The darkness, the numbness, the ever-present nausea that coiled in my gut like a sleeping serpent—these were my oldest companions, my dearest friends in a way.
More familiar than the faces of nurses, more constant than the weak daylight filtering through my bedroom window. This was the landscape of my existence: bedridden, drifting in and out of a half-comatose haze, those precious few hours of lucidity each day purchased only by being strapped into the hated wheelchair, propped up like a broken doll, and fueled by the desperate, straining burn of Ki.
That energy, drawn from reserves deeper than bone located in the air itself, was the crutch, the engine, the life that kept the encroaching void at bay. Without it, I was merely meat waiting to fail.
So, when the instinctive command to summon that vital spark, to ignite the furnace within and push back the crushing inertia, yielded… nothing… the terror was absolute.
It wasn't just fear; it was the ground vanishing beneath me, the universe itself holding its breath before the inevitable plummet into oblivion. My heart should have been a frantic bird against my ribs, my breath catching in a strangled gasp.
But… nothing.
Only a chilling, profound emptiness where the familiar strain, the painful warmth of exertion, should have been. The horror was a tidal wave poised to crash, to drown me in the certainty that this was the end I'd always known would come, the final failure my body had been rehearsing for years.
But the wave didn't crash. It receded, leaving behind not calm, but a bewildering, impossible stillness. Because in that terrifying void left by the absent Ki, something else happened.
I simply… opened my eyes. Effortlessly. Without the grinding tension in my temples, without the gritty resistance behind the lids, without the familiar lance of pain that usually accompanied even this most basic act.
It was smooth. Unthinking. Like turning a page. The sheer ease of it was more shocking than the absence of pain. It was alien. Wrong. Yet profoundly, undeniably real.
"Okay, what is going on?" The words spilled out, a reflex against the strangeness. And then that hit me.
My voice. It resonated in the quiet space, deep and clear, vibrating with a richness I'd never possessed. It was like mine, a hauntingly familiar timbre beneath the surface, but refined, polished. Gone was the thin, tremulous rasp that often cracked under the slightest strain, the voice of a body perpetually on the verge of collapse.
This was… smoother. Profoundly resonant. It held a strange, inherent calmness, like the low hum of perfectly tuned instrument. Hearing it startled me almost as much as the effortless movement.
"Hello?" I repeated, testing it. The sound rolled out, confident and warm. It was pleasant. Incredibly so. But the voice was merely the surface symptom of something far more fundamental.
Beneath the skin, within the marrow, a feeling bloomed—not just the absence of pain, but the presence of… vitality. A thrumming energy, cool and potent, flowed where only numbness or ache had resided for as long as I could recall.
It wasn't the familiar, burning exertion Ki had on my body and mind; it was deeper, quieter, a fundamental hum of well-being. I felt… refreshed. Not just rested, but renewed. As if every cell had been rinsed clean of fatigue and decay.
The oppressive fog that perpetually clouded my mind was gone, replaced by a startling, almost painful clarity. The constant background thrum of nausea had vanished, leaving a profound, almost unsettling emptiness in my gut—an emptiness that felt only like potential, not sickness.
Did the operation work? The thought surfaced, tentative, fragile. Hope was a dangerous thing, a luxury I'd learned to ration strictly. But this… this felt like more than just repaired nerves, more than just the tentative promise of shuffling steps with a walker.
This felt like… rebirth. The surgeons had spoken of restoring function, mitigating the worst of the deterioration, perhaps granting me limited mobility with aids. They never spoke of this—this effortless strength, this profound sensory clarity, this voice that sounded like health personified.
But hey, kudos to you doctors, a giddy, almost hysterical thought bubbled up. I surely won't complain if you overshot the mark. This wasn't just walking; this felt like flying.
Memories of their worried faces flickered—the stern, dedicated doctors reviewing the risks yet again; the loyal employees of House Hyperion, their expressions tight with concern whenever they saw me struggling; dear Alfred, my rock, my anchor, the only father I'd ever truly known.
His weathered face, etched with lines of care far deeper than age alone could carve, swam before me. He'd been there since I was a fragile toddler, watching helplessly as the sickness, that insidious enemy, won battle after relentless battle against my tiny body.
He'd lifted me, fed me, read to me, wiped my tears and hidden his own, his unwavering devotion the single constant light in my encroaching darkness. And my youngest brother, Cassian.
