"I speak the language the oppressed remember," he replied, then melted into the undergrowth, body sliding from moon-lit outline to stitched shadow in a breath.
Sylvanna watched him vanish, shoulders sagging with reluctant respect. A moment later she jogged downslope, keeping low. Each step stirred memories of other ruined strongholds, other nights Draven had turned despair into a scalpel. Stay alive, she prayed—or maybe it was a command—then slipped through a breach in the palisade to find the elves.
