Corvis Eralith
I am doing the right thing.
The weight of Sylvie in my arms felt like the anchor dragging me down into an abyss I'd chosen. Her head lolled against my shoulder, utterly oblivious to the storm screaming behind my ribs.
Each step towards my room was a march towards an executioner's block. Berna laid sprawled across the bed, a mound of peaceful hazel fur rising and falling with deep, even breaths.
Leaning her over Berna's sleeping form… the action was grotesque, necessary. Sylvie needed rest, and Berna… Berna was warmth, loyalty, a silent testament to a bond I was about to shatter. My fingers brushed the thick, soft fur as I settled Sylvie beside her.
The familiar scent of sun-warmed earth and wild herbs clung to Berna, a scent that was home. A wave of pure, animal terror surged through me, so potent it threatened to buckle my knees.
My breath hitched, a ragged gasp tearing at my throat.
But Romulos was there. Not physically, never physically, but a presence as solid as bedrock in the crumbling landscape of my mind. Romulos was doing a divine work helping me maintain my composure.
Divine work? It felt more like he was the lone engineer holding up a collapsing bridge with sheer will. A cool, unnatural calm seeped into the edges of my panic, a dam against the flood.
It wasn't peace; it was suspension, a fragile bubble allowing me to function while the internal scream continued, muffled but unceasing.
While I internally died.
My gaze lingered on Berna once more. That beautiful hazel fur, the slight twitch of a paw chasing dream prets, the absolute trust radiating from her sleeping form. The thought crystallized, cold and sharp as icicles piercing my heart: I would have to unmake our bond.
To tear apart something woven into the very fabric of our beings. And the consequence? That would for sure destroy Berna. She'd been discarded once before, left scarred until I found her in that grotto in the Grand Mountains.
This betrayal, from me, her chosen person? It wouldn't just break her heart; it would shatter her spirit. Obliterate the trust she'd painstakingly rebuilt. As she has already been abandoned once.
A flicker of desperate hope, cold and fragile. Eleanor was still in the Castle. She had already became friends with Berna. Maybe… maybe she could find in her a replacement for me.
How could anyone replace this? The shared battles while I was Outis, the silent understanding, the way she pressed her massive head against my side when the world was too much? It was a monstrous thing to wish upon Eleanor—inheriting this grief—but it was the only lifeline I could throw into Berna's impending darkness.
A replacement. A pale, inadequate substitute for the bond I was ruthlessly murdering.
"Corvis."
Romulos's voice cut through the suffocating silence of my thoughts. Not admonishing, not frustrated. Filled with… brotherly affection.
The sheer unexpected warmth of it, in this moment of desolation, almost undid the fragile composure he maintained.
"I won't start saying how much I think it's stupid, crazy and utterly naive to sacrifice yourself for the sake of a bunch of lessers, because you won't listen to me." The ghost of his familiar exasperation was there, the 'Romulos knows best' tone, but it was softened, almost resigned.
He understood my stubbornness, the twisted, childish and hypocritical nobility that drove me. He didn't agree, but he accepted. His next words held the weight of grim pragmatism: "But if you are really going to sell yourself to Agrona then do it with a plan in mind."
Plan. The word was a lifeline, a distraction from the agony of looking at Berna or thinking about my family. Action. I had to move.
I left Berna and Sylvie, the movement a physical wrench. Leaving felt like abandoning them to a future I wouldn't be part of. As fast as possible without drawing attention. Speed was essential, stealth paramount. Panic nipped at my heels, but Romulos's dam held. Barely.
The corridors of the Castle blurred, a meaningless maze leading towards the only escape route left to me: the hangar.
The vast, echoing space of the Barbarossa's hangar swallowed me whole. The great exoform loomed, a silent, unyielding monument to a freedom I was relinquishing.
I arrived in the hangar of the Barbarossa and I started to put all my stuff at its feet.
The action felt ritualistic, like preparing a grave offering. My storage rings, Dagonet… each item placed on the cold floor was a piece of my life I was shedding. I couldn't bring anything with me. Agrona would strip me bare anyway.
Dagonet was bound to my soul and to every shadow I casted, but it was still a weapon. It had a range and the thought of Agrona discovering I could synthesise Acclorite was a nightmare—if he didn't already know.
My hands trembled as I worked, the physical manifestation of the chaos inside. What do you have in mind? I flung the desperate question back at Romulos, the mental voice cracking, barely coherent.
Barely able to form a coherent thought. I am doing the right thing.
