The standoff, if it could even earn that name when Earthland Aelius was still half-slumped in the guards' grip, shattered the second a fourth voice cut through the room. It didn't bark or shout. It simply arrived, old, worn by years, ground down by loss and stubborn survival. The kind of voice that carried authority because life had already carved it into the speaker's bones.
"What's with the racket, young ones? The king's late father can hear your arguing on the other side."
All three of them turned toward the far right, where a small door creaked open. The man who stepped out looked exactly like he sounded. Old. Older than the walls. His face was lined with deep wrinkles and darker patches of worn skin. Liver spots marked the back of his hands, and his hair, what little of it wasn't cropped nearly to the scalp, had gone completely white.
A ripple moved through the room the second the old man appeared. Subtle, but real. Backs straightened. Hands lowered. Even the guards who had been more than willing to toss Earthland Aelius around like a rag doll suddenly held themselves a little smaller.
His robe, once probably ceremonial, had been patched so many times it had turned into a mosaic of mismatched fabric. A relic worn by a relic. Someone who used to hold weight, now carrying it quietly instead of loudly. But every Edolas resident in the chamber bowed the moment he stepped fully into the light, like instinct more than etiquette.
Edolas Aelius bowed too, though his carried a different shape. Less rigid. More personal.
"Grandfather. I didn't know you were here. I apologize."
The old man gave a faint grunt, neither accepting nor denying the apology, just moving past it like it wasn't what mattered.
Knightwalker bowed next, respect woven into every line of the gesture. "General, apologies. Your grandson and I were… discussing what to do with our Earthland prisoner."
Her tone tried to make the word prisoner sound dignified. It didn't.
Earthland Aelius watched the whole exchange, jaw bunching, mind already picking at the implication like an infected scab. If his Edolas copy called this man grandfather, then this decrepit, hollow-eyed elder was his counterpart's blood.
A deep, low growl rumbled out of him before he even realized it had formed. It wasn't loud. It wasn't dramatic. It was a sound dragged from somewhere raw, somewhere old, a sound with so much hate packed inside it that every head in the room snapped toward him all at once.
Knightwalker's hand went right to her spear.
Edolas Aelius flinched, not from fear, but from recognition. Like hearing a ghost speak in his own voice.
The general didn't move at all.
He simply watched.
Earthland Aelius didn't lift his head, didn't offer an explanation, didn't try to look threatening. He just let that hatred sit there in the air, thick enough to taste, sharp enough to cut.
Because the thought of having family again, a family he never knew, a family in a twisted mirror world, wasn't comforting. It was corrosive. It clawed at him with the same cruelty as every time fate dangled something human in front of him just to rip it away again.
And the old man's presence wasn't a balm.
It was a spark on dry kindling.
Knightwalker stepped forward, eyes narrowing. "He growls like an animal. Pathetic."
The general lifted a hand without looking at her. She froze mid-step.
His attention never left Earthland Aelius.
"You know my face," the general said quietly.
It wasn't a question.
Earthland Aelius finally looked up, expression tight beneath exhaustion and bruises. "…I know enough."
The old man studied him with a depth that felt like years grinding against years.
"Hate like that doesn't come from strangers."
Earthland Aelius didn't blink. "Didn't say we weren't strangers."
A faint twitch tugged at the corner of the general's mouth. Something almost like sadness. Almost like relief. Almost like recognition. But not enough to settle on any one thing.
Knightwalker, still held at bay by the slight motion of the general's hand, hissed out, "General, he is hostile—"
"He is wounded," the general corrected.
"He is feral."
"He is hurting."
Earthland Aelius scoffed bitterly. "Guess we both see clearly today."
Edolas Aelius stepped closer to his grandfather, unsure, torn between two instincts that refused to align. "Grandfather… he may be a prisoner, but he's still—"
"Lost," the general finished.
Aelius didn't confirm it. Didn't deny it. He just didn't growl again. Which, for him, was practically an admission.
The general shifted his staff, leaning on it. "Untie him."
Knightwalker snapped, "General—"
His voice cut her dead.
*I wasn't asking."
