Corvis Eralith
We moved crouched through the soft snow.
The cold seeped through my boots, through the layers of wool and leather, through the light armor I wore beneath my cloak. Every breath was a cloud of white, every step a whisper swallowed by the wind.
As we continued along the path that slowly ascended the mountain, the loud voices of the bandits grew clearer. They spoke in Common Dicathian, of course, but their accents were unmistakably Sapinese—the clipped vowels, the harsh consonants, the particular cadence of humans, unmistakable to elven ears.
We reached an elevated position overlooking the bandit camp. It occupied a small plateau between two higher peaks—a natural bottleneck, defensible and easily guarded.
The only way forward was to pass through it. The only way to Azellio was to go through them.
Tessia stared at the camp below. Her breath came in short, controlled puffs, and I saw her fingers twitch toward her wand-sword. I counted at least ten bandits visible around the fires, but the tents suggested more. There were always more.
"We need to pass through?" I asked, though I already knew the answer.
Tessia pointed toward a depression between two mountains. "We need to go through that. And from there, the path should be less steep."
Azellio was built in a valley—from what we knew at least: from Avicenna's memories, from the fragments of elven folklore that had survived across millennia.
To reach that valley, we would need another two days of travel. But we had already made it through the harshest part of the road. Excluding the bandits.
"We can try to sneak our way through," I said, my mind already working through the possibilities. "Berna can move faster than all of us and be gone before they notice her. As for us, we can use wind magic to cover our noise with the mountain's winds."
"What if they have mages?" Tessia asked, her eyes scanning the camp below.
"I do not think they would be bandits if they were mages," I countered.
No matter the kingdom—Darv, Elenoir, or Sapin—mages were treated too well for them to resort to banditry. A mage could find work anywhere. A mage could demand payment, respect, protection. Bandits were the desperate, the broken, the ones who had nothing left to lose so they resorted to violence.
"Good point," Tessia said. Then her eyes snapped wide.
"Corvis!" She hissed, grabbing my hand and directing my gaze to another fire. I saw them. Elves in chains. Huddled together. Shivering. Their clothes were rags, their faces hollow, their eyes empty.
"Look!" Tessia's voice cracked.
This changed everything. Slave traders were very different from bandits. The latter were hunted by every kingdom, their crimes too blatant to ignore.
The former? Slavery was completely legal in Sapin. Humans, elves, or dwarves, it did not matter. And elves were considered a luxury good by them. Exotic. Desirable. Profitable.
In the canon that would never be, Tessia had almost become a slave before Arthur saved her. It had been the first time she had truly understood the cruelty of the world beyond Elenoir's borders.
It had been the first time she had realized that the hatred her father carried for humanity was not just prejudice—it was earned, paid for in the blood and suffering of their people. And it had only been with the formation of the Tri-Union that interracial slavery was banned.
Even then, it had taken the war with Alacrya to fully stop it.
Tessia's hand went to her wand-sword. I blocked it.
"What are you doing?" I asked, keeping my voice low, urgent. "You want to storm them without even thinking about it?"
"They are our people, Corvis!" Tessia's eyes blazed, her voice rising despite her efforts to keep it quiet. "Enslaved! It is our duty, our purpose as royalty to protect them! To save them!"
"I have never said otherwise," I sighed, the weight of the moment pressing down on my shoulders. "We need a plan. Slave traders are rarely without mages in their employ."
The group of slavers who had taken Tessia in the novel had mages. And their numbers had been much smaller than the ones in front of us. I remembered the scene—the caravan, the cage, the desperate struggle.
I remembered how close she had come to a fate worse than death. I would not let that happen to anyone else. Not while I drew breath.
Tessia nodded, forcing herself to be still. "I could use Galeshot to shoot them from here," she proposed. "And you could use your Bubblespells."
"Can you shoot Galeshot fast enough?" I asked. "I need a few seconds to channel a Bubblespell too. They are too many to be taken out all at once."
"I am not afraid to fight, Corvis." Tessia's voice was steady, hard. "I have changed since the Colour Timberland. You saw how much I have been training."
"It is not that." I shook my head. "What if they take us for scouts of the Treeful Phalanx? Or their rivals? They could take our people hostage. Kill some of them to show they are not playing."
