Kneeling among the remnants of a ruined building, Elijah studied the city of Eldrathûn from afar. With Eyes of the Eagle, he could only just see over the formidable wall surrounding the massive settlement. It was a hive of activity, with hundreds of thousands of people going about the business of their daily life. It was like someone had kicked an anthill, though instead of a small mound of dirt, the city was a monumental achievement of crystal and black stone.

From an architectural standpoint, it was obviously alien, though the structures did share some similarities with a few of Earth’s most prominent movements. For instance, he saw the pointed arches and flying buttresses characteristic of Gothic architecture, but many were right next to domes and columns that would’ve been at home in a structure built according to baroque principles. Elijah even saw a few balconies featuring wrought-iron balustrades.

But there were also plenty of details that flew in the face of any of Earth’s architectural ideas, and the combination of so many disparate styles marked it as something distinct from Earth’s history. Somehow, though, it all came together into an aesthetic that worked as well or better than anything else Elijah had ever seen.

He was impressed, though still, he hesitated to approach.

He remembered the way he’d felt in Nathûn, after all. It wasn’t anger or fear. Just overwhelming discomfort. Like he’d seen a natural predator and knew just how quickly it could decide to go on the hunt.

Perhaps it was a remnant of the dark elves’ invasion of Ironshore. They’d very nearly taken the city, after all. A little fear – or at least wariness – was in order.

Yet, Elijah didn’t believe that was the root of it. There was something more to it. He just didn’t know what it was or how to figure it out.

Finally, he decided that there was no point in waiting. In the time that he’d taken to travel through the Hollow Depths, the others from Ironshore had already reached the dark elf capitol. He could feel Miguel somewhere in that city. A tiny candlelight among the night sky.

That meant Sadie was still there, too.

And at the end of the day, he had a job to do. The troll Primal Realm wasn’t going to take care of itself. Indeed, if the spread of the blood beasts – which he suspected had come from there – was any indication, then time was growing short. The Primal Realm’s influence was still a long way from reaching the surface, but there was no doubt in Elijah’s mind that it would happen eventually.

When it did, there would be no stopping them.

So, with thoughts of a world being overcome by trolls and blood beasts dancing in his mind, Elijah pushed himself to his feet and began the miles-long trek toward the city gates. Along the way, he passed through massive fields of what appeared to be grain, though it was slightly heartier than what he might find on the surface. The workers looked much like any other farmers Elijah had ever seen – diligent laborers who were so focused on their task that they didn’t even see him until he was practically on top of them.

Even when they did notice his presence, they returned to their work after only a few moments spent gaping at his appearance.

The guards on the road he eventually found were a little more investigative, though once he identified himself, they allowed him to pass with only a cursory inspection. Their eyes followed him, though. They knew precisely how dangerous he was, either by reputation, instinct, or abilities.

The path itself was well-traveled and lined with stones that had been clearly engraved with some sort of enchantment. With every step Elijah took, a cloud of vitality – diffuse and barely noticeable – puffed into the air. The intention was as obvious as it was ingenious. It was meant to refresh travelers so they could endure the rigors of their journeys a little more easily.

Perhaps Ramik could implement something similar on the path to Argos. At present, that trek took weeks, even for experienced Teamsters. But if they could ease the burden, even by a little, the cumulative effect would be massively impactful.

After a little more than half an hour, Elijah approached the city’s main gate. The walls were hundreds of feet tall, and from the amount of ethera coursing through them, they guarded a city that was at least as defensible as Kalki. However, Elijah suspected that he’d only seen a fraction of Anupriya Pandey’s city’s defenses. It had stymied the war elves, so there had to be something more to it.

The gate itself was more than a hundred feet wide, guarded by a full company of elven soldiers in dark armor. They each carried a variation of a halberd that toed the line between naginata, spear, and poleaxe. The sweeping blades looked dangerous enough, though. Each guard also had a sword at their hip, and somewhere up above were other soldiers armed with bows and, oddly enough, crossbows. Finally, Elijah sensed more than a few staff-wielding Sorcerers nearby.

The message was clear – taking that gate would not be easy, and any invader with visions of conquest would need to pay a steep price before gaining access to the city.

And that was with the gates open. Clearly, that would not be the case if an enemy came knocking. There were massive wooden doors, each four or five feet thick, that could be closed at a moment’s notice. In addition, Elijah noticed a thick, iron portcullis that could be dropped into place.

The city wasn’t impregnable – not precisely – but the combination of defenses would make it a nightmare to assault.

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Of course, none of that would matter if they were overwhelmed by superior power. But the city had been built to repel numbers, not enemies with inflated levels. And in that endeavor, it would be quite successful.

Still, Elijah couldn’t help but wonder how he might attack such a problem. Surely, there were other ways into the city. An untended gate, perhaps. Or a waste pipe. Maybe he could even approach from above. The infected bodies as biological weapons strategy had worked to bypass the war elves’ defenses, so perhaps that would be effective against their darker-skinned cousins. There was even a chance that he could simply kill them all with Eternal Plague without ever stepping foot into the city.

No – if it came to that, Elijah had options, and plenty of them.

