Chapter 6 - The Shattered Ledger
The sunset over the imperial palace was the color of bruised plums.
In the Grand Sanctuary, the entire royal court had assembled for the second time in three days. The atmosphere was stiflingly tense. Word of the breach in the Sun-Gilded Grove had reached the city two hours prior: reports of imperial proctors butchered, rogue undead infiltrating the sacred grounds, and several high-ranking noble children returning wounded and shell-shocked.
King Alden sat upon the Golden Throne, his face drawn and pale, flanked by forty fully armored knights of the Solar Guard. Queen Marianne stood beside him, her knuckles white where she gripped the armrest of the throne, her eyes darting anxiously toward the great double doors.
At the center of the sanctuary platform stood Vivien.
She had managed to wash the dirt from her face and change into a fresh gown of crimson velvet, but nothing could conceal the hollow, frantic look in her eyes. Beside her, Lucien lay curled tightly upon the marble, his left wing heavily bandaged with medicinal poultices. The silver dragon kept his snout tucked under his foreleg, refusing to look at the courtiers who had spent the morning singing his praises.
Before them, on the judgment table, sat Vivien’s crystal bag.
The Grand Chancellor was sweating profusely, his hands trembling as he used silver calipers to count and evaluate the harvest.
“From Princess Vivien and the Silver Wyrm Lucien,” the Chancellor announced, his voice echoing off the vaulted ceilings. “Twelve D-rank Forest Wolf cores... six C-rank Stone-Hide Boar cores... and one B-rank Iron-Hide Bear core, partially damaged by frost.”
A collective murmur rippled through the gallery.
“A total score,” the Chancellor proclaimed, striking his bronze staff against the floor, “of eight thousand five hundred points!”
Marianne let out a long, shuddering breath of relief. She stepped forward, her regal chin lifting as she addressed the assembled nobles.
“Despite the unprecedented and treasonous sabotage of the testing grounds,” Marianne declared loudly, “my daughter has proven her unmatched valor! She protected the other scions, faced the terror of the wild, and returned with a score that surpasses any imperial heir in the last four decades! The right to the Crown’s Shield belongs to Vivien!”
Vivien straightened her spine, forcing a haughty, rehearsed smile back onto her lips. She glanced at the court, soaking in the polite applause of her mother’s faction.
“Where is Sarah?” King Alden asked suddenly, his voice cutting through the applause. He looked around the vast chamber. “The sun has set. Has my daughter returned from the grove?”
Vivien scoffed, tossing her curled hair over her shoulder. “Father, Sarah’s defective F-rank beast could barely walk when they entered the trees. When the undead breached the boundary, she likely fled into the outer swamps to hide. If she has any shame, she has already fled to the wasteland on her own.”
She turned toward the Chancellor. “Proclaim the final victor. We have waited long enough for a ghost.”
The Chancellor looked at King Alden, who nodded grimly. The old man cleared his throat, raising the ceremonial scroll.
“By royal decree, the final trial rankings are hereby established: Tenth place, Baronet Vance... Ninth place, Lady Nicole... Second place, with a score of eight thousand five hundred points—Princess Vivien.”
The hall was so quiet a pin dropping on velvet would have sounded like a hammer.
Vivien’s smile vanished instantly.
Her hands, resting gracefully at her sides, curled into rigid claws.
“What?” she whispered.
She stepped toward the Chancellor’s dais, her voice rising an octave, shrill and harsh. “What did you just say? Second place? That is impossible!”
The Chancellor swallowed hard, not daring to meet her furious gaze.
“Second place!” Vivien shrieked, slamming her hand against the judgment table. “Lucien is an A-rank dragon! I brought back an Iron-Hide Bear! Who could possibly beat eight thousand five hundred points?! This makes no sense! Who is in first place?!”
“First place,” a clear, quiet voice answered from the back of the sanctuary, “belongs to the Crown.”
The great oak doors swung inward.
The sound was not a bang; it was a slow, heavy groan of iron and wood.
Sarah walked through the entrance.
She was untouched. Not a drop of blood stained her black tunic. Her dark hair was neatly pinned, her posture straight as a lance, her eyes reflecting the torchlight with terrifying clarity.
