*"Memory is the first casualty of corruption. Each death takes a piece of who you were, Until only the hunger remains."* —Archives of the Fallen
The road south was not a road at all.
Ora walked through crystallized farmland, each step crunching on glass that had been soil, fragments that had been life. The shockwave from Crysillia's destruction had vitrified everything for miles—a prismatic wasteland that reflected her corruption back at her.
Four days since the destruction. Or five? Time flowed wrong now, pooling in some moments and racing through others.
*What was my mother's name?*
The question struck without warning. She could see the face—violet eyes, silver hair—but the name had fled.
*Ly... something.*
She pressed her palm to her temple. The corruption pulsed there, a second heartbeat whispering promises.
*Does it matter? Names are for the living.*
"Lyra," she said aloud, desperate. "Mother was Lyra. Father was Thaelon. Sister was—"
Sister. Younger. Also Lyra.
The relief flooded violent as drowning in reverse. She clung to the names, repeating them with each step.
Movement ahead. Voices. Human accents, casual confidence of road predators.
Five men had made camp on what had been the King's Road. Mismatched armor, well-used weapons. The corruption stirred, interested.
She crept closer, using crystallized ridges as cover.
"—explosion came from Crysillia," one was saying, scarred throat rough with old damage. "Elven capital's gone."
"Good riddance," spat another, broader and meaner. "Knife-ears had it coming."
Ora's hand tightened on the shard. The corruption surged.
*Kill them. They celebrate your people's death.*
"Still," a younger one said, "might be survivors. Refugees with gold, artifacts—"
"They'd have nothing," Scarred interrupted. "I saw the light from fifty miles away. Nothing survived."
*You survived. Show them what survival looks like.*
She emerged from the wasteland like a ghost in scorched robes.
"Well, well," Broad said, hand finding sword. "Survivor after all."
"Please," her voice honeyed with corruption's teaching. "I need help."
Young stepped forward, concerned. "Miss, you hurt? That blood—"
*Not mine.* "Dragons... killed everyone."
"Dragons?" Scarred's eyes sharpened. "Dragons attacked Crysillia?"
She nodded, letting real tears fall. "Went mad. Said someone stole their child."
The men exchanged calculating looks. Lone elf maiden, traumatized, valuable.
"Come," Broad smiled without warmth. "We'll... protect you."
The others chuckled. The corruption sang.
"You're kind." She stepped into their circle. Young offered water. She drank, returned it.
"Now then," Broad's hand dropped heavy on her shoulder. "Payment for protection?"
"Payment?"
"Can't work for free. Pretty thing like you can think of ways—"
The shard went through his throat before he finished.
The taste hit immediately. Ash. Not metaphorical, not imagined—actual ash coating her tongue, filling her mouth. The taste of cremation and endings. It would never leave her now. Every meal, every drink, every breath would carry this flavor of death.
Silence. Then chaos.
She flowed between heartbeats, dancing in spaces between seconds. Scarred swung; she moved like water. The shard found ribs, slid between with surgical precision.
Young backed away, terrified. "Please, we weren't—"
"Liar." Multiple voices in her throat. The corruption speaking.
His death was quick. Mercy undeserved.
Two tried running. She caught them in ten steps, shard singing as it worked.
Five corpses. Abstract blood patterns on crystallized ground.
*How do you feel?*
Empty. Not satisfied, not horrified. Nothing. The air around her had dropped another two degrees—seven below normal now. Her soul had its own flavor: ash and ozone, shattered crystal and the spice of void. Each kill would add to this complexity, making her an anthology of endings.
*Good. Empty fills with purpose.*
She searched with cold precision. Food, water, coins, map showing southern settlements. Towns with people who might know where dragons keep young.
The bandits' words she'd understood perfectly—Common tongue, not High Elven.
*Crystal Mother's gift. Every language ever spoken in her presence. Now yours.*
Another piece of herself replaced. She should care. Didn't.
Looking back, she couldn't remember their faces clearly. Five or four? Young or just short?
*Dead don't need remembering.*
*Everyone I loved is dead. Do they not need—*
The corruption had no answer.
She walked on, leaving corpses for crows. Behind her, where five souls had been consumed, the ground began to change. A perfect circle, three meters across, where reality simply gave up. Not dead ground—absent ground. A Void Garden, the first of many she would leave in her wake. It would grow by a millimeter each year, patient as entropy itself.
Each step changed her, evolved her. Not elf, not human, not monster.
Something worse. Something necessary.
The sun set red over crystallized wasteland. The world bleeding.
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*End Chapter 5*
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