Arc 6. "He Who Stewards the Course of Peace."
Corvis Eralith
I was back at the headquarters of the Unraveler's Company, sinking into the armchair of my office and I let out a deep breath.
The journey back from the Sea Den had been long, the carriage rattling over roads that had not been designed for comfort, and every mile had carried me further from the strange, pulsing crystals hidden in my storage ring and closer to the life I had to pretend was the only one I lived.
I had just wiped the make-up of Finn Warend off my face.
The clay and whatever other products Olfred had given Alea gave up swiftly—they must have been different from those he originally used on me, back when I was five and terrified and so certain that the Red Gorge would be the end of everything.
That old formula had clung to my skin like it was trying to become me, resisting removal with the stubbornness of something that had been designed to last.
But this new mixture was different. Finn Warend came off my face, giving it back to Corvis Eralith, surprisingly easily. The clay peeled away in soft, dry flakes, and beneath it my skin was pale and smooth and mine again.
This first expedition had been the confirmation that the Unraveler's Company bore fruit. Many more parties of Unravelers were departing for other dungeons as I was cleaning my face, their voices drifting up from the floors below, the sound of boots on stairs and equipment being checked and the particular energy of people about to step into the unknown.
That would also help, hopefully, to make the Sea Den's reawakening seem like a work of chance for a little longer. A coincidence. A fluke. One dungeon among many waking for reasons no one could explain.
Until I stepped into the next dungeon, at least. Until I touched another ancient place and felt it shudder back to life beneath my hands.
Which was why I was now starting to think of a true way to make myself invisible. Not invisible to the eyes of men—I had that already, with Finn's face and Finn's voice and Finn's careful, limited magic.
Invisible to the eyes of the Asuras. The gods who watched from above, who had slaughtered the Djinn for knowing too much, who would not hesitate to erase a nine-year-old prince if they decided he was becoming a threat.
Insight traveled through the river of time. Of that I was certain. Otherwise, I would not even know what REtrocurrent was, would not have felt the cold grip of the current pulling me under, would not have opened my eyes in the snow after Berna's jaws closed around my throat.
Finn Warend was a cover for others to see. For people. For the nobles and merchants and adventurers who might wonder why the Crown Prince of Elenoir was so interested in dusty ruins and dead civilizations.
But not for the gods. I was not going to fool someone like Windsom Indrath with pretty make-up, contact lenses, different clothes and sound magic to mask my voice.
That meant I needed to turn these expeditions into suicide missions. Quite literally.
The Sea Den was not the Red Gorge. The Red Gorge had been a sprawling complex of ancient Djinnic ruins, a labyrinth of tunnels and chambers that had taken days to explore. The Sea Den was just a room.
A large room, yes, with its domed ceiling and its perfect sun alignment and its floating crystals that no one else could see. But still just a room. If the next dungeon was similarly contained, similarly recoverable, I could not rely on the chaos of a full-scale Reset to hide my presence.
I needed something more precise. I needed to die and come back, but I needed to do it in a way that left no trace of what I had been looking for.
But how could I kill myself? How could I kill myself in a fast and irrecoverable way?
Berna growled, a low, worried sound that vibrated through the bond between us, and before I could react, her tongue was on my face, warm and rough and insistent. She was worried.
Of course she was worried. She could feel what I was thinking, could sense the direction my thoughts had turned, and everything in her screamed that letting her bond die was the worst thing she could imagine.
"I am not having suicidal thoughts, Berna!" I complained, pushing at her massive head, trying to escape the onslaught of her affection. "It's strange, but you have to trust me."
Berna looked at me with wide green eyes, and through the bond I felt her confusion, her fear, her absolute certainty that I was asking her to accept something she did not understand.
Clear. She did not even comprehend something like letting me die. She was a Guardian Bear, forged by Titans to protect, to guard, to stand between her bond and anything that might harm them.
The idea of stepping aside, of letting me walk toward death, of trusting that I would come back—it was beyond her. It was like asking a river to stop flowing.
But through our bond, she also felt that I was sincere. That I was not lying to her, not hiding some deeper despair, not trying to escape a pain she could not see. And her trust in me surpassed even her instincts.
That was what love meant, I thought. Not the absence of fear, but the willingness to walk through it anyway, because the person you trusted had asked you to.
Now the only problem was: how does a nine-year-old child procure a lethal dose of something?
