Chapter 83 — Wrong Colors

Chapter 83: Chapter 83 — Wrong Colors

~ Dante ~

The observation grounds erupted when the Ward took them.

One moment, all twenty representatives were crossing into the forest together. The next, the viewing sigils showed them scattered across entirely different stretches of trees.

Students shot to their feet all over the field.

Somewhere behind Dante, a first-year shouted, "That can’t be allowed!"

An upper-year answered with the kind of satisfaction that came from finally knowing something somebody else didn’t.

"It’s been allowed for sixty years."

Dante didn’t move.

The display slates hung in four long rows above the field, one feed for every competitor, and Dante found Raven’s before the shouting over the scatter had even settled.

White hair in a grey forest made the job easy.

She was crouched behind the cover of a wide trunk, waiting.

Dante watched her stay there longer than he expected. She listened first, then moved, keeping close to the trees instead of cutting through the open stretches between them. Every so often she stopped again and checked the ground behind her before continuing.

Good.

At least she wasn’t charging blindly toward the first noise she heard.

She had just started around the roots of a fallen tree when she stopped.

Dante leaned forward slightly.

Something beneath the exposed roots had caught her attention. She lowered herself carefully, looked around once, then again, and whatever caution had been holding her movements tight disappeared beneath sudden, unmistakable excitement.

Then Dante saw the glow.

A Founder Seal.

His mouth curved.

Around him, students were still arguing about the Ward scattering the competitors, but Dante barely registered them anymore.

Raven had found a Seal before she had even found one of her teammates.

Now he wanted to see what she did with it.

She checked both sides of the forest.

Looked behind herself twice.

Then, apparently satisfied nobody was waiting to tear her throat out over it, she sat back on her heels and looked up at the sky.

Dante’s brow lifted.

Raven grinned.

Then she started dancing.

His smile widened.

A slow, helpless grin spread across his face as he watched the woman who had spent most of her time at Valerius looking ready to bite somebody celebrate alone in the mud because she had found a metal disc.

Then Raven froze.

Dante knew exactly why before she even turned.

Her head moved slowly toward the nearest observation sigil.

She found it.

For a second, Raven simply stared straight into the dark lens.

The feed caught every bit of the horror settling across her expression.

A burst of laughter went through the nearby stands.

Dante’s smile widened again.

There she was.

Raven muttered something the sigil didn’t pick up, looked briefly like she wanted the earth to swallow her, then reached into the roots and grabbed the Seal.

Dante’s attention sharpened.

He expected her to pause now. The Warden had warned them exactly what would happen the moment somebody claimed a Founder Seal, and Raven had to know touching it would announce her position to everyone nearby.

Maybe she would wait. Move around it. Work out where she wanted to run before waking the thing.

Instead, she just reached in and took it.

The chime rang through the feed.

A pale pulse burst outward through the forest.

Dante leaned forward, forearms settling over his knees.

So that was her choice.

Take it first.

Deal with the consequences afterward.

The understanding hit Raven almost immediately.

Her eyes followed the fading pulse through the trees, then dropped to the Seal in her hand.

Dante could practically see the Warden’s warning returning to her.

Raven cursed.

Then she jammed the Seal securely beneath the crossing strap of her harness and ran.

The first few steps were hurried and ugly. After that she found her footing, slipping between the roots and trees with considerably more sense than she had shown when she picked the thing up.

The people around Dante were paying attention to her feed now too.

Rivers had the first Seal.

Hale had scored before most of the representatives had even regrouped.

Dante didn’t look away.

Run, then.

His attention stayed on Raven until movement lower down the viewing field caught the edge of his vision.

Nikolai Hale stood with the Hale delegation, watching the same feed.

His hands were clasped loosely behind his back. His head had tipped slightly to one side.

And he was smiling.

Dante’s own smile faded.

There was nothing strange about it.

Raven represented Hale. She had just claimed a Founder Seal while most of the Hunt was still trying to work out where the Ward had thrown them. Nikolai had every reason to look pleased.

Still, something about seeing that smile while Nikolai watched Raven irritated Dante immediately.

His jaw tightened before he could stop it.

He looked back at Raven’s slate.

The feeling remained.

~ Raven ~

Raven ran until her lungs started burning.

Then she forced herself to stop.

That was harder than continuing.

She pressed one shoulder against a tree and listened.

Nothing.

No. Not nothing.

Wind moved somewhere high above the canopy. Water still ran behind her. Far away, a branch cracked and dropped through other branches before hitting the ground.

Normal forest noises.

Which was exactly the problem.

Two separate things had crashed through the undergrowth after the Founder Seal announced itself. Raven had run without looking back, and now every snap in the trees sounded like one of them catching up.

None did.

That did not mean nobody was there.

Fine. Assume yes.

Garrick’s voice returned from their second afternoon of training.

If you have to guess, guess the expensive way.

Raven pushed away from the tree.

No more sprinting.

She started doing what Mara had drilled into them instead.

She chose firmer ground where the leaves were thinner and her boots made less noise. She skirted dense patches rather than forcing through them. Whenever the trees opened too widely ahead, she slowed before crossing. Twice she stopped completely, stood against a trunk and listened until her breathing settled.

All she needed was distance.

The claim pulse had told everyone nearby where the Founder Seal woke.

It had not told them where Raven took it afterward.

The metal disc rested warm against her ribs beneath the strap of her harness.

She glanced down at it.

Idiot.

She had checked the trees.

Checked behind herself.

Waited before approaching.

Then the moment she remembered the observation sigil and realized the academy had watched her dance, every useful thought had apparently left her head.

She had grabbed the bloody thing just to escape the embarrassment.

After almost two weeks at Valerius and she was still finding new ways to make decisions she regretted approximately one second later.

Still...

Raven touched the edge of the Seal through the strap.

She had it.

Twelve Founder Seals across the entire Hunt, and one was already with Hale.

A small, deeply satisfied part of her stirred.

Charming. Doomed, my ass.

That helped.

Now she needed her team.

She adjusted toward the sound of water and kept moving.

And started hoping again.

Brielle would be ideal.

Brielle would take one look at the Founder Seal and immediately identify three problems Raven had missed.

Garrick would start giving orders, which sounded wonderful right now.

Mara would do.

Dorian...

Raven stepped carefully over a root.

Yes. Even Dorian.

Anyone in Hale colours. One person. I won’t complain for the rest of the day.

The ground began sloping downward. The trees grew thinner here but closer together, their branches letting narrow strips of pale light through.

Something moved ahead.

Raven stopped with one foot still half-raised.

There.

Between two trunks perhaps sixty paces away.

Something had crossed the gap.

Not wind.

She lowered herself behind a shelf of exposed rock and waited.

Movement again.

A figure passed briefly between the trees.

Uniform.

Raven leaned just far enough to catch the colour.

Academy colours.

So it was definitely another competitor.

Her eyes dropped immediately, searching for the one thing that mattered.

Green.

Raven stayed exactly where she was.

Ashbourne.

The figurel stopped near the top of the slope and looked down through the trees.

Raven recognized the dark braid first.

Then the straight posture.

Then the profile.

Seren Ashbourne.

Raven slowly lowered herself another inch behind the rock.

Of nineteen other competitors scattered through the forest, apparently this was the one the universe had decided she needed.

Seren started down the slope.

Raven remained still, the Founder Seal warm against her ribs.

I asked for Hale colours.

The universe, as usual, had interpreted that as a suggestion.