Chapter 70: The Rumour

Roxanne walked into breakfast expecting an ordinary morning, and she knew within three steps that she wouldn’t get one. She had barely slept, and she had hoped to eat in peace. Conversations dipped as she passed the tables, and a group of second-years near the window stopped talking altogether and pretended to study their trays. Everyone seemed to be whispering about yesterday’s combat assessment, and she had a fair idea which moment they meant.

Isla was already at their usual table, watching her approach with open amusement. "You know everyone saw that, right?" she said. Roxanne sat down and picked up her fork. "Saw what?" she asked, and Isla leaned closer with a grin. "The way he looked at you." Roxanne inhaled part of her drink and coughed until her eyes watered.

Before she could recover enough to answer, Liam dropped into the seat across from her and spread his arms like a man greeting a crowd. "Good morning, future sister-in-law," he said. Roxanne kicked him hard under the table, and Liam yelped and grabbed his shin, glaring at her as though she had betrayed a sacred family tradition. Kai had arrived at the end of the table just in time to hear every word, and he stood there with his tray and a completely unreadable expression, while Jace, two seats down, choked on a piece of toast trying not to laugh.

By lunchtime, the story had grown legs. Roxanne heard three versions of it before she even reached the cafeteria, and in the latest one she and Kai were secretly dating. Someone claimed they had kissed behind the equipment shed after training, and a girl in the hallway insisted she had seen it herself, and someone else swore the Moonstone family had already given their approval. She wasn’t angry at Kai, but she hated that something private was being turned into entertainment for the whole academy. She was halfway across the room toward the loudest group when Kai stepped into her path.

"Don’t," he said quietly, and his hand closed lightly around her wrist. "They’re talking about me," Roxanne said, and Kai held her gaze. "Let them." She frowned at him. "You’re not bothered?" His answer was simple. "No," he said, and it caught her completely off guard, because she had expected him to care far more than she did.

Later that afternoon, a boy from her tracking group made a pointed comment as she walked past. He said loudly enough for the whole row to hear that some people got special treatment when they stood close to the Moonstones. Roxanne felt her jaw tighten and turned around, but Kai spoke first, calm and level, without raising his voice at all.

"If you think she gets special treatment, beat her score," he said. The boy opened his mouth, thought better of it, and went quiet. Roxanne looked at Kai as they walked away. "I could have handled that," she said, and he nodded. "I know," he said. The distinction mattered, because he hadn’t stepped in to rescue her. He had stood beside her while she decided whether she needed rescuing.

The instructors surprised everyone by giving the students a free afternoon before the next Lunar Trial session. Isla talked Roxanne into joining the others at the lake by promising it would only be an hour, and Jace and Liam turned it into chaos within minutes. Someone proposed a swimming race, and Tessa jumped in with a shout before the rules were even settled. Roxanne got dragged in as well, laughing and protesting, and she came out of the water gasping with her hair plastered across her face.

Kai stayed on the shore at first, sitting on a flat rock and watching with his arms resting on his knees. Liam crept up behind him for what felt like a full minute, and then shoved him hard with both hands. Kai went into the lake with a tremendous splash, and Roxanne laughed so hard she could barely breathe. He came up soaked and furious, water streaming off his hair, and he pointed at Liam. "You have five seconds," he said. Liam was already sprinting up the bank, and Roxanne laughed again as Kai hauled himself out and went after him.

Later, when everyone was distracted by food and a noisy card game, Roxanne sat at the edge of the lake with her feet in the water. Kai came and sat beside her, still damp, and for a while neither of them said anything. It was a comfortable kind of quiet, with the sound of the others carrying faintly across the grass.

"Do you ever get tired of everyone watching you?" she asked eventually.

Kai looked toward the others before he answered. "I’ve been watched my whole life," he said. Then he turned and looked at her instead. "It bothers me less when you’re there." Roxanne didn’t know what to say to that, so she nudged his shoulder with hers. He nudged her back, and they sat there watching the light move on the water while Liam’s distant, furious shouting drifted across the grass. Roxanne decided she could get used to afternoons like this one, even with the whole academy pretending not to look.

The peaceful afternoon ended when an instructor walked down to the shore with a clipboard and asked for everyone’s attention. The Lunar Trial preliminary assessment had been moved forward, he told them. Tomorrow, the selected students would undergo their first full-team wilderness simulation, and this time the academy would not tell them what they were being tested for. They were given only one instruction, which was to bring whatever they would need if they were spending three days in the wild.

Roxanne looked at Kai. "Three days?" she said. His expression changed, the easy warmth draining out of it. "Looks like it," he said.

That evening she returned to the dormitory and began to pack. Combat gear went in first, then water, food, and a change of clothes. She stopped over her academy jacket, turning it in her hands and wondering how cold the nights would be and whether the instructors would count a jacket as a luxury. Then a knock came at the door, and Isla opened it with a frown.

Nobody was there. Only a small academy-issued pack sat on the floor of the corridor, and a card was attached to the strap in the instructor’s handwriting. It read, YOU WILL NOT BE ALLOWED TO TAKE ANYTHING YOU DID NOT PACK YOURSELF.

Isla looked at Roxanne over the card. "That sounds ominous," she said. Roxanne picked up the pack and weighed it in her hand, feeling a grin pull at her mouth. "Tomorrow just got interesting," she said.