Page 116 of The Daughter of the Scarred Elf

Herja wove through the skirmish, her fire creating a path. A winged warrior swept down low, sword aimed at Herja, but Kolfinna chucked a stone at his face in seconds. He plummeted down, and a wave of Herja’s hand sent a blaze of violet fire to consume his body. His screams joined the others around him.

“Hilda Helgadottir is injured and unable to fight!” Herja said above the cries of battle. She ducked from a stray arrow. “The only black rank we have left is Blár!”

Even though that should’ve relieved her—that Hilda was probably taken away to a physician tent—it filled her with trepidation. As much as she hated the woman, she was a powerful black rank. Judging by the battlefield, they needed all the help they could get.

They fended off soldiers as they wove through the battlefield. In Kolfinna’s peripheral, the giant stone creatures were still causing damage. She counted five of them. It had likely takena lotof mana to make that many stones move like that.

“Are you okay?” Herja shouted at her. “You’re bleeding heavily!”

“I’m fine!” Kolfinna replied. It was her blood, but most of her injuries had already healed. And she barely felt the ones that didn’t. She had too much adrenaline rushing through her veins to care about minor cuts and bruises.

The battlefield slowly morphed into something different the more they continued their way. Instead of the booms and blasts of magic, the clanging of steel against steel filled the spaces between sweaty, bloodied bodies as they fought. The flashes of magic weren’t apparent here, and instead, all the humans fought with weapons.

This must’ve been the area where the rune magic was keeping them from using their abilities.

Kolfinna instantly searched the ground for glowing runes. Blood splatters colored the yellowed, crunchy grass. The twisted, trampled corpses on the ground further hid whatever runes could’ve been etched on the ground. Kolfinna’s stomach twisted. She tried not to focus on the faces. Tried not to linger on what expression they wore right before death.

As she tried to move a dead soldier’s arm to see what was underneath, someone tackled her and her vision blurred. She slammed onto the ground at the same time that her roots wildly attacked the man. The man screamed as the sharp ends pierced his flesh through the gaps of his armor. He yanked his sword back, and Kolfinna blinked back at the red blood drenched on the gleaming blade. He wrangled with her roots, but she pushed him back farther, away from her.

She placed a hand on her abdomen and when she pulled it back, sticky, hot blood slipped from between her fingers.

“Kolfinna!” Herja wrestled with an elf warrior, shadows and light pouring out from his body in rapid succession, battling with Herja’s bluish-violet flames.

Kolfinna lifted a bloodied hand and a wave of roots and vines captured the elf’s wrists and yanked him backward. It gave Herjaenough time to touch his throat and send a ripple of fire down his body.

Turning away from the gruesome scene, Kolfinna pulled herself to her feet. Her vision swayed for a moment, but she could already feel her mana draining away from her as it healed the wound slowly. She blinked rapidly to clear her vision.

Fae flew overhead, knocking back arrows and shooting them at unsuspecting humans. Air elementals fought airborne battles, elves fought with shadows and lights emitting from their hands, and human soldiers tried holding them back.

But it was clear that the humans had a disadvantage. These warriors were too efficient and knew how to use their magic effortlessly. Meanwhile, the human soldiers didn’t even seem to know how to fight against the different types of magic in the battle.

Rune magic. Shadow magic. Light magic. Winged fae. Stone magic.

It was all too foreign. Too daunting.

Kolfinna had to rip her gaze away from the fights and focus on what she could do—find the runes.

“Are you okay?!” Herja sent another barrage of attacks at a nearby fae soldier. Her bright hair whipped around her sweaty, blood-streaked face like waves of fire.

“It was just a scratch!” Kolfinna lied as she scanned the ground for any hints of gold runes.

“It looked like—” Herja couldn’t continue holding a conversation because she was on another soldier immediately, bursts of fire combusting from her hands.

After searching for a few minutes and dodging attacks from fae and elves, Kolfinna was able to find the runes. Herja kept close to her, keeping the others at bay while Kolfinna dropped to her knees in front of the golden inscriptions.

No human can use their magic within this ring.

The runes stretched out and repeated themselves on the ground in what she suspected was a large circle, and everyone within that ring was unable to use them.

Herja must’ve been outside the ring, which explained why she was still able to use her magic. The others outside the ring might not have realized whether they were going in or out of it, whether they had access to it or not, and they were all fighting with their swords and weapons at this point. It was probably easier than realizing they weren’t able to use their magic because they stepped inside the rune magicked area.

Kolfinna touched the runes and injected her own mana into it. She imagined a giant chain wrapping around the runes and squeezing until they snapped.

The runes crumbled to gold dust right before her eyes.

“Herja—” Kolfinna lifted her head at the same time an elf warrior swung his sword at her.

She barely constructed a stone wall when the sword sliced into her shoulder, just narrowly missing her neck. White hot pain exploded through her body. Without thinking, she thrust a stone at the man’s chest and hurtled him backward. He didn’t have time to dodge when the sharpened tip of her tree root jabbed straight into his throat. Blood pooled over the wound, dribbling down the brown root.

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