Corvis Eralith
It was the day of the Gem Banquet.
I stood before the mirror in a room of Elder Rahdeas's personal residence in Vildorial, and I did not recognize the person staring back at me.
Finn Warend was wearing the classic clothes of a young dwarven noble—a costume that felt heavier than any clothing I had ever worn.
A dark brown cloak trimmed with fur draped across my shoulders, its weight pressing down on me like a reminder of everything I was pretending to be. Silver bracelets circled both my wrists, catching the dim light of the cavern and throwing it back in scattered sparks.
Two golden earrings adorned the top part of each ear, their weight strange and unfamiliar. A shining belt secured trousers made of some kind of precious hide, the leather supple and warm against my skin.
At my feet, two shoes were laced with silver buttons that gleamed with every step.
"I have never worn so much jewelry in my entire life," I murmured, turning my head from side to side, watching the light shift across the metal. "And I am a prince."
The words felt absurd in my mouth. I had grown up in the Royal Palace of Zestier, had attended countless banquets and balls and ceremonies where the nobility displayed their wealth like armor.
But I had always worn simple clothes, understated elegance, the quiet confidence of someone who did not need to prove anything.
Finn Warend could not afford that luxury. Finn Warend was a commoner boy with a famous great-uncle, and he needed to look like he belonged to nobility today even if his other self was the prince of a whole kingdom.
I exited the room, and Elder Rahdeas was waiting for me in the corridor. His good eye swept over me, assessing, measuring, and I saw the faint nod of approval.
"Where is Olfred?" I asked.
"He serves his duty at Lodenhold today," Rahdeas replied, falling into step beside me. "Do you have any questions?"
"Will I be alone in the Greysunders' palace?" I asked.
Again, convincing Berna to stay in Zestier had been a battle. She had growled, whined, pressed her massive head against my chest and refused to move.
I had convinced her through great effort, through promises I was not sure I could keep, through the quiet, steady reassurance that I would return.
"I will accompany you to maintain the cover, but all candidates are expected to have lunch at the main table of the Feasthall with the King," Rahdeas said, stroking his grey beard.
The gesture was thoughtful, almost meditative, and I wondered what he was thinking. What calculations were running behind that one good eye.
"Understood, Elder—Great-uncle," I corrected myself with a smile.
Rahdeas winked with his good eye. The gesture was almost playful, almost warm, and I felt something loosen in my chest.
"I feared I should have asked Olfred to teach you acting," Elder Rahdeas said as we began walking through the corridors of his residence, "but it seems you do not need it."
"I noticed it too," I said, falling into step beside him, "but why is Olfred such a good actor?"
It was a question I had carried since a former time. A time when I had known this world only through the pages of a book, when the characters had been names and faces and nothing more. Olfred had been a traitor in that story.
A man who had sold his continent for a promise, who had died for a cause he did not fully understand. But the man I had come to know was not that simple. He was loyal, yes—to Rahdeas and only Rahdeas.
He was efficient, yes—but efficient in the way a weapon was efficient, not in the way a monster was. He had killed without remorse, but he had also protected without hesitation. He was a contradiction, and I wanted to understand him.
"I always had a soft spot for culture and the arts," Rahdeas said, his hands folded behind his back as we walked along the Anvilrun. The street was more crowded than usual today—which meant it brimmed with people—filled with dwarves in their finest clothes, all streaming toward Lodenhold for the banquet. "The first time I met Virion, we exchanged pieces of dwarven and elven culture."
Four years ago. I had spied on Grandpa's correspondence and discovered he was going to meet the dwarf I had then considered a traitor. Now I considered him a strange and mysterious, but beyond useful, ally.
The world had shifted beneath my feet since then, and I was still learning to stand on the new ground.
"And the first shop you opened in Zestier was Stonebound Tomes," I said. "A shop of dwarven ethnic goods."
"Exactly," Rahdeas replied, and I heard the hint of satisfaction in his voice.
