Volume 1. [RE: Lost Little Prince]
Arc 1. "To Save a Dragon."
Corvis Eralith
Evading Tessia's relentless, loving pursuit had become a daily covert operation, one that left me feeling like the most ungrateful wretch in all of Elenoir.
Each time I slipped away from her eager games, her bright, confused "Corvis?" echoing after me, was a small cut on my conscience.
Yet, the compulsion to act, to prepare, was a sharper goad. Navigating the intricate and alien social web of the palace—avoiding not just my family that loved me more than I deserved, but the ever-attentive servants who saw a lone prince as either a crisis or a responsibility—was an exhausting hell.
It made me wonder, with a bitter sort of awe, how Tessia in the original novel had managed to run away entirely. Here, in the Zestier Royal Palace, true solitude felt like a myth, a treasure guarded by dragons of protocol and affection.
My stolen moments weren't entirely fruitless. I had absorbed more about Elenoir than the novel ever detailed.
The sheer, humbling scale of the Elshire Forest, for instance—a living, breathing entity stretching from the Grand Mountains to the chilly northern seas and bleeding into the savage Beast Glades.
It was a continental behemoth, larger than the Amazon Forest of my faded Earth-memories, a fact that made my planned intervention seem even more ludicrous. I was a speck plotting to alter the fate of a continent-spanning wood.
But within the palace's fervent heartbeat, I had carved out a sliver of silence—a disused linen closet near the eastern wing, smelling of dried lavender and dust. It was here, knees drawn to my chest in the dim light, that my desperate plan solidified.
Save Sylvia. The thought was a mantra, a fragile lifeboat in a sea of dread.
If I could prevent the dragon's death at Cadell's hands, the entire horrific cascade might be stalled.
To do it, I would have to willingly attract the attention of the very ghost haunting my psyche: Windsom Indrath.
The logic was terrifyingly simple, built on the novel's lore. He was disgusted by 'lessers,' yes, but he was also Kezess's loyal hound, tasked with finding Sylvia and her egg.
If I, a precocious elven child, could somehow lead him to her before Cadell arrived… wouldn't he intervene? The story said Kezess himself was enraged enough by her death to contemplate marching on Alacrya.
Surely that fury, that twisted paternal affection, could be harnessed? If Windsom saved her, it would buy time—precious, invaluable time for Arthur to grow, for Dicathen to strengthen, for something to change.
I clung to the idea even as I gulped down the metallic taste of my own naivety. A three-year-old, scheming to manipulate an Asuran dragon to thwart the deity across the ocean.
It was the height of childish fancy, a story I would have scoffed at in another life. But it was the only story I had.
And to play my part, I needed a tool. I needed magic.
Sitting cross-legged on the rough stone floor, I pushed the suffocating thoughts away and returned to the grueling work of meditation.
The change, when it finally began, was so subtle I almost dismissed it.
At first, it was mere phantoms—faint, colorful sparks at the edge of my inner vision, glimpsed for a fraction of a heartbeat before winking out.
I'd wondered if it was just retinal strain or wishful thinking. But they persisted, and slowly, agonizingly slowly, they began to behave less like scattered fireflies and more like iron filings drawn to a magnet.
They swirled, converging in the space behind my abdomen, forming a nebulous, shimmering cloud. A proto-core, I called it.
A fierce, defiant thrill shot through me. Arthur had done this at two. I was three.
It would still make me a historical freak, the second-fastest awakening in recorded history, a fact that sent a chill of terror through my excitement.
And after I stabilized it, I would guide Tessia.
I pictured her at dinner, small fists pounding the table as she declared, "I'm going to be a mage like Grandpa!" with utter conviction.
I would mask my own progress, ensure she awakened first, so I could be the hidden wind beneath her wings.
I deepened my breathing, the rhythm my only tether.
The world outside the closet—the distant laughter, the rustle of leaves from the courtyard—faded into a muffled hum. All that existed was the swirling nebula within.
The dizziness came then, not unpleasant, but profound, a sense of my consciousness tipping into a deeper well.
With my eyes closed, I witnessed the birth of a star.
The chaotic sparks compressed, their light intensifying from a diffuse glow to a pinpoint of brilliant, stable white in my solar plexus. It was beautiful, and it was mine.
But it wasn't finished.
