Chapter 881: Deeds To The Northern Corridor [Bonus - ]

Chapter 881: Deeds To The Northern Corridor [Bonus Chapter]

The Great Assembly Chamber was freezing when they stepped back onto the black obsidian floor.

It felt like a different room from the one they’d left an hour ago… The scoffs, the condescending murmurs and the smug little smiles were all gone, and in their place sat a tense funereal silence.

The masked Council members sat stiffly in their chairs around the Grand Table, and more than one of them turned their head slightly away as Kara and Aki walked past.

Alexander had returned to his seat at the table, but he sat with his head bowed and his hands resting limply in his lap, staring at the grey granite like a man waiting for an executioner.

The star-iron throne above him was empty with its dented armrest gleaming under the lights.

The King had gone straight to his private chambers after the duel and left the signing of the charter to the Council and standing at the center of the Grand Table, holding a heavy leather registry binder embossed in gold, was Number 5.

Her midnight-silk robes had been brushed down neatly, her hood pulled up with careful precision, and her smooth white porcelain mask sat perfectly straight on her face again.

There wasn’t a trace left of the screeching flailing creature who’d thrown herself at a railing half an hour earlier…

She stood stiff as an iron rod.

As Kara and Aki strolled up hand in hand, Number 5 didn’t move a single muscle.

Her mask stayed fixed straight ahead, aimed at a blank patch of obsidian wall somewhere just past Kara’s left ear.

She absolutely refused to look at Kara.

If she looked at her, she’d see that smirk… She’d remember the word “sense.”… She’d remember her mask hanging off her ear while the entire World Council stared up at her, and she would probably start screaming again so hard her vocal cords would tear right there in front of everyone.

“Morning, shorty,” Kara said brightly. “Sleep well? You look a little tense…”

Number 5’s grip on the binder tightened until the leather creaked.

CREAK!

She said nothing as she stared at the wall.

“Did you hurt your chest on that railing?” Kara went on, with deep sincere-sounding concern. “That looked painful. You should really get it checked out. Maybe have them look at your head while they’re at it… I hear sea air does terrible things to the brain.”

Behind Kara, Aki pressed her lips together very hard and stared at the floor.

Number 5 opened the binder with a sharp crack.

SNAP!

“In accordance with the binding agreements of the Tournament of Succession,” She announced with her voice flat and thoroughly exhausted, “the World Council hereby executes the transfer of the contested territory…”

She turned the heavy pages with mechanical precision and drew out a single thick title deed sealed with dark star-iron.

“The territory known as the Northern Corridor… including its mountain passes, its glacial river basin, and all rights to the void-iron reserves beneath it… is hereby deeded in full to Blessed Land.”

She pressed the heavy silver seal of the World Council down onto the page.

THUMP!

“The Lord of Aki’s Wonderland, Princess Aki, is named on the title as co-holder under Blessed Land’s banner.”

THUMP!

She slid the deed across the granite without looking up.

Aki stepped forward and picked up the gold stylus a magistrate held out to her.

For a moment she just looked at the page, at her own name printed there under the crest of Blessed Land… Aki.

She signed it with a clean elegant flourish then Kara stepped up beside her and pressed her thumb into the dark seal at the bottom of the charter.

HUMMM!

The star-iron seal flared with bright blue and deep violet light as it recognized both of their Cores, then settled into a permanent lock.

The Northern Corridor was theirs…

The deed folded itself up neatly, and Kara tucked it away into her Inventory with a lazy flick of her fingers.

Aki turned to the table and offered the masked Council members a polite, perfect little court nod.

“Our business with the Council is finished,” she said, her clear voice carrying easily through the silent chamber. “We’ll be taking our leave now. We have travel plans to make…”

Still staring resolutely at the wall beside Kara’s ear, Number 5 gave a stiff robotic bow.

“The Council acknowledges your departure.”

“Bye, shorty,” Kara said, waving her fingers. “Don’t stand too close to any railings…”

The binder creaked again.

As they walked toward the bronze doors, Aki looked up at Kara, and a bright eager smile broke across her face.

“Now that the deed’s settled,” she whispered, her eyes dancing, “we should head straight back to the mainland. If we go back to Valoria, we can catch a flight to Amazonia tonight. Valeria knows we’re coming… She’s going to be so surprised when she sees how strong I am now.”

Kara smiled down at her.

“Amazonia it is, sweet Aki. I can’t wait to see Da Silva’s face when you pull out that starlight sword…”

“You think she’ll be impressed…?”

“I think she’ll challenge you to a fight within five minutes.”

Aki considered that seriously.

“…I think I’d like that.”

Kara laughed and squeezed her hand.

They walked a few more steps in comfortable silence before Aki glanced up at her again with her brows drawing together.

“Kara… can I ask you something?”

“Hm?”

“The island thing,” Aki said. “Number 5 screamed it so loud the whole field heard her. Kiera and I both stopped and looked up. Everyone did. Even Father.”

She lowered her voice. “Did you actually believe it? Even for a second?”

Kara thought about it honestly for a moment.

“For about two minutes, I did…”

Aki walked a few more steps then she slowed down as she looked at Kara as though the woman was pretty dumb.

