Stillness fell on the village, though not silent beneath the harrowing whistling of the Fog over the pale Lighthouse. As the dust settled over the dry soil, the nightmarish moments of battle still lingered in the minds of all who had witnessed them. The snow elves discretely exchanged distraught looks, quietly deliberating in their hearts and minds what justice should look like in such unreal circumstances. All the while, thirty bows aimed dangerously towards the only human in the middle.

Rall sat on the floor, his eyes scanning through the surrounding elves. As his eyes met theirs, he saw many different reactions. Some were angry, some were sorrowful, but most of them were scared. His and Tui's mere presence terrified them, and there was nothing the mage could do to convince them otherwise other than just sigh and wait.

After several minutes of silence, someone finally stepped forward. Long carrot hair framed a face of delicate lineaments, then fell further down her shoulders to a generous bosom. Life without the comforts of a city meant that she had hints of visible muscles throughout her body, and yet, paired with her elegant movements, they did nothing but enhance her feminine aura. Even dressed in her simple red tunic, she would not feel out of place in the highest circles of nobility.

The woman sauntered confidently towards Rall as her light steps captured everyone's eyes and ears. She stopped three meters away from Rall, towering over him as he sat and rested. Her black and red eyes shone against Tui's pale gleam, and, for a second, he noticed the two females exchange a look that told of instant hostility.

"Foreigner human, Tainted by Light," she said, enunciating the words in perfect Alcian. "My name is Hayrahs, priestess of the Fog, and I shall be your interpreter," she gave a very slight bow to accompany her introduction.

He nodded and slowly moved back on his feet. He patted his cloak a couple of times to scroll off the dust, then raised his eyes to meet hers. "My name is Rall," he said, offering his dusty hand for a handshake.

She looked at the hand like she did not understand, then back at him. "You will now face trial as written in the Book of Sayah for the deaths of the chieftain and two other members of the A'Kaleera. How do you declare yourself?"

Rall's brows rose two centimeters. These people wanted to punish him? Seven years in a land where logic did not apply had made his mind more flexible than it once was. And yet, he could not even begin to fathom how much these people were willing to do for their nonsensical beliefs.

"How do you declare yourself?" Hayrahs repeated.

Very well, let's play their game and see where it leads. "I am innocent."

She nodded, then turned to the elves and said some quick words in their language. She did not even finish that some onlookers were already yelling in outrage. Ahead of everyone, three people stepped out of the crowded surroundings.

The first one was a young woman. She shared many features with Hayrahs, though she lacked the priestess' mature charm in exchange for more youthful characteristics. She held a basket with both hands, and in it were petals with symbols written on them. During the earlier ceremony, she had always been beside Watuu. The young elf looked at Rall with obvious disdain, like an arrogant aristocrat to a plagued beggar along a crowded street.

The second person was a tall and well-built male elf. His hair cut short, his posture perfectly straight, and his clothes orderly. The longbow in his hands marked him as one of the hunters, possibly the best among them. As he walked closer to Rall with long strides, his look held a mixture of different emotions. In it were anger, regret, sadness, fear, and even a hint of respect.

The last person was the father of the chosen child and the partner of his brave mother. He moved quickly, yet his every step was heavy, especially as he passed near the corpses in the center of the village. There was a hint of guilt in his expression, but when his eyes finally met Rall's, it quickly turned to pure hatred. A weak man who did nothing to protect his family, the mage thought.

The former chieftain's aide and the grieving man moved on the side of Rall, keeping themselves about ten steps away. Then their gazes turned to the hunter, who instead positioned himself in the middle. The solemn-looking archer was about to speak when one last person moved closer.

She was the little girl that Rall had seen in Watuu's dwelling, as well as one of the two children who had been chosen as sacrifices to the Fog a few minutes prior. She hurried towards the mage, accompanied by the protests of many onlookers. They continued their racket until the hunter in the middle raised his hand to shut them down.

The girl moved uncaring of the noises and the voices and soon reached Rall and Hayrahs. Her eyes, however, were full of Tui's image. She was mesmerized.

"It seems like you have a fan," Rall said jokingly in his mind.

"Well, this cute ball of cuteness has good eyes, wouldn't you say?" She replied while giving her brightest smile to the young girl, causing her to blush and smile back.

