A week had passed since Corvin's shadow first fell across the golden savannahs of Savaryn. Now, nestled deep within a sun split cavern veined with silver roots, he sat cross legged in silence, save for the rhythmic sound of breath, spell hum, and wet bone shifting. The cavern, once a natural hollow, had become a laboratory. A sanctuary. A crucible.
His experiments had not started well, not at all.
Three test subjects, two Jackalkin and a Wolfkin had rejected the modified viral sequences.. explosively. The first collapsed into spasmodic seizures within minutes after moments exploded like a new year fire works. The second.. foam bleeding from his lips as the mana strain overrode his neural channels it suffered a grotesque reaction as his muscles expanded without symmetry. One arm bulging monstrously while the other withered, ending in a crumpled husk, other parts as well swelled before joining its predecessor. The third simply combusted from within, arteries boiling until he crumpled to the floor with steam rising from every orifice. His skin blackened in strange, asymmetrical runes that glowed briefly before vanishing.
"Too aggressive," Corvin muttered at the time, scratching jagged lines into his notes with a sliver of bone dipped in blood.
But he refined it. The bone pen and viral sequences.
He adjusted the resonance binding of the strain. Introduced phase delayed activation spells to limit metabolic shock. Anchored the mana nutrient balance to match baseline energy signatures rather than idealized archetypes. He added stabilizing buffers, grafted using threads of Aether and Life Magic, that allowed for metabolic rebalancing mid infusion. A 'few more' failures followed then another few.. one subject turned mute and glassy eyed, another grew a third limb entirely, but then…
It worked.
On the fourth day, a Lionkin subject stood straighter after infusion. Shoulders broader, back upright. His vocal cadence, once crude and clipped, smoothed into something coherent, deliberate. His eyes no longer darted with animal panic but held fixed, directed focus, as though a fog had finally lifted.
"Name," Corvin had said.
"Rha Toren," came the response. Crisp. Structured.
Even more promising was the four hundred and thirty eighth trial: an Eaglekin female whose wingspan increased by half a meter. Her aerial agility in the open grassland doubled. Corvin even noted an uptick in resistance to shock based spells, suggesting peripheral neurological hardening as a side effect. She soared in test flights with fluid grace, banking hard and turning mid air with the ease of a seasoned aerialist.
But the greatest success so far was the Dragonkin.
Only seven of them in the flock, five of them absorbed. Their physiology had been hard to preserve: broad shoulders layered with armored scales in overlapping bands, digitigrade legs ending in iron hard talons, and thick tails reinforced with whip like cartilage ridges. One had a vestigial wing structure, clipped and incomplete from an old burn scar. The other two bore fused plates across their backs and necks, offering natural arcane insulation, like walking pylons of ancient might.
Corvin observed them now as they stood near the cavern's mouth, utterly silent, glowing faintly with internal bindings. One of them had responded particularly well to cognitive enhancement, its speech reduced to basic syllables, but its command interface showed efficiency. It had already begun issuing directional instructions to a circle of lesser undead during simulation drills.
He tapped a rune on the floor with the heel of his boot, activating the next cycle.
Aether rich mist swirled through the chamber, licking the walls like eager tendrils, absorbing stray heat, muting sound, and feeding the pulsing glyphs embedded across the floor. The cavern pulsed with low, ambient power. A living heart of silent change.
He hadn't dared use the process on himself. Not yet. There were still too many variables. Too much unpredictability in how the formulas altered affinity harmonics and internal mana flow. The last thing he needed was a fractured channel or an affinity inversion.
But he was sure given time, and the right elven human human 'volunteers' he could finally take this further. Clean subjects, educated ones, would let him calibrate the procedure to surgical precision, free from tribal inconsistencies or feral bloodline fluctuations.
Yes. Back at the Synod, things would change. But not in the way the Synod imagined.
He would return not just with an army.
He would return with proof of evolution. No sample, no scroll, no whisper of method. The Synod would see only the surface, never the source. He would feed them what they expected, while guarding what truly mattered.
And eventually, with the means to shape it.
--
The corridors of the Obsidian Gate were as cold and severe as ever, polished obsidian walls veined with ancient glyphwork, pulsing faintly like trapped starlight. The carved arches overhead curved into sharp points, mimicking the talons of a predator mid grip. Shadows clung to every corner, obedient and alive, whispering with the presence of those who served in silence. Soft echoes of unseen steps created a background murmur, like the Gate itself was breathing, alive and always watching.
