Corvis Eralith
The warmth blooming in my chest as I watched Grey was an unexpected, fragile thing.
Seeing him truly happy, his guarded expression softened into something open and almost bewilderedly content amidst the Eralith family, felt like a victory far greater than any battlefield triumph.
Tessia, my dear Tessia, had buried her face in her hands, her pointed ears practically glowing crimson under her silver hair as Mom peppered Grey with surprisingly personal questions, while Dad interrogated him.
This… this domestic cacophony, this overwhelming life swirling around my battered friend, was everything he'd been denied in his first existence. A lump formed in my own throat.
He deserves this. After everything… he deserves this.
"Looking at this sentimental drivel," Romulos's voice, cold and dripping with disdain, sliced through the warmth like a shard of ice against bare skin. His spectral form coalesced beside me, leaning insouciantly against the infirmary doorframe, invisible and inaudible to everyone else. "It's worse than any punishment Aldir might have devised for your insubordination. Truly nauseating."
Aldir is gone, Romulos, I replied mentally, the thought heavy with a complex mix of relief and a strange, hollow ache.
The memory was sharp: dragging Nico's unconscious form back to the Castle, the weight of pity warring within me. Nico, pale and broken, immediately secured in the deepest dungeon, bound not just by reinforced manacles of my own design—capable of siphoning ambient mana before it could reach his core—but also by the intricate, rune-etched band Romulos had whispered into existence around my mind.
A device specifically crafted to suppress the Alacryan spellforms etched into his very being.
Agrona's chains, both mental and magical, demanded countermeasures. Yet, even then, I'd insisted. A clean cell. A cot. Light. Books. Guards instructed under pain of my extreme displeasure that Gentry and his sadistic assistant were not to so much as breathe in Nico's direction.
He was a prisoner, yes, but not a plaything for torturers.
"Sometimes," Romulos mused, his spectral fingers tracing an idle pattern on the wooden doorframe only he could touch, "I genuinely fail to comprehend your labyrinthine reasoning, little brother."
The endearment, once a mockery, now held a strange, grudging familiarity, yet his tone remained cutting.
"You cut down Alacryan soldiers like wheat before the scythe. You strategize their annihilation with cold efficiency. And yet… this vermin," his gaze flickered towards the direction of the dungeons, radiating pure contempt, "you cradle like a broken bird. You grant him comforts denied to loyal Dicathian captives."
I bit the inside of my lip, hard enough to taste copper, forcing my expression to remain neutral, attentive to Mom's gentle probing of Grey.
Nico hasn't committed his worst sins yet, Romulos. Not in this timeline. He attacked me, driven by Agrona's lies and manipulations. He's a weapon aimed by Agrona, his mind warped, his very magic corrupted.
To deny him the possibility of redemption… wouldn't that make me the ultimate hypocrite? After the chances I was given? And also after Sylvia, your own mother, gave Grey his?
"The world thrives on hypocrisy, Corvis," Romulos stated flatly, his voice devoid of inflection. "It is the mortar holding together the fragile edifice of civilization. And as beings who stand above the rabble, it is not merely our right, but our prerogative to be hypocrites. To make the rules, and then break them when it suits our purpose. Consistency is the shackle of the weak."
I am not a ruthless monster like you. The mental retort was reflexive, a shield I desperately clung to. But the lie rang hollow even in the privacy of my own thoughts. Brittle. Transparent.
The years since Romulos's spectral consciousness had anchored itself to mine—initially a parasitic and cold observer, then a reluctant mentor, now something perilously close to a dark counterpart, a brother forged in shared adventures and forbidden knowledge—had irrevocably changed us both.
He saw me not as an amusing experiment now, more as… well, a frustratingly idealistic sibling he was inexplicably bound to protect. And I? I had absorbed his rude pragmatism, his chilling worldview of cost and gain, the way he viewed lives as pieces on a board.
The line between my strategic necessity and his casual cruelty blurred more with each passing day. The weight of command, the brutal choices demanded by this war… they etched his shadow deeper into my soul. I was becoming more like him, inch by agonizing inch.
But Nico… Nico was the hill I would die on, metaphorically speaking. He represented the chance to defy that shadow. To prove that redemption wasn't just a fool's dream. To offer the hand Grey had asked to offer.
He was not the Nico of the novel, twisted irredeemably by Agrona into a vessel of pure hatred through the use of Cecilia, committing atrocities that stained the soul. This Nico, the one currently locked below, was still salvageable.
Agrona's alterations were profound—a labyrinth of false memories and reinforced loathing—but not yet the bedrock of his being.
