Chapter 3

Thy end is not the end

Pain. It surged through flesh and bone, filled the muscles with a burning sensation as if they were torn. The sickening sense of nausea was only overshadowed by persistent dizziness. It also felt like there was an overwhelming weight on her body, as if gravity suddenly had a stronger and more painful pull, keeping her flat on the ground. Before Yalene could open her eyes, she could already feel the wrongness around her, like drowning in the cold, black sea that seeped into her very being. She could also taste the blood on her tongue, where she had accidentally bitten herself. Additionally, she could have sworn that she could taste sickeningly sweet decay and burned ash. Or perhaps she could smell it, that was unclear. She couldn't move, not even an inch, in part because she felt too weak, and in part because she felt that her hands and feet were bound. But otherwise, the world around her seemed eerily quiet.

This turned out to be an illusion. Just because the terrible sounds of clashing weapons and howls of pain had receded, it didn't mean that she was alone. That would have been a blessing. It cost her so much strength to open her eyelids, but when she did, she could only see the slightly blurred image of a kneeling figure beside her, clad mostly in black, as black as his hair, while his skin was ghastly pale. He was armed and armoured, but it was unlike any armour she had ever seen. Had he been painted on a picture, she would have wrinkled her nose and pointed out that nobody could look that immaculate and that no skin was that flawless. But what really struck her aside from his appearance was the outlandish countenance and callous indifference with which he touched her by the neck with his gloved hand. She used to examine the fruit on the market the same way as he examined her, only that she was much more gentle and careful with any fruit she was intending to spend money on.

This was an elf. The pointed ears would have been the last thing to identify him as such. The way he moved, the strange mix of slight boredom and disdainfulness as well as his otherworldly appearance made him look more like a creature than human to Yalene's eyes. She was lying flat on her stomach and her view was therefore limited, could barely open her eyes and didn't know why she couldn't move, pain throbbing through her, barely being able to make sense of her environment, but she knew this: This man was not human. He was far and beyond.

She had seen a similar countenance before when meeting with an envoy of Wood Elves, or dealing with the elven scholar that had taught her Eltharin and schooled her about the different dialects and idiosyncrasies of this language. This man and the other elves that had entered her life looked eerily similar. He barked something that she could identify as informing somebody that she was awake. Despite her budding terror, Yalene did take a moment to realize that he mumbled the personal pronoun describing her. How rude.

The fog around her senses slowly started to clear up, as she could hear muffled voices and pained groans in the background. The heavy snow from earlier had receded and had left its traces on her clothing and hair. Where were the others? The groan she had heard in the background had been clearly female, so it was a good chance that it might have been Leevke. She hoped that it was Leevke. A group of Dark Elves had obviously caught them, but for what purpose? If they weren't dead now, then they had to serve one. But since they had asked for an escort and had been denied by the Watch, then had walked off without informing anybody about their destination, help was certainly not on the way. Their only hope was that the Wood Elves living nearby were somehow alerted and disgusted by the presence of their dark cousins. The irony was not lost on Yalene – her whole life, she had understood that the Wood Elves living nearby were decidedly not friends, would never lift a finger in a human's defence and were unreliable allies at best when they faced a mutual enemy or disaster. But now, she was counting on their hatred for their dark cousins.

But it was not only the cold that made her shiver; it was also the two figures that stepped into her visual periphery when the armoured elf had left. Baldwin Schönecker, the traitorous Witch Hunter was at this point a familiar face, as unwelcome as it was. He must have followed them, or somehow alerted the Dark Elves of their presence in the forest.
The other was a female elf, possessing the same otherworldly and stunning beauty as the other one, presumably a guard. She regarded Yalene with the same arrogant disdain, mingled with slight curious expression. Her movements were slow and deliberate, exuding confidence well beyond what could be considered a healthy measure and seemed comfortable wearing the thin, purple dress thoroughly deserving of the 'risqué'-description in this cold. What struck Yalene as the strangest and most inhuman thing about her appearance was the spiked headdress that looked quite heavy and uncomfortable. The elf didn't raise her voice, instead arching her sharply shaped eyebrow and looking at Baldwin questioningly.

"Mistress Vesash.", he addressed her with deference, adopting a tone that sounded strangely cold and detached, even a bit monotone. He acted more like a cog in a mechanical construct than the fiercely paranoid person he ought to be. "That's a witch. In my opinion, she's strong and schooled enough for your purposes, but either too weak or too smart to cast spells. If she were able to use her magic in combat, she would have done so already.". The elf, this 'Vesash', nodded appreciatively, making a gesture as if to reach out to pet the Witch Hunter's greasy hair as if he were a dog, only to redact the gesture in one, fluid motion that seemed as natural as it was casually cruel. Worse, it was Baldwin who nudged his head longingly as if awaiting a caress, only to be denied.

Utterly disturbing.

Quickly, as if nothing had happened, he continued in the same, strange tone that seemed unlike him. "How to proceed?"