Elder Rahdeas would surely not help me in this. And whoever was close to me was out of the question. Alea would never let me. My parents—I did not even want to think about what my parents would do if they knew I was considering this.
So I had to procure it myself.
—
"Tessia," I said, sitting on the edge of her bed while she paced the room, still buzzing with the energy of her umpteenth social gathering this week.
I had listened to every detail, as I always did—the dresses, the conversations, the subtle politics of who had spoken to whom and what it might mean. "Do you know someone that can take me up the stream of the Winetail?"
I was sitting inside Tessia's room, my twin having just finished telling me about Sister House Grephin and how she had only just discovered the existence of Aya—the other elven Lance, after Alea—after she realized the Grephin woman had been "looking over" her for months at her balls.
The news had unsettled her, I could tell, though she tried to hide it behind her usual brightness.
Probably Dad had assigned Aya to watch over Tessia, while Alea loomed over me. Lately, Alea had been much closer to me than usual.
While I did not have time to go to the Hallowed Hollow as much anymore, Alea was now an ever-present figure in the headquarters of the Unraveler's Company.
Surely a way for my parents to be sure my new passion project was as perfect as possible. Or maybe it was Grandpa. He was the only one I had directly told about Finn Warend, and seeing how he and Elder Rahdeas continued to exchange correspondence, it would have been useless hiding it from him.
The fact that he had been so supportive surprised me, but I did not complain.
"Up the Winetail?" Tessia asked, her brow furrowing. "Can't you just take a Petaldrift?"
Petaldrifts were the narrow, long boats elves used to navigate rivers without the need to transport goods.
They were not unlike the gondolas of Venice, on Earth—elegant, silent, designed to carry people from side to side of the Winetail or other rivers across all Elenoir.
I had seen them gliding through the mist in the early mornings, their single rowers standing at the stern, their passengers wrapped in cloaks against the chill.
"Yes, but I need someone discreet," I said.
I needed to travel the Winetail up toward the Grand Mountains. By reading the many glossaries about the fauna of the Elshire Forest and combining it with faint memories from Earth, the toxin I needed came from a shellfish that lived in the creeks that fed into the Winetail in the west.
"Are you sneaking away?" Tessia asked, narrowing her eyes in that particular way that meant she was deciding whether to be annoyed or impressed.
"I am," I said. "And I have Grandpa's authorization. I have been to the Beast Glades these last days."
"Wasn't Finn Warend the one to go?" Tessia retorted, crossing her arms.
"Grandpa told you?" I asked.
"He did," Tessia confirmed.
"So? Does the great Princess have a connection for her poor twin?" I joked, and the words came easier than they would have a few years ago.
"Maybe, maybe," Tessia said, and she was smiling now, that particular smile that meant she was about to demand something. "But I require something in exchange."
I frowned, already bracing myself. "...Yes?"
"I want you to bring me too into one of these unravelings," Tessia said, and the words hit me like a stone dropped into still water, ripples spreading outward in all directions.
I stared at her. "What? You? The passion for magic is back?"
"No," Tessia replied, and there was no regret in her voice, no longing for the girl she had been when she awakened at four and thought the world would open before her. "But many nobles around our age find the Unraveler's Company a very good topic of discussion. If the Princess was to become one, I would gain their hearts even more."
This sister of mine. Arthur's absence had made her a totally different person. The Tessia of the novel had been defined by him—by her love for him, by her rivalry with him, by the way he pushed her. Without him, she had had to find her own definition.
And she had found it in the court. In the politics. In the slow, careful work of building relationships that would one day support her when she wore the crown.
"You know it's dangerous, right?" I asked, and I heard the warning in my own voice, the part of me that wanted to protect her from everything.
Tessia raised her head, and her eyes were bright, fierce, the same fire I had seen in her when we were small and she had declared she would protect me from everything.
"That means I will be able to protect you!" she said proudly.
"Tes—" I stopped myself. The protest died on my tongue.
I needed Tessia to become stronger. She was talented beyond reason.
But she lacked everything else. Passion. Experience. The hard, grinding edge that came from testing yourself against something that wanted to kill you. If I could ignite the former in her again, and make her gain a bit of the latter...
Without the threat of the Legacy, Agrona did not need Tessia. That was mainly a good thing, but it also meant the Alacryan army was not going to spare her in the war.
