Chapter 78: Two Emblems in One Night

Each head of the Seven Pillar families took their seat in turn, settling into the places the crown had arranged according to their house crests.

Every Patriarch and Matriarch was permitted exactly one companion to remain at their side for the length of the council.

House Sarnel sat closest to the Emperor’s own seat. Cassius had chosen Elder Meron to stand beside him tonight, a man who’d spent most of the ball quietly in the background, never once drawing attention to himself.

It was a departure from Cassius’s usual habit of favoring Elder Burrel over the others, but for a night like this, Cassius wanted someone whose mind ran level and unhurried, not prone to impulse.

If anything unexpected came up, he was fairly certain Meron could handle it without needing to be told twice.

House Austur took the seat on Varka’s other side. Pentaron, Patriarch of House Austur, had apparently chosen not to bring an Elder at all, arriving instead with one of his own knights, armored in a style clearly reserved for someone of considerable rank.

The cut of that armor and the particular shade worked into its pegasus crest suggested the man held a position close to special commander within House Austur’s ranks.

Galen, Patriarch of House Versys, had brought one of his Elders and taken a seat squarely in the middle of the table, putting as much distance as the seating allowed between himself and House Sarnel, closer instead to House Austur’s side.

House Pneuma’s Patriarch, Cedric, had come without an Elder at all, since his house had never carried the numbers the other Pillar families did.

Had he known in advance how serious tonight would turn, he might well have brought one anyway, if only to help him think through the odd and troubling matter stirring within his own house of late.

As it was, he’d settled for bringing his most trusted head servant, a man who looked younger than his years but carried himself with a build far sturdier than Cedric’s own thin frame.

House Augusta and House Winter both seemed to be aiming for seats set a little apart from everyone else. Before either house sat down, though, they crossed paths with a few familiar faces and fell into conversation while the hall finished its preparations for the council to come.

"My greetings, Patriarch Augusta, Lord Irvine."

"My greetings, Matriarch Winter, Lady Amelia."

"I am Lucian Sarnel, seventh son of House Sarnel."

Lucian offered his own greeting first, drawn along by Alicia and Cecilia, who had made a point of steering him toward Irvine, only to find that the Patriarch and Amelia were still standing together, deep in conversation, on their way to the council table.

He gave his bow with his head tilted just slightly, enough to catch Irvine’s face from below, and realized, with some surprise, that this was the first time he’d ever stood this close to the man.

He’d crossed paths with Irvine once or twice as a child, but they’d never actually spoken, not even when Lumina used to invite him over to play at her family’s home.

House Sarnel’s rules back then had been strict enough to keep Lucian from wandering out without Cassius’s direct permission, strict enough that the handful of times he’d slipped away on his own, he’d ended up vanishing for days at a stretch, found again, more than once, only because Rumelia had gone looking for him.

He felt a gaze settle on him then, sharp with curiosity, coming from somewhere beside Irvine. It belonged to Claudia, Irvine’s eldest daughter and Lumina’s own sister, who had been watching him closely from the moment Alicia and Cecilia first brought him near.

Lucian couldn’t guess what exactly was running through her mind, only that the attention made him faintly uneasy.

Irvine, for his part, looked delighted. He grinned, closed a hand firmly around Lucian’s shoulder, and clapped it a few times for good measure.

"Look at you, all grown up. Last I remember, you were just a shy little thing who hid behind your maid every time someone looked at you twice."

Irvine had rarely crossed paths with Lucian over the years, but he’d heard a fair amount about him through Lumina all the same, and it struck him now as odd that the boy had come to a ball like this without his usual maid at his side.

"Is it because you’ve got some new kind of strength now that you don’t need to lean on her anymore?"

There was something pointed buried inside that question, as though Irvine had already caught a trace of some power Lucian was working hard to keep hidden.

"I’m sorry, what strength do you mean?"

Lucian answered carefully, an uneasy feeling already settling in his stomach at whatever Irvine seemed about to say next.

"The kind of strength, for instance, where you can actually see."

Irvine said it without the faintest hesitation, his eyes fixed, unmistakably sharp, on the black cloth covering Lucian’s eyes.

It wasn’t only Lucian who froze. The Winter family standing nearby, and Claudia most of all, looked equally startled by what her father had just said out loud.

Lucian’s whole body locked up. He’d come here hoping to build some kind of goodwill with House Augusta, and instead found himself standing in the middle of something that felt uncomfortably close to an interrogation, from a man he should have been doing everything to avoid.

