Corvis Eralith
Stonebound Tomes looked exactly as I remembered it—the same weathered facade, the same scent of old paper and dwarven craftsmanship seeping through the cracks around the door, the same sense that I was stepping into a place that existed slightly outside the flow of elven time.
Two years had passed since my last visit, when I had come to buy a Stoneflute, needing something to practice sound magic alone, to master a technique that had eluded me for so long.
The memory of that visit was tangled with other memories: Olfred's gruff voice, the weight of the instrument in my hands, the first tentative notes I had coaxed from it in the Darvish desert.
I turned to Berna, who had stopped at the base of the tree that housed the shop. "You stay here."
Her growl was soft, almost a whimper, and through the bond I felt the faint pulse of anxiety that had been with her since we entered the Grand Nectary.
Too many people. Too many eyes. Too much of everything she had spent years learning to fear.
But she did as I asked, settling against the trunk with the resigned patience of a creature who had learned, in her long captivity, that obedience was sometimes the only path to safety.
The Grand Nectary was alive despite the winter.
Dwarves—stocky figures wrapped in furs that seemed more decorative than practical—moved between the stalls, their breath fogging in the cold air, their laughter carrying across the square.
They were unused to this climate, I knew. Their homeland was a place of desert heat and geothermal warmth, of underground cities where the temperature never dropped below what their bodies had evolved to endure.
Yet here they were, drinking eggnog with the enthusiasm of converts, embracing a drink that had been invented only recently—a fusion of dwarven ale and elven eggs and milk, a small symbol of the alliance that was slowly, tentatively growing between our peoples.
I pushed open the door.
"Welcome—Prince Corvis." The voice was old, familiar, the voice of Danna Roksson, who had been behind this counter since Stonebound Tomes was opened four years ago. "What a pleasure to see you."
The shop was empty, the silence broken only by the soft crackle of a fire somewhere in the back. I let the door close behind me, and for a moment I simply stood there, breathing in the familiar scents, letting the quiet settle around me.
"I have a request." I kept my voice steady, though my heart was beating faster than I wanted it to. "I need to speak with Elder Rahdeas. I need his resources and his experience, again."
She didn't react, but I saw something shift in her expression—a recognition, perhaps, of the weight behind my words.
The last time I had asked for Elder Rahdeas's help, I had been a child playing at being something more, a prince with a fool's errand and the arrogance to believe it was destiny—even though it was.
I had taken everything he offered and given nothing in return, had vanished into the Red Gorge and emerged with a Phoenix Wyrm's core and a debt I had never repaid.
But now I was in a position to offer something real.
The short time I had spent with Olfred had taught me more about Rahdeas than any amount of observation from a distance could have. The old dwarf cared for the little people of Darv—for families like Dorzek Oreguard's, whose fortunes had crumbled and would have been lost entirely without his intervention.
For orphans like Olfred himself, who had been given a purpose, a name, a life. Rahdeas's wealth was vast, but it was not, I had come to understand, the source of his power.
His power came from the loyalty he inspired, from the debts he never called in—like mine for some reasons—from the quiet, patient work of building something that would outlast him.
And Darv, I knew from my visit to Burim four years ago, was a hungry land. Water was a luxury there, drawn from the mountains through aqueducts that had been old when the first dwarves carved their cities from the stone.
I didn't have anything to offer now. Not yet. But the Djinn had been masters of creation, and their knowledge was still buried in the ruins they had left behind.
If there was something in those ruins that could help Darv, that could make water flow where it had never flowed before, that could turn a hungry land into something more—
"I shall make Elder Rahdeas aware," Danna said.
I shook my head, the words coming faster now, sharper. "I want to meet him. In person. In Vildorial."
Her eyes widened, just slightly, and I saw something cross her face that might have been surprise, or concern. Vildorial was the heart of Rahdeas's commercial empire, the seat of his power, the place where he had built something that not even the Greysunders could touch.
To ask to meet him there was to ask for something more than a favor. It was to offer something in return.
"That is... surprising." She chose the word carefully, and I heard the questions beneath it. "But I will inform Elder Rahdeas of your intentions."
"Thank you." I meant it.
Whatever Rahdeas had done, or whatever he might become, whatever shadows clung to his name in the future I was trying to prevent—he had given me what I needed, and he had asked for nothing in return.
I would not forget that. I would not let my knowledge of a future that might never come poison the present.
I turned away from the counter, letting my eyes drift across the shelves. My last visit, I had been focused on the books, on the knowledge I could steal, on the secrets I could learn.
Now I looked at the other things—the trinkets, the tools, the small, ordinary objects that spoke of a life lived far from the courts and palaces where I had spent most of my years.
A large plate caught my eye, its surface dark and gleaming. It was made of iron, or something that looked like iron, and it was scaled to dwarven proportions—wider than any plate I had ever used, heavy enough to feel solid in my hands.
"What is that?" I asked, reaching for it.
Danna's voice took on the warm, explanatory tone of a grandmother sharing a family secret. "It's a plate used in a Darvish festival. To wish good luck and drive away poverty."
