Corvis Eralith
Water magic was exceptional for practicing mana control.
For a conjurer like me—still reeling from the failed absorption, still haunted by the echo of Cherry's final scream—it was exactly the kind of focused, demanding exercise I needed to keep my mind from spiraling into darker places.
Almost a full week had passed since that disaster in the Hallowed Hollow. A week of suffering the aftermath, both physical and emotional.
The memory of fire-affinity mana ravaging my body lingered like a phantom pain, a ghost of agony that flared whenever I closed my eyes too long.
And the loss—the waste—of such a source of power gnawed at me constantly. Cherry's core, that beautiful reservoir of potential, was now utterly spent. Dark. Inert. Useless.
For those seven days, I had done barely anything other than become my mother's willing doll. She had hovered over me with an intensity that would have been touching if it weren't so suffocating.
I let her. I let her fuss and worry and treat me like glass because it was easier than explaining, and because some small, childish part of me needed the comfort.
But today, finally, I had returned to practice.
Water was a liquid, and one of liquids' fundamental properties was assuming a spherical shape without external forces—gravity gave raindrops their form, their perfect, transient beauty.
Using water magic to model a small ball above my palm was the perfect exercise. I maintained it perfectly round, negating gravity's effects on that small area by applying my own mana to counteract it.
Then I shaped it. Pyramid. Cube. Octahedron. More complicated forms, and simpler ones. Each transformation demanded precise control, constant attention and immediate adjustment that kept my intrusive thoughts at bay.
Ars Aquamorph. That was what I called this exercise in the privacy of my own mind. A small vanity, perhaps, but it helped me treat it seriously.
Right now, I sat on the edge of my bed, my legs—still too short to reach the floor—swinging idly in the air as I shaped various forms of water above my right palm.
The morning light filtered through my window, catching the floating droplets and scattering tiny rainbows across my sheets.
It was peaceful. Calm. A small pocket of normalcy in a life that had become anything but.
But my mind wouldn't stop racing.
What had happened to Cherry's Beast Will?
It was gone. Completely. The core sat in its hiding place, dark and empty, a hollow shell that had once held the essence of an S-Class mana beast of exceptional strength.
The Beast Will had been there—I had felt it, had touched it, had nearly merged with it. And then, at the last possible moment, something had torn it away.
Was it my affinities? The mismatch between Cherry's fire and my elven biology? But Cherry had wind affinity too, and I had felt him cooperating when he understood what I was. That moment of connection had been real. I was certain of it.
I had asked Grandpa about Beast Wills, framing it as casual curiosity.
He hadn't suspected anything—why would he? I was just a four-year-old asking questions about the world. He explained that affinities never transferred from mana beast to tamer.
Only certain abilities passed through the Beast Will, specific techniques or instincts, but never the elemental affinity itself.
That explained nothing about what had happened to me.
The mana from Cherry's core had helped me vastly. I had advanced from solid red to dark orange in little time—progress that should have taken years. I would always be grateful for that.
But the Beast Will... the Beast Will had been something more. Something I desperately needed.
And Cherry himself—the mana beast whose life had been cut short because I sent Olfred Warend against him—deserved better than to have his essence fail so completely. I owed him more than this.
The thought led, inevitably, to another: should I seek the Hearth?
The Asclepius Clan. The Phoenixes led by Mordain Asclepius, the only Asuras who had defied both Indrath and Vritra. The only potential allies my people might have in the coming war.
Cherry had proven that even his limited phoenix nature resonated with my reincarnated soul. How would a true Phoenix behave?
I remembered the novel's details. Dawn Asclepius had offered to bring Nico to the Hearth if he helped her. Even imprisoned by Agrona, even in desperate circumstances, she had extended that invitation to an enemy—potentially condemning her entire clan to discovery.
And Mordain himself, after centuries of careful neutrality, had chosen to help Arthur. Another reincarnated soul.
But the difference between them and me... they came from an Earth that didn't know this world as fiction. Arthur had been King Grey, a powerful warrior from a world without magic. Nico had been his friend and his enemy. They had lived lives, made choices, been people. I had read about them in a book.
Would that change something? Would the Phoenixes sense that difference in me? Would they see not a true reincarnate, but some lesser imitation? A fraud wearing a borrowed soul?
I didn't know. And the uncertainty terrified me.
Embarking on a journey to find the Hearth—I knew its location, roughly; I just needed to search for the dungeon called Hollow's Edge—was an entirely different undertaking than the Red Gorge.
There, I had faced greedy humans and dangerous beasts. Here, I would be walking into the domain of gods. Dozens of Phoenixes who could erase me from reality with their mere presence, their King's Forces crushing my fragile lesser body without conscious effort.