"Prepare the circle and the sacrifices." She spoke louder, a command to others that had to be around them and that Yalene couldn't see. But she felt the weight and shape of her father's grimoire a steadying and comforting presence against her back. The words that the elf had spoken were so unreal, so unbelievable, and she felt strangely numb and paralysed. Dark Elves? Sacrifices? They knew that Greenskins were in these forests, but who would have thought that Dark Elves would have made their way here? They shouldn't be, and neither should this blasted Witch Hunter be working with them. How long exactly had he done so and how many people had he led an early grave?

It was when this realization dawned that Baldwin Schönecker bent over her body to look her straight in the eye, the one that she could use and was not covered in dirt. He didn't look well, with the cut on his face unattended and the blood dried, his swollen eye turning into a darker shades of purple, green and blue. She hadn't noticed that his eyes had been deep and unnaturally black before. When he addressed her, he seemed calm, but not at peace. It was more of the whispering, regretful tone of a person getting closure in the most terrible way.

"All of this doesn't give me any pleasure. I wanted you to know that." As he spoke, the black colour of his eye seemed more fluid and started to drip out like viscous tears of tar. He either didn't mind or didn't feel or see that as he continued. "This is not personal. I've done everything I could, you know? I didn't even have to lure you, I just followed you to run into their arms … you led them here. Did you have to leave tonight? You could have waited until the morning and your companions wouldn't have been there. I would have just taken you into custody and made sure you were the only one given to the ritual. As for your companions … your friend is not a particularly good priestess, since she knowingly allowed the injustice of having a Hedge wizard in their midst. The Forest Warden practices those forbidden elf rituals, and as for your Morrian …" He paused for a moment. " ... well, he is a good man, but he simply made the wrong choice following you. Being gullible costs your town the only priest of Morr they have."

The tar-like substance now ran down his face, making Yalene feel even more disgust that she already had for this man. She was not able to move, frightened out of her wits and sickened by the fact that she was obviously to be part of some sort of ritual that was guaranteed to be Dark Magic at best and dedicated to Chaos at worst. She was also trembling, in part due to the cold, and in part due to that white-hot anger that was currently bubbling up inside her. This was a Witch Hunter, and she was willing to endure his continued existence provided what he did was true to his profession; but now, it seemed that he was in league with Dark Elves, known to be practitioners of Dark Magic. It looked like the sorceress had put at least some spell on him and it felt like it would make Yalene's head burst anytime now just by looking at the grotesque mass in and his head, but she begrudged him for being corrupt enough to have gotten himself in the situation. She didn't care how much in denial he was and how much he wanted to justify himself before her, as if him not having led all of them being butchered somehow made his actions less despicable. Judging from his words, they had captured Fynn Kruse also, in addition to the little trio that left Sturmhöhe.

He was apparently very intent to justify himself before her, as if he were aiming for some kind of absolution from a fellow human being. In Yalene's eyes, a Witch Hunter often got to act above the law; the least he could do was to resist such dark magic. And yet, he hadn't. She didn't care right now that he obviously wasn't well. He should only come a little closer, and then, by Verena, she'd show him justice.

The Witch Hunter must have been able to read the cold fury in her hardened features, because he continued in an infuriatingly soft tone that was apparently meant to soothe fear and wrath alike. "I know that it's bitter, but know that there is nothing that you could have done. I habitually hunt down hedge wizards like you. Even without my associates, I have been meaning to visit your town for quite some time now." Again, he met Yalene's stone-cold silence, and sighed, lowering his voice even more. "The incidents in your hometown were reportedly few. It makes me think that somebody must have trained you. That makes you prime apprentice material. Why haven't you come to Altdorf? You could have made a promising wizard and have a respectable career like the respectable woman you appear to be. But no, you had to break the law. Why?"

Again, Yalene kept stubbornly silent. Her reasons were personal, and she was not about to share this with him, especially since the irony that he sought absolution from a 'witch' was not lost on her.

Underneath, she felt that there was another agenda within the Witch Hunter, that he was asking something else from her, something that only she could provide. The black liquid started to drip from his mouth, ears and even from his hair, causing Yalene's a burning sensation in the eyes that was not particularly tied to the grotesque sight, but rather the magic causing it. But it occurred to her what he wanted … this was when their interests aligned and were understood between them. He was hoping that she could break the spell.

Come closer, she thought. You just have to come a little bit closer.

But he was still expecting an answer and alas, was not able to read her thoughts. So she extended the tiniest of olive branches in the hopes that he would understand what he needed to do for her to finally be able to act. "I wanted to stay home, surrounded by the loving people you are about to slaughter." She grumbled, truthfully, and hopefully quietly enough to provoke him to bend forward a little.

His facial expression only changed ever so slightly, as if there had been a hint of regret, long-buried, fighting its way to the surface. But it faded as quickly as she heard the Dark Elf sorceress call out to him to hurry. Their time was brief and she would start to get suspicious. Apparently, that was exactly what Baldwin was thinking, as he drew his knife almost instantly.

