Caera Denoir
The silence after Corvis's departure was a heavy, living thing. It pressed in from the stark white walls of the lighthouse base, from the impossibly high ceiling lost in shadow, from the distant, mournful sigh of the wind outside—or whatever passed for wind in this hollowed-out pocket of reality.
I was alone, but for the ghost in the suitcase. The ghost who saw me not as Caera, but as a title. A function.
"Ji-Ae," I began, my voice sounding too loud in the stillness, "the Ancient Mages—the Djinn. What happened to them… was it as the Vritra Clan has told the people of Alacrya? Or was it different?"
The question felt both necessary and dangerous, like poking a sleeping beast. But after the revelations in the ghost city, after seeing that… Mournful… the official history tasted like ash.
"Yes, it was," Ji-Ae's chime-like voice responded from the suitcase at my feet, flat and devoid of the emotion such a statement should carry. "My High Sovereign conveyed the truth about the fate of my people to the population of Alacrya. It was the dragons of the Indrath Clan and their associates who destroyed my kin."
I frowned, not out of disbelief—Corvis had said the same—but from a nagging, unsettled feeling. Something about the Vritra Clan's role in all this felt… sanitized.
High Sovereign Agrona presented himself as a savior, a protector of the Djinn's legacy, but his methods, his coldness, the way he saw people as tools… it cast a long shadow over his narrative.
"We are taught since birth," I continued, the words feeling rote, a catechism I was now questioning, "that the Vritra gifted us magic so that we—their people—could retrieve the secrets of the martyrs, the Ancient Mages, from the Relictombs."
I hugged my knees tighter, the cool marble of the step seeping through my clothes. "But after what happened recently… I am more than sure it was all a lie. A justification for conquest."
"The Vritra Clan was not directly involved in the physical extermination of the Djinn, if that is your question, Legacy," Ji-Ae stated, her tone clinical, dissecting.
I snorted, a short, sharp sound of frustration. "Stop calling me that." The request was sharper than I intended. "I am not, nor have I ever wanted this… this power inside me. Even Corvis—you just call him 'Thwart.' It's not respectful to who we are."
The protest was familiar, an old ache given new voice. It was the same fight I'd had a hundred times with Lenora and Corbett. They called me 'daughter,' but the word always hung between us, a well-intentioned lie. I was their Vritra-blooded foster child, a duty, a prized specimen of the Sovereigns' grace.
Only Sevren, with his wild, obsessive passion for adventure and the Relictombs, and Scythe Seris, despite her imposing title and power, had ever looked at me and seen just… Caera. They used my name like it mattered.
But I couldn't hate my foster parents. Their faces, in those final moments before the High Sovereign's servants took me to Taegrin Caelum, were not masks of prideful accomplishment. They were etched with infinite worry, with an unspoken doubt that had haunted me ever since.
They loved me, in their way. But they also feared what I was, what I represented.
"You are interesting subjects for your roles," Ji-Ae replied, her voice unchanged by my outburst. "For you, as the Legacy, with the ability of total control over mana and its decay counterpart due to your blood—a secret jealously kept by the Basilisk race of the Asuras. For Corvis, his role as both the Thwart and Meta-awareness." She said it like she was cataloging specimens. Subjects.
"So we are just… subjects to you?" The question was laced with a cold spike of betrayal. "I thought you were a supporter of Corvis. A friend."
"I am," she said, and the simplicity of it was chilling. "But my cards are not all on one single person. I am still loyal to my High Sovereign. My purpose is the preservation and advancement of Djinn knowledge and interests. If I consider the Thwart a failure of my expectations, I will immediately alert my High Sovereign of his location and activities upon our exit from the Relictombs."
"What?!" The word exploded from me, echoing in the vast space. My blood ran cold. Corvis loved Agrona. Or at least, he loved the father he thought Agrona was. He was betraying that image out of a desperate need to do what was right.
And this… this fragment of the very civilization he sought to honor… was she truly so mercenary? Was her support conditional on him meeting some unknowable standard?
"It is the deal I made with the Thwart," Ji-Ae explained, as if discussing the weather. "I provide knowledge and navigation. He provides a viable path forward for my people's legacy. I will judge which path—his or the High Sovereign's—is the better choice in the end."