Was it worth the risk?
The image of Windsom Indrath flashed before my eyes—that cat form he had worn when observing my birth, those ancient, pitiless eyes that had dismissed me as unworthy of attention.
If he decided I was worth noticing now, if I led him to the very place where the rebels of his Lord's regime were hidden... it wouldn't end well. For me, or for the Asclepius.
They had remained hidden for so long. Centuries. Millennia, perhaps. There must have been a reason. Who was I to question their motives? Who was I to risk their safety for my own desperate needs?
With Ars Aquamorph, I shaped the water above my right hand into the rough form of a bird. A Phoenix, I told myself, though I had never seen one in their true glory—the novel had never shown them fully. The shape was crude, inadequate, a child's approximation of something magnificent.
I sighed, and the water splashed harmlessly onto my sheets.
A chirp. A tap at my window.
That robin again.
I looked up. There it stood on my windowsill, that peculiar bird with the ember-colored breast and golden eyes that should not belong to any normal creature.
Behind it, on the branch that stretched toward my room, its flock of swallows waited patiently, watching their leader with a devotion that bordered on worship.
"Hi, Coco."
Tessia had named it. She had noticed the robin and had proudly declared it her pet, had bestowed upon it the most ridiculous name she could imagine. Coco. And somehow, impossibly, the bird had accepted.
We both understood that this was no ordinary mana beast. Its intelligence was remarkable, its behavior unlike anything I had observed in other creatures.
And I still remembered that morning when it had perched on my shoulder and relieved all my fatigue with a single gesture. Whatever Coco was, it was special.
I let the Ars Aquamorph dissipate and opened the window.
Coco chirped happily, hopping left and right on the sill with what I could only describe as enthusiasm. It behaved differently with me than with Tessia, I had noticed.
With my sister, Coco was always submissive—bowing its head, accepting her pets, playing the part of a devoted pet. Tessia loved this, declaring that Coco was so intelligent it recognized a future queen when it saw one.
With me, though... with me, Coco was different. It behaved like a companion. An equal, almost. Intelligent, yes, but not subservient. It watched me with those golden eyes and seemed to understand in ways that went beyond simple animal cunning.
I reached for the small silk pouch I kept near the window.
Inside were dried and salted pumpkin seeds—a snack I munched when I felt nervous, which was almost always, and that Coco had developed an intense fondness for. I took a seed and offered it.
Coco swallowed it whole, then hopped backward on the sill and turned to its flock, chirping a series of commands.
"You want me to feed your flock?"
Coco nodded.
I still wasn't used to that. The deliberate, intelligent nod from a bird that should not be capable of such gestures.
I emptied the pouch onto the windowsill, and Coco chirped melodically. The swallows approached in perfect order, one by one, each taking its share of seeds before fluttering back to the branch.
I watched them, my mind turning over possibilities.
"Just what are you?" I murmured.
Coco couldn't answer, of course. It was a bird. A very intelligent bird, but still a bird. I tried to sense its mana core, reaching out with my enhanced perception. It was barely a D-Class, if that. By any objective measure, Coco was unremarkable.
And yet.
Maybe if I showed myself friend to birds, the Asclepius Clan would be more friendly with me. The thought was absurd, a joke I told myself to lighten the weight of real considerations. But beneath the humor, a kernel of genuine hope lingered. The Phoenixes were birds, after all. Majestic, godlike birds, but birds nonetheless.
No. The Hearth was still out of the question. The risks were too great, the variables too unknown. If I were to attempt something so monumental, I would need to speak with Great-aunt Rinia first.
She had been an apprentice of Mordain Asclepius, once upon a time. If anyone in my family understood the Phoenixes, it would be her.
But that was a conversation for another day. For now, I had more immediate concerns.
Without Cherry's core, my cultivation had slowed to a crawl. The difference was agonizing. That beast core had been a source of high-quality, ready-to-absorb mana—a cheat code for advancement. Now I was back to normal methods, and the contrast was brutal.
No wonder the only white cores in Dicathen were the Lances.
The artifacts given by the Asuras—those mysterious objects that made white-core advancement possible—were the only way to bypass the fundamental limitation of lesser bodies and Dicathen's resources.
The amounts of mana required to reach such heights were enormous, and our bodies absorbed it so slowly, so inefficiently.
Grandpa. How old was he? Two centuries? More? And he was only at the mid stage of the silver core, not even the highest peak of that level. Two centuries of steady cultivation, and still so far from white.
I didn't have two centuries. I didn't even have two decades.
