Chapter 57 — Disappointed

Chapter 57: Chapter 57 — Disappointed

~ Raven ~

Cassian Blade came into the room looking mildly inconvenienced by the existence of everyone in it.

Tall, white-haired and still dressed for the training floor, he ignored the whispers that followed him inside. His gaze swept the classroom once, passed over Rowan without interest, and settled on Berry.

He walked straight to her desk and held out his hand for the document.

"Heir Blade," Rowan said. "Rowan House requested you as neutral witness. Prymont is named in the attached disciplinary matter. Nikolai can’t witness for a student of his own Wing, and I can’t witness a petition I filed."

Cassian’s eyes stayed on the document.

"I can read."

He read the petition slowly, turning the first page over before returning to something near the bottom. His thumb passed over the raised Rowan seal, then the smaller academy seal beside it. When he reached the added terms, he stopped.

Raven watched his eyes move across the line containing formal submission.

Then back across it.

Something small and humiliating stirred beneath her ribs.

Find something.

A broken seal. A missing signature. The wrong wording. Anything.

Cassian turned the page and checked the endorsement on the reverse.

There has to be something.

He looked up.

"It’s valid."

Whatever had been trying to lift inside Raven dropped straight through her stomach.

Cassian handed the petition back to Berry, but did not move away.

"There are conditions on the submission."

Rowan’s attention sharpened.

"No aura," Cassian said. "No physical coercion. Nobody puts a hand on her, forces her down or keeps her there once she’s down."

His voice remained flat, almost bored.

"If Rivers kneels, she does it herself. Otherwise it isn’t submission, and this part of the Redress fails."

Rowan’s jaw tightened slightly.

"Understood."

Cassian finally looked at him.

"Then we understand each other."

The silence between them lasted barely a second, but Raven felt it.

Rowan gave a clipped nod.

Cassian stepped back as though that settled the matter.

That was all.

He hadn’t defended her. Hadn’t questioned whether she deserved any of this. Hadn’t even looked at her while laying out the restriction.

As far as Cassian Blade was concerned, he had probably done nothing more than make sure an old academy rule was followed correctly.

Raven knew that.

Still, it was the closest thing to help anyone had given her all morning.

Celeste spoke at that moment.

"House Rowan invokes public satisfaction."

The room went quiet enough that Raven could hear a bird outside the window.

"The grievance occurred publicly. In the main cafeteria, in front of the student body." Celeste’s hands were still folded.

Her voice didn’t rise once. "Redress in private does not restore a standing that was damaged in public. The apology and the submission should take place where the offence did."

Nobody said anything.

Berry’s expression tightened.

She looked at Cassian.

He seemed to understand the question without her asking it. His eyes dropped to the petition again, found the relevant line and stayed there for a moment.

Raven watched him, already knowing she wasn’t going to like whatever came next.

Cassian lifted his gaze.

"Public satisfaction is covered under the provision."

Berry’s mouth flattened.

"Meaning?"

"If the grievance was public, the petitioner can request that the Redress be answered publicly."

Rowan didn’t hesitate.

"Then I accept the request."

Something inside Raven went very still.

Her notes were still open on the desk in front of her. Berry’s lesson remained across the board. Less than an hour ago, she had been sitting here worrying about heating sigils and five fucking Merit.

Now Rowan House was deciding where she would kneel.

And suddenly Raven understood.

They weren’t taking her somewhere to settle anything.

They were taking her somewhere everyone could watch.

They left Sigil Theory in a line.

Berry went first with the petition in hand, the prefect beside her. Rowan followed at an easy pace, Celeste half a step behind his shoulder. Cassian had fallen somewhere toward the back, hands in his pockets, looking like a man who had been sentenced to attend something tedious and intended to make that everyone else’s problem.

Raven walked in the middle.

Behind her came three sets of footsteps she knew without looking.

Nobody had asked Thalia, Tessa or Brielle to come.

Nobody had stopped them either.

The corridor stayed silent for perhaps twenty paces.

Then a boy approaching from the opposite direction noticed the prefect.

His eyes dropped to the Rowan seal in Berry’s hand.

Then found Rowan.

He stopped so abruptly his shoulder hit the wall.

His slate was already coming out by the time they passed him.

Raven kept walking.

At the stairwell, a classroom door cracked open.

Three faces appeared through it.

"Redress—"

"On who?"

By the second-floor landing, footsteps had begun collecting behind them.

Raven didn’t turn to count.

She didn’t need to.

Every few yards another door opened. Another whisper joined the ones behind her. Somewhere farther down the corridor, chairs began scraping across stone.

An instructor snapped something sharp.

Nobody seemed particularly interested in listening.

"—that’s Rivers—"

"They can’t actually make her kneel."

"They can. My uncle sat through a Redress once. If submission is in the terms, she either does it or refuses satisfaction."

"What happens if she refuses?"

"Nothing good."

Another voice cut in.

"Forget that. What about Twentieth Seat? If they deduct enough Merit—"

"Blackthorn goes back above her."

Raven kept her eyes on Berry’s back.

She had read about this place for years.

That was the thought she couldn’t get rid of as they descended the final staircase and the crowd behind them grew large enough to have its own weight.

Three years of discarded Blackthorn gazettes. Pages flattened beneath her palms after midnight while the kitchens were finally quiet.

Rankings she had memorised because imagining her own name among them had been easier than admitting she would probably never see the gates. Trials. Vanguard. Names belonging to people who lived in a world she had only ever read about while her hands smelled of soap and dishwater.

And somewhere inside all of that wanting, Raven had believed something embarrassingly simple.

That Valerius would be different.

Not kind.

She had never been stupid enough to expect kindness.

But fair in the one way that mattered.

She had thought that once she got through those gates, what she did might eventually matter more than where she had come from.

That if she worked hard enough, fought hard enough, earned enough, there might come a day when nobody could reduce her to Blackthorn’s kitchen servant because there would be too many other things beside her name.

She had been inside Valerius for less than two days.

And the academy was stopping its lessons to come watch a Great House put her on her knees.

The main cafeteria doors stood open.

Raven made it three steps inside before she stopped.

The room was full.

Not busy or crowded for lunch.

Full.

It was the middle of a lesson period, yet hundreds of students packed the four sections beneath the hanging Cardinal crests. They filled the aisles, lined the walls and stood on benches at the back for a better view. More were still pushing in behind her.

Raven stared.

Then she noticed the people who weren’t scrambling for space.

Along the near wall stood a line of Rowan students, already in position.

Six Vanguards were spaced among them.

Raven knew the uniform immediately. Alaric and Kieran wore the same cut—charcoal gray, heavier through the shoulders than the standard academy uniform, with the Vanguard insignia worked so dark into the cloth that it only showed when the light struck it.

They stood evenly apart, hands behind their backs, watching the room instead of the spectacle.

Raven’s stomach sank.

They were waiting for her.

Her gaze moved farther into the cafeteria.

And found the Blackthorn twins.