The third day of the Candidate Trials.
Another tea party.
Another room spun from gold and glass.
Valeria stood at the entrance for a mont longer than necessary, her gaze sweeping the space. Different hosts this ti. Different sigils woven into the silken banners draping the walls. But the feeling? The sa.
Elegant nobles perched in cushioned chairs, sipping from crystal glasses and laughing with the calculated ease of predators at rest. Servants floated by with trays of imported fruits and delicate pastries spelled to remain eternally fresh. In the center, once again, the familiar sight: a wide, suspended scrying orb, its mirrored surface displaying shifting glimpses of the ongoing Candidate Trials.
The forest-like arena had changed—less vibrant now. The ground looked torn, the trees thinner, darker. Fewer candidates moved through the space. The culling was well underway.
Valeria stepped fully into the salon.
She knew what this was.
The last gathering had taught her well enough.
The conversations at the Valcarrini event had been pleasant, in the way a wolf bares its teeth in the snow and calls it a smile. Connections had been ford — in na. In appearance.
But they were threads of spider silk: delicate, performative, and ultimately aningless.
She had not been one of them.
Not truly.
And they had known it.
Her house's sudden rise, buoyed by the arm of Marquis Vendor, did not change the reality that the Olarion na had faded from true prominence long ago. To these nobles, she was tolerated, watched — but never truly welcod.
Valeria moved to a seat near the edge of the arrangent, exchanging the necessary nods with the gathering. Familiar faces here and there. Houses with old bloodlines and older grudges. The air was ripe with courtly conversation—asured, delicate, and utterly false.
She folded her hands over her lap, posture flawless.
If they would play at civility, so would she.
A young man, dressed in deep green formalwear with the insignia of House Bartolini, offered a pleasant smile. "Lady Olarion. A pleasure."
"Lord Bartolini," she replied with the faintest inclination of her head.
The pleasantries circled the room, a dance of obligation. Valeria gave them what they expected—enough to be seen, not enough to be claid.
And all the while, she listened.
Snippets of conversation floated around her.
"The commoner girl with the shadow-forged daggers—did you see her leap? Primitive, but effective…"
"They fight like beasts. If not for the enchantnts keeping them alive, half would be corpses already."
"Astonishing, isn't it? What desperation breeds."
Laughter. Polished and brittle.
Valeria said nothing.
She focused on the scrying projection.
A battle unfolded below the floating vantage. Two boys, both unmarked by noble crests, fighting near a shattered ley tree. One wielded a battered polearm, the other a thin rapier that sparked with unstable magic.
Neither fought like a "beast."
They fought like survivors.
Her eyes narrowed slightly.
Resilient. Adaptive.
Qualities the people around her would never understand.
The host of today's gathering, Lady Renata Ferani, eventually rose to offer her welco—a vision in silver-draped velvet, her voice poised and resonant.
"We gather today," she said smoothly, "to celebrate excellence—both that which has been proven… and that which has yet to be refined."
Another thinly veiled phrase.
Another reminder: you are not one of us.
Valeria accepted it without flinching.
It was a familiar weight.
Better the clean cut of exclusion than the poisoned dagger of false warmth.
As the conversations resud and wagers were quietly exchanged about the fates of the contenders, Valeria leaned back slightly in her chair, her gaze steady on the flickering scenes below.
Let them laugh.
The trials were not yet over.
And the ones they mocked might yet carve a future with blood and grit — a future no gilded tea salon could stop.
The scrying orb shifted.
For a heartbeat, the projection blurred—then sharpened into a wide forest clearing.
A boy stood alone.
A battered black coat. Dark, wind-stirred hair. And perched lazily on his shoulder, a snow-white cat, watching the world with indifferent eyes.
Valeria froze.
Her breath caught, silent and sharp.
Her back remained straight, her expression composed—but her heart slamd against her ribs like a fist against iron.
She knew.
Even before the na would appear.
She knew.
The nobles around her murmured idly, unaware of the weight that had just dropped into her chest.
"Another commoner?"
"He looks—strange. Unimpressive."
Soone chuckled. "Probably another who'll be weeded out before evening."
Valeria barely heard them.
Her eyes locked onto the figure moving across the clearing with that unmistakable, maddening calm. Every step asured. Every shift natural.
Lucavion.
Even from this distance, even through the layers of broadcast distortion, she could tell.
But sothing else caught her eye.
She leaned in slightly, hardly aware she was doing it.
The scar.
The ugly, jagged scar that had once slashed across his right eye—gone.
Not faded.
Gone.
As if he had peeled away that piece of history and left it behind.
Transford.
Sharper now. Cleaner. Deadlier.
The orb shimred, the view widening to reveal the battlefield around him.
The remnants of a Warden-class Beast lay crumpled nearby—its crystal core shattered, its armored limbs twisted unnaturally.
Gasps rippled through the tea salon.
A few nobles straightened, craning their necks to get a better look.
Soone to Valeria's left let out a low whistle, amusent coloring his voice. "Did he already bring down the Warden? Hah. Quick work for a stray."
Another, seated closer to the host's circle, laughed lightly behind her hand. "Luck, surely. The creature was probably already weakened by others. That's how these sorts survive—by scavenging the efforts of their betters."
"Fast, though," another admitted with a shrug, lifting a jeweled glass to his lips. "I'll give him that. At least he knows how to run."
The laughter that followed was soft, polished—designed to be heard without ever sounding crude.
Valeria didn't move.
Not even when a particularly smug voice closer to her mused aloud, "Mark my words, he'll fold against real opponents. Tricks like that only work until the real contenders show up."
She sat still, letting their words pass over her like a current over stone.
But inside—
Inside, she burned.
Not with anger.
Not even with scorn.
But with a sharper, colder certainty.
They have no idea.
She watched Lucavion adjust the white cat on his shoulder with an idle flick of his fingers, as if bored with the battlefield already, as if the Warden had been a minor inconvenience rather than a threat ant to thin the ranks of hundreds.
There was no visible strain in his movents.
No triumph.
Only that sa calm.
That sa damnable ease.
Valeria's lips pressed into a thin line.
He hasn't changed, she thought, though the truth prickled at the edges of the thought.
He had changed.
The scar gone.
The roughness tempered into sothing more lethal.
He had shed the marks of his survival like old armor—and now walked into this gilded deathmatch as if it were rely another evening stroll.
She could hear the nobles around her still talking, still weaving their little theories and casual dismissals.
None of them saw it.
Not really.
But she did.
And deep down, Valeria knew—
Lucavion wasn't surviving this tournant.
He was asuring it.
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