Corvis Eralith
This stuff doesn't come off!
The curse was silent, trapped behind clenched teeth as I continued my futile war against the makeup of Finn Warend.
The towel in my hands—already damp, already stained with layers of whatever alchemical compound Olfred had used to transform me—scraped against my skin until it was raw and red. Nothing. The pigment held like it had been woven into my very flesh.
We had traveled back through the desert, retracing our path across those endless sands, and now I sat again on the lonely stool in the center of the staff room of Stonebound Tomes.
The shop was quiet, the dwarven elder who managed it presumably occupied elsewhere, and I was alone with my frustration and a face that refused to be mine again.
The contact lenses came out easily enough—a few blinks, a bit of that strange liquid that felt like watered silk, and my teal eyes were back, staring at me from the small mirror propped against a crate.
My hair, returned to its natural gunmetal with the help of something that smelled vaguely of soap and very specifically of magic, now hung in damp strands around my shoulders.
But my face. My face. The skin that should have been pale elven complexion was still that dusky, earthen tone.
The pointed ears I knew were hidden beneath my hair remained stubbornly rounded. Finn Warend's features clung to me like a ghost refusing to leave its haunting.
"Are you done?" Olfred's voice preceded him as the door opened.
He had been speaking with the dwarven elder lady who managed the shop—discussing whatever business needed discussing, whatever explanations needed explaining for our extended absence and dramatic return.
"The stuff you put on my face won't come off." I demonstrated by rubbing the towel against my cheek so hard I winced. The skin reddened. The color remained.
Olfred sighed. It was a heavy sound, laden with the particular exhaustion of a man who had spent days babysitting a suicidal prince and now had to deal with cosmetic complaints.
He moved to a nearby crate—one of many containing the various materials sold in Stonebound Tomes—and rummaged for a moment. When he turned back, he was holding something that made my blood run cold.
A chisel.
"What do you want to do?" The question came out higher than intended, suspicious and slightly shrill.
"Isn't it clear?" He raised the chisel, examining its edge with professional detachment. "I will scrub the makeup off properly."
"Don't you dare come near my face with that thing!" The yell escaped before I could stop it, pure unfiltered child pouring out of a mouth that had, moments ago, been contemplating the weight of destiny and death.
Olfred stared at me. The expression on his weathered face was something I had never seen before—a mixture of bewilderment and barely-contained amusement that looked almost painful on features so accustomed to stoicism.
"You are being serious." It wasn't a question. "You just ventured into a dungeon that would make most mages soil themselves from a kilometer away. You faced Phoenix Wyrms and you are afraid of a chisel?"
"I am not afraid of a chisel!" The protest was immediate, indignant, and completely undercut by the way I instinctively leaned away from the implement in his hand.
The child in me—that stubborn, irrational, four-year-old child—refused to surrender this point, no matter how ridiculous it made me look.
"Then let me work." Olfred crouched in front of me, and before I could protest further, the chisel was against my skin.
Not cutting—never cutting—but scraping, precise and gentle, lifting the edge of that stubborn makeup in a way my frantic toweling never could.
I held my breath. I held perfectly still. And slowly, minute by minute, Finn Warend peeled away.
When it was done, I raised my hand to my face, fingers tracing cheekbones that felt like mine again. The skin was slightly tender from the scraping, but it was my skin.
My face. Corvis Eralith stared back from the mirror, and for the first time in what felt like years—though it had been less than a week—I recognized myself.
I massaged my cheeks, feeling the familiar contours, the natural give of flesh that belonged to me and only me.
The journey to the Red Gorge, the death, the "resurrection," the battle, the survival—it all seemed to belong to another person now.
A person named Finn, who had worn my face like a mask and done things I still couldn't fully process.
"What are you going to do with your hair?"
The question caught me off guard. I blinked at Olfred, surprised that he would ask something so... trivial. So unlike the practical, mission-focused Lance I had come to know.
I looked at my hair. Since my reincarnation, since becoming Corvis Eralith, I had never worn it short. But now they were as I have cut them before departing.
"They will regrow." I said. "I'll tell my family I wanted to... try new things."
Olfred nodded, accepting the lie for what it was. He turned to leave, and I felt a sudden, unexpected pang.
When would I see him again? And when I did, would he still be the ally I had come to trust, or would he have become something else—something closer to the traitor the novel had warned me about?
"Give my thanks to Elder Rahdeas." My hand tightened around the storage ring on my finger, the one containing the Phoenix Wyrm's core. "Words can't express how grateful I am."
"I will." Simple. Direct. Olfred.
"Bye, Damien..." The name felt strange now, stripped of its context, but I used it anyway.
He paused at the door. For a moment, I thought I saw it—the barest twitch at the corner of his mouth, the faintest suggestion of a smirk on features that rarely showed anything.
"See you, Prince." He met my eyes. "Who knows? Maybe we'll see each other sooner than you expect."
Then he was gone, and I was alone with my stolen core and my borrowed time. I left Stonebound Tomes not too long after.
I found Albold first.
The cover story needed reinforcing—my family thought I had spent my absence with him, while Albold thought I have been ostensibly searching for a dueling cane that never materialized. It was a weak lie, but it was the lie we had agreed on, and Albold played his part perfectly.
