Chapter 100: Chiron Stormblood
[DING!]
[Source: Divine Interference Detected]
[Status: Cursed by a God]
[Divine Curse]
’By a god?’ he thought, anger arriving before fear could dress itself. ’Which one?’
[Origin obscured.]
’You’re telling me a deity gagged a girl. Why?’
[Unknown.]
He looked at Aurora again.
The anger grew a second root.
’You want me to see this as an opportunity,’ he told the System.
[Clarification Requested.]
’Convenient. A fiancée who doesn’t speak. A house that can’t swear binding oaths without her tongue. A puzzle I can solve to win points.’242
Aurora glanced up again, and in the soft distance between them something like recognition balanced on a wire.
Jack inclined his head. Just enough. Then he stepped back.
Another chime.
[DING!]
[New Quest Available]
[Title: Quell the Silence]
[Objective: Identify the god and break the curse.]
[Timer: 1 year.]
[Reward: Sunblade Affection +100% | ??? | +250,000 Reputation Points.]
[Accept Quest?]
[YES] or [NO]
Jack stared at the words "Affection +100%" until they blurred.
’She is a person, not a slider,’ he said, aloud in his head.
[Rewards would be beneficial.]
’You can keep your schema. I’ll do it because someone put a boot on her voice and called it holy.’
[You may still decline.]
’No.’
He didn’t touch the air as if pressing a button. He didn’t need to. The decision was a clean weight dropping cleanly.
[Quest Accepted: Quell the Silence]
[Time left: 364 days 23 hours 59 minutes 53 seconds]
He exhaled once, steady and firm.
"Lady Sunblade," he said, his voice pitched low. "If you need quiet, I can make sure you aren’t disturbed."
She met his gaze. She gave a slight nod, like she knew what Jack had set his mind to.
"Then you have the room," he said. He stepped aside, leaving Aurora to her silence and her art.
---
Hours later, when the moon had climbed high enough to cast silver threads through the estate’s windows, Jack found himself walking the quieter corridors.
Night air pressed damp against his face through an open archway.
The sound of voices drifted down from above.
They were low, trying to make sure no one heard them.
On the broad balcony that overlooked the lower courtyard, Duke Alaric stood with his weight settled into his left heel, spine straight as a sword.
The man opposite him held stillness without effort.
Chiron Stormblood was a tall and broad-shouldered man, with the kind of presence that made people wet themselves.
Animal pelts draped his shoulders instead of silk or velvet, and his dark hair fell in waves.
Everything about him spoke of power held in check, like a storm cloud choosing not to rain.
At the edge of the light stood Charlotte, her dark blonde hair coiled in an elaborate arrangement that made her look taller and older than her years.
Her posture carried the confidence of someone who had been taught to fear nothing and hadn’t yet met the thing that would teach her otherwise.
Jack had heard Chiron’s name when he was announced earlier, but now, seeing him in a quiet conference with his father, he understood this was no casual visit.
Jack stopped in the archway’s shadow.
"You’re far from home," Alaric said, his voice dry enough to strike sparks.
Chiron answered with a smile. "A man should walk different roads before he grows bored of his own reflection."
"You didn’t come to admire Sorne’s architecture," Alaric said. "Say what you want."
Charlotte’s chin lifted the tiniest degree, amusement flickering in her eyes like distant lightning.
Chiron’s gaze drifted to the river beyond the estate walls. "Your son," he said simply.
"What of him?" Alaric didn’t move, but something in his stillness sharpened.
"I want to see if the stories are seeds or weeds," Chiron said. "They say he killed a dragon with divine lightning. They say power fell into his hands and chose not to burn him."
"They say," Alaric replied, "many things when drunk on novelty."
Charlotte’s mouth curved in what might have been a smile. "Sorne certainly has a taste for novelty tonight."
"Whose fault," Alaric asked mildly, "do you imagine that is?"
