Corvis Eralith
The letter from Rahdeas Warend—a name that now clicked into a dreadful, familiar slot with the knowledge that Lance Olfred was his foster son—burned a hole in my mind where Grandpa had snatched it away.
What did it imply? The question was a frantic swarm in my head as I watched the great Virion Eralith patiently restacking parchment a toddler had scattered.
Without Arthur, did the gears of betrayal still turn? In canon TBATE, the dwarven Elder's motivations were a shadowy blur, overshadowed by the more blatant greed of the Greysunders.
Were his reasons personal? Political? Or was his soul already etched with Agrona's sigil, a puppet waiting for its strings to be pulled?
The Greysunders were simple deduction: offer power, wealth, dominion, and they would kneel. But Rahdeas… he felt different. More substantial, and therefore more dangerous.
Without Arthur, there was no Nico-Elijah to be inserted into Dicathian society. So why would Agrona invest in Rahdeas? Was the dwarf elder already a sunk cost, a long-term asset planted deep in Darv's political bedrock, waiting for a purpose?
Or was his treachery a purely domestic affair that would have festered with or without a god's whisper? I had no clues, only the chilling certainty that a name from the future's blackest chapters was appearing now, in my grandfather's present, and its context was a void I couldn't fathom.
My frantic, circular reasoning was shattered by a soft, precise knock on the study door.
I looked up.
And my world, already tilting on its axis, lurched violently.
There she stood, framed in the doorway, a portrait of perfect, unassuming service. Alea Triscan. She wore the standard maid's uniform of the Zestier palace, silver trim on grey, her posture a respectful bow.
But my knowledge screamed the truth her disguise was meant to conceal: Lance Alea Triscan. One of the two white-core guardians of Elenoir, counterpart to Aya Grephin.
In the story I knew, she was destined to be the first major casualty of the war, cut down alongside her team in the Beast Glades by the Retainer Uto—a death that served as the continent's brutal awakening to the true horror they faced.
Here was a figure of tragic legend, of whispered power and secret duty, bowing in a sunlit doorway. Before the Tri-Union forced the Lances into the open, they were the most closely guarded secrets of each nation.
I, Corvis Eralith, a three-year-old prince, was likely one of the only souls in Elenoir who could put a name and a face to the foreign Lances.
It made perfect, chilling sense for her to be here, posing as a maid. It was the perfect camouflage, placing the ultimate bodyguard within arm's reach of the royal family. But where was Aya? Not here, in the heart of the Eralith power. Probably operating elsewhere, a separate, hidden dagger.
Grandpa's cheerful dismissal, Alea's calm instruction—I obeyed mechanically.
The will to rebel, to enact another pathetic tantrum, evaporated in her presence. It wasn't just that she was a Lance, a white-core mage. It was the aura she carried: a lethal serenity, a total, unshakeable competence.
Her hand was warm and steady as I took it, a stark contrast to the tremor I fought to suppress. We walked in silence through the grand, airy halls, our footsteps hushed by thick elven rugs. The palace, usually a maze of familiar anxieties, felt suddenly alien, the very air charged with her hidden significance.
"Tell me, Your Highness," she began, her voice a gentle, melodic attempt to pierce the silence I clung to like a shield. "Do you like magic?"
"No."
The answer was immediate, visceral, and entirely true. I didn't dislike it. I feared it. Magic was the engine of the apocalypse I foresaw. It was the fire in Agrona's forges, the light in Kezess's pitiless eyes, the power that would tear my family apart.
She accepted my blunt refusal without comment, the silence stretching between us again, filled only with the faint, rhythmic whisper of her uniform.
Then, she tried once more, her tone still friendly, but with an underlying current of something else—professional curiosity, maybe?
"May I ask you another question, Your Highness?"
I nodded, a tight, small motion.
"How did you develop a mana core?"
The question, so casually devastating, stopped the blood in my veins. My head snapped toward her, my hand instinctively tightening in hers.
