Chapter 260: Elise’s disobedience
Amid the banter, Elise’s softer words threaded like a different kind of fire. She didn’t shout. She didn’t need to. "Jae..." She pressed a hand to another cadet’s arm, her mana pouring steady and cool, slowing his bleeding.
Her gaze flicked toward the center of the chaos where Jae burned brightest. "Your instincts. You saw this coming." Her voice cracked, but not from fear. From certainty.
"You keep them steady because you don’t just fight," she whispered, half to herself, half to him across the battlefield. "You notice."
Jae didn’t answer. He didn’t need to. His smirk, the unshaken curve of his lips even as his blade seared the night, said enough.
Veynar’s theatrics only swelled. His cloak snapped behind him as he spun his spear in a grand flourish, the weapon a silver blur. "Yes! Yes! Burn me brighter, farmboy! If you fall tonight, I’ll carve your name into history with your ashes!"
His spear met fire once more. Sparks shrieked skyward, flames hissed as they clashed with steel, and the camp held its breath.
The south flank screamed.
Not in words, but in sound, shields cracking, voices breaking, the wet thud of arrows sinking into flesh. The sky itself seemed to darken under the rain of shafts, a black storm blotting out the stars.
Jae’s fire burned against it, cutting through the night like a beacon. Every sweep of his blade lit the battlefield, the flames rolling outward in controlled arcs that seared raiders where they stood. He wasn’t just fighting, he was holding the line together with sheer presence, his fire a lighthouse in a sea of terror.
Cadets pressed shoulder to shoulder, shields trembling in their grip. Some whispered prayers. Others gritted their teeth and leaned into the push, straining against the tide. Byun’s shadows stitched the gaps between them, ribbons of darkness rising like improvised barricades whenever a shield splintered or a body fell.
And still, it wasn’t enough.
The storm of arrows tore men down faster than they could be dragged away. Screams split the night, high and sharp, cutting deeper than steel. Blood slicked the grass beneath their boots, sticky and hot.
"Pull them back!" a commander roared from somewhere distant, his voice half-drowned by the clash of iron. "Fall to the second line!"
The words rippled, passed down through the ranks like a wave, but Elise didn’t hear them. Or maybe she did, and simply chose not to let them in.
Her world narrowed to the boy collapsing a few feet from her, an arrow lodged deep in his side. He was no older than her, seventeen, maybe eighteen. His lips were already pale.
She dropped to her knees without hesitation, skirts tangling against the mud. Mana poured from her palms in steady, glowing threads, weaving into his body. His breath steadied. His chest rose less raggedly. The arrow slid out with a soft pull, blood slowing, then stopping altogether. His eyes fluttered open, dazed but alive.
"Return to the rear line! Medics only!"
This voice cut through. Sun’s voice. Crisp and clipped, hard enough to feel like a slap. Commanding as always, each syllable sharp with the expectation of obedience.
Elise froze for a single heartbeat. Her training screamed at her: obey. Medics worked behind the front, safe enough to heal without being cut down themselves. That was the rule. That was survival.
But her eyes lifted anyway, unbidden. And they didn’t turn to Sun.
They turned to Jae
He stood in the thickest crush, fire roaring from his blade in great sweeping arcs. His smirk cut through the smoke and blood, not arrogance but defiance, a stubborn dare flung in the face of everything trying to crush them. Around him, cadets straightened. Around him, their fear bent into steel.
He wasn’t just fighting. He was anchoring them.
Her chest tightened. She knew, suddenly and with painful clarity, where she belonged.
She surged forward before she could think twice, skirts whipping around her legs as she broke from the safer lines. Arrows hissed overhead, blades rang close enough to bite, but she didn’t falter. Her hands glowed even brighter as she threw herself into the fray beside Jae’s unit.
A cadet staggered, blood painting his sleeve. Elise caught him, palm pressing firm against the wound, mana spilling into the rent flesh until it knitted shut enough for him to lift his sword again. Another boy gasped as an arrow grazed his thigh, she stopped the bleeding in seconds, shoving him forward before he could collapse.
Byun saw her first. Shadows lashed outward to snag a raider’s ankle, toppling him before his blade could reach her. Byun’s grin flashed, sharp and irreverent even as chaos swirled.
"Well, well," he sang over the din. "Looks like the timid one traded her back row seat for the front line." His shadows twitched, yanking the raider screaming into the dark. "Bold move, healer. You planning to lecture us about safe fighting practices while you’re at it?"
Elise didn’t answer him with words, just a sharp shake of her head as sweat streaked down her temple. Her hands glowed again, pressed against another cadet’s torn shoulder. The boy gasped, color rushing back to his cheeks. Elise’s voice, soft but steady, cut through. "If I stay behind, they’ll die before they ever reach me. Here" she shoved more mana into the wound, sealing it with trembling fingers " here, I can keep them standing."
Byun’s smirk only widened, shadows dancing wild around his arms. "I like her better like this," he muttered. "Spine out, heart in the fire."
Tirel slid close, her stride a dance even in the blood and mud, fire curling from her fingertips in lazy, deliberate streams. Her lips curved in that sultry, taunting smirk. "Mm. Didn’t know you had it in you, darling." She tilted her head toward Jae, firelight glinting in her eyes. "He must be rubbing off on you."
Her smirk deepened, voice dripping with mischief. "Quite literally, one day, I imagine."
Elise flushed scarlet, the tips of her ears burning hotter than Tirel’s flames. But she didn’t let herself be baited, didn’t spare a word for the teasing.