When everyone finally settled, the hunter cleared his throat and started talking, and Hayrahs moved closer to Rall to give him the translation in real-time. Maybe a little too close, almost whispering in his ears. She was so close that he felt the warmth within her ample chest envelop his arm. He had to take a deep breath to avoid distractions.

"People of A'Kaleera, we are all here to conduct the ancestral trial over the deaths of three of our kins. All the interested parties have stepped forward as written in the Book of Sayah and promise to adhere to the final judgment for the next one hundred years. Does everyone agree?"

The grieving father nodded. However, Watuu's assistant spoke, calmly telling something to the spectators around. Finally, she turned to Rall and pointed her finger towards him in an accusatory way.

"What did she say?" Rall asked without breaking eye contact with the pointing elf.

"She says you are not part of the people, so you should not receive the honors of a traditional trial. Even more, she says you are Tainted by Light, so you should be sentenced to death immediately," Hayrahs calmly explained.

His head turned to the side, and he was about to comment when the young girl beside him spoke in his stead. Her words seemed so innocent with her acute child voice. And yet, they caused some powerful reactions in the crowd. Some became even more outraged, while a few others nodded in agreement. Hayrahs was one of the latter, while the head hunter remained stoic as a neutral judge.

The priestess chuckled, then turned to Rall, and her honest smile almost made him forget the events of the last hour. "The little one says that Sayah means 'the World', so it should count for you too. A simple comment, yet one holding a profound meaning. She is a bright child."

"I'm in love~," Tui said dreamingly.

Rall sighed, gave the little girl a gentle pat on the head, then turned back to the assistant.

"Your traditions teem of evil intent, and I will not abide by them. I saved two of your children. Then your chief tried to kill me employing the dark arts. Two of your kin died because of her misplaced beliefs."

Hayrahs looked at the mage with eyes wide open. "Are you sure you want me to tell them that?" She said those words with an even softer tone, which made the hair on Rall's skin rise against his cloak.

Still, Rall stepped away slightly and nodded. She sighed before turning to the assembled elves. She recited those foreign words, and the crowd's reaction told Rall that she had successfully conveyed his message. Anger quickly replaced fear in the elves' screaming voices. The protests and fervent discussions continued for a while uninterrupted.

The imposing hunter called for silence once more. He turned to Rall, and the tone of his voice was graver than before.

The priestess, who had stealthily slid closer to the mage, put her lips on his ear and translated. "He said that you can't come to their village, disrupt their sacred ritual, then spit on their traditions by refusing their justice, and think you can walk away."

As if to accentuate the threat in the head hunter's message, his underlings all stepped a bit closer to the mage. One wrong step and thirty arrows would fly once more, and he would have even less time to react. And yet, Rall remained confident and looked at the hunter straight in his eyes, hiding the weariness in his body and forcing himself to ignore the softness of Hayrahs's chest enveloping his arm.

It was time to gamble.

"You dare judge something you cannot stop," the young light mage said without breaking eye contact with the head hunter. "I have yet to bear ill will towards your people, but I will soon."

The curvacious priestess looked astonished at the daring youngster, then a sadistic smile appeared on her face and, for an instant, her eyes glinted of deep purple color. She turned around and relayed his words.

There were no protests this time, no replies. Just the whistling of the Fog accompanying the tension between two men. They remained unmoved - the stillness of their gazes and the strength of their postures were proof of the confidence they had in their own threats. And so they stayed, and the scene seemed to freeze over.

Around ten meters behind Rall was an archer with trembling arms. He was a young elf, still inexperienced and with weak muscles on his chest and shoulders. His morning training, plus the tension of the earlier fight, made every second holding a bow one second over his limits. Over the last months, he had learned to enjoy that pain because it meant he would be stronger the next day. Unfortunately, his body did not agree. It was an unconscious movement, a twitch caused by a sudden cramp around his right palm that caused his middle and index fingers to distend. One instant later, he heard the string vibrate and felt the arrow fly.

If he had aimed his shot, he could not have placed it better. Right under the back of the foreigner's skull, the perfect blindspot for his target. If Rall had been an ordinary light mage, his death would've been certain.

"Code Aegis~" sang Tui. White letters of mystical light formed geometrical patterns as the ethereal mermaid conjured them around her companion and Hayrahs. At the same time, the Lighthouse shook and visibly shrunk until Rall reacted and stabilized it. His bond with the mermaid wordlessly told him her reasons, and now he looked at the hunter with his eyebrow raised.