And walking half a step behind her was Kale.
The black dragon did not limp. He held his great, horned head high, his obsidian scales gleaming like polished obsidian under the chandeliers. The massive, starlit wings folded against his sides made him appear twice the size of Lucien, and the aura rolling off his shoulders—a crushing, suffocating gravity that made the high-tier mages in the gallery instinctively clutch their throats—filled the entire sanctuary.
Lucien took one look at Kale, let out a pathetic, whimpering whine, and buried his head entirely beneath his tail, shaking violently on the marble.
“Sarah...” King Alden breathed, rising from his throne.
Sarah walked down the central aisle, the nobles parting before her like water before the prow of a warship. She reached the judgment platform, stepping directly beside Vivien.
She untied the leather sack from her waist.
With a casual, almost bored flick of her wrist, she upended the bag onto the judgment table.
*CLATTER.*
A mountain of glowing, pristine crystals spilled across the polished oak. Forty C-rank cores rolled across the wood, glowing with vibrant sapphire and emerald lights. Eight B-rank cores clattered against the silver calipers.
And then—
Sarah reached into the breast of her tunic and pulled out a single, massive crystal the size of a skull.
It pulsed with a terrifying, deep-violet light, radiating the cold, suffocating miasma of the abyss.
She dropped it directly onto the center of the table.
*THUD.*
The heavy oak table cracked down the middle.
The Grand Chancellor fell to his knees, his spectacles falling from his nose and shattering on the floor. He stared at the violet gem, his old hands shaking so hard he could barely point.
“An... an A-rank... Lord-tier core...” the Chancellor wheezed, his voice carrying to every corner of the frozen sanctuary. “The core of an A-rank Skeleton King!”
A collective, horrified gasp erupted from the gallery.
“Total score for Princess Sarah...” the Chancellor whispered, looking up at her as if she were a god who had descended from the stars. “Twenty-four thousand... two hundred points.”
Vivien looked at the violet stone. She looked at Sarah’s empty, mocking smile.
“No...” Vivien whispered. “No, no, no! She cheated! Father, she cheated!”
Vivien lunged forward, her face twisted with pure madness, pointing wildly at Kale. “Look at that beast! He’s an F-rank trash lizard! He couldn't kill a Skeleton King! She bought that core! Or she scavenged it after the Royal Guards killed it! She’s an extortionist and a thief!”
“Enough, Vivien,” Sarah said.
The word was quiet, but it hit Vivien like a physical strike.
Sarah stepped toward her sister, her eyes burning with cold, ancient fire.
“The Skeleton King attacked the northern crags,” Sarah said, her voice echoing with absolute authority. “It pinned Lucien to the dirt. Your precious A-rank dragon was crying like a beaten hound, and you were begging on your knees for someone to save your worthless life.”
Sarah glanced down at Lucien, whose trembling form was curled into an agonizingly pathetic ball.
“I killed the monster. Kale devoured its flames. And I brought the core here to prove what everyone in this court was too blind to see.”
Sarah turned toward King Alden, her gaze unyielding.
“My sister took my dragon because she claimed I was too poor to maintain an asset of the realm. She took him, fed him, pampered him, and when an actual enemy of the empire stood before him, he choked on his own sparks and groveled in the dirt.”
She pointed at Kale.
“I took the creature you called trash. And with him, I saved your daughter's life, wiped out the enemy vanguard, and brought the spoils to your feet.”
The entire court was silent. Not a single duke, not a single countess dared to breathe.
King Alden stood frozen, looking from the magnificent, terrifying form of the black dragon to the trembling, disgraced silver wyrm whimpering on the floor. For the first time in his life, the King saw the absolute, terrifying truth of his two daughters.
“By the laws of the Royal Trial,” Sarah’s voice rang out, clear as a silver bell, “the winner is named the Crown’s Shield, heir to the Northern Commandery and Commander of the Imperial Vanguard. And the loser...”
Sarah smiled at Vivien—a smile that promised an eternity of ruin.
May you like
“...faces exile to the wasteland.”
***
