Cynthia Goodsky
Another day of fulfilling my duties at the academy.
Another day of wearing the mask of Director Cynthia Goodsky, the respected headmistress, the friend of kings, the architect of a dream that had no business existing in the world she hailed from.
With Curtis Glayder gone from my office—the young prince having come to express his concerns about the future of his younger sister and her attendance at Xyrus Academy in two years' time—I turned, my gaze drifting to the large windows behind my desk.
From this vantage point, I enjoyed a view of the entire floating island: the main plazas with their fountains and spires, the various districts sprawling outward like the rings of a tree, the noble estates with their manicured gardens, and the guildhalls that pulsed with the lifeblood of commerce, knowledge and ambition.
Xyrus City spread beneath me like a living tapestry, its streets teeming with mages and merchants, its many towers reaching toward the sky.
It was beautiful; it was everything I had fought for.
And yet, as I took in the beauty of Xyrus City, a horrific illusion bled across my vision.
A dark metropolis superimposed itself over Xyrus, anchoring itself to the base of the Basilisk Fang Mountains: Cargidan, capital of Alacrya's Central Dominion, ruled by the shadowy hand of Sovereign Lavinia Vritra.
I gritted my teeth. Cold sweat beaded on my palms as I clenched them into fists.
Xyrus and Cargidan shared many similarities.
Both were the greatest magic cities of their respective continents, hubs of learning and power where the future of their nations was forged.
But while in the latter I was but a slightly above average student: a promising heir, but still just another face in the crowd; in the former I was Director.
Xyrus Academy was the coronation of all the dreams I was never allowed to even think about in Alacrya. No, Dicathen was the coronation of that.
Of everything I had built, everything I had sacrificed, everything I had betrayed to become something more than a cog in the Vritra's machine.
I had spent the last three decades on this continent, arriving here before the Sapin-Elenoir Second War, when the wounds between the kingdoms were still fresh and the specter of conflict loomed over every border.
Dicathen was supposed to be the place of the barbarians, the place that knew not of civilization, the place that didn't know of Almighty Vritra's gifts and the rule of the High Sovereign.
Instead I found a people who ruled themselves. The absence of Vritra gods governing from above was the Dicathians' greatest quality, their most precious secret, the thing that made them worth protecting.
Dicathen, oblivious to the threat of Alacrya I myself represented for years, thrived under the rule of its own people.
I was supposed to block magic development in the continent, working to further destabilise it in the wake of the Second War and cause the downfall of the three kingdoms. I was supposed to be the knife in the dark, the rot at the heart of their fragile peace.
I have done nothing of that.
I have faked being a loyal spy doing the bare minimum to keep up appearances, supported by Scythe Seris, thanks to whom I had gotten so far in Central Academy and then gained a place as spymaster in Dicathen for my home Dominion.
She had seen something in me and she had nurtured it in secret, in the shadows where even the High Sovereign's eyes could not reach.
I wondered what the Scythe would have thought of my work as Director of Xyrus Academy.
Trying to recreate a fair and just Central Academy here in Dicathen had been my sole objective in my new life, even bolstered by Virion Eralith, the king of Elenoir I had clashed with plenty of times during the Second War and also the first friend I have made in this continent.
"Are you thinking of Master Seris, Cynthia?" Avier, my bond, asked me. "Or about Virion Eralith?"
The wyvern, disguised in his owl form—a strange looking bird, with bushy brows that gave him a perpetually stern expression and a small curled horn on his head like a crown of bone—was perched in his usual spot, on a pole hanging from the ceiling of my office.
His yellow eyes gleamed in the light, watchful and knowing.
"Both, Avier," I replied, my eyes still on Xyrus City. "Both of them."
Avier had been my bond since I came to Dicathen the first time. It was Scythe Seris herself who gave his care to me; that was the reason why Avier referred to the Scythe as his master. The Sehz-Clarese Scythe had saved him from a fate worse than death.
The wyvern was a true victim of Vritra's design. He was an experiment of Exeges Vritra, Sovereign of Etril, to create a new Asuran species combining Phoenix and Dragon.
That was how he explained it to me at least, in the halting, careful way he spoke of his origins. Just like all of us Alacryans, Avier too was the product of the most abhorrent of sciences.
Sovereign Exeges Vritra failed. Avier was no Asura. He could not command the aether like a Dragon or reshape the world with a thought.
But he still preserved some characteristics of the gods: being capable of higher thoughts, changing forms, and possessing magic that marked him as something more than a common mana beast of the Dicathian Wild East, or of Alacrya's untamed Relictombs.
I have been privileged compared to my bond, because in Alacrya I was privileged. I was the heir of and Highblood, protégé of a Scythe, student of Central Academy.
