Chapter 827: Just Want To See You At The Top Again

The third-year wing of Dark Knight Academy had already begun to empty by the time night settled fully over the grounds.

During the day, the wing carried a controlled kind of motion. Third-years moved through its halls with clipped purpose, passing between advanced classrooms, council offices, specialized training rooms, and study chambers few lower-year students ever entered. There was rarely the careless noise of first-years or the restless crowding of second-years around it.

Even at its busiest, the place felt sharpened by pressure, as though the students there had no time left for wasted movement. But at night, with most of them scattered between the dining hall, dormitories, private study spaces, or whatever routines their final year demanded, the wing became something quieter.

The corridors were not completely dark. Lamps glowed along the walls, their pale light falling across polished stone floors and closed classroom doors. The banners hanging between the pillars barely moved, touched only by the faint draft passing through the enclosed passages. Somewhere far away, voices echoed briefly and vanished. A door clicked shut in another hall. Then silence returned.

In one of the many empty classrooms, the door opened with a soft click.

Chris Rature stepped inside.

He was no longer in full academy uniform. His jacket was gone, and his clothes had shifted into a more casual arrangement suited for after lessons: dark trousers, a fitted shirt, and the kind of relaxed outer layer that still looked expensive because nothing worn by the Tempest prince ever seemed truly ordinary.

His dark-colored hair was neatly arranged, and his expression carried a calm confidence that did not belong to someone sneaking into an upperclassmen’s classroom after hours.

He entered as though he had a right to be there.

Not the way a second-year might enter a third-year classroom with caution, glancing around for instructors or seniors who might ask questions. Chris moved with familiarity, one hand closing the door behind him without hurry before he crossed the room. The classroom was arranged with rows of vacant desks facing a teacher’s platform at the front. Bookshelves lined one wall, empty of personal items now that the day had ended, and a large slate board still held the faint marks of a lesson that had been erased too quickly. Moonlight slipped faintly through the tall windows, mixing with the glow of the wall lamps and painting the room in cool layers.

Chris did not look around as if searching.

He already knew where to go.

He walked to one of the desks near the middle of the room, pulled the chair back, and sat with an ease that bordered on disrespect. Then he leaned back, stretched his legs forward, placed his feet on the desk in front of him, and crossed them at the ankles as if the room belonged to him and everyone else had simply forgotten to acknowledge it.

For a few seconds, the classroom remained quiet.

Then a feminine voice spoke from the darker side near the teacher’s desk.

"You are starting to get a bit too comfortable in your upperclassmen’s seats, do you not think?"

The tone was smooth, almost amused, with the kind of softness that would have seemed harmless if the words had not carried such careful placement.

Chris did not turn immediately. He only let his head rest back against the chair, eyes drifting toward the ceiling as if the question bored him.

"It is my right to feel comfortable wherever I go under the rule of the Tempest Kingdom," he said. "If anything, I need to become more comfortable than you."

A quiet chuckle answered him.

From the shadow near the teacher’s desk, Isolde Thorne moved into clearer view.

She leaned back against the front edge of the teacher’s desk with a calmness that made the empty classroom feel like a setting she had chosen deliberately. Her dark green hair fell in soft waves around her shoulders, rich enough in the low light to appear almost black at the edges. Her hazel-green eyes, usually warm and approachable, held their familiar ease as she looked at Chris.

The softness in her posture gave her an almost fragile impression, like someone who could be underestimated by anyone too careless to look past the surface. Her uniform remained neat, though the day had clearly worn on her enough that the collar sat slightly less perfectly than it might have earlier. Even then, nothing about her seemed disordered.

She smiled faintly. "You are the prince of the kingdom, so I suppose you have a point. I am only the student council president. Nothing more."

Chris lowered his gaze from the ceiling and looked at her properly. "Aside from being a high-class noble, you are right. You are nothing more than a student president."

Most people would have bristled at that.

Isolde only smiled.

There was no offense in her expression, or at least none that chose to show itself. She remained leaning against the desk, hands resting lightly at her sides, eyes fixed on him with a patience that made Chris’s arrogance feel almost childish by comparison.

After a moment, she asked, "How did the announcement go?"

Chris’s expression shifted slightly, smugness sharpening across his mouth. "Your words were true. Everything you told me about the Bastion Assessment was said. They did not go into as much detail as you did, but everything important was there. Full-year cooperation and all that nonsense." His eyes narrowed faintly. "Except for one thing."

Isolde tilted her head. "Oh?"

"You never mentioned a threat called the Warden."

The name hung in the classroom for a breath.

Isolde did not react immediately. Her gaze remained calm, her smile barely changing, though something behind her eyes shifted with subtle calculation. "The academy must have discovered it recently," she said. "When it was our turn, there was nothing by that name."

Chris studied her.

He was not fully convinced. That much showed in the faint tension around his eyes and the slight shift of his feet against the desk.

"I hope you are not trying to play me," he said.

Isolde’s smile turned a little softer. "If I wanted to play you, Your Highness, I would have chosen a different route than this."