If I could unravel those psychic shackles, restore the core of who he was before Agrona sunk his claws in… then, perhaps, Grey and I could reach him. That was the fragile hope I clung to.
"Nico hates Grey with a passion that transcends altered memories, little brother," Romulos countered, his voice a dry rasp in my mind. "It's primal. Ingrained. If he possesses a shred of the intelligence I doubt he has, he might listen to you. You represent power, leverage, perhaps even escape from Agrona. But Grey?"
He snorted, a sound like crumbling stone.
"He is the living embodiment of everything Nico has been conditioned to despise. The thief. The betrayer. The one who stole the brat's life—Cecilia. There is no scenario where that broken creature listens to a word Grey says. None." A pause, then a flicker of something darker, crueler, ignited in his spectral eyes.
"Unless…" he drawled, the word hanging with sadistic promise. "Unless you intend to replicate dear Dad's greatest… experiment. Reincarnate Cecilia for him. Pluck her soul from the universe and stuff it into a convenient vessel. Oh," he added, a genuine, chilling amusement coloring his tone, "I am certain Dad would be absolutely delighted to witness you walking so boldly in his plans. The symmetry would be… poetic."
A cold fury, sharp and sudden, tightened my chest. You are still utterly unredeemable, Romulos. The words were a growl in my mind, laced with disgust and a terrifying undercurrent of recognition.
Because the worst part wasn't the suggestion itself, monstrous as it was; it was the tiny, horrifying flicker of consideration that sparked before I ruthlessly crushed it.
The pragmatism whispering: would it work? Could it stabilize Nico? Or, could I use Cecilia as a weapon like Agrona did? That flicker was Romulos's true victory. He lived in those shadows. And I couldn't deny the fact that I thought about using the power of the Legacy more times than not.
Thankfully, the familial interrogation reached its zenith.
"Well," Grampa boomed, clapping his hands together with a finality that made Tessia jump, "all's well that ends well! But standing around gawking doesn't win wars. I," he declared, puffing out his chest with mock grandeur, "have a mountain of paperwork taller than the Wall itself awaiting my illustrious attention."
His eyes, twinkling with mischief and undeniable relief that Grey was awake, locked onto me.
"And Corvis here," he pointed a gnarled finger, "has graciously volunteered to shoulder the bulk of that bureaucratic burden. Consider it… creative penance!"
He strode over, his movements surprisingly spry for his age, and before I could protest, his surprisingly strong fingers closed around my ear.
"A perfect punishment for defying orders, wouldn't you say? Disobeyed Lord Aldir," he tugged gently, steering me towards the door, "disobeyed me," another tug, "disobeyed the Council," a final, firmer tug that made me wince, "which, need I remind you, includes your parents!"
He gestured towards Dad, who was trying to look stern but failing miserably, and Mom, who hid a smile behind her hand.
"Grampa," I managed, trying to keep my dignity despite the undignified hold on my ear, "I never claimed innocence. I accept the… paperwork." It was largely a formality, a slap on the wrist disguised as responsibility.
Elder Buhnd had been quick to point out the political impossibility of truly punishing me. Public adoration was a useful shield, even against Council displeasure.
"Punishment?" Grey murmured, blinking owlishly from the bed, momentarily distracted from Tessia's fussing.
"I might have disregarded a direct command from Lord Aldir…" I admitted, avoiding Grey's gaze. He just shrugged, a ghost of a smile touching his lips. Our shared disregard for Asuran authority was a quiet understanding.
"And an order from me," Grampa punctuated, giving my ear one last admonishing wiggle before finally releasing it.
"And the entire Council. But yes, paperwork it is." He made a shooing motion towards my parents. "Off you go, Alduin, Merial. A wind doesn't mean the war is won. Let the boy rest properly."
As my parents murmured their farewells—Dad with a last appraising glance at Grey, Mom with a soft touch on Tessia's shoulder—I caught Grampa's eye. "Can I… have a moment with Grey? Before the bureaucratic abyss swallows me whole?"
Grampa's gaze, sharp and knowing, flickered between Grey and me. He understood. The Nico-shaped shadow loomed large. He gave a single, curt nod.
"Don't linger too long. I wait for you in my office. Remember." He turned and swept out, the door clicking shut behind him, leaving an abrupt silence in the infirmary that felt charged with unspoken tension.
The air shifted immediately. Tessia stopped smoothing Grey's blanket, her eyes wide with curiosity and a touch of apprehension. Grey's gaze, sharp and focused despite his weariness, locked onto mine. Sylvie, perched on the bedpost, tilted her head, her golden eyes watchful.
