The Hidden Position: 11:55 PM

Victor - POV

I sat with Aldric and Moira in our concealed position overlooking the fortress, watching the assault unfold through the mental link she'd established.

Moira's eyes were closed in deep concentration, her hands pressed to her temples as she maintained the telepathic network connecting all our forces. Sweat beaded on her forehead from the effort of coordinating so many minds across the battlefield.

Aldric's concealment magic wrapped around us, hiding our magical signatures while leaving us visible to normal sight. His pointed ears twitched constantly, monitoring for threats.

"Movement approaching fast," Aldric whispered. "Three men, armed, moving with purpose."

Through the mental link, the coordinated strikes began inside the fortress. Henrik's fierce determination as his sword cut through enemy lines. Thorek's hammer crushing skulls as the Delvarin carved through Malachar's forces with brutal efficiency.

That's when three men in bandit leathers burst into our clearing. They weren't fleeing. They'd been sent to secure a target.

The largest one's eyes swept the area until they fixed on my face. He stopped dead.

"Those eyes," he breathed. "One purple, one red."

"It's him," another said, producing rope. "The kid Malachar wants."

"Alive," the third warned. "Boss wants him for the special project."

My blood went cold. Not for auction. For training. Malachar wanted to break me, turn me into his personal weapon.

"What about the others?" the second bandit asked, eyeing Aldric and Moira.

"Kill them. Kid's all that matters."

I stepped protectively in front of my companions. Moira couldn't move without breaking the mental link that was coordinating the entire assault. Aldric was powerful, but if he fought, his concealment would fail.

"Stay back," I said quietly. "Both of you."

The leader grinned nastily. "Smart boy. Just come along quiet, and we won't hurt your friends too bad."

"Please," I said, keeping my voice steady. "I don't want trouble."

"Too late for that."

He gestured, and his companions started circling. One moved toward Moira, dagger drawn.

That's when I stopped pretending to be helpless.

White flame erupted from my hands, superheated air igniting around the leader. He screamed once before the fire consumed him, turning him into a human torch that stumbled backward into the trees.

The second bandit lunged at me with his sword. I grabbed his weapon arm, fire magic heating the blade until it glowed cherry red. The metal burned through his gauntlets, searing flesh as flames spread up his arm. He fell, writhing and screaming.

The third bandit saw his companions burning and panicked. Instead of retreating, he charged toward Moira with his dagger raised, trying to complete the mission by killing the defenseless woman.

"No!" I thrust my hand toward the ground beneath his feet.

A granite spike erupted at a forty five degree angle, perfectly positioned in his path. He couldn't stop his charge in time. The point punched through his open mouth as he ran forward, angling upward through his skull and bursting out the back of his head in a spray of blood and brain matter.

His momentum carried him forward until he hung suspended on the stone shaft, feet twitching above the ground.

Silence fell except for the dying gasps of the burned men and blood dripping from the impaled corpse.

The weight of what I'd done hit me. The smell of burned flesh and spilled blood filled the clearing.

Then the adrenaline faded, and reality crashed down like a physical blow.

"Oh no," I whispered, falling to my knees. "I killed them. I really killed them."

My hands were shaking. The heat of the flames still burned in my memory, the resistance as stone punched through bone and brain.

"Victor," Aldric said quietly, his ancient eyes wide. "That power... is this really a seven year old child?"

"Seven years old," Moira whispered, never opening her eyes or breaking her concentration, "and he just killed three grown men without hesitation."

Through the mental link, Papa's sudden distraction flared as he sensed my emotional turmoil. That momentary lapse in his attention cost him dearly. Malachar's dagger found its mark, severing tendons in his wrist.

I'm okay, Papa, I projected quickly. Focus on your fight.

But I wasn't okay. I'd crossed a line that could never be uncrossed, and the weight of it was crushing down on my small shoulders.

The war for our family was reaching its climax, but victory would change us all forever.

The Great Hall: 11:58 PM

Gregor - POV

The killing blow never came.