Agrona's words echoed: Cadell would be waiting in Zestier. Zestier. The Elven capital. My home. The implication was a cold knife twisting: he could strike at the heart of Elenoir. But why Zestier? Why not here? He could have sent him directly to the Castle hitting at the heart of Dicathen whole.
The logic flared, a tiny spark of advantage in the consuming dark. If he didn't do that then he wasn't able to enter the Castle apart by controlling Sylvie. The Castle's ancient wards was something Agrona couldn't breach directly yet.
Moreover I had another advantage on Agrona, he didn't know I spared Nico's life. Nico. The ghost of the past life of Grey—my best friend who trusted me so much to help in his revenge against Agrona and now was betraying—twisted by Agrona into a weapon.
My mercy was a hidden card, its value unknown but potentially vital.
Even if I called every Lance available as well as Grey and defeated Cadell… The image was seductive—victory, perhaps. But the cost?
My parents and all the elves living in my home city would be in mortal danger. Agrona wouldn't hesitate. Zestier would burn, my family slaughtered.
Sacrificing the many for the one—me—was the act of a tyrant, not a protector. I am doing the right thing. The affirmation was a mantra I was mindlessly repeating myself, a shield against the rising tide of doubt and fear.
I clung to it.
But the fear was hydra-headed. Agrona wasn't just after me. I would just doom Dicathen… my capture wouldn't save the continent, only delay the inevitable. And Tess… what I was worried more was that Agrona could put the Legacy when he wanted to in my sister… Cecilia, forced into Tessia's body.
And then? Kezess would order Aldir to destroy Elenoir or wherever my sweet Tessia was—the most precious person I had in this world.
A continent sacrificed to thwart Agrona's weapon.
Tess caught between two annihilating forces. I am doing the right thing. Louder this time, desperate, trying to drown out the horrific futures unfolding in my mind's eye.
I heard Romulos scoff. That familiar, dry sound, a counterpoint to my internal turmoil. But he didn't challenge my assertion.
Instead, his voice became a steady anchor, practical and focused: "Good, think about a plan. Don't let panic consume you." Encouragement, from the ghost who thought my sacrifice was idiocy. It held a strange power.
"Now. By using the Parasite Spell I can take control of you permanently so that Agrona will change my mind instead of yours—even though I can easily resist every spell of his, but that would only make him more suspicious and put you in danger—when he will have done it I will simply move on from you and you will be yourself again."
Parasite Spell? The term was chilling, alien. What's that? I asked, the question automatic as my hands kept moving, scribbling frantically on scraps of paper.
Projects, contingencies, messages, coded warnings—listing down everything useful I could think about. It was a dam against the flood of helplessness. Romulos's explanation cut through the frantic scratching: "You know that as the spell Dad used on Khaernos Vritra to use his body as a puppet."
A memory from the novel surfaced—the chilling account of the High Sovereign possessing one of his own a violation of the deepest kind. And Romulos planned to do that… to me?
"By doing that on you while I control your body I can counter Agrona's trials to brainwash you." A horrifying shield. He would puppet my form, let Agrona think he'd broken me, while the real me hid deep within, untouched.
A cold dread seeped in, colder than the hangar air.
And what's that part of 'moving on'? I asked, the question sharp as I gathered the crucial pages detailing how to reincarnate Cecilia before I moved to reach Nico.
The path to the dungeons stretched before me, a descent into another layer of this nightmare.
Romulos's sigh was a whisper in my soul, heavy with finality. "I told you once that Meta-awareness instead of working by stages like mana cores works by instances of the Thwart. Well, my time has passed a long time ago, but I remained with you because..."
A pause. A hesitation utterly alien to the usually arrogant dragon-ghost. Then, the words, simple and devastating:
"...I love you Corvis, you are the little brother I never had." The raw affection in that admission, in this moment, was a physical blow. "Not even Art was like you."
The meaning slammed into me. Wait... do you mean that you will be... gone? The dungeon corridor seemed to tilt.
That I will be in Taegrin Caelum without you?! The sheer, unadulterated terror of that prospect dwarfed even the fear of Agrona.
Romulos wasn't just an ally; he was my constant, my mentor, my sharp-tongued, impossibly ancient brother. He was the repository of forbidden knowledge, the voice of cynical reason, the unwavering presence through every disaster.
Romulos was my strongest weapon, my strongest ally I needed him now more than ever! Losing him now, in the viper's nest of Taegrin Caelum? It was unthinkable. It was a death sentence of the soul.
