Sylvie
The deep, rhythmic breathing of sleep filled the quiet room, a comforting counterpoint to the usual vast silence of the Castle at night.
I stretched, a luxurious ripple running from the tip of my snout down my spine, each tiny paw flexing against the soft fabric beneath me.
Instinctively, I nuzzled deeper into the warm landscape of Grey's chest. But instead of smooth skin or the familiar fabric of his sleep tunic, my snout encountered a cascade of cool, silken strands—Tessia's gunmetal hair, fanned out like a river across him. My movement stilled.
Peeking one golden eye open, I took in the scene: Grey and Tessia, tangled together in sleep, her head nestled perfectly into the hollow of his shoulder, his arm wrapped protectively around her waist.
Peace radiated from them, a tangible warmth that pushed back the castle's nocturnal chill. No frown lines marred Grey's brow; Tessia's expression was soft, unguarded, free from the weight of war or worry.
A pure, effervescent joy bubbled up inside me, warm as sunshine in my core. Papa deserved this. He deserved this peace, this simple, profound comfort, more than anyone I knew. My earliest memories, hazy as they were, were steeped in the echoes of his pain.
Even as a hatchling, barely understanding the complex tides of emotion, I'd felt it—the suffocating guilt, the simmering anger, the profound loneliness that clung to him like a second shadow after we fled Alacrya.
Watching him drown in that silent sea, unable to truly comprehend it yet feeling its icy pull, had been its own form of helpless torture.
Then came Tessia. Meeting her, guided by Cynthia Goodsky's gentleness, had been like the first crack in a frozen lake. Grey hadn't thawed instantly, but the rigid ice of his isolation began to soften. He started to look at people again, not just through them.
And then… Corvis. Their bond was a fascinating, complex tapestry I observed with keen childish interest. It wasn't just because Tessia linked them, though that was the spark. It was something deeper, more fundamental.
Corvis spoke of 'Meta-awareness' and 'Fate', concepts that made my head spin like chasing my tail. But what I sensed, woven into the very fabric of their interactions, was a resonance. Grey, burdened by the weight of a past life and impossible choices. Corvis, wrestling with prophecy and impossible knowledge. They recognized the shadows in each other. They didn't flinch.
When Grey spoke to Corvis about things even I, his bond, only half-grasped—fragments of a world called 'Earth', the weight of being 'King Grey'—it wasn't just sharing secrets. It was… shedding armor. Corvis, with his sharp mind and strangely calming presence, became a harbor Grey hadn't known he needed.
He'd once joked about being Grey's 'psychiatrist'—a word for a mind-healer, I think. There was truth in that jest. Corvis offered understanding without judgment, a space where Grey's ghosts could walk without fear.
Seeing them now, Tessia and Grey burning through the steps of their relationship with an intensity that surprised even me (though I heartily approved!), filled me with contentment.
Yet, nestled as I was, my tiny form was slightly… displaced. Tessia's hair was lovely, but it wasn't the solid warmth of Grey's chest I was used to burrowing into. A small sigh ruffled my scales turned into fur. Perhaps it was time for a strategic retreat.
Berna's massive, fur-covered head was infinitely more accommodating, and frankly, softer. Plus, it offered Papa and Tessia the illusion of privacy—a concept somewhat laughable given the unbreakable thread of thought and feeling that forever tied Grey and me. Still, the gesture mattered.
With infinite care, I lifted my head. Leaning forward, I gently nuzzled first Tessia's shoulder, then Grey's. A silent, affectionate 'goodnight', imbued with all my well-wishing. They murmured softly in their sleep but didn't stir. Mission accomplished. Now, for the tricky part: the door.
In my miniature form, the handle loomed large and uncooperative. I wriggled, pushed with my snout, scraped lightly with a paw—a small, determined battle against polished wood and cold metal. Finally, with a soft click, it yielded just enough for me to slip through into the cool, shadowed corridor.
The Castle at night was a different creature. The bustling energy of the day was replaced by a deep, watchful silence, broken only by the distant, rhythmic chirping of nocturnal insects in the moonlit gardens below.
