Tasha

Tasha is a dark-elf elementalist, the aunt of Crown Prince Albert Crossman, and one of Rowoon's most capable covert agents. She links the royal family to the hidden City of Death, protects Mary as family, and later becomes a field commander in the continental war.

Biography

The City of Death and royal covert work

Tasha meets Cale Henituse's party in a human disguise and guides them across the Land of Death to the underground City of Death. Her disguise is maintained through a magic tool rather than a biological transformation, allowing a dark elf to move through human territory without revealing Albert's hidden family and allies. (Chapters 21–22)

The city establishes her position between worlds. Tasha is Crown Prince Albert Crossman's aunt, a royal agent, and a member of the dark-elf community that shelters displaced humans. She also helped rescue Mary from dead-mana poisoning fifteen years earlier and regards her as family, so political liaison and personal protection overlap. (Chapter 22)

Back in Rowoon, Tasha helps manage covert facilities for Albert, including the secure detention of an Arm operative. Her work depends as much on secrecy, logistics, and political judgment as on elemental force. (Chapter 26)

Hana's rescue

Tasha brings Mary to the Jungle when Hana's dead-mana poisoning becomes critical. Religious history makes her wary of the Church of the God of Sun, but she does not let that distrust decide Hana's fate. She creates darkness around Hana and Mary, physically supports the swordswoman, and urges her through a procedure that could otherwise end in death. (Chapter 30)

The rescue also distinguishes Tasha's abilities from Mary's. Tasha can manipulate wind, use darkness, and operate safely around dead mana, but she cannot create the internal pathway of dead mana that Mary constructs inside Hana. She supports positioning and containment while the necromancer performs the specialized transformation. (Chapter 30)

Wind gives Tasha another support mechanism: she can move Mary when direct physical handling is difficult. The combination makes her valuable around darkness-based procedures without turning her into a necromancer or healer. (Chapter 30)

Command in the northern war

Tasha returns to the field for operations connected to an illegal slave-trading organization, then acts as leader of a mage brigade while Rosalyn is absent. She is an elementalist, not a mage, so the appointment reflects command experience rather than spellcasting. She uses communication devices and wind-amplified speech to transmit Cale's orders across formations. (Chapters 41, 44)

At Castle Leona she leads dark elves across the desert on wind and forms ranged wind attacks. When the enemy floods the battlefield with dead mana, the substance that poisons ordinary living beings strengthens the dark elves instead. Tasha turns hostile terrain into an approach route and helps attack the enemy with wind and dead mana together. (Chapters 47–48)

The affinity has a safety cost. While coated in dead mana, Tasha cannot safely touch ordinary people without darkness affinity. Her capture of bear warriors therefore requires controlling both the wind injury and the contaminated medium while keeping allied humans away from direct contact. (Chapter 48)

Royal agent after the battle

After the battle, Cale trusts Tasha to remain with Albert, Choi Han, and Mary. Her political knowledge helps manage the victory procession and shields two powerful but socially vulnerable allies from court complications. The assignment completes her movement from hidden guide to public coalition leader without erasing the covert skills that made the alliance possible. (Chapters 48, 50)

Appearance and personality

In her natural form, Tasha has black hair, dark eyes, and rich umber skin; Cale compares her presence to a black pearl. She is tall, graceful, and capable of passing as a human through disguise magic. Tasha is sociable, candid, politically perceptive, and quick to laugh, but her warmth coexists with a ruthless aptitude for covert work and interrogation. She is especially protective toward refugees, dark elves, and Mary. (Chapters 21–22, 26, 41)

Abilities and powers

Wind elementalism

Tasha commands wind through elementals. This is explicitly distinct from magecraft: she does not build spells from mana in the same way as Rosalyn's brigades. Instead, elementals carry and shape wind for movement, communication, and attack. She can move herself or another person, amplify a commander's voice, propel dark elves across desert terrain, and form ranged wind arrows. (Chapters 21, 30, 44, 47)

The ability scales from covert support to army coordination. Wind can quietly reposition Mary during Hana's rescue or carry orders above battlefield noise. It can also provide the mobility dark elves need to approach across open ground. Tasks requiring conventional magic or Mary's necromancy remain outside Tasha's technique, which is why she commands mages without being one. (Chapters 30, 44, 47)

Darkness and dead-mana affinity

As a dark elf, Tasha can operate in darkness and dead mana that is poisonous to most living beings. Dead-mana-rich terrain strengthens her people, and wind lets her spread, direct, or attack through that environment. This converts the enemy's contamination at Castle Leona into a dark-elf advantage. (Chapters 21–22, 47–48)

Affinity is not complete control. Tasha cannot create Mary's internal dead-mana pathways, and dead mana on her body remains dangerous to ordinary allies. During cleanup she must avoid touching people without darkness affinity even while using the substance against captured bears. The power therefore changes who can safely share her immediate battlefield space. (Chapters 30, 48)

Disguise, intelligence, and command

A magic tool gives Tasha a human appearance for travel and infiltration. The disguise hides her identity but does not supply her judgment: years serving Albert let her run facilities, assess political danger, and connect the crown to dark elves it cannot openly acknowledge. (Chapters 21–22, 26)

In war she combines that experience with direct command. She can lead units whose technical magic differs from her own, relay Cale's plan, and manage public affairs afterward. Her latest strength is integration—wind, dark-elf forces, royal intelligence, and allied politics work together because she understands each group well enough to bridge it. (Chapters 44–50)

Relationships

• Albert Crossman: Tasha is Albert's aunt and trusted agent. She handles covert assignments, facilities, and battlefield duties that connect the crown prince to allies he cannot always acknowledge publicly. (Chapters 21–22, 26, 44–48)
• Mary: Tasha helped rescue Mary as a child and has protected her for fifteen years. She regards Mary as family and takes deep pride in her growth and happiness. (Chapters 22, 30)
• Cale Henituse: Tasha becomes one of Cale's guides, intelligence contacts, commanders, and political partners. She trusts his discretion and repeatedly interprets his actions as kindness toward persecuted people. (Chapters 21–22, 26, 30, 41, 44–48)
• Hana: Despite initial religious distrust, Tasha helps Hana survive dead-mana poisoning and urges her through the procedure. (Chapter 30)
• Kage: Tasha quickly befriends the excommunicated priestess during the journey to the City of Death, recognizing a similarly candid and unconventional temperament. (Chapter 21)

Items

Tasha has no cataloged signature item; although she uses a disguise necklace during covert travel, her defining capabilities come from her elementals, darkness affinity, and fieldcraft rather than a unique generated object.