Chapter 321 - Whispers Before the Throne

One by one, every head in the chamber bowed after standing straight. Even Alonso and Lukas inclined theirs, though Ayu hesitated for half a breath before following suit.

The Empress’s eyes swept the chamber, sharp and unhurried, pausing at Alonso. A faint smile curved her lips, a nod following with the weight of a crown behind it.

She sat, and only then did the others take their seats.

The Empress leaned back on her chair, fingers resting lightly on the serpent-headed armrest, jade and gold glinting in the firelight.

“I finally gaze upon the face I have been hearing for some time,” she said, her words slow, almost testing. “The General who turned the Wardens back at the northern marches. The Dawnless Blade himself.”

Alonso dipped his head. “Names have their use, Empress. But I swing my sword for no title.”

Her eyes narrowed, amused. “And yet, names bind. The people have carved yours into whispers and prayers. Do you deny them that comfort?”

“I cannot deny what I did not ask for,” Alonso replied evenly.

Lukas spoke then, his tone smooth, deferential, yet edged with quiet intent. “The people cling to symbols, Empress. Without them, they falter. If my brother here is to be one such symbol, then it is not of his choosing but of theirs.”

The Empress tilted her head, her gaze sharpening. “And do you not fear, boy, that symbols burn brighter than the flesh behind them? That they devour the man until nothing remains?”

Lukas did not flinch. “Then let them burn. As long as the light carries us further.”

The chamber hushed at that, Sun Bearers glancing at one another. Alonso’s lips curved faintly, though his eyes stayed hard.

Her gaze flicked to Lukas, assessing. For a long moment, she said nothing. Then, with a faint smile: “You speak boldly, for one who holds no rank.”

“He speaks on my stead, Empress, for I am a man of blades, not words,” Alonso said calmly.

The Empress smiled. “So be it. I suppose you are interested in the sacred site. As a General you are free to access it as you see fit.”

Alonso inclined his head in acknowledgment, but Lukas’s voice carried in the silence that followed.

“Empress,” he began, low, respectful, yet measured like a blade being weighed, “before the sacred, there is the present. Before the hidden, there is the blood already spilling.”

Her gaze slid to him again, sharp. “Speak plainly, boy. You circle as if around fire.”

Lukas’s eyes did not leave hers. “Then let me set it down. You know the prophecy. We all do.”

He spoke the words slowly, each syllable a stone.

“When five tails rise, blood will flood the stone.

The sixth shall feast on kings and crush the sky.

But should the seventh stir from bone—

Then all shall burn.

Then all shall die.”

The chamber grew taut, as if the walls themselves tightened around the words. Even the Sun Bearers shifted, hands brushing the hilts of their weapons in reflex.

The Empress’s voice was cool. “Old songs. Worn by time. They frighten children, not rulers.”

“Then forgive me,” Lukas said softly, “for counting like a child. For by my count, five already rise, six presses against the horizon, and still—still—we wait here in this hall, while the north breaks.”

Her brow arched, but he pressed on.

“General K’in is dead. General Noh bleeds again and again. A hundred Sun Bearers lie dead in the snow, thousands of Lord of Sparks with them. And yet—here, in this capital, five hundred Sun Bearers sit idle. A Grand Priest guards walls that no enemy threatens. Why?”

A stir rippled the chamber.

The Grand Priest’s staff struck the floor once, the serpent’s head ringing against stone. “Mind your tongue, child! You speak as if centuries of guardianship can be waved aside with numbers and demands. Do you think you understand what it means to leave the capital bare?” His voice boomed, echoing like a hymn. “This city is more than stone. It is a sacred pillar!”

Lukas did not flinch. “And a pillar means little if the people who raised it lie beneath the dirt.”

A hiss of breath from the Sun Bearers. The Grand Priest’s eyes blazed. “You dare—”

The Empress raised her hand, silencing him without a word. She leaned forward, smile sharpened. “You would have me strip the heart to feed the hand? The capital stands because I keep it whole. Without the centre, the body falls.”

Lukas’s voice stayed steady, deliberate. “Without the north, there will be no centre to protect. If the Xok’al break through, what you call a heart will choke on ash.”

Her eyes glinted. “And you think to teach me strategy? A boy from the outside?”

The Grand Priest spat softly. “Arrogance. To stand in this hall and weigh the Empress’s decisions as if you bore her crown.”

Lukas bowed his head slightly, eyes still on the Empress. “Not to teach, Empress. To remind. The hundreds of thousands of Ajnal outside the capital are yours too. Their cries carry here, even if the obsidian walls muffle them. The longer you wait, the more graves they dig. Graves that might have been spared if five hundred Sun Bearers marched at dawn. If one Grand Priest turned his staff outward instead of inward.”

The Grand Priest’s knuckles whitened on his staff. His lips moved with the beginning of a curse, but he held it at the Empress’s glance. The silence after was long. Alonso’s jaw flexed but he stayed still. Ayu shifted, half-grinning at Lukas’s audacity, but she too said nothing.

At last, the Empress exhaled, almost amused. “You argue like a serpent, boy. Every word wound around the last. Careful you do not strangle yourself.”

“Better strangled by truth than drowned in silence,” Lukas answered.

The Empress studied him, eyes unreadable. The Grand Priest glared at him, breathing like a furnace barely held in check. Then, slowly, she inclined her head.

“Very well. I will not break the capital. But I will loosen its breath. Fifty Sun Bearers will march north under Dawnless’ command. I expect… good news from the reinforcements.”

