Disappointment has a sound, not the voices buzzing like wasps from disturbed nest, but underneath, the silence that falls when expectations die. The sharp intake of breath before someone names their letdown. The weight of hundreds recalculating simultaneously.
"What? Only twenty-seven grains?"
"So he was just C grade starting capacity?!"
"Unbelievable. Only twenty-seven for such a genius?"
Near the back, someone laughed. Sharp, delighted sound that cut through murmurs like blade through silk. Schadenfreude thick enough to taste, mixing with torch smoke and disappointment.
Jian had been waiting for this moment since childhood. Years of hearing about Nalla's brilliance, and now vindication. The pleasure in that laugh was almost sexual in its intensity.
Enjoy it while it lasts. You'll forget this feeling when Allen eclipses us both.
"Big brother..." Allen's voice cut through noise.
Soft. Worried. Small.
Nalla found him in crowd, and little brother's face showed shock. Raw, genuine, unfiltered. The impact of watching someone you cared about confirmed as merely average.
Even you didn't truly believe. Knew it intellectually, sure. But watching it happen, that's different, isn't it?
Allen had built entire worldview around Nalla's exceptionalism. Now that worldview was crumbling, and Nalla could see the moment it happened, the exact instant when belief became doubt.
"Damn. He was only twenty-seven grains!" Favilo clan head clenched both fists, disappointment carved into every line of his face. Like watching investment collapse. Like discovering prized horse was actually donkey.
All the elders were already rewriting the narrative, calculating new odds, repositioning expectations, preparing comfortable lies to tell themselves about how they'd never truly believed anyway. They had no capacity for holding contradiction. Had to remake everything into comfortable story that made sense, that protected their judgment, that allowed them to sleep at night.
Humans were fucking beautiful sometimes. Give them a narrative, and they'd cling to it like drowning men to a driftwood log. Break the narrative and watch them build new one in minutes, watch them pretend they'd never believed the old one at all, watch them rewrite their own memories in real-time to protect their sense of judgment. Predictable. Comforting, even.
Nalla walked with emotionless expression, aware of every stare from over hundred youths. These glares mixed amazement, shock, sneering. Some taking pleasure in his misfortune, that beautiful human impulse to find comfort in others' failure, to feel better about their own mediocrity by watching someone else fall.
Twenty-seven centipedes still clung to his skin, burrowing their verdict into his flesh. Twenty-seven wounds that marked him as ordinary in a world that worshipped exceptional, that had no use for average, that threw mediocrity away like spoiled meat.
Average. Adequate. Acceptable.
Someone had to carry the weight, as his father used to say, usually right before picking up something that would break most men's backs.
Average was invisible. Average could plan while exceptional drew all the attention. Average could move through shadows while B grades and A grades basked in spotlight's burn.
He'd worked with worse odds. Though usually those odds hadn't involved quite so much blood and quite so much cosmic rejection.
"Sigh..." Academy elder let out deep breath and shook his head like man trying to physically dislodge disappointment. Moved on to next candidate with mechanical efficiency of someone who'd seen too many failures. "Next. Favilo Allen!"
No answer came.
"Favilo Allen!" Elder yelled again, irritation growing.
"Ah? I'm here, I'm here!"
Allen snapped out of apparent shock and ran forward. All stumbling limbs and clumsy panic. Tripped over his own feet, fell, hit his head with groan that echoed off stone walls.
Theatrical perfection.
Tumbled toward lake like sack of dropped turnips.
Entire chamber filled with laughter. Harsh, relieved laughter from crowd desperate for something to break tension, for permission to stop feeling disappointed and start feeling superior.
"The Favilo brothers. Nothing special," clan head scoffed, voice carrying across chamber with cutting precision.
"This is such an embarrassment!" Allen struggled at the lake's edge, where the stone was slippery; he couldn't get proper footing, and his efforts only made him look more helpless, his face red with shame, eyes wide with panic that looked almost real.
But not everyone laughed. Near the front, Mira looked genuinely distressed. Her hands twisted together, face pale, mouth open in silent concern.
She actually cared. Someone who doesn't know better yet.
Give it time. She'll learn that caring is just pain wearing a different mask.
Strong pull lifted Allen upright, hand grasping his collar. Nalla's grip. Familiar grip. The grip of older brother still playing the role, still performing the concerned protector even while his entire world had just shifted on its axis.
Head cleared surface, body found balance despite apparent helplessness.
"Big brother..." He opened mouth but instead started coughing. Water erupted from throat, sprayed Nalla's boots, bent him double with violent fit that looked painful and genuine and perfectly timed.
"The troubled brothers of the Favilo family!" Someone laughed, and others joined in, a wave of mockery washing over both of them.
Allen seemed completely lost, drowned in shame and confusion.
But his fingers on Nalla's sleeve lingered half-second too long.
Deliberate. Checking. Confirming that the signal still held, that big brother was still engaged in the game, that the performance was still running.
Good. You're still playing. Even while your world crumbles, you're still calculating, still performing, checking whether I'm still in.
Then Nalla heard his brother say quietly: "Brother."
Pause. The weight of the question hangs between them. Weight of unspoken communication. Weight of game they were playing that neither could quite admit to playing.
"You planning to drown today, or shall we try something else?"
Allen's eyes widened, confusion and fear flickering across face like shadows across water. But beneath it all, something else. Deep trust that had survived whatever secrets lay between them, whatever games they were playing, whatever lies formed the foundation of their relationship.
You genuinely care. Didn't expect that. Makes the game more complicated. Makes it more dangerous.
