Corvis Eralith
I put the contact lenses on my eyes and I was Finn Warend again.
The transformation was never instantaneous, never seamless—there was always that moment of dislocation, that beat of hesitation when I became someone else.
Today it felt like settling into a skin that had been waiting for me, like stepping into clothes that had been cut to my measure and left hanging in a wardrobe, patient and familiar.
Berna stood by my right and I felt her presence through the bond like a hearth fire burning steady in the dark.
Today we would be departing for our first unraveling.
I had chosen the dungeon carefully between the ones that the Adventurer's Guild did not have a permanent outpost nearby or had given exclusive rights—if such a thing was possible in a no man's land like the Beast Glades—to a Sapinese noble house, just like the Red Gorge had been for House Wykes.
The Sea Den was my choice. A classified B-Class dungeon by the Adventurer's Guild, little frequented by adventurers due to its location on the coast of the Beast Glades bordering the Elshire Forest.
Which made it perfect for a party of elves like mine, plus a fake dwarf which was me and a Guardian Bear who could hide her presence from almost anything that walked or crawled or flew.
I took a last look at my reflection in the mirror I had placed in my... office. Why was it so hard to say that word, even in the privacy of my own mind? It was just a room. Just a desk, just a chair, just a window that looked out over the Winetail River.
The reflection of Finn Warend stared back at me, and I recognized myself in him. Other than being useful to the Unraveler's Company, Finn Warend was useful to me. He was the version of myself that did not have to be a prince.
He was the version that could walk into a room without everyone turning to watch, that could fail without disappointing a kingdom. He was the version that belonged to me, only me.
Moreover, jst as Arthur had done multiple times during the story I remembered, I was going to limit my magic.
I was going to be just an earth mage.
It would be useful to improve my weakest element, yes, but not only that. The reason why limiting yourself to just one element was a great way to train if you were a multi-elemental mage was not only because you would have more time practicing that element, more time to develop control and experience with it, but also because it was a matter of Insight.
Insight came when you had worn a path so deep into your understanding of an element that the path became a river, and the river became a current, and the current carried you somewhere you could not have reached by swimming alone.
By limiting myself to one element, I was forcing myself into a mindset that invited the Insight of that element. I was making myself small so that I could grow larger than I had ever been.
I looked at myself in the mirror again, fixing my unraveling gear.
It was something I had asked Elder Rahdeas to provide, and I had suited it to my style—or rather, to the style I would use if I had the appearance of Finn Warend, which I had right now.
The fabric was sturdy but light, dyed in shades of brown and grey that would blend into the coastal cliffs where the Sea Den waited. The boots were good leather, slightly broken in but not worn, and I had lined them with a thin layer of felt to muffle my steps.
Everything about this outfit was practical, functional, designed for movement and silence and the long, patient work of a dungeon crawl.
Around my neck was a sleek rectangular sheet of metal, its edges curved, on which my identification as an Unraveler was etched.
All these tags were produced by the metalworkers of Burim, where the other headquarters of the Unraveler's Company were located. Dwarves truly were amazing at working metal.
In such little space there was written everything important about an Unraveler: name, party, mana core level, and base of registration—Zestier or Burim, for now.
I turned the tag over in my fingers, feeling the cool weight of it, the raised edges of the letters. Finn Warend. Dungeon Crawlers. Light orange. Zestier.
I took another tag and tied it around Berna's head.
She sat perfectly still while I worked, her great head lowered so I could reach her, her eyes half-closed, and I felt through the bond the particular contentment that came over her when I touched her like this.
It was the same contentment she showed when I brushed her fur or scratched behind her ears or simply sat beside her in the long hours of the night when sleep would not come.
She had been alone for so long, I thought. She had been corrupted and hunted and turned into something she was not supposed to be. And now she let me put a tag around her neck, a tag that said she belonged somewhere, to someone, and she was happier for it than I knew how to express.
"Don't eat it," I said, and Berna, after sniffing it, gave a growl of confirmation.
I had learned that she liked only particular metals: iron, copper, silver, and gold.
Everything else she did not treat as food. So this metal plate of tin was safely off her menu.
We united with Albold and Ashton, who were avoiding even looking at each other while waiting for me and Berna.
