Reincarnated as an Elf Prince

The halls of House Valciel stretched long and silent. Cold, polished stone.

The faint scent of alchemical reagents clinging to the air, impossible to place—something bitter, something metallic. The kind of smell that stayed in the lungs.

Lindarion walked without hesitation, but his mind was already dissecting every piece of information given.

A former alchemist. An experiment gone wrong. A mind that was no longer human, but not yet lost.

And a problem House Valciel could not solve alone.

Cassian exhaled loudly beside him, rubbing the back of his neck. "So, just to be clear, we're dealing with some kind of half-immortal, half-mad alchemist who's hiding in ancient ruins beneath the city?"

Luneth didn't look at him. "That is what was said."

Cassian let out a small laugh, the kind people made when they realized they were in deeper than they wanted to be. "Right. Good. Just making sure I didn't imagine it."

The attendant leading them didn't so much as glance back. He moved with the same quiet efficiency as the rest of the house, his dark robes swaying slightly with each step.

Then, just as Cassian opened his mouth again—

"We're here."

The doors ahead of them were different from the rest of the estate. Not wood, but reinforced iron. Etched with protective sigils.

Lindarion's gaze flickered over the symbols, cataloging them in an instant. Wards. Strong ones.

The attendant pressed a hand against the center of the door, and with a low, grinding sound, the mechanisms unlocked.

A laboratory. No—an archive.

Bookshelves lined the walls, filled with tomes bound in leather and metal.

Papers were stacked in careful disorder, alongside vials of preserved samples, floating in thick, shimmering liquid.

The air carried the weight of knowledge. And, beneath it, the faintest tension of something restrained.

'It's mysterious.'

Lindarion stepped inside first.

Luneth followed, her eyes scanning the contents of the shelves.

Cassian hesitated only slightly before stepping in after them. "So. What exactly are we looking for?"

Lindarion glanced at the attendant.

The man stepped forward, gesturing toward a section of the room where several books and documents had already been placed on a long, sturdy table.

"These contain the records of the experiments conducted in the lower depths. Everything Lady Valciel deemed relevant."

Cassian's brows rose. "You're telling me she just handed over classified alchemy secrets? Just like that?"

The attendant gave a small, measured smile. "She handed over what was necessary."

Which meant that somewhere, in this room, in all these pages and vials, were the pieces of a story that House Valciel did not want outsiders to know.

Lindarion took a seat.

Luneth picked up the first document, scanning its contents.

Cassian muttered under his breath but sat down as well. "Well. Let's get to it, then."

The search began.

—

The candlelight flickered against the parchment, casting restless shadows across the alchemical texts spread before them.

The ink, faded in places, traced careful diagrams of transmutation circles, complex formulae, and the unmistakable sigils of preservation rites.

Some of the pages were scorched at the edges, marred with the stains of past failures—burnt herbs, metal filings, something darker.

Lindarion turned another page in silence. His gaze traced the dense, cramped script, reading past the surface words, past the technical explanations, searching for something deeper.

Luneth worked beside him, methodical and precise. She had already separated a small stack of documents—those with inconsistencies, those with redacted passages. She said nothing, but the tension in her shoulders spoke volumes.

Cassian, however, was far less composed.

"Alright." He exhaled sharply, rubbing his temples as he stared at a particularly dense passage. "I don't know what half of this means, but I do know that this—" he tapped the page with unnecessary force, "—talks about 'unbinding the flesh from decay.' Which sounds like exactly the kind of thing you don't mess with."

Lindarion did not look up. "Keep reading."

Cassian groaned. "Why? So I can find out more ways this was an incredibly bad idea?"

Luneth turned another page. "That was already obvious."

Cassian made a vague, exasperated gesture. "Yes, but there are levels of obvious!"

'Does he ever shut up?'

Lindarion ignored them, his focus narrowing on a section near the bottom of a worn manuscript. The ink was smudged in places, as though someone's hand had hesitated over the words.

Subject: Experiment 67—Preservation and Reconstitution

Primary Theory: The physical vessel can be maintained indefinitely through alchemical reinforcement. However, the question remains—can the essence persist alongside it?

Method: Structural binding through metallurgical synthesis. Incorporation of Philosophic Mercury to stabilize…

'What the hell

His eyes stopped on the next line.

Result: Initial stability successful. Subject retained consciousness post-separation.

