Dicathen, Floating Island of Xyrus, 588 years before the birth of Arthur Leywin.
Romulos Indrath
The floating island of Xyrus was our secret kingdom, a paradise suspended between heaven and earth. A colossal shard of Dicathen torn from the mainland by arts so profound they felt like legend even to me, it drifted through Sapin's skies, a testament to a lost age.
The Ancient Mages, it seemed, had brushed against truths I was only beginning to grasp. They had used aether. The realization struck me with the force of a physical blow as I felt the lingering, ghostly echoes of their work in the very stone beneath our feet.
This explained everything—why Grandfather had invited Sae-Areum to Epheotus, why he had sought to understand her people. He must have seen their potential, tried to guide them, to warn them of the cataclysm that comes from touching powers beyond one's comprehension.
And when they fell, in his own cold, majestic way, he had honored them, giving Sae-Areum a resting place on the sacred slopes of Mount Geolus. For all his imposing severity, my grandfather was, at his core, a being of order and respect.
A good dragon.
For Sammiram and me, Xyrus was a perfect, private world. The lessers had forgotten how to activate the ancient portals that once connected the island to the world below, and since only their mythic White Cores could achieve sustained flight, the island was a wild, untamed sanctuary, drifting through the clouds just for us.
Today, Sammiram was clad in her practical, scarred armor, the half-broken sword she favored held firmly in her grip. I'd since learned the broken blade was no accident; it was a psychological feint and a focus for a particularly clever spell, a testament to her practical, battlefield-honed ingenuity.
"Rommie, can we please not stand on the very edge of the island?!" Her voice was tight with a tension I found both endearing and profoundly telling.
I glanced down. The world below was a dizzying mosaic of green and brown, rivers like silver threads, the city of Etistin a mere smudge of white. The drop was immense, enough to make even some young Asuras hesitate.
For a lesser, whose body was a fragile, earth-bound thing, the fear was innate, biological. They weren't meant for these heights. The fact that she trusted me enough to be here at all sent a warm thrill through me.
"Do you want to stand at the exact, geometrical center of the island?" I asked, my tone playfully exaggerated, teasing her. This casual back-and-forth was a language I was still learning, one that existed nowhere else in my life.
"I just don't want to fall off if I make a misstep!" she exclaimed, her knuckles white on her sword's hilt.
"Fine," I relented, a smile tugging at my lips. "But you remember that I can fly, right? And that I can fold space itself to catch you?" It was a reminder of the chasm between our natures, stated not as a boast, but as a promise of safety.
"Yes, I remember, mighty god," she retorted, rolling her eyes with an audacity that would have made a Thyestes Clan warrior pause. This fearless banter was our currency, a way of bridging the impossible gap between us.
I really wanted to take her and kiss her again and again, but magic called.
We took our positions, facing each other on a wide, flat expanse of ancient stone overgrown with resilient moss. I became her immovable training dummy, a pillar of calm against which she could test her strength and skill. She moved with a fluid grace that belied the weight of her armor.
She came from the left, a horizontal slash. I parried it effortlessly with the back of my hand, the impact a dull clang against my skin. As my hand met the steel, the missing portion of the blade erupted into searing flames—a clever surprise attack that licked harmlessly against my innate resistance.
She pivoted, attacking from the right. I shifted my weight a fraction, letting the blade whisper past my chest. Immediately, she used the momentum to spin, aiming a strike at my back. I simply took a step backward, her blade cutting empty air where I had just been.
We didn't speak. The only sounds were the rush of the wind, the scrape of her boots on stone, the hiss of her breath, and the song of her blade. There was a beautiful, desperate poetry in her efforts.
For a lesser, she was remarkably powerful, a natural conduit of mana whose potential I was eagerly nurturing. A thought, dark and unwelcome, intruded:
How did someone so capable get so grievously wounded by those elves?
And then I felt it. A flicker in the core of my being, an emotion so hot and pure it was almost alien. It wasn't the familiar, cold anger I felt towards Windsom's condescension or the frustrating opacity of the Great Lords.
This was different. This was a seething, protective fury. A rage on her behalf. The idea that anyone had harmed her, had caused her pain, ignited a vicious fire in my chest that startled me with its intensity. I suppressed it, uneasy, as I ducked under another of her slashes.
She was tiring now, sweat plastering strands of her dark hair to her forehead, her breaths coming in ragged pants. We had been at this for nearly an hour, an eternity of exertion for a human.
"Do you want to take a break?" I asked, genuine concern lacing my voice.
"No," she spat, the word fueled by a stubborn pride I adored. "I can go on."
And she did. Her determination was a force of nature, a blazing will contained in a frustratingly fragile vessel. Watching her, a wild, thrilling idea bloomed in my mind, fully formed and dazzling.
I remembered Grandmother speaking of an advanced aether art under the edict of vivum—the power of life itself. A technique that could, in theory, grant a new body, a true rebirth.
It was a sacrificial art, never used, akin to gifting one's Beast Will, as it meant the certain death of the caster. But... my Anti-Matter technique, my masterpiece, which imposed the concept of nothingness... could it not be used to decay the self-sacrificial aspect? To reverse the cost? If I could procure an Asuran body, I could gift Sammiram a life of power, of longevity.
I could make her a goddess. Then, together, we could do anything. We could even... we could save you, Lavinia. We could save Mother.
The plan crystallized with intoxicating speed. I needed to speak with Mr. Denoir. And I needed to bring Sammiram to Epheotus. Now.