The guards cut the ropes binding him so quickly after the man had spoke, Aelius almost wondered if they caught fire.
Hr didn't snap upright so much as he forced himself up one vertebra at a time. Every muscle in his torso pulled tight like a wire straining under too much weight, and his jaw locked hard enough that a pulse throbbed along the side of his neck. He didn't look dignified. He didn't look composed. He looked like a man scraping together whatever stubborn scraps of pride hadn't been beaten out of him yet.
The guards had stepped off fast at the old man's tone. They weren't scared, not exactly, but they carried that stiff posture soldiers get when they suddenly remember someone in the room outranks them in every way that matters. Both had their palms on their pommel guards, thumbs resting against the hilt rings like they wanted to show they could draw at a moment's notice. Neither had the nerve to be the first one to push the old man's patience.
Aelius kept rising. Shoulders squared. Chin tilted up. If he had been steady on his feet, the moment might've had some weight behind it. Instead, he swayed once, caught himself with a half-step, and then locked in place with his fists balled tight enough to pale his knuckles.
Behind him, the air shifted as the old man came forward. His steps were slow but solid, the kind that told their own story. Long marches. Too many winters. Too many funerals for people younger than him. His breath carried the scrape of age, but his presence had none of the softness that came with it. Authority clung to him like a cloak.
"Good," the old man rasped. "At least one of you still remembers how to stand like you mean it."
His eyes, dark and clouded along the edges, drifted from Aelius to the two guards and back again. The weight behind them wasn't magical, but it might as well have been by the way the air tightened.
"You," he said, chin giving the smallest flick toward the guards. "If you've finished pretending to intimidate a half-dead patient, clear the space."
Neither guard argued. They bowed their heads and moved aside, boots clacking against the stone. Their tension stayed on them like a second uniform, but they followed the order without a word.
Aelius didn't move, not even when the room quieted to the point he could hear his own pulse crawling through his skull. His ribs ached, his spine burned, and every breath came out tight like the air itself was an insult. He kept his fists clenched because if he loosened them even a little, he knew the shaking would show.
The old man's gaze stayed on him. Not sharp. Not soft. Just steady, the kind of look that belonged to someone who had survived too long and learned too much.
"So, my boy," the old man said, voice rolling out like worn gravel. "You are my grandson from Earthland."
Aelius's jaw tightened hard enough that it clicked. "Don't call me that," he snapped, heat bleeding into every word. "If you are what I think you are, then the only reason I'm not strangling the decrepit, diseased life out of you is because Knightwalker's in the room."
A few guards bristled, hands twitching near hilts. Knightwalker didn't. She watched him with that unreadable stare of hers, arms folded, weighing every word he let loose.
The old man didn't flinch. Didn't frown. He just let out a slow breath, like he had expected this long before Aelius ever opened his mouth.
"You are hurt, my boy," he said quietly. "It seems my counterpart in your world was a cruel man. I am sorry. Even if he is not me, even if our lives took different paths, I apologize for what he did to you."
Aelius laughed, short and sharp like broken glass hitting stone.
"Save it. You might not be him, but you're close enough to make my skin crawl."
Edolas Aelius shifted beside the old man, expression tight. He didn't interrupt. He didn't defend anyone. But his eyes had gone hollow at the edges, guilt curling behind the worry. Earthland Aelius finally straightened a little. Just enough to look the old man directly in the face.
"You want honesty?" he said, voice low but steady. "Fine. I don't care what your other self did or didn't do. I'm not here looking for some twisted family reunion. I'm here because you people took everything from me. My guild. My home. My life. You turned them into power you don't deserve."
The old man nodded once. "I see you, my boy. You are him and not him. You carry his blood but not his life." He gestured lightly toward the gag on the ground, the mask on the table, the empty space between Aelius and Knightwalker. "And you stand here ready to spit venom at a ghost only you know."
Aelius's jaw twitched. "Yeah. And?"
"And you fear becoming him," the old man said quietly.
That hit something. Hard.
Aelius's eyes snapped up, rage flaring like a match across oil. For a second, the room tightened. Knightwalker's hand tightened on her spear. Even Edolas Aelius stiffened.
