Caera Denoir
Just how many of these things there are?
The question was a numb, looping mantra in my mind, a desperate attempt to find logic in the mindless, scraping tide of death. I gritted my teeth, the muscles in my jaw aching with the strain.
My right hand flexed, and the air around my fingertips crackled with a storm's potential, a thousand tiny, brilliant sparks dancing like angry stars against the oppressive gloom of the lighthouse base.
This… this raw, unfiltered manipulation of mana… it was a freedom I never knew I craved. It wasn't the structured, rune-bound casting of an Alacryan mage, a power granted and limited by the Vritra's design.
It wasn't even the terrifying, cold certainty of Soulfire, a weapon that felt like borrowing a god's wrath. This was something else. It was will made manifest, a direct conversation with the fundamental energy of the world.
And despite the horror of the situation, a part of me, a deep, hidden part, thrilled at it.
It felt right. It was a relief so profound it was almost shameful—a release from a cage I hadn't known I was in.
It wasn't the freedom Scythe Seris had wanted me to have, the freedom to be Caera Denoir of Highblood Denoir, not a weapon or a specimen. But in this moment, as I sent another searing lance of lightning into the advancing horde, watching bodies convulse and turn to ash, it was a potent, terrifying substitute.
The bolt arced through a dozen Carallians, their skeletal forms illuminated from within before disintegrating. I didn't pause, already gathering the next charge.
My eyes flicked upward, scanning the dizzying height of the lighthouse's interior. Nothing. No sign of Corvis. No flicker of movement on the endless staircase. A cold knot of anxiety tightened in my stomach, separate from the battle-fever.
Damnit, how long was he taking? He was lost in another of the Relictombs' challenges, unraveling some ancient, cosmic puzzle while I held the door against a nightmare. The unfairness of it was a bitter taste in my mouth.
We were supposed to be in this together!
A Carallian, quicker than the others, lunged from the blind spot of a pile of smoldering remains. I reacted on instinct, not with magic, but with a sharp, physical jerk of my arm, my elbow connecting with its skull with a sickening crunch. It fell back, twitching.
I saw Corvis in that moment—the way he'd molded earth and stone with a thought, crafting weapons and shields from nothing. I tried to replicate it, to pull the minerals from the floor, to shape the very air into a blade. But my will faltered.
The Legacy understood the 'what'—the elemental composition, the theoretical structure—but my mind couldn't grasp the 'how'.
"Legacy, the entities Ascenders classify as Carallians are initiating awakening sequences throughout the entirety of this Zhoroa reflection," Ji-Ae's voice chimed from the suitcase at my feet, cool and infuriatingly calm.
Just perfect. The thought was a silent snarl. Panic, cold and sharp, tried to claw its way up my throat. I forced it down. Lightning was my only reliable tool. It was swift and deadly, but it was a scalpel, not a scythe. Against a swarm of this magnitude, it was like trying to empty an ocean with a thimble.
I needed more. I needed fire. The primal, cleansing rage of fire. Or the absolute negation of Soulfire. I tried again, focusing, pouring my will into the space above my palm. Nothing. Not a flicker. Frustration burned hotter than any spell.
In a fit of desperation, I tried to forge a blade from the lightning itself, to give it permanence. It erupted from my hand in a roaring, blinding shortsword of pure energy, hissing and spitting like a furious serpent. It was magnificent and utterly uncontrollable.
I held it for a second, the feedback screaming up my arm, then was forced to release it, hurling it into the densest part of the horde. It detonated in a spectacular, concussive blast that vaporized everything in a ten-foot radius and sent me stumbling backward, my ears ringing.
The momentary clearance was instantly filled by more of them, clambering over the ashes of their predecessors. The guttural clicking of their jaws was a constant, horrifying chorus, coming from every direction. The bodies were piling up, creating macabre barriers, but they were also narrowing my space, threatening to bury me under a mountain of animated corpses.
"Legacy, maintain your calm," Ji-Ae advised, her tone still that same, placid chime.
"I am calm!" I snapped back, the lie tasting brittle. "I am just a bit… anxious, that's all!"
