Corvis Eralith
The crunch of autumn leaves underfoot was a brittle counterpoint to the frantic beat of my heart.
Ahead, a whirlwind of gunmetal hair and delighted shrieks—Tessia, of course—darted between ancient, towering trunks, our parents giving chase with a mixture of royal decorum and paternal panic.
We were following a narrow path deeper into the Elshire Forest, a path that felt less like a walk and more like a procession towards a potential disaster, to me at least.
Our destination was the secluded home of Rinia Darcassan, my Great-aunt, the elven seer. The same seer who, in the story I knew by heart, would one day look at a boy named Arthur Leywin and see the ghost of a king staring back.
With every step, the weight in my stomach grew heavier, a cold stone of dread.
I had met her before, technically. In the hazy, formless days of early infancy, a gentle, wrinkled face would occasionally swim into view above my crib, eyes like forest pools observing me with a quiet depth that even then felt unsettling.
But those were passive encounters. Today, I would be presented, coherent and conscious, to a woman who could, by all accounts, perceive the threads of fate woven into a soul. And my soul was a tangled, foreign knot that shouldn't exist.
My newly awakened mana core, a week-old secret burning low in my belly, seemed to pulse in time with my anxiety.
I walked rigidly behind my parents, my movements stiff, every sense hyper-aware of the powerful mage strolling casually beside me—my grandfather, Virion.
I was terrified he would glance down, sense the mana core, and with a single curious probe, unravel everything.
But that fear was just the surface layer, the most manageable of my terrors. Beneath it lay a deeper, more paralyzing fear: that he, or worse, Rinia, would look at me and simply know.
That they would see the stolen consciousness, the freight of apocalyptic knowledge, the fraud inhabiting the body of their grandson. The love in their eyes would curdle into horror, and I would be unmasked, a ghost wearing their flesh and blood.
"Corvis, be at ease," Grandpa's voice cut through my spiraling thoughts, warm and amused. A large, steady hand came to rest on my shoulder, its weight both comforting and confining. He chuckled, leaning down slightly. "Rinia might be a scary old hag, but she is the good type of scary old hag."
I forced a nod, my throat tight. "Y-yeah…"
He shook his head playfully, mistaking my stammer for childish nerves. I clung to that misconception, let it armor me. The persona I'd crafted was my shield: Corvis, the timid twin.
Afraid of cats (a necessary lie, born of galactic eyes on a windowsill).
Afraid of other children (a convenient truth, born of the unbearable noise of normalcy).
Afraid of his mysterious Great-aunt.
It was a mask that required little acting, for it was woven from genuine threads of my terror—terror of the god who would soon drown our continent in war, and the other god who would scorch it in a fit of cold evil.
My cowardice was not feigned at all, in fact; it was the honest reaction of a soul that knew too much, crammed into a vessel that could do too little.
Ahead, Tessia reached the small clearing where Rinia's house stood. It was a picture of elven harmony, woven from the living wood of the forest and pale, smooth stone, as if it had grown rather than been built.
Tessia skipped right up to the carved wooden door, her energy boundless.
"Tessia! You could have stumbled and hurt yourself!" Dad's voice was a mixture of exasperation and genuine alarm, his kingly composure dissolving into the universal panic of a father. It was almost comical, the way his face contorted.
Mom sighed, placing a hand on her hip. "From a couple of hops? Really, Alduin?" Her tone was dry, but her eyes sparkled with fondness.
Watching them, this brief, ordinary exchange, sent a physical pain lancing through my chest. The knot in my stomach twisted into a sickening cramp. These were my parents.
Merial, with her motherly strength, and Alduin, with his stern love worn so visibly on his sleeve. And I knew, with the cruel certainty of a reader who had turned the final page, the fate awaiting them: not heroes' deaths, but a brutal, public execution, their bodies left as banners of conquest.
My plans had been so singularly focused on Tessia, on Sylvia, on the grand, cosmic threats. But in this sunlit clearing, the visceral reality of their future murder struck me anew.
"Where is Aunt?" Tessia's loud, clear voice shattered my dark reverie.
Grandpa stepped forward, grinning, and rapped on the door with a force that seemed more fitting for a castle gate.
"Come on, you old fool! Your family is here! Open the door!" he bellowed, laughter bubbling beneath the command.
"Father," Dad interjected, reaching for the handle. "It's open."
Grandpa shrugged, his theatrics undimmed, and gestured for us to enter. My family moved past the threshold, their figures swallowed by the warm, shadowed interior.
But my feet, once again, betrayed me.
They rooted to the spot, frozen on the verdant moss just outside. I could see a slice of the living room within: shelves of curious artifacts, the glow of a hearth, the promise of a domestic scene. Yet some primal instinct screamed that crossing that line would change everything.
"Come on, Corvis," Grandpa's voice came from behind me, followed by a firm, encouraging hand on my back. His push was gentle but irrevocable. I stumbled forward, over the threshold, and into the seer's domain.
The inside was warm, smelling of dried herbs, old parchment, and woodsmoke. And there she was.