But the old man didn't budge.
"I'm nothing like him," Aelius snarled.
"Yet you still think of him," the old man replied. "Still measure yourself against him in your anger. Still react to the world as if he is behind every door."
Aelius swallowed hard, but the fire didn't leave his face.
The old man lifted his hand, not toward him, but in a small, dismissive gesture. "I won't call you grandson again. But understand this. Whatever monster raised you is not in this room. Only you are."
No one moved at first. The old man's words lingered in the air, heavy enough that even the guards hesitated. Aelius could feel the shift in the room, a tightening in the space between every breath.
"Follow me, just knightwalker, my grandson, and his earhtland double," the general said, turning and walking towards the door he entered from
Knightwalker was the first to react. Her jaw flexed, annoyance flickering across her face before she jerked her chin at the guards. They snapped upright and stepped aside, just enough to clear a path but not enough to pretend the danger was gone.
Edolas Aelius looked torn for a heartbeat, glancing between the old man's retreating back and the Earthland version of himself who was still standing there like a storm waiting to break. Eventually, he exhaled, ran a hand down the front of his coat, and moved to follow his grandfather.
Earthland Aelius didn't budge.
Knightwalker's gaze snapped to him. "Move."
He didn't. Not at first. His body stayed locked, muscles wired so tightly his fingers twitched. The door the old man had gone through seemed to breathe in the silence. A narrow frame of darkness. Something past it. Something waiting.
He finally forced himself forward with a low grunt, shoulders tight and movements slow, like every step was an argument he was losing with himself.
Knightwalker fell in behind him. Edolas Aelius lingered long enough to give him a searching look. Not hostile. Not pitying. Just trying to understand the man who had his own face and dead eyes.
The corridor stretched ahead, narrow and dim, torches flickering just enough to paint the walls in uneven gold. Their footsteps echoed softly, the only real sound as the old man walked with a slow, steady pace that didn't match his age at all.
After a few paces, he spoke again, voice quieter now, less performative and more… probing.
"Tell me, child," he said without turning, "what carved all that fury into you? It cannot simply be the face of your Earthland grandfather. That sort of anger takes history. Depth. A long road." His tone wasn't mocking or accusing. Just curious. Heavy with a kind of seasoned weight. "I have seen men walk to their execution with more light left in them than you carry. For someone born to a world rich in magic, you wear sorrow like armor. Why is that?"
Aelius didn't answer at first. He walked like he was fighting every step, hands still bound at his back, shoulders tight, and breath edged with something that wasn't fear but wasn't far from it either.
The old man slowed, turning just enough to glance over his shoulder at him. There was no pity in his eyes. Only understanding that came from age and scars.
"You have the look," he continued, "of someone who ran out of choices a long time ago and simply kept walking anyway."
Knightwalker shot the old man a sharp look, as if he were overstepping, but he ignored her entirely.
Edolas Aelius kept glancing between them, uncertain, tense, trying to gauge where this was going and whether he should intervene.
Aelius finally let out a rough breath. Not quite a sigh. More like something he'd been holding onto slipped for a second.
His voice came low, flat.
"You ask a lot of questions for someone I haven't decided to kill yet."
Knightwalker moved like she was about to shove him forward, but the old man lifted a hand. She froze.
He didn't slow again. Didn't look back.
The old man's words echoed in the narrow hall, soft but heavy enough to press against the walls.
"I ask," he said calmly, "because people do not become storms for no reason. And you, boy… You walk like one."
Aelius let out a sharp, bitter laugh, the sound scraping up from somewhere deep. "Oh gods above save me the philosophical lines," he snapped. "Sometimes life just decides to spit in someone's face and then grind their skull into the dirt for fun. That's why I'm here. That's why I'm like this."
He stepped forward without thinking, only to halt as Knightwalker's spear barred his chest. Her expression warned him to try it again.
So he stayed put, shoulders coiled tight, and tore into them with his voice instead.
