Chapter 31 — Fuck It

Chapter 31: Chapter 31 — Fuck It

Up in the tiers, Thalia lowered her hands from her face.

"Oh, fuck."

She said it to nobody. Then she looked at the students seated on either side of her, sat down very slowly, and slid along the bench until a broad second-year sat between her and the direct line of sight to Raven.

A girl nearby glanced at her. Thalia pointed down at the floor of the hall, shook her head, and mouthed, I’ve never met her.

Down beside the array, the silence gave Raven’s words back to her.

Would both of you shut the fuck up.

She had said that. Out loud. To two Cardinal heirs, in front of students from all four wings, the academy’s evaluators, and the two other heirs whose combined Houses owned the ground this hall stood on.

Thalia’s voice from an hour ago drifted up through the quiet — I don’t think anyone has ever been stupid enough to say so publicly — and Raven’s stomach drew in tight against her spine.

Heat crawled up under her skin. Hundreds of faces were pointed at her, and her body had already begun preparing its retreat before she caught it and planted herself.

The question had been fair, and she still wanted the answer. She wouldn’t take it back.

The way she had asked it, though—that she might have handled better.

Dante turned fully toward her.

The amber-gold in his eyes was still blazing, and the lines beneath his uniform pulsed slow light through the gray fabric, brightening with each beat like something breathing under the cloth.

"Repeat what you said."

He didn’t raise his voice. That was the worst part. The words came out quiet and even, and they carried to the top row anyway.

The hall answered before Raven could.

"Apologize!" A girl’s voice, high and furious, from the Rowan’s Wing block. "On your knees, you ungrateful—"

"A Nascent." A boy near the front stood up to say it. "Two Cardinal heirs considered you useful and this is—"

"She cursed at Lord Dante. She cursed at—"

"Someone drag her out before she—"

The voices piled onto each other, and more students rose along the tiers to add theirs. Two rows behind Thalia, Brielle sat motionless with her token forgotten in her lap, staring down at Raven with her lips parted, her expression caught between two verdicts and unable to land on either.

Tessa hadn’t risen with the crowd. She’d shifted forward to the edge of the bench, feet drawn back under her, eyes moving between Raven and the nearest aisle.

Raven stood beside the array and let it all come.

Ungrateful. Honored. Grateful. Given.

Each word landed somewhere it had landed a hundred times before, and she waited for the shame to arrive with them the way it always had in the Blackthorn house, head down, hands folded, yes my lady, thank you my lady.

It didn’t come.

Because not one of these people was angry about harm done.

They were screaming because a girl with no House and no crest had stood in the middle of their ceremony and declined to feel honored while two men divided her up. That was the whole crime. She had refused to be a horse pleased by the auction, and the stable was furious on the auctioneers’ behalf.

The heat under her skin stopped being embarrassment somewhere in the middle of the third insult. By the fifth, her hands had gone still at her sides. Her chin came back up, and the tightness in her stomach turned over and settled into something with a much harder edge.

Raven looked along the screaming tiers. Then she looked up at the platform, at the four heirs watching her, and heard herself say it, low, to no one at all.

"Fuck it."

She lifted her head and sent it across the entire hall.

"Fuck it."

Her eyes ignited white.

The cold pressure behind Raven’s ribs clenched hard enough to steal her breath.

Then it broke loose.

Pale force ripped out of her in a widening ring. The sigils beneath her feet went dark. The first benches tore sideways with a scream of wood against stone, throwing students into one another. Higher in the tiers, Thalia slammed into the broad second-year and vanished between the seats with him.

The girl who had demanded Raven kneel hit the floor hard, catching herself on both palms.

By the time the force struck the back wall, no one was laughing.

On the platform, three of the four heirs moved

Dante’s grin vanished. So did the temper that had been blazing through him. He stared at Raven as if the rest of the hall had fallen away.

Cassian leaned forward, his gaze passing once over the dead sigils and the benches shoved out of place before returning to her. His expression remained controlled, but his attention had sharpened into something almost surgical.

Rowan straightened. The contempt he had worn so easily on the avenue was gone.

Only Nikolai had not moved. He sat utterly still, emerald eyes fixed on the pale light spilling from Raven’s skin, his easy smile nowhere to be found.

Raven stood as frozen as they were.

The cold power still moved through her, immense and disturbingly familiar. It was hers—she knew that much. She did not know how she had called it, what it was, or whether it would answer her again.

Her heart hammered.

Then she looked around the hall.

The students who had demanded her apology were braced against benches or sprawled across the floor. The evaluator had retreated beyond the array. No one was laughing now.

And the four men who had spent the ceremony debating her value over her head were finally looking at her.

Not through her.

At her.

Raven met each stare in turn.

Then, slowly, she smiled despite her shaking fingers.

"If this ceremony decides where I stay," she said, "then I’ll choose for myself."

No one tried to stop her. Not the evaluator. Not the students. Not one of the Cardinal heirs.

Dante held her gaze for another beat.

Then he threw back his head and laughed.

The sound rang through the silent hall—loud, delighted and completely free of mockery. When he looked at her again, his amber-gold eyes were still burning.

"Interesting," he said. "Whose House, then?"