Alison's arms spread wide—the full breadth of theatrical grace. He drew a slow breath and released it as sound.
"Standing in the name of the Prosecution—"
His voice filled the arena without strain.
"Mantled under the title: Titan of Valor. Twenty-six Flag Honours. Six Black Campaigns. Thirty-two Spiral Runs. Thirty-two confirmed fatalities."
Silence.
"High Lore—Viren of the Iron Veil. The Eighteenth of the Thirty-Eighth."
The scepter turned in his hand, pointing toward the Blue Entrance.
Silence gathered, and then filled with sound—footsteps, soft and measured, echoing from the dark corridor with the particular quality of someone who had long since stopped being in a hurry. He emerged into the light.
Tall. Broad. Silver-reinforced armour catching the arena's glow, the golden Scarab of House Artyr set deep into the chest plate. His cloak moved behind him as though the ground were reluctant to release each step. The feathered helm rested in the crook of his arm.
Behind him—a veiled woman in midnight silk, a Sol-glass crystal burning softly at her throat. Beside her, the Great Elder of House Artyr: Riven Nyxvalis, his expression arranged into the careful neutrality of a man who had recently made decisions he intended never to discuss.
Six knights followed in black cloaks, perfectly spaced, perfectly aligned. The first carried the Honours Flag. The second bore a siege hammer whose weight was evident even in stillness. The remaining four formed a moving wall.
Every eye in the arena tracked the procession without pretense of doing otherwise.
High above, on the stand of House Roa, Elder Myra allowed herself a brief, satisfied smile.
Then she noticed the equipment he had. Those were not what she had requisitioned.
The smile was gone before anyone near her could have named it. Her gaze moved across the arena to the stand of Elder Mirell, whose expression instantly mirrored her own.
Riven.
That treacherous fool.
Myra's gaze shifted—seeking others, accounting, calculating—and found Garrek.
He was already watching her.
She turned away with the composed dignity of someone who could not care less what he had seen—or assumed.
"They're planning something," Garrek said, quite under his breath.
Beside him, Kael leaned back in his seat. "Aren't they always."
Garrek's gaze found Myra again and stayed there, making no effort to conceal it.
"Perhaps."
---
Below, the procession reached its mark.
The first knight stepped forward and planted the Honours Flag to Viren's left—a branching tree, six wings extended from its frame, the Mantle of the Iron Veil at its center. A second banner followed, then a third: the Wing, the Moon, the Blade. Two were dense with Honours. The Wing conspicuously bare. A fifth bore the crests of foreign Houses—respect earned through favours rendered to outsiders. The sixth carried the Imperial crest, three golden sigils already etched into it.
The second knight set the siege hammer to Viren's right.
Then his lady stepped close.
She drew his cloak into place with practiced hands, adjusting the fall of it with the ease of long repetition. Then she stilled, and for a moment their foreheads touched—brief, deliberate, a private ritual conducted in public without apology. Two people who had already chosen each other and had no remaining need to announce it.
Then it was done. She withdrew. The knights fell back. Riven turned away without ceremony. The procession dispersed to its assigned positions and cleared the ground.
At a gesture from the Herald, the array beneath Viren ignited.
Light surged upward—deep blue, dense, spiraling outward into layered rings that expanded across the arena floor and hummed with the particular resonance of old mechanisms waking from long disuse. The Elders above went still. The crowd, already silent, found a deeper register of it.
The array processed. Measured. Then a sphere of dark blue light shot upward from beneath the Herald's feet, rising fast before bursting into fine threads of Nyxvalis script—ancient in form, precise in function—that unfolded across the open air above the arena:
---
Assessment A
Gate Activity: Low
Current Output: Below Critical (Stable)
Blood Current Levels: 7 / 254 (Normal)
Heart Rate: 42 bpm (Normal)
Blood Circulation: Stable
Current Circulation: Stable
Overall: PASS
Assessment B
Cognitive Function: Standard / High
Exhaustion Levels: Low / Null
Collapse Threshold: 0.003%
Foreign Supplements: None
Anomalies: None
Overall: PASS
Assessment C
Mantle Activity: Null
Mantle Blade Activity: Null
Foreign Grafts: None
Secondary Augmentations: Standard
Secondary Equipment Assessment: Standard
Overall: PASS
---
For the crowd, this was confirmation. Clean numbers. A veteran in full health, carrying significant power weight.