Chris did not smile.

"No," Isolde continued. "I am not playing you. I am simply trying to see you reclaim your position at the top, just like many Tempestian students within your year want to see."

The words were delivered smoothly, almost loyally, but the classroom seemed too quiet around them for loyalty to feel completely natural.

Chris watched her for several more seconds. Then he removed his feet from the desk and stood, the chair scraping faintly against the floor. He smoothed the front of his shirt with one hand and began walking toward the door. His steps were measured, though his thoughts were clearly not finished with her. When he reached the door, he paused with his hand near the handle and looked back over his shoulder.

"What is your real reason?"

Isolde’s expression did not move.

Chris’s eyes remained on her. "For helping me this badly. For telling me about the assessment before the announcement. For gaining Sheila’s trust just to exploit it. You are not doing this only because I am the Tempest prince."

For a fraction of a second, Isolde’s face changed.

The warmth vanished.

What appeared beneath it was guarded and cold, so quick that a person looking away would have missed it entirely. Her eyes sharpened with something older and less graceful than the approachable student president everyone knew. It was not anger exactly. It was closer to resentment forced behind a locked door, only allowed to show through the crack for a heartbeat.

Then it was gone.

Her calm returned as if it had never slipped.

"I already told you," Isolde said. "I want the prince to regain his rightful position in the academy structure. It is only proper for the academy to be led by the Tempest heir."

Chris stared at her over his shoulder.

For a moment, neither of them spoke. The silence between them carried the shape of things neither intended to say openly. Chris did not believe her completely. Isolde did not need him to. Whatever arrangement existed between them was built less on trust and more on usefulness, and both of them seemed aware of it.

Finally, Chris scoffed.

"Sure," he said.

Then he opened the door and left.

The classroom door clicked shut behind him.

For several seconds, Isolde remained exactly where she was, leaning against the teacher’s desk, eyes fixed on the closed door. The smile stayed on her face at first, held in place like always.

Then it faded.

The coldness returned, slower this time.

"What a pain to deal with," she murmured.

There was no softness in her voice now. No airy amusement. No student president warmth. Just tired irritation, as if Chris’s arrogance had scratched at her patience far more than she cared to admit.

Then, gradually, the familiar expression returned again. Her mouth curved faintly, and the calm settled over her features in its usual practiced shape.

"At least," she said, pushing herself lightly away from the desk, "he is proving to be the perfect person to help me with my motive. Just like I thought."

Her gaze drifted toward the window, where the night pressed dark against the glass. Somewhere beyond the classroom, the academy continued moving through its evening routine, unaware of the small conversation that had just ended in an empty third-year room.

Students were eating, studying, training, gossiping about Eldervale, worrying about theory exams, and beginning to imagine what the Bastion Assessment would demand of them.

After a moment, she sighed.

"I am tired of this," she muttered. "I need to wash. This uniform is starting to feel uncomfortable."

She adjusted the edge of her sleeve, then crossed the classroom and opened the door.

The corridor outside was empty when she stepped out. Isolde closed the door behind her and began making her way back toward the third-year dormitory wing. Her steps were unhurried, and to anyone watching from a distance, she would have looked exactly as she always did: calm, approachable, mildly tired from student council work, perhaps thinking about the next set of responsibilities waiting for her.

Nothing in her walk revealed what had just happened. Nothing in her expression suggested she had been feeding information to Chris Rature or using Sheila’s trust as part of some quiet design.

The third-year wing remained mostly deserted as she passed through it. Lamps burned steadily along the walls, and the occasional sound of distant movement came from deeper halls, but no one crossed her path for some time. The emptiness suited her well enough. She wanted the night to move cleanly now.

Return to her room, wash, change, maybe review tomorrow’s council work, and then decide how soon she needed to speak with Sheila again. The announcement had changed the pace of everything. Students would begin choosing sides more openly now. Commander and vice commander would become the next major conversation. That meant pressure, and pressure would reveal exactly what Isolde needed it to reveal.

She turned into the enclosed walkway connecting the third-year academic wing to the dormitory building.

The passage was dimmer than the main halls, lit by lamps fixed between reinforced glass panels overlooking the dark academy grounds below. Beyond the windows, the late-autumn wind moved through bare trees, shaking branches and dragging leaves across the stone paths. The walkway was quiet enough that Isolde could hear the faint sound of her own footsteps.

Halfway down the passage, she slowed.

Someone was ahead.

At first, she thought it might be Chris.

A figure leaned against the wall near the far side of the walkway, arms relaxed, posture still, half-shadowed by the space between two lamps. The person was not standing in the center of the path, but close enough that they could not be mistaken for someone simply passing through. They were waiting.

Isolde’s eyes narrowed faintly.

As she drew closer, the light shifted across the figure’s face.

Not Chris.

Her steps nearly paused, though she recovered quickly.

Dark hair with faint red traces. Calm red eyes. A detached expression that seemed even colder beneath the dim lamps.

Liam Hunter.