Corvis Eralith
On the back of a Tessia-guided Hoofy, with Berna padding steadily by our side, we left Zestier behind.
The Green Gem of Elenoir shrank in the distance, its towering Watchful Willows and white stone walls fading into the grey mist that always hung over the Elshire Forest.
We traveled across Elenoir's outergrove—the elven equivalent of the countryside—directed toward the Colour Timberland.
The road was rough, unpaved, little more than a game trail that wound through the ancient trees. Hoofy picked his way carefully, his hooves finding purchase on roots and rocks, and Berna moved through the undergrowth with her characteristic silence, her massive body barely disturbing the ferns that brushed against her flanks.
"How long will it take us?" Tessia asked, petting Hoofy's braided mane.
The Highcolt flicked an ear at her touch, and I saw the bond between them—new, still forming, but already there.
"You are riding, and you have not even studied the road to take?" I asked, narrowing my eyes.
In my hands, I held a map of the Elshire Forest, the most updated one, drawn by the scouts of the Treeful Phalanx and the soldiers of the Leafguard across the entire kingdom.
It was covered in notes and markings, the ink faded in some places, fresh in others, a record of decades of exploration.
"I have you to tell me the road," Tessia replied proudly, and I could hear the smile in her voice.
"Whatever," I sighed, tracing our route with my finger. "If we continue at this pace, we will reach the Colour Timberland in two days. We will not even need to leave the Mistmarch."
"Mistmarch?" Alwyn asked from behind me, his voice curious.
"You do not know what the Mistmarches are, Alwyn?" Tessia asked, looking behind herself. I reached out and took her by the neck, turning her face back forward.
"Look at the road, you," I said. We were not driving a car—Hoofy would not crash into something just because Tessia was not looking—but I did not trust me and my sister around the mana beasts of the Elshire Forest.
They trusted us far too much. They did not see us as prey or threat, and that familiarity could be dangerous if we were not paying attention.
Tessia pouted, but she did as I said. Despite all her protagonism, her desire to be the leader, her constant need to be in the spotlight, she always listened to me. It was something I would be eternally grateful for.
"I do not," Alwyn replied after me and Tessia were done.
"They are the provinces of Elenoir," I explained, but Alwyn seemed more confused than before.
"What are provinces?" he asked, tilting his head.
"Corvis, stop using made-up words!" Tessia exclaimed. "You know how many times I have embarrassed myself because I used words invented by you?"
How can I know what words exist here that existed on Earth too? I sighed inwardly, flushing outwardly. The paradox of reincarnation. Not all words that existed on Earth had a direct counterpart in this world, and some that should not exist still had corresponding translated words.
OProvince, it seemed, was not such a case.
"A province is an administrative subdivision," I explained. "The Crown—well, Dad—created them to have an easier time governing the kingdom."
It was my father, King Alduin Eralith, who had created the Mistmarches. He had divided the Elshire Forest into manageable regions, each with its own governor, its own resources, its own challenges.
It had made the Kingdom of Elenoir far more advanced politically than the other Dicathian nations—even though Sapin was copying the Mistmarches now, from what I knew.
Before my father, House Eralith had not had real control outside of Zestier, Asyphin, and Eidelholm. The outergrove had been wild, untamed, full of dangers that the Crown could not reach.
"It is all Dad's genius!" Tessia exclaimed proudly, and I could not argue with her.
"I think I understood," Alwyn said, and I hoped he had.
I did not have the energy to explain the little I lnew about governance to a nine-year-old while riding through a forest that had not changed in millennia.
—
The Colour Timberland was a mysterious area where the Elshire Forest grew thick and the mist changed.
The grey fog that dominated the entire Kingdom of Elenoir became something else here. Something stranger. The first hint of it came as a shift in the light, a warmth that had not been there before, and then the mist around us began to glow.
"I would never have imagined I would see the Elshire Mist becoming amber," Alwyn said as we descended from Hoofy's back.
The fog that permeated the homeland of elvenkind was amber around us, thick and golden, like the inside of a gemstone. It clung to our clothes, our hair, our skin, and it smelled of something I could not name.
Pine, perhaps. Or honey. Or something older, something that had been sleeping in this forest for a very long time.
