Grey
The polished wood of Cynthia's desk vibrated under the force of my fist. "Cynthia, are you going crazy?!" The words ripped from my throat, raw and ragged, echoing the frantic pounding of my own heart against my ribs. "This is exactly what Corvis warned you about! Down to the damned semester's end!"
She opened her mouth, that familiar, infuriatingly poised expression starting to form. "I—"
"No!" I cut her off, the sound sharp as shattered glass. My hand slammed down again, the sting barely registering over the icy dread flooding my veins.
Listen to me! This all coincides—your 'escort,' your 'imprisonment' by the Council, while the Academy burns and Draneeve vanishes like smoke! It's staged, Cynthia! Perfectly, horribly staged! Corvis underestimated them… he underestimated the Glayder's complicity in this!"
The accusation to my friend's premonition tasted like ash, but it was the only bitter truth that fit the monstrous puzzle unfolding before us.
The moment she had told me about the Council's 'urgent summons' to the Castle, Corvis's grim prophecies had slammed back into my mind with the force of a warhammer. The timing wasn't suspicious; it was a flashing, crimson alarm.
The end of the semester. The promised chaos. And now, they were removing the most potent guardian Xyrus Academy possessed right when the wolves were gathering at the gates. The sheer, brazen audacity of it stole my breath.
Reality wasn't just mirroring Corvis's warnings; it was warping them into something darker, more insidious. Weeks. Weeks Cynthia and I had scoured Xyrus City, hunting shadows, interrogating whispers, turning every stone for Draneeve or his Alacryan puppets. And found nothing.
Not a trace.
Not a whisper.
It hadn't been incompetence. It had been protection. High, impenetrable walls of royal influence. There was no other explanation. The King of Sapin himself was shielding the viper in his own garden.
And now? Now, with the semester ticking down like a death knell, they moved to isolate Cynthia. To spirit her away under the guise of Council business, escorted by a Lance no less—making resistance unthinkable. It was so transparent, so obvious, it felt like an insult.
"Even a toddler would smell the rot in this!" I hissed, leaning across the desk, searching her calm, lined face for any flicker of shared alarm, any crack in that maddening composure. "Why are you just… complying?"
"Grey." Her voice, when it came, was that same infuriating blend of calm and absolute authority, honed over centuries. It washed over me, cold and implacable. "If stepping forward as a scapegoat prevents Dicathen from tearing itself apart in chaos, then that is the role I will play."
"Scapegoat?" The word felt vile on my tongue. "Cynthia, this isn't about taking a fall! This is Agrona's game! He's already trying to claw Corvis back into the dark, you think he won't relish snatching you too?"
The image of Agrona's cold, calculating gaze, the sheer weight of his malevolence I had seen first hand in Taegrin Caelum, sent a fresh wave of hate through me, colder than any ice spell.
A soft, almost imperceptible weight shifted on my right shoulder. Sylvie. Her small claws pricked gently through my DC uniform, a silent anchor.
Sorry, Sylv, I sent the thought, thick with apology and shared worry. I don't want to scare you. But the storm raging inside me was too vast to contain.
Cynthia actually chuckled, a dry, rasping sound utterly devoid of humor. "I don't think he has much interest for an old woman like me."
The flippancy, here, now, talking about Agrona, ignited a fresh spark of fury. "This isn't a joke, Cynthia! If you go, Xyrus becomes defenseless! Draneeve will waltz in the moment your back is turned! He's waiting for this!" I grasped for any leverage, any thread of care that might pierce her resolve.
"Think of Tessia! What will she do? What will she say, if… if anything happens to you?" The thought of Tessia's face, stricken and lost, was a physical ache.
"Nothing will happen to me, Grey," she stated, her voice regaining that steely certainty. "I am old enough to take care of myself. And it's not as if I have a choice in the matter of leaving." She gestured vaguely towards the door, the implication heavy.
"Lance Varay Aurae has already been appointed as my escort. The decision is made."
Desperation clawed at my throat. "Then buy time! Stall! Invent a reason! Anything! Draneeve will attack—he has to, now that his stage is set! He's coiled to strike the moment you're clear of the city walls! Whoever's backing him here, the Glayders or whoever, they're not infinitely patient! We killed his Alacryan network. He's isolated! Force his hand now, while you're still here!"
My words tumbled out, a frantic plea wrapped in strategy. Maybe that was her angle all along? A sacrificial gambit to flush Draneeve into the open for me to strike? The cold reason of it made me sick. I'd rather let the bastard slither in the shadows forever than risk Cynthia walking knowingly into Agrona's grasp.
My arguments, my fears, my fury—they seemed to wash over her like waves against ancient, unyielding cliffs. The quiet determination in her eyes was a fortress I couldn't breach. The heavy silence that followed my outburst was suffocating, thick with the dust of old books and the scent of polished wood, underscored by the frantic rhythm of my own breathing.
