The journey back was instantaneous.
One moment he was standing in the frozen ruins of Beastglade, the last of the barrier's glow fading behind him. The next he was in his room, the familiar darkness of it settling around him like a second skin.
Leon stood still for a moment.
The room was exactly as he had left it. Bed unmade, window slightly ajar, moonlight cutting a pale strip across the floor. Everything ordinary. Everything quiet.
He looked down at his clothes. Singed at the edges, damp with condensation, carrying the particular smell of extreme cold meeting extreme heat in close proximity. Evidence of an evening that, by any reasonable measure, should not have happened.
He changed quietly and efficiently, folding nothing, and collapsed onto the bed.
He was asleep before his head fully met the pillow.
...
The morning arrived the way mornings always did in the Silford estate, without asking anyone's opinion about it.
The birds arranged themselves in the trees outside. Somewhere in the lower halls a maid dropped something metallic and then went very quiet hoping no one had noticed.
The training grounds were empty today.
Instead, the siblings had been assembled in one of the estate's more formal receiving rooms, a high ceilinged space with tall windows that let the early morning light in at a clean angle and enough chairs arranged in a row to seat all of them. The atmosphere was somewhere between excited and ceremonious, the way it gets when something is about to happen that everyone has been told is significant.
Julian was practically vibrating.
He sat with his arms crossed and his chin up and the expression of someone who had already decided how this morning was going to go and was simply waiting for reality to catch up.
Lily sat beside him, quieter, her dark eyes moving around the room with their usual measured attention.
Rosa was examining her nails.
Cain sat straight backed and composed as always, his blonde hair neat, his expression one of polite patience.
Lena sat at the end of the row, her raven hair down around her shoulders, scanning the room with a small frown that had nothing to do with the ceremony.
"Where's Leon ?" She asked.
Julian didn't even look up.
"Who cares." He said.
"I'm asking a question Julian."
"And I answered it." He said, finally glancing at her with that particular expression he reserved specifically for conversations about Leon. "Honestly Lena, why does it matter. Today is about assigning proper assistants to people who actually need them. What exactly would a talentless failure like him do with one ?"
"That's not the point." Lena said.
"Then what is the point ?" Julian asked, spreading his hands. "Tell me. What is the point of including someone with an E rank potential in a ceremony like this. What assistant in their right mind would even want to serve him ? It would be a waste. Of everyone's time."
"Julian does raise a fair point." Cain said mildly, not looking up from the window. "Today's assignments are long term arrangements. The assistants chosen will serve their respective lords for years, possibly decades. Pairing one with Leon would be..." He paused, selecting the word with the precision of someone who wants to sound reasonable while saying something unkind. "Impractical."
"Nobody asked you Cain." Lena said.
Rosa looked up from her nails briefly. "He's probably still asleep anyway." She said, then went back to examining them.
"Exactly." Julian said, pointing at Rosa as though she had made his argument for him. "Asleep. While the rest of us are here, prepared, ready. That's what he is. That's all he'll ever be." He settled back in his chair with deep personal satisfaction. "Besides, today is important. I refuse to let his presence ruin the mood."
Lena opened her mouth.
The door opened.
Lord Arlott entered the room and whatever Lena had been about to say dissolved quietly as everyone straightened almost simultaneously. Even Julian sat up properly, his chin coming down from its elevated angle to something more appropriate for a father's presence.
Arlott scanned the room once. His gaze moved across each of them with the calm efficiency of someone who notices everything and reacts to very little of it visibly.
He said nothing about the empty chair.
"Good morning." He said.
"Good morning Father." They answered, with varying degrees of synchronization.
He moved to the front of the room and stood with that particular stillness he carried everywhere, the stillness of someone who had been in enough genuinely dangerous situations that ordinary rooms held no tension for him whatsoever.
"You all understand why you're here." He said. It was not a question.
"Yes Father." Cain said.
"The assistants assigned today are not temporary arrangements." Arlott continued. "They are long term. These individuals will accompany you, support you, and in some cases protect you. Choose carefully. Treat them with the respect the role deserves."
