Chapter 39
Illariana Arden's POV
By the third day of training, it felt as though my body was ready to fall apart.
After our final session with Tarven and Dilraba, I was practically dragging myself up the stairs while Gianna climbed them as if she'd barely broken a sweat.
She moved through the corridors with the same effortless grace, never slowing down.
The moment we stepped out of the training building, Aars appeared beside me.
I hadn't seen him in days.
With Gianna right there, I couldn't exactly hold a conversation with him, so I settled for listening.
"For your information," he announced proudly, "I've been doing a little investigating."
I resisted the urge to roll my eyes.
"So," he continued, "I found out that the World of Light—Utararus, under the sign of Virgo, by the way—designed this year's Selection as a sequence of trials laid out like a map."
He planted his tiny paws on his hips and looked at me expectantly.
"So what does that tell us?"
I shrugged.
Astrology had never been something I'd paid much attention to back on Earth.
"It means you need to pay attention to every little detail," Aars declared, making a face. "People from Utararus are obsessively meticulous."
Then his expression suddenly turned serious.
"Remind me to teach you about all twelve zodiac signs. You'll need that knowledge if you're going to survive here."
His sudden generosity with information felt...
Suspicious.
Aars rarely gave anything away without a reason.
Which meant there almost certainly was one.
"The last few days have been exhausting, haven't they?" Gianna said suddenly, glancing back at me with her usual gentle smile.
"I don't like her," Aars muttered.
For once...
I couldn't completely agree.
Over the past three days, I'd actually started to feel more comfortable around Gianna.
“Yeah,” I replied with a nod.
“But at least tomorrow we finally get a break.”
She smiled.
“And we'll have time to choose our outfits for the Selection.”
With that, she turned back around and quickened her pace.
What surprised me most was that everyone insisted the Selection wasn't an exam.
Yet they were preparing for it as though it were the grandest ball of the year.
Every guest was expected to dress formally.
Women in gowns.
Men in tailcoats.
As different as Vuduarus and Istarus were, they still shared one thing in common—
An almost obsessive love for spectacle.
Lost in thought, I stopped paying attention to Aars entirely.
Which was probably why I walked straight into something both solid...
And surprisingly warm.
Gianna's light floral perfume reached me before I even looked up.
I immediately stepped back.
“What the hell made you stop so suddenly?” I asked, rubbing the spot just beneath my ribs where her elbow had struck me.
“Looks like you're dangerous in more ways than one, Fireling.”
The familiar voice made me freeze.
“You've got that fire of yours...”
“…and a habit of wandering so far into your own thoughts that you forget the rest of the world exists.”
I looked up.
Airis was standing outside our studio door.
Black shirt.
Black trousers.
The exact same clothes he'd worn on Ruel's Island.
The memory hit instantly.
His hands.
His touch.
The way his fingers had traced the most sensitive part of my body.
“What are you doing here?” I managed to ask, forcing the memory away.
“Ria,” Aars sighed dramatically, “close your mouth before everyone realizes you're hopelessly in love with that peacock.”
I shut my mouth at once and forced my expression back under control.
“Weren't you supposed to be gone for a week?”
“I decided to improve your social calendar.”
The corner of his mouth lifted ever so slightly.
I frowned.
I had absolutely no idea what he meant.
Then Airis looked at Gianna.
The trace of amusement vanished instantly.
His expression settled into that unnervingly calm mask I'd first seen the day we met.
"Cerberus has already been informed that your roommate won't be staying in the room tonight."
The words were meant for Gianna.
The studio door swung open before she could answer.
Joelle appeared in the doorway wearing an expression that could have frozen lava.
Bright red curlers clung to the dozens of braids woven into her hair.
I'd never seen anything remotely like it.
"This," Joelle said flatly, glaring at Airis, "is the first and last time I'm allowing this kind of stunt."
"I'm her mentor."
Airis delivered the sentence as though it settled the matter entirely.
"And I'm her roommate."
Joelle folded her arms.
"If anything happens to her, guess who's getting blamed first?"
"Then stay here and keep an eye on your other roommate."
Airis nodded toward Gianna.
Joelle frowned.
"As if."
"Wait..." Gianna blinked. "You're leaving? I just—"
She never finished.
Airis took my hand.
I opened my mouth to ask what he was doing.
Instead, he placed his palm over my eyes.
Darkness.
Pressure built in my ears almost instantly.
The floor vanished beneath me.
Instinctively, my fingers tightened around his hand.
"It's alright, Fireling."