Tessia tied Hoofy to a tree, looping the reins around a low branch. Arriving here had been difficult. There were not many paths leading to the Colour Timberland, only a wild trail that permitted Hoofy and Berna to move one in front of the other.
The trees were too thick around here, their trunks close together, their branches intertwined, and it felt like we were surrounded by wooden walls. The sky was barely visible above, a thin ribbon of grey between the leaves, and the amber mist swallowed everything else.
"So, what do we do in a dungeon?" Tessia asked, her hands on her hips. Coco hopped from her head to her shoulder, her golden eyes bright in the strange light.
"The Company usually does archaeological or other studies," I said, "but seeing as the Colour Timberland is a mana beast den more than anything else..."
I had chosen this dungeon to show Coco that I could awaken the ancient structures of Djinnkind. But all the reports from the elven scouts were uncertain.
They did not know if the Ancient Mages had ever been here. And from what Avicenna had told me, the Elshire Forest—the Forest of Gaia, as the folk of calm currents called it—had been left alone by the Djinn.
Very few structures. Very few traces. The people who had built the Red Gorge, who had created the Relictombs, who had filled the world with wonders, had chosen to let this place be.
"We are going to explore the Colour Timberland and make a proper mapping of it," I said. "Our scouts have never deemed it worthy of a full expedition, but dungeons are our work."
In fact, the Colour Timberland was not even classified with a rank. Only elves had ever stepped inside. No Adventurer had ever set foot here. It was ours, completely ours, and that felt like a gift.
"Okay," Tessia said, but I heard the disappointment in her voice. She had wanted something grander, perhaps. A battle. A discovery. A story she could tell at her next social gathering.
"What mana beasts are in there?" Alwyn asked dutifully, ever the soldier.
"Mainly Forest Hounds," I answered. "But there are also some aggressive species. We will need to be careful."
Before Alwyn could ask anything else, Tessia was already moving. She strode through the amber mist, deeper into the dungeon, her white cloak billowing behind her, and I felt my heart seize in my chest.
"Tessia!" I exclaimed, but she did not stop.
With the Elshire Mist changing its properties, our elven senses—so used to seeing a greyish mist as nothing but a small inconvenience—were not prepared for this. The amber fog was thicker, denser, more disorienting. It clung to everything, muffled sounds, blurred shapes, made it harder to navigate. I could barely see a few meters in front of me.
Is this how humans and dwarves see in the Elshire Forest? I asked myself. The thought was fleeting, pushed aside by the more immediate concern of my sister disappearing into the unknown.
But Coco's chirp guided me. The sound was sharp, clear, cutting through the muffled stillness of the amber mist, and I followed it.
"Tessia, do not go alone!" I exclaimed, and I hated how my voice sounded. Pleading. Worried. The voice of a brother who could not keep up.
"Are you worried you might get lost without me?" Tessia asked with a smile, and I saw her silhouette through the fog, her hand resting on the hilt of her wand-sword.
How much I wanted this phase of hers to be over. The recklessness. The overconfidence. The constant need to prove that she was not just my twin, but my equal, my better, my protector. But I shook my head, kicking the thought away. She was my sister. I loved her. I would keep her safe, whether she wanted me to or not.
Alwyn hurried behind us, his footsteps soft on the forest floor. "Where are we?" he asked, looking around. The amber mist blocked our view from all sides, and the trees seemed to lean in, curious, watching.
"Thank you, Tess," I said, and Tessia looked away, whistling innocently.
"Berna, do you smell the way out?" I asked my bond.
But Berna was too tense for my taste. She looked around herself, wary, and too often, her gaze flicked to Coco. Her ears were flat against her skull, her tail was low, and through the bond, I felt a growing unease that had nothing to do with the mist or the trees.
"Is something wrong with you two?" Tessia asked, petting Coco's head. The Asura in disguise flew from her shoulder to my head, her tiny claws gripping my hair, and then Berna started to growl. Not at Coco. At our surroundings. At the amber mist that was hiding something from us.
"Mana beasts?" Alwyn asked, taking Grandpa's rapier from his hip. The blade gleamed in the strange light, and I saw his knuckles whiten around the hilt.
