Chapter X | The Wedding & the Wolves

A traditional Luridian wedding was an affair typically held over several weeks. This was because the bride and groom were expected to take a tour across the length of their home country and back. 200 years ago, that meant a long journey from the capital of that old kingdom, through its many cities and castles and across its vast countryside, all the way to its natural coastline and back. In the modern day, it only meant a quick tour down the layers, a trip that could be accomplished in a single day.

As High Lord of the Nine Cities, Claude brought with him a sizable entourage the likes of which hadn’t been seen since the Midtown Rebellions of half a century ago. He brought the bulk of his RINGKNIGHTS, dozens of his house guard, and even several members of August’s clergy, all to protect them on their tour.

“There are many conflicting rumors surrounding the High Priest,” Morris had told him. “But the one that everyone agrees with is that he loves his daughter more than anything. He wouldn’t dare make a move while you’re with her.”

He could only hope that his uncle was right. Either way, it was now his wedding day, an event of which he’d dreamt of since he learned what it was. Even as a child, he expected something spectacular to be done for his wedding, but he never once imagined that he’d get one meant for the most powerful man in the world. A wedding for the king of the modern world. A grand parade followed them on their way, and the crowds made way in the streets to see the bride and groom. Morris had told him that his popularity as the new king was difficult to ascertain, but there was no doubt he had both skeptics and fans alike. Either way, both came to see him now. The cheers were louder than even the first of the trains, louder than their guns and their cannons.

When Claude had first seen his wife in the dress made just for her, he lost all breath. The First God Queen Consort of the Old Luridia and all Purily, Lilya Caecilius. Her blackest hair appeared like ink on the ghost-white canvas of her wedding dress, high-low so her skin ran bare from her ankles until right above her knees, where the dress split and flowed down behind her, its length set afloat by the gentle breeze of the day they’d chosen. Bare too were her shoulders and neck, which were once perpetually concealed by the collar of her uniform and the modest customs of the Church. Now, the outdoor chill lit a lycoris blush on her exposed skin like a pale flame.

When he regained himself, Claude spoke the words of tradition and took her hand. “More gorgeous you are now than even Heaven. May we remain and may we continue until death unites us at highest again.”

“Yes!” she said, smiling so wide that Claude thought she’d forgotten her own words, but she didn’t. “More wealthy you are now than ever to behold me in our union. More wealthy am I than ever to have you for mine. The Goddess grants us all her eternal love. Now I grant you mine.”

They began their march then, hand in hand while the crowds cheered and the cameras rolled. Cameras owned by House March for each channel on their network, including Channel 11—Jericho’s. Unlike the others, they were only given one camera, but Paris Astrantia had had a telescoping lens developed, so the shot they obtained had more closeness and more detail of the newlyweds than any other. This alone gave them more viewers than the other channels combined. Undoubtedly, the Wedding of the Kid King is the event which gave Jericho the attention she needed to begin her plan for real.

Lisica and Oliver were given spots surprisingly close to the couple. A couple rows down in their march, behind the RINGKNIGHTs and the GUARDs, August and then his upper clergy.

“I can’t believe you have actual footage of what happened that day,” Oliver said.

Lisica pointed to her temple. “They installed a camera in my left eye during the surgery. Its footage is automatically stored in a small hard drive I keep in my pocket.” She pulled it out for him to see, a tiny red block no larger than a napkin. “Every night, I choose what to keep and what to throw away. Of course I kept the footage of that day.”

“Hard to see through all those tears, though.”

“Oh shut up.” Lisica fingered the hard drive in her pocket and closed her right eye, remembering the little details of that day, best as she could, no matter how painful. It was traumatic, no doubt. She was lucid enough to see that. All that blood and gore for her as a child. She couldn’t imagine how it wreaked havoc on her mental health. “It sure is educational though. All the scientists said that Alyn Morsylis was the perfect man. By every law of physics they studied, he was the most powerful a human being could possibly become.”

“And still, he died.”

“Indeed. It’s because Alyn Morsylis was an idiot.”

“And you loved him.”

She laughed. “I was only 11, and he was an adult. Can you imagine how horrible it was to see him torn to pieces in front of me?”

“All for nothing.”

“For nothing,” she agreed. “When we learned the truth, I stole this hard drive from them, changed my face, and ran away with Alex. We didn’t get very far, as you can see.”

Oliver stared up at the sky. “If he were still alive, do you think you could beat Alyn?”

“Without a doubt,” she said, the length of her arm turning white all at once. “I’m sure even Nico Calista, in his old age, could still kill him if he had to. Really, it’s his pupil, Sir Kinziru Alakko you should be asking about. He’s without question the most skilled knight of the modern day.”

“The Leviathan RINGKNIGHT,” Oliver considered. “Representing House Platus of City Sialta. I don’t see him here today.”

“Nope. He’s off to see his family in his hometown. What a time to do something like that.”

