Book 2. The Grand Gathering. Chapter 5. Anatis’s Past. (Part I)

“Whoa, that whole area is the Royal Palace?” Laien asked, gazing at the humongous complex of azure-decorated buildings.

As far as he could tell, the amount of space this Royal Palace occupied was equal to a fourth of the whole Neil City. This size, however, became quite ridiculous only and especially after one considered how few people were actually accommodated at this provisory Royal Palace. Fourth of the Neil City’s population would equal to a quarter million people, while the Royal Palace here was reserved for merely a few hundred important personas and the few thousand servants attending them.

Considering that, it wasn’t too hard to recognize the kind of over-the-top show of wealth and power the Royal Family was displaying to their subjects.

The mere act of moving all these huge buildings must have required the aid of dozens, if not over a hundred martial masters. To be able to employ practitioners at the Realm of Heroes to a task as menial as moving buildings around… this kind of power definitely didn’t belong directly to the Royal Family, but to the Heavenly Flame School itself. As for this ‘show’, it likely served to subtly remind the various powers of the Kingdom of who stood at the top of the hierarchy.

“Quite big, isn’t it?” Sinra said with a chuckle. “Each of us Royal Children has their own private quarters prepared for them regardless of whether we attend the Grand Gathering or not. The same goes for all the important people who are affiliated with the Royal Family, so in fact the majority of the buildings you can see are empty,” he mentioned briefly and exchanged a glance with Laien. By the looks of it, both of them considered this fact to be rather amusing.

“See those gold-azure decorated buildings in the center?” Sinra asked and after getting a nod from Laien, he continued. “Those are the King’s Quarters, but since our King rarely leaves the Royal Capital anymore the one in charge is my uncle. He serves as one of the three Grand Viscars, so he usually is made to oversee all the important events across the country,” he summed up briefly, believing the details of how the Kingdom truly worked behind the scenes could be left for another time.

“So we are going to those King’s Quarters and not to your place?” Laien inquired, seeing that Injar was flying them over straight to the center of the Royal Palace. Well, he had also noticed that at first the various guards had been alarmed by their appearance, but after recognizing the azure flames Injar was using they calmed down; but that wasn’t too important at the moment.

“At the moment you are only my guests, so it wouldn’t be appropriate for me to bring you to my own quarters. It would imply that we are allies, while in fact, we are yet to talk it out,” Sinra clarified and this time exchanged a glance with Anatis; who in turn appeared to appreciate the consideration.

“Traditions, formalities, unspoken rules; so stupid,” Laien said with a sigh. He had gotten used to doing almost anything he wanted during the last two years in the Red Dragon School, so he wasn’t too happy to return to being bound by these annoying things.

Sinra gave Laien a brief look but didn’t try to dig into the subject. He also tended not to be fond of the old traditions, but he recognized the necessity of their existence and the benefits they brought. Were it some other time, he probably would have tried to argue with Laien over this point… but right now, he would rather not risk making Laien’s mood turn sour.

“Okay, let’s go to one of the private meeting halls,” Sinra said after the six of them landed on the ground directly in front of the main entrance to the sole, humongous complex of buildings referred to as the King’s Quarters.

“So, are we going to get some good food?” Laien brought up with a smile and a carefree attitude as he walked while holding his hands joined behind his head. “I’m pretty hungry after all this fighting,” he added and glanced at Anatis, who responded with a helpless smile. After expending all their energy, it was only natural that they would get hungry.

“Not a problem, we can have a whole dinner served if that’s what you‘d like,” Sinra said with a laugh, but silently reprimanded himself for not thinking about this beforehand. It was common knowledge that a well-fed person would be considerably more likely to listen to and agree to any requests.

“It would be great,” Laien said happily, his stomach already beginning to growl quietly at the thought of all the food it would soon be getting.

“The insides are fairly cool. Feels much better than the heat outside,” Siana mentioned half-randomly, making this point an excuse for pulling Laien’s arm down and getting a hold of it. Content, she smiled slightly as she glued herself close to her big brother.

Nila couldn’t help but give Laien and Siana a somewhat confused look. “Are you two siblings or cousins…?” she asked, pretty sure that Siana was looking at Laien with the same eyes she herself looked at Anatis. It wouldn’t be too uncommon for two cousins to end up marrying each other… but siblings? Even here in the south, it would be frowned upon.

“We are brother and sister,” Laien answered lightheartedly, either not catching the suggestive tone of Nila’s words or simply not caring about the matter enough to be perturbed by it.

Siana, on the other hand, glanced at Nila with an unusual coldness in her eyes, one which had been there more often prior to the events two years ago.

