Corvis Eralith
Let's be honest, Corvis—you deserve this.
I tried to open my eyes, but they felt too heavy, as if weighted down by the sheer toll of my own recklessness.
I had overused Against the Tragedy, exceeding both its mana capacity and its theoretical function.
The Ineptrune was designed to siphon mana steadily—not fire a concentrated beam like I had forced it to.
It was like running a modern application on a device three generations behind.
In other words, I short-circuited.
Both my body and my Ineptrune had shut down.
I had always known that beating Grey was impossible—even if it had been mainline Arthur, my defeat would have been humiliating. Against this Grey?
I was doomed from the start.
So instead of fighting him directly, I fought the system—the gears that dictated who would lose.
And now?
Now, I felt like absolute shit.
A saggy, massive sack of shit.
It was a miracle I was still conscious, even if my body refused to respond.
I really needed to get back to work on the Ineptrunes.
A burning sensation flared in my right forearm—Against the Tragedy might be gone.
The thought barely settled before sleep pulled me under again.
———
The sterile scent of antiseptic and healing herbs clung to the air, thick and cloying. My eyelids felt like lead shutters, but I forced them open, blinking against the soft light filtering through the infirmary window.
Blurry shapes resolved into familiar faces leaning over my bed: Mom, Dad and Tessia. Relief warred with concern on my parents' expressions, but Tessia's eyes blazed with pure, undiluted fury. Before I could even process the storm brewing on her face, it dissolved.
She lunged forward, burying her face in my chest with a choked sob.
"You are an idiot!" Her voice was muffled, thick with tears. I tried to raise my arms to hug her back, but a wave of agony lanced through me, sharp and all-encompassing.
Damn. Every muscle screamed, every joint felt shattered. My gaze instinctively dropped to my right forearm, swathed in thick, pristine bandages. Beneath them, a phantom fire raged, a deep, pulsing burn that seemed to sear down to the bone.
The memory of the mana backlash—the Ineptrune straining, shattering, the raw energy tearing through fabricated channels—sent a fresh shiver of remembered terror through me.
"I'm sorry," I rasped, the words scraping my raw throat. The genuine distress on their faces was a heavier burden than the physical pain.
"Sorry for making you worry." It was the truth, sharp and bitter. Hiding the true scope of my fight—the necessity of pushing Against the Tragedy beyond its limits to won the mock battle—felt like another betrayal. But if this pain, this fear I caused them now, spared them the unimaginable horrors of the war to come? I would endure it a thousand times over.
Mom's cool hand brushed my cheek, a gentle counterpoint to the internal inferno. "You've been asleep for three days, Corvis," she murmured, her voice a soothing balm layered over profound worry. The tenderness in her touch momentarily eclipsed the agony. Three days. Lost time. Precious time.
"Where's Grampa?" I managed, scanning the room. His imposing, reassuring presence was conspicuously absent.
"Talking with Director Goodsky," Dad answered, his usual calm demeanor strained. He leaned closer, his gaze intense, searching my face. "But Corvis… seriously. How did a scholar mage end up in the infirmary looking like he tangled with a rampaging mana beast?" The question hung heavy, demanding an explanation I couldn't fully give.
Luckily, Tessia pulled back, wiping her eyes fiercely, the fury momentarily resurfacing. "He's just stupid!" she declared, her voice cracking despite the defiance.
Mom arched an elegant eyebrow, a flicker of familiar teasing momentarily cutting through the tension. "Oh? Weren't you the one crying rivers just hours ago, calling him every endearment under the sun? Now it's 'stupid'?"
Tessia flushed crimson, sputtering. Dad, however, pressed the point, his gaze unwavering. "Scholar mage, Corvis. How does that translate to… this?" He gestured vaguely at my bandaged form.
Panic fluttered weakly. Body pushed into overdrive, prosthetic magic channeling destructive forces it wasn't designed for… The truth was impossible. My finger jabbed weakly towards Tessia. "She dragged me into it. Her fault." A weak deflection, but the best I had.
Tessia stuck her tongue out, a flash of normalcy in the sterile room. They stayed a little longer, Mom fussing, Dad watching me with that thoughtful, worried gaze. Their presence, the sheer fact they had carved time from the relentless demands of the Council to be here, warmed a cold place deep inside me. I thanked them, the gratitude profound and unspoken, before duty inevitably called them away.
As the door clicked shut, leaving Tessia and me in the quiet hum of the infirmary, I turned to her. "How's the Beast Will integration going?" I asked, shifting the focus.
"Good," she said, a spark of pride lighting her eyes before dimming slightly. "Slow, though. Haven't made much progress."
