CHAPTER 26: NOW OPEN SECRET

Anomalies.

The word rung in my head like a gong.....and if I remember correctly.

```

[DEATH FLAG #4: CLEARED - UNEXPECTED RESOLUTION]

[ORIGINAL: You die from poison]

[ACTUAL: You saved enemy from poison]

[COUNCIL INTERVENTION: CONFIRMED]

[BOTH YOU AND ADRIAN: Marked for elimination and are now Anomalies!]

[NARRATIVE IMPACT: MAXIMUM]

[BONUS ACHIEVEMENT: "THE HERO’S SAVIOR"]

[REWARD: +5,000 Villain Score]

[BONUS: Adrian’s Fate Points -2,000]

[ADRIAN’S FATE POINTS: 8,000 → 6,000]

[NEW STATUS: "The Villain Who Saves Heroes"]

[REPUTATION: Extremely Complicated]

[WARNING: Council of Fates now knows you’re aware]

[WARNING: Situation will escalate]

[NEW QUEST: DISCOVER THE TRUE ENEMY]

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This....so it was the Council that’s behind it after all. Those bastards are going to kill their hero. I can’t help but feel some satisfaction from that. I must have make him look so incompetent after all the golden opportunities they gave him.

This wasn’t just an assassination. This was the Council of Fates cleanings house. The Council wanted us both dead. Which meant Adrian was also becoming a problem for them. Maybe he was getting too independent.

Maybe his protagonist role was going off-script. Maybe they just wanted to reset and try again with a fresh hero.

The Headmaster was still questioning the assassin, but I barely heard it. My mind was racing through implications.

Regardless, we were both targets now.

Which meant everything I thought I understood about this conflict was more complicated than I’d realized.

☆☆▪︎☆☆

The guards took the assassin away and the Headmaster dismissed the banquet, sending shocked students back to their dorms under armed escort. Faculty and senior students began the investigation, checking every bottle of wine, every piece of food, looking for additional threats.

Adrian approached me as I was leaving, Uncle Victor and Damian flanking me like bodyguards.

"Hadeon Ravana." His voice was formal. Hundreds of witnesses still lingering, watching our every move. "You saved my life tonight."

"So you’ve mentioned."

"I owe you a debt."

The words seemed to physically pain him. Adrian Celestius, the golden hero, indebted to the academy’s worst villain. I could see him calculating how this looked. How it would play in the gossip mills. How it complicated his narrative further.

Ah! No wonder they wanted his competent ass taken down.

Good.

"Consider it an investment," I said, loud enough for the crowd to hear. "I told you this morning, prefer you alive. Dead villains are boring. But dead heroes?" I smiled. "It makes things even more boring."

A few nervous laughs rippled through the onlookers. Adrian’s jaw tightened.

"This doesn’t change what we are," he said quietly, just for me. For only me to hear.

"Rivals? Enemies? Two people someone very powerful wants dead?" I met his eyes. "No, I suppose it doesn’t change that. But it does make things... interesting."

I turned and walked away, leaving him standing there with the weight of public debt on his shoulders.

Behind me, I heard him mutter something under his breath. But I was already thinking ahead and started planning my next moves, considering implications.

Someone wanted us both dead.

Someone with enough resources to hire professional assassins and waste thirty thousand gold on poison.

Someone who used the term anomalies.

The Council of Fates had made their first direct move.

And they’d failed.

Now we’d see what happened when you pissed off beings that manipulated reality itself.

I really don’t think it’s going to end well...but, I’m still going to continue anyway. What else lies behind that? Washing my neck and waiting to be beheaded? When I did not even ask to be here in the first place.

Yes....yes, fuck Fate.

☆☆▪︎▪︎☆☆

Midnight found me in my headquarters, surrounded by my inner circle. Damian, Marcus, Lucille, and Isabella. The four people who knew at least part of the truth.

"Let me make sure I understand," Marcus said, for the third time. "Someone tried to poison Adrian, not you. Using Shadowbane toxin worth more than most people earn in a decade. And they had you as a secondary target.

"Adrian was supposed to try and kill you so we’d draw out the second assassin but instead, it was Adrian that was the main target?"

"That’s the summary, yes."

"But you were supposed to fake your death tonight. That was the whole plan."

"Plans change."

"’Plans change,’" Marcus repeated flatly. "That’s your analysis? Of the night someone tried to kill Adrian?"

"Give me a moment to process, Marcus. It’s been an eventful evening."

Lucille spoke up from her position by the window. "The assassin called you both anomalies. That’s not some student language. That’s someone else’s words that must mean something."

They all looked at him as if they expected me to have an answer. And maybe I did. Besides, there’s no harm in sharing some things, they were now all under the gaze of the Council anyway.

"Because what we’re facing isn’t just Adrian Celestius. It’s not just political rivals or jealous nobles. We’re fighting something that’s been controlling this world for at least three hundred years. Probably longer. Something old and incredibly ancient."

Something that shouldn’t be a reality. But here I am and there they are.

I pulled out the Ravana journal Uncle Victor had shown me and placed it on the table.

"The Council of Fates," I said. "That’s what my family calls them. I don’t know if that’s their real name, but it’s accurate enough."

That’s what they were also called in the book anyway.

"They are Five entities who manipulate our world like we’re.....characters in a story."

Marcus leaned forward. "What do you mean, like a story’"

"I mean exactly that." I opened the journal. "Every hundred years, they choose someone to be the hero. Someone with talent, ambition, and the right circumstances. They enhance that person’s abilities. Give them destiny. Make reality itself bend in their favor."

"Adrian," Lucille said flatly.

"Adrian," I confirmed. "SSS-rank awakening at fifteen is not a natural talent, well in a way it is but you understand what I mean. That’s the Council’s enhancement. His luck and his ability to stumble into perfect opportunities, as well as his charisma that makes people want to follow him."

"Manufactured," Isabella breathed.

"Exactly. The Council creates a hero, gives them advantages, and sets them on a path. They’re supposed to defeat the great evil, unite the kingdoms, bring peace and prosperity. The perfect storybook ending."