"One moment, just getting a trophy." He replied towards the sorceress that Yalene couldn't see, and she felt her heart sinking at those words. What was he going to do, cutting fingers or other body parts? At the same time, as he slowly bent over her, she saw her chance to extract her own version of justice. Pushing the fear away and ignoring the shades that crossed her peripheral vision and that ought to be more Dark Elves, she focused. She focused intently, like she had never done before, focused all her senses on the man bending over her. It was no easier to see the fluid black core inside of him that was not his own, the one that weaved through his mind like oily twigs. His actions were not entirely his own, and at least in part, he did the bidding of that sorceress because his will was bound to hers. No wonder those Dark Elves let him walk freely around them and act as he pleased.

What Yalene did with what little knowledge she had, what she had learned thanks to her earlier study of her father's grimoire, was to mentally reach for those ties that bound him, and imagined that she severed them, willed them to break. Her voice to the formula to focus her mind was only the softest of whispers, so soft that only the Witch Hunter could hear her as he cut one of her braids off. It didn't break her concentration, but made her feel even more humiliated as she focused on the strands. He was gone too quickly for her to be certain that they were broken, but the black liquid oozing out of his orifices stopped flowing, although it stayed on his face like a residue, a stain on his soul. The man himself didn't even flinch or move, so he was either covering for her or ignoring her.

Either way, it was out of her hands now. She felt thoroughly exhausted, blood trickling down her nose, while she had to helplessly watch as the Witch Hunter fastened her long braid at his belt. That was really just adding insult to severe injury. But now, she felt too tired to feel angry and barely recognized that she was dragged a few metres. One of her eyes was too dirt-crusted to even open it, but with the other, she could catch glimpses of her surroundings, of a natural stone circle and how people had been leaned against them. They had mentioned that they needed sacrifices for their blasted ritual and the Witch Hunter had mentioned the Forest Warden, so Fynn had to be here somewhere. But she couldn't find him or Tjorben anywhere within her peripheral vision, and probably just wasn't able to. In the corner of her eye, she could see Leevke's dirty, white robes and managed to turn her head slightly to get a better look, only to get startled at the sight. Leevke was clearly unconscious, her whole mouth covered with blood, and additionally bleeding from several gaping stab wounds and purple threads reaching out to her.

She was dying.

Struggling against her restraints was futile, but she tried anyway, which earned her a half-hearted kick in the stomach by a passing Dark Elf guard. Yalene doubled up with pain, gasping for air, blood rushing through her ears. She was not proud to admit that had even felt tears welling up her eyes and that it took her an embarrassingly long amount of time until she could breathe again and had recovered enough to take any position that was not reminiscent of curling into a ball. It was then when Baldwin Schönecker addressed her again, having the audacity to sound a little bit smug.

"When she realized what was happening, she picked a fight. When they restrained her, she bit her tongue off. Patching her up didn't work so well. We have to start earlier now because she's bleeding out too quickly." In the face of such suicidal dedication to not become a human sacrifice for a ritual of Dark Magic, even the fallen Witch Hunter seemed impressed. If he had made the effort to get to know the Verenan priestess, he would have known for sure that she would rather fling herself off the next cliff than to be part of anything that sinister.

What she also heard in his voice was the hint of accusation. Why didn't she do the same to stop this ritual, whatever it was? Well, why didn't she? It was not like she would survive this ordeal. But deep within her heart, Yalene was a coward, still hoping that miraculously, somebody - be it elves, townspeople, lost Imperial patrol, anybody - would rush through the woods, swoop in, kill the Dark Elves and help them all back on their feet. It was an insane hope, born of paralysing fear. She didn't want to die. She couldn't die. Not here, not now. But what to do? She had done everything she possibly could and was now powerless. If she had been able to break the spell by a powerful sorceress holding a Witch Hunter, she doubted, but she had tried her best. It had to be enough. But what if it wasn't?

Whenever she caught a glimpse of one of those Dark Elf guards – how many were there? - she found them curiously bored and sometimes slightly annoyed at the proceedings, but none of them seemed overly interested. They had won, and their sorceress was now poised to do her ritual, which they deemed safe enough. They also didn't anticipate any distraction. She really hoped that they were wrong.

Without further ado, the sorceress started chanting, dagger in hand, and how much time passed was hard to tell. It was a heavy blade that she wielded, one was too unwieldy to be used effectively in combat. She used such a strange and foreign dialect that even Yalene couldn't fully understand what she was saying and only understood that there was some sort of transfer to be done and that the female elf she had seen earlier lying sleeping on the stone was the centrepiece of this whole endeavour. To her eyes, there was now this tar-like substance slowly oozing out of the ground beneath them, drowning any other magic and crawling slowly towards the sorceress, who started moving out of Yalene's sight.

This was the first time when she heard the cut and the terrible gurgle of somebody whose throat was being slit.

