The morning ca quietly, no drums, no celebration, just silence settling over the capital like a heavy blanket.
Leo dressed in the dark clothing a servant had left on his bed, formal but simple, and a note that said: morial attire, co to the main hall when ready.
When he arrived, the delegation was already gathered, everyone wore dark colors, Iori’s black robes made her white hair and red markings stand out even more, Akane stood straight, her playful deanor nowhere in sight,Takeshi and Yuki flanked them, both silent and serious.
" Let’s go, we will be walking," Iori said, no elaboration needed.
They left the estate on foot, joining the streams of people moving through the capital streets toward the Grand Arena, everyone wore dark colors and everyone moved quietly, the usual chaos of the city replaced by collective mourning.
The Grand Arena ca into view.
Scaffolding surrounded damaged sections but the main floor had been cleared, cleaned and prepared, thousands were already gathering, delegates from every race, nobles, commoners, anyone who wanted to pay respects.
The arena floor had been divided into sections, each race given space for their own traditions.
Leo followed Iori to the Oni section, they stood among Great House mbers, warriors and nobles, the crowd was massive—tens of thousands filling the arena despite yesterday’s attack happening in this exact location.
The empire had reclaid this space, turned it from battlefield back into gathering place.
At the center of the arena floor stood a raised platform, the Grand Priest waited there, robed in white and gold with hands folded.
Silence fell as he raised his arms.
"We gather here, in grief."
The Grand Priest’s voice carried across the arena with magical amplification, clear and pure.
"Two nights ago, we lost brothers, sisters, parents and children, we lost friends and strangers, we lost those who ca to celebrate and found only violence."
He paused and let the words settle.
"Each of us mourns differently, each culture, each race and each family carrying their own traditions for honoring the dead, today we make space for all of them."
The priest lowered his arms.
"Let us rember."
The elves went first.
Their section was smallest—they’d lost the most in the initial explosion, High Elves, Wood Elves and even a few Dark Elves stood together, united in grief despite their usual separations.
They sang.
No instrunts, no accompanint, just voices rising in harmony, the song was beautiful and terrible—mourning woven into lody, loss given sound, it spoke of forests that would never hear these voices again, of light fading and of silence where there should be life.
Leo didn’t understand the words spoken in elven dialect but he didn’t need to, the emotion carried through.
When they finished they fell silent, complete silence, a minute of it and then two.
Honoring the dead through absence of sound.
The dwarves ca next.
They carried stone tablets, each one carved with nas, dates and brief descriptions, the work was exquisite—runes and symbols making each tablet unique and personal.
One by one, they drove the tablets into the arena floor. Dwarven magic made the stone beneath soften montarily—just enough to accept the markers. Ceremonial mallets struck each tablet, hamring them deep, each strike rang out like a bell, each one a na rembered, a life marked.
When all the tablets stood an elder dwarf stepped forward.
"Stone rembers," he said, voice rough as gravel, "stone endures, these nas will stand and these lives will be carved into history, we swear it."
The other dwarves responded as one, "We swear it."
Then they placed hands on the tablets, all of them, and the stone glowed faintly—magic infused and preservation guaranteed the tablets would last centuries wherever they were eventually placed.
When the ceremony concluded, they would be removed carefully, transported to permanent morial sites. So to dwarven holds, so to family lands, so to a morial garden the empire would build.
But for now, they stood in the arena, witnesses to grief, markers of lives lost.
The Oni section fell silent.
Attendants moved through kneeling warriors, lighting braziers at intervals. Sacred herbs caught fire, producing thick crimson smoke that rose in steady columns even in daylight.
Then they sang.
"Far below the crimson peak, where shadows dwell and spirits sleep..."
The ancient mourning song rose in harmony. Deep voices carrying across the arena with controlled power, warriors who could shake mountains sang with tears on their faces, postures perfect despite grief.
"Lay down your blade upon the waves, the mountain calls from ancient graves..."
The smoke continued rising as they sang through all verses, each word weighted with generations of aning, each line a promise that the dead would return to ancestors waiting in distant peaks.
When the final verse ended—"Where warriors fall... but rise once more"—silence held absolute.
Then, as one, they bowed deeply, perfectly synchronized, honoring the fallen with discipline and faith.
This was how Oni mourned, with smoke and song and unshakeable belief in hocoming.
The humans were more varied.
So knelt in prayer while others laid flowers on designated areas, priests from different temples spoke blessings and perford last rites for the departed.
It was quieter than the Oni, more personal, families crying openly, parents holding each other and children too young to understand but sensing grief around them.
Simple and devastating.
The Beastkin ran.
They transford—full or partial shifts into animal forms—and ran circles around the arena floor, wolves, lions, bears, tigers and Panthers —speed, grace and freedom, flute played solemnly.
A tribute to lives cut short, a celebration of movent, of vitality and of wild nature that defined them.
They howled and roared as they ran, not in grief but in joy, rembering their dead as they lived—fierce and free and untad.
When they finished they returned to human form and stood in silence.
The contrast was striking, wild celebration followed by perfect stillness.
The rfolk had brought water.
They’d created a pool at their section—magic or engineering Leo couldn’t tell, it shimred with unnatural clarity.
They sang into the water, different from elven songs—deeper, resonant, like the ocean itself given voice, the water rippled with each note and patterns ford and dissolved.
When they finished they released the water and let it flow across the arena floor, mixing with Oni sacred herbs, human tears and everything else.
All of it flowing together and all of it becoming one and vanishing.