"If there was something that I did not expect out of your people, it is cowardice. It would do you well to remember that my death will be the end of your tribe," the mage said. At first, Hayrahs did not translate his words, enraptured as she was by the letters of the Ancient Code that had just appeared around her.

Rall cleared his throat to bring her back to reality, and, without a hitch, she repeated his words in the language of the A'Kaleera.

The head hunter looked slightly above Rall, cursing at the hunter who had just fired the arrow. Regardless of his menacing behavior, he feared Rall and his strange magic, and he did not desire to provoke him to combat. The giant hole in the chest of the monster's corpse coupled with the hundreds of arrows that had failed to pierce its skin was enough indication of the foreigner's power. Furthermore, he mostly agreed with him but had acted tough to protect his people and set up better grounds for negotiations. And now, all his plans had gone to waste.

However, the violent reaction he expected did not come. Of course, the head hunter did not know that Rall had just expended the last combat spell he could cast together with Lighthouse.

Rall looked at the hunter with tired eyes. It was time to see if the gamble had worked. "I have a proposal. I will stay here until the Fog retreats, protecting the village with my magic. Once that is done, I will leave and promise to never return to the lands of the A'Kaleera. Refuse, and I will either leave now or become your enemy."

Hayrahs translated, and the hunter nodded in understanding. It was more than he expected. It was a promise of tranquility without any repercussions. Watching the crowd coming to accept the foreigner's terms, Watuu's former right-hand woman started talking, almost like she was admonishing her people. Again she pointed at Rall, then at Tui and the little girl. The mage noticed the children hug their parents tighter following her words, and he even saw the little elf girl beside him try to enter the Aegis.

"What is that woman saying?" Rall asked.

"She says that they should not trust you, that your deceitful words will taint their souls. She says that they need not fear the Fog, that as long as they prepare new sacrifices, they would not need your blasphemous magic. She intends to use the chosen girl and one more child."

"From your tone, you do not seem to agree with her? Aren't you a priestess of the Fog?" Rall asked curiously.

"I come from far away, and I have seen much of the world. While we share our faith, my beliefs are not as orthodox," Hayrahs explained, and Rall had the sense that she had rehearsed those words a hundred times.

Silence returned as the head hunter's fist rose to the sky a third time. He looked at Rall earnestly, then turned to his people and said some words as well. Many nodded, while others kept their disagreement silent. The assistant was the only one voicing against him, but her protests fell on deaf ears. He had spoken, so there was nothing more she could do.

"They have accepted your terms," Hayrahs declared.

Rall turned to the hunter and nodded. Slowly, the symbols of the Aegis vanished, and the mage lowered himself back on the ground. What an eventful morning.

***

Hours passed, and a semblance of normalcy slowly returned to the village. Soon the night came, and Rall observed from the hill as the elves lit fires all over. Watuu's former assistant now guided the women, setting up one large pyre in the center. It seemed they would soon hold funerals for the morning's dead. Over the first hour after sunset, the A'Kaleera converged once more, singing songs on grief for their final goodbyes.

Rall sat in silence, looking over the ritual with hollow eyes. Even if he could not agree with their methods, he was starting to understand the nature of their religion. It made them part of a whole, a single in a community tied by beliefs that made the unknown a little less scary. There was strength in that, especially for those weaker individuals who could not gain it in other ways.

Suddenly, Rall heard light steps approaching him. He did not need to turn to recognize their origin. A couple of seconds later, he could feel Hayrahs approaching.

"You are not taking part?" He asked, the reflection of the fire dancing in his emerald eyes.

"I find funerals boring," she said in a melancholic tone. "What about you? Have you regained your strength?" She asked as she sat beside him to look at the fire.

"You knew?"

"I've met other light mages. Endurance is not their forte. But maybe you are different?" She asked with a wink.

"Stop," Rall muttered, his eyes still looking at the fire.

"What did you say? I couldn't hear," she said, moving closer.

"I said stop," he repeated, this time turning towards her. Still, she kept moving closer, and soon their noses were almost touching.

"What is it that I should stop?" She whispered, her sultry voice.

Suddenly he jumped up, stepping away from her. "You think I am an idiot? You think I did not recognize you, Lady Sharyah?"

Hayrahs did not react at first, acting like she did not understand his words. Then, her face turned into an enchanting smile, and her eyes flashed with a crimson glint. Her voice lowered an octave, losing in softness but dripping of sensuality. "As sharp as I remembered! How have you been, my boy?"