Their First Battle

Waves lapped against the hull. The boat cut steady through the water, but tension pressed in, heavy as the mist curling along the shore.

Lysara's silver eyes tracked Aldric's movements, her scales darkening to deep blue as he checked his gear. "Watch your reserves. And don't let them box you in."

"Not my first dance with corruption." Aldric adjusted the holy symbol on his chest. The mark beneath his shirt pulsed, energy coiled tight beneath his skin.

"Experience means nothing if you're dead."

His fingertips brushed the edge of his sword. "Four blessings, before. That's all my mark could hold." The memory surfaced unbidden—his first corrupted beast, all shadow and teeth, his blade barely scorching its hide.

Lysara folded her arms. "And now?"

"Twelve. Maybe more." The power hummed through him, the power from his dawn prayers still thrumming in his veins. The Prime's touch had changed something, like forge-fire reshaping steel.

From the stern, their guide watched in silence, eyes glinting like wet stone.

Aldric exhaled. "Sir Danton would've clipped me round the ears for counting blessings." His lips quirked. "Pride lifts a man just high enough for the fall to break him, he'd say. Right before showing me exactly how far I had to fall."

"Smart man."

"Smarter than his student." The holy symbol warmed against his palm, its power stronger than ever—demanding respect, not arrogance.

The island's shadow stretched across the waves. Lysara's head snapped up, nostrils flaring. Her entire being transformed – scales bleaching bone-white, skin darkening to twilight purple. The delicate features he'd grown familiar with twisted into something ancient and terrible.

"Corruption." The word hissed through sharpened teeth.

Aldric's prayers rolled from his tongue, practised syllables gathering power. Holy light wrapped around Lysara's staff, dancing like captured starlight. Her own incantations followed, and strength surged through Aldric's limbs – muscle and sinew hardening to living steel. They had practised this in training, blessings were stronger when cast on another.

Black shapes writhed on the distant shore. The boat's bow hadn't touched sand before Lysara vanished—a blur of white scales and lethal grace.

The first corrupted beast dissolved into crimson mist, its death-shriek cut short.

The pack adapted fast. They scattered, twisted limbs carrying them across wet sand with unnatural speed. No mindless monsters—they watched, they learned. Yellow eyes tracked Lysara's movements, adjusting to her speed, predicting her strikes.

Blood painted the morning air. Blessed staff met tainted flesh, and the flesh lost. Smoke curled where her staff struck, each blow precise, lethal as a surgeon's cut.

This was no training bout. No measured spar.

This was Lysara unleashed.

She flowed between them like water through jagged rock—unstoppable, untouchable, death incarnate. A beast lunged, its claws barely grazing the air where she had stood. Three more fell before the first even hit the sand.

The treeline shuddered.

New shapes emerged, twisted and wrong, the air around them heavy with rot. The real fight was about to begin.

Aldric saw it all—the battlefield crystallised in his mind, movements mapped out like a divine pattern. Corrupted bodies left echoes in the air, each step telegraphing the next.

A beast lunged.

Aldric's shield sang, deflecting the strike. The borrowed sword followed, a perfect counter-thrust through the beast's ribs. Blessed steel burned deep, divine fire chewing through tainted flesh.

"Path's opening!" Lysara carved through three beasts in a single fluid motion. Blood flecked her scales, holy fire igniting in concentric waves around her.

The air crackled with divine energy.

Aldric dropped low, avoiding snapping jaws. His sword flashed, black throats opening like ripe fruit.

"Got your back!"

Two beasts flanked left. The first hit his shield, hard. The second lunged—and died, his blade punching through its eye socket. The corpse barely hit the ground before smoke curled from the wound.

A screech from above.

Aldric rolled. Claws tore through empty air where his skull had been.

"Getting slow, Ald!"

Lysara's staff tore through the air, its blazing tip crushing the airborne beast's skull. It dropped, body still twitching as it hit the sand.

The holy tree loomed ahead, light spilling through its bark. Corruption broke against their advance like waves against stone.

"Your left!"

Aldric's shield caught grasping claws, his sword severing limbs a heartbeat later.

Lysara's voice rose in prayer. A tide of divine fire roared across the beach. Beasts screamed, flesh crisping, blackened bodies collapsing into ruin.

Ten metres to the tree.

Five

Three.

They had carved a path through.

Then Lysara stopped.

Her scales rippled with sudden terror. Nostrils flaring, she spun—

"Treluc!"

Shadow burst through sunlight.

Twelve feet of corrupted horror—fur and scale fused in unholy fusion, claws longer than daggers.

Lysara twisted like quicksilver. Not fast enough.

Blood pearled where black talons raked her leg.

The beast wheeled, its bulk impossibly fast for its size. Golden eyes locked onto the wound.

Aldric moved.

His body fired before his mind caught up.

Shield braced. Feet planted.

Impact.

The force rattled his bones. Steel screamed against corrupted bone. Aldric's shoulders blazed with holy fire, his muscles surging against the weight of the beast's charge.

Lysara's breath hitched. Then—power. Her prayer pulsed through the air, the gash on her leg knitting closed in seconds.

"Bloody show-off."

"You're welcome." Aldric's arms trembled. His shield was dented where those claws had struck.

The Treluc roared, the sound splitting the sky. Its breath reeked of ancient graves.

Lysara snapped her staff up, flames licking along its length. "Right then. Let's send this bastard back to the void."

Power surged behind him.

Each syllable of Lysara's chant sent ripples through reality. The air crackled, light gathering at her fingertips.

Aldric's gut twisted. He knew that tone.

"Sorry, Aldric."

Holy fire exploded through his veins.