The only one in that cold, ambitious viper's nest of a bloodline who still saw me, Iskander, the person, not just the failing candidate, the political liability. His hesitant smiles, his awkward attempts to include me in things he knew I couldn't do… they were small mercies, but mercies nonetheless.
All of them had pleaded with me. Postpone, they urged. Wait. Wait until after the political storm brewing over Etharia had passed, until the monstrous shadow cast by King Grey had receded, or solidified, or exploded.
King Grey. The name alone conjured images of calculated cruelty, of ambition fueled by rivers of blood. He was a warmonger stripped of conscience, a ruthless predator clad in the fake royal robes of Etharia. His imminent declaration of war hung over the nation like a poisoned cloud. And by the grace of modern convention—a chillingly practical evolution—wars weren't the sprawling, nation-devouring horrors of Earth's past.
They were settled King against King. A brutal, personal distillation of conflict. It made a grim sort of sense: why expend countless lives, shatter economies, when the fate of nations could rest on the outcome of a single, sanctioned duel? But knowing King Grey, knowing his sadism, his utter lack of humanity… it promised only suffering, regardless of the scale. He was a blight, a curse upon the throne. The worst day in Etharia's history, indeed, was the day the government crowned him after he won the King's Tournament.
I pushed those grim thoughts aside. My immediate world was confined to this room, this body, this impossible feeling. Time to assess. I tried to sit up, my hand automatically groping for the familiar, slightly sticky button on the hospital bed rail that would summon light and, hopefully, a nurse.
My fingers brushed… nothing. Cool, smooth, unyielding surface. Not the soft give of a mattress, but the hard, impersonal flatness of… floor? I'd been lying on the floor? And yet, I hadn't felt the bone-deep chill that usually seeped into me from anything less than a heated mattress. I hadn't felt the uncomfortable pressure points, the hardness pressing against my fragile hips and spine. Nothing.
Anaesthetics, I reasoned, grasping for the familiar. Must be lingering. That's why everything feels… off. Why the Ki seems gone. Residual drugs. Makes sense. It was a flimsy raft on an ocean of strangeness, but I clung to it.
"Nurse! Doctor! Anyone?" My new, resonant voice filled the space, echoing slightly. "I would like some help, please!"
Silence answered. Thick, profound, almost mocking. Typical, a cynical part of me thought, the part shaped by years of institutional dependency. Hospitals these days.
No wonder Alfred always pushed for private care. But then, a grudging afterthought: though obviously, this specific operation required the big machines, the specialists… duh.
I needed help because the simple act of rising from the floor unaided had been an insurmountable mountain for longer than I cared to remember. The mechanics of leverage, the screaming protest of wasted muscles, the dizzying drop in blood pressure—it was a gauntlet I dreaded.
Tentatively, bracing for the familiar agony, the inevitable failure, I placed my palms flat on the cool surface beside me and pushed. What happened next wasn't just movement; it was revelation.
My body unfolded. Not with the jerky, agonizing struggle I knew, but with a fluid, powerful grace that felt utterly alien and intoxicating. Muscles I hadn't consciously acknowledged in years engaged smoothly, powerfully.
My body stabilized effortlessly. I rose from the floor like a dancer, like an athlete, like… like someone whole. The sheer ease was breathtaking. No strain, no gasp, no black spots dancing before my eyes. Just… up. Balanced. Steady.
"Fine," I murmured, the word vibrating with astonished amusement in my new, rich voice. "I owe an apology to this hospital. I might have judged you too soon."
The apology was absurd, given the profound weirdness, but the sentiment was genuine. If the questionable patient care was the price for this… for this feeling of being utterly remade, revitalized down to the marrow… it was a bargain struck in heaven. The doctors hadn't just fixed me; they'd sculpted a new me from the ruins of the old. I felt… anew. The word didn't feel big enough.
Curiosity, sharp and vital, replaced the lingering disorientation. I needed to understand this space, this cocoon of my transformation. The room was dark again, the violet light having faded.
I moved, and the movement itself was a joy—a silent, powerful glide. My bare feet encountered only smooth, cool flooring. My hands reached out, sweeping through empty air, encountering nothing but polished, curved walls.
No bed, no chair, no monitors, no call button, no familiar clutter of medical paraphernalia. Just… emptiness. A profound, echoing void.
Panic tried to flutter, but the deep, inherent calmness radiating from this new body, this strange energy within, dampened it. Then, my questing fingers found it: a subtle recess in the seamless wall. Instinctively, I pressed my palm flat against it.
