Chapter 120: Bonds of Blood and Feathers (Part I)
A Mother's Embrace
Leaving the suffocating tension of Count Raymond's study, Bennett steeled himself. The corridors of the Earl's mansion felt colder now, the ancestral portraits lining the walls suddenly sharp-eyed judges. Yet when he reached the sunlit courtyard where Countess Rosaline stood waiting, his practiced smile softened into something genuine.
She wore lilac silk, her raven hair unbound—a defiance of noble propriety that had scandalized courtiers for years. For a heartbeat, Bennett saw not the poised matriarch but the woman who'd cradled him through childhood fevers, humming lullabies until her voice frayed.
"Mother." He knelt, pressing her hands to his forehead. The gesture felt less ritual than refuge.
Tears jeweled her lashes as she drew him up. "Never again," she whispered fiercely. "I'll burn this estate before letting him exile you."
The afternoon unfurled like a stolen dream. In the garden pavilion, Bennett spun tales of the Loring Plains—omitting the midnight ambushes, the poisoned wine sent by "well-wishers." When he mentioned inventing a new cooking method, her laughter rang crystalline, startling songbirds from the magnolias.
Smoke and Mirrors
The barbecue spectacle became legend among the servants. Bennett's spice blend—a painstaking replica of Earth's cumin, distilled from moonblossom seeds and firethorn bark—sent aromatic clouds billowing over the estate. Countess Rosaline, who'd nibbled daintily at banquets for decades, devoured three skewers with unladylike gusto.
"Your brother—" she began as twilight purpled the sky, then stopped.
Gabriel's absence hung between them like stormclouds. Bennett's half-brother, the golden heir, was even now being groomed by Grand Scholar Lanhai—a privilege Bennett's "mediocrity" had never warranted.
"He'll shine brighter than any star," Bennett said lightly, turning to light fireworks. "As Father intends."
The Countess caught his wrist. "Stars burn alone in the dark. You… you've always been my sunrise."
Chamber of Echoes
His childhood quarters lay unchanged—a museum of deliberate neglect. Dust motes swam in moonlight where no servant had bothered to light candles. The bed's carvings still bore knife marks from a nine-year-old Bennett's rage; the bookshelf held treatises on magic even then deemed beyond his grasp.
Madd, his grizzled manservant, hovered anxiously. "Shall I fetch wine, young master? Or—"
"Leave us." Bennett waited until the door latched before collapsing against it. His fingers flew to the concealed horn beneath his hair—the damned thing that had nearly betrayed him during his mother's embrace.
The trunk in the corner rattled.
"Finally!" QQ the penguin erupted in a flurry of indignation and fish-scented breath. "Twelve hours in a box with that—" He jabbed a flipper at the grumbling sorcerer-rat Gurgle. "—and his existential crises!"
Gurgle scurried toward the chamber pot. "I'll turn your tailfeathers into slugs, you overgrown gull!"
Bennett ignored their squabbling. From the enchanted satchel came artifacts of his cursed inheritance: Aragon's journals, their pages whispering in dead languages; the Obsidian Circlet that had seared his brow during the Sorcerer's Trial; a locket containing a strand of hair as white as betrayal.
QQ waddled over, suddenly solemn. "You're digging graves tonight, boy."
"Graves," Bennett echoed, tracing the locket's frost-edged curves. "Or treasure chests."
Outside, fireworks bloomed—golden dahlias reflected in the Countess' window. Their light didn't reach the horn shadowing Bennett's skull, nor the sigil glowing blood-red beneath his collar.
Chapter 120: Relics of Disenchantment (Part II)
The Weight of Dust
The relics of Aragorn lay scattered across Bennett's desk like fragments of a joke only history understood. Moonlight streamed through the window, glinting off the cracked hilt of the "Sword of Kings" and the golden codex whose secrets remained stubbornly mute.
"A map scribbled by a drunken cartographer," Bennett muttered, tossing aside the indestructible cloth. Its labyrinthine symbols mocked him—a riddle without a key. The golden pages clinked as he flipped through them, their etched geometries and alien glyphs as comprehensible as star patterns to a mole.
Even the alchemical powders defied categorization. He'd tried every reagent, every incantation from Gandoft's journals. The substances neither burned nor dissolved, lying inert as the ashes of forgotten kings.
QQ waddled over, fish breath fogging the relic shards. "Still sulking over grandpa's junk?"
"This 'junk' cost me three assassination attempts and a poisoned well," Bennett snapped. The penguin's perpetual smirk deepened.
Gurgle scurried up the bedpost, whiskers twitching. "The sword's gemstones could feed a village for decades."
"Empty shells," Bennett sighed, running a thumb over the seven drained mana crystals. "Like every promise in that damned will."
Whispers in the Static
Midnight found Bennett cross-legged beneath the stars, their cold light pricking his skin like needles. The celestial magic thrummed in his veins—a symphony without sheet music. Since Gandoft's death and Saimer's silence, his progress had been brute force against the dark.
Focus. His consciousness unfurled like ink in water. Moth wings three courtyards away shivered in his mental grasp. A servant's stifled yawn echoed as clearly as church bells. Yet this expanding awareness brought no clarity, only more noise.
Dawn revealed QQ sprawled across the pillow, one flipper draped possessively over Gurgle. The rat's squeaky snores harmonized absurdly with the penguin's nasal whistles. Bennett left them entangled, too weary for his usual morning reprimand.
Gilded Chains
"Young master?" A maid hesitated at the breakfast tray. "Lady Rosaline asked me to remind you—Master Gabriel stayed overnight at Grand Scholar Lanhai's residence."