"Magic isn't the miracle you think," he growled. "When everyone has it, when it's in the air, the water, the blood… it stops being a gift. It becomes a tool. A weapon. You want to know my experience?" His lip curled, hands flexing helplessly against the restraints. "Magic is what people use to torture. To enslave. To rape. To kill. It's power, and power rots people from the inside out."
His breath hitched, sharp, sudden. He forced it steady again, jaw clenched so tight a muscle jumped in his cheek. He didn't look at them. Couldn't. If he did, something would crack open.
He bit back the next words so hard his throat worked around them. The silence between each breath got tighter, heavier, until his chest trembled from the effort of holding everything in.
He wasn't spiralling like he had when Nehzhar's influence crawled under his skin. This was worse because none of it was forced. None of it pushed. This was him.
His rage didn't come from corruption or magic poisoning his thoughts. It came from truth. From memory. From the presence of this old man, who carried the shape of someone he hated so deeply that it carved trenches in him.
And for the first time since they'd dragged him into this world, Aelius wasn't hiding it. He wasn't smirking or taunting or keeping things buried where no one could reach them.
He was breaking. Just not in a way that made him weak.
Knightwalker's spear stayed pressed to his chest. Edolas Aelius stared at him like he was looking at a ghost with a heartbeat. The old man didn't move at all.
But something in the hall shifted. Like the air itself understood it had just been trusted with something poisonous and real.
The old man didn't answer him. Not at first. He just turned and kept walking, slow and steady, the way people do when they've already decided the conversation isn't over but must be moved somewhere quieter. He said nothing for a full minute. Not a glance. Not a sound. Only the soft shuffle of his steps and the distant echo of the guards following behind.
Aelius's breaths stayed jagged, uneven. Knightwalker kept her spear angled just enough to remind him she'd skewer him the second he faltered. Edolas Aelius kept stealing looks between them, expression caught between horror and recognition, like watching a reflection twist into something he didn't want to admit could be him.
Finally, the hallway widened, opening into a tall chamber lit by pale crystal panels embedded in the walls. The air shifted. Clean. Sterile. Sharp with alchemical fumes. Glass chambers lined the left wall. Workbenches scarred with burn marks, etched notes, and broken tools spread across the right. Scrolls, half-finished constructs, and glowing runes were scattered like someone had been working on five projects at once and refused to abandon any.
It was a laboratory. Big enough to echo. Old enough to feel lived in. And meticulous in a way that said two people touched it regularly and didn't always agree on where things should go.
Edolas Aelius stopped walking first, eyes darting across the room, recognition deepening in his face. His voice came out softer, more measured than before.
"Grandfather… why did you bring us here?" He stepped forward, turning in a slow circle as he took in the equipment, the diagrams, the familiar scent of their work. "Why bring them into our lab? This place is for our research, our experiments, not…"
He trailed off, glancing back at Earthland Aelius, who stood tense and coiled just inside the doorway. The sight of the room didn't soften him. If anything, it made the shadows behind his eyes settle in deeper.
The old man still didn't answer right away. He moved with that slow, deliberate weight that comes from age and long decisions already made, crossing the room toward the central worktable. He planted both palms on its scarred surface and let out a long, steady breath, as if bracing himself before peeling open an old wound. Only then did he lift his gaze.
"Might as well sit for this," he murmured. "My bones aren't fit for standing at attention anymore."
He pushed away from the table and walked toward the corner, where a couch sat tucked behind a half wall. It looked stubbornly out of place in the hard angles and sterile lines of the lab. The cushions were worn, edges frayed from years of use. A blanket was folded sloppily over one arm, and a stack of half-read notes lay on the low table beside it. This wasn't decoration. This was someone's routine. Late nights. Early mornings. Working until exhaustion blurred the ink.
The general lowered himself onto the couch with a quiet grunt. Not delicate, not weak. Just old. Honest about it. He adjusted his robe around himself, settling in like he'd done this a thousand nights before, then gestured loosely toward the others.
"Come. Sit if you want. Stand if you must. Either way, this talk will not be short."
