For most, life was unfair.

For Count Radran of the Fading Candle, life was especially unfair.

As he peered upon his reflection in his gilded mirror, surrounded by the legacy of his family and his high status in his golden pavilion, he looked upon an elf in his prime. 

Tall, slim and handsome, with striking blue eyes and a curtain of golden hair finer than any woven silk, Count Radran not only boasted the finest pedigree available, but also enough characteristics that he knew that even were he not nobility, he would still never lack for crowns.

For a moment, he admired the sharpness of his jaws, the fine line of his brows and the gentle curve of his ears. A portrait of an elf so fine that he could represent his people in any gallery in the world.

And then–

He removed his wig.

“Grrrrrrraaaaarrrrrrrrrrhhh … !!!!”

Clenching his fists to pitifully squeeze the bundle of false hair in his grip, Count Radran felt his bones clicking to the weight of his vexation.  

Hardship was no secret to the elves.

Yet for Count Radran, he’d known it before he was even born. 

From the day he was old enough to carry his father’s legacy, his life was one of suffering and adversity 

He carried the greatest shame of his family line. A curse so heavy that were it to be discovered, he would lose all rights to power and privilege, his name wiped from the pages of history as easily as a wave washing away sand.

Hereditary hair loss.

It was unthinkable. 

To elves, anything less than hair as smooth as melting butter was unconscionable. The very fact this could be an issue simply didn’t register. Elves were born with hair untroubled by the terrors of the world. Even were they to be raised in the darkest black of the abyss, their hair would remain as a golden spindle of perfection, a call to the light which shone upon the surface.

That’s why–

Nobody could ever know.

The dark secret of the House of the Fading Candle, one of the oldest and most esteemed of all elven nobility must remain hidden, unheard and unseen. 

But Count Radran was not satisfied with that.

Though born with his father’s legacy, he had little intention of dying with it. Upon his death bed, he would be surrounded by garlands of periwinkles and jasmine, and they would all be outshone by the lusciousness of his natural hair.

… This was a problem.

Despite trawling through more ancient tomes than most court librarians could enjoy in their lifetimes, he was unable to find a cure. Remedies and balms existed, of course. But so did conmen and liars. Even then, he held little faith that the workings of any ordinary mage or cleric could solve a distinctively unique problem amongst elves.

Yes.

An unconventional problem. And so he needed an unconventional solution.

Even if it came from that most wild of magic.

Divination.

“An elven ruin … ?”

Before him, the hooded diviner nodded her head, hands upon her crystal ball.

Count Radran only had questions for her. Chief amongst them why she was wearing what was clearly a fake nose. Yet he hadn’t the time nor the mood to quibble. The Ivywood was no place to linger, even as vast as the forest was. Were the Kingdom of Tirea to know that they were residing in the heart of their kingdom, then their army of pig farmers would surely come out to throw sticks at them.

Besides … this diviner had a trading permit.

He’d asked. Twice.

“There are no elven ruins in the Ivywood,” said Count Radran. “None which haven’t yet been despoiled by the brigands which we so generously keep away.”

“I do not refer to the Ivywood,” replied the diviner. “I see a wild forest, verdant and unspoiled, pressed between two walls of iron and stone. Amidst it, a place once called home, still with chambers untouched and doors untroubled. A writhing tree laps at the tears of a fallen kingdom, its hue glimmering and gold. A white fountain resplendent, yet covered by the shadows of wings.”

“A fountain of life.”

Count Radran answered at once.

A fountain of life. He could scarcely believe it.

Whiter than any marble which could be found beyond the Fae Realm, they were the hearts of the Elven Kingdom of old. Found beneath common rooftops and palaces alike, the golden springs they offered were like wine as sweet as summer nectar, while healing wounds so dire that even the coldest darkness was repulsed. 

And none now existed. Not here, at least.

Outside the Fae Realm, few were ever built. They would need to be placed in palaces and fortresses. And all which existed had long been emptied of both dignity and treasures.

Yet if a possibility a single one existed …

Why, Count Radran could restore the Elven Kingdom!

But more importantly, he could restore his hair!

A fool’s errand. A meagre hope. And yet what was being an elf, if not to rise above the waters when the waves came the hardest?

“Wait,” called out the diviner as he left his crowns upon her table. “There’s more.”

“There is? What is it? What more do you see?”

“I see … uh …”

Count Radran frowned.

“Yes?”

Suddenly, the diviner let out a small cough. Her fake nose wobbled.

“Nothing,” she said, her low pitch suddenly natural and high. “It’s just, um, it might be slightly windy where you go.”