I needed new sources of mana. I needed something to replace what I had lost.
The idea of going to Asyphin resurfaced in my mind—that trip I had used as a cover story, the search for a dueling cane that had never happened.
But what if I actually went? What if I found a cane that could serve another purpose?
A wand.
"Just like Dawn's Ballad," I murmured
The thought crystallized with sudden, sharp clarity. Dawn's Ballad was, when unsheathed, a cane and only Arthur could unsheath it thanks to Realmheart. I could make a replica for myself, I still needed a weapon in the end.
Magic alone wasn't enough and now I didn't even have a Beast Will to help.
It was a long shot. But desperate times had produced desperate measures before, and I was still alive.
Coco chirped, drawing my attention back to the present. The swallows had finished their seeds and were watching me with those tiny eyes. Their leader hopped closer to my hand, then pressed its small head against my finger.
For a moment, just a moment, the weight of everything lifted. The failed Beast Will, the impossible choices, the clock ticking toward midnight—all of it faded in the presence of this small creature that had chosen, for reasons I couldn't fathom, to be my friend.
"Thank you, Coco," I whispered.
The robin chirped once, then launched itself from the windowsill, leading its flock away into the golden morning light.
I watched them go, then turned back to my room, to my plans, to the endless, exhausting work of preparing for a war I prayed I could prevent.
The water above my palm reformed into a sphere, perfect and round, waiting for whatever shape I would give it next.
—
"My baby boy is growing so much!" Mom's voice was thick with that particular maternal affection she reserved for moments like this, her arms wrapped around me in a hug that was both suffocating and wonderful. "You and Tessia will already be five next week!"
Five years old. In less than a week, I would be five. The number echoed in my mind, carrying with it the weight of everything that had happened—and everything that hadn't.
In the canon timeline, Arthur Leywin would soon meet Sylvia.
That moment, that fateful encounter in a cave hidden among the Grand Mountains on the border between Sapin and Elenoir, was approaching rapidly.
But here, in this frayed Fate, that meeting would never happen. There was no Arthur. No human boy with a reincarnated soul and a destiny written by the gods themselves.
Instead, there was me.
"Can we go to Asyphin for our birthday?" The question slipped out, carefully calibrated, perfectly timed.
Here you are, Corvis, I thought bitterly, hiding your plans by begging your mother for a birthday present.
But I didn't have many choices left.
Asyphin lay far to the north of Elenoir, a coastal city I knew little about beyond its existence and its portal connection to Zestier.
Somewhere in that city, I hoped to find a dueling cane—or rather, something that could serve as a wand. A focus for my magic.
I couldn't go alone. Alea could theoretically bring me, but the journey would take too long, and I still lacked the authority to command the portal guards.
But if my family went—if we all traveled together as a royal vacation—I would have time. Opportunities and eventually chances to slip away and search for what I needed.
"Asyphin, huh?" Mom tilted her head, considering my request. Then her face lit up with that radiant smile that always made the world feel brighter. "You want to see the sea? Oh, how cute! I'll tell your father, and we'll all take a proper vacation to Asyphin!"
She pulled me close again, hugging me with an intensity that made my ribs protest. I wanted to struggle, to push away, to maintain the carefully constructed walls I had built around myself.
But I didn't. I let her hold me. I let myself be her baby boy, just for a moment.
I didn't have any right to deny her this. And I had gotten what I wanted, so... fair trade?
One week, then. One week to prepare, to plan, to figure out how to make this trip as productive as possible.
—
I sat on a wooden bench in one of the Royal Palace's quieter gardens, watching Grandpa and Tessia in their element.
The bench was beautiful—expertly crafted, its surface smooth and warm from the sun, floral motifs inscribed along the edges with the kind of precision that spoke of true artisanship.
Around me, carefully curated flowerbeds exploded in controlled chaos, bushes trimmed into geometric shapes while their blossoms burst forth in defiance of order. The air was thick with the scent of roses and something sweeter I couldn't name.
But my attention was fixed on the scene before me.
Tessia was attempting to create a gust of wind. Her small face was scrunched in concentration, her hand extended toward a target I couldn't see. For a moment, nothing happened.
Then a breeze stirred—weak, unfocused, barely more than a sigh—and died almost instantly.
She didn't get discouraged. She didn't pout or complain. She just reset her stance and tried again.
The way she used magic... it couldn't be more different from me.
To me, magic was a weapon and nothing more. Every new ability I developed, every technique I mastered, was immediately analyzed for combat potential. How could I use this to kill? How could I weaponize this against the enemies I knew were coming? The wonder of discovery lasted seconds before being replaced by cold, tactical calculation.
