Nico Sever
The cold stone of the dungeon floor seeped through the thin fabric of my trousers, a familiar, grounding misery by now. But it was nothing compared to the glacial void expanding in my chest.
"You are my safest bet to avoid complete disaster."
Corvis Eralith's parting words, delivered with that unsettling calm before he vanished, echoed now. A sentence passed on this world, on Agrona, maybe even on himself.
But I couldn't muster the energy to care about cosmic disasters or the High Sovereign's schemes.
The papers clutched in my white-knuckled hands were my only scripture, my sole purpose etched in perfect, precise diagrams and chillingly clear instructions. Instructions on how to wrench Cecilia's soul back from the abyss and sever it from the monstrous power Agrona sought to leash her with—the Legacy.
"I have lost and Agrona has won." Corvis's admission, stark and final, resonated like a funeral bell in the silence of my cell. It should have been a crushing blow, confirmation of our shared doom.
Instead, it felt… distant. Abstract. Agrona's victory meant less than the dust motes dancing in the single, high slit of a window. All that mattered was the potential humming within these pages.
Cecilia. My Cecilia. Free. Whole. Herself again.
Not a weapon, not a vessel, but the girl whose laughter was sunlight in the grime of our old world, whose gentle touch had been my only anchor in a life defined by violence and King Grey's chilling shadow.
But to grasp this impossible salvation, I needed him. Grey. King Grey. The name alone was a shard of ice driven into my gut. The hatred was a physical thing, coiling thick and poisonous in my throat, a familiar acid I'd swallowed every day since that cursed tournament arena.
Corvis had given me everything—the map, the method, the fragile hope—yet withheld the one impossible demand: collaboration with the architect of my eternal suffering. He might as well have handed me wings and then chained me to the earth.
I hated this world. This grotesque parody of existence where magic flowed like poisoned wine and monsters like Agrona wore crowns. Grey hadn't just found peace here; he'd flourished. He'd shed the bloodstained mantle of King Grey only to wrap himself in the adoration of these deluded primitives.
He'd built a life. A family? Friends? While I rotted, first in Agrona's cage, then in this comfortable dungeon, my soul festering with the memory of her final gasp, the echo of his blade striking home. He'd run. Again. Always running. From the consequences of his tyranny on Earth, from the blood on his hands, from me.
Back on Earth, when Cecilia was taken, vanished into the labyrinthine cruelty of the government's experiments, where was Grey? Consoliding his power. Too busy securing his win in the King's Tournament to spare a thought for the woman whose heart he'd once held, however carelessly.
And here? When I clawed my way through hell, guided by Agrona's poisoned whispers, desperate for any thread leading back to her, where was Grey? Playing hero after he ran to Dicathen.
Playing house with that elf girl, Tessia Eralith.
The very name was an insult. He'd replaced the memory of Cecilia's tentative affection, her fragile trust in him her love for him, with some simpering forest princess. He spat on Cecilia's ghost every time he smiled at that creature.
He had everything. The power I'd craved but only ever wielded through Agrona's suffocating leash. The respect I'd been denied, forced to kneel even to the other Scythes.
The love… Gods, the love radiating around him like a visible aura when I'd glimpsed him with the elf, or heard the muttered reverence of Dicathen's soldiers. He had it all. And I? I had the cold stone floor. The gnawing void. The papers promising salvation bought with the ultimate degradation: begging my nemesis for help.
He was a monster. A war criminal who painted his atrocities with the brush of necessity. A dictator whose 'peace' was built on mountains of corpses—Cecilia's corpse.
I'd tried, so many times, in so many ways, to bring him down. Poisons that never reached his plate. Ambushes that faltered before his preternatural reflexes. He was untouchable. Invincible. While I remained the trapped rat, scurrying in the shadows of greater powers.
But Corvis… Corvis Eralith was different. He wasn't a greater power crushing me; he was a baffling anomaly. A flicker of genuine, inconvenient decency in this cesspit.
He hadn't thrown me into a dank oubliette. This cell… it was clean, almost austere. There was a cot with a real blanket, a pitcher of clean water, a chamber pot that wasn't overflowing. He'd spoken to me not with the contempt Agrona wielded like a lash, nor with Grey's infuriating, detached pity, but with a weary sort of understanding.
He treated me like a victim. The thought was a strange, uncomfortable burr in the fabric of my rage. He'd looked at me, Nico, the failed assassin, the broken vessel of hate, and seen… a person Agrona had broken.