“Then Sir Kinziru… could he beat the king in a fight?”

The question gave his mentor a nostalgic glow. She stared ahead at Claude, dressed in the bare ceremonial robes expected of him, and frowned. “Probably. Kinziru could beat anyone.”

“Even you?”

“No,” she said, her eyes suddenly wide open, sparkling with unburdened confidence. “Not me.”

Oliver sighed. “Even though you’re still scared of your own sibling.”

Lisica smacked him on the back of the head, and their conversation ended there. It was a ridiculous thought experiment, he judged. She had no basis for the claims she made. He couldn’t imagine the Leviathan RINGKNIGHT beating Claude any day of the week. In the footage she showed him, Alyn had beaten his brother bloody. He even took off Claude’s whole arm. Ripped clean off, multiple times. And each time, it grew back, stronger than the last. Superhuman regeneration the likes of which the world had never seen before. In his frenzy, Oliver doubted the king even realized he had the ability himself. Such a thing made him more unkillable than he was already believed to be. A terrifying truth. A terrifying secret.

In order to travel between the surface layers, there existed massive spiraling highway ramps that connected them from floor to floor. Highway Babylonia, the one that had collapsed four years prior, was the one that connected Layer 1 to Layer 2. The reconstruction effort was incomplete, but it was well enough for several dozens to descend at a time. Along the roads, Claude had ordered a wealth of trees to be planted, and hollow pathways built in the base for the roots to grow into. The ironwoods that their scientists had bred over the centuries grew rapidly, unlike the trees of old. They reached full maturation in only five years. Their massive branches already swayed heavily overhead, with leaves that cast flickering, overlapping flecks of dimmed light across the crude black pavement.

It was here that Claude felt most unsafe. His hands slickened with sweat, and he felt embarrassed knowing that Lilya could feel each drop. She looked at him and smiled, as if that would make him feel better, but it didn’t. No, there was something very real about this fear. More than mere anxiety. A thought occurred to him then, of the lapse in judgement that had likely cost him the life of his brother. He decided he wouldn’t make the same mistake, and swapped half the blocks he usually left for his durability augments into his perception instead. As the minutes passed and the blocks clicked into place, he felt his range of insight increase in real time. How far could he hear now? Whispers a mile away? Two? And the tremors underfoot… he could pinpoint each one for each man and woman they had following them.

Then one more final, important sound. The sound of metal slides pulled against their rails, and then snapping back into place. Nine, no ten, in total.

“Sir Kamran!” he called back as he pulled Lilya closer to his body. “Shields!”

The River RINGKNIGHT was the oldest of their order, and with Kinziru gone, the one he trusted most. As expected, the veteran soldier understood right away, and relayed the command down the line until the plasmic shields of the GUARDs sparked into being across the length of their party. Energy-based firearms were more commonplace than ever now and far cheaper too, so they didn’t expect to have to contend with physical arms. The shields would help, but weren’t designed to block bullets.

“Damn it,” he thought. “Do I go to stop them, or do I stay and protect Lilya?”

Before he could decide, he noticed the barrel of a gun poke up from behind him and instantly cranked his speed trigger. It was too late. Muzzle flashes exploded around them, and even in slowtime, the bullets moved far faster than anything he could stop. More importantly, his swap back from perception into durability hadn’t completed yet; if he tried moving now at this speed, his body would break.

But he could see. He saw each bullet fire and followed their trajectory. Little nudges, and he could dodge each one. Him and her both. Then he let slowtime go, and the thunder of the gunfire blew out their hearing. Several screamed in pain or horror, and bodies collapsed on the road.

Down the line, Oliver had his gun out, but he didn’t fire. His trigger finger trembled. A stray bullet struck his paleplate-covered arm and bruised the skin beneath it. Lisica fired five times the moment the thugs poked their heads out, and five died by her hand. The rest scurried off, happy with their assault, and the moment was over.

Sir Sam Embers and Lily Yukina Chiyoda both laid chase. The rest tended to the wounded and the dead. Claude pressed his bride’s head close to his chest, and so couldn’t see how her eyes raged.

The five that Lisica had managed to kill were thrown in a pile and examined by Sir Kamran. They all wore the cloaks typical of the Endwolves, and even had their infamous emblem sewn onto the breasts of them. When Claude saw for himself, he cursed aloud and cracked the road underfoot in his anger.

Due to the attack, the tour was delayed, and the bulk of the entourage stayed camped out at the base of the highway to wait for the two RINGKNIGHTs to return. Sir Sam Embers had managed to track one down, but only managed to bring back a corpse. The body foamed at the mouth with sunken eyes.

Lily Yukina Chiyoda never returned that night.

They sent out search parties and contacted the local GUARDs to help in the effort, but hours passed without news. The bride nearly ran out into the dark to find the knight herself, but was stopped by her father. Unable to do anything then, her rage was left to boil under her skin through the night.