They stood at opposite ends of the small public park in the heart of the neighborhood of the Riverside Yard that housed the Company's headquarters, their bodies angled away from each other like magnets repelled by the same invisible force.
Albold was examining a tree with detached curiosity to pass the time. Ashton was watching the river, his back so straight it looked painful, his hands clasped behind him in the posture of a soldier waiting for orders.
They had been standing like that for minutes, I guessed. Maybe longer. And in the space between them, the air was thick with everything they were not saying.
I had asked them to wait here because it was a calm and pretty space between the trees and houses, and it was very well-kept as well.
Now that the Company was founded, this neighborhood and the whole Bough were becoming way richer than they had ever been. Something the people living here were grateful for to their prince.
I saw it in the new paint on the shutters, the fresh flowers in the window boxes, the children who waved when I—as Corvis Eralith—passed and called out greetings I did not know how to return.
I approached the two elven prodigies. One—Albold—a solid yellow core and largely considered the greatest talent of his generation. The other—Ashton—just a step behind, a dark yellow core.
Both of them fifteen. Both of them augmenters, even though I was not sure how many differences there were between augmenter and conjurer at those levels. Both of them members of two Sister Houses, both of them came from bloodlines of Elenoir's greatest warriors.
And both of them were standing in a public park in the Riverside Yard, pretending the other did not exist.
If they could see beyond their petty rivalry, I thought, they would become great friends. They would push each other the way only equals could push each other. They would sharpen each other's edges and fill each other's gaps and become something more than either of them could become alone.
But they could not see past it. Or perhaps they could, and they simply did not know how to reach across the distance that had been built between them before they were old enough to understand what distance meant.
"Warend," Ashton said, and the word was flat, neutral, giving nothing away.
"Finn," Albold replied, and his voice held a challenge that was not quite a challenge, a provocation that was not quite a provocation. One meant for Ashton, not for me.
The two elves glared at each other for a fraction of a second before turning back to me. That fraction of a second was enough. I saw the spark, the friction, the thing that lived between them and would not let them rest.
"Is that His Highness's bond?" Ashton asked, and I saw his gaze flick to Berna and to the tag around her neck.
"Corvis said she needed to stretch her legs," Albold answered in my place. "So she will be staying with us."
"I am sure Warend can speak for himself," Ashton said, and his even tone was strange to decipher.
There was no heat in it, no edge. Just a statement of fact, delivered in the voice of someone who had been taught that the only things worth saying were the things that were true.
"Yes, I can, thank you," I sighed, and I felt the weight of both their gazes shift to me. This was going to be a long expedition. "Now, do you have any questions?"
"I do, actually, thanks," Ashton said. He held up his tin tag, the metal catching the morning light, and I saw the way his fingers traced the letters without seeming to realize he was doing it. "Here, on this tag we have been given, there is written 'Dungeon Crawlers' at the section for party name. What does it mean?"
Albold looked at his own tag too. His brow furrowed, as if he was seeing the words for the first time. "Right, I didn't pay it any attention."
"Seeing both Albold's peculiar circumstances," I said, choosing my words with care, "and your... well... your personality, I took the liberty of naming our group."
"Ah," was all that Ashton said. Just that. One syllable, flat and neutral, and yet I saw something flicker in his face before he smoothed it away.
"But what does it mean?" Ashton asked. "We are going to crawl to dungeons?"
"Dungeons are usually either underground or inside some sort of mountain or hill," Albold said, and his voice had taken on the particular tone of someone explaining something obvious to someone who should have already known it. "And what do you do to reach a cave? You crawl."
"More or less, yes," I sighed, and I felt something loosen in my chest. They were talking to each other. They were arguing, yes, but they were talking. That was something.
"Anything else?" I asked.
"How are we going to reach this Sea Den you talked about?" Ashton asked, and this time when Albold rolled his eyes, I saw the ghost of a smile at the corner of his mouth.
"We are going to Eidelholm through portal," I explained, "and from there we will travel by carriage toward the border with the Beast Glades. It shouldn't take us more than a day to reach the Sea Den from there."
"Eidelholm?!" Ashton exclaimed, and for the first time, his voice betrayed him. The mask slipped. The composure cracked. And underneath, there was something raw, something young, something that had been buried so deep I had almost forgotten it was there.
"Yes?" I asked, keeping my voice light, my face neutral. "Is there a problem?"
