Corvis Vritra
We stood at the base of the lighthouse, a monolith of stark white marble that speared upwards into the consuming blackness, a silent challenge to the void.
The echoes of the Mournful's weeping still clung to us, a psychic residue that left a cold, gut-wrenching anguish coiled in the pit of my stomach.
Yet, driven by a need for answers, for progress, we crossed the threshold.
Inside, the oppressive external silence was replaced by a different kind of quiet—the hushed, expectant stillness of a cathedral. The air was cool and carried the faint, clean scent of stone.
Before us, a staircase unfurled, a ribbon of pale marble that spiraled upward along the curved inner wall, its zenith lost in the gloom high above.
The scale was immediately disorienting. Was this a trick of perspective, or was spatial magic at work, stretching the interior into an impossible dimension?
"This place is at least illuminated," Caera observed, her voice a soft murmur that was swallowed by the immense space.
"And this…" Caera added, her attention caught by the floor. She knelt, her fingers tracing the intricate patterns there. "Is this a mosaic?"
The entire base of the lighthouse's interior was a vast, masterful mosaic composed of thousands of finely cut, colorful stone tiles.
It depicted three interlocking symbols arranged in a perfect triangle, each one a complex, elegant sigil that seemed to pulse with a faint, inner light. They were ancient, powerful, and hauntingly familiar.
Before I could speak, Caera's hand darted out, taking mine and, in the same fluid motion, gently lifting Sevren's dagger from my grip—the blade now a vessel for Dagonet's shadowy essence. She held it up, comparing the three small, finely engraved symbols on its crossguard to the colossal ones on the floor. Her crimson eyes widened.
"They're the same," she breathed, her voice full of awe. "The same three symbols on my brother's dagger."
A pang of guilt shot through me. Right. In the chaos and the grief, I'd forgotten to explain their meaning. The oversight felt like a personal failure. Has it ever been someone else's?
"Those depicted in the mosaic are the symbols of the three fundamental edicts of aether, Legacy," Ji-Ae's voice chimed from the suitcase I held, preempting me. "Spatium, Vivum, and Aevum. Space, Existence, and Time."
I frowned slightly, a irrational flicker of annoyance at being usurped as the explainer. It was a petty, childish feeling, and Leon was quick to pounce on it.
"Are you jealous, Corvis?" his spectral voice teased, a faint shimmer near my ear. "The Djinn stole your chance to shine in front of your lady. A truly tragic blow to your scholarly courtship."
Silence, I retorted, the mental command sharp. We don't have time to waste acting like tourists with Ji-Ae as our guide. The grandeur of this place felt like a distraction, a beautiful trap.
"Let's get going," I said aloud to Caera, my voice tighter than I intended. She passed the dagger back, and the moment it settled into my grip, the familiar, comforting shadows of Dagonet seeped from the metal, writhing around the blade once more, as if they had only been waiting for my touch.
We began to climb. The marble steps were smooth and wide, the ascent deceptively gentle at first. As we spiraled upward, the walls were no longer bare. They were adorned with murals, not painted, but inlaid with the same meticulous mosaic technique as the floor.
Vast, sprawling depictions of a civilization in its prime. Djinn architects weaving spires of crystal and light, scholars debating in grand, open-air forums, artists creating works of breathtaking beauty. It was a history book in stone, a vibrant, silent elegy to what had been lost.
"Is this another form of mourning from the Relictombs?" Caera asked, her voice filled with a scholar's genuine curiosity. She was an Ascender, a seeker of secrets within these dungeons. This wasn't just an hobby to her, it was her vocation, and the story of the builders was a siren's call she couldn't ignore.
For me, the desire to understand the Djinn was a knot of conflicting emotions. The intellectual thirst was there, a burning need to know that Romulos had ingrained in me. But it was choked by the visceral, sickening knowledge of their fate.
To learn of their brilliance was to simultaneously measure the depth of their tragedy. However, my deal with Ji-Ae wasn't just for their knowledge of aether; it was to be a witness. To carry their story.