The admission was weak. This was more than anxiety. This was the cold, gripping fear of being utterly alone. I had never fought like this. Not truly alone.
There was always Sevren, a whirlwind of controlled protectiveness at my side. Or the stoic, silent presence of my family's guards. Or, most recently, Corvis—his knowledge a shield, his strange, fierce protectiveness a anchor.
Now, there was only me, a suitcase, and an endless tide of death. The Legacy was a vast, untamed ocean within me, and I was drowning in it.
Using a gust of wind to propel myself upward, I hovered for a precious second above the reaching claws, buying a moment to think.
Why can't I use fire? The question hammered at me. I tried the conventional paths—channeling through my runes, drawing from the ambient mana. Each time, the energy was choked, siphoned away before it could coalesce into flame. It was like trying to light a match in a vacuum.
Then, the idea struck. It was audacious, probably insane, born of a sheer, desperate need to survive. Corvis and Ji-Ae spoke of the Legacy as rewriting the rules. What if I stopped trying to play by the old ones?
I closed my eyes. I shut out the scraping of bone on stone, the hungry clicks, the panicked hammering of my own heart. I dove inward, not to my core, not to my runes, but to that new, boundless sense of the world the Legacy provided. I reached out with my will, not as a mage, but as a conductor. I felt for the fire mana in the air as something to… invite.
There. A single, timid spark of red heat, miles away, drifting in the vastness. It felt it, my call, and began to drift toward me. But as it neared, I felt it weaken, its vitality leeched away by the same pervasive suppression field.
It was like watching a light dim.
No. The denial was absolute. I poured more of my will into that single, dying spark, not forcing it, but nurturing it. Come on. Just a little closer. It was a plea, a prayer sent into the void. I offered it my own energy, not as fuel, but as a beacon. I see you. I need you. Come to me.
The spark flared, hesitantly, then with more confidence. It crossed the threshold of the dead zone. And in that instant, I didn't command it to ignite and unleash the flames. I simply gave it permission.
The world turned white, orange and red.
A nova of pure, incandescent plasma erupted from my center. There was no sound, only a wave of absolute heat and light that expanded outward in a perfect sphere.
The hundreds of Carallians surrounding me didn't have time to scream. In a second they ceased to be, transformed into fine, grey ash that hung in the air for a moment before settling like a morbid snow. The light faded, leaving behind a terrifying silence and the acrid smell of a lightning strike.
The ecstasy of that impossible power was immediately, violently, eclipsed.
"Legacy, your mana core is undergoing critical stress," Ji-Ae's voice was the same, but the words were daggers.
A pain like I had never known lanced through my abdomen, a vicious, sucking emptiness that felt like my very soul was being pulled out through my navel.
I gasped, doubling over, my vision spotting. I had been so focused on bypassing the external suppression, I hadn't considered the internal cost.
The Djinn's safeguards were diabolical. By opening myself so completely, making myself a conduit, I had become vulnerable. The device didn't stop to suppress fire; it punished those who dared to reignite it, triggering a violent, parasitic drain on the transgressor's mana core.
"You need to absorb mana, Legacy. In great quantities," Ji-Ae stated, her calmness now a grotesque contrast to the agony shredding me from the inside.
I tried. I reached out, my senses reeling, but the phenomenal spell I had just unleashed had scoured the area clean. The well was dry. It was a profound, soul-deep exhaustion that made my limbs feel like lead and my thoughts swim through syrup.
The glorious power I had touched was gone, leaving only a cavernous void and the crushing weight of my own vulnerability.
My knees buckled. I hit the cold marble floor, the impact a distant thud. The world swam in and out of focus. The silence was no longer a relief; it was the prelude to the next wave. I could already hear the faint, scraping sounds beginning again at the edges of the vast chamber. They were coming back.
I laid there, breathing in the dust of my victory, too drained to even lift my head. The fight was gone, evaporated along with my mana. All that was left was a single, desperate, whispered thought, a message sent on a breath to a man lost somewhere in the light above.
"Corvis…" I murmured, the name a talisman against the encroaching dark. "Be done quickly."
