My hands burned even more, my body felt as if it were about to melt; they had managed to dodge. The air around me smelled of scorched flesh and ozone, a metallic odor that clung to the back of my throat.
"That was close," said one of them, wiping a smudge of soot from his expensive linen tunic with a disdain that made my blood boil. "Your Highness cannot act like this toward your partners."
I ignored him. The sound of my own breathing was heavy, as if I were inhaling live embers. I looked back; Obrem and Liss watched me with expressions that mixed terror with a spark of something I never expected to see directed at me: hope.
"If I die here, I will regret nothing," I said, feeling the sweat run down my temples and evaporate before touching the ground. "Obrem, you're in command. Gather everyone who can fight. We're driving these merchants out."
He merely nodded, his presence solid like a mountain amidst my internal fire. It was strange. My heart beat fast, a violent percussion against my ribs, but the fear I felt now didn't seem so terrifying. Was it because I had already lived through death once? In that hospital room, silence was the enemy; here, chaos was my element.
I looked at my burning hand. The skin was stretched, red and glistening, appearing ready to rupture under the pressure of the Web. Was I already near my limit? Everything was new to me. This desire to no longer be hated, to protect this soil, bothered me. Was it a remnant of the true Aether or my own will to finally belong somewhere?
My blood ran fast, fueling my cells; the air that was once cold was now hot. I looked at them; they had their weapons drawn. I didn't even have combat experience in any of my lives. In this world, death seems trivial, but I had never killed anyone; I was even getting nervous.
"Your Highness, do not lose focus," Obrem said behind me. "It's normal to feel this in your first life-or-death combat. Stay in the now. Forget the future; you're not there yet. You are in the now."
Those words pulled me out of the spiral I had entered. I let out a slight smile.
"Yes, you're right. I can't change what's to come, but I can change the now," I said determinedly. "Thank you, Obrem," I finalized, closing the door with a dry thud and facing the destiny I had set ablaze myself. The sound of the iron latch falling seemed to seal my commitment to that territory and the life I now claimed.
I turned to the three men. The air around me vibrated, distorted by the residual heat still emanating from my skin.
"Your Highness, I see you've truly gone mad," said one of them, his voice losing any trace of pretense, replaced by the coldness of an executioner who had finally received permission to kill.
"Yeah, let's just say I've always been a bit crazy. After all, one can't expect the bastard prince to be coherent, can they?" I replied, with a sharp smile that didn't show the nervousness trying to corrode my insides. Without hesitating, I pointed my left hand, feeling the Web roar beneath my skin.
"Extinguish!" I ordered.
Again, flames leaped from my hands in a roar of incandescent energy. It was a quick attack, driven by my desperate will, but it wasn't enough to hit him. The leader dodged with irritating ease, moving with the agility of someone trained to hunt and kill.
I needed to corner them somehow; my stamina was being drained with every spark.
"Since you like playing with fire, then take this!" shouted the other guard. He clapped his hands together, creating a massive wave of fire that advanced toward me like a tide of destruction. The heat was unbearable, threatening to burn my lungs even before the flames touched me. Instinctively, I crouched and touched the cold ground with my fingertips, diving into the Earth.
"Gaia's Barrier!" I shouted.
The ground in front of me responded instantly, rising like a solid and impenetrable rock. The wave of flames hit the barrier with full force, creating a deafening impact and covering the courtyard in a mist of heat and dust. Behind my stone shield, I felt my blood racing; it was fear, but also ecstasy. The life-or-death combat had begun. My adrenaline was at its peak; my chest ached with every beat of my heart against my ribs.
"Well, well, I see the bastard isn't so pathetic after all," said their leader. He grabbed his sword and came at me with a speed I could barely see. Instinctively I crouched, touching the ground: "Gaia's Barrier!"
The earth in front of me took shape again. His strike was straight; he sliced through the mound of earth in half as if it were hot butter. I dodged to the left, feeling the air displacement of the blade pass millimeters from my face, but again, another of his lackeys was preparing something.
"Ice Lance!" shouted the third man.
