Corvis Eralith
The cool stone of the training ground pressed against my back, rough and unyielding. Each ragged gasp tore at my throat, the taste of copper and metal faint on my tongue. My muscles screamed, trembling with a fatigue that went bone-deep. Above me, the sky was a cruel, indifferent blue like my struggles were nothing to the universe.
"Your Highness," Albold's voice cut through the drumming in my ears, steady, calm. Infuriatingly calm. "You've done more than enough."
Enough? The word was ash, no, the word was nothing at all. I have done nothing.
"No."
The denial was a raw scrape, pushed past gritted teeth. I forced my aching limbs to move, ignoring the protest of every fiber, the world tilting slightly as I shoved myself upright. The discarded wooden sword felt suddenly heavy, a crude mockery of the power I craved, as I snatched it up again. My knuckles whitened around the hilt.
Albold stood ready, poised with that effortless grace that felt like a personal insult. He was fourteen already, time was passing too quickly and I had done nothing at all. I lunged, a clumsy, telegraphed strike aimed at his ribs.
He deflected it with a flick of his wrist, the crack of wood on wood sharp in the air. His blade didn't just parry; it dismissed. And then he looked at me. Not with challenge, not with encouragement. With… pity. A quiet, patient concern that scraped across my nerves like flint.
What is that look? The silent question screamed in the hollow of my skull. Stop it! Stop seeing the weakness! See the need! Stop! Stop it!
A guttural sound, half-groan, half-snarl, escaped me before I could stifle it. Shame flared hot under the exhaustion. I attacked again, a wilder swing, fueled by a seething frustration that had nothing to do with swordsmanship and everything to do with the ticking clock only I could hear.
"Your Highness—" Albold began, his tone placating.
I don't want your placating! I don't want your patience! The words burned behind my clenched jaw, unspoken. I need your edge! I need to be more than this useless shell! His pity wasn't kindness; it was a cage. A reminder of the chasm between the protector I needed to be and the child I was trapped as.
"Your Highness, it's enough." This time, his voice held finality. Before my next strike could land, his hand shot out, not to block the blade, but to clamp firmly around the hilt with mine. His grip was unbreakable, grounding the weapon and my frantic energy with terrifying ease. He held me there, suspended in my own impotent fury.
Footsteps, rapid and light, pattered across the stone. We both turned. Tessia burst into the training yard, her emerald eyes wide, instantly scanning the scene—me, panting, trembling, pinned by Albold's grip; Albold, steady and concerned.
"Albold!" Her voice was sharp, accusatory. "Have you hurt my brother!?" She rushed to my side, her presence a wave of warmth and worry that somehow felt suffocating.
I wrenched my hand free from Albold's, the sudden release making me stagger. "No," I managed, the word clipped, refusing to meet her searching gaze. I straightened up, forcing my trembling legs to hold. "I am fine, Tessia."
Fine. Always fine.
Her expression shifted instantly—relief warping into that familiar, soft concern, the furrow in her brow, the gentle frown. Pity. Different from Albold's, but just as sharp. Just as constricting.
"Corvis!" she whined, reaching out as if to brush dust from my tunic, a gesture that felt patronizing. "You always push yourself too hard! You don't have to prove anything to anyone!"
Prove anything? The echo of her words was a hollow laugh trapped in my chest. This isn't about proving. This is about surviving. About you surviving. The images flashed—destruction consuming Elenoir, shadows twisting where my family stood. I don't need to prove I'm strong. I need to become strong. Before it's too late.
I couldn't look at her pity. Couldn't bear Albold's patient understanding. The weight of their concern, their love, felt like chains holding me back from the desperate sprint I needed to run. Without a word, without a backward glance at either of them, I turned and walked away.
The echo of the wooden sword clattering to the ground where I finally dropped it sounded like surrender. But it wasn't. It was just a pause. The frantic hammering against my own limitations would resume. It had to.
———
Three years. Three years of watching Dicathen bloom like a forced spring, vibrant and deceptive. On the surface, it was a golden age better than canon has ever been.
The political machinations I had eavesdropped on—fueled by Alduin's pragmatism, Virion's wisdom, and the looming, unspoken threat the shattered portal represented—had borne unexpected fruit. The Council's proclamation was imminent, slated for next year, perfectly timed with Tessia's departure to Xyrus Academy under Cynthia Goodsky's tutelage. Just like canon.
Interracial slavery was abolished, a moral victory that tasted bittersweet knowing the true slavers—the Vritra—lurked beyond the continent. The Adventurers' Guild buzzed with mixed-race parties, a fragile yet unmistakable tapestry of cooperation. Trade flourished, cultural exchanges hummed—connections weaving a fragile net of unity stronger than anything in the original timeline's fractured pre-war years.
Dicathen wasn't just stable; it was thriving. A picture of health painted over a festering wound. Because beneath the prosperous facade, the mysteries festered.
The Alacryan portal hidden beneath Elshire's bones—Sylvia's supposed hiding spot turned into a breached gateway—remained an enigma. Alea, steadfast and surprisingly considerate, kept me apprised of her fruitless investigations. No traces. No leads. Only the chilling fact of its existence and violent destruction. A phantom enemy moved unseen, and the continent celebrated, oblivious.
