Cylrit
I woke up.
The last thing I remembered was the crushing strength of the Asura's hands around my head, the mounting pressure threatening to split my skull open, and then—just before the abyss claimed me—the suffocating weight of a King's Force plunging everything into darkness.
I remembered the sheer mass of the brute who nearly caved in my head, and the barefoot kid screaming at him to stop. Both possessed mismatched, heterochromic eyes.
But that younger one... he had called out my name, hadn't he?
Bringing the memories into focus proved difficult, painful even. The residual agony from my clash with the Wraiths still pulsed through my veins, reducing my thoughts to a feverish, fractured haze.
The Asura was trying to get something from me, but...
What?
Djinn! The Asura wanted to get his hands on Fatima!
I gasped for air, my hands immediately searching for the red Vaultlamp and checking my wounds and surroundings at the same time.
I found myself in a decorated room, laying on a luxurious bed; something I had not done since Scythe Seris was still herself, since before Sovereign Lavinia destroyed everything.
My wounds had been cleaned and bandaged, my injuries healed.
Even so, I could feel the Vritra blood coursing through my veins, already demanding its due. For now, it remained quiet a faint, manageable whisper echoing from the back of my mind. Nothing I have never resisted before.
On the bedside table to my right rested the beaked crystalline red lamp where Fatima's consciousness resided, and on an armour stand in the corner of the vaguely hospital-like room was the Adaptarmour, her Lifework.
"Djinn! What happened?" I asked, trying to move, but the injuries I suffered from my fight with the Wraiths were still deep.
Looking down at my body, I saw a new scar on my flank where that Striker had hit me—a long mark of scarred tissue that ran alongside my right side.
How long was I asleep for the scar to heal like this? Or who was the doctor assigned to me?
I had too many questions. Nothing made sense right now. If I were a prisoner of the Asuras, they would have never given me such a place to rest, and I knew perfectly well that Dicathen didn't have such advanced healing methods.
'The Justiciar welcomed you into his sanctuary, Cylrit of Vritra,' the mental voice of Fatima brought me back to the present.
"The Justiciar?" I echoed in disbelief. "Are you trying to say we are in the afterlife? No. We are not. What does it mean... the Justiciar?"
Was I to believe that my prayer—my superstitious gesture invoking the Justiciar's blessing before engaging the Wraiths—had truly worked?
Scythe Seris would have laughed at me for even considering it, but that's how my Scythe was made.
To her, godhood meant being a bloodthirsty tyrant with black horns, lavender eyes, or any other trait typical of an Asura.
'Indeed we are not, Cylrit of Vritra,' Fatima replied. 'The Justiciar is very much alive and in Focularsa, where we are now.'
"You mean this is Dicathen?" I asked doubtfully, taking another look around myself, at the clearly not Dicathian technology and architecture of this room.
"Yes, and that is all you will know about the Hearth's location, lessuran," a tall woman with blonde hair wearing an elegant yet comfortable vest said as she entered the room.
How she moved, how I couldn't feel even a trace of her mana, how otherworldly she looked—too perfect, like the Sovereigns even in their horrifying forms.
This woman was an Asura.
"You are an Asura, right?" I asked the woman. "Were you also the one to heal me? Why?"
The Asura grimaced, a look I was used to seeing on her kin's faces when looking at us lessers. The Sovereigns were all just like that.
"I healed you because such was the will of the Highprince," the woman said. "And yes. I am an Asura. Soleil Asclepius is my name, Vritra."
I blinked. Asclepius? How...
Dozens of Phoenixes from the Asclepius Clan were displayed as gruesome trophies across Taegrin Caelum—the High Sovereign taking perverse delight in mounting their corpses around his fortress like taxidermy.
Those spared the indignity of becoming macabre centerpieces had been harvested instead, their remains processed, their feathers plucked, to weave the uniforms for the High Sovereign's private Wraith army.
The utter extermination of the Asclepius Clan was one of the triumphs the Vritra flaunted most ruthlessly. The fact that a survivor remained in Dicathen...
"I didn't end up here on purpose," I said, understanding that the truth was the only way I could get something out of this conversation—possibly, my life. "I used a Tempus Warp and its portal brought me here. I had no intention of invading your home... Lady Soleil."
"His Lordship, the Highprince, already guessed as much," the Asura said. Who is this Highprince? She had already mentioned it twice. "It was Wise Fatima's intervention that brought you here, lessuran."