"And then what about you?" I asked. "If you were the one who made Olfred such a good actor, what made you passionate about culture?"
Elder Rahdeas remained silent for a while. The noise of the crowd seemed to fade around us, the world narrowing to the space between us. Then he stopped.
"I was born poor," he began. "No, lower than that. I was an orphan in the Pits of Vildorial. The lowest of the caves that make up this city."
He paused, and I saw something flicker across his face. Something old. Something that had been buried for a very long time.
"One day, my master saved me from that hell. He brought me to where the Warend Trading Company now has its headquarters. What was once known as the Hearth Orphanage." He resumed walking, and I followed, my heart pounding in my chest. "My master taught me the basics of economics and all the secrets that brought me to where I am now. But before that—before any of that—he taught me literature. Theatre. Music. So many other things I had never even considered."
He was quiet for a moment, and I felt the weight of his words pressing against my chest.
"He taught me the importance of a father." Elder Rahdeas continued as Lodenhold came into view, towering over the Anvilrun. The palace of the Greysunders was a monument to everything that was wrong with Darv—ostentatious, excessive, built on the backs of the poor and the desperate. "He taught me everything about being a person."
"Who was your master?" I asked, my voice barely above a whisper.
"A human," he said. "Hythlodaeus Knight."
Knight. The name echoed in my skull, bouncing off the walls of my memory. Like Elijah Knight. The name Nico Sever had used while he was in Dicathen. Did this Hythlodaeus and Nico have something in common? Or had Rahdeas simply named Elijah after his human master? The coincidence was too great to ignore, too strange to be accidental.
"Where is he now?" I asked.
Rahdeas's face darkened. The light seemed to drain from his expression, leaving behind something hollow.
"I have not seen him in many, many years," he said. "He left Vildorial decades ago. By now, he is probably dead. He was a mage—he taught me magic—but he was still a human and I wasn't much older than you when I first met him."
"Sorry for asking," I apologized, and I meant it. I had pried open a wound that had never fully healed, and I had no right to do that.
I wondered if Agrona had used this Hythlodaeus Knight to make Rahdeas his puppet in the novel. It was not impossible.
Agrona was a master of puppeteering magic and mind control, a god who had spent millennia learning to twist the wills of lesser beings. If he had discovered Rahdeas's love for his human master, if he had found a way to exploit that love...
"Don't be," Rahdeas said. "I am telling you this only because it is what my master would have wanted. He was an advocate for Peace. That was what he always told me. He was a fan of music and a researcher at heart. A dutiful son who dreamed of being a father and having a child of his own."
Advocate for Peace. A researcher. The words slammed into my chest like a physical blow. Was this Hythlodaeus a Djinn? A living one, not a remnant trapped inside a Vaultlamp?
I had to ask Avicenna if he had ever heard of an Hythlodaeus Knight.
If such a person had existed, if a Djinn had survived the genocide and lived among the lessers, teaching and guiding and dreaming of peace for millennia...
"Thank you for sharing," I said.
We arrived at Lodenhold. The palace sprawled before us, massive and imposing, its walls carved from the same dark stone that formed the cavern around it.
Many other dwarven nobles were gathered at the entrance with their sons and daughters—other candidates, boastful in every way that mattered.
They wore jewels that could have fed a family for a year. They spoke in voices that carried, laughing at jokes that were not funny, preening under the attention of the crowd.
The main door of Lodenhold was closed. Unlike the Royal Palace in Zestier, which was always open to the people, the Greysunders' palace kept its doors shut.
A massive door, tall even by Zestese standards. For Vildorians, the entrance to Lodenhold was nothing short of titanic. It was designed to intimidate. To remind every dwarf who entered that they were small, that they were insignificant, that the Greysunders were the only power that mattered.
The doors were pushed open. A series of royal guards of the Greysunders family lined the entrance hall of the palace, their armor gleaming, their faces expressionless.
Among them, I recognized both Olfred and Mica Earthborn—the other dwarven Lance.
King Dawsid Greysunders, ever the showman, walked a red carpet that was clearly imported from Sapin.
