Reincarnated as an Elf Prince

They moved again, faster now. The street ahead had collapsed into a crater. A pile of what looked like two carriages burned on its edge. Bodies lay scattered across the market stalls, most too broken to recognize.

Something roared behind them. Something else answered from the rooftops.

"I thought this was supposed to be a quick drop-in," Sylric said, already channeling mana into his sleeves. "You said, 'just check the area.'"

"And you said, 'I don't like cities. They always explode.'"

"And what did this one do?"

She didn't answer.

Another shape moved near the well up ahead, thin, twitching, crawling like its joints had forgotten how to work. A former soldier by the look of it. Now twisted. His blade dragged behind him like it weighed too much.

Luneth raised her hand.

A spike of frost launched straight into the center of its chest, pinning it to a collapsed fruit stall.

It didn't stop moving.

Not right away.

It took another full second of silence before the twitching stopped.

Then—

More movement.

To their right.

To their left.

They were surrounded.

Four. No, six. Creeping in from every direction.

Sylric finally sighed and cracked his neck.

"Well. I suppose I've had worse days."

"You don't remember your days," Luneth muttered.

He grinned. "Exactly."

Then he snapped his fingers.

Light erupted behind him.

Not a flare.

Not fire.

Just light, clean and controlled, coiling from a ring embedded in his wrist and blasting into the nearest three attackers like a silent hammer.

They flew backward without grace.

Bones hit walls.

He turned to the others.

"Next?"

Luneth had already cut down one more, this time with a burst of freezing mist that wrapped around the creature's throat like a rope. It didn't scream. It just fell.

The last one lunged at Sylric.

He ducked, palmed its chin with one hand, and released a controlled pulse of light into its face.

It didn't get back up.

A pause.

Then silence.

Except for the wind, and the distant sound of something, many things, clawing at stone.

Luneth didn't relax.

Her voice was even.

"They're not just wandering."

"Nope."

"They're guarding something."

"Or someone."

She glanced at him. "Where's your clever quip?"

Sylric turned toward the deeper part of the ruined city. His expression was unreadable for once.

"I don't like this place."

Luneth exhaled slowly.

'He's not joking anymore. That's bad.'

She looked toward the north.

Toward the place where, far beyond smoke and broken towers, the palace should have stood.

"We find Lindarion," she said.

"And if he's not here?"

"He's here."

Sylric raised a brow.

"You're sure?"

"Yes."

She sheathed her blade and turned.

And didn't look back.

Not once.

—

The sky above Caldris was still red.

Not from the sun. From the smoke.

Luneth kept her hood low and her pace steady, stepping over what used to be a market stand. Half of it was still burning. The other half had collapsed into ash and broken wheels.

"Left here," Sylric said, voice low but clear.

She followed without a word.

The streets weren't safe. Everyone knew that by now. Too many mutants. Too many traps. And too quiet.

That was the real problem.

Not the fire. Not the ruins.

The silence.

The kind that meant the monsters were done chasing and had started watching.

Sylric slowed as they passed a row of overturned carriages. One still had blood on the steps. Not fresh. Not old either.

"Anyone alive?" she asked.

He shook his head. "Not here."

They kept moving.

Luneth didn't say it aloud, but it was getting harder to breathe. Not from fear, she'd grown up around worse. But the weight of it all. The mana in the air was off. Twisted. Too heavy in the chest. Like walking through steam that hadn't cooled.

'He's in this city,' she thought. 'He has to be.'

Lindarion.

She didn't know how she knew. But she did.

He wouldn't leave without trying to stop this. Not anymore.

They turned the next corner, and stopped.

A figure stood in the middle of the street.

White hair. Long, perfectly straight. Not tied back. Just falling loose over a pale coat. He stood still, like someone waiting for something to arrive, not the other way around.

Luneth felt it first.

That sensation in her gut. The wrong kind of calm.

Sylric didn't speak. But his stance shifted. Subtle. Weight forward. Right hand drifting toward his coat pocket where the relics were kept.

The man looked up.

Not fast.

Just enough.

His face didn't smile. But it didn't frown either.

Flat expression. Black-rimmed glasses. Clean-shaven. Too clean for someone in a warzone.

Luneth stepped slightly back. Just one foot.

His eyes followed hers.

"Don't like this," Sylric muttered. "Back up. Now."

"Do you know him?"

"No. But he knows us."

The man took a step forward.

Sylric raised a hand. A soft ripple of mana buzzed between his fingers.

"Don't," Sylric said evenly. "We're just passing through."

Another step.

Still no words.

Luneth's hand found her blade. Cold coated the edge already. A reflex by now. Her magic responded faster than her voice.

That's when the man blinked.

Not slowly.

Not strangely.

Just once.

Then he was gone.

Luneth's heart jumped, where—

"LUNETH!"

Sylric's shout hit half a second too late.

She spun.

He was behind her.

The man in white.

One hand out.

She tried to move. Her sword arm came up. Ice burst forward.

He didn't even flinch.

Just tilted his head and walked through it like it wasn't there.

Then—

Her vision blurred.

Not from pain. Not from fear.

From something else.

Everything got heavy.

Her knees buckled.

Sylric roared something, but she didn't hear the words. She saw a flash, light magic, thrown like a hammer, but it didn't hit anything.

The man caught her before she hit the ground.

She wasn't unconscious.

But it felt like the world was tilting sideways.

She wanted to scream. Her mouth wouldn't open.

Sylric charged.

Or tried to.

The man looked at him once.

And Sylric stopped mid-step.

Not from magic.

From pressure.

She saw it in his face. Confusion. Then rage.

Then helplessness.

"I'll find you," Sylric growled. "Don't care who you are."

But the man didn't answer.

He just stepped back into the smoke—

And vanished with her.

Sylric was left in the middle of the street.

Alone. Breathing hard. One hand clenched tight enough to shake.

"…Shit."

He turned, kicked the side of the nearest broken wall, and grabbed his comm crystal from inside his jacket.

"Lindarion," he snapped into the ether. "We've got a problem."

The smoke swallowed the sound.