CHAPTER 20: DIVIDED ELVES

Back at Aetherthorn, the tension was so thick, even the wind dared not blow.

"This is madness!" one of the elders hissed.

"What did we just witness?" another gasped.

"This is impossible... How did he survive the White Fang?"

A wave of unease swept through the gathering. Elves who once held their heads high with superiority now looked at each other with nervous eyes and furrowed brows. Whispers rippled through the crowd like wildfire, unable to contain the disbelief that a human—a child—had not only survived a Night Stalker... but had escaped the wrath of the White Fang.

The White Fang, a beast of legend, an apex predator among monsters that not even the veteran dares to mess with. For generations, it had been the silent death in Runewood’s shadows, the nemesis of every elven clan and a curse whispered in the cradle songs of younglings. No one—elf, beast, or man—had ever returned from its fangs. Until now.

And that someone was Auren.

Rhiki stood before the water projection screen, his jaw clenched so tightly that the veins on his neck pulsed like a coiled snake. On the screen, Auren’s blurry image faded as the scene dissipated, but the memory burned in Rhiki’s mind like a searing brand.

He loathed the boy. Not just for surviving. Not just for fighting. But for defying the natural order—for breaking the silent rule that humans were prey, not players. And most of all, for putting Rhiki’s title and plans at risk.

Rhiki had never expected the bait trap they’d planted—subtly sneaked into Auren’s bag with runes laced in meat scent and blood magic—to attract the White Fang itself. The goal had been simple: eliminate the boy, maybe even get him injured after being mobbed by the beasts. Enough to push him out of the Trials without dirtying his own hands. But now?

Now they were neck-deep in a political disaster.

If word got out, especially to the Queen or worse, the Oracle, that they had tampered with the Test of Fang, Rhiki and Kardel—his co-conspirator—would not only lose their leadership. They would be exiled, if not executed.

Across the room, Kardel’s eyes met Rhiki’s. A subtle nod passed between them—an agreement forged in the fires of desperation.

Auren must die. Before he returns. Before he talks. Before anyone can trace the trap to them.

Their future depended on silence.

But silence had a watcher.

Unbeknownst to either of them, hidden among the garden vines twisted into the stone arches, a shadow lingered. Mathes, cloaked in a mantle of whisperleaf, had been watching... and listening. Every glare, every whisper, every unspoken word between the traitors had been noted.

Mathes wasn’t fond of Auren either. The boy was wild, unpredictable, and too human for comfort. But Mathes served not personal bias—but the Queen.

And more than that, he trusted the Oracle.

The Whisker Oracle, ancient and wise beyond measure, had spoken of a child with no Divine Frame—a child born of fire and fate, who would turn the tide for elves and men alike. Could Auren be that child? The boy who spoke before he could walk? Who walked before his second moon?

Mathes couldn’t deny what he saw with his own eyes. The way Auren evaded the White Fang’s killing blow, not with brute force, but with uncanny instincts and grace. It was... more than luck. It was something fated.

Yet duty warred with doubt inside him. Mathes’ hand rested on the pommel of his blade, as if it could weigh his choices.

He would not intervene. Not yet.

But the moment this conspiracy endangered the elves—his people—he would strike. Fair as steel. Swift as the Queen’s justice.

Across the courtyard, Robert and Marissa held each other tightly beneath a canopy of glass flowers. Their grip wasn’t born of love or passion, but shared trauma. Every trial Auren faced—every scream from the forest—they felt it in their bones.

To them, it wasn’t Auren out there.

It was their son.

And the crowd?

They weren’t watching for his success. They were watching for blood.

From the beginning of the Trials, most elves had jeered at Auren’s inclusion. A human among elven youth? It was a joke. A disgrace. They expected him to die quickly, preferably with some spectacle to mark his foolishness.

And when the Night Stalker first chased Auren, laughter and cheers erupted like a festival.

"Run, little rabbit!" they chanted.

But when the tides turned, when Auren began to fight back with fury in his blade and fire in his magical gun, the cheers turned to disbelief. The crowd, once so sure of the beast’s victory, fell into murmurs.

Then came Jeis.

Her voice cracked the crowd’s rhythm like lightning in a storm.

"Fifty Flame Fairy Wings! Who wants to bet? My coin’s on Auren!"

Gasps rippled around her. Jeis had always been eccentric, but this? This was treason to some.

"You’re insane!"

"Fifty wings? You must be drunk on forest wine!"

"I’ll take that bet," one sneered. "Easy wings."

"Me too! That human is as good as meat paste!"

One elf, bolder than the rest, mocked, "You trained the little rodent, Jeis, but don’t think you’re that good. Twenty Tauron Horns says your protégé gets eaten!"

But Jeis didn’t care.

She stood tall, her white braid dancing like a whip as she stared them down. "He’s no rodent. He’s fire-wrought and phoenix-kissed. Say what you want, but Auren is going to shock you all."

What most of them didn’t know—what Jeis had seen—was that Auren spoke full sentences before he turned one. Elves didn’t even walk until five. And yet Auren had already outpaced them. The Golden Phoenix’s spark in his veins wasn’t just myth. It was real.