I sank back onto the cold step, the fight draining out of me, replaced by a weary, profound sadness. I wanted to trust Corvis. I truly did. But sometimes he felt… distant.
He operated on a frequency I couldn't always tune into, as if he were acting not from the reality we shared, but from some ideal, unseen blueprint only he could read.
He was brilliant, terrifyingly so, but he was also a mess of contradictions—haunted by a past he despised, clinging to the memory of a sister he loved, trying to live up to he Vritra legacy that wasn't entirely his own.
Yet, for all that, he was truthful. His emotions, when they broke through the careful control, were raw and real. The pain in his eyes when he spoke of his sister, the fierce protectiveness he'd shown me, the genuine excitement when his spells worked… that was real.
I had to believe that.
Giving him Sevren's dagger had been a leap of faith, a testament to that belief. Maybe he and Sevren would have been friends.
The thought made me smile, a small, subconscious thing amidst the gloom. I could almost picture it: Sevren's intense, rapid-fire questions about aether, Corvis's detailed explanations, the two of them geeking out over some ancient secret while I looked at them fondly.
I rested my chin on my knees, hugging my legs, allowing myself a moment of quiet memory amidst the tension. I was waiting for him, hoping he was okay up there in the light, when a sound shattered the silence.
It was a dry, rattling scrape, like bones being dragged over stone. Then another. And another. It was followed by a low, guttural growling that was nothing like the heartbroken weeping of the Mournful. This sound was pure hunger. Base, mindless, and chillingly familiar.
"Ji-Ae?" I asked, my voice tight with dawning dread. I leaned over, peering down the dizzying spiral of the staircase into the depths below.
My face paled. The base of the lighthouse was flooding with figures. Dozens of them. Their bodies were emaciated, skeletal, flesh pulled taut over bone like rotten parchment. Their eyes glowed with a sickly yellow light, and they moved with a jerky, unnatural gait, piling on top of one another in their mindless drive to climb. Carallians.
Every Ascender's nightmare. The reanimated dead of the Relictombs, infamous for their relentless numbers and their chilling immunity to fear and pain.
"Ji-Ae, why are Carallians here?" I demanded, scrambling to my feet, my heart hammering against my ribs.
"The Relictombs cannot fully suppress their foundational imperative to challenge those who enter them, to test them, to kill them," Ji-Ae explained, her voice still maddeningly calm. "Even though they wish to speak with the Thwart, you are still here. You, and I. We are interlopers in a private conversation. The challenge must still be met."
I looked frantically up the stairs. No sign of Corvis. How long would he be? I was on my own. Fighting them on the stairs would be suicide; they'd overwhelm me through sheer numbers. I had to change the battlefield.
I'd seen Corvis fly. He did it by shaping the ambient mana, weaving it around himself with an almost casual elegance. Could I? The Legacy was about control. Total, absolute control. I had to try.
Gathering my will, I focused on the mana in the runes on my back, feeling the familiar thrum of power. I let it flow through me, not as a specific spell, but as an intent. Lift. I grabbed the suitcase handle and, with a grunt of effort, pushed off with my legs, simultaneously attempting to shape a cushion of wind beneath me.
"Legacy, I do not suggest attempting untested applications of power when faced with an imminent horde of Relictombs-born entities," Ji-Ae chimed, a hint of what might have been alarm in her synthetic voice.
Too late. For a glorious, heart-stopping second, it worked. I hung in the air, suspended in the center of the lighthouse's vast shaft. A shimmering, emerald-green dome of mana flickered erratically beneath my feet.
"I did it, Ji-Ae!" I exclaimed, a burst of triumphant laughter escaping me.
Then the dome sputtered. My control, so new and untested, wavered. The complex weave of mana unraveled. "Maybe… not quite yet," I gasped, and then I was falling.
The world became a dizzying blur of white marble and glowing yellow eyes rushing up to meet me. Instinct took over. I twisted my body in mid-air, aiming to land on my feet, to roll with the impact.