"For what it's worth... thank you for not leaving me to die," I said, not knowing why I was thanking an Asura.
However, being hostile right now served nothing, and I was just so, so tired of fighting. I had been fighting relentlessly through fire and blood for more than a decade; I just wanted it to stop, even for a second.
"You were badly damaged by decay magic," the Phoenix said, ignoring my words. "I extinguished the many spells that were slowly eroding your soul, but your body will take longer to heal back to your peak health. However, you are out of danger now."
I nodded in acknowledgement, feeling my body. My mana core ached but was responsive. The Wraiths had the habit of maiming their opponents—both magically and physically—but it seemed Fatima had gotten me away from Aedelgard just in time.
What about Caera Vritra? By failing to rescue her, she had been condemned to a life under Vritra's yoke.
She would receive her runes at the Obsidian Vault, and from then on it would be impossible for the girl to run away from the song of her blood. I didn't know what to feel.
Regret? No, the only regret I had was for Seris and Uto. Disappointment, maybe? I knew I couldn't win against the Wraiths; my plan had been entirely based on luck.
"What is this place?" I asked the Asura, trying to at least have some information about my environment.
"The Hearth. We are in the Hospital Alcoves, its infirmary area," the Phoenix said, not sharing further information.
"You spoke of Fatima," I continued. "You can speak to her?"
"No, I can't," the woman replied.
The door to the Hospital Alcove where I was kept—probably as a prisoner, even if Soleil Asclepius didn't say so outright—opened.
The kid I had seen shouting my name entered, a tall man, another Asura, but not a Phoenix, behind him. I gritted my teeth as I saw that monolithic figure; he was the source of that King's Force.
"Milord!" Soleil Asclepius exclaimed, greeting the child with burnt copper hair tied into a ponytail and eyes of different colours: greenish teal the right, orange-yellow the left.
He was the Highprince Soleil had spoken about? He was probably faking his age, using a younger body to disguise his real one.
Sovereign Oludari had a similar habit: he favoured a humanoid form that appeared no older than twenty, despite the master of Truacia being the eldest among the Vritra. Even so, adopting the guise of a ten-year-old was truly bizarre, even for an Asura.
"Hello, Cylrit," the Highprince said, somehow knowing my name. "I... I am glad to see you're fine. He is fine, right Soleil?"
"He is, milord."
"I don't know where to actually begin, so I'll start with saying that I am the Justiciar Fatima told you about," the Highprince said.
The Tempus Warp really had brought us to the Justiciar, then, I thought.
"You have my thanks for saving Fatima, Cylrit," the Justiciar said, the two Asuras flanking him clearly not liking how friendly he talked to one such as I.
I restrained myself from speaking; I feared that the more I interacted with the Highprince and Justiciar, the more I risked causing a reaction from the other Asuras.
The Phoenix woman by his right, standing near the corner of the room, watched me not like the patient I was supposed to be, but as the threat my blood represented—the Vritra.
The bald Asura to the Justiciar's left looked like a mountain ready to ravine, calm and static, but only at first glance. After I had felt his King's Force, I wasn't going to make the mistake of overstepping with my words.
"And I have to apologize for Chul's behaviour," the Justiciar sighed. "He thought we were under attack. Then he saw your horns, your eyes, and Fatima's Vaultlamp, and... yeah, he mistook you for a caricature of an evil Vritra."
"Anyway. I don't know what to do with you," the Justiciar admitted. "Other than asking you so many questions it might take us years, of course. But I mean to a more... personal level. It's not like you can return to Alacrya like nothing happened."
Personal level? What was he talking about? Anyway, even if I could return to Alacrya, the only place I could go to were the Relictombs (again).
"Fatima has business here in Dicathen," I said. "That was my closest objective."
"About that... I have already taken care of it," the Highprince said. "Other than Fatima, did you come here to Dicathen alone? What I mean is: did someone send you?"
"No," I replied, my voice cold. "I have been wandering aimlessly through the Relictombs for years until I found Fatima. Then my plan in Alacrya failed, and the next thing that happened was me being teleported here into your Hearth."
"Years, you say... what happened for you to get stranded in such a dangerous place?" He asked.
"I was forced to flee after Agrona Vritra's private army was sent to kill me," I answered, remembering the moment when Scythe Seris was caught and brought to Taegrin Caelum, only to have the current monster inhabiting her skin emerge from the High Sovereign's fortress. "I say this before you ask anything: all my information about Alacrya is dated a decade at least."
