Tessia Eralith
The silence of the royal apartments had become an unbearable weight, a thick, woolly blanket smothering my spirit.
My doll, a finely-stitched lady with vacant silk eyes, lay where I had flung her, her porcelain face a silent judge of my petulance.
"Mooom! I am bored!"
The shout tore from my throat as a declaration of war against the unbearable tranquility of my cage.
"Tessia! Don't throw your things!" Mom's voice was a familiar melody of chastisement and weariness, woven from the very threads of routine.
My gaze dropped to the sun-dappled rug, a flush of genuine shame warming my cheeks. I was a good girl and good girls did not hurl their toys; they arranged them for polite tea parties that never varied.
"Sorry..." The apology was automatic, but the frustration curdled in my stomach, seeking a culprit.
This stagnation, this endless, polite afternoon, was all Corvis's fault. He had slipped away on the wings of adventure to see that new friend of his, that Chaffer, leaving me marooned in a sea of velvet and sunlight.
The happiness I had tried to muster for him now tasted like betrayal. He already had me! Was I not enough? Was I not more exciting than some noble boy from the city? And a darker, thornier fear took root: what if that stranger harmed him?
My teeth ground together at the phantom image, a brief, sharp pain that anchored my spiraling thoughts.
Rebellion, hot and sudden, straightened my spine. I stood up, the decision a physical act.
"Tessia, what are you doing?" Mom asked, her sigh a soft exhalation of practiced patience. It was the sigh that usually preceded compromise, and it only fanned the embers inside me.
"I am taking a stroll!" I declared, my voice ringing with a defiance I hoped sounded regal, not childish.
"Don't leave the Palace," she said, not looking up from her embroidery, the needle a tiny, flashing sword stitching order into the world.
I whirled, the injustice of it a lightning strike. "What?! Why is Corvis allowed to go wherever he wants in the city and I am not?" The fury was pure, unadulterated, burning away the last of my shame.
"Because your brother knows something called restraint," Mom said, finally lifting her eyes. They were half-closed with that infuriating adult knowledge that saw right through my tempest to the little girl at its center.
"I know that word too, you know?" I shot back, crossing my arms tightly over my chest, a barrier against her logic.
"That's not what I meant, Tessia," she said, and her tone softened, turning tactical. "And the palace is pretty big. Have you ever visited it all?"
The wind left my sails. She had maneuvered me into a corner with a simple, undeniable truth. "...no..." I mumbled, hating the admission, hating more that she, and Dad, and Corvis, so often held these quiet, immovable truths that I could not argue against.
"See? Now go, have fun." The finality in her voice was a dismissal and a victory. Stomping out, I felt the hollow ring of my own capitulation.
The corridor outside was a cool, blue-carpeted throat of stone. And there, materializing as if conjured by my frustration, was Feyrith.
"Your Highness, what a fateful coincidence! I was just passing b—"
"Step aside, Feyrith." I marched past Feyrith Ivsaar III, a boy who was less a friend and more a persistent, ornate shadow.
At six, he was two years mine and Corvis's senior, yet he possessed the relentless focus of a hound on a scent, a quality both irritating and, in my current loneliness, perversely welcome.
As predicted, the concept of "step aside" was alien to him. His footsteps, a light, eager patter, joined mine instantly. "Where are we going, Your Highness?" He invited himself into my aimlessness with cheerful presumption.
"Nowhere," I replied, the word a flat stone dropped between us.
"I see, I see," he murmured, touching his chin in a ridiculous parody of deep meditation. "Then we could go to the gardens! You know, there is an access to them close by!"
I stopped and fixed him with the sternest look I could muster. "You know I live here, right?"
Sometimes I wondered if Feyrith inhabited a storybook entirely of his own making, where he was the gallant guide to a perpetually lost princess.
"Gah!" he exclaimed, as if this were a revelation. "Then..."
"Just follow me," I sighed, the fight leaving me. He emitted a small, triumphant sound that echoed in the vaulted space, falling into step so close behind me I could feel the draft of his movement.
The grandeur of the Royal Palace, usually a source of comforting familiarity, soon transformed into a disorienting maze. The proud, white stone walls, the azure runners, the majestic arches formed from the living wood of the Watchful Willows—they all began to repeat, a beautiful, endless pattern that betrayed my sense of direction.
