Chapter 124: Ulvakor [1]

He took his time in the bath, because the bath was warm and the morning air at this altitude was sharp and he had not had anything approaching comfort in what felt like weeks.

When he finally stepped out, dressed in the Windsky uniform, he stood in front of the window for a moment and looked at the cloud ocean below.

A few weeks before he could see the others again.

He left the room and headed for Sector Seven.

He wasn’t running late, so he took a longer route.

The Windsky Skyland in the morning looked like something that shouldn’t be real. The marble paths caught the early light and threw it in directions that made everything glow faintly. The cloud ocean stretched in every direction below the island’s edges, lit from underneath by the same ambient gold that had no obvious source. Wind moved through everything constantly but gently, the kind of wind that belonged to high places.

What he hadn’t expected was what the Primordials were doing inside all of this.

A man stood on a balcony above him, holding a cup of something steaming, staring at the clouds with the blank gaze of someone who wasn’t fully awake yet.

A group of women sat in a public garden around luminescent flowers, and from the fragments Alden could hear as he passed, they were arguing about whether a certain type of plant looked better against the north wall or the south one.

A young Primordial with a thick stack of books under each arm was speed-walking down the avenue looking genuinely stressed about being late.

Alden slowed his pace without meaning to.

’This is nothing like what I imagined.’

He had pictured Apothesis as something austere and enormous and serious. Ancient beings of immense power moving through deliberate, ceremonial existence. Everything carrying the weight of thousands of years.

Instead there were beings of immense power arguing about garden arrangements and looking annoyed that they forgot something at home.

They were just living. On a floating island above the clouds, surrounded by divine architecture and ambient mana that made breathing feel like a minor spiritual experience, doing the same things people did everywhere. ℯℯ𝑙.

The main difference, he noticed, was just that everything around them was better. The materials, the craftsmanship, the food on the tables visible through open doorways, the quality of the lanterns.

’It’s just a higher civilization,’ he thought. ’Richer. Longer-lived. More powerful. But still people doing what people do.’

That was somehow more unsettling than if they had been completely alien.

Then a pair of eyes found him. Then another.

The ambient weight in the air shifted in a way he had already learned to recognize.

He kept walking.

"Why are they letting lower mortals walk through our territory like this," a voice said from a shaded courtyard to his left, not bothering to lower itself.

"I don’t understand it either," someone answered. "They don’t belong here."

"Look at that uniform. They gave him Windsky colors. Why in the world Lord Constantine take in such lower brats?"

Alden’s expression didn’t move.

’Don’t give them something to work with.’

He kept his pace steady and continued past the courtyard without a glance. The voices behind him lost interest quickly when they got nothing back.

What he did notice, after another few minutes of walking, was something more interesting.

The weight was easier.

The crushing pressure that had nearly put him on the floor during the Grand Selection yesterday had settled into something more like a heavy coat which was still present and was manageable, more adaptable.

’Ulvakor said my body would adjust quickly.’ He rolled his shoulders slightly, testing the resistance. ’He wasn’t wrong.’

His mind went sideways to Isabella and Theodore, standing casually in the Grand Selection chamber while the pressure of four Assembly leaders filled the room. Watching the cadets struggle to stay upright with expressions that were polite but not particularly worried.

’How long did it take them? How many times did they hit the floor before this became routine?’ A quiet amusement found him. ’Did Isabella ever look undignified climbing to her feet in a room full of Primordials? I would give up something significant to see a memory crystal of that.’

His thoughts cut short when he spotted a pair of shining metal rings in a vendor’s stall by the side of the street.

Seris instantly flashed in his mind.

He stepped inside. The owner looked down at him with the exact same cold eyes every other Primordial used on humans.

Alden forced a smile and pointed toward a silver display box. "I want to take a look at those."

The vendor pulled out the box without a word. Inside lay two rings. Their stones gleamed, faint light pulsing between them as if they were drawn together.

"Twenty gold coins," the vendor said flatly.

’Twenty?!’ Alden stared. The guy was either ripping him off because he was human or the rings were actually worth that much. Either way, he had enough from the coins Seris had given him back in the dormitory.

"Here," Alden said, setting the gold down.

He grabbed the box and walked away.

Opening the lid on his way down the street, he looked at the twin rings resting in the velvet and smiled.

’Alright.’ He snapped the box shut, and headed straight toward Sector Seven.

____________

He arrived at the edge of Sector Seven.

The training territory opened up ahead of him in wide, clean arenas built for people who needed a lot of space to do what they were doing. Stone platforms, weapons racks, mana-measuring structures, elevated observation areas. Several figures were already present, warming up or sparring in controlled exchanges.

No Ulvakor anywhere visible.

Alden moved through the main platform, scanning. He pushed through an arched opening at the rear of the arena that led out into a secluded garden space, and there, near a stone pillar in the shade, he spotted a familiar head of messy white hair.

"Trainer Ul—" He stopped.

Ulvakor was there, but he wasn’t alone.

Standing directly in front of him was a woman in a pristine Spire uniform, silver and white, her posture carrying the kind of composed authority that was recognizable from any distance.

Isabella.

Alden’s brain stalled.

He watched from the archway as Isabella raised one finger, pointed at Ulvakor’s chest, and poked him.

"You promised me a date today," she said, her voice carrying the specific tone of someone who is absolutely right about something and intends to be pleasant about it in a way that makes the other person very uncomfortable. "And look at what you’re doing."

Alden pressed himself against the wall of the archway.

’...What am I looking at?’

He watched Ulvakor’s face shift into a sheepish, apologetic grin. He watched Isabella’s composure stay perfectly intact while her eyes carried something playful underneath it. He watched Ulvakor reach out and catch her wrist before she could poke him a second time.

Alden crouched down behind the stone wall.

’They’re DATING?!’

His entire internal monologue had stopped functioning correctly. ’A HUMAN and a PRIMORDIAL?’ The woman who had stood in a royal court and calmly outmaneuvered a grieving king. And the third-highest authority in Apothesis.

Together. On a date. Or supposed to be on a date. A date that Ulvakor was currently trying to reschedule.

He had never written this. He had never thought about writing this. He wasn’t sure this was even something he would have thought to write.

The world had developed many things very much on its own.

In the garden, Ulvakor was speaking in the earnest, slightly apologetic tone of someone who genuinely wants to fix a problem they caused. "I truly am sorry, Isabel. But I have a new student arriving this morning and I have to be there. You remember how these first days are."

Isabella studied him with narrow eyes. "Your apology lacks sincerity."

"I am completely sincere, I swear." He laughed softly, his thumb moving briefly across the back of her hand before he released her gently. "Let me make it tomorrow instead. I’m fully off-duty then. You have my whole schedule."

Isabella looked at him for several measured seconds.

Then the very faint softening around her eyes that passed for satisfaction in her expression.

Ulvakor noticed it too. His smile shifted into something warmer and more amused.

Then his eyes moved sideways.

Directly toward the archway.

"By the way," he said, "how long are you planning to crouch behind that wall, Alden?"

Alden’s heart lurched.

’How the hell did he spot me?!’

He stood up, stepped through the archway, and brushed down his coat with several very deliberate passes of his hands. He composed his expression into something he hoped suggested a person who had simply been walking by.

"Good morning, Trainer Ulvakor." He turned his head with a smile that was working harder than it looked. "Good morning, Lady Isabella."