I’ve never shown my ability here, not once tonight. What does he mean by that? Is this some kind of instinct, some higher-tier sense for picking out a hidden power in someone else?

Damn it. Have I been acting less like a blind man than I thought lately? This is bad. If he says this in front of my family, I’ll have a whole new danger to deal with.

A dozen possibilities ran through Lucian’s mind at once, every one of them worse than the last. If word got out that he could see, every careful plan he’d made to keep his abilities hidden from the people he’d eventually have to face would unravel far sooner than he could afford.

In the middle of that sudden, taut silence between Lucian and Irvine, Claudia’s heel came down, hard, on her father’s foot.

Irvine’s face twisted with pain almost instantly.

"Father, enough with the jokes. Can’t you see how confused he looks right now? If Lumina finds out you’ve been teasing him like this, she’s going to be furious with both of us."

Claudia scolded him with the easy familiarity of someone who’d done this before, and the whole moment curdled, for a second, into something thoroughly awkward.

"Ahaha, really, it was only a joke, don’t take it seriously, Lucian." Irvine’s grin came back, a little too quick. "I’d only heard that people with a white Awakening always end up with some strange ability or another. You know who I mean, don’t you?"

His expression smoothed over at once, the tension draining out of him as easily as it had arrived, and he clapped Lucian’s shoulder a few more times, as though trying to coax him back into something looser.

But that last line, about a white Awakening always carrying some strange power with it, had clearly been the real seed of his suspicion in the first place. Whatever he said now to smooth it over, Lucian couldn’t shake the sense that Irvine still half believed exactly what he’d first accused him of.

Then, without warning, Irvine pressed something into Lucian’s hand.

"Lord Irvine, isn’t this..."

Before Lucian could even finish the question, Irvine had already turned and walked off toward his seat at the table.

"Ah, that’s our family’s emblem. If House Augusta’s help is ever something you need, just show that to any of our people, and whoever matters will see to it personally."

Lucian looked down and found a crest resting in his palm, a lion wreathed in red flame.

Carrying the emblem of a Seven Pillar family was no small thing. It marked a person as someone that house had placed real trust in.

But why would he give me this, right after asking me something that strange?

With Irvine already gone, Lucian turned instead to Claudia, offering his thanks for the trust House Augusta had shown him.

"Oh, don’t mention it. This is the first time we’ve actually met, but it isn’t the first time I’ve heard your name. You really are as interesting as Lumina always says. If anything, it would’ve been strange for someone she talks about this much not to end up with one of our emblems eventually."

Something about hearing that left Lucian faintly unsettled, and he found himself wondering, for the first time, exactly what Lumina had been telling her family about him all this while.

Before he could ask Claudia anything more, Amelia, Matriarch of House Winter, stepped into his path and pressed something of her own into his hand.

"Please accept this emblem as well. I’m afraid we don’t have much time to talk right now, but I do hope that once you have it, you’ll come visit our estate, Lucian."

This thing... isn’t this an emblem too? Wait, isn’t this House Winter’s?

Why would Archduchess Amelia give me her own family’s emblem now, of all moments?

She seemed to be following Irvine’s lead almost deliberately, as though both of them had reached the same conclusion tonight: that it was time to forge a stronger tie to Lucian, whatever was coming next.

What is actually going on here? Why are these two suddenly handing me their emblems, one right after the other?

"About your invitation to your estate, Lady Amelia, I would be honored to come, if the invitation still stands when the time comes. But this emblem, are you certain you want me to keep it?"

Amelia only nodded, saying nothing more, and turned to take her own seat at the table.

"Lucky you, walking away with two emblems from two Pillar families in one night," Cecilia said, clearly still processing what she’d just watched unfold.

Lucian hadn’t expected it either, not for a moment, least of all after doing nothing he felt had earned either of them.

After a short while, the council finally began, every one of the Seven Pillars seated in their place at the table, the rest of the hall’s nobility gathered just beyond it, close enough to watch the entire proceeding unfold without a seat of their own.

Once Amelia and Irvine had both settled into their chairs, Varka lifted his right hand and summoned someone forward.

"Lucas. Lay out everything of importance we’ve uncovered recently, in front of everyone here, including the full report on how that Dark Beast was captured."

Lucas stepped out from behind Varka’s seat. The cut of his uniform and the Relic blade at his hip, clearly a weapon of the highest grade, marked him as the commander of one of Bravenheart’s own military divisions.

"At once, Your Majesty. If I may, allow me to present the findings from the Achor Division, stationed along our western front."