He was alive, and he was an elf. Maybe not an elf like the others, but then who said he had to be? What mattered was what he felt. A dawning, as yet barely grasped and understood determination, began to fill him. It flooded into the spaces left empty by the losses he’d suffered. It calmed, though it did not quench, the pain and agony he’d been using as fuel. This was something different, something quieter, yet stronger because of it. He knew now in a way he hadn’t before that the fallen did not die in vain. The missing would be found, no matter what their fate. And the Blood Oath of the Iron Elves would be broken.

He had no words for it, and doubted he could explain it even if he did. This went beyond anything he could say. All his life he’d known anger. It burned him, but he’d come to enjoy that pain. He was never more alive than when he was screaming at the top of his lungs and charging headlong at the enemy. Now… now he saw the first steps on a new path, one that saw beyond the horizon of battle.

He took in a few deep breaths, letting the laughter subside. So be it. There was always a price to pay, and his would be higher than most. He would pay it a thousand times over to end what the Shadow Monarch had started. He wasn’t going to be a pawn any longer. Not for Her, not for the Empire, and not for his anger. He rolled his shoulders and stood straighter. His body relaxed as muscles unknotted. He felt… taller, stronger, more alive than he had in a long time. In another place he might have even felt happy, but the carnage around him ensured that that emotion remained distant. If there was any joy at all to be found, it was in this: Before he took his last breath, he would end Her.

Konowa became aware that silence had fallen around him. The sound of Rallie’s quill on paper had ceased. He glanced up. The stars had vanished, the sky muddled with thickening clouds.