The Grand Priest returned to the platform.
"We have honored our dead in our own ways and now we honor them together."
He gestured and the arena floor began to glow, magic woven into stone activated and nas appeared in light across the entire surface—hundreds of them, maybe thousands.
Every person who’d died in the attack.
Their nas, their ages and their races.
All of them rembered and all of them honored.
"They ca to celebrate," the priest said, "they ca in hope and they ca believing in what the Jubilee represents—unity, peace and the promise of a better future."
His voice grew stronger.
"They died because others feared that promise, because others would rather see us divided than united and because hatred is easier than hope."
The glowing nas pulsed brighter.
"But they did not die in vain, because we are here, because we stand together and because we refuse to let fear win."
Silence held.
The priest stepped back.
No more words needed and the nas spoke for themselves.
Leo stood among the Oni section and let his eyes wander across the arena.
So many people, so many races, all gathered in shared grief.
He saw the elves across the way, their section still small and still devastated, and among them—
Aria.
She stood with other High Elves, dark clothing making her pale skin look even paler and black hair catching light, she looked tired and haunted like she hadn’t slept.
Their eyes t across the distance.
Just for a mont, recognition flickering between them.
Then she looked away, back to her own people and her own grief.
Leo understood, this wasn’t the ti or place.
But seeing her alive, seeing her standing there—it settled sothing in his chest.
The ceremony continued for hours.
Individual families stepped forward to honor their specific dead, nas spoken aloud, stories shared and tears shed openly.
Leo watched it all and processed the scale of it.
Hundreds dead, thousands injured, families destroyed and lives ended violently.
He stood in silence and watched more nas spoken, more tears shed and more grief given voice.
Afternoon ca slowly.
The ceremony transitioned and magical gates opened across the arena by groups of mage—portals to different realms and different territories, the dead would be transported ho and buried or burned or honored according to their cultures’ traditions.
But before that the Emperor erged.
In person, walking across the arena floor in simple dark robes, no crown, no imperial regalia, just a man among mourners.
The arena fell silent, everyone watching.
He approached the center where the glowing nas pulsed with light, knelt on one knee, drew a single white flower from his robes—simple, unadorned—and placed it gently on the stone.
Then he bowed, deep and formal. A gesture of respect that transcended politics.
He remained there, silent. Thirty seconds that felt like minutes.
When he rose, his expression was somber. He looked across the arena. t eyes with delegates, with families, with the grieving masses.
Then he turned and walked away, left as quietly as he’d arrived.
The ssage was clear. Before he was Emperor, he was one of them, sharing grief. Honoring loss.
The arena remained silent until he was gone.
Families lined up and bodies wrapped in shrouds were carried through the gates, so families went with them while others stayed behind.
The elven delegation was among the first to depart, their casualties severe enough that most were leaving imdiately and the Jubilee held no appeal anymore.
So academy students remained—required to stay, or choosing to. Leo scanned their section but couldn’t find Aria among the departing or staying groups.
She was sowhere, but where, he didn’t know.
The procession continued for hours, bodies leaving and families following, the arena slowly emptying as the dead were carried away.
By evening the floor was empty again, just the glowing nas remaining and they would fade by midnight the priest had said, but for now they lit the arena like stars.
The so people had left but so remained, Leo and his group among them.
Standing in sections and waiting, the morial was over but sothing felt unfinished.
Then the sky changed.
Light blood overhead, not natural light but magical projection, the Emperor’s face materialized massive and clear, visible across the entire capital and probably across the entire empire.
His voice followed, magically amplified but not shouting, conversational like speaking directly to each person.
"Citizens of the empire, today we mourned."
The city went silent and even from the arena Leo could feel it—the collective pause as millions listened.
"Our joyous celebration was attacked, terrorists sought to divide us, to make us fear and to destroy what we have built together."
The Emperor’s expression was somber, genuine or perford Leo couldn’t tell.
"But they failed."
The words carried weight.
"They failed because we are stronger than they imagined, because our unity is not so fragile and because we do not surrender to fear."
Leo watched the projection and studied the Emperor’s face, looking for cracks in the facade, and found none.
"Today we honored our dead, we rembered their sacrifice and we carried their mory forward."
A pause, deliberate.
"And tomorrow we continue, the Jubilee will resu, not because we forget and not because we dismiss their deaths, but because they died protecting what the Jubilee represents—unity, strength and celebration of what we have built together across all races and nations."
Another pause.
"We will not let their sacrifice be in vain, we will not give terrorists what they want and we will honor the dead by living fully, by celebrating boldly and by showing that we are unbreakable!."
The projection began to fade.
"Tomorrow we celebrate and our enemies will know—they cannot break us!."
The Emperor’s image vanished.
Silence held for a mont.
Then distantly Leo heard it, cheering, not everywhere all at once but enough and it was spreading both outside and inside the arena, soon everywhere had beco a deafening sound of cheers with tears, people responding to the ssage and embracing it.
Footsteps behind him, Iori.
"He’s good," Leo said.
"He’s survived this long for a reason," Iori looked at the arena floor, the glowing nas still visible, and the cheering audience that remained. "tomorrow will be different, people will want to live again, to prove they survived and to celebrate that they’re still here."
"Co on, let’s go" Iori said, already walking away.
They left the arena with the delegation and walked through streets already changing, workers putting up decorations for tomorrow and banners being hung, the city preparing to celebrate.
Leo fell asleep that night thinking about what ca next.
And woke to drums.
Reviews
All reviews (0)