Arc 8. "Quest for the Holy City."
Corvis Eralith
Five months had passed since the Colour Timberland.
Five months since that Elderwood Guardian had risen from the earth, since Nylith had escaped into the amber mist, since I had learned that the Hearth was leaderless and that Soleil Asclepius—or Coco—had been watching over me for reasons I could have never imagined.
The seasons had turned, summer giving way to autumn, and the leaves of the Watchful Willows had begun their slow, coloured descent to the forest floor.
Mine and Tessia's tenth birthday had come and gone.
It has been a celebration that saw half of Zestier take to the streets, the commonfolk treating the day as a holiday, the nobility competing to outdo each other with their gifts.
I had smiled through all of it, accepted the well-wishes and tried not to think about how many birthdays I had left before the world ended.
Before the war came.
I had also broken into the solid stage of the yellow core, the mana now flowing through my veins like a steady river of yellow water.
Tessia and Alwyn were doing their best to keep pace with me, pushing themselves harder than they ever had before. In fact, both my sister and my best friend had started to take their training more seriously.
Alwyn had always taken it seriously—he had made Grandpa take him as a student, and there was nothing more serious than that—but Tessia's renewed dedication was something new.
She had let her magic stagnate for years, trading the training grounds for the court, the sword for the scepter. But now, she was practicing again.
Not constantly—she was still the perfect princess, still attended every ball and party, still flanked Dad during important political events, still helped the common people from her home in Milicas Liane, but she found time.
She always found time.
—
Steel kissed the wood of my wand-cane as I sparred with Tessia in the gardens of the Royal Palace.
The morning sun was low in the sky, painting the world in shades of gold and amber, and our shadows stretched long across the fallen leaves that covered the training ground.
It had become something of a routine for me and Tessia to spar, and at her insistence, we—as heirs of Elenoir and the future of the Crown—always had to have someone by our side.
She liked the pageantry of it, the symbolism.
A princess and her steward. A prince and his.
Useless to say, I always opted for Alwyn as my "knight," as Tessia liked to call this role in our spar-game.
If that were not the case, I feared what the Triscan boy's reaction might have been. True to the strange, unbreakable loyalty that both he and Alea had to me, he would have been... not offended, exactly. But hurt. And I could not bear to hurt him.
Tessia, on the other hand, asked different people to fight by her side. Albold. Ashton. Members of other Sister Houses.
And, more often than not—like today—Feyrith Ivsaar III.
"Alwyn!" I called, shoving Tessia away, deflecting her wand-sword with ease with the shaft of my wand-cane.
Inner Current was already flooding my nervous system, the Trucewater of the river sharpening my thoughts, slowing everything of the world around me to a manageable crawl.
Alwyn moved to close on Tessia, but he was stopped by a stream of pressurized water that forced him to retrieve a Mirrshield from his storage ring to block the spell. The spell was cast by Feyrith, of course.
The water slammed against the shield with a hiss, spraying into a fine mist that caught the low sunlight and turned it into a brief, fleeting rainbow.
"Sorry to thwart your plans, Your Highness," Feyrith said to me in that strange, boisterous, yet strangely not annoying, tone. "But I shall stand between the Princess and any harm!"
While all of this was happening, Berna was lazily laying at the edge of the training ground—the place we used for our spars, usually reserved for new members of the Royal Police starting their formal training.
She was munching on an iron ingot, her massive jaws working the metal like it was a piece of soft bread. Through the bond, I felt her contentment and slight boredom.
"Speak less and fight more, Feyrith!" Tessia silenced the Ivsaar boy as she approached me again, her wand-sword held tightly in her right hand.
Her style with the sword was fast and agile, meant for quick slashes and faster dodges. A hit-and-run style, exactly what I would expect from someone who fought to kill without leaving traces.
Exactly what I would expect from a Grephin like Aya, who had been teaching her in "secret."
Tessia had not told me this directly—even tho she oftenly spoke about the Grephin woman—but she did not need to.
I could see it in the way she moved, in the way she flowed from one stance to the next, in the way she never committed fully to an attack unless she was certain she could escape unharmed.
My wand-cane clashed again with Tessia's wand-sword. The wood of its shaft resisted, strengthened by my mana, singing with the force of the impact.
"We have done this same exchange countless times, Tessia," I said, my voice calm thanks to Inner Current. "You should get more creative."
I deflected her wand-sword again.
"Oh, trust me that I am," Tessia said, hiding a smirk.