From one moment to the other, all the fatigue and pain in her body receded as Yalene listened with horror as one by one, the sorceress killed her ritual sacrifices, people with thoughts, dreams and wishes, feeding the black magic underneath them all. She may have been bound, but now she started struggling again in panic, but not to avail. The sorceress kept chanting in that strange tongue of hers, and kept killing. Even when Yalene closed her eyes, she could still see that black liquid, could still taste some sort of stale decay on her tongue, smell and feel the wrongness in the air at the same time. When the Dark Elf approached Leevke with her knife, Yalene was already sobbing uncontrollably, and too overwhelmed to witness this kind of act. She turned her head away, deeply ashamed not to be with her friend in this last moment, at least not in this sense, as the sorceress' knife did its bloody work again.

It was her turn now. Witnessing all of this alone had left her boneless like a husk of herself, and any hope of rescue had already faded. She could have faced her fate bravely, struggling, biting, kicking and screaming, but the magic of this ritual had already leeched all of her strength. Or perhaps she had always been a coward like this, She was almost beyond caring when she saw the harsh features of that pale elf above her, blood dripping from her knife. Oddly enough, she barely felt the cut, but what she did feel was the sudden warmness of blood flooding down her chest and soaking her clothes. She also felt a painful drain, and was more shocked than in pain as it happened. When her vision started to fade, she witnessed what she thought would be her last wonder before oblivion.

She saw how the Witch Hunter had sneaked up behind the sorceress and now, a cold, determined gleam in his eye, ran his blade through her body, leaving the Dark Elf wide-eyed and utterly in shock. There was an explosion of pure white, heat and coldness, but it faded away as Yalene felt her life leaving her body. At least she had been avenged immediately after her murder. That was a strangely comforting thought.

It was raining when Yalene opened her eyes, something that was impossible in winter; therefore, it had to be spring, which was a most pleasant thought. It had to be past dawn already for the sky being so blue. It was fitting, considering the strange dream that she had had. While the raindrops pleasantly trickled on her skin, she wondered why she felt so strange, why there was stone beneath her back, why her vision was initially so blurry and needed a moment to adjust to the light.

It was then when the events of the night came back to her and she gasped, her hands immediately grasping her own throat. There was no wound, and her hands were unbound. That was not right. With her gaze still skyward, she barely dared to have a look, but eventually, she would have to. The first thing she had noticed was the smoothness of the skin around her neck, and that couldn't be. This was not her neck, this was not the correct weight on her chest as she breathed in and out, this was not her scent. Every person in the world had a scent that didn't smell bad … it was just unique to the person, and she could smell herself and smelled wrong. Not bad, just wrong. Her mind still attempted to grapple with the sheer implication of something so seemingly innocuous like a different body scent when she finally dared to raise her hands to her eye level without raising her head or her body, without paying attention of the hints she saw in her peripheral vision.

Those were pale hands, with long, elegant fingers and carefully manicured fingernails. Those were not hers … too slender, too young. There was no trace of the slightly calloused skin where she would usually hold her quill, or the bright little scar at her thumb that she had gotten years ago from a little cooking accident.

Feeling her heart beating in her chest, Yalene concluded that if she felt pain in her body, however it looked, she must have been alive. Perhaps the ritual had had some healing and rejuvenating properties? Then it was possible that others had survived the ordeal. There was only one way to be certain, and that was to have a look around.

Carefully, she propped herself up. She had worn a simple, brown dress when she had set out with Tjorben and Leevke, made out of linen, which she thought had been comfortable to wear. But now, she was wearing a thin and strange mesh between a dress and a long tunic, so thin that in its wet state from the rain, it clung tightly to her body. Fantastic, she thought. I'm factually naked. But I'd rather be indecent than dead. Her legs were long and clad in some kind of fitting, black tights and fashionable, if impractical shoes, not her legs at all. She had always been of average height. Nothing made sense here.

After that, she had no interest in examining herself for fear of what she could discover and looked around. Now that she was doing so, it was almost overwhelming … there were bodies everywhere, mostly Dark Elves in their black and purple armour, their bodies unnaturally contorted and bloody, their facial expressions frozen in terror. The air around the elven bodies was still sizzling with shreds of magic gone out of control. She also saw Fynn's attire, blood-drenched animal skins mostly, but the man's face seemed like a stranger in death, although she had known him almost all of her life. She could see the black fabric of Tjorben's robes further back, as well as the stained white of Leevke's dress. The sorceress was lying in her own puddle of blood, still clutching her chest. Behind her, two of her men had hacked the Witch Hunter to death.

And then there was her own body.

There it was, clear as day, the face that she had looked at in the mirror for over half a century. Everything was exactly as she remembered it – the gaunt face, the pockmarks, one of her braids ruggedly cut, and her own throat slit. Her body was lying there, slumped together, blood-drenched like all the others.