My own shadow war continued, a frantic, secretive scramble against a future hurtling towards us.
I have been to Ashber Town. We were going to Etistin to visit the Glayders, my brief detour felt like a pilgrimage to a ghost. Arthur Leywin's hometown. But the Leywin household held only warmth, laughter, and a bright-eyed daughter, Eleanor. No Arthur. No whisper of a prodigious son. The confirmation was a cold stone sinking into my gut.
He didn't exist here. Not as the Leywins' child. My hypothesis solidified, cold and terrifying: Agrona had anchored King Grey elsewhere, likely within Alacrya itself. The only solace? Our continued existence proved the Legacy wasn't yet unleashed.
And Tessia… Tessia blazed. At eleven, she radiated the deep, resonant thrum of a dark yellow core. Just one step shy of Arthur's stage at the same age in the original tale. The comparisons were inevitable, brutal, and utterly unfair.
She lacked his Asuran bond, his Beast Will, the razor's edge of a king's lifetime honed in battle. Her power was pure, unadulterated talent, a wellspring she drew from with terrifying instinct. The shock and awe she inspired in seasoned mages, the hushed reverence that followed her—it was deserved. Was it the Mana Rotation I had planted like a seed? My constant presence? Foolish vanity. It was all her. A star burning bright on its own fuel.
Then there was me.
Corvis Eralith. Prince of Elenoir. Heir to a throne in a world teetering on oblivion. Wise beyond his years, they whispered. A strategic mind sharp enough to startle even his grandfather, they murmured. Learned, observant, insightful. Praised for my grasp of history, politics, even obscure magical theory I could recite, but never touch. A mind like a finely tuned instrument… playing in a silent vacuum.
I did not awaken.
The words were a drumbeat of failure in the quiet moments, growing louder, more insistent. Eleven years old. I had elven blood and was an Eralith, renowned for its early affinity, its swift communion with mana. Children years tounger sparked their cores, their lives unfolding along paths of augmented grace or conjured might.
Albold, three years older, moved with the fluid confidence of reinforced limbs and sharpened senses. Tessia was a small sun of verdant power.
And I… felt nothing. No spark. No hum. No connection to the world's vibrant energy. Just the dull, aching silence within. The emptiness where power should have been.
Failure.
The praises for my intellect became ashes in my mouth. What use was wisdom without the strength to enact it? What value strategy when you were the weakest piece on the board, easily swept aside? I could try to map Agrona's potential moves, even theorize about Scythes and Retainers, unravel political knots with detached precision. But it was the strategy of a ghost. Powerless. Impotent. A general commanding phantoms.
Failure.
Every whispered compliment about my "maturity," every impressed glance from a dignitary at my "insightful questions," every time Grampa or Dad nodded thoughtfully at an observation—it all curdled into a sickening mockery. They saw a precocious prince.
I saw a fraud.
A repository of stolen knowledge trapped in a body that refused the fundamental currency of this world. Magic. Without it, I was a spectator. A historian chronicling a disaster I couldn't prevent. A strategist devising plans I could never execute.
The frustration wasn't just anger; it was a suffocating despair, a yawning chasm between the desperate need to act, to protect, and the crushing reality of my own profound inadequacy. The political stability, Tessia's brilliance, the looming Council—they were threads in a tapestry I could see unraveling, and my hands were bound, useless. The carefully maintained facade of the thoughtful prince threatened to crack, revealing only the raw, terrified, furious boy beneath, screaming into the void of his own powerlessness.
I am a failure. The thought wasn't self-pity; it was a cold, hard assessment. A blunt knife twisting in the gut. In a world defined by mana, by the strength to wield it, I was nothing. And "nothing" couldn't save anyone. Especially not from what was coming. The drumbeat became a roar, drowning out the continent's peaceful hum.
Failure. Failure. FAILURE.
———
"Corvis?" Tessia's voice, laced with a concern that scraped against my raw nerves, echoed from beyond the door of my room, waking me up. I had cried myself into a hollow exhaustion, the salt tracks stiff on my cheeks a testament to the pity they all offered—pity that, perhaps, wasn't entirely misplaced.
"Corvis, please open the door."
The effort to move felt Herculean, my limbs leaden with the weight of my own perceived failure. "I am coming," I rasped, the sound grating in my throat. I dragged my feet across the familiar grain of the floorboards, each step an echo of the stagnation that defined me.
At the threshold, I summoned the ghost of a smile, a fragile, paper-thin thing, and pulled the door open. The hallway light framed her, casting a soft halo around her worried face. "Do you need something?"
Her head shook slowly, silver hair swaying. "I just wanted to speak with you." Her gaze, usually bright with mischief or determination, now held a depth of anxiety that made my chest constrict. "Corvis, you know I am always here for you, right?"
Why? The question screamed silently in the hollow space within me. Why this sudden declaration? Was it my red-rimmed eyes I couldn't fully hide? "Yes," I nodded, the word tasting like ash. My voice felt foreign, detached.
