Corvis Eralith
The frigid wind howled through the skeletal pines, carrying the scent of snow and something fouler—woodsmoke, unwashed bodies, and fear. My boots crunched on the scree slope as I descended the Grand Mountains and made my way through the westernmost parts of the Beast Glades, the jagged peaks clawing at a leaden sky behind me.
"Berna!" My shout sliced through the brittle air, echoing uselessly against the vast, indifferent stone and woods. She was ranging ahead, a massive brown shadow against the grey rock, seeking the rare herbs and mana beast traces I needed. Not for me, not directly.
But for the nascent Beast Corps, a dream etched in necessity against the coming storm. A dream currently interrupted. Yet that needed to wait as I got interrupted by bandits.
The ambush wasn't subtle. They erupted from hidden gullies and behind wind-scoured boulders, a ragged knot of desperation armed with scavenged blades and cheap wands.
Bandits. Again. A weary frustration, cold as the mountain air, settled in my gut. In the novel Arthur lived, this plague was a footnote, swept aside by grander wars and catastrophes.
But here, in the fractured reality I inhabited, banditry festered like a wound. The Tri-Union's ban on interracial slavery and its tightening grip on the continent had driven these vermin further away, into the expanse of the Beast Glades. They thrived on poached beast parts, smuggled goods, and the vilest trade of all: elves which were the most valuable slaves in Sapin.
My people.
"Disgusting elf!" The shout, thick with venomous hate, came from a hulking augmenter wielding a curved scimitar, its edge nicked but hungry.
Racist assholes. All of them? It seemed so. The sheer, stupid waste of it choked me. A war was coming, a tide of annihilation from across the ocean, and Dicathen was still tearing itself apart over ancient prejudices. We would be slaughtered, enslaved, or worse, if this poison persisted.
"That is unless you ally with Dad." Romulos's voice, smooth as oiled silk, slithered through my thoughts as I saw him leaning on a tree. The familiar, darkly amused tone didn't even spark annoyance anymore. It had become a grim refrain, an inside joke that wasn't truly funny, a constant pressure wrapped in velvet.
He hoped, relentlessly, that I would eventually bend.
The first bandit an hulking augmenter lunged, he held a weapon similar to a scimitar a silver blur aimed at my throat. Instinct flared. Mana surged from Against the Tragedy, flowing like liquid silver through the intricate channels woven into the fabric of my uniform. It wasn't just armor; it was a shield made manifest in my clothing.
I brought my right forearm up, bracing.
Clang!
The impact jarred up to my shoulder, but the blade skittered harmlessly off the sleeve, not even fraying the threads. Against anything less than a masterwork weapon or a powerhouse core superior to the red or maybe orange stage, it held. The bandit's eyes widened, shock etching lines of disbelief onto his grimy face. His guard faltered for a crucial heartbeat.
Time compressed. My own dagger, a plain, unadorned thing honed to a cruel edge, was already moving. No flourish, no wasted motion. Just a swift, brutal lunge, sinking deep into the yielding flesh beneath his jaw. A wet gasp, a gurgle, then the heavy thud as he collapsed, life extinguished in a crimson rush from his body.
I didn't watch him fall. The metallic tang of blood filled my nostrils, sharp and nauseating. Another death.
Necessary, I told myself. Always necessary. But the weight of it, the sticky warmth I imagined on my hand even though the blade was clean, settled like a stone in my chest.
Nearby, Berna was a whirlwind of fur and fury. A conjurer hurled a gout of flame at her. It washed over her thick, brown fur, burning the tips of her hair but failing to penetrate.
She barely flinched. A contemptuous swipe of her massive paw, claws like quartz daggers, caught another bandit across the chest. Bones crunched with a sickening finality. Her answering roar wasn't just sound; it was a physical force, vibrating the air, shaking loose pebbles, and freezing the remaining attackers in pure, primal terror.
Her green eyes, usually holding a deep, ancient sadness, blazed with protective ferocity. She feared losing me. After who knows how many years of solitude, I was her anchor. She would rend the world to keep it.
"M-Mercy!" The plea was a ragged sob from a conjurer scrambling backwards, hands raised in futile supplication towards Berna. Bargaining with her in this state was a lost cause. Her world was binary: threat, or me. Anything threatening me was annihilated.
"Listen to my voice, Corvis. Not their pleas." Romulos murmured, a dark lullaby. His motives were far from altruistic, a predator appreciating the efficiency of the kill, perhaps relishing the chaos.
But in that moment, I was perversely grateful. His presence, cold and alien time yet so familiar as it was, formed a buffer against the raw horror unfolding—the desperate cries, the moans of the dying, the guttural fear. It dulled the edges, letting me move through the nightmare with detached precision.