I hit the hard floor with a jarring thud that sent pain shooting up my ankles, but I managed to stay upright, landing in a crouch amidst the advancing horde. The stench of dry rot and grave dust filled my nostrils.
The nearest Carallian lunged, fingers like bony claws reaching for my throat. I reacted without thought. Fire. I needed fire.
U reached for the familiar heat, the comforting rage of Soulfire, but nothing happened. The same suppression field from the city was in effect here. Panic, cold and sharp, lanced through me.
Then, something clicked. It wasn't a thought; it was a knowing. A lightning bolt of intuition in a clear sky. The Legacy wasn't about forcing a specific element; it was about understanding the fundamental nature of mana itself. Fire was excitement, rapid oxidation, chaotic energy. So was…
I didn't command. I listened. I pulled on the mana around me, not asking it to be fire, but feeling its potential, its desire to move, to excite, to release. It gathered around my right arm, but it didn't burn.
It crackled.
A thousand tiny, brilliant sparks erupted along my skin, dancing and spitting, filling the air with the sharp, clean scent of ozone and the promise of a storm.
The Carallian was almost upon me. There was no time for doubt, no time for finesse. I jerked my right arm back, the sparks coalescing into a roaring, miniature vortex of raw lightning. Then, with a guttural cry that was part fear, part fury, I slammed my arm forward, palm open, and unleashed.
A thunderclap detonated inside the lighthouse. A torrent of blinding white lightning erupted from my hand, not a single bolt, but a cascading storm of energy that ripped through the ranks of the Carallians.
They didn't scream—they didn't have time to—they vaporized. Where the lightning touched, their skeletal forms turned to instant, incandescent ash, the sickly yellow light in their eyes extinguished forever. The force of the blast threw those behind them back, a wave of pure, concussive power that cleared a temporary circle around me.
I stood there, panting, my arm smoking, the echoes of the thunder rolling away. The sparks still danced at my fingertips. I stared at my hand, then at the scorched, empty space where a dozen monsters had been.
Then I realized it, the Legacy wasn't a curse. It wasn't even a weapon in the real sense of the word. It was a new sense. A new language. And I had just spoken my first, devastating word.
Truly this time, I haven't copied Corvis' language I have made my own.
The Carallians at the edges of the blast began to clamber over their fallen brethren, their mindless hunger undeterred. I settled into a ready stance, lightning flickering around my fists.
Corvis had his role to play. Right now, so did I.
Corvis Vritra
"Leon!"
The name was a ragged gasp, torn from my throat as consciousness slammed back into me. I was on my back, the cold, unyielding surface of the glass wall leaching the warmth from my skin. The world swam into focus slowly, the shimmering purple scrolls of aether still visible, painting the air with their impossible light.
My leg throbbed with a deep, insistent ache. I looked down. The fabric of my trousers was stained a dark, rusty brown around a ragged tear. I'd stabbed myself. Multiple times. The memory was a fractured, painful shard.
But mana had already done its work, knitting muscle and skin back together into an ugly, raised scab. It would scar.
A permanent, physical reminder of the moment I'd begged another consciousness to take control of my body to save me from myself.
"Hey, Corvis! You good? I left your body as soon as I could." Leon's voice was cheerful, light, as if he'd just stepped out for a breath of air rather than wrestling a god-rune for dominion over my soul.
His spectral form materialized, leaning against a non-existent wall with an infuriatingly casual smile.
I pushed myself up, wincing as my weight settled on the injured leg. A sharp, electric pain shot up my thigh, a grounding, welcome sensation. It was still attached. I could still feel it. That was something.
"Y-you resisted Destruction?" The question was dumbfounded, disbelieving. I'd felt its hunger, its bottomless, seductive rage. It was a force of nature, a sentient hurricane of negation.
"I did." He shrugged, the gesture infuriatingly nonchalant. He even whistled a short, tuneless note. "What? Surprised? It was easy. I don't have anything I want to destroy, or anyone I truly hate. It's… a perspective. Might help you too, someday."
"I don't believe it." The denial was immediate, sharp, born of a lifetime of evidence to the contrary. I limped toward the center of the room, each step a fresh jolt of pain. "Everyone has something or someone they hate. It's a fundamental force. Stronger than us."
