The King Trials 2: Beyond.

The Duce Merian, the Herems and I are being escorted by a troop of bastion guards, both in our forefront and our rear, with us safety in between. The massive hallways sounds with the percussion of clomping boots, a hard-beat crescendo. A page was sent to each of our bedchambers, a summoning from the supreme Ecclesia itself. My attendants practically had me ripped from my bed, bathed, and ornamented in sparkling fabrics.

Though I am faring quite grandly compared to the bleary-eyed Herems.

Though they are washed, well-groomed and attired in stately drapes befitting their nobility. It still cannot hide their lethargic state. Their slumped shoulders, sluggish gait, the heavy burden their eyes bear, dark and unabated.

I look at Solaris beside me, two braids plaited in a row on the flanks of his head, the rest pulled down into a low ponytail. He sucks in another, slow-drawn yawn, eyes fluttering.

“Trouble sleeping, my son?”

The yawn dies in his mouth. He looks back at me, narrowing his eyes. “Did you just call me your son?” His voice all croaky.

“And did you call me your mother when you were completely out of your wits on dragon fire?” I ask with a teasing smile. “Both answers are a yes.”

His face tautens into a grimace. Looking away, he says, “Let us agree never to recall the moments of my shame and humiliation.”

I nod sharply. “So long as you never call me, mother. I will happily agree.”

Shortly, we all tunnel in a stairwell with a flight of stairs that spiral into an inestimable height, the only glimmer of light at the peak, the slither of hope that the ascendant abyss truly ends.

“Absolutely not,” Brennon protests, his voice rough. “The only way I scale this steep staircase is if one of you guards carry me. The Ecclesia can climb down to me if they must.”

Mutely, Treyton shoves him forward—Brennon stumbles, continues onwards before he flicks a loathsome glare off his shoulder. We all trek up the steps, winding up and up, the further we go, the farther it seems we are from reaching the end.

But eventually we do. The troop ahead of us all diverge to the right, lining themselves up. We emerge on top of a temple-like, open chamber, in the head of a monumental spire. Once again, it is unrailed, only protected by a colonnade with enormous gaps between the marble pillars that borders the circle circumference. The roofless peak is a treasure of sunlight, almost blinding, the floor overlaid with immaculate white tiles with golden flairs of motifs.

From this altitude, it gives a three hundred and sixty five degree of the palace city and the heavenly greenery that surrounds the whole of Velheim. So much closer to the sun, the temperature ever scorching but now it sears the skin like roasted pig on a spit.

Down a short staircase, it leads to a council of people all seated on festooned seats. The same ornamented beings we saw at the banquet last night. I recognise their aloof disposition and artic stares. They look as flamboyant as they did before, bedazzled in jewels, dressed in regal silks.

One of them instruct us to step down. We all conform, and we descend the few steps to arrange ourselves neatly before the base of it. Duce Merian purposefully stand out of rank from us to remain a prominent figure. The guards at our rear fill from the right side until all of them are positioned in a ring in front of the pillars.

In the rectangle formation of their seating, facing each other. The head chair is unoccupied.

“Greetings purebloods of the Decuria,” a female welcomes. The only one. A mask of golden ornaments covers her nose and mouth, a matching veil starts from the centre of her hair, a complex of coils that streams down past her shoulders.

Her skin is copper-brown, like a windfall autumn leaf, eyes a sweet tangerine with lips of berry-red. It still does not undermine the supremacy of her gaze, that all under it should bow.

“You have voyaged a long away, and the council acknowledges your exertion,” she says and gives a small, dignified nod to us. “But before the proceedings begin, we must await our leader.”

“Is that this Kumentah I have heard so much about?” Markiveus questions with no scant of disdain to withhold.

The fourteen members scoff at his ignorance and exchange a mix of haughty and indignant looks. A few trade a mutter of sneering words in their tongue before another voice adds himself.

A being wrapped in a vibrant yellow tunic. “Of course we should expect ignorance from aliens. They do not know our ways,” he says loudly, addressing us, but he shares his gaze amongst his fellow members. A few of them reward him with a nod and smile, others preserve their apathy like we are too inferior to even insult.

