Tessia Eralith
"Her Royal Highness's visit is truly the greatest honor our little hamlet could ever hope for," the chief of Enkalin greeted me as I rode Hoofy into the center of the small brookside village.
His voice carried across the gathering crowd, warm and reverent, and I saw the way his hands trembled slightly as he clasped them before him.
He was an old elf, his face weathered by seasons spent in the wild, his hair white as winter frost, but his eyes were bright with the kind of wonder that came from seeing something he had only ever heard stories about.
Around me, the villagers emerged from their homes, interrupting their evening routines.
Mothers clutched their children close, fathers stood with their hands on their hips, and the elderly leaned on canes and doorframes, all of them staring at me as if I were a divine sight made flesh.
I supposed I was. I was wearing my armor after all, the silver steel that Lady Auddyr had gifted me, polished to a mirror shine, the white cloak lined with fur flowing behind me like a banner.
Hoofy, too, had his battle garments on, the leather and metal gleaming in the fading light, and Coco, perched gracefully on the back of my left hand, gave me an aura of holiness that the Verticil itself could have preached.
But that was my role as Princess, was it not? Dad, and especially Mom, had always taught me that a good member of a royal family is a symbol first and foremost. Someone people could look up to when they needed a beacon or an anchor.
More important than ruling, because if a King or Queen could not manage their reign, they could rely on trusted courtiers.
But no one could substitute us as symbols. Or at least, that was what Dad thought. I still had to make up my own mind on that.
"You must be the chief of the village," I said, still on Hoofy's back, my voice carrying across the crowd. "It is a pleasure."
"Please, Princess, make yourself comfortable. We can have your Highcolt accompanied somewhere it can rest," the village chief said, gesturing to a boy who stood at the edge of the crowd, his eyes wide, his hands clasped together.
I descended from Hoofy's back, moving with the grace that years of training had drilled into me. Coco remained perfectly still on my hand, as I had trained her to, her golden eyes bright, her feathers ruffled by the evening breeze.
As soon as my feet touched the ground, however, I felt it. A surge of sensation, so strong that it nearly knocked me off balance.
The Woods Wide Web, the Acquire Phase of the Beast Will that the Elderwood Guardian had bestowed upon me, connected back to me the instant I was again in contact with her. With the Forest.
The sensory overload ravaged my senses. I felt everything happening around me empowered a hundredfold. The trees became like new skin, their bark sensitive to the lightest touch, their roots aware of the smallest tremor in the earth.
The leaves became eyes, watching the villagers move, watching me stand frozen in the center of the square. The wind became ears, carrying whispers from across the village. The brook became a tongue, tasting the stones, the fish, the mud, the blood of the creatures that had died upstream.
I felt it all. All at once and all-consuming.
"I apologize for the late hour," I told the villagers, forcing the words past the tightness in my throat. "However, my brother and I have important business to attend to. I would be grateful if you would be so kind as to host us for the night."
The villagers began to gossip among themselves, their voices sounding like a dozen thunders to my ears. But despite the Woods Wide Web making it uncomfortable—despite the way every whisper felt like a shout, every glance like a touch, every breath like a gale—I maintained a polite smile.
I kept my back straight. I kept my hands steady. I was a princess. I had been trained for this.
"His Highness is here too?" The chief asked, his tone surprised.
"He is," I said, showing confidence on the outside while inwardly I cursed my brother. "He will arrive shortly."
You want to embarrass me in front of our people, Corvis? I thought, the words sharp in my mind. I tried to use the Woods Wide Web to locate him, reaching out through the roots and the leaves and the wind, but elves were too in tune with the Forest to be easily located.
Our mana signatures blended with the ambient energy of the Elshire, making us nearly invisible to the kind of sensing that the Beast Will allowed.
So I tried to locate Berna instead. Such a large bear, no matter what, must have been findable.
The Forest tried to answer. The roots pulsed, the leaves rustled, the wind shifted. But all the signals were interrupted. Blocked. Smothered by that awful sensation. That feeling of suffocation that made me grit my teeth, that made me want to claw at my own skin, that made me want to scream.