"House Auddyr comes from Eidelholm," Albold said, and there was something in his voice that might have been sympathy, or mockery, or something in between. "Auddyr here must feel very home sick."
But Ashton did not react. He stood there, his face turned toward the river, his hands clasped behind his back, and I watched him pull the mask back into place, piece by piece.
"So can we go?" Albold asked impatiently, his gaze flicking between me and Berna.
"Yes," I said. "We can go."
—
Eidelholm, the City of Flowers, welcomed us with its fragrance even before the afterglow of the teleportation vanished.
The scent was everywhere—not the sharp, singular perfume of a single bloom, but a symphony of every flower that could be found in the Elshire Forest, all their essences rising and mingling in the winter air until they became something greater than the sum of their parts.
It was like stepping into a city-sized garden, the kind of garden the Royal Palace had tried to cultivate for decades and had only ever managed to approximate.
Between the three main cities of Elenoir—Zestier, Asyphin, and Eidelholm—the City of Flowers was the only one I had never visited.
There was a reason for that. A reason that sat in my chest like a stone I had been carrying for nine years, waiting for the right moment to set it down, knowing I never would.
As I looked around myself, I could not see the city for what it was right now. I could see it only for what Eidelholm had become in the novel.
The descent of the Legacy. Of Cecilia, parasitizing the mind and body of my sister. And then Aldir Thyestes, using the infamous technique known as the World Eater to try to kill her, only to fail and annihilate the whole Kingdom of Elenoir in the process.
For a second I swore I could see it. The blast of absolute Force propagating from Eidelholm's center outward to annihilate everything in its path.
From the littlest sprout pushing through the soil to the mightiest Watchful Tree that had stood for millennia.
Zestier, eradicated as if no city had ever existed there. Asyphin, gone. Vaelmora, that little hamlet near which Great-aunt Rinia lived, blown away like an insignificant speck of dust. All while the Asuras who had ordered it and done it watched.
Watched as millions of people died, just to fail in their attempt at stopping the Legacy.
I felt a push on my right side and a hand on my left shoulder, pulling me back from the edge of that abyss. Berna, feeling my line of thoughts through our bond, nudged at my side while Albold shook my shoulder, his grip firmer than he probably intended.
"Finn?" Albold asked, narrowing his eyes slightly.
"I am fine," I said, shaking my head, forcing the images back down into the place where I kept all the futures I was trying to prevent. I looked around, not seeing the Auddyr scion anywhere. "Where is Ashton?"
"Over there." Albold pointed his thumb backward, and I followed the gesture.
Standing below a great tree, a Watchful Almond—the Watchful Tree that was typical of Eidelholm and southern Elenoir—Ashton was staring up at the branches.
The tree was not yet in bloom, being in full winter, its limbs bare against the grey sky, but he looked at it as if he could see something I could not.
Eidelholm was often considered the most beautiful city of Elenoir in late winter, when the Watchful Almonds bloomed, giving the light filtered through their canopies a pinkish glow that painters spent their whole careers trying and failing to capture.
But even now, with no blossoms to soften its bones, the city held a stark beauty that I could appreciate despite everything. It seemed I was not the only one in a sort of trance.
I approached Ashton, Albold following behind me even if unwilling, his footsteps heavier than necessary.
"Ashton, we need to go," I said, and the Auddyr youth nodded slowly, as if surfacing from deep water.
"I am ready. I was just happy to see the Hallowed Vigilant again." He turned his attention fully back to us, and I saw a softness, an openness, a boy standing beneath a tree that had watched his family grow for generations.
"Hallowed Vigilant?" I asked.
"It is how we name this tree." He looked back up at the branches, and his voice was different now, lower, almost reverent. "It is the most important tree of Eidelholm."
I nodded, looking at the majestic Hallowed Vigilant, and I could not help but feel a certain familiarity. It reminded me of the Hallowed Hollow I had been using as a training place for years, thanks to Alea.
Did this tree too have a mana core hidden inside? Even if that was the case, the mana core of the Hallowed Hollow did not have any mana, so it was useless.
Those mana cores were just another mystery of this vast world that did not have any explanation, only theories, like Alea had explained to me the first time I visited the Hallowed Hollow.
"The carriage should be waiting for us near Lake Brumiel—" I began, but Ashton nodded before I could finish.
