Chapter 15:

  "A Speech About Weakness"

  Arc 2: Chapter 5

  POV: "???"

  Meanwhile, in the tower, the atmosphere was one of solemn gravity. The Council Chamber was packed with power. The Five Great Houses formed a semicircle of absolute authority around the empty center, a tribunal of destiny.

  Ver?nica Durring, of Science, observed with purple eyes that decomposed the scene into data and probabilities.

  Bruce Darking, of Darkness, was an animated granite statue, his impenetrability a declaration in itself.

  Aldert Fingard, of Exploration, seemed skeptical, like an old map disagreeing with the new route, but restrained by ritual.

  Luka Graymon, of the Mages, was attentive, perfect, a prince ready for his role on the board.

  And Theodora Lighting, of Light, her bony and trembling hands held a royal blue velvet pillow.

  Upon it rested destiny.

  The Crown of the Definitive Queen. White metal and intertwined gold, light as a feather, heavy as a continent. In the center, a single green gem pulsed with an inner light, the heart of the prophecy beating in slow rhythm. Raphadun merely appeared in the background, indifferent, clapping.

  Theodora approached Luna, who stood in the center, wearing a simple cloak that made her look younger and more vulnerable than she had ever been. Her grandmother's eyes were moist with a century of repressed tears.

  "My granddaughter…" Theodora whispered, her voice broken. "My queen."

  A technician from the House of Science activated a device. On screens scattered throughout the city—in squares, markets, noble houses, and plebeian shacks—the image of the Council Chamber appeared. The kingdom's buzz began to die, swallowed by expectant silence.

  "The entire population of the Kingdom of Light is gathering," Bruce informed Luna, his grave voice a continuous bass beneath the suspense. "Your presentation will be broadcast. You will address them."

  Empty, Flávio, and Fencer arrived at the great square in front of the tower, blending into the human tide. The energy was electrifying, volatile. A mix of desperate hope, voracious curiosity, and, on many faces, a skepticism hardened by disappointment. The air smelled of sweat, expectation, and fear.

  Luna began walking toward the great balcony of the tower. As she passed, Bruce approached Empty. His presence was like a tectonic plate moving—slow, inevitable, capable of reshaping continents. Empty felt it. It was an aura different from the Pursuer's. Less chaotic, more controlled, refined in the forges of power and duty for decades. Infinitely deeper.

  Bruce's gaze was not hostile. It was the gaze of an ancient lion studying a new creature in its territory. Assessing. Measuring.

  "You were the one who saved Luna?" Bruce asked.

  Empty nodded, a firm movement.

  "I thank you." Bruce paused, his emerald eyes piercing the mask. "Are you strong?"

  Empty wrote quickly in his small notebook, the letters firm: "Yes."

  A brief, almost imperceptible smile touched Bruce's lips. It was not joy. It was calculated satisfaction. "Good to know."

  As soon as Empty turned to follow the crowd, Bruce's smile vanished. His green eyes, cold as polished emerald in the heart of an iceberg, followed the hooded figure with an intensity that promised a much more detailed—and much more dangerous—examination in the future.

  Luna reached the balcony. The wind swayed her blond hair, now clean and loose like a banner. She gazed at the sea of faces below and beyond, on the thousands of screens reflecting her image to millions of eager eyes.

  "Kingdom of Light…" her voice, amplified, gained a metallic and authoritative timbre that echoed over the city like a bell. "…to all who are seeing me…"

  The reaction was immediate and kaleidoscopic. Some shouted, cried, and raised their arms. Others remained stone-silent, watching. There were murmurs of doubt, furrowed critical expressions, gazes evaluating the thin girl who claimed to be a legend.

  "I know I took too long to return." She swallowed hard. "After many struggles… I, Luna Lighting, along with my brother Raphadun and my ally Empty, defeated the main curse: The Pursuer! And I avenged my mother and father."

  A colossal murmur of shock and admiration swept through the crowd like an electric shock. The public confirmation was more shocking than any rumor.

  "And I have now returned… to…" She hesitated. Nerves tightened her throat. The weight of all those eyes crushed her.

  She looked back into the room. There, Raphadun gave her an encouraging smile, pure and confident. Empty, beside him, nodded. A firm, calm, silent gesture. There was no doubt in it. Only certainty.

  That silent trust replenished her. She turned again to the people, her green eyes no longer hesitant, but shining with the flame she carried within.

  "I returned to be the queen!" she declared, and her voice no longer trembled. "And the Definitive!"

  She raised her arm.

  From her hand burst the Light.

  Not a beam. A wave. A light so pure, so intense and warm, that for a moment it outshone the screens, bathed the entire square, the entire city, in a golden and celestial bath. It was not an attack. It was a blessing, a warmth that penetrated the cold skin of skepticism and reached the dormant soul.

  The kingdom exploded.

  Primal shouts of jubilation, cathartic cries of relief, and deafening applause took over everything. The Light had returned. The prophecy was no longer a story. It was flesh, bone, and power. It was Luna.

