Chapter 84 — The Oldest Trick

Chapter 84: Chapter 84 — The Oldest Trick

~ Raven ~

Keep walking.

Raven stayed low behind the rock, watching Seren make her way down the slope.

Just keep going. Past the rock, down the hill, wherever the hell else you had planned to be.

Seren stopped.

Raven’s stomach sank.

The girl lifted her head slightly and breathed in. A second later, her gaze shifted toward the rocks.

"Rivers."

Raven closed her eyes.

Of course.

She rose slowly from behind the rock.

Seren looked her over, then her eyes dropped to the crossing strap of Raven’s harness. The edge of the Founder Seal was just visible beneath it.

"So it was you."

Raven glanced down at herself, then back at Seren with widened eyes.

"Me what?"

Seren stared at her.

Raven managed to hold the expression for another second.

"Worth a try."

"Hand it over."

Raven almost answered automatically, but stopped herself.

Seren was Awakened. Raven remembered that much from orientation.

More importantly, she carried herself like someone who had spent years learning exactly what to do in a fight. There was no hesitation in the way she stood and no concern in her face at finding Raven alone.

Raven, meanwhile, was still officially Nascent.

And the entire academy was watching.

No.

She was not volunteering to get beaten into the forest floor for their entertainment.

"Did Rowan tell you?" Raven asked.

Seren took another few steps down the slope then paused. "Tell me what?"

"About the scatter."

"It’s a competition. He treated it like one."

"Huh."

Raven let her gaze slip briefly past Seren toward the trees behind her. The slope continued downward there, thickening into heavier growth.

"It’s only that he spent about ten minutes fussing with your harness," Raven said. "Checked that buckle four times. I assumed he was planning to follow you into the forest himself."

Seren’s chin lifted slightly.

"So it seems strange that he’d do all that and not warn you."

"You’re stalling."

"I’m talking."

"You’ve looked behind me four times."

Raven stopped.

Four?

She hadn’t realized Seren was counting.

Unfortunately, Raven’s pride chose that exact moment to become involved.

"I was working out how much room I need."

Seren’s eyes narrowed.

"For what?"

Raven looked her up and down.

"To put you on the ground."

Seren went still.

Raven stepped away from the rock and raised her hands.

It looked considerably better in her head.

Her weight felt wrong almost immediately. Her left elbow was too far out, and the whole stance felt awkward in a way Raven could feel even if she couldn’t explain exactly why.

She shifted her feet, trying to make it look less ridiculous.

It did not help.

Seren looked at her stance.

Then she laughed.

Actually laughed.

Raven frowned. "Excuse me?"

"What is that?"

"It’s a guard."

"It’s terrible."

"I’ve handled worse than you." Raven adjusted her elbow, then immediately wished she hadn’t. "A Cardinal heir came after me. I survived the Court. Four upper-years in wolf masks spent half the First Howl trying to put me through the floor."

Seren’s amusement didn’t fade.

Raven lifted her chin. "So don’t underestimate me."

"None of that means you won."

"I didn’t say I won."

Seren shook her head, still faintly amused.

Then her stance changed.

It was barely anything. One foot shifted. Her knees loosened. Her hands came up.

But suddenly Raven understood the difference between pretending to know what she was doing and someone who actually did.

Seren looked comfortable.

Raven very much did not.

Dante had barely checked Prymont’s feeds since the scatter.

He knew he should. Somewhere among the other slates, his representatives were probably doing exactly what he had chosen them to do.

Instead, he was watching Raven Rivers trying to bluff Seren Ashbourne into backing off.

But then Raven raised both her hands.

Dante’s smile disappeared.

What the fuck?

He leaned forward, forearms resting on his knees.

She was nascent. He had felt how little power she could actually call on when they fought, even with whatever strange thing had happened between them near the end.

He also knew Seren.

Seren was Awakened, Ashbourne-trained, and Rowan had picked her himself for one of Ashbourne’s two first-year slots.

Raven was not winning this.

For a moment Dante wondered whether she had noticed something he couldn’t see. Maybe the slope behind Seren. Something around the rocks. A route she could exploit.

Then he watched Raven adjust her stance.

No.

She had absolutely nothing.

Dante stared at the slate.

What the hell are you doing, Rivers?

Cassian looked up again.

He had done that more often than he meant to since the Hunt began, and somehow his attention kept finding the same white-haired girl.

Rivers had her hands up.

Badly.

Her weight sat on the wrong foot. Her lead elbow was too far out, and she had squared herself directly in front of Seren Ashbourne.

"Idiot," Cassian muttered.

But he still kept watching.