I wanted to say yes. I wanted to tell them that it was just a pack of Forest Hounds, that we could handle them, that everything would be fine. But from Berna's behavior and her distress, there was only one thing that could cause my pacifist Guardian Bear such an aggressive reaction. The same thing that had caused her so much pain before meeting me. The same thing that had corrupted her, twisted her, turned her into something she was not.
The Vritra.
"Be careful!" I shouted, taking my wand-cane from my storage ring. The wood was warm in my hand, resonant with mana, and I augmented my body with a surge of power that made my muscles hum.
Were there corrupted mana beasts in the Colour Timberland? Mutants? Creatures that had been touched by the same poison that had almost destroyed Berna?
"Corvis, what is happening?" Tessia asked, and finally, finally, she understood that we were not here to play. She took her wand-sword out of its sheath, the blade singing as it cleared the leather, and her eyes were wide, searching the mist for threats.
"Don't leave Berna's side," I ordered. Alwyn did as I commanded, moving to stand beside the massive Guardian Bear. Tessia hesitated for a moment, her gaze flicking between me and Berna, and then she too moved, seeing the seriousness in my eyes.
I raised my eyes and looked at Coco. "Stay with my sister," I said.
The Asura shook her robin head. Her golden eyes were fixed on the mist, on the shapes that were beginning to move within it, and I saw something in them that I had never seen before. Fear. Not for herself. For us.
I did not have time to argue. I activated Manasonar, my sound magic traveling outward in waves, and at different distances from us, I felt familiar yet wrong mana signatures. The feedback that came back through Manasonar was the peculiar melody I associated with Forest Hounds—but a melody that had too many wrong notes in it. Discordant. Dissonant. Corrupted.
And they were approaching us from all directions.
Howls, crazed and pained, echoed around us. The sound was wrong, too, full of agony and rage and something that might have been hunger. It bounced off the trees, off the mist, off the walls of the dungeon that we had not yet seen, and then the wave of mutant Forest Hounds swallowed us.
They came from everywhere. From between the trees, from beneath the ferns, from the amber mist itself. Their eyes were red, their fur was matted, and their jaws dripped with foam that steamed in the cold air. They did not howl like Forest Hounds. They shrieked, yowled, screamed.
I pivoted on my feet, dodging one as it lunged for my face. Its fangs closed on empty air, and I brought my wand-cane around in a tight arc, cracking it across the side of its head. The creature stumbled, shook itself, and came at me again. With wind magic, I pressed it down into the undergrowth, conjuring a column of air that pinned it to the forest floor. The mutant Forest Hound bellowed like a crazy animal, thrashing, clawing, trying to fight back against my conjured air pressure.
I did not hesitate. With Ars Terramorph, I made a spike burst out of the ground, piercing the head of the mutant swiftly. The mana beast that had once been a friend of elvenkind crumpled, twitched once, and then was still. I had given it a merciful death. It was more than it would have given me.
Behind me, Tessia and Alwyn were having a much, much harder time.
Alwyn was trained. I could see it in the way he moved, the way he held Grandpa's rapier, the way he parried and thrust and retreated. But he was fighting against adversaries that were not shaped like elves. The mutant Forest Hounds were low to the ground, fast, unpredictable. They did not fight the way the sparring dummies did, the way Ashton and Albold did. They fought like they had nothing to lose, because they did not. The corruption had taken everything from them.
As for Tessia, I was immensely grateful for Berna. A mutant threw itself against my sister, its jaws open, its eyes blazing. Tessia was looking at Alwyn, distracted, and she did not see it coming. Before her distraction could cost her, Berna's right paw came down on the former Forest Hound, crushing the life out of it. The impact shook the ground, and I felt the reverberation through my boots.
Manasonar told me that more were approaching. I turned and saw them coming through the mist—shadows within shadows, their red eyes glowing like embers. These were too many. Berna was just one creature, but these Forest Hounds? They must have been multiple packs, their territories overlapping, their numbers swelling. And someone had corrupted all of them. Someone had done this deliberately.
"Your Highness!" Alwyn shouted, and I saw him take a step toward me, his rapier raised.