What was it? It was so similar to the Colour Timberland—how it had scared me, how it had threatened to take what I held dear from me, how it had made the poor mana beasts of the Forest, her children, behave like crazed harbingers of destruction.
It was there, on the edge of my perception, looming like a thundercloud on the horizon threatening storm.
"How many people live in the village?" I asked the chief, forcing myself to focus on something else.
It was a question Corvis would ask, followed by more questions about Enkalin as a settlement. But I needed to speak and to distract myself. I needed to keep talking so that the Woods Wide Web would not overwhelm me with its calls for help.
We are coming, I begged the Forest silently. Just give us more time. Please.
"We are little more than a hundred, Princess," the chief replied, his voice carrying a note of pride. "A hundred and ten."
"You remember that," I said, not truly listening to my own voice either, so distracted was I by the cry of the Forest. "That is impressive."
Was it even a cry? It felt like one, but it was not heard. It was felt through a sense I had never had before.
The Woods Wide Web, yes. It behaved like a new sense.
Grandpa had always told me and Corvis that the Acquire Phase of his Shadow Panther Beast Will allowed him to use sound magic without him being a sound deviant himself.
Did that mean the Woods Wide Web was something similar? That I had a sense of the Forest without being the Forest myself?
Again, the looming presence that stood at its margins—on the Grand Mountains, somewhere in the west—sent a wave of dread down my spine.
"It is actually quite easy," the chief chuckled, pulling me back to the present. "We are so few that we know each other pretty well. I imagine that is not the same in the Royal Capital."
I shook my head. "I remember everyone who has ever spoken to me," I said. It was a vow I had made to myself since my first social gatherings, when Mom had brought me and Corvis to her boring ladies' parties.
I had been two years old, drowning in a sea of unfamiliar faces, and I had decided then that I would never forget anyone who took the time to speak to me.
"I do not doubt it," the chief replied.
He invited me inside his cottage, a small home built at the base of an oak that made it the largest building in the village.
The house was barren inside, devoid of most of the furnishings one would see in Zestier. A table, a few chairs, a hearth that still glowed with embers. The walls were bare stone, the floor packed earth, and the only decoration was a single trinket hanging above the bed.
"Chief," I started, my eyes fixed on that trinket, "has anything unusual happened around here lately? Toward the Grand Mountains, perhaps?"
"Oh, Princess, you overestimate Enkalin. The presence of you and His Highness is going to be a topic of discussion for many months."
I am being paranoid, I chastised myself, absentmindedly petting Coco's head with one finger.
But my eyes remained fixed on the trinket. It was made of twigs, leaves, flowers, and spider silk, and it hung on the wall above, the only bed in the one-floor home.
It mimicked a Lominel—my favorite daisy—and was said to bring good fortune to travelers.
"Is that a luckcatcher?" I asked, my voice sharper than I intended. "You have Sornèvaine ancestry, Chief?"
The chief's expression shifted, a flicker of surprise crossing his weathered features. "I was Sornèvaine myself a few years back. But the Second War made me decide to settle down permanently."
"Why did you not settle in Zestier?" I asked, remembering Dad's lessons about why he had made certain decisions. "My father has promulgated advantageous laws for every Sornèvaine who settles in the capital."
"The Grand Mountains," the chief said slowly, as if weighing each word, "are where the legendary city of Azellio is. A part of me considered Enkalin to be the best choice. Furthermore..." He paused, his gaze drifting to the window, to the dark line of the forest beyond. "I am not one used to people. Zestier would have overwhelmed me."
"The Holy City?!" I slammed my hands on the table in a very un-princess-like way, my excitement getting the better of me. "My Great-aunt told me fairy tales about it, but I thought it was an invention of hers!"
Grandma Rinia had spoken of Azellio as some place where all bad kids were redeemed. I had stopped believing in it when I was four.
The chief laughed, a warm, rumbling sound. "The Holy City, yes, that is another name. It is a folktale of many Sornèvaine caravans."
"In the Grand Mountains," I said, and the chief nodded.