The air, which had previously boiled with flames, froze in an instant. A crystalline and sharp stake materialized in the air, shooting toward me with a deadly hiss. I was still off-balance from the previous dodge; my lungs burned and cold sweat mixed with the soot on my forehead. I rolled across the dirt ground, feeling the stones scratch my skin. The ice stake exploded against the mansion wall, scattering shards that cut my arm. The pain was sharp, but it served as a wake-up call for my cornered mind.
"Think, Aether... use logic!" I shouted to myself in thought. The victory rate was practically zero, but I needed to gain time. Enough until the villagers arrived. The leader of the guards was already upon me again, his silhouette blocking the sun. He wasn't just fighting; he was enjoying himself at my inexperience.
"Your 'Gaia' won't save you now, bastard," he mocked, raising his sword for the final blow.
I had to do something; I wasn't going to die in my first combat. I remembered Lygni: "mold it to your will." Mold. I closed my eyes and touched the ground. Soon the threads touched my desperate fingertips; just like me, it seemed to respond to my will; it seemed to understand me. I imagined the ground moving.
"Quicksand!" I shouted.
It wasn't a wall that emerged, but a trap. The ground under the leader's feet gave way, becoming unstable and soft in a second. He stumbled, his strike losing precision and hitting only empty air. I took advantage of the opening and pointed my hand at him. "Extinguish!" I ordered, feeling the final spark of energy accumulating in my palm. But before I could fire, a kick struck me squarely. The impact was like a sledgehammer; the air was expelled from my lungs, and I flew backward, completely losing contact with the ground.
The man who had created the wave of flames hit me with brutal force. I fell heavily, feeling the metallic taste of blood flood my mouth as the world spun. My vision blurred for an instant, and the heat of the Web in my body began to oscillate dangerously.
"He's stubborn," said the guard, approaching with slow, deliberate steps. He looked at me with the same contempt as one observing a persistent insect. "Just die already."
I tried to push myself up on my elbows, but my arms trembled violently. The smell of earth and sweat was suffocating, and each breath felt like a Herculean effort against the pain in my chest. The leader, now recovering his balance from the quicksand, wiped the dirt from his boot and once again raised his sword, the blade gleaming under the sun like a mirror of my own mortality.
Death was a few meters away, but even fallen, my fingers sought the vibration of the Web's threads in the ground beneath me. I still hadn't given up. I just needed to take one down; that would be enough.
"Gaia's Barrier!"
The wall rose between us, blocking both their view and mine. My body was heavy, my vision blurred, and the taste of blood in my mouth bothered me, but I couldn't stop. I approached the wall; I was going to bet everything on this attack. I touched one hand to the other, feeling the tingling of accumulated energy. It was all or nothing.
I came out from behind the wall, directly facing the same man who had kicked me earlier.
"Extinguish!" I said, practically at point-blank range.
The flash erupted between us and fired, hitting him squarely. The roar of the flames drowned out any other sound in the courtyard, and the impact of the explosion was the last thing my senses registered before exhaustion threatened to completely overcome me.
The man flew like a ragdoll until he hit a house across the street. The impact was dull, dry, and the silence that followed was filled only by the crackling of embers that still remained in the courtyard.
I was about to pass out. My whole body burned, as if the fire I had unleashed had left a trail of embers under my own skin. My nose bled, hot liquid running over my lips and mixing with the metallic taste that already dominated my mouth. My vision pulsed to the rhythm of my racing heart.
Their leader averted his gaze from the fallen henchman and looked at the damage I had done with icy indifference. There was no anger on his face, only a clinical observation.
"Not bad," he said, giving no importance to the ally who had just been thrown afar. "But, apparently, the Web is already taking its toll."
He took a step forward, his sword blade resting loosely beside his body, while I struggled just to stay on my knees. The world around me spun, colors blurring into smears of dirt and blood. He looked directly into my eyes, seeing me defeated on the ground.
"Power without training is nothing, bastard. It's just brute force turning against its own owner."
His voice sounded distant, as if coming from the bottom of a tunnel. I tried to raise my arm, but my muscles were like molten lead. He delivered a swift blow to the back of my neck. The pain was a white flash that quickly dissolved into absolute emptiness.
It was the last thing I saw.