“…And after the two minutes?” she asked carefully.

“After that, I knew it was bolted to the seabed…” Kara said. “I just forgot initially so you don’t have to look at me like a child.”

“We learned that in school… Or does it not happen for other academies?”

“Well, I’m not sure it is since I don’t remember that but I saw the schematics before so I knew.”

“Then why did you keep going…?”

“Because she was about to say something, and I didn’t want to hear it,” Kara said cheerfully. “And then she got that look on her face, and I couldn’t stop…”

Aki stared at her for a long moment then she pressed her free hand over her mouth, her shoulders started to shake and a helpless little giggle squeaked out between her fingers.

“You’re a terrible person,” she whispered.

They pushed through the bronze doors, crossed the rotunda and stepped out onto the high landing terrace at the base of the Spire.

The cold ocean wind swept across the white titanium platform, where a handful of sleek private aircraft sat docked in their bays, and beyond the railing, the black water churned under the dead grey sky.

…They’d just reached the edge of the terrace when a soft rustle of silk sounded behind them.

SWOOSH!

Kara paused and turned her head and stepping out of the shadow of the transit hall was Number 5.

She was alone, her robes smoothed down and her hood pulled low over her mask as her hands were tucked politely into her sleeves but something about her was completely different.

The stiff murderous rage she’d been radiating in the chamber was gone.

She walked toward them with a soft and almost floaty little step with her head tilted at a polite and helpful angle that practically dripped with sweet hospitality.

It was suspicious…

“Princess Aki. Lord Vespera,” Number 5 said, in a light courteous voice that made the hairs on the back of Kara’s neck stand straight up. “Please forgive the intrusion. I couldn’t help overhearing your travel plans while I was filing the paperwork.”

Aki blinked at her.

“Yes, Lady Five?”

Number 5 stopped three paces away, her porcelain mask gleaming faintly in the flat grey light.

“Flying from the Citadel back to Valoria City takes nearly four hours,” she explained smoothly, gesturing with small graceful movements of her hands. “And finding a flight from Valoria into Amazonia on such short notice can mean all sorts of delays… You’d be sitting around in airport lounges half the night.”

She tilted her mask toward Kara.

“As a gesture of goodwill between the Council and Blessed Land,” she purred sweetly, “I’d be more than happy to buy you both first-class tickets. You could fly back to Valoria, enjoy a nice dinner in the lounge and wait for your connection in comfort…”

She let the sentence trail off, and her head tilted a little further.

“…Or,” she added softly, her voice dropping into a helpful little murmur, “I could simply teleport you both straight there… Directly to Amazonia, In one second.”

Kara’s purple eyes narrowed into two sharp points.

She looked at the blank porcelain mask and she remembered, very clearly, the shrieking flailing gremlin who’d tried to strangle her on a railing less than an hour ago.

’Absolutely not,’ Silas thought.

Silas didn’t trust a single word coming out of that mask.

Number 5 was a petty, vengeful little menace who’d just been humiliated in front of the entire World Council, and people like her didn’t hand out free teleports across the planet out of the goodness of their hearts.

There was some ridiculous revenge waiting at the other end of that spell, and Kara had no intention of walking into it.

“Oh, that’s so kind of you!” Aki said happily. “Kara, did you hear? We could be there in—”

“No,” Kara said.

She drew a breath to say it properly, to deliver a smug flat refusal that would make the little gremlin’s day even worse—

Behind the smooth white curve of the porcelain mask, Number 5’s lips stretched into a wide unhinged grin.

’This is it,’ her mind screamed in pure ecstasy. ’This is how I win…!’

She didn’t wait for Kara’s answer.

Before Kara could get out a single word, Number 5 whipped her small hand out of her sleeve and snapped her fingers.

SNAP! POP!

Kara blinked and the cold ocean wind was gone… The dead grey sky was gone… The white platform, the black towers of the Spire and the smell of salt and brine had all vanished, and a wall of thick suffocating heat slammed into her face like a damp blanket pulled out of an oven…

The air was heavy and steaming and full of the rich smell of wet earth, rotting leaves, blooming flowers, ancient river water, and a howling roar of wind was screaming past her ears.

Kara looked down and there was no ground under her boots.

The ground was very, very, very far below… About ten thousand feet below, to be exact…

She was hanging in a wide-open blindingly blue sky with the tropical sun blazing down on her black wool suit, and stretching out beneath her in every direction, rolling all the way to the horizon, was an endless green ocean of treetops.

The Amazonia rainforest and tumbling through the empty air right beside her, dropping like a stone toward that endless sea of green, was Aki.

Her blue silk dress whipped wildly around her legs, her long royal-blue hair streamed straight up toward the clouds with her small hands clawed frantically at the empty air, and her mouth was stretched wide open in a high earsplitting scream.

“AAAAAAAHHHHHHH!”

The wind shrieked around them as the jagged green canopy rushed up toward them with the leaves getting bigger by the second.

Kara hung in the open sky with her long black cloak snapping violently behind her and her empty left sleeve flapping against her chest.

She looked at the screaming princess falling beside her and she looked at the endless jungle rising up to swallow them both.

Kara stared down at the jungle rushing up to meet them.

’What the fuck was the plan here…?’