"Where the Forest ends, or starts depending on the point of view," I added, and again the chief nodded.
I snapped my fingers, everything clicking into place. "That is it! My thanks, Chief."
The chief thanked me in return, despite his obvious confusion, not wanting to sound disrespectful. I did not have time to explain.
"I will be immediately back," I said, already moving toward the door. "I will wait for my brother outside."
Outside, I sat down on a low stone wall at the edge of the village and took off my boots. The grass was cool beneath my bare feet, damp with humidity. Coco tilted her head, her tiny, curious, deeply intelligent eyes fixed on my face.
"The Holy City," I explained, keeping my tone low so as not to wake the villagers. Despite the surprise of my visit, they had returned to their homes to sleep, their windows dark, their doors shut. "That is where the Forest is calling me, Coco. That is the mysterious town we are going to."
I planted my feet on the ground, connecting myself fully to the Woods Wide Web. My mana and the Forest's mana became one, flowing back and forth through my channels and veins, a living river of power that pulsed with every heartbeat.
And finally, the Forest showed it to me.
A shiver traveled down my spine as the dark, ominous presence on the Grand Mountains was revealed. I could not see it, not with my eyes at least, but I could feel it.
A corruption, old and festering, buried deep within the Holy City. A wound in the Forest's flesh that had been left to rot for centuries.
I did not know what it was, but I knew that it was the source of this feeling. West of Zestier, on the Grand Mountains. In the Holy City of Azellio.
"What are you doing?"
I abruptly cut the connection with the Woods Wide Web, the sensations fading, the Forest's cries receding to a distant murmur. Corvis stood in front of me, Berna right behind him.
"The Princess," he said, a teasing lilt in his voice, "is honoring the ground with her feet."
I flushed crimson. "While you were avoiding socializing," I said, standing back up, recomposing myself, "I discovered more about our goal. We are headed to the Holy City."
"Ah, sure," Corvis replied, rolling his eyes. "Let me call Great-aunt and tell her we found her center of rehabilitation for evil children."
I rolled my eyes in return, but I did not let his teasing dampen my excitement. "The truth remains," I proclaimed, hands on my hips, "that I now know our objective. Let us rest for tonight. We will continue traveling tomorrow."
Corvis Eralith
We left Enkalin by dawn, the village still wrapped in the grey silence of early morning when we did.
The brook murmured softly as we crossed it, Hoofy's hooves sending ripples through the water that caught the first pale light of the rising sun.
Behind us, the small cluster of houses faded into the mist. I had made a quick visit to the Lehtinens before we departed; just to see the look on Ghevis's face when he realized that the scruffy boy who had helped find his sister was actually the prince of the Kingdom.
The memory of his stunned expression still warmed me, a small spark of amusement in the cold morning air.
Now we rode toward Azellio. The city of Great-aunt Rinia's fables, the place she had used to scare us into good behavior when we were small, which seemed to have been shamelessly borrowed from Sornèvaine folklore.
I wondered if she had ever believed in it herself, or if it had always been just a story to her, a tool to shape the behavior of two children who had been too young to know better.
Or, maybe, she has foreseen it with her divination magic, but was her divination strong enough in this forbidden timeline to do so?
As we rode on Hoofy's back toward the mountains, the trees thinning around us and the air growing colder, I retrieved Avicenna's Vaultlamp from my storage ring.
The familiar object shone with blue light and I activated Inner Current. Trucewater flooded my nervous system, taking me into a perfect flow state. The cold faded. The fatigue faded. The weight of everything I was carrying eased, just a little.
Avicenna, I called out with my thoughts, I have a peculiar question.
'Peace to you, Justiciar,' Avicenna greeted, his voice warm and patient. 'Please: what is this question?'
You spoke often about the ancestors of my people, I started. The elves of old who lived in the Forest of Gaia. Does the name Azellio ring any bell?
'It indeed does, Justiciar.' I felt Avicenna's consciousness shift, as if he were reaching back through centuries of memory. 'While I told you how my people avoided interfering with the early history of elvenkind, to ask the folk of calm currents not to study was unthinkable. Azellio was how the elves named their birthplace. Their ancestral homeland. A small valley hidden between the mountains, cradled by the trees of Gaia and guarded by the nearby mountainous sentinels.'