"Yes." His confirmation was gentle, yet absolute like an edict coming from an almighty god. No room for argument.
"But don't worry," he added, that familiar, almost arrogant tone returning as he effortlessly plucked the thought from my panicked mind, "as you yourself said I am your strongest weapon."
"I will leave you all the knowledge about Taegrin Caelum as well as Anti-Matter, of course—if you find a way to craft yourself a Basilisk, or an asuran, body you will be able to use it effortlessly. I will give you the knowledge to do that too."
A parting gift of unimaginable power and peril. The means to become something… other. Something that was necessary to fight against Agrona, even if I had the Legacy and Meta-awareness at the same time my body would be the one betraying me.
In canon without Sylvie's sacrifice by giving her body away Arthur would have never defeated Agrona. Even Romulos told me that he himself had to improve Arthur's body in his reality, but...
No! No! Romulos stay with me! The plea tore from me, raw and desperate, echoing in the empty dungeon corridor. I stopped dead, the pages clutched white-knuckled in my hand.
I beg you, don't leave me alone! The child in me—the real me that I have always suppressed—the part that had always relied on his impossible, magnificent brother-ghost even when I considered him an enemy, wailed in despair.
"That alone is more than I deserve." His voice held a quiet finality, a peace I couldn't comprehend. Of course he didn't have doubts! He'd made his choice when he started considering me his brother and this was its culmination.
"We are not trying to get both of us safe to Taegrin Caelum." The brutal truth. This wasn't escape; it was salvage. "We need to preserve Corvis Eralith..."
"...and I more than anyone know how to counter whatever Agrona Vritra tries to do with your mind."
Romulos please.... I whispered again, the strength leaching from my limbs. I leaned against the cold stone wall, the pages forgotten. I stopped moving towards the dungeons pleading the ghost in my mind to not leave me.
He met my despair with unwavering conviction, echoing my own desperate mantra but infusing it with the weight of his ancient sacrifice:
"I am doing the right thing Corvis."
Then, with a touch of his familiar, pragmatic impatience, the Romulos I knew surfaced one last time, a flicker of light in the crushing dark:
"You don't have infinite time, continue on what you were doing and enlighten me on that. I hate being left on the blind."
Yes, he was still Romulos. The dry humor, the demand for information, the refusal to wallow. It was him. He was just joking, I told myself fiercely, clinging to the desperate, irrational hope.
He will do his plan and he will return to me.
The lie was the only thing keeping my legs moving, forcing me to push off the wall. The cell door loomed. The final pieces of the plan needed to be set. But the cold certainty in Romulos's voice, the love and the goodbye wrapped within it, settled in my bones like a terminal frost.
The walk to Nico's cell was the longest walk of my life, each step echoing with the impending silence of a world without my brother.
I am doing the right thing.
———
The plan, in its skeletal form, felt chillingly simple. Brutally transactional. Agrona would want to make me reincarnate the Legacy for him. The thought alone sent a fresh wave of icy dread through my veins, momentarily freezing the frantic scribbling in my mind. He wouldn't just want the weapon; he'd want the perfect leash for the weapon… and for me.
So he could use me as a safe line against the Legacy.
While using the Legacy as a safe line against me.
The symmetry was sickeningly elegant. Legacy and Meta-awareness at his utter mercy doing his bidding without a second thought. Two forces of immense power, twisted by the High Sovereign, dancing on Agrona's strings.
Hope, fragile and desperate, clung to two slender threads. If Romulos' idea worked… The Parasite Spell, puppeting my body, absorbing Agrona's mental assaults, letting the Vritra believe he'd won my mind… I would fix the latter part: me becoming Agrona's willing slave.
My core self, buried deep, might remain untouched, a seed waiting in the frozen earth. But the cost… Romulos moving on. Gone. The thought was pure ache, a phantom limb already screaming.
The other thread was my own gamble. If instead my own plan worked… this desperate play with Nico… I wouldn't worry about Cecilia being manipulated by Agrona. Because Cecilia wouldn't be the Legacy.
"Truly beautiful," Romulos purred, the sound vibrating through my skull, a strange mix of genuine admiration and profound sorrow. He saw the intricate, dangerous weave I was attempting.
"You will give Nico his loved Cecilia while you will keep the Legacy separated."
He understood the core: severing the apocalyptic power from the soul it was destined for. A kindness to Nico, a potential catastrophe averted for the world. But his next words were a bucket of ice water, shattering any illusion of triumph.
