Tessia Eralith
The world swam back into focus with the rude insistence of something warm and persistently wet rasping across my cheek. Panic jolted through me like lightning before any thought could form. My eyes snapped open, urgency flooding every nerve.
Grey! The Phoenix Wyrm! The silent scream ripped through my mind. Instinctively, I flinched back, expecting scorching heat, the gleam of molten scales, the snap of a fiery beak, but nothing.
Instead, soft darkness filled my vision. Large, intelligent eyes peered into mine from an obsidian-scaled face inches away. A warm puff of breath hit my skin, followed by another insistent lick.
Not fire, but... dragon breath? A small, winged dragon, its form sleek and powerful despite its youth.
"Sylvie!?" My voice cracked, too loud in the sudden stillness. Relief warred with confusion. Where was the inferno? The crushing weight of the S-Class beast?
I pushed myself up slightly, wincing as a sharp ache flared across my ribs—a souvenir of the Wyrm's impact. The movement made a lock of hair fall across my shoulder. Gunmetal grey. My disguise… it was gone. Completely vanished.
My gaze darted frantically around. We were on a rocky outcrop, high on the slopes of the Grand Mountains. The air was thin and crisp, carrying the distant scent of pine and the faint, acrid tang of smoke from the gorge far below.
Kapani laid nearby on a bedroll, pale but breathing steadily, deeply unconscious. And Grey… Grey sat nearby, tending to a small campfire, his profile calm, almost serene. He looked… normal. Pale blonde hair, focused eyes, no trace of the terrifying horns, the blazing gold runes, the impossible aura of ancient power I knew I had seen. Had the heat, the terror, conjured phantoms?
"Look who's finally awake." The voice was achingly familiar, laced with its usual playful lilt, yet carrying an underlying strain. "Princess Eralith, or should I say Aria?" Goldberg stepped into view from behind a boulder, offering a weak smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. He was covered in dust, his clothes singed in places, but alive.
Alive.
"G-Goldberg?" My voice was raw, disbelief warring with burgeoning hope. I scrambled to sit fully, ignoring the protesting pain in my side, my eyes sweeping from Grey, to Goldberg, to Kapani, and finally landing on Evelyn.
She too laid curled on another bedroll, her face etched with profound exhaustion, her breathing shallow. She looked utterly drained, the vibrant water mage reduced to near stillness.
"What happened? Evelyn...?"
Goldberg crouched near the fire, poking at it with a stick. "I am an A-Class adventurer, Aria!" he declared, forcing a semblance of his old bravado. "The collapse of a lousy mine isn't enough to stop ol' Mitch!" The forced cheer faltered, replaced by weary sincerity.
"But seriously... Evelyn. She channeled everything. Created a dome of pressurized water strong enough to hold back tons of rock long enough for me to melt us a path out. She used up nearly every drop of mana she had." He gestured towards her sleeping form with profound respect. "She saved our hides."
He glanced at Grey, a flicker of something complex—awe, perhaps, mixed with a touch of disappointment—crossing his face.
"I wanted to come charging back like a hero to rescue you lot, but Grey here…" He gave a small, humorless chuckle. "Apparently didn't need the help of little me. He gandled the Phoenix Wyrm all by himself."
My attention snapped fully to Grey. Relief warred with a desperate need for understanding. Goldberg and Evelyn were alive—a miracle that sent tremors of gratitude through me. But the cost... the image of Redson, solid and brave, taking the hit meant for Grey...
"What happened?" My voice trembled. "And what about—"
Grey met my gaze. His eyes, usually so impenetrable, held a depth of weariness, a shadow I had not seen before. He silenced my frantic question with a single, steady look.
"I defeated the Phoenix Wyrm," he stated, his voice flat, devoid of triumph. It was a simple, brutal fact. "Sylvie helped me drag you and Kapani to safety." He gestured vaguely towards the majestic, albeit small, dragon now nuzzling my hand with surprising gentleness.
The unspoken name hung heavy in the thin mountain air. I couldn't avoid it. "And Redson?" The question came out barely a whisper, thick with dread.
Grey didn't flinch, but his jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. He looked down at his hands, clenched in his lap. "...He received the attack entirely." The words were clipped, final. "He died instantly. Before either of you fainted."