“... Windy?”

“Yes. Very windy. But, well, what I see isn’t always accurate, sooo …”

The count nodded, then left to seek out the fountain. 

The warning wasn’t necessary. If even the smallest drop of a fountain of life remained, he would use it to alleviate the greatest shame on his family’s honour.

Every action he took, every word he spoke, every step he walked … it was all for the single purpose of discovering a balm for his single largest source of high blood pressure. Count Radran woke with nightly terrors at the thought of being discovered. 

If there was a cure, he would find it.

And nothing would stop him from doing so. 

Nothing except a black raven … and the missive of a king.

“... Count Radran? Have we received new orders?”

The elven nobleman blinked.

Around him at his high table, in a pavilion far smaller than what he was accustomed to, his retainers queried him with both puzzled expressions and searching eyes.

He squeezed his fist as he peered down at the map. A rare and accurate sketch of both the Kingdom of Tirea and the Grand Duchy of Granholtz. And all the region between them.

One which would soon become the faultline for something terrible.

All could feel it.

“No, we haven’t,” he replied curtly. “Our last orders still stand. Eucian … King Eucian has sent no new directives.”

He had to check his words.

Not all of his retainers were his. Some, he knew, were minders. Elves from different tribes lent to ensure his own much smaller retinue could survive any unforeseen encounters in the days ahead.

Of course, Eucian of the Stars no longer saw them as different tribes. They were one. And though he had not formally declared the restoration of the Elven Kingdom, he had already crowned himself as king. The Crown of Sages did not lie.

He, on the other hand …

Well, no matter. How and when that outcast had spelled enough elves under his wings was not a question he needed to ask. He had a dream which kindled the hearts of all who he spoke to.

But Count Radran had a heart as hard as the top of his head.

The Elven Kingdom did not exist because their home amongst the fae did not. And yet even now, Eucian was exceptionally unforthcoming about the details beyond all the blood that was required. 

Because what else was ever needed to raise a kingdom? 

Even so, while the dream being espoused wasn’t one Count Radran viewed with wet eyes, Eucian was still an archdruid of the elves. 

And that meant he lit the path towards a different dream. 

For Count Radran to wear a curtain of golden hair more resplendent than the leaves of the Autumn Court. 

No one denied the power he had.

And all it took to reap from it was to not to swim against the currents.

“King Eucian will send word when he is ready,” said Count Radran, speaking only the words he knew wished to be heard. “His intentions require discretion. Even so, we must be prepared. Aleesa will return soon. And with her will be a reckoning. We must ensure that when Tirea and Granholtz clash, we are not … not …” 

Suddenly, his stone façade broke as the gathering was interrupted.

One unhappy girl. One happy girl. One wide eyed pixie.

And they’d all entered his pavilion.

Count Radran couldn’t understand the sight before him. Neither could those around him. 

The camp was on heightened alert. Nobody, nobody, was permitted entry. And yet this group had simply walked in. The girl in front was particularly egregious. 

The way she held herself … it was as though she owned the place!

“Begin. Who wishes to explain the sordid mess while I pretend to hear an explanation?”

And then came the barrage of complaints.

It took him several moments before he realised they were related to the untidiness of his pavilion. Which wasn’t ideal, true. But at the same time, it didn’t quite warrant this.

Count Radran was almost beside himself with grief.

He was busy. He was stressed. He had high blood pressure. And he was bald.

Now? Now he also had a group of tourists led by an acrimonious human demanding to know why elves weren’t famed for their cleaning skills.

Count Radran thought little of the younger races. He thought of humans the least. He wasn’t against humans, per say. Some of his best friends were humans. But by and large, he thought of them as rodents breeding at a pace so fast that only they could destroy themselves–something they were overly keen on doing.

But this.

This was a new one.

He had places to be. Granted, the girl frowning with impertinence wasn’t obstructing anything he needed to do. But her overwhelming insistence was like a pup not wishing to return to its kennel.

Only after he spotted the copper ring did he realise she was no such thing.

She was a  mosquito not understanding that a fly swatter couldn’t be bitten.

Count Radran had to fight to keep his expression still. 

The Adventurer’s Guild.

Why? How?

They were the interlopers of the century. The mallet to every plan. That he himself didn’t know the finer details was irrelevant. Because he knew the guild likely didn’t, either.

But that wouldn’t stop them from intervening.

They knew what would happen. Somehow. Soon, this forest would be set ablaze. Open conflict between the Kingdom of Tirea and the Grand Duchy of Granholtz. And blood. Always the blood. It would be terrible. But while Count Radran held no love for Eucian of the Stars even before he crowned himself king, he recognised his strength as an archdruid. 