Warmth bloomed beneath my skin, not external heat, but a resonant thrum that traveled up my arm. Simultaneously, a soft, pervasive violet light ignited, emanating from a complex, multi-jointed structure descending from the high ceiling.
It wasn't a lamp; it resembled a cluster of articulated, metallic tentacles woven with filaments of pure light. It illuminated the room fully.
"What the hell?" The curse escaped me, not in fear, but in pure, unadulterated wonder.
I stood inside a perfect cylinder, but its walls weren't flat. They curved inwards in a continuous, spiraling pattern, smooth and seamless, like the interior chamber of a colossal nautilus shell rendered in polished, pearl-grey stone.
The light cast by the strange fixture revealed no seams, no doors, no windows. Just the organic spiral stretching upwards into shadow. The scale was… immense. And utterly unfamiliar. This wasn't my room. This wasn't Etharian architecture or anything I ever read about. This was… something else.
The light also fell upon me. Really upon me. For the first time, I truly looked.
My hands rose before my face. They were… different. No longer the skeletal, blue-veined claws I knew, trembling with perpetual weakness. These hands were larger, steadier.
The skin was smooth, flawless, stretched over lean muscle and defined bone structure with an elegance I'd only seen in pictures of ancient sculptures. It held a faint, pearlescent sheen, a subtle shade of cool grey that wasn't sickly, but… otherworldly.
Healthy. Vibrant. I flexed the fingers. They obeyed instantly, powerfully, without a hint of tremor. I turned them over. No prominent veins, no paper-thin fragility.
My gaze dropped. My feet, planted firmly on the cool floor, were no longer swollen or discolored. They looked… normal. Strong. Attached to legs that were longer, straighter, covered in lean muscle visible even at rest beneath the simple, unfamiliar slightly tethered fabric that clothed me—a soft tunic and trousers that felt like nothing I'd ever worn.
I ran my hands over my torso. Flat stomach. Defined, but not bulky, musculature. Ribs no longer threatening to pierce through skin. A chest that rose and fell with deep, effortless breaths. No pain. No constriction.
I reached up, tangling my fingers in my hair. It was thick, lustrous black silk, falling in soft waves to just below my ears. And it was perfectly, impossibly in place, despite having been lying on the floor. No tangles, no sweat-matted strands. Just… perfect.
This wasn't a recovery. This wasn't a repaired body. This was a replacement. A body sculpted for health, for strength, for life. Taller than my former, stooped frame.
Lithe, yes, like a runner, but with a latent power thrumming beneath the surface. Like a predator at rest. A Greek god cast in moonlight-infused marble. The faint grey pallor wasn't sickly; it was… different. Unsettlingly beautiful. Utterly inhuman, yet undeniably, magnetically alive.
Fear? It should have been drowning me. The implications were terrifying. Where was I? What was I? What had happened to Iskander Hyperion, the dying failure? Yet… the fear couldn't take root.
It was smothered by the sheer, overwhelming, intoxicating sensation of this body. The absence of pain wasn't just relief; it was an ecstatic liberation. The presence of strength wasn't just novelty; it was a divine gift. The deep, humming energy within wasn't the straining burn of ki; it was a cool, boundless ocean.
No one who hasn't spent years, decades, trapped in a prison of failing flesh, dependent on the kindness of others for every basic function, choking on the bitterness of lost potential—which I knew I had—can truly understand the magnitude of this moment.
The despair of watching your own body betray you, day after relentless day. The humiliation of needing help to bathe, to eat, to exist. The crushing weight of knowing your dreams are ashes because you can't even hold a book steady. The constant, grinding erosion of hope.
All of that… gone. Washed away. Replaced by this.
So, yes, I did the only thing that made sense. The only thing this impossible, glorious vessel demanded. I rejoiced.
It started with a laugh. A deep, booming, resonant sound from my new throat, startling in its volume and richness, utterly devoid of the old wheeze. It echoed in the nautilus chamber, a sound of pure, unadulterated release. Then I ran. Not the shuffling, painful gait of before, but a run.
Legs pistoning, muscles coiling and releasing with explosive power, carrying me effortlessly around the circumference of the vast room. The air rushed past my face, cool and exhilarating. I jumped, pushing off with both feet, and soared higher than I'd ever dreamed possible, arms flung wide in a triumphant V.
"YES!" The word ripped from me, primal and powerful.
I danced. Not any formal steps, but a wild, ecstatic whirl, spinning until the spiraling walls became a blur, laughing until tears streamed down my face—tears of joy so profound they felt like they were scouring my soul clean.