Tessia bit her upper lip in frustration. The flesh turned white beneath her teeth. "Then what do we do? This is not the best place to fight. With all this snow and night approaching."
I looked up at the grey sky, at the shadows lengthening across the mountains. She was right. We were running out of time.
"Coco," I called, using the name Tessia knew. "Can you fly over them and see how many there are?"
The robin chirped in confirmation and launched herself into the air, a small dark shape against the pale sky. Her golden eyes gleamed.
"I will take Hoofy somewhere safer—in case we fight," Tessia said, already moving back toward our mount.
"Berna," I said, turning to my bond. "Be ready to protect the elves. Understood?"
Berna growled in confirmation, her green eyes fixed on the camp below. I felt the tension in her muscles through the bond, the coiled readiness.
"Thirty-one, milord," Soleil said, returning before Tessia. Her voice was soft, almost apologetic. "You are not thinking about killing them, are you?"
"They are slavers, Soleil." I kept my voice flat, hard. "I can hardly think of a worse crime than slavery."
My eyes drifted to Avicenna's Vaultlamp, still secured to my belt. I had decided to keep it there for the time being, in case I needed to ask him something immediately.
"If you don't count... you know. Moreover, I will certainly not mourn their deaths."
"They are lessers, milord." Soleil's voice was gentle, pleading. "We would become just like the Indraths and the Vritras."
"I am an elf too," I countered.
"In body, yes." The robin's head tilted. "Perhaps even in mind, milord. But your soul speaks otherwise. We inherited the ideals of Peace from the peaceseekers. That was what Lord Mordain taught us."
"Quite hypocritical of you, don't you think?" I snapped, having had enough of this Asura and her moralizing. "You speak of Peace and non-intervention, and then when it is a Phoenix in danger, you move to war. How many 'lessers' died when the Asclepius Clan attacked Taegrin Caelum? You speak of Peace, but Agrona Vritra will soon make this whole world bleed and you are here telling me it is wrong to save my people?"
I stepped closer to her, my voice dropping to a whisper that carried more weight than any shout. "If shying away from using force when someone I care for is in danger is being an Asclepius, then I am not one. I am the Justiciar of Peace, Soleil. And sometimes, Peace requires a sword."
I heard Tessia returning. Looking at Soleil, I saw her lower her robin head, her whole Limitless Physique, her Sambhogakaya, shaking with shame. The ember-like plumes of her feathers seemed dimmer, as if her light had been dampened.
I wanted to apologize. The words were there, on the tip of my tongue. But I could not make them come. Berna licked my face, her rough tongue scraping across my cheek, and Tessia was by my side after a few seconds.
"You discovered how many we need to face?" She asked, crouching back down beside me.
"Thirty-one," I said.
Tessia nodded. She stood up, and the wind of the snowy mountain caught her white cloak, flapping it behind her. The fabric blended perfectly with the snow, with the sky, with the pale light of the dying day. She looked like a ghost.
Wind began to swirl around her as she prepared to cast Galeshot.
I took my wand-cane, the wood warm in my hand despite the cold as I made mana circulate in it. I activated Inner Current, Trucewater flooding my nervous system, and raised my free hand to prepare a Bubblespell.
I focused my will, channeling REmould to engrave an O—Orvandal, Justice—into the sphere alongside an earth spell.
It felt fitting. Justice for the enslaved. Justice for the wronged. Justice delivered from on high, carried on the wind and the snow and the cold mountain air.
"While you snipe them with Galeshot from here," I said, "Berna will go to protect the slaves. I will follow behind. Does that sound good to you?"
"Of course." Tessia's attention was fully on the bandits below, her eyes betraying her anger.
I saw the fire in them, the same fire that had burned in her since we were children. The fire that made her a princess worth following.
"Let us do it, then," I said.
I released my Bubblespell. It shot through the air, trailing white light, traveling alongside Tessia's green Galeshot.
Then I threw my wand-cane in front of me, jumped onto the shaft, and cast Wind Surfing.
The wind caught me, carried me, and I sprinted toward the slavers' camp. Berna ran toward the captives, her massive form a blur of hazelnut fur against the white snow.
I was in front of a slave trader in seconds. My wand-cane had carried me across the snowy plateau faster than any horse could run, faster than any man could react.