Edolas Aelius hovered a moment, torn between military formality and familial instinct. Eventually, he stepped closer, positioning himself near the couch but remaining on his feet, hands clasped behind his back. His eyes flicked around the room again, lingering on the familiar workstations, the tools he and his grandfather shared. Comfort and unease warred under his skin.
Earthland Aelius didn't move. He stayed where he was, near the doorway, posture defensive and tight. The room didn't intimidate him. It just meant nothing. No recognition. No nostalgia. No comfort. Only cold surfaces and a man who wore the face of someone he had every right to hate.
Knightwalker stood between them both, spear lowered but ready, watching every twitch of Earthland Aelius's muscles with suspicion sharpened into habit.
The general let the silence stretch, studying each of them in turn. Slow. Patient. Measuring them the way a smith examines cracked steel, deciding where the real break lies.
Earthland Aelius dropped to the floor without ceremony, legs folding under him, elbows resting on his knees. He looked up at the old man with a stare that was all teeth and exhaustion.
The old man didn't rise to the bait. He tapped the butt of his staff once against the floor, a quiet signal more than an order.
"Knightwalker. Leave us."
She stiffened instantly. "General, with respect, that is reckless. He's unstable, he's unpredictable, and keeping your guard down around him is—"
"I said leave," the old man cut in, tone flat, not warm, not indulgent. Just final. "And spare me the lecture. I'm old, not blind. If he tries anything, I'll handle it."
Knightwalker looked like she wanted to argue anyway. Her grip tightened on her spear. Her jaw worked. She glanced at Aelius like she was already imagining the list of ways this would go wrong.
But the old man didn't even bother looking at her again.
"I'm sure," he added, almost bored. "Go."
A long breath slid through her teeth before she finally stepped back, planting her spear hard into the floor with a dull ring before turning on her heel. Even then, the tension still stuck to them like tar.
The door shut. The room quieted.
Earthland Aelius didn't shift. Didn't rise. Didn't even uncross his legs. He just watched the old man with that same dead-eyed challenge, like he was daring the elder to prove he wasn't just another soft relic pretending at relevance.
The old man eased back on the couch again, hands resting on his knees. No pity. No friendliness. Just a man who had lived long enough to stop performing for anyone.
"Tell me about your grandfather, son."
The demand was calm, almost gentle, but layered with the authority of someone who expected obedience as a matter of nature. Aelius didn't even blink.
"No."
The refusal was immediate, flat, instinctive. No hesitation, no waver. Just a wall slamming shut.
The old man let out a long breath, heavy enough that it echoed faintly off the cell walls. "I assumed as much. You don't strike me as the type withholding information for strategic advantage." His eyes narrowed. "You strike me as someone who simply doesn't want to speak."
Aelius met his stare with that same empty steadiness he always carried, like he was daring the general to keep digging. He didn't speak. He didn't flinch. He didn't give anything.
The silence stretched long enough that the general finally straightened, rolling his shoulders back before continuing.
"I suppose it's only proper I extend courtesy if I expect any in return."
He turned slightly, motioning toward the younger man standing beside him. The resemblance between the two Aeliuses was unmistakable now that the mask and hood were gone. Same build. Same bone structure. Same posture. But the differences were louder: Edolas Aelius had life in his eyes, a bright simmer that sparked even under stress. Earthland Aelius's gaze sat still and hollow.
"Earthland Aelius," the general said, voice full of measured pride, "meet Aelius Corvin. My grandson. My pride and joy. Head scientist of our kingdom."
Edolas Aelius lifted a hand in an awkward half-wave, swallowed, then set it back down.
"He is the mind that keeps this nation standing," the general continued. "The king trusts him above nearly all others. And when he does not…" A faint smile crossed the old man's lips. "He tends to listen anyway."
Aelius Corvin shifted, clearly unused to being spoken about like this in front of another version of himself. His eyes flicked from the general to Earthland Aelius, then lingered on the other man's expressionless stare.
"I didn't ask for all that," Earthland Aelius said, voice rough with disinterest. "And it doesn't change the fact I'm not telling you anything about my grandfather."
The general studied him again, slower this time, gaze dragging across every scar, every bruise, every worn-out line carved into Earthland Aelius's face. There was something like recognition in his eyes now. Not in the sense of knowing the man before him, but understanding the kind of life that shaped him.
