Chapter 428:Class over.

Chapter 428: 428:Class over.

Ravenna did not answer immediately.

The rest of Class Four continued filing out of Training Hall C-Four around them, conversations overlapping as students compared scores, argued about combat classifications and complained about Peter’s promise of a seven o’clock academic start tomorrow.

Silver remained beside Ravenna, although he noticed the way her expression changed the moment Shirley asked to talk.

The softness that had been there while they joked disappeared, replaced by the guarded coldness he had already seen whenever Ravenna looked at her stepsister.

Shirley waited several meters away, her eyes moving briefly toward Silver then toward their joined hands.

Ravenna noticed.

"What do you want?"

Her pleasant expression tightened. "I said I wanted to talk."

"You can talk."

"Privately."

"No."

The answer came so quickly that even Silver glanced toward Ravenna.

Shirley frowned. "Ravenna."

"If you have something important to say, say it. If you don’t, I want lunch," Ravenna firmly said.

Silver remained silent.

This was clearly older than today.

Shirley’s gaze shifted toward him again, and Silver could see that his presence genuinely bothered her. Probably because he was standing beside Ravenna.

More specifically, because Ravenna seemed happy that he was standing there.

Shirley folded her arms. "You’re different."

Ravenna’s eyebrows drew together.

"What?"

"You."

"That’s what you wanted to talk about?"

Shirley looked at Silver.

Ravenna saw it and her expression became colder.

"Don’t."

Shirley looked back at her.

"I haven’t said anything."

"You were about to."

"You don’t know what I was going to say."

"I know you."

Silver almost found that amusing considering he’d told Antony almost exactly the same thing this morning.

Shirley exhaled.

"I was only surprised."

"You’ve been surprised for the last two hours."

"Because you disappeared and then suddenly you’re here at Alpha Three Academy with him."

Silver raised an eyebrow.

Him.

Ravenna’s fingers tightened around his.

Shirley continued before she could respond. "And apparently he’s first on the leadership board. I didn’t know that."

"Why would you?"

"I heard things."

Ravenna’s expression didn’t change.

"From whom?"

Shirley hesitated.

"People."

"Then keep listening to people."

"Why are you immediately acting like I’m attacking you?"

Ravenna laughed once, but there was no amusement in it.

Silver looked between them but didn’t comment.

Shirley stepped closer.

"I’m trying to speak to you normally."

"We don’t speak normally."

"We could."

"I don’t want to."

Her jaw tightened.

For the first time, the pleasant expression slipped completely.

There was anger underneath, and something else.

Jealousy.

Silver recognized it.

It was not romantic jealousy toward him, that would have made no sense, it was directed at Ravenna herself.

Shirley’s eyes moved across her stepsister’s uniform, the sword in her hand, the FIRST YEAR badge, and then briefly toward the leadership rankings still visible on one of the distant training displays.

Third with a soul Capacity of nineteen that her family didn’t know about before exiling her, and now Ravenna was standing beside the student ranked first.

Shirley looked away.

"You always do this."

Ravenna’s eyes narrowed.

"Do what?"

"Act like you’re above everyone."

Silver felt Ravenna’s hand begin to loosen from his.

She was now clearly getting angry.

He let her hand go before she could feel restrained.

Ravenna stepped forward.

"I don’t think I’m above everyone."

"You don’t have to say it."

"Then you’re angry about something I didn’t say."

"I’m angry because you didn’t think to call us and tell us about your life and the fact that you awakened," she pointed at the board." That."

Ravenna stared at her before bursting out in laughter.

"Are you stupid?"

Shirley continued without caring, years of resentment beginning to push through the polite surface.

"Your Soul Capacity. Your training. Your talent. Why did you not tell anyone, dad wouldn’t have gone through sp much if he knew you were this talented. You always acted all high and mighty at home as though everyone else in the family was below you. Do you know how annoying that is."

Ravenna Just stared blankly at her.

"What do you want me to do about that, you’re the ones who threw me out. Stop playing victim."

She scoffed before rolling her eyes before continuing.

"Every time you did something, everyone had to talk about Ravenna. Then you disappeared, and now you’re suddenly here, third on the academy leadership board like nothing happened."

