Olimpia

The hushed voices of the others washed over me, but I ignored them. They weren't talking about anything important, only discussing what we were seeing through the curtains of smoke, and I had more important things on my mind.

I could no longer avoid it. There was no more beating around the bush or deluding myself.

Something was wrong.

I wasn't talking about the fact that I was hundreds of miles from my legion, which probably had no idea where I was or even knew I was still alive. A fact that I genuinely didn't give a flying fuck about.

Not feeling anything was odd for me because the thought of doing anything that would outright break legion law made me shudder with disgust in the past. Sure, I would skirt my duties and try to get out of work, but it was never any more than anyone else. My new outlook added to my worries, but it still wasn't getting to the heart of the issue.

The feeling of wrongness also didn't originate from the fact we had been steadily moving through a desolate wasteland for thirteen days and had yet to meet a single other person.

Well… that wasn't entirely accurate, and it might be a slight exaggeration.

There was plenty of grass, trees, and small streams on our journey, giving quite a pleasant view so long as we were between the spots of charred and shattered ground.

What there weren't were any animals or people. A disturbing lack of them, in fact, given that three days after we found the first blood golems and started a killing spree, we never ran into another. And yet, every village was still destroyed, along with the scattered forts we have begun to see over the last few days.

Really, I was a little disappointed. I honestly thought that the breadbasket of the north would be more populated and developed. Also, that our trip would be more exciting.

There I was, ready to battle my way into the heart of the beastkin army high on my own powers and supply the information to undermine their whole operation, and all my enemies disappeared.

The one thing I can say about the Crescent Moon is that they were thorough.

Whether the rogue Kin killed the inhabitants or they fled, the bastards ensured that no one was returning or could gain anything from the ruins because nothing but ash and rubble was left.

If we searched hard, we might have found some hidden stores of food or coins, but there was a decent chance they would be empty. Given that their crops would have been in full swing, taking up a significant portion of their saved seeds for planting, and with winter only a couple months away, any food stores would have already been drained.

Or the Kin could have taken the food when they raided them, but that was impossible to say. The point was that nothing worth searching for was there now.

Few things are worse than losing everything you own, and it might be harsh to say it, but this level of destruction would be far worse if it happened elsewhere.

Out of all the places in the Republic, the cradlers had to worry about beastkins the most. No matter how sporadic they had become, beastwaves happened. Not having a store of long-shelved foods in their cellars or the keeps would just be bad management.

So, anywhere the refugees ended up should be able to house them for a time. But that was only in the short term.

In the past, a beastwave would try and kill everyone they came across, but they wouldn't search out and intentionally destroy everything around them. It was a side effect, not the goal. The Kin taking or destroying stores would cause severe issues for the cradlers survival.

Not that it was all doom and gloom.

In recent days, I have spotted a lot of cart tracks that looked to be laden with a heavy load heading north. The farther we went, the more tracks appeared on the road.

By now, I could take a good guess of how everything went down. My final conclusion took some careful observations on my part and some input from Kanieta and the others, but I'm confident I got most of the picture.

The wolfkins and birdkins of the Crescent Moon faction didn't have enough personnel to infiltrate the Craidel and overwhelm it all at once. At least, they didn't have enough personnel to do it without Kanieta or the legion getting wind of it before they were ready.

They must have moved their troops far enough into the Cradle that any casual scrutiny would show that everything was business as usual.

Those in the Cradle were under enemy occupation, so if they lost contact with other villages, it would not be that unexpected. And if anyone got curious, a few well-placed guards would be all it would take to silence them.

And as for Kanieta's people who were supposed to be there, well, they must have eventually figured out something was wrong, but by then, it would already have been far too late. Most of those units could have been surrounded and silenced without anyone knowing the wiser.

Any messages could have been intercepted, and with foxes and wolves being close in appearance, they could have easily passed on the reports to Kanieta. That was assuming they even cared about the wolf in their midst.

When Kanieta's people discovered the betrayal, what were they going to do? Most of their numbers would have been killed by then, and there would be no hope of punching through the Crescent Moon as they steadily marched east.

Assuming Kanieta's people had the option to even make a choice, it came down to how they would die. They could cross the Twins into the Republic's territory, go into the arms of those encircling them, or go north into a maze of death designed to catch and kill beastkin.

A maze that I was inspecting from where I lay on the ridge of a tall hill and was rather impressed about. I heard stories about their forts, but I had no idea of the real extent. Dozens were within my view, and it would be hundreds if not thousands if the fields around each tower weren't on fire, blocking what lay behind them.

The forts were every shape and size I could imagine. Some were squat and wide, more were tall rectangles, and others had walls around a central keep. The one thing that unified them was that they all had a tall tower or two and could house hundreds of people comfortably.

It was no wonder the Republic never seriously tried to annex the Cradles after their first failed attempt. A point proved to me by the beastkin failing to make it past the first row of forts in most places.

With no paths to life, we all assumed that Kanieta's warriors were either killed or captured. Probably killed if my experience with the wolves was anything to go by.

After the Crescent Moon finished killing off the resistance, they wrapped up what was left at the edges.

This was why we found recent destruction along with blood golems when first entering the Cradle, and month-old destruction passed it.