Of course. The thought was a scream of despair. Of course she sensed it. Among the Lances, Alea was renowned for her preternatural sensory abilities. My pathetic attempts at concealment were tissue paper before the focused perception of a white core.
The walls of my secret citadel crumbled with a single, softly spoken sentence.
"I… I…" I stammered, my mind a whiteout of panic.
Then, something miraculous happened. She lifted a finger, not in reprimand, but gently, to her own lips in a 'shush' motion, her eyes crinkling with a smile that held no malice, only a deep, unexpected understanding.
"That's the best answer I could ask for, thank you, Your Highness."
Her words were a pardon. She saw my terror, recognized the secret for the burden it was, and chose not to expose it. The relief was so profound it left me dizzy.
"However," she continued, her voice dropping to a more confidential tone, "you will have to pardon my selfishness, Your Highness. I have a request for you."
A request? From a Lance? My mind, still reeling, couldn't compute it. I managed another nod, my throat too tight for speech.
"I would like you to become my little brother's friend, please."
The plea in her voice, so at odds with her poised, powerful presence, was the second shock in as many minutes.
The fragmented lore I remembered surfaced: Alea had a younger brother. He died of sickness before the war, leaving her utterly alone before her own death.
He was around Arthur's age… which meant he was also around my age. A child hidden away in the shadow of a sibling carrying a world of secret weight.
"Ehm…" I stammered again, the social impossibility of it clashing with the raw humanity of her ask.
She leaned a fraction closer, her winter-blue eyes holding mine. "In exchange, I can help you with your own core cultivation." A faint, knowing chuckle escaped her. "Sure, I am no Elder Virion, but I, too, have my own surprises."
The offer was a lifeline thrown into my stormy sea, and it was made of solid gold. She was a white core. Even the "weakest" Lance was a force beyond the comprehension of normal mages.
Grandpa had explained that in the novel: it would take multiple silver-core masters to even challenge one at white level. Her guidance would be invaluable, a shortcut I desperately needed but could never seek openly. And beyond that was the implicit promise of her silence. She would become my co-conspirator.
"Okay," I breathed, the word bursting out with an eagerness I couldn't contain.
She laughed, a light, genuine sound that softened the sharp edges of her presence. "It will be my honour, Your Highness."
Then, the cold water of reality splashed over me.
"Wait!" I exclaimed, my voice hushed but urgent. "My family… can't know of it."
This was the cornerstone. This was for Tessia. My progress, my struggles, my stolen lessons—they had to remain in the dark. I could not become another Arthur.
Her expression sobered into one of absolute, professional understanding. She gave a slow, deliberate nod. "Of course, Your Highness."
The pact was sealed in a glance: two keepers of secrets, one ancient and powerful, one fresh and terrified, agreeing to a hidden curriculum.
"Now," she said, her voice shifting back to that of the polite maid, her gaze turning forward down the hall. "Your mother awaits you."
The dread returned, but it was different now. It was no longer the pure, helpless terror of the unknown. It was laced with a new, fragile thread of possibility.
"...yes…" I whined, the childish complaint now almost a performance for our new, shared audience of two.
Virion Eralith
I settled back into the worn embrace of my armchair, the familiar creak of the leather a comforting sound in the quiet study.
A smile, genuine and unburdened, still lingered on my lips, born from the delightful chaos my grandson had just wrought.
The sight of Corvis—usually so still, so watchful, like a sapling holding its breath in a windless glade—finally erupting in a fit of perfectly normal, messy toddler rebellion… it had filled a hollow place in my heart I hadn't fully acknowledged was there.
For a few glorious minutes, he hadn't been the quiet shadow trailing after his sister, or the boy who flinched at cats and crowds.
He had been simply a child, frustrated and loud, testing the boundaries of his world.
The relief was warm in my chest, a joy so profound it felt like a gift. It was a reassurance that beneath whatever shyness or peculiar fear he harbored, the vibrant, untamed spirit of an Eralith still beat.