The fabric was thick, luxurious, the kind of thing that cost more than most dwarves earned in a lifetime. He opened his arms wide, a grin on his face, the light from the crystals and the thousands of candles inside Lodenhold reflecting off his many jewels.
He glittered like a walking treasury, like a monument to excess, like everything that was wrong with the ruling class of Darv.
"Welcome to the Gem Banquet!" He bellowed, his voice echoing off the stone walls. It sounded like it was augmented by sound magic or an artifact—but it was neither. His natural voice was just that loud. "The Feasthall is already prepared, my people! Let us eat! Let us drink! Let us feast!"
As the dwarven king's bold declaration left his mouth, I saw Rahdeas clench his right fist in disgust. His knuckles were white, the rings on his fingers digging into his skin.
If he had truly been born an orphan in the lowest level of Vildorial, if he had clawed his way out of the Pits through sheer will and the kindness of a human master who believed in peace... this must look like utter blasphemy to him.
The excess. The waste. The casual, unwanted, cruelty of a king who had never known hunger, who had never watched children starve in the dark.
It meant I had to succeed today. If Rahdeas's master was truly a Djinn, if the folk of calm currents had survived in some small way, if their legacy lived on in a dwarf who had risen from the Pits to become one of the most powerful merchants in Dicathen... then I would show Darv that the Justiciar the Djinn had held so much faith in was truly going to make the course of Peace reach its goal.
I straightened my shoulders, adjusted my cloak, and walked through the titanic doors of Lodenhold. The Gem Banquet had begun.
—
The table I was sitting at was vast. It stretched across the Feasthall like a river of polished wood, easily a hundred seats where all the elite youth of Darv had gathered.
They were the sons and daughters of the wealthiest families, the most influential Houses, the bloodlines that had shaped this kingdom for centuries.
And they were all candidates for the position of Throneholder.
Each one of them had been groomed for this moment since birth, trained in politics and combat and the subtle art of currying favor with a king who cared more for spectacle than substance.
At the head of the table, Dawsid Greysunders sat on a throne that had been carried into the Feasthall for the occasion, its golden arms gleaming in the candlelight.
He told jokes—loud, boorish, the kind of jokes that relied more on volume than wit—and the boys and girls who sat nearest to him laughed at all of them.
Their eyes were empty. Their smiles were painted on. There was no true amusement in their faces, only the desperate need to be seen, to be noticed, to be chosen.
I was seated in the far back with the other non-nobles who had managed to gain a seat at this table.
We were a handful, maybe ten of us, scattered among the scions of great Houses like islands in a sea of privilege.
Despite Elder Rahdeas being almost more powerful than the Greysunders themselves—if you counted Olfred among the Warend's cards, and I did—he could only secure me this place. A seat at the table. A chance to speak. Everything else was on me.
The food we had been served was mainly meat. All kinds of it.
Roasted, smoked, grilled, stewed, marinated—the dwarves of Darv knew how to prepare flesh in a hundred different ways, each one more decadent than the last.
The plates were piled high, the portions large enough to feed a family for a week, and the smell of it all was almost overwhelming. But vegetables? Almost nothing. Fruit? Even less.
When a servant finally came to place a plate of fruits within my reach, I moved before anyone else could.
My hand closed around an apple—yellow like wheat, its skin smooth and unblemished—and I bit into it.
The flavor was rich, complex, sweet like an apple should be, but filling like bread. It was the taste of home. The taste of Elenoir.
An Asyphinian Golden! I rejoiced inwardly, ignoring the Gem Banquet around me for a single, perfect second. The fruit was a reminder of why I was here.
Not for the glory, not for the power, not for the chance to be adopted into a family that had sold its soul to Agrona Vritra. I was here for Elenoir. For Dicathen.
"You are Finn Warend, right?" A voice asked.
I turned. Sitting to my right was another dwarven boy, his long sideburns brown like rich soil, his face open and curious.
