Chapter 1037: Taming Contentment - 5 |
The triple betrothal was announced, the candidate for such an enormous feat could be seen standing proud by everyone.
Ren was the central figure by facing the ceremony that tested his ’worth’ to be the fianc of such important young ladies.
The complex performance ended with the seven steps. The same seven that Larissa had corrected over two weeks with the methodical patience of someone who knows exactly where she needs to arrive and who doesn’t mind having had that situation to herself, because the destination justifies it.
The precise path from the waiting position to the center of the ceremonial space, the angles of the hands in the exact positions, the weight distributed the way the protocol established for announcements, appeals and behests of this nature, each placement deliberate without appearing to be stoically deliberate. The kind of execution that worked because it looked like not trying.
The Mantis executed it... So it was truly ’not even trying’.
Not visibly cheating also. There was no active fusion in the sense the hall could have seen or felt, not the shimmer of scales or the quality of movement that announced a beast bond operating at the surface. This was something finer: a minimal interface between Ren’s cerebellum and the beast, enough for the body to do what the mind alone had never managed without that additional layer of control.
The result was exactly what Larissa had calculated it would be.
She watched him execute step four and something in her expression did what her expression rarely did in public.
’There it is,’ she thought, with a shiver in her back and the satisfaction of a calculation that verifies. ’Exactly like that.’
Then it landed.
’Oh,’ thought Liora. The "oh" was the category that didn’t need elaboration because it already contained everything there was to say.
Luna woke from her own thoughts at step six.
’Who is that gallant...’
A fraction of a second.
’Wait.’
Another fraction.
’REN. THAT IS REN DOING THAT. SINCE WHEN DOES HE DO THAT? DID LARISSA TEACH HIM THAT? HOW...’
Externally, Luna Starweaver looked forward with the composure of someone following the program with appropriate attention.
Internally she was having a crisis of considerable proportions.
’Larissa,’ she thought, with the intensity of someone arriving at a conclusion they should have arrived at earlier, ’knew exactly what she was doing when she asked to teach him alone.’
Step seven arrived at the correct position.
Ren stopped.
The hall, which had been processing the last few minutes with the focused attention that impeccable execution produced, processed what it had seen in the silence that followed. Not just the performance of the steps, the complete picture of someone who had no business being uncertain about his place in this room, and who clearly wasn’t. Nobody could object to that.
And nobody could object, either, when the three princes and Selphira announced the welcome to the family and the pass of the betrothal ceremony, Ren formally promised to the three most important houses in the kingdom.
Julius handed the three boxes to Ren with the now relaxed gesture of someone completing one part of a process and ceding the next to the only person who could execute it.
Ren opened them.
The Mantis held him in the correct posture while his hands did what they needed to do, and the result of that combination was still exactly what Larissa had calculated it would be.
The first pair of earrings arrived in Larissa’s hands.
Larissa received them with the composure she had for everything, which this time was her way of not doing exactly the opposite. She had the viewing angle that came from standing beside Ren, which meant she saw the crystal up close before the other two did.
And what she saw was this: that the artifact market’s idea of what was "appropriate for high-level events", the things the noble families considered worthy of such occasions, didn’t come close to what Ren had made.
Complex runes integrated intricately into the small structure, not merely engraved on the surface but structured through the body of the crystal in three dimensions, built into the architecture rather than added afterward. The kind of work that required an enormous capacity for manipulation and a deep understanding not just of rune systems but of the mana system of the person who would wear them, because these runes were calibrated to function with the mana of their owner specifically, or not at all.
’He knows me,’ thought Larissa. ’He knows exactly the shape of my system.’
Something that wasn’t surprising, she had understood this intellectually, but that landing in this small and beautiful concrete form carried a different weight from the same knowledge in the abstract.
She put them on.
The artifact activated and the sensation was that of something finding its correct place, adjusting to the circulation of her mana with the precision of something made to her specific measurements. Larissa kept the correct expression, barely.
’This is not a conventional betrothal gift. This is the work and pure dedication of someone who used time he didn’t have. Scarce time that I know exactly how much it cost, because I was the one administering the little free time he had left.’
The second pair arrived in Liora’s hands.
Liora didn’t receive them quickly. Not because she didn’t want to, because there was a specific moment in that transition, the instant when the crystal was still in Ren’s hands and not yet in hers, that she wanted to hold for one more second before it ended.
She finally held them.
The warmth was perceptible... not temperature but mana signature. The trace of the hours Ren had spent working them was in the structure of the crystal the same way the smell of a kitchen stayed in clothing long after you had left it. They carried Ren in essence.
His jade mana was faintly present in the crystallized structure, but more than that, they carried the Ren who had been focused and quiet, doing something precise for a long time because he had decided it was worth doing. That specific version of him, preserved in the object.