Laryn jogged across the beach, heading toward the elf bridge to the south. As he ran, he linked up with Gall, who accompanied him. Gall no longer wore an elfin helmet.

  “Gall, go check on the scouting parties. Make sure everyone is watching for a surprise crossing in another place.”

  The man split off and headed away through the trees.

  Laryn soon reached the rope bridge. He breathed a sigh of relief to see the two guards still alive there, though they were sheltered behind the rocks. He stayed back in the trees, watching.

  Across the water a solitary elf stood atop a rock. He had not stepped onto the rope.

  Ilydia.

  His grey-green cloak fluttered around him, caught by the river breeze. He didn’t look angry. He looked… Distraught?

  Laryn knew he was acting suspicious by hiding here. He needed to step out and greet the elf. But… If they’d come here to fight, he’d expose himself to archers.

  He couldn’t act guilty. That would raise suspicions. He didn’t see any other elves with Ilydia. Maybe he’d be reasonable.

  Laryn strode out onto the rock which anchored the rope on this side of the river. No arrows slammed into his body. He waved. “To what do I owe this pleasure? Have you decided to treat with us?”

  “May I have permission to cross?” Ilydia asked. The elves had not asked before. Was this some kind of elven hospitality rule? It seemed a good sign to Laryn.

  “You are our guest,” Laryn said.

  Ilydia walked across the rope, nimbly balancing on the swaying length. Vallorians watched the elf suspiciously as he walked with Laryn across the beach. Laryn led him to his small, personal shelter. As they entered, Laryn gestured to Hela to bring them some food. He didn’t know the rules of elven hospitality, but he was going to do his best to take advantage of them.

  They sat on the ground, a thin floor of leaves atop the sand. If Laryn wanted to kill elves, Ilydia offered him the best opportunity he’d ever had. He forced his hand away from the hilt of his sword. His palms were damp with sweat.

  Ilydia watched him closely.

  “You have come alone,” Laryn said.

  “A gesture of peace.”

  Laryn took a breath, and gestured for the elf to continue.

  “I’ve come to discuss terms of an agreement with you,” Ilydia said. “It is not the desire of our people that we fight. I know we would win, but we have enough problems to deal with.”

  Laryn nodded. This seemed a dramatic change of heart. Certainly Ilydia could not know that the raid had been run by humans, then? Or was this some kind of elaborate trap?

  “You were not interested when I first proposed the idea,” Laryn said.

  “Things are changing in Elvandar,” Ilydia said. “For hundreds of years we fought the goblin hordes to the north, establishing the Ebil as the boundary between our domain. Few elves have crossed that river, but the goblins often tried to steal from us.”

  “I’m familiar with the history of Cataria,” Laryn said. “Elves defended their space between the Withwyn and the Ebil. When humans appeared on the eastern shore, they allied with the elves and worked to drive the goblins to the north. Goblins often raid across the river, and elves and humans fight them off.”

  “It’s not that simple,” Ilydia said. “But I suppose it’s more or less the way things used to be in Cataria. We thought that allowing humans to drive the goblins from the eastern mountains would let us turn our attention to the north. But it turned out that if we weren’t careful, humans were every bit as capable of spilling over their borders as goblins are. But…” He paused and eyed Laryn curiously.

  “You aren’t from Cataria,” he said. “You are from Endara?”

  “Yes, from Eltar,” Laryn said. “I came here with my brother… to hunt goblins.”

  Ilydia scoffed. “And you didn’t find many? I suppose it’s not something most people would know about.”

  “None,” Laryn said. “We crossed freely into the wildlands without even a sighting of one.”

  “Six years ago, all the goblins in the southern wilds are disappearing. Perhaps they’re dying, perhaps they withdraw to the north. Many warrens along the Ebil have been abandoned. I visited Grekhol, no more than five day’s journey from here, when I was young. Today, I am told, the tunnels are overgrown and collapsing. No goblin has raided into Elvandar for a hexade.”

  “Why?” Laryn asked. “Where are they?” No wonder Laryn and Keldin hadn’t seen any goblins.

