Arc 4: "Mr-Don't-Look-At-Me-I'm-Not-Fantastic."
Chapter 47: How It is To Be an Highblood Heir
Sevren Denoir
The scratch of my pen was the only sound in the room, a steady rhythm against the profound silence of the Denoir manor. I was deep in the process of codification, translating the chaotic, sensory overload of the last Ascent into cold, precise words.
My focus, however, was particularly acute on Iskander—or rather, Highlord Briand as he now he was known to Alacrya. His new armor, the effortless way he commanded the magnificent aether, the sheer, terrifying weight of his presence.
It was a puzzle of the highest order, and my notes were the grid upon which I intended to solve it. The walls of my room, papered not in silk or paint but in layers upon layers of meticulously filed notes, seemed to lean in, absorbing this new information about my friend.
A knock, sharp and familiar, broke my concentration.
"Big brother?" A voice, belonging to my younger brother—Lauden—said.
I turned, my gaze sweeping over the archive of my life. Every Ascent, every anomaly, every tale from fellow Ascenders—it was all here, a tactile map of the only world that truly made sense to me.
I ran a hand through my hair, a futile attempt to impose order, and glanced out the window.
The sun's position told me it was already midday. I'd been at this for hours, lost in the labyrinth of my own mind.
I opened the door. "Yes, Lauden?" I asked, my voice neutral.
He stood there, a younger, sharper echo of our father. The resemblance was almost unnerving; give him a decade and a more severe haircut, and he'd be Corbett Denoir's living portrait.
"Our parents want to see you," he announced. His tone was flat, but I didn't need anything else to read the subtext. It was a summons.
And the subject was as transparent as cleaned quartz: the Victory Ball, and my conspicuous conversation with the continent's newest political enigma.
I rolled my eyes internally. Of course. But beneath the surface annoyance, my mind was already accelerating, calculating trajectories and outcomes.
"I am going right now," I said, my agreement coming a beat too fast, too willingly.
Lauden's eyes widened a fraction, a crack in his composed facade. "What are you plotting, Sevren?" he asked, his voice dropping, laced with a brother's wariness. He knew my compliance was never a given.
"Nothing, don't worry," I lied smoothly. The beauty of the situation was its perfect duality. If my parents' aim was to leverage my connection to secure favor with Seris Vritra through her new protégé, they were handing me a formal excuse to visit Iskander.
If they merely wanted a debriefing, their focus on Highblood Briand would provide the perfect cover for my subsequent, and much more desired, departure to the Relictombs.
Their political maneuvering was a key that could unlock two very different doors for me, and I was more than happy to turn it.
—
Highlord Corbett and Highlady Lenora Denoir. My parents.
They sat in the grand living room, a tableau of calculated elegance. He in his signature navy suit, an outfit that was whispering authority rather than shouting it; she beside him, her posture a masterclass in poised anticipation.
"Sevren," Father began, his voice the same measured baritone he used in high-stakes negotiations. He gestured to the velvet armchair opposite them—a position meant to feel conversational but was, in fact, an interrogation chair.
"Father, Mother." I offered a slight nod, settling into the plush embrace of the chair. The fabric was cool against my skin. "Lauden told me you wanted to speak with me."
"Yes," Father said, steepling his fingers. "We wanted to ask you about the Victory Ball."
I let a carefully calibrated expression of mild concern touch my features. "Did I do something wrong?" I asked, layering my voice with just enough ingenuousness to be believable.
Feigning ignorance was a vital skill. Letting people believe their motives are opaque is the first step in controlling the conversation.
Even with them. Especially with them.
"No, Sevren, you did nothing wrong," Mother said, her laugh a light, tinkling sound that felt practiced. She still viewed me through the lens of a phase, a brilliant but wayward son struggling to find his footing in the world of Highblood affairs.
Her happiness was predicated on this illusion of my gradual, difficult maturation. It was a kindness, I supposed, but one born of a fundamental misreading.
My engagement with Highblood society was a series of meticulously calculated minimal struggles designed to generate maximum perceived effort. I gave them just enough to construct a narrative of my "growing out of my Ascender phase"—an idea so profoundly idiotic it was almost charming.
They saw a son finally applying himself. I saw an efficient allocation of resources, preserving my true focus for the Relictombs. I would be an Ascender until my last, dying breath; everything else was background noise.
"In truth," Father continued, a genuine, proud smile gracing his features, "we wanted to compliment you on building a first bridge with Highlord Briand. You are starting to grow a good eye for useful allies."
I offered a modest shrug, dismantling the compliment to avoid appearing too savvy. "He was accompanied by Scythe Seris Vritra. It's not that much of an intuition to speak with him."
It was basic social awareness, a simple recognition of the highest-value target in the room... even though he was the one to approach me.