And when Auren struck the final blow on the Night Stalker, the arena fell silent. Dozens of elves groaned as their treasured ingredients and rare relics slipped from their hands and into Jeis’s waiting basket.

But the thrill wasn’t over.

When the White Fang entered the fray, the very air seemed to freeze.

The bets were forgotten.

Even Jeis went pale at the glorious figure of the White Fang.

Robert and Marissa tried to break past the guards then, screaming to be let through, hoping to help Auren escape. But protocol held firm. The danger was part of the test. Death was written in the rules, and there is nothing they can do about it.

There were always watchers who did their best, but life offered no guarantees—especially in Auren’s case. At this moment, even his watcher didn’t dare draw near, frozen as rigid as the very tree he used for cover.

All they could do was watch, holding each other under the moonlit canopy, praying through clenched teeth.

And then ,like a heaven-sent miracle, seven Night Stalkers from the border territory stormed the arena.

A fight erupted in chaos. Somehow, amidst the battle, Auren slipped away—battered, breathless, but alive.

When the dust settled and silence fell again, Robert and Marissa let out the breath they’d been holding for what felt like eternity.

Meanwhile, far from the crowd, six other contestants wandered the forest in confusion and frustration. In five hours, none of them had encountered a single Night Stalker. When they could easily spot one within two. Instead, what the found was just each other. And silence after that.

Anast’cia lay sprawled across the top of a moon-litted boulder, her long silver hair cascading like moonlight across the stone.

"This is boring," she muttered, twirling her Zaspear lazily. The weapon crackled faintly with static energy, custom-forged by Kardel himself. Beautiful, deadly... like its wielder.

Despite her reputation for laziness, Anast’cia made up for it with terrifying battle instinct.

"Same in my quadrant," replied Leon’do, crouching nearby. He sniffed at the dirt, rubbed it between his fingers. His nose twitched. "But the trail’s fresher here... heading north. I think they’ve all moved towards the river."

Leon’do wasn’t a frontliner. He preferred shadows, traps, subtlety. His bow was strapped to his back, and a pouch of cleverly disguised traps dangled from his belt.

Anast’cia let out an exaggerated groan, flopping back on the warm rock like a cat in the sun."Ugh, fine. Here’s an idea—let’s just plant a trap, toss some bait, and chill. Let the beasts come to us for once. Efficient, right?"

Leon’do shot her a glare sharp enough to cut bark."You don’t want to move your legs. I know."

She flipped down from her perch in a lazy arc, landing with theatrical grace."Resting is strategic. Conserving energy. You ever heard of that?"

"Laziness isn’t a strategy," he snapped, already gathering his tracking gear. "You might be Kardel’s little favorite, but I’m not out here to babysit a moonbathing princess. I’m heading north—with or without you."

Anast’cia rolled her eyes and helplessly followed him with a lazy strut.

"Confident, aren’t you? What are you gonna do when you run into a Night Stalker? Throw dirt on it?"

"I have my ways."

"Oh, right. Your adorable arrows."

Leon’do ignored her jab, focusing on the tracks. But truthfully, she had a point. He wasn’t built for brute strength. That’s why he had something... special in his pouch. Something he’d been saving.

Anast’cia kept prodding. "So? Want to team up? You trap, I kill. We split the fangs."

Leon’do exhaled slowly. "Fine. Just shut up so I can think."

Elsewhere, deeper in the thickets of Runewood, two figures moved like shadows.

Jairah and Gondar—the dark elves of the Velka’Dar tribe—moved wordlessly, their every step measured, their breath synchronized. Born from hunters, raised in silence, they communicated in glances and gestures.

They, too, had found the same trail. All paths now led to the river.

And unknowingly, to something else entirely.

Meanwhile, Micha’el—a towering elf with shoulders like stone and a rune-carved greatsword nearly as tall as himself—stood over the twitching corpse of a Night Stalker. Blood oozed from a gash on his shoulder and a torn gash along his thigh, but he grinned through the sting like it was nothing more than a scratch.

Moments earlier, he’d been lounging against a thornbush, letting his body recover, when the sound of rapid footsteps broke the forest’s hush.

His instincts flared. He crouched low, eyes narrowing as a blur darted far from him. His eyes glowed with enhanced clarity and there it was - a Night Stalker, charging north, fast and frantic. As if it was being called by its boss, not minding the obvious sound it was making along the way.

Opportunity struck like lightning.

Without hesitation, he circled ahead, positioned himself, and sprang the ambush with ruthless precision. Steel met flesh. Magic burned bone. In a couple of minutes, the beast was dead.

"Too easy," Micha’el muttered, stooping to carve out a gleaming fang. He turned it between his fingers once, then slipped it into his belt pouch like a prized jewel.

He believed himself the fastest to ever complete this Trial. He turned, ready to return to Aetherthorn—

Then he heard it.

A howl.

No, a dozen howls.

Echoing across the canopy like war drums in the sky. The trees themselves trembled. The birds scattered. Even the bugs fell silent.

The howl of a new king.

And in every corner of the forest, from the river to the ridge, every contestant froze.

Even Micha’el—bloody, victorious, proud—felt the chill creep up his spine.

Because something had changed.

The forest had just crowned a new king and they are not gonna like whats coming for them.