A flicker of memory surfaced then. Her relentless campaign at dinner just weeks ago, the fierce spark in her eyes as she'd argued with Mom and Dad, wearing down Grampa's resistance with sheer, stubborn passion.
Adventuring before going to Xyrus Academy. It had been her dream, the proving ground she craved before the polished halls of the academy.
"What about your project of going into adventure before starting at Xyrus Academy?" The attempt at lightness, at teasing my sister, curdled instantly. It fell flat, heavy and awkward, a discordant note in the tense silence.
Her response was a quiet thunderclap. "Oh, I think I won't do it."
The words didn't compute. The sheer absurdity of it momentarily pierced my self-absorption. "After all the scenes you made in front of Grampa, really?" My voice was thick with disbelief.
I searched her face, the familiar lines and curves I knew better than my own. And there it was—a flicker of evasion, a tightening around her eyes, a slight compression of her lips. She wasn't just changing her mind; she was hiding the why. The air between us thickened.
"Tessia," I pressed. My own silent scream echoed: Please, Tessia. I'm drowning here, but everything I endure, every ounce of this shame, is to claw back some semblance of worth, for you, for our family. Don't shut me out.
"I don't want to leave you!" The words burst from her, raw and ragged. "I don't want to come home after months of traveling and find you…" Her voice hitched, eyes glistening. "…find you desperately trying to prove something you don't have, Corvis! Beating yourself against a wall that won't move! And then… then having to just… leave again? For Xyrus?"
Her hands clenched at her sides, knuckles white. "The thought of you here alone, spiraling… I can't bear it."
A complex, bittersweet ache bloomed in my chest, sharp enough to steal my breath. Relief, profound and humbling, washed over me first. She told me. She trusted me with this raw, painful truth, unlike my own cowardice that locked everything away.
But beneath that relief, a crushing wave of guilt surged. I was the anchor. I was the dead weight, the reason those bright, adventurous wings she longed to spread were being furled. The sister who shone with potential was dimming her own light because of my shadow.
"Tessia, I can take care of myself," I managed, forcing the ghost-smile back onto my lips, a pathetic attempt at reassurance.
"No, you can't!" Her retort was swift, fierce, a protective fury blazing in her eyes. It wasn't anger at me, but for me.
"You won't. You are always so… evasive when it's about your wellbeing. Walls upon walls, Corvis!" She took a half-step closer, her voice dropping, trembling with emotion.
"Since… since you didn't develop your core… it's like a part of you just… retreated. And what replaced it? Pushing harder, yes, but pushing in the dark, alone. Worse habits, worse hours, worse… everything." Her gaze held mine, unflinching, seeing through every feeble defense I'd erected.
Her words landed like hammer blows, each one striking a chord of undeniable truth. There was no fight left in me against it. She perfectly knew me—the raw, broken, failing me—with a clarity that was both terrifying and strangely liberating. She was utterly, devastatingly right.
Yet, the image of the future, the horror I alone carried knowledge of—the attack on Xyrus—crystallized my resolve. She needed that adventuring experience. It wasn't just a dream; it was a crucible that could forge the strength she will desperately require.
I stopped thinking naively that I could protect them, the only thing I could do was help them being as strong as possible when time will demand it.
"Tessia…" My voice cracked, the apology scraping raw from a place deep within. "I am sorry. I am so deeply, truly sorry." The words felt inadequate, grains of sand against the mountain of my inadequacy. "But you… you don't have to give up on what sets your soul on fire. Not for me. Never for me." The plea was fervent, desperate. I needed her to fly, even if I remained forever earthbound.
"But—" she started, the protest forming.
"No buts," I interrupted, firmer now, a fragile resolve hardening. My hand lifted, almost reaching for hers, but falling back. A promise was the only currency I had left. "I promise you," I met her tear-filled gaze, willing her to see the sincerity, however fractured its source, "I won't do anything reckless. I'll… I'll try. To be better."
"And in exchange…" I took a breath, the air thick with the sacrifice I was demanding, "…you follow your heart. You go adventuring. Okay? Promise me that."
Silence stretched, taut and fragile, filled only by the frantic hammering of my own heart and the soft, ragged sound of her breathing. Her eyes searched mine, looking for the lie, the evasion, the hidden fracture in my resolve.
"Fine…" The word was quiet, reluctant acceptance. Then, like lightning from a clear sky: "But you will come to Xyrus with me."
The world tilted. "Tessia…" My protest was instinctive, born of years of ingrained impossibility. "I don't have a core. I can't attend the Academy even if I wanted to." The finality of it, the immutable law of our world, hung between us. The chasm was too wide.
Tessia scoffed, a sound that was pure, defiant her. The ghost of her usual fire sparked back to life, momentarily banishing the shadows of worry. She straightened, lifting her chin with that familiar, infuriating, utterly beloved confidence.
A small, fierce smile touched her lips, the first genuine one since she'd knocked. "Just let your amazing sister deal with it!" The declaration rang out, bold and impossible, a challenge thrown at the universe and my despair.
It was pure Tessia—innocent, hopeful, and anchored entirely in the unshakeable, terrifying faith she still had in me.