I frowned. What was she pl—my thought was interrupted as I saw Tessia's left hand clutch a wisp of grass.
Plant magic!
The blades of grass in Tessia's hand elongated, shifted, and took the perfect shape of a green, grass-made short sword aimed at me.
I gave a slight stomp to the ground with my left foot and used Ars Terramorph—which I had been practicing extensively as Finn Warend in Vildorial under Olfred's guidance, since the competition for Throneholder demanded that candidates to showcase their magical prowess.
A thin pillar of stone emerged from the ground, rising just in time to block Tessia's grass-blade. The green sword shattered against the stone, fragments of shredded grass falling around us like confetti.
"Okay," I said, taking a bit of distance from my sister. "Apologies for underestimating you."
Alwyn was still occupied with Feyrith, his Mirrshield acting like the banks of a river against the Ivsaar's water spells. And with each attack that impacted the shield, Alwyn got just a little closer.
He was very good at fighting against conjurers, and seeing how Feyrith was the "knight" Tessia relied on the most, he had become very used to the Ivsaar's water magic.
The same, however, could not be said for Feyrith. Just like everything his family was famous for, his magic was first and foremost elegant, then effective or useful.
The beams of water he conjured formed intricate floral motifs—shining, liquid magic that danced through the air more than it traveled to its target.
They required vast amounts of mana to take their shapes—which was actually quite impressive, considering Feyrith was only at the light stage of the red core—all in exchange for the actual strength of the spell itself.
"Corvis, take this seriously!" Tessia shouted.
I turned my attention back to her. The first fallen leaves of autumn, which covered the training ground, were starting to float in circles all around her.
Tessia pointed her index finger at me, her hand shaped into a finger gun: something she had copied from me.
I sighed and did the same.
The fight I had with Nylith months ago had made me realize I had been relying too much on the versatility of Dicathian magic.
Ars Aquamorph. Ars Terramorph. Ars Ariamorph.
The best way to describe my magic was to call it as vast as an ocean, but as deep as a puddle.
For that, I had been developing more intricate and precise spells with my greatest asset: the element I understood better than any other—water.
REmould and Olfred had helped me greatly with deepening my Ars Terramorph. The Arbiter's authority over the Edict of Vivum was strongly attached to earth magic, and the dwarven Lance was, overall, a good teacher.
For Ars Ariamorph, I could train alongside Tessia, and I had Grandpa, Elder Camus, and most of Elenoir's greatest mages to learn fro. Wind magic was the true pinnacle of elvenkind, even more than plant magic was, given how rare that deviant was.
For Ars Aquamorph, I had to rely on myself. Which was something I was more than happy about.
There were not many water mages in Dicathen, and REtrocurrent had made me probably the most adept pure water mage on the continent already. Not counting ice mages like the human Lance, Varay Aurae.
In front of my finger, a Bubblespell formed.
A perfectly round bubble of water magic, translucent and fragile-looking, but containing a spell within. This one held a sound spell—a loud bang that would explode upon contact.
I shot my Bubblespell as Tessia shot her own air projectile. The two spells clashed, and as Tessia's projectile pierced my Bubblespell, something unexpected happened.
Instead of one being canceled out, the air projectile continued forward while the Bubblespell did the same. They passed through each other, each carrying on toward their original targets.
I sidestepped.
The air projectile, severely slowed by my Bubblespell, whistled past my ear. Then I heard the sound magic explode—a loud crack like thunder, followed by a shower of water that rained down on the training ground.
"We are done for today!" Tessia shouted, trying to dry off her now-wet clothes.
Her hair was plastered to her face, her dress was soaked, and she was glaring at me with a mixture of frustration and respect.
Alwyn and Feyrith stopped as the Princess gave her order. The Ivsaar boy was breathing heavily, his ornate water spells finally fading from the air. Alwyn was steady, unruffled, his Mirrshield still raised.
The first training of the day was over.
I let Inner Current fade, the Trucewater retreating from my nervous system, and for a moment, I was just a boy standing in a garden, surrounded by fallen leaves and the people he loved.
Berna lifted her head, her green eyes meeting mine, and through the bond, I felt her satisfaction.
We were not ready. None of us were. But we were closer than we had been yesterday.
And tomorrow, we would be closer still.
—
It was afternoon, and as simply as one would change clothes, I was now a dwarven boy. Finn Warend.
The transformation had become seamless over the months—a flicker of REmould, a ripple across my features and I was changed.
Brown eyes. Rounded ears. Dusky skin the color of earth after rain.
