The victory gala was held that night in the Grand Solaris Ballroom of the Imperial Palace, a chamber so opulent it felt less like a room and more like a captured dream. The ceilings were a fresco of star-strewn heavens, held up by pillars of flawless white marble that spiraled toward the glowing crystal chandeliers. The air was a thick, intoxicating perfume of expensive wine, roasted pheasant, and the collective self-satisfaction of the kingdom's elite. I stood in the center of it all, a wolf in a courtier's fine silks, a victor's laurel of gold and silver resting on my brow, and I had never felt more out of place in my life.
I was the man of the hour. A constant stream of nobles, their faces a blur of polite, predatory smiles, flowed toward me. They offered congratulations that felt like assessments, their praise laced with probing questions about my family, my Path, my future intentions. I smiled, I shook hands, I played the part of the humble, grateful prodigy from the borderlands. It was a dance I knew well from my first life, a performance of charm and calculated deference. And it was utterly exhausting.
"A toast!" a portly, red-faced Count bellowed, his voice silencing the chamber. He raised his glass. "To the Champion of Blossoms, Lancelot Ashworth, a fine example of the kingdom's might! And to the eternal guardian of that might, our Divine Sentinel, the Zenith!"
A chorus of "To the Zenith!" echoed through the hall. They drank to her name, their faces shining with a fervent, almost religious adoration. They spoke of her as a concept, a divine weapon gifted to the world. They praised her power, her absolute victories, her flawless dedication. They saw a symbol, a perfect, gleaming statue of strength.
They were all so blind.
'It's one thing to read about it,' I thought, my smile feeling stiff and brittle on my face. 'It's another to see it.' I remembered the crushing, soul-deep weariness I had felt from her presence, the sorrow in her eyes that had been visible even from the arena floor. They were toasting a goddess, oblivious to the fact that the woman herself was a prisoner, trapped inside the cage of their worship. Her strength wasn't a gift; it was her life sentence.
I needed air. With a polite excuse to a fawning Viscount, I slipped away from the main throng, finding a moment of reprieve in a quiet, shadowed alcove that overlooked the palace gardens. Seraphina was there, as if she had been waiting for me, a cup of cool water in her hands.
"You look like a man being hunted, my lord," she said, her voice a low, comforting murmur.
"I am," I replied, taking the cup and drinking deeply. "By an army of well-dressed peacocks."
A small, rare smile touched her lips. "Your victory was magnificent. The entire household is celebrating. Rolan has told the story of your final blow at least a dozen times, and it gets grander with each telling."
"I'm glad someone is enjoying it," I sighed, leaning against the cool stone. The simple, honest pride in her eyes was a balm on my frayed nerves. But her expression was still laced with a deeper worry.
"House Vane will not forget this," she said, her gaze serious. "Nor will House Volanti. You have won the tournament, but you have made powerful enemies here."
"Welcome to politics, Sera," I said with a cynicism that belonged to my old world. "It's a game where you gain enemies just by showing up to play."
We stood in a comfortable silence, watching the distant, glittering party. The fakeness of it all, the weight of the new political war, the chilling memory of the Void Cult's note—it all coalesced into a single, sharp point of clarity. I was wasting my time here. I had earned my prize, and I was going to claim it. Not the gold, not the title. The meeting.
"I'll be back," I said, handing her the empty cup. "There's someone I need to see."
Before she could question me, I turned and melted back into the shadows of the palace corridors. I was no longer a guest. I was a hunter on a different kind of mission. I didn't have a formal summons, no invitation to the royal spire. But I had something better: a map, drawn from the pages of a book no one else had ever read.
The Crimson Dragon's Lament had not been a story of grand battles alone. It had been, at its heart, a tragedy about its characters. And in a single, passing line, a piece of melancholic prose, it had described the Zenith's secret place of solace: 'In the quiet of the Moonlit Pavilion, where the forgotten melodies of a lost age still lingered, she would sometimes allow her soul to weep.'
I navigated the palace gardens by memory, following the faint scent of night-blooming jasmine and the sound of a distant, tinkling fountain. I left the torch-lit paths, slipping through a hedge of sculpted yew, and found myself in a secluded, forgotten corner of the palace grounds.
And there it was. A small, elegant pavilion of pale, moon-white marble, overgrown with silvery vines, nestled beside a still, dark pond. It was a place of profound, quiet beauty, a world away from the roaring colosseum and the gilded cage of the gala.
And from within it, I heard it.
A voice. It was not the powerful, commanding voice of a world-ending weapon. It was pure, clear, and so profoundly sad it seemed to make the moonlight itself weep. It was a wordless melody, a song of pure, unadulterated sorrow, a lament for a life that was not her own.
I moved closer, silent as a shadow, and looked inside.
She was there. Elara. The Zenith.
She stood by the edge of the pond, her back to me, her long, silver-white hair spilling down her back like a waterfall of liquid moonlight. Her formal robes were gone, replaced by a simple, flowing white dress. The crushing, overwhelming pressure of her presence was gone, her Aether drawn in, her guard completely down. She was not the Zenith now. She was just a young woman, alone in the dark, singing her heart out to the moon. She was the glitch in the system, the impossible anomaly, and she was more beautiful and more tragic than any words could ever describe.
My gaze drifted around the pavilion. And I saw it. Tucked away in a shadowed corner, covered in a thin layer of dust, was an old but magnificent grand piano, its dark wood gleaming in the soft light. Just as the novel had described.
My heart hammered in my chest. This was it. This was the moment. I could turn and walk away, my knowledge confirmed. I could wait for a formal summons that might never come.
Or I could take a risk. A wild, insane, monumental risk. I could try to speak to her not in the language of power or politics, but in the only language that could possibly reach a soul so isolated.
I took a silent step into the pavilion. Her song continued, a river of sorrow flowing into the night. I walked to the piano, my movements slow, deliberate, making no sound. I sat down on the cool, dusty bench. My fingers, still aching from the fight, hovered over the ivory keys. I took one, slow breath, syncing myself to the Two-Heart Cadence, and I listened. I listened not just to the notes of her song, but to the deep, aching loneliness beneath them, a feeling my draconic senses could now perceive as clearly as color.
Then, I began to play.