"Let me guide you there," he said with a polite bow, and there was something in his voice that told me he needed this.
Needed to lead us through the streets of his home, needed to be the one who knew the way, needed to show us something of the city that had made him.
After another fifteen minutes of walking through the City of Flowers, we started to walk by the lakeside.
Lake Brumiel was a somewhat large body of water in the heart of the Elshire Forest, its waters fed by underground reserves and small creeks coming all the way from the Grand Mountains to the west.
The lake was dark today, the winter light failing to penetrate its depths, and I thought again of another river, another water, another darkness that waited for me at the edges of my awareness.
We found our carriage quickly, but it was not anything like the carriages I was used to as Corvis Eralith. This one was meant for harsh travels, not for royal visits.
Its wheels were reinforced with iron bands, its sides scarred from branches and stones, its canvas roof patched in three places I could see. It was the kind of carriage that had stories written into its wood, the kind that had carried goods and people through weather that would have turned a finer vehicle to splinters.
I waved at the driver, an elf who worked closely with Elder Rahdeas and made sure the goods of the Warend Trading Company reached the cities of Elenoir.
That meant he was an expert at mastering the Elenoi Highcolts, the proud, swift creatures that stood harnessed and waiting, their breath fogging in the cold air.
"Check if everything you might need is stocked in the carriage," I said to Ashton and Albold. "If anything is missing, we can buy it here in Eidelholm."
"Stocked in the carriage?" Albold asked, his brow furrowing. "You mean we could have brought more stuff than what could be contained in the storage rings the Company has given us?"
"We were given a paper to fill, Chaffer," Ashton pointed out, and his voice held no judgment, but Albold clicked his tongue anyway.
"I... I threw it away," he admitted, and I saw the flush creeping up his neck.
Fortunately, I had made sure every Unraveler received a storage ring from the Company. Otherwise, I feared Albold would have come here with just his clothes and a Courtblade at his hip.
When I had first suggested to Elder Rahdeas that he supply every member of the Company with a storage ring, I had expected him to refuse. I knew from the novel that those items were very expensive, the kind of luxury that only the wealthiest adventurers could afford.
But Elder Rahdeas had simply provided them like it was nothing, as if handing out rings that could hold a room's worth of supplies was no more remarkable than handing out bread.
Just how rich was that dwarf?
I checked the supplies of the carriage, and everything seemed perfect. Supplies for encampment, enough to last us twice as long as our planned expedition.
Medical supplies that I had prepared myself with the help of Alanis Emeria, the same balms and bandages that had saved Berna and would save us if things went wrong.
Basic tools and spares, ropes and hooks and the thousand small things that could mean the difference between a successful unraveling and a disaster.
"Perfect," I murmured, more to myself than to anyone else. "Get on the carriage."
Ashton immediately did so, swinging up with the ease of someone who had climbed into a hundred carriages before. But Albold hesitated, his hand on the frame, his face turned toward me with an expression I had learned to recognize over the years we had spent training together.
"You named our party, but why are you behaving like the leader now?" Albold asked.
Oh no. Albold Chaffer and his dislike for authority. Which was what had made him want to become an Unraveler in the first place!
"Are we really going to argue about this?" I asked, getting on the carriage.
By my side Berna took most of the space, as she always did, her massive form settling into the straw with a sigh of contentment. Another thing I had noticed about my Guardian Bear was that she was surprisingly light despite her size, as if her body was not entirely subject to the same laws that governed ordinary flesh.
Albold crossed his arms and sat on the carriage too, his body angled toward me, his jaw set. "Yes," he said, and the word was a challenge and a promise all at once.
"In a group, a leader should always be chosen," Ashton said, wording carefully, as if trying not to give Albold the satisfaction of agreement. "A leader should be decided for the Dungeon Crawlers, too, and the tag does not say anything about it."
"You want to put it to a vote?" I asked, already feeling the weariness settling into my bones.
This was not going anywhere. I was sure that Albold would vote for himself, and I could guess Ashton would do it too.
They were both raised in military Houses, after all, and military Houses that always had great roles in Elenoir's armed forces. Leadership was in their blood, in their training, in the very shape of their expectations.
As for me... I did not want to vote for myself. Despite my superior knowledge, thanks to the novel, I did not have anything else. I was far younger than both of them, and a weaker mage and warrior by any measure that mattered.