The admission landed like a physical blow. Confirmation of the horror I had glimpsed. Redson, was gone.
A heavy, suffocating silence descended. The crackle of the fire sounded obscenely loud. Goldberg cleared his throat, shifting uncomfortably. "W-well..." he started, his voice uncharacteristically thin, searching for words to bridge the chasm of grief. He came up empty. "You... you really have a nice bond there, Grey," he finished lamely, nodding towards Sylvie, who had moved to Grey's side. "Heh."
Grey didn't react to the forced lightness. Instead, he reached out and absently stroked Sylvie's sleek back. She rumbled softly, a deep, comforting purr that vibrated through the ground, pressing her head against his arm.
The sight was unexpectedly tender. Grey kept his gaze fixed on the flames. "I am sorry, Goldberg," he said, his voice low, stripped bare of its usual stoic armor. It wasn't just regret; it was raw, aching guilt. "I truly... wanted to save him." The defeat in his tone was startling.
The unshakeable Grey, the lone wolf adventurer who moved with the certainty of a force of nature, looked suddenly… young. Terribly, vulnerably young. Just a ten-year-old boy crushed by the weight of failure and a life he should never have had to bear.
Goldberg swallowed hard, looking down at his own dusty boots. He scrubbed a hand roughly across his face. "Don't... don't mind it, Grey," he murmured, his voice thick. "At least... at least you, Kapani, and the Princess... you're safe. That counts."
He couldn't meet Grey's eyes.
Sylvie, ever attuned to the currents of emotion, padded over to Goldberg. With surprising gentleness for a creature of her lineage, she nudged his arm and then gave his cheek a rough, affectionate lick, a low rumble emanating from her chest. It was a draconic gesture of comfort, pure and simple.
Goldberg flinched, then let out a shaky, genuine laugh, swiping at the dampness on his cheek. "Alright, alright! Point taken, you scaly menace." He managed a weak, but real, smile this time, ruffling the fur between Sylvie's horns. The moment of shared grief, however awkward, had passed, acknowledged if not healed.
He turned back to me, his gaze sharpening, the playful glint returning, though tempered by recent events. "So, Aria," he began, emphasizing the alias with a knowing smirk. "Were we really that suspicious? Suspicious enough that you felt the need to hide behind a fake name and a disguise?" He gestured towards my now-visible gunmetal hair.
"That stings, Princess. Right here." He thumped his chest theatrically, but the underlying question was serious. Why the secrecy?
Before I could formulate an answer, struggling with the sudden exposure and the whirlwind of emotions, Grey intervened.
He reached into a small pouch at his belt and pulled something out. It caught the firelight, shimmering with an inner fire. A lucent sphere, roughly the size of a child's fist. It pulsed with a mesmerizing, dangerous light, swirling bands of molten yellow, vibrant orange, and deep, blood-red shifting within its depths.
"The Phoenix Wyrm left this behind," Grey stated, holding the sphere out on his palm. Its light reflected in his impassive eyes. "I suppose this is its mana core."
Goldberg sucked in a sharp breath, all traces of levity vanishing. He leaned forward, his eyes wide with pure, unadulterated awe.
"By all the gold of Dicathen… Grey, that's… that's not just a 'fine treasure'," he breathed, his voice hushed with reverence. "That's a Phoenix Wyrm's core! Do you have any idea…?"
He trailed off, shaking his head, unable to articulate the sheer magnitude of its value. "Noble houses would bankrupt themselves for a chance at that. The Royal Family does buy every one that surfaces, paying fortunes that could sustain a family for generations! It's… it's richness incarnate!"
Grey simply looked at the pulsing sphere in his hand, his expression unchanged. The incalculable worth, the object of Goldberg's awe, seemed to hold no more significance to him than a common pebble.
"Does anyone want it?" he asked, his tone utterly casual, as if offering a spare apple. "I don't need money and I already have a Beast Will." He glanced briefly at Sylvie, who watched the core with curiosity, but strangely not with her usual appetite for mana beasts' cores. "And Sylvie doesn't want to wat it. So I have no reason to keep it."
The sheer, staggering nonchalance left me speechless. Goldberg just stared, mouth slightly agape, caught between disbelief and the dawning realization that Grey operated on a plane of existence where such treasures were mundane.
