"What's wrong with you?" she snapped. "Feeling sick?"
Vyne let out a hollow laugh. "I should be the one asking you that." He moved toward the door, his gait uneven.
Blazar followed, her pulse a drumbeat in her throat. "What's that supposed to mean?"
He didn't look back. "You, without shame or fear, stabbed a king with a knife. Then slapped another across the face." A pause. "Are you tired of living? Or just hoping for a quick death?"
"That smily idiot was a king?!" Blazar nearly shouted.
Vyne finally turned, his expression grim. "The Overlord. The Vampire Sovereign. Vesper Drell."
Blazar shrugged. "He didn't look mad."
"He's never mad." Vyne's voice dropped. "Let's just say his brain's wired wrong. He smiles at everything. Killing. Torture. They say he grinned through his parents' funeral without shedding a tear."
A shudder ran through him—one Blazar couldn't tell was from fear or malfunction.
Then—
The robotic voice boomed again, this time directly above them:
"New Student Number 456, Orion Spade, report to the Tribunal Hall immediately."
Blazar's blood turned to ice.
Vyne looked at her like she was already a ghost. "You're dead."
Blazar exhaled, rolling her shoulders. "As long as they make it fast—and skip the torture—I don't think I care."
She stepped out of the infirmary, the weight of Vyne's stare burning into her back.
Vyne looked at Blazar like she was already a ghost, skin blanched of color, eyes wide with a mixture of dread and pity. "You're dead," she whispered, the words falling like stones between them.
Blazar exhaled slowly, rolling her shoulders back to release the tension that had gathered there like storm clouds.
The fatalism of a hundred battles settled over her like an old, familiar cloak. "As long as they make it fast—and skip the torture—I don't think I care," she replied, each word weighted with the exhaustion of someone who had lived too long on borrowed time.
She stepped out of the infirmary into the cold stone corridor, the weight of Vyne's stare burning into her back like a brand—another mark to add to her collection of scars both visible and hidden.
The grand doors of the Ivory Tribunal groaned open on ancient hinges, the sound echoing through the vaulted corridor like the cry of some wounded beast.
They revealed a cavernous hall steeped in torchlight and shadow, marble columns soaring upward to support a ceiling lost in darkness.
Elaborate tapestries depicting ancient battles and forgotten kings adorned the walls, their colors muted by time and dust. The air hummed with tension, thick enough to choke on, carrying the mingled scents of beeswax candles, old parchment, and fear.
At the far end of the chamber, atop a towering obsidian dais polished to a mirror shine, sat the pentarch kings, rulers of Royal Imperium Prestigia academy, each upon a throne carved with their circle's insignia.
Their faces were cast half in shadow by the flickering light, lending them an otherworldly, almost demonic aspect as they regarded the proceedings with varying degrees of interest.
Dante Volkov, lounged in the seat of Fist of Flame, his massive frame barely contained by the chair carved with lightning-wreathed wolves.
His golden eyes burned with barely restrained fury, fingers tapping restlessly against armrests that bore the marks of countless such agitated sessions.
The scent of scorched leather rose from wherever his skin touched the throne, tendrils of smoke curling upward to mingle with his wild mane of volcanic orange hair.
Beside him, Ryuzaki Kazuma of Crown's Conclave sat with perfect posture, his eyes calculating behind half-lidded lashes, betraying nothing of his thoughts.
The embroidered silk of his formal robes whispered with each measured breath, jade beads clicking softly against one another from the ornate necklace draped across his chest.
The kitsune emblem on his banner seemed to watch the proceedings with its own sly intelligence, nine tails frozen mid-sway in golden thread.
Vesper Drell, practically melted into his throne beneath the silver dagger-pierced moon of Silent Moon, his ever-present smile as sharp as the blade in his circle's sigil.
He examined his nails with feigned boredom, though his eyes flicked up occasionally to watch the unfolding drama with predatory interest.
His fingers toyed idly with a locket that gleamed suspiciously red in the torchlight.
Xeari Tsukino of Rage Vow was perched on his throne like a bird of prey ready to strike, legs crossed, chin resting on one hand adorned with rings that clinked softly together when he moved.
The shattered skull of his banner seemed to scream silently from its place above his head, the embroidered cracks catching light like veins of silver in dark stone.
Only Kaelric Salz, head of Midnight Blade, remained utterly still, his frost-blue eyes unblinking as they tracked Blazar's progress through the hall.
The icy sword of his banner seeming to radiate cold that made the nearby torches sputter and dance, casting shifting shadows across his alabaster features carved from winter itself.
Below the kings, on a slightly lower platform draped in midnight-blue velvet, the three princesses of Royalins held court in their own right.
Vanessa Salz sat rigid, gloved hands clenched in her lap, her porcelain features revealing nothing of her thoughts while her eyes tracked every movement in the hall with predatory focus.
Leyla Tsukino sprawled with careless grace beside her, boots propped on her chair, elbow resting on her knee, her expression one of amused contempt as she twirled a silver dagger between nimble fingers.
But it was Aria Bright Salz who commanded attention, her golden curls catching the light as she reclined with calculated casualness.
She fanned herself with slow, deliberate flicks of her wrist, each movement designed to draw the eye to the delicate bones of her hand, to the flush of color in her cheeks that suggested excitement rather than fear.
Their shared banner hung above them—a flying raven with a blood-red rose clutched in its beak.
Vyne slipped into an empty seat among the murmuring students, her copper hair a beacon in the sea of dark uniforms.
A hulking guard with scars crisscrossing his face like a macabre map steered Blazar to the central podium—shorter than the others, a place of judgment where the accused stood exposed to all eyes.
Above her, the principal and ten faculty members sat in solemn judgment, their faces as impassive as carved stone.
All eyes pinned her like a specimen on display—some curious, some hungry, some filled with an anticipation that made her skin crawl.
The weight of their collective gaze pressed down on her shoulders like physical chains, but Blazar stood straight, refusing to bow under their scrutiny.
"This boy," the principal's voice boomed through the chamber, echoing off marble and stone, "Orion Spade, has defied our norms. He intervened in a king's justice—challenged our order."
The teachers nodded in eerie unison, the synchronized movement unsettling in its precision. Whispers slithered through the crowd like venomous snakes.
"Execution." "Disposal." The words carried clearly to Blazar's ears, each syllable another nail in her coffin.
Aria's fan snapped shut with a crack like breaking bone, the sound cutting through the murmurs and bringing instant silence. All eyes turned to her as she rose, silk skirts rustling like autumn leaves. Her smile was radiant and terrible as a winter sunrise.
"I advocate for public execution," she announced, her melodious voice carrying to every corner of the vast chamber, sweet poison wrapped in velvet.