Corvis Eralith
The thin, biting air of the mountaintop scraped at my lungs, carrying the scent of ozone, cold stone, and the faint metallic tang of solder.
Days had bled into a monotonous rhythm of repair: the rhythmic clang of hammer on Barbarossa's scarred crimson carapace, the low thrum of mana channeled into reinforcing runes, the soft whimpers Berna couldn't suppress as her deep shoulder wound knitted slowly.
Each strike of the hammer echoed the impact that had shattered Olfred; each flicker of healing light on Berna's fur reminded me of the searing white annihilation I had unleashed. The workshop, once a sanctuary of creation, felt like a mausoleum for my former self, haunted by the ghost of a Lance reduced to ashes.
Progress was glacial. Barbarossa's structural wounds were deep, Sylvia's core pulsed with a weary thrum after channeling such obscene power, and Berna needed rest, not relentless travel. We were trapped, vulnerable, blind. The world was moving, plots thickening, and I was hammering dents out of steel while my family, my continent, teetered on a knife's edge. The isolation was a physical weight, heavier than any mountain.
I needed eyes. Ears. Something to pierce the suffocating silence.
Hence, the jammer. Perched precariously on the highest outcrop near the grotto entrance, it was a spindly tower of scavenged copper, salvaged quartz resonators, and painstakingly etched runic arrays humming with latent wind magic. Less elegant than the masterpieces I made with Gideon, more brutalist necessity. A thief's tool, built to steal whispers from the wind.
"What is that… abomination you've just erected?" Romulos materialized beside it, phasing partially through a copper strut, his spectral nose wrinkled in aristocratic disdain. He had been unusually quiet since the fight, his earlier disturbing pride replaced by a watchful, calculating silence.
"A lifeline," I rasped, my voice raw from disuse and inhaled metal dust. I wiped grease from my hands onto my already filthy trousers. "A jammer. To intercept the wind mana carrying radio signals." I gestured vaguely at the intricate latticework.
"If I'm to be a ghost, Romulos, I need to hear the living world breathing. Know when the hunters draw close. Know what storms are brewing."
His spectral brow furrowed, genuine curiosity momentarily overriding his usual sarcasm. "Intercept… communications? Like spying on whispers carried by the breeze? Ingenious. Crude, but… functional. For a lesser." He drifted closer, examining the humming runes. "And you believe this pile of scrap can achieve that?"
"The radio signals ride specific wind mana frequencies. This finds them. Listens." I adjusted a finicky resonator, the copper cold beneath my fingers. "Gideon might detect the intrusion… but he'll know it's me. He won't betray it." My trust in the peculiar artificer was one of the few unbroken things left.
"I confess," Romulos murmured, a rare note of something almost wistful entering his voice, "I am… curious. About Sylvie. How fares my sister in this grand charade?"
I shook my head, a bitter smile touching my lips. "This isn't a scrying pool, Romulos. It only hears what's already being shouted into the wind. If Grey isn't chatting on an open channel, she's a ghost to us too."
"Wasted potential," he sighed, the disappointment sharp. "Such a fascinating concept shackled by such mundane limitations."
Annoyance flared, hot and familiar. "Wasted? This scrap—the radio—will be the web that catches Alacrya's movements! The advantage that turns the tide! Your Father might be impressed enough to hesitate before crushing us!" The words spilled out, laced with a fierce, defensive pride in the technology born from my world, my mind.
Romulos chuckled, the sound like dry leaves skittering on stone. "Oh, Dad will be fascinated. He'll dissect the principle in an afternoon. But impressed? Undoubtedly. Another point in your favour, Corvis. Another reason for him to want you whole, not shattered."
It was insidious, how every conversation, every shared moment, became a subtle current pulling me towards the abyss of Agrona's regard. "It's rather common, you know," he added airily, drifting back towards the grotto entrance, "for Dicathians to see the light and join Dad. Can't blame them. He's… compelling. Magnificent, really." The casual endorsement of betrayal was a fresh barb.
"Silence," I hissed, not looking at him. My focus snapped to the jammer. A subtle shift in the ambient wind mana, a focused pulse riding the currents.
Beyond the Meta flared, painting the invisible signal threads in stark greyscale. My hands moved, guided by instinct and desperation, manipulating levers and tuning crystal resonators with delicate precision. The jammer hummed louder, a resonant thrum vibrating up through the stone beneath my boots.
Then, a voice crackled through the crude speaker horn I'd attached—distorted, fragmented by distance and interference, but unmistakable. Gideon.
"...No. King Glayder, I told you more times than I can even count. I don't have any information about Prince Eralith."
