Corvis Eralith
The thought crystallized with a sinking, familiar weight in my gut, cold and unwelcome.
I think I have been too naive... again. The silent admission echoed in the vault of my own mind as I followed Albold Chaffer's guided stride.
The opulent hallway of the Chaffer estate stretched before us, all polished wood and tapestries depicting historic battle formations, but I was barely seeing it.
My focus was internal, a frantic re-calibration.
Albold Chaffer. A name from the mental archive I desperately wished was less relevant.
In the narrative-that-never-was, he was one kf the few elven named character, a loyal soldier, one of Dicathen's stronger assets.
Seeing him here, in the flesh—sandy hair, eager eyes, that practiced, politic smile—was like watching a portrait step from its frame. It underscored the terrifying reality that while the central pillar of that story was absent, the supporting structures, the background players, remained.
The world was still populated, its gears still turned, but the engine was different, and I was clueless about what now drove it.
My assumption that I was meeting Lord Chaffer himself now seemed laughably presumptuous.
The guard's unvarnished astonishment at my unannounced arrival had been the first clue; the pieces clicked into place with Albold's intercepting welcome.
Of course. The letter I'd sent, painstakingly composed in my still-awkward child's script on official palace parchment, had never reached the patriarch of the House.
It had been intercepted by the heir. Albold must have been the one who answered. A swirl of embarrassment, hot and prickling, rose in my chest, but I forced it down, compartmentalized it. Naivety was a luxury I couldn't afford, yet I kept purchasing it with my hope.
I could feel the mana radiating from him, a subtle, disciplined hum beneath the surface of his youthful energy.
It wasn't the volatile crackle of a new awakening, but the settled, potent thrum of someone who had trained for years despite his age.
He was already a mage, solidly within the Orange Stage, perhaps even knocking on the door of Yellow.
I couldn't discern the precise shade—light, solid, or dark—but the quality was there: focused, martial, sharp. It was the energy of a honed blade, not a wild flame.
The Chaffers were renowned for their keen senses, their ability to read mana flow and intent as easily as others read text.
A fresh wave of anxiety tightened my shoulders. My own core, a fledgling red star nestled painfully in my center, felt grotesquely obvious to me, a screaming beacon. Don't look here, I silently willed.
Behind me, I sensed Alwyn's presence like a grounding shadow. I could almost hear his wide-eyed gaze sweeping over the grandeur of the mansion, the silent, efficient servants who bowed as we passed, their eyes carefully averted.
His wonder was a tangible thing, a stark contrast to my own clenching dread. In his quiet observation, there was a purity of experience I had lost before I was even born into this world.
"Albold," I said, my voice cutting through the quiet opulence of the corridor. He immediately turned, a feat of agile politeness, continuing to walk backwards without missing a beat.
"Yes, Prince?" The smile was back, but I could see the fine cracks in it now—the faint tension at the corners of his eyes, the over-brightness of his expression.
"It was you I spoke to, right? Not Lord Chaffer." I stated it flatly, leaving no room for it to be a question.
He swallowed, the motion visible in his throat. "…Yes, Your Highness," he admitted, the polished facade slipping for a half-second before he rallied. "But I have my own reasons!"
"I'm sure…" I let the words hang, laden with skepticism I didn't have to feign. My mind raced through the sparse file I had on him.
Loyal to the Eralith family. Resistant to orders from those he didn't respect—a trait Grandpa Virion had somehow commanded in that other timeline. And, like all elves, a bond with his homeland so profound it was less sentiment and more somatic fact.
It was that bond I was counting on, and it was that bond that haunted me every waking moment.
The realization of what being an elf truly meant had seeped into me since my rebirth, a truth more fundamental than any magic. It wasn't about pointed ears or longevity, nor the simplistic division of elemental affinities.
It wasn't even about a predisposition for magic. It was about substance. About the very composition of the soul I would say.
Humans, back on Earth and seemingly here, were creatures of breathtaking, terrifying adaptation. They were water. They could flow into any container, fill any shape, survive in any crevice.
They could colonize a barren rock, a frozen tundra, a windswept desert, and through sheer stubborn force of will, call it home. Their identity was malleable, rooted in community and concept as much as in place.
We elves… we were not water. We were the tree. The Elshire Forest was our extended body, our collective nervous system. To think of it gone, of those ancient, giants reduced to splinters and ash, of the symphony of life-magic silenced… it didn't just provoke sadness. It induced a visceral, spiritual sickness.
A phantom limb pain for a limb that was continental in scale. It felt like the evisceration of the self, a yawning void where a fundamental sense of being was supposed to reside.
This was the true chasm between our races.
Humanity could lose a homeland and, in time, forge a new one. Elvenkind losing Elenoir would be a species-wide amputation, a psychic wound that would never heal, a song cut off mid-note, leaving an eternal silence in the soul of every survivor.
We were codependent, irrevocably and beautifully.
Our strength was our connection; our ultimate vulnerability was that same tether.
And so, the most dreadful specter from the lost narrative had shifted in my mind. It was no longer the machinations of Agrona, the descent of the Legacy into my sister's flesh, nor even the brutal, grinding tide of the war itself. Those were horrors, yes. Cataclysmic and personal.