He was around thirteen years of age—not an uncommon sight in a dwarf, who reached puberty earlier than humans and elves. His clothes were fine but not ostentatious, his jewelry minimal, and there was something in his eyes that I had not seen in any of the other candidates.
"Yes, I am," I said, setting down the apple. "May I know who asks?"
"Gilbert Hammerfell," he declared, puffing out his chest. "Of the Hammerfell House."
"Oh, nice to meet you, my lord," I said, the title automatic, the etiquette drilled into me by years of courtly training.
Gilbert raised his hands in a defensive gesture, almost flustered. "I beg you, do not call me that. To me, your name means much more than that of my House."
I raised an eyebrow, genuinely surprised. "Really?"
"Your Great-uncle saved my House from ruin," Gilbert said, and his voice was earnest, grateful, the voice of someone who had not forgotten a debt. "He gave us a fresh start in Burim. To us, he is the true man worthy of nobility."
That was a story I had already heard. The Oreguard family had been saved from misery by Rahdeas and welcomed to Burim. Now the Hammerfells.
How many other families had he pulled from the brink? How many lives had he touched, quietly, without fanfare, without expectation of repayment?
Elder Rahdeas was not just building a trading company. He was building something else. Something that looked, from the outside, like the foundation of a power base that could rival the Greysunders themselves.
Was that the goal he wanted to accomplish with me here? To place a puppet on the throne? Or to place someone who would be beholden to him, who would owe him everything, who would never forget the debt?
In that we were very similar. I too was trying to sway Rahdeas by my side through this. Through favours, through debts.
"You flatter me, Gilbert," I said.
Then the voice of Dawsid Greysunders silenced everything else as it boomed throughout the Feasthall.
"My dear boys and girls, my dearest subjects!" Dawsid bellowed, and I wondered if people outside Lodenhold could hear him.
The acoustics of the Feasthall were designed to amplify sound, but his voice needed no help. It was a force of nature, raw and overwhelming, and it filled every corner of the vast chamber.
"I cannot express how much I am happy to have you all here! Sharing this wonderful food with the future of my kingdom!"
Fate, reincarnate him and make him a football commentator back on Earth, I thought cynically.
I am sure he would love it. The image was almost funny—Dawsid Greysunders in a cheap suit, microphone in hand, screaming about twenty two players chasing a ball while the crowd roared around him.
"One of you here today—the most talented, the most promising—will become a member of my family and Throneholder of Darv!" Dawsid continued, his arms spread wide, his jewels catching the light. "May this competition begin!"
Dawsid raised his jug full of beer to the air and let out a war cry. The sound echoed off the stone walls, and the crowd responded in kind, a hundred voices rising in a cheer that was more obligation than enthusiasm.
Again, the idea of him as a sports commentator became clearer in my head.
Then it began. A boring, interminable round of the table where each candidate presented themselves.
They spoke of their visions for a future Darv, of what they had already accomplished, of the great deeds that made them worthy of the Greysunders' attention.
The ones who had awakened spoke of fights they had won, battles they had fought, mana beasts they had slain. The ones who had not awakened spoke of projects built by their Houses, of wealth accumulated, of influence wielded.
None of them had spent their whole lives trying to save an entire continent. None of them had died multiple times and returned, carrying the weight of futures that might never come to pass.
Even the ones who had done something remarkable—not the noble kids, of course, but the commoners like me, like Finn—had done things expected from children their age.
Studying at the Earthborn Institute or other prestigious academies across Darv. Achieving personal goals. Other pretty average things.
Eventually, my turn came. I stood up, my heart pounding in my chest, my palms sweating despite the chill of the Feasthall.
In case things went badly, I had a C-Pill I could swallow. I could die. I could return. I could try again. The thought was cold comfort, but it was comfort nonetheless. I just had to be calm. I just had to speak.
"Good morning, King Dawsid. Everyone." My voice was level, steady, the product of years of practice.