And then, impossibly, he'd handed me the keys to Cecilia's prison.
He was a good person. The realization tasted bitter. A good person caught in Agrona's web. A good person who'd lost, according to his own bleak assessment. The weight of his probable fate settled on me for a moment, a cold, unwelcome shroud of something almost like… guilt? But it was swiftly drowned by the tidal wave of my own need.
Cecilia. Corvis had given me the path. I couldn't fail her now. Not because of misplaced sentiment for the elf who'd shown a sliver of kindness.
I just needed to speak to Grey. To swallow the venom, choke down the decades of bile, and ask. Demand. Corvis said he'd ordered my release. Where were the damned guards? Dawn was bleeding a cold, grey light through the high window slit when the sound shattered the tense silence. Not the clank of armor or the turn of a key.
A roar.
Deep, guttural, vibrating through the very stones of the castle, shaking dust from the ceiling. It wasn't human. It was… bestial. Primal. Agony given sound.
Berna. The name surfaced from Agrona's smug explanations, delivered as another demonstration of Corvis's talents—his bond with an Asuran Guardian Bear.
That roar… it wasn't rage. It was pure, unadulterated pain. A sound that scraped raw nerves I didn't know I had. It echoed, faded, leaving a silence that felt heavier, more charged than before.
What had happened? What had Corvis done? A cold knot of dread formed in my stomach, unrelated to my own predicament.
Closer this time. A shuffle. Muttered voices. Guards. Finally!
"Guards!" My voice, hoarse from disuse and tension, ripped through the cell, sharper than I intended. Panic, raw and sudden, laced the word. Not panic for myself, but for the fragile lifeline Corvis had thrown.
"GUARDS!" I slammed my fist against the thick oak door, the impact jarring my arm. My sealed core throbbed uselessly in response, a constant reminder of my helplessness. "Free me! Now! I have to speak with Grey!"
Another roar ripped through the castle. Closer. More desperate. More final. It wasn't just pain now; it was the sound of a heart breaking, amplified by primal lungs. It shuddered through the stone, vibrating the floor beneath my knees, a physical manifestation of anguish that stole my breath.
The voices outside grew louder, sharper. "The prisoner's shouting!" one barked, a voice edged with stress, not boredom.
"Something's wrong… the Vice Commander's bond." another replied, fear creeping in.
"FREE ME!" I screamed, the sound raw, scraping my throat. The comfortable cell suddenly felt like a tomb.
And I was trapped, pounding on a door, screaming for the man I hated most in any world.
Sylvie
The world swam back into focus through the startlingly limited lens of humanoid eyes.
My first conscious breath hitched—the air felt thinner, colder, rushing into lungs that seemed… smaller. Disorientation washed over me, thick and cloying. Then, memory surged: the searing pain, the cracking of something deep within my core, Uncle Corvis's steady, reassuring voice guiding me through the storm of transformation.
I did it. The realization was a fragile bloom of triumph amidst the strangeness. Humanoid form. Finally. I could stand beside them properly, fight beside them, help Grey and Tessia and Uncle Corvis in a way my dragon form couldn't yet do due to the process of unlocking my human one.
A fierce, protective warmth flickered in my chest, momentarily eclipsing the alien feel of my new body. Seriously I almost felt like I wasn't using mana from how efficiently I was using it in this body.
Then, I tried to move.
The simple act of pushing myself up from the floor became a humiliating ordeal. These… limbs. Two long, awkward sticks instead of four coordinated legs. My center of balance was a traitorous gyroscope gone wild.
Muscles I'd never consciously commanded before screamed in protest. My draconic mind, accustomed to instantaneous, powerful movement, recoiled at the sheer inefficiency.
With a grunt that sounded bizarrely high-pitched in my own new ears, I channeled mana—a shocking amount of it, far more than flight ever required—simply to tense the unfamiliar muscles in my thighs and core, to force the stubborn limbs to obey.
I managed to lever myself upright, swaying violently like a sapling in a gale. Victory was short-lived. I attempted a step, a pathetic shuffle forward, and the world tilted catastrophically. My arms flailed, finding no purchase on air, and I crashed back to the cold stone floor with a jarring thud that rattled my new teeth.
How does Grey do this so effortlessly? I thought, glaring at my treacherous legs. Walking shouldn't be a battle!