Aldric staggered, his sword blazing like sunlight made solid. Every muscle buzzed with stolen strength.

The Treluc lunged.

Aldric met it.

Shield up. The impact turned defence into attack. The beast's jaw snapped sideways, bone cracking. It reeled, massive body shifting as pain disrupted its perfect, unnatural grace.

Aldric didn't let it recover.

Blade through the thigh. Holy fire chewed through tainted flesh, slowing the beast further.

"Now!"

White scales blurred past him.

Lysara struck.

Her staff, wreathed in fire bright enough to shame the sun, took the beast's head from its shoulders.

The corpse hit the earth, twitching, smoke curling from a dozen burning wounds.

Lysara exhaled, the promise of death still rolling off her in waves. The remaining corrupted fled, instincts overriding hunger, their alpha's smouldering corpse warning them of their place in the natural order.

The battle was won. But Aldric's pulse still thundered.

Divine power drained from Aldric's limbs like a receding tide. His muscles screamed. Each heartbeat hammered spikes through his skull. The borrowed strength had extracted its price.

Lysara's scales flickered between silver and storm-grey as she steadied him. "Should've warned you. Sharing divine power... it bites back."

"Could've mentioned that." His knees buckled. The world spun like a drunkard's tale.

"Wouldn't have changed anything." Blood still stained her white scales, but her eyes held steel. "Rest. I'll handle this bit."

The holy tree rose before them, its bark shimmering with inner light. Ancient power thrummed through the air, pushing back the stench of corruption.

Lysara approached the tree with lowered head and open palms, her posture one of supplication. Her voice rang clear over the blood-stained beach, as steady as temple bells.

"Great Mother of Sacrifice, your children seek a boon."

Her scales shimmered, mirroring the tree's luminescence. "By blood and blade, we have proven our worth. Grant us but a fragment of your strength."

The tree pulsed, its radiance spreading in slow, deliberate waves—a heartbeat older than time. Light danced across its bark, shifting like sunlight over the ocean's surface.

Aldric's skull throbbed with every pulse, a divine rhythm pressing against his mind. He clenched his teeth but didn't look away.

The tree answered.

Divine light spilled through their thoughts—images flickering like fish darting through black water. Balance. Payment. Sacrifice. The message rang as clear as Lysara's voice had moments before. 

Nothing is given without cost.

Lysara's scales dulled to ash-grey. "Life for life." Her voice was barely above a whisper. "The tree demands—"

"S'alright, lass."

The guide stepped forward, boots scraping against sacred ground.

"Known it'd end here since we set sail. That's why I was chosen."

Aldric forced himself up, muscles screaming. "You sure about this?"

The old man smiled, hands steady as he approached the tree. "No better death than this." He traced the deep lines on his own palm, as if reading a life well spent. "Sixty years carrying the weight of survival. Time to lay it down. Time to join my father. And I get to play a small part in your story."

"You don't owe anyone anything." Lysara's fists clenched at her sides.

He laughed, a sound full of salt and memory. "Not about owing, girl. It's about choosing." His weathered fingers brushed the tree's glowing bark. "A man's got to meet his end with honour."

The tree answered in kind.

Divine radiance wrapped around him like seafoam, swallowing his form in soft, glowing tendrils. The old man breathed deep, exhaled slow.

"Tell my grandchildren I found my peace." His voice was already fading, like starlight at dawn. "And mind that shield arm, paladin. You drop it too low on the left."

Aldric reached for him, but there was nothing left to hold.

Light devoured flesh, turned it to memory, to something greater than itself.

The holy tree absorbed the gift. Bark peeled away like pages from an ancient text, offering its blessing. The price was paid. The balance maintained.

Silence settled over the blood-stained beach, broken only by waves that wouldn't remember this sacrifice come morning tide.

The boat cut through dark waters, the shore shrinking behind them. Lysara's arm kept Aldric steady, her grip firm around his waist as they limped onto the deck. His muscles still burned from the divine backlash.

She lowered him against the gunwale. "It'll pass by morning."

Dark clouds loomed on the horizon. Wrapped in blessed cloth, the sacred bark sat between them, thrumming with captured power.

Aldric's fingers found his holy symbol. Another death. Another soul given so he could keep moving forward.

His master's final moments surfaced—Sir Danton fighting the horde of Karnaxian bodies piled at his feet.

"Don't."

Lysara's voice cut through the memory. Her scales shifted to midnight-blue.

"Whatever you're thinking, stop."

His jaw tensed. "They keep dying for me."

"They died for what they believed in." She adjusted the sail, her movements sharp, efficient, refusing to linger. "Big difference. It was not for you"

Thunder rumbled across distant waters. The boat rose and fell with the swell.

Aldric exhaled. "You know what Sir Danton told me, right before the final battle?" The memory tasted of copper and incense. "Said every death's a seed. Something new grows from it. Be it hatred or understanding"

Lysara's grip tightened on the rigging. "Wise man. Wish I could have met him"

"Dunno about that. He also taught me to block with my face."

Lysara snorted. A ghost of a smile flickered across her face. Her scales lightened to twilight-purple.

"Well, you've certainly mastered that technique."

The first stars pierced the gloom. The sacred bark pulsed against the deck—life given, life transformed.

Somewhere behind them, a holy tree stood silent, an old man's final gift nestled in its roots.

Aldric exhaled, the weight still there, but steadier now.

"We'll make it worth it." His voice carried over dark waters. "All of it."

Lysara's hand found his shoulder. No words. Just an unspoken promise.

Behind them, storm clouds gathered. Ahead, Vadore waited.

They sailed on.