I wanted to believe him. The desire was a physical ache, a yearning for the simple, clean existence he described. But both sides of me—the broken elf prince and the Vritra—knew it was a fantasy. We were creatures of conflict, of sharp edges and cherished grudges. Our hate was both a fuel and a prison.
From me, to Romulos, to Dad, to Grey and Arthur, to Tessia... everyone hated and everyone will always hate.
"I thought that too, my man," Leon said, his tone softening, losing its teasing edge. "But like I told you the first time we met, back when you were bleeding out on a floor… I'm a punk rocker at heart. Hate isn't my language. It's the language of the conformists of this world, the ones who play by the rules of a broken system."
Whatever. I shut down the conversation in my mind, the walls slamming up. There would be time for philosophy and painful introspection later. Now, I had a purpose.
The Relictombs had shown me something, and I needed to see it through. I focused on the present, on the pain in my leg, on the shimmering scrolls waiting to be read. I moved toward another one, its purple light pulsing softly.
"Corvis, I may not be able to save you from another round with that thing," Leon warned, his spectral form flickering with uncharacteristic seriousness.
I shook my head, my resolve hardening. The whispers of Destruction were right about one thing, I thought, the conviction cold and clear. I need this power. The path ahead was too dark, the enemies too powerful. I would not be caught helpless again.
Anyway, where is Destruction now?
"Somewhere within you," Leon replied, his voice echoing my internal question. "I don't know where or how it's anchored, but the connection is… muted. Dormant. It won't kill you anytime soon. But seriously, are you a hundred percent sure about this? You said it yourself—you don't have a dragon's body. You're not built to contain a star and you almost cut off your own leg to resist being brainwashed."
Yes, I answered, the plan forming with crystalline certainty, gifted by the very Meta-awareness that had saved me. But while I was being torn apart, while it was trying to unmake my sense of self, Meta-awareness provided a solution. A theoretical framework.
"Oh, and what's that?" Leon asked, a strange note of curiosity in his voice that sounded unnervingly like Romulos. It was a reminder, sharp and cold: Leon wasn't just a companion. He was the Thwart. An instance of me. We were the same fractured person.
As I said, the problem with wielding aether is a function of two variables, I began, falling back on the clinical, analytical language that was my first refuge. Insight, and a physically suitable vessel.
The Djinn had great insight but lesser bodies. The Asuras of the Indrath Clan have nearly perfect vessels but limited insight. They are two sides of an unsolvable equation.
"You lost me at 'function,' my man," Leon admitted, scratching his spectral head. "Math was never my strong suit."
Right. This wasn't Earth. The conceptual framework was alien here. The solution, I pressed on, is to take one variable to an extreme. I cannot change my body. Not yet.
But with Meta-awareness, my insight can approach infinity. With infinite understanding, I can theoretically influence aether around the limitations of my form. I don't need to contain the star; I need to understand its orbit so perfectly I can predict its every move and harness its gravity.
It was a gamble of monumental proportions, a theory built on the most fragile of premises. But it was the only one I had.
Suddenly, the world trembled. A deep, groaning shudder ran through the very bones of the lighthouse, a vibration felt through the soles of my boots. I moved to the glass wall, looking down through the dizzying drop. Below, the ghost city of Zhoroa was no longer still.
It was teeming. Dozens—no, hundreds—of skeletal figures, Carallians, were converging on the lighthouse's base, a mindless, scraping tide of undead hunger. And in the midst of that pale sea, a corona of brilliant, defiant fire erupted.
It wasn't the cold negation of Soulfire; this was pure, incandescent combustion, a sunspot in the darkness.
"It seems your lady is buying you time," Leon observed, his tone a mixture of awe and grim amusement. "And she's managed to bypass the Djinn's fire-suppression. Impressive."
It was. It meant Caera's control, guided by the Legacy's instinct, had already surpassed the ancient safety measures woven into the city's very fabric. A feat of raw, adaptive genius.
"I need to hurry," I breathed, the words tasting of ash and guilt. "While she has immense control, she's still only silver core. She doesn't have the mana reserves to sustain a fight of that intensity for long."