"However you might be doing a favour to Agrona by doing that, what's the next part?"
He cut to the heart of the vulnerability. Agrona still got me, bound and broken. And a separated Legacy was an even better weapon without the limitations that Cecilia had. My plan only addressed half the equation.
Right, good question. The acknowledgement was a rasp in my mind. Romulos, even in this moment of sacrifice, was forcing me to think, to plan deeper. His relentless pragmatism was a lifeline, a focus against the suffocating fear.
I will try to escape to the Relictombs with whoever Agrona chooses as a vessel for Cecilia, or if my plan works only the Legacy's power.
Agrona's influence was null there, the rules different. It was the only conceivable refuge, a gamble within a gamble. Kidnap the vessel, disappear into the chaotic depths, buy time.
Another path flickered, treacherous and tempting. I could teach Nico to directly reincarnate Cecilia with the Legacy's powers.
But the vision it conjured was apocalyptic. I didn't trust them. Nico, broken and obsessed. Cecilia, overwhelmed by a power she never asked for, likely shattered by it or turned into Agrona's perfect weapon regardless.
And differently from Agrona, Dicathen didn't have the means to stop the Legacy. Kezess wouldn't hesitate. I would paint a giant target on Dicathen for Kezess to strike.
Elenoir's destruction would be a certainty, not a threat. My sacrifice would be rendered meaningless, my homeland reduced to cinders because of my misplaced trust.
No. The separated Cecilia was the only marginally safer option.
The damp, oppressive air of the dungeon corridor pressed in, thick with mildew and despair. Nico's cell door loomed, a portal to another layer of my self-inflicted damnation. I stopped before it, gathering the fractured pieces of my resolve.
"Nico," I said, my voice sounding hollow even to my own ears, echoing slightly in the stone passage. I looked through the bars at the former Scythe.
Nico's eyes slammed open. The suddenness was jarring. They fixed on me, wide, bloodshot, burning with a desperate intensity that bordered on madness. Recognition flared, then something else—a terrifying, vulnerable hope.
"Corvis," he rasped, his voice rough with disuse. "You look like garbage." It wasn't malice, not really. It was a raw observation, stripped of pretense. He saw the shadows under my eyes, the tremor I couldn't fully suppress, the utter exhaustion etched into every line of my face.
"Pfft. Look at this trash feigning true interest in you." Romulos's scoff was a razor-sharp scrape against my inner ear, dripping with contempt so profound it vibrated my bones. "Get over with this quickly time is short."
"I know." The words were ash in my mouth. I forced myself to meet Nico's desperate gaze. "I need to talk to you about Cecil—"
"Have you changed your mind?!" The question exploded from him, a raw, ragged sound. He surged forward, crashing against the bars, the cuffs on his wrists clanking dully. His fingers curled around the cold iron, knuckles white. His eyes… they were pools of agonized, fragile hope.
As if I held the key to his personal heaven, or hell. The sight was profoundly unsettling. This was the man who had hunted me, who served Agrona, reduced to this trembling wreck by love and loss. It made him pitiable. It made him dangerous.
"...I did," I admitted, watching the hope flare into an almost blinding light in his eyes. I saw his mouth open, ready to unleash a torrent of gratitude or demands. But I stopped him before he could say anything else. My hand came up, a sharp, silencing gesture.
"I am going to give you the exact instructions on how to bring Cecilia into this world. Cecilia only, not the Legacy."
Nico froze. The frantic energy drained slightly, replaced by a dawning comprehension. He simply… nodded. A slow, heavy movement.
"Yes." Just acceptance. His obsession had narrowed to a single point: Cecilia's return.
"He doesn't even question you." Romulos's voice was thick with disbelief and disgust.
Shut up Romulos, please. The plea was sharp, internal, a frayed wire snapping. Looking at Nico's raw, unguarded desperation, I felt an unwanted kinship. A horrifying reflection.
I started to understand Nico's pain, way too much. The agony of separation, the crushing weight of sacrificing everything for someone you love, the terrifying gamble with forces beyond your control.
We were both incompetent. We were both trash.
I was about to leave all the people I loved to accept the enemy's ultimatum. Our paths diverged in method and morality, but the core suffering, the utter loss and failure, resonated with a sickening familiarity.
"Your pain is true," Romulos countered, his voice softening infinitesimally, though the underlying judgment remained. "Nico is just weak."