After the shock of being betrayed by a Witch Hunter, after being captured by Dark Elves and after being used as a human sacrifice to fuel dark magic, she had thought that nothing could shock her anymore. But there she was. She hadn't survived her adventure. Either this was the strangest dream she had ever had, or this was real. Was she a ghost? But she had felt mild pain, even if it was a headache.

Shaking, she tried to rise, only to fall down at the first try like a newborn animal. It should have frustrated her, but it didn't, as if the shock was numbing her to everything else. Perhaps it was a blessing. The rain on her skin felt strangely comforting, and she managed to gather up her strength and took her first tentative steps towards the Witch Hunter. Unless he had survived having half his head sliced off, he had met his gory end, although underneath, Yalene could see curled lips. He had been smiling when he died. She checked the two elves lying beside him as well, but was quite certain that they were as deceased as their sorceress. It was the strangest feeling, to feel the cold wind on her wet clothes, feeling the skeleton within her skin moving as she moved. These thoughts and impressions were shooed away; she had to survey this massacre, and make sense of what had happened. Afterwards, and only then, would she take a look at herself. She ignored her own body for the time being, coming to kneel beside the Verena priestess. Poor Leevke couldn't have possibly survived that much loss of blood, and laid there pale and motionless. Her skin was cold as a stone, and as she stroked the fallen priests cheek, she could feel her own tears running down her face.

It was so unfair. Why was this brave, kind person dead and why was she still alive? Was she still alive, for that matter?

The pain she now felt was enough to tighten her chest and steal her breath away. She heard herself sobbing and crying uncontrollably. It hurt to see her like this, and even imagining how much Leevke would frown if she had seen her friend crying over her body in such an undignified manner, it took Yalene a long time to finally calm down a little and keep searching for survivors, although it was a futile effort. Poor Tjorben had met the same fate as Fynn, a fate undeserved. The Morrian in particular didn't look peaceful in his god's embrace, but tired and sunken in – he had been so young. Why had this happened to him?

At last she had confirmed that everyone but her was dead, and she wasn't even certain about herself. In the end, she had examined every dead person just to be sure, only to now kneel beside her own body again.

It was so strange, seeing oneself. There was no beauty, nor peace in it, as poets sometimes claimed. It looked like something, a thing, that she had left behind. It was also definitely her, no doubt about that. So what did that make her, the person that she was right now? She hadn't examined herself, or what was currently walking around as her, and quite frankly, she didn't want to. It felt wrong, it smelt wrong, she could even feel the bones in her body that felt wrong. She wanted desperately to be back, right there, lying in the grass with all the other people, where she belonged. But she didn't want to die, but she didn't know what else to do either. Staying wasn't an option, and the thought of remaining in this open slaughterhouse even a minute longer was unbearable. Still, it felt incredibly surreal to leave this scene and her own body, as if it weren't attached to her.

But she had to look at it from a realistic angle: Whatever had happened, she was now a shivering woman in a thin dress and soon to be hungry and thirsty. She needed help, so she had to walk to Sturmhöhe, which would take hours and hours. But Arnwald, Wiebke and Finja were there, as well as one of her brothers and her nephew and his family. Her dog would be there. She could do it.

She had taken her father's grimoire from her own body as well as her thick cloak, which would be much needed. Why was it raining, where was the snow? There was also the little spirit seed that she thumbed pensively in her hands, the spirit that had started the whole chain of events for her. A part of her was irrationally angry at the spirit resting in this kernel, but the much more rational part prevailed. After all, the Witch Hunter had been right – she had left on her own accord. If she hadn't done so, then Tjorben might have gone alone or would have taken who knows with him. She might have accompanied him just to get away from the Witch Hunter. Or she might have ended up on a pyre instead of here. However she put it, she was now still alive, or at least hoped so.

"Don't worry. I'll get you home. It will just take a while longer.", she whispered towards the spirit walnut, only to feel it glow in response. In all of this insanity, this was reassuring.

She had already risen to her full height despite and started taking the first, tentative steps when she reconsidered and turned back to reach for one of her own, dead hands and removed the ring off the finger. It wasn't even a valuable piece, just a thin, silver ring made for a woman's hand. It had been her beloved grandmother's, and had been with her almost all of her life. It was hers. The last time that she had cried as much as she was right now was at said grandmother's funeral. Even if she couldn't live in her own body, no matter how desperately she wanted to, that ring was hers.

When she tried to put it on her ring finger, it turned out that it was too slender. She decided that she didn't want to understand the reason for this right now. So she put it on the index finger, where it was loose, but wasn't in immediate danger to fall off, and started her walk home.