"Tess," I said gently, "you absorbed it only days ago. Grampa spent years reaching full integration. Don't rush it. Mastery isn't a sprint." The worry was there—the corruption was gone, but the Elderwood Guardian's will was still potent, complex. Rushing it could be disastrous.
The door creaked open again. Grey stood silhouetted in the doorway, Sylvie a silver blur launching past him. She landed squarely on my chest with a chirp, her tiny claws pricking through the thin infirmary gown.
"Oof—ouch!" The impact sent fresh jolts of pain through my bruised ribs. "I'm fine, Sylvie, really… mostly."
Grey stepped fully into the room, his usual impassive mask firmly in place, but the tightness around his eyes betrayed him. He stopped a few feet from the bed, his gaze fixed on the bandages covering my forearm.
"Corvis," he began, his voice low, almost rough. "I'm sorry. I knew… I knew you were going to do something reckless like that. Push too far. And I still let you do it." The guilt in his voice was unexpected, raw. "I should have stopped you."
A weak chuckle escaped me, mingling with a wince. "I don't know whether to feel touched you were worried or insulted you thought I'd be reckless." I tried to inject lightness, but it fell flat.
He flinched almost imperceptibly. "I didn't mean—" He cut himself off, took a breath, his gaze finally meeting mine. The stoic king was gone. In his place was Grey, the boy burdened by too much. "I'm just… glad you're okay." The simple admission held immense weight.
"Aren't you two asocials just adorable?" Tessia interjected, her earlier fury replaced by a soft, affectionate smirk. She scooped Sylvie up before the fox could cause more unintentional damage. "All this heartfelt brooding." Sylvie chirped in apparent agreement, nuzzling Tessia's chin.
"Well," Tessia announced, setting Sylvie down gently, "duty calls. Student Council President has responsibilities, unlike some reckless princes." She shot me a look that was half-exasperation, half-relief.
"Try not to break yourself even more while I'm gone." With a final squeeze of my good hand, she slipped out, leaving Grey, Sylvie, and me in the quiet infirmary.
The silence stretched, thick with unspoken things. My gaze drifted back to my bandaged forearm. Slowly, carefully, I began to peel back the wrappings. Grey watched, silent. The bandages fell away, revealing the angry, livid scar beneath. It wasn't just a burn; it was a ruin.
Twisted, puckered flesh, dark red and mottled purple, radiating heat even now. A brutal testament to the price of channeling forces beyond my body's capacity. The intricate lines of Against the Tragedy were utterly obliterated, swallowed by the damage.
"And I'm sorry," Grey repeated, his voice even softer now, his eyes fixed on the ruin of my arm. "You lost that… Ineptrune." He stumbled slightly over the unfamiliar word.
"I'll remake it," I said, trying to sound dismissive, but the sight of the scar, the phantom agony throbbing beneath it, made the words hollow. I covered the disfigurement again, the rough fabric a poor shield. "Still hurts like hellfire."
"You said you used beast cores to make the ink, right?" Grey asked abruptly, his gaze shifting from my arm to the storage ring gleaming dully on his finger.
I nodded, curiosity momentarily overriding the pain. "Shattered ones, mostly. Low-grade. Why?"
He hesitated. A profound conflict played out across his face, visible only in the slight tightening of his jaw, the flicker of pain deep in his eyes. His hand hovered over his storage ring, trembling almost imperceptibly.
Sylvie, sensing his turmoil, padded over and pressed her small body against his leg, looking up at him with worried violet eyes. She let out a soft, questioning whine probably asking him something through their mental bond.
Grey closed his eyes for a brief moment, a muscle ticking in his jaw. Then, with a resolve that seemed to cost him dearly, he shook his head sharply, as if silencing an internal argument. A soft chime sounded as mana flowed, and an object materialized in his outstretched hand.
It wasn't a core; it was a relic. Larger than any beast core I had ever seen, easily the size of his fist. It wasn't vibrant with mana, but its very substance radiated a latent, ancient power. Pure, polished white, like bleached bone under moonlight, streaked through with deep, swirling veins of royal purple. It was cold to look at, beautiful and profoundly sad.
My breath hitched. Sylvia's Mana Core. The heart of the dragon who saved him, who gave Sylvie life. The weight of history, sacrifice, and Grey's deepest loss rested in that inert sphere.
He offered it to me, his arm steady, but his eyes were turbulent seas. "Take it," he said, the words thick with emotion he usually kept locked away. "I'm sure you can… do far more with it than I ever could."
The gesture was staggering. He wasn't just offering a powerful material; he was offering a piece of his past, a symbol of his deepest wound.
"Grey," I breathed, recoiling slightly despite the pain it caused. "I can't accept this." The enormity of it was crushing. This wasn't a tool; it was a sacred artifact of his personal history.
