Omega's Rebirth-Chapter 699: The Academy 2 ()
The doors to the courtroom swung open of their own accord, just as Neveah was just a few steps away from it, revealing her arrival to everyone in the courtroom before she was even ready to make her presence known.
They opened in an eerily slow manner like it was in some kind of slow motion, directed by an unseen force. But nothing looked or felt amiss.
Neveah’s brows furrowed slightly, pondering if this was a normal phenomenon, she had never been to the courtroom before but even the audience hall of Dragon Keep did not have an in-built sensor mechanism, it would only interrupt proceedings continuously whenever anyone even walked by.
The only measure that needed to be taken with halls utilized for critical decision making was to employ a soundproofing mechanism that would prevent the leak of sensitive information beyond the walls of the hall during proceedings and the entire Dragon Keep was built accordingly with that in mind.
Neveah was not all that certain about the layout of the rider academy and so though she glanced suspiciously at the doors, she headed in.
Neveah’s gaze first met that of Menarx, and then Adrienne, after which her gaze took in the presence of Master Maloway and the other masters of the Riders Academy who formed the small trial council.
The council rose to their feet, acknowledging Neveah’s arrival with small bows of respect. Neveah returned the bow before she continued her observation.
Finally, Neveah’s gaze settled on the dark fairy, chained to the ground in the middle of the hall.
She was the central attraction of course, but Neveah had initially refrained from acknowledging the presence of the dark fairy first, simply because Neveah did not deem her worthy of such recognition. 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝙬𝙚𝓫𝒏𝓸𝓿𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝙤𝓶
Neveah’s eyes did not meet that of the dark fairy, the dark fairy’s movement was limited by the weighty chains and so Neveah assumed it would prove quite a task for her to turn around and meet Neveah’s eyes.
But the silent, barely audible scoff from the dark fairy was more than enough for Neveah to know the dark fairy knew she had come and even more so, knew why she had come.
Neveah read the question in Menarx’s eyes as her gaze moved back to his, but she could not make an audible declaration of Zephyr’s unknown whereabouts with the Dark Fairy in the room.
Neveah had only taken a few steps into the courtroom when her ears picked up a strange sound, like metal clinking on an equally hard surface and Neveah’s eyes moved swiftly to identify the source of the sound,
Almost immediately, her gaze zeroed on a small metal object rolling across the ground from the hallway into the courtroom and Neveah guessed she may not have been the reason behind the dramatic opening of the doors,
The metallic object rolled to a stop at Neveah’s feet, resting against the sole of her boot and Neveah’s frown deepened.
’Not entirely the reason, at least...’ Neveah corrected her previous conclusion.
The object had made a beeline for her, clearly it was somehow meant to be received by her.
Leaning down, she made to pick up the metal orb but froze midway when Menarx called to her.
"Veah! Don’t! We do not know what it is, it may be harmful." Menarx said, swiftly making his way over to Neveah.
Neveah passed a look to Menarx who crossed the room in just a moment and came to stand by her side.
"And it would not be harmful to you?" Neveah asked with a raised brow.
"My Lady, Lord Menarx is right. Let him have a look first." Master Maloway spoke up from where he stood, leaning against his cane.
His voice, deep and filled with insight prevented Neveah from arguing further. Though they had not met for longer than a year and the time spent together was brief and unexpectedly cut short, Neveah still recognised Master Maloway as the only true teacher she had in the ways of a dragon rider.
Menarx did not wait, he leaned down and picked up the item, bringing it closer to their view.
It was a small metal ball, only large enough to fit in the center of Menarx’s palm.
It did not strike Neveah as familiar in anyway but it seemed much different for Menarx who stared at the metal orb with a deep frown marring his handsome features.
"Do you recognise it?" Neveah asked Menarx.
"I have seen this a few times before. It is called a whisper orb, but the human population calls it the ’the dark eye’. A mechanism used far back in the dark empire to convey a secret missive... I have not seen one of this in centuries."
"In the right hands, it reveals a hidden message. In the wrong hands, it releases lethal toxins." Menarx revealed to Neveah.
"Give it here." Neveah demanded immediately.
"Dragons are impervious to this toxin. It was used more often to control the human population." Menarx explained.
"Yet if the message it holds is still hidden, it goes to say you are not the right hand." Neveah guessed.
Menarx nodded and hesitantly handed the orb over to Neveah, but he did not move from her side.
The moment the orb was in Neveah’s hand, a message imprinted itself in black lettering on her palm, disappearing almost immediately but not before Neveah had read it through.
’A fair exchange...’
’The dragon spawn for Celeste...’
’A life for a life.’
’Come alone... wolf princess.’
Those were the words that had appeared briefly before disappearing just as quickly and Neveah just stared at her palm in silence.
"What did it say?" Menarx asked anxiously.
"They have Zephyr... they want her." Neveah whispered to Menarx in the few words she could get out, failing to notice Imagor’s timely arrival.
Menarx’s eyes had gone wide with horror, just becoming aware of Zephyr’s disappearance and in his shock, he was unable to prevent Imagor who lunged at the dark fairy.
"That wench dies!!" Imagor’s roar sent the very earth shaking.