If anyone could restore the life atop his head, it would be him.

He had to be protected. No matter the costs. 

The world might burn. But in flames, Count Radran’s golden mane would rise again like a phoenix.

“... Though outrageously beneath my high status to instruct anyone not my own handmaiden, I shall render my kindness and my assistance. Rejoice on this most blessed day.”

And so–

The moment the adventurer moved, all rushed to still her.

A single, human girl, drawing her sword in the midst of an entire elven war camp. 

That filled Count Radran with the greatest frustration yet. As unwelcome as the mess strewn on the ground was, it was going to be made considerably worse by rolling heads soon to fall upon it.

Adventurers. 

An incredible thing that their reputation for boldness would actually be understated. 

Yet as famed as their penchant for surviving death was, he knew there was no swordswoman in the Kingdom of Tirea who could survive the hive that had been unleashed. Elves were trained to fight against foes with many times their size and reach. 

And at this distance, with either sword or bow, all could have closed their eyes and met their mark.

Count Radran had no idea how much he’d come to wish he had.

“... Witness the season’s dream, a horizon drawn by a thousand dustpans. Gardening Form, 8th Stance … [Spring Clean]!”

Her sword flashed to life faster than even the arrows loosed from their strings.

In that single moment, Count Radran knew he had made a perilous mistake. 

He was no warrior of particular renown. Yet even so, he was nobility, and he’d witnessed skill with a blade so mesmerising that even the drifting leaves slowed to watch it. He’d seen swords parting rivers with but a thought, or else cleaving through boulders with the grace of a calligrapher wielding a quill.

But this.

This was nothing like that.

Because of the girl’s sword, her form, and her technique … he did not manage to see a single thing.

Not. A. Thing.

He couldn’t believe it. That in a kingdom more famed for its pigsties than its sword maidens, there existed one who had practised the art of the blade with such spiritual fervour, such untold discipline, that the air seemed to part only long after she had swept through it.

The very same air which gathered at the tip of her sword, forming a maelstrom of ungodly horror.

“Ohhohohohoohohhohoohohohohohoho!!”

The next moment–

All thoughts turned to survival.

A pull like the claws of some otherworldly limb wrapped around his waist. As he instinctively grabbed the table before him, he looked up … and what he saw was the abyss made real.

A portal to the darkness. A twisting tunnel of doom. 

It was unfathomable. A spinning nightmare like the eye of a storm. Yet inside it, no calm awaited. Only a mirror reflecting Count Radran’s remorse as every hidden blade, sharpened arrow and piece of forgotten dinner formed an amalgamation of death and food poisoning.

Within that abyssal horror made manifest, a noise like a dying banshee rushed out, matching the screams of his retainers as all present sought to flee. But even that was denied. As his proud retainers caved to their flight instincts, their very footwear was suctioned into the vortex of spinning blades waiting like the jaws of a blood piranha.

“Aaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh …… nooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!”

Count Radran anchored himself upon the table.

His every muscle cried with pain, unable to breathe as he willed every morsel of thought into staying aground. His fingers clawed at the woodwork, nails digging in like burrowing termites. 

It was not enough. 

One. Two. Three … slowly, his fingers were pried as though forced away by a chisel. As they were, he could see the yawning chasm of the maw waiting for him, ready to swallow him for his sins.

Doom.

All he saw was doom.

And then–

Pwwishhhh.

He was offered the light of mercy.

Gasping for breath, he peered up to see the sight of the girl gazing down upon them all, her expression no different than when she eyed the trash now piled into a single heap.

… All the way up until she turned to him, wig upon her sword.

Count Radran never realised it’d been lost. And with it, his long years of deception. Yet even as he returned it to his scalp, he found that he did not have a care in the world.

He had looked into the abyss. And the abyss had looked back.

And the result … was that he had survived.

In that moment, clarity of thought filled his mind. 

A peace as tranquil as the day he’d run down the riverbank chasing after his first sweetheart. He was alive, the taste of vomit and spring in his mouth, and little else mattered.

He swallowed a gulp of air.

A swordswoman faster than the eye could see.

Of all the damp places in the world, he never would have expected to find such a master of the blade in such a forgettable kingdom. And Count Radran knew at once that if word of her had not spread, it was only because she moved faster than her legend would allow.

A human girl able to shape the very air before her, breaking all manner of boundaries.

And if she could do that …

Then perhaps … perhaps she could somehow shape some hair for him as well … ?