Julian was nodding along with the focused attention of someone who had stopped listening after the word assigned.
'Finally.' He thought, his eyes drifting briefly to the door through which the assistants would presumably appear. He had given this considerable thought. Considerable. He had requirements. Standards. There was absolutely no reason today could not go exactly as he had planned it and absolutely every reason to be optimistic, unlike certain white haired failure he could name who was probably still drooling on his pillow right now and would amount to nothing regardless of what today's ceremony produced.
Today was going to be a good day.
He was sure of it.
"Rosa." Arlott said.
Rosa looked up.
"Your assistant has been arranged separately given your existing schedule. You'll be introduced this afternoon."
"Of course Father." Rosa smiled pleasantly.
"Cain."
Cain inclined his head.
A young man entered through the side door, roughly the same age as Rosa, dark haired and carrying himself with a quiet competence that suggested he had been doing this for some time. He bowed to Cain precisely.
"This is Aldren. He comes with considerable experience and will serve you well."
"Thank you Father." Cain said, studying Aldren with those calm appraising eyes. "I'm sure he will."
"Lily."
Lily looked up.
A young woman entered, lean and sharp eyed, with the quiet precise movements of someone who had trained seriously and recently. She carried herself like a ranger, which was either a coincidence or a very deliberate choice on Arlott's part.
Probably not a coincidence.
"Mira." Arlott said simply. "She'll complement your style."
Lily looked at Mira for a moment. Mira looked back without flinching.
"Good." Lily said, which from her was approximately equivalent to enthusiasm.
"Julian."
Julian sat forward.
A young woman entered.
She had light auburn hair and green eyes and carried a small ledger under one arm with the air of someone who was quietly and thoroughly competent and knew it. She was, objectively, quite pretty, and Julian's brain processed this information approximately one full second before it processed anything else about her.
'Yes.' He thought with enormous internal satisfaction. 'Today is a good day.'
"This is Sera." Arlott said. "She is organized, capable, and has experience supporting young adventurers. She will keep you in line."
The last four words landed with a weight that suggested they were the primary qualification.
Julian was not listening to the last four words.
"Julian." Arlott said.
"Yes Father, absolutely, very good, excellent choice." Julian said immediately.
Sera looked at him with the expression of someone who had been briefed.
"Lena."
Lena straightened.
She had been patient. She was still patient. But the empty chair beside her had been sitting in the corner of her attention all morning like a stone in a shoe and she couldn't fully set it aside.
A young woman entered for her as well, dark haired and calm, with a steadiness about her that felt immediate and genuine.
Arlott introduced her. Lena received her with a warm smile, genuinely pleased.
But even as she nodded and exchanged the appropriate words her eyes moved once, briefly, to the empty chair.
"Father." She said quietly, after a moment.
Arlott looked at her.
"Leon isn't here." She said.
A beat of silence.
"I'm aware." Arlott said. His voice gave nothing away, which was itself a kind of answer.
Julian muttered something under his breath that included the words 'typical' and 'failure' and Lily elbowed him without looking at him.
Lena was still looking at her father.
Arlott held her gaze for a moment and then looked toward the window, his expression shifting into something that was not quite thoughtful and not quite knowing and was somewhere between the two.
He opened his mouth to speak.
And then the commotion started outside.
It began as a sound, indistinct at first, filtering through the tall windows of the receiving room. Voices. Multiple voices. The specific quality of sound that a gathering crowd produces when something has happened that nobody was expecting and everyone has an opinion about.
Then one of the guards outside said something, louder than the rest, and though the words were muffled by the glass and distance the tone was unmistakable.
Alarm.
Everyone in the room went still.
Julian forgot about Sera entirely for approximately four seconds.
Lena was already on her feet.
"What is that ?" Lily said, her hand moving instinctively toward where her bow would have been if she'd been wearing it.
Arlott moved to the window, his eyes narrowing as he looked down at whatever was happening in the estate's front grounds below.
Whatever he saw made something shift in his expression.
It was subtle. The kind of shift that only existed for a fraction of a second on a face as controlled as his, but it was there.
"Father ?" Cain said, rising from his seat. "What is it ?"