Chapter 29: Dominion Within Dominion
Corvin slithered across the marshline trails of Savaryn for a time. Afterwards turned to Air elemental again as it was the lightest and fastest as of now. With the practiced ease of someone whose very stride bent to the will of elemental precision, his presence cloaked in muted pulses of wind. Beneath his calm exterior, his mind unraveled the patchwork memories recently extracted through mindwalking dozens of native Feralis. The geography, the clan structures, the tensions, the old grudges and fractured pacts. All whispered into place like puzzle pieces snapping into a brutal, coherent whole.
The Jackalkin mercenaries were ahead. He could feel it.
But first, something stirred along the shallow lake waters cradled between tree choked ridges.
He paused at the water’s edge.
Ripples fanned outward, slow and intentional.
Then, they emerged.
Slender torsos breached the surface, rising like silver blades under moonlight. The first of them, a lithe female with turquoise scales patterned like coral glass. Tilted her head in measured curiosity. Long black hair clung to her glistening chest, failing entirely to obscure the generous, full breasts that moved with her breaths like buoyant offerings to the old ocean gods.
More followed. Dozens. Mermaids and mermen from the scattered clans of Savaryn’s lakes, drawn by the unnatural pulse of Corvin’s mana signature signalling an air elemental at the moment of him finding this lovely scene. They were elegant, alien, beautiful. The males had streamlined torsos and muscular arms, their lower halves adorned in armored scales and coiling tails. Some bore heads that defied symmetry, shark mawed visages, orca like ridges, and dorsal bone crests inherited from oceanic predators.
And yet, Corvin couldn’t help but admire the females more.
Perhaps it was the way their torsos clung to symmetry, to something familiar and human enough to trick the eye. Or perhaps it was simpler. The curve of their bare breasts above rippling scales made him pause, if only for a beat, before reactivating the familiar calculus of power, anatomy, and value.
He extended his will.