Page 60 of Bound to the Dorm Elf
“This world shelters you,” he says, his gaze sweeping over the campus buildings like they’re nothing more than temporary barricades. “But it will not protect you.”
The warriors shift again, their armor whispering against itself. Behind me, I hear Skylar’s voice — faint, carried on the wind — calling my name. I don’t look back.
“You didn’t breach a portal that size just to talk,” I say.
“No,” he agrees. “I came to offer you a choice.”
My laugh is short and sharp. “Your choices are always the same. Serve or be crushed.”
His mouth curves — not into a smile, exactly, but into that dangerous almost-smirk I grew up fearing. “And yet you always make them difficult.”
A gust of wind cuts through the clearing, carrying the faint scent of ozone and something older, heavier — the magic bleeding from the breach. The warriors’ eyes never leave me, and I know that if I take one wrong step, steel will be in the air before I can draw breath.
Razarak tilts his head, studying me the way a man studies a chessboard he already expects to win. “You have until the next moonrise to decide. After that… I will not ask again.”
And just like that, he turns.
The warriors pivot as one, the formation swallowing him as they march back toward the still-shimmering wound in the sky. Each step they take leaves a faint scorch in the frost.
I stand rooted to the spot, my breath misting in the cold, until the last black helm disappears into the light and the portal begins to collapse. The sound it makes is low and ugly, like the air is grinding its teeth. Then it’s gone, leaving only darkness overhead and the echo of his voice in my head.
When Skylar reaches me, her breathless from running, I don’t turn to face her right away. I can’t. My hands are still curled into fists, my chest tight with a mix of fury and something worse — something dangerously close to fear.
“It was him,” I say finally, my voice rough.
She doesn’t have to ask who.
The portal light is still burning in my eyes when his voice comes again — that voice I grew up both obeying and despising.
“Rovax’thar Veyrakar.”
Every syllable drops like molten metal, heavy and deliberate. The warriors around him shift their stances, the sound of armor grinding faint under the wind. My full name in his mouth has always been a summons, an indictment, and a threat all at once.
I force myself to meet his gaze. “You never waste time with pleasantries, Father.”
His mouth curves in something that’s not a smile. “You’ve earned none. You wear exile like a badge, but it is a stain. You’ve shamed our bloodline.”
The words slide under my skin like old blades finding familiar wounds. “And you’ve spent your life defending a throne built on cruelty, feeding a dying world your own people’s bones. Tell me, is that honor?”
He takes a step forward, and the warriors move with him, shadows wrapped in black metal. “Protheka is not dying. It isenduring. The strong endure, Rovax’thar. The weak fall. You chose to fall.”
“No,” I say, voice low, deliberate. “I chose to leave before your rot reached me too.”
For the barest instant, his eyes flicker — a flash of something that might be pride or pure hatred. I can’t tell, and I’m not sure it matters.
“You always mistook rebellion for strength,” he says. “But strength is bending others to your will. Strength is taking what you want and holding it until no one dares challenge you.”
My jaw aches from how hard I’m clenching it. “And is that why you’re here? To take me back, put me in your chains again? Or did you drag your war column through the rift because you couldn’t stand the thought of mefree?”
A gust of wind whips through the clearing, snapping the banner on one warrior’s back. The smell of ozone and cold iron fills my nose, mingling with the faint, sick-sweet scent of the portal magic.
Razarak tilts his head, his gaze raking over the campus as though measuring it for conquest. “No, Rovax’thar. I’m here because this world will be mine. Its people will bow, its resources will feed my armies, and its magic — buried deep in the bones of this land — will answer to me. And you…”
He steps closer, and the heat of him is sudden, oppressive. “You will stand at my side when I take it. As my son. As my heir.”
The offer tastes like ash before he’s even finished speaking. “If you think I would help you bleed another world dry, then you’ve forgotten who I am.”
His eyes narrow. “You aremine. And what is mine does not get to choose.”
