The whole elfin army watched with bated breath as the EarthWeavers eroded at the ground above them. There was a power tingling in the air that came from so many powerful magic-wielders in one place. All the ten thousand and seven hundred regular powerful sorcerers, the two hundred of Lords and Ladies' blood (the other bloodlines had a lot more relatives) and the hundred of the Second Army.

"Now!" The EarthWeavers demanded as the earth grew thinner, and the Air-Whisperers began to support the soldiers now the earth was less and less. They'd all been assigned portions based on capability, and Zara was now lifting dozens, turning her air harder and harder. They didn't know yet that the earth wasn't the thing holding them up, but they would soon. The EarthWeavers gave the signal: first to each other, then to everyone else-and it began.

The world became white-with lightning and fire and ice.Water sprouted up to drown them. It was like an apocalypse had come, and the world was swallowed by it. They only had seconds, but they were using them well. She let her magic spread across the army-and in seconds she had their minds in her iron-tight grasp. Hundreds lunged for their comrades, tearing into their friends. The world burned in a thousand colours above her, the people beside her spending every drop of magic they had.

It lasted for minutes. It felt like forever.

The shadows resealed-swiftly and perfectly-but the damage was done. The EarthWeavers, in their last wearied seconds, sealed over the tunnel to protect the elves beneath, and the silence settled over the exhausted army.

Talia did not know if it had been enough. They had had a minute more than they thought they would get. The elves around her were exhausted, a sign that their magic had been used well and truly. But with the remains of the Kallian Army above them, they had no way of knowing whether it was enough.

It did not matter now. The dome's bottom was sealed. Their last chance was spent.

Now they waited to see if they had spent it well.

------------------

Myra

The world turned to fire and ice and the wrath of elfin magic. It was ice that shot from the ground first as the attack began, splitting through solid earth to pierce Kallian hearts. The valkyrie gryphons and wyverns took to the air with startling speed to avoid the wrath of elfin magic, and great warhorses-and their riders-and foot soldiers alike backed away as the front lines went under siege. All around them, the earth simply disappeared, replaced by solid air and wind.

Myra watched with awe as ice and fire came first, burning and freezing. All across the bloody, ruined field, Kallian soldiers stabbed their blades into their fellow solider's and then their own hearts. She shivered. MindWeavers. Floods reigned across the field and the Kallians drowned. Lightning struck and creatures made of the earth rose and torn the humans apart. It seemed like the world was ending. Perhaps it was, and a new one was beginning.

All across the field, the world seemed to be destroying itself. With every second, a new element won out: first a burst of ice, then a swath of fire, a white sky of lightning, a hurricane of water. The Kallians were helpless, with their attacks from beneath them. The valkyries watched, transfixed.

When it was over, when the earth resealed, the world was ash. They had thought the Isthmus was ruined before, but now it truly was-the land was charred, and ripped apart in some places, deformed and scarred from the attack. The Kallian Army was now truly in shreds: the few survivors were burnt and bleeding, hidden amongst the wreckage.

Of course, the valkyries took the advantage.

"To the ground!" Myra cried and the aerial legion dived down to pick off the survivors. They still outnumbered the valkyries, but two-thirds of their forces were lying dead (if they were lucky-some had been burnt completely, turned to ash) and the rest were injured and shellshocked. Most of their cannons were charred and broken.

Fire descended upon the human army again, and arrows skewered hearts as the army tried to regroup and face the threat of the valkyries swarming down on them, like vultures on a corpse.

The calvary and foot soldiers ran towards the makeshift front line, and their opposition fell back completely. What had once been endless rows now merged together into something smaller, uniting against their threat. From then, the battle turned completely.

The valkyries had them almost on the run, constantly losing inch after inch. Their whole army, spirits revived with the victory of the elves, pushed back harder and harder against the shocked human army, gaining ground faster than the Kallians ever had.

Myra felt sudden pride in her warriors: for two weeks, they had held the enemy back as long as they could, and now they still pushed through exhaustion to take the opportunity that could win the war for them.

And as the day wore on and at last Myra left to speak to the generals, they kept pushing them back.

----------------

Myra was worn by the time she and Viktoria reached the general's tent, but she had never felt more triumphant in her life. The Kallian army had been pushed back so far that the desert was in sight. Within days, they might reach it and get all the closer to Crimsith, Medea's capital. From there, with the Empress dead, taking her empire and building a new, better country from its ruins would be easy.