Scrambling onto my knees, I looked around Uncle Corvis's room. The perspective was jarringly different. I was tall enough now to see the rumpled blankets on his bed without craning my neck or hopping up. But the sight sent a cold prickle down my spine. The bed was empty.
Neatly made? No. Just… vacant. A hollow space where his presence should have been radiating warmth and safety. Annoyance flared, sharp and immediate.
He'd been pushing himself to the brink even before helping me. Dark circles like bruises under his eyes, a tension in his shoulders that never quite eased. If he'd slipped out again, buried in research or strategy while his body screamed for rest…
Grey or I would have to physically restrain him. The thought was laced with protective ferocity.
'Grey!' The call went out through our bond, urgent, amplified by my frustration and growing unease. 'Grey, wake up!'
A sleepy, muddled response filtered back, thick with interrupted dreams. 'Sylvie? Are you with Corvis?' His mental voice was fuzzy, unconcerned.
Before I could answer, a low whine cut through the quiet behind me. Berna. She'd been a comforting, warm bulk asleep near the hearth. Now, she stirred, lifting her massive, shaggy head.
Her green eyes, usually so calm and soulful when fixed on Uncle Corvis, blinked open, still clouded with sleep. Instinctively, her powerful muzzle swung towards the bed, snuffling the empty space where he should have been.
The snuffle became more frantic, probing the sheets, the pillow. Then, realization struck. I felt it hit her like a physical blow through the subtle mana currents of their deep bond. Her entire body stiffened.
A low, confused rumble built in her chest, escalating with terrifying speed into a guttural, heart-wrenching keen of pure, unadulterated panic.
Not just panic. Loss.
'SYLVIE!' Grey's mental shout was a lance of pure alarm now, shredding the last remnants of sleep. 'Sylvie, what's happening?!'
I couldn't answer. My own breath caught in my throat, icy dread flooding my veins. I knew that sound. I knew the seismic tremor running through Berna's massive frame. It wasn't just that Corvis was missing. It was the void. The terrifying, echoing silence where the unique, comforting frequency of his presence, his soul-song resonating through their bond, should have been.
The agonized understanding mirrored my deepest, most primal fear—the sheer, unthinkable horror of that connection to Grey, to my Papa, being ripped away. Berna wasn't just searching; she was grieving for a presence suddenly, violently gone.
With a roar that shook dust from the rafters—a sound of pure, animalistic anguish and desperate denial—Berna exploded into motion. She didn't turn towards the door; she became an avalanche aimed at it.
Hundreds of kilogrammes of muscle, fur, and shattered bond slammed into the heavy oak. The sound was catastrophic—a splintering, cracking boom that echoed like thunder through the castle. Wood shattered, hinges screamed and tore free.
In an instant, the doorway was a ragged hole filled with the diminishing sight of her shaggy hindquarters vanishing down the corridor, her frantic, baying howls of despair receding like a physical wound in the air.
"BERNA!" My own scream tore from my raw throat, raw with shared terror. I lurched forward, forgetting my new form's limitations in the surge of desperate need to follow, to help, to understand.
My treacherous legs tangled, my center of gravity deserted me, and I pitched forward again, hands scraping painfully on the stone floor as I landed hard beside the wreckage of the door.
Helplessness, cold and suffocating, washed over me. I couldn't even stand! How could I chase her? How could I find Uncle?
Then, Grey was there. A blur of speed and panic filling the shattered doorway. His eyes, wide with alarm, swept the room, taking in the destruction, Berna's absence, and then… me. Kneeling on the floor in a form he'd never seen. His gaze locked onto my human face, my unfamiliar limbs, a flicker of stunned confusion momentarily eclipsing the panic.
"Sylvie! What—? Is this… your human form?"
The sight of him, his presence usually a bedrock of safety, only amplified the icy terror coiling in my gut. The childish endearment, born of pure, unguarded fear and years of ingrained habit, spilled out before I could stop it, raw and vulnerable.
"Papa!" The word hung in the dust-choked air, a stark admission of my own regressed panic. His expression shifted instantly, the confusion vanishing beneath a wave of dawning, horrified comprehension.
I pointed a trembling, unfamiliar hand towards the ruined doorway, towards the fading echoes of Berna's desolate cries. My voice, when it finally came, was a thin, broken whisper carrying the weight of a nightmare.