Complication: Continued exposure resulted in cognitive drift. Further tests required.

Final Entry: Subject exhibited signs of irreversible alteration. Entity no longer responded as expected. Designation changed to Anathema.

Lindarion felt Luneth shift beside him. She had seen it too.

Cassian, meanwhile, was still catching up. "Wait. Wait. Hold on. Are they saying—" he pointed at the page, "—that this alchemist they experimented on was still alive even after whatever they did to her?"

Lindarion closed the manuscript. "More than that."

He looked toward the vials along the shelves. The shimmering, shifting liquids. The suspended remnants of failed trials.

"They didn't just try to stop decay." His voice was quiet, but certain.

"They tried to sever death itself."

Silence settled over them. Heavy. Unspoken.

Cassian leaned back, running a hand down his face. "Well. That's cursed."

Luneth's gaze lingered on the sealed glass cases. "And now she roams free beneath the city."

Lindarion exhaled slowly, then stood. "We're done here."

Cassian blinked. "What? That's it? We're just—" He gestured to the papers. "—gonna accept that some half-immortal, alchemically warped thing is wandering around down there?"

Lindarion met his gaze.

"We were never here to question whether she exists."

He turned toward the door.

"We're here to destroy her."

The quiet hum of alchemical energies lingered in the air as they stepped away from the desk, the weight of their discovery settling into something cold and heavy in Lindarion's chest.

'They severed death. And they think we can undo it.'

Lady Valciel had given them no further instructions, no reassurances, only the expectation that they would act. That they would find and erase the mistake her House had buried beneath Silvermere.

Lindarion exhaled, measured and slow, pushing the weight aside. There was no room for hesitation now.

As they stepped into the dimly lit corridor, Cassian finally broke the silence. "I have several questions."

Luneth gave him a sharp look. "If the first one is 'Can we run?' the answer is no."

Cassian groaned. "That was the second question. The first was, how do we even kill something that doesn't die?"

'I have an idea.'

Lindarion's steps didn't slow. "We can find a way."

Cassian threw up his hands. "Oh, excellent. That's comforting. Maybe we can just ask her nicely to stop existing?"

'This dumbass.'

Lindarion didn't answer. He kept walking, his thoughts threading through what little information they had.

'…A preservation experiment. An alchemist who wasn't supposed to survive. Cognitive drift. A designation changed to Anathema.'

The last entry had been deliberate. The phrasing too precise.

'Not a person anymore. That's what they decided.'

The scent of burnt herbs clung to the hallway, thick enough to sting. Another warded door came into view, its surface etched with containment sigils, warning scripts half-faded with age.

Luneth slowed. "You noticed it too."

Lindarion nodded.

Cassian frowned. "Noticed what? That we're willingly walking toward something that by all accounts should not exist?"

Lindarion's gaze lingered on the symbols. Some of them had been reinforced. Recently.

'…Whatever they locked away, they weren't sure it would hold.'

He reached for the handle.

Cassian grabbed his wrist. "Wait. Just—wait. Are we seriously just opening random doors now?"

Lindarion didn't pull away. He met Cassian's gaze, steady and unreadable.

"If this thing was contained before, there might be something left behind." His voice was quiet, but firm. "Something that tells us how to stop it."

Cassian stared at him, then at the door. Then he exhaled in complete and utter resignation. "I hate that you make sense..."

'I hope this is the right decision.'

Lindarion turned the handle.

The door creaked open.

Beyond it, the air was stale. Stagnant. The faint scent of metal and something faintly acidic lingered.

And in the center of the chamber, held in a fractured containment circle, was a single alchemical flask.

Inside, something pulsed.

A faint, dying glow.

Luneth stepped forward, slow and cautious. "…A core."

Lindarion's fingers curled at his side.

'…Not just any core. It seems like a remnant one.'

Cassian squinted at it. "Alright. I'm no expert, but that definitely looks like something we should not touch."

Lindarion ignored him. He stepped closer, the faint shimmer of the containment sigils shifting as he moved. The glow within the flask flickered, pulsed—almost like a heartbeat.

'Is this what's left of her?'

The alchemist who had been erased.

The mistake that could not die.

His hand hovered over the glass.

And then—

The light surged.

A whisper, too faint to be real, brushed against the edge of his thoughts.

A voice.

Faint. Hollow.

"I remember…"

The containment circle shattered.