Chapter 178 The Founders’ Festival

Five delegations rolled into Founders’ Field under a low morning sky, each wagon flying its own proud banner. Crowds lined the rope fences ten deep, craning to see which school would carry home the Founders’ crown.

"Which one is the fish school?" Nix asked, standing on the Company’s bench to see over the heads.

"The ones who smell like tar and regret," Mara said, sniffing the wind.

"Both of those are my favorite smells, honestly."

Selh stood on his barrel at the gate, announcing each school in a voice already ragged from the morning. He survived Ironhold, Saltreach and Solarch with style, but the Wyrmwall’s thirty honorifics dropped him into a coughing fit.

"Five schools, one champion, please clap," he croaked, waving his scroll like a dying flag.

A scattering of polite applause rolled across the rope fences, then died in the damp air.

Ironhold’s cadets marched in matching rows, shields locked, jaws set, led by a scarred captain named simply Garth. Saltreach followed in sea-blue coats, swinging rope belts, trailing the smell of tar and a dozen foreign songs.

"Saltreach carries eleven knives in their belts by my count," Veska said, "and one in a hat."

"Which hat, and does it come with the knife?"

The Solarch Legion School rode in on drake-bred horses, cadets in scaled armor with steam rising from their shoulders. Behind them the Wyrmwall Warden Academy tramped in beneath tower shields and green cloaks, silent as a wall approaching.

"The Royal Academy comes last," Ysabel said, "so the crowd can be properly bored first."

A dragon-blooded cadet at the head of the Solarch column, steam curling from his collar, tipped two fingers toward Riven. The heat rolling off him bent the air above the grass, making the nearest tent canvas begin to steam gently.

"Varo Sunscale," Nix murmured, reading her program, "dragon blood, hates losing, loves dessert."

The Royal Academy entered last, Class One in polished formation, Dorian in the lead with sunlight arranged across his hair. Class Zero straggled behind with Selh sprinting ahead to announce Riven before the very last of his breath failed completely.

"Collector of the Overdue, Ender of Choirs, Seeder of Seeds—" he gasped.

He slid off the barrel in a collapse, still holding his scroll above his head like a flag of surrender. A medic dragged the herald to a bench, fanned his face, and fed him one cautious little sip of water.

"Medic, medic, he’s breathing," she called, "that counts as a full announcement."

Garth stepped into Riven’s path, a hulking wall of scars, and spat deliberately onto the ground beside his shoes. His cadets sniggered behind their shields, delighted that the academy’s famous villain looked so much smaller than his titles.

"This is the academy’s famous villain, smaller than the songs," Garth rumbled.

"You missed my shoes by a full inch," Riven said. "Work on your aim, Captain."

Bram planted the Company’s banner pole in the mud and leaned on it like furniture determined to stay. The banner read Class Zero in Nix’s handwriting, with a smaller line beneath it offering refunds on request.

"Move that rag, villain, this patch of grass belongs to Ironhold now," Garth said.

"Then come and move it yourself, big guy... bring friends, you’ll need them."

At the pavilion, six Ironhold cadets lowered their shoulders and charged to shove the Company off its patch of grass. Veska stepped in front of the tent pole with her spear grounded, the whole charge breaking against her like surf.

"Last Watch," she said calmly. "Nobody enters this pavilion without a permit."

Six cadets bounced off her, slid across the rain-soaked grass, and landed in a perfectly neat row of brown mud. They sat there blinking at the sky, shields in their laps, while the crowd howled with laughter along the ropes.

"Eleven seconds," Mara said, "that is a new record for a shove."

Somewhere in the stands a child started chanting the word mud, and ten thousand people joined in.

’Veska doesn’t even move. She just declares the ground hers and the world agrees.’

Garth hauled his dripping cadets upright by their collars and marched them off, muttering threats about the first round. Lucas watched them go from the pavilion steps, writing the whole incident into his notebook with tiny precise strokes.

"I witness: the grass is still Class Zero’s," he said, "I will keep the receipt."

Prince Caius rose on the balcony in a coat stitched with so many medals that it chimed when he breathed. He raised both hands for silence, then decreed that the champion’s prize would include the hand of the Third Princess.

"The champion of this Festival will receive the hand of Princess Yukine," Caius announced to the cheering crowd.

Ysabel stood so very fast that her bench scraped backward, one hand rising as if to kneel the whole balcony. Isolde caught her wrist while Veska caught her shoulder, together easing her back onto the bench before the guards noticed.

"Sit down, Madam President, he is not worth the paperwork it would create," Isolde whispered.

Yukine sat in the pavilion with her hands folded and her smile in place, though it never reached her eyes. Under the table her frost crept across the bench, quietly rimming every cup in sight with a thin white shell.

"How generous of my brother," she said pleasantly, "to sell me by the pound."

"Nobody is buying you... I’ll burn the shop down first," Riven said.

Cassen sat still at the end of the bench, watching Dorian rather than the balcony, his jaw working slowly. He looked like a man weighing a letter he refused to open, though no letter was in his hands.

"If you burn it down, save me a chair near the exit," he said quietly.

"Front row, golden boy."

Betting keepers in striped vests crowded around Riven’s pavilion, hats in their hands, begging him to lose just once. No house in Solace would take a wager against him, leaving the odds board with exactly one lonely line.

"Even I won’t bet against you," Cael said, "I once bet against the sunrise and lost."

The head keeper dropped to his knees in the mud, hands clasped, and offered Riven a free ticket to anywhere.

Nix pulled a program from her coat and crossed out the word Festival, writing Auction above it in thick letters. She held it up for the Council to read, grim as a judge, drawing no objections from anyone seated nearby.

"Same crowd with better margins, only the prize is a person," she muttered darkly.

"Noted... I’ll try to lose by lunchtime, just to be polite to the odds board."

A cold spark crossed Riven’s left eye, then the Festival Claim slowly unfolded across his vision in gold lines. The panel hung over the arena like a banner only he could read, its last line freezing his stomach.

[ Claim Event | Owner: Dorian ]

[ Scene: Festival champion, six heroines bound ]

"Six," he murmured. "Not one princess... six."

Mara’s ears turned toward him first, then the crowd, her tail stilling as she tracked the change in his heartbeat. She said nothing, only pressed her shoulder against his and let the rest of the Company close ranks around them.

’Six heroines. Somebody just counted two names I never agreed to hand over.’