She was glad to leave that massacre behind. A part of her mind whispered that Fynn's hut was close and that she could go there, but she wanted people around her, needed their help, needed to feel the life around her again. Around her, she could see the trees, feel the ground under her feet and hear the birds. The ritual must have been potent indeed, for it had melted the snow across the site, and she must have stepped through an invisible barrier to step on snow again, which made her shiver in the cold. Her clothes wouldn't dry, and she would need to warm up very soon if she didn't want to die of hypothermia. But around her, even as her teeth shattered in the cold, it was an idyllic scenery, especially compared to the one she had left behind. In time, the tears stopped flowing, but she still could feel the occasional sob rising in her throat. Yalene also noted that she dealt well with the cold … she should have been curled into a ball and having made a fire already, but she didn't freeze as she ought to. She pressed onward, down the path she had walked the night before, back home.

After hours and hours of one of the most difficult walks of her life, certainly the most straining and heartbreaking, she finally saw the snow-covered rooftops of Sturmhöhe. Judging that it was better if she slipped in quietly, she hid her face under her hood, ignoring the foreign strands of hair, and waited until the bored Watchmen at the gate went either for a break or change of shift. It took ages and the break of dusk, but finally, he did. So she slipped in, quietly, sneaking carefully through backyards and side streets. One time, she jumped as a passer-by wished her a good evening by name, and she didn't turn around to check who it was, just hurried forward. He must have recognized her winter cloak, which was kind of distinct in its dark blue colour. She had been wearing it for years … no wonder that she was associated with it. Still, the cloak didn't fit at all, which was of moderate concern.

Finally, finally, she reached her destination, the temple of Shallya. She had never been so thankful that her circle of friends consisted mostly of priests, as well as at least two of them in the sturdiest building in town, with the thickest walls and large rooms. One could not enter unnoticed, so she didn't try, stepping through the heavy double door and then taking a sharp turn to the room in which she knew common herbs were stored, away from the patients currently residing several halls. It was there she found Wiebke, Arnwalds wife, searching the shelf, back turned to the door. Wiebke was a statuesque woman of obviously Norscan descent as a lot of Nordlanders were. Usually, Yalene had to look up to her, but now, as she peeked around the corner, she noticed that she and the tall woman were roughly of the same height, and she didn't even want to speculate as to why.

"Wiebke?"

The Shallyan didn't turn around, just grunted in affirmation as she was still shuffling through the contents of the shelf.

"It's Yalene. There was an incident … the others are dead. I don't know what happened, it's just … I think I might look different. Please don't be scared." She had wanted to say more, but that was when Wiebke turned around. She had never been much of a screamer, ever being a calm rock to Arnwalds bouts of absent-mindedness. She didn't scream now when she saw Yalene, but her face said that she would have liked to do so.

"She's telling the truth as she sees it." The glow of the prayer to Verena was leaving the priest slowly. Wiebke had acted quickly and locked Yalene into one of the unused rooms where she had been able to shed her wet clothes in favour of an undyed shift dress and a blanket. The next thing she knew, Wiebke had not only consulted her husband, but also Leevke's assistant, Florian Schröder. Florian was a curious sight in Sturmhöhe; he was from Middenheim, his hair a dark and curly mass. He also happened to be young and attractive, if a little shy. As to this day, Yalene had traded words with each other, but now, he had been called by two baffled and overwhelmed Shallyans who could neither believe their eyes, nor the words Yalene was saying. The Verenan had turned white as a sheet when he had first laid eyes on her, then had questioned her wearing a silken blindfold to appeal to the favour of his goddess, who granted her followers to ferret out the truth, no matter how fantastic or absurd.

The young man seemed utterly baffled as he sat back, looking somewhat exhausted, leaning back in the chair he was sitting in, while Arnwald and Wiebke were leaning against the wall, holding hands as they watched the scenery unfold. The awkward silence between the four of them persisted, and had done so since she had stumbled into the two of them. Yalene could feel how much on edge they were, and who could blame them? Ostensibly, she was running around with a different appearance, possibly the body of another woman. For what reason, she couldn't say, and if it was difficult for her, who didn't have to look all the time at a different face, how would it be for them?

Arnwald seemed to be especially disturbed as he sometimes pulled away from his wife to pace around in the small room, but always angled his body away from her. Florian and Wiebke regarded her with pensive silence, while Arnwald tried very hard not to look at her at all. She sat on the spartan bed hugging her knees and trying to make sense of all of this.

"We need to see to the dead.", she finally said, not only to break the silence, but out of a sense of urgency. "We need another priest of Morr, and the mayor has to be notified. There … there must be somebody who has to be notified. Should we light the bonfires to alert the Wood Elves?"

For some reason, those questions remained unanswered as the Verenan took a deep breath and Arnwald stopped his pacing. It was Wiebke who finally, quietly found a way to reply to her at all. "You are right. The bodies from your stone circle have to be recovered, and we need a priest of Morr in Sturmhöhe as soon as possible for the proper ceremonies."

Florian leaned forward and fixated her with his dark, intense eyes. "Ma'am, you have other concerns. What are we going to do with you? You can't return home."

"Why can't she?" Arnwald snapped, having finally found his voice again, but the priest of Verena just gestured at her, exasperated.

