The black banners were visible three days before the gates fell. Riders crested the distant hills like waves of shadow, and behind them, the great crawling mass of Aulerion’s army spread across the horizon. Elves with glazed eyes, priests cloaked in blood-colored robes, and thousands of human men bearing his crest: a silver thorn encircling a weeping eye.

The city had no chance. Whispers filled the streets. Some fled. Some wept. Some locked their doors and kissed their children goodbye. You watched from the bell tower’s highest window as the great war host stirred the earth like insects pouring from a broken hive.

With no way to flee from the surrounded city, you hid. Maybe there is a way to survive this. Maybe you will not be found. And if found, maybe you will be spared.

The city had burned for hours. Screams still echoed from its farthest alleys, smothered beneath the heavy roll of drums and the hiss of smoke. You had hidden beneath shattered beams and scorched linen. Heart hammering, lungs full of ash, but you kept your composure. Then the soldiers found you. The hacked their way through the door and and ransacked every corner. Then they found you under the rubble, slightly wounded, your clothes torn.

But it wasn’t a soldier who took you in the end. He was tall, lithe, his armor far finer than the others, glinting with curved runes and dark emeralds. An elf, yes—but not like the stories. His expression was unreadable, eyes so dark they seemed to look through you.

“This one,” he murmured, voice silk-wrapped steel. “There’s something... not broken.”

The soldiers uncovered you from the rubble and helped you to stand. There was no need to chain you, since there's nowhere to run. You and a few other women from the city were brought together to the town square and helped onto carriage. The elf from before rode with you all the way back to the military encampment. It was endless field of tents and equipment. You observed many humans, mostly young boys and women to tend the fires, preparing food and maintaining the camp. Their faces emotionless, as if the work they did was just a normal, dull work everyone needed to do.

At the heart of the encampment, the world suddenly hushed, heavy with scents of smoke, incense, and blood. You stepped into a tent vast enough to house a throne room. The air was too still. And there, seated like a statue carved from winter, was Aulerion the Fallen.

His eyes of pale silver, burning softly like moonlight on ice, settled on you. A long silence passed. Then his head tilted ever so slightly.

“You are... not quite afraid enough.”

Darion, the elf from before, knelt. “She was hiding. She resisted the first sweep. The others were already screaming.”

Aulerion stood, slow and deliberate. He circled you once, like a lion beneath cathedral arches. The other women around you looked at him scared, unable to move, whimpering.

“Your will remains... stronger than the others.”

His voice was neither cruel nor kind. Just cold, ancient, inevitable.

“You will be taken to the harem. Bathed. Fed. Preserved.”

A pause. Then, as if amused by some internal whisper, he added:

“For how long will you defy me before your defiance sweetens into devotion?”