Although Siana said nothing, Nila got the message clearly enough. The whole thing wasn’t her business to begin with. Since Siana wanted her not to get involved, she wouldn’t stick her nose where it didn’t belong.

Their group continued to walk in a relative silence for about a minute until they reached the area where many smaller and bigger private meeting rooms and halls were. They were about to head into one of them, when a young woman, perhaps around twenty years old walked out of another one, her gaze immediately laying upon them.

Laien’s eyes opened wide as he unintentionally swallowed his salvia. This woman… he had never, ever seen someone so stunningly beautiful. She was tall and slender, or skin was perfectly pure and smooth, her facial features gentle and royal at the same time. She had long, silky white hair and eyes which shone with a hint of silver. She truly was a perfect, exquisite beauty and yet…

And yet, the look of amazement quickly faded form Laien’s face. This woman was indeed beautiful, but under the pretense of warmth, a very perturbing amount of ice and irrelevance was hidden at the bottom her eyes. Much unlike Siana, this woman was purposely pretending to be someone she wasn’t while in truth, she was a very dangerous person.

Perhaps discerning whether a girl was worried about something or not wasn’t Laien’s strongest suit if Siana was to be excluded, but the ability to see through a façade was one of his strongest points. In other words, it could be said that he was good at judging people at the first glance.

“If it isn’t my dear little brother,” the young woman said with a charming smile as she approached with over a dozen of her teenage and adult followers, a group of children and a sole man trailing behind her. “Who could those youths you brought along be? Won’t you introduce them to your older sister?” she asked sweetly, intrigued by the two girls who appeared to be inner disciples of their respective Great Martial Schools and the two boys who for some reason wore azure cloaks.

She was fairly certain that Sinra had no supreme talents of the young generation from their Heavenly Flame School under his command, but those two boys…? Could Sinra’s guardian have had broken the rules and lent him a hand? He was, after all, that woman’s favorite pupil…

“Elder sister, since when do you recognize me as a human being?” Sinra responded with a sarcastic laugh. “You always treated me like air, but now you actually go out of your way to speak with me? Are the heavens going to fall and the earth shatter?” he added provokingly, hoping to anger this detestable woman enough to make her walk away on her own.

As much as he would have loved to tell her to screw off… currently, his position in the Royal Court was incomparably lower than hers. He had no choice but to play along with her demands and whims, even if he wouldn’t necessarily do so while holding his tongue back.

“Tch, as unpleasant as ever,” the white-haired beauty said with a light snort and turned her gaze to Laien and Anatis, proceeding to totally ignore Sinra’s presence. “Say, boys, were the two of you asked by my little brother to represent him? To join his little camp?” she questioned, the tone of her voice making her intentions obvious enough; just as she wanted them to be.

“I’m pretty sure it’s the basic courtesy to give your name before asking questions, no?” Laien responded somewhat sourly, a little smirk present on his face.

Having had enough experience in negotiating and overall politics, the white-haired woman prevented her inner feelings from showing on her face or in her gaze. Instead, she smiled at Laien and said courteously. “Forgive my lack of manners, little one. My name is Finella, I am the second Princess,” she introduced herself, then gave Laien and Anatis an expectant look, waiting for them to do the same.

“I’m Laien,” Laien said cheekily, foregoing the formal introduction and instead swapping the azure cloak and the remnants of his clothes for a clean suit… of another set of inner disciple clothes. “I will most likely be in his ‘little camp’, but I’m not really anyone important,” he added and shrugged his shoulders, still smiling brightly.

Despite not showing it, Finella was seriously ticked off by Laien’s impudent behavior. It had been more than a decade since anyone dared to be so disrespectful to her, so in her anger, she wrote Laien off as a rude brat from the Red Dragon School who didn’t know how high the heavens were or how wide the earth was, then turned her attention to Anatis.

Had she instead faced Laien’s taunting with a bit more calm, she would have probably noticed the rather apparent clues provided to her; like Laien referring to Sinra casually, like the sarcastic tone of Laien’s when he said he wasn’t anyone important, or the mere appearance of Laien’s and of the girl’s clinging to his arm.

But either way…

Contrary to Laien, Anatis hesitated and needed to think about what he wanted to say. He saw that the Princess was waiting for him to speak up, but he really had problems deciding. He understood that her intentions were most likely to gauge their worth and in case it was high, to pull them over to her own side. However… he had never been good at all those schemes and complicated matters; he was a rather straightforward, simple person. He couldn’t instantly decide what course of actions to take neither by instinct like Laien nor by calculating what would yield better results like Nila tended to do.

The prolonging seconds of silence were beginning to make Finella and her followers feel rather awkward and at the same time, increasingly frustrated.

