Chapter 10, The Night of Judgment Part 1.

Royal Palace Banquet Hall – Athens

Evening of April 6th, 1896The Games had ended, but the true contest was just beginning.

The banquet hall was a cathedral of gold and empire.

Light poured from a hundred crystal chandeliers overhead, refracted through hand-cut prisms that painted the high ceilings with bands of warm, fractured color. Candlelight flickered on velvet-draped columns, their dark red folds bearing the crests and colors of every participating nation—an assembly of symbols too carefully spaced, too politely ranked, to be accidental.

Every country's banner flew here, but none hung higher than Greece's.

And none drew more eyes than Russia's.

The Tables

Two grand banquet tables—white-linened, gold-threaded, and perfectly symmetrical—ran the length of the hall like parallel rivers. Rows of crystal goblets caught the light and threw it back in sharp glints. Every fork, knife, and plate had been placed by exacting hands. Even the seating cards were edged in filigree.

The tables weren't arranged for conversation.

They were arranged for politics.

For watching.

Around them sat the people who shaped continents.

Kings draped in royal medals.Crown princes barely into manhood.Generals whose decisions could ignite a war.Diplomats who spoke in riddles and treaties.Athletes still bruised from glory.Noblewomen whose fans hid more than blushes.

Everyone wore silk or steel.

And everyone wore a smile that didn't reach their eyes.

They were seated not by nationality, but by a crueler calculus:

Rank dictated who sat near the King.Gossip dictated who sat farthest from the fire.

The highest nobles were placed along the central spines of the tables—closer to the monarch, closer to each other. Lesser dignitaries were placed further out, flanked by translators and advisors, always just out of earshot.

Power did not move in straight lines here.It moved in whispers. In glances. In arrangement.

The Sound of Civilization

Musicians played in the corner, an ensemble of harp, violin, flute, and soft drum—Greco-Roman motifs blended with imperial flourishes. The melodies never rose above the pitch of polite conversation.

Servants moved like trained phantoms, draped in starched white, faces neutral, arms loaded with silver trays and crystal decanters. Wine flowed like water—French, Austrian, and Greek reds alike, each vintage more storied than the next.

Laughter chimed now and then—usually too loud to be real.

Plates were filled.Cups were lifted.Words were exchanged—

But no one was really focused on the food.

Because every few moments—every eye, regardless of accent, allegiance, or ambition—would drift.

Subtly. Involuntarily.

Back to them.

To the two figures seated at the center table.

The man no one could stop talking about.And the woman who had walked him into legend.

Arthas and Xania Enter

They did not arrive first.They did not arrive last.

They arrived precisely when the room had begun to believe it was safe again—when the nobles had leaned back into routine, when conversations resumed, when forks clinked against porcelain and wine was being poured a little too generously to dull the day's unrest.

And then—

The doors opened.

Not flung.

Not thrown.

Simply—opened.

With perfect timing. Quiet. Seamless.

And they stepped through.

They were not announced.

There was no trumpeting herald, no footman calling names.

But they didn't need it.

Because the moment they crossed the threshold, the music faltered. The notes slipped. The room noticed.

It wasn't the sound they brought.

It was the absence of sound they created.

Arthas

He wore a white formal tunic—the finest the palace tailors could assemble in four frantic hours. The sleeves had been removed entirely to accommodate his arms. The fabric pulled taut across his chest and shoulders, the belt of polished silver cinched at his waist like a warrior's sash. The tunic skirt parted cleanly at the thigh, falling like a Grecian robe, revealing tanned, powerful legs beneath.

A black ribbon bound his golden hair at the nape of his neck, though a few loose strands had rebelled—as if even his hair refused to obey lesser laws.

His hands were bare.His feet, gloved in finely stitched leather sandals—but not softened by them.His skin still bore a sun-born glow, dusted by light, as if he had stepped directly from Olympus into silk.

And his eyes—

They scanned the room.

Not with hesitation.Not with nervousness.Not even with curiosity.

But with the unspoken awareness of a man used to knowing where danger lives.

His gaze did not dart.It drifted.Slow. Measuring. Certain.

He did not search for allies.

He looked for threats.

He Walked Without Chaperone

No entourage.No advisor.No guard assigned to "mind the creature."

He walked without guidance because he needed none.

Because no one could tell him where to go.

And yet—he did not walk alone.

Xania

She was beside him.

Not behind.

Beside.

Her presence was radiant, effortless, and weaponized.

She wore crimson—deep and royal. A dress stitched in hours but fitted like prophecy. A single shoulder bare, the fabric flowing down her left arm like a banner of blood and silk. Pearls glinted along her collarbone, a subtle nod to heritage, not vanity. Her hair, swept and braided into an imperial crown, shimmered gold under the light of the chandeliers.

She was every inch the Grand Duchess.

But her arm rested on his.

Lightly.

Possessively.

Not as a woman escorted.

But as a woman who had chosen her equal.

Her posture said:

I am not hiding.I am not apologizing.I brought him here. And you will see him.

Together, they moved like inevitability.

And as they passed the outer tables—past nobles who paused mid-toast, past soldiers who stood half-risen in reflex, past diplomats who stopped speaking mid-sentence—

No one spoke to them.

Because to do so first would be to claim ownership of what had become legend.

And no one dared.

Not yet.

The Room Reacts

Silence did not fall when Arthas and Xania entered.It unfolded—like fabric drawn taut across the walls of the hall.

And in that breathless pause, nobles and monarchs did what they did best: they began calculating.

With eyes.

With whispers.

With posture.