A crossbow bolt sprouted from Malachar's shoulder, spinning him sideways and sending his descending blade wide. He crashed to the floor beside me, cursing as blood spread across his shirt.

I rolled away and lunged for my sword, the magical suppression from his earlier strike still making my earth magic feel distant. But I was still a veteran soldier, still dangerous even without magic.

My fingers closed around the hilt just as Malachar regained his footing. Blood streamed from the bolt wound, but he moved with the deadly grace of a man who'd fought through worse.

"Clever," he snarled, producing a curved dagger from his belt. "But not clever enough."

Before I could raise my sword, he spun toward Lyra. His arm snaked around her throat, the dagger's point pressing against her neck hard enough to draw blood.

"Drop it, Ironforge," he commanded. "Or I open her throat and let her bleed out while you watch."

I froze, sword half raised, caught between the need to strike and the terror of what he'd do to my wife. Around us, the battle raged as our allies fought Malachar's guards, but it felt very far away.

Papa! Through the mental link, Victor's presence blazed with satisfaction and darkness. He'd just finished killing three men, his magic erupting with lethal precision I'd never felt from him before.

I'm okay, sprout, I projected back, but the weight of what he'd done pressed through the connection, the lives he'd taken with fire and earth magic.

The mental connection with my son, the realization that he'd just become a killer, distracted me for a crucial heartbeat.

Malachar's thrown dagger caught me across the left wrist as I turned slightly toward that mental bond. The enhanced blade bit deep, cutting through tendons and arteries like they were parchment. My hand hung by strips of skin and sinew, blood spraying across the stones.

"Predictable," Malachar said coldly, kicking my sword away as it fell from nerveless fingers. "Love makes men careless, Ironforge. Worry for family makes them weak."

Pain exploded up my arm as I stumbled backward. Blood poured from the ruined wrist. I pressed my remaining hand against the wound, calling on what fire magic the suppression allowed. Superheated flesh seared and cauterized in a haze of agony.

The bleeding slowed, but my left hand was gone as surely as if he'd severed it completely.

"Now then," Malachar continued, still holding Lyra at knifepoint, "perhaps we need a more dramatic lesson in consequences."

The blade moved from her throat to her face, tracing the line of her jaw with deliberate menace. He leaned closer, his breath hot against her skin.

"Such lovely features," he mused, then pressed his mouth to the bleeding cut on her neck, tasting her blood while staring directly at me. His tongue flicked out, lapping at the crimson that flowed down her throat. "It would be a shame to mark them unnecessarily. But I think a permanent reminder is in order."

Lyra shuddered with revulsion, trying to pull away, but his grip was iron. Tears of rage and disgust streamed down her face as she felt his lips against her skin, violating her even as he prepared to mutilate her.

"Don't," I gasped, struggling to stay conscious through pain and blood loss. "Please."

Malachar smiled against her neck, savoring both the taste of her blood and my helpless anguish. "Watch carefully, Ironforge. This is what happens when you cross me."

Before I could react, the blade swept upward in a vicious arc. The cut started at Lyra's chin and sliced through the delicate curve of her ear, leaving it half severed and bleeding freely. Her scream of pain and violation echoed through the great hall as blood flowed down her neck, mixing with the tears that had already been falling.

"LYRA!"

The fury inside me snapped completely. The careful control I'd maintained for twenty years evaporated like water on hot steel. Fire magic roared through my remaining hand as I launched myself at Malachar with all the rage I possessed.

"Ah, there's the Forge of Wrath I remember," he said, releasing Lyra and drawing his sword to meet my one handed charge.

The Duel

Gregor - POV

What followed was adaptation under the most brutal conditions.

Fighting one handed against a master swordsman while managing blood loss and magical suppression meant adjusting thirty years of technique in real time. But I was still the Forge of Wrath, still dangerous even handicapped.

Malachar pressed his advantage immediately, testing my unfamiliar guard with calculated strikes. The weight distribution felt wrong, the balance completely off, but muscle memory ran deeper than injury.

His blade sought the gaps in my altered defenses with surgical precision. I answered with a burning slash that forced him back, the sword work different now: more aggressive, compensating for lost reach with increased ferocity.