The last time she had been in the war tent, reluctant hope had been in the air, weak and flickering. Now that the elves had returned triumphant, hope had blossomed into victory, which they were now so close to. Finish the war, make allies of the new human government, and strengthen bonds with the elves. Return to their families with a hero's welcome. Those were the prospects ahead of the valkyrie warriors, bright and glorious.

But Sarai abandon them if Myra was being so incautious. The valkyries were not taking the victory for granted as the elves would. They were fighting, hard and strong and swift, and remembering that things might still all go wrong. Though how exactly, they were uncertain.

That aside, in the war tent meeting with the other generals, Myra let herself glory a little in this great victory.

Viktoria certainly was.

"The humans now outnumber us four to one," Viktoria scoffed. "Hard odds...for them." 

Diaz snickered. "Yes, yes. Let us send four humans into an arena and see how they fare against one of us!"

"Yeah right." Jasper muttered, and Diaz gave him a piercing look. Myra shivered a little at the ferocity in it, the promise of violence.  The general took a step towards him, but Myra shot her a harsh look. Diaz held her stare but backed down-after a moment's consideration.

"I would enjoy seeing that, sister." Ruby agreed, seemingly not hearing Jasper and for once at peace with Diaz.

"They might invent a new word for slaughter. A whole new brand of complete and utter annihilation." Viktoria mused.

"Or they'd be dead before they could." Diaz argued. "Us valkyries would have to christen it, then."

"Ah yes...the Ruby!" Ruby cried. "That would be the word for it."

"Nonsense. The Diaz!"

"The Calais!"

"The Viktoria!"

"Idiots,"  Talia muttered under her breath.

Viktoria and the other valkyrie generals turned to the arriving elves and nodded their heads.

"Did we really get four hundred thousand of them?" Talia asked in wonder.

"Give or take a few thousand." Viktoria smiled thinly. "I hear you played a key role."

"Not really," Talia scoffed, just as Zara trumpeted:

"Talia was the real hero of the minute."

Viktoria nodded slightly.

"I doubt you want to talk to her, though." Her Second whispered conspiringly.  "If the elves don't like MindWeavers much, then I can't imagine what the valkyries think."

"Don't like them much? The other eleven city-states turned on the Silverian line only to find their own people had wiped them out first." Viktoria replied. Talia almost laughed. The hatred for the MindWeavers was partially, she suspected, because they were the only ones who could steal a Name.

That had been in the era of she and Orion's father, Odin. They had agreed with the other ten rulers that the Silverians were too much of a threat, been prepared to wipe out their city-state, and then found the Lord and his family deposed by his own people.

"Well, we like them better during wartime." Zara smiled. Indeed, there were a few claps from the other elfin generals when they entered at last.

"I heard she killed a hundred Kallians!" One of the elves boasted.

"Are human minds easier to slip into?" One of the others demanded.

"Captain Talia Swallow,"  Viktoria said as the elf neared.

"Queen Viktoria," she replied, as though she was remembering a list. "Is this actually a strategy meeting, or are we just gloating?"

"We all deserve to gloat a little," she answered. "But I think we're being a little reckless with today's victory."

"Is it a victory?" Zara asked, cutting in. "With so many dead?"

"Not our own," she answered, confused.

"They didn't choose to be there, fighting us. Their minds feel the same." Talia added suddenly, feeling the need to back her Second up.

"Really?"

"The same as elves. The same as valkyries. Oh, don't flinch. I hate it when everyone flinches when we bring up the last war. We all shed each other's blood. Why be so very precious about mentioning it? I've slipped into your people's minds. Your blades slipped into mine's hearts."

"Don't speak about it that way." Myra retorted. "Especially not in front of people who lost more to that war than I have."

"How about me? I lost people to that war, too. But there's no way to move on if we let the hate fester."

"Move on? The only reason we're not ripping each other to shreds is because the last time we did that, we left our people worse off than the Isthmus."

"Why does it have to be that way?" Zara questioned.

"Because there is no way out of it."

"Why not? You don't spit at me now.  You didn't judge either me by what I was born as-an elf." Myra blinked. The elf's insubordination would earn her an expulsion in a heartbeat with all the various treasonous statements she had just uttered.

