Arc 3. "The Realm of the Phoenix Queen."
Corvis Eralith
Now I understood why beast cores were so sought after—they held tons of mana. The quantities involved were staggering, incomprehensible to anyone who had never held one in their hands.
And the beast core of a Phoenix Wyrm that hadn't been allowed to waste its power in a final, desperate gambit? That was something else entirely.
Olfred's efficiency had been brutal and absolute. One moment the Phoenix Wyrm was alive, its eyes fixed on me with that terrible, knowing gaze. The next, its head was separated from its body, and its core—that strawberry-red crystalline organ striped with veins of white and yellow—was waiting to be claimed.
It fit in my four-year-old hand, but only barely. Its weight was substantial, dense with condensed power that made my fingers tingle just from contact.
For the weeks following my return, Alea had watched over me in the white chamber of the Hallowed Hollow while I absorbed its mana. The process was tedious, exhausting, and absolutely wonderful.
Each session was a meditation, a slow drawing of power from the core into my own, a careful, deliberate transfer that required concentration I hadn't known I possessed.
The wind-attribute mana came first. Those small reserves, untouched by the Wyrm's final moments, flowed into me like water seeking its own level. It took only a day—a single, intense session of absorption that left me dizzy and exhilarated.
The mana settled into my core, merging with my existing reserves, expanding my capacity in ways I could feel physically.
Then came the pure mana. That was the bulk of the core's contents, the raw, unaspected energy that the Wyrm had accumulated over its long life. I had been working on it for weeks now, and I still wasn't finished.
It was a seemingly bottomless well, and every drop I drew made my core burn brighter, grow stronger, expand.
In just two weeks, I had risen from a solid red core to the dark stage of orange.
The progress was unheard of—would have been called impossible by anyone who understood mana core advancement. But then, no one else had access to the core of an S-Class mana beast that had died with most of its power intact.
And then there was the fire-attributed mana. I hadn't touched it yet.
I was saving it, holding it in reserve, because the fire mana would require something different. My elven biology couldn't absorb it directly—could only purify it slowly, inefficiently, stripping away its elemental nature and reducing it to neutral power. That would be a waste.
But within the core, alongside the fire mana, there was something else. A presence. A heat that wasn't physical, that radiated from the core like the ghost of a flame. It watched me as I absorbed the pure mana. It studied me, assessed me, waited.
The Beast Will.
It was real. It was there. And when I was ready, I would claim it.
"Your Highness."
Alea's voice cut through my meditation, pulling me back from the edge of that metaphysical fire. I opened my eyes, blinking against the light of the Hallowed Hollow.
Above me, that massive, mysterious mana core pulsed with soft illumination, supported by branches and vines intertwined in patterns that spoke of ancient nature. The room was pristine, sacred, a place where secrets could be shared without fear.
"Yes?" My voice was rough from hours of silence.
"I need to bring you back to the palace." Alea stood at the chamber's entrance, her expression caught between duty and something softer. "We are close to dusk."
"Oh, already?" I hadn't realized. Time moved differently here, in the depths of the Hallowed Hollow, where the only measure was the slow pulse of mana and the gradual filling of my core. "Can't we stay a little longer? Usually we remain until night."
It was true. Since my return from the Red Gorge, Alea had changed. The playful condescension, the treatment of my training as a childish oddity from an even stranger prince—it was gone. Replaced by something else. Full attention. Full support. No questions.
I had underestimated how much she cared about Alwyn. How deeply my decision to awaken her brother, to give him the gift of magic, had affected her.
She didn't understand why I had done it—couldn't comprehend the complex addition of guilt and hope that had driven me—but she was grateful. And gratitude, in someone like Alea, translated into loyalty.
And speaking of Alwyn—he was different now. The change was subtle but unmistakable.
Whatever had been holding him back, whatever invisible weight had kept him dimmer than he should have been, was gone. He was still Alwyn. He still treated me like I was above him, still considered himself "lesser" because of his common birth.
But that wasn't holding him back anymore. It was just a fact, acknowledged and set aside, not a chain binding him to the ground.
Incredible. The smallest kindness, the simplest gift, and a life transformed.
Alea sighed. It was a sound I had come to recognize—the sound of someone about to deliver news I didn't want to hear.
"Tomorrow the Greysunders are arriving for their royal visit to Zestier." She raised an eyebrow, a hint of that old amusement creeping back into her expression. "Have you forgotten, Your Highness?"
She marked the title with a jest, a playful reminder that even princes could be scatterbrained. And I—
I had forgotten.
Two monarchs. Rulers of a third of Dicathen. A royal house that, in the novel, had been puppets of Agrona from the very beginning.
Dawsid Greysunders, the greedy king who valued gold over lives. And his family, his court, his entire power structure—potentially already compromised, already twisted by Vritra influence.
And I had forgotten.
I handed the beast core to Alea without a word. She took it, her expression carefully neutral, and secreted it away in whatever hiding place she had prepared. No questions about its origin. No curiosity about how I had obtained it. Just quiet acceptance and support.
"Let's go." I stood, brushing dust from my clothes, and followed her out of the chamber.
Mom and Dad hadn't pressed me about this meeting. In fact, they hadn't pressed me about anything. They wanted me and Tessia to live our childhoods without the weight of royalty, without the pressure that had crushed so many young nobles before us.
