Corvis Eralith
The next day, we rode on Hoofy's back, the elegant Elenoi Highcolt picking his way along a path that grew narrower and wilder with every mile.
Berna padded by our left, her massive form a shadow in the dappled light, her green eyes scanning the forest with a vigilance that had become second nature.
Soleil was perched on the back of Tessia's hand, her golden eyes bright, her feathers ruffling in the breeze.
The hooves of our mount stomped on the leaf-strewn earth, carrying us westward, far from Zestier and the heart of elven civilization.
The familiar trees with their buildings and the white stone walls of the Royal Capital had vanished behind us, swallowed by the endless green of the Elshire Forest.
We were heading into the unknown now. Into the untamed wild of the outergrove that was the true birthplace of our race. Into whatever was calling my sister.
This time, for once, I was not the one guiding us, but Tessia.
She seemed to feel the direction we needed to take by heart—as if some invisible thread connected her to the distant source of the corruption, pulling her forward like a fish on a line.
"Tessia," I started, keeping my voice low. "What exactly is the source of this new... ability of yours? What exactly happened with that Elderwood Guardian?"
"I told you!" Tessia exclaimed, a bit too naively in her optimism. She stuck out her tongue and gave me a look that was half challenge, half playful mockery. "It granted me a Beast Will! Is that so hard to understand?"
"Yes, I understood that," I sighed, rubbing my temples. The morning light was still pale, the mist that clung to the forest floor slowly burning away as the sun rose higher, illuminating through the leaves. "But does it not seem a bit too strange that an Elderwood Guardian granted you something like that?"
"No?" Tessia replied, as if that were answer enough. "I am the Princess of Elenoir."
For her, it was. For her, the world was simple. The forest answered to the Eraliths. To her evn the Elderwood Guardians had to bow to the crown.
She had grown up believing that the Verticil was true, that the Spring Lizard had bestowed the Elshire upon our family, that the land itself recognized her as its rightful mistress.
I envied her certainty. I envied the way she could look at the world and see only what she wanted to see.
"What you showed me already," I said, changing the subject, focusing more on the mechanics of this Beast Will, "you can use it now too?"
"The Acquire Phase?" Tessia shook her head. "No, I need to stand with my feet on the forest floor for it to work."
"And how can you be so sure that is the Acquire Phase?" I raised an eyebrow.
"Have you never watched Grandpa using his Beast Will?" Tessia pointed out, a hint of impatience creeping into her voice. "It just feels so similar to his own. And the Forest itself told me its name. That means it is the Acquire Phase."
"And what is its name, then?"
"Woods Wide Web," Tessia announced proudly, the words rolling off her tongue like a proclamation.
Woods Wide Web, what a peculiar name, I said in my head.
I turned it over in my mind, pondering the nature of the Beast Will that had chosen my sister. In the canon that would never be—the timeline that had been erased before it ever began—Tessia had been granted a corrupted Beast Will, ripped from an Elderwood Guardian that Arthur had slain in the Dire Tombs.
Her Acquire Phase in that world had consisted of a green globe surrounding her body and an enhanced control over plants, making her able to command vines and roots with a thought. Even Alea, with all her years of experience, would have been impressed.
But this Beast Will was different. It had been given freely, not taken by force. Furthermore, the Elderwood Guardian of the Colour Timberland was not corrupted; I was sure of that.
It had apparently chosen to share its power with her, to grant her a fragment of the forest's ancient wisdom.
If the Elderwood Guardian in the Dire Tombs was also uncorrupted in this timeline, it would be wise to explore that dungeon. To discover more about this mysterious new power of my sister. To help her cultivate it better.
The next objective of the Dungeon Crawlers is going to be the Dire Tombs, I decided then.
I would take Finn Warend back into the depths of the Beast Glades, not to hunt for Djinnic relics or aetheric secrets this time, but to help my sister while she learned to hear the voice of the forest.
"Corvis, are you paying attention?" I barely heard Tessia calling me, as focused as I was on my own thoughts.
The trees blurred past, the path wound on, and I was lost in a labyrinth of plans and contingencies.
Berna leaned over and licked my face, her rough tongue dragging across my cheek, pulling me back to the present. Without Inner Current active, I had a hard time staying focused. My mind was a crowded room, every thought jostling for space, and Berna's presence was the only thing that kept me grounded.
"Yes," I said, wiping my face. "You were saying?"
"I wanted to ask you when you wanted to go on another Unraveling," Tessia said, feigning nonchalance.
But her interest was betrayed by the way she gripped Hoofy's reins, her knuckles white, her shoulders tense.