"Wishing good luck." I turned it over, feeling the weight of it, the craftsmanship. The surface was smooth, almost polished, and I could see my reflection in it, distorted and strange. "I could use some of that."
I reached into my pocket and found the coins I always carried, the silver that I had never quite learned to think of as mine. Two silvers. It was probably not enough, but when I looked up at Danna, her attention had already been caught by something outside.
A commotion. Raised voices, laughter, something heavy scraping against wood.
"Oh, please, Berna..." I shoved the plate under my arm and pushed through the door.
And found myself pressed against a wall of hazelnut fur.
Berna had planted herself directly in front of the entrance, her massive body blocking the door completely, her head swiveling as she tracked the movement of the crowd.
She turned when she saw me, and the tension in her body dissolved into something softer, something almost desperate.
She leaned into me, her head pressing against my chest, her whole weight shifting until I was braced against the doorframe, trying not to fall.
Her growl was low, almost a whimper, and through the bond I felt the echo of it—anxiety, yes, but also something else. A hunger for closeness, for reassurance, for the simple, animal comfort of being near someone who was hers.
"Berna." I breathed her name, and my hands found the fur of her neck, and I held her. "Step aside. Just a little."
She moved. Only enough to let the customers who had been waiting slip past, only enough to let me breathe, but she moved.
I heard them murmur apologies, heard the amusement in their voices, but I was too focused on the warmth of her, the solidity of her, the way she was shaking slightly, as if she had been holding herself together for hours and was only now allowing herself to come apart.
"She has abandonment issues," I said, to no one in particular. "Despite having a literal link to my mana core."
I was still holding the plate and Berna's nose was questing toward it, sniffing at the metal, her eyes bright with curiosity.
"You like cookware," I observed. The memory of her with Great-aunt's pot, the way she had carried it around like a prize, the gentle, almost delicate way she had bitten it—it seemed so absurd, so domestic, that I almost laughed.
She looked up at me, and her eyes were the eyes of a creature who had been through something terrible and was only now learning to want things again.
The look she gave the plate was almost reverent, and I sighed, and I gave it to her.
I had wanted it for my room. My room, which had always been too empty, too much like a cell for a prisoner who was afraid to leave any trace of himself.
But Berna was holding it now, her front paws wrapped around it, her head bent over it with an expression of such focused contentment that I couldn't bring myself to take it back.
And there was something else, too. The Prince of Elenoir, seen carrying a dwarven trinket through the Grand Nectary. It was a small gesture, a tiny thing, but gestures were how alliances were built. Or so I told myself.
"Let's go home." I said it softly, and Berna rose, and we began the walk back to the palace.
She walked beside me, her head level with my shoulder, the plate held carefully between her paws.
—
The gardens of the Royal Palace lay draped in winter white, the familiar paths muffled beneath a blanket of snow that had fallen steadily since dawn.
The hedges that in spring would burst with color were now sculptural shapes of frost, and the great Watchful Willows that towered above us held their branches heavy with the season's accumulation.
It was beautiful, in the way that all things were beautiful when they were still, when the world held its breath and waited.
Berna sprawled in the snow beside the bench where Mom and I sat, her massive body creating a depression in the white that seemed almost intentional, as if she had chosen this spot precisely because it would hold her shape.
She was ignoring the cold entirely—unsurprising, for a creature whose fur had kept her alive through winters far harsher than this one—and her entire attention was fixed on the coin-plate I had given her earlier.
It lay between her paws, its surface now pitted and scarred, and she was gnawing at it with the focused concentration of a connoisseur savoring something rare.
Mom watched her with an expression I couldn't quite name. Amusement, perhaps, but something softer too.
"Me and your father were wondering when you would bring something extravagant home," she said finally, and her voice was light, teasing, but I heard the weight beneath it.
"Extravagant?" I glanced at Berna, at her placid eyes and contented posture, at the way her jaws worked at the iron with the same methodical patience she had shown when she was learning to trust me, learning to be near me without flinching. "I wouldn't say she's extravagant. Just odd. For a bear."
Mom laughed, and the sound was warm in the cold air. "She suits you."
"Suits me?" The words came out sharper than I intended, and I forced myself to soften them. "What does that mean?"
She reached out and touched my hair, the way she used to when I was small enough to fit in her lap.
"You needed something like her in your life." Her hand lingered, and I felt the warmth of it even through the winter chill.
She meant something different than I heard. I knew that. Mom saw a lonely boy who had found a companion, a child who had spent too much time in his own head finally reaching out for someone that was outside his comfort zone.
She saw Berna's devotion and thought it was good for me, that it was pulling me out of whatever shadows she sensed in her son but could never name.
And she was right. Berna was good for me for those reasons too.
But I couldn't stop my mind from turning it into something else. An asset. A weapon. Another piece on the board I had been arranging since before I could walk.
"Mom." I said it quickly, before the silence could stretch too long. "I'm going to Vildorial."
Her hand stopped. Her whole body stilled, and I saw her process the words, turning them over, looking for the joke that wasn't there.