His voice returned as the ringing faded.
"I have to admit..."
"I rather enjoyed being your lifeline."
"Only in your dreams," I shot back.
Airis stepped back, lowering his hand from my eyes.
Thousands of lanterns illuminated the broad streets before us.
Soft pink rose petals blanketed the pavement, stretching as far as I could see.
"Where are we?" I asked, slowly turning in place.
I didn't recognize this part of the city.
Every window in the row of quaint houses had been painted with intricate designs, glowing beneath the warm light of countless lanterns.
"Magicslan," Airis answered. "The quietest district tonight."
He slipped his hands into his pockets as he looked down the flower-covered street.
"Today is the capital's anniversary. Every district is covered in roses, and every family decorates its windows with enchanted paints."
He glanced toward one of the nearby houses.
"At sunrise, the drawings disappear... and the wishes hidden inside them are offered to the people who painted them."
My gaze immediately drifted to the nearest house.
Three windows.
Three different drawings.
The first was covered in intertwined hearts and the symbol of infinity.
The second showed flowers sprouting from the earth.
The third...
...depicted a Beckbill.
"So..." I pointed to the last window.
"They're going to wake up to a Beckbill tomorrow morning?"
Airis chuckled quietly.
"My guess is that one was painted by a child."
He shrugged.
"The parents probably already have the present hidden somewhere."
"The gifts don't work quite that literally."
I smiled.
"Then you somehow avoided being sent back to Vuduarus just to show me this?"
When our eyes met, I was reminded all over again of how many questions he'd left unanswered after everything that had happened between us.
"For one evening," Airis said, the corner of his mouth lifting into the faintest smile, "try resisting your addiction to knowing everything, Fireling."
Anastasia Lang's POV
Violetta's district seemed endless.
Market stalls stretched as far as I could see, each one painted with vibrant designs.
I remembered Tarven telling me that the people of Magicslan spent half the year preparing for this celebration.
They painted everything.
Windows.
Doors.
Their festival clothes.
Even the thresholds of their homes.
Everyone believed the Capital Festival granted wishes and set the course of the year ahead.
I'd dreamed of seeing it ever since Tarven first told me about it.
But Alicia had always refused to come.
And she certainly would've never allowed me to come without her.
Somehow...
I'd always imagined I'd spend my first Capital Festival with Tarven.
Instead, I was walking beside Miloran.
Tarven hadn't even thought to invite me.
Miloran had.
"Tarven promised he'd bring me here once I got into Istmond," I said quietly.
I'd hoped the music and laughter filling the streets would swallow the words.
They didn't.
"He was planning to."
Miloran glanced at me.
"I just beat him to it."
I stopped walking.
My gaze snapped to him.
"If you'd rather," he said with a shrug, "I can always take you to Tarven and Rosalie."
Well...
That certainly knocked the pride out of me.
I simply looked away and kept walking, hearing his footsteps fall back into step beside me.
"So..." I said, forcing some lightness into my voice.
"What should we do first?"
"We could rent festival clothes."
He nodded toward a nearby stall filled with elaborate outfits.
They'd been prepared specifically for visitors who hadn't brought traditional festival attire with them.
Tarven had told me about those too.
Out of the corner of my eye, I caught sight of two painfully familiar figures.
Actually...
Three.
Alicia stood surrounded by two girls, arguing with someone.
Joelle.
The tension between them was almost tangible.
This wasn't an ordinary disagreement.
It looked like resentment.
Years of it.
The two girls beside Alicia avoided Joelle's eyes as though guilt weighed heavily on them.
Alicia, on the other hand...
Looked positively delighted.
"Have they hated each other for long?" I asked, nodding toward the group.
Ever since Joelle had stepped in during my confrontation with Alicia, neither she nor Miloran had mentioned what had happened.
It felt like forbidden territory.
"No idea."
Miloran shrugged.
"I don't make a habit of keeping up with students' personal lives."
I snorted.
"You're surprisingly useless."
His eyebrows shot up.
"And you, Anastasia Lang, have absolutely no appreciation for other people's hard work."
I opened my mouth to answer.
But Alicia and her little entourage finally walked away.
Without another thought, I headed straight for Joelle.
She didn't notice me at first.
When she finally did, she frowned immediately.
"Have I been cursed by the Lang family or something?" she asked dryly.
"Were you and Alicia already enemies before I came along?"
I held her gaze.
Joelle let out an exaggerated sigh.
"You were hostile toward me from the very beginning," I continued.
"I remember the way you looked at me the first day we met."