I stopped her next attack, the flaming blade freezing between my thumb and forefinger. "Sam, I have an idea!" I exclaimed, the excitement bubbling over.
She leaned forward, hands on her knees, sucking in deep lungfuls of air. "Yes?" she managed between gasps.
"Do you want to come to Epheotus?" The question hung in the air, immense and reckless.
Her exhaustion vanished, replaced by wide-eyed disbelief. "You mean your homeland?! The Home of the Gods?!" Her voice was a hushed, awestruck whisper.
"Yes! We can go and be back before anyone notices!" It was a gamble, but a calculated one.
The Great Eight were in session; Grandfather would be occupied for hours. Windsom, who despised the stuffy formality of Dicathen, would undoubtedly be at the castle, basking in the presence of true power. The coast was clear.
——
The world twisted and reformed around us in a silent, spatial lurch. The sun-drenched, open skies of Xyrus were replaced by the oppressive, silent gloom of the Muraeth plateau. I immediately activated Realmheart, pushing the thick, miasmic fog of decay mana away from us, creating a protective bubble of clear air.
Sammiram stumbled slightly, her senses reeling from the teleportation. Then her eyes widened, taking in the surreal landscape. The towering, jagged peaks in the distance, the crumbling, spectral outlines of the dead city, and the swirling, violet-grey fog that surrounded us like a living entity.
"This fog?" she murmured, her voice small in the immense silence.
"It's condensed decay mana," I explained, my tone clinical. "It's better if you don't venture far from me. It's venomous—lethal to most beings, even to many Asuras." I said it with the certainty of absolute fact.
"You... you live in a poisoned place?" she asked, her face a mask of disbelief and concern.
"Oh, no," I reassured her quickly. "I'm half-basilisk. This environment is like... fresh air to me. It's my heritage."
She furrowed her brow, her gaze locked on the undulating banks of fog beyond my protective field. "However..." she began, a strange note of curiosity in her voice.
"You see, I'm the de facto owner of this entire plateau, so we can—Sam!" My proud explanation was cut short as I watched her, driven by an impulse I didn't understand, take a deliberate step outside the bubble of clear air I had created. She walked directly into the thick, corrosive fog.
"Rommie..." she said, her voice not choked or pained, but filled with a calm, profound confusion. "It... it doesn't do anything."
The world seemed to tilt on its axis. "Huh?" The sound was stupid, inadequate, all I could manage.
This was impossible. The decay mana fog of Muraeth was a known, documented hazard. Even an Asura like Windsom, who could withstand it, found it unpleasant, an irritating pressure on the senses that required the constant, subtle use of protective arts.
A human, a being of pure, unadulterated lesser physiology, should have begun to wither the moment the fog touched her skin. Her lungs should have seared, her mana core should have guttered and died.
Yet she stood there, perfectly healthy, breathing the toxic air as if it were the sweetest mountain breeze.
"I don't understand," I whispered, my mind racing, scrambling for an explanation. I scratched at my horns, a nervous tic.
If she weren't human, I would have known. My senses, my Realmheart, would have detected any trace of Asuran blood. A hybrid, even a theoretical one, would be magnitudes more powerful than what she displayed.
"I feel a bit different, actually," she mused, turning her hand over in the fog. Then, she did the impossible. She summoned a flame in her palm.
Right there, in the heart of the decay mana field, where ambient mana was twisted and hostile to all but basilisk-kind.
My breath caught. She couldn't be overpowering the environment through sheer strength. That left only one, insane possibility: her body was somehow compatible. It had to have a trace of basilisk lineage, a heritage so deep and latent it was undetectable.
"You can use magic better? And the air... does it feel... healthier?" I asked, my voice trembling with a mix of scientific fervor and dawning awe.
She nodded slowly, her eyes wide as she watched the flame dance in her hand. "...Yes," she confirmed.
Heart pounding, I intensified my use of Realmheart, peering into the very fabric of the mana around her. "Sam, try to use magic again. A simple firebolt."
"What are you trying to do?" she asked, but complied, forming another sphere of elemental fire.
As the flame bloomed in her hand, I acted. I focused my will, applying a minute, precisely controlled thread of my decay mana art. I didn't attack the flame; I decayed its elemental nature. The vibrant orange and yellow fire flickered, its color deepening, shifting into a cold, haunting, spectral violet.
Soulfire.
Sam's eyes widened in shock, but she didn't scream or drop the spell. She held it, staring at the impossible flame in her hand with a look of pure wonder.
"I don't believe it..." The words escaped me in a stunned exhale. This wasn't just an immunity. This was an affinity. A human was wielding Soulfire, the exclusive domain of my father's bloodline.
Was this some unforeseen evolution? A mutation? The implications were staggering, world-altering.
"Rommie, what is this? You're scaring me," she said, though her fear was overshadowed by fascination.
I shook my head, a wild, disbelieving laugh escaping my lips. The mystery, the sheer, beautiful impossibility of it, completely overwhelmed my earlier caution.
"This... this is incredible! Sam, this is something only basilisks can do! Soulfire! It... it..."
I was indeed at a loss for words. In that moment, the potential risks, the terrifying questions, were swept away by a tidal wave of pure, unadulterated excitement.
For the first and last time of his life Romulos Vritra was truly, truly happy. Happy beyond the shackles of his nature, happy beyond the manipulations of Kezess Indrath and Agrona Vritra.
Such a shame that Fate will never allow this happiness to last.
Vol. 4 Extra: "Romulos Year One" END