"Grey…" I began, the name heavy on my tongue. The warmth of moments ago felt distant, replaced by the cold reality of the dungeons below. Tessia opened her mouth, perhaps to ask what was wrong, but I pressed on, dropping the words like stones into the quiet room. "When I was heading to reinforce the Wall with the Barbarossa… I encountered Nico."
The effect was instantaneous, volcanic. Grey didn't just sit up; he exploded upwards from the bed, a surge of raw, panicked energy that defied his injuries. Pain flashed across his face as his muscles protested, but it was utterly eclipsed by the sheer, unadulterated shock and desperate urgency that contorted his features.
He crossed the small space between us in a heartbeat, his hands clamping down on my shoulders with bruising force.
"NICO?! Corvis, what happened?! Where is he?! Is he—" His voice was a ragged shout, eyes wide and wild, burning with a frantic intensity that made Tessia gasp and Sylvie fluff up in alarm.
I met his gaze steadily, anchoring him with my own calm, though my pulse hammered against my ribs. "I captured him," I stated, my voice deliberately level, cutting through his rising panic. "He's secure. In the deepest containment cells." I saw the questions forming, the fear for Nico's treatment.
"He's unharmed, Grey. Physically. I made sure of it. He's restrained with mana-suppressing bindings and a… specialized device to neutralize his Alacryan spellforms. He's no threat." I took a breath, the harder part coming.
"But… Agrona's influence is deep. Mental and magical. I'm still working on… how to dismantle those controls without… without shattering his mana core or his mind in the process." The admission of my own limitations tasted bitter.
"I need to see him." The words were a low growl, vibrating with desperate need. "Now, Corvis. I need to see him." He tried to push past me towards the door, his movements stiff and pained but driven by pure adrenaline.
"Grey!" Tessia moved instantly, wrapping her arms around him from the side, not to restrain by force, but to anchor, to provide a point of stability. "Grey, breathe! Look at me! You look like a madman right now! Just breathe!" Her voice was firm, laced with deep concern, cutting through his frenzy.
He shuddered, his frantic energy momentarily checked by her presence, her warmth against the cold dread radiating from him. He leaned into her slightly, his chest heaving.
"Tess," he rasped, the wildness in his eyes flickering but not dying, "you don't understand… I need… there are things… decades… of things I have to tell him… explain…"
"You're shaking," Tessia murmured, tightening her hold. "And you're pale. Whatever this is, whatever you need to say to this Nico… it can wait a few hours. You'll collapse before you reach the dungeons. Please, Grey. Rest first." Her plea was backed by Sylvie hopping down to nudge his leg with her head.
"Tessia is right," Sylvie's voice chimed in, calm but insistent. "The strain… it's tearing at you internally. Forcing this now will harm you. Deeply. Rest. Regain your strength. Then face this."
Grey closed his eyes, a tremor running through him. The fight seemed to seep out of him, replaced by a bone-deep weariness and frustration. He turned his gaze back to me, the desperate hope warring with the dawning understanding of his own weakness.
"Corvis," he asked, his voice raw, stripped bare, "how long? How long do you think it will take? To… to free him? Truly free him?"
I hope someone can help me, I thought desperately, my own gaze involuntarily flicking towards the spectral figure only I could see. Romulos leaned against the wall, arms crossed, watching the emotional tempest with detached amusement, a faint, cruel smile playing on his lips.
He met my silent plea, my unspoken acknowledgement of my own limitations, my need for his specific, forbidden knowledge. He sighed, a sound like dry leaves skittering on stone, projected only to my mind. The amusement faded, replaced by a look of profound exasperation, as if I were a child begging for a dangerous toy.
"Pfft. Fine, Corvis," he conceded, his mental voice dripping with reluctant irritation. "Your bleeding heart is as tedious as it is predictable. Very well. I will… explain… the principles behind dismantling Dad's more primitive forms of mental subjugation. How to unpick the locks on that vermin Nico's mind without reducing his precious core to dust. Consider it…" he paused, his spectral gaze lingering once more, almost wistfully, on Sylvie's small, protective form beside Grey, "...a favor. Repayable. With significant interest, naturally."
———
The last signature bled dark ink onto the parchment, a final, weary punctuation mark to hours of soul-crushing bureaucracy. Grampa's office, usually a place of strategic intensity, felt suffocatingly stale, thick with the scent of old paper and the dust of administrative purgatory.
