Rieren did her best not to show the sudden tension spiking through her. At least it was easy to push it away. After all, it wasn’t the least bit surprising to see Essalina Arteroth bulling her way through the throng, disregarding everyone else she pushed past or even stepped on at times.

“You finally decided to show your face,” Essalina said.

Rieren took a quick, careful breath, then turned away from the approaching woman. She smiled. “Cerill! It is good to see you are well.”

The antler-headed boy she had just found jumped at the mention of his name. He looked like he had been trying to meld into the crowd, and was now devastated that Rieren had foiled his attempt. With agonizing slowness, he turned his head with a brittle little smile. “Hello there, Rieren. How pleasant to see you again.”

Essalina placed herself right in front of Rieren, blocking her view of Cerill. She was the same as ever. Brutish and beautiful at the same time, as befitted the warmongering scion of an Archnoble. Despite no doubt having gone through the mess of the first round of the Trials, her black armour chased with gold didn’t have a single blemish or scratch.

“You can’t ignore me forever, Rieren Vallorne,” Essalina said. She jerked her face closer to Rieren’s. Being the taller of the two, she had to lean down a bit, and that fact made her grin as though that alone had ensured temporary victory. “You have no idea how long I’ve been waiting for this opportunity. A part of me accepted their offer just because of this.”

That admission was enough to surprise Rieren. “Truly?”

Essalina laughed at that, the shock of the sound pulling several eyes towards her. “No. I was lying. You think you’re so above all this, yet you’re as easy to manipulate as everyone else. You just have surprisingly different buttons to push.”

“What’s all this?” Kalvia stepped up, thrusting herself between Rieren and Essalina. “Sorry, but I’ve laid my claim on all of Rieren’s buttons. You can’t have them.”

Essalina was surprised enough to take a step back. “And who are—wait a minute. You’re the upstart.”

“Upstart?”

Something about Kalvia’s expression, which Rieren couldn’t see due to their positioning, made Essalina laugh uproariously again. “Stop worrying about Vallorne’s buttons when yours are showing so brazenly, Empress.”

Those words resounded around the field, like invisible echoes bouncing off every competitor and dragging their attention to the little altercation.

Rieren’s temperature rose by at least a few degrees. The paranoia she believed she had successfully fought off now returned a hundredfold. But not for her. Instead, it roared for Kalvia’s safety. The Empress-to-be shouldn’t be exposed so publicly.

“We will see who is and isn’t an upstart when things settle down,” Kalvia said.

“Is that right?” Essalina graced Kalvia with an arrogant smirk before turning it to Rieren. “You and what army? Poor old Rieren Vallorne here? She isn’t enough. Just like you. Neither of you have the competence necessary to get to the peak of the Elderlands.”

“Oh, and who are you to judge about competence?” Amalyse asked from behind them, deciding to join in. “I don’t think any of us forgot just how exactly you died at Rieren’s hand last time. If you’re so eager for your death again, Arteroth, I suggest you spare everyone the trouble and drown yourself in the marsh over there. It’ll even cover up the stench!”

Essalina’s face faltered for a mere second before she regained her composure. “Oh, we’ll be dealing with death in due time. Just like I dealt yours, Arraihos.” Before Amalyse could say anything, Essalina went on, narrowing her eyes at Kalvia and Rieren. “What I mean is that you aim for something you have no experience in. You’ll fail.”

“You have no idea about my experiences,” Kalvia said.

“Is that so? Tell me then, how many men and women have you led through battle? How many deaths have you ordered, of both monsters and people? How many followers are willing to lay down their lives for you? How much land have you governed and how many victories have you claimed without raising a single finger?”

Essalina’s questions hammered away at Kalvia’s resolve like an army of miners tunnelling under fortifications. The Arteroth scion wasn’t wrong. As far as Rieren was aware, it was only recently that Kalvia had a hand in ruling anything significant, and even that too was minor. She hadn’t governed the Shatterlands so much as assisted Avathene in doing so.

Worse, she certainly hadn’t commanded any troops or led a group of cultivators. Rieren had some small experience in those matters, but their Empress-to-be couldn’t claim the same.

Essalina really did know just where to hit them.