I see. Thank you, I said.
This Azellio being the original homeland of elvenkind pretty much confirmed the image of the Holy City that the Sornèvaines had preserved across generations.
A place of origin. A place of return. A place that had been waiting for someone to find it again.
You know something that could be useful? I asked.
'I do not know how much of my knowledge can help you, Justiciar. For seeing the centuries that have passed since I last walked on Focularsa, I fear that what I might tell you could mislead you.' Avicenna's voice was careful, measured. 'Azellio was a settlement reachable only by careful trekking through the mountains. But it was impossible to mistake once found, for it was of breathtaking beauty and ingenuity even for the most demanding architects of the folk of calm currents.'
Understandable, I said, tucking the information away. I will speak to you again if something comes to mind.
'Always happy to help and satisfy your thirst for information, Justiciar. May Mordain's light shine on you.'
I released Inner Current, letting the Trucewater drain from my nervous system, and returned the Vaultlamp to my storage ring. The world felt sharper now, colder, more present. The trees were sparse, the pines tall and dark against the grey sky.
We traveled for the rest of the day, the path becoming steeper, the climate colder, the air thinner.
By the time we finally set up camp, we had gained enough altitude that my breath came in visible puffs and the ground beneath our feet was hard with frost.
I tried to ignite a fire, striking flint against steel, channeling mana into the kindling, focusing every technique I knew.
Nothing. The sticks remained cold. The leaves remained dark. The fire would not come.
I clicked my tongue, frustration burning in my chest.
I had learned to use magic in so many different ways. I had traveled back through the river of time, died multiple times, and was now on the path to becoming both Throneholder of Darv and, technically, even Lord of an Asura Clan.
And yet I could not do something as simple as igniting a fire to warm my sister and myself.
Coco landed lightly by my side and chirped. The sound was almost amused. Then she shook herself, and plumes like embers fell from her body—soft, glowing, warm. They settled on the sticks and leaves below, and the campfire ignited.
"I could have done it alone," I said, the words coming out more defensive than I intended. "Or with Berna's help."
Berna, sprawled on the cold ground nearby, raised her head and gave me a look that suggested she was not particularly interested in being my excuse.
"We are close to Sapin here, right?" Tessia asked, approaching the campfire and laying down beside it.
She had already retrieved everything we needed for the night from her storage ring—the one she had stolen from Grandpa, months ago, just as I had stolen mine. Blankets, food, water, a small pot.
"Yes," I said, looking up through the trees. Some of the highest peaks of the northern Grand Mountains were visible, their summits white with snow, their slopes dark with pine and shadow. "Across the mountains is Sapin."
The Kingdom of humans. Ruled by the Glayders. The enemies of old, but the allies of necessity in the future battlefield of a war that was still only a shadow on the horizon.
"You are still hearing the Forest?" I asked.
Tessia nodded. "Always."
"Is it... does the Woods Wide Web annoy you?"
"I would not say it's annoying." Tessia's brow furrowed, as if she were searching for the right words. "It is a bit overwhelming. And honestly, harrowing, now that we are getting so close to Azellio."
I pressed my lips together. I knew how I could help her. Inner Current would ease the burden, would wash away the overwhelming flood of sensation, would give her the same peace it gave me.
But I could not make Trucewater exist outside my body. I could not bring that deviant of mana out into the world, no matter how much I struggled, no matter how many times I tried.
"Stop that face," Tessia said, crossing her arms. The Princess of Elenoir was fully on display now—back straight, chin raised, eyes blazing. "I hate it."
"W-what?" I stammered, caught off guard.
"The face you make when you are blaming yourself."
"How... I am not blaming myself!"
"You may fool Mom, Dad, and Grandpa." Tessia's voice was quiet now, but no less firm. "But you cannot fool me. I know you better than anyone else. No matter how smart you think you are at hiding it."
