novelraw Chapter 365 365: Banquet
Chapter 365 365: Banquet
One week passed in the blink of an eye and the city lord's banquet kicked off.
First came the arrivals. Young men and women from the prominent forces across the area made their way to the central city, carriages rolling through the manor gates one after another through the morning and into the afternoon. Each one presented their badge at the entrance, was checked against the list, and was led through to the main hall.
Bird Cage.
Wind Devil Sect.
Long Clan.
Even the Black Dog Underworld had sent people.
The main hall was already filling by the time the last carriages arrived, voices and the clink of glasses building into a steady ambient hum beneath the high ceilings. Tables arranged across the floor, lit well, decorated without being excessive. The kind of space that communicated wealth through proportion and material rather than loud display.
"The city lord's manor is quite exquisite," a young man with pale skin muttered, his eyes moving across the columns and the painted ceiling above them.
"Naturally." The woman beside him swirled the wine bottle in her hand without drinking from it, her green dress catching the light as she turned slightly. Her eyes were the same shade. "The Fang clan is one of the top ten in the human clan. They wouldn't let themselves fall short when it comes to grandeur."
They were in disguise, but anyone who knew them well enough would have placed them quickly enough.
As a high ranking member of the Black Dog Underworld's branch in the city of dogs, Viper had access to more background on this city than most of the people currently filling the hall. The Fang clan, one of the ten great clans of the human sect, held control of the city. The current city lord, Fang Gan, was an elder of the clan in good standing. Without the Fang clan's presence and weight behind the city's governance, the stability of the place would have fractured long ago under the competing pressures of the forces that operated within it.
Their influence was quiet but total.
"I understand," Badur said, the smirk already on his face.
His eyes had drifted to a group gathered at the far end of the hall. Red robes. Fire painted across the fabric in detailed patterns that caught the light differently depending on the angle.
Firestone manor.
He looked at them for a moment, then looked away without lingering.
At the head table, elevated slightly above the main floor, the city lord and several prominent figures were already deep into the evening, drinks in hand, the atmosphere around that table looser and more comfortable than the careful socializing happening below. Fang Gan looked at ease. The kind of ease that came from being in your own home with people who understood the social contract of events like this.
He stood.
The room noticed. Conversations tapered off in waves moving outward from the head table until the hall had gone mostly quiet.
"Ladies and gentlemen." The city lord raised his wine glass, his voice carrying the practiced quality of someone who had opened many gatherings like this one. "I would like to welcome you to my manor's banquet. My family has always loved entertaining talents in magic. It is always an honor to have so many capable young people in one place."
He smiled and tilted the glass.
The other leaders at the head table followed his lead, lifting their own glasses in affirmation. Around the hall, the gathered talents responded in kind, the sound of glasses rising and the murmur of acknowledgment moving through the crowd before the noise of conversation gradually rebuilt itself.
These kinds of gatherings were the ones that built friendships lasting several lifetimes. Business relationships that started over a shared drink and turned into alliances that shaped whole regions. Rivalries that began with a look across a crowded room and ended decades later in ways nobody at the beginning could have predicted.
Everyone in the hall understood this, at least implicitly, which was why even the youngest attendees were paying attention to who was standing where and talking to whom.
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Somewhere in the middle of the crowd, a young man broke away from his group and approached a woman sitting slightly apart from the main clusters of activity.
White hair, long. A silk dress that sat well on her. She wasn't doing anything in particular, just holding her glass and looking at the room with an expression that communicated clearly that she was not looking for company.
The young man approached anyway.
"Good evening, miss. May I take a seat here?"
She glanced at him once. Then she waved her free hand in a way that technically constituted permission without constituting any warmth.
He sat.
"I've never seen you in this part of the city before." He extended his hand across the table with a respectful angle to it, his posture open and unthreatening. "My name is Hareld Mason. I'm a student of the Wind Devil Sect."
Among all the young women present at the banquet, she stood out. Not just for her appearance, which was striking enough to draw attention on its own, but for something less easy to name. The air around her. The particular quality of stillness she carried that didn't read as shyness or disinterest but as something older and more settled than either of those things.
She looked at his extended hand. Then she reached out and shook it with an expression that hadn't changed.
"Arian. Not affiliated."
Hareld smiled and opened his mouth to continue.
He didn't notice what was happening on the other side of the room.
Several whispers had started moving through the crowd nearby, low and quick, people leaning toward each other with their eyes directed at the same point. An older woman had appeared at the edge of the gathering, somewhere in her thirties, wearing the red and flame-painted dress of the Firestone manor. She moved through the crowd without rushing, nodding to people who acknowledged her, the picture of composed attendance.
But her eyes had found Arian.
And they stayed there.