#so dw

“What’s going on?” His mouth was dry, like he had swallowed sand or slept with a sponge in his mouth.

“Um… There are elves approaching, and they don’t look friendly.” His accented voice had a slight quiver to it, his eyes darting around.

Soren’s hand went to his sword, which lay beside him. “Did you get Corvus?”

“Right here.” He looked up, seeing the other man perched in the tree above him. “I can see them from here, and I’m pretty sure they can see us.”

“Wonderful.” Soren got up, stretching his back before twirling his sword. The leather grip dug into his palm snugly, the feeling ingrained into his brain from the hundreds of times he’d done it before. “How many?”

“Just under a dozen, as far as I can tell.” Corvus lept from the thick branch he had been perched on, landing in a crouch on the grass before straightening beside Soren.

“Against the three of us?” Terry’s eyebrows furrowed worriedly. “Are we sure that’s a good idea?”

“We’ve just gotta be optimistic, Ter.” Soren nudged the elf’s shoulder. “It’ll be a walk in the woods.”

Corvus frowned, pulling his dreads back into a ponytail at the base of his neck and out of his face. “That’s not the saying.” 

“I’m adapting it to our surroundings. We aren’t exactly in a park.” He gestured to their surroundings, which were full of Xadian trees.

“Maybe we can just run? Find Pyrrah and fly back to Evrkynd?” Terry suggested, and Corvus shook his head. 

“We don’t know where she is right now, and if we move, she won’t know where we are when she gets back.

The bird– King Harrow (Soren had to get used to that)– squawked loudly, getting their attention as the aforementioned group of elves made their presence known very abruptly.

Arrows dug into the trees behind them, causing the three of them to duck and King Harrow to fly up into the branches in one of the trees, still squawking.

The elves flooded out from the trees– Earthblood elves, by the look of their antler-like horns and the shades of green in their hair.

Corvus swung his chain hook at one of them, the chain wrapping around the elf’s legs and effectively tripping them while Soren blocked an incoming blow from one of their staffs.

He had thought– with all the stuff happening at Evrkynd as said in Ezran’s letters, that elves would be more… neutral to their presence. Not friendly, but also not trying to hurt or kill them for simply just existing nearby.

Guess he thought wrong.

More elves spilled from the trees around them, and a quick glance over counted a minimum of fifteen, with more approaching.

Against the three of them.

There was a small, familiar tug in his chest as he knocked down another elf. It had been there, stirring since Katolis fell. Since Viren had casted Hearts of Ciner on him and everyone else in Katolis.

He wasn’t sure if everyone else had felt it– if they did, nobody ever spoke up about it– but he knew exactly what it was and wanted nothing to do with it.

Dark magic.

The feeling lingered, continuing to tug at him as he blocked more incoming attacks.

Looking around again, Soren could quickly seeing the three of them running out of options. There were over two dozen elves in the small clearing now, backing them up against the edge of the trees.

The magic called to him, the tug getting more persistent, almost as if it was sensing their narrowing options.

Save them, it seemed to whisper, but he couldn’t tell if it was the magic or himself saying it. Save them.

He had to. It wasn’t a descison based on want anymore. They were out of options and outnumbered however many to the three of them.

He had to.

Hands of Shadow. He thought. He remembered seeing Claudia using the spell, years ago. They were just kids, and she had used to grab a book off a high shelf, the shadowy hand coming from the shadows hidden behind the light.

Darkness wasn’t the absence of light, but the opposing force because of it. He remembered hearing Kpp’ar say once. Nature calls for balance. Everything has an opposing force. That doesn’t make the opposite of something bad, just opposite.

And when the tug came, Soren tugged back.

His hand pressed against the bark of the tree behind him as the words slipped out of his lips like oil.

“Wodahs fo sdnah.” The voice was his, but it also wasn’t. 

The shadows of the trees around them morphed into hundreds– thousands of hands, pulling at the elves and forcing them back into the treeline, against their numerous protests. 

Even out of sight, he could feel the shadows pulling them further away from the clearing, the energy thrumming through his veins.

He hated how good it felt.

“Soren!” The feeling of a hand on his shoulder snapped Soren out of it, and it all hit him at once. Exhaustion dragged at his bones, and he would’ve fallen over if Corvus hadn’t dragged his arm over his shoulder, supporting him.

Terry looked between the two of them, his face paler than it was before.

Straightening, Soren looked between Terry and Corvus. “Nobody hears about this.”

He didn’t want to think of everyone’s reactions to him using dark magic. Not one bit.