The prince of Elenoir had vanished, and in his place stood a commoner boy with a famous great-uncle and a future that stretched before him like a gilded path.
I stood on the rooftop of a packed building in Burim, the second city of Darv.
The roofs of this vast cave metropolis sprawled before me, a patchwork of dark stone and warm light, of industry and life. Below, the streets teemed with dwarves going about their days, their voices rising in a constant, low murmur that was the heartbeat of this place.
To be more precise, I was on the rooftop of the Unraveler's Company headquarters here in Burim. A much more massive building than the elegant structure in the Vedette back in Zestier.
This headquarters was the true beating heart of the Company—where the equipment was forged, from the identification tags of the Unravelers to weapons and armors, and where the great majority of the money passed through.
It was a fortress of commerce, a monument to Elder Rahdeas's vision, and standing on its roof, I felt small in a way that had nothing to do with my stature (which was stull agonizingly small).
Berna was behind me, and I felt her head press against my side. Her fur was warm, familiar, and I reached up to pat her without thinking.
"Yeah, yeah, I love you too," I sighed, looking out at the vast city of Burim.
By the end of autumn, there was a great festivity awaiting the dwarven nation: the Darffest.
The festival that Danna Roksson—the dwarf who managed Stonebound Tomes—had explained to me when I first tried to get in contact with Elder Rahdeas after I discovered the truth of REtrocurrent, an attempt that would later end with the founding of the Unraveler's Company.
The Darffest was the most important holiday for dwarvenkind, quite similar to Christmas truth to be told, only that it celebrated the birth of the mythical founder of Darv and the first dwarf following their mythology: Darff, the first child of Mother Earth.
I learnt that Dwarven religion was very different from the Verticil.
While the elven faith was a mixture of philosophy and folklore, lacking many of the characteristics that made a religion, Darvism was a religion through and through—like every kind of faith one could have found on Earth.
It was centered around Darff's figure, the first of the dwarves and direct spawn of Mother Earth, her personal creation.
That made me wonder who Mother Earth really was, then. From what I knew from Avicenna, humankind and dwarvenkind did not exist at the time of the Djinn.
That meant they must have been created later. By the Asuras. But Mother Earth, as the name suggested, was the earth itself—not something I could easily connect to a precise Asura I knew from the novel.
Anyway.
Obviously, for the Darffest, Dawsid Greysunders had to prove himself the greatest king of Darv. Which for him meant throwing an even greater party than the Gem Banquet.
That would be the next great challenge Finn Warend would need to face to become Throneholder.
My hands ruffled the big face of my Guardian Bear. Looking at her now, she seemed bigger than when I first met her and formed our bond, signing the contract between us.
But not in height. She was... wider.
"You are fat, Berna," I said through narrowed eyes. "The servants at the Royal Palace have been feeding you a bit too much."
Berna growled as if to deny my accusations, pressing herself against me with the full force of her massive body. The weight of her was immense, and before I could react, I was buried beneath a wall of fur.
"No, no, no, I apologize!" I shouted, but my words were suffocated. For a giant like her to bury me, I expected the river to claim me, crushed by her mass.
But Berna was as light as a feather. A three-meter-tall feather.
"Gravity magic?" I murmured through her fur, and Berna growled in affirmation.
Yes. Berna's true magic—now that I thought about it—must have been gravity all this time.
By eating certain metals, she could use the four basic elements. But her true natural affinity was gravity.
That explained why she was so agile and silent whenever I wind-surfed through the streets of Zestier, keeping pace with me without creating chaos in the Royal Capital.
She convinced gravity to look the other way.
And then I felt it. A strange warmth on the back of my hands. I struggled to make Berna let me go, and when I stood back up on the rooftop of the Company's headquarters, I saw a weak ochre light glowing from below.
Raising my hands, I saw strange rune-like symbols on my skin.
Berna licked my hands happily, her excitement clear through both our bond and her behavior.
"The Acquire Phase!" I exclaimed, a huge smile on my lips.
The Acquire Phase was the first phase of a Beast Will that a forged tamer—or a legacy tamer like me—could obtain. It let the mage use the inherent strength of their bonded mana beast. For Arthur, it had been Static Void. For me—
A wave of Insight crashed against the inner banks of my mind as the river elucidated it for me.
Massbinding.
That was the name of Berna's inherent ability. And these runes... they were the symbols of the Kain Clan of Asuras.
The runes featured a glowing ochre emblem: a central gear enclosing a triangular network of connected nodes, set within a bold triangular frame with wing-like extensions.
