“You didn’t call me here for tea,” I say, rubbing my fingers along the rim of the cup.
Valen folds his arms, studying me as if I’m a puzzle missing pieces. “You are learning to fight,” he says finally. “You are learning to wield the elements. But do you understandwhy?”
I stiffen slightly. “I know why.”
Valen doesn’t blink. “Do you?”
There’s something in his voice—too calm to be casual—and it unsettles me.
I shift my weight in the chair, lips pursing. “Because the realm needs me.”
His eyes sharpen. “And what does that mean to you?”
I exhale slowly, the heat of the tea still burning on my tongue, but it’s nothing compared to the question sitting between us now. Valen studies me, waiting for something—maybe for me to realize that I don’t actually know what I think I do. When I don’t answer, he exhales and sets his cup down.
“The Shadow Wars,” he begins, tone flat, deliberate—like he’s reciting something carved into stone. “A war unlike any before. A war that nearly ended the realm.”
I shift again, fingers tightening around my cup.
“The Forsaken Lands were not always what they are now, barren and desolate,” he continues. “Once, they were thriving—fertile, green, filled with life. But something changed. Something corrupted the land, twisting it into the wasteland it is today. And from that corruption came the Shadow Forces.”
I swallow. I’ve heard some of this before—but not like this. Not with the weight he puts behind every word.
“No one knows exactly where they came from,” he goes on. “But when they appeared, they spread like a sickness, devouring villages, cities—entire regions. Wherever they went, nothing survived.”
I nod slowly. This is the history I know.
“The clans—Fire, Water, Earth, and Air—stood divided for too long, only thinking of themselves.” Valen shakes his head slightly. “By the time they united, the Shadow Forces had already taken half the realm. Entire bloodlines were wiped out. Kingdoms collapsed.”
I cross and uncross my feet, unable to sit still as the truth presses down. My own village had burned because of them. Myown family was lost to their destruction.
“The war lasted for ten years,” he continues. “And it wasn’t a war of strategy. It was a war of survival. A war of desperation.”
I had always imagined battle lines, warriors standing against the darkness. But this? This wasn’t that. This was slaughter. A slow, unstoppable wave of annihilation.
“How did they stop it?” I ask. My voice comes quieter than before.
Valen leans back slightly, folding his arms. “They found a way to push the Shadow Forces back, to contain them within the Forsaken Lands. The war didn’t end in victory. It ended in containment.”
I frown. “Containment?”
“They were not defeated,” he repeats. “Only sealed away.”
Something cold coils through me. I sit up straighter. “Sealed,” I echo.
He nods. “With magics tied into the land itself. Old magics. Strong enough to hold for centuries.”
I swallow hard. “Then why are they coming back?”
Valen watches me carefully. “That is the question no one has been able to answer.”
The silence stretches between us, heavy with something neither of us can name.The war never truly ended. It was just waiting.
Valen’s silver-blue eyes glint in the dim light of the study, his fingers tracing the rim of his cup as he continues.
“The old magics were forged—powerful, unbreakable, meant to hold back the tide of darkness, to keep the Shadow Forces contained within the Forsaken Lands. The wards, as you know, are what these magics are called.”
I hesitate. “Who created them?”