Even the information I had gathered while preparing my escape to Dicathen—stealing the Tempus Warp, trying to contact Seris' former associates, and studying Caera Vritra's routine—wasn't much.
"That's bad," the Justiciar commented. "Do you know something about the incoming war?"
So he knew that Agrona Vritra was preparing to invade Dicathen, not that it was surprising knowing even a little bit about Alacrya and its dark master.
"I know the invasion was meant to be spearheaded by the Dominions of Vechor and Sehz-Clar, with the High Sovereign desiring to test a weapon he had been working on for decades... Legacy, I think it was called," I said. "It has something to do with reincarnation. He used members of your Clan for his experiments."
Scythe Seris, despite all her efforts, had managed to uncover very little about the Legacy's project, which meant it was something very, very important to the High Sovereign's plans.
"You were a Retainer or a Scythe?" The Justiciar asked.
"I was the Retainer of Sehz-Clar, until my Scythe was arrested for treason by the Sovereign of Central Dominion," I said.
"Khaernos Vritra?" The Justiciar said, frowning in confusion.
"Sovereign Khaernos was substituted by the High Sovereign's own daughter decades ago," I informed him, and the Highprince seemed to jump where he stood.
"What do you mean by the High Sovereign's own daughter?" He asked. "Who is Agrona Vritra's daughter?"
"Agrona Vritra was betrothed to the heiress of the Indrath Clan, milord," Soleil Asclepius said, but the Highprince raised his hand.
"I fucking know about that," he hissed. "Now I need to know everything about this daughter, though! Cylrit!"
Why did he care so much about Sovereign Lavinia? She was powerful, but nothing more than the other Sovereigns.
"Sovereign Lavinia is the ruler of Central Dominion and a half-Dragon," I said. "She is the terror of many Alacryans. Everyone fears the Sovereigns, but they do so because they see them as their gods, as the Vritraism teaches. But Sovereign Lavinia is feared because of her brutality, of how she rules Cardigan—the capital of her Dominion."
"Would you be able to give me a description of her?" Was the Justiciar's next, strange, request. I complied.
"She has red eyes like all Vritras. Wheat-coloured hair. Two horns jutting from the sides of her head. She doesn't look older than twenty."
"Thanks for telling me," the Highprince said. "But let's get back to you. What do you want to do from now on? From what I heard, you are lost. You have no master, no connections save for Fatima and you have been gravely injured while a whole continent away from your home."
He summarised my situation very well, I sighed in my head, but then my eyes focused. I perfectly knew what I wanted to do.
"I want to strike back at Agrona Vritra, Justiciar," I declared. "That's the only purpose I have left."
For Seris. For Uto. Even for Caera, and all those allies of Seris who had perished because of the High Sovereign. For my master's dream... and mine.
The Highprince nodded and put a hand over his mouth in thought.
"You have pointed ears," he said, confusing me. "You could pass as an elf, or maybe a half-elf is better. Well, Cylrit! I think I have already the perfect job for you!"
What did those words mean?
Corvis Eralith
The news Cylrit brought had been... quite something.
Scythe Seris's rebellion had been crushed. The once-defiant Scythe was broken and reforged into Agrona's most obedient puppet and the one who unmasked her treason was none other than Sylvie.
In a timeline that would never come to pass, she was Arthur's loyal bond, his closest companion, a daughter and a friend; in my reality, the daughter of Agrona Vritra had fully embraced her father's dark legacy.
Here in this altered timeline, she reigned as Sovereign Lavinia Vritra—a merciless tyrant bearing no resemblance to the Sylvie I once read about.
Once upon a time, when I was younger, hearing such news would have shattered me completely, toppling my composure like a house of cards under a gust of wind.
Now, though? The terror had burned away.
All that remained was cold disgust and iron resolve aimed straight across the ocean—at the twisted god of Alacrya who had cast a shadow over my every thought since the day I opened my eyes in this world.
"Evascir, where is Chul anyway?" I asked the dutiful Titan, who refused to leave my side as long as I spoke with Cylrit.
The same held true for Soleil, and, obviously, Berna, but my Guardian Bear was the only one who didn't consider Cylrit a threat to be killed for she saw him through my eyes thanks to our bond.
"Seeing how he can morph his Narmanakaya now, I have agreed to let him wander Azellio," Evascir replied. "He had been very insistent about it."
