Arkena had been standing beside her at the lake.
She had argued with her.
Warned her.
Told her that one day Roselle would keep walking when every instinct told her to stop and someone would not return because of it.
Now the last recognizable part of her was being eaten in front of the entire settlement.
Roselle wanted to look away.
She refused herself that mercy.
If Arkena had been forced to die because of Roselle’s decision, then Roselle could at least force herself to witness what remained.
The child bit again.
Teeth disappeared into green flesh.
A wet tear followed.
A Virhain behind Roselle retched.
Another whispered a prayer under his breath..
Zino remained motionless.
Only his eyes moved, shifting between the child and the trees as if waiting for Delasai to reveal some meaning behind the act.
Nothing came.
The child continued eating.
Skin first.
Then muscle.
Its small hands gripped Arkena’s head with disturbing strength, turning it whenever it needed another angle.
Roselle’s fingernails cut into her palms.
“Enough.” Zino did not answer.
“Father, enough.” “Wait.” “For what?” Her voice cracked.
“For it to finish her?” “For the forest.” Roselle laughed once.
There was no humor in it.
“The forest already watched her die.” Zino’s expression tightened.
“And saved you.” That silenced her.
She hated him for saying it.
She hated Delasai for making it true.
The child’s jaw stopped.
For several seconds it remained perfectly still.
Then its eyes turned green.
Not merely green like a Virhain entering Focus.
Light flooded them from within, so intense that Roselle instinctively stepped back.
The child’s spine arched.
A crack came from somewhere beneath its skin.
Then another.
Its fingers lengthened.
Wrists widened.
Legs stretched against the ground.
The transformation was not smooth.
Bone grew faster than flesh could follow, briefly distorting the limbs before muscle and skin caught up.
Several elves backed away.
Someone drew a sword again.
Zino lifted one hand.
“Nobody touches it.” “Look at it!” an elf shouted.
“I am.” “Then kill it before it becomes something worse!” A branch above the speaker bent downward.
He fell silent.
The child’s body continued growing until the infant Roselle had carried from the lake possessed the proportions of a child roughly three years old.
Then the ears changed.
Their rounded edges stretched outward into unmistakable elven points.
The rest remained foreign.
Darker skin.
Yellow across the back.
Black stripes.
Changing eyes now fixed in brilliant green.
The child slowly raised its head.
It looked left.
Right.
Up.
Then toward something far beyond the settlement.
Roselle followed its gaze.
There was nothing there except trees.
The child’s head snapped toward another direction.
Then another.
Too quickly.
Too precisely.
A forest sprite moved somewhere high above the canopy.
Roselle had not heard it.
The child had.
A burrowing animal shifted beneath roots several dozen paces away.
Its eyes moved toward the sound.
Roselle felt cold crawl across her back.
Arkena’s senses.
Not exactly.
Something greater.
The child had consumed part of her and changed.
It could see farther than the elves.
Hear farther.
Smell things hidden even from trained hunters.
It turned toward a tree behind Zino and stared directly at a lizard concealed beneath its bark.
The creature had not made a sound.
Zino looked from the child to the forest.
“Gold,” he whispered.
Roselle heard him.
“What?” “The judgment.” He looked at the unfamiliar child standing beside the remains of Arkena.
“Perhaps this is why.”
Maybe I shouldn’t write this.
Probably nobody will even read it, but if you do, I genuinely appreciate it.
For most of my life, I was bullied.
I avoided people as much as I could, and my parents were among the people who bullied me too.
I barely made it through school because I kept avoiding it, so I never really had the chance to properly develop my writing skills or learn how to write natural conversations between people.
Because of that anxiety and isolation, I still lack experience in those areas.
But I have a lot of ideas.
I have worlds, characters, stories, and more creativity than I know what to do with.
AI helps me turn those ideas into something real.
It helps me translate them and put into words things that I sometimes struggle to express on my own.
I know AI can sometimes simplify things or make them feel shallower than I intended, and I want to keep improving that.
Even without AI, I would still be writing stories, just like I wrote In the Circle of Ruin.
I want to improve these stories and I want each story to be better than the last.
I work with people now, but even in my free time, I still struggle to be around them.
So maybe this sounds ridiculous to some people, but AI has genuinely been a lifesaver for me.
It gives me a way to finally bring the things in my head to life.
If you’re actually reading my stories despite all their imperfections, thank you.
I really appreciate it.
I forgot one thing one of the most annoying for me in fantasy books is when characters are perfect stereotype characters without mistakes my main characters are not P.S.
The guy on the cover appears much later in the story as one of its more important characters.
He isn’t one of the main heroes I just chose him for the cover because, well… he looked the best;)