To be honest, Sinra was beginning to feel the same, not knowing whether Anatis wouldn’t actually be tempted by his elder sister. No matter what, in the end, it was Finella who had a much greater amount of resources at her disposal and wielded a considerably bigger political power.

“Let me state it clearly,” Finella spoke up, tired of waiting. “If you think you are capable of getting into the top three of the Grand Tournament, than I will welcome you with open arms and reward you greatly unlike this little brother of mine would ever be able to afford to,” she offered, relying on the possibility that whoever Injar recruited would have had agreed to the deal only with personal gain in mind.

However, in case it had been that woman’s request… then no matter what she offered, she wouldn’t be able to accomplish anything anyway.

“Uh,” Anatis frowned slightly, unsure if it would be a good idea to try talking with this woman or not. Would listening to her offer in detail make Sinra and the siblings angry at him? He couldn’t tell for sure.

“I don’t think you would be able to give us what we want,” Nila said calmly, seeing that Anatis wasn’t anywhere close to making a choice on his own. Really, he was such a great guy, but he was so bad at making snap decisions under pressure.

“And you think my little brother will?” Finella asked a bit hastily, failing to keep her true thoughts in check like she usually did. Laien had managed to get her riled up already, but now some girl was butting into her conversation? Were the children outside the Royal Capital all so ill-mannered?

“Alone? I doubt it,” Nila said with a quiet laugh and glanced briefly at Laien and Siana. A Royal Child by himself or herself would have close to no chance in successfully aiding them, but if that Royal Child had the support of someone very close to a Great Master… then perhaps they would be able to actually change some things for better.

Of course, however, the question of whether they would be willing to help them or not was an entirely different matter.

“Great,” Laien cut in of the sudden and clasped his hands happily. “So, can we get going? I really want to eat something soon,” he said with a smirk, trying to annoy Finella as much as he could without being too direct about it.

“You…” Finella said soundlessly, her lips parting just a little. She felt like shouting and cursing Laien out, but she needed to maintain her appearances.

“Kid, who do you think you are?” the stern-faced man at Finella’s side growled, finally unable to hold himself back. “You are talking to a Royal, show some respect if you don’t want to be punished!” he said threateningly and took a step forward, so angered that some killing intent was seeping out of him.

“Punished? By who? You?” Laien was about to ask, but in the end only smiled at the man. Just like Rudford was always saying, it was okay to be haughty at times, but one needed to know when enough was enough. Infuriating a man who almost certainly was Finella’s guardian and could very well kill him in one blow would certainly count as going too far.

“Calm down, Bernar,” Injar warned calmly, looking the stern-faced man in the eye. “You can’t be planning to attack this kid, can you?” he asked, a slim aura of power emanating from his body as he slowly circulated his Qi.

The stern-faced man, Bernar, pursed his lips tightly and gnashed his teeth so hard that they were about to crack. Yet, he chose to back off despite his anger. He and his family were closely affiliated with Finella but at the current state of things… he wouldn’t trade making Injar his enemy for another favor from the Princess. It wasn’t worth it, especially not when the ‘dispute’ was such a petty one.

“It was my mistake to ever talk to low-class people like you,” Finella said frowningly, feeling thoroughly distasted by this whole conversation. She snorted ostentatiously, then started walking away without sparing as much as a glance for Sinra and the rest of his group.

The about twenty teenagers and adults, the small group of children below the age of twelve and Bernar followed after Finella. As they were passing by, all of them proceeded to completely ignore the six who angered their Princess… with but one exception.

A certain girl which appeared to be around ten years old looked at Laien, then at Anatis; all the while smiling in an intrigued, but also rather an aloof manner. “See you in nine days,” she said quietly, purposely passing between the two boys as to leave these words out of her friends’ ears.

“Nine days?” Laien asked after a few seconds, watching the back of the brown-haired girl who was heading out of the King’s Quarters with Finella and the others.

“The Grand Tournament is in nine days,” Injar answered, obviously having heard what the brown-haired girl said.

“The thing this Princess mentioned?” Laien picked up. “So, is Sin’s request about the Grand Tournament? But isn’t it just a small-scale competition between the Royal Children…? Weren’t outsiders not allowed to participate?” he inquired, wondering what Sin had in mind for them.

“That’s a part of it,” Injar admitted. “Let’s not discuss it in the middle of the main hall. Go to that private room over there and have your talk with Sinra, I will go order a dinner meanwhile,” he suggested with a slight smirk, pointing at one of the solid doors with a gesture of his hand.