"Oh," I said, a smirk tugging at my lips. "Weren't you the girl who was so afraid after her last Unraveling that she never wanted to go on another one?"
"I—I was not afraid!" Tessia flushed a deep crimson, the color spreading across her cheeks like wildfire. "Okay, maybe a little, but..." She trailed off, unable to hide her true feelings. Again. "I am now ready to challenge myself again."
"Your ability to save face is impressive," I said flatly.
"I am a Princess, after all."
"I know, I know. There is no need to continue saying it." I sighed, the sound lost beneath the rhythmic thud of Hoofy's hooves. "I will see when I am free to locate another dungeon we can go on an Unraveling to."
"When you are free?" Tessia's voice sharpened, her eyes narrowing. "Are you implying you prefer faking being a dwarven boy to traveling with your sister and best friend? How did you call it... cosplaying?"
"And when did I say that?!" I exclaimed, surprised that she knew that word. It was a relic from another world, a word that should not exist here, should not have any meaning in Common Dicathian.
"You say a lot more things than you think around your family," Tessia said, a smug expression settling on her face. Coco chirped in agreement, bobbing her head. "See? Coco confirms."
"Just keep riding," I muttered, sinking lower in the saddle.
—
By twilight, the sun had vanished, hidden by the trees that surrounded us. The light faded slowly, the green of the leaves deepening.
We reached an elven village west of Zestier, a few days of travel from the Grand Mountains—luckily, Sprout City was not that far from the mountain range, otherwise the journey could have taken weeks.
The village was modest, a small settlement nestled by the side of a secondary tributary of the Winetail River. Its buildings were simple, built of wood and stone, their roofs thatched with reeds.
A mill wheel turned slowly in the current, its creak a gentle counterpoint to the murmur of the water. The atmosphere was peaceful, now that night was approaching, the last of the day's labors winding down, families gathering in their homes to share meals and stories.
I made to descend from Hoofy's back, but Tessia stopped me.
"We are royalty," she said, her head held high, her voice carrying the weight of a thousand years of tradition. "We need to make a proper entrance."
I shook my head and jumped from the Highcolt's back, landing beside Berna with a soft thud. "Do whatever you want," I mumbled, "but do not drag me into it, showgirl."
The villagers were about to have a strange day, with the Kingdom's princess bursting into their communal life. I could already imagine the gossip, the whispered rumors, the wide-eyed stares. But I could not let myself be sidelined by my sister's antics.
We were traveling because she felt the same source of corruption as the Colour Timberland, and I was following her to scout this new sense of hers.
Berna, sensing my inner turmoil through our bond, came to lick my face, growling a reassuring sound.
"Let's get some practice with yours of Acquire Phase while Tessia does her princess things," I said, scratching her head, my hand raised to reach her.
A silvery fish, long and elegant, jumped from the brook, trying to avoid Berna's claws.
Unfortunately for it, there was little a Dicathian mana beast could do to escape a Guardian Bear. Her paw came down with a splash, and the fish was hers.
Watching Berna savor her fishy treat—the crunch of bones, the glistening of scales—I passed my right hand over my face. REmould answered, changing my body and my magic both, and I became Finn Warend.
Immediately, I felt strange. The night was coming, and the last rays of the sun were almost gone, which meant the mist of the Elshire Forest was starting to grow thicker.
Usually, that was not a problem. I was an elf—the fog was as common as the sun and the trees, as familiar as my own breath. But now I was a dwarf. I had never been Finn Warend in such a sparsely populated area of the Elshire.
It was... odd, unfamiliar and slightly unnerving.
On the other hand, my dwarven physiology—I could not quite grasp yet how much of me REmould truly changed—made the scarce luminosity less of a problem.
The dwarves, used and adapted to life in conditions where the sun was an enemy that scorched the earth above their underground homes, had evolved to fare far better in dark environments.
I ignored the dissonance and clenched my fist, activating the Acquire Phase.
The gear-shaped runes on the backs of my hands immediately lit up, glowing with ochre light.
Massbinding was ready to work.
I bent down and took a smooth pebble from the brook's shore. I threw it into the air, then caught it, feeling and understanding its weight. In Burim, I had learned more about how Massbinding worked.
With one hand, I could change gravity's hold on an object, making it behave as if it were lighter. With the other, I could do the opposite—modify gravity's pull on something, making it behave as if it were heavier.
By using both in unison, I was able to "fly," using objects as handholds to propel myself through the air.
"Berna! Fetch!" I shouted, throwing the pebble at my Guardian Bear.