Then, Sylvie tensed. A minute tightening of her small body against my shoulder, a silent, animal alertness. A fraction of a second later, the sound reached me too—precise, measured footsteps echoing down the academy corridor, stopping outside the door. A chill, colder than my ice, swept through me. The finality of those footsteps.
Cynthia didn't even flinch. "Please, enter," she called, her voice regal, composed, betraying none of the turmoil that churned within me.
The door opened with a soft sigh of hinges. Framed in the doorway, radiating an aura of glacial calm and formidable power, stood Lance Varay Aurae. Her silver hair was immaculate, her pale blue eyes sweeping the room with detached assessment, lingering on me for a heartbeat longer, perhaps noting my disheveled state, my clenched fists.
"It's a pleasure to have you here, Lance Varay," Cynthia said, the epitome of courtesy.
I couldn't speak. My throat had closed. All I could manage was a stiff, jerky nod in Varay's direction, my gaze locked on Cynthia. The sight of the Lance, the living embodiment of the Council's decree, the guarantor of Cynthia's removal, was a physical blow. The carefully constructed arguments, the desperate pleas, crumbled to dust. The path was set. The trap was sprung.
Too late. The words echoed hollowly in the cavern of my mind. It's already too late for her.
Where were the Asuras? Where were the god-like beings who were supposed to protect this continent? Watching from their celestial perches as mortals played out Agrona's script? A corrosive bitterness, deeper and darker than any I'd felt before, welled up.
Corvis's grim words, spoken with the weight of bitter experience, slammed back into me with terrifying clarity: they were all the same, all like Agrona. In that moment, staring at Varay's impassive face and Cynthia's resigned acceptance, the chilling truth of it settled over me like a shroud.
Indifference was just another form of cruelty. And Dicathen was drowning in it.
———
The Disciplinary Committee debrief felt like a world away—another obligation crumbling under the weight of incoming catastrophe.
An hour had bled away since Cynthia's departure with Lance Varay, an hour spent pacing the confines of my skull, the walls closing in with suffocating inevitability. I couldn't face the others, not yet. I needed air, space, anything to smother the helpless rage simmering beneath my skin. So I fled to the market.
The evening market was a ghost of its vibrant self. Stalls stood like lonely sentinels, their usual daytime clamour reduced to a weary murmur. Patrons moved with a subdued haste, eyes darting, conversations hushed.
It was a stark, chilling contrast to the Xyrus I had known when Tessia convinced me to stay—a city where elves, dwarves, and humans had moved with a tentative, hard-won synchronicity. Now, an invisible fracture ran through its heart. I passed the entrance to the Elven District; a palpable tension hung in the air, the early curfews were becoming more and more common among elven families.
If this was cosmopolitan Xyrus, what hellscape festered in the less tolerant corners of Dicathen? A fresh wave of fury, cold and sharp, washed over me. Agrona. Always Agrona. Twisting the knife, using Corvis—my best friend—as the perfect scapegoat to pry Dicathen apart.
My cooling-off attempt was failing spectacularly. The anger wasn't dissipating; it was congealing, turning into something heavier, more corrosive.
A soft nuzzle against my cheek, warm and grounding. Sylvie. Her white fox face pressed close, a silent anchor in the turbulent sea of my thoughts.
'Papa.' The mental touch was a balm, intimate and pure. Corvis had mentioned she would eventually speak aloud, but this quiet communion… I cherished its privacy, this unbreakable thread woven between us. It felt sacred.
Let's head back, I sent, the image of Tessia offering a fragile beacon of calm. To the dormitory. Maybe seeing her, breathing the same air, would steady the tremors within.
'I want to see Mama too!' Sylvie's mental voice bubbled with pure, uncomplicated excitement. A ghost of a smile touched my lips despite the dread.
Yeah, I agreed, the warmth of her simple joy momentarily piercing the gloom. These stolen moments of normalcy, however fleeting, however fragile against the gathering storm—they were precious. The calm before the cataclysm.
The dormitory was quiet, empty. Tessia wasn't back. Still buried under the crushing weight of Student Council duties, no doubt. The problems plaguing Xyrus seemed to land heaviest on their shoulders. The silence pressed in, amplifying the frantic drumbeat of my own pulse.
I needed to do something. Anything. My hand instinctively went to the regalia on my back, summoning Dawn's Ballad which perfectly merged with my rune thanks to Corvis. The teal blade materialized with a soft chime, cool and familiar in my grasp. Holding the sword Corvis gifted me was like holding a piece of his spirit.
A tangible reminder that wherever he was, whatever hell he navigated, he was fighting. He was doing good. That knowledge was a fragile lifeline.
I stepped into the dormitory courtyard, the twilight air cool on my skin. No structured drills, no honing techniques. Just movement. Simple, sweeping arcs of the teal blade through the gathering dusk. This wasn't training; it was an act of desperate meditation.