But they somewhat echoed in her own soul. She had always followed the rules to the letter, unless...she now remembered the unwavering devotion that had led her to break those rules in a heartbeat for what she thought was right. The instances when she had done so. The questions she had always had for her superiors-why had they done this or that? What if we tried things differently? And the last, a question she had never asked: why do we judge the elves or the humans by who they were born as? Are we truly as different as you say?

She did not see the reflection of herself in the elf's eyes. But she saw the echo to her own questions, in someone brave or foolish enough to ask them. But whether or not she had those questions, they could not change the world.

"The hatred is to set in now to ever stop it. That is why Medea is here, waging war against us for the crimes our long-ago ancestors commited against her people. That is why the elves and valkyries did not stop fighting for so long. Because there will always be people who cannot forget their revenge."

        ---------------

Later, she found Jasper.

"You cannot question a valkyrie general again. Especially not to Diaz." She hissed at him.

"Why not?" Jasper frowned.

"I have known Diaz for decades, you fool. She would never hurt a valkyrie because they said that to her, but from her perspective, humans are worthless. And you've already been testing her patience."

"How?"

"Your rebellion has been useless. You shoot too well. You're human. You talk too much. Who knows? With Diaz, maybe you breathe wrong." Jasper still wasn't convinced.

"Alright, think about this," she said angrily. "Diaz has been in my army for four hundred years. More. None are her equal, save for Viktoria and I. She is a leader that can boil the blood of our army better than I can. And yet, even if I have to put a valkyrie warrior fresh out of training as War Queen, I would never give her the Crown of Steel."

"Why?"

"Because Diaz is like a leashed wolf. Useful, sure, but vicious and problematic and not something you let in the house. And she hates the elves and humans so much she would doom us and go to war with them. Don't talk to her like that again. Don't insult Viktoria in front of her. Don't insult me in front of her.

"The only reason we can control her is because she is loyal enough to Viktoria and I that she would give her life defending us, and would take your life defending our honour. Honestly, just avoid being annonying to any valkyrie. We're not like humans. To us, insults are a challenge, and challenges lead to duels. Humans don't survive duels with valkyrie warriors."

"You're like a human," he said. "I mean, you don't seem that different."

"As far as I know, your humans aren't that great either. Just look at your Empress."

"You know what I mean. You're not like Diaz."

"Do you know how long I have been ending the lives of elves?"

"I betrayed my rebellion. You still like me."

"You weren't yet sixteen." When she was that age...she had thought of nothing but besting the other novices, winning glory and impressing Viktoria, the newly crowned Heir. Back then, she hadn't really being doing it for the Keepers, for Sarai and her fellow warriors. She had been desperate for glory and greatness, like so many other young warriors. If she had been in Jasper's position, guarding a rebellion she was shoved into from birth...would she have done the same?

"Some of your novices are less than that and have been working with the Medics all day and through the night.The warriors who have just turned eighteen,they're doing that too. And when they're not, they're fighting. Rose is a particular hero, I hear. Her best friend's dead, but she won't stop defending her people."

"When are you going to stop hating yourself for what you did two years ago?" Myra asked. "They're not going to come back. You can at least try to find some purpose."

"This was meant to be my purpose. But I've been useless, and you've all won the war without me and my rebellion. You especially. With your genius ideas."

"Are you angry with me for changing the course of the war? And are you actually trying to convince me to hate you?"

"No."

"No to the first or the second?"

"The first. Also, you haven't denied not hating me ..."

"Conniving humans."

"That isn't much of an answer."

"No, it isn't." Myra retorted. "Look, don't do that again. Ever."

"Why do you care? You said it yourself: I'm useless."

"Because if Diaz kills you, then I have to deal with paperwork. Also, you're a friend."

"A friend?"

"A conniving, useless, painful and talkative friend who I'm about to kick out and leave to die in

the Isthmus."

"Right. I have those sorts of friends too. Can I fight tomorrow?"

"Our only archers are on wyverns and gryphons, but since no one but me can tolerate you, it'll have to be a wyvern. Caelia. Can you hold onto slippery scales when your hands are sweating from fire? Can you hold onto scales upside-down? Can you dodge arrows whilst holding on to those scales? Can you do all this at the same time whilst shooting a bow?"

"Yes. Maybe. No. No, no, no. Definitely not."