But Tessia—Tessia approached magic with the pure, unfiltered curiosity that every child should have. She explored it like a scholar discovering a new subject, practiced it like an athlete perfecting their craft.
There was joy in every attempt, fascination in every failure, determination in every new try.
Even if Tessia didn't have talent—which she did, the novel had made that very clear—she had passion. A passion that burned in every word she spoke about mana and magic, in every question she asked Grandpa, in every moment she spent pushing the boundaries of her abilities.
And Grandpa... Grandpa had found that passion again too.
He stood a few meters away from Tessia, demonstrating wind magic with flourishes that were entirely unnecessary but absolutely delightful.
His spells weren't efficient and they weren't optimized. They were beautiful, just beautiful.
Spiraling vortexes that caught the light, gentle breezes that made the flowers dance, gusts strong enough to lift leaves but shaped like birds in flight.
He was showing off, yes—but more than that, he was enjoying himself. For the first time in all the years I had known him, both in this life and from the novel, I saw Virion Eralith practicing magic for magic's sake.
They were in their own world, the two of them. A world of discovery and joy and the simple pleasure of learning together.
And I sat on my beautiful bench, surrounded by carefully curated beauty, watching them from the outside.
I just wanted to return to my room and practice Ars Aquamorph. To lose myself in the familiar comfort of shaping water, of improving my control, of doing something—anything—that felt like progress. But if I tried to leave, Tessia would notice. She would call me back. She would want me to watch.
Half her fun, I had realized, came from having me as an audience.
Was I supposed to feel happy that she wanted me there? Or just annoyed that I couldn't escape?
"Corvis! Look!"
I raised my head. Tessia had grabbed one of her stuffed animals—that same frog she always carried everywhere, the one that had been her favorite since before I could remember—and was using wind magic to lift it. A small current of air formed beneath the toy, and for a glorious moment, the frog floated.
"I can make things fly!" she declared triumphantly.
Then the wind gust died, and the frog thumped unceremoniously onto the grass.
"Come on!" Tessia's frustration was almost as adorable as her excitement had been.
Grandpa chuckled, that warm, rumbling sound that always made me feel safe. He walked over and ruffled her hair—already a mess from hours of practice—with easy affection.
"You still don't have enough mana reserves for prolonged magic, Little One. Let's stop for today."
She didn't have control either, I noted. But that was normal. That was expected for a newly awakened four-year-old. What Tessia needed was practice—guided, structured practice that would help her develop the fine control she currently lacked.
Maybe I need to develop an equivalent of Ars Aquamorph for wind magic, I thought. Something simple, repetitive and, more importantly, effective. And then I just have to make Tessia think she came up with it herself.
It was manipulative. It was underhanded. It was exactly the kind of indirect approach I had perfected in this life.
But to my surprise, Tessia didn't complain about stopping. She just nodded, accepting Grandpa's judgment with a maturity that always caught me off guard. "Okay, Grandpa."
Then she ran at me.
Before I could react, her arms were around me, hugging with the full force of her small body. "Have you seen how good I am, Corvis?" Her voice was muffled against my shoulder, but the satisfaction in it was unmistakable.
"Yeah. I saw." I let myself relax into the hug, just for a moment.
Behind her, Grandpa approached with that easy, unhurried stride of his. "Look at you two," he said, his voice warm with affection. "Growing up so fast."
"Our birthday!" Tessia pulled back suddenly, her eyes wide as if she had just remembered something monumental. "Grandpa, will Aunt Rinia come to the Royal Palace?"
Rinia. The name sent a small shiver through me. It had been so long since I had last seen the old seer—the only person in this world who knew what I truly was.
"She will, she will." Grandpa waved dismissively. "The old bat wouldn't miss your fifth birthday for anything in the wo—"
Tessia walked up to him and pinched his side.
"Little One, what are you doing?!"
"Don't call Aunt Rinia that!" The words were an order, delivered with the full authority of a four-year-old who would one day be queen. It was adorable and terrifying in equal measure.
"Ah, awakening did make you a little problematic, didn't it?" Grandpa's smirk was infuriatingly charming.
"I am not problematic! I'm still a good girl!" Tessia crossed her arms, her pout magnificent.
I decided to intervene before this could escalate further. "We're going to Asyphin for our birthday."
Tessia spun toward me, her argument with Grandpa forgotten instantly. "Asyphin?"
She knew everything about court life—every noble child from every important house in Zestier—but Asyphin? A major city, one of Elenoir's most important settlements? The confusion on her face was genuine.