Yeah, I can imagine it, I thought. There wasn't a thing in the whole world, save from getting his revenge on the Vritra maybe, Chul wanted more than see what was outside of the Hearth. Cradletown was a good start.
"You did well," I said, turning my head to the other figures currently seated at the large table of the Parliament Theatre, on which wood the depiction of Faircity Zhoroa of the Pillars was engraved.
My "council" was composed as always by Evascir, Soleil and Avicenna with the latest addition of Fatima as a new voice to be heard.
Of course Berna and Lugano were also present, the two oversized Guardian Bears growling low tone in the corner of the crescent-shaped room.
"Cylrit has given us much to think about," I started, addressing all four—the two Asuras verbally, the two Djinns mentally. "But for now I will speak about what we will do with him. That is: welcoming him to Elenoir; he shall be way more useful there than caged here in the Hearth."
"Milord!" Soleil exclaimed, standing up. "That's way too reckless! You can't bring a Vritra to New Farethra! Even if he is just a lesser with Vritra's blood he is still something made by Agrona Vritra!"
I raised an eyebrow. "And so what do you suggest? That we kill him for what he is? Wouldn't that make us like the Indrath Clan?" I asked. "Zestier is probably the safest place there is in Dicathen. The Clan, you too included Soleil, live there."
"Nabyun has a point Soleil," Evascir said and the Clan's doctor didn't argue further.
"Fatima," I called. "What can you tell me about the Relic Armour Cylrit came here with?"
'That is the Adaptarmour, Justiciar,' Fatima's mental voice reached me. 'It is my Lifework; I have given it to Cylrit of Vritra to save his life in the Grand Library of Mausoleia.'
"I understand..." I said. "Can it be replicated by any chance?"
'I feat not, Justiciar and for that I am deeply ashamed,' Fatima answered. 'The Adaptarmour was meant to be one of its kind. Even if I had all the resources I had back in my kin's time it would take me decades to make a new one.'
That was unfortunate. Having more copies of the Relic Armour to give Dicathian infantry would have improved significantly the quality of our army.
That meant Cylrit was irreplaceable though, which, right now, played to my favour. I will think on making armours similar to Fatima's Lifework another time.
With that resolved, now, I already knew what to do with Cylrit.
"I have made my decision," I said. "Cylrit will enter in service of the Royal Police of Zestier. With his skills he will have no trouble making it in, and by masking his horns he will have no trouble passing as an half-elf either—that will also explain some oddities of his character."
In Elenoir half-elves had a peculiar place. Some purists saw them as an anathema, our race tainted by our human enemies. Others, however, saw them as victims of Sapin's cruelty and that they deserved to be welcomed back to their true homeland.
"I will inform Alea of my decision," I continued. "With her help and a good word from the Prince of Elenoir Cylrit will join the Royal Police in record time."
Sister House Chaffer were the ones that managed the Royal Police's recruitment other than the King himself. I just had to convince one of them.
And when, not if, Cylrit will rise the ranks of the Royal Police I will be able to put more reforms even in my home kingdom, the one I had been more reluctant to change (be it because of my own bias or because Elenoir was truly better than the rest of Dicathen).
—
Two days after Cylrit woke, and just a month before the Interdicathian, came Alwyn's birthday.
I retrieved Dawn's Ballad from beneath my bed where it had been hidden away for this very moment.
Slipping out of my quarters in the Royal Palace, I didn't wait for Soleil—in her guise as Coco—to come greet me as she usually did at the first light of morning.
Dawn had barely brushed the palace grounds, the sun's rays not yet piercing through Zestier's Watchful Willows to bathe the city in gold.
Tucking the newly exorcised sword securely beneath my arm, I admired the craftsmanship of the box containing it: an exquisite casing of masterfully carved oak filigreed with fine metalwork, commissioned through the combined talents of a master woodcarver from Zestier and an equally brilliant goldsmith from Burim.
No one will be able to beat this! I exclaimed triumphantly in my head as I continued through the dimly lit corridors of the Royal Palace.
"Corvis!"
Before I could walk away from the wing reserved to the crown heirs, I heard Tessia's voice calling me. Turning my head, I saw my sister rubbing sleep away from her eyes as Coco chirped me a greeting.
"Quick, we need to get to Alwyn's room before he wakes up!" I said, not caring about greeting her or speaking about what she has been doing these last... two weeks, more or less the time I have spent without properly talking with my twin sister.
