NOVEL NEXT Chapter 4: The Burning Oath, Minus finds a vessel
The wind carried the scent of damp earth and distant pine, rustling through the silent village like an unspoken memory. Minus stood still, her fingers tracing the worn frame of the house where Milliarde had met her end. The weight of history settled upon her, heavy yet intoxicating.
The elves watched her with quiet reverence. Something had shifted in their presence—not just acknowledgment, but expectation. She understood now. The warmth in their welcome, the hushed reverence in their gazes, the way they had spoken of Kraft and Milliarde. They were waiting for something.
For her.
A sharp gust stirred the elder's silver robes as he studied her. "You understand now, don't you?"
Minus turned, her golden eyes dark with thought. "Kraft. He still walks the world."
The elder nodded. "Yes. Unlike us, he has abandoned our ways entirely. He travels among humans now, laughing, drinking, existing outside the passage of time as we know it. Perhaps that is why he remains, while we fade like dust in the wind."
Minus exhaled through her nose, crossing her arms. "And Milliarde… she was poisoned. You said you don't know if it was fate or intent. But if Kraft abandoned this village for the world of men, then it's not hard to guess who might have wished harm upon an elf who dared to embrace joy."
The murmurs around her grew uneasy. The elves had long severed ties with humans, but even in their silence, the bitterness lingered. They did not fear war, nor did they seek it. But they understood the quiet cruelty of mortality—the fear of those who lived fleeting lives, the envy they held toward those who endured.
Minus stared at the empty house, her mind weaving the threads of fate together. If Kraft still walked, then he had answers. And if humans had stolen Milliarde's future, then she would take it back.
A slow smile crossed her lips.
"Fine," she said, the weight of her decision pressing into her bones. "Then I'll bring Milirade."
The elder's eyes widened. "Minus…"
"Don't try to stop me." She flicked her wrist, and a flicker of hellish blue fire curled around her fingertips, casting eerie shadows against her pale skin. "This village let go of joy too easily. It let go of Milliarde too easily. I won't."
The younger elves murmured in awe as the flames in her hands grew. The elder's expression was unreadable, but there was something in his gaze—an understanding, a resignation.
"To bring one back from death is no small thing," he said carefully.
Minus scoffed. "I'm not bringing her back as she was." The flames coiled around her, bright and hungry. "She'll live again, through me. She'll be my vessel. A rebirth, not a resurrection."
The silence that followed was heavy. No one knew whether to call her mad or divine.
"So you're going to use Milirade's body as a failsafe to cheat death? But if you die again after you rebirth into her body, wouldn't…" the elder asked until he was cut off.
Minus smirked, lifting her palm. The fire roared, turning the night sky into a sea of blue embers. "Don't fret, as if I'll lose and die to humankind a 2nd time, I don't plan on dying again or having to find yet another deceased elf as a vessel to rebirth in. I'll make you elves of this village an oath, after I use Milirade's body as a fail safe to cheat death, Milirade will live through me, I, the Great ELf Witch, Minus shall use Milirade as my eternal vessel! She will forever live on!"
The flames danced in the wind, and the elves watched in awe. The weight of centuries began to crack, splintering under the force of something new.
For the first time in five hundred years, the village of elves did not mourn the past.
They looked to the future.