Corvis Eralith
The whisper was a stage-whisper, carrying perfectly in the hushed hallway.
"Corvis, we've been seen!" Tessia's voice was a blend of genuine alarm and giddy excitement, the thrill of the caught spy. She pressed herself against the wall beside the study door, her teal eyes wide.
Yes. That was the plan. The cold affirmation in my mind was a stark contrast to her playful panic. We were never going to be successful eavesdroppers for long, not with Grandpa's preternatural awareness.
But I'd needed a catalyst, a reason for him to leave the room.
My own voice, "Tessia!", had been a calculated slip—just loud enough, just sharp enough, to prick his warrior's instincts and draw him out.
A simple, ugly manipulation.
The guilt that followed was a swift, sickening punch to the gut. I was using my sister. Exploiting her natural mischievousness and our grandfather's love for her as tactical tools.
The very thing I was trying to prevent Agrona from doing—using her as a vessel, a means to an end—I was now replicating on a smaller, more intimate scale.
"Tessia," I said, my voice low and urgent, pulling her attention from the door. I crouched slightly to meet her eyes, the action feeling like another performance. "I need you to do me a favour."
The request felt filthy. I was weaponizing her trust.
But Tessia, ever eager for inclusion, for partnership in any adventure, simply nodded, her expression instantly serious and ready.
"Let me handle it!" she declared, puffing out her small chest. In her mind, this was just the next phase of the game. At times, telling the truth makes it easier, I tried to rationalize. She wants to be involved. She... she wants to help.
Before I could drown further in my own shame, the study door opened. Grandpa Virion stepped out, his frame filling the doorway. He looked down at the two of us, caught in our obviously guilty huddle.
His face was a masterful attempt at stern grandfatherly disapproval, but I saw it—the faint, irrepressible twitch at the corner of his mouth, the warmth that refused to be fully extinguished in his eyes. He was trying to be angry, but he loved us too much.
"Your parents have never told you that eavesdropping is wrong?" he asked, his voice a gravelly imitation of severity.
"No!" Tessia chirped immediately, shaking her head with such vigorous innocence that the lie was transparent.
And with that, the plan clicked into its final phase. With a glance at me that was pure, unadulterated mischief, she turned and bolted down the corridor, a flash of gunmetal hair and flying silks.
Grandpa's pretended sternness evaporated into pure, exasperated affection. "Little one, I am not done with you!" he called, but it was a token protest.
He gave me a look that was equal parts warning and amusement—we'll talk about this later—and then set off after her, his long strides easily eating up the distance she'd gained.
I stood there for a heartbeat, watching them. The mighty Virion Eralith, reduced to a play-chaser by a four-year-old girl. The image superimposed itself over the one from the novel: the hardened, grief-ravaged Commander of the Tri-Union, who had lost his son, his daughter-in-law, his kingdom, and very nearly his granddaughter.
This joyful, fleeting moment was everything I was fighting for.
But there was no time for paralysis. I turned and stepped into the study, closing the door softly behind me. The atmosphere shifted instantly, from the sun-dappled warmth of family to the cool, serious air of statecraft. And there, standing by Grandpa's desk, was Rahdeas Warend.
He looked exactly as I'd pictured from the novel's descriptions. One eye, a sharp, intelligent brown, fixed on me with immediate assessment. The other was a sightless, milky orb, but it somehow didn't diminish his presence. He wore rich, somber merchant's robes, the fabric expensive but understated.
This was the dwarf who would, in another life, betray a continent. Or would he?
For the first time, I allowed myself a sliver of certainty on one point: without Arthur, there was no Elijah Knight. Agrona had no reason to insert Nico into Dicathian society. That didn't absolve Rahdeas, but it changed the potential timeline of his corruption.
He might still be… just Rahdeas. A merchant with ambitions, a patriot with a vision, or a traitor waiting for a signal. I had to find out which.
"Oh, Prince," Rahdeas said. His voice was a low, cultured rumble, perfectly modulated to be polite, yet entirely devoid of the warmth he'd shown Grandpa. It was a diplomat's voice, a merchant's voice, giving nothing away. "What a pleasant surprise. Aren't you going to follow Elder Virion?"
I took a steadying breath, drawing it in through my nose. With that breath, I tried to cast out everything—the anxiety clawing at my ribs, the fear of this powerful stranger, the confusion of my dual existence, the crushing worry for the future.
"I-I am afraid I am here for much more serious issues, Elder," I said, forcing my voice to remain level.
A betraying stutter slipped out on the first word. Damn it. I covered the lapse by moving with deliberate calm to one of the high-backed armchairs in the corner of the room, climbing into it so I wouldn't be standing at knee-height.
Rahdeas's expression darkened almost imperceptibly at my words and my stutter. His good eye narrowed, the scrutiny intensifying.
A sudden, chilling thought struck me: Did he know about reincarnation? Asuras did. Agrona did. If Rahdeas was already in their pocket, the concept might not be foreign to him. My abnormal behavior might not read as 'precocious child' but as 'something else.'
"And what are these serious issues?" he asked. All pretense of friendliness was gone from his voice now, stripped away like a superfluous layer of wrapping.