Maybe caring was part of the performance too. Hard to tell with Allen. Boundary between genuine and fake so blurred that even Nalla couldn't quite parse where one ended and other began. Maybe Allen didn't know the difference anymore either. Maybe that was the real performance, not knowing, not being able to separate the layers.
"Go on." Nalla released his collar. "The road ahead will be interesting."
Allen stared at him, conflict warring in expression. Fear bleeding into bedrock confidence, into trust that felt real even if nothing else did.
He nodded, still scared, still thinking furiously, but trusting nonetheless.
Appearing to.
As he turned toward lake, Nalla watched him straighten shoulders fractionally, watched the way panic in his eyes didn't match steadiness of his breathing. Whatever doubts plagued him, whatever calculations ran behind those wide eyes, their trust remained unbroken.
Hard to say if it was real.
Allen wore a stupefied expression as he approached the centipede lake, shuffling forward like a man in a dream. "If it was me, I'd..."
He lowered his head, walking forward as if absent-minded, feet moving automatically while mind seemed elsewhere.
But his breathing stayed steady.
Too steady for panic.
When he finally seemed to snap out of reverie, he was standing deep in writhing mass, in position no one else had reached, surrounded by centipedes that should have stopped him meters back.
Had he walked that far without noticing?
Had the centipedes parted for him?
Oh. This is going to be good.
Centipedes covered Allen completely and his screams echoed. Raw, genuine, convincing as fuck, the kind of screams that made people wince and look away.
But his body told different story if you knew how to read it. Convulsions too measured, rhythm too consistent. Falls too controlled, too careful to avoid real damage. Even breathing maintained pattern through screaming, in-out-in-out like he was counting.
Pain real enough. Performance perfect enough. Boundary so blurred that even Nalla couldn't quite tell where one ended and other began.
When he emerged, forty-three centipedes clung to his skin, blood streaming down pale flesh, expression transformed. Shocked, awed, overwhelmed, the perfect picture of someone who'd just touched something beyond themselves.
"By the gods!" Academy elder screamed, voice cracking with excitement, with relief, with joy of someone whose day had suddenly become worth living. "A grade starting capacity!"
"A grade? Really A grade?!"
"It's been three years! An A grade genius has finally appeared in Favilo clan!"
Chaos erupted.
Kade's triumphant expression curdled like milk left in sun. He'd been basking in his B grade for exactly three minutes before Allen eclipsed him completely, before his moment of glory became footnote.
Thirty-six centipedes suddenly felt very ordinary.
"Do you remember the Fourth Patriarch?" one of the younger elders spoke, voice trembling with excitement. "Elder Feng always said he was our clan's greatest leader. A grade talent, absolutely incorruptible, led us through the Eastern Incursion. They called him the Just."
Another elder picked up thread: "Three generations we've waited for another like him. Three generations of mediocrity and political compromise. And now..."
"Now we have another chance," clan head finished, voice quiet but carrying weight that silenced all objection. His eyes swept alcoves, daring challenge, getting none. "A rare jewel has appeared in our clan. And I will ensure he's polished properly."
Not claiming. Protecting.
Lian leaned forward, face calculating. "Well, the Favilo bloodline originated from the Chi line. So we Chi family will adopt young Favilo Allen."
Too fast. Too prepared. Statement came out too smooth, too rehearsed, like he'd been waiting for exact right moment to deploy it.
"Impossible!" Moren roared back, outrage perfectly pitched. "You old fox Lian, your morals are questionable. Better to pass this child to me, Favilo Moren, to raise!"
Counter-move. Perfectly timed objection.
"Stop arguing." Clan head's voice cut through noise like blade through throat, eyes blazing as he swept gaze over alcoves. "No one is more qualified to raise this child than current clan leader. Whoever objects can face me directly!"
Silence fell.
The kind that came from genuine power. From authority that didn't need to shout.
Someone had prepared this, promised results, delivered them with theatrical precision. Allen's convenient stumble, perfectly timed confusion, and now the one man with authority to silence all opposition stepping in to secure the prize, to make it untouchable.
Nalla rubbed his chin. Smooth skin where beard would grow someday. If he survived long enough. If the universe decided he deserved that much.
You've been planning this longer than I thought, little brother. But who's pulling your strings? Who whispered in clan head's ear to make him move so decisively? And why did it work so perfectly?
Watching Allen's carefully orchestrated ascension, watching every piece fall into place with mechanical precision, Nalla felt familiar stirring.
Hunger. Curiosity. The same craving for complexity that made cultivation addictive.
Resources would flow to Allen now. Protection, clan head's backing, influence. Politics reorganizing around new power center while everyone scrambled to position themselves near brilliance, to attach themselves to rising star.
And while everyone watched Allen rise, nobody watched mediocre older brother fade into background. The dismissed. The ordinary. The not-worth-attention.
Fucking perfect.
Most dangerous position was always the one nobody bothered watching. Ones whose true capacity couldn't be measured by counting wounds.
Stakes had risen, certainly. Clan head's backing meant resources, protection, influence that would shield his brother from consequences. But every comfort had limits. Every safe space had boundaries. Every alliance could crumble.
I'm walking on thin ice now. Ice formed from blood and venom and lies. Ice that could crack at any moment.
Caelum is mine now. Unfamiliar territory. No maps. No techniques. Just hunger and uncertainty and the growing certainty that I've made terrible mistake using the Upstream Drifter.
But I'll take the risk. I'll play.
Twenty-seven centipede marks already beginning to scar, body keeping score while his brother played games, while politics swirled, while everyone looked at Allen and stopped looking at him.
Another chain added to collection. Another game piece moving into position.
Fifteen years of clever planning versus five centuries of knowing exactly what comes next.
Except I don't know. Not anymore. Everything's changed.
This will be delightful.