Chapter 186 — The Ball Is Tomorrow

Chapter 186: Chapter 186 — The Ball Is Tomorrow

~ Cassian ~

Cassian pulled every strand of the Lattice inward before the last word finished leaving Aldric’s mouth.

The air around him settled.

His breathing slowed until each inhale barely moved his chest, and he forced his heartbeat down with it while Aldric stepped toward the doorway below.

Cassian did not move.

Breaking through Blackthorn’s patrols had been easy.

Aldric Blackthorn was not.

Whatever Cassian thought of the House itself, the man below him was an Alpha whose power stood above Dominant, and being arrogant enough to confuse poor security with a weak House head would be an excellent way to ruin the entire night.

Aldric entered the corridor and looked slowly across the shadows.

Cassian remained pressed behind the carved stonework.

One second passed, followed by another.

His lungs began to protest. He ignored them.

Aldric’s gaze climbed toward the gallery.

For a moment, Cassian wondered whether the man had caught enough of the disturbance to know exactly where it had come from.

Then Sharon appeared behind him.

"What is it?"

Aldric did not answer immediately.

Cassian stayed completely still.

Another few seconds passed before irritation finally crossed Aldric’s face.

"Nothing."

Sharon looked along the empty corridor. "You just asked who was there."

"I thought I sensed someone."

Her mouth tightened. "You thought you sensed someone."

Aldric glanced back at her.

Sharon sighed. "Goddess, Aldric. This is exactly what I mean. You’ve spent six days staring at reports about Rivers and now you’re hearing intruders inside your own walls."

"I know what I felt."

"And apparently it was nothing."

She turned back toward the sitting room.

Cassian did not relax.

Aldric remained where he was for several seconds longer, his attention lingering on the gallery before he finally followed her inside.

Only then did Cassian let a thin breath enter his lungs.

His thoughts were considerably harder to control.

What if we really chose wrong?

And then Sharon’s answer.

Cassian pushed both aside before they could pull his attention away from the fact that he was still inside House Blackthorn.

Whatever those words meant, he could think about them once there was more than a wall between himself and Aldric.

Below, Sharon finally broke the silence.

"There’s something else happening at Valerius."

Aldric’s attention remained near the corridor for another moment before he turned away. "What?"

"Marchmont."

Cassian’s attention shifted before Aldric could ask the obvious question.

"What about them?"

Sharon picked up her glass and turned it slowly between her fingers. "Their daughter collapsed three days ago."

Cassian’s body went rigid.

Isolde.

Aldric frowned. "Collapsed how?"

"That seems to be the problem. Nobody is giving House Marchmont a clear answer."

Sharon set the glass down. "She hasn’t regained consciousness. Marchmont representatives have been at Valerius since yesterday, and the academy is being pressed for an explanation it apparently doesn’t have."

Cassian’s fingers tightened against the stone again.

Three days.

He had been gone six.

Isolde had been unconscious for half of them.

"Is she dying?" Aldric asked.

"I didn’t say that."

"You made it sound close enough."

"I said nobody knows what happened to her." Sharon leaned back slightly. "An unconscious Marchmont heir inside Valerius is already enough of a problem without anyone deciding she is dying."

Aldric gave a quiet sound of agreement.

Cassian barely noticed.

His thoughts had already turned elsewhere.

The records he had spent six days reading at House Blade came back to him one after another, and his wolf stirred hard beneath his ribs.

Raven.

Cassian’s grip tightened.

What if the bastard had moved while he was gone?

What if Isolde had not simply collapsed?

Worse, what if Raven had been anywhere near her when it happened?

That possibility settled beneath his ribs hard enough that keeping his breathing steady required effort.

He knew why he had returned to House Blade.

One of the first lessons his father had ever forced into him had been painfully simple.

Know your enemy before you make a move.

Cassian hated how often the bastard’s lessons remained useful.

Going after a Dreamwalker blindly would have accomplished nothing. Raven already knew what happened when one was underestimated, and Cassian had needed to understand what they could do, how they entered minds, what they could alter once they were inside and whether the old Blade records contained anything useful enough to give them an advantage.

That was why he had gone back.

That was why he had tolerated six days beneath his father’s roof.

It had been necessary.

Knowing that did very little to quiet his wolf now.

The animal pressed forward again, carrying the same demand it had been giving him since he left Valerius.

Raven.

Cassian forced it back down.

Below him, Sharon sighed.

"And somehow Valerius still intends to hold the Renewal Ball tomorrow night."

Cassian’s head lifted.

Tomorrow?

His concentration nearly broke for the second time that night.

The Renewal Ball.

He had forgotten about the fucking Renewal Ball.

Six days of Dreamwalker records, House Blade, Raven’s publisher and tonight’s infiltration had pushed it so completely out of his mind that he had not thought about it once.

