Corvis Eralith
"I am honored," I said, my voice steady despite the tremor in my hands, despite the cold sweat on my neck, despite the way my heart was hammering against my ribs like something trying to escape. "I swear I won't let Everbosk down, Lord Windsom. Lord."
I remained deeply bowed my eyes fixed on the floor of my room—my room, which had been returned to me after each of these conversations, after each iteration, after each time I played this part and hoped it would be enough.
Windsom left me for the umpteenth time. I did not watch him go. I had learned, over the many repetitions, that he preferred to depart unseen, to fade like morning mist, to leave behind nothing but the lingering pressure of his presence.
I had been using REtrocurrent for weeks. Counting all the times I emerged from the river of time at points I had no memory of, no control over, no way to predict.
Some resets dropped me back hours before Windsom's arrival. Some dropped me days.
One—the worst one, the one that had nearly broken something in me—dropped me back to my journey to Vildorial, weeks before the confrontation, with no easy way to end myself and start again.
I had lived those days again. I had spoken to Elder Rahdeas again, had traveled back to Zestier again, had trained with Albold and Ashton again, had smiled at Tessia's stories about court again. I had done it all again, knowing that none of it mattered, that the only moment that counted was this one, waiting for me at the end of all those lived and relived days.
I hoped I could stabilize my reset points at least a little. But my every attempt was hopeless.
The river did not answer to hope. It answered to something else, something I did not understand, something that had touched me twice before and was now touching me again and again and again, pulling me under and spitting me out at moments it chose, not moments I chose.
But eventually, all of it came down to this moment.
My confrontation with Windsom Indrath. The fulcrum upon which everything balanced. I had done everything exactly as I had done it the first time—all but this conversation. I spoke the same words—more or less.
I passed time with the same people, made the same decisions, did the same training. Everything I repeated. Everything but my interaction with Windsom.
REtrocurrent was a gamble. For that reason, I had been so wary of using it since I discovered it after Berna killed me.
Every death was a roll of the dice. Every return was a prayer to a god I did not believe in. But when standing in front of an Asura, a gamble was all I could do. A child with a poisoned clam's core and a power he did not understand who had helped slaughter the Djinn, who served a dragon lord who had erased entire cultures from existence because they inconvenienced him.
Windsom desired nothing more than to climb the social ladder of Epheotus and secure a more prestigious role within Kezess Indrath's court.
That I knew from the novel. It was the key to everything, the thread I had been pulling for weeks, the leverage I had been searching for.
He was ambitious, this dragon who pretended to be above such petty elven concerns. He wanted more. He wanted recognition, status, the approval of his master.
And if I could make him see me as a tool that would advance those ambitions, if I could present myself as the perfectly willing, perfectly obedient, perfectly useful prince—then he would be swayed.
He did not even see me as a person, after all. Only as a useful tool for his master. That was the part I had to play.
The young, gods-fearing prince, eager to satisfy his deities, trembling with the honor of being chosen, desperate to prove himself worthy of their attention.
Strangely, the Unraveler's Company was something that Epheotus looked at with interest. But uniting Dicathen was something the Asuras wanted too. Aldir had said as much in the novel: Epheotus needed Dicathen defended against Alacrya. They just did not care if we succeeded or not.
As long as Agrona breathed and an aether-wielding human named Arthur Leywin—who did not exist here, who would never exist—did not appear with the strength to kill a Pantheon, Epheotus was an ally.
An ally ready to completely abandon us, or exterminate us should the reason arise. But an ally nonetheless.
I straightened from my bow. My head ached from the weeks of repetition, from the countless times I had repeated this. But the ache was good. The ache meant I had survived another iteration, another conversation, another chance to get it right.
I turned and hugged Berna. Her fur was warm against my cheek, her heartbeat slow and steady beneath my ear, and I pressed myself into her like a child pressing into a mother's embrace.
She was the only thing that had made me able to do this—the only thing that had kept me sane through the weeks of repetition, through the endless loops, through the moments when I had woken in my bed not knowing what day it was.
She did not understand what I was doing. She could not, not really, not with a mind that had been forged to protect, guard and stand between her bond and anything that might harm him. But she trusted me. And her trust was a rope I clung to in the dark.