My hand ached, a dull throb mirroring the fatigue settling deep into my bones. I pushed the heavy ledger away, the scrape of wood on wood unnaturally loud in the silence. Rising stiffly, the muscles in my leg protesting the prolonged stillness, I reached for my walking cane—not a symbol of weakness, but a necessary counterweight to the exhaustion and the lingering phantom pains of countless battles.
Other than a powerful wand for Accaron and Rhabdomancy, of course.
Grampa had vanished hours ago, summoned by the raucous celebration undoubtedly shaking the foundations of the Castle below. The Victory Ball. My punishment—exclusion from the revelry—felt less like a sentence and more like a reprieve. A boon, truly.
The thought of forced merriment, of toasting a victory while Nico languished in darkness and Grey wrestled with his own ghosts, churned my stomach.
The cacophony of laughter and music filtering faintly through the stone walls felt dissonant, a world away from the weight pressing on my shoulders.
I needed Sylvie. Her affinity for vivum aether, her gentle power, was crucial for the delicate task ahead: unpicking Agrona's psychic shackles from Nico's mind without unraveling the man himself. But Sylvie was undoubtedly at the party, a comforting presence beside Grey. Tessia would be there too, a beacon of light amidst the crowd. Another task deferred.
Patience, a bitter draught, was all I had.
The walk to my chambers was a solitary trek through echoing, dimly lit corridors. The Castle felt hollow, emptied of its usual bustle, the celebratory sounds from above a muffled counterpoint to my isolation.
Moonlight, cold and pale as bleached bone, streamed through the tall windows of my room when I finally entered, painting long, spectral shadows across the familiar furniture. I leaned my cane against the bedside table, the simple act feeling like an admission of profound weariness.
Collapsing onto the soft mattress was less a choice than a surrender. The cool linen offered scant comfort. I stared blankly at the intricate patterns carved into the ceiling beams, shadows dancing in the moonglow, feeling the immensity of the tasks ahead pressing down like physical weight.
Closing my eyes, I reached inward, past the fatigue, to the unique bond humming softly within my core. Berna. The call was a silent pulse of need, of companionship.
The response was immediate—a warm, grounding presence flaring in my awareness, followed by the heavy, rhythmic thud of massive paws approaching down the stone corridor outside. A comforting sound, solid and real.
I rose, the effort more significant than it should have been, and opened the door. There she stood, my Guardian Bear, her massive form filling the doorway, moonlight glinting off her hazel fur and intelligent green eyes.
A low, rumbling growl vibrated in her chest, one of deep concern. She nudged her broad head gently against my torso, a warm, living anchor in the sea of my anxieties. I sank my fingers into the thick fur at her neck, the tactile sensation grounding me.
"How are you doing, girl?" I murmured, my voice rough with disuse. Berna responded with another low growl, leaning her weight into me, offering silent, steadfast support.
"I know," I sighed, resting my forehead against her massive brow. "Quiet night. But I'm sure Ellie will sneak you something spectacular from the party. If she's there..."
I'd made sure of it. Using my own suspended invitations, I'd ensured Alice and Reynolds Leywin received passes. Eleanor deserved that small joy, that moment of normalcy with her parents amidst the war. Berna chuffed softly, as if understanding.
I ushered her into the room, her bulk making the spacious chamber feel instantly cozier. As she settled near the hearth with a contented sigh, the air beside the window facing the endless sea of clouds shimmered. Romulos materialized, spectral and insubstantible, settling into the plush armchair like a king reclaiming his throne.
His ruby red eyes, usually sharp with cynicism or cruel amusement, held an unfamiliar softness as he gazed out at the moonlit expanse.
"You know what, Corvis?" His voice, usually a dry rasp or a cutting blade, was contemplative, almost... gentle. "I am actually having fun being with you."
The admission, so simple yet so profound coming from him, hung in the quiet air. It wasn't mockery. It felt startlingly genuine. It cracked open a door I hadn't dared approach.
"Romulos," I began, the name feeling different on my tongue, heavier with shared history now acknowledged. "...your life... how did it end?"
A shadow crossed his spectral features. The hidden agenda, the Meta-awareness obsession—I'd always known they were layers over something deeper, something raw. Regrets, thick and profound as a well of tar, seemed to seep from his very spectral form.
"Art killed me," he stated flatly, the name 'Arthur' stripped bare. "He had to. He fought both Dad and Grandfather. I... I tried to stop him. I tried to convince him, and Sylvie... to spare my Dad." His voice hitched, a spectral echo of a sob trapped centuries ago.
"It was useless. Grandfather fell first. Then... Dad."
He paused, the memory a physical agony even in death. "I managed to breach the pocket dimension they were fighting in... I was too late. Arthur's blade... Dad's mana core..." He couldn't finish. A shimmer, like condensed starlight, traced a path down his cheek—spectral tears.