“Getting all bossy again,” Sinra commented with a smile. Hadn’t there been something about ‘Fine, but you will do everything on your own, I won’t be helping you’ before? “Make sure to get us some crabs,” Sinra said and chuckled at Injar’s resigned expression, then led the four youths away without teasing his guardian anymore.

“Teenagers,” Injar murmured with a sigh but smiled nevertheless. He then headed to the relatively close-by kitchen, thinking that he too would like to eat some tender crab meat.

“That’s one of the smaller rooms, eh?” Laien laughed while looking around the room. Apart from the large table for about thirty people in the middle of it, the chamber had a lit fireplace and quite a few wardrobes which seemed to contain various kinds of wines and alcohols. Overall, it indeed was very suitable as a place for various formal negotiations and discussions.

“It’s rather frequent for more than two parties to be involved in any talks and you need to count everyone’s advisors and guards in, so it needs to be at least this big,” Sinra explained, choosing to sit not at the top of the table, but just at one of its sides nearby the top. “The medium-sized rooms can fit about two hundred people, while the large halls are more suited for the wartime negotiations with their one thousand seats arranged in a very meticulous way,” he mentioned briefly and raised his eyebrows just a bit as the four sat down.

He already expected Anatis and Nila to sit directly in front of him and leave the top seat vacated, but he didn’t think Laien and Siana would do the same.

“So he can be brash and arrogant at times, but he seems to behave differently when with people he likes,” Sinra noted by the force of habit. It didn’t sit well with him that he was analyzing his new friend’s personality in this manner, but he had been taught to judge people when he was still very young. By now, he couldn’t help noticing the small things about everyone’s behavior and making assumptions based on them.

“So, the Grand Tournament?” Laien brought up, impatient to learn the details of the deal Sin was about to put up.

“I think it would be better for us to speak first,” Nila stated calmly. “As to not waste any time, you know,” she added, managing to make Laien feel slightly annoyed.

It wasn’t about what she was saying, but how she was saying it. As far as Laien was concerned, he didn’t know what Anatis saw in a girl with such a dominant and overbearing character.

“Go ahead,” Sinra nodded at the suggestion. It would be more convenient to know if he could meet these two’s demands before laying out his case, so he had no reason to disagree.

Nila looked at Anatis, thinking that it would be better for him to tell his own story personally. Anatis smiled weakly in response and after taking a deep breath, he began speaking.

“I originally come from Buare City, the one which officially is ruled by the Cioze family but in truth is practically the Twin Phoenix School’s property,” he said with a helpless, ironic expression on his face. “I was born to a fairly normal high-ranked noble family, my mother being the leader’s little sister,” he continued, very apparently having trouble with putting his story into words.

When he told Nila about it about four years ago, he had cracked up and started crying in the middle from all the anger and helplessness he had been feeling. He probably wouldn’t end up doing the same now, but still, he was fairly shaken to once again recall and talk about those events.

“The few memories from my early childhood I have are all very happy; I remember playing with my cousins, having silly arguments and competitions with the leader’s eldest son… I remember being hugged by my mother as I sat on her legs,” Anatis sighed bitterly and shook his head, lowering his gaze down to the table.

“I don’t really remember the exact thing, but when my little sister was born my parents apparently have had a huge argument which they somehow managed to settle,” he said with a weak laugh, the look in his eyes becoming sad and filled with grief.

“I was three when my little sister was born, then I was around six when my little brother came to this world. That second huge argument my parents have had… I remember very well,” he said and fell silent for a moment, continuing only after the emotions welling up inside him cooled down a bit.

“I have blond hair and blue eyes, so had my mother. My father had black hair and black eyes, my little sister had black hair and black eyes… my little brother had black hair and black eyes,” he revealed with a weak laugh and exchanged a look with Sinra, then glanced at Laien and Siana. It appeared the three of them already knew where this story was heading to.

“My father accused my mother of cheating on him… and she admitted to it,” he said with a sigh and shook his head again.

“I heard from behind the door how she told him about the time he didn’t want to go with her to that high-end party seven years prior, how she ended up going alone and somehow, spent the whole time in the company of Ninrah, the younger of the two Great Masters of the Twin Phoenix School,” he smiled bitterly at his own words. Should he be happy that as a result he had been born, or sad because of what his birth brought upon his whole family?

“My mother tried to somehow justify herself; she told my father how great the party was, how she and Ninrah were getting along really well… how they were both intoxicated with wine and ended up going to bed together…” Anatis sighed heavily. He didn’t know if his mother was right to be bitter; he didn’t know the circumstances of his parents, so he could only distance himself from the question of whether his father should have forgiven her or not.

As for himself… he knew one thing for sure. He would never betray his wife and would expect the same in return.