Ignoring the steady applause from the four tiers of people who still remained standing, the first members of the Daerx Clan entered the hall with grace. Faces painted in white stared mostly ahead with a range of expressions from haughty to disinterested, streaks and twists of purple paint splashed across their skin in a range of different patterns. The collection of flowing white robes, creamy silk skirts, and even a few white jackets that they wore caught Nina’s interest as they began their ascent, and she in turn wondered how stringent the dress code was. Some personalized their looks with flourishes of black, grey, or purple on their clothing for contrast, while others instead used only jewellery to achieve the same effect. All of them without fail shared the same silver hair which was typical of Terminus natives, most women wearing theirs either tied back or braided while the men wore it short to accompany their close-cropped beards. Together the effect was almost haunting as they climbed the stairs, almost as though they were not really present but instead ghosts of the past. It would have at least explained why they were so rooted in their traditions, Nina thought with a smirk, but her newly opened mind after travelling through the plates still thankfully had limits. Ghostly, sure, but their presence was at least tangible.

“Nothing special,” Saela said over the applause, perhaps a little too loudly for Nina’s liking. Despite her words, however, Nina found herself sharing the same view as she looked up to the steps above. There was, after all, only so much that face paint and nice clothing could do. She’d easily admit that some of them were quite striking, men and women both, but at the same time there were only a few that she’d consider comparable to Celine. If they had ability or not was something that she would err on the side of caution with as their education was almost certainly immaculate, but at the same time it didn’t earn them her respect either. These people were blind to the bigger picture in the same way that the Zaffre Family had been as far as she was concerned, and the position was one she’d known very well before The Cloud Orchestra had appeared before her in the sky that day.

Dwelling on the thought, she found herself frustrated. These people had the power to quite literally move mountains, yet the only thing they seemed interested in using it for was to ensure that they protected their own little slice of the plate. People were dying over at the Westworks due to a threat which they should have recognized as unprecedented, yet here they sat on the top of a pyramid so that they could, for the most part, flaunt their luck of birth. What was the point? Why did people like her have to struggle to make a difference while having nothing to work with, just so the people who already had it all could sit back and profit from it?

The second-peak Daerx Clan had already started their ascent now, but Nina’s mind was elsewhere as she subconsciously clapped. Sure, she could be frustrated over the Daerx Clan failing to act, but she also realised that the situation probably wasn’t too different from her previous life on Caecus. Business and the competition that came with it was a similar beast when it all boiled down to the essence, and she briefly wondered why she had enjoyed being so entrenched in it. Probably because she’d never known the true scale of the wider picture, she supposed. When Caecus was her entire world she thought that’s she’d managed to haul herself up to a decent rung on the social ladder, but The Cloud Orchestra had blown that out of the water by teaching her that the ladder stretched even further above her to simply unfathomable heights. Much further below too, she thought as she stole a glance at Saela. The fact that the girl had made it to where she was despite the hand that life had dealt her was admirable, but that didn’t mean that Nina’s opinion of her was about to change either. She had her value, at least, but Nina had to constantly remind herself that they weren’t even on the same side right now. Just how much of this would end up in Reina’s ear, and how would Saela paint it for her?

“They’re all wearing white,” Saela mused as though she had detected Nina’s gaze, her applause obviously half-hearted as the sixty or so two-peak Daerx Clan took their places behind their seats. Their clothing and facial decorations weren’t too different from the one-peaks who had preceded them, although that was to be expected. Svanda had explained earlier how families tended to contain a mixture of one, two, and sometimes three-peak members depending on a range of factors, and so the hierarchy was a little more complex than the structure within the Qualifieds. Nina had said at the time that it was nothing but senseless politics as far as she was concerned, and despite Svanda’s standing, she had been quick to agree.

“White makes sense, doesn’t it?” Nina asked.

“Svanda was wearing black,” Saela reminded her with a shrug.

An image of Svanda sitting on the sofa in her room appeared in Nina’s mind, her black dress with streaks of purple crystal clear. Realizing that Saela was indeed correct, Nina frowned but soon realised that there wasn’t exactly anything that she could do. Celine was intelligent enough to realise that any plot to drag Svanda down could have easily been traced back to her, so she ruled out the possibility but had difficulty in thinking of anything else. Perhaps the three-peak members wore black. She hoped so.

She didn’t have to wait long for her answer, as not a moment later the three-peak Daerx Clan procession entered the room. There weren’t enough of them to need more than one entrance as Nina estimated their number to be about thirty, so thankfully they entered from the closest door where she could see them. Unlike the other groups, not a single child was among the pack that walked towards the stairs with poise that seemed to demand respect, many of them older with only handful of young adults sprinkled in. Their faces were also painted in a much more uniform pattern than the groups that preceded them, every single one of them with purple wings of eyeshadow and painted lips in the same style that Svanda had worn, the lines that stretched down from the corner of their eyes also the same. Svanda herself wasn’t difficult to pick out in the crowd either, both her taller frame and hairstyle that seemed to be unique among Daerx Clan women easily establishing her from the pack.

The fact that she was the only person present among the entire Daerx Clan wearing black certainly didn’t hurt either.

“She’s back,” Nina heard someone say over the applause. Whether the comment was about Svanda or not she didn’t know, but she would certainly have bet on her being the focus of the majority of the two thousand plus that were in the hall. Well, at least the focus of those that could see her from where they currently stood. Many were on the other side of the pyramid out of sight right now, but more and more would see her as she climbed towards the pinnacle. Why she was dressed in black instead of white was something that Nina would have to ask about when she had the chance, although it didn’t seem to be making as many waves in the crowd as she had expected it to. Maybe it wasn’t that surprising after all, and if that was the case she might even be able to ask the person who sat next to her when she had the chance. For now, however, there was nothing that she could do. Playing her part by staying out of trouble was the reach of her ability at the moment, although unfortunately Saela didn’t seem to share the same concerns.

Watching as the procession reached the top of the stairs, Nina felt conflicted. Svanda seemed to have an arranged seat with a few older members of the clan at least, but even to the untrained eye it seemed obvious that she didn’t quite belong. The smooth dress and delicate touches to her face should have given her some confidence to fulfil her role as a senior member of the clan for the duration of their stay, but her demeanour seemed to form a barrier between her and those that surrounded her. Apprehension, Nina thought. She had always admired Svanda because she was a person that twisted her environment to suit her own desires, to create her own sphere that she felt comfortable within. Whether that was through dressing like she usually did, upholding her no-nonsense manner with people or power like Runa or the Ruryn siblings, or even bringing Nina to the Daerx Clan against Reina’s wishes, Svanda had always just… done Svanda things. Now, however, the Daerx Clan was trying to not only squeeze her into a Daerx Clan-shaped mould, they were also parading their result around for everyone to see.

Svanda, for once, seemed fallible.