  After the coronation, a grand, noisy, necessary party followed. Representatives from all Houses, from all strata, mingled in a warm chaos.

  Flávio tried, once again, with a trembling smile, to approach Amanda and his daughter. Amanda saw him coming and, with an icy look that could freeze the ceremony, shook her head in a clear and final negative. The pain on Flávio's face was brief as lightning, but deep as an abyss. He withdrew, seeking refuge in the quietest corner of the room, where Empty watched the celebration with the patience of a mountain.

  "My ex-wife and my daughter…" Flávio began, his voice lower, more serious, more real than Empty had ever heard. Stripped of all pose. "On an exploration mission… Amanda was a talented warrior, a star. She liked me, my playful way, even though I was… just that." He laughed, a dry sound. "She didn't know that, deep down, I was a coward."

  If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  "One day, a curse attacked. It was strong. Instead of staying and fighting beside her… I ran. She lost both legs. The curse… erased them. No chance of healing." He looked at his hands. "She never forgave me. And she shouldn't."

  Empty stayed quiet, absorbing the weight of the confession like earth absorbs rain.

  Flávio seemed to grow ashamed, blushing. "Sorry for dumping my problems on you…"

  Empty took his notebook. He wrote, slowly, carefully: "Nothing."

  At that moment, they saw Fencer approaching Amanda. He was visibly drunk, staggering, a volcano of resentment about to erupt.

  "Hey!" he stammered, pointing a trembling finger at Amanda. "Why do you talk to my brother like that, huh? Even if we're not blood, I care!…"

  Flávio ran to him. "Hey, Fencer! It's nothing, you're wasted. Let's go."

  "Take your brother out of here, Flávio," Amanda said, her voice an icy blade. "I don't want to hear this."

  "Let go!" Fencer struggled, a puppet with cut strings. "Tell me, Amanda! The way you look at us… does our weakness bother you?!"

  "Not just the weakness," she replied, looking directly at Flávio, and the next word was a stab: "The cowardice too."

  Flávio shrank, as if physically struck. He did not reply.

  "Hahaha! That's it! Strength!" Fencer laughed, a bitter, uncontrolled sound that scratched the ears. "There it is! What's the problem with being weak and cowardly, Amanda?! Hahaha!"

  Empty watched. Behind the mask, his eyes narrowed in a mute smile, not of amusement, but of recognition. Raphadun and Luka, on the other side of the room, also laughed, but their laughter was the relaxed laughter of those watching a bizarre spectacle, not the laughter of those who understand the tragedy.

  Fencer stood, leaning on Flávio like a castaway on a leaky boat.

  "Hahaha! This world… all these people. This is fun, isn't it? Being weak… All of this! People… They want to talk, want to take a stand all the time, understand, comprehend, and even if that's… Something impossible for weak people like us… We still continue, don't we?!" He said, Fencer looking around, but in a mysterious way, looking longer at Empty.

  It's the weak...

  WHO SHAPE THE WORLD!

  Isn't that right?

  "Hahaha!" he continued laughing, his voice lost in another fit of drunken and desperate laughter. But his arms were open.

  Raphadun approached Empty, still laughing, rubbing his eyes. "This guy is a riot, isn't he, Empty?"

  Empty did not reply. His gaze was fixed on Fencer. The laughter in his eyes vanished, replaced by intense, serious, almost clinical attention.

  Raphadun noticed the change. "What's wrong, Empty?"

  Empty looked at him and, slowly, his eyes curved again into a smile—the standard smile, the shield. But when he turned back, the smile faded completely, like a candle blown out.

  Meanwhile, Flávio carried Fencer by the arms, who was still completely drunk.

  As the group began to move away, the laughter from minutes before seemed to come from another life. Only followed: strange looks fixed on the armored being walking among them like a living mistake, and a silence of a possible laugh about the scientist whom no one would ever truly care to notice.

  But all of that was just shadow.

  Something seen through frosted glass.

  From a place where touch, laughter, and pain no longer reached.

  Isn't it?

  Above the tower, the party continued, reaching its noisy peak. Luna, cheeks flushed with wine and victory, laughed with Luka. Empty remained on the margin, a silent observer in a sea of celebration.

  It was then that Raphadun, staggering, with an almost empty glass in hand and glazed eyes, approached.

  "Empty… this party is already a drag…" he murmured, confidential. "Hey! How about I show you something? It's up top. It's secret."

  Driven by curiosity and a light but persistent concern for Raphadun's state, Empty nodded and followed him.

  They climbed secret stairs, passed through empty and silent corridors where the party's sound was a distant echo. Until Raphadun, with a trembling key and several failed attempts, opened a heavy metal door carved with ancient runes.

  The room at the top of the tower was small, circular, and the air inside was static, reverent. In the center, on an immaculate crystal pedestal, three stones rested within a pulsing and silent energy field.

  Each emitted a different light: one white and soft like the light of the full moon; one blue shimmering and restless like a summer sky; and one red opaque and heavy like dried blood.