My gaze fell upon the letter now safely back in my hand, its fine parchment feeling heavier than it should. Corvis's attempt to snatch it had been the clumsy, curious grab of a child reaching for a glittering, forbidden object, unaware of the complex and often ugly machinery it represented.
I envied that ignorance.
Rahdeas Warend. The name alone summoned a bitter memory. A Darvian merchant who had built his fortune into a dynasty, his coffers swelling with the gold that flowed during the darkest days of the Second War.
He'd profited from Sapin's ambition, which meant he'd profited from elven blood spilled on Elshire soil.
What could such a man, whose rise was entwined with my people's suffering, possibly want from me now?
The answer, it seemed, was etched in his elegantly cryptic script. It spoke of unity. Of borders dissolved. It was a song that had been playing in the background of Dicathen's politics for decades, a melody I knew by heart but which never found its chorus.
Every attempt at true alliance died stillborn.
Sapin's nobility, bloated on centuries of human-centric pride, would never accept elves or dwarves as equals.
Here in Elenoir, every elder, every soldier who had fought, every mother who had mourned, held a deep, well-earned distrust for Sapin's greed and Darv's mercenary neutrality.
And Darv itself? It remained a mountain unto itself, unmoved by anything but trade agreements, its political halls as closed and inscrutable as its deepest mines.
Yet, Rahdeas's letter, for all its poetic obfuscation, was a clear signal. He was positioning himself on the side of a future I desperately wanted to believe in. It made me think of Cynthia.
Cynthia Goodsky. A force of nature contained within a deceptively calm demeanor. The director of Xyrus Academy, a woman whose vision stretched far beyond the floating city's manicured grounds.
For years, she had fought a quiet, relentless war of her own—not with mana, but with policy and stubborn persuasion—to make Xyrus a beacon for all races.
She dreamed of it as the seed from which a truly united Dicathen could grow, the first multiracial city in our fractured history.
She faced hostility at every turn: from Sapin's braying lords, from the cautious Glayder monarchy, from the inertia of millennia of tradition. But Cynthia persisted. I had never pressed her on the root of her fervor; some fires are best appreciated for their light, not their fuel.
A soft smile touched my lips as I remembered a promise made to ber years ago, a vow that my grandchildren would one day study under her guidance. Tessia, with her blazing spirit, and Corvis, with his surprising, hidden depths… they would be magnificent. They had to be.
Rahdeas's missive, then, was not just a letter. It was a carefully cast stone in the stagnant pond of our politics. He was testing the waters, seeking an ally in an old king known for his battle scars but also, perhaps, for his weariness of endless strife.
He was aligning himself with Cynthia's dream, and by extension, with my own hopes.
The decision solidified within me. I could not let this signal go unanswered. Pushing myself up from the desk, the weight of my years felt more pronounceda, a catalyst for action. I needed to speak with Alduin.
My son. The king. A good man, a just ruler for our people, but one whose heart still bore the fresh, searing brand of war.
Where I saw the tragic, interwoven history of three races, Alduin still saw the stark silhouette of an enemy on the horizon. His vision for Elenoir was one of strong, guarded borders and proud isolation, a fortress nurtured by the deep roots of the Elshire.
It was a vision born of love and protection, but also of a pain he had not yet fully released. I wondered, not for the first time, if I had stepped aside too soon.
Had I left him a throne perched on the edge of a cliff, without showing him the fragile bridge that might lead to safer ground?
No. Doubt was a luxury for lesser men. Alduin was a good king. He simply needed time to see past the walls his pain had built, to understand that the greatest strength sometimes lies not in taller ramparts, but in stronger bonds.
It was my role now as a father, to help him glimpse that horizon. With Rahdeas's letter in hand and Cynthia's example in my heart, I would try.
For Tessia's future, for Corvis's, for the dream of a Dicathen that could finally stand as one.