———
A flash of teal and white fur. A familiar silhouette, proud and steady amidst the fading echoes of chaos.
My heart, still hammering a frantic rhythm from the battle and the terrifying drain of my core, latched onto the sight like a lifeline.
Before thought could intervene, before propriety could raise its weary head, I was moving. My hand shot out, fingers closing around a solid, warm forearm through the soft fabric of the cloak.
"Sevren!" The name was out of my mouth, a desperate, relieved gasp, before my mind could catch up with my eyes.
The figure stiffened. Not in the way Sevren would have—with a teasing chuckle, a raised eyebrow, a comment about my jumpiness. This was a different kind of tension. The teal cloak was the same, the white fur trim just as luxuriant. But the arm beneath my grip was leaner, the set of the shoulders different.
I looked up. Teal eyes met mine, wide with surprise and a flicker of something else—awkwardness, perhaps, or understanding. It was Corvis. Of course, it was Corvis. Sevren was gone. The knowledge was a cold stone dropping through the warmth of my relief.
"It's me…" he said, his voice softer than usual, laced with that same awkwardness.
I snatched my hand back as if burned, heat flooding my cheeks. "I… I am sorry," I managed to stammer, the words feeling utterly inadequate.
Why was this so mortifying? It was a simple mistake, born of stress and a trick of the light. He was wearing my brother's cloak, for Vritra's sake. But the embarrassment was a live wire, jangling my already frayed nerves. It felt like I had exposed something terribly vulnerable, a wound I kept meticulously bandaged.
To cover my discomfiture, I forced myself to look around, to anchor myself in the present. The familiar, soothing architecture of a Sanctuary Room greeted me. Smooth, pale walls, the soft, ambient light, the utter, blessed silence. A haven.
"We are in a Sanctuary Room?"
"Yeah," Corvis said, his gaze shifting away from me, granting me a moment to collect myself. "You were faint. But luckily, you'd cleared the way. It was… straightforward, getting you here."
He said it so matter-of-factly, as if I'd merely tidied up a messy room, not unleashed a miniature sun to vaporize an army of the undead.
A strange, giddy feeling bubbled up in my chest, pushing past the embarrassment and the lingering ache of mana depletion. He'd seen it. He'd seen what I'd done. And he'd called it 'clearing the way'.
It was just like a high-stakes move in Sovereigns' Quarrel, that intricate game of strategy and bluff I'd always loved.
I never played for a marginal advantage; I always aimed for the true win, the move that would irrevocably shift the board in my favor. In that moment, surrounded and outmatched, I had bet everything on Corvis. I had trusted him to capitalize on the opening I'd bled to create. And he had.
"Why are you smiling?" Corvis asked, his head tilting slightly.
Oh. I was? I touched my lips, feeling the unfamiliar curve there. "I was thinking about a game," I admitted, the words coming easier now. "Sovereigns' Quarrel."
A shadow of a smile touched his own lips, a rare, unguarded expression. "Oh, I used to play it with Dad…" he said, then paused, the smile fading into something more complicated. "Well, I only made a few games with him. He destroyed me when he didn't let me win."
The mention of the High Sovereign was a bucket of cold water on the moment. I could only imagine how Agrona Vritra, the actual Sovereign, would play a game named for the titles he held over the very people he ruled. The thought was chilling.
An awkward silence descended, thicker and more uncomfortable than before. Damn it. Why now? I was never like this—flustered, unsure. Not even when Scythe Seris, who possessed a strangely adept talent for teasing, would try to get a rise out of me. With her, it was a game I understood. This… this was different.
Seeking solid ground, I grasped for the practical. "What did you find? What did the Relictombs try to tell you?" I asked, my voice regaining some of its usual steadiness.
His expression shifted, the awkwardness replaced by a focused intensity. "I can guide aether," he said, his voice low, almost reverent. "Just like the dragons do. Well, not exactly like them. A step below."
The statement was monumental. A step below the Asuras was still a leap into the realm of the god-like. Yet, I found I wasn't surprised. Not by the feat itself, but by the fact that he had achieved it.