"You know where we are?" I asked, the question laced with a dawning anxiety I tried to mask with irritation.
Feyrith's usual confidence was absent. "I have no idea," he admitted quietly. That simple admission sent a genuine chill through me.
For Feyrith Ivsaar III to confess ignorance meant we were well and truly adrift. I gulped, the sound loud in the oppressive silence. This wing was… dormant.
The air was stiller, cooler, dust motes dancing in slender shafts of light from windows that looked out upon unfamiliar courtyards.
Our footfalls, once absorbed by life, now echoed back at us, whispers of our own presence.
"We should head back, Your Highness," Feyrith said, his voice uncharacteristically small, wavering at the edges.
"We already did that, two times!" I hissed, my own fear morphing into stubbornness. "We just need to continue straight. We will eventually find something."
He nodded, a tight, nervous gesture. "Why is there such an empty wing in the Royal Palace?" His question hung in the still air, amplifying the mystery.
"Do you think I know that?!" I exclaimed, the shrillness betraying my own rising panic.
Then—the sound.
It was not a creak or a distant voice. It was a POP—a deep, percussive, utterly wrong concussion of air that seemed to come from the very stone beside us. It was the sound of reality snapping.
I shrieked, stumbling back several steps, my heart a frantic bird in my ribcage. Feyrith yelped, his instinct not to shield me, but to seek shelter behind my smaller frame, his hands clutching at the fabric of my dress.
"W-what are you doing?" I stammered, outrage momentarily overpowering fear. "You should be the one in front of me!"
"Oh, yes… right…" he stuttered, peeling himself from behind me.
He took a careful, tremulous step toward the plain, wooden door from which the sound had emanated. It was just a servant's quarters door, utterly mundane, which made the violence of the noise that came from it all the more terrifying.
"You aren't going to check, right?!" I squeaked, the princess, the rebel, entirely gone, leaving only a frightened child. "Are you crazy?!"
"I am Feyrith Ivsaar III! I face danger face to face!" he proclaimed, his voice a brave quaver in the silent hall. With a trembling hand, he pushed the door open.
The sight within stole the very breath from my lungs.
The room was a tempest in a box. Two simple beds were shoved violently against a wall, a small table lay on its side, and a washbasin had spilled, a dark water stain blooming on the floor like a bruise. And in the center of this chaotic still-life, hovering a full foot above the ground, was a boy.
He was small, probably my own age, with hair the shocking white of a winter moon. His eyes, wide with terror and an otherworldly focus, were a deep, turbid peat-brown. But it was not his levitation that held us transfixed.
It was the barrier. A shimmering, undulating shell of deep chestnut energy encased him, humming with a low, visceral frequency I felt in my teeth. It wasn't clean or magical-looking; it seemed organic, earthy, like the living root of some ancient tree made visible, pulsed and swirled with currents of raw power.
Tiny motes of dust and splinters from the disturbed room orbited it, caught in its gravitational pull.
The world narrowed to that room, to that floating, terrified boy encased in a cocoon of impossible earth. The few lessons, the explanations about mana cores and the minimum age of awakening—they were mere words, ash on the wind before the living, breathing fact of this miracle.
"An awakening?!" The exclamation tore from Feyrith and me in unison, our voices thin with disbelief and awe.
My boredom was incinerated in an instant, replaced by a fearful, exhilarating awe.
—
The boy—the kid-mage—slumped to the floor, the last tremors of that astonishing, chestnut-hued energy fading from the air like the afterglow of a struck bell.
He lay still, his white hair a stark spill against the worn wooden boards, his small chest rising and falling with the deep, rhythmic cadence of utter exhaustion. The silence he left in his wake was now charged, humming with the ghost of the power that had just fractured my understanding in this forgotten room.
"Your Highness, he could be dangerous!" Feyrith's whisper was a sharp blade slicing through the thick air. He hovered near the doorway, a portrait of conflicted nobility, torn between protocol and panic.
"What is he even doing in the Royal Palace? Practicing obscure ways of magic?" His voice trembled with a thrilling mixture of fear and scandalized excitement.
I rolled my eyes, the familiar gesture a touchstone of normalcy in this profoundly abnormal moment.
"If you don't want to stay here, you can go," I stated, not looking at him. My entire being was focused on the sleeping boy.
