil beneath their feet turned pale.

  “There it is,” Laryn breathed, as they pushed through the thinning trees. Twisting and writhing like a nightmare’s imitation of a flower, a massive voidbloom sprouted from the ground.