It was a gift I was infinitely grateful for—and a perfect thing for the kind of preparations I needed to make.
But while I slipped through that gap in their attention, Tessia had chosen a different path. She gave herself fully to being the perfect princess. She attended every lesson, greeted every dignitary, smiled for every portrait. She was everything an heir should be.
Which meant I was about to receive a lot of scolding from my twin.
I wondered, sometimes, what made her so different from the Tessia of the novel. It wasn't Arthur's absence—she wasn't supposed to meet him for another half a year at least. So what had changed?
Had I really made such a difference? Had my presence, my attention, my being there for her—had that been enough to spare her the loneliness that had shaped the Tessia I read about?
I didn't know. But as I left the Hallowed Hollow and walked toward the palace, toward the family waiting for me, I found myself hoping.
Hoping that the answer was yes. Hoping that my existence in this world had done at least one thing right.
—
The early morning light filtered through the leaves of the Watchful Willows and the other trees, painting my room in shades of gold and green. It was too early—far too early—and I knew it immediately. My internal clock, honed by weeks of predawn training, screamed that sunrise was still minutes away.
So what had woken me?
Tap. Tap. Tap.
The sound came from the window. Small. Rhythmic and strangely insistent.
I groaned, rolled over, and tried to burrow deeper into my sheets. The tapping continued. Tap. Tap. Tap.
"Go away," I mumbled into my pillow.
Tap. Tap. TAP.
With a groan that would have done credit to a dying man, I pushed myself upright and stumbled toward the window.
The floor was cold against my bare feet—spring mornings in Zestier still carried winter's teeth. I stood on tiptoe, fumbled with the latch, and pushed the window open.
The air that rushed in was crisp and sweet, carrying the scent of dew-damp leaves and the distant perfume of night-blooming flowers.
Most of the Royal Palace was still wrapped in shadow, only the upper sections—those closest to the canopy—touched by the first rays of dawn.
"Chirp."
I looked down. Perched on the windowsill, half inside my room, was a robin.
Its breast was the color of dying embers, its feathers an ashen grey that caught the weak light and held it. Its golden eyes—golden, I noticed, not the black of normal birds—fixed on me with an intensity that made my sleep-addled brain pause.
I looked up. On a branch that leaned close to my window, a small flock of swallows chittered and preened, paying us no attention.
The same robin. The one that had been haunting the palace for weeks, ever since I returned from the Red Gorge. The robin that thought it was a swallow, that flew with them, darted with them, belonged with them despite being so clearly different.
It hopped closer, its tiny claws clicking against the stone.
"I don't have anything to feed you." I yawned, the sound enormous and unguarded.
Today, potential traitors awaited me. Yesterday and most of the week before had been spent absorbing mana, cultivating my core, pushing myself toward power I desperately needed. I was tired. "Let me sleep."
I turned, stumbled back to my bed, and collapsed onto it with all the grace of a falling tree. The sheets enveloped me, warm and soft, and I was seconds from oblivion when—
Tap.
Something landed on my pillow. Something small and warm and right next to my nose.
I sneezed. The robin, undeterred, remained exactly where it was.
"What is wrong with birds today?!" The protest came out high and whiny, the voice of a child who had been denied his rightful sleep. I didn't care. I was four years old. I was allowed to be petulant.
The robin just stared at me with those impossible golden eyes.
"You're quite stubborn, aren't you?" I rolled over, giving the bird my back. "The window is open! Go back to your flock and let me sleep."
A weight settled on my shoulder. Small. Light. Warm.
Then—warmth. Not the gentle warmth of a small body, but something deeper, something that spread through me like honey through hot tea.
From the corner of my eye, I saw an orange glow, soft and pulsing, emanating from the robin's small form. It shook itself, like a dog drying off, and the glow intensified for just a moment.
And then—
I felt whole.
The exhaustion that had been my constant companion for weeks, the bone-deep weariness of constant training and constant worry and constant running—it vanished.
Not faded. Not lessened. Vanished.
I felt like I had slept for a full night in the most comfortable bed imaginable, then woken to a perfect morning with nothing to do but enjoy it. My mind was clear, my body was light, my soul felt rested in ways I hadn't known were possible.
I sat up abruptly, staring at the robin.
It puffed out its chest—a gesture that looked absurdly proud on such a small creature—and then, without warning, launched itself from my shoulder and flew out the open window.
I scrambled to follow, reaching the windowsill just in time to see it rejoin the flock of swallows, indistinguishable from them now, just another small bird in a sea of small birds.
"What...?"
That was all I could manage. One word, inadequate and stunned, hanging in the morning air.
The sun continued its rise. The birds continued their chatter.
I stood at the window for a long moment, my hand pressed to my chest where the warmth had spread.
What was that robin? What had it done to me? And why—why—did I feel like I had just been touched by something ancient and powerful and utterly beyond my understanding?
I didn't have answers. But as I turned from the window and began to prepare for the day—for the Greysunders, for the politics, for the careful dance of deception and hope that my life had become—I carried that warmth with me.
A gift from a bird that thought it was a swallow.
A/N:
This arc will focus entirely on Elenoir—its culture, history, people, cities, and overall worldbuilding—and Corvis and Tessia's siblinghood.