And knowing both this Tessia and the novel's Tessia, there was no world where she was going to stand behind. The only question was whether she would be ready when that moment came.
"Okay," I said, and the word felt heavier than I expected. "But you are going to listen to me. And you will let Berna protect you."
"Yeah, yeah, we will see," Tessia said, waving a hand dismissively, already turning away, already planning whatever she was going to plan.
I would choose the easiest dungeon I could find for our next unraveling. I decided it in that instant, the thought settling into my chest like a stone finding its resting place.
Tessia was going to get a reality check if she came with me. She was going to see what it meant to fight something that did not care about her title, her lineage, her pretty dresses and perfect smile. And I was going to let it happen because I was lying to myself that it would only do her good.
I ignored the intrusive thoughts. There would be time for guilt later. There was always time for guilt.
"Now can I receive my information?" I asked, forcing my voice back to lightness.
"The Petaldrifter of House Ivsaar is a particular elf," Tessia said, and her expression shifted, becoming sly, conspiratorial. "Feyrith's sister—Mirelith—wants to go out on the Winetail with me at least once a week. The Petaldrifter lets us decide wherever to go, ignoring the orders of Lord and Lady Ivsaar to not make Mirelith stay away from home too long."
"And you think he is going to help me?" I asked, skeptical.
A Petaldrifter—a rider of a Petaldrift—who let a girl violate the curfew of her parents was not exactly what I needed.
"Yes, and he will stay silent about it," Tessia said, and her confidence was absolute.
"And how can you be so sure?" I pressed.
Tessia's smirk widened.
"Otherwise, I am going to tell Lord and Lady Ivsaar about mine and Mirelith's little travels. And the only House that pays better than our own are the Ivsaars themselves. No one wants to lose a job under the Ivsaars."
I blinked at her, impressed despite myself. "Oh, it makes sense," I said. "Thank you, Tessia."
—
Many shellfishes were filter feeders, which meant they fed by filtering substances from the water they lived in.
In a world like this, where all types of animals carried mana in their systems, that simple biological fact made them all the more peculiar.
The water that rushed down from the Grand Mountains carried with it the dissolved essence of everything it touched—minerals, decaying matter, the ambient mana that permeated the Elshire Forest like a second skin.
And the Cravenites, these small red clams that clung to the rocks in the fast-flowing brooks, filtered it all.
They drew the poison from the water and locked it away in the only place they could: their mana cores.
With the use of wind magic, a Petaldrift could travel much faster than even a galloping Elenoi Highcolt.
Even traveling upstream, in just a few hours I was deep in the Elshire Forest, exploring the rugged terrain where the foothills began their slow climb toward the mountains.
Berna was by my side, her massive form moving through the undergrowth with that impossible silence that still surprised me, her nose to the ground, her ears pricked forward.
We searched together, methodically, for the freshwater clam I had put my eyes on.
It did not take long for Berna to find it. From a branch I was standing on, I looked down and saw my Guardian Bear rising from a rapids that flowed from this uphill zone back toward the Winetail in the valley.
Water streamed from her fur, catching the weak late winter light, and in one paw she held a large fish that looked like a salmon, its silver scales flashing.
In the other, she had a cluster of red clams, their shells pressed together in a tight knot. Cravenites.
I jumped from the branch and slowed my descent with Ars Ariamorph, the wind cushioning my fall, and took the peculiar clams in my hands as Berna turned her attention to the fish.
The shells were cold against my palms, rough with the texture of river stone, and I could feel the faint pulse of life within them—small, insignificant, barely there.
I opened a Cravenite's shell, hoping to find the pearl I was searching for. The equivalent of their mana cores.
But as soon as I cracked the shell open, the creature died. Its mana core crumbled to dust between my fingers, a fine red powder that the wind caught and scattered across the water.
"Damn," I said, the frustration sharp in my throat. "We need to find the Cravenite that holds the Beast Will."
Berna growled in confirmation and swallowed the fish in her mouth in one swift motion. I finished opening the cluster of Cravenites I held, and as expected, I found no beast core that survived the opening.
Their shells cracked, their fragile lives ended, and their cores dissolved into nothing.
The archers of the Treeful Phalanx—our regular army—crashed the Cravenites to obtain a poison to tip their arrows with.