“Our leader is the head of this council,” the female explains tolerantly. “The Tigress, she is our better, and the Kumentah is the true ruler of Velheim. It is a scared gift to behold our city, let alone be welcomed. To have an audience with the Kumentah is an immeasurable honour. One that no alien is worthy enough to possess.”

Markiveus crosses his arms, inclining his head. “Your little, clandestine city does not impress me. I only read fables about it, and frankly. It’s a little bit disappointing. You hide from the world; I do not perceive it as security, but as cowardice. Or is that an admirable trait here?”

Duce Merian whips his head at him. “Markiveus,” he scolds. Teeth gnashed.

The one in the yellow tunic spurts to his feet. “How dare you spurn our realm with your incompetence. You reek of imprudence; your life is nothing but a speck of grain amidst the sands of this world. Guards!” he beckons and waves a hand theatrically. “Take these aliens out of my sight.”

“No,” another voice says, a being draped in sangria. He rises. “Do not be rash, Malois. They are more than aliens.” He flicks his attention to the result of us suffering the council’s ire in consequence to Markiveus’s loose lips. “We agreed to the High King’s request for a reason. A larger threat.”

Malois dismisses with him an angered flap of his hand. “All overstated. Velheim survived the last breach, the last fall, and it will survive another. We do not need the aid of others or to embroil ourselves in a war that does not involve us.”

The statement seems to jolt Solaris awake, the others bristle, their faces suddenly avid.

Another contributes, clothed in an enchanted green. In a bored voice, speaking in Velenese, he says, “For one who claims the aliens to be lesser than, you behave no better. Stop squabbling, you embarrass us with your theatrics. These Urium nothings are not worth it.”

I cock a brow, forcing a retort down.

“Supreme council,” Duce Merian says, redirecting the attention. “The pureblood did not intend it has a slight. It is merely the pride and partisanship of his own realm that spoke.” Adding a laugh riddled with panic. “But we all know the truth that Velheim reigns superior over all dominions.”

A sop to his vanity. Malois bites the bait. He occupies his vacated seat, his eyes still simmering. Then he looks beyond us, and a gleam of reverence travels his gaze.

A familiar, gentle presence sweeps past us and a kingly figure strides ahead, attired in a white robe with a blood orange sash draped across his chest that bespoke royalty. Awash in golden pools of light, his moonstone skin glistening. Gaius turns around and sinks into the head chair of the council.

Duce Merian voices all of our surprise. “You… you. My apologies, Your Excellency. I did not know you were the…leader of the Ecclesia.”

He nods humbly. “I am,” he affirms simply.

Merian folds his arms behind his back. “Forgive me, but you did not portray a being of your status. I even—” his face blanches from pure mortification, “—issued you orders. A thousand apologies.” He quickly dips into a full bow with his face to the floor.

Gaius bellows a guffaw, laughing it off light-heartedly. “That was my aim, Duce.” His laugh fades. Then, like a flame sniffed out, his entire demeanour alters, evolves. His face chiselled in a regal reserve.

“I wanted to examine you all for myself, your true natures and how you would treat me as I am, or if I was lesser than. Nobles tend to ill-treat those they believe beneath them, to them soldiers are expendable, and servants are replaceable. In assuming my facade, I could gauge for myself your true character.”

As he utters the last word, his eyes fall on me, expression unreadable, frighteningly neutral.

He leans back in the seat and sets his elbows on the arms of the chair, steepling his adorned fingers. “Since I am here. Let us begin,” he says, fixing his attention on Duce Merian.

Duce Merian straightens and clears his throat readily. “Great council, our forebearers created the King Trials in the event the line of succession was ever… obliterated, heirs assassinated, some other peril that would the threaten the ordinance of the Crown. The first High King decreed this so that no person of just any royal blood, or even with the most right, would rule. But a being who was worthy to rule.”

He continues on with a brief deluge of Urium history.

Gaius lifts a hand. Duce Merian locks his lips.

“As fascinating as the origins of your King Trials is. We care only for our involvement in it, and why should Velheim risk exposure by allying with High King Urus?”