I kicked high, my leg snapping out with impossible flexibility and force, cutting through the air. I punched, shadow-boxing an invisible foe, feeling the satisfying whoosh of my fist, the solid connection of muscle and sinew working in perfect, powerful harmony.
I stretched, reaching for the impossibly high ceiling with a jump, feeling the delicious pull in muscles that responded, that didn't scream in protest. I cracked my knuckles—a loud, healthy pop that sounded like victory.
I did cartwheels—clumsy at first, then with increasing, giddy confidence as this body learned its own capabilities with terrifying speed. I did push-ups—not the trembling, single-digit efforts of before, but dozens, effortlessly, feeling the power surge through my arms and chest.
I rolled, I leaped, I shouted wordless cries of exultation. Every movement was a discovery, a celebration, a defiant roar against the years of confinement. I was testing the limits, not out of fear, but out of sheer, uncontainable joy. And the limits seemed… distant. The stamina was astonishing. This body didn't tire; it thrived on the motion.
Hours must have passed. Time lost all meaning. There was only the movement, the laughter, the tears, the overwhelming, soul-deep gratitude for this impossible liberation.
I poured every ounce of frustration, every stifled dream, every moment of helpless rage from twenty years of imprisonment into this physical catharsis. I danced on the grave of my sickness.
Eventually, inevitably, even this magnificent engine needed a moment. Not exhaustion as I knew it—no gasping lungs, no trembling muscles, no crushing fatigue—but a pleasant, warm lassitude, a sense of deep contentment.
I sank back onto the smooth, cool floor, my chest rising and falling steadily, a wide, foolish grin plastered across my face. The violet light from the tentacled fixture cast soft, shifting patterns on the pearlescent walls.
Lying there, basking in the afterglow of pure, uncomplicated happiness, a melody surfaced in my mind. An old, simple tune. The theme from one of Alfred's ancient medical dramas. He'd watch it late at night, sometimes letting me stay up, propped on cushions beside his worn armchair, the flickering light of the screen illuminating his tired, kind face.
Dr. House. The cynical genius solving medical mysteries. It seemed absurdly fitting, somehow, in this moment of impossible healing. I hummed it softly, the rich tones of my new voice giving the simple notes a strange, resonant depth. Ba-da-bum, ba-da-bum... It was a thread connecting this bewildering now to the familiar then, to Alfred.
"You seem to be enjoying yourself."
The voice, female, melodic, and startlingly close, shattered the peaceful aftermath like a dropped pane of glass. I jolted upright with a speed that would have been impossible moments before my transformation, scrambling to my feet in a heartbeat, every nerve suddenly singing with alertness. My new body coiled, instinctively ready, though for what, I didn't know.
"Sorry, sorry," the voice came again, tinged with genuine apology and an undercurrent of… sadness? "I didn't mean to startle you." She stood perhaps ten paces away, seemingly having materialized from the shadows near the spiraling wall. My breath caught.
She was… beyond description. "Beautiful" was a child's word for a sunset; it failed utterly here. She was divinity made manifest. Her hair was the color of spun sunlight, an impossibly light blonde, intricately woven into countless delicate braids that cascaded like a living, golden crown around a face of breathtaking serenity and depth.
Her eyes… vast, luminous pools of lavender, the color of twilight on distant mountains, deep as the ocean's abyss, holding an ancient, knowing calm that seemed to look through me. She was dressed in flowing silk of a hue that shifted subtly with the light—soft blues, gentle violets, hints of silver—clinging to a form of perfect grace.
It wasn't clothing; it was a manifestation of light and cloud given form, hugging her like a lover. She radiated an aura of impossible peace and profound, melancholic beauty.
The hospital, Alfred, my old life, King Grey… they all receded into a distant, irrelevant fog. This being, this place… they were the immediate, overwhelming reality. My new body hummed with alert energies, my new voice momentarily silenced by sheer awe. The giddy joy was replaced by a thrumming tension, a profound sense of standing on a precipice.
"Are you a doctor, Miss?" I finally managed, the words emerging from my strange, calm voice, sounding absurdly mundane in the face of her presence.
The gentle negation in her voice hung in the air, soft yet final. "No. I am not a doctor." She paused, those fathomless lavender eyes holding mine, filled with a compassion that felt… immense. Ancient. "My name is Sylvia." Another pause, heavier this time. "And what I am about to say might startle you, but—"
I didn't let her finish. The pieces, scattered and impossible, had clicked into place with a chilling, yet strangely serene, certainty. While she spoke, I simply… sat.
