Chapter 3: Embers of Vengeance

Ashes drifted on the wind.

Elara stood over the pyre, her silver hair glowing in the twilight as flames consumed the body of the only family she had in this world. Lyra’s wrinkled hands, once so full of wisdom and warmth, now lay still, folded over her chest. Elara had wrapped her mentor in woven leaves, perfumed herbs, and soft moss—the forest’s final gift to its guardian.

The spirits gathered, silent and solemn, flickering like pale lights in the trees. Even the wind held its breath.

Elara whispered the rites, ancient words carried on trembling lips. As the last syllable left her tongue, she reached into her pouch and scattered a handful of enchanted seeds over the fire. Green sparks flared upward, dancing with the flames, a symbol of rebirth in the heart of destruction.

“Rest now,” she murmured. “And watch over me.”

When the fire finally died, Elara did not weep. The tears had long since dried, burned away by a rage that coiled like a serpent in her chest.

That same night, she hunted.

The hunter who had slain Lyra did not die quickly. Elara tracked him with spectral hounds conjured from the breath of the forest. She found him in a clearing, boasting to fellow hunters beside a fire, recounting how “the old crone fell easy, like rotten wood.”

He didn’t even see her coming.

The spirits came first—wraithlike forms that shrieked and swirled, sowing panic among the hunters. Then came the fire, exploding from Elara’s fingertips in a wave of scorching vengeance. Screams rang out as the hunters were consumed. The leader, the one who killed Lyra, tried to run.

Elara let him.

She stalked him through the woods, whispering illusions into his mind, showing him Lyra’s dying eyes again and again until he dropped to his knees, broken. Then, with a cold whisper of shadow, she ended him. No mercy. No hesitation.

In the morning, only ashes remained.

With her vengeance complete, Elara left the forest.

She walked unfamiliar roads, keeping to the shadows, cloaked in magic and silence. The world beyond was harsher, colder. Villages spat at the mention of witches. Temples held sermons of purification. Knights rode under banners of holy fire, and mages in gilded robes wielded their power in service of kings who feared the old ways.

Elara made them fear again.

She became a shadow in their legends. A silver-haired wraith who burned hunter camps in the night. Who shattered mage towers with spirit storms. Who left charred insignias and broken blades behind. Her power grew with every battle—her control sharpened, her spells quicker, darker, deadlier.

But vengeance did not quiet the ache in her soul.

Then, one rainy dusk, she heard the screams.

A girl, perhaps sixteen, sprinted through the trees, three hunters at her heels. Her robes were torn, her hair tangled, and her raw magic flared like wild lightning.

Elara stepped from the mist.

With a flick of her hand, vines erupted from the earth, coiling around the hunters and dragging them screaming into the mud. Thunder boomed, and a surge of wind sent the last man flying into a tree.

The girl collapsed in terror, but Elara knelt beside her gently.

“You’re safe now,” she said, her voice soft but firm. “They won’t hurt you.”

The girl stared at her with wide, tear-filled eyes. “You… you’re one of us.”

Elara nodded. “And you are not alone anymore.”

For the first time in years, she felt something stir in her chest—not rage, not pain.

Hope.

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