My paws clicked softly on the stone floor as I padded down the hallway. My destination was instinctive: Corvis's room. I didn't want to disturb him if he was sleeping, but a quiet companionship sometimes bloomed in these late hours.
And Berna… well, Berna was simply excellent for naps.
I remembered the ongoing battle between Corvis and the castle maids regarding Berna's presence in his quarters. Their complaints about the 'impossible fur' embedded in every fabric were legendary, met with Corvis's patient but firm insistence that Berna stayed, and that they needn't work so hard.
Royalty, I'd observed, was a strange concept. Virion embodied the weathered, burdened king. Alduin and Merial held a quieter, more dignified grace. Grey… Grey was a former king forged in a different fire, one of self-imposed exile and hidden blades. Corvis, though? He wore his lineage lightly, almost defiantly casually.
He cared more for function and comfort than pomp, much to the maids' despair. And he talked to Grey about things in a way no one else could, meeting him on that hidden, complicated plane Grey usually inhabited alone. 'Psychiatrist' indeed. It was a bond built on shared strangeness, a mutual recognition of burdens carried.
Reaching his door, I repeated my earlier struggle. Push, nudge, a little hop for leverage… finally, a crack appeared. I poked my snout through, peering into the room lit only by moonlight filtering through the window. My golden eyes scanned the space.
There, a massive, shadowy mound near the hearth: Berna, deeply asleep, her sides rising and falling with slow, powerful breaths. But the bed… Corvis's bed was empty. The covers were thrown back haphazardly.
A flicker of surprise, then understanding. Oh. So Uncle Corvis was having sleep troubles too? A familiar nocturnal restlessness, perhaps? Well, if he was wandering the castle like me… Uncle hunting it was!
Romulos Vritra
The midnight air was cool against Corvis's skin—my skin, for these precious, stolen hours.
I laid sprawled across a stone balustrade, high above the sleeping castle gardens, one leg dangling carelessly over the void. The stars were cold, distant diamonds, indifferent observers to the turmoil churning within the borrowed vessel I inhabited.
Corvis sacrificed these hours willingly, a testament to the trust that felt increasingly like a shard of glass lodged in my conscience.
Three hours a night, a fragile truce where I could breathe, move, and pretend, however briefly, that the crushing weight of legacy and betrayal wasn't mine to bear. I loved him for this gift, this fragile autonomy. And that love was the poison corroding my certainty.
I should be getting in contact with Dad to bring Corvis to Taegrin Caelum now...
"There you are, Corvis!" Sylvie's voice, bright and warm as sudden sunlight, shattered the contemplative silence. She bounded onto the balustrade, a small, furred snowball against the moonlit stone.
"Are you having trouble sleeping too?" Her golden eyes reflected the starlight with innocent concern.
Trouble sleeping? If she only knew the depth of the insomnia plaguing the consciousness piloting her uncle's body.
"Something like that," I murmured, the words falling from Corvis's lips in a cadence slightly too smooth, too devoid of his characteristic undertone.
Instinctively, I reached out, my hand—his hand—finding the spot behind her ears she loved. She leaned into the scratch with a soft rumble of contentment, a sound that vibrated through Corvis's fingertips and resonated strangely in the hollow space where my own heart should be.
These quiet moments with Sylvie, were becoming dangerous. They were cracks in the armor of my resolve, moments where the carefully constructed vision of Dad's righteousness began to fray.
"Sylvie…" I began, the name heavy on my tongue.
"Yes?" She tilted her head, ever eager, ever trusting. The perfect confidante, utterly unaware of the serpent coiled within her uncle's mind.
"Have you ever met Agrona?" The question hung in the cool air, sharp as a shard of ice. I felt her tiny body tense instantly beneath my touch.
A tremor ran through her, not just physical fear, but a deeper, instinctive recoil that echoed through our shared Asuran heritage. The silence stretched, thick with her unspoken dread.
"No…" she whispered, the word small and fragile. She pressed closer, seeking comfort from the very source of her sudden unease.