"That's very good," I said, and I meant it. The fatigue was still there, a deep ache in my bones, but I felt a hundred times better than I had on that cold floor. I imagined the Legacy, for all its terrors, was also accelerating my recovery, knitting me back together at a speed that should be impossible.
"Where are we going now?" I asked, a genuine spark of curiosity igniting. Despite the existential dread lurking at the edges of my mind—the paralyzing fear for my family in Alacrya, the sheer insanity of our situation—I realized, with a start, that I was… looking forward to it.
Since graduating from Central Academy, my Ascents had become routine, a duty. A dangerous one, but predictable. With Sevren, it had been about discovery, but a solitary, obsessive kind. With Corvis, every moment was a revelation.
In a few days, I had learned more, understood more about the Relictombs, their builders, and the terrifying forces at play than I had in years of study and exploration.
"To meet another one of Ji-Ae's kin," Corvis declared, his tone that of a scholar outlining the next chapter of research. Then, his focus turned back to me, his crimson eyes scanning my face with a concern that felt strangely intimate. "Do you need more rest?"
"How noble of you," I said, the tease coming naturally, a return to familiar footing. "But I'm fine now…"
My gaze, drifting downward, caught on his right leg. The fabric of his trousers was torn to shreds around the thigh. And beneath the ripped cloth, visible through the gaps, was a scar. Not a clean, healed line, but a vicious, ugly thing, raised and twisted, like something had been stabbed into him again and again. The sight sent a jolt of cold fear through me.
"Corvis?!" The concern in my voice was sharp, immediate. All awkwardness forgotten. "What happened in that lighthouse?"
He followed my gaze, a faint, dismissive smile touching his lips. It was a terrible smile, brittle and false, not reaching his eyes. "I battled with the concept of Destruction itself," he said, as if describing a minor academic debate.
I sighed, a wave of exasperation washing over the fear. This elf. He always did this. Downplayed everything that happened to him. His body could be crashing down on him, and he would comment on the structural integrity of the surrounding room.
He wore his pain and his power with the same frustrating nonchalance, as if both were insignificant inconveniences. As if his entire existence wasn't worth of even a sigh.
"The one who needs rest is you, not me," I stated, my tone leaving no room for argument. "Next time, just say that already."
The words were out before I could censor them. He was a Vritra. The son of the being who held my continent in his grip. And here I was, scolding him like a… like a friend. Because that's what it felt like.
He was nothing like the Sovereigns. He was, in a strange way, strikingly similar to Scythe Seris. Both possessed that same layered complexity, that same sharp mind hidden behind a composed exterior.
But where Seris was an enigma, a locked door whose contents I could only guess at, Corvis was… readable. The care was there, visible in the slight frown of concern, in the way he'd carried me to safety, in the false smile he used to shield others from his pain.
They both hid it, but his disguise was thinner.
"I don't need rest," he protested, a faint stubbornness in his voice. "And Ji-Ae said you almost exhausted your core."
The mention of the Djinn fragment was a low blow, pulling rank with facts. But I held my ground. "Then we both need rest," I said, my voice firm. "Does that sound better?"
He looked at me for a long moment. I saw the argument forming, the logical counterpoints, and then I saw him discard them. The tension left his shoulders. A faint, genuine smile—tired, almost imperceptible, but real—touched his lips.
"Fine…" he conceded, the word a quiet sigh of surrender.
Corvis Vritra
I woke to the familiar, soothing hum of the Sanctuary Room, a sound that had become the backdrop to some of the most harrowing and pivotal moments of my life.
The pale, soft light, the seamless walls that seemed to absorb fear and amplify calm—it was a balm to my frayed nerves.
A new layer of ease had settled over me, a subconscious resonance with the Relictombs themselves now that Against the Gods was a completed architecture within my soul.
I could feel the aether in the walls, not as a visible energy, but as a silent, humming pressure, a new sense I was only beginning to comprehend.
Then, I became aware of the weight. A gentle, solid pressure on my right shoulder, grounding me in the physical world. And against my chest, a sleek, smooth hardness—the curve of a horn. My breath hitched.
