I'm weak

corlis 

The night had swallowed the last tails of light, and the sky was a dark gray, as if bracing for rain. The air was cold, but not enough to cool the heat of sweat running down Nile's forehead.

Each drop carried the weight of what he had done, and what lay ahead.

He slipped silently through the back alleys. paths that had once been mere side routes to him, now turned into arteries of survival.

He moved like a pale shadow between the stones, afraid even his own breath might betray him.

Nile was no longer the knight who walked among crowds with his head held high…

Now, he was a fugitive. A trespasser. A stranger in his own city.

The upper tier of the capital, once his playground, had become a narrow cage.

He never imagined he'd be forced to crawl behind walls like a common criminal.

Guards were stationed at every corner, at every turn. And it wasn't just the regular city watch, he spotted emblems of the Storm Division itself.

All routes were blocked. The central stairway had become a trap lined with guards, and the elevator that once carried him from sky-touching heights to water-kissed depths was now crawling with watching eyes.

Using any of those usual paths now meant capture. There was no more room for maneuver… or time.

Only one option remained: Jumping from the edge of the upper tier, one full gradient above sea level.

A towering drop separating two worlds:

The world of kings and nobles, where everything was fake yet soft. and the world of water, salt, and iron, where reality lived, among the amphibian commoners.

But what consumed Nile's thoughts at that moment, as he moved between shadows and wind, was just one thing: Corlis.

The darkness had already devoured the city, and the time he'd set for himself had passed.

But Nile had forgotten. And now, he didn't know, was Corlis still in the hiding place? Or had he already left?

That silence, that not knowing, pressed on his chest .

Every step he took, every gasp of his labored breath, carried only one question: Was I too late?

Nile stood at the edge of the wall, cold wind playing with his hair and stinging his sweat- and dust-covered face, while his eyes stared downward where the city lights sparkled at sea level like scattered flames.

The sea waters surrounding the city had lost their blue. now turned dark. The city below looked calm, unaware of what stirred in secret.

Nile took a deep breath, filling his lungs with the night air, as if preparing to dive into his fate. His fingers clenched tightly around the hilt of his sword, and his knee bent slightly in readiness to launch.Then, he leapt from the edge.

In that moment, his body became part of the night. His black cloak fluttered like a broken wing in the wind, merging with the thick shadows that had swallowed the city.

The wind whistled around him, screaming in his ears, while his eyes remained fixed on the glittering lights below as if they were calling to him.

His feet finally touched the ground after a few seconds spent soaring through the air,

then he dashed forward, leaping lightly across rooftops.

His eyes were sharp, alert, scanning every corner and shadow in all directions.

Hopefully, Hammer wasn't following him or hadn't sent someone else to track him secretly and discover the prince's location. After all, he didn't trust him.

 Nile's heart beat like war drums, and each leap brought him closer to an end whose shape he couldn't yet see.

And finally, the building appeared before him. Bleak, lifeless, its upper window shattered like a blind eye staring into the void.

He raised his eyes toward it and muttered in a voice tinged with worry: "I hope I'm not too late."

He rushed inside, skipping entire steps on the staircase, ascending in leaps, as if fleeing from a regret chasing him.

He shoved the top door open so hard it nearly flew off its hinges, panting, his chest rising and falling like waves, his eyes wide, scanning every corner.

The silence was thick, suffocating, but it didn't last long.

It shattered the moment he entered, accompanied by his ragged breath and the dust particles stirred into the room's darkness.

The prince was no longer in the room where Nile had left him. Something about the emptiness left behind by his absence rang an alarm bell deep within him.

He called out his name loudly, his voice echoing through the stone corridors as if the walls themselves were replying with cold sarcasm .

His heart began to beat with an irregular rhythm. He rushed inside, passing between the stone columns, calling again: "Corlis! Corlis!"

The place was empty. The silence heavier than the air, and the shadow deeper than the darkness.

There was a powerful feeling—an inner sense that time had betrayed him... that he was far too late.

He clenched his fist violently until the veins in his forearm showed, his teeth grinding against each other as he struck the column with a fist full of rage and guilt,

cursing himself under his breath.

He said :"I'm late... damn it, I'm far too late."

But before he could sink deeper into that despair, a voice cut through the stillness like a sudden flash: "Nile? Is that you?"

 It was a voice he knew. Familiar. Fragile. But present.

Nile turned quickly, his eyes searching the darkness like someone looking for life in the middle of ruin.

Prince Corlis moved toward him with quick steps, as if his body had rushed into an embrace before his mind could catch up, as if he had found in Nile the last remnants of safety crumbling within him since their farewell.

His arms were trembling, his breath uneven, and when his voice came out, it was fragile, choked, soaked with tears he had failed to suppress.

"Nile..." he said in a tearful, strangled voice,

"I thought I had lost you too… I was so afraid, afraid even to breathe…

I sat in this place for hours, counting the moments, trying to convince myself you'd come back.

but every time more time passed without you arriving, I collapsed a little more."

