Wish upon the Stars chapter 952

There was a brief lull before everyone lost it. Not a long one, mind. It seemed like everyone was so shocked they didn’t know how to react. On our side we were staring down twenty A-rankers, and on theirs a small massacre had played out among their charges. The first person to react was a particularly large figure on the left side of the parapets of the gate.

Before any of us could move, he was standing at the base of the platform, staring in at us. “What happened to Kent?” he demanded. He was tall and blonde, with a thick beard and a heavy brow. His eyes were grey as granite, and narrowed in outrage.

I stepped in front of Callie, noticing Bethy had joined me in the motion. I smiled at my friend before remembering my face was covered by my mask, but she grinned sunnily back at me anyway, as if she knew. The man, receiving no answer, turned to the sobbing blonde holding Kent’s body. “Shelby!” He barked. “Pull yourself together girl. What did you do?”

“D-daddy!” She sobbed. “They stabbed him!” She gestured to the headless B-ranker. “That one went after her!” she pointed at Callie. “And the other one stopped him.” She pointed to Fade. “Then Kent tried to talk them down and he turned on us. He killed him so fast I couldn’t stop it.”

The man’s eyes darkened as he surveyed the scene. “The blade severed the spine and struck the heart. And it was poisoned. Death would have been instant.”

Shelby clutched the body tighter, crying even harder, and I felt my heart break for her a little. She’d clearly cared about Kent a lot. I tried to imagine that being Callie, or Benny, or my sister, and my blood ran cold. My hands clenched in outrage. I was so ANGRY. I had nowhere to vent it. One second I’d been snapping at Kent that I’d have him killed, and the next he’d been dead. Something Shelby seemed to remember as I did. “He threatened Kent!” She said, her eyes narrowing as she pointed at me. “Said he’d have him killed!”

The man’s gaze turned to me, and I felt a crushing force from his attention. I had zero hope of offering any resistance to an A-ranker. I triggered Leviathan though, and the tide of mental pressure dissolved as it hit me. Barely. It was draining me fast, and he wasn’t even actually DOING anything.

“You threatened him?” He said quietly. “D-” He seemed to be about to attack, but before he finished the word, another figure appeared in front of him, and he vanished.

My mother pushed her hood back, glaring at the person sized hole in the wall over where the others were waiting. It had shaken on impact, but not too much. “I KNOW you weren’t about to threaten my son, Caius.”

Another man spoke up from the wall. “Are we something you take so lightly, Star Queen? An heir of a major branch has died. Kent was one of Desmond’s youngest children. His sister and nephew are both Branch Heads in their own right. Do you think your brat is going to be the side anyone picks over that?”

“I think there’s no proof my Shane had anything to do with that little twit being snuffed out,” my mother hissed, eyes literally alight with rage. White flames flickered on her irises and ignited on her fists. “The girl the assassin went for first is his WIFE, you lackwit. Caius is just embarrassed he didn’t manage to properly vet his brat’s retinue. My boy isn’t his punching bag, if he wants to work out his frustration he can do it on someone else.”

Between one blink and the next, another figure appeared beside her. A familiar red skinned version of my (albeit shorter) with black hair and horns. My dad stared up at the wall threateningly, fingers folded over the head of his cane. He didn’t speak. He didn’t need to. Everyone here knew who he was and what he could do.

There was a grinding of stone as Caius climbed out of the gate, his face murderous…right up until he saw my dad. At which case it went from enraged to terrified.

“Gods dad, what did you do to these people?” I muttered under my breath. Callie snorted out a quit laugh, quickly covering her mouth, not that I was delusional enough to assume anyone here had missed it. 

Sebastian appeared next, in front of my parents rather than beside them. “This is pointless,” he said forcefully. “The girl is barely coherent. We need a more stable source of information.”

My mom nodded. “Ellisara,” she barked. “Report.”

Ellie appeared ahead of us. I actually SAW her move, albeit barely. The A-rankers were so fast they might as well be teleporting. Without a ship to watch them through or anything to slow this down, I couldn’t perceive what was going on aside from the talking. Ellie dropped to a knee in front of my mother. “I’m here, master. The little lord didn’t do anything wrong. He was demanding answers from the dead one when his underling literally stabbed him in the back. He was protecting her for the rest of the very short fight. Putting himself between her and harm.”

“Of course he was,” she said with a proud smile. “That’s my boy.” Her face hardened again as she turned to look up at the man on the gate, whose face I couldn’t see from here. “And don’t think that’ll be ignored either. Someone tried to murder my daughter in law. I’m quite fond of that girl, and my MOTHER likes her even more. Or did you not realize your nobody traitor tried to assassinate Drowning Shade’s personal apprentice.”

The figure flinched. “I think we’re getting off track,” he said lamely after a slight delay. “This was clearly an attempt at infiltration by the Void. We should hurry to the other gates to survey the extent of the damage. It’s doubtful this was the only attack.” Then he vanished.

