Elion looked at Kael as if assessing an incomplete sculpture. Her golden eyes, which had once sparkled with mischief, now burned with an almost stormy determination. She crossed her arms, her body leaning slightly to one side, and then clicked her tongue disapprovingly.

"Enough," she said, the word laden with an ancient authority that silenced even the echoes in the hall. "Be quiet, Kael. You're coming with me."

Kael opened his mouth to protest—out of duty, pride, any shred of reason—but Elion's gaze silenced him. There was a fire there that spanned centuries. A force that shaped forests and changed the course of rivers. He closed his mouth.

"Good," she said, and then turned with an almost theatrical lightness, her red hair flowing like a living cloak. Her eyes fixed on Exelia.

"You." The word was a sharp crack in the air.

Exelia immediately assumed a guard stance, firm, but her eyes betrayed her fear. Elion pointed at her with a finger that seemed to glow with amber and embers.

"Go back to the Kingdom of Witches. Now. You are a general. You are not just any soldier who can be thrown into the woods as bait for wild beasts!"

Exelia instinctively took a step back. Not out of fear of Elion—but out of shame. Her hands clenched into fists, and a blush rose up her neck to her pointed ears.

"Yes, ma'am," she said, her voice hoarse, almost inaudible.

"Not ma'am," Elion corrected with a crooked smile. "I'm just your most powerful ancestor, who wiped out seven legions with a sneeze. Now go, before I send the crows to drag you away."

Exelia swallowed hard and turned around with a restrained nod, her once proud shoulders now slightly hunched. Still, her steps were steady—like someone who knew how to obey when necessary, even if it hurt.

Elion then turned to Aelirenne, as if only now noticing her presence. His golden eyes scanned the Elven Queen with an intensity that seemed to weigh her heart down gram by gram.

"And you." She paused for a long moment, as if carefully choosing from all the insults available. "Turn around. An eleven-year-old boy is helping you keep your kingdom standing. Have you no shame?"

Aelirenne blinked, as if she had been slapped with words. Her face maintained its regal serenity, but there were cracks—the slight tremor of her eyes, the way her hands sought support on the throne.

"Eleven years old?" she murmured, confused. "But... Kael...?"

Kael sighed deeply, as if this were a weight he had been carrying for a long time and had finally fallen before everyone.

"My grandmother used magic to make me an adult," he said, his voice firm but without anger. Only exhaustion. "She said we didn't have time to wait for the world to mature along with me."

Aelirenne stared at him for a moment, as if trying to recalculate all the conversations, decisions, and glances—in light of that revelation. Her lips parted, but no words came out.

"Yes, yes," Elion interrupted impatiently. "My mother did it against my will, she always had a special talent for making the impossible seem only inconvenient. She rushed you because the world wasn't going to wait, blah blah blah. And now it's here, isn't it?"

"It's here," Kael repeated, looking at his mother with a mixture of acceptance and resignation.

Elion approached him, her expression softening for a moment. She touched her son's face with her fingertips, as if recognizing a sculpture she had helped to carve — and lamenting every crack imposed by time.

"You grew up too fast. But you're still my little boy," she said. Then she turned abruptly. "And now you're coming with me."

"Where?" Kael asked, his voice low.

"Wherever I want," she replied without hesitation. "You're officially on vacation, so cut the crap, and let's go have fun somewhere in the world. I need peace with my son."

"Do you at least know where he's going? That would help a lot..." Liora asked for the first time since Elion's arrival. The young woman seemed torn between enchantment and fear, as if she were watching a fairy tale come to life.

"Oh, that idiot? Well, not exactly," Elion replied, twirling a finger in the air as if drawing invisible constellations. "But I can smell him. Magic too old, too raw. It tastes like damp earth and forgotten bones. He's approaching the Edge of the Forest, retreating after I decimated all his beloved possessed elves."

Elion raised one hand, palm facing up. Without visible effort, a golden flame ignited on her skin, dancing without heat, vibrating as if it had a will of its own. With a fluid gesture, she drew an arc in the air, and the flame stretched out, molding itself into incandescent lines that hovered in the void—as if the air itself were being scratched with live charcoal.

