Surviving as a Broken Hero

“Gghaa!” Rhil screamed into the empty cellar, her hands gripping the sharp ridges of the metal collar around her neck tightly.

Faint light streamed through the cracks in the cellar door set into the roof above her.

Luckily, where she was, in the storage rooms of the Association building within Karfana, her screams were muted. Even with the disaster that had struck the city, the Association was one of the busiest organizations. Being stuck didn’t dampen ambition, after all.

Motes of dust floated through the faint streams of light. Sitting on the creaking wooden stairway leading into the cellar, Rhil renewed her effort.

“Tssss!” She hissed out through her gritted teeth.

Plip—

Her blood, deep crimson to the point of looking black in the dimly lit cellar, trickled through the deepening lacerations on her fingers where they gripped the metal collar. She felt rivulets of it running down her neck as well, where it seeped into the collar of her shirt.

Still, she continued to tug at the collar, determined to remove it, knowing the effort was futile. She’d tried every method she could think of—cutting, bludgeoning, tugging, having someone else use magic—and none of it had shown so much as a dent in the metal.

“Worthless…” she muttered to herself, her voice faintly echoing back at her as if agreeing with her sentiment.

She was supposed to be a hero, a renowned Awakener. People knew her name, and Aizen had once looked up to her. She thought back to those days and remembered the pastries they’d leisurely shared by the main street, the cautious way he treated her, as if afraid she’d decide he wasn’t worth her time at a moment’s notice.

Really, though, she’d appreciated how much they enjoyed their time together. She’d retired, but that hadn’t stopped guilds from approaching her and the city from trying to involve her in its matters.

A part of her had faintly hoped he’d even ask her to help him level, to give her a reason to turn him away like she had the others. She could be justified in her self-imposed ‘exile’ then, couldn’t she?

But no, he’d never asked, as if it were some unspoken agreement between them. A line to not be crossed.

Still, his admiration of her had always been evident. To see the way he looked at her, in pity, in concern…

She should have been the one giving him such looks. Indeed, she always had been. To be on the receiving end was unbearable.

What was she to do? Wait for Aizen to free her for the third time? From loneliness, from the demons, and from the powerlessness such a paltry necklace inflicted on her.

No, she would free herself. She had to, if not for any other person’s sake than her own.

Ignoring the trickling blood, the salty iron taste in her mouth, and the sound of her own sobs, she renewed her efforts on the collar.

Humans were refreshing, in a way. Sure, she dealt with far more ambushes deep on the human roads in the short time she traversed them than she ever had to deal with in her own time within elven territory, but at least they were sincere.

Even when a human tried to befriend you for their own purposes, they were always terrible with deceit. The way their bodies heated up, the rushing of their heartbeat, the anticipation…

Elves could be considered natural liars. Humans, on the other hand, were like an open book in that regard. It was more likely they’d simply outright attack you anyway, with their inborn inaptitude for patience.

Eve sighed and rubbed at a bandage on her wrist, where a stray arrow had grazed her a day prior.

From elven territory, she’d traveled through the humans’ central cities, keeping a low profile and sticking to the best rumor mills in any empire—taverns and bars. She’d gone slowly, taking her time to listen to each stray rumor and whisper.

In the end, it all painted a grim picture in her head.

The officials and rulers seemed to be doing their best to hide it, but just as her emperor suspected, it didn’t look like the humans had long left. Though the demons hadn’t gone so far as to impede upon the central cities in any straightforward way, she’d had enough experience with them to smell their faint scent on the air, ever present in the central cities.

‘Disgusting,’ she thought to herself.

Still, her job wasn’t done. She needed to see for herself.

She could have headed toward any of the cities the humans had already lost, but instead, she followed a different rumor: the rumor of a city that somehow fought through the corruption and emerged victorious.

It was but a single city, but it couldn’t be discounted, and she heard the rumor from more than one person, drinking their nightmares away in a lonely corner and pouring their laments out to anyone who would listen.

So that’s where she headed, to the city of Karfana.