I was surprised. There was a strict non-interference policy on the succession war. A threat of an outside attack normally wouldn’t produce much worry. This was hardly a normal competition though. The Void had broken neutrality over their knee and chucked it in a swimming pool, and no one knew what the rules were. Plus grandma was right above us, and while the S-rankers couldn’t make landfall because of their Impact and the fire cage, in order to LEAVE they had to go past her. It wouldn’t be out of character for her to claim Void influence and kill someone who had attacked her apprentice. Grandma was kind and compassionate with me and my friends, but she WAS her mother’s daughter.

Which was another issue for them. Black Sorrow was fanatically devoted to her only child. On the off chance someone had either stopped or harmed my grandmother (unlikely with my Demigod grandfather nearby), they’d be dealing with both my great grandparents and two entire factions.

Unlike the old man, Black Sorrow and the Red Revenant didn’t even pretend at neutrality. If someone picked a fight with their baby girl they’d go on a rampage.

This was, of course, why neutrality was normally enforced on this event. Because the convoluted web of relatives and support made it almost impossible to make a move if it wasn’t. With the spirit of that breached by the Void, this whole thing had become a lot more complicated. For everyone else. I was actually pretty fine with the whole thing.

Grabbing Callie’s hand, I gestured for Bethy and the others to follow, including Darren, Roland, and Delia. Then I approached my parents. “Mom, dad,” I told them wryly. “I had a terrible time at camp.”

Another familiar form snorted in laughter as it materialized beside us. Killian, the fifth member of my A-rank entourage and an old friend of my parents, grinned at me. “He really is just like his dad. I swear, it’s like looking in a mirror. Well, a funhouse mirror, since he’s so much taller than you were. I never realized you were so short.”

“I am NOT short,” my dad snapped waspishly. “I am of perfectly normal size. The universal average is five foot ten. Discounting the fairyland. But they don’t count because the fae are all over the place.

“Shorter than me,” Zeke said with a grin as he leaned past Killian to shoot me a lazy wave. “Took you long enough, kid. Your mom was going out of her mind with worry. When we heard about the Void attacks we had to physically restrain her from going down into the lower zones to help. But the fire cage sections off Impact. It would have caused problems for her to enter anything below Arcadia.”

I hadn’t realized she was that worried. I’d known she was unhappy with things, but she’d played it off as just casual concern. “We’re fine,” I assured them. “Assuming we’re not about to get murdered over shitty family politics.”

“You are not,” Sebastian said in a tone like cast iron. Dark and heavy and a little brittle, it was clear that he was much angrier than he looked, and wanted an excuse to do a little violence himself. I glanced at Bethy, who was looking at him in concern, and realized why. Bethy had been through a lot since we got here. I might not be able to see the signs of her various upsets, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t.

My mom nodded. “He’s right, sweetie. No one with any real power came besides us and Caius. I was expecting Davis, but he’s been steering clear of Eli. I imagine he’ll be along shortly. The rest have scattered.”

Looking past her, I realized she was right. All fifteen of the other figures had vanished without a word or sign. I was DEEPLY uncomfortable with exactly how casually they were all making us look like nonentities. Fucking A-rankers. Although speaking of ranks. I was coming up on a new one myself. I wasn’t sure I was there yet, but I suspected I’d hit C-rank in Arcadia, given how long this test was looking like it was taking.

We also didn’t have a new trial yet. I turned to my parents. “What’s the deal with the competition? We’ve been getting drip fed information through the announcements and don’t know much. I assume you guys have been in touch with the grandparents?”

“We have,” my mom assured me. “The situation is…complicated. We’re all kind of flying blind. There’s an implication among everyone that there’s got to be a traitor, and one high up in the WCP. It has to be either an elder or someone down here in one of the cities. Possibly both. Which is making things complicated.”

My dad sighed. “Everyone is questioning everyone else’s motives. Which means people are backpedaling on legitimately intelligent responses because idiots are implying their treachery almost as often as the idiots are proposing terrible responses and sticking to their guns. We’ve managed a sort of equilibrium, but it’s basically just a city wide detente for the duration of this last test as we try to ferret out the Void infiltrators.”

That was disappointing but not shocking. I sighed, shaking my head. “Yeah, I assumed. There must be some way to increase points though. Right?”

My uncle grinned. “Oh there is,” he said gleefully. “In fact, we think you’re going to be pretty excited about it. They’ve put a bounty on Void infiltrators. It was one of the FEW useful moves our supporters managed to bully the council into making. Which means we can genuinely get some work done here. Hope you’re all ready to get started after a short rest. We’ve got a big advantage given your connection to the Void, Callie. Once you’re all settled in, it’ll be time to start hunting.” Given her excited grin, my wife was just as excited about that idea as Zeke was. And she said I was the impulsive one in our marriage.