CHAPTER 19: A LOT

Dax’s eyes widened, disbelief cutting through him like a blade. Seven years? He sneered, shaking his head slowly. "Man... that’s dope."

Naya tilted her head, her braids brushing her shoulder as she adjusted herself on the chair.

"I know, right," she murmured, a shadow of tension slipping into her tone. Then, with a casual glance at him, she went on,

"Well, this little fight between us starts all over again today. The last one ended before summer, and they won."

She leaned forward slightly, her voice gathering weight.

"Today they’re going to examine the newly stirred; those with high aspects, aspect ranks, bio-lines, power. Those who managed to secure many Echoes and Masks and all of that."

Dax listened with rapt attention. The more she spoke, the more the atmosphere thickened, like a storm slowly forming above a plain. Everything about this was getting more interesting by the moment. It felt as though the deeper he went, the stranger, and more thrilling the whole ordeal became.

Then the side doors opened with a soft yet echoing thud. Through them walked the Triarch Heads, each one exuding an aura that made the crowd stir like wind passing through dry leaves.

Dax’s gaze instantly locked on the man approaching their side.... Naya had whispered that he was the Beyonders’ Triarch Head.

The man was tall. Not just tall; looming, a living pillar of shadow and sinew. Though he was muscular, the muscle didn’t quite balance his height, making him seem at once powerful and strangely lean.

His hair was short and so black it devoured the light, making Dax’s own look pale in comparison. An overcoat draped to his knees; Dax was sure if he wore it himself, it would drag across the floor like a mourning veil.

The man’s face was mean and crooked, carved with the kind of harshness that spoke of surviving hell and learning to call it home.

Dax’s eyes shifted to the Transcended Triarch Head. She was a striking contrast, a blonde-haired woman radiant in a scarlet gown that clung to her like molten silk. She moved with a dangerous grace, her grin a blade’s edge, her slim figure left people conjuring images of her in a bikini... images one shouldn’t dare imagine during ceremony.

She wore her grin majestically, untamed, matching the gown’s audacity. Even as she crossed the hall, her gaze met the tall man’s in a clash of silent daggers, each glance a promise of unspoken threats.

And then came the Veilbound Triarch Head. Dax could not tell whether it was a man or woman. The figure was entirely cloaked, hooded like the rest of the Veilbound, but thicker somehow, heavier. Its aura rolled out like cold mist on bare skin, sending shivers up Dax’s spine whenever he dared to stare too long.

The Triarch Heads: these were the highest ranks in each facet of the Trinity. For the Beyonders, it was the rank of Unholy. For the Transcended, the rank of Hallowed. The power was equal between them; only the name differed.

Then, out of all that tension that was as thick as smoke and high with grudges, walked a man with slithering, eloquent steps.

Half his hair, left side, was white as snow. The right, black as midnight. Together they fell over his shoulders like day and night tangled. His face was smooth and beardless, marred only by a scar slanting across his left eye like a whispered warning.

He wore a black kimono that whispered with every step. Silence rolled after him as though even the air dared not disturb him. He ascended to the raised panel at the front and sat upon the seat that stood like a throne, enormous and commanding. Two other seats flanked his sides, one soon occupied by a man to the right, and the other by a lady to the left.

When they had all settled, the man rose to his feet. His voice, when it came, was deep and smooth, golden eyes sweeping across the long hall.

"Welcome, Trinity." His words cut through the room, commanding and solemn.

"I am Lord Dracovahk, leader of the Trinity as a whole." The timbre of his voice was enough to draw silence like a blade sliding from a sheath.

He paused, then turned slightly to the lady beside him. "Let the official initiation begin."

He sat. The lady rose.

Her hair was black, swooping down to her shoulders and framing a face that, at a careless glance, might have seemed masculine. She was short, with thick red lips and a slim, poised figure.

She stepped down from the panel with measured, sweetly ambling steps, sharp brown eyes scanning the hall with a smile that doubled the curiosity in every soul present. The initiation had not yet begun, but it felt as though the very walls were holding their breath.

Clearing her throat, she spoke in a voice thin yet melodious, the kind you wouldn’t expect from a woman who wasn’t traditionally beautiful; sweet but edged with steel.

"For the new ones joining us, my name is Liliana Gamber. I am the Initiation Mistress and the Strengthener of our leader... well, by strengthener, I mean his assistant."

She smirked at her own joke, earning a ripple of laughter from a few. Dax did not laugh. He stared, waiting, his curiosity taut as a drawn bow.

"It is with great honour," she continued, "that we welcome you here today, most especially those of you about to join the noble men and women of the Trinity, to defend our world and everything in it."

As she spoke, she moved in a rhythmic pattern; six steps forward, six steps back, like a pendulum swaying with her words.

"As we all know," she said, voice calm yet steeped in suspense,

"this duty placed upon you has claimed many lives... the lives of great men, great fathers, great sons. Both the strong-willed and the average have fallen. This is not an easy path. We will need each other to fight."

Her eyes drifted toward the Beyonders and the Transcended, the weight of her meaning clear.

"If there is any conflict, challenge, or anything at all between facets of our Trinity, it should remain within these walls, or at the highest, within this stronghold. Once we are out there, I want us to fight like brothers and sisters, to have each other’s backs. The fight against the Parallax and its Servitors is not one to be taken lightly."

Dax could feel the tension coiled within her tone. Yet he noticed she wasn’t calling off the challenge between the Beyonders and the Transcended. His thoughts flickered.

Seems like this challenge is even hosted, and supported by them.

If not, she would have said it was over. Maybe this rivalry existed only here in the stronghold, not on the battlefield.

Then Liliana raised her hand. Her aura changed. Green surges of mist-like power erupted, engulfing her fingers, flowing like liquid light. She moved with practiced ease, stretching her hand forward.

Before her, three slim podiums began to rise from the floor, each facing a different faction, one the Beyonders, one the Veilbound at the center, and one the Transcended.

The podiums were hexagonal, cylindrical, solid-looking and slender, about five millimeters in radius, sliding up to Liliana’s waist level. Each flat surface held a slot for a thumb.

They should have been bright white, pristine as untouched marble, but the neon glow of the wall lights and the golden haze from the floating candles stained them with shifting colors. The candles floated merrily like tiny suns drifting in the air, their flames flickering like watchful eyes.

As the podiums reached their full height with a clicking sound, their surfaces began to part; two panels sliding left and right, another forward, opening a central hole. With a hissing, mechanical sigh, a thin, hard-looking rod slid up, crowned with a small red orb that gleamed like a drop of frozen blood.

Madame Liliana looked from the podiums to the crowd, focusing on the new initiates.

"When your name is called," she said, nodding toward the Triarch Heads seated by their house rolls, "you walk up to your Facet Head, who will play his or her part, and then you proceed to the podium facing your row."

Dax glanced at Matilda, still seated beside him, her eyes fixed on Liliana as though she herself were among the stirred.

"Hey," he whispered to her. Somehow, speaking to her felt less impossible now, not really a conversation, but at least a start.

The nickname Weirdo had followed him for years, a brand burned into his skin. He’d been the kind of introvert who treated talking like a phobia, who longed for a friend but never found one willing.

Yet now... now it was as if a new mouth had been given to him. Since his encounter with Lucivar, since being made a Beyonder, something had changed inside him. Slowly, gradually, but undeniably.

Naya turned her head at his call, brows arching. "Mm?" she answered, arrogance curled on her lips, her eyes flashing a look that clearly said, Why the hell are you disturbing me?