Chapter Fifteen Tournament Announcement
"The Underworld doesn't do anything quietly. When they announce a tournament, they announce it like a declaration of war."
The announcement came twelve days before the Rating Game.
Not just the Phenex match.
Something bigger.
Lord Valcrest summoned them to the audience chamber. All five of them. Formal. Mid-morning, which meant it was serious enough to pull them from training.
He was standing when they arrived.
Not in his chair.
Standing at the window, hands clasped behind his back, looking at the Underworld sky.
He turned when they entered.
"The Kurenai Junior Ranking Tournament has been moved forward," he said.
Seraphina went very still.
"It was scheduled for late spring. It has been rescheduled to six weeks from now."
He looked at his daughter.
"By a motion submitted jointly by House Phenex, House Galatine, and two other signatories."
A pause.
"The motion cited emerging instability in the junior ranking structure."
Kaito didn't need to be told what that meant.
Him.
The unclassified threat level.
Stage Two.
The hole in the courtyard wall that had apparently not been kept quiet enough.
They'd moved the tournament up because of him.
"The Ranking Tournament," Elias said carefully, "is not just the Rating Game. It's all junior peerages. Public. Scored. The results determine territorial rankings for the next full year."
"Yes," Lord Valcrest said.
"So the Phenex match becomes the first round of a full tournament."
"Yes."
"Six weeks from now."
Elias looked at Kaito.
Back at Lord Valcrest.
"That's aggressive."
"It is," Lord Valcrest agreed. "It's also legal. The motion passed."
He looked at his daughter.
"They're betting that six weeks isn't enough time to develop the Void Sovereign."
Seraphina said nothing for a moment.
Then:
"Is it?"
Lord Valcrest looked at Kaito.
Kaito thought about Stage Two.
The hole in the wall.
The operatives running.
He thought about Seraphina's hand on his wrist in the training room.
He thought about Lyra saying I have opinions about that.
He thought about Mira running eighteen perimeters and still smiling.
"Yes," he said.
Lord Valcrest looked at him for a long moment.
The institutional face gave nothing, except the very faint, very brief movement at the corner of his mouth that was the closest he got to a smile.
"Then prepare accordingly," he said.
He dismissed them.
They were halfway down the corridor when Seraphina stopped walking.
Everyone else stopped.
She was looking at the floor.
Just for a moment.
Processing something, the calculation running behind her eyes at high speed.
Then she looked up at Kaito.
"They moved the tournament," she said, "because you scare them."
A pause.
"Six weeks ago you were an ordinary student."
Another pause.
"Now four noble houses convened an emergency motion to accelerate a tournament because of what you might become in six months."
She held his gaze.
"Do you understand what that means?"
"That they think I'm dangerous," Kaito said.
"That they're afraid," she said. "Afraid, and moving first. Those are different things."
She turned and continued down the corridor.
"Come. We have six weeks and approximately no time to waste."
Kaito followed.
Mira fell into step beside him, leaned in, and whispered:
"She's proud of you. She won't say it, but she's genuinely..."
"Mira," said Seraphina, from six feet ahead.
"I said nothing," said Mira.
"You said something."
"I said essentially nothing."
Kaito smiled and said nothing about it.
He was learning.
But then, at the bottom of the staircase, his phone buzzed.
Unknown number.
Underworld format.
He opened the message.
Three words.
WATCH YOUR BACK.
He showed it to Seraphina.
She looked at it.
Looked at him.
And for the first time since he'd known her, something moved through her expression that was not composure, not calculation, not the managed precision of a Seven Great House heir.
It was worry.
Real.
Unguarded.
Just there.
Gone in a second.
The composure returned.
"Training," she said. "Now. We're changing the schedule."
She walked ahead.
Kaito pocketed the phone.
The Void Sovereign was wide awake in his chest.
And somewhere in the back of his mind, a question he didn't have an answer to:
Was Caius Aldren warning him?
Or threatening him?
End of Chapter Fifteen