"Fault?" She pretended to consider, head tilted like a bird studying prey. "Credit, perhaps."
Chiron took one deliberate step closer to the balcony rail, arms folded behind his back. "Once, long ago, the gods changed their minds about which tools mortals should wield. As they do, when the mood takes them."
Alaric’s jaw flexed. "You’re here to recruit."
"I’m here to observe," Chiron corrected. "Recruits recruit themselves when they see something they wish to become."
"You will not pressure him," Alaric said, not bothering to disguise the order.
Chiron’s laugh was soft and carried the weight of years. "Duke. If your power weren’t locked away like a relic in a shrine, perhaps you could have protected the boy properly when it mattered. Perhaps he would have surpassed you already if he’d had ten more years of proper training."
The words hit Alaric hard. His chest tightened.
Memories of the past began to surface in his mind.
Alaric did not flinch. Men like him had certain reflexes burned into them at the academy, replaced with harder disciplines later.
But Jack saw the cost of that stillness in the slight tightening around his father’s eyes.
Jack’s fingers curled and uncurled against the stone archway.
Alaric had never spoken of locked power, never hinted that he was anything other than what he appeared to be.
’Locked?’ Jack thought. ’His powers are sealed?’
"Leave him be," Alaric said, voice pitched low enough to carry warning.
"I will," Chiron said, so quickly it might have been pity. "I came to learn what wind is blowing through your streets. I won’t steal the breath from your son’s lungs before he’s chosen how to use it."
He looked back at Alaric, studying the duke’s face like a map of old battlefields. "He will choose his masters," he said at last, "or he will become one."
Chiron turned to go, then paused as if remembering something. "Locked power rusts when treated like a shrine, old friend. But you know that already."
Charlotte, perhaps bored with adult circumspection, offered a fractional curtsy toward the shadows where Jack stood hidden. She knew exactly where he was.
Father and daughter walked away, their footsteps somehow making no sound on the stone.
Alaric remained at the rail, staring out over the river. His right hand opened and closed once, like a man testing whether it still remembered how to hold weight.
Jack considered stepping forward, but decided against it. His father would come to him when ready, or he wouldn’t. Either way, the moment didn’t need bruising with misplaced sympathy.
He turned and walked back the way he’d come, collecting himself like a man gathering a cloak against the changing wind.
---
A whisper of movement at his back as he reached the main corridor.
"Report," he said without turning.
Seraphina materialized from behind a pillar as if she’d been carved from the shadows themselves. "The scribe is secured," she said simply. "He keeps thinking he has dramatic secrets. He does not."
Her mouth almost smiled. "Father Caelen has prepared questions that feel like prayers if you’re the faithful sort. The man will talk because he lacks the spine for true silence under pressure."
"Pressure?"
"Your mother is always eager to spend time with a prisoner." Seraphina said. "If we require nothing more than his conscience, she can make him speak."
Jack felt a chill run down his spine. "Let’s leave Mother out of this for now."
Seraphina nodded once, then glanced past him toward the estate’s towers where light still flickered in a few windows.
"Anything else I should know?"
"House Stormblood didn’t come for the bathhouse tour," she said dryly. "Charlotte has been asking careful questions about your training, your teachers, and your methodology."
"And you told her?"
"That you’re very thorough and prefer to work alone. She seemed to find that intriguing rather than disappointing."
He drifted back toward the main hall, where the last of the evening’s guests were taking their leave. His father stood near the great hearth, accepting final courtesies with the same composed grace he’d shown all evening.
Jack nodded to Alaric across the hall. His father’s face was perfectly composed again, showing no trace of the conversation on the balcony. But Jack’s thoughts kept circling back to the word, locked.
His father was already formidable.
He was politically astute, tactically brilliant, respected by allies and enemies alike. But if his powers were sealed away...
Just how dangerous had Duke Alaric been in his prime?
And more importantly, what had happened to require locking that power away?