The danger Feyrith spoke of was the peril of the unknown, and that was a siren call I could not ignore. It was infinitely more compelling than another afternoon arranging dolls and waiting for Corvis to return.
Feyrith's gaze darted from the boy to the empty corridor, a battlefield of courage and caution playing out on his face. After a long, held breath, his shoulders sagged in surrender.
"...I will stay here," he murmured, the words heavy with reluctant duty.
I ignored him, my mind racing.
There was a nagging familiarity about the boy's features, a half-remembered impression that fluttered at the edge of my memory. The white hair… it was so distinctive, like a splash of milk against parchment.
And then it clicked—Alea! The quiet and mysterious maid with the same unusual hair, who moved through the palace with a serene, unnoticed grace, but that was strangely close to Mom.
I had seen this boy clinging to her skirts once or twice during Mom's tedious gatherings, a silent shadow in a corner while the noble children preened and played. My eyes scanned him anew, trying to stitch the memory of that shy child to this vessel of cataclysmic power.
I glanced at Feyrith. "Feyrith, have you ever seen him?" I asked, my tone demanding precision. "And think well."
"Seen him?" he echoed, his brow furrowing in genuine, earnest effort. He studied the boy's face as if it were a complex text. "I… no, I don't remember."
Of course he doesn't, I sighed internally. The inner workings of Feyrith Ivsaar III's world were hierarchically strict. If you were not royalty, high nobility, or possibly a figure from a mythic tapestry, you simply did not register.
Then, the boy stirred. A soft groan escaped his lips, his eyelids fluttering. My breath hitched.
"H-He's—" Feyrith started, his voice rising an octave.
"Yeah, I can see that!" I snapped back, a swarm of butterflies taking violent flight in my stomach.
This was it. The mystery was waking up.
A fierce, greedy curiosity eclipsed everything else. I needed to know everything—the source of his power, the feel of it, the secret knowledge that thrummed in his veins.
A repressed, triumphant grin threatened my lips as I imagined the stunned, utterly flabbergasted look on Corvis's face if I, his twin sister, were to unravel this enigma and step into the world of magic before him.
"What happened?!" the boy-mage exclaimed, bolting upright as if shocked.
Disorientation clouded his peat-brown eyes, which darted around the ravaged room before landing on us.
Feyrith opened his mouth, no doubt to launch into a pompous explanation or an accusation. I didn't let him. A swift, sharp jab of my elbow into his side silenced him with a satisfying oof.
"You awakened as a mage, that's what happened!" I declared, crossing my arms over my chest.
I aimed for a tone of regal pronouncement, the voice of someone who witnessed miracles as a matter of course. The boy's mouth fell agape, a perfect circle of stupefaction.
Then, a transformation. The shock melted, replaced by a dawning, radiant satisfaction that lit his entire face from within.
"I did it!" The exclamation was a burst of pure, unadulterated joy.
He looked at his hands as if seeing them for the first time, turning them over, and a giggle bubbled from him—a sound so innocent and delighted it was disarming. Tears welled in his eyes, not of pain or fear, but of overwhelming, triumphant emotion.
"Show some—" Feyrith began again, ever the guardian of decorum.
Another swift elbow to the same spot cut him off.
Only then did the full context of the situation seem to crash down upon the boy. His gaze fixed on me, truly seeing me now—the dress, the bearing, the unmistakable aura of the palace that clung to me even here.
His joy evaporated, replaced by a panic so profound it was almost comical.
"P-princess!" he yelped, scrambling to his feet and executing a bow so deep and sudden he nearly overbalanced. "I am sorry for... for what you have seen!"
I felt a smirk grace my lips. This was a dance I understood, a shift in the dynamic that put me firmly on familiar ground. I raised my chin, allowing my gaze to sweep over him with calculated appraisal.
"Fortunately for you, I liked what I have seen," I announced. Confusion replaced terror on his face. Beside me, Feyrith sputtered silently, utterly lost.
"What do you mean, Your Highness?" the boy asked, his voice small.
"Exactly what I said," I confirmed, my tone leaving no room for debate.
"Now," I began, the questions firing from me like arrows from a quiver. "Who taught you how to awaken at such a young age? How old are you even? And what is your name? And are you related to Alea? Ehm... Tri-something was her surname."
He blinked, visibly staggered by the barrage. For a moment, he just stared, a rabbit caught in the gaze of a very curious, very persistent fox. Then, slowly, he nodded, a semblance of composure returning.