Duce Merian shakes his head. He extends a quick hand to us. “Not him, Your Excellency. But the future of Urium, the next Ruler. I think none of you grasp the magnitude of peril that looms—”

“The High King sent the transcripts and military archives with your Hitsches when they first arrived,” Gaius interjected jadedly, his tone imperious and intimidating. Unrecognisable. “I personally read them, the accumulation of gathered intelligence. It’s what granted you entry, now you must earn your right to speak. I know the Vulkra have returned and with it, the dangers but—”

“It’s more than that—”

“Do not disrupt me,” he booms, his voice echoing into the ether.

Duce Merian’s face turns stark scarlet.

Gaius skims over the rest of us with sheer indifference. “You.” He points a finger at Vince.

Vince perks up and steps forward, clasping his hands in front of him.

“You are Herem Vince from Regnum Ethane, correct?” he taps a bejewelled hand on arm of the chair.

“Yes,” he says plainly. Refusing to regard him in title or in any manner of respect.

He nods slowly, his eyes calculating. “You are from the renown Emikrol. I have read about the marvellous feats of your Regnum, the Regnum of warriors. Emikrol is one of the oldest and the sole empire, one of the few that has maintained sovereignty. I understand how, but why?”

I watch Vince’s cheeks crumple at the question.

“Forgive me. But what kind of question is that? Why do we prefer freedom over being colonised?”

Malois blares an outraged sound. “Their vulgarity knows no bounds. If these are the candidates for the throne, Urium is surely doomed.”

Gaius slices him with a look. “Not another word.” He fastens his gaze back on Vince. “If I must elaborate. Why does a powerful domain such as Emikrol, fighters by blood and kings in spirit choose to show loyalty to the Crown but you refused to submit to its authority?”

Vince shrugs casually. “As you said, kings in spirit. And a king does not bow, the only will he serves is his own. It is our nature, but it has nothing to do with the capability of the Crown, which I can sense is what you are truly asking. An Emikrollian’s honour is in his loyalty.”

Dismissing himself, he retreats a step to align himself with the rest of us.

Gaius ignores the intended slight. Then he looks at me fixedly. He flags me forward with a flick of his fingers. I comply.

“Hera Aurora of Regnum Valwa, the Regnum of knowledge and wisdom. Shall you grace us with your knowledge on the topic? What imminent perils does your High King fear?”

“One that you all of you should.”

The entire council erupts into a burst of derisive laughs.

Unphased, I watch them patiently, until their act of scorn ends.

“Well, go on.”

“The Vulkra is merely a foreshadowing, a warning of what is to come. At this moment, a plague, the Black Death is ravaging the farmlands of our realm, one that will undoubtedly start a famine, then chaos. The time of the Eternal Eclipse comes.”

A deafening silence suffocates the chamber, smug smiles wilts from their faces.

“You speak of black sun?” Malois asks cautiously. “And how would you know of this? Are you in possession of a celestial ephemeris?”

Ephemeris is an almanac, also known as God’s calendar. It is a documented entry of prophecies inscribed by foretellers of the possible futures, both good and bad.

“No. But if you were out there, you would see. The signs are all around us,” I say, holding each of their gazes as I speak. “This is not only the Vulkra. This is them all, the Ulris, the return of Vilnus. We are looking at more than a war, but a reckoning. You can hide if you will, but the Ulris will find you. At the time of the Eternal Eclipse, Vilnus will have the power to align all the hellscapes to ferry in his interdimensional army of hellions and shadows.”

“The Vulkra are only the first stage,” Gaius says distantly, a vacant look in his eyes.

Malois brings a trembling fist to his mouth. His eyes close, nostrils flaring. “If that is true.” His words muffled. “They have doomed not only their realm but of us all,” he says in Velenese.

Others agree with him, freeing a cacophony of irate shouts before they manage themselves into a tempered tone of speech with one another.

Gaius meets my eye, and I cling to it. He knows I can understand them, I can hear their perplexing accusations against us. That somehow it was us, Urium’s fault that we caused this armageddon, and now we are asking them to salvage us from the mess of our own making.

Gaius slams a hand down. “Enough!” His anger burning, his voice drops low. “I want you all to leave me,” he says in Arkian.