My breath hitched. Glayder. Directly. The serpent in the garden. A cold fury warred with the frantic hope pounding in my chest. Wait… an idea! If I could just interrupt… communicate through the interference itself…
"Try injecting lightning mana into those wind threads," Romulos suggested, his voice suddenly sharp, focused. He was peering intently at the jammer, though I knew he saw only what I did.
"Chaos in the signal. If I parsed your memories of this 'radio' correctly, buzzing. Communicate with buzzing." The casual admission of scrying my mind was chilling, but the idea was terrifyingly plausible.
No time for outrage. My right hand flew to Against the Tragedy. Mana surged, not for defense, but channeled into a precise, crackling thread of pure lightning. I focused, touching the tip of my finger to a key mana conduit on the jammer. The lightning snaked into the delicate wind magic flow.
The speaker erupted in a violent burst of static—a harsh, electric ZZZZZT that drowned out Gideon's next words.
"Your Majesty?" Gideon's voice cut back through the noise, laced with annoyance, then… a pause. A dawning comprehension. "Is this thing brok—no. Wait." Another pause, heavy with implication. "Kid?"
He understood! Relief, sharp and giddy, washed over me. The interference should mask the source from Glayder's end. Gideon was playing along. Genius.
"Do one of these annoying buzzes for yes," Gideon's voice was low, urgent, "and two for no."
A single, sharp ZZT ripped from the speaker. Yes.
"Good." A world of unspoken relief in that one word. "Are you alright?"
The unexpectedness of it struck me like a physical blow. Not 'where are you?' or 'what have you done?'. Are you alright? A lump formed in my throat. I sent another affirmative buzz. Yes.
"Here the situation… chaotic doesn't cover it. Since your… declaration. You're the spark they're using to light the tinderbox between the races." His voice was grim. Draneeve. The puppeteer. Cynthia and Grey hadn't found him yet. The frustration was a fresh ache.
"Whole thing's crazy. I really am impressed a civil war hasn't ignited yet. Do you know why you're being hunted?"
ZZT. Yes.
"Then…" Gideon's voice dropped, even lower, "Is it the other continent? The one the Council forced me to send the Dicatheous to?"
ZZT! Yes! The confirmation was a surge of vindication. But the Dicatheous… already sailed? Panic flared. My planned countermeasures, the hidden runes, the subtle reinforcements I had hoped to suggest or to add in secrecy… all useless now. They had rushed it.
"Don't hyperventilate," Romulos drawled, leaning against the jammer tower, seemingly amused by my distress. "It will take months of sailing, Corvis. The ocean dividing Alacrya and Dicathen is vast. Plenty of time for… interventions."
Logically, he was right. But the sense of a critical safeguard removed, of my people sailing helplessly into the serpent's maw, was a cold stone in my gut.
Gideon pressed on, oblivious to my internal turmoil. "And… was it true? You killed a Lance?" A pause. "Not that I blame you. I'd scorch the earth too, to stay breathing."
ZZT. The affirmation felt heavy. Laden with the memory of ash and Olfred's final scream. Yes.
"And I can guess it was Olfred Warend," Gideon continued, his voice dropping to a near whisper. "After what your grandfather told me."
Grampa! The name was a lightning strike to my heart. He'd received the letter! He was acting! Sharing the truth with Gideon! Hope, fragile and fierce, bloomed amidst the dread. ZZT! Yes!
"Anyway," Gideon's tone shifted, becoming brisk, almost businesslike, though the undercurrent of urgency remained. "Elder Virion is working the shadows. Exposing this rot. There are people… more than you think… who believe in you, kid. Including me." A gruff admission. "Reluctantly. So… stay safe. Stay alive."
The connection dissolved. The static vanished, replaced by the howling mountain wind and the frantic pounding of my own heart. The silence that followed was profound, ringing with the echoes of Gideon's words and the terrifying implications.
"Well," Romulos broke the silence, his voice oddly subdued for once. "That was… quite the emotional rollercoaster."
The anachronistic term jolted me. "You know what a rollercoaster is?" I asked, dumbfounded, turning to face his spectral form.
He offered a faint, unsettlingly human shrug. "Oh, I decided exploring the flotsam of your fictional memories might pass the time while you mend your toys and your conscience. And," he added, a ghost of his usual smirk returning, "I believe Arthur used the term once. Describing some… Alacryan contraption, perhaps? Maybe it was Taegrin Caelum, but I don't remember."
I stared at him. Romulos Indrath, son of Agrona, casually adopting Earth slang. It was absurd. Terrifying. A reminder of how deeply intertwined we were becoming, our memories, our references, bleeding into one another across the chasm of our intentions. He wasn't just a passenger anymore; he was learning the landscape of my mind, adapting.
I only hoped he didn't put his hands on Meta-awareness.