"Papa… something happened to Uncle!"
Grey
The rough stone scraped against my palm as I gripped Sylvie's small, unfamiliar hand, trying to anchor her form.
Then, it came—another roar from Berna. This one wasn't distant thunder; it was a guttural shriek ripped from the core of the earth, vibrating up through the flagstones and into my bones. It wasn't anger. It was pure, unadulterated agony. The sound of a soul being flayed alive.
"Grey, your hold!" Sylvie's voice, higher-pitched and softer than her draconic rumble but laced with the same steel, cut through the visceral dread Berna's cry had instilled. I looked down.
My knuckles were white, clenched around her tiny hand with a force that would have shattered human bone. I jerked my hand back as if burned. Fear. Cold, greasy fear was coiling in my gut, a serpent I thought I'd buried long ago.
"I'm sorry, Sylv," I rasped, the apology thick in my throat. The sight of her momentarily disarmed the terror. She looked seven years old. Innocent. Vulnerable. Yet, the unwavering certainty in her gaze, the fierce protective light that hadn't dimmed with the change in form, was profoundly Sylvie.
It was absurd, humbling. This child-like figure, struggling to command her own new legs, was offering me stability.
"Don't worry, Grey," she said, offering a small, brave smile that crinkled the corners of her eyes. "I am here."
The simple declaration, delivered in her new, clear voice, was a lifeline thrown into a churning sea of dread. It resonated with the unshakeable bond we shared, a reminder that whatever storm was breaking, we faced it together.
Corvis… what have you done?
The question echoed, not just in my mind, but in the fading reverberations of Berna's anguish. I refused to let the worst-case scenario take root. Not him. Not again. Agrona—no, I couldn't even think the name without Sylvia's final words echoing in the vaults of my memory.
He wouldn't take this. He couldn't. Corvis wasn't just my best friend; he was the brilliant, infuriatingly self-sacrificing counterpoint to my own cynicism. He was Tessia's other half, her twin flame. He was the glue holding the fragile hope of Dicathen together. Losing him wasn't an option. It was an unthinkable fracture of the world.
I followed the trail of Berna's devastation like following the spoor of a mortally wounded titan. Her keening wails led us towards the castle's heart, towards the heavily warded teleportation chamber that linked to Zestier. Zestier? A sliver of desperate, irrational hope flared.
Had he just… gone home? Had some foolhardy, noble impulse driven him back to Elenoir without telling anyone? It was the kind of stupid thing he would do.
"Sir!" A guard skidded around a corner, face pale, eyes wide with the shared panic Berna's distress had ignited throughout the castle. His breath came in ragged gasps.
"What's happening with Berna?" I demanded, already knowing the answer was inadequate. The guard shook his head frantically.
"It's not Berna, Sir! It's the prisoner! He's been… screaming. Shouting your name. Demanding to speak with you. For minutes now. He sounds… unhinged."
Nico. The name dropped into my gut like a lead weight. Nico. My... former best friend.
"Sylvie!" My voice was sharp, urgent. "Try to calm Berna down! See if you can reach her, feel what she feels!"
Sylvie, bless her, didn't hesitate. A flash of violet light, and her human form shrank further into the familiar miniature fox, her control instantly regained. She shot down the corridor like a silver arrow towards the source of the agonized roars.
"You!" I pointed at the guard. "Find Commander Virion. Alert him immediately. Tell him… tell him Corvis is missing, and Berna…" I couldn't finish. The implication hung heavy in the air. "Tell him everything."
The taste of command was ash in my mouth. King Grey. The mantle I'd shed, the chains I'd broken. The very thought of giving orders again only thanks to Tessia and Corvis, of shouldering that crushing responsibility, sent a familiar wave of claustrophobic dread through me. But it evaporated in the face of a greater terror.
The Eraliths. Virion, whose weathered face hid a heart that bled for his family. Alduin and Merial, who had welcomed me, a scarred stranger, with open arms, treating me with a kindness I hadn't earned. Tessia… my Tessia, whose world revolved around her twin. And Corvis himself. For them? I'd walk back into the nightmare of command without a second thought.
I'd face Agrona bare-handed. I prayed, desperately, that I was just jumping at shadows, that Berna's panic was an overreaction, that Corvis was merely being his usual, secretive, overworked self. But the cold dread coiling around my spine whispered otherwise.