Impulsively, I say, “Why? We need to come into an accord for the collective good of all realms. Your Excellency—”

He silences me with his hand. “Foolishness, the gluttony of your predecessors, the legacy of greed that the Crown has managed to foster still is the cause of this distress. The collective good?” the words are like the spittle the flies from his mouth. “This is the reason why we have refuted ancient alliances and kept out our dominion hidden.”

He poisons me with a venomous look.

“Because of bloodthirsty empires like Emikrol—” he tosses a seething look at Vince. “—and venal civilisations alike to Urium. Your corrupt kings.”

“We will not stand here and heed to you degrade our rulers by tarnishing the names of our forebearers,” Vince says with his voice rising with exasperation. “They may not be perfect, but at least they had the valour to fight boldly. Instead of cowering behind protected barriers like some civilisations.”

Gaius’s face rots into a hideous scowl. “Valour? My, you are all more stupid than I anticipated. I almost pity you. The Great Realm War, Pavelia. The Ulris did not invade, they were let in. How did you think they breached our dimension?”

A synapse fires in my brain. “Onyx stones.”

Gaius gestures to me pointedly. “A threshold of onyx stones which caused the sun crystal to ignite. The portals were opened because of the initial threshold. It must be opened at the same time, on both sides. Which even you can piece together that the Ulris’s invasion was an invitation.”

Dread swirls in my gut, choking the breath from my lungs.

Duce Merian wobbles sideways.

“Lies!” Treyton barks out, a vein bursting in his neck. “If you reject our High King’s proposal, do so with courtesy. Do not spew these slurs about our forebearers, I will not stand to hear this blasphemy.”

Gaius laughs, emanating malign. His eyes glitter with malice. “How did you think your forebears came to be, how do you think they overthrew your old regime? The Sanctum. The power had to come from somewhere and they choose evil. They merely did not comprehend that they were dealing with forces beyond them. They had their own ambitions and so did the Ulris, which lead to betrayal, betrayal into war.”

My mind starts to ache, throbbing with angst.

Gaius lounges on his seat serenely. “And of course, they would not speak the truth and regale the chronicle of their double dealing, how they sold their souls for power. Do you know who sealed the threshold that cut off their surge of combatants, thus ending the war for a time?”

The only response is an obstinate silence.

“The Kumentah imbued all his power in the Tigress, and she closed it with a help of the Guardians, ancient warriors that again solved your errors without recognition or praise but for the collective good. But that was only done with the same sun crystal that shattered when they were channelling their power to close the breach. Now history has repeated itself, the High King grovels for us to amend his iniquity. Before his sins condemn us all, the symmetry is remarkable.”

His expression grows grim. He slants to one side, fingertips needling into his temples, looking harried.

I cross my brows. “So you assume High King Urus re-opened the breach? The sun crystal is destroyed as you say, then surely our side of the threshold remains closed.”

He gives me a condescending look, like I’m the biggest fool ever to live. “Which is why he will wait for the Eternal Eclipse, his power will be at its peak, he has probably been harnessing enough of his own so that when the time comes. He will not need our side to open; he can smash right through it, ushering his army to sweep through the realms unopposed with no way for us to stop it. The sun crystal is an integral instrument without it….”

I shake my head fervently, refusing to surrender so easily. “There must be another way, texts or old parchments that—”

“There is not. No other way. You—Urium is to blame, both the salvation and the damnation of us all. If Vilnus gains possession of the ancient stronghold, he will have unstoppable power to conquer all realms, unimpeded, including Velheim. No place or person will be spared.”

Gaius blows out a fast breath. He waves his hand angrily. “Get out, I must think. We will adjourn for now before I decide what to do with you purebloods and what message I will send back to Urus.”

Treyton looks back at Duce Merian urgently, who merely discourages him with a pleading head shake.

Treyton overlooks him. “With respect, there is no time. If that is true, we need to know when the Eternal Eclipse is and how long we have to gather forces, ally with other dominions. Do you not see that aside from our disparities, we need each other. You need to—”

“You have no right to tell me what must be done!” Gaius snaps to his feet fuming, practically frothing. “I have had enough of Urium filth for the day, you will retire and leave me. Guards, escort them out.”