Across both lives—the brutal life of King Grey and the fraught reality of this world—the sword had always been a sanctuary. A focus point where the world's noise could be pared down to the whisper of steel, the shift of balance, the flow of intent.
Now, burdened with a purpose heavier than mere survival, revenge or emptiness like my life as a king, I understood its profound therapy. Each swing carved a momentary pocket of stillness, a fragile inner haven sculpted from motion and light. For fleeting seconds, the encroaching dread, the political rot, the fear for Cynthia and Corvis, receded. There was only the blade, the air, the rhythm of my own breath.
But peace in this life was a cruel illusion, always shattered.
First, the Highblood family I barely remembered in this world—snatched away by Agrona's agents before memories could truly form.
Sylvia had unlocked Grey's past, a king's burden, but the child I was here? That name, those faces… lost.
A void where I would have loved parental to be, where parental warmth should be. Then Sylvia herself—the sole light in the suffocating darkness of Taegrin Caelum. Murdered by Agrona as she ripped open the portal for Sylvie and me to escape.
All I salvaged was the fading warmth of her mana core. Years adrift in Dicathen followed, filled with nothing but relentless training, a hollow echo of discipline, until Tessia… and then Corvis.
Now, even that hard-won connection was fraying, Corvis hunted, Agrona's shadow stretching long to reclaim him. The sword felt heavier in my grip, the sanctuary crumbling…
CRRUUMMP-PHHOOOOM!
The world detonated.
Not figuratively. Literally.
A monstrous pillar of smoke, thick and black as pitch, erupted skyward, blotting out the twilight stars. The sound hit a heartbeat later—a deafening, gut-churning roar that vibrated through the stone beneath my feet, rattling the windows of the dormitory. My head snapped towards the source, heart slamming against my ribs like a caged beast. The Academy. It was coming from the Academy.
'PAPA!' Sylvie's mental shriek was pure, undiluted terror, mirroring the icy shock flooding my veins. 'What's happening?!'
I don't know, Sylv! The denial was instinctive, useless. But denial died an instant later.
BOOM!
The city center this time. A flash of orange fire blooming like a poisonous flower.
KRA-KOOM!
Near the ground portals. The vital lifelines to the surface.
WHUMPF!
CRASH!
KABOOM!
Another. And another. And another.
Horror, cold and absolute, locked my joints. Xyrus wasn't just under attack; it was being devoured. Flames, voracious and towering, clawed at the sky from multiple points, painting the dusk in hellish hues. The air thickened, acrid with smoke and the stench of burning wood and fear. The city's sophisticated anti-blaze artifacts—silent, useless. Someone had deactivated them. Sabotage from within.
Instinct overrode thought. My feet were moving before conscious command, Dawn's Ballad a cold extension of my arm. Tessia. The name was a mantra, a prayer, a scream trapped in my throat. She was at the Academy. My friends. Curtis, Claire… all trapped.
I sprinted towards the main avenue connecting the Elven District dormitories to the Academy grounds. The flames were already licking closer, heat radiating like a fully operative furnace, smoke stinging my eyes.
And then I saw it—a colossal, shimmering dome of crimson energy, pulsating with malevolent power, encasing the entire Academy complex like a blood blister. A cage. Tessia was inside that cage.
Panic warred with a terrifying, icy clarity. I had to get there. I had to break it. I burst onto the wider street, the heat intensifying, the roar of flames mingling with distant screams. Chaos reigned.
Then, cutting through the inferno's cacophony, a voice. Smooth, chillingly calm.
"Great Vritra."
He stood there, amidst the flickering hellscape, a grotesque figure of serenity. Tall, sleek, clad in dark attire, his face obscured by that stark white mask. Orange hair like captured flame. Draneeve.
"Welcome to the festivity," he announced, spreading his arms wide as if embracing the carnage, his voice carrying an obscene courtesy. "In yours and our Sovereigns' honour."
The words struck like sword slashes aimed at my chest. Great Vritra. He knew. He addressed me not as Grey, not as an enemy, but as kin. As one of them. Agrona's poisoned blood in my veins, laid bare as a weapon against me. The carefully constructed identity, the fight against my own heritage—it all shriveled in the face of his mocking recognition.
Rage, white-hot and absolute, incinerated the last vestiges of fear, of hesitation. It wasn't just fury at the attack, at the trap, at the lives being consumed. It was a primal, visceral rejection of the identity he tried to force upon me.
My grip on Dawn's Ballad tightened until the hilt creaked, knuckles white. The teal blade hummed, resonating with the storm inside me. Without a word, without a sound beyond the crackle of flames and the pounding of my own blood in my ears, I launched myself forward.
Not towards the Academy cage. Not towards the fires. Straight at Draneeve. The ground vanished beneath my feet as pure, unadulterated killing intent propelled me through the smoke and heat, Dawn's Ballad aimed like a shaft of vengeful teal lightning at the heart of the mocking figure who had just declared war on everything I loved.