"You carry yourself like a man who's buried far too much." The general's voice softened just a sliver. "So I will ask only once more. Not as interrogation. Not as an enemy. As a grandfather speaking to another man who clearly knew his own."
Aelius didn't look away. He didn't falter. His jaw set.
"No. And if you want a reason," he murmured finally, "you won't like the answer."
The general's brow lifted. "Try me."
"Because I killed my grandfather," he said, voice soft, almost conversational, like he was stating his height. "I gutted him. Choked him with his own entrails. Then burned whatever was left."
The words didn't echo. They didn't need to. They just sat in the room like a weight dropped through the floor.
Corvin looked sick, one hand lifting halfway before falling uselessly back to his side. It wasn't fear of the man in front of him. It was the image. The casual brutality. The idea of looking at the man who raised you and doing that.
The general didn't recoil. His jaw didn't drop. He didn't shout or accuse. Instead, he stared at Earthland Aelius the way seasoned soldiers look at old battlefields, with grim recognition and a silent question of how far the rot reached.
"You're lying," the general said, but even he didn't sound convinced.
"No," Aelius replied, tilting his head just slightly. "But if believing that helps you sleep tonight, go ahead."
Corvin took a step back, not out of fear but disbelief. "Why?" His voice cracked on the word. "What could possibly justify that?"
Earthland Aelius dragged his tongue across the back of his teeth, considering it. "He asked for it."
The general's brows tightened. "No one asks for that."
"You'd be surprised," Aelius said, eyes flat as dead glass. "He had a long time to run. He didn't."
Corvin swallowed, voice barely above a whisper. "You make it sound like he wanted you to kill him."
"Everybody wants something. He got what he wanted. I'm still dealing with what came after."
The general's expression shifted, not softening but narrowing, like he was searching for the seams in the story. "That is the most grotesque attempt at deflection I have ever heard."
Aelius let the silence breathe for a moment, like he was giving the room one last chance to walk away before he dragged it somewhere no one wanted to go. Then he kept talking, voice steady but scraped raw at the edges.
"He was a god," Aelius said. "Or a twisted, corrupted version of one. Pestilence. Decay. Death. He wore them like armor. He thought he understood them. Thought he could control them." His lips twitched in a humourless smile. "He couldn't."
His gaze drifted past the two men, unfocused, as if the memory was standing somewhere behind them, watching.
"He used to look me dead in the eye," Aelius continued, "and preach about hope. Can you imagine that? A thing made of rot, talking about hope like it was a sermon. He'd say everything dies. Everything breaks down. But that's good. Because decay feeds rebirth. Destruction feeds renewal." His fingers curled, the only sign of tension. "He talked about the cycle like it made all the suffering worth it."
Corvin swallowed hard, but didn't speak.
Aelius kept going, slower, heavier. "He'd justify the abominations he created. Whole villages rotting from the inside out. Families blistering apart in their own beds. Skin-eating poxes that made people scream until they didn't have mouths left to scream with." He breathed out through his nose, sharp. "All of it, according to him, was necessary. A kindness. His way of purifying the world for the next cycle."
The general's jaw tightened.
Aelius tilted his head, considering the thought like it still irritated him. "He'd walk through fields of corpses like he was tending a garden. And he'd tell me it was beautiful. That everything he touched was returning to its rightful state. That every death was just the world preparing to be reborn."
His voice flattened, stripped of anything but fact. "He wanted me to believe it. To carry the same torch. To keep his cycle going when he couldn't."
Corvin's breath hitched. "And you refused."
Aelius looked at him then. Really looked at him. "I did." His expression cooled into something carved from old, cold metal.
The general shifted, quiet and grim. "That was why he asked you to kill him."
Aelius nodded once. "He knew I wouldn't carry the legacy. And things like him don't die easy, not unless someone very close makes it personal. So he made it personal."
The room felt smaller suddenly, like the air had thickened with every word. Aelius obky now realized he told them exactly what they wanted, but he couldn't bring himself to care.