It was the one-hundred-and-sixth year of the war against the fae, and Crevesca and her sisters were the last hope of House Ellewyn. In the last days of the harvest season, she found herself frantically dashing through the great forest, the dry leaves of the Elder Wyrd tree crunching beneath her carefully-crafted boots. Her auburn hair flew out behind her, the streaks of daylight illuminating her lithe form as she ran. Clutched in the crook of her elbow was an opaque black orb—something that could change the tides of the war. A remnant from the Forever Wars several millennia ago, the orb held crucial information on ancient weapons and technology that surpassed anything they could dream of at present. 

As she approached the rendezvous point, a sudden chill traced down her spine. The pointed tips of her ears tingled with apprehension. 

Elves were known for their sharp, almost predictive intuition, and she could trust hers enough to know something was wrong. 

She peered across, and her keen sight made out a silhouette standing atop the wooden rampart, shrouded in a hazy morning fog. His ears were long enough to be elven, which meant it was unlikely to be one of the fae folk. 

But where were her sisters? They should have been waiting for her at this secret encampment. In the case of anything going awry, they had all agreed to meet up at this enclave snuck into the side of a giant mess of vines and leaves. 

The realization dawned on her as the stranger’s form flickered for an almost imperceptible moment, a beam of sunlight piercing through his arm as if he were transparent. A fae’s illusion. Well-crafted enough to not draw suspicion at first look, but an illusion nonetheless. 

Crevesca growled, her hands glowing with fire, but then she ran for cover as she saw several figures fly over the encampment. She crouched behind a fallen tree, huffing slightly.

Thuck. 

The sound of an illusionary bullet cracked out as it bored into the bark. The log wouldn’t be enough to block it, and she shifted to the side right as the purple shot came flying through the newly formed hole and hit the ground without much fanfare as it dissipated. 

She could light this whole forest on fire. That would smoke them out like the vermin they are. 

But she couldn’t. This forest was sacred to her people, and the gargantuan oak known as the Elder Wyrd tree was said to hold up the entire realm of the Dreaming with its sturdy roots. She scrambled away as another shot punched through the log, striking her initial position. 

The versatility of illusion magic made it hard to counter, but it wasn’t impossible. Each bullet contained a limited store of arcana, which would mean it wouldn’t last long once fired, and would dissipate within a matter of seconds. But the speed it traveled made it hard to dodge without using some sort of physical cover to slow it down to run down the clock. In most cases, it would have just enough time to burst through a tree and a body or two. But if she could reach—

Before she could finish her thoughts, she heard the buzzing of wings, like dragonflies flitting about. That meant trouble. 

She pointed her finger, gasping heavily as she conjured a tiny ball of flame. The shot that had torn into her side burned like she’d stuck a hot iron to it. Speaking of iron, her sword was made of it, tempered to hold an edge, and then lit with hot flames to make it all the more effective. Iron acted as a poison for most fae, so if you managed to land a hit on them, they were as good as dead. But landing a hit, well, that was the hard part, especially when they took to the skies. 

A fae rounded the corner, flying fifteen feet above her. He looked down at her when he noticed the glow, but it was too late. The flame engulfed him immediately, his delicate, translucent wings the first to go. The fairy screamed something that made her blood curdle as he fell to the leaf-covered floor in a heap of ash. 

Crevesca was the best among her sisters as a practitioner of the old magicks…there was no way a couple of fae—

Shit.

Heat radiated from her shoulder, a coin-sized hole in it. A shot had torn right through it as she had run to cover. The nature of an illusionary bullet made it hard to notice its effect in the height of battle, but even a moment of rest was enough to feel its impact. Holding her arm limply at her side, she lifted her other arm in hopes of casting a healing spell. 

Her fingers twirled a light green, and the mist traveled toward her injured shoulder, when another shot came through, hitting her other shoulder and disabling her good arm. The mist faded before it reached her injury, the arcana circuits cut off from their source. No longer able to control the flow of magic in her body, the enemy had effectively disabled her spell-casting ability with their tactics. 

Whoever was targeting her could aim like no one else she’d encountered before. While illusionary bullets were effective against physical objects, extraordinary skill was required to land shots with such accuracy.

A sense of relief washed over her as she heard her sisters approaching from another angle. With their years of training together, she could even tell their footsteps apart from each other. If they were here, one of them could heal her.

Crevesca threw herself to the ground, hoping to crawl away to her allies. The underbrush would provide enough cover for her to make it across safely. Dragging herself forward, it wasn’t long before she felt the back of her leg light up in a burning haze. 

She glanced at it to see it with a gaping hole. Gritting her teeth, she held back a pained yell that stuck in her throat. 

Dammit, how can they still see me? It shouldn’t be possible, she thought, keeping her entire being together so she didn’t reveal her position to any combatants lurking nearby by screaming. 

Her sisters were here now, crouching for cover. They seemed to have made it out relatively unscathed from their previous encounter with a roving fae patrol that had forced them to separate. She was glad her family was still with her, even if the circumstances weren’t the most ideal. 

“Stay right there! I’m coming for you,” her younger sister whispered. Even though Illara had honed her talents in combat to a fine point, she still looked as innocent as ever.

Maybe it wasn't ideal for them to continue this fight. The enemy fae sharpshooter posed a much greater threat that anyone she had gone against before. 

“N-no!” Crevesca said. “It’s too late. Just get out of here.” They needed to find a different place to regroup. Whatever awaited them at the encampment was far worse than retreating—even if it meant leaving her behind. 

Her sister was about to speak, but then a purple shot bored right through the tree and struck her in the side of her head, coming clean out the other side, spraying blood and brain matter on the forest floor. 

Illara’s spark had been extinguished in less than a second, and Crevesca could only stare in horror, her face draining of color as she processed what just happened.

When she saw her sister’s vacant eyes, she couldn’t help but scream. “Illara!” 

Then she heard the crunching of dead leaves as her other sisters took positions around her.

“Stay focused,” her youngest sister said while she prepared a swift healing spell. She was the most proficient of her siblings at the curing arts. 

But that gnawing feeling hadn’t left her. She wished she could shield them all from danger. Unfortunately, personal elven barriers didn’t work well against unsupported magic types. 

Once again, she heard the near imperceptible whine as an illusory bullet cut across the forest strata. 

With no time to react, she was reduced to the status of an onlooker to what came next. 

In mere moments, precise shots rendered her allies’ cover useless, drilling holes in their bodies and painting the surroundings with splashes of deep crimson. Their lifeless husks thudded to the cold forest floor, the sound echoing in her head. It was only after all of her sisters had fallen, their eyes staring off into the sky, that the first of her tears began to stream down her face. 

What hurt the most, was the twisted fact that she could have done nothing to prevent their deaths. 

She heard distinct footfalls from ahead of her, coming from the other side of the fallen tree. 

A fae, walking? 

The shadow neared. It was just one of them, but she had lost all motivation to care. One, or a hundred, it didn’t matter how many came for her. There was nothing left to lose. 

She glanced up, then gasped as she made out the foil-like edges of her opponent’s wings. 

“Y-you.” 

The last thing she saw was an amaranthine light as it leapt off the fae’s finger.