The reaction was a dagger to the carefully nurtured illusion. "Sorry for asking," I said quickly, forcing Corvis's voice into a gentler, more reassuring register. "I have everything I needed to know, don't worry."
The lie was awful. I didn't know. Not definitively. Sylvie's visceral fear, undoubtedly shaped by Grey's own burning hatred and traumatic memories, clashed violently with the bedrock of my existence: the absolute conviction that my Agrona Vritra, the father of my first life, loved his children fiercely, protectively, even amidst his grand, often brutal designs.
In my reality, Sylvie feared Agrona, yes, despised his methods, mourned the lives he shattered, but she never doubted the twisted, possessive love he held for her.
He despised and hated Arthur Leywin for bonding her, saw him as a lesser tainting his precious daughter, but he would have razed continents before harming Sylvie herself. He saw her as his, a Vritra princess, flawed by her bond but irrevocably part of his legacy.
He would have killed Arthur with cold pleasure and tortured him, but Sylvie? Never.
Yet, the chilling plot from Corvis's 'novel'—the reality Fate had shown him as a future—depicted an Agrona utterly devoid of that paternal anchor. An Agrona who saw Sylvie as nothing more than a vessel and a potential experiment, an obstacle, ultimately expendable.
A monster who would sacrifice his own daughter on the altar of his ambition without a second thought. My Dad? The man who, despite the oceans of blood on his hands, whose eyes held galaxies of cold calculation, still reserved a hidden chamber in his heart solely for Romulos and Sylvie? The idea was anathema.
He was complicated, yes. Demanding? Absolutely. His expressions of love were often tangled with manipulation, strategic advantage, and a terrifying disregard for anyone outside his immediate circle.
Corvis would call it toxicity. I called it the only love I had ever truly known.
Agrona Vritra's love was a desolate landscape, but it was real. It was the gravity that held my fractured world together. He hated the world, despised the Asuras, saw lessers as tools or curiosities… but his children?
We were the exception. We were the reason. I was his anchor to his own fading humanity, the living proof that the once Basilisk Prince wasn't entirely consumed by the High Sovereign.
But was that true here? Was that true for this Agrona Vritra, the one who had never known Romulos, never held his son, never felt that specific, possessive pride?
Fate had told to Corvis that the Thwart's purpose differed with each instance. His was tied to Grey's reincarnation in Alacrya.
Mine… my very birth as the Indrath heir had already irrevocably altered Epheotus, rippling out to change Dicathen. But the antecedent reason? The core divergence? Was it possible that in this reality, without me as his son, without that anchor… Agrona Vritra had become the pure, unadulterated monster Corvis's novel depicted? A being who saw no exceptions? Not even for Sylvie?
"Uncle?" Sylvie's soft voice pulled me back. She nudged my hand, which had stilled. "What are you thinking about?"
Betrayal. The word echoed in the silent chambers of my mind. The unthinkable. Murdering the only father I ever truly claimed. But if the suspicion clawing at my resolve was correct… if this Agrona was capable of harming Sylvie… then he wasn't my father.
He was a perversion of the man I loved. A fake. A threat that needed eradication in the most gruesome way imaginable.
The thought was sacrilege, a tectonic shift in the bedrock of my being. Yet, Sylvie's fear, that novel's horrifying prophecy, the chilling absence of my influence on this Agrona… it formed a constellation of doubt I could no longer ignore.
My Dad, the one I knew, would have moved Epheotus to make Sylvie feel safe in Taegrin Caelum, even if it was a cage. He might have manipulated her, used her bond for leverage, but he would never have hurt her.
He felt Mother's departure as a betrayal, a wound, but his children? We were blameless extensions of his own will. That was my divergence. My Agrona had limits, defined by his love for us.
But this Agrona… did he have those limits? Were Sylvie's impressions, undoubtedly colored by Grey's trauma, actually the unvarnished truth here? Was the lack of Romulos the key that unlocked his absolute monstrosity?
I needed to know. And to know, I needed access. I needed Sylvie strong, capable, able to withstand Dad's possession if necessary. I needed her human form unlocked.