I had no response to that. The fire crackled between us, sending sparks spiraling into the darkening sky. Berna had curled into a massive ball of fur, her breathing slow and steady. Coco had settled on a low branch, her golden eyes half-closed.
"Go to sleep," I said eventually, after the silence had stretched too long.
Tessia did not argue. She simply lay down, pulled a blanket over herself, and closed her eyes.
—
We departed from the camp shortly before dawn, careful not to leave any harmful traces. Tessia made sure of that. She scattered the ashes of our fire, buried the remnants of our meal, smoothed the ground where we had slept.
The Forest, she said, hated ash like few things—especially ash of its own wood.
"Wait," I said, a cold realization creeping over me. "Did the fire burn you too?"
The prospect of Tessia feeling the same pain as those burning sticks—the same agony as the wood we had used as fuel—crushed something in my chest.
"No," Tessia said, shaking her head. "As long as no harm is done on purpose, the Forest does not feel pain. If the Forest's resources are used for survival by her children, then she is fine."
"She?"
Tessia paused, as if considering the word. "Yes. The Forest is a... woman? A girl forest, I suppose."
She. Forest of Gaia sounded like a feminine name. I filed the thought away for later, adding it to the growing list of questions I wanted to ask Avicenna.
Why was it named Gaia? The sun, in the Djinnic language, was named Mordain—the same name as the Lord of the Asclepius. Was Gaia named after the lady of another Asuran clan? I did not remember any mention of a "Gaia" from the novel.
As we woke Berna and climbed back onto Hoofy's back, I continued my questions.
"And what about wood used to build houses? Not just shelters—true houses. What does the Forest think about buildings like the Royal Palace? While it is made mostly of stone, many lesser trees were still cut down to build it. Not to mention the noble estates of the Canopie. We never cut only the Watchful Trees, after all."
"What kind of question is that?" Tessia asked. Then she paused, her brow furrowing in thought. "As long as elvenkind is not greedy," she said slowly, "and does not build on top of the Forest, but with the Forest—alongside her, thinking about her—she is completely fine with us cutting lesser trees. If we pursue a life in tune with the Forest, then the Forest will provide us with all the resources we might need."
I hummed in acknowledgment. "Is that only restricted to elvenkind?"
If the Forest willingly supplied elvenkind with its—her—resources, could the same happen for dwarvenkind?
That could solve Darv's food dependency on Sapin. Thanks to the Moyalembic, now renamed the Water Generator, water had become far cheaper for all dwarves. We were still far from resolving all drought problems, but we were slowly getting there.
Resolving scarcity was the main point of Finn Warend's "electoral campaign" for the Throneholder position, having the resource of the Elshire Forest helping me would be very, very useful.
"It is tricky," Tessia said, her voice hesitant. "I am not exactly speaking with the Forest, you know? I just feel what she feels. Answering that question is hard."
"Yeah, I should not have as—"
My self-blame was cut off by Tessia's pointed cough.
"I can interpret her, however!" she exclaimed, her voice brightening. "Yesterday, when you confirmed we were close to the border with Sapin, I felt a sort of shrug from the Forest. Like she was shivering at the name."
"Do you think the Forest is traumatized by Sapin?" I asked.
Tessia was silent for a long moment. "...Yes," she said finally, her voice quiet, final. "Humans have harmed her so much. They destroyed an entire section of her—the Ashber Woods—just for expansion. For greed."
I paled at her words, at the ice in her voice. I exchanged a look with Soleil, perched on my shoulder, and I understood what she was thinking.
The revanchist sentiment for the Ashber Woods was one of the main causes that had created the Caduchicil. The same corruption we were hunting had its roots in grief, in loss, in the slow rot of a wound that had never been allowed to heal.
"Tessia?"
My sister turned and smiled. It was a real smile, warm and bright, but I saw the effort behind it.
"Sorry, sorry, I did not mean to sound so gloomy." She shook her head, as if shaking off the weight of the past. "We will soon see the snow if we continue through the Grand Mountains."
"You seem ecstatic." I raised an eyebrow. "Did you not hate winter and the cold?"