"Still," Mother countered, her eyes sharp, "you managed to speak with him, something that half of Alacrya's Highbloods would have sold a minor estate to do."
The subtext was clear: my accidental success had value.
"You called me just to compliment me?" I asked, shifting my tone back to serious, subtly steering them toward their actual objective. The faster we moved past the praise, the faster I could learn what they truly wanted.
"No, Sevren," Father said, his expression shifting into one of paternal gravity. "You are an adult, and it won't be too long before you become Highlord. You know it is customary for heirs to act as diplomatic envoys to strengthen ties with other Highbloods. We would like you to appoint a visit with Highlord Briand. Formalize the connection."
There it is. The request landed, disguised as an invitation to a game I was already prepared to play. Since Scythe Seris took Caera under her wing, Father's ambition to tether our family to the Scythe's influence had been a quiet, constant current in Denoir politics.
"Sure," I agreed, the picture of the dutiful son. Then, as if it were a spontaneous afterthought, I let the crucial piece of information slip—something I remembered from the first time I saw Iskander.
"Actually, Father, Mother, during our conversation, Highlord Briand mentioned he was searching for an estate in Relictombs City." I paused, letting the implication hang in the air. "Seeing Highblood Denoir presence and investments there, I'm certain I could be of significant assistance to him in that matter."
The mention of Relictombs City made a subtle, but perceptible tension enter the room. My parents' postures stiffened almost imperceptibly; a slight tightening around my father's eyes, a minuscule straightening of my mother's spine.
They saw the city as a symbol of my obsession, a place that pulled me away from my duties. But they couldn't deny the impeccable logic. Offering practical, valuable assistance was the fastest way to secure a powerful ally.
Father's tension melted into a look of profound satisfaction. "It's not a bad idea," he conceded, a note of surprise in his voice. He was connecting dots that weren't there, seeing a strategic masterstroke where I was simply following a trail Iskander had subconsciously laid down a year and a half ago.
Something he probably didn't even remember.
"And seeing your... passion... for the Relictombs, you might finally put that to use to help our Highblood."
He leaned forward, and his next words, so earnest and misplaced, struck a bizarre chord within me. "We are proud of you, Sevren."
The statement hung in the opulent air, a complex thing I couldn't immediately decipher. He was proud of a version of me that didn't exist, proud of a calculated move he misinterpreted as maturity.
The honesty in his voice was the most disarming weapon he could have used. For Vritra's sake, Father, I thought, a strange, hollow feeling spreading in my chest.
Your pride is based on a lie I constructed, and your truth is the one thing that complicates this entire, perfectly laid plan.
The game was proceeding exactly as I'd predicted and yet his genuine emotion was something I hadn't fully accounted for.
—
The teleportation pad's hum faded into Relictombs City's air. I stepped off the platform, and the tension that perpetually coiled in my shoulders at the Denoir Manor in Cargidan began to unwind.
This was not just an estate; it was my sanctuary, my true home. My gaze was drawn upward, not out of habit, but out of reverence, to the impossible cerulean sky arching over the second level of the Relictombs. A sunless, eternal day, illuminated by some genius of spectral engineering.
The Ancient Mages—the Djinn, as Iskander had named them with such casual, world-altering certainty—had painted this masterpiece in the void.
Every time I looked up, I felt a thrill of intellectual kinship, a silent conversation across millennia with minds that understood that true power laid not in domination, but in creation.
"Lord Sevren! What a surprise to see you so soon!" The voice was a warm, familiar anchor in the vastness. Nessa, her face etched with the kindly wrinkles of a life spent caring for others, beamed at me. She had been Caera's nanny and was now her most trusted attendant, a fixed point in the sometimes-chaotic orbit of our lives.
"Is Caera inside?" I asked, though my mind was already racing ahead, calculating probabilities. Finding my sister here would be optimal—catching two birds with one stone, as the saying went. It would streamline the entire operation.
"She is playing Sovereigns' Quarrel with Miss Delilah," Nessa explained, her eyes twinkling with amusement at the predictable intensity of their games.
A genuine smile touched my lips. Delilah was here too. Perfect. With Arian and Taegen never far from Caera's side, the core of our ascent team was spontaneously assembled. A swift, productive delve into the Relictombs was now a tangible, immediate possibility—a far more appealing use of time than navigating the stifling formalities of a visit to Highlord Briand's estate.
Knowing Iskander, he was likely already embroiled in some world-shattering, clandestine operation; a minor delay would be inconsequential. An Ascent wasn't just a distraction; it was a necessary recalibration.
"Lord Sevren, what's with that smile?" Nessa asked, her tone playfully suspicious.
"Nothing!" I denied a little too quickly, the smile vanishing behind a mask of neutral politeness. "I am going to see Caera and Delilah."
