TW: Blood and gore, mutilation, major character death and towards the end: child death, suicide

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Morana's last uncle she never met to her knowledge, Yongguk, shot up in his chair. He warily glimpsed into the night, seeing only the horned shadow looming in the dark.

"Show yourself!"

Morana saw their similarities. Subtle, like hers and Aodhán's, which meant they only shared one parent, but they were there.

The only thing Yongguk utterly lacked was his grace as an elf. His movements were jerky, the sunken eye shifty. He only had one of them, the other was covered by a brown patch.

He was as if haunted by his nightmares waiting to take a physical form.

Perhaps Morana was just that. The hangman who spoke his judgment.

Morana stepped into the circle of light, keeping her fists tense but the rest of her body lax to react to a shift in her surroundings. With bared teeth, Yongguk studied her.

He was such a delicate and crazy enemy to have. Such an easy victim, like a frightened hare.

But it was never a matter of strength why Seonghwa lost. His love for his brother withheld his hand.

Perhaps Yongguk appeared as the shrewd strategist of the orcs, abusing his knowledge of the elves to conduct their plundering, but he was alone here. And he seemed paranoid about having this moment happen. Though he was still unsure whether a child of a demon and an elf might not be an ally, forcefully created in the war like Thistle.

After studying the girl with just as much wariness, Yongguk's eye lit up with recognition. Finally realising what the shimmer under her skin meant. Where the sense of kinship came from.

"It's you. You're his child," he whispered, and his scratchy voice gave away his shock. "You survived."

"So I did," Morana replied, resting the hand with the axe on her hip. Yongguk's gaze flinched down to it, drawing the conclusion she didn't come as a friend.

He subtly backed further into his cave, trying to bring distance between them. On a hunt, Morana watched his every move. Enjoyed the fear in his eyes. It tickled the demonic part in her.

"How did you find me? Don't tell me that wench-," he began, but Morana didn't allow him to abuse the woman he swore to love.

She knew best what a healthy relationship looked like. And this miserable rat didn't amount to one.

"My raven." Morana was an excellent liar. And she had no moral that held her back from lying, thanks to the gryphon-borns.

Yongguk ran his fingers through his grimy hair.

"You came to kill me, didn't you? You are the assassin his pathetic harem sent? How fitting of them to have a child do their dirty work because they are too weak."

Morana lifted her brow at him. She was sure San would rip Yongguk to shreds if he got his single hand on him. How did one who withered away into such a miserable heap speak about strength?

Yongguk took her hesitation as an opportunity.

"I also lost an eye to that father of yours. During his reign, he only brought misery upon everyone. You must have suffered under his inability to rule and now he is gone. You could have been so much more if he hadn't been so dull. Queen of his demonic armies."

"Hasn't he lost much more because of you?" Morana asked. What was an eye against the destruction of the Crystal Sphere and near extinction of the elves? Against the rape and the murder and the families torn apart?

Without Yongguk's attempts at a better world, Morana wouldn't have grown up by herself.

But Yongguk chuckled hoarsely. His bony fingers tapped on a book on his table. A memoir, perhaps.

"You were too young to remember it, but Seonghwa had options. He didn't have to do what he did. Don't you agree an empire without the courage of weapons is worth nothing? You need a weapon to kill me as your enemy. You aren't afraid to lead it. Seonghwa suffered because he refused to defend himself. Wouldn't you also block me off if I came for you?"

"I suppose I would," Morana replied. His movements were jittery, but he made a good point. The elves might be fine not fighting anyone, but they continuously suffered. When allied to an empire of people relying on war, things were bound to go wrong.

Yongguk looked triumphant at her agreement.

"It's not too late, Morana," he whispered. Didn't call for help in the lonesome forest because his wit kept him alive.

"You can have a throne without needing to hold back. You can be yourself, elf and demon. You and I can build an empire that adjusts to the needs of all. Can open the path to the demons anew so you can be with those like you." He came closer, trusting her not to slash at him. His eye was bright with his pride to lead. When he held out his book to her, the pages were aged, as if it had been in his possession for a long time.

"Read what I wrote about the war. How my foresight for resources and expansion far surpasses Seonghwa's. I could even befriend the orcs who ruined the entire empire at once, our greatest enemy. There are ways and you will discover I am not mad."

Morana accepted the book and pondered its front.

She also needed to kill to survive and to appease the blood thirst inside of her.

But wasn't the sole reason she killed goblins on the street because of Yongguk's sickening manifesto?

"What is with your eye?" She asked him, not looking up at his smug face.

"It was the Night of Starfall, when your father died. He chose mass destruction and the death of his own people over handing himself over. I couldn't believe his madness. Splintering glass caught in my eye and I lost it."

Morana couldn't help how the corners of her mouth twitched.

So he hadn't even lost it in battle.

"Did it hurt? Was it a necessary pain in your campaign? You would go for that again?" She asked without looking up from the book, almost bored.

Yongguk gave her an incredulous look. He dealt with so many awful creatures, but the madness of sanity was beyond him.

