Corvis Eralith
The world snapped into focus with the wet, warm, insistent rasp of Berna's massive tongue dragging across my cheek and forehead. Pine resin, cold stone, and the faint metallic tang of the workshop—the familiar scents of my mountaintop refuge—flooded my senses, yet they felt alien, disconnected.
Where…? Panic, cold and sharp, pricked at the edges of my consciousness.
I was horizontal, suspended. The rough weave of the hammock I had slung between sturdy pine branches bit into my back through the thin fabric of my underclothes. Sunlight, fractured by the grotto's entrance, dappled the rock ceiling above.
How did I get here? The last memory was a searing purple tide, gnolls erupting from stone, the desperate acceptance of Romulos's terrible bargain, and then… nothing.
A void. Time and body stolen. A tremor ran through me, unrelated to the mountain chill. Am I still myself? Frantically, I lifted my hands before my face. Bandages, stark white against my skin, wrapped my forearms and disappeared under my sleeves.
I had all my Ineptrunes, Against the Tragedy under my right forearm, Beyond the Meta over the left eye with the mana contact lense placed in its container on one of the benches below. Failsafe was still present on the back of my head with Falling Down on the dorso of left hand.
The Acclorite? It was there too, the three other pieces safely stashed away. I saw the storage rings, my dagger everything I had on me was somewhere in the workshop.
I... haven't lost anything.
My fingers flexed, stiff and aching, but they obeyed. The knuckles were scraped, the nails dirty. Mine. The relief was so profound it felt like another kind of weakness. Berna, balanced precariously on her hind legs, her massive head level with the hammock, whuffed softly, her warm breath ghosting over me, her green eyes wide with concern and a simple, overwhelming joy at my wakefulness. She was the only solid thing in this spinning reality.
"Yes," I croaked, the sound raw and unfamiliar in my own throat. "I am happy to see you too, Berna." The words were automatic, a lifeline thrown to the familiar amidst the disorienting fog. The deeper question clawed its way up: did he give it back? Did Romulos truly relinquish control?
"If I cared about your acknowledgement," a voice drawled, laced with sardonic velvet, sliced through the grotto's quiet, "I would feel positively wounded." He materialized not as a smudge, but fully formed, leaning with insouciant arrogance one the rough-hewn entrance. Romulos. Agrona's son. My spectral parasite.
He looked down at me, sprawled vulnerably in the hammock, with an expression that mingled amusement and faint, aristocratic disdain. He pantomimed removing phantom spectacles, letting them dissolve into mist before pushing off the wall. "A 'thank you' seemed the bare minimum, Corvis. Or perhaps a modicum of awe?"
The casual arrogance ignited a spark of anger, cutting through the disorientation. "What," I rasped, pushing myself up onto trembling elbows, the hammock swaying dangerously, "have you done? How?" My gaze flicked to Berna, then back to him, demanding answers.
He drifted closer, a phantom predator circling wounded prey. "Done?" A slow, unnerving smile spread across his spectral features. "I have done you an immense favor, dear me. Not only did I preserve your rather fragile existence—against overwhelming, if pathetically weak, opposition—but I ensured every scrap of mineral and salvage you risked your neck for in that fetid pit remains intact." He gestured vaguely towards the workshop.
"Oh," he added, almost as an afterthought, "and I took the liberty of appropriating a dozen of those corrupted beast cores. Fascinating little malignancies. Useful."
My eyes followed his gesture towards the corner where my steel-grey uniform hung. It wasn't just dirty; it was torn, slashed across the thigh and forearm, stained dark in places that could only be blood—my blood.
"Before your next reckless excursion," Romulos continued, his tone light but carrying an undeniable edge, "that rag will require significant repair. A testament to your… fragility, but we will work on it."
The implications tumbled over me. The gnolls. The purple tide. The terrifying void of Anti-Matter wielded through my flesh.
"Wait," I breathed, disbelief warring with a desperate, treacherous hope. "I'm… good? Like this? No… downsides?" The question felt foolish even as I asked it. Nothing with Romulos came without cost.
He snorted, a dry, dismissive sound.
"Those gnolls were scarcely more than animated filth. Dispatching them required barely a flicker of true power. Two seconds, Corvis. Your body, remarkably, sustained negligible permanent damage. You merely… fainted."
He waved a spectral hand. "For a week. Plus the two days dear Berna required to haul your insensate carcass back to this picturesque laboratory." He said it so casually, the theft of nine days of my life.
Berna nudged my shoulder gently, then presented a waterskin and a wrapped bundle of rations with careful paws. "Thank you, Berna," I murmured, the gratitude thick and genuine, a stark contrast to the spectral presence watching us.