"Just look at her!"

"We can make it work. We'll make it work, somehow. People will be distrustful, yes, but they'll come around ..."

"Look. At. Her."

"So what?", Arnwald huffed.

"What if the next Witch Hunter comes around, or the next Roadwarden? The next Wood Elf? The next Imperial Soldier? Any guest travelling through this town? What then?" Florian addressed Yalene again, which all things considered, was kind of polite. "Please be reasonable. He just wants to help ..." He waved dismissively in the Shallyan's direction, who threw up his arms. "… but you are a sensible, intelligent and educated woman. You can see the reality of this, can't you?"

Not really. She didn't understand why it was so bad to re-integrate her into the community. Certainly, she couldn't do so as Yalene Hoffmann, since she now wore another face … but why couldn't she just live a quiet life as somebody else, under a new identity? "I don't understand the problem." She tentatively replied, deciding to go with her suggestion of a third option. "Why can't you just tell everybody that I'm the Dark Elves' victims and the sole survivor of this cursed incident? Which, by the way, is the truth so that Verena's tenets are not broken. I could just take another name and live as before. Nobody could tell."

The three of them exchanged baffled looks. It was the Shallyan, who found his speech first, obviously careful with his phrasing. "Do you feel … different?"

"Very. The scent is off, and the birds and your voices are so loud. I also can smell that you changed your robes; these ones are freshly laundered. I also feel a bit nauseous."

After a pause, it was the Verenan who tentatively asked. "Have you looked into a mirror lately?"

Oh no. If her appearance was that off, maybe she was missing a nose or something. It didn't feel like it, but she hadn't felt her pockmarks either. She hadn't dared to touch her face, and as for a mirror … she simply hadn't had the opportunity to pass one. "No mirrors in the wilderness in the midst of winter.", she replied cautiously.

The three of them exchanged, but this time, they shared a facial expression that, if one had only two words and a punctuation mark to describe it in the most succinct way possible, then it would be 'Oh crap!'. In fact, they looked almost scared to tell her.

"Well?"

After a long, awkward pause, Wiebke left the room, only to return after a few minutes with a tiny mirror that he used to see if a person was still alive and if their breath still fogged a mirror. Handing it to her, she finally got to look at the face she was now wearing, the face of another woman. She felt it keenly that this was not her body, and she felt it even more as she looked at this strange and foreign face looking back at her. Her skin was pallid and flawless, the features soft and her hair black, fine and glossy, cut mid-back. There were no earrings, other jewellery or tattoos marred the skin, or those pointed ears. In many ways, this face was the polar opposite of her own, her original, her familiar face. Hers had been the honest face of a middle-aged, human woman, and this, this was now the face of a Dark Elf.

She was inhabiting the body of a Druchii.

Again, she looked at her face, hoping that it would just be an illusion, a trick that the winds of magic played with her mind, but it was not so. She noted that the only thing those two faces had in common were grey eyes, but otherwise, they couldn't have been further apart. As much as it should have shocked her, it didn't. Perhaps deep down, she had already known and was now only confirming it.

So many people, she mused, would be pleased by this change. After all, ageing was difficult and not for the weak of heart. She had been in her twilight years, her back had started to hurt and she had gotten tired easily. Furthermore, most people seemed to yearn for beauty, and the face she was looking at was without the shred of a doubt breathtakingly beautiful. But it also made her a Dark Elf, and she had seen what those fiends could do. She didn't want beauty, she never wanted beauty. The only thing she had ever wanted was to connect with people who appreciated her for what she was, for her soul. But now, the people around her couldn't even see her as human. Was she even human? There was a disturbing thought.

The longer she looked at the face in the mirror, the more she wanted either to scratch it until it was a bloody mess or throw up. She decided on the latter, letting the mirror sink into the sheets. She felt bile rising in her throat and suspected that the only reason why she didn't throw up right then and there was due to the emptiness of her stomach.

Arnwald looked at her almost desperately. "Magic did this. Magic can fix this."

"Fix how?", Wiebke asked pointedly just to give him an impression of how little magic could fix something like death without raising zombies. While Arnwald struggled for words, Florian decided to join in again.

"Of course it's not possible. But it's possible to live with this … and the idea isn't all that terrible." Again, he looked at Yalene, but this time, he tried to be gentle and diplomatic, but couldn't help but sounding a little bit judgemental at times. "I will be honest for a moment, even if you three are not: Ma'am, with all due respect, you should have travelled to Altdorf and joined one of the Colleges of Magic decades ago. Everybody in this town knew what you were, and everybody covered for you. For whatever reason, you didn't leave, and neither can we change that now, nor do I feel it is my business to question you on your motives. But the simple fact is that you broke the law, knowingly, and that this Witch Hunter by your own report was on your trail when he arrived here." Shaking his head sympathetically, he continued. "You are not responsible for his crime, or that of those elves. No death is on your conscience. You have done everything you could to help, and even if you are doubting it, you might very well be responsible for allowing this man to break whatever hold the Dark Elves had on him and redeem himself in death. You've done all you could, you walked your path until the end. But now, you have changed, and that change means that you have to make changes in your life. You can't stay here. It would mean danger to all of us. It is time that you do what you should have done a long time ago, and that means going to Altdorf at long last. If your spark of magic died with your body, then they can at least help you mask your appearance, or help you settle in."

