Chương 191: Chapter 50: Inexorably Toward the Throne

The following day, with the morning sun filtering through the high stained-glass windows of the Atrium of Knowledge, Selena met with the Resonant beneath the shadow of the massive hourglass. Valerian awaited her, as always, with a studiedly casual posture, but today there was a distinct gleam in his silver eyes, a blend of evaluation and something that might have been contained satisfaction.

When they reached the subterranean chamber where he held his advanced lessons, the jester shut the door with a dry thud and turned toward her. Instead of opening with theory or exercises, he launched straight into what sounded like a personal anecdote, maintaining his customary theatrical tone alongside a pinch of genuine exasperation. —Crimson —he said, placing a hand against his neck with a pitiful gesture— can you believe that this morning my lover, while kissing me right here...

He indicated the nape of his neck, pulling down the collar of his robe slightly. —... noticed I had words written on my neck, near my back? She grew wild with jealousy and struck me, swearing it was lipstick from a rival. —He delivered the line with such convincing seriousness that Selena hesitated for an instant. But then a barely suppressed smile touched the corner of her lips, and the jester continued— Which reminds me, of course, that you have indeed completed the test.

A master touch, if you permit the compliment. Silence, stealth, and a personalized message. Very well. He approached the room's central table, his tone shifting, becoming graver and more instructional. —You are halfway there now, bloody girl. You need to pass the test of expert perception. And contrary to what you might think, you will not be tested with mundane objects. I bring the ultimate trial here. From a fold of his black robe, he drew a ring. Selena recognized it immediately.

It was the smooth, opaque black stone ring she had recovered from the priest's skeleton in Ashkharum the very one she had handed over to Uluas for study and which, despite the time that had elapsed, had not been returned. A surge of surprise and curiosity coursed through her chest. —This, as you should already know, is a Resonant artifact —Valerian declared.

He then placed it carefully upon the polished wooden surface— I ask you two questions that you should be able to answer without me giving you a single clue, relying solely on what you have learned and what the artifact itself whispers to you. He raised his entire hand into the air, snapping his fingers before holding up a single digit. —First: What effect does it possess? Second, and more importantly: What inherent defect does it carry?

Every artifact, no matter how powerful, possesses one limitation, a secondary cost, a flaw in its function. Find it. Selena spent the next few minutes in absolute silence, holding the ring between her hands. She lifted it, feeling its profound coldness once more, that sense of abyssal weight and latent drowsiness. She turned it slowly, inspecting every millimeter of its smooth surface, searching for any mark or flaw that might speak.

In an act of pure instinct, she even brought it to her mouth and bit it lightly to test its hardness. The action drew a short, clear laugh from Valerian a sound of genuine amusement. —Are you hoping it tastes like answers, Crimson? —he teased, though without disrupting her focus. Selena ignored the remark. She closed her eyes at intervals, extending her perception that heightened sense for the Void and arcane echoes.

She was not seeking merely its function; she was searching for imperfection, the dark counterpart to its power. She felt the primary effect clearly: a deep calm, an invitation to rest, not aggressive but persuasive, like the promise of a dreamless sleep. Yet beneath that surface... there was a drag, an inertia. Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on. After a few minutes, she set the ring back down before Valerian.

She took a deep breath and voiced her conclusions, her voice clear despite a lingering trace of concentration. —It can induce sleep. It can bring about a state of deep lethargy, even unconsciousness. I already suspected it as much when I found it, given the sensation it conveyed. Today I simply perceive it more clearly. Yet it is not a forced slumber; it is subtle: it causes others to sleep through fatigue, as if accelerating or catalyzing the mind and body's natural need for rest.

—She paused, focusing her green eyes on the black ring as though she could see the flaw at its core— As for the inherent defect... She pondered her phrasing for a few seconds, seeking the exact words. —It exhausts the wearer as well. It accumulates the same fatigue, the same wear and tear, that it induces in others. Not immediately, but afterward, once the effect concludes. As if the energy required to cause that exhaustion does not originate solely from the artifact.

The price for the user is not merely activating it but bearing the echo of the somnolence. Valerian looked at her; his smile was neither mocking nor theatrical. It was a gesture of genuine recognition, dry and professional. —Correct on both counts —he nodded vigorously again and again— You have identified not only its function, but the fissure within the crystal of its power. Once more, you advance. He paused, his expression turning somber and analytical.

—Yet I cannot declare you a Resonant of the tier you now reach. That can be granted only by the King. The ceremony, the formal recognition of the fourth step... is his sole prerogative. —He looked her up and down, as if measuring her not physically, but in the weight of experience and consequences— Too young, too fast, too... reckless, Crimson. The master had murmured, his words bearing an echo of real warning.

Selena felt the gravity of his statement; the air grew tense in an instant, yet the jester continued to speak. —If your last meeting with His Majesty cost you a stay in a dungeon and the sight of horrors that haunt you still, what do you think he might ask of you now? Now that your power and knowledge are greater, and therefore more useful, more dangerous. His words were not a rhetorical question; they were a mirror held up to Selena's own thoughts, which resonated with the exact same unease.

—By the way —he added, abruptly changing his tone as he picked up the ring— Uluas asked me to return this to you, along with an instruction. He says that to use it, neither raw strength nor brute willpower is required. Only with intent must you brush against it lightly, like a caress, with the desire to grant rest. He handed her the black stone ring, which now felt even colder and denser in Selena's palm. Then, from an inner fold of his robe, he produced a letter.

The parchment was of fine quality, though unostentatious. What caught her attention was the seal: the figure of a jester, yet not a playful one; it was encircled by stylized flames that seemed both to consume him and to emanate from his form. It was a personal, ominous seal Selena had never seen before. —It is the letter for His Majesty —Valerian said, handing it over with a formal gesture that felt unnatural on him— You must depart as soon as you can.

This is no longer trivial instruction, nor is the ceremony awaiting you the hollow pedantry of the nobility. It matters to you, to the crown, and to the realm. The time for playing at being a student, Crimson, is running out. Once they had taken their leave and Selena returned to the quiet of her room in the Cloister of the Forest, she sank onto her bed, staring up at the grain of the wooden ceiling. The pieces, the commitments, and the debts were piling up in her mind with the weight of a millstone.

She had to travel to the capital, to Erabergh. There, the original volume by Eliud Volgthar promised by the King awaited her the key to understanding the foundational principles of the echo and the figure of the first king, not as a legend, but as a man. A tome that was the original text, handled by the very hands that had forged the kingdom.

Added to that was Valerian's request, backed by a letter bearing his personal seal of flames, a summons to an audience that was no mere formality, but a decisive step along her path as a Resonant, with everything that implied regarding recognition and, undoubtedly, new entanglements. Nor could she forget Anselmo's hefty Hospital Codex, a treatise that had to be presented to the King and the inner circles of power to attempt to reform medical practice within the kingdom.

Yet another front, another battle to be waged within the corridors of the palace. Selena let out a deep sigh, a heavy sound that dissolved into the silence of the room. Once again, the roads stretched long before her; once again, she had to pack, say her farewells, and face the uncertainty of travel along with the tension of the court.

Her destination drew closer now, yet the threads of fate continued to bind her, weaving her path with that of the crown, entangling her life ever deeper within the complex and often perilous corruption of the realm. It was not merely a journey; it was a pull of a convergence of every path she had walked, pointing now, inexorably, toward the throne.