This was the core of him—direct, analytical, and dangerous.
Don't let him intimidate you, Corvis! I screamed at myself internally. This was the pivot point. I needed him. He was influential, connected, a power broker between nations. He could get me to the Red Gorge.
He could provide cover, resources, a plausible reason for a prince to be near a Sapin-controlled dungeon. And once I was there, once I was in imminent danger in an SS-class zone, the alarm would be raised. Someone would have to come. Hopefully Alea.
"I am sure you know the problems Dicathen faces," I began, choosing my words with immense care.
This was pure speculation, an opening gambit. The novel never spelled out Rahdeas's early motivations. But he had accepted a seat on the Council. He had worked with Grandpa. There had to be some thread of care, some investment in this continent, or at least in his homeland of Darv.
Otherwise, why play the political game at all?
His face remained impassive, giving me nothing.
"And I am sure you know the even greater problems Darv faces," I continued, pressing the point, testing the ground beneath my feet. I was aiming for patriotism, for that deep-seated loyalty to stone that all dwarves were said to possess.
This time, I struck a chord. Rahdeas's eyebrows, thick and grey, lifted a fraction. His posture stiffened almost imperceptibly.
"And what do you think to know about Darv?" he asked. His tone was deadly serious now, the merchant replaced by something harder, more territorial. I had touched a nerve.
"More than you think, Elder," I said, meeting his gaze and holding it. It was a risk, a claim to knowledge I couldn't possibly have. But in a world of secrets, sometimes a bold lie was the only key.
"And contrary to most of Elenoir," I added, shifting tack, "I do not consider dwarves spineless mercenaries for assisting Sapin during the second war."
I was gambling everything on the assumption that he was not yet Agrona's creature. Even if he was, I doubted he'd risk assassinating the elven Crown Prince in Virion Eralith's own study. The political fallout would be catastrophic, even for a traitor.
"The only fault that Darv has," I pressed on, my voice gaining a sliver of conviction, "is the lack of good leadership." It was a bold, almost insulting statement to make to a leading elder of that nation. "I want to change that. I want to change that for all of Dicathen."
For a long moment, Rahdeas simply stared at me. The silence in the study was profound, broken only by the distant, muffled sounds of Tessia's laughter from far down the hall. Then, he spoke.
"A nice dream, Prince." His words were flat, a simple observation. But notably, there was no mockery in them. He wasn't dismissing me as a fantasizing child. He was acknowledging the statement as one might acknowledge a declared strategic objective.
He's listening. The realization sent a jolt through me.
"And dreams are but stepping stones, Elder," I responded, echoing the kind of philosophical language I'd gleaned from his letters. "But I have not only dreams in mind. I have concrete things. Concrete projects."
I was making it up as I went along, but the direction was clear: I was presenting myself as a potential actor, not just a dreamer.
"And for that, Elder," I concluded, leaning forward slightly in the large chair, "I need you."
This finally broke his impassive facade. A flicker of genuine surprise, followed by deep intrigue, passed over his features.
"Me?" he repeated. "You, the Prince of Elenoir, asking me, a merchant from Darv, for help?"
The question was rhetorical, but it wasn't sarcastic. It was probing. I remembered then, from the hazy recollections of the novel, that Rahdeas was a man who loved riddles, who communicated in layers and tested the minds of those he dealt with.
This was his test: was I just a child with a big mouth and borrowed phrases, or did I understand the deeper game?
The answer came to me from the core of my own fractured existence. It was the fundamental paradox I lived every second. I met his gaze, my teal eyes unwavering in my face.
"What would life be without death?" I asked.
The effect was instantaneous. Rahdeas's good eye widened. His breath caught, just for a fraction of a second. The cryptic, existential nature of the reply, its sheer unexpectedness from a child, bypassed all his prepared defenses. It was a key fitting a lock I hadn't known was there.
A slow, appreciative smile touched his lips, one that reached his eyes for the first time. "You are smart, Your Highness," he conceded, the title now carrying a weight of respect it hadn't before. "I am all ears for what you want from me. But I fear Elder Virion will be back shortly."
I nodded, a wave of dizzying relief threatening to unseat me. I slid down from the armchair, my legs feeling weak. As I stood there, dwarfed by the room and the powerful figure before me, the cold rush of the encounter began to recede, leaving behind a profound and unsettling clarity.
I had just done it.
But as the initial adrenaline faded, the voice of reason returned, colder and sharper. I was about to make the greatest mistake of my life.
I was allowing the prejudice born of knowing a story to cloud my judgement of the living man in front of me. The novel's Rahdeas was a traitor.
This Rahdeas… was an unknown quantity. To treat him as only the villain from a discarded script was not just arrogant and potentially catastrophic.
I would still be cautious. I would watch every word, question every offer. The stakes were my life, and the fate of everything I loved. But I would give Rahdeas Warned the benefit of the doubt. The space to prove he was something other than the monster I feared.
It was a gamble more dangerous than facing a Phoenix Wyrm, because this enemy, if he was an enemy, could smile and offer gifts while plotting your ruin.