Chapter 140: "Thank you"

The main gate of Apothesis was busy.

The human cadets had gathered near the enormous entrance to head back toward their respective kingdoms.

Leon stood in his new Spire’s coat. It was a different thing from his previous uniform entirely, the Empyreon insignia embroidered cleanly across the chest, silver detail running along every edge.

Roselle looked him over and broke into a genuine smile. "You actually look incredible in that."

Leon scratched his head. "Really?"

"Yeah. It suits you."

Nathan was shaking his head beside them with an amused grin. "It’s still hard to process. One of the juniors I used to give advice to is now a Spire." He looked Leon up and down. "I should probably start addressing you more formally."

Leon waved both hands immediately. "Don’t do that."

"Why not?"

"Because you’re still Senior Nathan," Leon said, and the warmth in it was completely unperformed. "You’re my friend. A title doesn’t change that."

Nathan laughed, the full, genuine kind. "Still the same Leon."

The group drifted naturally toward the gate as the departure time approached. Cecilia looked around at the others, something softer settling on her face now that the tournament pressure was gone.

"I suppose this is where we part ways." She glanced toward the Astern Kingdom group. "We’ll probably see each other again during the war."

Claire nodded. "Most likely."

Roselle extended her hand toward Cecilia. "It was genuinely nice meeting you."

Cecilia shook it firmly. "Same." A small smile came through. "I hope the next time isn’t on a battlefield."

"Agreed," Roselle said.

A short distance from all of this, Adrian was not paying attention to any farewell conversation. His eyes were moving through the crowd with the focused desperation of someone who has lost track of something important.

Where is she. He scanned the gate area, the archways, the surrounding plaza. Where did she go?

He had been trying to understand his own reaction to Seris since the tournament. It wasn’t the same thing as what he felt when he saw Roselle or Claire. That had been simple admiration. This was different in a way he couldn’t explain properly, something about the way she moved and the way she dismissed him that made his brain stop functioning correctly every time she was near.

And every single time he had tried to talk to her this week, she had either said one word or simply looked past him like he wasn’t occupying space.

It was making him insane.

Why does she keep ignoring me?! He clenched his hand at his side. She said six words to me total and my heartrate tripled every time. Why can’t I just have a normal interaction with one person?

"By the way," Cecilia said, looking around the group. "Where’s Alden?"

Everyone paused.

Roselle glanced around. "Now that you mention it, I haven’t seen him since the tournament ended."

Claire looked toward the gate. "Me either."

Leon raised one hand casually. "Oh, he already left."

Everyone turned. "LEFT Already!?"

"Yeah. Said he needed to check something in the kingdom." Leon shrugged. "He didn’t give details."

Roselle tilted her head. "And Seris?"

"She went with him."

A beat of silence.

"They left together?" Cecilia said.

Adrian had gone completely still.

His expression had stopped moving. His eyes were fixed on the middle distance at nothing. Then, somewhere behind his face, something shattered dramatically.

She’s already with that monster?

He stood there with the specific frozen devastation of a man watching a door close that he had been walking toward with hope in his heart.

No... let’s say I’m just wrong about it, they might be just friends.

_________

The capital of the Astern Kingdom had changed since he last walked through it.

The streets were still recognizable. The buildings were the same. But the feeling of the place was entirely different. The normal noise of markets and daily life had been replaced by preparation.

Supply wagons moved down the main road in steady lines, each one loaded and guarded. Groups of soldiers stood at corners talking over maps and routes. A building that had been a granary was now clearly a medical station, the doors propped open with people moving in and out carrying equipment. Mercenaries from at least three different regions were visible, their gear varied, their faces carrying the practical expressions of people who had heard about the money and come.

Food stalls had been set up along the military camp perimeter, providing fast meals for people who didn’t have time to sit down properly.

Alden took it all in as they walked.

"They’ve already started preparing everything," he said.

Seris walked beside him, her eyes moving across the same scene with a different kind of attention. "They’d be fools not to." She nodded toward the converted building. "That section there is a temporary medical station?"

He glanced at her as they walked. She was in her human disguise again, the crimson eyes concealed, the pointed ears hidden, the vampire features that had been openly visible all week in Apothesis gone entirely. She looked almost exactly as she had at Astral Academy.

"You’re back in your human form," he said.

A faint smile. "The situation is different here. The Primordials already knew what I was and didn’t particularly care. But here?" She glanced at the soldiers standing near the road. "If someone recognized what I am, I’d be hunted before I had the chance to say a word."

Alden nodded.

Silence moved in between them.

He kept his eyes forward. The noise of the city filled the space around them.

Why am I nervous?

He had spent the entire week wanting to be here. Walking next to this specific person, finally able to say the thing that had been sitting in his chest since the garden in the middle of the night, since the mountain pass, since the infirmary.

And now that he was here, every sentence he considered felt wrong before he even formed it fully.

He stole a glance at her.

She was walking with her back perfectly straight, her expression composed, the cool breeze moving lightly through her silver hair.

She’s completely calm as usual, that ’composure’ of hers...

"You’ve been unusually quiet."

He stiffened. "Huh?"

Seris glanced at him sideways. The corners of her eyes curved slightly. "You look like you have something you want to say. You’ve looked that way since we left Apothesis. Yet you haven’t said any of it."

Alden cleared his throat and scratched the side of his neck. "I just... I’m thinking about how to start."

"You’re overthinking."

"Probably."

Seris kept walking, unhurried. "You even asked Ulvakor to let you leave early."

Alden felt his face do something warm. "I didn’t ask exactly like that."

"You didn’t have to state it precisely," she teased him. "I understood what you meant."

He went quiet.

They walked past a row of temporary shelters, past a group of soldiers loading something large onto a flatbed, past a stall selling hot food to a line of people who looked like they had been up since before sunrise.

Then Seris stopped.

Alden took one more step before he noticed.

"Alden."

He turned his whole body toward her. "Yeah?"

She took one small step closer.

"Before anything else." Her voice was barely above the noise around them. Her eyes were steady on his. "Thank you."