"Yes, but I have never been on a snowy mountain. And Grandpa says the snow that covers Zestier every winter is a veil of cotton compared to that of the mountains."
I smiled at the thought. I really liked snow. If I could have decided where, when, and how to be reincarnated in this world, I would have loved to be born somewhere like Vaelmora.
Isolated. Cold. Peaceful. But I was Corvis Eralith, and I had accepted that many years ago.
—
The path had stopped many hours before, when we were traveling along the eastern side of the Grand Mountains, always directed north toward Azellio.
From what Tessia had described—the Woods Wide Web's guidance, Avicenna's probably outdated instructions, and the map I always carried in my storage ring—I had pinpointed the location of Azellio about two days of travel from our current position.
The trees were sparse now. Only tall pines and other cold-resistant evergreens grew here, their branches heavy with snow, their needles dark against the white.
This was the liminal space between the Grand Mountains and the Elshire Forest—a borderland that belonged fully to neither, claimed by both and owned by neither.
Soleil was perched on my head, her robin chest glowing brightly as she emanated a radius of warmth that kept the cold away from us. Despite her thick fur, Berna pressed herself to Hoofy's side, enjoying the warmth projected by the Asura in disguise.
"It is not that cold, Berna," I said, looking at the goofy scene of the enormous Guardian Bear clinging to the warmth of a tiny robin.
Berna growled, a sound I could only interpret as her feigning ignorance.
"Grandpa was definitely right," Tessia said, looking around with wide eyes. "There are only rocks and a few trees, and everything is covered in white. Look! Hoofy's hooves sink into the snow with every step!"
I looked down. The bed of snow covering the ground was as thick as my forearm, at least. The Highcolt's legs disappeared into it with each step, and I could see the effort it took him to keep moving.
"Berna, walk in front of us," I told her.
She turned her head and growled in complaint, her green eyes shining, trying to move my heart. It almost worked. Almost.
"You do not win over me," I said, keeping my voice firm. "You are bigger than Hoofy. You can pierce through the snow far more easily than he can."
Berna complied, moving to the front of our small procession. Her massive body carved a path through the snow, making it easier for Hoofy to follow.
Then she stopped. Her head turned to the right, toward the steep wall of the mountain that rose above us. She began to growl—a low, warning sound that vibrated through the ground, through the air, through the bond between us.
"Berna?" Me and Tessia asked in unison.
Coco chirped and flapped her wings, her golden eyes fixed on the same spot Berna was watching.
"What is happening?" Tessia asked, her hand moving to her wand-sword.
I looked up. Smoke was rising to the sky, a thin, grey plume that curled against the white clouds. Someone had lit a fire up there. Someone was camping in the mountains.
"Tessia," I whispered, pointing. "Smoke."
"Here?" Tessia frowned. "Who would set up a camp here?"
There was only one type of person who lived in the Grand Mountains. A place where no kingdom could fully exercise its power, where no Adventurer or Unraveler often went. A place for those who lived outside the law.
"Bandits," I said.
Tessia stepped down from Hoofy. "I cannot connect with the Woods Wide Web with all this snow," she complained, crouching down and shoving the white powder aside so she could touch the frozen ground below.
"The path bends over there," I said, pointing at the hairpin turn in front of us. "If we continue along this road, we will run right into them."
"This is the right path to Azellio," Tessia said, her voice firm. "We just need to be stealthy."
"And since when do you know how to be stealthy?" I asked.
Tessia was many things. Brilliant, brave, beautiful, fierce. But stealthy had never been one of them.
"Aya," she replied with a smile, puffing out her chest with pride.
Right. The Grephin Lance surely has taught Tessia about stealth too and if she hasn't I at least hoped Tessia has learnt something by watching her.
"Let us get moving, then," I said.
Soleil shook herself and "turned off" the heat emanating from her body. The sudden cold was a shock, a slap in the face, but I welcomed it. It sharpened my focus.
I descended from Hoofy too, my boots sinking into the snow, and with Berna using her signature gravity magic to make herself as light as a feather—barely leaving prints in the white—we moved on.