“My, my, aren’t we getting a little feisty out here.” Their conversation was interrupted by a sinuous young man sidling in beside Essalina. He clapped his ring-clad fingers on either side of his mouth, which had gaped open in artificial surprise. “Oh, Silk. How good to see you again! Come, come, let us get away from these boors. We have so much to discuss.”

Before Kalvia could protest, the man grabbed her arm and began dragging her away, his fluffy robe flapping behind him like a sail. Kalvia didn’t look like she really minded, her surprise warring with the emotional gut-punch Essalina had delivered, so Rieren didn’t retrieve her.

Instead, she left the task to Amalyse. “Keep an eye on her,” she whispered.

Amalyse grumbled something under her breath, then hurried after Kalvia.

Strangely, despite the clearly rude interruption, Essalina hadn’t said a thing. Rieren frowned after the strange man. Who was that fellow? She couldn’t remember him from her previous life.

Then again, she had nearly forgotten about Kalvia too. Abyss, she hadn’t even known about Kalvia’s true name before this timeline.

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“Shouldn’t you be running after her yourself?” Essalina’s face was the living embodiment of taunting. “Can you really trust someone that weak to protect your precious Empress?”

Rieren took a quick, deep breath, letting nothing of her inner troubles show. Just because Essalina was right didn’t mean Rieren had to acknowledge it. “You speak a lot for one who surrendered her bid at a successful war only to participate in the muddy tournament with everyone else. What happened, lost all your faith in your ability to win?”

“I could say the same about you. Rumour has it you were one of those who assaulted the capital itself last time. But look at you now, kowtowing to the empire’s demands like a good little subject. Maybe this time, you won’t even need to betray the Emperor again.”

Rieren tensed again. This was getting ridiculous. “From what pocket of the Abyss did you pick up that falsehood?”

“Ah, and there it is.” Essalina’s eyes glinted, as though Rieren’s reaction had confirmed something she had been suspecting. “The lies. The easy way you slip into acting, like the truth had never mattered. How you can garner such trust from those around escapes me. Surprising they haven’t forked your tongue considering the snake you are.”

“Essalina,” someone said from behind.

Another man had come up. Tall and dark, Rieren would have considered him handsome, though she wasn’t sure others would share the same view considering some of the scars running across his head. The livid wounds looked recent too. That a healer hadn’t been able to fix them to nothing suggested those had to have come by rather extraordinary means.

“A little busy here, Naviel,” Essalina said. “Can it not wait?”

Naviel glanced past Essalina to peer at Rieren. There was a sudden recognition in his hazel eyes, though it wasn’t truly mutual. Rieren had the vaguest of memories of having seen the man with the Arteroth before, in her old life, but they had never been in one place together before. “They are about to end the meeting. We’ll be called soon.”

Essalina grunted. “Fine. Let’s head back and meet the Abyss-cursed geezer.” Naviel winced a little at the curse. “I don’t have anything worthwhile to say, anyway. And certainly nothing worthwhile to hear.”

“An Aetherian once told me that they were expecting a grand event here,” Rieren said to Essalina’s departing back. “At the time, I had no clue what it might have meant. Even now, I doubt I have the right idea. The Trials of Ascendance alone cannot be it. There are layers to such things, especially when considering what I saw in the Abyss.”

The sudden change in topic had made Essalina pause. Rieren smirked. So much for not having anything worthwhile to say. Even if Essalina dismissed her, just the fact that Rieren’s words had made her pause had essentially forced her to eat her prior words. A small, petty victory for Rieren.

Against someone like Essalina, it was more than worth it.

“Keep your mad prattling to yourself, Rieren Vallorne,” Essalina said, heading off with her hand clenched around the hilt of her greatsword. “I’m not allowed to put you out of your misery just yet.”

Rieren watched her go, waiting until she was sure Essalina was truly gone. Then she decided to head to the edge of the field. If Naviel had been speaking the truth, they were about to end the meeting with the Aetherian, at which point, Rieren expected some sort of general announcement. She wished to be at the front to see it for herself.

Pushing through the throng wasn’t as difficult as she had expected it to be. A lot of the competitors were headed in the same direction. This made navigating the crowd easy.

