Chapter 25: The Price of Defiance [I]

The Asterion Academy dining hall was unlike anything Starlight had ever seen. Calling it a cafeteria almost felt insulting. The enormous structure was closer to a royal banquet hall than a place where students gathered for meals. Designed to accommodate thousands of students at once, the vast hall stretched farther than the eye could comfortably follow, its soaring ceiling supported by towering marble pillars engraved with intricate silver wolf motifs that seemed to shimmer beneath the lights.

Floor-to-ceiling windows lined one side of the hall, allowing warm sunlight to spill across the polished white marble floor until it gleamed like a mirror. Suspended high above were magnificent crystal chandeliers that bathed the entire room in a soft golden glow, giving the hall an atmosphere of elegance that rivaled many noble estates she had only ever seen on television.

Every detail, from the carved walls to the ornate balconies overlooking the dining floor, reflected the immense wealth and influence behind Asterion Academy. Yet beneath all that beauty lay the same invisible hierarchy that governed every corner of the Empire. The largest section occupied the ground floor, where hundreds upon hundreds of long tables stretched across the hall in neat rows. This was where the overwhelming majority of students ate together. Unlike the rigid segregation Starlight was used to, humans and werewolves sat freely throughout the area, laughing, chatting, arguing, and sharing meals without anyone paying much attention to who belonged to which race. At first glance, it almost looked as though everyone was equal, until the farther one’s gaze traveled, the more obvious the differences became.

Running along the upper level of the hall was an elevated dining gallery overlooking the entire room below. Unlike the crowded communal seating beneath it, this section consisted of smaller circular tables spaced comfortably apart, each surrounded by elegant high-backed chairs that offered both privacy and prestige. Students seated there dined in a far quieter atmosphere. It was almost as though the area had been strictly reserved for certain people. The academy’s wealthiest-looking werewolf students naturally gravitated toward the upper gallery. Not a single human occupied that section. It wasn’t as though there were no wealthy human students at the academy. They simply seemed to understand that some places weren’t meant for them.

Even though some humans mingled freely with werewolves on the ground floor, there was still a subtle division between them. To be more precise, only the freshmen seemed comfortable mixing together. The senior students appeared to instinctively separate themselves according to race, as though years at the academy had quietly taught them where they belonged.

Near the center of the upper floor, slightly elevated above the rest, stood seven magnificent, currently empty seats positioned beside a private dining table overlooking the entire hall. Crafted from dark ebony wood with silver inlays depicting wolves beneath a crown, the chairs commanded attention without needing to announce their importance.

Behind them hung the crest of Asterion Academy, embroidered in silver thread against blood-red fabric. Starlight didn’t need a soothsayer to tell her those seats belonged exclusively to the five sub-royal clans of the Empire and the twin crown princes. No student even dared approach that area. It was as though they were afraid to so much as step too close.

As Starlight took everything in, her earlier anger gradually faded into quiet contemplation.

What had initially looked like nothing more than an impressive dining hall slowly revealed itself as yet another reminder of the world’s obsession with worshipping werewolves. Even a place meant for students to relax over a meal had been carefully designed to reinforce werewolf superiority. Every table, every seat, and every level of the hall silently reminded everyone exactly where they stood in the Empire’s social order. For everyone else, it might have been perfectly normal, but for Starlight, it was simply exhausting, if not downright irritating.

Elle gently tugged at the hand Starlight was still holding and nodded toward a table tucked away in one corner of the dining hall.

"Let’s sit over there."

Only then did Starlight realize she was still holding Elle’s hand. She immediately let go, feeling a faint flicker of embarrassment before pretending nothing had happened. Without saying anything else, the four girls made their way toward the corner table. It had four empty seats around it and was far enough from the center of the hall to offer a little peace from the constant noise. They each pulled out a chair and sat down, Starlight taking the seat closest to the wall while Elle, Chloe, and Ariel settled into the remaining ones.

Students constantly glanced toward their table far more often than Starlight deemed normal. Some whispered to one another before looking away the moment their eyes met hers, while others stared with open hostility. The tables closest to them remained noticeably empty despite having plenty of available seats, and some students who had been seated nearby before they arrived had quietly gathered their trays and moved elsewhere. It was almost as though everyone was unconsciously avoiding the area around them.

A small frown formed on Starlight’s face. Were they actually being shunned because of what had happened in the corridor? Before she could voice the thought aloud, Chloe cleared her throat. "So..." she said, looking at the others. "Who’s going to tell her? Or should I?"

Starlight looked between the three of them.

"Tell me what?"

Elle hesitated before letting out a quiet sigh. "You... probably shouldn’t have spoken to the Alpha Twins the way you did."

Starlight looked taken aback. "I don’t see anything wrong with the way I spoke," she said with a slight frown. "Besides, I didn’t speak to the Alpha Twins. I only replied to one of them."

Elle fell silent. She honestly didn’t know what else to say. If she were being completely honest, this was entirely her fault. If only she had been paying attention to where she was going, none of this would have happened. Yes, Starlight had been incredibly reckless. She had slapped a werewolf, not just any werewolf, but Beatrice Hawthorne of the Perigee Clan. She had even talked back to Alpha Mikhail. That was practically the same as offending two royal clans on her very first day at the academy. It was almost unheard of. But at the same time... everything Starlight had done had been because of her.

She had stepped in because someone had decided to humiliate her manager. Instead of feeling angry, Elle found herself strangely touched. She appreciated the gesture far more than she could put into words, and that only made it harder to criticize Starlight now.

"Elle?" Chloe prompted.

Elle glanced from her to Starlight and back to Chloe again, her shoulders slumping slightly, clearly at a loss for words. Chloe sighed in frustration. "If we’re being completely honest, Starlight," she said, "the three of us probably shouldn’t even be sitting with you right now."

Starlight’s frown deepened. She understood how submissive humans were expected to be toward werewolves, but she hadn’t thought standing up for herself would be considered such a big deal. Back at her old school, she had seen humans stand up to werewolves before, and nobody had treated it as though it were the end of the world.

"You went too far, Starlight," Chloe continued in exasperation. "You shouldn’t have slapped Beatrice Hawthorne and then gone on to practically dismiss Alpha Mikhail in front of half the academy. Do you even have any idea what you’ve just done?"