The only thing I lacked to make me one of Alacrya's elites was having awakened Vritra Blood.
In other words: I have never known Alacrya's true sufferings.
I wasn't an unad, I didn't belong to the wretched masses who lived and died without ever glimpsing magic—no one ever considered me lower than a wogart.
I have never risked my life as an Ascender, fighting in the nightmarish Zones of the Relictombs. I have never had to endure the life of an attendant to a Sovereign, bowing and scraping for scraps of favour that could spare my life from the whims of Vritra.
And now in Dicathen I was one of its strongest mages, director of the greatest magic school on the continent, highly respected by the king and queen of Sapin and highly feared by the nobility.
The irony was not lost on me: the spy had become the guardian; the agent of chaos had become the architect of order.
"Rest your mind at ease, Cynthia," Avier said. "I can hear your thoughts."
"You think I am too old for these thoughts?" I joked, an old chuckle escaping my lips. The sound was dry, brittle, like the turning of old, dusty pages from a book just as old.
My bond rotated his head a full turn—an owl's gesture that still looked uncanny on his strange, horned form—when another knock came on my doors.
I sighed.
Who was it now? Hopefully not another self-entitled noble student, but knowing the population of my academy the chances that was the case were high.
The sons and daughters of Sapin's greatest houses had a talent for finding their way to my office, their complaints as predictable as the cycle of the sun and moon.
I used my wind magic to open the doors, the entrance thrust open by a controlled gust that rippled through my robes and scattered a few papers on my desk.
This spell was actually one of the remnants of my own runes: those I obtained during the bestowment rituals I attended to in Alacrya.
Now, though, I used magic mainly the Dicathian way, organically, letting the mana flow through me without the runes on my back controlling it.
"Enter," I said, sitting back behind my desk—a model that Virion had gifted me, carved from the wood of a specifically chosen tree of the Elshire Forest, its surface polished smooth by years of use.
The student who entered was a young boy with long black hair like curtains, falling in precise waves that framed a face of sharp angles and careful composure.
His grey eyes were covered by green dodecahedral glasses, their lenses thin but refracting the light like the finest glassware.
He wore the standard uniform of my academy, something I designed myself from the one of Central Academy. I always wanted everything in my own school to reflect Cargidan's own magic academy as a small rebellion against the Vritra's design.
His skin had an olive undertone, something typical of the Sapinese humans born in Etistin and its surroundings, and at his left wrist he wore a bracelet, that too green, the color of new leaves and hidden things.
The boy gave a look at Avier, my bond staring back at him.
I smiled at the scene; all the first years that came to my office were intimidated by my bond.
I had to admit it, he looked quite menacing even in his owl form, with those yellow rapacious eyes of his that seemed to see through flesh and bone and into the soul beneath.
But in his heart Avier was a good old wyvern, with a soft spot for teenagers too. hHe would never hurt a student, no matter how much he enjoyed playing the part of the stern guardian.
I didn't recognize this boy though. He was a first year from the look of it, and a noble he didn't seem either.
Moreover, there was something about the way he held himself, the careful economy of his movements, that spoke of experience beyond his years.
"Can I sit?" The boy asked, walking toward one of the chairs I had predisposed for those visiting my office.
"Sure," I replied, smiling.
He seemed a bit nervous even if he was controlling it very well for a kid so young. Most children his age fidgeted, stammered, or stared at the floor. This one didn't.
I wondered what made him seek after the Director.
Surely one of his professors could have helped him in whatever he needed. Unless what he needed was something that could not be asked in a classroom, where the walls had ears and the air was thick with whispered secrets.
"I don't bite," I joked lightly, putting my hands on top of each other over my desk. The wood was cool beneath my palms, a grounding presence. "And Avier does neither, albeit he might peck."
Avier shot me a glance at my comment and I felt his indignation through our bond (he could be very prideful, this wyvern), but I ignored him.
The bond hummed between us, a thread of warmth and irritation that had become as familiar as my own heartbeat.
"For what reasons did you seek for me?" I asked. "Is there a problem with your classes? Oh, and I forgot to ask your name. I am sorry, but despite my best efforts I don't remember all the names of the student body."
The boy looked up at me, his gaze eventually leaving Avier. He looked at me with wary eyes; despite my best attempts at being a friendly and approachable director I still posed quite some fear in part of the student body.
Balancing the respect I needed to instill in the Sapinese houses so that they would keep their noses away from my school and an amicable relationship with my students was impossible, but still I tried my best.
Nobility in Dicathen was different from the Bloods of Alacrya.