Still, there were times when Rieren’s path forward was blocked. Though, that was less because of the crowd itself and more because she kept getting distracted.

At one point, she tensed again when she found herself near Ledorne and her team. The woman glanced once at Rieren, her vicious eyes promising death the next time they met. But it wasn’t Ledorne herself who had given pause. It was the other woman with her.

The paper user.

Celuvienne was the youngest scion of the Ilvatan Archnoble clan. She was also considered the most promising talent of the entire southern section of the Elderlands. Someone who had famously declared that even taking the reins of her clan as the Clanmistress would have been beneath her.

Of course, such a pronouncement would generally have been seen as dishonourable. What greater act could anyone perform than be of service to their clan?

Apparently, such lines of honourable thinking didn’t apply to generational talents supposedly destined for history-defining things. Who were apparently fated for grander destinies than simply running their own clan.

In the last lifetime, the apocalypse had cut short that potential. She, like many others, had eventually perished. Though, it hadn’t been at the hands of any old Abyssal or anything of the sort. No, Celuvienne had lost her life in one of the great battles that had raged across the Elderlands, when civil war had raged across the empire being torn apart by dissidents.

Tragic. Rieren would have shed a tear had she been the empathetic sort. Well, she would have tried to.

That never happened, mostly because she had a few terrible memories of fighting against Celuvienne. That strange woman had more than earned her reputation, and then some. Aside from the gods, their Banishedborn, and some overly strong monsters had popped up here and there, only a few beings had ever given her pause in battle.

Celuvienne hadn’t simply done that. At a point where their strengths should have been comparable, or at least, where Rieren should have been able to match the other woman’s power, her estimations had been wildly off. Celuvienne had nearly killed her once.

Where Rieren could often take on seemingly stronger opponents by surprising them with her own hidden power, the tables had turned when she had fought the Ilvatan scion.

Some preternatural sense made Celuvienne look in Rieren’s direction. She smiled. Ah, so she recognized Rieren as well. As Rieren met her bright orange eyes, a piece of Celuvienne’s light brown skin peeled off like a page from a book, revealing… nothing but darkness underneath.

Then it all turned back to normal. Rieren was once more looking at a young woman with mud-brown ringlets and silken robes adorned with purple leaves and flowers.

Jerking her attention away from Celuvienne, Rieren pushed her way forward. The closer she got to the end of the field, the more packed the throng became. It would almost have been dangerous, according to Rieren’s paranoia, since anyone could do anything hidden in this crowd. However, should they be caught, it would spell doom upon their entire team and contingent.

No one would want to take that kind of risk.

Rieren was starting to feel both slightly relieved and somewhat troubled at not having seen the icy-flame-user anywhere. Sotore was here, of that there was no doubt. He was keeping a low profile, though, for whatever reason. Well, one thing Rieren had no doubts about was that she would certainly be seeing him in the next round.

She finally reached the end of the field. The boundary included a roughshod fence that no one had surprisingly broken yet. Maybe it was stronger than it looked. Rieren was about to test it when the distant tent flap opened up, revealing the exiting Aetherian.

There was, thankfully, no tournament official in his arms now. They must have finally taken care of the poor woman. The great question of what someone hired by the imperial court was even doing in league with the Aetherian made Rieren frown again, but for the moment, she kept her focus locked on the exact goings-on.

As the Aetherian exited, so did a handful of tournament officials. They glanced around, the largest man among them approaching the gathered group of competitors.

“Take heed, tournament hopefuls,” he said in a loud voice. “The competition has a small change. The first round is not over yet. New rules and new changes abound. You may enquire the details from your respective contingents before the official resumption is called and the new objectives are stated. For now, you are all dismissed.”

Not a one of them moved. That had been the vaguest possible announcement anyone could have ever given.

“We’re not going anywhere till you explain, old man,” someone said. It sounded like Olis. “The Abyss is that monster going to be doing? And where is my cursed token?”

Instead of the tournament official, it was the monster himself who answered. “Your tokens…” He held out one tapering arm. The tokens materialized from nothing before it, disappearing again when he pulled his limb away. “They are ours. If you wish to retrieve them…” The smile in his voice turned as sharp as daggers. “Then come get them yourself.”