They burned softly against my skin, warm and alive.
"Did... Berna, who was your creator?" I asked.
The matter of her previous bond was a very hard topic for my Guardian Bear. Her previous name—the one she had carried before I gave her her current one—had been destroyed by Berna herself before I ever knew it.
She growled, shaking her head. She did not want to talk about it.
"Fine. It is not like it matters," I said.
Just knowing that these runes came from a member of the Kain Clan was enough. Hopefully, I could use this when the time came to speak with Wren Kain IV.
"Let's do some tests, then," I said, and instinctively, I knew what to do.
I launched myself from the rooftop. Without using any kind of magic, I leaped toward the next building, the air rushing past my face, the ground far below.
Then, as if a pulling force claimed me, I jerked my arms—and I traveled easily to the next rooftop. The motion was effortless, weightless, as if gravity had simply decided to stop applying to me.
"I can use gravity magic?" I asked myself.
Berna landed by my side soon after, her impact as soft as a feather. From the look in her green eyes, I knew that was the case. She was proud. She was happy.
And through the bond, I felt the depth of her satisfaction—finally, finally, we were sharing something more than presence.
"If I had to wait this long to achieve this..." I started, the realization settling into my chest like a stone dropped into still water. "I can use your Beast Will only as Finn Warend, right?"
Berna growled in affirmation. I clicked my tongue. Cherry's Beast Will first—lost before I could claim it. Now Berna's. Why could Corvis Eralith not have a Beast Will? The answer was probably Eralith Asclepius. My Soul-Body.
The original owner of this flesh and this soul, erased by Fate to make room for me.
With that in mind, I returned to using Massbinding to travel across the rooftops of Burim.
The technique itself was quite simple. Like the name suggested I could bind my mass to a much heavier one—the crystals that hanged from the ceiling of the cave that hosted Burim—and use this link to propel myself forward as if I was using a rope.
Just like Spider-Man swinging from building to building in New York City.
The gears on the backs of my hands moved with every use of gravity magic, pulsing with ochre light, and I leaped from building to building, weightless and free.
—
I passed my right hand over my face, and with that simple gesture, my features changed completely. The dwarven visage of Finn Warend melted away like frost beneath a morning sun, and beneath it, Corvis Eralith emerged.
My hair lengthened, returning to its natural gunmetal gray, the short, practical cut of a dwarven boy giving way to the longer strands that marked me as elven royalty.
My eyes shifted from brown to teal, that distinctive Eralith color that I shared with my sister, my father, my grandfather. My ears pointed and my skin paled.
I entered my office in the Zestese headquarters of the Company and sank into the armchair behind my desk. The leather creaked beneath me, familiar and worn, and I let my head fall back against the headrest.
My muscles ached. My mana core throbbed with the dull exhaustion of overuse. All the training I had done today—the sparring with Tessia this morning, the hours of practice in Burim this afternoon—had left me hollowed out, scraped clean, a vessel that had been poured out and not yet refilled.
I let out a deep sigh; through the open window, a robin with golden eyes entered the room.
Her wings caught the light and she landed on my desk with the quiet grace of a creature who had spent years learning to be unseen.
"Sol—Coco," I greeted, correcting myself. The name still felt strange on my tongue, now that I knew what she truly was.
"Milord," Coco chirped.
The voice of Soleil was still strange to my ears coming from her robin form—her Sambhogakaya, as she had explained to me. The miniature form that all Asuras could take, like Windsom with his cat one.
It was strange, knowing that the bird who had perched on my windowsill for years, who had eaten seeds from my palm, who had watched over me and Tessia with golden, knowing eyes, was a being who had witnessed the fall of the Djinn.
Coco hopped onto my desk from the windowsill, her tiny claws clicking against the polished wood.
We had made an agreement a few months ago, shortly after the Colour Timberland. I would go to the Hearth when the situation with the Caduchicil was resolved and when I was certain Windsom would not discover my little trip.
Until then, Coco would be my eyes and ears throughout Zestier, watching for any sign of the mysterious death cult that threatened my homeland.
"You discovered something?" I asked.
Coco nodded.
The Caduchicil, it seemed, was not a new problem. It had started during the Second War between Sapin and Elenoir, born from the extremist fringes of Elenoir's politics.
Those who did not agree with the white peace that Grandpa had signed with Sapin shortly before abdicating the throne to Dad. These people had wanted to march on Sapin's land, to seize the territory we had lost during the First War against the human kingdom.