Or they could hand her over to the next best Witch Hunter who was itching for a little pyre to warm his feet.

"But -!"

"He's right, Arnwald.", Yalene interrupted him before the Shallyan could protest any more. Everything that young priest of Verena had said was not also true, but also the most sensible course of action that she could think of. "I cannot go home again. Whatever I do now, it can't be in this town."

"No." Arnwald shook his head vigorously, and for a moment, he almost looked like he wanted to reach for her hands. That he didn't stung, somehow. "Nonononono. Not happening. We have lost people today. We are not losing you. Your brothers will be heartbroken. Finja will cry a river. She loves you dearly. You know that, do you? She buries her nose in all those books because she wants to emulate you, because she looks up to you. You can't leave."

It was heartbreaking to see him like this, and to leave all of them behind, but the Verenan was right. She had to leave, whether she liked it or not. So she let Arnwald have his say, until he ran out of reasons, to which she nodded attentively. Her answer was gentle, but firm. "Finja will heal eventually. As we all do. We always do." She then extended her hand towards him, and finally, he took it, squeezing it a little too tightly before letting it go. For a moment there, she thought that there was acceptance in his eyes, but he couldn't help but worrying.

"But … but Altdorf is half a world away. Who knows what will happen on the road, especially since you're … you're ..."

"Dark Elf." Florian answered quietly. "I will escort you. I need to report what happened here to my Order anyway, and you need an advocate right now. You wear a shape that is not welcome in the Empire of Man. Besides, you have some tomes and books that need to be brought to the Temple of Verena there." So nice that he was trying to spare her feelings. But the truth was that she actually needed somebody to make sure that she was not slain by the next Watchman in a fit of panic. This danger was not lost on the Verenan. "We need to disguise you, and we need a plan, and a way to tell the truth without causing a panic and keeping your secret."

"That's simple." She said. "You tell the mayor that when you started searching for us, that you found me, and that I was still alive and could tell you what happened. Then, you mention that I am among the dead. None of this a lie as long as you carefully word it. As for the plan … Hochfels is close, and they have a larger church of Morr than we do. Florian, you go home, you borrow two horses, come back to me and then we travel to Hochfels. The second horse of course is officially for the priest of Morr you intend to bring to take care of the dead. I will hide out in Hochfels until you return, and then we ride towards Altdorf. As for a disguise ..." She stroked her chin pensively. "… Western women as well as Tilean women tend to wear heavy veils that obscure the face quite nicely when in mourning. I happen to possess one of those. I even know where it is – right in the drawer underneath the stockings."

"I'll get it." Wiebke nodded. "You and me are of the same height now. I wanted to get another mourning dress for the longest time, so you'll get my old one. Let me just get some essentials for you." In a way, Wiebke seemed glad to finally have a solution that was actionable, that there was something she could do. She had been helpless throughout the situation and had started to grow just as restless as her husband. So she rushed away, her task clear.

Why, yes. Clothing was a splendid idea. She still felt helpless and overwhelmed … this all seemed so unreal. She wouldn't even have time to attend the funerals of Leevke, Tjorben and Fynn.

Or her own. What strange world she was suddenly living in. But they had a plan, one that seemed like it could work. So she would leave her home behind and travel to Altdorf at last.

Arnwald addressed her again, his gaze burning with the intensity of a person who refused to lose too many friends in one day. "Promise me that you will return someday, if you are able." That was a promise she made with a heavy heart, because she couldn't say what the future would bring. But as soon as she was able, she wanted to return. Her small nod was cause enough for the Shallyan to smile, even if it was bittersweet.

"One day.", she lied, forcing herself to smile.

A/N: This chapter changed very little from the first draft, although it is a bit controversial. After all, the main protagonist is basically killed in chapter 3.

I am aware that suddenly finding oneself in a more attractive body ticks a large Mary Sue box. Truth to be told, I never understood that particular plot device as a favourable change. I have as many body issues as the next person, but the sheer thought of jumping into another body is terrifying in my opinion, no matter how pretty the end result might be. YMMV, but to me, feeling joy about a change like this is baffling.

This is one of the major topics in this fic -how much part of our appearance defines our identity, how much we are defined by others. Also, in the future, learning about Druchii culture through human eyes while being a part of it is something I'm excited about. Unfortunately, for this to happen, one part of the protagonists' identity had to die and will remain dead.

I'm not going to lie, this was a hard chapter to write and even harder chapter to revise. After all that grief the first two chapters gave me, I became rather attached to Leevke and Tjorben. Silly me.