"Was it your mother's idea?" Grandpa stroked his short beard—so much shorter than the one he would grow in the novel's war, a detail I noted without meaning to. "It's a nice thought."
"It was mine..." The admission made me embarrassed for reasons I couldn't quite articulate. "I want to see the sea."
"The sea?!" Tessia's eyes went wide as saucers. "When do we go?"
"Soon," I said. "Very soon."
Grandpa watched me with those keen old eyes, and for a moment, I wondered if he saw more than I wanted him to. But then he smiled—that goofy, affectionate smile that was just for us—and the moment passed.
"The sea," he repeated, as if tasting the word. "It's been too long since I've seen it myself. Maybe we all need a vacation after all."
Tessia Eralith
I sat restlessly on the plush chair in my room—a magnificent thing gifted to me by Lady Annarel Chaffer for my upcoming birthday.
It was more comfortable than even most chairs in the Royal Palace, the seat cushion sewn with purple velvet and stuffed with such soft feathers that sitting in it felt like being hugged by a cloud.
But right now, I couldn't appreciate its comfort at all!
Every part of me wanted to use magic. My fingers itched to summon a breeze, to make something float, to feel that wonderful power flowing through me again.
But I had promised Dad I wouldn't use it too much, and Grandpa had made me swear I would only practice with him nearby.
So instead, I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to focus on something else: the sea.
I couldn't wait to go to Asyphin! How would the sea look? I had seen the river Winetail countless times—it was impressive enough, wide and winding as it passed through Zestier—but the sea was supposed to be vast. Immeasurable.
A body of water so enormous you couldn't see the other side, stretching all the way to the horizon and beyond. Would it roar like they said in stories? Would it smell different from the forest? Would the waves reach out to tickle my toes?
And I couldn't wait to meet Asyphin's people! To grace them with the presence of their Princess. I nodded firmly at this thought, the image in my head too wonderful to wait for.
They would bow and smile and be so happy to see me, and I would be so perfectly royal and gracious, and everyone would talk about what a wonderful future queen Elenoir had.
It was late evening now, the sun long gone beyond the canopy.
I finally abandoned my too-comfortable chair and padded toward my bed. Through my window, I could see the few brave stars that managed to peek through the foliage—tiny pinpricks of light winking down at me. But my eyes sought something else, something much more special.
Elenoir, the moon.
Our whole kingdom was named after it. Every time I looked up at that glowing silver disc, I felt a connection to every elf who had ever lived, to every ancestor who had gazed at the same moon and called it by the same name.
It was my favorite thing in all the sky.
"Coco!"
I barely whispered the name, but within a minute, the robin appeared on my windowsill. Its flock of swallows was nowhere to be seen—probably already asleep in their branch-bed somewhere.
I opened the window and reached out to pet its head, that familiar warmth spreading through my fingertips. "Good bird."
Coco tilted its head, those golden eyes watching me patiently.
"We're going to be away from the Royal Palace for a while."
Another head tilt.
"We're going to Asyphin. It's a city... in the north... near the sea..." I tried to remember details I had never bothered to learn. Cities were for visiting, not for memorizing facts about.
Coco chirped and nodded, which meant it understood. Or at least pretended to. With Coco, it was hard to tell.
"As for you..." I tapped my chin thoughtfully. "Corvis feeds you and your flock special seeds, doesn't he? I'll order a servant to put them on my windowsill every morning while we're gone. So you'll still get your treats."
Coco bowed its head, chirping softly. Even without understanding bird language, I could tell it was gratitude. Coco looked up at me then, waiting.
Another thing I loved about this bird—he always waited for me to dismiss it before flying away. He never did that with Corvis.
"You are dismissed." I smiled, and Coco spread his wings.
"No, wait!" I shouted suddenly, remembering something. "Come back!"
Coco obeyed instantly, landing back on my windowsill.
I smirked triumphantly. "Good. You can go now. Truly this time."
Coco chirped, confusion evident in the sound.
"I just wanted to see if you would come back when I called," I admitted. "And you did! Wonderful bird!"
Another chirp. I half-expected annoyance—it was so smart, surely it could feel frustration?—but Coco simply flew away into the night, disappearing among the branches. Maybe it wasn't that smart after all. Maybe it didn't feel all the complicated emotions elves did.
Or maybe it just liked me enough to forgive my games.
Satisfied with my daily encounter with my wonderful, mysterious pet, I finally climbed into bed and pulled the covers up to my chin. The moon—Elenoir—shone through my window, casting silver patterns on my walls.
I fell asleep smiling, dreaming of waves and birds and a future as bright as the moon itself.