My etiquette was perfect, as Mom had taught me and Tessia had pestered me to polish despite my absence from court life in Zestier. To her eyes, the brother of the Princess could only be as perfect as the Princess herself. I was very grateful for that right now.
"My name is Finn Warend. I am a humble boy of Vildorial, yet this is not of importance today."
I paused, letting the words settle over the crowd. A hundred faces stared back at me—some curious, some dismissive, some already bored. I did not let them distract me.
"I want to share with you all a dream," I continued. "A dream that I have had since I was old enough to think. A dream of a prosperous Darv."
It was not a full lie. My dream was that of a united and strong Dicathen. A Dicathen that included Darv, that respected Darv, that fought beside Darv when the war finally came.
"A Darv where we do not suffer the yoke of Sapin's prices for the food we import," I said, my voice growing stronger. "A Darv where we are not forced to accept lowered prices for our finest exports. My Great-uncle has fought against that for years, but I am not here to speak about my family. I am here to speak about myself. About why I am here. Here so I can have the honor to be Throneholder and continue the legacy of the Greysunders line that has guided our nation for generations."
I had to balance my words carefully. I needed to show myself as a loyal subject, a boy who admired the Greysunders, without looking like a fool who was just making empty praises to gain the King's favor.
It was a skill I had practiced in the multiple attempts I had made to achieve a satisfying result with Windsom Indrath. The Dragon had been a harder audience than any dwarf could ever be.
"The Unraveler's Company," I continued, "the association that my Great-uncle founded together with Prince Corvis Eralith of Elenoir, has already borne results. I myself have become an Unraveler to join the rush to the Wild East that for so long has been a monopoly of Sapin."
I pulled out the documents that proved my membership, holding them up for everyone to see. The parchment was official, stamped with the seal of the Company, and I saw some of the nobles lean forward, curious despite themselves.
"And through these unravelings, I discovered something that could help our nation greatly!" I declared.
Then someone interrupted me.
"You are just a puppet of Elenoir!" A boy older than me by many years—probably short of eighteen—shouted from somewhere to my left. His face was red with indignation, his finger pointing at me like a weapon. "A commoner who will sell Darv to the elves!"
Others joined him, their voices rising in a chorus of accusation. The noble kids who had been bored a moment ago were now animated, their eyes bright with the chance to tear down someone who did not belong.
"You say so?" I asked, my tone challenging, my gaze sweeping across the crowd. "Then let me show you what will truly make Darv independent. Puppet of no one."
As I spoke, Olfred appeared at the entrance of the Feasthall. Together with a few other guards, he brought out the Moyalembic I had built for Durzek Oreguard.
The device gleamed in the candlelight, its copper tubes and valves waiting to do their work. The nobles stared at it, confused, uncertain. They had never seen anything like it.
I moved from my chair and walked to stand in front of the device. The Feasthall was silent now, every eye fixed on me, on the strange machine, on the commoner boy who dared to claim he could change everything.
"This, my peers," I declared, and I did not flinch from the word, "is a Water Generator. A device that will revolutionize Darv."
I took a jug of water from the table, snatching it from the noble kid who had accused me of being an elven puppet. He tried to stop me, but a bit of magic to augment my body was all I needed to avoid him. His hand closed on empty air, and I was already at the Moyalembic, pouring the water into its intake tube.
"And now, look!" I exclaimed.
The device hummed to life. Copper heated. Tubes pulsed. And from the faucet at the end, water began to pour. Three times as much as I had poured in. Three times as much, flowing freely, endlessly, in front of a hundred witnesses.
"For centuries, we have been dependent on Sapin's water mages to achieve such things," I said, my voice rising above the murmur of the crowd. "If I were truly a puppet of Elenoir, I would beg Prince Corvis to lend us their water mages. But no! Without magic! Everyone will be able to produce water for their homes, for their businesses. Three times as much as was poured in!"
"Liar!" Another dwarven boy shouted, his voice cracking with outrage. "That water was already inside the... the 'Water Generator.' It is just a fancy cannister for water!"