"Alwyn," he said. "Alwyn Triscan."
The name landed with a soft thud in my mind. Triscan. Yes. And Alwyn… a spark of connection flared. Wasn't that the name of one of Corvis's friends? Well... two friends, an Alwyn and Albold Chaffer.
I gave a single, imperious nod, granting him permission to continue.
"I am four…" he offered. My age. Yet he existed in a realm of experience I could only gawk at from the outside. Another nod.
"Alea is my big sister."
There it was—the confirmation. The mysterious maid and the impossible mage were bound by blood. This was no accident, then.
He had carefully avoided the first, the most vital question. The one that clawed at my curiosity with sharpened claws.
How? Not even Grandpa Virion, with his silver-core might and the Beast Will that walked in his step, had ever hinted that such a thing was possible for one so young.
"And?" I pressed, leaning forward slightly. I could barely contain the electric excitement buzzing in my veins. This boy, this Alwyn, was a living, breathing secret I needed to pry it open.
"Nothing," he said.
The word was simple, final. But his expression had changed. The stunned confusion was gone, replaced by a guarded, stubborn resolve that reminded me, startlingly, of Corvis when he had decided a matter was closed.
Yet, where Corvis's defiance was a stormy, emotional frontier, this boy's was a quiet, immovable wall. He held my gaze, and in that moment, he wasn't a flustered commoner or a miraculous mage; he was just a boy, fiercely protecting something.
"So, you are going to deny what just happened?" I asked, my intrigue deepening into genuine fascination.
This was new. The other children—Feyrith included, beneath his eccentricities that made him more funny than boring—treated me with a uniform blend of reverence and eager-to-please anxiety.
Their desires were transparent mirrors of my own. But Alwyn… he had a core of something separate, something that did not bend automatically to the title of 'Princess.'
My question made him flinch, a crack in his wall.
"What just happened? What did happen?" he parried, a desperate, poorly crafted feint.
"You are lying to Her Highness!" Feyrith finally found his voice, righteous indignation puffing him up. "Do you know it's a crime lying to the Eralith family?"
I expected Alwyn to crumble then—to pale, to stammer, to fall to his knees. But he didn't. He barely glanced at Feyrith, his focus still locked on me, as if he understood, instinctively, where the true power in this room resided.
Another elbow, sharper this time hit the side of the elf by my right. "Where have you heard that?" I hissed at Feyrith, a flash of real anger sparking.
My parents were just. They were fair. They did not deal in petty crimes for lies told by frightened children. My biass—was that the word Corvis taught me was spelled?—was a protective, fierce loyalty.
My attention snapped back to Alwyn, and I deployed my ultimate gambit.
"If you aren't a mage," I said, my voice dropping to a conspiratorial, dangerous sweetness, "then nothing would happen if I told my Grandpa, the great Virion Eralith, to check on you, right?"
The name did its work like a physical blow. Alwyn visibly paled, a sheen of sweat glistening at his temples. The immovable wall trembled.
"I… please don't, Your Highness…" It was a genuine plea, stripped of all pretense.
"Deal," I said, my smile returning, wide and triumphant. I had won. The leverage was mine. "But you will have to tell me who taught you how to awaken!"
He was trapped, and he knew it. He stood there, a small figure amidst the wreckage of his own awakening, caught between a secret and a princess. He stopped, swallowed, and then the words came, quiet but defiantly clear.
"I was self-taught."
The reaction was instantaneous and shared.
"Impossible!" Feyrith and I shouted in perfect, stunned unison. The notion was heretical, a laughable fantasy. Magic required guidance, lineage, ancient knowledge passed down!
"It's true!" Alwyn countered, and for the first time, his voice held a heat that matched ours, a spark of pride flaring through his fear. "Do—do you know anyone else able to do this?"
The question was a masterstroke. He was right. We didn't. The sheer, staggering isolation of his achievement dawned on me. The awe I felt curdled, just for a second, with a sharp, stabbing envy.
Then, it crystalized into absolute, unwavering determination.
"Then you will demonstrate it," I said, the words not a request but a decree, the full weight of my bloodline and my burning will behind them.
"By teaching me." I took a step forward, my small frame trying to fill the space with authority. "As Princess of Elenoir, this I command!"