Chapter 132: Tournament hall

The tournament hall was everything a tournament hall in Apothesis was supposed to be.

A massive circular arena at its center, the marble floor polished to the point where you could see your own reflection looking back up at you. Elevated viewing platforms surrounding it on all sides. Four enormous thrones positioned high above the battlefield floor, one for each Supreme Lord.

Three of the thrones were empty.

Constantine Veydrath Windsky sat in his, the third eye above his forehead closed as always, white hair falling behind his shoulders, the compressed wind ring turning slowly around his body. He looked at the empty arena with the patience of something that has been waiting for things for a very long time.

Alarion stood at the base of the platform. Ulvakor stood beside him.

Ulvakor glanced around the hall. "Everything’s set, Father."

Alarion gave a sharp nod. "We only need to wait for the other three Supreme Lords."

Constantine nodded once, his gaze moving toward the three empty seats.

Then the drums started.

BOOM.

The sound rolled through the hall from outside. Ulvakor turned toward the entrance.

The grand doors opened.

Aetherion Der Veyne walked through first. Six arms loose at his sides, golden eyes moving across the hall. The ambient pressure in the room adjusted to accommodate him without making a fuss about it.

Ulvakor and Alarion bowed their heads. "Welcome to Windsky, Lord Aetherion."

Constantine gestured toward the elevated seats. "Here, Aetherion."

Aetherion gave him a brief nod and moved toward his throne.

Three human cadets followed him in. Adrian, immediately looking around the hall with visible enthusiasm. Leon, doing exactly the same thing and making slightly more noise about it. Daniel, quietly taking in the space with his hands folded behind his back.

Leon looked around in open wonder. "Whoa..."

The second set of footsteps came next, heavier and steadier. Leonidas Empyreon entered the hall, his golden-fissured skin catching the light as he walked. Three cadets behind him: Nicholas, Cecilia, and Nathan.

Leon spotted them the moment they came through the door. "Hey, Nicho! Senior Nathan!" He raised his hand and waved with his whole arm.

Nicholas turned, found Leon, and waved back with a genuine smile. Nathan offered a smaller wave alongside it. "Hey."

Then quiet again for a moment.

BOOM.

The drums once more.

Everyone turned.

Aurora Valdrake Celestial came through the doors. The three solar spheres orbited her slowly, the miniature sun, the crescent moon, the small galaxy turning in its own dark, all three moving in the same patient rhythm they always did. She approached the other three Lords with an expression that carried the specific grace of someone who has decided that hurrying is for other people.

Aetherion looked at her. "You’re late."

"I wouldn’t call it late," Aurora said pleasantly. "I simply arrived after everyone else."

Three cadets followed her.

Claire, composed. Roselle, walking comfortably beside Aurora. And behind them, walking with the particular ease of someone who has recently decided to stop hiding, silver-white hair catching the light and crimson eyes moving across the hall with sharp attention.

She wore the silver-red ceremonial uniform of the Celestial Assembly. Her pointed ears were visible, her fangs were not hidden, her features were entirely her own and entirely unhidden. She walked in like she had earned the right to be exactly what she was in exactly this room.

Nicholas and Leon saw her at the same time.

"Senior Seris?"

"Senior Seris!"

She turned toward the voices with a knowing, sly smile that carried more warmth underneath it than the surface suggested.

Nathan and Daniel exchanged a brief glance. They had heard. They had known before walking in. But seeing her standing openly in the tournament hall of Apothesis in an Assembly uniform, entirely herself, was still a different thing from being told about it.

Seris looked at both of them for a moment. Then she looked away, her eyes moving across the hall.

She scanned the arena. The thrones. The viewing platforms. The gathering cadets.

Her brow furrowed slightly.

’This is the Windsky Assembly.’ She looked again, slower. ’I heard he was assigned here, but where is he?’

Ulvakor’s face had been doing something increasingly strained for the last several minutes. He glanced toward the entrance. Then at the empty space on the Windsky side of the cadet gathering. Then at the entrance again.

’Where. Is. Alden.’

He had told him explicitly to come on time.

Constantine turned his head and looked at his son.

Ulvakor met his father’s gaze with the smile of someone who is about to be held accountable for something. A single bead of sweat appeared near his temple.

He cleared his throat. "Ahem. Alden will be here shortly. No need to delay things on his account. Why don’t we begin, Father? I’m sure he’ll arrive before his name comes up."

Constantine looked at him for several quiet seconds.

Then looked away. "Very well."

He stood.

The hall hushed immediately, the way it always hushed when Constantine stood.

"Human cadets." His voice moved through the space without effort. "You have trained under your Assemblies for the past week. Today you demonstrate what that training has produced." His gaze moved across the gathered faces. "Let us begin."

_________

Meanwhile:

Alden’s hair was still dripping.

He stood in his room with a towel in one hand and the other hand still gesturing slightly from explaining something to himself that he didn’t need to explain. His uniform was on. His feet were dry. The pile of training clothes still on the floor was not his current problem.

He was grinning.

"Those Concepts were something else, I completely lost track of time." he said, mostly to himself picturing Augustus. "And a human soul lets me transform, like a shapeshifting skill."

The new Act especially. Soul Evolution had turned out to be a particular rabbit hole.

"Sir Alden." Maria’s voice came from near the doorway, and it had the specific quality of someone who has moved past worried into something that rhymed with desperate. "The tournament may have already started."

Alden glanced back at her. "I know."

"Then please go through the door immediately—"

He moved toward the balcony instead.

Maria’s brow furrowed as she tracked his direction. "What are you—Sir Alden, the door is this way. The tournament hall is down the main corridor and then left at the—"

Alden stepped over the railing.

"AH?!" Maria rushed to the balcony edge and looked down.

He was already falling, the Windsky Skyland’s height carrying him away from the building at speed, the ground an unreasonable distance below.

Then:

[Ding!]

[Concept: Flight — Active]

The wings appeared around him in a burst, spectral and blazing, and his falling trajectory became something entirely different. He leveled out, adjusted his angle, and the tournament hall was already visible across the Skyland’s marble-white expanse.

WHOOSH.

Silver-gold cutting across open sky.

Behind him, Maria stood at the balcony edge, both hands against her face, watching him become a streak in the distance.

Alden flew toward the hall, still slightly damp, and considerably later than he had intended to be.