For his entry into the city, Elijah had gone all-out with his attire, which meant he’d broken out the white suit and leviathan-skin shoes. He’d even taken the time to trim his beard, but he didn’t dare mess with his slightly long hair, aside from running his comb through it a few times. Cutting it would have been a mistake.

He also let his inner dragon out. His scales were only barely visible in the suit, but his eyes were more than noticeable.

And the guards definitely took note.

A couple visibly flinched away the second his gaze settled on them, but most of them held their ground well enough. But Elijah could feel the increased pace of their heartbeats. The slightly quickened breathing. The subtle tremble of their spines and the tensing of their muscles.

Only when the leader of the group stepped forward to greet him did they relax, though only slightly. She was overly formal with the welcome she extended, going on about the empress or some other nonsense. Elijah didn’t really care about that. Now that he was so close to a reunion with Sadie, he wanted nothing more than to push past the formalities and wrap her in his arms.

He restrained himself, though. The niceties needed to be observed. Otherwise, he might start an international incident. And if that happened, he probably wouldn’t be the one to suffer. Everyone else on Earth would shoulder that burden, and that was a reality he refused to countenance.

So, he danced the diplomatic dance. He bowed when he was meant to and followed the guard captain’s lead. In reality, the pseudo-ceremony only took a few minutes, but it felt like much longer. Still, he soon found himself being led by a troop of guards through Eldrathûn.

Elijah’s first impression of seeing the city up close was that it was even more impressive than it had seemed from afar. The basic structure of the architecture remained the same, but as he trekked through the city, he saw many details that set it apart from anything else on Earth.

The first was the crystalline trim that decorated most of the buildings. The dark elves had used it liberally, but somehow, it didn’t come off as gaudy or too much of a good thing. It just fit.

That was the same case with the glowing designs. Most of them were purple or, like the crystal, white, but instead of looking like a neon-soaked red-light district, there was an elegance to it that Elijah had rarely seen.

But even if those designs were interesting works of art, they also served another purpose. Subtle pulses of ethera flowed through them, but it took Elijah a few moments to understand their purpose. He only managed it when he felt a distinct sense of calm wash over him.

It wasn’t enough to control him. Not really. Instead, it was like he’d just had a massage. Or a soak in the ash lotus hot spring in his grove. It was peaceful without being overbearing, and clearly, that feeling was the result of powerful Artists who’d been given the task of keeping the peace within Eldrathûn.

But much of that peace was undone the second Elijah passed the first temple. There wasn’t exactly a sign out front declaring that it was a place of worship, but he knew it the second it came into range of Soul of the Wild. He could almost feel the faith pouring out of it. So, when he saw the familiar priestesses, wearing their white robes and spider-like headdresses, he was unsurprised by their presence.

What did shock him was the sheer ire he felt when his gaze fell upon them. They’d never done anything to him, and yet, he wanted nothing more than to stride forward and purge them from existence.

And that didn’t make sense.

Sure, he’d felt something similar back in Nathûn when he’d foregone the use of their teleportation network. But with the benefit of time and distance, he’d managed to convince himself that it had been tied to the network itself. Or maybe a sense of arachnophobia leftover from his experiences in the Chimeric Forge.

His recent time with the spiders in the swamp had put the lie to that last bit, and now, he knew his discomfort extended much further than a simple disdain for using the dark elves’ network. So, what was it? Why did he instinctively hate them so much?

Elijah examined his feelings as he was guided through the city, but even well after he left that temple behind, he had no answers.

To distract himself from a question he couldn’t answer, he studied the city’s other residents. Most looked healthy enough. Some even appeared to be thriving. And yet, there was a subtle undercurrent of desperation. And more than once, he caught sight of more concrete evidence of suffering.

The route they’d taken was clearly a curated look at the city. This was the best they had to display. And if one only looked at the surface, they would see a perfectly successful city. Yet, Elijah felt below the surface. He saw the tension, but via Soul of the Wild and his keen senses, he also got a couple of glimpses of the less fortunate. More than once, he witnessed true poverty and borderline starvation only a street away from the luxurious businesses and palaces lining the main thoroughfare.

It wasn’t surprising. Not really. The illythiri had been at war almost since the very beginning, and even before that, they represented the last hope of a dying people. The young who’d been prepared, then sent to the first newly touched world that came available. Even now, their ancestors had probably been driven to extinction.

The weight of their history had mingled with the ravages of their present war against the Primal Realm to create a level of suffering no one should’ve been forced to endure. And yet, they had pushed on. They had fought every step of the way.

As much as Elijah didn’t care for their priests – or the purportedly rogue force that had invaded Ironshore, he could only hope that he could do something to help save their civilization.

Those thoughts accompanied him until, at last, they reached the palace. He’d already taken note of it. How could he not? It loomed over the city like a protective god, and though it did nothing truly different with the architecture, it did represent a distinctly overbearing presence that Elijah suspected was meant to feel protective.

Elijah wasn’t concerned with that, though. Instead, he only had eyes for the people waiting on the steps. They too had an escort of dark elves, but the second Elijah’s gaze found Sadie, he only saw her.

He was moving before he knew what he was doing.

His guards never even had a chance to react as he climbed the steps and wrapped his arms around Sadie. He didn’t care that she was wearing armor. He didn’t mind the dozens of pairs of eyes following him. He only cared about her.

“I missed you,” he said.