Chapter 87: Close Enough to Touch

Rhaiven said it loudly enough for the whole hall to catch, the words landing less like an offer and more like a challenge thrown directly at Lucian’s feet.

Lucian felt the bad omen in it instantly, a cold, settling dread at having just pulled the full attention of the one person in this hall he most needed to avoid.

A handful of nobles murmured their approval of Rhaiven’s proposal, though he’d offered nothing yet beyond the promise that he could prove it. Even Helia, standing close beside him, looked as though she had no idea what he was actually planning.

It was Rhaiven himself who broke that silence, turning to her while the crowd was still busy weighing his words, slipping the question in before anyone could stop to wonder at it.

"Princess. Didn’t you once tell me Lucian had no real talent to speak of?"

"I’ve known him over fifteen years," Helia answered. "All I ever knew was that he had a gift for building Relics. I have no idea how he came by a White Awakening, none at all."

"Does that mean Lucian’s been lying to us this whole time, hiding his real power? Because there’s no way the previous Emperor would have arranged this engagement for you otherwise?"

Something in Rhaiven’s memory turned over at that, drifting back to a detail he’d skimmed past once and never thought twice about, not until tonight’s parade of strange coincidences dragged it back to the surface.

He remembered the marriage agreement now, the one he’d glanced through once in passing. Lucian and Helia’s betrothal hadn’t been arranged by House Sarnel at all. It had been the will of the previous Emperor, Varka’s own father, brokered with a family that had nothing to do with House Sarnel whatsoever.

It had come from Lucian’s mother’s side.

The whole arrangement had been quietly buried under his father’s family name instead, and for good reason. Almost no one alive knew that Lucian’s mother’s lineage traced back to something entirely outside Bravenheart’s own imperial bloodline.

And the true origin of that lineage itself was something Rhaiven had never managed to pin down, no matter how deep he’d dug.

He’d investigated it once already, well before he’d ever agreed to help with Helia’s plans, chasing a suspicion that the one he searched for might be hiding somewhere inside Lucian’s mother’s family tree.

He’d been wrong, as far as he could tell.

"And I’ve watched this place for a long time now. Never once found a single thread connecting House Sarnel to her, not until that business with the Kirana crystal, when that wretched servant of hers impersonated her own mistress and lured me here, just to buy her lady time to slip away somewhere else entirely."

His jaw tightened beneath the mask.

"Damn it. If I’d known it was bait, I’d have gone straight into that forest after her instead. I wouldn’t have wasted a single hour building this ridiculous arrangement with a mad princess. My time’s nearly gone. It’s been almost seven years now, and I still haven’t found her. If I can’t bring my lady back soon, I may not live to see another attempt at it."

Had anyone been able to see past the mask, they’d have found something far closer to despair than menace, a man watching his own borrowed time run out grain by grain.

Across from him, the pressure Lucian had felt building all night sharpened into something nearly unbearable.

Whatever Rhaiven’s words sounded like on the surface, a challenge, a dare, Lucian understood there had to be some deeper intention threaded through it, something reaching for him specifically.

Part of him actually wanted this, wanted the chance to prove what he could do. What held him frozen wasn’t the test itself. It was the man offering it.

And beneath that, a quieter, more honest fear: he knew exactly how little practice he had with Sacred Mana, a power he’d only ever touched once before, and only with Sonata’s help, at Sophia’s bedside not long ago.

Varka’s voice settled over the hall, informing Irvine and everyone present that the choice belonged to Lucian alone, and that if the boy could prove himself a genuine White Awakening bearer, the Emperor would give his words tonight the serious consideration they deserved.

"Hey, kid. Say the word and I’ll tell His Majesty myself you’d rather wait it out."

Irvine leaned in, low enough for only Lucian to hear, offering him a way out, reasoning the Order of Lumielle’s own confirmation would arrive within days regardless.

But Lucian felt every eye in that hall already fixed on him, waiting. Refusing now meant losing the one scrap of momentum he had left to keep anyone from setting foot in that forest.

He wasn’t willing to let that slip through his hands.

"I’ll accept it, Patriarch Irvine."

Irvine studied him a moment, something like resolve settling into his own expression, then turned and relayed Lucian’s answer to the Emperor.

A pair of imperial guards fell in beside him, guiding him forward across the hall. He hadn’t wanted it, hadn’t planned for it, but his path carried him directly past Helia and Kaelyn, both of them watching him with a sharpness that cut deeper than he expected.

Lucian felt that stare settle into his spine, and his hands curled into fists tight enough to ache, holding back a flood of feeling toward the two of them that had no safe place to go tonight.

He still asked himself, even now, exactly when the two of them had become what they so clearly were to each other.

He let the thought go. His feet had already carried him to a stop, close enough now to Rhaiven that there was nowhere left to retreat.

"So how exactly do you intend to prove my Awakening, Lord Rhaiven?"

It was the first time Lucian had ever stood this close to him by choice, and every nerve in his body screamed against it, a low, constant dread that something terrible was waiting just beneath the surface of whatever came next.

"No need to be this tense. It’s a simple test, nothing more."

Rhaiven read the tension in him easily, the way Lucian’s whole body had gone rigid the instant their eyes met.

Lucian couldn’t afford to let his guard down even a fraction, and when Rhaiven’s hand drifted toward the folds of his own cloak, that alone was enough to spike every sense he had to full alert.

Then Rhaiven’s hand emerged, drawing something free.

"Is that a Grimoire?" The question rippled through the crowd, dozens of voices catching on the same realization at once.

There, held in his left hand, sat a Grimoire bound in white and gold, its craftsmanship unmistakable even from a distance, the unmistakable mark of something built at the very highest tier.

It wasn’t only Lucian who wanted to know why. The whole hall seemed to lean in at once, demanding an explanation for why Rhaiven had produced something like this at all.

"This is no ordinary Grimoire," Rhaiven said, raising his voice for the benefit of everyone now watching. "It channels Sacred Mana directly, Tier A. If Lucian can make this Grimoire answer to him, then there will be no question left. He truly is a White Awakening bearer."

A handful of nobles rose from their seats outright, straining for a better look at a Grimoire none of them had ever laid eyes on before. Even Varka’s own expression betrayed genuine surprise, as though he hadn’t anticipated Rhaiven holding a method like this in reserve.

Lucian’s eyes never once left it.

And yet he felt nothing from it at all, no warning, no wrongness. Even Sonata, which had sensed Dark Mana before without fail, gave him nothing now, no flicker of response of any kind.

"I only need to hold it, Lord Rhaiven? That’s all?"

"That’s all. Let a little of your own power flow into it. If the mana you carry is genuine, the Grimoire will rise and hang in the air on its own, and you’ll see it answer with a faint glow, gold touched with yellow light."

Rhaiven held it out, level with Lucian’s face, close enough now that there was no pretending distance mattered anymore.

Lucian drew one slow breath, steadying himself, and reached out to take hold of it.

The instant his fingertips brushed its cover, something happened that no one in that hall was prepared for.

A light tore through the room, white and absolute, flooding every corner of the hall at once, so blinding that even those standing farthest away found themselves dropping to their knees, arms thrown up over their faces, desperate for anything that might shield their eyes from it.