“Erm… It might be a bit hard to do that.” Terry winced slightly, and Soren raised his eyebrows.

Corvus reached out and brushed a bit of his bangs, which, due to Soren neglecting to cut them, now reached down to his jaw while the rest of his hair had grown to the middle of his back.

Soren pulled at the small section Corvus had touched, looking at it before immediately letting go out of shock.

It was white.

Oh no…

Soren backed away from Corvus and Terry, his legs shaking. He covered his mouth with one of his hands, a wave of something akin to nausea coming over him. “Oh, this is bad.”

“Soren, we can figure something out-” Corvus started, but Soren cut him off.

“How exactly? We can’t lie to them, they know what this is from.” He gestured to the white streak in his hair. “I can’t hide it, and we sure as hell know what running from it would look like. So please, tell me what the hell I’m supposed to do!”

“We can explain it to them.” Corvus responded, walking towards him slowly. “They’ll understand.”

“Will they?” He stared right back at him. “I remember their reactions when Callum admitted to dark magic in the past. I’ve seen how they look at Claudia.” Soren hated how his voice quivered.

It made him sound weak. Scared. And maybe he was scared.

But he wasn’t weak.

Corvus pushed the strand of hair behind his ear before resting his hands on Soren’s shoulders, looking at him. “Then we’ll make them understand.”

——————————————————————

Once Pyrrah had found them, it had taken them a full day to reach Evrkynd, arriving as the sun set over the glimmering city.

It seemed perfect.

Too perfect.

Pyrrah decided to wait outside the kingdom’s walls, so they continued on foot. Soren had pulled his hair back into a sloppy bun and kept his hood up, covering his hair.

He wasn’t ready to talk about it yet. Or, at least, let random passersbye see it. They’d know what it means.

The kingdom was as pristine on the inside as it looked from the outside as the three of them navigated their way to the castle at its very center, almost built like a hedge maze.

Soren had stopped keeping track of the turns after the first six, all of them running together in his head and making him frustrated.

He’d figure it out later. He just needed to make it past this first.

If he did.

Eventually, they found their way to the castle, towering above the rest of Evrkynd with shimmering white towers and walls, as if it had been erected from a dream.

They wont accept you.

They’ll hold you to higher standards.

You weren’t saving the world, you don’t have a good reason.

You used it because it called to you, and it felt good.

You’re just like Viren.

“Soren.” His head snapped up, looking at Corvus. He had his hand resting on his shoulder. “Are you ready?”

He blew out a breath, glancing around. They were stopped outside a set of double doors. It was just as bright inside the castle as the rest of the city, but it felt too… clean. Too pristine.

When did they get there?

Soren forced himself to look back at Corvus and nod, tugging his hood over his hair more. He glanced at Terry, and King Harrow, who was perched on Terry’s shoulder.

The large doors opened up to the large throne room. The layout and shape reminded Soren of the throne room in Katolis, down to the same red banner on the throne, although it was made of the same white stone as the rest.

He didn’t realize how much Ezran looked like King Harrow until that moment. He was taller now, with his curly hair braided and pulled back in a ponytail.

Callum and Rayla more or less the same looked the same; Rayla’s hair was a bit shorter and pulled into a loose braid, and Callum had ditched wearing long sleeves, the white draconic sigils standing out against his arms.

King Harrow squawked, and Ezran darted from the throne almost immediately, bolting towards them. Soren nearly toppled over from the force of the hug that he gave the three of them, grinning.

“It’s nice to see you too, Ez.” He rested a hand on the young king’s shoulder as he pulled away.

Soren watched Ez’s face fall as he stepped back. He looked at Rayla and Callum, who had similar expressions.

“What?”

Corvus rested a hand on his shoulder. “Your hood…”

He reached up to feel for his hood, only for it to be gone. The pit in his stomach grew, the weight making him want to curl up on the floor and pretend to be invisible like a turtle.

“Soren… What did you do?” Callum’s face was ashen as he took a step forward.

He glanced at Terry, then at Corvus, who gave his shoulder a small squeeze before dropping his hand, and looked back at Callum, Rayla, and Ez. 

“I did what I had to.”

Surely they’ll understand.

“You had to use dark magic?!” Rayla crossed her arms, a bewildered expression now on her face.

“We were out of options!” He took a step forward, and the three of them collectively stepped back, possibly on reflex.

What…?

Soren paused. “Do you seriously think I would use dark magic if it wasn’t an emergency?”