HALF-BLOOD CHRONICLES: THE HALF-KNIGHT

Prologue

The Lord of Wetwood held the dying Half-Elf in his arms. Of all the ways for their union to end... this had to be one of the worst. He could feel his heart breaking in two as the Half-Elf struggled to wipe the tears from his cheeks.

She was saying something. Whispering her last words in this world for the Lord to hear. But he couldn't hear them. He could only hear their world's last hope of stopping the Elven Curse. After spending her entire life researching, dedicated to fixing the problem her people had created. This was how it ended.

The world was ending. Not just for the Lord of Wetwood. The sounds of crying were muted, as if the Lord was drowning underwater and the rest of the world was not.

The Lord of Wetwood could only stare at the Half-Elf's shaking fingers. Her hand was falling away from his face. Her bright and vivid green eyes like the blossoming spring grass dimmed. Her face turned, fell downwards as she lost even the strength to hold her own head up.

The Lord of Wetwood moved. He had been holding her for so long that his limbs had fallen asleep. Numb arms caught the Half-Elf's dipping chin and cradled her close.

The Half-Elf gazed up into the Lord's grey eyes with an unfocused gaze.

"..." The Half-Elf was trying to speak. But the Lord heard nothing.

She looked up at him with one last desperate pleading look before the end.

The Lord wished he could promise her...

But he couldn't, not even in her last moments.

Maybe the Half-Elf would have nodded. Maybe she would have laughed and smacked him over the head with one of her arcane books. If she had the strength. She didn't. She was dying of weakness.

The Healing Potion he had used to stop her bleeding and mend any injury had been of a higher caliber than most. Yet it, like all Healing Potions required the body to strain to heal itself. And after everything the Half-Elf had just been through... her body just couldn't hold up.

It was so damningly stupid.

The Lord wanted to rage and call the banners. But who could he rally his soldiers against? God? Which one? Who did he blame for this terrible mistake.

The answer came easy. The Lord of Wetwood blamed himself for this whole situation. If only he had never... maybe if he had... or what if...?

His world was ending and the world itself would soon follow. She had been so close, they both knew it. So close to putting an end to the Elf Curse.

It wasn't fair.

The Lord of Wetwood held the Half-Elf close as she died.

The Elf Curse would only grow bigger with time. She had taught him that much of her studies. One day if left unchecked, the Elf Curse would consume the world in darkness and death.

And as the Lord of Wetwood felt the life go out of the Half-Elf in his arms... for that brief moment... the Lord of Wetwood couldn't find it within himself to care.

His world was ending for the second time in his life.

___

The Lord of Wetwood's world was ending for a third and final time in his life.

Nearly two decades since the last great calamity in his life.

The Lord grit his teeth and slapped bloody hands across the stone floor of his hall. One hot and sticky red soaked hand grasped a hold of one of the few surviving Health Potions from the blast.

Someone had cast a spell right into his Lord's Manor. The explosion of wooden splinters and stone debris had sent the Lord and several of his Servants and two Guards flying. One of the Lord of Wetwood's legs had been pulverized by a large stone. He was bleeding everywhere.