  “I suspect the void,” Ilydia said. “We’ve had a period of peace, for longer than many can remember. But with that peace has come a kind of stagnation. And… strange beliefs.”

  “The void?” Laryn exclaimed. “You think that the goblins are being destroyed by the void? How would it do that? Spores always blow in from the north. I expected that goblins would be dealing with them all the time, making them particularly adept at destroying spores.”

  “I don’t think they’re being killed by the void,” Ilydia said. “Or maybe they are. But the goblins along the river here probably weren’t killed. They left and abandoned everything.”

  “What are you suggesting?” Laryn demanded.

  “Something that has troubled me for a long time,” Ilydia said. “You’re not from Cataria. You haven’t encountered the Void Cult.”

  “I’ve heard mention of it,” Laryn said.

  “Have the spore waves grown worse in Endara over the years?”

  Laryn thought about it. “They seem to be more frequent,” he said. “But we have never been too troubled by them.”

  “They are more frequent. And they are made worse by the cultists. They’re insane. Void worshipers. They want to cultivate the void. Feed, grow, and spread it. They fight against anyone trying to destroy spores before they can root.”

  “That sounds horrible,” Laryn said. “Why would anyone try to spread void?”

  “I don’t pretend to understand them. At first the ideology spread among the goblins. Then among the humans. And now it is spreading among the elves. I fear that they are gaining power across Elvandar. For some time, Annar has been a stronghold of anti-cultists. Elves who wish to fight the void are coming here, to live with us. I thought it made us strong, and I was proud.”

  Laryn thought about the void heart pendants he’d seen on the elves accompanying Ilydia. He wondered if he should tell the elf. If the elf would even believe him.

  “That is good,” Laryn said. “We should fight the void. We shouldn’t let it destroy us.”

  “I believed we were safe, until last night,” Ilydia said. “Last night, we were raided by void cultists.”

  Laryn’s stomach dropped into a pit. “You were?” he gasped.

  Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

  Ilydia’s eyes bored into Laryn. “We don’t know who it was. Outsiders, certainly. We don’t harbor cultists among us.”

  “You’re certain it was cultists?” Laryn asked.

  “Some suspected humans. I had my doubts, though. The attack was too stealthy. And they killed Savena, an elf, using an elven blade.”

  The elf watched Laryn like a hawk.

  “Ah,” Laryn said, pride prickling slightly. “You’re right. We are too clumsy and poor to have pulled off such an attack.”

  At that moment, Kenna entered the hut with food.

  “Thank you, Kenna,” Laryn said.

  Recognition crossed Ilydia’s face, then he eyed her strangely.

  Kenna shook slightly, rattling the food on the wooden platter as she placed it beside Ilydia. She drew an elegant silver knife, and reached for the tray.

  Ilydia caught her hand. “We showed you the way to our village…”

  Cold sweat dripped down Laryn’s spine. The gears turned in Ilydia’s mind, his eyes flicking between the two humans. The elf sniffed the air.

  “This is a fine blade,” Ilydia said. “Elven.

  Laryn reached out to Adi with his mind. *Can you activate the, uh, temporal thinking space?*

  “A gift,” Kenna said, her arm shaking. “From my father. A long time ago.”

  “But perhaps you are not so poor and unsophisticated as I had thought,” Ilydia said, still gripping Kenna’s arm. He rotated it, examining her knife.

  *You can. Trigger it like a spell. It’ll last for 61 seconds.*

  “Maybe void cultists are not among us.”

  Ilydia watched Laryn’s reaction, shifting uncomfortably as he grew more suspicious.

  Ilydia spoke again. “You don’t seem surprised,” he said, eyebrows narrowing.

  Laryn triggered the ability. Everything froze around him. Adi appeared, standing in the corner of the room.

  “We have a problem Adi!” Laryn said. “He was ready to blame void cultists and do a deal with us and then he saw Kenna’s knife!”

  “Why does that matter?” Adi asked, leaning forward and peering at the blade.

  “I guess he thought that we couldn’t have killed an elf with an elven blade or something,” Laryn said. “But Kenna has one, so he’s changing his mind.”