That was the crucial difference between me and Dad—both the Agrona of my world and the brilliant, misguided father of Romulos' memories. They saw knowledge as a tool for power. I was beginning to understand it as a responsibility to the dead.
Perhaps, by being here, I could retrieve something more than spellforms for the Djinn in the Hearth. Not just their history, but their pride. To show them the glory of their ancestors, to help them reclaim a past that genocide had tried to erase.
Losing your culture was a death sentence sometimes slower and more painful than physical annihilation.
"You are still that soft boy, Corvis," Leon's voice intruded, softer, without mockery. "Beneath the Vritra name and the Asuran mind, you're still Corvis Eralith at heart."
Have you gone back on your vow not to peek into my thoughts? I asked, annoyance flaring.
"Oh no," he replied, his tone earnest. "But you were practically shouting that one. You really meant it. It's a good thing, my man. A very, very good thing."
I don't need your moral support nor your reflections, I shot back, the walls of my mind going up. I didn't want his approval. I didn't deserve it.
It was then that I felt a weight on my shoulder. I turned to find Caera, her hand gripping my arm for support. She was breathing heavily, a fine sheen of sweat on her brow.
"Corvis…" she panted, her chest rising and falling with effort. "Don't you find it strange that these stairs are so… endless? It's already been more than an hour."
More than an hour? The realization hit me in an instant. I had been so lost in thought, in the murals and my own internal turmoil, that I'd failed to notice the most obvious anomaly. We were both in peak physical condition, enhanced by mana. An hour of stair climbing shouldn't have winded Caera in the slightest.
A cold dread trickled down my spine. This was the same type of temporal distortion used in the Djinn Sanctuary, a defense mechanism that stretched time for those deemed too powerful to enter. But… that didn't make sense. I was a white core mage now. I wasn't the helpless, coreless prince anymore. I was strong. Not Legacy-strong, but certainly one of the most potent mages in Dicathen after the Lances and Grey.
Why wouldn't it affect me? Unless…
"Ji-Ae," I asked, my voice tense. "Did you feel the same time dilation?"
"I did, Thwart," the Djinn remnant confirmed without hesitation. "My perception of time's passage aligns closely with the Legacy's."
The confirmation was a bucket of ice water. "So this isn't a defensive mechanism?" I asked, needing to be absolutely certain.
"Negative," Ji-Ae stated. "The nature of this distortion is different. It is not a barrier."
"Wait, what do you mean by a defensive mechanism?" Caera asked, confusion cutting through her fatigue.
"In the Djinn ruins in Dicathen," I explained quickly, "there are wards that alter time itself, slowing it to a crawl for anyone too powerful who tries to enter. It's a protection for their safety. But if Ji-Ae felt the same distortion as you, it's not targeting power levels. It's targeting… something else."
Then what was the reason? The answer, when it came from Ji-Ae, was simple and staggering.
"The Relictombs wish to speak with you, Thwart. Not with words, for they are incapable of such direct communication. But they will show you something, if you ascend alone."
Alone. The word hung in the air, heavy with implication. This zone had proven psychologically brutal, but not physically dangerous. The risk was manageable. But what could the Relictombs possibly want to show me?
Lord Mordain's words echoed: the Thwart was a figure of significance to the Djinn. Further proved by Ji-Ae's cooperation. Now, it seemed, the very dungeons themselves were acknowledging that role.
I looked at Caera, at her concerned face, at the trust she had placed in me. I looked at the endless staircase, a spiral into memory and grief. This was no longer an ascent; it was a summons.
"Then let's see what the Relictombs want to show me," I said, my voice firm, the decision made. The weight of it settled on my shoulders, heavier than any cloak.
———
Alone. A dungeon with a ghost for company. The irony was so thick it was almost tasteable. It sounded like something straight out of one of Outis's more nihilistic plays.
A faint, weary smile touched my lips at the memory. I missed those times, the quiet hours dissecting mana beasts with Romulos, our own private world of ideas.
But even that nostalgia was bittersweet, tainted by the reality of those days—the constant fear, the Council's hunters, the gnawing knowledge that I was a fugitive in my own home.
It didn't matter. The past was a country I could never return to.