For the Elders—it was something else. Several of them had gone very still, their plans realigning with quiet gazes.
"And now…"
Alison's hand drifted toward the opposite end of the arena.
"Standing in the name of the Accused—"
His eyes gleamed.
"Mantled under the title: The Silver-Eyed Calamity."
A flicker moved through the stands. Interest laced with unease. Whispers, spoken too long without confirmation.
"Zero Honours. Zero recorded missions. The youngest Mantled in thirty-nine generations."
Now the crowd leaned in. His gaze followed, feeding on it.
"Chion Nyxvalis."
A breath.
"Eighteenth of the Thirty-Ninth."
The scepter angled.
And with it, all expectation pointed toward the shadow of the entrance. Eyes locked onto it.
Waiting. Waiting. Waiting.
Nothing.
A second passed, then another.
Still nothing.
The silence shifted. Murmurs in the distance.
…where is he?
…had he fled?
…No. Not likely.
Below, Alison frowned just enough to ensure his sentiments wouldn't leak. His show, tainted. The crowd's attention slicing into him as though he were personally responsible for the delay.
He sighed, recalibrated, then his gaze shifted upwards.
Beyond the Fall of Barbel, to the dual moon nexus above.
A faint smile touching his lips as the two moons reflected of his crimson gaze.
seven minutes.
Seven before it reached its peak. And then—regret.
His smile bore teeth instantly.
How poetic.
He raised his hand, extending two fingers—little finger and ring. Then a snap followed. The sound cracked sharply through the arena.
Above them, an hourglass of crimson light erupted into existence, its form stabilising in the air as streams of glowing sand formed within its upper chamber.
"Ladies and gentlemen," Alison said smoothly, his voice once more perfectly composed, "it seems the accused is in no rush… choosing to measure his life against the clock."
He let the words linger, savouring the turn.
"And thus… we wait."
A second snap. The sands began their descent.
Below, Viren did not move. A pillar of silence and discipline rooted where he stood. Only his eyes rising to follow the flowing sands.
The crowd, however, did not share his sentiments. Low—very low, in the presence of greater powers—but still there. Glances passing silent words. Murmurs spreading in uneven waves of speculation and mockery. Voices daring to rise a pitch louder beneath the mounting tension.
High above, the Elders remained untouched by it. No movement. No reaction. Not even the courtesy of interest in what occurred below their feet.
Garrek did not shift. Neither did the Heavens. Equally preoccupied with their own silent agendas, welcoming the added seconds.
But further down that same column, the Thirty-Ninth was unravelling.
Not with whispers, not with the rank they held. But with the count.
Of the forty-seven seats that should have been filled, two remained empty.
One was expected. The accused.
The other—was not.
At first, it passed unnoticed. A gap among many in a failed generation with only forty-seven. Then someone noticed. Then another. Eyes began to move. Quietly at first, then with growing frequency. Between rows. Across ranks. The Thirty-Eighth noticed. The Thirty-Ninth felt it. Attention settled. And did not leave.
Leah sat among them, the Sixth designation from the very top. Her posture straight, her expression carefully composed. To anyone watching, she was calm.
Inside, she was anything but.
Cold sweat gathered beneath her skin, a slow, suffocating pressure building with every passing second. She was too close to them—too close to the Thirty-Eighth, too close to the upper ranks of the Thirty-Ninth. She kept her gaze forward. Feigning ignorance. Holding still.
But the glances kept coming. Sharp. Lingering. Curious.
They were beginning to connect the absence.
And once the whispers started—there would be no stopping them.
Her jaw tightened almost imperceptibly as her thoughts raced ahead of her.
Where the hell are you, Violet…