"What? No, of course not," he replied, confused what she was getting at.

Morana chucked the book over her shoulder. She caught the moment Yongguk's expression slipped, and he realised the fury in her starry eyes.

The axe came down to slash over his other eye, drawing golden blood. With a wail, Yongguk broke down to his knees, lifting his trembling hands to the wound.

"Then shut your damn mouth," Morana growled at him when he scrambled over the grass, but no one heard them in their little bubble.

Morana stalked after him as he tried to get up, only to slip in his own blood.

"What have you done?! I can't see!" He screeched and Morana's boot met his side, kicking him over. She hadn't been tormented by him like her family, but this mania was the answer she needed.

"My father is also blind," she hissed. "Didn't you also kick him around? Made him listen to the wails of his loved ones? Took away his beloved?" She hacked into a leg and Yongguk's scream bound around the edges of their magical zone.

Morana spat down at him when he squirmed, unable to get anywhere and too weak to grab a weapon.

After all, the pretentious elf couldn't fight for himself, either.

"No torment I can put on you is enough to make you pay for what you did to my family and those people," Morana growled, looming under the moon witnessing the clearing. Its light was cold; distant from the bleeding sun elf.

No one was here to save him.

"Stop," Yongguk pleaded, gasping through the pain. "We can work together, we-"

"If the empire needed you, they would have made you emperor. I'm not leaving you another day for your ploys," Morana announced as she packed his head.

"You deserve fire and eternal torment, everything you did to others ten times worse. But I don't make the same mistakes as my kind-hearted athair. If you wanted to live, you should have been nicer to the one promising you life. There is only death for you with me."

Her eyes fell onto the bloodied book on the ground, filled with his scribbles in black ink.

"I will take your book back to Seonghwa, see if he can make some sense of it," she told the elf squirming in her fist, so brittle and helpless.

She understood how it was fun to torment them. But she also learned to be wiser than that instinct.

Where would they be if everyone was a slave to whatever spontaneous thought in their minds?

"H-He lives?" Yongguk gasped through the blood pouring from his wound. Once more, Morana chuckled at him.

"He is at the best of health and about to get his throne back. Curse him in the next life."

To Yongguk's betrayed gasp, she brought the axe down on his neck. Hot blood splattered onto her fists, but her elven part was at rest, casting its eye away as the demon hacked at the limp body.

She chopped at him until his head was no longer attached to his body. It was custom to bring it along to show the death of an enemy, but Morana didn't want poor Seonghwa to pass out. She cut off a strand of Yongguk's hair and took the book as proof.

Though she was disgusting and sticky, she took the time to burn Yongguk in his little hideout. Hongjoong told her necromancers could bring people back to life even if the body was chopped apart, so she didn't risk anything. The scent of burnt flesh lured in Onyx and he picked at the body until it turned to ashes.

Hoping to wash off the blood at Circe's home before her return, Morana didn't dawdle. Though her elven side was saddened by this death, it had known of the pain Yongguk put her through. Triumphant over her win, brittle as he might have been, Morana left the scene behind along with the magical stone so no one would find him until there was no more trace.

May the stars punish Yongguk as he deserved.

Though Morana wandered the forest, the scent of fire didn't let up. First, she thought it wafted from behind, but her eyes soon widened when she realised the wooden hut was brightly ablaze. She rushed in, but she had no magic or water to put it out.

No enemy was near.

"Circe!" Morana yelled, kicking against the door, but it held out.

Locked from the inside.

"Circe, get out of there!"

Morana sprinted around to the window, clouded with thick swathes of black smoke. She swung herself inside, stinging less quickly since fires weren't nearly as hot to her. With a cough, she slashed the curtain aside, peering through the bright flames and their smoke.

Circe was already dead. Curled around her kids in a last embrace, peaceful against their desperate clinging to her mother.

"Damn you," Morana growled, digging through the bodies. A miserable hiccough responded to her. The smallest goblin child was buried below the others, still alive and protected from the fire. But breathing the poisonous smoke.

Morana yanked the child out of the pile and into her arms, jumping back outside with burning lungs. She coughed the pain away and called for Obsidian hoarsely, rushing to feed the wailing toddler some water.

Would she find healing herbs here?

No, the fire would attract orcs. They needed to leave immediately.

"Hold out," Morana whispered to the child as she swung onto Obsidian. They left the fire behind, racing away while Morana helplessly rocked the child, praying they would make it back home quick enough that Hongjoong could help.

It wasn't the fault of the children. Like Thistle, they never asked for this life.

But the body in her arms grew colder and colder. Morana was too late.

She cradled the corpse, biting back her tears about the child she never knew.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, though she understood Circe's guilt she couldn't live with. "Sorry this was your life. I wish your next one will be better."

She made a stop in the Sky-reaching Highlands to bury the child. Offered solace and a drink in her fashion and hoped this poor soul wasn't in too much pain before passing.

When she left, her heart was heavy despite her triumph. Not looking back, she departed on the way back home to rest her disrupted heart and confess to her family.