Before the pebble left my hand, the ochre runes on its back turned, and I changed its weight, making it lighter, and thus faster.
The pebble shot through the air like a bullet, a blur of grey against the darkening sky.
Berna raised her head from her meal, fresh fish blood dripping from her maws. She tilted her head slightly at the approaching pebble, her green eyes tracking its trajectory with preternatural precision. Then she sneezed.
Wind magic erupted from her, a powerful gust that sent water from the brook spraying in all directions. A cloud of droplets formed around her, shimmering in the last light of twilight. When it dissipated, I saw the pebble balanced on top of Berna's nose, perfectly still.
"Showgirls," I commented, shaking my head. "You and Tessia."
Berna took the pebble and threw it back at me with a flick of her head. The force I had given the pebble when I threw it at Berna did not change. I caught it, frowning.
I made another test. This time, I threw the pebble upward and made it heavier. I augmented my body with magic to throw it with all my strength. The pebble flew upward for a few seconds, a dark speck against the fading sky.
When it fell back down, I expected it to impact powerfully on the ground. But it did not. It landed softly, as if I had never changed its weight at all.
"The change is only apparent, of course," I observed, bending down to retrieve the pebble. "I am not changing the mass of anything. And even the gravitational field that Massbinding creates only has consequences on the object itself. That was why I was able to swing through Burim's buildings—it only affected me."
I turned the pebble over in my fingers, feeling its smooth surface, its unremarkable weight.
"But what if I use REmould in tandem?" I wondered.
REmould was the Arbiter's authority over the Edict of Vivum. The power over existence itself. What if I could make Massbinding truly command the fundamental laws of the world?
What if I could make Newton's second law of motion my command?
"Berna, make space!" I commanded.
I jerked my arm backward, my hand tight around the pebble. The magical gears on my hands began to turn, their ochre light pulsing with each rotation. At the same time, REmould eagerly demanded mana from my core, drinking deeply, hungrily.
I launched the pebble with all my strength.
This time, instead of changing its weight only apparently, I changed its mass. The pebble traveled with the same speed as before, but now it carried the weight of a boulder.
It hit a tree with a thunderous impact. The trunk splintered, the wood exploding outward in a shower of splinters. The pebble pierced through, emerging from the other side, and hit another tree.
And another. And another.
It tore through the forest like a cannonball, unstoppable, until it finally lost momentum and disintegrated against one last trunk.
I wiped sweat from my forehead, using that same hand to return to Corvis Eralith. The transformation was automatic now, a flicker of REmould, a ripple across my features.
"That was impressive," I said, breathing heavily. "Albeit exhausting."
Just like with Inner Current, REmould was not magnanimous with the mana it required. My core ached, drained nearly to empty. I would need time to recover, time to refill.
Then I heard a sound. A creaking, groaning sound, like the death rattle of something old and mighty. The first tree I had hit—the one that had taken the full force of my pebble—was falling.
"Damn," I said.
Destroying a tree without extreme necessity was not seen as a good thing by the Verticil. In fact, if the Verticil were a religion like those of Earth, it would be considered a deadly sin. The forest was sacred. The trees were the bones of the Elshire, the roots its veins. To harm them without cause was to harm oneself.
But then, interrupting my religious guilt, came a scream. A young girl's voice, high and terrified, coming from exactly where the tree was falling, about thirty meters from my position.
"Berna!" I shouted.
Through our bond, she immediately understood what needed to be done. She shot forward, her massive body a blur of hazelnut fur, reaching the girl before the tree could crush her.
The trunk crashed down, branches snapping, leaves exploding into the air, but Berna was already there, her shoulders braced against the falling wood, her paws planted firmly on the ground.
I ran after her, my heart pounding, my breath coming in ragged gasps.
"A-are you okay?!" I asked, my voice high-pitched with alarm.
Oh, damn. Did I just cause trauma to a kid? The thought was immediate and sharp, a knife of guilt twisting in my gut.
Berna shouldered the fallen tree aside as if it were a twig and not a four-story-tall plant. The trunk rolled away, crashing into the undergrowth, and beneath her was a young girl.
She could not have been older than five, with blonde hair and mint-colored eyes. Her face was pale, her lips trembling, her small body shaking with fear.
"I... I... I am, yes, I am..." the girl stammered, her gaze darting from Berna to me to the fallen tree and back again.
I moved Berna away from her, having to pull her by force as she pointed at the poor little thing, her eyes lucid with tears. Berna's empathy hit me through the bond, a wave of sorrow and guilt that was not her own.