I turned to look at the other variable in this: Coco. Or rather, the Asura in disguise. She was perched on my windowsill, her ember-colored breast rising and falling with each small breath, her golden eyes fixed on me with an intensity that belied her tiny form.
She had been there for every iteration, watching, waiting. I did not know what she wanted. I did not know whose side she was on. But she was here, and that meant something.
"Coco," I greeted, approaching the window. "Do you want something to eat?"
The mysterious Asura in her miniature form—like Windsom with his cat one, a shape designed to be overlooked, dismissed, or forgotten—stepped inside my room.
She brushed herself against the back of my hand, her feathers soft against my skin, and I felt through that small contact something that might have been reassurance, but she was too old, too strange, too other for me to read her the way I read Berna.
They had probably perceived Windsom's presence.
No, they surely had. The aether arts of the Indrath Clan were not subtle. They left marks on the world, scars that took time to heal, wounds that bled ambient mana into the air like smoke from a fire.
I took one of the seeds that me and Tessia fed "Coco" and her flocks and gave it to her. She took it from my palm with a delicate peck, her beak gentle against my skin, and I watched her eat while my mind churned on what to do with her.
She was either a rogue Asura—one of the few who had defied the Indrath Clan's authority—or a member of the Asclepius Clan that, for some reason, had taken an interest in me and my sister.
An interest that had made her leave the Hearth, leave the sanctuary where her people had hidden for millennia, to perch on windowsills, eat seeds and watch children grow.
And seeing she was a bird... a Phoenix seemed very reasonable.
That was also the reason why Berna felt so strange around "Coco." Not quite hostile, but not quite friendly either. Awkward most of the times.
Windsom was not nearby. Through my many identical conversations with the Dragon, I had discovered he left as soon as he stopped speaking with me, probably off to report to Kezess.
He delivered his message and departed, confident that his words had landed, that his presence had been sufficient, that the little prince would do as he was told.
I leaned on my hand and said:
"Has Tessia told you we are going to a dungeon?"
Coco turned to me and nodded.
"Good. Will you accompany us?"
Coco chirped in confirmation. The sound was bright, clear, the sound of a bird that had nothing to hide and everything to protect.
That was good. If she was an Asclepius, I would have confirmation in a dungeon. If I reawakened a ruin of the Djinn—the civilization her Clan had sacrificed everything to try and preserve, only to fail—then I would have a card to play with Mordain Asclepius.
A piece of evidence that I was not just another lesser stumbling through ruins I did not understand. That I was something more. Something worth talking to.
I wondered if Coco knew about me being reincarnated. But I doubted it. Why would she be so interested in Tessia too, then? No, the most probable answer was that she was just curious about us.
In the novel, Mordain Asclepius had taken an interest in my Great-aunt and Grandmother. Coco, or whatever her true name was, was probably doing the same. Only disguised as a bird.
—
"Come on, Berna!" I exclaimed, frustration and excitement warring in my chest. "Use magic!"
Berna growled something I was not able to decipher. She was eating pearls made of gold like they were candies—the spheres of a quite expensive necklace that Tessia received as a gift and passed to me. Now Berna was treating them as chocolates.
Only she was only munching the golden casing of those little jewels, leaving the rest scattered on the grass like a child who had eaten the frosting off a cake and abandoned the cake itself.
"Those were a gift from Tessia," I said, crossing my arms. "Well, it was a gift Lady Sylwerih made her and she found too garish and gave to me, but still a gift from her!"
Berna gave me a side glance. That look was probably her form of revenge for me killing myself multiple times, even though she did not know about it consciously.
The bond did not transmit memories, not clearly, not in ways that could be understood. But it transmitted feelings. Emotions. And somewhere, buried deep in Berna's massive heart, she had felt what I had done in one way or another.
"I already said I am sorry," I said, even though we both knew I was lying. Or at least that I was not being totally truthful. I was sorry for what Berna was feeling right now.
I was sorry for the confusion, the pain, the helplessness that leaked through our bond whenever I used REtrocurrent. But I was not sorry for what I had done.