It was over quickly. Silence descended, heavier than the mountain air, broken only by Berna's low, rumbling breaths and the crackle of the dying fires ignited by the bandit conjurers. The stench of blood, voided bowels, and burnt hair was overwhelming.
I forced myself to scan the sprawled bodies, the crude tents of the bandit camp not too far away. Necessary. But the taste of ash was thick on my tongue.
Then, I saw it: a rough-hewn structure, little more than a cage of logs lashed together, tucked against the rock face. Shackles glinted dully within. My breath hitched. Moving swiftly, I shattered the crude lock using ny dagger as a fulcrum. The sight within drove a cold spike of rage deeper than any battle fury.
A dozen figures huddled together. Elves. My kin. Women and children, their fine clothes torn and soiled, faces gaunt with fear and exhaustion.
Gags bit into their mouths, their eyes wide with terror that shifted to stunned disbelief as they saw me. Iron manacles chafed their delicate wrists and ankles. The sheer wrongness of it, the violation, was a physical blow. This wasn't just banditry; it was a microcosm of the future Agrona promised. Slavery. Degradation.
The end of everything we were.
"T-thank you," a woman wept after I freed her, her voice raw, clutching a young girl tightly to her chest. The child buried her face in her mother's ragged tunic, trembling violently. Seeing them like this, reduced to frightened chattel, wasn't just angering; it was terrifying. It was prophecy made flesh. This was the fate awaiting all elves if we failed.
If I failed.
The rage curdled into a cold, hard resolve. I pushed it down. They needed help, not my fury. Kneeling, I retrieved bandages and basic healing salves from one of my storage rings.
"Who can use these?" I asked, my voice surprisingly steady despite the tremor in my hands. I passed them to the least shaken women. All non-mages, I noted bitterly. They targeted the defenseless. The easiest prey.
"Who are you?" a small boy whispered, peering at me with huge, wary eyes.
"You look very young... too young," an older woman observed, her gaze lingering on my face, a flicker of confusion amidst the gratitude.
I managed a small, tight smile. "Corvis," I said. I didn't add 'Eralith'. But recognition dawned swiftly. The distinctive silver-white hair, the features unmistakably royal, even smudged with dirt and grim. Eyes widened further.
"Your Highness!" The woman gasped. Others followed, a ripple of awe and profound relief washing over them. "You have saved us!" The respect was laced with a desperate gratitude that felt heavier than any crown. They began to kneel, movements stiff from confinement.
"Please, don't," I said quickly, helping the nearest woman up. The formality felt jarring amidst the squalor. "Do you know the way back to your homes? To Elenoir?" They nodded, murmuring names of villages near the border forests.
"Good. We go. Now." I needed to get them out of this charnel pit. I needed to breathe air not tainted by death and despair.
As I turned, I saw Berna. She wasn't looking at the carnage. She was contentedly munching on a strip of dried meat, likely stolen from the bandits' meager supplies. A spark of her usual, almost childlike glee flickered in her luminous green eyes.
But then she noticed the freed elves gathering behind me. Instantly, the glee vanished. A low, rumbling growl vibrated in her massive chest, deep and menacing. Her bear fangs were visible, and she fixed them with a stare that was pure, primal suspicion.
"Berna, calm down," I said firmly, stepping slightly between her and the group. "They're safe. They're with me." But her gaze didn't soften. She kept staring, the growl a constant, unsettling bass note.
"The bear isn't wrong, Corvis," Romulos purred, a note of dark amusement in his mental voice. "Look at how they look at you now. Not just gratitude."
I turned back to the elves. The initial awe was still there, but underneath it… something else. A wariness? A dawning unease? The older woman who had spoken met my eyes, then quickly glanced away, twisting her hands nervously.
"Is something wrong?" I asked, keeping my voice gentle but firm.
"O-obviously not, Your Highness," the woman stammered, her voice tight. She swallowed hard. "But..." She hesitated, casting a fearful glance at Berna, then back at me. "What has happened? Why are you here, alone in the mountains? The guards… the Council…"
"I don't understand," I said, genuinely confused. I had meticulously covered my absence. Cynthia and Tessia were handling my absence from Xyrus.
Vincent, Gideon, the faculty even though I only told directly to Professor Glory, Emily, Claire—even Grey and Sylvie, though they'd argued fiercely—knew I was on a discreet procurement mission.
The woman exchanged a look with others. Fear warred with a desperate need to tell me. "Your Highness," she whispered, the words dropping like stones into the sudden silence. "An order… an order for your capture has been promulgated by the Tri-Union. Signed by the Glayder and Greysunders Royal Houses."
