Chapter 3

Thorne dragged Elara from the cabin, to the edge of the prison camp.

"Tell me where the child's Spirit is," he snarled, his face inches from hers. "Or watch another die."

"There is nothing to give," Elara wept, her body aching. "The baby is dead. You killed it when you destroyed the Emberblooms."

He shoved her forward.

Willow, Elara's younger sister, fierce and loyal, saw them.

She ran towards Elara, trying to shield her.

"Leave her alone!" Willow screamed at Thorne.

Thorne' s security chief, a man with cold, empty eyes, moved without orders.

He grabbed Willow, twisted her arm.

A single, brutal motion, and Willow fell, a broken doll on the muddy ground.

Elara screamed, a raw, animal sound of pure agony.

Thorne watched, unmoved. "This is your fault, Elara. Your stubbornness."

He gestured to his soldiers.

"She still refuses," he announced to the terrified, captive Stewards. "So, you will all die."

The soldiers raised their rifles.

Elara was forced to watch as her people, the guardians of ancient knowledge, were systematically gunned down.

The elders, the children, the men, the women.

No one was spared.

The ground soaked red.

Elara' s world dissolved into a haze of smoke, blood, and the screams of her dying community.

Her despair was a vast, silent ocean, drowning her.

She felt the last of her own Hearthstone Spirit flicker, nearly extinguished by the overwhelming horror.

The forest, their sacred home, seemed to weep around them, the wind carrying the scent of death.