"We don't have much time, Lucy," Vorn said, kneeling before the broken boy.
They sat together on the scorched obsidian, where the ground was still warm from conflict. Black smoke curled lazily from cracks in the stone, the air heavy with the metallic sting of blood and sulfur.
Lucy looked like he had been chewed up and spat out by a titan. His armor was shattered, bones fractured, face painted with crimson. Every breath rattled in his chest like a dying engine.
A soft green light glowed from his palm as he channeled mana into healing himself. The pain came instantly—sharp, violent, overwhelming. His body screamed louder than his voice ever could, but he forced himself to keep going.
Then he looked at Vorn.
Something about the old elf was off.
Through bloodied lashes and pain-blurred vision, Lucy scanned him. The same icy blue robes, the same neatly trimmed silver goatee—but there. A mark.
A red tribal tattoo, etched from Vorn's temple down through his eye like a bleeding scar.
