Chapter 11: Festival
POV: Raven
I was rereading the book in class again. But my mind kept going back to what Kai had written at its end. What did he mean by that?
"All students should assemble now!"
The voice from the hallway speakers jarred me back to life.
I was in my third class of the night trying so hard not to sleep off when the Headmaster's voice came through the walls and told us to report to the main hall immediately.
Loki looked at me. I looked at him. We packed our things.
The main hall was already full when we arrived. Every student, every teacher, lined up. I found Raiden near the middle and pushed through to stand beside him. He handed me my jacket without being asked.
"What is this?" I said.
"No idea. Darius said it's the festival briefing but they don't usually pull everyone out of class for that."
At the front, the Headmaster stepped onto the raised platform. He was old, silver-haired, and looked serious.
He waited for the room to quiet. It didn't take long.
"The Annual Festival of Houses will proceed in three weeks," he said. "This year the format changes. Paired magical demonstrations as previously announced. A formal dinner attended by representatives of every noble house." He paused. "Including a delegation from the royal Council."
The room shifted.
"Participation is mandatory. Performance is evaluated. Houses will be ranked." He looked across the room with eyes that had seen enough festivals to find this one unremarkable. "Conduct yourselves accordingly."
He stepped down. That was it.
Around me the room broke into noise immediately. Rankings meant status. Status meant everything in this school.
Raiden turned to me. "You're paired with Darius."
"I know."
"Raven—"
"I know, Raiden."
He pressed his mouth into a line and said nothing else, which meant he was saving it for later when we were alone and he could say all of it.
Loki appeared on my other side. "Council delegation at the festival," he said quietly. "How are you feeling about that."
"Fine," I said.
He looked at me.
"I'm working on it," I said.
"With Lakestone?"
I didn't answer. He nodded like I had.
Across the hall I could see Virella with her clique, already in what looked like a strategy session, heads together, voices low. Talia was listening. Darius was watching me over Virella's shoulder with that flat patient look.
I looked away first. I needed to find Kai.
I found him in the restricted corridor twenty minutes after the assembly broke. I hadn't planned to look there specifically. But my feet had apparently made a decision my brain was still catching up to.
He was already there, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed and his eyes on the middle distance, like he'd been expecting either me or this conversation and had come here to have it somewhere quiet.
"You heard," I said.
"I was in the hall."
"The Council will be there. In the same room. For hours."
"Yes."
"The blend won't hold at that proximity. Not with Council-level magic users." I stopped in front of him. "You told me yourself."
"I did." He looked at me steadily. "Which is why we start active concealment training tonight."
"Tonight?"
"You have three weeks." He pushed off the wall. "That's not generous time, Raven. That's barely enough." He moved past me down the corridor. "Come."
I followed. "Where?"
"Somewhere with enough space for you to fail repeatedly without bringing down a structural wall."
"That's reassuring."
"It wasn't meant to be."
He took me to the east wing. A long room, empty,it had probably been a ballroom once from the looks of it, and was now used for nothing. The floors were dark stone. The walls were bare. A few wall sconces threw low light that barely reached the center.
He stopped in the middle and turned. "Stand here."
I stood there.
"Your power moves outward by instinct," he said, walking a slow circle around me. "Something threatens you, it pushes back. That's what happened at the marking. That's what's been happening every time someone throws magic at you and it doesn't land."
"I know."
"What you need to learn is the opposite. Pull it inward. Contain yourself. Create a dead zone around your signature so the Council's magic slides off you without catching." He stopped in front of me. "Try."
"I don't know how to try. I don't even know what it feels like when it moves outward. It just happens."
"Then we find the sensation first." He stepped closer. "Close your eyes."
"Absolutely not."
He looked at me.
"I'm not closing my eyes in an empty room with you," I said.
Something crossed his face. Almost amusement. "I need you to locate the feeling without visual distraction. I'm not going to do anything."
"You say that."
"Raven." His voice dropped slightly. "Close your eyes."
I closed them.
"Good," he said quietly. "Now. Feel where your power sits. Don't push it. Just find it."
I stood in the dark behind my eyes and tried to do what he was describing. It took longer than I wanted. Then something shifted, a warmth low in my chest, like an ember I hadn't known was there.
"I feel it," I said.
"Pull it inward. Like you're folding it back toward yourself."
I tried. Nothing happened. I tried again. Still nothing.
Third attempt, something moved, and Kai went completely still.
I opened my eyes.
He was close. Closer than he'd been a moment ago, or he hadn't moved and I'd stopped noticing the distance, which was worse. His eyes were very red and very focused and he was looking at me like I'd done something he hadn't fully prepared for.
"What," I said.
He stepped back. Straightened his jacket. The gesture he always used to rebuild whatever wall had just shifted.
"You almost had it," he said.
"You went still."
"I was observing."
"Kai." I used his name deliberately. "What happened."
He was quiet for a moment. "When you pulled inward the dead zone extended about two feet in every direction." He looked at his left forearm, where the tattoo seals ran under his sleeve. "Inside it my seals went quiet."
I stared at him. "What does that mean?"
"It means your power and mine interact in ways I hadn't fully anticipated." He picked up his jacket from the floor where he'd set it. "It also means you're more advanced than I thought, which changes the training timeline."
"Changes it how?"
He looked at me. Something behind his eyes that he was deciding whether to give me.
"It means," he said carefully, "that you're not just a nullifier. You're something the Council hasn't seen in three hundred years." He held my gaze. "And it means that if the wrong person feels what I just felt during that demonstration at the festival, no amount of concealment blend is going to save you."
The room was very quiet.
"So what do we do?" I said.
He looked at me for a long moment.
"You practice," he said. "Every night. With me. Until it's as natural as breathing." He moved toward the door. "And you don't tell anyone what just happened in this room. Not Raiden. Not the Ashwood boy. No one."
"Why?"
He stopped at the door. Didn't turn around.
"Because what you just did silenced my power," he said quietly. "And I am the thing ev
ery person in this school is most afraid of. If they find out a human girl can stop me—" He paused. "They won't wait for the Council. They'll come for you themselves."