The Ashber Woods—the once-elven section of the Elshire Forest that lay beyond the Grand Mountains and that now had no trees remaining, burnt by human hands and magic.
Where Arthur Leywin had been born in the canon. Ashber Town, a city that had been elven during the reign of my great-great-grandfather.
Useless to say, nothing had happened. Grandpa had signed a white peace with a young King Blaine—just sixteen at the time—and renounced his throne to Dad.
There had been pressure, chaos, attempts to exploit Dad's grief over his mother's death. My grandmother. Lania. The woman whose name I had heard whispered in sad tones, whose absence still left wounds that had never fully healed. But Dad had not yielded. No new war had broken.
That was what had caused the birth of the Caduchicil. Elves who wanted revenge against Sapin, who had stewed in their resentment for decades, and who had eventually become what I had witnessed with Nylith.
A group of elves with... Alacryan methods.
However, most of the Caduchicil had already been dealt with before mine and Tessia's birth. Sister House Grephin—the hidden blade of the Eraliths—had slaughtered those freaks. Evidently, some cells still remained, supplied and supported by Alacrya.
"Lance Aya Grephin was tasked with eliminating the Caduchicil's cells discovered in the cities of Elenoir," Soleil explained. "Before she was assigned to the Lady, of course."
"Yeah, anything else?" I asked. The lore behind them was useless to me.
The annoyance in my tone was sharper than I intended, and I bit my lip in punishment. She was helping me, I had no right to snap at her.
"Apologies, milord. I think I know who is behind the Caduchicil," Soleil said.
I frowned. "Agrona. I know that."
"Yes, but... I think the true one fueling the Caduchicil is another Vritra. Exeges."
Exeges Vritra. The Sovereign of the Dominion of Etril in Alacrya. One of the pure-blooded Basilisks who reigned over that continent. In the novel, Agrona had killed him. Exeges was a threat, a tool, a rival, a piece on the board that the High Sovereign had swept aside.
"What makes you think so?" I asked.
"The Fall Vulture. The great deity that the Caduchicil prays to." Soleil's voice was careful, measured. "He is Exeges. His Limitless Physique, at least."
"You are saying that there might be something going on between the members of the Vritra Clan?" I asked.
Soleil nodded.
I leaned back in my chair, the leather creaking beneath me. That... that was useful. If the Caduchicil was not one of Agrona's plans, but the scheme of another Vritra, that meant Alacrya was not as united as it seemed.
In the canon, Agrona had killed Exeges, ordered the imprisonment of Kiros Vritra, and set his Wraiths to hunt Oludari Vritra. The Vritra Clan was riven with internal strife, with ambitious Sovereigns who chafed under Agrona's rule.
If I could exploit that—if I could turn them against each other—
"I cannot do much about it, Soleil," I said, pushing the thought away. "Did you discover anything else?"
"...no, I did not." Soleil's voice was small, almost apologetic. "King Alduin considers the matter closed, and Lance Aya has not discovered anything new."
"So Nylith's group must be a desperate one," I reasoned, my mind racing. "Perhaps she is just a rogue member who survived Aya and House Grephin's... methods. Or she might even be the only one who survived."
That was not good. A large group was much simpler to fight than a single terrorist. Not easier, but simpler to track down, locate, and attack. Finding a single elf in the Elshire Forest was a titanic task, even for other elves. A needle in a haystack.
"I am leaning toward the latter, milord," Soleil said.
"I see." I rubbed my temples, the ache behind my eyes growing. "Perhaps we should go to the Colour Timberland to see if we can find any clues."
"About the Colour Timberland, milord..." Soleil started, her voice doubtful. "Lady Tessia has been frequenting it lately."
"What?" I straightened in my chair, my exhaustion forgotten. "Tessia? For what?"
"It is not my place to tell you, milord," Soleil replied, bowing her head. Her decision was adamant, her beak pressed against her chest in a gesture of submission.
I massaged my temples again, the frustration building behind my eyes. Whatever. Tessia was able to care for herself and I doubted Nylith would return to the Colour Timberland after being almost crushed by that Elderwood Guardian.
My sister had summoned an S-Class mana beast without even knowing what she was doing.
She had called forth a protector of the forest, an ancient guardian that had slept for centuries, simply because she had begged the earth to help her.
"Fine," I said, letting the matter drop. "Keep watching. Keep listening. And tell me if anything else comes up."
Coco bowed her head once more, then took flight, disappearing through the open window into the golden light of evening.