Chapter 81: Council
The crowd still burned behind me, their whispers clinging to my heels like smoke. No matter how many steps I took, I could feel them pressing at my back, voices wrapping around me. Chains. He bound him. Did you see it? A lion, on his knees.
Alaric walked beside me, stiff as a board, his hands twitching like he wasn’t sure whether to wring them or hide them. Nyx draped himself across my shoulder, tail flicking lazily, but I could feel the tension in him too. His claws pressed lightly into the fabric of my coat, not enough to pierce, but enough to remind me he wasn’t as calm as he looked.
The professor’s words still echoed in my skull: Report to the Head Council chambers after lessons.
Alaric broke first. "Loki," he whispered, though the courtyard had already fallen behind us, "you don’t understand. The Council isn’t like professors. They’re the academy’s pillars. Nobles from the most powerful houses sit among them. They don’t... they don’t summon people like us."
"Then it’s a rare honor," I said.
"Honor?" His voice cracked. "No, Loki, it’s a trap. They’ll dissect you. They’ll want to know what you are, where you got those chains. They’ll strip you down until there’s nothing left!"
"Relax," I murmured, eyes scanning the flow of students ahead of us. The lecture halls loomed tall, marble walls carved with symbols of knowledge and power. Above them, banners snapped in the wind—deep crimson, royal blue, gold like the sun. "They won’t strip me. Not yet. First, they’ll measure me."
"Measure?"
"Like merchants weighing coin. Like butchers weighing meat."
Alaric made a strangled sound. "That doesn’t make me feel better."
"It shouldn’t."
Nyx yawned loudly, golden eyes half-lidded. "He’s right, you know. Nobles don’t measure without intent. If they call you to the Council chambers, they’ve already decided something. You’re only going there to discover which flavor of doom they’ve picked."
I smiled faintly. "Then it’s a game of discovery."
"You’re insufferable," Nyx said.
The hours of lessons that followed blurred like shadows on glass. Professors droned. Quills scratched. Chalk scraped against slates. None of it touched me. Whispers always found me instead. He defeated Dorian. Bound him. Kneeling like a criminal. Every class, every corridor, the rumor sharpened into something heavier, heavier until it pressed on my shoulders like invisible chains of its own.
When the final bell rang, I rose without waiting for Alaric. Students parted in the hallways, some in awe, some in disgust, some trying to mask fear with indifference. It didn’t matter. They moved aside all the same.
The path to the Council chambers wound through the academy’s oldest wing, a place where stone spoke louder than voices. The air grew colder as I walked. Shadows stretched long beneath towering arches. The floor beneath my boots gleamed with inlaid sigils, old as the founding.
Alaric trailed after me, still protesting in whispers that cracked like broken glass. "You don’t have to go. Maybe... maybe you can claim sickness? Maybe—"
"Cowards get eaten first," I said.
Nyx flicked his tail. "Or maybe cowards survive longer, because no one notices them until the feast is over."
"I’m not here to be unnoticed."
At last, the chamber doors rose before us. Tall, carved from black oak, their surface etched with gold lines forming a sigil I couldn’t read. Two attendants in crimson robes stood guard. Their eyes swept over me, disdain flickering like candlelight. But when they saw the silver shimmer of the chains coiling faintly at my wrist, they stiffened. They stepped aside without a word.
The doors groaned as they opened.
The chamber beyond was a cathedral of power. Marble columns soared upward, supporting a domed ceiling painted with constellations and crowned beasts. The air smelled of ink, wax, and something colder—authority.
At the far end of the hall sat the Council. Seven of them, robed in colors that marked their houses, each upon a carved chair that rose like a throne. Between them, a great table of polished obsidian stretched long and unbroken, a mirror of judgment.
Their eyes locked on me the instant I entered.
A thousand tiny needles.
The doors shut behind me with a sound like a coffin sealing.
Alaric was stopped at the threshold by one of the attendants. "Only the summoned," the man said.
Alaric paled, but I raised a hand before he could argue. "Wait outside. If I don’t return... run."
"Run?"
"Yes. Fast."
The attendants pushed him gently but firmly aside. The doors sealed again, leaving me alone beneath the weight of those seven gazes.