This was the same woman who had walked into his reading hall, insulted his book and irritated him badly enough that he had let the entire conversation get away from him.

Now she was standing in the middle of the forest pretending she knew how to fight.

Cassian’s mouth tightened.

He had given the library incident more thought than it deserved.

That was his mistake.

He looked back down at Blade’s feeds.

Seren’s front foot shifted.

Raven saw the movement and felt her stomach tighten.

This was it.

Seren had stopped laughing now. Her attention had narrowed completely, shoulders loose, weight balanced, every part of her looking ready in a way Raven absolutely did not feel.

Raven forced herself not to back up.

If she moved too early, Seren would know.

So she held the ridiculous guard, tightened her hands and shifted her weight forward just enough to make it look like she had finally decided to commit to the fight.

Seren responded immediately.

Her body dipped slightly.

Raven’s heart kicked hard against her ribs.

For one horrible second, every sensible part of her screamed that this was a terrible idea.

Then she looked past Seren.

Her entire expression changed.

Her eyes widened.

"What the fuck—"

Seren’s head snapped around on instinct.

Raven dropped her hands.

Turned.

And ran like hell.

There was nothing behind Seren.

Nothing except trees and the empty slope.

For a second, Seren simply stared.

Then she turned around.

The rock was empty.

Farther down the hill, a flash of white hair disappeared between two trees.

Seren remained where she was totally in shock.

She had known Raven was stalling and had watched her put up possibly the worst guard Seren had seen in years.

And somehow—

She had still turned around.

The whole academy had seen it.

Her brother had seen it.

Heat crept up Seren’s neck.

"RIVERS!"

The white-haired figure below immediately ran faster.

Seren’s embarrassment turned cleanly into anger.

"Oh, you absolute—"

She took off after her.

Raven ran.

For the first stretch, humiliation kept pace with her better than Seren did.

First the dance.

Now this.

Bellringer was going to build an entire career out of her.

She could already imagine the headline, the slowed-down replay, the exact moment she pointed at absolutely nothing before fleeing like the forest itself had insulted her.

They were going to give her a permanent section.

The academy had just watched her celebrate alone in the mud, threaten an Awakened wolf with a guard she barely understood, point at absolutely nothing, and run.

Bellringer was never letting that die.

Raven heard the footsteps behind her.

Close.

Much too close.

The embarrassment vanished.

She had started first. She had the downhill slope and a clean head start, yet Seren was still gaining on her.

That was the part Raven hated most.

Seren wasn’t crashing through the forest after her. There was no desperate scramble, no branches snapping wildly underfoot. Her steps stayed quick and even, adjusting cleanly whenever the ground changed.

Raven pushed harder.

A branch dragged across her sleeve. Her lungs had started burning now, and when she jumped one exposed root, her boot clipped the next badly enough to throw her forward for half a step.

She caught herself and kept going.

A glance over her shoulder was a mistake.

Seren was closer.

Shit.

Raven faced forward again and immediately abandoned any hope of reaching the fallback point.

At this rate, she was going to be caught long before then.

The trees thinned ahead.

Raven drove toward the opening—

and somebody came through it at exactly the wrong moment.

She barely saw the body before they collided.

The impact knocked both of them off their feet. Raven hit the ground hard in a mess of arms and wet leaves, somebody’s knee digging painfully into her hip while they both tried to untangle themselves.

"What the fuck is— Raven?"

Raven stopped.

She looked down.

Brielle Vance stared back at her, filthy, furious and dressed in Hale green.

For one beautiful second, Raven could have kissed her.

Instead, she grabbed Brielle and hugged her.

Brielle went rigid.

"You have no idea," Raven said into her shoulder. "You have absolutely no idea how happy I am to see you."

"Get off me."

Brielle shoved a forearm between them and pushed Raven upright.

"Why the hell are you running like a mad woman?" Her eyes blazed. "If you’ve brought half the Hunt with you, Rivers, I swear on my —"

Something crashed through the undergrowth farther up the slope.

Raven pointed behind herself cheerily.

"I brought a friend."

Brielle stared at her.

Then Seren came out of the trees.

She stopped about twenty paces away.

Her breathing was hard from the chase, but her attention sharpened almost immediately as she took in what had changed.

Raven was no longer alone.

Brielle stood beside her.

Two Hale.

One Ashbourne.

Seren stayed where she was.

Raven got to her feet, brushed the dirt from her palms and moved beside Brielle.

The confidence she had abandoned somewhere halfway down that hill returned so quickly it was almost insulting.

She looked at Seren.

Then pointed at her.

A laugh escaped before Raven could stop it.

"You fell into my trap."