As soon as the first few villages were raised, people would have started fleeing with anything they could carry. But not everything.

And when they heard of what the Crescent Moon was doing, burning your own homes rather than giving them to monsters would start looking pretty good.

That all seemed horribly logical to me.

But witnessing all of that destruction wasn't what was wrong.

No, that feeling lay solely on the fact that I was under a compulsion.

…I wasn't even sure if I could call it one because it was unlike any compulsion I had ever heard about. Anything I ever assumed was possible.

At first, it was something I could ignore and brush off. I became slightly more emotional about subjects I never cared to contemplate before. Or I became furious out of nowhere at nothing.

The first time I noticed something was weird was with Franklin, but that was reasonable. The rage afterward was less so.

After a few days, my emotions were fluctuating between extremes at the drop of a hat. Now, if that change came after seconds or hours, it was anyone's guess, as I could find no real way to tell how long the… episodes would last.

Have you ever tried to throw a rock, and someone smacked it out of your hand mid-throw? Besides the ache from pulling a muscle, you just feel incomplete. It's like you never got to finish and were forced to walk away before you get to see the result.

I'm stalking through the Cradle, enjoying being out in nature away from responsibilities, and then, with no warning, crushing anxiety crashes down on me that I am shirking my duty and betraying the legion. I even find myself turning around and in the middle of taking a step back the way we came.

After a few heaving breaths where I can think of nothing but the quickest way of returning to the legion, my mind snaps to a neutral, emotionless state, where I'm not feeling anything.

The first time it happened, I could hardly bring myself to turn and start walking to keep up with Franklin and the others. I could not even answer the concerned questions.

A few minutes later, it was like a curtain was lifted from my mind, and my emotions flooded back. Mostly anxiety and crippling fear that someone was controlling me with mental energy.

And a few hours or a day later, I would have a similar experience again.

At first, I was positive that someone was trying to manipulate me. But try as I might, I couldn't find a single fluctuation of mental energy probing my mind.

I might not yet be confident enough to release a pulse and detect everything for miles around, but I have learned how to feel the ambient energy of the world around my body.

It isn't technically challenging. All it takes is extending a tendril.

But at the same time, I have to relax my grip on my mental shields. Shields that I didn't even know existed.

Every time I extend a tendril, I reinforce its shell with my will to push away all ambient energy. It's second nature. Something I didn't even know I was doing until now.

I have no proof, but I'm pretty sure that the world's energy used to corrode any mental energy outside of my body and still does that to everyone else's right now. The only difference would be my… event.

Shuddering, I pushed the thought out of my mind.

This is all just a theory at this point, but a pretty good one. As I experimented, I discovered that I could relax that shield of willpower on the tendril, allowing the ambient world energy to connect to my mental energy.

The first time it happened was a shock, as I felt the world a few feet around the point of contact. I felt the tops of the grass around me, along with the wind that was blowing the grass and even the energy itself. The shock caused me to lose control of my casting for the first time in I don't know how long.

My mind immediately jumped to how I could use this discovery. If I spread out enough tendrils, I would have a sphere of perception. One better than that, as I could pick up on every foreign energy and castings within it.

Simple. And yet, removing my mental shield from an entire tendril was incredibly challenging. It was the reasoning behind my belief that ambient energy was corrosive before. Why else would the habit be so ingrained within me?

Trying to remove the shell was like trying to write in a different style than your natural one. You can do it, but if you do not fully focus on it the whole time, the moment your attention slips, your writing returns to normal.

I was fighting against my own habits, and any progress I make will take time and effort. Both of which I was willing to give. While it wasn't much, I did succeed in creating a small sphere around my body.

The sphere could only reach a couple inches from my skin and took all but the barest minimum of attention it took to put one foot in front of the other. My current record was holding it for seven seconds, so it's really not that useful yet.

However, it did allow me to detect anything around me. A fact I was trying to use to detect whoever was manipulating my mind.

By sheer chance, I succeeded. But I kinda wish I didn't.

Because I might have had a better experience if my mother told me she hated me for being born and tried to kill me.

I felt the ambient energy of the world turned against me and force thoughts into my mind.

That wasn't right, though… The world did not care.

We were all her children, and she would not force us into anything.

But something caused the ambient energy to turn against me, and I perceived the barest hint of it as it altered my thoughts. And it felt like it was for… redemption? There was more to it, but that was what I got the impression of. And as soon as the foreign feelings passed, fear filled my mind and every other thought until now.

To put it mildly, it was concerning that some force could cause the world to manipulate me. Me and others, because as I look back on my life, elves only ever received varying degrees of abuse. And no one ever does anything.

I don't even know how that is possible. Or considered normal for an entire race. Someone, somewhere, should have done something. But I have never heard of a single thing.

All of that was what was wrong. And I might be the first elf who can deal with it because I am no longer fully affected.

But no matter how earth-shattering my recent discoveries were, they didn't matter right now.

Because I was lying on a hill at the edge of a warzone with Franklin, Kanieta, Nareta, and Hurring as we decided what to do next.

"So, what's the plan?" Asked Franklin, refocusing my scattered thoughts from my problems.