I hated how easy it was to convince him. I hated how grateful I was that he made it so easy.
Then, finally, finally, I stood before the Royal Palace.
Home.
The word resonated in my chest as I looked up at the Watchful Willow that housed the welcoming hall. For all its daunting size, for all the oppressive weight of expectation and duty that pressed down from its branches, this was still where I belonged. Where I had been born. Where my family waited.
A flock of birds caught my eye—swallows, I thought, flitting from branch to branch in that endless, purposeless dance that birds seemed to find so fulfilling. Their movements were chaotic, joyful, utterly free.
And among them, incongruous and somehow beautiful, was a robin.
Its breast was the color of dying embers, its feathers an ashen grey that should have marked it as out of place among the sleek swallows. But it flew with them, darted with them, belonged with them in a way that made no logical sense and yet felt absolutely right.
I watched it for a long moment, and something in my chest eased. My heart, which had been hammering since I set foot in Zestier, slowed to something approaching normal. The weight on my shoulders, while still present, felt slightly less crushing.
A robin among swallows. Thinking itself one of them.
I knew how that felt.
The corridors of the palace wrapped around me like a familiar embrace. I walked quickly, quietly, my mind already racing ahead. First: hide the beast core somewhere safe. Second: return the stolen storage ring to Grandpa's study without being detected.
Third: find my family and pretend that everything was normal, that I hadn't spent the past week courting death in a dungeon.
I was so focused on my plan that I almost walked straight into her.
"Your Highness."
Alea's voice was honey-sweet, her smile warm and welcoming. But behind that smile, behind those gentle blue eyes, something lurked. Something that made my blood run cold.
Oh no.
My mind raced through possibilities, each one worse than the last. Had Alwyn been discovered by his sister? Had he awakened while I was gone? Had my parents found out about my absence?
"Hello, Alea!" The cheer in my voice was artificial, brittle. "I'm back!"
"This I see." She stepped closer, and I felt like a mouse watching a cat approach. "Can we talk about my little brother?"
I gulped. The sound was audible, embarrassing, utterly damning. "You... discovered?"
"I did." She nodded, and the confirmation hit me like a physical blow.
"You're... you're not angry, right?" The question was pathetic, wheedling, the plea of a child caught in a lie.
Alea smiled. It was a real smile, genuine and warm, and somehow that made it worse. "No, I'm not angry." A pause. "I'm just... disappointed."
The word landed like a knife. Disappointed. Of all the reactions I had anticipated—anger, betrayal, punishment—this was the one I hadn't prepared for.
"What do you mean?" Another gulp. Another desperate search for words that wouldn't come.
In my head, I was already apologizing. I hadn't meant to break my promise. I hadn't meant to go behind her back. But Alwyn—sweet, loyal, deserving Alwyn—had wanted so badly to be a mage. How could I have denied him?
"Nothing." Alea crouched in front of me, bringing herself to my level. Her hand rose, and I flinched instinctively—but it only landed on my head, patting gently with a tenderness I didn't understand. "It's not you I'm disappointed in."
She noticed my hair then, her eyes taking in the shortened length. "You cut your hair." The observation was delivered with a smile, but I saw through it. She was deflecting. Hiding something.
"Alea... what's wrong?" I forced the words out, building courage from somewhere deep.
She looked down. For a long moment, she didn't speak. When she finally raised her eyes to meet mine, there was something in them I had never seen before—a vulnerability, a rawness, that stripped away the composed maid and revealed something far more human beneath.
"You are just a better brother to Alwyn than I have ever been a sister to him." The words came slowly, each one seemingly painful to voice. "He is so happy, Your Highness. He is so... full of life. I can't thank you enough. I never will be able to."
I stared at her, speechless. Why? The question echoed in my mind. Why did people keep telling me I was special? Why did they thank me for simply... being? For doing what anyone with a heart would do?
I needed to change the subject. The weight of her gratitude was crushing me.
"Where are my parents?" I asked, the question abrupt and probably obvious.
"King Alduin is in the throne room." Alea's composure returned, her professional mask sliding back into place. "Queen Merial is in the gardens." She anticipated my next question with the precision of someone who knew me too well. "Elder Virion and Princess Tessia are in his study."
Perfect. The study—Grandpa's study, where the storage ring I had "borrowed" belonged. If I could sneak in while they were there, use the chaos of reunion as cover, I might just pull this off.
"Could you tell Grandpa I'm back?" I asked. "Tell him I'm waiting for him and Tessia in the main hall?"
Alea's eyes glinted with something that might have been amusement. "Is this another plan of yours, Your Highness?"
"It is."
"Consider it done, then."
She rose, smoothed her maid's uniform, and walked away without another word. Leaving me alone in the corridor with my stolen core, my borrowed ring, and the impossible weight of gratitude from people who had no idea what I had really done.
I took a breath. Then another.
Then I moved.
The study awaited. The ring needed to be returned. And my family waited, unaware that the boy returning to them had died and come back.
I was Corvis Eralith. I was Finn Warend. I was a child and a soldier and a stranger in my own skin.
And I was home.
A/N:
With this ends the second arc of RE: Corvis Eralith.
The next arc will be the last arc of Volume 1.