Aldric sounded unimpressed. "With Marchmont’s heir unconscious?"

"Apparently cancelling it now would create more questions than continuing with it."

"That sounds like Valerius."

"It does."

Cassian stopped listening.

Tomorrow night.

Of course.

His eyes narrowed as another name arrived almost immediately.

Dante.

There was absolutely no chance Dante Prymont would waste an opportunity like this.

Cassian’s jaw tightened as the thought settled properly.

He had been away from Valerius for six days, and Prymont had been there the entire time. Close to Raven. Close enough to involve himself whenever something happened, close enough to make himself useful, and certainly close enough to push whatever advantage Cassian’s absence had given him.

Now the Renewal Ball was tomorrow.

Formal clothes, dancing, Court traditions and an entire evening where nobody would question Dante finding reasons to remain at Raven’s side.

Cassian knew Prymont well enough to understand exactly what that meant.

The bastard did not need much encouragement where Raven was concerned.

Give him an opportunity this convenient and he would make a move.

His wolf surged forward at the thought, and this time Cassian made no attempt to push it back.

Six days had been long enough.

Cassian waited until Aldric and Sharon moved farther into the room before easing away from the gallery.

He retraced his path through the servants’ corridors without trouble. The same gaps remained in the patrol routes, and by the time he crossed the final courtyard and slipped over the boundary, the wolves patrolling the eastern side had not noticed so much as a disturbed shadow.

Several hundred paces of forest passed beneath his feet before Cassian finally slowed.

He allowed the Lattice to loosen gradually until the unnatural lightness left his body and his full weight settled against the ground again. A deeper breath filled his lungs as his heartbeat returned to its normal rhythm.

The satchel beneath his vest remained secure, carrying Raven’s manuscript, her publisher letters, the little money she had hidden away and everything else she had left beneath that floor.

Any one of those should have been enough to occupy his thoughts.

Instead, Aldric’s voice returned.

What if we really chose wrong?

Cassian stared through the trees.

Then came Sharon’s answer.

His jaw tightened.

He would deal with that later.

Right now, Valerius held more immediate problems.

Isolde had been unconscious for three days, the Dreamwalker was still somewhere inside the academy and Raven had been there without him for six.

Then there was tomorrow night.

The Ball.

Dante.

His wolf pushed against him again, harder than before.

For six days Cassian had given it the same answer.

Soon.

Not anymore.

He adjusted the satchel beneath his vest and turned toward Valerius.

It was time to go back.

Author’s Note

Hey everyone, quick apology before you continue reading.

Webnovel seems to have uploaded the Chapters out of order on my end, so Chapter 185 was placed before Chapter 186 even though that was not how I intended the sequence to appear. Because these are already premium Chapters and there is a limit on how much I can delete or rearrange afterward, I cannot properly move everything back into the correct order without risking another problem with the Chapter itself.

So I’m leaving the Chapters as they currently appear because I really don’t want to mess anything up further, and I’m adding this note so nobody gets confused while reading.

The important thing is that the story itself has not changed, and nothing has been removed. It is only the upload order that got messed up. Please continue with the Chapters as normal and keep in mind that the sequence may look slightly strange around this point because of the publishing mistake. I’m currently trying to fix what I can from my side without accidentally affecting the Chapters or causing any more issues.

Apologies again, guys.

I’m sorry about the confusion, especially for anyone who opened the Chapter immediately after it was uploaded and wondered whether something had been skipped, repeated or whether they had missed a Chapter somewhere. I know how annoying that can be when you are following a story closely and suddenly the order does not seem to make sense.

I always try to keep the reading experience as smooth as possible, so this is frustrating for me too. I would much rather fix the Chapter order directly, but with the restrictions on premium Chapters, I don’t want to make a rushed change and accidentally create a bigger problem than the one I’m already trying to solve.

If you noticed the issue before seeing this note, thank you for bearing with me. You did not miss anything important, and you do not need to worry about the story suddenly jumping forward or losing a scene. Everything that is supposed to be there is still there. The problem is purely with the order in which the Chapters were published.

I’m also making sure the Chapters after this continue in the correct sequence so this should not affect the story going forward. Once you get past this small mix-up, everything should read normally again.

Thank you for being patient with me and for continuing to support the story. I really appreciate everyone who reads, comments, votes, unlocks Chapters and sticks with Raven through all the chaos. Seeing you guys react to the story genuinely means a lot, and I don’t take that support for granted.

Everything after this will continue normally.

And again, I’m really sorry for the mix-up, guys. Thank you for understanding.

(Sorry for the long ass a/n. Webnovel wouldn’t let me post unless I added word to meet the word count. Apologies again)