But the event that now stalked my nightmares, the one that turned my blood to ice and made the gentle rustle of leaves outside my window sound like a dying gasp, was the annihilation of Elenoir.
The image was seared into my mind's eye, though I had never witnessed it: Aldir Thyestes standing cold and majestic in the sky, a living eclipse. Then, the beam of pure, annihilating light. A continent-scale scorching.
That was the true end. Everything else—war, betrayal, personal loss—was a potential tragedy. That was an extinction-level event for the soul of a nation.
—
The room Albold led us to was not the austere, formal receiving chamber I had anticipated, with its grim portraits of stern-faced Chaffer patriarchs.
Instead, it was his own personal quarters. The disarray was organized, showing a mind both martial and curious: sketches of tactical formations pinned to a corkboard, a small, well-kept practice sword leaning in a corner, shelves holding a mix of historical treatises and, surprisingly, a few well-thumbed adventure novels.
It was a glimpse of the person behind the heir, a space of becoming rather than a monument to what already was.
This, I thought with a wry, internal sigh, is the best I can do as a four-year-old. My reach was limited, my agency a shallow puddle. I could not command audiences with lords, but I could only intrigue heirs... heirs barely into their own adolescence.
"I guess I won't be talking with Lord Chaffer, then," I said, the statement flat, accepting the revised reality. The plan, such as it was, required immediate adjustment.
Albold had the decency to look slightly abashed, though it was layered over a bedrock of cunning.
"Sorry about that. Father is currently not in Zestier," he explained, his tone a masterful blend of apology and opportunity. "That was how I could answer your letter in his place."
A frown etched itself onto my face without my permission. "You stole Lord Chaffer's correspondence?"
The hypocrisy of my indignation was not lost on me.
Had I not, in a fit of panicked curiosity, swiped a letter from Grandpa's desk? The memory was a fresh bruise on my conscience. We were both children playing in the shadows of power, one seeking to understand it, the other to curry its favor.
Albold coughed, a tactical redirection. "What's important is that now we are here. I will be more than pleased to help however I can."
He was right. As the initial embarrassment faded, a sliver of strategic advantage presented itself. Asking a four-year-old prince's eccentric questions about dueling canes directly to the Lord Chaffer would have raised eyebrows, prompted uncomfortable inquiries, perhaps even concerned missives to my parents.
With Albold, it was a transaction between youths, shrouded in the dismissive mystery of childhood whimsy. Perhaps this was better.
"I was searching for dueling canes," I began, choosing my words with deliberate simplicity. "And I know House Chaffer still holds that tradition in heart."
I watched his face, and it was like watching a lantern being lit behind his eyes. The polite attentiveness vanished, replaced by a genuine, blazing enthusiasm.
"That's certainly something I can help you with, Your Highness!" he exclaimed, his voice losing its practiced modulation.
From beside me, I felt Alwyn shift, a subtle, uncomfortable motion. My gaze flickered to him. His eyes were fixed on the intricate pattern of the rug, his posture drawn in slightly.
Bringing him here—was it a favor, or had I subjected him to a new kind of isolation? In the palace, his commoner status was a quiet fact.
Here, in the inner sanctum of high nobility, it was a chasm. Albold wasn't being overtly cruel; he hadn't insulted or mocked. But his entire focus, his energetic discourse, was aimed at me, the prince.
Alwyn existed in his periphery as an accessory, a silent, less important part of the royal entourage. The dismissal was in the absence of attention, a social negation more complete than any slur.
It was the unthinking assumption of superiority, and it made my skin prickle with a defensive heat.
Another problem, I noted grimly, filing it away in the ever-growing ledger of crises. The novel's history showed how Alacrya had exploited these very fractures, turning disaffected nobility against the Tri-Union.
That, too, would need to be addressed. But not today.
"My father has a collection of canes passed down through generations," Albold said, springing to his feet, animated by the chance to be of service. "Some of them are even artifacts!"
His eagerness to please sent a complex shudder through me—gratitude mixed with a profound sense of my own inadequacy.
"You are suggesting I steal from the collection of Lord Chaffer?" I asked, arching a brow, testing the boundaries of his rebelliousness.
"The sacred most duty of House Chaffer is to serve House Eralith!" he declared, puffing his chest with a fervor that was both touching and alarming. "Moreover, it's not like the old elf will pay much mind to his old collection."
Yes, I thought, a dry commentary running parallel to my external calm. He's definitely not the greatest rules-abiding person I know. But I followed him, Alwyn trailing silently behind us, a silent witness to my moral compromises.
We did not go to the main armory—that fortress of steel and lethal intent would never be opened to children.
Instead, we entered an adjacent, climate-controlled room that felt more like a museum or a shrine. When Albold opened the door, the sight within was incongruous. Dozens of canes stood arranged on tiered platforms displayed like sculptures or revered ancestors.
They were of every conceivable material: dark, wood polished to a mirror sheen, pale ash carved with minuscule runes, a few of a strange, iridescent material that might have been beast-bone or treated coral.