The map appeared there, in the center of the hall, floating among them with glowing contours. The flaming lines formed the mountains to the east, the intertwined rivers of the south, the ancient water mirrors, and finally, the forest—Elen'Thalas, pulsing in fiery green-gold. Small bright dots—sources of power, forgotten sanctuaries, regions touched by magic—vibrated with varying intensities. Around them, a mist of smoke danced like unstable borders.

"There." Elion pointed his finger, and a fiery trail lit up between the lines of the map, marking a winding path that led away from the gardens toward the deep west—the border where the forest met the unknown, where even maps became mere guesswork.

"The idiot realized I was here and ran. This way." The flame formed an intense spiral over an almost illegible region, a territory of silence and oblivion. "End of the Forest. Where roots rot and names fade in the wind. He thinks he can hide there."

"Can you follow him?" asked Kael, his eyes fixed on the trail of fire.

Elion smiled sidelong, a dark gleam in his eye.

"I can. And when I find the idiot... he's screwed. With a good seal, he'll turn to dust."

"That's it?" Liora took a step forward, her voice laden with skepticism, but also genuine curiosity. "Why didn't you use it before, then? If it's that easy... why didn't you seal him in the garden?"

Elion turned slowly toward her, his golden eyes narrowing with something between sarcasm and patience.

"Do I look like the savior of the elves, girl?"

Liora blinked, embarrassed. Her cheeks flushed slightly.

"I... just thought that—"

"Thought what? That I'm a selfless hero with a divine mission to protect ungrateful kingdoms?" She pointed to her own head with a flaming finger. "I take care of my own. And he happened to attack my son. That's the only reason I'm in this game."

"But you said you can defeat him," Liora insisted, still looking uneasy.

"I can, I didn't say I will. That's your kingdom's problem." She shrugged, "I already said, I came for my son. You guys can go to hell."

Elion didn't respond immediately. She just looked at Kael with a mixture of affection and exasperation—as if he were a masterpiece hastily forged from expensive materials. Then, without warning, she simply lifted him into the air with one hand, as if carrying a very precious sack of potatoes. Kael let out an indignant "hey!" but didn't struggle. He had learned long ago that resistance only made everything more theatrical.

She turned to Liora, holding Kael with supernatural ease.

"If you see," she said, with a smile that mixed defiance and disdain. "I'm going to enjoy my son in a place far away from here."

Liora's eyes widened. "But—!"

"But nothing." Elion spun, her hair and robes swirling in hot eddies. "I can, I said I will. That's your Kingdom's problem."

"But he—!"

"I said it." She cut her off, her tone now sharper than enchanted steel. "I came for my son. You can all go to hell."

The flame on the map went out in a puff, as if it had never existed. The hall suddenly grew darker, colder, as if Elion had taken away a particular star with her presence. She walked away with Kael hanging from her shoulder like a reluctant trophy, while he muttered something between humiliation and resignation:

"This is going to go down in the chronicles in a very wrong way..."

"I insist," replied Elion, satisfied, as a golden aura began to form around her. "Just imagine the title: The Mad Goddess Who Rescued Her Eleven-Year-Old Adult Son from an Incapable Elven Kingdom. A hit in the magical gossip salons."

Aelirenne was still silent on the throne, her long, tired eyes fixed where the map had been. Liora looked at her, then at Exelia—who had stopped at the door, watching the scene as if watching a storm engulf a city, but unable to do anything.

"Is she really going to let him go?" whispered Liora.

"She already has," Exelia replied dryly. "And if you try to stop her, she'll probably turn you into a duck. Or worse: a royal advisor."

A flash of light enveloped Elion and Kael, and in a flash, they disappeared.

The silence that remained was dense, heavy as dust in an ancient crypt.

Aelirenne rose with effort, as if each movement now required more than before. She walked to the center of the hall and looked where the map had been. Then she spoke in a low but firm voice:

"Let's see who survived after she cleaned up my kingdom..." She spoke wearily, "Can you go call the advisors, please?"

Liora swallowed hard and nodded. Exelia was already marching out, shoulders stiff, her shame swallowed by a renewed sense of duty.