Berna did not seem to give any sign of wanting to collaborate. She lay curled on the patch of leaves she had made for herself in the gardens of the Royal Palace, her massive body rising and falling with each slow breath, her eyes half-closed in what might have been contentment or might have been stubborn refusal.
Just like with the Vesperkins of the Sea Den, Berna did not want to use magic actively. She thought of magic as a weapon, and she hated weapons. I rationalized it in my head through the mixed feelings I sensed through our bond.
She had been a weapon for so long—corrupted, controlled, forced to fight against everything she had been created to protect. The very thought of wielding power, of shaping mana and becoming something that could harm, made something in her recoil.
But magic was not only a weapon. Even if that was my end goal, I had eventually learned to see magic as more than a tool for war.
When Tessia awakened, Grandpa had never shown her magic in an offensive way—only as spectacles of mana, as beauty, as wonder.
Master Kamiel used magic for exhibitions, for choreographies, for his pointless attempts at courting Alea.
Magic could be art. Magic could be life. Magic could be the thing that made the world worth saving.
"Your Highness!" Alwyn's voice echoed through the calm courtyard, and I turned to see him sprinting through the cobblestone pathways, weaving between bushes and flowers and the carefully manicured plants that the Royal Palace's gardeners tended with professional care.
In his hands, he held samples of Berna's favorite metals: iron, gold, copper, and silver.
"Thanks, Alwyn," I said, taking a sheet of Berna's favorite among favorites: iron.
"Berna!" I called, waving the piece of iron high in the air.
Berna—exactly like a retrieving dog—raised her head, her attention immediately picked. Her ears pricked forward. Her eyes fixed on the iron in my hand. Her whole body shifted from relaxed to alert in the space of a heartbeat.
She padded all the way in front of me, her massive paws silent on the grass, her head level with my chest. She looked at the iron in my hand with an expression that could only be described as gluttonous. But she waited.
She sat back on her haunches, her tail sweeping the ground behind her, and she waited for my permission.
I looked up. The massive Guardian Bear cast a shadow over me and Alwyn, blocking out the winter sun, and I felt the weight of her attention like being under scrutiny by something very, very big.
"You know what I want in exchange," I said with a smirk.
Berna tried to make puppy eyes. Her green eyes widened. Her head tilted. Her ears drooped. It was the most ridiculous expression I had ever seen on a creature capable of killing me with a single swipe of her paw, and it almost worked.
But I did not relent.
"Your Highness," Alwyn said, his voice caught somewhere between awe and amusement. "Are you blackmailing your bond?"
"It's called training," I retorted, feeling a flush creep up my neck. "Not... blackmailing."
"Of course, Your Highness," Alwyn said, and I could hear the smile in his voice even if I could not see his face.
"Anyway," I said, forcing my attention back to the staring competition I was locked in with Berna. "How is your training with Grandpa going?"
Alwyn's eyes lit up as I mentioned it. The change was immediate, transformative. The shy commoner boy who still bowed too low and spoke too softly vanished, replaced by someone who had been touched by something extraordinary.
"Amazingly!" Alwyn exclaimed. "I am practicing the Mirrshield right now! It suits earth magic so perfectly!"
I looked at Berna. "You either show me magic or no iron for you," I said, and the words sounded rather cringy to my ears.
But if Berna could use fire, then there was a slight chance I might too, through our bond. The thought had been gnawing at me since I had watched her light a torch with a touch of her paw.
Fire was the element that had always been denied me, the door that had always been sealed. If Berna could open it, even a crack, even a little—I would finally have what I had been chasing since the Red Gorge.
I looked back at Alwyn. "Do you want to come with me and Tessia to a dungeon?" I asked. "Tessia needs to speak about the Unraveler's Company with Zestier's nobility, and she asked me to bring her on an unraveling."
"R-really?" Alwyn's voice wavered for an instant before he steadied himself. His eyes were bright, hungry, the same hunger I had seen in him when he was four years old and I had taught him to reach for his mana core. "Of course, Your Highness."
I nodded, and then I saw Berna produce a ball of stone from the ground of the gardens. The earth shifted beneath her paw, rising, shaping, compacting into a perfect sphere that she gave to Alwyn. She then growled at me, demanding her treat.
"Here you have, girl," I said, and Berna licked my hands before swallowing the iron with it.
