Magical Soul Parade - Chapter 286: Preceptor Odette

Chapter 286: Preceptor Odette

The walk from the shoulder blade balcony to the skull chamber at the head of the titan’s remains took several minutes even at a brisk pace, and Althea took it at her usual one. She passed through the ribcage courtyard where a cluster of Adepts were running drills in the open space between the curved bone walls, their soul masses flaring in controlled bursts as they ran through attack and counter sequences.

A few of them glanced up as she passed. The deference in their looks was something she had stopped noticing consciously around the third week, though she registered it still.

June fell into step behind her and said nothing, which was unusual enough that Althea noted it. June always had something to say.

The skull chamber’s entrance was a gap between the lower jaw and the cheekbone of the titan, wide enough for three people to walk through abreast, and the interior beyond it was naturally dim, the light coming in through the covered eye sockets in two broad, diffuse columns that fell across the long stone table at the center.

Caretakers Lance and Osei were already there. And between them, seated at the head of the table, was a woman Althea had never seen before.

She felt a general loosening of the tension she had been carrying across her shoulders since the flags at the tree line had started multiplying. A Preceptor here changed the situation entirely. Whatever the Arcanists were building toward outside, it would not be enough.

A Preceptor-ranked Ossuarist was not a more powerful version of a Caretaker — it was a different category of threat entirely, the kind of person whose arrival on a battlefield tended to end the battle and the field itself. Althea had known this from the moment June said the word, and she had genuinely been relieved to hear it.

But now that she actually saw the woman, her brow furrowed slightly.

The Preceptor was watching her. Not glancing over as Althea entered the way people naturally did when someone walked into a room, but watching her with a direct, assessing attention that had clearly been fixed on the entrance before Althea came through it.

The look lasted several seconds longer than any neutral acknowledgement warranted, and it carried the specific quality of confirming something rather than seeing something for the first time.

Then the Preceptor looked away and returned her attention to Caretaker Lance, picking up whatever thread of conversation Althea had interrupted.

Lance noticed Althea and gave her a curt nod before holding up one finger — a moment — and finishing his exchange with the Preceptor. Osei glanced at her briefly and then back at the table, his expression unreadable as always.

Althea stood and waited, keeping her own expression neutral too.

After a short while, Lance turned to her fully and smiled. “Preceptor Odette,” he said, “this is the one I was telling you about.”

Preceptor Odette looked at Althea again with the same direct attention as before and gave a small, deliberate nod.

“So this is the Fragment Bearer,” she said.

It was not a question. She glanced between Lance and Osei, her expression settling into something serious. “And you are both certain no one else knows?”

Lance nodded without hesitation. “We made sure of it. She was subtle during the battle. Even we only picked up on it when she released a larger burst than usual in a critical moment. Before that, she had been disguising herself as an Elemental user and it held completely. We would never have known otherwise…”

Osei nodded in agreement, saying nothing.

Preceptor Odette went quiet for a moment. Then she looked at the two Caretakers and the temperature of the room changed. It was not a shift in her volume or her posture, nothing so obvious as that. The air simply became colder, and the quality of the attention she directed at them carried a weight that had not been there a moment before.

“What you have become privy to does not leave this room,” she said. “Not to colleagues. Not to Caretakers you trust. No one. This is a secret within the Ossuary, and it is treated as one at every level. You are now inside that boundary.”

She paused and let silence drag for a beat, before continuing:

“That said, it is not all doom and gloom. Now that circumstances have allowed you to be in the know, a new world of opportunities has opened up to you within the Ossuary. So long as you can keep your lips sealed, doors will open that are not visible from outside… That is all I will say for now.”

Lance and Osei exchanged a glance and nodded to the Preceptor firmly, unanimously, without hesitation. It was a no-brainer for both of them.

The two Ossuarists were Grade 3 Caretakers. Lance was younger and could perhaps eventually reach Grade 2 with focused efforts, but he knew that was likely as far as he would go. Osei on the other hand, was in his fifties and had long since made peace with the ceiling above him. The look in both their eyes now was the look of men who’d been given a new lease on life, so there was nothing uncertain about the nod they gave.

Preceptor Odette looked at them for a moment longer, apparently satisfied. She knew their kind already.

Her attention shifted to Althea.

“You say the fragment you control is Order?” She asked.

“Yes, Preceptor.”

The Preceptor rubbed her chin slowly. “I have never heard of a Fragment of Order…” she murmured to herself before looking at Althea again:

“What grade is your fragment?”

“A Greater Fragment.”

Preceptor Odette’s brows rose slightly. She studied Althea with a new quality of attention. “A Greater Fragment…” she repeated softly. “Hmm… So you know the grading system. You have been inducted officially, then… Tell me, which Preceptor scouted you? Who do you mentor under?”

“Preceptor Elias.”

The response drew a genuine look of surprise from Preceptor Odette that lasted a full moment before a short, soft chuckle replaced it.

“Elias,” she muttered, a strange glint entering her eyes. “It seems things are working in my favor after all…”