Chapter 160 — Come With Me

Chapter 160: Chapter 160 — Come With Me

~ Raven ~

Raven stared at the bell-shaped insignia glowing across her Linkslate.

Beside her, Thalia had already opened the notification.

"Oh, this is going to be good."

"No," Raven said. "It really isn’t."

Tessa glanced over her shoulder as they continued toward the combat courts. "You haven’t even opened it."

"I don’t need to. I’ve developed experience."

Brielle’s mouth twitched, but she said nothing.

Raven considered putting the slate back into her bag and pretending Bellringer did not exist. Unfortunately, three students walking ahead of them had already slowed down, and somewhere farther along the corridor the unmistakable sound of his voice began carrying from another slate.

Ignoring him was pointless when his voice was already coming from half the Linkslates around her.

Raven opened the broadcast.

The masked figure appeared behind his usual desk, gloved hands folded neatly in front of him.

"Good morning, Valerius."

Raven’s mouth flattened.

Bellringer tilted his head toward the recording rune.

"I had an entirely different broadcast planned today. Then Raven Rivers walked into breakfast and reminded me why planning ahead is a waste of everyone’s time."

Thalia laughed immediately.

Raven kept walking.

"Let us begin with the First Circle," Bellringer continued. "A collection of women who have spent so long deciding which students deserve access, invitations and advancement that I suspect some of them have begun confusing a Court Seat with divine appointment."

A boy passing in the opposite direction snorted. "He’s not wrong, though."

Raven looked down at the slate despite herself.

"Now, I am not here to determine whether every accusation made this morning was true, false or somewhere in the increasingly crowded space between. What I can say is that Petra Voss stood in front of a cafeteria full of witnesses and accused Rivers of sending an unidentified messenger to threaten her."

The masked head tipped slightly.

"Rivers then did something devastatingly unfair."

A pause.

"She asked questions."

Thalia covered her mouth.

Even Brielle smiled wider now.

Raven tried not to.

Bellringer continued, sounding far too pleased with himself. "Who delivered the threat? Unknown. What did they look like? Apparently unhelpful. What proof connected them to Rivers? None that anyone produced before breakfast ended."

His hands spread across the desk.

"Which left the First Circle in the unfortunate position of having to explain their own story while several hundred students listened."

Raven’s amusement faded slightly.

He was not exactly wrong.

"That alone would have been entertaining enough," Bellringer said. "Especially for those of us who have spent years watching certain Court women behave as though the rest of Valerius should be grateful for the opportunity to breathe the same expensive air."

Raven glanced toward Tessa. "He sounds pleased with himself."

Tessa’s expression said she had noticed too.

Bellringer leaned back slightly.

"But Rivers apparently wasn’t finished."

Raven’s attention returned to the slate.

The conversations around them began thinning as more students listened.

"After what happened with Petra and the First Circle, most people would have been satisfied with clearing their name and walking away."

His masked face remained turned toward the rune.

"Raven Rivers chose something else."

Raven already knew what was coming.

"Ninth Seat is no longer enough for her."

A brief silence followed.

"She wants Second."

That landed differently.

Raven heard a laugh somewhere behind them, followed almost immediately by another student saying, "She’s fucking insane."

Raven’s shoulders tightened.

Bellringer went quiet for a moment, and the reactions around Raven filled the gap.

"So the obvious question is this: has Raven Rivers finally lost whatever remained of her mind?"

Raven’s grip tightened around her slate.

Bellringer was quiet for a moment before continuing.

"Possibly."

His gloved finger tapped once against the desk.

"But Valerius has developed an unfortunate habit of deciding what Raven Rivers cannot do before she does it."

Raven’s steps slowed slightly.

"An unknown first-year was not supposed to break a four-year classification record. A supposedly wolfless servant was not supposed to enter the Cardinal Court on her first day. A Nascent was certainly not supposed to survive half the things this academy has thrown at her since."

The masked figure leaned closer.

"And yet here we are."

The corridor had gone noticeably quieter.

Bellringer spread his hands again.

"I am not telling you Rivers will reach Second Seat. I possess many talents, but seeing the future is thankfully not among them."

He paused.

"What I am asking is whether immediately declaring something impossible has worked particularly well for the rest of you so far."

Raven stared at the screen.

"So, Valerius," Bellringer said, "make your choice. Is Ninth Seat completely insane for announcing that she intends to take Second?"

Comments began appearing along the edge of the broadcast faster than Raven could read them.

"Or have the rest of you simply failed to learn anything?"

Thalia leaned closer to Raven’s slate as she pointed at the comments section.

"Oh, people are arguing."

"Wonderful."

"One person says you’ll be Fourth before the Concord."

"Stop reading them."

"Another says you won’t survive a challenge from Sixth."

"Thalia."

"And somebody just called you a lunatic with excellent timing."

Raven lowered the slate. "I’m taking that away from you."

Thalia grinned and moved out of reach.

Bellringer was still speaking.

"Of course, the Court was only half of Rivers’s breakfast."

Raven stopped smiling.

"No, no no no."

Bellringer sounded almost delighted now.

"Because apparently announcing her intention to tear through the Court was not enough excitement for one morning."

Raven closed her eyes.

"Dante Prymont then sat beside her."

Thalia made a noise.

Raven opened her eyes and kept walking.