"I held him, I held my Dad, my Agrona Vritra. As he... faded. And on his dying breath..." Romulos looked directly at me, his ruby eyes luminous with unspeakable pain. "...Dad told me he was sorry. For the first time... he said he loved me." The words were a ragged whisper. "I never cared about the experiments, the plans, the wars, the... evil. I just wanted... him. To be with him no matter what."
He stood abruptly, the spectral chair offering no resistance. "His last act... Agrona Vritra's final breath... wasn't a curse, wasn't power. He gave me his Beast Will. Passed it to me... before the darkness took him forever."
The raw grief was staggering. It painted a picture so different from the monster I'd envisioned.
"Wait," I interjected softly, the puzzle incomplete. "That doesn't explain why Arthur killed you."
The softness vanished, replaced by a cold, ancient fury that chilled the moonlit room. "I was furious, Corvis. Beyond reason. Everything fractured in that moment." His spectral form seemed to crackle with remembered rage.
"After everything I did for Arthur! After everything I have done for that disgusting lesser! Training him! Teaching him secrets Grandfather punished me for! Protecting his sister, his parents, his closest friends, his continent! Saving Reynolds Leywin's life! Betraying my own father and grandfather trying to keep some cursed balance!" He spat the words.
"And what did he do? He killed my Dad."
The fury ebbed as quickly as it flared, leaving profound weariness. "However... I don't blame Arthur for killing me. I can't. It was... rational. Necessary, perhaps, in his eyes. I blame only Fate and Fate only."
He turned his gaze back to the clouds, then to me, his reflection in this twisted mirror of existence. "The Thwart. Us, Corvis. We are slaves to it. Anomalies born to fulfill its grand, incomprehensible design. You... you know more than I ever did. Fate spoke to you. In my life... it was just a shadow, a current dragging me under." He looked at me, not as a ghost, but as a fellow condemned.
"Your memories... and your knowledge of The Beginning After The End they stop at Fate, don't they? But knowing little is still more than I ever had."
Silence stretched, thick with shared understanding and the echo of his devastating confession. Fate hadn't just woven tragedy; it had sculpted a broken son mourning a monstrous father.
Romulos wasn't a simple monster, it was too simplistic; he was a monument to love twisted by loyalty and loss.
His own words echoed in my mind: "People change."
And witnessing this depth, this vulnerability, forced me to acknowledge how profoundly I had changed alongside him, bound by secrets and this shared, cursed role as the Thwart.
The words came unbidden, dangerous, born of empathy and the strange, painful kinship forged in this moonlit confessional.
"For what it's worth, Romulos..." I met his gaze, the spectral tears still glistening. "...I can only say I will try to amend for you. To live a life... a path... you can look upon without regret, brother."
The word hung between us—brother. It felt foreign, yet terrifyingly right. A faint, genuine smirk touched his draconic features, devoid of its usual cruelty. It was an acknowledgment, a fragile acceptance.
Then, the thought struck, reckless and potentially suicidal, yet an extension of this newfound trust, this shared burden of existence made it too necessary to ignore.
"Romulos... do you want to possess my body another time? Just... for a little while? You could walk free. Feel the world again."
The offer hung in the air, stark and shocking. I didn't retract it. Romulos stared at me, his spectral form utterly still. Then, he laughed—a low, rich sound devoid of mockery, filled with astonished satisfaction.
"Oh, Corvis," he breathed, shaking his head. "That... that is a staggering act of trust. Giving Romulos Indrath, the ghost you once despised—a monster no better than his father I remind you—the keys to your very being."
He paused, the amusement fading into something solemn, intense. "But no. My time... it has passed. This echo is enough." His gaze locked onto mine, the intensity almost physical. "But remember that promise. My Dad won't die."
The weight of that demand settled onto my soul, heavier than any paperwork, any battlefield command. It was a vow extracted in moonlight and spectral tears.
"I will, Romulos," I vowed, the words a solemn oath in the quiet room. "I will."
I didn't know how. The path was shrouded in impossible choices and the machinations of gods and Fate. But the debt was undeniable. My survival, my knowledge, the fragile hope for Nico, even this new understanding of the Thwart—it was all built on the foundation of Romulos's presence, his reluctant guidance, his shared pain.
I owed him this—no, in fact, I owed him much more than this yet he asked for something that from his point of view was the bare minimum.
"However," Romulos said. "If you really want to do that, there is something I wish to do."
Do it, I replied inwardly giving Romulos Indrath the reigns of my body.