"I refuse to be your slave," Alya said in defiance.

"A slave? Who told you that? You will be my wife."

"With you, it’s the same thing."

Larissa stood beside Ning, watching the vision with an increasingly troubled expression as she understood that this was no robbery, no random racial attack, and no crime that had begun within Conjora at all.

These people had come from somewhere else.

They had crossed an ocean, perhaps even passed through the security of multiple countries, and had spent years searching for a single woman who had believed she was finally free of them.

Alya’s arms trembled, but her voice did not. Even though she possessed none of the strength required to fight the people before her, she continued standing in front of her child without moving aside.

"I will not let you use me in your ploy to take the throne," she said. "I refuse to help you or anyone else."

"Come on, Alya," the man said. "You know better than anyone just how important your blood is. Both those who wish for the return of the royal family and those who wish to never see them again will agree that, if you and I were to be together, we could rule the kingdom. If nothing else, do give me that."

Leamor had wanted that claim for years.

"Is her blood special somehow?" Larissa asked.

Ning shook his head. "It doesn’t sound like her blood itself is special. Rather, she must be connected to the royal family of the elves. Who are they again?"

"I’m not exactly sure. I remember hearing that there was some civil unrest in Faedria a couple of years ago. Perhaps that has something to do with it?" she asked.

Ning couldn’t be certain. He would have to wait and see.

Alya looked at Leamor. "Please, just leave. I don’t want to return to Faedria anymore. I left that life behind long ago. Even if you take me back, I will refuse to be yours. No one will help you."

Leamor shook his head. "You don’t have a choice."

Alya’s eyes moved toward the two men standing behind him, searching their faces for the smallest sign of hesitation, but neither looked troubled by what Leamor had said.

Leamor stepped forward. "When I bed you, you will be mine regardless."

The words filled the ruined hallway.

Ning felt something twist inside him.

It was not his anger alone.

Valen’s memories reacted before his own thoughts could, bringing with them a fierce hatred toward the man standing inside his home and speaking to his wife as though she were an object that had escaped from his possession.

Ning knew those emotions were false, implanted into him when he had taken Valen’s appearance and memories, but knowing their origin did nothing to weaken them.

Alya’s face showed disgust, but before she could respond, the child behind her moved just enough for Leamor to see him.

The man’s eyes shifted, and his smile vanished.

For the first time since entering the house, the confidence on his face broke apart, replaced first by surprise and then by an anger so immediate that green energy began to flicker around his fingers without him appearing to notice it.

"Is that your child? You had a child with someone else?"

Alya reached behind herself and pulled the boy closer.

He no longer looked excited about his father returning.

He had begun to understand that the people before him were dangerous, although he could not possibly understand why they had come or what they intended to do.

Leamor stared at him for several long seconds, taking in the child’s hair, face, and ears, which lacked the length and elegance of those belonging to a full-blooded High-Elf.

The child was proof that Alya had not merely escaped him.

She had chosen someone else.

She had married someone he considered beneath her, built a home with him, and given him the family Leamor had believed should have belonged to him.

The offense was not simply personal in his mind.

Alya was tainted now.

No one among the nobles of Faedria would accept her once they learned she had given birth to a half-blood child in a foreign land, and the royal connection he had spent years hoping to exploit had become far more difficult to use.

Leamor blamed her for making this happen.

There was no sadness in him, no disappointment over the years she had lived in fear, and no concern for the child staring at him from behind his mother.

There was only fury that his plans had been damaged.

Alya moved first.

She pushed her son toward the bedroom and threw herself at Leamor, hoping to create enough of an opening for the child to run, but she had no power of her own, no strange ability granted to her by the energies of Hyrron, and no weapon close enough to reach before the two elves behind Leamor reacted.

One of them raised his hand.

Green energy crossed the hallway and struck Alya in the chest, throwing her into the wall with enough force to crack the plaster behind her.

The other moved forward before she could fall, caught her by the arm, and twisted it behind her back until she dropped to her knees.

The boy screamed and ran toward his mother instead of the bedroom.

Alya struggled harder when she saw him coming, kicking backward and attempting to pull her arm free even as the elf holding her forced it farther behind her.

Leamor watched her fight with an expression of cold irritation.

"Keep her alive. Don’t kill her just yet," he ordered.

The elf restraining her forced both of her hands together. At the same time, the other elf moved toward the child.

The young boy tried to fight, but against an adult, he could do nothing.

Alya threw herself forward despite the restraints, using her shoulder and the side of her face to crawl across the broken wood, but the elf behind her stepped on her back and forced her down.

Leamor leaned close to her ear.

"You allowed your blood to be tainted merely to produce a bastard with someone from a lower species. Such a person cannot become my wife," he said. "For that crime alone, you and your child deserve to die."