Not the controlled, painful lowering of my old body, but a fluid descent, folding my new legs beneath me with an unconscious grace that still felt alien and wondrous. The cool, seamless floor pressed against me, a grounding sensation. I raised a hand, palm outward—a gesture of understanding, not interruption. My new voice, that resonant, calm instrument, filled the space between us.
"I am not on Earth anymore, am I?"
The question wasn't frantic. It wasn't even truly a question. It was an acknowledgment spoken aloud, the final seal on the reality my senses had been screaming since I awoke in this nautilus shell of a room, clothed in this impossible body.
The utter wrongness of the architecture, the absence of any familiar medical technology, the profound, humming energy that surrounded this place replacing my ki, the sheer, terrifying perfection of my form—it all coalesced into this undeniable truth.
Her initial expression—perhaps surprise at my calm, perhaps sorrow—shifted. Her ethereal features softened further, etching a look of profound pity. It was deep, genuine, and it struck me like a physical greatly. Such sorrow didn't belong on a face like hers; it dimmed her divine radiance. It was the look one gives a child who doesn't understand the magnitude of their loss.
"Don't," I said, the word firmer than I intended, cutting through the heavy silence her pity created. I met her gaze directly, willing her to understand.
"Don't make that face." I took a slow breath, feeling the effortless expansion of my new lungs. "It's probably better this way." The admission carried the weight of a lifetime. "Iskander Hyperion… he was a weight. A constant, exhausting burden upon House Hyperion. Draining resources, demanding care, a living symbol of fragility in a world that valued strength and strength only."
The names of my House, my title—they felt distant already, like relics in a museum. "Alfred…" My voice caught, just for a fraction, on his name. The image of his weary, kind eyes, the hands that had lifted me, bathed me, read to me when mine were too weak to hold a book, flashed before me.
"And Cassian…" My brother's awkward, earnest attempts to include the one he called brother. "They loved me, in their ways. But I know, with absolute certainty, what they would truly want for me. Not a slow, lingering end in that cage of sickness. Not another day of watching the light fade from my eyes. They would want this."
I gestured vaguely at myself, at the room, at the impossible reality. "A chance. A real, fighting chance to live a life…" My voice dropped, thick with a nostalgia that wasn't regret, but a poignant farewell. "...a life worth being lived. One they could only dream of for me."
The pang of missing them was sharp, a physical ache beneath the ribs of this magnificent new cage. Alfred's presence, Cassian's loyalty—they were anchors to a world I'd left behind. But tears? No. They would be a betrayal of this gift, a dishonor to the sacrifices they made and the hope they surely carried for me, even unspoken.
Weeping for the past wouldn't honor them. Living would. Living wildly, freely, grasping every experience my broken body had denied me for nearly thirty years. That was the tribute they deserved.
The cool floor kissed my palms as I pushed myself up. Not a scramble, but a smooth, powerful uncoiling. This body obeyed with such terrifying, beautiful precision. I stood tall, taller than I ever had before, feeling the effortless balance, the contained strength. Then, I bowed.
Not the shallow nod of a noble, but a deeper, more formal inclination from the waist, holding it for a beat. Respect, not submission. My new voice, clear and strong, filled the chamber. "Nice to meet you, Lady Sylvia." The simple act of greeting someone properly, standing unaided, speaking without strain—each element was a tiny, exhilarating victory. "My name is—"
I stopped. The old title, the dynastic weight—Iskander Hyperion—hovered on my tongue. But that name belonged to the ghost in the wheelchair, the burden on the House. That name was shackled to a past I had miraculously escaped. Carrying it here felt like dragging chains into this impossible new dawn.
No, I thought with sudden, fierce clarity. Let him rest. Let that life be done.
The pause was brief, decisive. When I spoke again, it was a declaration, not just an introduction. A shedding of skin. A claiming of self, unburdened.
"Iskander."
———
The words hung in the air of the nautilus chamber, dense and cold despite the soft violet light. Sylvia's explanation, delivered with that profound, ancient sadness, had painted a picture far stranger and more brutal than any fever dream my old, failing mind could have conjured.
A husband. Betrayal. Murder. My very existence, not a miracle of medicine, but an act of cold, calculated forgery. A patchwork soul stitched into a stolen, engineered vessel.
"So..." I began, the smooth resonance of my new voice feeling suddenly alien, a tool I hadn't fully mastered. I parsed the monstrous reality. "Your husband? Boyfriend? Fiancé..." The terms felt inadequate for the scale of the tragedy Sylvia hinted at.