Just as I hoped. I smiled inwardly, keeping my face calm, confident. I walked to King Dawsid, my steps measured, my posture humble.
"My King," I said, bowing low. "Would you do me the honor of testing the Water Generator yourself? Who better than the Crown to test a new invention?"
I had triggered the right cord. Dawsid Greysunders was a showman. He would never refuse a chance to shine.
If I was wrong, he could show himself as a magnanimous ruler who encouraged the youth to try better than to lie. But if I was right? Then everything would be perfect.
"I am intrigued!" Dawsid bellowed, rising from his throne. "Fill my jug with water! I will test this Water Generator myself!"
A servant rushed forward with a jug, and King Dawsid moved to the Moyalembic. He emptied the jug into the intake tube, and we waited. A few seconds passed. Then water began to flow from the faucet. More water. More than he had poured in.
"Faster! Bring more water!" King Dawsid exclaimed, and servants obeyed immediately. Another jug was emptied into the Moyalembic, and the device multiplied it once more.
"My King," I said, approaching Dawsid with careful deference. "There is no need to waste the Greysunders' precious reserves. The water produced by the Water Generator itself can be used as fuel to create new water. An infinite cycle that defies all rules of nature."
"That is impossible!" a voice shouted from the crowd.
But Dawsid tested it himself. He took water from the faucet and poured it back into the intake tube. And the Moyalembic produced water again. The King stared at the device, his eyes wide, his mouth slightly open. Then he began to clap.
"This!" Dawsid bellowed, laughing with genuine delight. "This is an invention I have not seen in years! Tell me, Finn!"
He shouted my name, and I saw the noble kids around me go red with jealousy. Their faces were masks of barely concealed fury, their hands clenched at their sides. They had been born to this. They had been raised to believe that power was their birthright. And now a commoner boy was stealing the spotlight.
"Can this incredible device produce other liquids than water?" Dawsid asked, leaning forward, his eyes gleaming.
"For now? No," I said, keeping my head low, my voice humble. "But progress does not stop in the face of anything, Your Majesty."
A noble kid stood up, his face pale with anger. "Your Majesty, let me t—"
"Silence!" Dawsid's voice cut through the Feasthall like a blade. "The Gem Banquet is over! I want to play with this Water Generator!"
The King swept away, surrounded by his guards, his attention captured by the device. The nobles stared after him, stunned, humiliated. They had been dismissed.
They had been forgotten. And I—a commoner boy with a copper machine and a dream—had won the first battle.
—
I walked the corridors of Lodenhold, the Feasthall slowly emptying behind me. The sounds of the banquet faded, replaced by the echo of my own footsteps on the stone floor.
Olfred walked beside me, his face unreadable, his eyes fixed on the path ahead.
"Your little toy can really create infinite water?" he asked, his voice low.
"What? No." I shook my head, letting out a breath I had not realized I was holding.
"I just put a storage ring containing more water inside the input tube and activated it with my magic when King Dawsid poured the water in. Technology does not work like that. Nothing is created. Nothing is destroyed."
The words felt strange in my mouth. Lavoisier's principle, from a world that no longer existed, from a life that had been erased. I had never been a scientist. I had never been anything but a reader who fell into a story and could not find his way out.
"You made a fool of all Darvish nobility, then?" Olfred asked, and I thought I heard a hint of amusement in his voice.
I shrugged, the weight of the past few hours settling onto my shoulders. "I just faked the data a bit to make it sound more fantastic. Are you going to teach that it is bad to fool the nobility?"
"Of course not." Olfred's scoff was dry. "But are you not afraid Dawsid will discover the truth?"
I looked at him. "You think he is smart enough to do it?"
"No." Olfred scoffed again, and for a moment, I thought I saw him hide a laugh. "Definitely not. That was fun, Prince. Or should I say Throneholder?"
"The road ahead is still long," I sighed. The Gem Banquet was just the beginning. There would be other tests, other challenges, other opportunities to fail.
But I had taken the first step. I had shown them what Finn Warend could do.