Chapter 86: The World Tree

Two days had passed since I started living in the settlement, and honestly, I was beginning to get the hang of it, mostly.

Whenever I stepped outside, I made sure to keep my hood pulled low enough to hide the obvious lack of points on my ears. It wasn’t a perfect disguise, not by a long shot, but it was enough to keep the villagers from immediately pegging me as a human on sight. Of course, that didn’t stop the curious glances entirely. Something about my face apparently still drew attention, regardless of whatever I hid beneath the hood, judging by the number of young women who suddenly found reasons to walk past my house two or three times a day.

’Guess some things stay the same no matter what world you’re in.’

Mira, predictably, had made herself a permanent fixture around my temporary home. If anything, she seemed to spend more time hanging around my doorstep than she did at her own house, much to her mother’s visible exasperation whenever I happened to catch sight of her searching the square for her missing daughter.

"You’re still here?" I asked, not even bothering to look up from where I sat sharpening one of the old, dull knives Diana had lent me.

"Obviously," Mira said, plopping herself down uninvited on the bench beside me, swinging her legs back and forth. "You’re way more interesting than anything else going on around here."

"I’m sitting in silence sharpening a knife."

"Exactly. Riveting stuff."

I shook my head, unable to fully hide the small smile tugging at my lips despite myself. Over the past two days, her relentless curiosity had actually grown on me a little, even if I’d never admit that out loud.

"Hey, I’ve been meaning to ask you something." I set the knife aside for a moment,

"Ask away."

"Everyone here has pointed ears. I’m guessing you’re all elves, right?"

She blinked at me, clearly surprised by the question. "You didn’t know that already?"

"I had a guess, but I wanted to hear it properly from someone who’d actually explain it instead of being cryptic about everything the way Senya is."

Mira laughed at that, a genuine, easy sound. "Fair enough. Yeah, you’re not wrong. We’re elves. Or, well, what’s left of us, anyway."

"What’s left of you?"

Her expression shifted slightly, the easy humor fading into something more thoughtful. "Our race has been shrinking for a long time now. Generations, actually. Ever since the World Tree died."

I straightened a little, my curiosity sharpening. "World Tree?"

She nodded, tucking her legs up underneath her as she settled in, clearly prepared to tell a story she’d probably heard a hundred times herself growing up.

"The World Tree was the mother of our entire race. Not in the way a normal parent is a mother, obviously, but in a much deeper sense. Every elf that was ever born carried some piece of her blessing inside them. Our strength, our connection to nature, our long lifespans, all of it came from her. As long as she existed, our race was considered one of the strongest in the entire world."

"So, what happened to her?"

Mira’s expression darkened. "Greed happened. It always does. Sooner or later, it takes everything from you... even the things you thought you could never lose."

I stayed quiet, letting her continue at her own pace. ℯℯ𝑙.

"The old laws said only a chosen few, usually young elves just coming of age, were allowed to receive the Mother’s blessing, and even then, only once in their entire lifetime. It was meant to keep things balanced, I guess, make sure no single person became too powerful, too fast." She paused, picking at a loose thread on her sleeve. "But over time, some people decided that rule wasn’t good enough for them. They wanted more. So they started finding ways around it, demanding more blessings than they were ever supposed to receive."

"Let me guess... The Mother didn’t take that well."

"Not even a little. When she noticed what was happening, she tried to punish them. Cursed them, actually, hoping that would be enough to stop the greed before it spread any further."

"I’m guessing it wasn’t enough."

Mira’s jaw tightened slightly. "Instead of backing down, they turned the curse against her. Used it somehow to corrupt her directly, twisting whatever power she still had left until it consumed her completely from the inside. That’s what eventually killed her. The World Tree withered away, and once she was gone, so was every last bit of her protection over our race."

A chill settled over me, imagining it. An entire species’ source of life and strength, destroyed from within by its own people’s greed.

"The ones responsible for corrupting her, they didn’t stay the same after that either. Whatever they did to twist her power ended up twisting them too. Their skin darkened, their eyes changed, and eventually, people just started calling them Dark Elves instead. After that, there was no going back. The two sides turned completely against each other."

"So elves and dark elves have been enemies ever since?"

She nodded grimly. "The thing is, there were a lot more of them than there ever were of us. The corruption spread fast, and more and more elves either joined willingly or got twisted the same way through exposure. Those of us who managed to stay pure, who kept our original blessing intact, we were suddenly the minority. Vastly outnumbered."

"So we had no choice but to run. Far, and fast, splitting apart into smaller and smaller groups along the way, hoping it would make us harder to track down and wipe out completely. Eventually, those scattered groups settled wherever they could find safety, carving out whatever small territory they could manage to hold onto." She gestured vaguely around at the modest wooden houses surrounding us. "This is one of those territories. One of the last pure elf settlements left, as far as any of us know."

I sat with that for a long moment, letting the full weight of her words settle in.

’An entire species, hunted down and scattered because of a handful of people who couldn’t be satisfied with what they already had.’

It sounded painfully, uncomfortably familiar, honestly. I’d seen enough greed and ambition back in the noble circles of the empire to recognize the pattern immediately, even dressed up in a completely different context.

"How many settlements are left? Like this one, I mean."

Mira shrugged, her earlier playful energy noticeably dimmed. "No one really knows for sure. We don’t have much contact with the other groups, not anymore. It is too dangerous to travel between settlements, especially with dark elves, and apparently now slavers too, hunting for easy targets."

I thought about the fortress, the chains, the hollow, exhausted faces I’d seen crammed into those rooms.

’So that’s what they were actually after. Not just random captives. Specifically elves, probably worth a fortune on whatever black market exists for something like that.’

"And your blessing? Do you still get it? Even now, without the World Tree?"

Mira shook her head slowly. "Not anymore. Whatever’s left of her power is scattered and weak, barely enough to pass down naturally through bloodlines these days. That’s actually part of why our numbers keep shrinking. Without proper blessings, our children aren’t nearly as strong as our ancestors used to be. Easier targets. Easier to hunt, easier to capture."

Her voice had grown quieter, the weight of generations of loss clearly pressing down on even someone as young and energetic as her.

I sat there in silence for a while, turning the knife over slowly in my hands, my mind working through everything she’d just told me.

’An entire ancient race, brought down from legendary strength to barely surviving in scattered hidden villages, all because of one single act of greed generations ago.’

It made the fortress, the slavers, the entire mess I’d stumbled into feel even heavier than it already had. These weren’t just random unlucky villagers caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. They were the last scattered remnants of something ancient and important, quietly fading away while the rest of the world moved on without even noticing.

"Hey, you’re making that face again," Mira said suddenly, breaking the heavy silence. The smile she tried to put on didn’t quite reach her eyes. She glanced at me with a flicker of concern before nudging my shoulder lightly.

"What face?"

"The one where you look like you’re about to adopt the entire village’s problems as your own personal responsibility."

I blinked, caught off guard by how accurately she’d read me.

"I’m not doing that."

"Sure you aren’t, come on. Senya wants everyone gathered for the evening meal soon. You can brood about elf history some other time." she grin despite the heaviness of everything she’d just shared.

She hopped up off the bench, already heading toward the square without waiting for my response, clearly confident I’d follow regardless.

I sat there a moment longer, staring down at the knife still resting in my hands, Mira’s story echoing uncomfortably in the back of my mind.

’An entire race, hunted down to near extinction. And now a vision of this exact village burning to the ground too.’

I let out a slow breath, finally setting the knife aside and pushing myself up to follow after her.

’Guess I really am getting pulled into this, whether I actually wanted to or not.’