"...has killed you. And used yours," I gestured vaguely towards her shimmering form, "another of his race—a basilisk's..." The word tasted strange, mythological. "...and a human body..."
"...to create me. To be his aether-wielding weapon." I met her lavender eyes, searching for confirmation, for the depth of the abyss I now stood upon. "Did I get this right?"
The silence stretched, thick with the weight of millennia and unspeakable grief. Sylvia, this vision of ethereal beauty marred by an eternal sorrow, gave a single, slow nod.
"Exactly, Iskander." Her voice was a whisper, laden with a pity that wasn't just for me, but for the entire, wretched circumstance. It was the sound of hope extinguished long ago. Poor woman.
A strange brew of emotions churned within me—horror at the callousness of my creation, a flicker of existential dread at being a mere construct, a weapon forged for something I didn't understand.
Yet, overriding it all, surging with volcanic intensity, was an exhilarating, almost blasphemous sense of freedom. This fantastical body, this boundless vitality, this escape from the slow-motion death of Etharia—it wasn't a gift, it was plunder. Stolen from a goddess and a monster.
And I, Iskander, the consciousness, the man, the inhabitant thrust into it, was the unexpected beneficiary. The ultimate act of defiance against this Agora's—or was it Agra?—plan would be living, truly living, on my own terms.
The technicalities were fascinating, a spark igniting my starved intellect. A demigod body? Based on Asuras—the gods of this world?—blended with the innate aether manipulation of dragons like Sylvia, creatures I vaguely recalled from Earth's myths.
Then, the Relictombs. A complex system of zones defying space itself creating something short of pocket dimensions that had entire ecosystems with their own rules within? My old world's wars and politics suddenly felt like squabbles in a sandbox. This… this was cosmic.
"Don't be so low of morale," I declared, the words bursting out with a brightness I didn't entirely feel, but desperately wanted to embody. A defiant grin spread across my face, aimed squarely at Sylvia's sorrow. "We are going to fix everything!"
The 'we' felt audacious, presumptuous maybe even arrogant, but necessary. She was part of me now, an echo, a witness to my genesis. "And if you're sad because that guy killed you..." I fumbled for the name, the architect of this tragedy. "...what was his name? Agra? Ronna? Agrona?"
The name finally clicked, tasting like ash.
"It's just his loss. Look how beautiful you are." It was clumsy, sincere, the compliment of someone who'd known precious little beauty beyond Alfred's kindness, Cassian's visits and fleeting sunsets glimpsed from a window. I meant it utterly. Her luminous presence was a balm, even steeped in grief.
A warmth, fragile but genuine, touched Sylvia's features. She smiled, a small, sad curve of her lips that momentarily banished the shadows in her eyes. It was like watching dawn break over a desolate landscape.
"I will have you know," she said, a ghost of amusement in her voice, "that I am a bit too old for you." The gentle tease was unexpected, a glimpse of the person she might have truly been. Her laugh, when it came, was a soft chime, soothing the raw edges of my own chaotic emotions. It felt like acceptance, however tentative.
"Wait, how o—" The question about her age sprang to my lips, fueled by naive curiosity. But I caught myself, the ingrained manners Alfred had painstakingly instilled kicking in.
Asking a lady her age, even an ageless remnant of a goddess, felt suddenly crass. "Nevermind," I finished, flushing slightly—a novel sensation in this cool, grey skin.
Sylvia shook her head, the intricate golden braids shimmering. The look she gave me was profoundly tender, tinged with that ancient sadness, but also… fondness? Amusement? Like watching a precocious child attempt sophisticated conversation.
"You have manners, it seems. Iskander." My name on her lips held a peculiar weight. "What a little gentleman."
The observation, simple as it was, struck a deep chord. Manners had been armor in my past life, a way to maintain dignity when my body offered none. Hearing it acknowledged, especially by her, felt validating.
"You can't blame me," I retorted, crossing my arms and deliberately adopting a playful pout. The gesture felt alien yet liberating. Playfulness was a luxury sickness had stolen early. "I haven't lived a life at all. Only witnessed others living theirs through windows, or pages of books Alfred—my butler—brought me."
The admission carried the ache of decades of longing. "Now?" I uncrossed my arms, throwing them wide as if embracing the entire impossible chamber, the Relictombs beyond, the universe itself. The movement was fluid, powerful, a physical manifestation of my declaration.
