STRINGS BETWEEN US

CHAPTER FIFTY OF RETURNING KINGS, REDIRECTED POWER, AND THE FESTIVAL NO ONE SAW

CHAPTER FIFTY - OF RETURNING KINGS, REDIRECTED POWER, AND THE FESTIVAL NO ONE SAW COMING

KD's POV

No fanfare. No trumpets. Not even the usual High Chamber chime that echoed when the President entered the Court.

Didn't need it.

All I needed was the sound of my footsteps clicking against marble and the collective silence that followed when the scanner lit green.

KHAIZER DYLAN DELA VEGA
—PRESIDENT STATUS: REACTIVATED—

The doors opened for me.

The council didn't. Not immediately. Most of them just froze. Others scrambled to sit straighter. Some pretended they weren't staring. But I felt it—the shift. That subtle snap in the air when power walks back into the room and the room knows it.

I didn't look at them.

Didn't meet their gazes or answer their unspoken questions.

I just walked across Sovereign's crescent chamber and took my chair—the one that hadn't been touched since they suspended me. No one had dared sit in it. No one had dared clean it.

Fitting.

I pulled it out, sat down, and folded my hands.

"Let's begin."

They moved slow at first. Reports. Festival numbers. Stalled activities. Booth reactivations. Budget shifts. Legal disruptions. Most of them danced around the topic they were really afraid to touch: me.

Except Bianchi.

She didn't flinch. Didn't stumble.

Of course she didn't.

She passed out her reports like nothing had changed, like she hadn't spent the last week speaking from my seat. She laid out projections and analytics like her voice still carried the full weight of command.

I didn't interrupt her. Didn't challenge.

I listened.

To everything.

I watched her hands, the way she flicked a pen toward one column. I listened to the clipped precision of her voice, like every word had been edited six times before speaking. I nodded at one of her recommendations. Endorsed another. Even supported one of her proposals just to see her eyes narrow when I did.

But the fourth document? The one marked during my absence?

I pushed it back across the table.

"This sanction was filed during the Festival disruption. While I was suspended."

Bianchi met my eyes coolly. "It was filed under Section 12-C. Interim powers allow us to act in the absence of the President."

"Not during a festival crisis," I said, voice calm. Deliberate. "Festival Clause 17-B overrides that."

You could hear the ripple in the room. The quiet panic of people who'd forgotten the charter had claws. I tapped the paper once.

"Disciplinary rulings: overridden. Council decisions: suspended. External sanctions? Nullified—until the Festival Head deems otherwise."

A beat.

Then another.

"You suspended me during an emergency that invoked the clause. That makes the ruling invalid."

One of the aides actually gasped.

I didn't look at them. I only looked at her.

"And since no one replaced me as Festival Head, I'm declaring the crisis ongoing."

The sound that followed was chaos trying to be quiet.

Pages rustled. Devices buzzed. Screens lit. I watched half the council race to reread festival bylaws they hadn't touched in years. Some didn't even realize such a clause existed.

That was the problem with forgetting history.

Eventually, it remembered you.

I leaned back.

"Reinstate all booths. Resume counters. Restore all logistical functions. Effective immediately. And cut any unauthorized surveillance from Solencia Courtyard."

The council scrambled.

But I stayed still. Because I didn't need noise.

I was the silence that made them shift.

Bianchi said nothing.

She didn't argue. Didn't withdraw. She just passed the next report like it didn't burn to lose.

Let her. Let her keep her seat. Let her keep her voice. Let her whisper suggestions and watch the council nod. Let her believe I was done playing.

Because I had no interest in taking her down mid-game.

Not yet.

I watched her from the edge of my vision.

Every detail. Every twitch.

Let her think I've forgotten.
Let her think she's ahead.
Let her expose more pieces.

She would. They always did, when they thought you weren't watching.

But I was.

Always.

Later, after the meeting adjourned and the council filed out, the halls of Sovereign Court thrummed again—noisy, curious, filled with students who had already heard the news.

"The President's suspension is lifted?"
"What's Festival Clause 17-B?"
"He overruled the Vice President—"
"Was he even gone for real?"

Let them speculate. Let the rumors spread like smoke.

I didn't stop walking.

Not until I saw her.

Riyee.

She was walking down the opposite hall with Xylia and Jodie flanking her like a casually armed security detail in the form of two girls who had no idea how terrifying their friend really was.

She didn't look over when she saw me.

Didn't slow.

Didn't blink.

But as she passed—just loud enough for me to hear—she muttered:

"Try not to break the building while you're proving a point."

She didn't wait for a reply. Didn't glance back. She just kept walking. I didn't smile. But my lips twitched.

She knew. Of course she did.

In the quiet of my office hours later, the world outside moved again. The festival buzzed back to life. Students rebuilt booths. Colors returned to the campus.

All because I'd stepped back into a room I was never meant to leave.

I sat at my desk. Unlocked the terminal.

Typed in the directive.

// EXECUTE: FESTIVAL CLAUSE 17-B – STAGE TWO
// PRIORITY: UNDISCLOSED OPS – EYES ONLY

The system accepted it.

Screen flickered once.
Then again.

Confirmed.

Let Bianchi talk. Let her circle. Let the school breathe again and think the storm passed.

But they forgot something important.

The flame never left.

It just waited.

And now?

The fire was watching.