"I vote for myself!" Albold shamelessly exclaimed, raising his hand high, and I saw the grin threatening to break across his face.
Ashton's expression remained neutral as usual, but he was clearly thinking, turning something over in his mind. "It is the King who names generals," he said slowly, "but seeing we are Unravelers, it should be our superior who decides, but His Highness is not here. I vote for Finn."
"What?" I said, the word escaping before I could stop it.
"You are His Highness's friend, are you not?" Ashton reasoned, and his voice was calm, logical. "And you are also a relative of the financier of the Company. It only makes sense."
"Then I vote for you, Ashton." I raised my hand as if by allergic reaction, my arm moving before my mind had fully caught up.
I was not suited to be a leader. I had not even thought about naming a leader for our party. I just needed to go to the Sea Den and unravel the mysteries of the Djinn to gain more Insight on Fate.
Finn Warend was an archaeologist in all but name. Not the leader of a party.
"It seems we are in a standstill," Ashton observed.
"Why Auddyr, amongst all people?" Albold asked, and I heard the edge in his voice. He had not taken my vote well, it seemed.
"He seems more reliable than you," I said, and I believed it.
Albold was a good sparring partner and friend, but Ashton was the better teacher. Both to me and to Alwyn, and the latter was far more important. Albold treated Alwyn like someone that I, for some reason, cared about first, and a young mage second.
Ashton cared only about his duty, and that duty was to teach me the dueling cane and spar with me and Alwyn. He did not see Alwyn's birth or his name or his place in the world.
Berna growled, a low rumble that vibrated through the carriage floor, and we turned to look at her. She was sitting on her haunches, making the cart creak under her weight, and her eyes were fixed on us with an expression I had learned to recognize.
"We forgot to ask someone," I said.
"Are we thinking about making a bear vote?" Albold asked, dumbfounded, and I saw the laugh rising in his throat even as he tried to suppress it.
"She is technically the closest one to His Highness present here," Ashton murmured.
"You are not being serious, Auddyr, are you?" Albold asked, but his voice had lost its edge.
"I do not see where the problem is," Ashton said.
"That she is a mana beast? Not an elf? Not a dwarf?" Albold asked, spreading his hands as if presenting an irrefutable argument.
"We are mages, so we are technically mana beasts too," I pointed out.
"That is not the point," Albold remarked, but I saw the corner of his mouth twitching.
"We are two votes against one to make His Highness's bond vote," Ashton said, and this time there was no mistaking the satisfaction in his voice.
I did not know what to expect. Would Berna vote for me, her bond, the one whose heartbeat she had learned to match to her own? Or would she vote for Ashton because I had voted for him?
Berna pointed her paw at Albold, growling in confirmation. Albold clenched his fist in victory, his face breaking into a grin so wide I thought it might split his face.
"She is Corvis's bond, after all!" Albold exclaimed.
Both me and Ashton—although it was hard to tell from his almost non-existent facial expressions—were left speechless.
I stared at Berna, and she stared back at me, and through the bond I felt her amusement, warm and steady, like the embers of a fire that had been burning for a very long time.
"And so, as the first act of leader of the Dungeon Crawlers," Albold declared, raising his hand as if he were addressing a crowd, "I declare the position of leader disbanded!"
I placed a palm in front of my mouth, but I could not stop the laugh that came from me. It burst out of my chest, unexpected and bright, caused both by Albold's first and last command and Ashton's agape mouth. The sound of it surprised me. I had not laughed like that in a long time.
"Can I know the reasons for such an absurd statement, Chaffer?" Ashton asked.
"Isn't it obvious?" Albold spread his arms wide, encompassing the carriage, the city, the whole of Elenoir. "Only the Eralith family has a right to rule, in any form or way!"
I looked at Berna. She had settled back into the straw, her great head resting on her paws, her eyes half-closed in contentment. She must have understood what Albold would have decided.
My bond was truly an empathetic beast. Yes, she was truly a bear-shaped golden retriever, and I loved her for it.
I leaned back against the carriage wall, letting the laugh fade into a smile that felt strange on my face, and watched Albold and Ashton settle into their seats.
The carriage began to move, and Eidelholm fell away behind us, the scent of flowers fading into the sharper, cleaner smell of the open road.