As I watched, breath held, the white light began to darken, not dim, but deepen in hue, as if absorbing shadow.
It cooled into a lustrous, metallic silver. The particles, once wild and free, were now clearly contained, their chaotic dance slowing into a deliberate, swirling current within an invisible boundary like they were forming their own mana field.
The transformation continued, a silent, internal alchemy.
Silver warmed into a soft, buttery yellow, and as it did, I felt the first tangible sensation—a faint pressure, a containing membrane solidifying around the swirling energy. It was a barrier, a lens, holding the power in place.
Then, the yellow deepened, burning into a vibrant, pulsing orange. Within this new hue, the mana itself changed state. The swirling currents began to still, the energy thickening, coalescing from a luminous gas into something more substantive, like molten light beginning to cool.
The next stage aaw krange burning and turning into a fierce, demanding red. The translucent barrier turned opaque, solid, a tiny, dense planetoid settling with final weight into the very core of my being. The mana within was now quiet, potent, and real.
A final shift, a settling, and the red cooled to black. It was done.
My eyes flew open. A wild, incredulous smile stretched my lips. I had done it. A mana core. A—
Then the backlash hit. It was not an explosion, but an implosion.
If Arthur's awakening as an augmenter had been a violent eruption of power outward, mine was its terrifying inverse.
I... I was being emptied. The newborn core in my center wasn't a fountain, but a voracious, bottomless well.
Having just torn all the ambient mana from the immediate air to forge itself, it now turned on me, demanding more, hungry. It was a raw, screaming need etched directly onto my soul, a devouring vacuum that felt like it was consuming my very life force.
The triumphant smile melted into a rictus of agony.
I gasped, but the air I pulled in felt thin, useless, devoid of the energy I desperately craved. It was like awakening to find every cell in my body shrieking with starvation after a lifetime of plenty.
My limbs, already clumsy with youth, became leaden and weak. A cold sweat broke out over my entire body, soaking my simple tunic. I tried to stand, to move, to somehow find a richer source of mana, but my legs buckled. I collapsed onto the cold stone floor, the impact jolting through my frail frame.
"I… did… it!" I rasped, the words a painful scrape against my throat.
The excitement was still there, but it was now tangled with sheer, undiluted panic. This was why. This was why toddlers didn't awaken.
My body, my three-year-old elf body, was not a vessel designed to contain or feed this kind of power.
Its systems were too simple, its channels too underdeveloped. The core was a furnace, and I was a handful of kindling.
Dragging myself across the floor, every movement a Herculean effort, I reached for a small wooden stool—the one I used to reach the door handle.
My fingers, trembling violently, clutched at its leg. I used it to pull myself half-upright, leaning against it as waves of debilitating weakness and gnawing hunger washed over me.
The pain was less sharp and more profound, a deep, systemic ache, as if my bones were hollow and my blood was turning to dust.
Through the haze of suffering, a grim understanding dawned. Maybe I wouldn't be teaching Tessia this method right away. The thought of her bright eyes dimmed with this kind of pain was unbearable.
But another, colder voice argued from the depths of my fear. A little pain now is nothing compared to what the god across the ocean has in store for her.
She needs strength. She needs to be strong enough that Nico Sever can't just… install his dead girlfriend in her like changing a battery.
The image fueled a new kind of fire, one that burned alongside the mana starvation. Hatred, pure and focused.
I would save Sylvia. I would find a way to kill Nico Sever. The god across the ocean might shield him in Alacrya for now, but his fate was sealed in my mind. I would make magic itself bend to my will if it meant to save my family.
With that oath clenching my jaw tight against the pain, I pushed. I summoned every ounce of will left in my small, trembling body and forced myself to stand upright, letting go of the stool.
I swayed, the world tilting, but I remained on my feet.
Deep within, nestled beneath the hunger and the ache, something new pulsed in time with my heart. A small, dark sun.
A measly, beginner's black core—the weakest there was. But it was real. It was mine.
And it was the first, trembling step on the impossible path I had chosen. The hunger would fade. The pain would recede. But the core would remain. A hidden gear now engaged in the ticking clock of Fate.
I stood in the dusty closet, a child trembling with aftermath, feeling both devastatingly weak and, for the very first time, useful.
The fraud had stolen his first real tool.