"Stay there!" I ordered. "Remain with Tessia and Berna!"
Then five mutant Forest Hounds jumped at me at once.
I activated Inner Current. REmould shaped the pure mana coming from my core—mana that had obtained water affinity thanks to my Ars Aquamorph—into its Fate deviant. Trucewater flooded my nervous system, and everything became crystal clear. The peace of the Truce-Waters settled over my mind, washing away the fear, the doubt, the chaos. I moved my wand-cane in my left hand like it was a sixth digit, and I was no longer prey.
With Ars Ariamorph propelling my attacks, I used my wand-cane like a spear. Its end pierced the bodies of the mutants with ease, the wood singing with mana, hardening to steel at the moment of impact.
I thrust, withdrew, thrust again. Each movement was precise, economical, deadly. The mutants fell around me, their bodies collapsing into the ferns, their red eyes dimming.
But the more I slew, the more came. They surrounded me completely, a ring of fur and fangs and madness, and I could not see Tessia or Alwyn or Berna anymore.
The amber mist was too thick, and the mutants were too many.
But thanks to Inner Current, I felt like I was ready to face it all. I was the river. I had always been the river. And nothing could stop a river.
I raised my wand-cane as if it was the wand of an orchestral director, and Ars Ariamorph answered. A powerful gust of wind surged all around me, a cyclone of compressed air that lifted the mutants off their feet and sent them flying. The amber mist swallowed them as they disappeared into the trees, their howls fading into the distance.
Being a yellow core mage was amazing. I could only imagine what I would be able to do when I reached silver, then white. I could be as strong as Grandpa! The euphoria was intoxicating, a heady rush of power and possibility.
But Inner Current washed it away, keeping me steady in the present. The fight was not over. Berna was fighting behind me, alongside Tessia and Alwyn. They would be fine. I had to trust that they would be fine.
I sidestepped an incoming fanged mouth, the teeth grazing my cheek. Water magic conjured at my feet made me slippery, and I slid across the forest floor like a skater on ice. Thanks to the Trucewater of Inner Current, I was in a flow state that allowed me to coordinate all of my magic at once. Ars Aquamorph for defense and mobility. Trucewater fueling Inner Current. Ars Ariamorph for speed and repositioning. Ars Terramorph for offense, both up close and at range.
The mutant Forest Hounds were agile and fast. More than anything, they were relentless. Just like what had happened with Berna. Just like in the novel. They did not care about anything but killing. They did not feel pain. They did not feel fear. They just kept coming, wave after wave, until the forest floor was slick with their blood and the air was thick with the smell of it.
Suddenly, I felt Inner Current lose its fuel. REmould did not have enough mana to continue molding water into Trucewater. Pseudo-Mana Rotation was not enough to sustain everything I was doing—the augmentation, the conjuration, the constant, demanding output of power.
I screamed in pain as the fangs of a mutant closed on my left arm. The breaking of my flow state was immediate, catastrophic. The clarity vanished, replaced by a red haze of agony. I felt the teeth sink into my flesh, felt them scrape against bone, felt the corruption in the creature's saliva burning like acid.
Through the bond, I felt Berna about to rush to me. Her panic was a wave, crashing against my consciousness, and I knew that if she left Tessia and Alwyn, they would die.
"Don't!" I shouted, and I drove my wand-cane into the skull of the mutant that was attached to my arm. The creature convulsed, released me, and crumpled to the ground. My arm was a ruin, blood pouring down my fingers, and I could not feel my hand.
And then, a new source of mana presented itself.
From the edges of my vision, I saw embers flying like falling leaves in autumn. Coco was shrugging herself on top of my head, her tiny body vibrating with power, and I felt her Asuran mana flooding into my thin reserves. It was like someone had opened a dam. The power was overwhelming, beautiful, terrifying.
I clenched my right hand, and REmould started to work again. The new mana—Coco's mana, Asuran mana—changed to Trucewater, and Inner Current flooded back into my nervous system. The pain in my arm faded, muted by the augmentation, and I had so much more mana to waste.
I returned to the offensive.
Guiding the mutants with my wand-cane, I sent razors of wind magic flying with Ars Ariamorph. The blades of compressed air cut through the creatures one by one, severing heads, limbs, torsos. The amber mist turned red with their blood, and I did not stop. I could not stop. Not until none remained.