Corvin moved through them like smoke, his pace unhurried. In his right hand, he carried a blackened leather sack. Its shape sagged with weight, and a faint, coppery scent trailed in his wake. The sack bumped against his thigh with every step, the soft squelch of its contents muffled but undeniable. Behind him, a series of shadows slid along the corridor like trailing ghosts. Silent guards, or merely the Gate's welcome committee.
He reached the Triarch's hall.
The chamber opened wide like a mouth, circular with high ceiling, ringed with thrones carved from monolithic obsidian blocks veined with soulglass. Each throne radiated a different cadence of magical pressure, dense, layered, potent. At the heart, Vaelorin the Black sat, calm and stately in his usual robes woven from shadowsteel and void thread. To his right, Magus Kel'Mara watched silently, her eyes sharp and cold as her affinity. Beneath the silver half mask she often wore, every movement of her hand betraying centuries of practiced discipline. On the left, Seredai reclined, draped in silk threaded robes that whispered of wind and void, his face unreadable beneath the silver filigree cowl.
Corvin didn't bow. He stepped to the center and let the sack fall.
A wet thud. The sound echoed, too heavy, too real.
Then a roll.
Two jackal heads tumbled free across the polished floor. One stopped at the base of Kel'Mara's throne, its tongue lolling grotesquely, eyes half lidded and jaw slack. The other bounced once, once more, trailing a line of dark blood that smeared like a corrupted seal before coming to rest beneath the curve of Vaelorin's black boot. The blood glistened for a moment, then hissed slightly as the magical wards in the floor resisted the impurity.
He said nothing.
Instead, Corvin gestured to a shadow drifting along the wall. From his cloak, he pulled a second bundle, neatly bound scrolls and folded parchments: Mercenary Guild IDs etched with falsified sigils, the original assignment logs detailing the targeted poisonings, and two sealed vials of contaminated soil. Each laced with magic markers.
The shadow accepted the items with a silent bow and delivered them to Kel'Mara.
She unrolled the papers delicately, her fingers glowing briefly as verification spells passed over each document. She scanned each line with a sharp, analytical eye. Her face did not change, but her aura pulsed faintly in approval. Then, without a word, she handed them to Vaelorin.
He read them more slowly, pausing occasionally to cross reference against a hovering set of floating glyphs. His lips curled into a faint nod of satisfaction. When finished, he returned them to Kel'Mara, who then passed them along to Seredai. The eldest Triarch, ever methodical, inspected the materials with meticulous thoroughness, humming once in approval as one scroll sparked with a hidden security rune and passed.
The chamber fell still. The air seemed to hold its breath.
"Well done, Raven," Vaelorin finally said, voice like stone polished by storm. "You served the Dark Mother well by avenging our brethren. The stains left by foreign hands have been answered in blood."
Corvin offered no reply. He stood, eyes steady, his expression unreadable.
Vaelorin continued after a pause, his tone shifting slightly. "While you were away, envoys came looking for you."
At that, Corvin's eyebrow arched slightly.
"Envoys," Vaelorin clarified, "from the Gilded Dominion, and a magister, I belive you know of her, in person."
Corvin's lips drew slightly tighter. That meant only one thing. Only one person would send a direct representative.
"She came bearing letters from Cindrel Academy and Starlight Arcanum," Vaelorin added. "Letters that 'request' kindly that we assist her."
Corvin tilted his head slightly, gaze narrowing as he scanned the chamber more closely.
And though no figure had stepped forward, Corvin's eyes narrowed. The mention of a magister sent from the Gilded Dominion, paired with the formal weight of two letters, one from Cindrel, one from Starlight left no room for doubt.
It was her.
Kaelyn.
But Corvin suspected something else.
The Shadows had touched her mind.
He had no proof, an educated guess sharpened by his own understanding of how the Synod handled "guests." If Kaelyn had been within these walls for more than a breath, the Triarch had already seen her thoughts, her memories. From childhood to the moment she passed through their wards, every flicker of loyalty, ambition, doubt… exposed.
Which meant one thing:
They knew.
His accord with Yvanna. The privileges. The movement. The immunity.
They wouldn't pass this and he was not in a sharing mood. This was going to be fun. His lips curved slightly.