He didn't withdraw his hand. Instead, his gaze locked onto mine, intense, searching. "You know what this is," he stated, not asked. Understanding dawned in his eyes. "Then that's another reason for you to take it. It holds no mana now, just… potential. Residue. But you, Corvis… you see potential where others see only scrap. You make things." He pushed the core slightly closer. "Please."
"Grey, that's too important—" I started, my voice cracking.
He cut me off, not harshly, but with a raw honesty that silenced me utterly. "Corvis," he began, his voice low, each word carefully chosen, weighted with years of isolation. "Seeing how much you know… about Alacrya, about… me… you probably know me better than I know myself sometimes." He glanced towards the door where Tessia had left, then down at Sylvie leaning against him. "Tessia, you, Sylvie… you're all I have left in this life. Truly have."
He paused, his gaze drifting to the white-streaked purple core in his hand, seeing not just an object, but a ghost.
"After Sylvia… died," the word was a jagged edge, "and I got to Dicathen… all I felt was rage. Just… pure, burning hate. For Agrona. For the world. For myself." He looked at Sylvie, a flicker of warmth softening the bleakness.
"Sylvie was my anchor. My only light. Then… Tessia." A faint, almost imperceptible smile touched his lips. "She just… bulldozed her way into my life. Annoying, persistent, impossible to ignore. A good friend." He met my eyes again, the intensity returning. "And then… you."
He took a shaky breath. "At first… when Cynthia told me what you knew? Honestly? I wanted to grab you, shake the information out of you. Threaten you if necessary. Anything to get what I needed." The admission was stark, brutal in its honesty. "But… I remembered what I promised Sylvia. To be… better. Not let the rage win. So I talked. Civilly." A ghost of his earlier smirk appeared, humorless.
"That was the best decision I ever made in this life."
He stepped closer, the core still offered. "With you… I can talk. Really talk. About Alacrya. About Taegrin Caelum. About the things I saw, the things I had to do. The things that… haunt me." His voice dropped to a near whisper.
"Cynthia… she cares. But she looks at me and sees the Vritra blood. She sees the power she grew up tl respect and fear. She sees something… other. She treats me with a distance, a kind of reverence I don't want. But you…" He gestured vaguely at me, bandaged and broken in the infirmary bed. "You see me. Grey. And not just the Grey in front of you, but the me inside. You know the darkness, and you don't flinch. You just… strategize around it."
He swallowed hard, the vulnerability in his eyes almost unbearable. "What I'm trying to say, Corvis… is you're my friend. My first real friend in this life... maybe ever." I felt great pain in that last admission.
"And Tessia… Sylvie… you're my anchors now. I lost Sylvia. I couldn't save her. I couldn't…" His voice broke, just for a fraction of a second. He looked down at the core, his knuckles white where he held it.
"I couldn't hold it together then. I don't think I could hold it together if I lost any of you. So… take this." He pushed the core firmly into my bandaged hand. "Take Sylvia's core. Use it. Make something… good from it. Something that protects. Something she would be…" He struggled for the word. "...proud of. You're the only one who can."
I was utterly speechless. The cold, smooth weight of the dragon's core settled into my palm. It felt impossibly heavy, not physically, but with the weight of Grey's trust, his grief, his desperate hope.
The sheer magnitude of what he has just given—not just an object, but a piece of his shattered heart, a symbol of his greatest failure and loss, entrusted to me—stole my breath.
What words could possibly suffice? Thanks? It was a pebble thrown into an ocean of significance. He hadn't bestowed a gift; he had entrusted me with a sacred relic of his very soul's journey.
He seemed to sense my overwhelmed silence, my inability to articulate the storm within me. A flicker of his usual dry humor surfaced, a fragile shield against the profound intimacy of the moment.
"Besides," he said, his voice regaining a semblance of its normal cadence, though softer, "now we're even. You gave me Dawn's Ballad. I gave you… well. Sylvia." He gestured to the core.
The attempt at levity was clumsy, but it broke the suffocating intensity. A weak, shaky laugh escaped me, mingling with a fresh wave of pain and overwhelming emotion.
"I… I guess so," I managed, my voice hoarse. I looked down at the core in my hand. The white, marbled with deep, eternal purple. Silent. Empty of mana, yet thrumming with the echoes of dragon's might, sacrifice, and a boy king's desperate love.
This core wasn't just a tool; it was Grey's heart, offered freely. And I would guard it, and forge it into something worthy, with everything I had. The path ahead was darker than ever, but in that infirmary room, holding the heart of a fallen dragon given by a resurrected king, I felt an unshakeable bond solidify.