In my home continent everyone played extremely careful, even the most powerful Highbloods like the Denoirs, the Frosts, the Redwaters: a single misstep could mean ruin, a whisper could unravel decades of careful maneuvering.
In Dicathen? Nobility was brash. They were afraid of nothing, especially in Sapin and Darv.
They wore their power like a cloak, unafraid of the shadows that might be watching. Only Elenoir controlled them, making their nobility... nobles, in the truest sense of the word.
I often expressed my admiration to Virion for the way his blood—his family—managed the elven kingdom through the centuries. They understood that power was not just about strength, but about wisdom, about knowing when to wield the sword and when to sheathe it.
"I need to speak to you about something important, Director," the boy said, not giving me his name. Shyness, understandable in one so young.
"I am all ears," I replied, offering another friendly smile. The gesture came easier than it should have, a mask I had worn for so long that it had become part of my face.
The boy stood up, catching me by surprise. His movement was sudden, purposeful, the motion of someone who had reached a decision and would not be swayed.
What he said next caused the demons I have been hiding for decades to return all at once, rising from the depths where I had buried them:
"I know of your ties with Alacrya, Director."
Corvis Eralith
My declaration seemed to echo in the sunlit office, hanging in the air between us like a blade suspended by a thread.
Director Goodsky, the elderly Alacryan mage who had spent decades building a new life in this foreign land, tensed up all of a sudden. The warmth drained from her features, replaced by a cold, calculating alertness that transformed her entirely.
In one fluid motion, she withdrew her wand from the folds of her robes and pointed it at me, the tip gleaming with barely contained power.
A sound spell was cast—an invisible globe of magic I felt expand outward from the tip of her wand until it enveloped the entire office. It was a stronger version of the same silencing spell she had used while speaking with Curtis Glayder.
"Who are you?" Cynthia asked, gone was every pretense of being a kind and patient old lady.
Avier the wyvern tensed, his greenish feathers bristling, his yellow eyes fixed on me with predatory focus.
I might have overthought this. They weren't behaving like discovered spies, cornered and desperate. They were behaving like traitors being caught after years on the run: cautious and defensive, but not aggressive.
They had something to protect and many more to lose.
"Not an enemy," I said, dipping my head as a sign of Peace.
From behind Cynthia Goodsky, through the windows behind her desk, on the banister of the balcony the office was attached to, I saw Chantelle's dove form land silently.
Her white feathers blended with the stone, her aquamarine-tipped wings folded close to her body. She looked at me through the glass, awaiting an order in case she needed to intervene.
I shook my head at her, a subtle gesture that only she would catch.
"What do you mean by 'not an enemy?'" Cynthia asked, her voice sharp as a blade's edge. Her wand didn't waver. "Have you done something to one of my students?"
I saw the grip of her hand on her wand tighten, knuckles whitening beneath the thin skin of age. The threat was clear, the promise of violence hanging in the air like a held breath.
"This disguise you mean?" I asked, gesturing at myself. "Don't worry, there are no students in Xyrus Academy that look like me, and I got this uniform through legal means."
Still, I wouldn't bet my life on all Elder Rahdeas's contacts being within the strict legality of things.
Without lowering her wand, Cynthia Goodsky continued her interrogation. Her eyes never left my face, searching for any crack in my composure, any hint of deception.
"I have no reason to believe you," she said. The words were flat, final, the pronouncement of someone who had learned long ago that trust was a luxury she could not afford. "The fact you know of... of that... is a problem."
She didn't say Alacrya.
Right, I remembered. There was a curse that prohibited her from sharing information about the other continent—even its name, it seemed—without risking her life. In the novel, she had fallen into a coma because of that, even with the intervention of the Asuras of Epheotus.
However, I had an idea and that idea was my greatest bargaining chip.
"You are cursed, right?" I asked, the words careful, measured.
Cynthia gritted her teeth in reaction. The muscles in her jaw jumped, and pain flickered behind her eyes.
"I might know someone who can heal you."
Soleil was the greatest healer of the Asclepius Clan. If she couldn't help Cynthia, then I doubted anyone else could.
"My affliction is not something you can simply heal," Cynthia retorted, her voice carrying the weight of decades of frustration. "There are no means on this continent that can do something about it. You don't think I have already tried?"
The words were bitter, tinged with the exhaustion of someone who had exhausted every option and found nothing but dead ends.
"What you are saying is right," I said, meeting her gaze steadily. "This continent. What I am offering you is knowledge that comes from Epheotus."
I tapped thumb and middle finger of my Servo-Hand through the glove I was wearing with a deliberate, visible gesture and used REmould. In an instant, my features shifted, the human disguise falling away like a discarded mask.
