Chapter 79 — Hunt Fever

Chapter 79: Chapter 79 — Hunt Fever

~ Raven ~

"Both of you," Thalia said, for what Raven counted as the fourth time since the morning bell. "Out of the entire Wing. Two first-year places, and both of them came from this room."

"They went to Brielle," Raven said.

"They went to this room."

Brielle stood at the mirror fastening her collar, wearing the expression of someone who had checked the roster far more often than she intended to admit. "It’s a roster."

"You said that yesterday."

"It was true yesterday."

Tessa, sitting on the edge of her bed tying her boots, glanced up. "You checked it twice before you even got out of bed."

"I checked the time Tessa."

"On the roster notice."

Raven looked at Tessa with renewed appreciation.

Thalia dropped onto the rug and crossed her legs. "Anyway, I found out something last night. Valerius doesn’t choose the competitors."

Raven paused halfway through pulling on her jacket. "What?"

"The academy sets the format, handles the seals, the wards, all of that. But the representatives?" Thalia pointed between Raven and Brielle. "The Cardinal heirs choose them themselves. All five."

Raven’s hands went still.

"Personally?"

"Personally."

Brielle glanced over from the mirror. "It makes sense. Their Wing’s performance reflects on them."

Raven stared at Thalia.

"So this is his fault."

Thalia grinned. "Completely."

"Nikolai Hale looked through every first-year in this Wing and wrote down Raven Rivers."

"Yes."

"Deliberately."

"That is generally how selections work."

Raven ignored her. There had been plenty of people Nikolai could have chosen, which meant somewhere between making the roster and submitting it, he had looked at her name and decided this was a good idea.

"He wouldn’t have picked you for nothing," Tessa said as she stood. "The Hunt affects his Wing too. He has more reason than anyone to take the roster seriously."

"She’s right," Brielle said.

Raven looked between the three of them.

That was the irritating part.

Not one of them looked surprised anymore. Nobody was asking whether there had been a mistake. Thalia had already decided where she wanted to stand in the viewing gallery, Tessa was treating Raven’s selection like something perfectly reasonable, and Brielle looked almost pleased that they were going in together.

Wonderful.

They were proud of her.

She pulled her jacket on and went to find out what she’d been signed up for.

The orientation hall had been cleared of everything except twenty chairs and the four Cardinal crests hanging above them.

Thalia got as far as the doors, where a prefect stopped her with one arm and the flat look of a man who had already turned back nine people.

"I’m supporting my friends."

"You’re supporting them from the corridor."

Thalia leaned around him anyway, and her voice dropped. "Raven. Raven. Second row, dark braid. Don’t be obvious."

Raven had already noticed her. She’d noticed her from the doorway and then looked twice, which was more attention than she’d intended to give anyone in that room.

The girl sat straight-backed with her hands folded, wearing a Rowan collar and the same cold, fine-boned face Raven had last seen looking down at her in an empty stone corridor.

"Seren Ashbourne," Thalia said. "First-year. She’s Rowan’s sister."

"Of course she is."

"Younger. By two years."

The prefect moved Thalia bodily out of the doorway.

Raven found the block of chairs under Nikolai’s crest and took the end seat beside Brielle. The rest of the Wing’s five were already there — a broad fourth-year with a scar through one eyebrow, a third-year girl checking something off on a slate, and a second-year boy who looked up as Raven sat down and gave her a nod that managed to be perfectly polite and entirely uninterested.

Twenty of them, in four blocks. All four heirs standing behind their own.

Great. An audience of Cardinals.

The Hunt Warden was a short woman in academy grey who did not introduce herself and apparently saw no reason to.

"Five per Wing. Two first-years, then one from each remaining year. Twenty names. No substitutions after second bell tomorrow. If your heir intended to change his mind, he had yesterday to do it."

Nobody laughed.

Raven suspected they were not supposed to.

"Every sanctioned competition contributes to the annual House standings," the Warden continued. "The Founders’ Hunt carries more House Points than any other single event on the calendar. Whatever position your Wing is sitting in now, this is where it can change."

Raven glanced along her row. Even the third-year, who had been writing steadily since they sat down, had stopped.

"For those of you who have somehow survived this long without looking at a standings board, the recent pattern is simple. Blade’s Wing finishes first. Hale’s Wing finishes second. Ashbourne and Prymont have traded third and fourth often enough that I no longer bother guessing which will be which."

A pleased sound came from somewhere among Blade’s representatives.

The Warden ignored it.

"Blade’s Wing has also won the Founders’ Hunt every year since Heir Blade entered Valerius."

Raven looked toward Cassian before she could stop herself.

He stood behind his representatives with his hands in his pockets, staring somewhere beyond the Warden as though she were discussing somebody else’s achievements.

"There has been one exception to the wider standings pattern," the Warden said. "Two years ago, Hale’s Wing finished last."