The world tilted. The cold mountain air rushed into my lungs, sharp as knives. Capture? Me? Signed by Blaine Glayder and Dawsid Greysunders? Shock, cold and absolute, washed over me, followed instantly by a surge of icy suspicion.
Agrona? Was he behind this? He already infiltrated the Council, manipulated those power-hungry fools into making such a brazen move? Was he so desperate to remove me, knowing who I might become, that he would risk exposing his hand so soon? The implications crashed over me—instability, division, exactly what we couldn't afford.
"Unlikely he'd be so direct, yet…" Romulos mused, his mental voice devoid of its usual mockery, turning analytical and intrigued. "…Dad does know of you. Then." A smile, chilling in its satisfaction, seemed to echo in the words. A shiver, colder than any mountain wind, traced its way down my spine.
"Regardless," Romulos continued, his disdain palpable, "this reeks of Dawsid and Blaine only. Those two scarcely possess a functioning brain between them. I always found it distasteful that Dad deigned to deal with such… scum."
The rescued elves watched me, their expressions a mixture of fear for themselves and a dawning horror for what this meant for their prince, for Elenoir.
Berna's low growl was the only sound, a constant reminder of the peril that hadn't ended with the bandits. The mountains loomed, vast and uncaring. The path home felt longer, darker, and infinitely more treacherous than it had mere moments before.
"What has my family done regarding it?" I asked them fearing my parents reaction.
The woman's words struck with the force of a physical blow. "The only thing their Majesties could do was to unofficially revoke the capture warrant in Elenoir," she said, her voice hushed with a mixture of sympathy and fear. Her gaze darted away, unable to hold mine as she delivered the crushing blow.
"But seeing that the majority of the Council agreed to it..." The sentence trailed off, leaving the icy truth hanging in the thin mountain air, sharp and suffocating. Agreed to hunt me down. My parents, powerful as they were, were isolated. Their defiance was a whisper against the Council's roar, a fragile shield only within Elenoir's borders.
The foundations of the world I had been fighting to protect seemed to crumble beneath my feet. So, I truly can't go back. Not to Xyrus. Not home. The realization wasn't just logistical; it was a visceral severing, a sudden, terrifying exile.
"It simply means we will have more time for our excursion." Romulos's voice cut through the rising panic, stripped of its usual mocking lilt, replaced by a chilling pragmatism. Even he felt the shift, the gravity tightening like a noose. "At least until Grandfather orders Windy and General Aldir to make their move."
You're right, I conceded silently, the admission bitter ash on my tongue. Discretion wasn't just prudent now; it was survival. My projects had to vanish into the shadows. And pray the Lances weren't unleashed. But if they were… The faces flashed before my mind's eye, each a potential hunter.
Alea. Her fierce loyalty would twist into frantic searching, a shield wanting to protect me, not capture. Aya, much the same—elven Lances, bound by blood and loyalty. Obvious sanctuaries, if I could reach them.
Mica? Unlikely. The dwarven Lance preferred fighting not searching for a kid like me; hunting a prince held little appeal. But Dawsid… My blood ran cold. He wouldn't just capture; he would deliver me straight to Agrona in order to please the High Sovereign, a prize to curry favor. Olfred. He was a genuine threat other than a traitor loyal to Rahdeas only.
Then the humans: Bairon. Arrogant, perhaps too proud to chase a "coreless" prince. A fragile hope. Then there was Varay. Her sense of duty was iron, unyielding as glacier ice. If the Council commanded, she would come. The certainty of it was a fist closing around my heart.
My safest path was to disappear, to become a ghost in the wilds, waiting for the hammer blow from Epheotus. Hiding. From my own people.
"I agree," Romulos murmured, the mental voice pulling me back to the immediate, the vulnerable elves watching me with wide, anxious eyes. "Now let's go. These elves won't be in any danger; we are near Elenoir after all."
I turned to face them, my flock rescued only to witness their rescuer become the hunted. "Stay safe," I said, the words thick, the worried expression etched onto my face impossible to smooth. It wasn't just concern for them; it was the raw edge of my own peril reflected back.
They nodded mutely, understanding. Asking questions, offering help—it was a risk they couldn't take, a burden they couldn't bear. They simply bowed, gratitude now mixed with a dawning horror at the precariousness of my position.
As they melted into the treeline towards the relative safety of the forest kingdom, the silence they left behind was deafening. Alone with Berna's watchful, protective bulk and the insidious presence of Romulos, the truth settled over me, cold and heavy as mountain snow.
I was a fugitive.