Chapter 25 Chapter 25: I would love to hear what my parents has to say

Chapter 25 Chapter 25: I would love to hear what my parents has to say

∆§∆ LUNARA'S POV ∆§∆

The auditorium was packed with students from every tier, their voices overcrowding each other.

Nobody knew what was going on but everyone had an opinion about it anyway, it was the reason for the raucous.

I leaped to the back and sat with my roommates, still in the same tattered clothes because I hadn't had the chance to change and honestly hadn't had the energy to care.

Some people looked at me, others ignored me just like I wanted. My wounds had been cleaned at the infirmary but somewhere between the walk back and sitting down, they had reopened.

And the strange thing, the thing I hadn't said a word to anyone about, was that they were closing again on their own.

I could feel it with the pain vanishing with each scab that reclosed on its own.

What's happening? I pressed my hand carefully to my side and felt the skin pulling itself back together beneath the bandage, with no use of magic, or medicine.

The stab was just healing on its own the way normal wounds didn't heal especially with a Wolfless wolf such as myself.

I buried that information away in my head, and decided to concentrate on what's happening right now.

Bea suddenly grabbed my arm the moment she noticed me, her eyes going wide and worried. "What happened to you? Why do you look like that?"

"Training," I lied.

"Lunara, that is not a training injury and you know we are just coming—"

"I'm fine, Bea."

She didn't believe me but she didn't say anything. Jade looked at me once, assessing me, I thought she was going to say something but she looked away without a word.

Wendy stared at the stain spreading slowly through the fabric at my side, and I watched her decide not to say anything about it. Smart girls, all three of them except Riley of course.

She seems to have something against me.

Chancellor Voss took the stage and the auditorium immediately went quiet the way it always did when he appeared.

I knew it was not out of respect but rather a self-preservation instinct that came from being around someone who you know held your academic future in their hands.

He straightened his jacket, cleared his throat and looked out over the crowd with a haughty expression.

"Students of Vicjen Royal Academy, what I am about to announce has not happened in over fifty years."

He let that sit for a moment before continuing, explaining the Triad Trials in the tone of someone who had rehearsed this speech and enjoyed every word of it.

In his words, three academies would be competing, Vicjen against Blackridge Eastern and Stormcrest Western, four champions per academy, with deadly trials that would stretch across four weeks.

It was at the mention of the prize, everyone leaned forward without meaning to.

"One hundred thousand points to each winning champion, automatic Elite status upgrade, and prestige that will follow you for the entirety of your time at this academy."

The murmuring that followed was the kind that meant people were actually listening, calculating, imagining what it would feel to have something that good.

And then he said the part that changed the temperature of the room entirely that quickly turned the excited students sour.

"This year will also include something new, a preliminary fighting competition among all junior students, where winners will be grouped into the strongest teams and those who lose will be grouped among themselves."

The outrage that followed wasn't loud at first, it started as shifting and low voices and tension built when a room full of people understood something foul was at play.

And at the same time they hadn't decided yet whether to say it out loud, because everyone knew exactly what he meant.

Humans without wolves would lose, alongside students with weak wolves, these are the people this academy had spent every day making sure they understood where they stood in the order of ranks.

My hand went up before my brain fully approved the decision.

My side protested immediately but I ignored it. Chancellor Voss looked across the auditorium until his eyes found me, and the look on his face was filled with disdain that he wore for people beneath him but I wasn't beneath him, he is the one beneath me.

"Miss Smith," he said, in the tone of someone granting a very small and undeserved favor.

"Why are junior students joining the Triad Trials when it has never been done in the history of Vicjen Academy?" I asked, keeping my voice calm and steady, because if I was going to ask a question in front of this many people then I was going to ask it in a way that required an actual answer.

The murmuring that followed my question wasn't disagreement, it was recognition, and the sound of people realizing they had been wondering the same thing but didn't have the guts to say so.

Chancellor Voss's expression didn't change but his jaw tightened and his eyes flashed gold different from his normal eye color which says his wolf was at the surface.

Once again, I realized a man like him that allowed his emotions and personal feelings to rule his head didn't deserve the position he had.

And I was proven right by his next words. "How this academy is run should not be questioned by the lowest tier in the ranks of werewolves," he snarled coldly, and then he added, "Now sit your ass down."