From what she’d heard, it was a simple outskirt city, noted only for its closeness to the northern cliffs. The oddest thing, though, was that she couldn’t find anyone who’d been there in the past few days. Even trying to follow news of supply caravans, something that should’ve been frequent to outskirt cities, brought up nothing.

More news the human leaders were trying to suppress? To what end? To reduce panic, perhaps?

What she would’ve given to pick their brains, but she had her limits, and she was supposed to keep a low profile, after all. Even with the threat looming over the human territories, the last thing she wanted was to cause a war.

The emperor would never forgive her for such a mistake.

Only stopping for basic necessities such as food and water, she continued on the road toward the cities, ignoring warnings of danger and missing caravans.

Both her own species and humans had nifty bags that could hold more inside than they appeared, but she wasn’t an Awakener, and thus, she couldn’t manipulate the mana they used to operate such devices.

It was hardly a hindrance, considering she’d never had such a luxury to begin with.

‘Where’s this supposed ambush?’ she wondered, keeping her guard up for surprises at a moment’s notice.

On the long, dusty road, she encountered the occasional goblin ambush or wolf, but most kept their distance, as if sensing something was wrong with her. Eventually, she spotted a small stone structure in a clearing. The sun had already long gone down, and she walked by the faint light of the half-moon watching from above.

The cold was never an issue for her, despite the thinness of her clothes. Only whatever heat she allowed could escape her grasp.

Smoke rose from the stone structure’s chimney.

‘Is someone out here?’ she wondered. Her eyes flickered over the clearing and the surroundings of the building, but she didn’t see any wagons.

‘A small group, then?’

Even so, when she examined the faint tracks on the ground, only a distinct set of footprints was evident. Could it have been just one person? Or was it something else?

Either way, maybe they had some answers.

Eve took a breath and placed her hand on the rotting wooden door. She already knew it wouldn’t open silently. Who could look at such a door and think it’d open with anything more than a loud complaint?

‘Better to be quick about it.’

She prepared herself for whatever she’d find and swung open the door.

***

I turned to the sound of the door opening, snapping out of my half-doze by the fire.

Rather than a monster or the sight of a caravan, something my mind faintly hoped for that’d bring some sort of hint or answer to the situation, I saw the slim silhouette of a woman standing in the doorway.

She was almost as tall as the entryway itself, and the fire cast flickering orange hues and dark shadows over her elongated face. Save for her arm swinging the doorway open, a deep green cloak enshrouded the rest of her form.

Even with the faint light of the fire, I could tell something was off with her. She reminded me of someone I knew, the telling elongated features of her face…

I couldn’t see her ears, but I could already imagine what they’d look like.

She was an elf.

‘What’s an elf doing out here?’ I wondered faintly as I stared at her, wide-eyed and waiting to see what she’d do.

She, in turn, stared at me without a sound and took a step into the flickering light of the stone hut.

The door creaked shut behind her.

“Eve,” she said shortly, her voice ringing with startling clarity in the shadows of the hut.

“…Aizen,” I replied, returning the short greeting.

She looked the hut over, taking in the dust, myself, and whatever else her faintly shining eyes saw.

“Where’s the rest of your group?” she asked.

‘Straight to the point, then…’

A late-night greeting followed by an interrogation.

“It’s just me. And you?” I needed information of my own. Though I remained sitting, I was ready to move at a moment’s notice.

She’d given me a name, but that didn’t mean anything. Could she have been responsible for the caravan disappearances?

I’d already met one elf working with the demons, so a second one wouldn’t have been too surprising.

Seeing my tenseness, she reached up and flipped back the hood of her cloak. My eyes focused briefly on the one missing ear on the side of her head.

“Apologies,” she said, “may I join you?”

I nodded and gestured toward the fire. “Of course… but you didn’t answer my question.”

She approached the fire and knelt, staring into the flames. “It’s just me as well. Tell me, do you know anything of Karfana?”

Of course I knew of Karfana.

The bigger question, I wondered, was why she was interested in such a backwater city. Who had sent her, and why?

That fateful meeting set the end in motion.