Ari POV 

"Your Highness?" Iris knocked on the door, the Rivendalian crown in her hand, the light blue crystals glinting in the light of the rising moon. "You forgot something." 

The smile on her face never faltered as she placed the ornate golden headpiece on my head, positioning the large crescent moon of the centre upwards. It was heavy, but, after having it for nearly 3 months and being here for nearly a year, you get practice. 

"Why do we have to have the meeting at night?" I said, adjusting the stupidly large garment in the mirror. 

"It's less likely for anyone to be awake and accidentally walk into the meeting. We need to discuss what happened last month at Mezalea, and Darcy and Aalto had something they wanted to mention." She said, fixing a golden chain around my neck. 

I picked up the Rune Blade, spinning it around in my hand before shoving it into the scabbard on my back and breathing in. 

"You'll be fine, Ari." Iris dropped the formal tone, placing a hand on my shoulder. "Nothing can go wrong, it's a normal meeting." 

I nodded, pushing the doors of my dressing room open and walking through the castle to the meeting hall, opening the doors with a flourish and taking my seat at the head of the table. 

I looked around, counting the heads. One, two, th- nope. Two others. 

"Who are we waiting for?" I asked, cringing internally at how regal my voice sounded. I was amongst friends, I had no reason to be formal. 

"Darcy." Aeron said. They still looked awful, dark shadows under their eyes and scars still criss-crossing their body. Still, they were here, which is better than nothing. 

"Who wants to bet he'll have forgotten?" Aalto smiles, her sheet of straight silver hair falling around her shoulders as she giggled. "10 gold pieces for he forgot." 

"Or he will have been caught up flirting with Hyperion." Aeron shrugged. 

"And we have to wait for him to arrive before we can start the meeting." I sighed, leaning back in the chair. 

Aeron fidgeted with their circlet, adjusting the leaves woven into the gold plated metal. Aalto picked a pink waterlily from her dress, sliding it across the table to me, blushing the same shade of pink as the flower. 

I picked it up, feeling heat also creep across my face and put it into my hair. 

Darcy barged in, hair plastered to his forehead with sweat, waving Apollo into the stables where Agate,  Luftwa, and Amaya were relaxing. His glasses, not needed but basically everyone else wears a crown and Darcy would never wear a crown ever, were perched on top of his head, the chain hanging loose. 

"How late am I?" He asked, taking his seat beside Aeron and brushing his bleached bangs out his eyes. "Hyperion needed help in his empire-" 

Aeron held his hand out to Aalto, a cheeky smile on their face. Aalto smiled, passing her the gold. 

"Anyways, let's begin. A month ago, our attack on Mezalea was a success, but ended in one of our own-" I gestured to Aeron "-being out of action for a few weeks. Normally, that wouldn't matter and we would be able to resume operation without Aeron, however, new intel has been received that, well, I don't know what." I looked to Darcy, who had told me that he had something he wanted to share with us. 

"I was approached by Ignius not too long ago, maybe only a few days ago, and he told me of..." He sighed, before dropping an absolute bombshell of information. "He told me that Skye had been corrupted by Evangeline." 

The table blew up, not literally, although Darcy is there so it's never impossible. Shouts filled the air, people pointing fingers. Scared accusations. 

The moonlight filling the rowdy hall faded for a moment as something passed over the moon, but the screaming champions didn't notice. 

"What the fuck do we do then??!" Aeron yelled, throwing faer hands up in the air in defeat. "We've lost Werrenville, the Lost Empire, partially lost Mezalea, and now we've lost the Undergrove!" 

"Aeron, calm down, we can figure it out. Darcy said, evidently a bit scared because Aeron rarely loses his shit. 

"HOW??? HOW CAN WE, DARCY???" Ok, forgotten to call Darcy Fuckbucket, we can be scared now. 

"Sit down, both of you." I said, voice stern. They ignored it and kept arguing. "I said SIT THE FUCK DOWN!" 

They both jumped, sitting in their seats, a little scared of me. 

"Now, can we continue." Aalto asked. "Because I als-" 

"HELLO MY FUCKERS,  I HAVE SOMETHING FOR YOU!!" 

Bright purple hair flashed through the door. The top of a black wizards hat, stars and sheer mesh fabric handing from the brim, hit the doorway on the way in. 

Tsuki smiled, a green leather book in their arms. They looked exhausted, but it's eyes were full of a twinkling chaos. "Behold!" 

They slammed the huge book on the table. An ornate dragon centred the front cover, intricate golden lettering tracing around it, reading 'The Book of Prophecy.' 

Ok, I understand this was mean to be a meeting for the champions and all but this is interesting.

The real question is how the fuck did Tsuki know we were here?