I turned my head, a movement so slow it felt tectonic—Caera.
She was asleep, her head resting perfectly in the hollow of my shoulder as if it had been crafted for that very purpose. Her face, usually so composed and sharp with intelligence, was softened in slumber, all the guarded tension and fear smoothed away.
Her navy hair spilled over my arm and the teal fabric of Sevren's cloak. And her horns—those elegant, obsidian spirals that marked her Vritra heritage—rested against my chest, their cool, polished surface a stark contrast to the warmth radiating from her.
They fit there, nestled beneath the line of my jaw, with an unsettling, perfect symmetry. It looked… natural. Fated.
A treacherous, invasive heat began to coil up my spine, a flush that had nothing to do with mana or exertion. My heart, which had been beating a steady, post-meditative rhythm, suddenly decided to emulate a drumbeat before a charge.
Stop it, Corvis. You're spouting nonsense. The internal rebuke was sharp, automatic. My family could be fighting for their lives at this very moment. Dicathen could be burning.
Grey could be facing down a Scythe alone. And here I was, frozen, hyper-aware of the weight of a sleeping woman on my shoulder, analyzing the exact pressure of her horn against my sternum like some… some lovestruck adolescent. It was absurd. It was irresponsible.
And yet… I couldn't deny the sensation. It was… good. Profoundly, disarmingly good. A simple, uncomplicated point of warmth and weight in a universe of cold calculus and impending doom.
"Ahah! Now you really look like someone your age, Corvis!" Leon's voice chirped, brimming with undisguised glee. I didn't need to look; I could feel his spectral form perched on the bench opposite, a huge, insufferable grin plastered on his face.
Shut up, Leon… I mentally shot back, the thought uncharacteristically flustered. I… I don't know what I'm feeling right now.
"Whoa," Leon's tone shifted from teasing to genuine, surprised curiosity. "You've never felt romantic love before?"
The question hung in the quiet air. I sifted through the memories of the women that made me who I was now.
Well… Tessia is my sister. Berna is my Guardian Bear, a bond of fierce loyalty. My mother is… my mother. Sylvie is my best friend's bond, she is my niece. Alea was the most similar thing I had to an older sister. Emily was a colleague, a brilliant mind I respected. Claire… a classmate, a sparring partner, a familiar face. Kathyln? I only spoke with her during occasional encounters in the Castle.
The list was clinical, a catalog of connections. I've had the time, theoretically. But I had too many other things to think about.
My life had been a protracted crisis management session. My focus had always been outward—on Tessia's happiness with Grey, on Dicathen's survival, on understanding the terrifying plot I was trapped in.
I had curated the relationships of others, a ghost director in the play of my own life. I had never once considered writing myself a part.
"Aether demands you accept both Life and Death, Creation and Destruction," Leon said, his voice taking on a gravitas that was new, strangely wise. "That means you can't hide from any part of yourself, Corvis. Not even the messy, inconvenient parts."
He was right. The brutal honesty of my Climb echoed in his words. Aether was everything that existed before and after the life of a person. That meant it was life itself. I couldn't ignore myself any longer.
But… love? For Caera? The circumstances were a gothic farce. We'd met in a cage of my own making, both of us pawns in Agrona's game, both fleeing from different versions of hell.
And yet. She was kind. The realization struck me with the force of a physical blow. In a world of cynics, manipulators, and tyrants, Caera Denoir was genuinely, reflexively kind.
She hadn't hesitated to save my life, pouring the Legacy's incredible power into healing my shattered core, asking for nothing in return.
She had followed me into the bowels of the Relictombs, trusting my lead even when it defied all her experience. She had fought alongside me as a partner, her instincts perfectly complementing my knowledge. She had listened, truly listened, when I tried to explain the terrifying power awakening within her.
She had given me Sevren's cloak and dagger. The trust in that gesture still humbled me. It had bridged a continent, allowing Dagonet's essence to find me, to save me. And perhaps most astonishingly, she had allowed me to help her.