His eyes widened. His mouth opened. He did not have time to scream.
My Justice-empowered Bubblespell impacted on a nearby bandit, exploding into a fragmentation of sharp debris.
Usually, that particular Bubblespell was supposed to act like a small frag grenade, dangerous, but contained.
But this one? Debris flew in all directions—a white ethereal glow shimmering in the magical pebbles—piercing through the skulls of many slave traders around me. Their lifeless bodies fell onto the white snow, painting it red with their blood.
Justice makes spells stronger, I noted, filing the information away for later.
I jumped from my wand-cane and hit the bandit in front of me straight in the head. The impact shuddered up my arm, through my shoulder, into the hollow of my chest. He crumpled.
Shouts and screams exploded around me—from my sudden appearance, from Berna wreaking havoc through the camp, from the slaves who watched with wide, disbelieving eyes.
A fire spell came at me from the right. A conjurer, casting a spherical spell of incandescent red mana. The heat of it kissed my cheek, even from meters away.
I pivoted on the ball of my foot and dodged. The incoming attack crashed into the ground, dissolving the snow, scorching the earth below. Steam rose in a hissing cloud.
A dozen bandits surrounded me, weapons in hand.
Swords, axes, a mace. I used Manasonar immediately, the sound feedback telling me which ones were mages and which were not.
Three bandits charged. I augmented my body with magic, feeling the strength flood through my limbs, and parried the first slash.
Steel bounced off the reinforced wood of my cane with a ringing clang. Behind me, another bandit lunged. I ducked, and with my leg, I kicked the ankles of the third, sending him sprawling into the snow.
I shot a Bubblespell toward a mage who was raising his hands to cast, signaling to Tessia who to target.
A Galeshot flew through the air—a blur of wind and fury—and killed the mage before he could finish his spell.
"There is someone else on the hilltop!" One of the bandits shouted, pointing toward the ridge where Tessia was positioned.
I did not give him time to say more. I drove my wand-cane like a rapier through his back. The tip emerged from his chest, slick and red. I withdrew it, and he fell.
With earth magic, I conjured a wall by my left to block an incoming volley of arrows. The stone rose from the frozen ground, rough and jagged, and the arrows shattered against it.
I crouched low, using my free hand to prepare another Bubblespell—a globe of water mana already spinning between my fingers.
This time, I tried engraving a B. Breskan. Solidarity.
I shot it at an archer, together with a sound spell coiled inside the water sphere. At the same time, I broke down my conjured wall of earth, letting the stone crumble, and drove my wand-cane toward a swordsman who had been waiting behind it.
Steel clashed against wood. The sound rang out across the snowy field, sharp and clear.
Then the Bubblespell exploded. A loud boom echoed across the plateau, reverberating off the mountain walls. The archer fell, clutching his ears, blood seeping between his fingers.
I heard Berna fighting, her roars mixing with the screams of men.
I heard wind spells being cast, Tessia's magic cutting through the chaos.
I used Ars Terramorph again, raising new protections from the ground below my feet. Walls of earth, thick and solid, rose around me. I sent out more sound waves with Manasonar, locating their remaining mages.
One was preparing to cast a spell against me. I pushed away a swordsman with Ars Ariamorph, wind currents slamming into his chest, sending him tumbling backward into the snow.
I pointed my wand-cane at the conjurer and shot another Bubblespell.
—
After a dozen minutes of fighting, the slavers were all defeated. Dead on the ground and just like that the snow was no longer white.
It was red, churned, littered with bodies and broken weapons and the scattered remains of what had been a camp.
"I... I have killed them without any remorse," I murmured, staring down at the lifeless body of a man at my feet.
He did not look like a monster. He had been rather young, perhaps not even thirty. His face was ordinary—unremarkable, even. He could have been a farmer, a merchant, a father.
But he had chosen to become this. He had chosen to put chains on innocent people, to sell them like cattle, to profit from their suffering.
I shook my head. A war was awaiting me, a war that would make this fight seem like child's play. Doubting myself would not help me reach my goal. Guilt would not save the people I was trying to protect.
"Milord..." Soleil's robin form landed on top of my head. She shook herself, and the ember-like plumes flying off her body healed all the bruises, cuts, and injuries I had accumulated. Warmth spread through me, soothing the ache in my muscles, sealing the shallow gashes on my arms. "Are you feeling well?"