His voice tightened as he added,: "I can't do anything alone. I can't even stand without feeling like the ground will swallow me. I'm weak, Ni6l… so weak, and… I hate myself for it.

This weakness... it's what cost my mother her life.

it's what made me freeze while everything collapsed around me. I never deserved to be a D gar. I was nothing but a mistake.

I should've just been an ordinary merman, no prince, no heir, nothing!"

Nile's face slowly shifted into an expression of sorrow. He didn't need words to understand what Corlis was going through. That emptiness in his gaze,

the break in his voice, the tremble in his body.

He knew that feeling well. the world had abandoned him. Now they were in the same boat, facing the same storm, carrying the same weight on their backs.

Corlis pulled away from the embrace slowly, as if tearing himself out of it. He lowered his head.

He didn't want Nile to see his eyes as they had become wilted eyes, stripped of their once vibrant green, as if despair had dried up their roots.

His face looked like a ghost of his former self—pale, exhausted,with dark circles beneath his eyes, as if he were no longer a twelve-year-old child, but an old man from whom time had been stolen.

Nile exhaled slowly, as if expelling something heavy from his chest, then closed his eyes briefly, trying to regain what little composure he had left. Inside, he wished he could cry, just to ease some of the fire burning within his soul.

But he didn't.

It wasn't the time for weakness. It was time to be the pillar this lost boy could lean on.

Nile knelt in front of him until they were eye to eye, then took Corlis's hands in his own. warm looking at him with steady, gentle eyes, and said with a deep, brotherly voice :"I'm here now. There's no need to worry."

Corlis spoke with a trembling voice,

as if the words were forced out of his throat,damp with tears that had not yet dried: "Will you stay by my side… always?"

Nile didn't hesitate. He simply nodded, smiling, a quiet smile filled with resolve, as if speaking directly to Corlis's trembling heart.

Then he said in a soft voice: "I'm your knight, prince Corlis. Staying by your side, protecting you, standing with you no matter what happens…That's what I live for."

He paused briefly, then added in a deeper tone, planting seeds of strength in the cracked soil of Corlis's spirit: "This pain…

this nightmare you're going through . may just be the beginning. The start of your path to strength, to the change you've always wanted."

Corlis turned his eyes away from Nile, as if looking at him had become too heavy amid the noise of sorrow, then stood up slowly.

He wiped the remaining tears from his cheeks with his sleeve, as if trying to shed the image of weakness unfit for a prince.

He said in a broken voice, laced with bitter sorrow: "What good is change now? If it comes too late… after everything's already gone."

Nile stood up straight, then said with firm conviction: "It's not too late. the queen…

she didn't want you to be a hopeless prince hiding in the shadows. She wanted you to be a king. a great king who unites the four seas kingdoms.

Even though the queen is gone, her will isn't. Her voice still whispers within us. So will you ignore her final wish?

Will you let her dream die with her?"

Corlis clenched his fist so tightly that his forearm trembled, his fingers digging into the fabric of his robe like someone desperate to grab onto something to keep from collapsing inward.

His chest rose and fell in an uneven rhythm,

his head tilted slightly toward the wall, not looking at Nile or responding, but staring at the cracked surface before him.

 On the wall, a web of fine cracks had formed, like trails of ants etched through crumbling stone. its strength eaten away from within. And the longer Corlis looked at those fractures, the more he felt that the wall was a hidden mirror of what was happening inside him.

the fractures in his heart, the fragility of his will, and the brokenness he tried so hard to pretend didn't exist.

Corlis slowly turned toward Nile. He spoke in a low, but clear and direct voice, devoid of the tremor that used to cling to it: "Did… anyone announce the queen's death? And… did you get to see your family?"

Nile sighed slowly, as if the question had returned the weight of the world to his shoulders, then sat heavily on the floor,

his back against the cold wall, his muscles still aching from the fight with Hammer.

His left shoulder was tight, and a red welt wrapped around his neck, telling the story of the chain that nearly strangled him— a war mark that couldn't be hidden.

"No… nothing's been announced yet. Only the council knows."

He fell silent for a moment, then lowered his head, his eyes watching the hard ground beneath him: "My meeting with my family…"

He sighed, his lips trembling slightly as he let out the next sentence from deep within his bitterness: "It wasn't what I expected.

I thought it would bring me back to life, but it felt like a piece of hell. In a narrow cell, in a dark, cold spot, a rusty metal fence between us... and the smell the stench of mold, dampness, and betrayal gnawed at my nose and clung to my soul."

Nile lifted his head and looked back at Corlis. His gaze carried something heavier than words. a mixture of suppressed sorrow and inner fracture, hidden beneath the mask of a knight used to enduring.

"They've arrested the entire garow family.... They're now in a damp cell beneath Summit Palace. vortex is trying to extract something they don't even have."

Corlis lowered his head, his features paling as if the last trace of warmth had been drained from him.

What he heard was enough to drown him deeper in the swamp of guilt.

Then he said:"I see… All of this was orchestrated by vortex. He wanted to pin the blame on you—right in front of the council, didn't he?"

