Reincarnated as an Elf Prince

The forest was quiet.

Not peaceful. Just quiet in the way a place gets after too many people have passed through it too fast. The birds were gone. The wind didn't move. Smoke hung between the trees like a bad memory.

Lindarion leaned against the trunk of a wide-barked oak, arms crossed, trying not to look like he was about to collapse.

Jaren stood a few feet away, speaking low with the captain of the escort. The man's voice was gravel-worn, and his armor was half-buckled like he'd been pulled out of bed and shoved onto the front lines with a sword in one hand and a prayer in the other.

"Thirty-seven accounted for," the captain said. "A few wounded. No dead from our side. Civilians—we don't have numbers yet."

"We'll get them," Jaren said.

The captain nodded, then moved on.

Ashwing shifted on Lindarion's shoulder, small claws digging in just enough to be annoying. "You're gonna pass out."

'I'll pass out when we stop running.'

Jaren glanced over at him. "You holding up?"

"I've been worse."

"That's not comforting."

"It wasn't meant to be."

Jaren stepped closer. The firelight from one of the camp lanterns caught his face, smeared with ash and blood, none of it his.

"We've got scouts checking the ridge," he said. "There's a natural choke point up ahead. If they come this way, we'll see it early."

"And if they go around?"

"They won't. They're not organized like that. They're still acting like hounds."

Lindarion nodded, but didn't answer.

Because he wasn't sure that was true anymore.

They had coordinated attacks. Tunnel entries. Pressure zones. Even the wave at the palace had come with a strategy, hit the leadership fast and scatter the response.

They weren't hounds.

They were trained.

Engineered, maybe.

"Something's changed," Lindarion said.

Jaren raised an eyebrow. "You think they've got a general?"

"Not a general," he said. "A conductor."

Jaren looked away toward the woods again. "You think that thing back there's running the show?"

"No," Lindarion muttered. "I think it's just one piece."

Ashwing snorted. "That's the optimistic version?"

'I'm not ready to think about the pessimistic one.'

A rustle to the left.

Not fast. Not sharp.

A soldier leading a young woman and two children toward the center of camp, where a healer had set up a glowing mana ward. The woman was limping. One of the kids had a blood-soaked sleeve.

They didn't cry.

None of them did.

That's what stuck the most.

No one was crying anymore.

Not since the capital fell.

Lindarion turned his head toward the edge of the firelight, where more figures sat in silence. Some leaned against trees. Some crouched near the water barrel.

A few just stared into nothing, breathing like each breath might be the one that breaks them.

He recognized one of the girls from the earlier alley, the one who had clung to his coat. She was sitting beside another evacuee now. Still wearing his jacket.

He hadn't asked for it back.

Didn't want to.

Jaren moved beside him again, arms folded. "There'll be a message out soon. They'll want you to speak."

"Who?"

"Anyone. Everyone. You're the elven prince who fought at the palace."

Lindarion exhaled. "I'm the idiot who got punched through half a city."

"Same thing, really."

He let the silence stretch again.

Then, finally, he pushed off the tree and looked toward the eastern trail.

"You think they'll come again tonight?"

"They could," Jaren said. "But I don't think they will."

"Why not?"

"Because they already did what they came to do. Tear down something no one thought could fall."

Lindarion's jaw tensed.

'And make us watch it burn.'

Ashwing leaned into his neck again, quiet for once.

A runner came into the firelight, panting. "Lord Vell—scouts just returned. No signs of pursuit for now."

Jaren nodded. "Double the watch anyway. If it's too quiet, that's when they move."

The soldier ran back toward the main line of tents.

Lindarion turned his eyes up toward the trees, toward the branches where no wind blew.

Then back to the camp.

People were eating now. Slowly. Quietly. A few small fires. No stories being told. No songs. Just survivors chewing past the taste of ash.

He lowered his head and rubbed his temple.

'This isn't over.'

He could feel it in his bones.

Not just that it wasn't over.

That it hadn't even really begun.

—

They arrived mid-smoke.

The teleportation circle snapped closed behind them, dissolving into the cracked stone street just outside what used to be the southern merchant quarter.

The air was a mix of ash, iron, and raw magic, burned mana lingering like a wound.

Luneth stepped out first.

Boots crunching broken glass.

One hand already curled near her waist, where her blade waited half-drawn.

'This isn't a battlefield. It's a graveyard still moving.'

Sylric appeared a second later, slightly off-center like he hadn't aimed properly. He coughed once and immediately wrinkled his nose.

"Smells like a dragon sneezed on a rotting battlefield."

She didn't answer.

Didn't need to.

Because something moved just beyond the next alley.

Fast.

Too fast.

She held out her arm and stopped him with a sharp gesture.

Then—

A blur shot out from behind the wreckage.

The thing wasn't human.

Not anymore.

Half its face had been replaced with vein-covered stone, its arm wrapped in pulsing black roots, its eyes bright like molten mana. It screamed as it charged.

Sylric blinked. "I hate when you're right."

Luneth stepped forward and drew.

The temperature dropped instantly.

Not theatrically. Not with a wave of frost and sound. Just suddenly cold, like the world itself realized it was about to bleed.

The thing lunged.

She moved sideways, two inches of motion, no wasted breath, and the ice blade slid between its ribs before it had time to realize it had lost.

The creature choked.

Then cracked.

She yanked the blade out and turned her wrist.

Ice spread up the wound like ink in water.

It froze from the inside.

And fell apart.

Sylric exhaled. "Neat."

"Shut up," she said flatly.