"Sylvie," I said, my voice regaining a measure of its usual calm, though the turmoil beneath was a raging sea. "How is your own cultivation doing?" I focused on the feel of her fur under my fingers, the steady pulse of her life force. It was a grounding point in the moral quicksand.
Her ears perked up instantly, golden eyes wide with hopeful excitement. "I just wanted to talk to you about that, Uncle!" She pressed her head firmly against Corvis's chest, a gesture of pure, unadulterated trust. The warmth of her small body, the innocent faith radiating from her, was a physical ache.
I, Romulos Vritra, was betraying the head of the Vritra Clan. The enormity of the thought crashed over me. Not based on strategy, not on evidence, but on a feeling. A daughter's fear. A stupid novel's warning. The terrifying possibility that the love I built my existence around might be a phantom in this reality.
If I was wrong… if this Agrona was still the father who would have cherished Romulos… the thought of his pain, his broken fury at seeing the son he never knew had betrayed him… it was a desolation I couldn't fully grasp.
But Sylvie's safety, the raw terror I'd felt in her tiny frame at Agrona's name, outweighed even that specter of paternal anguish.
"How are we going to do that?" Sylvie asked, vibrating with anticipation, utterly unaware she was the catalyst for a potential dynastic cataclysm.
A grim, determined certainty settled over me, colder than the night air. I knew exactly how. Decades of brutal, meticulous training under Grandmother Myre and Lord Grandfather—training meant to forge the perfect Indrath heir, the impeccable Asura—surged to the forefront of my mind.
The complex pathways of draconic mana, the precise sequencing of core stimulation, the ancient techniques to accelerate cultivation… knowledge meant for domination, now repurposed for protection. For Sylvie. For the possibility that the monster wearing my Dad's skin in Taegrin Caelum needed to die.
"Patience, little star," I murmured, the endearment feeling foreign yet strangely right on Corvis's lips. My fingers began to glow with a soft, controlled violet light, intricate runes forming in the air above her, drawn from the deepest, most sacred vaults of Indrath knowledge. It was more primitive doing it with Corvis' lesser silver core, but I could borrow Mother's mana core if needed.
"We start by reminding your mana core exactly what it is meant to become."
Arthur taught me the importance of being a good brother, and I was now given the chance to fully prove it.
Corvis Eralith
The groan tore itself from my throat before consciousness fully settled, a raw, ragged sound that scraped against the quiet of the room. Every muscle protested, leaden with a fatigue deeper than mere physical exertion. It felt like I'd spent the night wrestling tectonic plates, not sleeping.
Berna's massive head rested on the edge of the bed, her rhythmic breathing a low, comforting rumble, utterly oblivious. Blades of sharp morning light sliced through the gaps in the heavy curtains, illuminating dust motes dancing in the air and landing squarely on… a small, scaled form curled possessively atop my chest.
"Good morning, Corvis!" Sylvie chirped, her voice bright and jarring against the residue of my exhaustion. She was nestled comfortably, her tiny paws wrapped firmly around Sylvia's mana core.
My own heart gave a frantic lurch. The core!
"Before you panic," Romulos's voice slithered into my mind, smooth as oiled silk, laced with unmistakable amusement.
Please, Romulos, I thought back, the mental plea thick with weariness. The sun's barely up, and I feel like I've been trampled by a herd of elephants. Spare me the dramatics.
"Yes, yes," he conceded, his tone dismissive but oddly lacking its usual bite. Yet, he didn't let me form a coherent question. "Consider last night… productive. While you dreamt of whatever mundane fantasies occupy your mind, I conducted a rather intensive training session with our dear sister. Specifically," he paused, the amusement returning, "guiding her to draw mana directly from Mother's core. Efficient, isn't it?"
My sleep-fogged brain stumbled. Using the Barbarossa's primary power source for core refinement? Then the obvious slammed home. Of course.
Sylvia's core wasn't just a battery; it was a font of the purest draconic mana imaginable. In the memories of the novel, Cecilia had brrn described as almost addicted to the potency of dragon mana after she drained a bit of it during her fight against Arthur in Nirmala.
