Chapter 874: Show Us Your Power [Bonus - ]

Chapter 874: Show Us Your Power [Bonus Chapter]

The masked Council members sat in perfect stillness, their porcelain and steel faces giving away nothing, but Aki could feel their attention crawling over her like cold fingers.

...These were the people who actually ran the world’s day-to-day business, and most of them had lived longer than her grandfather.

Number 5’s seat, she noticed, was empty and behind her, Kara noticed too, and the corner of her mouth curled.

’Still hiding on the roof, shorty?’ she thought. ’Take your time... I’m not going anywhere.’

Two of the masked Council members nearest the door shifted uncomfortably in their chairs as Kara’s gaze drifted over them, and one of them suddenly found something very interesting to look at on the table in front of him.

Further down the table sat Crown Prince Alexander Zel Castellian.

He had the family’s royal-blue hair swept back from his forehead in severe military perfection, and he wore the high-collared navy uniform of the northern legions, heavy with medals and campaign ribbons.

The pressure of his Purple Core radiated off him like heat off a stove.

He sat ramrod straight with his hands flat on the granite and his knuckles pale.

...He’d spent his whole life trying to earn their father’s respect, leading frontier campaigns and drilling regiments until his hands bled, and all he’d ever received was a cold nod and through all of it, he’d looked down on Aki... the Unawakened blemish on the family line who should’ve been tucked away in some countryside manor where nobody had to see her.

Now he stared at his younger sister.

He saw the flawless glow of her skin, the calm confidence in her stride and the unmistakable hum of a fully awakened Core coming off her and his jaw tightened until the tendons in his neck stood out like cables.

’Impossible,’ he thought. ’She can’t have...’

But it was the end of the chamber that held the room’s real weight.

On a raised dais of dark basalt above the Grand Table stood the star-iron throne, a plain angular seat of midnight-grey metal forged from the core of a fallen star.

It seemed to drink in the light around it and on it sat the King of the World.

He had thick royal-blue hair, the same pure shade as all three of his children, and piercing sapphire eyes that held about as much warmth as winter sea ice.

He wore a crisp navy double-breasted coat with silver buttons and not a single medal on it. He didn’t need medals.

The air within ten paces of the throne was faintly warped, bent by the passive presence of Destruction which was the royal-bloodline power he’d inherited from his predecessor... the power to erase matter, and souls, from existence with a thought.

Perched on the King’s right knee was Second Princess Kiera Zel Castellian.

She had the same royal-blue hair falling in soft waves over her shoulders, and she wore an off-the-shoulder gown of ivory silk layered with amethyst tulle that spilled over the arm of the throne. Her golden eyes sparkled with bright innocent warmth.

She was the prodigy, the girl raised in the mountain barracks of Yamato who’d mastered the rare deadly fusion of lightning and wind, and the King favored her openly and shamelessly.

In public, she played the sweet doting daughter, resting her small hand on her father’s lapel while the Council debated treaties.

Underneath that charming smile was a vicious predator who saw her elder sister as a joke...

Kiera rested her chin on her hand and looked toward the doors with a twinkle of mock innocence in her eyes then the temperature in the chamber dropped ten degrees in a heartbeat.

The King’s sapphire eyes slid away from his daughter and landed on the tall dark-clad woman strolling into the room behind her.

...Kara White.

The silence turned brittle as thin ice as every Council member and every magistrate held their breath.

They all remembered the last time Lord Vespera had stood in this room.

Three weeks ago, Kara White had walked onto this same obsidian floor, leaned against the Grand Table like she was waiting for a bus and called the King of the World a coward to his face.

She’d stood alone before the star-iron throne and dared him to use Destruction on her, and she’d laughed while his guards trembled... and the King had backed down.

He hated her with every fiber of his being, and everyone at this table knew it but he couldn’t touch her.

His gaze bore down on her with the weight of an avalanche, and the air around the throne crackled with dark static.

Kara didn’t flinch or slow down.

She strolled onto the obsidian with her long black cloak sweeping behind her boots and her one hand resting easily in her coat pocket, and when her purple eyes met the King’s murderous stare, she smiled at him.

’Hehe~ Bullying this guy is a top tier experience... I’d definitely recommend it.’

It was a mocking smile, the kind you’d give an old friend across a crowded cafe and the King’s jaw tightened by a hair.

For two suffocating heartbeats, their eyes stayed locked across the chamber then, with cold rigid deliberation, the King looked away first.

A silent collective exhale went around the Grand Table.

’Still sulking, I see,’ Kara thought cheerfully.

She stopped twenty paces from the Grand Table near the base of the rear pillars and leaned her shoulder against the stone with her empty left sleeve pinned against her coat, leaving the floor to Aki.

Aki took a deep steady breath of cold air and stepped out alone.

CLICK! CLICK! CLICK!

Her shoes rang against the mirrored obsidian in a steady unhurried rhythm, her silver overskirt whispering with every step, and she walked all the way to the center of the chamber and stopped directly before the dais.

She looked straight up at the man who’d ignored her existence for twenty-five years.

On the throne, Kiera adjusted her gown and tilted her head with a soft patronizing little smile, her golden eyes gleaming as she watched her sister stand alone in the spotlight.

Down at the table, Alexander leaned forward with his teeth clenched, waiting for the humiliation he was certain was coming while the King shifted on the star-iron seat.

He didn’t offer a single word of welcome or acknowledge what she’d done.

He rested his chin on his fist and looked down at his eldest daughter for the first time in years.

"Well then," he said, his deep voice rolling off the obsidian walls. "Show us what the trial made of you..."