"Grandma Rinia!" Tessia cried, immediately launching herself to wrap her arms around the old woman's legs.
Rinia Darcassan. She was exactly as described, yet infinitely more present. Her hair was a cloud of silver-grey, her face a map of gentle lines. But it was her eyes—a shifting, impossible mosaic of green, brown, and cerulean blue—that held me.
They were deep, calm pools that seemed to reflect not the room, but the very essence of those within it. She smiled down at Tessia, a genuine, affectionate smile as she brushed my sister's hair with a gnarled hand.
Then, those kaleidoscope eyes lifted and locked onto me.
"Hi, Corvis," she said. Her voice was softer than I expected, like wind through late-autumn leaves.
A bolt of pure, animal panic shot through me. Without conscious thought, I shuffled sideways, putting the solid bulk of my grandfather's leg between myself and her gaze.
I hid, a child's instinctive retreat. A light chuckle rippled through the room—from my parents, from Grandpa. It was meant to be fond, an amusement at the shy little boy.
"Corvis, she is our Auntie! Don't behave like that!" Tessia scolded, though she didn't relinquish her own hold on Rinia.
But Rinia's eyes, watching me peer from behind Virion, only softened further. That softening terrified me more than any suspicion or intensity could have.
Did it mean she saw nothing amiss, just a frightened child? Or did it mean she saw everything—the storm inside me—and her expression was one of pity, of understanding?
The ambiguity was torture. In the novel, she'd eventually told Arthur plainly that she'd always known he was Grey since their first encounter.
"S-sorry," I mumbled, forcing my limbs to unglue themselves. I straightened up, stepping out from my makeshift shield, finding a fragile courage.
It was a performance of normalcy, the most important of my life. As I stood there, I wondered wildly, desperately, if the faint trickle of mana from my black core could be directed not outward, but inward—to steady my trembling hands, to cool the feverish panic in my mind, to construct a better mask.
Just like with mana augmentation, but for the mind. That would be very useful.
"Please, let's sit down," Rinia said, her gaze finally releasing me to sweep over the adults. I moved robotically, following my parents to a large, cushioned couch and sitting stiffly between them, a small island of tension in the settling room.
We had barely settled when Tessia, a torrent of unfiltered life, began her report.
She launched into a breathless narrative of her latest adventures: the frog she'd tried to befriend (it had escaped), the new word she'd learned ("preposterous," used somewhat incorrectly), the time she'd hidden from her nanny in the linen closet (my secret training ground, I noted in my mind with a jolt).
The room filled with the sound of her voice, punctuated by Mom's gentle sighs, Dad's attempted corrections, Grandpa's robust chuckles, and Rinia's soft, prompting questions.
And I, for a moment, just watched.
I let the scene wash over me: the fire crackling in the hearth, painting everyone in warm, dancing light. The way my mother's hand absently came to rest on my head, her fingers smoothing my hair.
The proud, doting look in my father's eyes as he watched Tessia command the room. The easy, bantering familiarity between Grandpa and Rinia, a decades-old dance of sibling-like affection and teasing that spoke of shared history, shared loss, and enduring bond.
It was a masterpiece of ordinary happiness. A cozy, homely, and utterly beautiful scene. The love in the room was a tangible warmth, thicker than even the hearth's glow.
A genuine, unforced smile touched my lips, small and fragile. It was a good sight. A perfect sight.
Eventually, however, the cozy warmth of the room evaporated, replaced by a glacial vacuum that stole the breath from my lungs.
The cheerful crackle of the hearth became the only sound in a suddenly cavernous silence.
My family's departing footsteps faded down the hall after Mom and Dad brought an asleep Tessia to the room we would be sleeping in and Grandpa was outside to gather wood for the hearth, taking with them all my shields, all my pretenses.
I was a rabbit caught in a sudden, stark beam of light.
I had taken a step to flee, to follow the retreating sounds of safety, when her voice stopped me. Not loud, not commanding, but utterly inescapable.
"Corvis." Her tone was calm, layered with a wisdom that felt ancient and weary. "Can we talk?"
It was the phrasing itself that iced my blood. No one spoke to a three-year-old like that. It was an invitation extended to an equal, to a person, not a child. It acknowledged a consciousness within me that shouldn't exist.
"I didn't mean to scare you," she continued, and the gentleness in her voice was worse than any accusation.
It didn't patronize the scared little boy I pretended to be. It spoke directly to the terrified soul hiding inside him.
A dry, painful click sounded in my throat as I swallowed. My legs, numb and heavy, carried me back to the couch, where I sat down hard, my small body feeling like a doll's.
"You…?" I managed, the word a fragile scrap of hope that she might mean something else, anything else.
Her multihued eyes held mine, and in their depths, I saw no uncertainty, only a profound and quiet knowing. She wasted no mercy on pretense.
"Yes, Corvis," she said, her words falling with the finality of a sealing stone. "I know you are reincarnated."
The confession, so plain, so effortless detonated inside .e.
Panic is too small a word. It was a systemic collapse.
The carefully constructed prison of my deception, the walls of my performed childhood, shattered into a million glinting shards.