"Yes," I said, my voice feeble despite my words. "Thank you for healing me."
"You are tired, milord. You have used a great deal of mana."
She was right. Using REmould to engrave the Articles of Peace on my Bubblespells required a vast amount of mana. So did Inner Current.
I feared that I would not be able to use my Fate-related abilities to their full potential until I reached the white core. And that was still so far away.
I turned and looked at Tessia. She was with Berna, helping our people.
My Guardian Bear was breaking their chains with her sharp claws, the metal snapping like twine. Tessia was giving them medical supplies—bandages, salves, clean water—from the stores we had brought from Zestier.
As she assisted the poor, ragged people, their clothes in tatters, their faces hollow, their eyes still wide with fear, I was amazed by the sheer calm she expressed.
She smiled politely, offered her help, asked for nothing in return. No sign of turmoil. No sign of the anger that still burned in her eyes when she looked at the bodies.
She had truly grown in the last months.
"I want to investigate this camp," I said to Soleil. "Slave traders are never this organized by accident."
The camp was very well supplied. Crates of food, barrels of water, tents that could withstand the mountain winds. Whoever these slave traders were, they had resources. They had backing.
The only reason we had defeated them so easily was because we had taken them by surprise and because they had not expected an attack in the first place. They had grown complacent. Safe. And that complacency had cost them everything.
I opened a crate in the tent of who I could safely assume was the leader of these wretched men.
Inside, I found papers. Many papers. Documents containing information about the movements of elven patrols—the scouts of the Treeful Phalanx—and of nearby villages and hamlets.
Whoever was behind this knew Elenoir's frontiers well. Knew where the gaps were. Knew when and where to strike.
I took another paper—this one cataloging the "commercial routes" where slaves were bought and sold.
"Marlow's slave market," I read aloud.
Marlow was a town at the base of the Sapinese slope of the northern Grand Mountains. It was the closest city to Elenoir that had a significant population. A hub for trade, both legal and otherwise. A place where money could buy anything, including people.
I continued to search through the tent, hoping to find more clues about this slave route. I needed to report everything to Lenna or someone else when I returned home. The Treeful Phalanx needed to know. The Crown needed to know.
I found a letter sealed with a stamp bearing an unknown insignia. I broke the seal and unfolded the parchment.
It spoke about the urgent requests of House Wykes to replenish their slave workforce, as many had died in a "failed project" weeks ago.
I stared at the words, my blood running cold.
Was the insignia the symbol of House Wykes, then? When I had visited the Red Gorge, that dungeon had been administered by the Fiery House Wykes. The Adventurer's Guild had leased its occupation to them. And now, it seemed, they were involved in this too.
"Wykes," I cursed under my breath.
It did not matter the timeline. That House would always be a problem. Be it to Arthur or to me. They were like a stain that could not be washed out, a rot that spread through everything it touched.
The letter was signed by a certain... Magnus Redson.
I stared at the name, recognition dawning. The same Magnus Redson who had been the guildmaster of the Adventurer's Guild in Zestier? He had become a slavemaster.
The man who had once represented the face of human adventuring in the elven capital was now trafficking in elven flesh.
I folded the letter and all the papers, stashing them inside my storage ring before I exited the tent. The cold hit me again, sharp and bracing.
"Are you ready?" Tessia asked. Her eyes were cast down at the bodies around us. I thought, for a moment, that she was going to suggest we bury them. "I gave them everything they need and directed them toward Enkalin. They will be able to return to their homes from there."
"No," I said, shaking my head. "I meant to ask if you want to continue. We could return home. Regroup. Come back with more information, more support."
Tessia frowned, giving me a side glance. "The Woods Wide Web is weaker here, but we are still in the Forest's domain. She needs us. We cannot abandon her."
"Tessia, I don't mean to abandon this mission. Just to retreat for now. Perhaps accompany the people we rescued back home?"
"No." Tessia's voice was firm, final.
"Are you angry?" I asked her.
"Angry?" Her eyes widened. "Of course I am angry! Did you see what happened here?! Those people could have been reduced to slavery! Slavery!"