Bennett's spoon paused mid-stir. So the little genius finally caught Blue Sea's eye. The thought should have warmed him. Instead, it tasted like overbrewed tea—bitter beneath the fragrance.
His chambers felt suddenly suffocating. The relics glared from their hiding place, Aragorn's ghost laughing in every dust mote. When the itch to visit the Magic Guild struck, he leaned into it like a lifeline.
Captain Alfar materialized at the gates like a specter summoned by disobedience. "The Capital's streets bite harder than winter wolves, young lord."
Bennett's smile tightened. "I've survived worse than market crowds."
"Not crowds I fear." The guardsman's gaze lingered on a passing vendor's cart—its underside perfect for concealing crossbows.
The retinue marched forth, a living prison in polished armor. Bennett noted the missing cavalry captain—the one who'd whispered warnings about military-issue bolts. Another loose end snipped.
House of Whispers
The Guild's obsidian spires clawed at the sky, their surfaces swirling with trapped auroras. Bennett's Scholar robes sparked murmurs as he entered—a susurrus of "Gandoft's heir" and "that upstart from Loring."
Klack awaited in the Hall of Echoing Steps, his skeletal fingers tracing worry lines into a bronze astrolabe. "You wore the robes."
"Wasn't that the point?" Bennett gestured at the stares prickling his back. "A walking banner for your faction."
The old mage's chuckle rasped like parchment. "Foolish child. That robe isn't a banner—it's armor. The kind that makes assassins reconsider poison for fire."
As Klack led him deeper, sigils flared to life beneath Bennett's feet. The golden codex in his satchel grew warm, its indecipherable etchings pulsing in time to the Guild's heartbeat.
Somewhere in the labyrinth, a clockwork dragon turned its jeweled eyes toward the intruder.
Chapter 121: Threshold of Shadows and Starlight
The Unseen Gate
Bennett cut off the stammering guard with a pat on the shoulder. "No matter. Some messages are better left undelivered." His smile didn't reach his eyes as he turned toward the carriage.
Alfar, ever the stormcloud in human form, guided the procession with silent intensity. The veteran warrior eschewed armor and blade alike, his leathers sun-bleached to the color of old bones. As the convoy approached the western quarter of the Imperial Capital, Bennett pressed his palm against the carriage window.
The Magic Guild's plaza unfolded like a geometric dream. Six ivory obelisks—each taller than a siege tower—formed a luminous perimeter, their surfaces etched with runes that pulsed like captured lightning. At the heart of this celestial geometry rose the Guild's central spire, its obsidian facets drinking the afternoon light.
"Eighty-eight meters of hubris," Bennett murmured, recalling the tower's exact height from some dusty archive. The number felt deliberate—one short of the sacred eighty-nine steps to the imperial throne.
Alfar reined his mount to a halt where cobblestones gave way to enchanted marble. "My honor ends here, young master."
Bennett paused mid-step. The warrior's spine had gone rigid with that peculiar pride unique to Roland's swordsmen—the same pride that made Alfar spit whenever Klack's name was mentioned.
"Of course." Bennett adjusted his scholar's pendant. "A warrior doesn't enter the halls of magic."
"Nor should he." Alfar's gaze swept across apprentices scurrying like silver-robed mice. "These spellweavers wouldn't know true honor if it gutted them."
Layers of Light
The threshold hit Bennett like walking through a waterfall of spiderwebs. Invisible tendrils probed his pendant's authenticity before retreating, satisfied. The antechamber beyond defied all laws of architecture—and sanity.
Above, a false sky burned with impossible constellations. Twin suns chased a bleeding moon across clouds that wept glittering mist. To the left, a staircase spiraled upward through empty air, its steps dissolving like sugar in tea. Every surface thrummed with contained power, the stones themselves humming ancient secrets.
"First time?"
A gangly apprentice materialized at Bennett's elbow, silver robes flapping. His nose bore the distinctive hook of northern hill tribes, though his eyes shone with big-city cunning.
Bennett schooled his features into provincial awe. "Is it always…?"
"Tuesdays are worse." The apprentice jerked a thumb toward a floating orb devouring scrolls. "Archmage Voryn's testing his new library. Yesterday it ate three scribes."
They passed through a hall where glowing equations scrawled themselves across walls. A grey-robed mage argued with a sentient quill, their debate sending inkblots fleeing across parchment. Bennett's guide snorted.
"Third-years. They think summoning a minor air elemental makes them Mystra's gift."
Hierarchy in Hemlines
The apprentice's chatter revealed more than intended. Silver meant servitude—fetching reagents, scrubbing alchemy vats, surviving on scraps of half-understood lore. Grey robes denoted full mages, though the stains on theirs suggested perpetual junior status. White-clad seniors moved like glaciers, trailing constellations of floating tomes.
Bennett's black scholar's robe drew stares sharper than daggers. Whispers followed him through a gallery of frozen lightning:
"—Gandoft's bastard apprentice—"
"—heard he dueled a death knight with a butter knife—"
"—probably here to beg for Klack's—"
A door slammed.
Silence fell as a white-robed woman emerged from a corridor that hadn't existed moments before. Her hair defied gravity in an aurora of living flame, eyes twin pools of liquid mercury.
"Bennett of Loring." Her voice contained the click of abacus beads and the scream of tearing reality. "The Council of Seven wonders what brings Raymond's disgraced heir to our halls."
Every apprentice within earshot vanished like morning frost.
Bennett bowed, low enough to hide his grin. Disgraced? Oh, you precious fools. I'm here to disgrace everyone else.