"And, in front of a cafeteria that had already exhausted its reasonable supply of gossip for the day, Heir Prymont asked Raven Rivers to the Renewal Ball."

Several heads ahead of them turned.

Raven considered throwing her slate into the nearest fountain.

Bellringer went on.

"The truly remarkable part is not that he asked."

Raven already hated where this was going.

"It is that Rivers looked a Cardinal heir in the face, with half the academy listening, and told him she would think about it."

Murmurs broke out around them.

Raven’s face heated.

"I gave him a reasonable answer."

"You did," Tessa said.

Raven looked at her suspiciously.

Tessa’s expression remained innocent.

Bellringer folded his hands again.

"I did not reject him."

Brielle looked over. "He can’t hear you, Raven."

"I know that."

"And yet."

Raven glared at her until Brielle’s mouth twitched.

Then Bellringer said, "One does wonder whether anyone has informed Cardinal Blade."

Raven’s amusement vanished.

Bellringer went quiet for a moment.

"Perhaps somebody should. It seems polite."

That was all.

He did not say Cassian was jealous. He did not claim Dante had started some ridiculous competition or that Raven belonged in the middle of it.

He did not need to.

Raven could practically feel the academy doing the rest for him.

Her declaration about Second Seat had lasted approximately ten minutes before somebody found a way to turn it into another story about Cardinal Alphas.

Her teeth pressed together.

Because she knew why he was doing it.

Something she had done earlier without thinking, something that had probably looked entirely different from the other side, had apparently been enough.

Fine.

Raven looked down at the masked figure on her slate.

She could play too.

"I’m going to deal with Bellringer myself."

Thalia’s head turned immediately. "What does that mean?"

"I haven’t decided yet."

Raven shut the broadcast off and shoved the slate into her bag before Bellringer could find another male heir to attach to her name.

By the time they reached the combat courts, her mood had improved only slightly.

They were early enough that the main court was still mostly empty. A handful of students had already arrived and were stretching near the boundary lines, while two others stood beside the equipment racks comparing something on a Linkslate.

Raven recognized Bellringer’s voice before the doors had even closed behind them.

"Goddess," she muttered.

Thalia smiled. "You really are everywhere today."

"I hate today."

They found space near one side of the court and set their things down.

More students began arriving within minutes, first in pairs and then in larger groups as the warning bell drew closer. Almost all of them either had their slates out or were discussing the broadcast.

"She became ninth so what?"

"Second is different."

"She made Seventh Layla."

"Girl, that was after the Hunt. She still has everyone above her to get through."

Raven kept her attention on the wrap around her wrist while the voices carried across the court.

Two girls came through the doors discussing the same thing, one insisting Raven had climbed too quickly to dismiss and the other pointing out how many ranked women still stood between her and Second.

They made it halfway across the court before finally noticing her.

The conversation stopped.

One of them lowered her Linkslate.

Raven met their eyes for a moment, then went back to tightening the wrap around her wrist.

A boy near the equipment rack was less fortunate. He entered loudly informing his friend that Raven Rivers had finally lost her fucking mind, then looked across the court and found Raven watching him. His voice dropped at once, and he turned back to his friend without finishing the thought.

Raven looked away.

Bellringer had done something, though.

Yesterday the whispers would have been about whether she deserved the Seat she already had.

Now people were arguing about how high she might climb.

She was not sure whether that counted as an improvement.

The combat instructor entered shortly before the bell and shut the doors behind him.

"Slates away."

Bellringer vanished from half a dozen screens at once.

The class gathered.

The instructor’s gaze found Raven before he finished calling the first groups forward.

"Rivers."

She looked up.

"You’re still restricted."

Her shoulders dropped.

"I feel fine."

"I didn’t ask."

A few students smiled.

Raven ignored them.

"No sparring. No full-contact work. You can take the technical drills and observe the paired rounds until Velkarin clears you."

Raven wanted to argue.

Then Brielle looked at her.

Tessa looked at her.

Thalia looked at her.

"Fine."

The instructor moved on.

Raven spent the next several minutes working through basic footwork along a marked section of court while everyone around her progressed into exercises that looked considerably more interesting.

It was humiliating in a very specific way.

That morning she had announced to half the academy that she intended to take Second Seat.

Now she was stepping carefully between painted marks because a healer had decided she could not be trusted with anything more violent.

She was halfway through another sequence when the doors opened.

The instructor stopped speaking.

Raven did not need to turn immediately.

The reaction around the court told her enough.

Someone whispered, "Prymont."

Her foot landed outside the mark.

Raven closed her eyes.

What now.

When she turned, Dante was already walking across the court.

The instructor stared at him with the exhausted expression of a man who had been given the same problem twice and deeply resented the lack of creativity.

"Prymont."

Dante stopped.

"Instructor."

"We are in the middle of a lesson."

"I noticed."

Raven could almost see the instructor reconsidering several life choices.

"What do you want?"

Dante’s gaze moved past him and landed directly on Raven.

"I need to borrow Rivers."

The instructor stared at him.

"No."

For one glorious second, Raven loved that man.

Dante seemed to consider that.

Then he looked at Raven again.

Every person on the court followed his gaze.

Raven stood between two painted marks with her wrist wraps half tightened, already painfully aware of what Bellringer had spent the morning saying about them.

Dante did not appear remotely bothered by the audience.

"Rivers."

Raven narrowed her eyes.

His mouth curved slightly.

"Come with me."