But that poison was not as concentrated as what I could gain from an intact mana core. It was polluted by the shell and flesh of the Cravenites, diluted by the very process that extracted it.
But of course, to equip an entire unit of archers with poisonous arrows, you could not rely on the rare cores that survived the opening of the shellfish.
That would have been impossible to sustain. It would have risked the extinction of the Cravenites themselves—something the Verticil absolutely condemned.
Elvenkind had bad memories of what could happen to the mana beasts of the Elshire Forest. Many species and biodiversity had been lost during the First War against Sapin. We did not make that mistake again.
Me and Berna continued to search the many brooks for Cravenites, carefully searching for the one holding a Beast Will.
I could have used any of the beast cores I had managed to retrieve—those that belonged to Cravenites strong enough to survive their shells being opened.
But I did not want to risk it. If the core was not potent enough, if the concentration of poison was too weak, I would not die.
I would simply be sick, the river would not take me, and, worse than all of the above, I would have to explain to everyone why I had been chewing on poisonous shellfish in the middle of the forest.
Eventually, I found it. Or rather, Berna found it.
She nudged a large red shell from the shallows with her paw, rolling it toward me, and I crouched down to pick it up.
I could feel a faint mana signature from it—normal Cravenites were too weak to have a remarkable signature without using Manasonar, but this one had a presence just strong enough to be felt up close.
The shell was larger than the others, its surface darker, the ridges along its back worn smooth by years in the current.
"This must be it," I murmured, and I cracked the shell open.
Berna stared down at the Cravenite—she had started to eat the ones that were not useful to me, crunching their shells with a sound like breaking stone—and when the beast core did not crumble, I took it between my fingers.
It was a small red sphere, containing probably just enough mana to fuel a simple shape with Ars Aquamorph for a few instants.
But the fact that there was any noticeable quantity of mana at all was far better than all the other shellfishes I had harvested until now.
"Perfect," I said, and I felt something stir inside the beast core. A strange entity. A presence that was barely there, flickering at the edge of my perception like a candle about to go out.
Cherry's Will had been fiery and proud, a roaring blaze that had nearly consumed me. This one was barely existing. The ghost of a ghost.
I retrieved a map of the many brooks feeding into the Winetail and marked the area where we were standing, memorising the place.
When I came back—when the river returned me—I would need to find this place again and retrieve this same Cravenite one more time.
I put the beast core in my mouth. It was small, barely the size of a marble, and it sat on my tongue like a seed waiting to be planted.
My breath came in ragged gasps, my chest rising and falling too fast, my heart hammering against my ribs like something trying to escape.
The Treeful Phalanx, when they made their poisons with the Cravenites, always needed to supply it with mana to make it have serious effects.
That was the reason the poison could be handled safely, the reason the archers did not feel disoriented and sick every time they touched their arrows. Alone the poison wasn't deadly.
But I was not going to supply it with mana. I was going to overload this beast core. And I was not going to fight back by augmenting my body. I was going to let it take me.
"One..." I murmured, and my survival instincts screamed at me.
Every part of my body, every nerve, every cell, every fragment of the soul that had been dragged into this world against its will—all of it was telling me to stop. To spit the core out. To run. To live.
"Two..." The river was already pulling at me, not the physical river that flowed beside us, cold and clear and indifferent, but the other river.
The one that ran beneath reality. The one that had already swallowed me twice and let me go. I could feel its current tugging at the edges of my consciousness, patient, waiting, hungry.
"I-I can't!" I shouted, and the words tore from my throat, raw and desperate.
My hands were shaking. My whole body was shaking.
Then I felt it. A surge of bravery through the bond between me and Berna. Not my bravery. Hers. She pressed against my side, her massive warmth a wall against the cold, and I looked into her green eyes.
Boo, in the novel, had given Eleanor the courage to face her fear. And Berna was doing the same for me. But not to make me fight. To make me let go. She was going against her very nature. Every instinct she had was screaming at her to protect me, to stop me, to pull me back from the edge.
But she trusted me. She trusted that I would come back. And if she could trust me that much, if she could set aside everything she was for me, then I could not be any less.
"Three..."
I pushed pure, refined mana into the Cravenite's beast core. I felt the Beast Will within it stir, a faint, barely-there screech, and then I bit down. The core shattered between my teeth. The poison released.
It tastes of bitter almond.
That was my last thought before the river claimed me.