"Still got fire in you," he acknowledged, circling like a predator studying wounded prey. "But adaptation takes time you don't have."

His point found its mark, sliding between ribs to scrape bone. I absorbed the hit and kept pressing forward, fire magic heating my blade until the air around it shimmered with dangerous heat.

"Fighting wounded makes you desperate," he observed, following up with a pommel strike that caught me across the temple.

I rolled with the impact, using momentum to spin into a backhanded cut that would have taken his head if he hadn't ducked. Blood loss was making me lightheaded, but fury kept me focused and moving.

We traded blow for blow, my legendary skill adapting to new limitations while his experience tried to exploit them. He was good, maybe better than I'd ever been at my peak, but he'd made one crucial mistake.

He thought losing a hand had broken me.

The dagger came up seeking my heart, and I caught his wrist with my remaining hand. Inch by inch, the point descended toward my chest despite my efforts. He managed three shallow punctures before I threw him off, each one sending fire through my ribs.

"Any last words for your family?" he asked, raising the dagger for what he believed would be the killing stroke.

I looked past him toward Lyra, saw that one of her magical shackles had finally broken under the fortress's fluctuating power, and managed a bloody smile through the pain.

"Just one," I gasped. "Die."

Lyra's Vengeance

Lyra - POV

The magical suppression had been wearing at my bonds for the past hour, ever since the fighting began and the fortress's power systems started failing. I'd been working at the weakened metal with desperate patience, knowing that if I freed one hand...

As the shackle finally cracked, I quickly but gently placed baby Naelira on a pile of discarded cloth behind me, as far from the violence as possible. She was crying, terrified by the noise and chaos, but she was safer there than in my arms during what I had to do next.

"Shh, my little star," I whispered, my voice shaking. "Mama will be right back."

My hands were trembling as I reached for Gregor's sword. The weight of what Malachar had done to me, the taste of his mouth on my blood, the violation of his touch, made my stomach churn with nausea. But beneath the revulsion burned pure, incandescent rage.

Gregor's sword lay within reach, fallen during Malachar's last attack. The slaver was so focused on finishing my husband that he didn't notice me moving until it was far too late.

I lunged forward with every ounce of strength left in my battered body, channeling all my humiliation and fury into the strike. The blade felt heavier than it should have, but my rage gave me strength I didn't know I possessed.

Malachar started to turn, his eyes widening as he realized his fatal mistake.

The sword took him across the skull in a horizontal line just above his eyebrows.

The enchanted steel, still warm from Gregor's fire magic, cut through bone and brain like they were made of soft butter. The top third of Malachar's head slid sideways and hit the floor with a wet, heavy thud, while his body remained kneeling over my husband for a long moment before toppling backward.

Blood and worse things splattered across the stones as his corpse twitched once and lay still.

"Gregor," I sobbed, dropping the bloody sword with hands that wouldn't stop shaking. "Stay with me. Please stay with me."

The adrenaline was fading now, and with it came the full weight of what had happened. Malachar's lips on my neck, the copper taste of my own blood in my mouth. My ear throbbed with each heartbeat, sending waves of pain through my skull.

Behind me, Naelira's cries grew more urgent, but I had to make sure my husband would live before comforting our daughter. My hands were covered in blood: Malachar's and Gregor's and my own, and I was shaking so badly I could barely apply pressure to his wounds.

His eyes found mine, unfocused but alive. Blood frothed at the corners of his mouth, and his breathing was shallow and labored from the puncture wounds.

"Lyra... are you...? Naelira...?"

"We're both here," I whispered, my voice breaking. "She's safe. We're all safe now." But even as I said the words, they weren't entirely true. We might be alive, but none of us would ever be the same.

I reached back with one trembling hand to touch our daughter, feeling her tiny fist grasp my finger while I kept pressure on Gregor's chest with the other. The three of us, bloodied and traumatized but alive, together in the wreckage of our nightmare.

"We're going home," I promised them both, though I wasn't sure what home would look like now. "All of us together."