Gideon's voice echoed: "Stay alive." Grampa was fighting. People believed. Olfred's death was known, blamed on me, but Gideon hadn't condemned me. The Dicatheous sailed, vulnerable. Draneeve's poison spread. And Romulos… Romulos was learning about rollercoasters.
———
The final joint cooled as I snapped the casing shut.
Another week—a full, agonizing cycle of sunrises and desperate focus—poured into resurrecting the Barbarossa. My fingers were stiff, my eyes gritty with exhaustion, but the machine lived again. Throughout the grueling repairs, Gideon's updates had been my grim soundtrack, painting a picture of Xyrus City unraveling at the seams as the semester's end loomed.
Chaos wasn't just brewing; it was spilling over, violent and ugly. Yet, Gideon's reports offered a chilling distinction: this wasn't Draneeve's signature madness. No trace of the leech-serum's corrosive insanity. These weren't students losing themselves to demonic power; it was deliberate, cold conviction driving them. They believed in the violence.
The realization sat like a shard of ice in my gut—ideology could be just as destructive as anything else.
A sliver of relief pierced the gloom: Olfred's status remained unconfirmed. The Greysunders' silence spoke volumes. They feared the Dwarven Lords' wrath if news broke that a Lance had fallen, not in glorious battle, but in a pointless, ignoble hunt for an elven prince who'd done them no harm. Small mercies.
Then, the jammer's hum was drowned out. Not by static, but by raw, human terror. A girl's voice, young and frayed with panic, sliced through the mountain silence.
"We need help, please!" Her plea was a physical blow, conjuring images of Academy halls I knew too well. "The Academy is under attack! The city is burning!" My blood turned to sludge. Burning? Draneeve's preferred weapon… but Gideon said… Her next words froze the sludge solid. "They are bringing dwarves and elves to the main plaza of Xyrus City to execute them! The gat—"
CRUNCH.
The sound wasn't just static; it was the brutal silencing of hope, the snapping of a fragile lifeline. The radio died, leaving a silence so profound it roared in my ears. Xyrus City? All of it? Under attack? Impossible! The sheer scale… it was too soon, far too soon! Draneeve shouldn't have the numbers, the reach! Cynthia and Grey… they'd purged the Alacryan spies! Logic screamed denial, but the girl's terror echoed, undeniable.
"The answer seems pretty obvious, Corvis." Romulos' voice was a serpent's whisper in my mind, cool and insidious. "They are not Alacryans who attacked Xyrus. They are Dicathians."
Dicathians. The word landed like a poisoned dart. My own people? Turning on each other with such viciousness? But the flames…
"Yes, but..." I countered, the argument feeble even to my own ears, "...flames are what Draneeve uses!" It felt like clutching at smoke, a desperate attempt to cling to the simpler narrative of external evil.
"It might be," Romulos conceded, his tone dripping with mock contemplation. "But what are you going to do, Prince? Are you going to rescue your people? Your family? Your friends?" He prodded the rawest nerves, aiming to ignite helpless rage.
But the girl's shattered cry still echoed, drowning out his venom. Fear for Tessia, for Grey, for everyone caught in that maelstrom crystallized into something harder, sharper than anger: resolve. Unshakeable. Cold. He wanted me upset? He'd find adamant.
I turned, the workshop door groaning open. The dim light glinted off the Barbarossa' massive, repaired form—no longer just a weapon, but a desperate chariot. My fingers flew over the activation sequence, a ritual charged with new purpose. Lights flickered deep within its armored skeleton, a low thrum vibrating the stone floor, the machine awakening not for war, but for salvation. A salvation measured in minutes I might not have.
"Berna." My voice was rough, but gentle as I looked at my colossal companion. She nudged my side, a low rumble in her throat, fur soft and warm against my hand, fully healed thanks to her incredible resilience. Gratitude warred with painful necessity.
"I will be back soon." The promise felt thin, stretched over an abyss of uncertainty. She was strong, loyal, perfect… but too slow. The miles between these mountains and Xyrus were a yawning chasm only the Barbarossa could bridge in time.
"Are we going to try and fly with the Barbarossa?" Romulos inquired, a hint of morbid curiosity in his mental voice.
"No," I answered, the plan forming with terrifying clarity. "We are just going to jump very, very high." The image was ludicrous, terrifying. A machine the size of a small fortress, leaping like a grasshopper? The potential consequences were catastrophic.
"We might risk shattering the mountain," I conceded, my gaze scanning the rugged terrain beyond the cave mouth, "so let's use another plateau as a jumping pod."
Xyrus City wasn't impossibly far—certain peaks of the Grand Mountains offered a terrifyingly direct line of sight. The true unknown was the toll.
How much raw mana could I channel into the exoform's colossal legs without tearing it—and myself—apart? The strain would be immense, potentially crippling.