I was Eralith Asclepius now, my burnt copper hair tied in a ponytail and falling in two lateral bangs, my bicolored eyes reflecting the afternoon light.
I was not afraid of Windsom being nearby.
That was another reason I had brought Chantelle with me: she could scout for Asuran presence other than herself. If the Overseer of Dicathen had decided to follow me to Xyrus City when I came here this morning to speak with Gideon, she would have alerted me.
"I am the Highprince of the Asclepius Clan," I declared, my voice carrying the weight of a title I was still learning to bear. "Son of Mordain Asclepius, fallen to the tyranny of Agrona Vritra."
And also grandson of the elf you may be in love with... I added in my head, though I kept the thought carefully buried.
"You are a—"
Whatever she wanted to say, her curse stopped her. The words caught in her throat, strangled by the magic that bound her tongue.
"No, that's impossible," Cynthia said, but I could figure out what she meant.
"I am half-Phoenix," I explained, keeping my voice calm and level. "The healer of my Clan can heal you from your affliction, Director Goodsky. You have been doing much for Dicathen; consider it as all your efforts finally paying back."
I wondered where Soleil was right now. Hopefully Tessia wasn't bringing her anywhere strange. My sister had a talent for finding trouble, and Soleil had a talent for following her into it.
With another click of my fingers, I used REmould to return to my human form—this new identity I still needed to name.
"Another thing, Director," I said, meeting her eyes once more. "There might be Alacryan spies scattered across your Academy."
"Impossible," Cynthia said. No, she stated it like a law of the world itself, a fundamental truth that could not be questioned. "I have personally taken care of all Alacryans left on Dicathian soil I have ever known of."
"It's admirable, Director, really," I said, and I meant it. "But Vritra's forces are already in Dicathen. They might be few now, but they are undeniably here."
Berna had been corrupted by the Vritra's taint, her very soul poisoned by their touch. The Caduchicil hid in the Elshire Forest, nursing their hatred and their corruption.
Who knew what else Agrona was going to do now that the Legacy was gone from his grasp? The High Sovereign will never accept defeat.
"And you already know of these spies?" Cynthia asked, her voice carefully neutral.
"I might," I said, choosing my words with care. "Does the name Kai Crestless ring you any bell? He is an Alacryan acting as one of your students."
"You won't make any accusations about my students, Highprince," Cynthia seethed, her wand rising once more, her eyes blazing with protective fury.
"It was not my intention," I replied, raising my hands in a placating gesture as I stood up. "We are together in this, Director Goodsky. Saving Dicathen is the objective we share. Don't let your role as an instructor cloud your judgment."
You are the one to talk, Corvis, I chastised my hypocrisy. But what I said was right.
In the novel, Cynthia hadn't been able to help during the attack on Xyrus Academy because she had been betrayed by the Council. But it was undeniable that she could have done much to prevent it in the first place—Kai Crestless being the first of those examples.
"I will give you time to think about this and my offer," I said, moving toward the door. "I will return in a week's time."
I left the Director's office, fixing the uniform of Xyrus Academy as I exited the door. The silencing spell dissipated behind me, and the sounds of the academy rushed back in.
—
Before my Portal Frog could extend its tongue to swallow and spit me back in Azellio, a feather-filled missile dived toward my position from above.
The white dove crashed straight into my face, her aquamarine-tipped wings flapping in completely uncontained excitement.
"Samsara! Samsara! That was incredible, Eralith!" Chantelle gushed, nuzzling her head against my neck while digging her talons into my collar where the standard necktie of Xyrus Academy's uniform was supposed to be.
I hated neckties. I'd tossed mine the first chance I got.
"Chantelle, get off!" I groaned, trying to untangle the Phoenix from my throat. Chantelle refused to budge, holding on for dear life.
"'Son of Mordain Asclepius, fallen to the tyranny of Agrona Vritra,'" she repeated verbatim, quoting my drama-filled speech to Cynthia. "That was so cool! You have always had a flair for the dramatic, Eralith! Lord Mordain would be beaming!"
She punctuated her words with melodious coos that were almost hypnotically sweet, maybe I have been too harsh. Maybe I should let her stay—NO.
Corvis, pull yourself together! It's quite literally Phoenix baby-talk!
Courtesy of REtrocurrent, a memory drifted up from the river: fledglings at The Hearth singing sweetly to manipulate their elders.
"Sure, cool and all. Now let me go to Azellio," I said, shoving at her feather-covered form.
"Fine, fine. I'm heading back to New Farethra," Chantelle sighed, finally letting go and soaring upward.
Watching the divine bird take flight, I gave a quick nod to the Portal Frog. Its jaws unhinged, its tongue whipped out and I sank back into the river.