  "These are the Universal Stones!" Raphadun announced, proud and drunk, his whisper echoing in the chamber. "Like it, Empty? The kingdom's biggest secret! Hahaha!"

  Empty felt a chill run down his spine, an ancestral instinct of danger. He approached, hypnotized.

  "This one—" Raphadun pointed to the white, his finger almost touching the energy field "—is the Restoration Stone. It's what keeps life here, what keeps the rot of the Infernal Zone away. This blue one is the Present. And this red one is Destruction." He gave a drunken laugh. "They say if you gather them all… you can find GOD. Crazy, right?"

  He continued, his alcohol-addled thoughts flowing in a dangerous stream of consciousness.

  "There are others that disappeared in history… the red is the past, the blue the present… and the green… the green is the future. Together, they are the Stones of Time. And there's the Creation one too… I wanted to have told you before…"

  The green stone.

  The words echoed in Empty's mind like a primordial alert scream. His hand instinctively went to his chest, where, beneath the armor, hidden in a compartment next to what remained of his torso, the green stone pulsed against his cold and rotten skin. The memory of the yellowed paper, the dying hand, the first order he had received, came with crushing clarity:

  "Protect her. Never show it to anyone."

  He looked at Raphadun, his hand trembling inside the glove. He needed to tell. That was not a simple stone. It was one of the Stones of Time. It was the future.

  Raphadun, however, interrupted his whirlwind of thoughts, shaking his empty glass.

  "But relax!" he said, his carefree and drunk voice falling like a blade. "Anyone who had one of these would show it, right? After all, hiding one…" he made a dramatic pause, a foolish smile on his lips "…is a crime! Treason against the kingdom! Hahaha!"

  Raphadun's drunken laugh fell over Empty like a death sentence.

  Empty froze. The hand touching the stone's hiding place recoiled as if burned by acid.

  Crime. Treason.

  The words sank into him, ice hooks in what remained of his soul. He could not tell. Never.

  Later, above the tower, the party ended. Everyone withdrew, exhausted and intoxicated by celebration and alcohol.

  Later, in an intimate and solemn ceremony in the tower, the masters of the Houses gathered again. Theodora, with tears of pride and loss in her eyes, officially passed the title of Leader of the House of Light to Luna.

  And Bruce, with a solemnity that silenced even the breathing of those present, placed the Crown of the Definitive Queen on his granddaughter's head. The weight of the metal was nothing compared to the weight of the destiny she now officially accepted.

  And part of that destiny, she knew at that moment, with a cold knot in her stomach, was to seal the alliance with the powerful House of Mages. Through marriage to Luka.

  Finding Empty afterward, Luna was radiant, still with a glow of alcohol and happiness in her eyes, the crown slightly off-center in her hair.

  "So, Empty, did you like the party?" she asked, hugging his shoulders with a familiarity earned through blood and darkness. "That's what we came here for!"

  She saw Raphadun passed out in a corner and laughed. "Raphadun! Hahaha! He enjoyed it. Thanks for bringing him, Empty."

  Empty merely nodded, his smile behind the mask not reaching his eyes, which were fixed on a distant point, laden with a terrible secret.

  On the silent walk back to Flávio's house, the city streets were peaceful and safe, a stark and almost unreal contrast to the nights of vigil and terror in the Infernal Zone.

  Flávio, physically and emotionally exhausted, "crashed" as soon as he arrived, sleeping almost instantly on the couch with a deep sigh.

  Fencer, awakened by the hangover and an inner restlessness, dragged himself to the bathroom. Passing through the dark corridor, he saw the door to Empty's room ajar.

  Inside, in the faint light of an oil lamp, Empty sat on the bed, his body bent by a fit of dry and hoarse coughing. The sound was muffled by the mask, but persistent, guttural, coming from a deep and sick place.

  "Are you okay?" Fencer asked from the door, his voice hoarse from sleep, drink, and a genuine, surprising trace of concern.

  Empty turned quickly, almost startled. Even in the dim light, Fencer saw Empty's eyes curve into a quick, comforting, practiced smile. Empty nodded, a gesture of "all good."

  "Okay then," Fencer murmured, retreating, and closed the door softly, with an unusual respect.

  As soon as the door closed, Empty's smile shattered. Instantly. Like a clay mask that cracks and falls.

  He brought his hand to his face, under the mask. Lowered the glove.

  In the palm of his hand—the hand of rotten skin, marked by dark runes—staining the necrotic skin, there was a splash of a dark and thick liquid. It was not oil from the armor. It was not dirt.

  It was blood.

  A dark, almost black blood, with a strange viscosity. He looked at the stain, his eyes widening with horror and understanding.

  He then looked at the vague and distorted reflection of his own face in the room's dark window. The forced smile for Fencer had vanished, leaving behind only a look of deep, absolute, and silent sadness. The sadness not just of a secret, but of knowledge: the knowledge that that secret, the Stone of the Future pulsing in his chest, and now this illness, this corruption bleeding from within, could kill not only him, but those he, against all odds, had begun to call friends.