My sacrifice was necessity, born of love and duty. Nico's was obsession, born of failure and manipulation. Romulos needed to believe that distinction mattered. I wasn't sure I did, in this moment, facing Nico's hollow eyes.
"Here."
I pushed the carefully written pages detailing the ritual through the bars. They fluttered slightly in the dank air before Nico snatched them with trembling hands. I gave Nico the exact instructions as he immediately started to read them, his eyes devouring the words, his lips moving silently. The intensity was frightening.
"You will need to work with Grey," I stated, the name hanging heavy between us. "You two are going to be the anchors after all."
Compared to Agrona's reincarnation mine was much easier, especially thanks to Meta-awareness that told me exactly how, but also because I didn't want to reincarnate the Legacy, but only Cecilia—a normal girl bereft of such power.
Simpler, yes. But still fraught with peril. Anchoring a soul across the void was never simple.
"Are you using the same method as Agrona?" Nico asked, looking up from the pages, his brow furrowed. A flicker of that old analytical mind surfaced, piercing through the desperation.
"No," I replied flatly. "Without the Legacy being tied to Cecilia it won't need all the necessities of Agrona's own method. Anyone could be a potential vessel in theory."
The freedom, the lack of specific requirements—Tess's unique bond, her love for the anchors—was the key difference. Agrona required Tessia both here and in canon because she had a strong bond with two anchors.
Nico and Arthur in the novel, me and Grey here. And both in Arthur's and Grey's case Tessia loved them, romantically. That specific, potent emotional tether was necessary to bind the Legacy's immense power. My method needed anchors, yes, but not that depth of specific connection. Nico and Grey, bound by their shared history with Cecilia would suffice.
And probably the fact that I was the Thwart, an aspect of Fate something fundamental behind reincarnation made me a perfect anchor even if I didn't know Cecilia—personally.
The realization was a cold stone in my gut. Fate, the indifferent architect of this misery, had woven me into its tapestry specifically for this purpose. Fate was really playing with me, huh? The bitterness was acrid.
"It always has done," Romulos murmured, his voice distant, almost resigned. "Fate doesn't care for the Thwart. We are aspects of it after all..." He trailed off.
But he didn't finish as he knew I didn't need such conversations right now. Philosophical despair was a luxury I couldn't afford.
"So Cecilia will have a normal life..." Nico whispered, the words barely audible, yet echoing in the silent cell. They held a reverence, a fragile awe. He looked up from the pages, his gaze locking onto mine. The transformation was startling.
The desperation, the madness, momentarily burned away, replaced by pure, unadulterated gratitude. He looked at me like I was a messiah.
"Thank you so much Corvis." His voice cracked. "I—I..." Words failed him. He clutched the pages to his chest like sacred relics.
He was really pathetic... The thought was harsh, unbidden. Hate, pain, suffering, Agrona's manipulation: it had reduced him to this grateful supplicant for the barest shred of his deepest desire.
I maybe hoped that I was helping Nico and Cecilia too by doing this, a flicker of genuine, weary compassion amidst the strategic calculus. Giving them a chance Agrona never would.
Or maybe I was just deluding myself.
Was this kindness, or merely another layer of manipulation in my own desperate game? Trying to convince me that I was doing the right thing.
No. I am doing the right thing. The mantra pulsed, a feeble shield against the corrosive doubt.
"I will leave instructions to set you free tomorrow," I said, my voice devoid of inflection, the transactional nature reasserting itself. "So that you and Grey can start."
The baton was passed, I had to hope Grey would trust me even in this.
"What?" Nico's head snapped up, the messiah-worship replaced by stark confusion. "Aren't you helping?" The idea that I wouldn't see this through, wouldn't witness Cecilia's return, clearly hadn't occurred to him.
The finality of it crashed down. "We are not going see each other again Nico." The words fell like stones. "I lost and Agrona has won. You are my safest bet to avoid complete disaster."
I turned away from the cell, from his stunned expression. I couldn't bear to see the hope I'd ignited curdle into confusion.
I am doing the right thing. The mantra thrummed in my skull, a desperate drumbeat against the rising tide of fear, of grief for Romulos, of pity for Nico, of terror for Tessia, for Berna, Mom, Dad, Grampa for Elenoir and Dicathen.
It was the only thing holding the shattered pieces of Corvis Eralith together as I walked away, leaving the dungeon, leaving Nico with his impossible hope, walking straight into Agrona's waiting jaws.
I am doing the right thing. I am doing the right thing.