That got a reaction.

Several heads in Nikolai’s section came up at once.

Hale.

Raven’s gaze slid toward the second-year at the end of their row.

Dorian Hale.

She had seen the surname when the roster went up and known it bothered her for some reason. Now she understood why.

Raven looked at Dorian again.

He caught her looking this time but said nothing.

The Warden moved on to collection times, ward rotations and what would happen to anyone stupid enough to tamper with a registered seal before the Hunt began.

Raven managed to follow most of it.

Her attention wandered once toward Ashbourne’s block.

Seren sat near the front, exactly where Thalia had pointed her out before Raven came in, with Celeste among Rowan’s five as well.

From here the resemblance between Seren and her brother was harder to miss. Not identical, but close enough around the eyes that Raven wondered how she hadn’t guessed before Thalia told her.

Rowan stood behind his representatives like the other heirs, his attention fixed on the Warden.

Seren glanced back at Rowan once.

He caught the look immediately, his attention shifting to her before she had even fully turned.

Raven noticed the exchange, but the Warden was already moving on, and she forced her attention back to the orientation.

It lasted about thirty seconds.

Her gaze drifted toward Ashbourne’s block again, settling on Seren.

Raven leaned slightly toward Brielle.

"You can really tell they’re related."

Brielle kept her eyes on the Warden. "Raven."

"What?"

"You’re whispering in a room full of wolves."

Too late.

Across the aisle, Seren’s head turned.

Her eyes found Raven immediately.

Raven’s face went hot.

Seren looked at her for a second, expression unreadable, then calmly faced forward again.

Raven did the same.

For the remaining four minutes of orientation, she kept her eyes fixed firmly on the Hunt Warden and contributed absolutely nothing to the conversation.

The moment it broke up, she went after Nikolai.

He was halfway to the side doors, talking to Garrick Holt with one hand on the older boy’s shoulder, and he saw her coming from about ten paces off. Whatever he’d been saying, he finished it.

"You picked me."

"I did."

"Why?"

Nikolai’s hand came up.

Raven’s glare stopped it in the air, roughly level with her hair, and he lowered it again with the mildly wounded look of a man denied a small pleasure.

"You looked," he said, "like a very angry rabbit."

The three students nearest them turned around.

"A what—"

"On the Grand Drill Court. Blood everywhere, half your Wing’s ball racks in your ribs, screaming at four upper-years who could have snapped you." He considered it. "Small. Furious. Would not lie down."

One of the third-years actually laughed.

Raven’s ears burned. Across the hall, at the edge of her vision, Dante had stopped mid-sentence with one of his own five and was looking directly at Nikolai’s hand where it had been.

Nikolai noticed. He smiled wider and raised his voice for the room. "I’m borrowing Rivers for a moment."

Twenty representatives and four Cardinal heirs turned to watch her go.

"I hate you," Raven said, following him out.

"You’re allowed."

The corridor beyond was empty and cold after the hall. Nikolai walked with his hands behind his back, unbothered, while Raven’s face slowly gave up on being red.

"That thing the Warden said," she said. "About Blade."

"It’s true."

"Every year?"

"Every year since he arrived." Nikolai tipped his head. "My Wing has finished second to that boy four times. I’ve stopped taking it personally. It’s not working."

"So you filled a slot with a Nascent."

"I filled a slot with someone Blade’s Wing cannot plan for."

Raven stopped walking.

Nikolai stopped too, half a pace ahead, and turned round.

"My people have a plan," he said. "It’s a good plan. The problem is Cassian. Give him enough time to watch a strategy unfold and he starts pulling it apart. Routes, timing, formations, who you’re relying on most. By the end of the Hunt, he usually knows where to press."

Nikolai shrugged.

"You are a great many things, Rivers. Predictable isn’t one of them."

"That’s your reason?"

Nikolai laughed. "One of them."

They walked on. Raven turned it over and decided she’d rather have that answer than a kind one.

"Two years ago," she said. "Last place. What happened?"

The amusement went off his face.

It was there and then it wasn’t, one flat second, and Raven only caught it because she happened to be looking.

"I got busy," Nikolai said.

"With what?"

He didn’t answer.

They reached the corridor junction, where the noise of the representatives filtered back through from the hall. Nikolai stopped and nodded past her shoulder.

"Go and meet your teammates, Rivers."

"You’re getting rid of me."

"Holt has looked over here three times." Nikolai was already turning away. "I imagine your teammates would prefer you learn their names before they trust you with their lives."

Raven looked back.

Garrick, Mara, Dorian and Brielle stood in a loose group near the hall doors. Waiting.

"And Rivers?"

She glanced round.

"Try not to make me regret breaking tradition."

He walked off without waiting for an answer.

Raven watched him go for a moment, then turned toward the four people she was going into the Founders’ Hunt with in three days.