"I need to go and take my present for Alwyn, go there without me," Tessia said, shaking her head and approaching a nearby window that looked over a section of the gardens.
"What are you doing?" I asked confused, looking as my sister opened the window and climbed on the windowsill.
"It's faster this way," Tessia said, jumping on a low branch of a Watchful Willow. Soleil didn't move an inch from Tessia's shoulder—they must have done this plenty of times; where Soleil found the time though, I didn't know. "We are elves. We are made to use the trees."
"No matter what your gift is, it will never match mine!" I exclaimed, a part of me that belonged more to a ten-year-old surfacing from the depths of the river.
"You have no idea, Corvis," Tessia said with a smirk full of complicity. "Gaia has been very kind to Alwyn for his tenth birthday!"
Before I could ask for clarifications, Tessia started to jump from branch to branch as if they were like any other Racine of Zestier.
On my way to Alea and Alwyn's living space, a spacious chamber tucked into the palace wing reserved for the staff, I spotted a lone figure haunting the corridors like a ghostly sentinel.
He wore the tailored uniform of the Royal Police, with a Courtblade resting at his hip.
It was Cylrit. Likely freed from the burden of sleep thanks to his Vritra heritage—genetics warped and refined by Agrona across centuries of grotesque experimentation—he paced the empty halls.
"Prince Corvis, good morning," Cylrit greeted me, making a polite bow like any other elf would have done.
His horns were concealed by the cloaking artifact he brought woth him from Alacrya and under his uniform he kept the Adaptarmour which made the Vritra Blood in his veins mute from how he described it.
"Luchen," I greeted back, using the former Retainer's fake identity's name: Luchen, just Luchen. An half-elf born from a cruel Sapinese noble family and exploited to learn more about the magical affinity of us elves. "How are you doing?"
Cylrit had cut his beard and now looked like a completely different person from the broken, homeless-looking man that first arrived to the Hearth.
Cylrit didn't answer my question immediately and despite his red eyes, quite eerie in the dim light, not showing he was clearly surprised by my question.
"I mean," I said, scratching the back of my head. He wasn't a man of many words. "How are you finding Elenoir?"
And, the implied question: how are you finding Dicathen?
"It's peaceful," Cylrit replied. "Now I understand what Fatima means by Peace; why she venerates it."
"And you like it?" I asked what I really wanted to know.
"I think so," Cylrit said, confused. "From where I come from, Your Highness, peace isn't exactly a thing. In one way or another there is always something other than peace. This is the first time in my life I am experiencing something like this."
Yeah, a continent ruled by someone like Agrona whose sole objective was war against Epheotus and that saw the Alacryan population as the ammunitions of his weapons didn't exactly rhyme well jn my head with peace.
Walking the nearby stairs to this floor of the Royal Palace I spotted Alea who was walking toward the location of mine and Tessia's bedrooms.
"I leave you to your... duties, Luchen," I said, leaving Cylrit and walking toward the elven Lance.
"Your Highness! Here you are! Where is the Princess? Elder Virion wants both of you immediately for Alwyn's birthday," she told me, when her eyes landed on Cylrit a few meters behind me. "He is already working."
"Is there a problem with Cylrit?" I asked Alea, to whom I told basically most of the truth about the Alacryan already.
"No... he is just, how do I put it? Eerie," Alea said. "He is too calm and does everything so effortlessly. He passed all the tests the Royal Police gave him in not even a day and defeated Commodore Zachauld Chaffer in duel."
Well, he remained a Retainer and one of the strongest. If not the strongest.
"Zachauld Chaffer? He is Albold's oldest cousin, right? Nevermind," I said. "What is this about Grandpa? Does he really care so much about Alwyn's birthday?"
"He does," Alea replied her expression joyful, couching in front of me and hugging me suddenly. "I really don't know how to repay your family Your Highness!"
I hugged Alea back awkwardly. "Yeah... don't mind it, do you by any chance know what Grandpa will gift Alwyn?"
Alea freed my from he embrace and shook her head. "No, but what about you?" She asked, looking at Dawn's Ballad's box. I covered it with my body.
"It's a secret!" I exclaimed. "Now let's go."
"Shouldn't we take your bear?" Alea asked, but she still followed me as I took the stairs.
"If someone wakes her earlier than usual, Berna throws a fit that lasts all day," I sighed. "Best to let her wake up on her own. She'll track us down by scent or through any of her other senses, really."