The tension in the courtyard did not settle even after the herald officially declared the victor. If anything, it only deepened. The air thrummed with the weight of unanswered questions, disagreement stirring like embers waiting for a gust of wind to ignite them. The reactions rippling through the crowd were louder than the silence Merir left behind as he stood at the edge of the circle, leaning momentarily to catch his breath in the shadows.
"That's not possible," Lux spat, glaring daggers at her younger brother. She hadn't left the center of the Crimson Circle yet, too stunned by what had just transpired. Her golden whip, once a symbol of her dominance, now lay dormant, reduced to faint flickers of dim light coiling weakly at her feet.
Lux turned sharply toward the dais, where Lord Cael Solaris loomed in silence. Her sharp voice pierced the courtyard. "Father, did you see that? He cheated—he must have. There's no way Merir could've done that. Someone's... someone's taught him tricks just to make fools of us!"
Her words carried the venom of humiliation, but they were underpinned by something deeper—fear. For the first time since their training as children, Lux had been made to stumble. No amount of mockery could erase what had happened in front of everyone.
She turned to Kael, who stood nearby, arms crossed. "You can't believe this," she pressed, her voice rising. "Tell me you saw what I saw. That wasn't real."
Kael tilted his head slightly toward her, his expression calm—but not indifferent. His golden eyes flicked between her and Merir with unsettling precision. His voice was as steady as ever, but there was a softness to it that almost sounded like curiosity.
"You lost, Lux," Kael said simply. "Whatever you think he did, it worked."
Lux recoiled slightly, as though his words were an attack in themselves. "Worked? That wasn't skill! That was some underhanded illusion—it had to be," she insisted, her words sharp but losing their edge with each breath. "He was... there, but not there. It's not possible."
Kael didn't argue. He only glanced toward Merir again, as though reevaluating something he had never thought merited further consideration.
The branch families broke into murmuring clusters, voices rising and overlapping as they argued, praised, or dismissed what they had just seen. Their whispers swirled across the courtyard like a chaotic storm.
"Teleportation? That's high-level Solaris technique. That boy shouldn't be able to use that. How could he have learned such a skill in isolation?"
"It wasn't real teleportation—it must have been timing. Maybe he predicted her attack and stepped around her at the exact right second."
"No, no, you don't move like that without training. Did you see the way the light bent where he had been standing? That was a displacement of radiant energy."
"Displacement? As if he bent reality itself?"
"If it's not teleportation, then what exactly is it? Is he rewriting light—reality itself—to move?"
Near the back of the noble seating area, one of the political analysts leaned forward, clutching the edges of his chair. "This changes things," he whispered to his companion. The older woman next to him raised a skeptical brow.
"Changes what?" she snapped. "So the runt wasn't as useless as everyone assumed. He might climb some ranks, but that doesn't dismantle the family structure. Kael is still the heir. Nothing about his victory threatens—"
"You're wrong," the man interrupted sharply, cutting her off despite the startled glances his abrupt tone drew from nearby nobles. He gestured toward Merir, who now stood motionless beside a marble pillar.
"Think about it," he continued, voice low and hurried. "If he of all people can demonstrate skills like this, imagine how Lord Cael might react. An outcast unleashing raw ability honed in solitude? Unpredictable power. The kind of power Lumina oversees carefully."
Above the noise of the gathering, where even the murmurs of nobles carried faintly, the dais remained comparatively quiet. Lord Cael Solaris had not moved, nor spoken, as the match played out. His golden ceremonial armor shimmered faintly as sunlight danced across its glyph-etched surface, but the man himself remained as still as stone.
To an outsider, he might have seemed disinterested—an observer of little concern. But to anyone who had known him long enough, there was something unsettling about his silence.
His sharp eyes—the same golden hue as the Solaris light—were locked on Merir. His face betrayed none of the swirling thoughts behind them, and yet... something lingered beneath the surface.
At last, one of the branch family heads broke the tension, approaching the central dais cautiously. He cleared his throat, bowing low before speaking.
"Lord Cael," he began, his voice quivering just slightly, "surely you suspect—"
"Enough," Lord Cael uttered, his voice deep, calm, and commanding all at once. He raised a gauntleted hand to silence the noble, his gaze never once shifting from Merir.
His voice, though quiet, seemed to fill the entire courtyard as he spoke again.
"There is no illusion in victory," he said. "No 'trick' that can sustain itself against discipline. Either he was broken…" Lord Cael paused for only a heartbeat, "...or he was forged."
The nobles at the dais fell silent, some reluctantly nodding in respect.
Kael glanced at his father, his expression careful—neutral, as always. Lord Cael's golden eyes shifted ever so slightly, landing on his eldest son. Whatever unspoken exchange passed between them, it only lasted a second.
"Let us move forward," Lord Cael commanded, his tone allowing no dissent.
As the next match was called, Kael's gaze drifted back toward Merir. Unlike Lux—now fuming, muttering venomously to herself just outside the circle—Kael's expression showed no anger, no frustration.
If anything… there was a faint glimmer of something else.
Curiosity.
"He's been forged…" Kael murmured softly, echoing Lord Cael's words under his breath. But forged how?
For years, Merir had been cast aside, his weakness solidified in the minds of the Solaris family. That humiliation had been so complete that even Kael, the eldest, had written him off entirely. Yet here he was—facing Lux head-on, outmaneuvering her, and demonstrating not just strength but finesse.
Training was one thing. But the discipline Kael had just witnessed—the timing, the tempering of his blade, the calm Merir exuded in the face of Lux's aggression—didn't happen overnight… or even in just one year.
It rattled Kael to imagine what kind of hell Merir must have endured to claw his way here.
"Interesting," Kael said again, softer this time. There was no malice in his tone, no judgment—just acknowledgment.
Unseen by most of the nobles, a figure cloaked in white and gold sat near the furthest reaches of the dais. Their faintly glowing, circular sigil marked them as one of the Lumina Council envoys—a silent observer sent to watch the Solaris trials and evaluate prospective candidates for the academy. Though they did not speak, their subtle movements betrayed interest.
Their gaze, now firmly fixed on Merir, lingered longer than polite curiosity allowed.
When another council member leaned in to ask a question, the cloaked figure simply raised a hand, signaling silence.
They needed no words to convey what was on their mind.
Merir stood alone at the edge of the raised circle, still regulating his uneven breaths, his hand resting lightly against the pillar beside him. The whispers swirled around him like a storm, buzzing with disbelief, speculation, and—most importantly—recognition.
For the first time in years, the Solaris Estate was seeing him.
But Merir didn't care about their gazes. He wasn't here for their approval. He wasn't done yet.