Chapter 120: Alden grey [2]

The figure standing in front of him was Alarion.

Alden stared at him with the specific expression of someone whose brain has just tripped over something and is still trying to stand back up. He didn’t say anything right away. He couldn’t.

’Did I hear that right?’

His eyes narrowed slowly.

’He didn’t just say Alden. He said something after it.’

Alarion began walking toward him. His footsteps made no sound at all against the endless white path. His expression was perfectly unreadable, white hair drifting faintly.

"Now that you’ve been selected, and we’re finally alone..." Alarion stopped a short distance away, his eyes looking down at Alden with the calm certainty of someone who has been waiting for a specific moment for a very long time. "We can finally talk, Alden Grey."

The name hit him like something physical.

Alden’s eyes went wide. His whole body locked up, every muscle going rigid at once without him telling it to.

’He said it again.’

There was no misunderstanding it. No way to explain it away as mishearing, or a name that sounded similar, or some title he didn’t know about. Alarion had looked directly at him and spoken his real surname. The one from his previous life. The one nobody in this world had any way of knowing.

Grey.

His own throat felt tight. His heartbeat was suddenly very loud in his ears.

’How.’ That was the only thought forming clearly. ’How does he know that?’

He stepped back half a step, not from fear exactly, more from the instinct you get when something is wrong in a way you can’t yet define. "How do you know my name?" His voice came out steadier than he expected. "My real name."

He paused.

"And what do you mean by finally?"

Alarion nodded, unhurried. "I know everything about you, Alden."

The straightforwardness of it made it worse somehow. Not a hint of hesitation or a trace of surprise that Alden was asking. Only a simple confirmation.

Alden’s jaw tightened. "How." He stepped forward this time, not back, the desperation for an actual answer overriding the caution. "How exactly? How do you know who I am? Please explain!"

Alarion opened his mouth. "Because yo—"

"Head Chief."

The white void lurched.

One moment there was just Alden and Alarion on the path, and the next moment someone else was there, slotted between them. The arrival had no sound or a warning. The presence just appeared and it was enormous.

Constantine stood between them with his back angled slightly toward Alden.

Alden blinked. "Lord Constantine—?"

Alarion had already stopped. His lips closed. He took a small step back.

Constantine’s expression was nothing like what it had been in the grand chamber. The stillness he’d carried there had been the stillness of someone choosing to appear calm. This was something else entirely. His face was set hard, brows pulled together, jaw locked. Whatever emotion was underneath it was contained, but it was clearly there.

"I told you not until then."

Alarion inclined his head. "I understand, Lord Constantine."

And that was that.

Alden stood behind Constantine’s shoulder and felt the temperature of the situation sink. Not from anything visible. Just from the understanding that Alarion, the Chief Head of the Upper Academy, the most powerful entity he had encountered in this entire world, had just stopped and stepped back because Constantine told him to.

’He stopped him from telling me?’

The realization settled in slowly and didn’t feel good when it landed. Whatever Alarion had been about to say, the sentence that started with "Because you are," Constantine didn’t want him to hear it. And the fact that Constantine had appeared at exactly that moment, with exactly that timing.

They were managing what he knew. Both of them.

Alden looked between the two Primordials. He kept his voice level. "You both know about me?" meanwhile he internally thought, ’Come on, say anything. That I’m the author or creator or something... Whatever just open your mouths.’

Neither of them denied it.

He pushed further. "Why not just tell me? What’s the reason for hiding it?" He stepped sideways to try to get Constantine to look at him properly. "I have a right to know who I am and what you know about me, right?"

Silence.

Constantine didn’t turn to face him fully.

"We’re not talking about it."

"Why not?" Alden’s frustration came through this time, the edge of it making it into his voice. "I’m not asking for a full history of the universe. I’m asking why the Chief Head of the Upper Academy knows my real surname from another world. That’s a reasonable question."

"You don’t need to know."

Constantine slowly turned his head.

His eyes settled on Alden, and for the first time since he had raised his hand in the grand chamber, Alden saw something in them that wasn’t calm or indifferent or ancient and detached.

It was genuine.

Whatever Constantine felt when he looked at him, it was not nothing.

"I despise people like you."

Alden stopped.

For a moment he simply stood there, processing the sentence.

I despise people like you

"...What?"

He wasn’t angry. He was genuinely confused. He turned the words over, trying to find the angle that made them make sense, and couldn’t.

’Why? What did I do to him specifically?’ He looked at Constantine’s face, at the quiet intensity of what was there. ’Did I leave this world unfinished and that’s the reason? Did I build these people and then abandon them to an ongoing war and a future I never wrote? Is that what he means? Is he angry that I created something and left unfinished?’

That felt like a reasonable answer.

But then another thought arrived and completely complicated it.

’If he despises me that much, why did he raise his hand?’

He had been three seconds from being snapped back to the Kingdom. Three seconds from being returned without a selection. Every other Assembly had refused. He had stood there with nothing working and no plan left.

And Constantine had sighed, and raised his hand.

The person who now claimed to despise him had chose him in his Assembly.

Alden stared at Constantine’s profile and did not say anything, because he didn’t have anything to say yet. He was still working out which of these two facts to trust.

"I see, I understand Lord Constantine." Alarion spoke quietly. His face had settled back into its usual perfect self. "All the best, Alden. Train well."

Then he simply dissolved.

Alden stared at where Alarion had been for a moment.

He was frustrated. He could feel it clearly, sitting in his chest like a coal. But the frustration wasn’t going to produce answers if the people who had them had decided not to share.

’Fine. I’ll wait. But I’m not forgetting.’

Constantine turned away without another word and began walking along the white path toward the swirling portal at the far end. His long coat moved steadily as he walked, silver embroidery catching whatever light existed in the endless white space.

Alden watched his back for a moment.

’He’s my Assembly leader now. Whether I like it or not.’

He followed.

They walked in complete silence, Alden a few paces behind, neither of them speaking. The silence was not comfortable.

Constantine stepped through the portal without breaking stride and disappeared.

Alden took a breath, and followed.