THE DISCARDED SON-IN-LAWS GOD-LEVEL DOMINION SYSTEM

Chapter 26

The thirty-first of October dawned gray and quiet.

Ethan woke early in the white bedroom on the sixtieth floor of Skyline One. The city lay hushed beneath a low sky. A thin mist clung to the glass towers like breath. He lay on his back for a few minutes without moving, listening to the silence. His ribs no longer hurt. The System had healed him during the night, as it always did. He felt strong, rested, and calm.

Today was the day.

He rose and showered and dressed slowly. For a long time he stood in front of the closet and looked at the garment bag hanging at the far end. The old gray one from Marquis & Daughters. He unzipped it and lifted out the midnight suit.

The cloth was soft and heavy against his hands. Each button was polished bone. He put on the white shirt first, then the trousers, then the long jacket. He fastened the buttons one by one. When he looked into the mirror, a tall man stood there in a suit that fit him as if it had been made for him. His shoulders were broad. His eyes were steady. On the inside of the left lapel, hidden against his chest, a small silver dragon coiled in thread.

The jade pendant lay over his heart. The bronze ring glowed faintly on his right forefinger. He closed his hand and felt the slow, even warmth run up his arm.

"Father," he said softly to the mirror. "I am ready."

A quiet knock came at the door. Ghost stepped inside, silent as a shadow. He had traded his black coat for a dark suit, and the scar on his jaw had begun to heal. Behind him stood Daniel, nervous and pale in his best jacket, and Mrs. Tan, who had insisted on coming despite everyone's protests.

"Madam Wu is waiting downstairs," Ghost said. "She says she will travel in the second car."

"And Victor?"

"He is already at the Pavilion's outer road. He says he will watch the east gate from a distance and report if the Lockwood men move."

Ethan nodded. "Isabella?"

"She sent a message an hour ago." Ghost hesitated. "She will be inside. She says she will find a way to stand near the south gate when the time comes."

"Then we have friends," Ethan said. A small, tired smile touched his mouth. "I did not expect that."

Mrs. Tan stepped forward. She wore a black dress and a gray scarf, and her hair was tied neatly back. Her hands were folded in front of her. "Mr. Cross. I do not know what will happen tonight. But I want you to know that working for you has been the greatest honor of my life."

He turned to look at her. For a moment he did not speak.

"Mrs. Tan," he said at last. "Three years ago, you handed me a cup of tea in a kitchen when everyone else walked past. I never forgot it."

Her eyes filled with tears. "It was only tea."

"It was the only kindness I had in that house."

She pressed her hand to her mouth. Ghost looked away politely.

"Let us go," Ethan said.

They rode down in the elevator together. Outside, three black cars waited at the curb. The morning air was cold and clean. A thin wind pushed through the empty street. Ethan stepped out and for a moment stood looking up at the sky.

He thought of the long walk from the Whitmore mansion in the rain. The blood in his mouth. The cold of the wet stone. Three weeks ago, he had lain in an alley and waited to die. Now he stood in his father's coat at the edge of a hundred-year-old secret.

He was not afraid.

Madam Wu rode in the second car with her hands folded over a small silk purse. When Ethan stopped beside her door, she looked up at him with calm, grave eyes. "Your father used to stand exactly where you are standing," she said, "on the morning of the gathering. He always checked each of our faces. He said a leader who did not look at his people before a hard day was only a man in a fine coat."

"Do I pass?"

"You are looking at me," she said. "That is enough."

He smiled faintly and closed her door.

The cars drove for two hours through the gray countryside. The road climbed slowly into the hills. Autumn trees stood bare and black on either side. The mist thickened until the windows were white. At last, around noon, the trees fell away and the road opened onto a wide stone terrace.

The Silver Pavilion stood at the top of the hill.

It was larger than he had imagined. A long low palace of white stone and dark wood, with a roof of curved silver tiles that gleamed even under the heavy sky. Seven tall gates faced the terrace. Beyond them, he could see the long courtyards and the tops of old plum trees. A great stone dragon guarded the central stair, its mouth open in a silent roar.

Ghost stepped out of the car beside him and stood very still. "I have never been past the third gate," he said quietly.

"Neither have I."

"It is not too late to turn back."

"It has been too late for ten years." Ethan closed the car door. He turned to the others. "Daniel, Mrs. Tan, you stay with the cars. If I am not out by dawn, drive to Madam Wu's house and wait for instructions. Do not come in for any reason."

Daniel's face fell. "Mr. Cross..."

"That is an order."

Daniel swallowed hard and nodded. Mrs. Tan took his arm.

Ghost and Madam Wu followed Ethan up the broad stone stairs. The wind pulled at their coats. Silver tiles chimed softly overhead. At the top of the stair stood the east gate, a tall arch of black lacquered wood, with a dragon's head carved at the center.

Two men in silver masks stood on either side of it. They wore long gray robes and held iron staffs. When Ethan stopped before them, they crossed their staffs in front of the door.

"State your name and house," said the one on the left.

"Ethan Cross. Heir of the House of Cross."

A long silence. Neither guard moved. The wind blew a few dead leaves across the stone.

Then the guard on the right slowly lifted his mask. Beneath it was an old man's face, deeply lined and pale. His eyes fixed on the jade dragon at Ethan's chest and began to fill with tears.

"Young Master," he whispered. "We had been told you were dead."

"I am not."

"Please." The old man pressed his staff to the ground and dropped to one knee. The other guard did the same. "Forgive us. The east gate is open to the Dragon Head's blood. It has been waiting for ten years."

He rose, trembling, and turned to the great black doors. With both hands he pushed. The ancient hinges groaned. Slowly, the doors swung inward.

A long hall stretched ahead of them. Lamps burned along the walls in silver sconces. At the far end, a pair of tall doors stood closed, and above them, carved deep in the wood, was a single line of ancient characters.

The Hall of Five Seats.

Ethan walked forward. His footsteps echoed on the polished floor. Ghost and Madam Wu followed a step behind. The air smelled of old incense and cold stone. The sound of a distant bell rolled slowly through the corridors.

At the great doors he stopped. He lifted his right hand. The ring on his finger blazed with a sudden green light, and the pendant against his chest pulsed in answer. The doors shuddered. They swung open.

A vast round hall opened before him. Five tall chairs stood in a circle around a table of black stone. Four of them were occupied. In each sat a figure in a long robe and a silver mask, perfectly still. A single lamp burned above the table, and its light fell on four masked faces turned toward the door.

The fifth chair, the tallest, the one at the center of the far wall, was empty. A pair of dragons coiled across its high back, carved in dark wood.

And behind the empty chair, in the shadows, a fifth figure stood motionless.

The figure wore a plain gray cloak. A deep hood hid the face. For a moment the whole hall was silent.

Then the figure lifted both hands and drew back the hood.

Ethan's breath stopped in his chest.

It was a man of about sixty, with silver hair and calm gray eyes. A thin scar ran across his left eyebrow. He smiled very gently. It was a smile Ethan had seen across a dinner table when he was seven years old, and again in a thousand memories of a house that no longer stood.

"Welcome home, my son," said Alexander Cross.