"Now I am going to be the absolute protagonist of my life!" The words echoed, shameless, exuberant, a battle cry against the deterministic tragedy that seemed to be scripted for this body.
"Your enthusiasm is likable," Sylvia murmured. But beneath the warmth of her words, I sensed the immense, crushing loneliness that was her constant companion. And something else… guilt? A deep, abiding guilt that seemed to seep from her spectral form. It puzzled me.
What could this gentle, betrayed being possibly feel guilty about? She hadn't forged me; she was a victim woven into the crime. Her sorrow was a vast ocean I couldn't fathom, but this guilt felt like a hidden undertow.
My thoughts snapped back to the immediate, the tangible. This magnificent body. My reflection was still a shock. "Lady Sylvia," I asked, raising a hand almost shyly, the question frivolous yet suddenly vital, a way to anchor myself in the physical reality of this stolen gift.
"What colour are my eyes?" I needed to know. Every detail was a treasure, a facet of this impossible freedom.
She looked at me, really looked, her lavender gaze softening with a profound, melancholic affection. "Violet," she said, the word heavy with nostalgia. "Like mine."
The connection resonated deep within my borrowed bones. My eyes, windows to this patched-together soul, reflected hers. It was a tangible link, a shared heritage stolen and repurposed, yet somehow forging a bond.
It was a pity, a profound ache, that she wasn't physically here. Just a remnant, a consciousness clinging to the dragon parts woven into my being. Yet, her kindness, her patience in answering my torrent of questions—about this world, about magic, about the terrifying beauty and danger of the Relictombs—was immeasurable. She was my sole guide in this alien, thrilling, reality.
The most burning question surfaced. Magic. Aether. The power I was supposedly forged to wield, the reason for my monstrous genesis. "Now," I said, leaning forward, the eagerness of a child presented with a wondrous, dangerous toy thrumming through me. "How do I use magic?"
Sylvia sighed, the sound like wind through ancient leaves. "That's a tricky question, Iskander, dear." The endearment warmed me even as the warning chilled. "Your body… has one fatal flaw." Fatal. The word landed like a physical blow, a stark reminder that my escape wasn't clean, my freedom wasn't absolute. Agrona's shadow still loomed.
"Agrona made you…" She stumbled over the name, the pain raw. "...to either learn how to use aether like a normal mage would with mana…" She paused, letting the implication hang heavy in the air. "...or die trying."
The bluntness should have terrified me. Instead, it ignited a fierce, reckless spark. Death had been my constant companion; its specter held little new terror.
The challenge, however…
"I don't see where the problem is!" I countered, the defiance back in my voice, bolstered by the boundless energy coursing through me. "How do I do it? You explained everyone needs this… organ… a mana core to use and feel magic."
I placed a hand flat on my chest, over where my heart, feeling the deep, cool hum that permeated my being.
"I feel something! Strong, constant. That must be aether, right? Like mana, but… more?" The hum was the ocean Sylvia spoke of, vast and waiting.
"No, child," Sylvia said, her voice gentle but firm, dousing my simplistic hope. "You don't have a mana core. Agrona wanted to experiment. He sought to create… a counterpart. But for aether." She paused, letting the enormity sink in. "An aether core."
The concept wasn't immediately horrifying. It seemed logical. If mana required a core, why not aether?
"I still don't see why you must be so worried," I insisted, the naive optimism of the perpetually sheltered crashing against cosmic reality. "I just need to do what's done for the mana core, but with aether, right? Build it? Form it?"
It sounded straightforward. Difficult, perhaps, but achievable. The sheer, impossible hubris of the thought made Sylvia chuckle softly. Not mockingly, but with a deep, weary sadness that spoke of centuries of understanding I lacked.
"Mana cores, Iskander," she explained patiently, like a teacher guiding a bright but inexperienced pupil, "are natural organs. For Asuras, like my people, we are born with them, fully formed. For the lesser races… humans, elves, dwarves… they are not born with it. The potential is there, a seed. But it develops naturally during their growth, awakened and nurtured by their environment, their innate connection to the mana around them. It is an organic process, guided by life itself. Not… built."
The final word hung in the air, heavy with implication. Building an organ, especially one designed to channel the fundamental fabric of reality? It was like demanding a newborn forge its own heart from stardust.
I had… Sylvia's guidance, this strange chamber, and a body feeling the aether surrounding me, but that I couldn't access.
"Agrona has centuries of experience, resources, and techniques he made through his countless experiments, child," Sylvia said softly, confirming my bleak assessment. Her tone was heartbreakingly maternal, the voice of a mother forced to tell her child the harsh truth.
