Chapter 58 — Disappointed II

Chapter 58: Chapter 58 — Disappointed II

~ Raven ~

Raven stared at Kieran and Alaric.

They were already there, waiting for her.

Neither of them looked surprised to see her and that was what made her look around properly.

The centre of the cafeteria had been left open.

The students had simply formed themselves around one particular stretch of floor, leaving a wide empty space between Raven and the Blackthorn twins.

Raven recognised the floor with a sinking feeling.

Yesterday, Kieran had tried to force her onto her knees there.

Yesterday, Dante Prymont had crossed that same space and put both Blackthorn heirs on it.

And today, Kieran and Alaric were standing at the far edge of it, waiting for Raven to be brought back.

Beside Raven, Celeste smiled.

It was not broad enough for anyone else to call it triumph. Just the smallest lift at the corner of her mouth, private and satisfied, while her eyes stayed fixed on the space ahead.

Raven understood.

Celeste had never wanted an apology.

She had wanted this.

This cafeteria. This patch of stone. The same place where Kieran had dropped his aura over Raven’s shoulders yesterday and ordered her to kneel in front of everyone watching.

Celeste had brought her back here so the academy could watch that refusal corrected.

Raven forced herself to look at the twins.

Kieran was still staring at her. His arms were folded, but the rest of him was too tense for the pose to look relaxed. His weight sat slightly forward, his jaw tight, irritation already burning behind his eyes before Raven had even entered the room.

Alaric was harder to read.

He stood beside his brother with his hands at his sides, perfectly still, his gaze fixed on Raven. The only thing she could pull from his expression was that he plainly did not want to be standing there.

And suddenly Raven realized something almost funny.

Neither of them wanted this.

Not because either Blackthorn had somehow grown a conscience overnight.

They simply hated being paraded in front of hundreds of students to have their dignity restored for them, like two boys whose family had marched into the schoolyard demanding an apology from the girl who beat them.

For the first time since entering the cafeteria, something almost like satisfaction stirred beneath Raven’s anger.

Apparently, Celeste had managed to humiliate all three of them.

That should have been satisfying. It wasn’t. It just meant everyone in this room was furious with her for something.

Cassian moved past Raven and took his place at the edge of the cleared floor. His gaze travelled once around the cafeteria—the packed benches, students lining the walls, Linkslates already raised—and his jaw tightened.

Whatever he had expected when Rowan summoned him as a witness, it clearly had not been this.

Rowan walked into the open space.

He looked toward the main doors.

Then the service arch.

The rear entrance.

A few seconds later, his eyes went back to the main doors.

Raven noticed.

Across the floor, Cassian frowned.

Neither of them said anything.

Rowan waited another moment before his mouth tightened almost imperceptibly.

Then he turned to Raven.

"Rivers. Begin."

Raven didn’t move.

The silence stretched.

Around the cafeteria, hundreds of students shifted almost at once. Shoes scraped against stone. Someone climbed down from a bench.

They all waited but Raven still did not make a move.

Rowan’s brows drew together.

"Come forward and begin."

Raven heard him.

She just couldn’t seem to make her legs move.

Her pulse hammered high in her throat. Her palms throbbed beneath the healing skin, and her eyes burned with tears, but she blinked hard and held them back.

In front of her waited the open floor.

Kieran.

Alaric.

Celeste.

Rowan.

And everywhere else, faces.

All of them waiting for her to cross those few yards, lower herself onto the same stone where she had refused to kneel yesterday, and give them what they had all come to see.

Something in Raven cracked at that moment.

She laughed.

The sound came out small, sharp and completely wrong.

A few heads turned.

Raven pressed her lips together, but another laugh broke through anyway—longer this time, loose around the edges, carrying none of the amusement a laughter was supposed to have.

"Raven?"

Thalia’s voice came from behind her.

Raven had never heard her say her name like that before.

Rowan’s face hardened.

Beside him, Celeste’s smile finally faltered.

And Raven, standing there with a hundred slates pointed at her and her whole academy record hanging off the next thirty seconds, discovered that she had stopped caring what any of it cost.

She turned and walked to the nearest table.

The boy sitting at the end of it scrambled sideways so fast he took his own bench with him.

Raven put a hand on the table edge, swung herself up, and sat on it.

Everyone stared. Raven no longer cared.

There was a plate in front of her with most of a breakfast still on it. She reached down, took a piece of meat off it, and ate it.

The silence got very large.

"Sorry," she said to the boy, with her mouth full.

He made a noise.

Raven looked back at Rowan after swallowing.

"You know, I’ve always wanted to come here since I was eleven."

Her voice came out strange.

"Nobody taught me about this place. I learned it off gazettes people threw away. Three months out of date, usually, half of them with something spilled on them."

She chewed. "I knew the rankings. I knew the Court had Seats and I knew who held them before I’d ever seen a picture of the gates. I used to read about the Trials while I was washing up and think about what it would be like if somebody ever let me try."

The hall was completely silent.

"I wanted to compete. That’s all. I wanted to find out how far I could actually get if what mattered was what I did."

She looked around at them — the benches, the crowd, the students standing on chairs at the back for a better view. "I thought this place was different."

She let that sit for a second.

"Over four hundred of you walked out of lessons."

Nobody said anything.

"To watch a Great House put a first-year on her knees."

Raven turned back to Rowan.

"Honestly? I’m disappointed."

Rowan’s face changed.

The bored look disappeared from his face, and a faint golden shimmer stirred around him as his aura started to leak.

"Get down from the table and begin the apology."

Raven stared at him.

Then she laughed again.

This time it was real.

Because despite everything, he still thought telling her twice would somehow make her kneel.