The solitude, it seemed, was the key. The moment Caera's and Ji-Ae's presence faded down the spiral stairs, the temporal distortion snapped. The endless ascent resolved itself into a mere ten minutes of climbing, the impossible geometry of the lighthouse yielding to a simple, if grand, final chamber.
The room was a perfect circle, dominated by a raging, silent conflagration at its very center. This was the heart of the beacon, a pillar of pure, concentrated light contained within a complex, rotating capsule of crystal and metal.
A circular aperture in the capsule's housing directed the terrifying beam out into the void, slicing through the darkness to illuminate the ghost city of Zhoroa below. The walls were sheets of flawless glass, designed to offer an unobstructed view of the desolation we had walked through, a panoramic tombstone.
It was empty. Oppressively so. The only sound was the faint, almost subsonic hum of the immense energy being channeled.
Then, the light shifted.
The beam, so constant and directed, swiveled inward. It didn't just illuminate me; it consumed me. A scream was torn from my throat, raw and involuntary, as the world dissolved into an agony of pure white.
It was not the heat of fire, but something far more profound—a light that seemed to bypass the physical and burn directly into the soul. I threw my hands up, a futile gesture of a child warding off a nightmare, but the light passed through flesh and bone as if they weren't there, searing into the core of my being.
For a heartbeat, it was pure, excruciating torment, a feeling of my very consciousness being unraveled by radiance. And then, as suddenly as it began, the pain ceased.
Cautiously, I lowered my hands and opened my eyes—Beyond the Meta activating involuntarily.
The world had transformed. The empty chamber was no longer empty. It was filled with scrolls. Dozens of them, perhaps hundreds, piled on the floor, stacked against the glass walls. But they were not made of parchment or vellum. They were woven from a shimmering, vibrant purple energy I knew, a color I had felt humming in the bones of the world but had never truly seen until this moment.
Aether.
I could see aether. The realization was a thunderclap. It made a terrible, beautiful sense. The Djinn, with their boundless intellect, had mastered the theory of aether, crafting spellforms of such complexity they could influence the fabric of reality itself. But they were trapped, prisoners of their "lesser" bodies, vessels incapable of channeling such power directly.
Only the dragons possessed the physical perfection to be conduits for aether, yet they lacked the Djinn's intricate understanding. It was the great cosmic irony: the architects lacked the tools, and the tools lacked the blueprint. This was why Arthur was called Being of Aether and Flesh.
This lighthouse, this chamber… it had to be one of their attempts to bridge that gap. An artificial means to perceive, to interact with the fundamental force they could only mathematically describe.
My gaze was drawn back to the haunting view of Zhoroa below. My new sight, however, was limited; I could perceive the aetheric scrolls in the room, but the ambient aether of the world outside remained invisible. A tantalizing glimpse, not a full unveiling. What a shame. A glorious, frustrating shame.
"It seems you've found your special place, Corvis," Leon joked, his voice echoing in the newfound silence, but his usual levity felt thin, stretched over a layer of awe.
I wouldn't be so sure, I retorted mentally, my attention fixed on the nearest scroll. The Relictombs are still deadly places. I don't think they're doing me a favour. This feels more like… an examination.
Driven by a compulsion I didn't fully understand, I reached out and took one of the shimmering violet scrolls. My fingers didn't feel a texture; they felt a frequency, a hum of immense potential.
The moment my skin made contact, my mind exploded.
It was not knowledge that flooded in. It was want. A torrent of raw, primal, destructive desire. My body convulsed, muscles seizing as I crashed to the cold floor, the scroll falling from my spasming grip.
"This is the power I have always needed!" a voice roared in my skull. It was my voice, but twisted, magnified by a bottomless hunger.
"This is it! I will avenge all the victims of Kezess Indrath!" another version of me screamed, this one dripping with a cold, righteous fury that promised oceans of blood.
"Kill! Maim! Avenge!" a third shrieked, a creature of pure, undiluted id.
"What is this?! A dragon in my head?!" a fourth bellowed, a scholar's terror consumed by bestial instinct.