———
The dungeon corridor felt colder, darker, the air thick with the scent of damp stone and Nico's palpable desperation. He was a caged animal, gripping the iron bars until his knuckles matched their color, his eyes wide, bloodshot, and burning with a manic intensity.
"Grey!" His voice was a raw scrape, the sound of fury and terror warring in his throat.
Before conscious thought could intervene, my hand shot through the bars. Not to unlock the cell, but to seize the front of his rough tunic, bunching the fabric in my fist, hauling him bodily against the cold iron.
"What happened to him?!" The snarl ripped from me, primal, fueled by the terror Sylvie's call and Berna's agony had ignited. I barely recognized my own voice. "WHERE IS CORVIS?"
"Get your hands OFF me!" Nico spat, struggling against my grip, his own rage a living thing. Hatred, pure and venomous, radiated from him like heat. Hatred for me, for this world, for everything except the ghost that haunted him. "I need you to reincarnate Cecil!"
Cecilia. The name was a spark thrown onto dry tinder. Always Cecilia. The woman who chose death on my blade over life as a weapon. The obsession that had warped him, driven him into Agrona's arms. The world could be ending, continents crumbling into the sea, and Nico would only see it as scenery for his deluded reunion. My grip tightened, fury momentarily eclipsing fear.
"You selfish, blind—"
He cut me off, his voice dropping to a venomous hiss, his eyes boring into mine with an unnerving intensity. "It was Corvis! He came here! Tonight! He said… he said he lost to Agrona!" The words hit like physical blows. Lost to Agrona. "He said I was his safest bet to avoid complete disaster! To reincarnate Cecilia! Cecilia, Grey! Not the Legacy! Just her!"
The world tilted. Agrona. The serpent's name finally spoken aloud in this context sent a jolt of pure ice down my spine. Surrender? Corvis?
"You're lying!" I roared, shoving him back against the cell wall, the bars rattling. "He would never!"
But even as I denied it, the chilling logic began to slot into place. Seris's warnings about the true Alacryan forces. The attacks we'd weathered feeling like probes, not assaults.
Corvis's own grim pronouncements about unseen depths. Had it all been a feint? A colossal trap designed for one purpose: to isolate and capture him? How had Agrona even breached the castle's wards?
"I'm telling you what happened!" Nico snarled, pushing back against my hold, his breath hot and ragged. "He left these! Look!" He thrust crumpled papers through the bars.
I snatched them, my hands trembling slightly despite my iron will. My eyes scanned the top sheet. Diagrams. Equations. Runic sequences of terrifying complexity. And the handwriting… unmistakable. Precise, elegant, yet with the subtle flair unique to Corvis Eralith.
The sheer intellectual audacity of the schematics screamed his genius. My jaw clenched so hard my teeth ached. He planned this. Even in yielding, if that's what this was, he'd planned. He'd seen a path through the darkness, a gambit so audacious it involved surrendering to the enemy.
Corvis was just a sixteen-year-old elf, burdened with knowledge and power he shouldn't possess, facing a being older than nations. He wasn't a god. He wasn't invincible. He was fragile, prone to pushing himself past breaking.
The thought sent a fresh wave of cold fury and profound fear through me. But beneath it, a spark ignited. His trust. His insane, unwavering faith that I could execute this impossible plan. He hadn't given up. He'd moved the game to a different board.
"Let's see what we can do," I said, the words heavy with reluctant purpose.
———
A/N:
Lately I began to realize I was writing "Corvis Eralith" only for Corvis and Caera's relationship, not for the story itself. In other words, I have been writing the fanfiction of another fanfiction.
What does that mean?
While I hate to leave "Corvis Eralith" unfinished, after almost two months to re-read and revise everything I realized that I can't keep on writing while maintaining a sufferable quality
I started writing "Corvis Eralith" when the first episode of the anime first aired in April, back then I thought I would stop it soon, but before I realized it I was in May and I had more than 100k words down—the last actual chapter was written on August 14th.
However while this is the project I wrote the most of in my entire life, I have been too afraid of altering both the world and the story of TBATE, as thus, making "Corvis Eralith" suffer infinitely from where it might have needed more arcs and characters (before the war).
As for other problems that I realized way too late were that Corvis compared to Arthur and all the other characters in the novel had it way, way too easy.
There are 17 chapters after this one, but those chapters are of such a low quality that I can't, in good conscience, post them despite all times I have rewritten them.