I didn't know what to say. She was right. If I did not know what was coming, if I didn't know how this hatred was only going to cost Dicathen in the long run, I was sure that I would be angry too.
No, I would be furious. I would be screaming.
But I had seen the future. I had read the novel. I knew that the real enemy was not Sapin, not the Glayders, not even House Wykes. The real enemy was across the ocean, watching and waiting for the moment to strike.
"We have a Holy City to find," I said, moving toward Hoofy. "And a Forest to save. Should we go?"
Tessia smiled at me, a real smile, bright and fierce, and nodded. She took Hoofy's reins and we departed.
—
After two more days of relatively quiet travel—save for a single savage storm that swept through the Grand Mountains, forcing us to huddle against Berna's broad back while Soleil's warmth wrapped around us like a living blanket—we finally began to lose altitude.
The wind's teeth lost their bite. The snow beneath Hoofy's hooves thinned to a dusting, then to nothing.
We were no longer trudging through the white silence of the northern peaks. Instead, we moved through gentler mountain slopes, where the air carried the scent of pine and damp earth, and the call of the Forest—Tessia said—grew closer with every step.
Below us, the trees of the Elshire Forest stood tall, their crowns brushing against the lower slopes like old friends reaching for an embrace.
But between us and that green sanctuary lay a deep crevice, a wound in the mountain's side that forced us to slow.
I used Ars Terramorph to carve a narrow ledge from the rock, a fragile bridge for Hoofy to pick his way across. The stone groaned under my will, shaping itself into a path just wide enough for one.
Sweat beaded on my forehead despite the cold. Then Tessia laughed.
"What is there to laugh about?" I asked, not daring to look away from my work.
"Berna," she snickered.
I turned my head and stopped.
There, clinging to the sheer rock face like the world's largest, fluffiest spider, was my Guardian Bear. Her claws bit into the stone with surgical precision, each step slow and deliberate, as if she were a seasoned mountaineer wielding pickaxes instead of paws.
She moved one limb at a time, her tongue slightly out in concentration, her green eyes fixed on the far side.
I had to admit—it was absurd and beautiful, and exactly the kind of unexpected grace that made Berna, well, Berna.
Before I could voice my admiration, she growled, clearly offended by my amusement.
"Why don't you, you know, just jump to the other side?" I called out.
She growled again, a string of low rumbles I couldn't interpret. I shrugged. She had always been odd, this bond of mine.
After a few more minutes of careful ledge-crafting, we reached the far side. The crevice lay behind us, and the path ahead opened into a gentle descent.
"We should be close. Very close," Tessia said, her voice tight. "I can feel the Forest's call even on Hoofy's back now."
"Does it bother you?"
"A bit," she admitted, and the admission itself, from the brave, unyielding Princess, sent a chill down my spine. "But nothing I cannot manage."
We pressed on. The mountain sloped downward, the rocks giving way to grass, then to the first scattered trees. And then, cradled between two peaks—one of which was the very mountain we were descending—we saw it.
Azellio.
The Elshire Forest poured into the valley below like an ocean of green breaking against the feet of giants.
The trees were not as dense as in Zestier, but they were everywhere, scattered like jewels across the valley floor, lush and impossibly vibrant.
A river, silver and cold, wound from the northern peak through the heart of the city, its surface catching the afternoon light like scattered stars. The peaks above were capped with snow, their flanks dark with pine, and between them, this hidden pocket of life flourished.
It was breathtaking. The kind of view that stopped your breath and held it hostage. Like the most beautiful alpine scenes from Earth—from a world I had left behind and thought I had forgotten.
"Corvis, stop gawking." Tessia's voice was ice. "It's... it's horrible."
I turned, dumbfounded. "What?"
"Something wrong lurks in that city, Corvis." Her eyes were fixed on the ruins below, and I saw the tremor in her hands. "I do not know what, but it is there."
I looked at Berna. She was staring at the Holy City—what little of it remained visible, half-swallowed by the forest, its stones weathered by centuries—and growling. A low, warning sound. The same sound she made when she felt the Vritra's taint.
So. The Caduchicil truly hid here.
I glanced at Soleil. The robin's golden eyes were sharp, her feathers bristling. She, too, was on edge.
Whatever awaited us in Azellio was not good. But we had come too far to turn back now.