Why hadn't I thought of this for Sylvie?
"Because," Romulos answered the unspoken thought with clinical precision, "you were coreless when Grey gifted it to you, rendering its refinement potential irrelevant to your pathetic state. And later? Your mind, brilliant as it is, remains stubbornly lesser-bound. You saw it only as an energy source for our metal beast. Moreover lessers refine inefficiently; they lack the instinct, the inherent pathways. Sylvie, however… she is pure Asura. Her draconic core resonates with Mother's power on a fundamental level."
Right, right, I conceded, pushing myself up slightly, careful not to dislodge Sylvie. How long do you think it will take? The question was genuine, but beneath it, a chilling suspicion crystallized. Why now? Why this sudden benevolence towards Sylvie's growth?
The answer seemed horrifyingly obvious: contact. He needed her stronger, more developed, to be a suitable conduit for Agrona. Instinctively, I tried to slam mental shields down, to hide the dawning fear and accusation.
He sighed within my mind. A sound of profound exasperation, almost… weariness?
"Don't bother constructing your little mental fortresses, Corvis. While it's true that speaking with Agrona remains… a necessary objective,"—he used the name with chilling neutrality, no 'Dad', no possessive affection—"I realized something last night under the stars."
A pause. Heavy. Significant. "You were right."
The words hung in the shared psychic space, stark and unbelievable. I… what?
"I yield," Romulos continued, his voice stripped of its usual sardonic edge, replaced by a flat, almost hollow finality. "You have won. And I have lost."
Wait. I don't understand. Won what? Sylvie nudged the core into my hands. I took it automatically, its familiar thrum against my palms the only tangible anchor.
"I realized," Romulos stated, his mental voice dropping to a sub-zero chill, devoid of any inflection, "that the Agrona Vritra in this reality is likely nothing more than a blasphemous imitation. A hollow caricature of the father I knew."
The detachment was terrifying. It wasn't anger, or sorrow; it was the sound of an idol shattered, examined, and found utterly wanting.
"Therefore, the only logical course is to assist you in winning this war to the absolute best of my capabilities. We will show Epheotus, Alacrya, and that pretender in Taegrin Caelum," his voice gained a sliver of its old, vicious heat, "what real Vritras are made of."
Damn… The word escaped my mental grasp before I could stop it.
"Are you serious?" Romulos's response was immediate, laced with genuine disbelief and a sharp spike of annoyance. "I just confessed to betraying the foundational pillar of my entire existence—past, present, and the future I meticulously planned—a betrayal that feels like carving out my own core with a rusty spoon and slowly dying of mana starvation, and your profound summation is 'Damn'?"
Sorry, sorry! The apology was reflexive, frantic. It's just… How could I explain? The relentless pressure, the constant, insidious whispers about destiny and power and joining Agrona, the intellectual seduction of Vritra supremacy… it had been the background hum of my life for years.
To have it severed so abruptly, declared null and void by the architect himself? It wasn't relief; it was vertigo. It was really strange to hear that coming from you.
Are you… feeling alright? The question was absurd, but the sheer incongruity of it demanded asking. Had the strain finally cracked him?
"If that was my real father," Romulos retorted, his voice regaining a sliver of its familiar, dry sarcasm, though it rang hollow, "you'd currently be waking up in Taegrin Caelum, draped in Alacryan silks, answering to 'Sovereign Corvis'. Unfortunately,"—a pause, filled with the ghost of a thousand shattered dreams—"that particular fantasy appears to be untenable."
You're taking it… with remarkable philosophy, I observed cautiously. If our positions were reversed, if the core of my identity and loyalty was so violently upended… I'd be drowning in a black pit of despair.
"Because I am still a Vritra, Corvis," he stated, the words carrying a strange, defiant pride amidst the ruins. "I am still dragon and basilisk. Still intellect and ambition. Still your brother. Agrona may be a counterfeit, but I am not."
"Now, enough existential inertia. Get up. I am profoundly tired of watching you stagnate."