Nessa shook her head with a fond sigh as I took the stairs two at a time, the polished stone cool under my fingers. I found them in a sunroom, bathed in the artificial sky's glow.
The scene was a study in contrasts: Caera, her brow furrowed in intense concentration, a queen marshaling her forces with ruthless precision, and Delilah, practically vibrating with energetic glee as she executed a devastating counter-strategy.
"Lady Caera, you play way too aggressively!" Delilah exclaimed, her voice a familiar, effervescent burst in the quiet room.
"I told you a hundred times to just call me Caera," my sister retorted, though the sharp edge in her voice was aimed more at her impending loss than at Delilah's formality.
Delilah was right. Caera's strategy in Sovereigns' Quarrel was a mirror of her soul: she disdained partial victories, limited triumphs, or negotiated peace. It was a flaw I understood intimately.
"But you are one of the Sovereigns' own! It would be blasphemous!" Delilah insisted, her fanatical devotion to the Vritra clashing, as it always did, with Caera's ambivalence.
"I didn't see you referring to Iskander as 'Lord Iskander,' even though he was an awakened Vritra Blood," Caera pointed out, seizing on the logical inconsistency with the skill of a seasoned debater.
"Iskander would go crazy if one of us started to call him Lord... unless he is doing his acting as Highlord Briand," I interjected, announcing my presence.
They both turned, their expressions shifting from competitive focus to surprise. "Sevren? How in the name of the Vritra are you here?" Caera asked, her eyes narrowing with sisterly suspicion. "Corbett and Lenora really let you go?"
"They did," I confirmed, allowing a trace of my own surprise to show. Then I exchanged a brief, knowing glance with Delilah. Her eyes, usually so full of exuberant light, instantly sharpened with understanding.
She was brilliant in her own right, capable of parsing complex tactical situations in an instant. The unspoken question—Ascent?—hung in the air between us, and she answered it with a nearly imperceptible nod.
"You want to go for an Ascent? I am in!" Delilah exclaimed, launching herself from her chair with characteristic abandon.
But as she did, a sealed envelope, previously concealed in the pocket of her trousers, fluttered to the floor. My eyes, trained to notice the smallest details caught it instantly. It was a standard military missive, its cheap parchment stark against the luxurious rug.
The official seal of the Alacryan army was stamped upon it in blood-red wax. A letter from the front. In all the months I'd known her, through all our ascents, I had never seen her receive one. The postal artifacts were unreliable, their paths often severed by the chaos of war.
"Is that a letter?" I asked, my voice softer now. Since she'd begun to tentatively share more about her brother, Yorick, his presence had become a quiet, worried shadow in our group dynamics.
Her exuberance dimmed, replaced by a flicker of vulnerability she quickly masked. "Yes, from my brother," she admitted, retrieving it and clutching it tightly. "He says they've been moved from the Dicathian Beast Glades to a nation called Darv."
Darv. The name clicked into place in my mental archive. A dwarven kingdom. One of the strange nations of Dicathen that had become unofficial, reluctant allies—or perhaps more accurately, occupied territories—of Alacrya.
My knowledge was academic, gleaned from stolen glances at strategic reports. Highblood Denoir, to its credit—or its shame as other Highbloods would say—was not contributing directly to the war effort.
It was a conflict I viewed with cold, analytical disdain: a wasteful, brutal expenditure of resources for the glory of our distant Sovereigns. A messy, illogical thing.
But for Delilah, it wasn't academic. It was her brother. Among all of us, she was the only one with real skin in that bloody game. Her fervent love for the Vritra was now locked in a silent, desperate war with the terror that the very gods she worshipped would demand her brother's life as their price.
"Let's go," Caera said, her voice firm and decisive. She had seen the subtle shift in Delilah's posture, the way her fingers trembled slightly around the letter. My sister's empathy was sometimes hidden, but it was there, a deep and powerful current.
She understood that the best balm for that kind of fear was action, purpose, the tangible reality of a challenge we could actually face and overcome.
"Yes, we better go," I agreed, my earlier smile returning, though now it felt more like a shield. "Especially before my parents discover anything."
Caera rolled her eyes, but a fond smirk played on her lips. "Corbett and Lenora will put us under house arrest one day, I tell you."
It was a running joke, but one underpinned by truth. They could try. They could lock the doors, post guards, and confiscate the keys. But it would be futile. We would find a way out. We always did.
Because the Relictombs weren't just a hobby or a passion. They were my vocation. My ritual. The place where I had found my sister and spent time with her, not just a comd relationship with a foster Vritra Blood.
The Relictombs were the ground where I had first encountered Iskander and felt the world shift on its axis.
They had given me a sense of purpose, belonging, and intellectual fulfillment that the Sovereigns, my parents, or the entire gilded cage of Highblood society could never hope to provide. They were, in every sense that mattered, my home.