I walked forward, each step echoing against stone. Nyx leapt lightly from my shoulder, padding alongside me as though this were his chamber, not theirs.
Finally, I stopped before the table.
The central figure leaned forward. A man in robes black as night, embroidered with threads of silver that formed a falcon in flight. His face was lined, his hair iron-grey, but his eyes were sharp enough to cut glass.
"Loki," he said. His voice carried like steel dragged across stone. "Son of no house. Bearer of chains."
The room stilled.
He studied me for a long breath. Then: "Do you know why you stand here?"
"Yes," I said.
"Tell us."
"Because I didn’t kneel."
A ripple went through the Council. Some smirked, some frowned. The man’s expression didn’t shift.
"You displayed power unfit for your station," another Councilor said. A woman in crimson, her jewels burning like coals against her throat. "You humiliated a lion’s heir. That alone warrants punishment."
"Then punish me," I said calmly.
Whispers among the Council. Some amused, some displeased.
Another spoke, voice low and oily. "Or perhaps... elevate you. That power, those chains—they are not ordinary. Not noble, yet not weak. Tell us where they came from."
My smile was thin. "A rat does not share its nest with hawks."
The oily man leaned forward, eyes glittering. "Be careful, boy. Rats are crushed beneath boots."
"Boots," Nyx purred from the floor, "sometimes step into traps."
The woman in crimson narrowed her eyes at him. "A familiar that speaks? How quaint."
"Quaint?" Nyx licked his paw slowly. "Try indispensable."
Another ripple of murmurs.
The falcon-robed man raised his hand, silencing the chamber. "Chains are old magic. Forbidden, even. And yet, they obey you. Do you understand what that means, boy?"
"Yes," I said softly.
"And what does it mean?"
I met his eyes. Calm. Steady. "It means you can’t ignore me anymore."
The chamber went silent.
The man studied me for a long, dangerous stretch of time. His eyes narrowed. Then, slowly, he leaned back in his throne.
"Very well," he said. "You will not be punished. Not yet. You will be watched. Every move, every duel, every whisper that carries your name—we will hear it. And should you falter..." His hand closed, like a snare snapping shut. "You will learn the true weight of chains."
The Council murmured agreement. Some eyes gleamed with interest, others with hunger.
"Leave us," the man said at last.
I inclined my head slightly, then turned. Nyx padded after me, tail curling smugly.
The doors opened again. Cold air rushed in.
Alaric was waiting outside, pale as chalk. He rushed forward the moment he saw me. "What happened? Are you expelled? Arrested? Dead?"
"None of the above," I said.
Nyx leapt back onto my shoulder. "Yet."
Alaric groaned, pressing his hands to his face. "This is insane. This is completely insane."
"Perhaps," I said, walking past him into the corridor. The doors closed behind us with a final thud. "But the game’s pieces have shifted again. The Council has seen the chains. Now they’ll try to use them."
Alaric stumbled after me. "And if they can’t?"
I smiled faintly. "Then they’ll try to break them."
The hall stretched before us, long and shadowed. My steps echoed softly, but louder still were the whispers rising already, faster than fire in dry grass.
Chains.
The Council summoned him.
What does it mean?
Who is he really?
The ripples were growing.
And in their wake, the game deepened.
The corridor narrowed as we walked, torches burning low along the walls. The air felt heavier here, as if the academy itself had overheard the Council’s decree and was considering what to do with me.
Alaric hurried at my side, his voice still a trembling whisper. "You don’t understand, Loki. They don’t just watch. When the Council says they’ll keep their eyes on you, it means you’re already inside the noose. One misstep, one rumor twisted the wrong way, and—" He sliced his hand across his throat.
Nyx yawned, stretching along my shoulder. "And yet, here he is. Breathing. Walking. Smirking like a man who thinks the noose is just a necklace."
I let the words hang between us. They were both right.
The truth was simpler. The Council had seen the chains. They hadn’t crushed me, not yet. That meant they were curious. Curiosity was leverage. As long as they wanted to know more, I could live. As long as they feared what they didn’t understand, I could move.
My fingers brushed the faint shimmer at my wrist. The links stirred, cold and alive.
I smiled faintly, whispering to myself. "Let them watch."
Because a chain wasn’t just a shackle.
It was also a leash.
And sometimes, you decided who was holding it.