She was feeling sorry for the girl, as if it were her fault that she had almost been crushed by a tree and not mine.
Before I could present myself to the girl, I heard a man calling out. His voice was frantic, desperate, cutting through the stillness of the evening.
"Camellia! Camellia!" he shouted. "Where are you?! By the seasons of Everbosk! You know you cannot go into the forest alone!"
The girl froze. She seemed more afraid of the potential scolding than of what had just happened.
Camellia... Camellia... where had I heard that name? From the novel, for sure. But when?
The name echoed in my mind, and then it clicked.
Camellia Lehtinen. A young elven refugee who, in the canon, had become the ward of Jasmine Flamesworth and then a friend of Eleanor Leywin. A footnote. A background character. A life that Fate had not bothered to remember.
"Let me handle it, okay?" I told Camellia, trying to offer a reassuring smile. I did not know if it worked. I did not know if anything I did would ever be enough.
"Here!" I shouted back.
"Who are you?!" The man's voice was angry now, demanding, as I heard his footsteps coming closer.
He emerged from the bushes, and I saw that he was very similar to Camellia—the same blonde hair, the same mint eyes—and around twenty years of age.
Her brother, probably.
I raised my hands in a peace sign. Berna copied me, which looked far more menacing than calming. I dared anyone to look at such a giant of a bear standing upright with her arms raised and call it a peace sign.
Camellia's brother tensed, his hand going to the bow on his back as he eyed Berna nervously, then Camellia.
"Hey," I said, keeping my voice low and steady. "I mean no harm. I... I am Corvis Eralith."
"Big bro," Camellia said, walking toward her brother, her head bowed in shame. "E-everything is alright. I am sorry."
The young elven man pulled Camellia's ear, a sharp, quick motion that made her wince. "Never do that again," he chastised. "Understood?"
He did not wait for an answer. He turned to look at me, raising an eyebrow, making a strange expression.
"Corvis Eralith?" he said, skepticism dripping from every syllable. "You? Sure, sure." He shook his head. "Where do you come from, kid? I have never seen you in town."
He eyed Berna. "You a Sornèvaine?" he asked. "I heard some nomads have bonds, but you are just a kid."
Sornèvaines. That was a term I did not hear often, due to spending most of my time in Zestier.
Sornèvaine came from the ancient elven language—the language that predated Common Dicathian, the modern tongue that all races of Dicathen used.
It meant "traveler with trees," more or less. With the new information I had discovered from Avicenna about the origin of elves, I assumed Sornèvaines were the most direct descendants of the elves of old.
The elves who had lived on Focularsa alongside the Djinn, hidden in the Forest of Gaia, preserved like specimens in amber.
"Me?" I said, the child in me taking control for a second. "I have Sornèvaine blood, but I am not one! I told you who I am!"
The Darcassans—the family of my grandmother's side—were Sornèvaines.
In fact, when Grandma Lania had married Grandpa, it was when the Sornèvaines had become more integrated with the general elven population. A policy that had been very much promoted by Dad, the King who was half-Sornèvaine and half-Arbèvaine—the sedentary elves.
The novel had mentioned the nomadic elven tribes of Elenoir once, during a meeting in the last days of the war, but other than that, they had never been mentioned again.
After all, Sornèvaines and Arbèvaines were almost identical. Same race. Same religion. Same language. Same homeland.
Camellia's brother sighed, the tension draining from his shoulders.
"Kids," he muttered. He looked at me, and something in his expression softened. "You helped me find my sister, so I should thank you. If you are waiting for your family to take you, I can remain here, or—"
"I need to return to your village," I said, already making my way toward the lights that flickered through the trees. "My sister is there."
"Your sister?" He raised an eyebrow, his skepticism returning. "Ah, yes, sure. Tessia Eralith is here in Enkalin." He rolled his eyes. "I cannot wait to meet Her Highness."
I suppressed a laugh. "Anyway," I said, "what is your name?"
"Ghevis," he said. "Ghevis Lehtinen."
I smiled at hearing it. The fate that had met Ghevis in the novel had been death. Death by the hands of the Alacryans during the war, while defending his home, taking up arms despite being no warrior.
It was obvious by the way he carried himself that he was far from a soldier. A hunter, perhaps, at most. But certainly not a fighter.
I always needed to remind myself that I was not fighting just for my family, my friends, my homeland. I was fighting for these people too. The footnotes of history.
The people Fate did not care about. The ones who would be forgotten, erased, swept aside in the grand sweep of gods and their wars.
They were the ones who needed me the most.