I clawed at my temples, a scream ripping from my throat that was swallowed by the chamber's hum. Destruction. The word was a brand in my mind.
Why was Destruction here!? Why was it trying to carve itself into the very architecture of my soul?!
I could feel Meta-awareness writhing in a desperate, losing battle, trying to erect psychic dams against this tsunami of entropic will. It was trying to reconcile three opposing forces: my own consciousness, Leon's presence, and the invading, sentient hunger of the Godrune.
But the Godrune wasn't just invading; it was personal. It hated me. It sensed the legacy of Indrath blood that ran in my veins—Romulos's legacy. It recognized the Asuran mind, the cold calculus it despised.
It wasn't offering power; it was trying to burn my consciousness to ash, to erase the stain of my existence.
And my body—my fragile, elven body—was a cracked vessel for this star-forged power. At best, the rune would be stillborn, useless. At worst, it would turn my own flesh and bones to dust, a brief, violent flash of negation.
Meta-awareness, in its frantic struggle to keep me alive, provided the answer. It was my own fault. My encyclopedic knowledge of Arthur's journey, my subconscious, desperate need to mirror his path to help Grey… it had paved a neural pathway.
Meta-awareness had already, without my conscious understanding, gained a sliver of insight into the nature of Destruction. And by touching that aetheric scroll, I had completed the circuit.
I had issued a silent, desperate plea to the aether, and it had answered with the one thing I both craved and feared most.
"Leon!" I shouted, the word a ragged, bloody thing. My vision swam with phantom images. Tessia, her neck snapped. Grey, impaled on a spike. Sylvie, fading to motes of light. Grandfather Virion, broken.
My mother's gentle smile erased by a wave of fire. My father extinguished. Great-aunt Rinia, her eyes plucked out. Berna, torn apart by beasts. Chul, his fire guttered.
Caera… Caera, her crimson eyes wide in betrayal as my own hand, wreathed in amethyst fire, took her life.
Destruction was seducing me. Showing me every horror I sought to prevent and whispering that with its power, I could stop them all. It was a lie. It would use me to cause them.
"Leon!" I screamed again, the pain a white-hot spike driving through my ocular nerve. Arthur had fought this with Regis. Arthur had hurt himself to anchor his mind in reality. I had no bond like Regis. I only had Leon. And I had a dagger.
I fumbled for Sevren's bone dagger, Dagonet's shadows recoiling from my desperate intent. I felt the weapon's reluctance, its sentient disapproval, but my will was a frantic, terrified hammer. I drove the point into my own thigh.
The pain was sharp, clean, and blessedly real. It was a anchor in the storm of psychic noise. For one glorious, shuddering second, the whispers of Destruction receded, silenced by the shocking, tangible agony of steel in muscle.
"Corvis!" Leon's voice was a panicked echo. I saw his spectral form flickering above me, his hands passing through my convulsing shoulders, his face a mask of helpless horror. "W-what can I do?!"
"Take control of me before it gets back!" I gasped, the coppery taste of blood in my mouth from a bitten cheek.
"I—I can't," he denied, his voice thick with disgust. "I can't just take your body from you. It's… it's wrong."
Destruction returned with the force of a supernova. New visions, worse ones. Elenoir, a continent-sized funeral pyre. Dicathen and Alacrya, twin barren wastes under a dead sky. The countless millions I had sworn to protect, their faces melting, their voices a single, endless scream of accusation directed at me.
"Leon, I don't fucking care about your morality!" I bellowed, the words tearing my throat. I was sobbing, screaming, a animal trapped in a snare of its own making. "I don't want to lose my identity to this thing! I don't want to become its puppet! Just do it!"
I stabbed my leg again, a second bolt of pure, grounding pain. The world swam, my head feeling light, blood soaking through my trousers. Leon's form solidified above me, his expression shifting from horror to a grim, heartbreaking resolve.
"Leon! Do it!" It was not a command anymore. It was a plea. The last, desperate cry of a drowning man.
"Okay, Corvis," he said, his voice quiet, steady, and filled with a sorrow I had never heard from him before. "Okay."