He paused for a moment, then continued in a faint voice, as though speaking from within himself: "When my mother was attacked… the moment she was stabbed. my mind went blank. All I did was cling to her body, as if refusing to let her go.

I wasn't thinking about anything, not the guards, not the danger, not the kingdom.

I was just a child holding onto a dying world."

He sighed slowly, lifting his glassy eyes,

his voice carrying a tone of heartbreak: "But her eyes, when she looked at me…they were still. It was as if she had accepted death. She didn't cling to me, didn't fight to live, as if she had chosen to go."

Corlis walked toward Nile with slow steps, weighed down more by inner exhaustion than physical fatigue. His steps stirred a soft layer of dust on the damp floor, while behind them, rain fell silently.

real rain, descending on the world, but unable to enter the city because of the transparent barrier.

Corlis sat beside Nile without saying a word. He hugged his knees to his chest, as if trying to shield himself from a cold that didn't come from the outside, but rose from within.

They both stared in the same direction, toward that abandoned house. Its features were weathered, the wall paint peeled off, and broken glass in the windows swayed with the wind, like the thorns of memory.

It was a house in need of repair—just like their spirits.

Corlis finally spoke, with a tone that carried both reflection and bitterness: "That night…

I heard the sound of glass breaking. I wasn't sure of anything, but now I realize… the killer must've attacked from outside the palace."

Nile grabbed a handful of dust gathered in the corner of the wall and began fiddling with it absentmindedly, as if searching in its particles for an answer, or distracting himself from the weight of truth.

His voice came out faint, almost like a whisper in a room breathing silence: "It's certain it was one of the Successors. I have no doubt. What they did… a normal person couldn't possibly manage it."

Corlis slowly turned toward him, as if his mind had been triggered by the word "Successors."

 He stared at an invisible point on the decaying wall, then spoke in a tone that mixed astonishment with quiet questioning: "But… isn't using abilities inside the city forbidden?

Activating any kind of supernatural energy here… is supposed to be suicide, isn't it?"

He paused for a moment, then continued with a sharper tone, as if reciting a lesson engraved in his memory since childhood: "The Law Thorn System suspended above the dome... is a security invention that disperses thousands of invisible cubes, each one silently infiltrating the skull of any person who crosses the city gate."

He went silent, as if what he was about to say was unbelievable. Then he continued in a lower voice, as if revealing a terrifying secret: "The moment the system senses the formation of energy... those cubes detonate and transform into pure energy thorns, piercing your forehead from front and back at the same time. You die instantly. No warning."

Nile nodded in agreement with what Corlis said, then added in a voice laced with analytical depth: "That's true… but the Law Thorn System isn't a random weapon. it's selective.

It doesn't react to just any energy, only when that energy hits a certain threshold, a level classified as a direct threat to city security. This means only those with large-scale destructive powers are targeted.

But those with non-offensive abilities, or limited or hidden effects… the system simply overlooks them."

Nile grabbed his chin and ran his fingers slowly along it, as if searching for an answer in the folds of his skin, or perhaps trying to ground his scattered thoughts.

His eyes were lost, staring into the void ahead without truly seeing what was around him.

It looked like he was diving deep into his own mind, analyzing in silence, connecting the dots.

then he spoke, like someone thinking aloud to himself: "He managed to find the hierarchy Arrow… the weapon whose location was known only to my father, and was placed inside a vault sealed with an eye-scan system— yet he opened it as if it were his. And I lost my vision entirely for a few seconds."

He lowered his head for a moment, then continued with a voice that carried a tone of certainty: "All the details… they all point in one direction. The assassin vortex sent must have an ability related to vision."

Corlis slowly raised his head and looked at the cracked ceiling, his eyes suspended in space, not searching for a clear answer، but speaking of being utterly lost.

His voice came out tired, wounded, as if speaking to fate or calling out to the unseen: "What are we going to do now, Nile ?"

Nile sighed, his breath heavier than usual, as if each exhale carried betrayal, grief, and a fatigue too deep to be seen: "I'll try to gather information on people with similar abilities. We may have to leave the city."

He said it without elaborating. No plans. No details. Just a future postponed— perhaps waiting for something: a lead, an opening, or simply some relief from all this hell.

Corlis then felt his eyelids grow heavier than he could bear. His eyes had resisted sleep for hours, but his body was finally giving out.

It had been more than a day and a half with no real rest. Emotional and physical pain, the tension of escape, memories of the queen, the image of blood, and the sting of guilt… they had all piled upon him.

He leaned his body slightly and, without even realizing it, rested his head on Nile's shoulder. a silence settled over the space, not awkward, but painfully genuine.

Nile didn't move, didn't speak. He just closed his eyes for a moment, feeling the weight of Corlis on his shoulder.

The weight of a prince, but at that moment… just a frightened boy, tired of everything.

Both of them were exhausted. an abandoned house, a fractured memory, a world of danger closing in, and a fragile wall of silence surrounding them.

There was nothing left to say, just the sound of raindrops striking the transparent dome that covered the city, as if the entire city were living in a bubble of lies… waiting to burst.