Some were crowned with simple knobs of polished stone, others with intricate silver filigree depicting forest creatures.
"It's like the hallway of the former kings and queens in the Royal Palace," Alwyn murmured, his voice hushed with awe. It was the first thing he'd said since we entered the estate, and the aptness of his observation struck me.
"My father quite likes showing off his collections," Albold said, though his eyes remained fixed on me, implicitly excluding Alwyn from the conversation.
The casual erasure was a small violence.
I moved closer, my eyes scanning the collection not with a collector's admiration, but with a pragmat's desperate need.
"Ignoring the fact this would be theft," I began, my voice low, "I am looking for something that's… well… my stature." I gestured at my own height.
Albold's eager expression morphed into one of pure puzzlement. "You wouldn't want to use a cane as a weapon, right?"
"I thought that was obvious."
"Ehm… Your Highness," he started, slipping into a tone of patient, if nervous, explanation. "A cane is not exactly the best of weapons. And even if it was, there are still weapons of much better manufacture in Elenoir…"
"What I want is a cane, not another type of weapon," I stated, leaving no room for argument.
"Then I think it would be better for you to ask for someone to build it for you," Albold conceded, his gaze sweeping over his father's collection of adult-scaled heirlooms.
"And where can I go?" The question laid bare another layer of my ignorance. I knew the broad strokes of continents and wars, but the practical geography of my own kingdom's artisans was a blank map.
"I see… I see…" Albold murmured, his mind visibly working, connecting dots. Then he turned to me, his expression shifting into something more probing, more dangerously perceptive. "Your Highness, may I ask you a question?"
A cold trickle of apprehension dripped down my spine. "Yes?"
"You are searching for a weapon that works with mana, right?"
The question hung in the still air of the room, suddenly charged. My heart, that traitorous drum, began to hammer against my ribs. He knows. He senses it.
The Chaffer acuity for mana, their legendary sensitivity—had it already picked up the faint, carefully concealed pulse of my black core? Or was he just making an educated guess about a royal child's interests?
"W-why do you ask?" I stuttered, the lapse in control immediate and damning.
"Seeing that you are already a mag—" he began, cheerfully, obliviously stepping onto the landmine.
Instinct bypassed thought. I moved, a lunge that felt both clumsy and desperately swift. Despite our significant height difference, my hand shot up and clamped over his mouth, cutting off the catastrophic word mage.
I held his wide, startled eyes with my own, which I knew must be blazing with a panic I could no longer conceal. Slowly, I turned my head to look at Alwyn. He was staring, his own eyes wide as twin moons, frozen in pure shock.
The silence was absolute, thick enough to choke on. I slowly lowered my hand from Albold's mouth, my gaze sweeping between the two of them. I forced a smile onto my face, a ghastly, strained thing that felt like a crack in porcelain.
"You both don't know anything about this, right?" My voice was a low, urgent whisper, stripped of all princely composure. "It is for both our sakes. Me. Alwyn. And you, Albold."
The moment the words left my lips, internal scorn flooded me.
You should have phrased it better, Corvis! I chastised myself, a scream inside a locked room. You sound like a cheap gangster from a bad film. It was a threat wrapped in a plea, clumsy and terrifying.
They both nodded, Albold slowly, his earlier cunning replaced by a dawning, serious understanding of the stakes he'd inadvertently touched. Alwyn's nod was quicker, a tremor in it, his loyalty and fear intertwined.
I let out a breath, a sigh that carried the weight of my relief and the deep, abiding shame of my own mismanagement.
"So…" I began again, wrestling my voice back to a semblance of normality, a monumental effort. "You were saying, Albold?"
Albold coughed, clearing the tension from his throat. "You can find some woodworkers that make wand-canes in Zestier, sure," he said, his voice now carefully measured, devoid of its previous exuberance. "But for an Eralith… you would be better to search for the services of the woodworkers of Asyphyn."
Wand-cane, huh?
The term settled in my mind, a key turning in a lock. So it was an established tradition, this fusion of focus and form.
In the lost timeline of the novel, Tessia's wand-sword was a unique marvel, but perhaps it was simply the pinnacle of elven craft—imbuing melee weapons with the conduit properties of a wand. The logic was elegant, deeply elven: a tool that was both of the forest and for its defense.
And Asyphyn...
The name conjured an image of windswept cliffs, salt spray, and the dense, sea-hardened woods where the Elshire Forest kissed the northern ocean. The novel had never ventured there, its gaze fixed on central conflicts. But it was linked to Zestier by a portal network, a fact tucked away in my memory.
It was distant, yet accessible. Unlike the Red Gorge, it was not a world away.
"Thank you, Albold, for your help," I said, the gratitude genuine now, albeit frayed at the edges by the preceding crisis.
A hopeful, calculating light returned to his eyes, tempered by our new, unspoken compact. "Does that mean we will meet again, Your Highness?"
Ah. There it was. The hidden motive, now laid bare. For the heir of a great House, connection to the future king was the ultimate currency, a social and political investment his parents would undoubtedly applaud.
"Sure," I replied, the single word a promise and a sentence.