Ravenna’s expression hardened.

"Do you think I asked you to care?"

"That’s exactly how you act."

"No. I act like I don’t care what you think."

Shirley’s face flushed.

"Same thing."

"It really isn’t."

Silver almost intervened purely because that argument could go in circles forever.

He didn’t since Ravenna could handle it.

Shirley’s eyes moved toward him again.

"And now this."

His eyebrows rose.

Ravenna immediately stepped partly between them.

"This has nothing to do with Silver."

"I’m not talking to him."

"You’re looking at him every five seconds, it’s fucking annoying."

Shirley opened her mouth.

Ravenna continued.

"You don’t like me. I don’t like you. That’s been true for years. Don’t suddenly pretend you’re concerned about who I’m dating."

"I’m not concerned."

"Good."

"I just don’t understand it."

Ravenna’s expression became dangerous.

Silver finally spoke, "that sounds like something you don’t need to understand."

Shirley looked at him.

Silver’s tone remained calm.

He wasn’t interested in fighting Ravenna’s family battles, but he wasn’t going to stand there while Shirley treated him like some strange object Ravenna had dragged home either.

Shirley stared for a moment before giving a small smile.

"I didn’t mean it offensively."

Silver smiled back.

"You’ve said that several times today."

Her smile faltered.

Ravenna almost smiled. He noticed and gently touched the back of her hand.

That small contact was enough to calm her down. She looked at him as some of the anger left her shoulders.

Shirley saw that too.

Again, jealousy flashed across her face.

Ravenna had something she didn’t understand. Something she hadn’t expected Ravenna to have. And Shirley hated that.

She had been the one to indirectly set this all up and now instead of the massive failure she had expected, she now felt like a clown. It was infuriating.

Silver didn’t know enough about their childhood to understand all of it, but he knew one thing from what Ravenna had told him before and also glimpses from the novel.

Ravenna’s mother was dead while Shirley’s mother was still alive. That alone meant the two women had grown up occupying very different positions within the same family, and judging by the way Ravenna’s expression changed whenever family came up, those differences had never been handled kindly.

Shirley looked at Ravenna.

"Mother asked about you."

Ravenna’s face changed instantly.

The anger disappeared and something colder replaced it.

"Don’t."

"She did."

"I don’t care."

"She’s still worried."

"She’s your mother."

Shirley flinched.

Ravenna’s voice remained level.

"Not mine."

Silence filled the air.

Silver looked toward Ravenna but she didn’t look at him.

Shirley instantly recovered.

"She raised you too."

Ravenna’s eyes sharpened.

"My mother died. Yours being alive doesn’t make her mine."

Shirley’s expression hardened.

"She tried."

Ravenna stared at her.

Silver could feel the conversation approaching somewhere neither sister should go in the middle of an academy hallway.

Ravenna apparently realized the same.

She exhaled slowly.

"I’m not doing this here."

Shirley looked as though she wanted to continue but Ravenna turned away.

"Come on, Silver."

Silver nodded.

He didn’t immediately take her hand this time; instead, he walked beside her.

After several steps, Ravenna’s fingers brushed his. He looked down and took her hand that was reaching for his.

There was a quiet squeeze which she also squeezed back.

Behind them, Shirley remained where she was, her expression darkening as she watched them leave together.

She hated Ravenna, that hadn’t changed. If anything, seeing her stepsister again had reminded her exactly how much resentment remained.

Ravenna had always possessed something Shirley wanted.

Talent and attention, and now to add insult to the injury, a soul Capacity of nineteen plus a reputation people remembered even when she wasn’t present.

And now, after disappearing from her family entirely, she had somehow returned standing beside famously immoral Silver Ruddington, but now he was completely different from his reputation and a rare spatial Contractor from one of the most powerful families in the sanctuaries, the student currently sitting at the top of Alpha Three Academy’s preliminary leadership board.

Worse than that, he clearly adored her and Ravenna looked happy.

Shirley hated how much that bothered her. This was the first time she regretted advising Ravenna to go look for him. Her plan had backfired on her spectacularly.

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