At the third table to the left of the king's dais, the American ambassador, a rotund man in ivory gloves and a stiff blue coat, leaned toward his pale, sweating aide. He kept his voice low—but not quiet.

"Find out who stitched that dress," he said, narrowing his eyes, "and who taught her to command silence with a glance."

His aide, trying not to look directly at Xania, scribbled something shaky onto his notepad.

Across the room, a French countess—all black silk and high feathers—narrowed her gaze beneath a fan of imported lace.

She studied Xania not like a rival, but like an artwork she could not decipher.

Her voice, when it came, was a whisper shaped for daggers.

"She wears him like armor."

She didn't mean it as praise.

But she said it with awe.

Near the marble hearth, a Prussian general, resplendent in iron-gray with a saber strapped to his thigh, sipped his wine and leaned discreetly toward the Russian duke seated beside him.

"If she marries him," the general said, tone sharp, "your whole succession line is ruined."

The duke did not respond.

He simply clenched his jaw, watching Xania smile gently as she passed.

The implication hung in the air like the edge of a blade.

But from the high box near the east window, seated like a moonlit statue in sapphire silk, a young Greek princess said nothing at first.

Then, quietly—almost too quietly to hear—she smiled and spoke to her lady-in-waiting:

"No. It's saved."

The woman beside her blinked. "Pardon, Your Grace?"

The princess just kept smiling.

The Seats Are Chosen

The banquet seating chart was not printed on paper.It was written in gesture, in power, and in intent.

The King of Greece had made his decision—quietly, behind closed doors, after the last event of the day.

And now it played out across linen and polished oak like a game of chess already in motion.

Arthas was placed two seats from the king.

Not at the end. Not at a secondary table. Not behind a flag or between foreign guests.

Two chairs from the monarch himself.

One seat between him and the Crown Prince Constantine.

And beside Arthas?

Not across.

Not down the line.

Beside him—was Xania.

It was an open declaration.

There was no more pretense of neutrality.

No fiction of "a grateful competitor" and his "well-positioned patroness."

They were not seated like athlete and noble.

They were seated like consort and queen.

Forks paused mid-air. Wine glasses were lowered. Conversations tilted.

Because in every royal court in Europe, placement was policy.

Proximity to the king meant favor. Endorsement. Access.

And when a man who had not existed the day before was seated beside royalty—flanked by a Romanov girl who had defied her own bloodline to lift him into legend—

The question was no longer what had happened today.The question was: What happens now?

The Toasts Begin

Royal Banquet Hall – Evening of April 6th, 1896

The music dimmed.

Forks paused. Glasses stilled. A ripple of stillness moved through the banquet like the tide pulling back before a wave.

A tall military officer—a Greek colonel with silver epaulettes and a voice like cut stone—rose from his chair near the head of the king's table.

He did not shout.

He did not grin.

He simply stood, glass in hand, and spoke with the clarity of a man used to commanding respect on battlefields as well as in courts.

"To the day's champion," he said, "—the golden man of Russia…"

Eyes turned toward Arthas.

"…who reminded us that flesh and faith may still outpace machines and medals."

There was a beat of silence.

Then the clinking of glass stems—not thunderous, not eager, but deliberate.

Some lifted their cups with pride.

Some with hesitation.

Some with calculating reluctance—eyes watching, gauging reactions, waiting to see who lifted first.

But they all lifted.

Arthas sat still at the table.

He did not smile.

He did not lift his own glass.

But he nodded. Once.

The motion was slow. Controlled. Sovereign.

As if acknowledging the toast was a gift he chose to bestow, not a courtesy required of him.

And that was when—

The second toast came.

The Prince Speaks

Across the room, from a table framed by sapphire banners and crystal fruit bowls, a figure stood.

A young Austrian prince, no more than eighteen, dressed in pale cream with a burgundy sash across his chest and hair combed like he was preparing for a portrait.

Slender.

Beautiful.

Dangerous in the way only someone born into perfect control can be.

He raised his glass with a tilt that was both elegant and deliberate—his posture designed to draw the eye.

And it did.

"And to the duchess," he said, his accent smooth, his voice just loud enough to carry across the gold-lit hall, "who delivered him to us…"

His eyes were not on Arthas.

They were locked on Xania.

"…let us not forget the hand behind the sword."

The room responded.

Not with cheers, but with something worse—

Laughter.

Light.

Tinkling.

Polite.

But sharp.

The kind of laugh that filled royal courts. The kind that smiled while measuring the weight of a scandal. The kind that meant:

She's not just noble anymore.She's involved.She's claiming him.And we'll see if he lets her keep it.

Xania's smile didn't fade—but it hardened.

She did not lower her gaze.

But she did still.

Like a falcon who hears the bowstring but does not yet dive.

Her hand on the table curled, fingertips brushing the hem of her dress.

Arthas Reacts

He did not speak.

He did not move.

But he turned his head.

Slowly.

With precision.

His gaze cut across the laughter like the wind through smoke.

Not fast. Not angry.

But final.

His eyes met the prince's—

And held.

The prince's smile flickered.

Just slightly.

Something in him reacted—a twitch of instinct honed over generations of breeding and political dance.

Because Arthas didn't glare.

He didn't scowl.

He looked at him the way a storm watches a torch.

Not because it fears the fire.

But because it has decided whether to blow it out or not.

The prince sat down.

Still smiling.

But now it was tight.

Controlled.

His fingers toyed with the base of his glass, swirling the wine without drinking it.

So… he is possessive, then.

Good.

Let's see how far it goes.