The water was cold, blissfully cold, washing away the grit and the phantom taste of the desert that seemed to coat my throat. I ate the rations mechanically, the simple act grounding me, buying time as the implications of Romulos's words sank in. Negligible permanent damage. He could have held on.
The question crystallized, cold and sharp. I lowered the waterskin, meeting his unnervingly amused gaze. "If… if there was no lasting harm," I forced out, the words heavy with suspicion, "why… why did you give it back? Why didn't you just… keep me?"
Romulos tilted his head, his smile widening into something predatory and unsettlingly charming. "Come now, Corvis," he purred, drifting even closer, his spectral form seeming to absorb the dappled light. "Aren't we… friends? Partners in this peculiar existence? We share the same flesh, the same vessel, after all! The same mind at the end."
The false bonhomie in his voice sent chills down my spine. It was a mockery, a reminder of the fundamental violation. I wasn't in a position to argue, not weakened, bandaged, and reeling. But the fear coiled tighter: what did he do while he wore me? What unseen price have I already paid?
"Besides," he continued, the playful tone evaporating, replaced by chilling pragmatism, "don't imagine this was some act of limitless benevolence. Had I channeled Anti-Matter for even a heartbeat longer…"
He made a soft poof gesture with his fingers. "...your delightful little mortal frame would have simply… collapsed. Imploded. A rather messy end." He rolled his spectral shoulders as if discussing the weather.
"I see," I whispered. Luck. Sheer, terrifying luck. The need for better gear, stronger Ineptrunes, any defense against the power I hosted, burned brighter than ever.
"Moreover," Romulos chimed in, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial murmur that felt like ice tracing my spine, "now you owe me, Corvis." He let the word hang, heavy and deliberate. "I think it's becoming abundantly clear, even to your stubborn mind, that your demise is not currently on my agenda."
I knew the path this was taking. A cold dread pooled in my stomach.
"Dad," Romulos said, the single syllable laden with a complexity I couldn't fathom—longing, resentment, ambition? "We both know he is… interested in you. Profoundly so. He desires your capture, your… audience." He paused, his spectral eyes boring into mine. "Don't you think, as a gesture of good faith, considering the life-debt incurred, you could at least… hear him out?"
The old defiance flared, weak but persistent. "Romulos," I rasped, pushing myself more upright despite the protest of bandaged limbs, "we have spoken about this. The answer is no. Never."
"And I recall your obstinance perfectly," he replied smoothly, unfazed. "But hear me now. I am not asking you to kneel. I am not demanding you pledge allegiance to the Vritra. I am simply asking…"
His voice softened, taking on a note of something perilously close to sincerity. "...for a son to see his father. Is the debt of a life—your life—not worth that small concession? A meeting? A conversation?"
Manipulative bastard. The thought was a venomous hiss in my mind. He was expertly twisting the knife of obligation, leveraging the very survival he'd granted. Guilt, unwelcome and corrosive, seeped in. He could have let me die.
He could have let the Twin Horns die. He could have waited for Agrona's hunters even. But nothing about Romulos made sense. His motives were a labyrinth, and every apparent kindness felt like the setting of a deeper trap.
What is he truly plotting?
"But you are right," he sighed, the semblance of vulnerability vanishing as swiftly as it appeared, replaced by cold certainty. "Dad possesses patience… and reach. He will come to you himself. Sooner or later." The unspoken threat hung in the air, thick as mountain fog.
Sylvie. The spell. The possession. The ultimate violation waiting in the wings. The chills that had been tracing my spine solidified into a block of ice in my gut.
I remained silent, the taste of rations turning to ash in my mouth.
"Well!" Romulos clapped his spectral hands together, the soundless gesture jarringly cheerful. "Now, rest. Conserve your fragile strength." His grin returned, wide and unsettlingly amused. "Tomorrow, there is such delightful work to be done!"
His voice was bright, almost gleeful. The contrast with the icy terror his words had instilled was grotesque. As his form shimmered and faded from the grotto entrance, leaving only the scent of pine and the warmth of Berna's fur.
———
The needle's bite was a familiar, grounding sting against the skin of my right hand, a counterpoint to the dull ache permeating my muscles after weeks of relentless labor.
Ink, infused with various beast cores, seeped into the dermis, tracing the final coiling segment of the double-headed rattlesnake around the Greek cross. Romulos' spectral form hovered beside my workbench, a permanent shadow in the mineral-scented gloom of the workshop.
His earlier question—"What are you doing?"—still hung in the air, unnecessary and intrusive.
He wasn't wrong about the time. Two weeks. Fourteen days measured in hammer strikes on steel, the hum of mana channeled into reinforcing runes etched onto Barbarossa's crimson hulk, the meticulous cleaning and repair of my torn uniform, and the slow, painful knitting of flesh beneath bandages.