"This sphere is surprisingly balanced," Alwyn said by my side, turning the stone ball over in his hands, testing its weight, its symmetry. "How can Berna use magic so... so easily?!"
"She is just that special," I said, watching Berna with narrowed eyes. "If only there were so many other treats waiting for her. If only she showed us just how special she really was."
Berna growled, but she complied immediately. She used water magic—I knew it!—to conjure some water from the atmospheric mana of the Elshire Mist, drinking it from her cupped paws.
The water sparkled in the weak winter light, pure and clean, and I felt a thrill run through me.
Then—"Your Highness!" Alwyn grabbed my collar as Berna sneezed.
Wind magic propelled the sneeze directly at me, a blast of air that took me completely by surprise. My feet left the ground. The world spun. And I would have fallen if Alwyn had not been there to catch me.
"Cheeky bear," I pouted, my dignity in tatters.
Berna licked my face to apologize, her tongue rough and warm, but utterly unrepentant.
"I think there is one last element missing," I said, crossing my arms and narrowing my eyes. "Fire."
Berna growled and indicated the golden jewels Alwyn had brought. Her snout nudged them, her eyes fixed on mine, and I understood.
"Fire magic before," I said. "Treat later."
Whoever the Titan was that had forged Berna, they must have been the most eclectic Asura of Epheotus.
Berna was not a mere Guardian Bear. She was a masterpiece. A quadra-elemental mage in the shape of a bear.
Berna shook herself and went back to all four paws, her snout nudging the gold.
"Your Highness, I think she needs gold to use fire magic," Alwyn said.
"As fuel?" I wondered. I had never read of anything like this in the novel. Mana beasts consumed mana, not metal. But it was true that Berna was not a normal mana beast.
I took some golden jewels—Alwyn had taken them from my room, and I told myself I would return them somewhere else later—and fed them to Berna.
She swallowed them in one gulp, her throat working, and then she yawned. A small sphere of fire formed between her jaws, flickering, unstable, beautiful.
It dissipated almost immediately, leaving behind nothing but the smell of smoke and the memory of heat.
"So you eat gold for fire magic?" I asked.
Berna growled. Through our bond, I knew that meant yes.
"Are copper, iron, and silver related to your magic too?" I asked.
Again, Berna gave her yes-growl. That was why she was so picky about the metals she ate. And also the reason why she liked them so much.
"Let's make more experiments," I said, genuinely curious about this strange way of using mana.
Then the secret behind Berna's stealthy mana signature clicked into place in my mind. She used magic only when she had eaten metals. When she was not actively wielding an element, she was as quiet as stone, as still as the earth itself.
Her mana core did not broadcast her presence the way other creatures' did. It held its power in reserve until it was needed.
How did her mana core function? Actually, how did Guardian Bears function? More answers crowded into my mind, questions piling on questions.
The novel had only explained that Guardian Bears were created by the Titans of Epheotus. But other than that, I did not know much about them.
Sentient life could be created from a mineral called Acclorite after a secret refinery—a secret Wren Kain IV jealously guarded—so that could not be Berna's secret. But I did not think the principle behind Guardian Bears, and Guardian Beasts in general, was much different.
If I could replicate it, create more of them... I could arm Dicathen with an army of forged bonds. Which were the only true advantage my home continent had against Alacrya.
The Vritra had exterminated most of the mana beasts that lived in Alacrya. The dungeons originating from that continent had been wiped clean by the Vritra Clan, and with them, the mana beasts that called those dungeons home had been destroyed.
Moreover, the bonds between mage and mana beast were considered barbaric by the Alacryans. They did not understand the power that came from standing beside a creature that had chosen you, that trusted you, that would die for you.
But where could I get information about that? The answer came soon: Coco. Again. Even if she was not an Asclepius, she could still have knowledge about Guardian Beasts.
But if she was an Asclepius... a Titan named Evascir guarded the Hearth.
With that in mind, I continued to feed Berna more metals in exchange for magic demonstrations.
Gold for fire.
Copper for water.
Silver for wind.
And iron—iron for the earth magic that had been the first thing she had shown me, the simplest and most essential, the foundation upon which everything else was built.