"You here... have nothing." It was the sound of hope being carefully, sadly, extinguished. She believed this was my end. Before it had even begun.
The resignation in her voice, the utter lack of faith, was a familiar enemy. I knew hopelessness intimately. It was the suffocating blanket thrown over my sickbed, the whispered prognosis, the pitying looks.
It was the surrender to a fate deemed inescapable. I'd fought it tooth and nail, with every strained breath, every desperate attempt at ki manipulation, every gamble like the final operation.
I'd raged against the dying of the light until the very end. And here, gifted with impossible strength yet facing a different kind of death sentence, Sylvia's despair mirrored that old enemy.
"You are depressed, right Sylvia?" I asked bluntly, cutting through the heavy silence. The question wasn't accusatory; it was recognition.
"You don't have to tell me anything," I added quickly, seeing the flicker of surprise and deeper sorrow in her eyes. I understood the weight of unspoken burdens.
"Just wait and see!" The declaration erupted from me, fueled by a lifetime of defiance condensed into this single, pivotal moment. I surged to my feet, the movement a powerful testament to the vessel I inhabited. The impossible breathtaking vessel.
"I will make this dreaded aether core!" I stated, my voice ringing with absolute conviction, echoing off the spiraling walls.
"Inside this cave!" I gestured broadly at the nautilus chamber. "With a box of scraps!"
The borrowed phrase from Alfred's cherished superhero tales felt perfect—absurdly optimistic against impossible odds.
It was my declaration of war against Agrona's design, against Sylvia's despair, against the very concept of a predetermined end.
Sylvia stared at me, her luminous eyes wide with a mixture of disbelief and a dawning, fragile spark of… something. Hope? Or just pity for my madness? "I can only wish you all the good luck—" she began, her voice trembling.
"Luck doesn't exist!" I cut her off, the words sharp, forged in the crucible of my past life. "Only unluckiness. Misfortune. The universe throwing obstacles."
I took a step towards the spiraling wall, feeling the cool hum of the chamber resonate.
"We are defined," I stated, turning back to meet her gaze, my violet eyes blazing with a fierce, hard-won light, "by how much we fight against that unluckiness. How fiercely we reject the chains people call destiny."
My past life had been a testament to that fight. Limited, failing, but relentless. I'd gambled everything on the operation, knowing the risks, choosing potential annihilation over guaranteed, slow decay. That gamble had brought me here. To this impossible starting line. I wouldn't stop fighting now.
A profound silence followed. Then, slowly, a different kind of smile touched Sylvia's lips. Wry. Amused. Perhaps even… impressed?
"You have a rather peculiar vision of life, Iskander," she conceded, the sadness still there, but now woven with a thread of reluctant admiration. "Then," she said, her voice gaining a new strength, a decision made, "I will support you however I can."
The chamber seemed to respond. As my gaze swept the pearlescent walls, now fully illuminated, a specific section caught my eye. Near the base, subtly integrated into the spiral pattern, was a more pronounced, intricate spiral motif. It pulsed faintly with a deeper violet light. Compelled, I moved towards it.
As I approached, the motif reacted. Without a sound, the section of the wall containing the spiral began to rotate, not swinging open like a door, but spiraling inwards upon itself with impossible, seamless grace.
It revealed not just a door, but a profound, velvety darkness beyond. An abyss. An invitation. The entrance to the Relictombs.
Sylvia's voice, sharp with sudden, maternal alarm, cut through the awe. "The Relictombs are dangerous places, Iskander, Be careful!" The worry was palpable, laced with the knowledge of what lurked in those ancient, shifting zones.
"There are beasts there… entities that feed on aether and mana alike. They are ancient, powerful, and very dangerous."
Danger. The word sparked not fear, but an electric thrill. Danger meant challenge. Danger meant living. It meant testing the limits of this glorious body and the indomitable will housed within it. After a lifetime confined, danger was freedom's price, and I would pay it gladly.
I took a final, deep breath of the cool, sterile chamber air, savoring the effortless expansion of my lungs. I stretched my arms wide, feeling the powerful muscles slide beneath my grey skin, the latent strength thrumming in every fiber. The darkness beckoned, whispering promises of peril, discovery, and the raw, untamed aether I needed to master or die.
A grin, fierce and utterly devoid of fear, spread across my face. "Let's see what scraps this cave holds," I murmured, more to myself and the hum within than to Sylvia.