Sometimes, watching Grey, I felt a profound disconnect. He moved through this world, wielded its magic, battled its monsters, yet his perspective, his values… they felt alien.
———
The thin mountain air felt heavy with unspoken grief and lingering smoke as we finally prepared to part ways. The chaotic aftermath had settled into a grim routine.
Percival had woken in a blind panic, his shouts of pain echoing off the stark cliffs until Goldberg's steady presence and Evelyn's exhausted reassurances calmed him. We had spent somber hours combing through the scorched debris near the gorge's entrance, the acrid smell of burnt rock and something worse clinging to our clothes.
Eventually, we found only ashes—a pitifully small mound of grey dust and fused metal fragments that were all that remained of Redson. We gathered them with solemn care into a reinforced urn Goldberg had with him, a weight far heavier than its physical form. Respects had to be paid, a life acknowledged, even in such devastatingly small measure.
Evelyn, leaning heavily on Goldberg despite her protests that she was fine, offered quiet farewells, her face still pale with mana depletion. Percival, subdued and avoiding everyone's eyes, mumbled his goodbyes and practically fled down the mountain path.
Goldberg clapped Grey on the shoulder, a gesture laden with unspoken words—gratitude, sorrow, and respect. "Look after the Princess, Grey," he said, his usual levity absent. His gaze lingered on Sylvie, perched watchfully nearby, then swept over me with a look that held no accusation, only a profound weariness. "And you… take care of yourself, Aria. Or Tessia. Whichever."
Silence descended, thick and charged. Only the sigh of the wind through the pines and Sylvie's soft chuffing broke the stillness. Grey stood a few paces away, his back mostly to me, ostensibly scanning the path ahead. But the set of his shoulders was rigid, his usual calm replaced by a palpable tension.
The image of him atop the Phoenix Wyrm—horns, runes, impossible power—burned behind my eyes, as vivid as the moment it happened. The questions, held at bay by necessity and shared grief, now roared to the surface.
"So," I began, my voice cutting through the quiet, sharper than I intended. I stepped closer, forcing him to turn slightly, his grey eyes meeting mine with guarded wariness. "What was that form of yours?"
The directness made him flinch, a minute tightening around his eyes the only outward sign. "My Beast Will," he answered, the words clipped, automatic.
I held his gaze, refusing to back down. Three months. Three months of shared trails, campfires, battles against lesser beasts, watching him move with lethal grace and unsettling detachment. I knew the cadence of his silences, the subtle shift in his expression when he was calculating risk, the unnerving focus in combat. This… this felt different. Evasive.
"Are you sure?" I pressed, my voice dropping lower, intensifying. "Was that just your Beast Will?" I needed the truth. Not just about the power, but about him. Who was this boy who could stand against an S-Class mana beast and walk away? It defied everything.
"Yes," he repeated, the single syllable final, a wall slammed down. He looked away, his jaw set. He was serious, resolute in his secrecy. But the denial only fueled my determination.
"Fine," I conceded, though my tone made it clear it was anything but. A tactical retreat. "Then tell me, Mr. 'I Told You Everything'," I continued, injecting a deliberate note of teasing into my voice, though the underlying demand was steel, "what is your Beast Will, exactly?" I crossed my arms, planting my feet. A below-acceptable answer wouldn't suffice.
"A dragon's," he replied simply, his gaze flicking briefly towards Sylvie, who tilted her head curiously. It was plausible. Obvious, even, given his bond.
I let out a slow breath, the thin air whistling slightly. Plausible, but incomplete. The horns, the runes… they hadn't looked like manifestations of Sylvie's power. They looked… different.
"Fine," I said again, the word holding a different weight now. Acceptance of his answer, but not surrender. I moved to walk beside him as we finally started the long trek down toward the horses and then to Xyrus. "But know this, Grey," I added, keeping my eyes fixed on the winding path ahead, my voice firm with quiet promise.
"You will tell me everything. Sooner or later." The mountain wind carried my words as a vow. The secrets wouldn't stay buried forever. Not after this. Not with me
As we left the Grand Mountains behind, making our way toward the Adventurer's Guild in the Beast Glades, I glanced at Grey. My voice was quiet but resolute as I spoke.
"And Grey… thank you—for saving me."