When the last mutant fell, I stood alone in a circle of carnage. The forest floor was littered with bodies, the ferns were flattened, the trees were scarred. My breath came in ragged gasps, and my arm was screaming, and I could feel the Trucewater beginning to drain again.
"Tessia! Alwyn!" I called, looking around for them. The amber fog obscured my vision, but Berna's bond told me where to search. She was still with them. I could feel her warmth, her solidity, her unwavering presence.
I rushed through the mist, using Ars Ariamorph to propel myself forward—applying the same concept as Wind Surfing, conjuring a wind current to push me faster. The trees blurred past me, the bodies of mutants lay scattered like fallen leaves, and then I saw them.
Tessia was using wind magic to keep distance from the mutants, creating gusts that pushed them back, giving Berna enough space to kill them. Her face was pale, her teeth were gritted, but she was holding. She was fighting. She was surviving.
Alwyn was having an easier time. He was using Grandpa's rapier in combination with other one-handed weapons that he kept in his storage ring, summoning them as the need arose. A short sword here, a hand axe there, a dagger when the mutants got too close. He moved between the weapons like a conductor between instruments, and I saw the training in every motion.
I came down on a Forest Hound that was about to hit Tessia from behind. My wand-cane took it in the side, piercing its heart, and it fell without a sound.
"What are you doing?" I asked Tessia, my tone calm only because of Inner Current. "Use plant magic!"
"I-I am doing it!" Tessia protested, and she pushed with her mana, making the forest answer her call. Roots revolted against the Forest Hounds, turning the undergrowth into a trap. Vines lashed out like whips. Thorns grew from branches that had been bare moments before. But they were not strong enough. Tessia was only a red core, and the mutants were too many, too fast, too crazed.
Berna's claws sliced through another Forest Hound. Fire coated her sharp teeth before she closed her jaws on the neck of another mutant, and the creature burned from the inside out. She was magnificent, terrible, a force of nature given form.
"Alwyn, don't get too far away!" I shouted, and Alwyn obeyed immediately, stepping back toward the group after he pierced a mutant's head from side to side with a spear he had summoned from his ring.
"H-how many of these... Forest Hounds... are there?" he asked, panting, his face streaked with sweat and blood that was not his own.
I used Manasonar again. The feedback told me that their numbers were decreasing. No more than a dozen remained. We had killed the rest.
"Few," I replied, and then I stopped.
I felt it. An unfamiliar mana signature from Manasonar. One that could not belong to a mana beast—of that I was sure. The melody that played back was too similar to that of another elf, a dwarf, or a human. And yet, it possessed the same corrupted ring to it. The same wrongness. The same dissonance.
The perpetrator. The one who had done this to the Forest Hounds. The one who was even now watching us from somewhere in the amber mist.
I need to stop them, I told myself. If an Alacryan was here, they had to be stopped. Captured, if possible. While I knew everything I needed about Alacrya from the novel, this world had too many differences from the canon I remembered. I needed more information. I needed to know what had changed, what had stayed the same, what I could still use.
"Berna, remain with Tessia and Alwyn," I said, and I threw my wand-cane on the ground. It landed with a soft thump, and I stepped onto it, activating Wind Surfing immediately.
"Coco, I need your help," I said. The robin chirped above my head, her golden eyes bright in the amber mist.
"Corvis, don't you dare go alone!" Tessia shouted. I heard the fear in her voice, the anger, the love. She was afraid for herself, yes—but more than that, she was afraid for me.
"Your Highness!" Alwyn exclaimed, and I heard him take a step toward me.
I disappeared into the mist before either of them could follow. The amber fog closed around me, thick and warm, and I was alone. The wind carried me forward, my wand-cane gliding over the forest floor, and I followed the corrupted mana signature like a hunter following a wounded deer.
I could not let whoever was responsible for this escape. I would not let them hurt my family, my friends, my people.
I would find them. I would stop them. And I would make them pay for every Forest Hound they had corrupted, every innocent creature they had turned into a monster, every drop of blood that had been spilled in this amber-lit hell.