The frame of my defiant monument stood complete, a silent, armored giant suspended in its cradle of cables, radiating latent power and profound vulnerability. I craved to test it, to feel its weight and strength, but the memory of the gnolls, of the prize on my head, was a cold hand squeezing my heart.
My world had shrunk to the mountaintop grotto and the predawn ritual of exercise on the windswept plateau, always followed by a swift retreat into the mountain's stony embrace. Safety was an illusion, but the workshop walls were the only shield I had.
I was hiding in my workshop arming myself to the teeth in order not being anymore in a situation like... that.
"Dicathen calls Corvis," Romulos murmured, his voice cutting through the rhythmic scratch of the needle. He had largely abandoned his overt campaign for an Agrona alliance, relegating it to darkly humorous jabs.
Was that progress? Or merely the calm before a storm of his own devising? The uncertainty was its own kind of erosion.
My focus snapped back to the task burning beneath my fingers. The first new Ineptrune—For the Catastrophe—pulsed faintly under my left forearm, a necessary abomination born of Romulos' unsettling insight.
Its Vritra-horn pentacles were a stark, permanent reminder of the decay mana it could conjure, a converter siphoning power from Against the Tragedy's reserves.
Useful, yes, but a hollow vessel, lacking its twin's Ineptrune storage capacity. It was a scalpel, not a sword. That insufficiency had led me here, to the backs of my hands.
"Using vibrations as a weapon, huh?" Romulos mused, genuine curiosity cutting through his usual sarcasm. He leaned closer, spectral eyes fixed on the intricate lines taking shape.
"Now I am genuinely intrigued. Especially the decay variant. Are you aiming for Void Wind?"
His help had been… invaluable. Unsettlingly so. He had guided the chaotic flow of decay mana for For the Catastrophe, his understanding of its nature far exceeding anything else and with Meta-awareness I made everything in few days.
Now, his insights into vibrational harmonics and their devastating potential underpinned this new design. How much of this was genuine collaboration, and how much was him meticulously arming his chosen pawn? The question gnawed, but survival trumped paranoia. For now.
"Yes," I grunted, dipping the needle again. The sting was sharp, clean. "Void Wind. And that… deviant gravity magic you described." The concept was terrifyingly elegant—not just increasing weight, but inducing catastrophic harmonic failure within matter itself.
"Interesting," he breathed, the word laced with dark amusement. "Exceedingly… final."
The final line was etched. The decay side on my left hand was complete: a swarm of stylized flies swirling around a central inverted cross, an emblem of entropy and dissolution.
On the right, the rattlesnake coiled, a symbol of warning and deadly vibration, intertwined with the Greek cross—perhaps a futile plea for balance, or merely a structural anchor. I wiped away the excess blood and ink with a damp cloth, the designs stark and powerful against my skin.
"I have to say," Romulos observed, tilting his head, "it's a rather… peculiar aesthetic. But now, for the nam—"
"Accaron," I stated flatly, cutting him off. The name surfaced from the silt of fading Earth memories—a city of an ancient civilization, perhaps, or just a resonant sound. It felt right. Heavy. Final.
"Why that name?" Genuine curiosity flickered in his spectral gaze.
"An ancient place. From Earth," I dismissed, the word tasting like ash. Earth felt less like a homeland and more like a half-remembered dream, its details blurring with each passing day in this brutal reality.
"I maintain that's merely elaborate fantasy," he smirked, the familiar condescension returning. "But if it fuels your inspiration… then it's a perfectly serviceable fantasy."
"Think what you want," I muttered, cleaning my tools with unnecessary force. I had no energy for the old debate.
"You're becoming positively glacial, Corvis," Romulos remarked, feigning hurt, but the spark of dark enjoyment in his eyes was unmistakable. He relished this hardening, this focus honed by necessity and fear.
"I'm only doing what I must to surv—" The word died on my lips. My hands, newly inscribed with instruments of destruction, froze.
How many weeks? The question slammed into me with the force of a physical blow. More than a month. Weeks measured in runes etched and wounds healed, in ore mined and armor forged, in spectral bargains struck and the gnawing fear of possession.
The frantic drive to build, to arm myself, to survive… it had become an all-consuming fog. A necessary numbness. But beneath the ink and the steel, beneath the decay mana and the Ineptrunes, a deeper ache suddenly flared, raw and agonizing.
Tessia, Grampa, Mom, Dad, Sylvie, Grey.
The workshops' chill seeped into my bones. The intricate, powerful marks on my hands suddenly felt alien. Heavy. Not just tools, but shackles forged in desperation.
"The first semester should end soon in Xyrus Academy..." I said to myself. In one month the first part of the school year should be over.
"Maybe I could visit Tessia and Grey when the semester will end..." I murmured full of longing.