Chapter 128: no crowns, no rules

Chapter 128 — No Crowns, No Rules

Roxanne was on the third paragraph of her Pack Law assignment when a shadow fell across her desk and a hand removed her pen.

"You are wasting a perfectly good afternoon," Tessa said, holding it out of reach.

"I’m finishing an assignment."

"It’s not due until Monday. I checked."

"You checked my deadlines?"

"I check everything. Some students are organising an informal games session on the recreation lawn. Relays, throwing, an obstacle course. Nobody important is involved and nobody is keeping score in any way that matters."

Roxanne reached for the pen and missed. "I can’t. I have responsibilities for the Autumn Social."

"You have delegated nearly all of them. I watched you do it. It was beautiful." Tessa leaned on the desk. "You are not allowed to turn every free hour into another task. One hour. If you hate it, I’ll carry your bag for a week."

"Two weeks."

"Done."

Roxanne looked at the half-written page, then at the window, where the afternoon sun lay across the grass like something being offered. She sighed and closed her book. "One hour."

The recreation lawn was crowded with students in shirtsleeves, and the noise carried halfway to the dormitories. Teams sprinted between painted markers, first-years hurled beanbags at buckets, and at the far end someone had built an obstacle course from hay bales, barrels, and a rope that sagged hopefully between two posts. There were no banners and no rankings pinned to a board. A boy with a whistle seemed to be the only authority, and nobody was listening to him.

Roxanne felt her shoulders drop. Nobody here was looking at her. Nobody cared who she stood beside.

Before she could say a word, Tessa had marched to a table and signed them up for the team relay.

"I didn’t agree to that."

"You agreed to one hour. This is the hour."

Their teammates were three students Roxanne knew from lectures and had never spoken to: a freckled boy named Piers, a quiet girl called Neve who carried a notebook even here, and a tall second-year, Garrick, who looked them both over and shook his head.

"You’ve never practised together. You’ll lose."

Tessa grinned, wide and dangerous. "Then you’ll have plenty of time to apologise afterwards."

Neve laughed into her notebook. Roxanne found that she was smiling too. Nobody expected her to prove anything. It felt like setting down a bag she had forgotten she was carrying.

The relay was ridiculous. First came balancing a wooden ball on a spoon across twenty paces, then weaving through barrels, then carrying a full cup of water to a bucket without spilling more than a mouthful. Piers nearly lost his ball at the start. Neve moved with such cool precision that she won back half the distance.

Then it was Roxanne’s turn, and she began cautiously, walking as though the spoon might explode. Across the lawn, another team’s runner swept past her with a whoop.

Something in her stirred.

Are you going to let him do that? her wolf asked.

It’s a spoon race.

It is a spoon race you are losing.

Roxanne’s jaw tightened. From the sideline, Tessa cupped her hands around her mouth. "Silver! Your grandmother walks faster than that!"

"My grandmother is dead!"

"Then she’d still be ahead of you!"

Roxanne broke into a run. She took the barrels at a sharp angle, her foot skidded on churned grass, and for a heartbeat she was falling sideways with the ball leaping from the spoon. A quick twist of her hip caught her before she had decided to move, and she was upright with the ball somehow back where it belonged. She handed it to Garrick, gasping. He stared at her.

"How did you do that?"

"Luck," said Roxanne.

Tessa ran the final leg with the water. She was fast and furious with the clock, and at the last barrel she tipped the cup against her chest so that half of it vanished into the grass. They finished second, three seconds behind the winners.

"We were robbed," Tessa declared.

"You dropped the water."

"It was a defective cup."

"You held it like a hammer."

Piers laughed so hard he had to sit down. Even Garrick cracked a reluctant smile. At last Tessa lifted both hands. "Fine. It was me. I am a disgrace to the cup."

"A disgrace to all cups," said Roxanne, and the whole team collapsed.

They were still laughing when a familiar voice rang across the lawn.

"We heard you needed people who could entertain a crowd."

Liam swaggered towards them with Jace in tow, sleeves already rolled, wearing a look of great purpose. Jace folded his arms. "We challenge you to a rematch."

"You weren’t in the first one," said Tessa.

"That is exactly why we are fresh."

The rematch was a disaster. Liam spent the first leg commenting on Roxanne’s posture instead of watching his own spoon, and by the barrels he had dropped the ball twice. Roxanne waited until he was beside her at the water station, cup in hand, and said quietly, "Your hair has gone flat."

Liam’s hand flew to his head. The cup tilted. He stumbled over a barrel and windmilled across the finish line with a face of such pure outrage that half the lawn applauded.

Roxanne laughed openly, bent over with her hands on her knees.

He staggered to her side, a hand pressed to his heart. "Betrayed. In front of witnesses."

"You should file a complaint."

"With whom?"

"Someone who cares."

"I have never been so wounded," Liam said happily, and went off to recover his dignity on a hay bale.

Afterwards she sat on the grass with Tessa while the others drifted away in search of drinks. Her sleeve was streaked with dirt and her knee was stained green, and she felt entirely, uncomplicatedly good.

"What happened to you?"

She looked up. Kai stood over them with a training bag on his shoulder, hair damp from the yard, his eyes on her sleeve.

"Did you lose a fight with the lawn?"

"A relay. I came second."

"You look as though you won something."

"You look disappointed. Were you hoping for a spectacular injury?"

"I would prefer you avoid spectacular injuries altogether." He said it flatly, but the corner of his mouth moved, and he turned his face away as though that might hide it. Roxanne noticed anyway.

"Did you enjoy yourself?"

"I did." She plucked a blade of grass. "And I don’t want every interaction at this academy to become a lesson or a challenge or an assessment. Just for one afternoon."

She half expected him to offer to train her. Instead he nodded slowly. "Then don’t let people turn it into one."

It was brief. He went on towards the dormitories, and she watched him go, grateful that he had listened.

On the walk back, Tessa bumped her shoulder. "Are you going to the Autumn Social as a volunteer or as a student?"

"I’m going to enjoy at least part of it. Without counting chairs."

"Promise me one dance."

"Fine."

"With whom?"

"I’m not saying."

"I will find out."

"I know," said Roxanne.

That evening she set out her tin of tea leaves, a bar of soap, and a handful of mint, and ran through the healer’s scent exercise. It came easily now. When she finished, her wolf spoke.

You smell of grass and sweat and victory.

We came second.

You are smiling a great deal for someone who lost.

Roxanne put a hand over her mouth. Her wolf was beginning to understand her sense of humour, and she realised she no longer minded having someone to talk to inside her own head.

Later she opened the updated volunteer schedule. The student council had confirmed the assignments. She ran a finger down the list for her own name, then stopped beside Dance Floor Coordination.

Kai Moonstone.

She frowned. She hadn’t known he had volunteered.

Her phone buzzed at once. A message from Kai: I heard the organiser intends to enjoy the event instead of working through it.

A second followed. Good. Save some time for yourself.

Roxanne stared at the screen, unsure whether he was teasing her or quietly encouraging her.

Her wolf supplied an answer.

Why not both?