The words echoed across the floor and faded into the pressurized silence.

Aki lowered her chin with slow practiced composure.

She gathered the edges of her silver overskirt and drew it outward as she sank into a pristine formal curtsy, her royal-blue hair spilling forward over her collarbones.

"I greet the throne and the honored Council," Aki said, her clear voice filling the chamber without the slightest strain. "I am Aki, First Princess and Lord of Aki’s Wonderland... and I’m here to report that I’ve completed my Novice Trial in the Sovereign Realm."

She held the curtsy for two beats, then rose smoothly.

A murmur went around the Grand Table like wind through dry leaves.

Masked heads turned toward one another, and two of the magistrates along the wall bent over their tablets to pull up her registry file.

For nearly a decade, the royal records had stamped her name with the cold red seal of an Unawakened dependent, and now here she was, speaking the formal words of a Lord.

At the Grand Table, Alexander let out a sharp derisive puff of air through his nose.

"A Novice Trial," he muttered, just loud enough for the Council members beside him to hear. "She cleared one little trial and she talks like she conquered a continent... What an extraordinary triumph for the royal line."

’Tell me whether you got to Number 2 when you were still in Classic... Hmph, if I remember, you were Number 10.’

One of the masked Council members let out a dry little huff that might have been a laugh.

On the dais, Kiera shifted on her father’s knee, and her wide golden eyes found Aki with an expression of boundless tender affection.

"Oh, sister..." Kiera murmured, her voice soft and sweet and pitched perfectly to carry. "Please don’t mind Alexander’s temper. He’s spent so many years leading campaigns in the snow that he’s forgotten how to speak gently... We’re all so very proud of you... Truly... To think that after so many years of waiting, even my dear elder sister has finally managed to awaken... It’s a blessing from the heavens."

The words floated down from the dais like petals settling on a frozen pond.

To anyone who didn’t know her, it would’ve sounded like a loving little sister weeping with relief however everyone in this room heard the knife in it, even Aki.

’I hate this bitch so bad...’

Aki didn’t flinch though, the small serene smile on her face never moved a millimeter.

’Keep talking, Kiera,’ She thought with her breathing remaining slow and calm. ’Every word you spend digging that hole is another stone I get to drop on your head...’

At the front of the Grand Table, one of the senior magistrates rose.

His face was hidden behind a polished mask of mirrored steel, and he planted a long titanium staff capped with a glowing blue crystal against the floor.

CLACK!

"The registry acknowledges the claim of Princess Aki," he droned, his voice flattened by the filters in his mask. "However, Council protocol requires physical verification of any unmonitored Novice Trial... The claimant must demonstrate the density and elemental foundation of her Core before the assembly can ratify her charter."

Alexander leaned back in his chair with a smug smirk, tapping his fingers against his knee.

"An awakening at twenty-five," he said, inspecting his fingernails. "Nearly a decade past the natural threshold. If she managed to condense a Core at all, it’ll be a weak, muddy little thing that cracks against a basic barrier. We’re wasting the Council’s morning on a spark..."

A few of the masked Council members nodded along.

At the back of the chamber, Kara’s eyes drifted lazily from Alexander to Kiera and back again.

’Wow,’ she thought, genuinely impressed. ’One of them barks and the other one bites with a smile... They really did a number on her, huh?’

She looked at Aki’s straight back, at the steady line of her shoulders and the blue hair resting so calmly against her spine, and a proud feeling settled in her chest.

’And she’s not even shaking...’

As if she’d felt it, Aki glanced back over her shoulder.

It was only for a second.

Her blue eyes searched the back of the room and found Kara leaning against the pillar, and Kara gave her the smallest nod... a tiny lazy tilt of the chin that said ’go on, I’m right here.’

Aki’s lips twitched.

That was all it took... The last thread of tension slid out of her shoulders, and when she turned back to face the throne, her eyes were clear.

Up on the dais, Kiera noticed.

Her golden gaze flicked from her sister to the one-armed woman at the back of the room and lingered there for a moment before she leaned down toward her father’s ear.

"She seems very attached to Lord Vespera, Father," she whispered sweetly. "I do hope she hasn’t been... misled."

The King didn’t answer, but his eyes narrowed by a fraction.

Aki ignored all of it.

Three Enforcers marched in from the eastern portico carrying a training construct built for heavy ballistic testing... a solid five-foot slab of reinforced star-iron, three feet thick, set on a heavy bronze base and etched with runes made to swallow the impact of military rail-cannons.

They set it down thirty paces in front of Aki and retreated to the walls.

THUNK!

"The target is positioned," the magistrate announced. "Princess Aki, you may demonstrate your affinity upon the construct... The chamber’s sensors will measure your output."

Somebody at the Grand Table snickered.

A slab of star-iron rated against rail-cannon fire was a test for veteran Lords, not a princess who’d awakened a week ago, and everyone in the room knew it.

The magistrates had picked it on purpose.

Aki looked at the slab, and she almost felt sorry for it as she took a single quiet step forward, and deep inside her, her Core began to turn.

’Well, I do need to show off...’

She had two elements.

The first was Starlight, the art of forming weapons out of pure condensed light, and Ther’Abella had taught it to her in secret in the misty fields of Aki’s Wonderland.

She’d spent her whole trial polishing it, saving it as a surprise for Silas when the right moment came...

Aki pushed it down deep and locked it away, refusing to let even a single spark of it slip into the room since nobody here needed to know about the stars.

She reached for the other one instead... the one that had slept in her blood since the day she was born, while the whole court called her useless.

Aki reached for Destruction.