Chapter 54: Her Choice

The principal’s office was warmer than Roxanne expected, sunlight pooling across his desk as he gestured for her to sit. There was no hostility in his tone when he began, which somehow made the conversation more unsettling than if there had been.

"I understand the recent controversy has put you in a difficult position," he said. "You’re an ordinary student, and the Moonstones remain under continued scrutiny. The academy is prepared to offer you a way out of that."

He laid it out plainly. She could leave the Moonstone Alpha Challenge team while keeping her individual competition results intact. She could remain on the festival committee without further complication. Most importantly, she would be excluded from any future reviews concerning the brothers entirely.

He framed it as protection. Roxanne understood immediately what it actually was.

If she walked away now, everyone at this academy would decide she’d only ever been standing beside the Moonstones because of what they were, not who they were, and that assumption would follow her long after the scandal itself faded.

She didn’t answer right away. "Can I think about it?"

"Of course," the principal said.

She found Isla afterward, sitting on the steps outside the library with a book she wasn’t really reading. Roxanne dropped down beside her and explained everything.

Isla listened without interrupting, then asked a single question. "If the Moonstones weren’t royal, would you still want to be on their team?"

Roxanne didn’t answer immediately. She thought about Moonball practice, about Roshan patiently teaching her to separate one scent from a dozen tangled together, about Lucien trusting her instinct over his own carefully built strategy, about Liam’s ridiculous jokes during training breaks, about Kai adjusting her gear in the dark before a match neither of them knew they’d win.

None of it had anything to do with crowns or titles.

"Yes," she said.

Isla smiled. "Then why are you still thinking about it?"

She found the brothers on the training field later that afternoon, and the moment she approached, Liam straightened immediately.

"What now," he said. "What did they do this time?"

"They offered me a way out," Roxanne said, and told them everything, the clean exit, the erased scrutiny, the quiet assumption that she’d be better off without them attached to her name.

Kai’s expression shifted almost imperceptibly. "What are you going to do?"

She didn’t answer that yet.

Lucien spoke first. "If that’s what you want, you should take it."

That surprised her more than anything else that had happened all day.

"I mean it," Lucien said. "We won’t think less of you for choosing to protect yourself."

Roshan nodded. "Leaving wouldn’t mean you abandoned us."

Liam tried for a joke, something about how they’d manage without her carrying the whole team on her back, but it fell flat halfway through, and his usual grin didn’t quite reach his eyes.

Kai said nothing at all. He simply watched her, and the silence between them carried more weight than anything the others had said.

Roxanne walked back to the administration office that same afternoon.

"I’m declining the offer," she told the official waiting there.

He raised an eyebrow. "You understand that remaining on the team means continued scrutiny. Possibly more than before."

"I earned my place on that team," Roxanne said. "Nobody handed it to me, and I’m not giving it up because other people are uncomfortable with who I’ve chosen to stand beside."

"Then scrutinize me," she added, before he could offer another reason for her to reconsider. "I’m not going anywhere."

Her position on the team remained officially unchanged.

When she returned to the training field, all four brothers were waiting exactly where she’d left them. Liam let out a whoop the moment he saw her expression.

"She stayed," he announced to nobody in particular.

Roshan gave her a quiet, genuine smile. Lucien studied her for a moment before nodding once.

"You made your decision," he said.

"Mine," Roxanne said, and the word settled somewhere important in her chest.

Kai approached last, saying nothing dramatic, offering no declaration. He simply held out his hand.

She took it.

"Then we’re still a team," he said.

Roxanne glanced down at their joined hands. "Apparently."

Liam clapped his hands together before the moment could stretch any longer. "Since Roxanne has officially survived yet another attempt to get rid of her, I’m declaring another celebration. Team law. Nobody’s allowed to argue."

"Nobody’s arguing," Roshan said, already walking toward the cafeteria.

They fell into their usual rhythm the moment they sat down at their table, Liam reaching across to steal something off Roxanne’s tray before she smacked his hand away and took it back. Roshan quietly slid a replacement onto her plate without being asked. Lucien told Liam to behave for the third time in ten minutes without any real hope of it working. Kai sat beside her, watching her laugh at something Liam said, and for a while it felt like none of the past few weeks had happened at all.

Normal, Roxanne thought, was its own kind of reward.

They were still laughing when the academy’s announcement system activated overhead, the familiar chime cutting through the cafeteria’s noise.

"Attention students. The next Alpha Challenge stage has been scheduled. This stage will introduce mixed-team competition. All current team rosters will be dissolved, and students will be randomly reassigned across pack lines."

The table went quiet.

Liam groaned immediately. "You’re kidding."

Roshan was already pulling up the announcement on his phone, scanning through the details with rapid focus. "Random reassignment. No exceptions listed for existing team compositions."

Lucien’s jaw tightened as he read over Roshan’s shoulder.

Kai’s eyes settled on Roxanne, something unreadable passing behind them.

Then the cafeteria’s overhead screen flickered and refreshed, displaying the newly assigned team rosters one section at a time. Roxanne watched her own name appear at the top of a list she didn’t recognize.

ROXANNE SILVER — TEAM 7

Names began populating beneath it one by one, unfamiliar students from territories she’d barely interacted with, faces she recognized only in passing from the crowded halls.

None of the four Moonstone names appeared anywhere on her list.