She had shown vulnerability, fear, grief—and accepted my offered support. It was a courage I sorely lacked. I built walls; she acknowledged the cracks in hers.
She was strong. A skilled warrior, a cunning Ascender, a bearer of Soulfire and the Legacy—a mirror, in many ways, to my own Meta-awareness.
She was everything I wasn't: adaptable, socially graceful, intuitively brave.
"Corvis," Leon's voice was softer now, a confidential murmur in my mind. "Do you want some wisdom from little old me? It doesn't seem like it, but I'm quite ancient."
Oh, really? I bit back, a flicker of my usual arrogance returning. And how old are you? My standard for 'ancient' was, and always would be, Romulos Vritra.
"Two centuries," he stated, and I felt my mental jaw go slack. "Quite a bit older than the average human."
How? The question was immediate. A white-core human might push a hundred and twenty, a hundred and fifty with exceptional vitality. Two centuries—I theorised—was the stuff of Integration-stage ascension, a near-mythical threshold.
Leon showed no outward signs of Vritra-blood dilution beyond extended life—no horns, no distinctive eye color like Caera's garnet. The answer clicked into place. Is it about the ability Fate bestowed on you as an instance of the Thwart?
"Exactly like that," he confirmed. "But we're not talking about my powers. We're talking about my wisdom. What I'm trying to tell you, Corvis, is that sometimes… the only thing we truly need is to have someone by our side to hug, to know that we're not alone in the darkness. That everything might, somehow, be okay. Love is the meaning in the chaos, Corvis. It's the fundamental answer."
He paused, letting the words settle in the profound quiet of the Sanctuary Room.
"In my case, it was Seris who lightened my path. All of us—humans, elves, dwarves, even Asuras—we are, at our core, love-seekers. Love, in its infinite, bewildering forms, is the impulse that guides our hands. It's the current that fuels life itself in a world that often feels bent on extinction."
I remained silent, his words weaving through me. Love and its many ways. I did love. I loved Tessia with a ferocity that was a fundamental part of my being. I loved my parents, despite my complicated feelings about that disgusting prince they raised.
I loved the idea of my Dad, the brilliant, caring Agrona of Romulos's memories.
If even he, in some twisted branch of reality, was capable of a love that wasn't entirely a lie… who was I to deny this fragile, bewildering feeling budding in my own chest?
Wait, a new, startling thought occurred. You really told Seris? Seris Vritra. The Scythe, Caera's mentor. The architect of a rebellion. You and Seris were…?
"Problems?" Leon's voice changed. It wasn't louder, but it acquired a density, a gravity that seemed to vibrate in the very air. It was a tone that bypassed my mental defenses, my Vritra-born arrogance, the borrowed bravery of Romulos.
It was the voice of a man who had lived two centuries and loved for a significant portion of them. It was utterly, terrifyingly sincere.
"Me and Seris were in love. And that's as true as the sky, the sun, or the very air you're breathing."
Ok. I am sorry, I replied, the mental words small and chastened.
"I think we've talked enough," I said aloud, my voice slightly rough. "It's time to depart for our next objective: the First Djinn Remnant."
Before moving, before gently waking Caera, before standing and opening Ji-Ae's suitcase to consult her—and to safely store the three shimmering aetheric scrolls I'd managed to secure from the lighthouse—I allowed myself one final, brief moment.
I let my head rest back against the wall, closed my eyes, and simply felt. The solid, warm weight on my shoulder. The slow, steady rhythm of her breathing. The faint, clean scent of her hair. The quiet, humming peace of the Sanctuary Room. The strange, hopeful warmth flickering in my chest, a small, defiant flame in the immense darkness.
I tried to smile. I concentrated, willing the unfamiliar muscles to obey. It felt awkward, unnatural, a failed mimicry of expression. But it didn't matter. The smile wasn't for my face. It was for the quiet, settled feeling inside. I was more relaxed.
I was more ready. Not because I held a Godrune within me, not because I could now touch the fabric of aether. But because I was, for the first time, not alone in a way that truly mattered.
I had something new to protect. Something I couldn't quite name yet, something that was more than camaraderie or shared hardship.