Lukas inclined his head, hiding the flicker of victory in his eyes. “A gesture is enough to set the course, Empress. Thank you.”

Alonso bowed his head. “Thank you, Empress. I will give nothing less than my best.”

She leaned back once more, her tone sharp, final. “Do not mistake concession for weakness. The capital holds. Always. Go now. The Grand Priest will guide you to the sacred site you came to see.”

The doors opened, and she departed the same way she had come, the royal guards filing in behind her.

The Grand Priest turned. His robes whispered, but the air around him seethed.

“Follow,” he said coldly.

Alonso rose. Lukas gave the faintest smile as they moved.

The corridors wound downward, torchlight bending off the black stone. Each strike of the staff rang out like a threat. Shoulders stiff, silence heavy.

At last, the Grand Priest spoke, voice low, clipped. “General. Titles do not forgive insolence. Not yours. Not his.”

Alonso’s face stayed calm. “I will remember.”

A snap of the staff on stone. The Priest’s eyes burned when they cut back. “See that you do.”

They descended further. The air thickened, colder. Serpent carvings lined the walls, their eyes dark hollows in the glow.

The Priest’s voice scraped the silence. “The Ruins are older than crown and throne. You will step with reverence. Or you will not step at all.”

“Understood.”

They reached an obsidian archway, its carvings faded, ancient suns tangled with serpents.

The Grand Priest stopped, disdain carved into his face.

His staff lowered sharply. “General though you are, beyond this point it is your burden, not mine. Do not expect blessing. Only consequence.”

Without another word, he turned, robes snapping as he strode into the dark.

Silence pressed in as his echoes faded, leaving only the vast chamber ahead.

Alonso stared at Lukas. “That went pretty well.”

Lukas grinned. “Indeed it did. But… it is clear there are restraints in the thought process of the natives of this stage and what we can bargain with. Things are not set in stone, and there is room to wiggle.” He turned to Chiara. “Any thoughts according to your ‘scripted stage theory’?”

Chiara remained silent for a moment. “I believe you have synthesized it well. There is freedom beyond boundaries. Choices with circumstances. The paths to take seem to widen as we go up.”

Lukas nodded slowly.

“Well, are we checking this out or you guys gonna keep with the cryptic banter?” Ayu said as she stepped towards the chamber.

Alonso followed and channelled his waves towards the lighting devices. The walls flickered to life, clear light spilling over the chamber.

The ruin bore the Xayen’s touch clearly—vast slabs of black stone fitted with impossible precision, the air still thick with a sense of age and weight. Yet traces of Ajnal hands were everywhere: serpents coiled in relief along the pillars, jade inlays glinting faintly, gold patterns weaving like veins across the walls.

Alonso walked forward and magnetized one of the recording devices above a modest table into his hand.

He closed his eyes as the information stored within flashed through his mind—schematics of the human body, node structures, and the progressions between them. The first he recognised: Stone Jaguar. The others, less familiar, but he could guess—the Lord of Sparks, the Sun Bearer, and the General stage: the Divine Warriors of the Land.

Each built upon the last in a system balanced on both Pillar and Body States. The first two demanded the First of both. The latter two required the Second—each tier rising like steps carved in bone and stone.

He was interested in the later stages and whether he could draw inspiration for his new technique, yet that could wait. Better to let Houston sift through the details and summarise the key points for him.

“Yeah, leave it all to poor ol’ Houston,” came the weary voice in his head.

Alonso chuckled under his breath.

He reached for another capsule. This one revealed the skill the Ajnal called the Heart of Spark. It required at least the Sun Bearer pattern to be activated, and drew not only on the body but also on patterns carved into armour and weapons—accelerating them through EM resonance.

He kept walking, the others with him. The site was rather small. Other capsules contained smithing techniques, and fragments of Xayen history. A civilization that exalted power and evolution as sacred dogma—so much so that they were willing to sacrifice everything for it. And in the end, they had.

At the far end of the second chamber, Alonso noticed a sealed door.

Chiara moved beside him. “The sacred site of the Azcoyatl also has a locked room. There, only a Primal Priest may enter. Here… your rank as General should suffice.”

Alonso raised a brow. The thought flickered through his mind, and he brought out the token of his Ajnal Generalship. He channelled his waves through it, directing them at the door.

It responded.

The slab rose with clean precision, revealing a passage as the lights beyond shuddered awake.

“Well… it worked,” he said with a faint smile toward Chiara.

The others gathered.

“Oh… one more?”

“Let’s take a look.”

The room was small, almost like… a prayer chamber.

At the altar rested three information capsules, each encased in jade-like shells, carved with Ajnal patterns that gleamed faintly in the light.

Alonso extended his waves to the first, the one marked: Storm.

The schematics were intricate, layered with detail that stretched beyond simple comprehension, but the effect was one he knew well. The technique General K’in had used—Storm Domain. A skill that allowed a Divine Warrior of the Land to magnetise surrounding conductive objects, pulling or repelling them at will. That constant shift in polarity reshaped the flow of battle itself, breaking an opponent’s stance, disrupting balance, and bending momentum to the user’s favour.

This one, Alonso thought, would be of particular interest to Imani and Wang.

He moved to the second capsule: Fire.

This one he skimmed, as it focused on smithing methods—delving into the influence of layered micro patterns and how they could be used to enhance conductivity and durability.

He wondered whether Imani could adapt these methods to refine his blades. It would be nice.

And then his gaze fell on the last capsule.

The one etched with the word: Fate.