Aurora snickered from the front row, and her crew followed the way they always did, as if they needed her permission to find something funny.

Rage rushed through me that wasn't the warmth, my uncle has always said it was.

I felt irritated by Chancellor Voss but even more irritated that my ungrateful twin thinks that I, not exposing her for her crazy act against me, was in her favour.

I kept my eyes on Chancellor Voss because I had learned a long time ago that looking at Aurora when she wanted a reaction was the fastest way to give her exactly what she wanted.

I wasn't ready to deal with her yet. I will deal with her but not now. I leveled my gaze on the chancellor making sure the stare I had practiced numerous times to deal with generals that disobeyed while I was at the palace was used on him.

"And as Chancellor," I said, not moving, not lowering my voice or gaze like a low tier ranking individual was expected to do, "you shouldn't be biased or use such language like that, especially towards me."

The auditorium went very quiet, everyone looked like they were holding their breaths.

My roommates leaned away from me with the caution of people who very much wanted to support me but also very much did not want to be associated with whatever came next, and I understood them and I couldn't even blame them for it.

I looked back at Chancellor Voss, his face had gone red, not with embarrassment but with rage.

He opened his mouth to respond, except he didn't get the chance because something hit me from the side with the kind of force that was meant to kill me.

I caught it with uncle Kael's fourth technique, drawing the warmth inside me up through my bones just before impact, strengthening them just enough to absorb the worst of it.

Yet, I was still slammed into the wall hard enough to see stars, the air leaving my body all at once as my wounds tore open again beneath the bandage.

I pushed off the wall immediately and forced myself upright because going down was not an option, not here, not in front of all these people.

I found myself looking at Chancellor Voss's second-in-command, a broad man built like a wall whose eyes were full of contempt that came from someone who had spent years being told they were important.

"Your kind," he hissed, walking toward me slowly like he was enjoying having the opportunity to do it, "are a disgrace to the werewolf kingdom and you don't get to speak, you don't get to question, you sit there and you are grateful we even allow you to breathe our air."

His hand wrapped around my throat, large enough that his fingers overlapped, and he squeezed.

I started running through the consequences of fighting back in my head, which is being expelled.

It was better than being strangled to death. I was just about to make the decision when a ball of fire crossed the entire auditorium and hit him square in the shoulder.

He dropped me and at the height which I was falling, I might lose consciousness but Zeke moved faster and his arm caught me before I reached the floor, pulling me back to standing with a grip that was rougher than necessary.

The fire kept burning while the man stumbled and screamed and students scattered from the surrounding rows.

Chancellor Voss shot to his feet with a fury that seemed to take up more space than his body should have allowed. "CARDINAL BLAZE, WHAT IS THE MEANING OF—"

"My sincerest apologies, Chancellor," Blaze said, his voice carrying a subtle calm that made everything he said sound more dangerous than it should have.

He shook his wrist once, the fire went out from the man's shoulder like he'd simply changed his mind about it. "I was observing how high tier members exercise their right to discipline those beneath them and thought I'd practice the technique myself."

The man cradling his burned arm looked up at Blaze with watering eyes, and Blaze looked back at him with the patient expression of someone waiting for a response they already knew wasn't coming.

"Does it hurt?" Blaze asked, genuinely sounding curious.

I was right, this dude is a psychopath. As to his question nobody answered. Somewhere in the middle rows, two students were whispering about whether Cardinals were actually allowed to do that to the Chancellor's staff, and someone else was whispering back that it depended entirely on which rule you were reading.

Roman's voice came from the Cardinal section without him even looking up from whatever he was reading.

"Assaulting a student in front of the entire academy constitutes a violation of the protection clause, section four, paragraph two," he said, turning a page. "Your second-in-command might want to consult someone about that."

I stood there with Zeke's hand still loosely at my back, my throat aching, my wounds burning, and everything in me wanting to sit down.

But I kept standing because Chancellor Voss was looking at me again with his shaking pointed finger and I refused to let him see anything except someone who was still on their feet.

"This is not over, Miss Smith. I will make sure to inform your parents!" he said.

"Please do," I agreed, nodding my head. "Also tell them how you degraded their daughter and have your man try to strangle her to death, I would love to hear what my parents have to say to that."

Color drained from Chancellor's Voss face. He couldn't say anything else and he just storms off, not before instructing Professor Reyes to take over.