"Now that," she said slowly, "was something I didn't expect you to say." A pause. "When do you want to go? I'll tell your father about arranging an escort—"
"I'm going alone."
She looked at me then and for a moment she was not the mother who had held me when I cried, who had sung me lullabies in the dark, who had somehow, impossibly, loved me from the moment I opened my eyes in this world. She was a Queen, and she was seeing something in her son that she did not like.
"Corvis." Her voice was steady, but I heard the tremor beneath it. "You can't go to a foreign country alone. Darv is not the Elshire Forest."
"I don't need an escort." I gestured at Berna, who had looked up at the sound of my voice, her ears pricked, her jaws still. "I already have her."
"That's not—" Mom stopped, pressed her lips together, and I saw her weighing her words.
"I don't doubt your bond." She glanced at Berna, at the massive shoulders and the patient eyes, and I knew she was seeing what everyone else saw: an oversized bear with a placid disposition and a fondness for metal. Not a Guardian Beast. Not something that had been forged by Titans to stand beside gods. "But you really think I'm going to let my baby leave the kingdom all alone?"
She said it like it was obvious. Like there was no argument to be made, no negotiation, no version of this conversation that ended with me walking through a portal without guards and supplies and a dozen contingency plans.
And I realized, with a sudden, unexpected warmth in my chest, that she wasn't going to stop me.
She was worried. Of course she was worried. She was my mother, and I was asking to travel to a foreign country with nothing but a bear for protection, and every instinct she possessed was telling her to say no, to forbid it, to wrap me in silk and keep me safe in the palace where she could see me.
But she wasn't going to stop me.
"Okay." I let the word sit between us for a moment, let it mean more than it said. "Thank you."
She pulled me into her arms, and I went, because some things were more important than strategy, and some debts could never be repaid with silver or secrets.
"Already my baby boy is playing diplomat," she murmured into my hair, and I felt her smile against my temple. "You and Tessia are like two drops of water, you know. Identical from the outside. But you couldn't be more different."
"What do you mean?" I asked, and I heard the caution in my own voice, the careful way I shaped the words.
She sighed, and it was the sigh of a woman who had spent nine years trying to understand her children and knew she would spend the rest of her life still trying.
"Nothing. I just wish she would find something other than the court to occupy herself with. She's turning Zestier into her personal kingdom."
I had not thought about this. Not really. I had been so focused on what Tessia had gained—freedom from the kidnapping, freedom from the loneliness, freedom from the long, grinding pressure that had shaped the girl in the novel—that I had not considered what she had lost.
Arthur, in the story I remembered, had been many things to Tessia. A friend. A rival. A romantic interest. A goal she could measure herself against, someone she had to strive to reach, to match, to become. Without him, she had no one to push against. No reason to keep reaching.
She had awakened at four, and then she had stopped striving. She had become content with what she was, and why shouldn't she? She was a princess, a mage, a girl who had never known failure or fear or the cold grip of the river pulling her under. Why would she push harder? Why would she reach for something more?
"She's happy." I said it like a statement, but it came out like a question.
Mom smiled, and it was a tired smile, a mother's smile, the smile of someone who had learned to love her children exactly as they were. "What a sweet brother you are."
Berna had finished with the coin-plate. It lay in the snow beside her, a ruin of holes and crevices where her teeth had worked the iron, and she was padding toward us with the patient, rolling gait that always made her look like she was about to fall asleep on her feet.
"I've never heard of an iron-eating bear," Mom observed, reaching down to scratch behind Berna's ears.
"You should have seen her at Great-aunt's." I shook my head. "I was afraid she was going to eat all her cookware."
It was strange, I thought, watching her lean into Mom's hand, her eyes closing in contentment. She ate normal food—meat, honey, the things bears were supposed to eat—and she clearly didn't need metal to survive.
If she did, she would have swallowed the coin-plate whole instead of picking at it, treating it like a treat she had earned and was determined to enjoy.
There was something there. Guardian Bears were forged by Titans, masters of earth and stone, and iron was the blood of the earth, the bone of the world. Perhaps she was not eating it at all. Perhaps she was remembering something that had been written into her before she was born.
"Mom." I kept my voice casual, though my heart was beating faster. "Do you think I could borrow some of Grandpa's sword collection?"
She looked at me, one eyebrow raised. "What do you have in mind, sweetie?"
"I want to see what metals Berna likes." I gestured at the ruined plate. "Grandpa has a lot of different kinds. It might help me understand what she needs."
It was true. It was not the whole truth, but it was true enough.
Mom laughed, and the sound scattered the winter quiet. "I'd love to see Elder Virion's face when he finds out his swords are being used for bear snacks."
I stood, and Berna's head came up immediately, her eyes fixed on me with the unwavering attention of a creature who had learned, in her long captivity, that the only thing worth watching was the one person who had ever brought her back from the dark.
"Let's find something better than cookware for you to chew on," I said, and her tail wagged, and I let myself smile.
A/N:
Thanks for reading!