  “Oh, that’s bad. Typical stuck-up elves. Of course they’d be too prideful to assume that humans could have surprised them.”

  “Should I just kill him?” Laryn asked.

  Adi leaned back. “I thought you wanted to negotiate a peace,” she said. “If you kill him, you’ll have to kill them all.”

  “You’re right. We don’t need that kind of drastic action just yet. I’ll just have someone else bring the food in. Can I do a quick time reset?”

  “Sure, you can trigger that right from your core interface.” Laryn pulled up the interface and scrubbed through the replay. He’d claimed enough tiles that he could back up by 61 seconds… but he wished he had more. He skipped back to the moment that Kenna entered the hut, then went back a few more seconds to be sure.

  Laryn activated the time reset.

  His body shuddered as he skipped fifteen seconds back in time, astonished by how quickly things had gone wrong.

  “Last night, we were raided by void cultists,” Ilydia said again.

  “You were attacked?” Laryn exclaimed, even as he rose to his feet and moved to the door. “Pardon me.”

  He pushed aside the burlap curtain serving as a door and stepped out, coming face to face with Kenna. She jumped, dropping gobo crackers into the sand.

  Speaking loudly, he said “Making sure nobody is listening in.”

  He gestured at the food that Kenna had dropped. “Stay out of sight,” he whispered. “Have someone else bring in the food, I’ll explain later.”

  She nodded and hurried off.

  Laryn reentered the hut.

  “Just making sure that I don’t get rumors spreading before I understand what you’re telling me,” Laryn said. “Void cultists?”

  Ilydia eyed him appraisingly, but not suspiciously. Laryn relaxed slightly.

  “So who attacked you?” Laryn asked. He wondered if he should avoid this path entirely, but saw no way out of it.

  “Some thought it might be humans. You,” Ilydia explained. “But… they were too stealthy. They killed Savena. I think it must have been void cultists, because they used an elven blade.”

  “How… how do you know it was void cultists?” Laryn asked.

  “Who else could it have been? We have no other enemies.”

  Laryn wiped his brow, trying to hold back a smile. He’d done it.

  “I suppose that’s reasonable,” Laryn said. “None of the people of your village, Annar, are members of the cult?” He thought again of Hela’s accusation that elves were wearing void pendants, as well as the necklaces he had seen that seemed to be made of void heart stone.

  Ilydia looked disgusted. “Of course not!”

  The vehemence of the response gave Laryn pause. Could the cultists have slipped in under the elf’s nose? Could Hela be wrong about the jewlry?

  But Laryn had sensed the strange void connection to the gemstones.

  “The attack has opened my eyes,” Ilydia said. “I thought we were safe. I thought they’d leave us alone. But they’re too dangerous. And if they destroy us, they’ll also destroy you. My mother has convinced me that it is better to work together with humans against the cultists. I have my reservations still, but, what other choice do I have?”

  “That’s good,” Laryn said. “We can come to an agreement, then.”

  At that moment Hela entered the shelter, bringing food with her. Laryn watched Ilydia carefully, but this time the elf spared the merest glance for the woman serving the food. She had not visited Annar. She did not carry an elven knife gifted to her by her father.

  Laryn wondered if Ilydia would eat the offered food this time.

  “I think we can work something out,” Ilydia said. “Your proposal was a unique one, and a bad idea, but it has started me thinking of more creative solutions.

  Hela’s ornaments jangled around her neck and wrists as she bent to serve the food. She moved quickly and efficiently, with none of the trembling guilt that Kenna had shown.

  Ilydia’s eyes locked onto Hela, his face twisting from curiosity to surprise.

  Laryn’s hands curled into fists. Was Ilydia growing suspicious again? Laryn only had forty-six seconds of rewind left and… Hela had already been in here for longer than Kenna.

  Ilydia’s hand flashed out. He grabbed a chain that dangled from Hela’s neck and tore it lose. “This… This is my work. I made this for Savena!”

  Laryn clenched his jaw. He wasn’t going to be able to time skip out of this problem.

  Surging to his feet, Ilydia shouted.

  “You liar!”