From His Luna to His Rival's Mate

Chapter 27

SELENE

NEXT MORNING

I was carrying my tray to my usual table near the window when I caught a piece of conversation from a group of girls sitting two tables over, they weren't being quiet about it.

"She was all over him during the trial apparently. Like obviously trying to distract him."

"Kael?"

"No, Calder. Someone said she has been playing both of them this whole time. Acting innocent but deliberately keeping both of them interested."

I slowed my steps without stopping completely. "That is so calculated though."

"Right? And after everything Calder has done to include her. She just keeps pushing him away publicly and then going after Voss. It is embarrassing honestly."

I set my tray down at my table and sat with my back straight. I picked up my fork and started eating and did not look over at them. But I listened, and thought about it while I chewed.

This was not organic gossip. Organic gossip was messy and inconsistent and came from three different directions at once, this was different. It had a single clear angle... Selene Vale is manipulative, Selene Vale is playing games, Selene Vale cannot be trusted... and it was already in at least two separate conversations before eight in the morning.

Someone had started this deliberately, someone who knew exactly what story to tell and who to tell it to first. I ate my breakfast and said nothing.

By mid morning I had heard three more versions of it, the details shifted slightly with each telling the way planted stories always did, but the core stayed the same.

I was manipulative. I was stringing Calder along for social protection while chasing Kael for status. I had apparently cried in front of Calder after the trial to keep him sympathetic.

I had apparently touched Kael's arm deliberately during the course to throw off his concentration, which was creative given that we had gone in separately and hadn't been within fifty meters of each other for most of it.

The story was getting more confident the further it traveled. I was walking back from my morning class when Mara caught up with me in the hallway. She fell into step beside me and kept her voice low. "You have heard it, right?"

"Yes," I said.

"People are actually believing parts of it." She sounded annoyed on my behalf, which I appreciated. "The bit about you crying to Calder after the trial. Two girls in my lecture said it like it was confirmed fact."

"It is not confirmed fact," I said.

"I know that." She looked at me sideways. "Do you know where it started?"

I didn't answer that directly. "I have a good idea."

Mara was smart enough not to push it further, she stopped at the next corridor and I kept walking.

I found Elara in the common room before lunch, she was sitting with a small group of girls, laughing at something, her hair loose around her shoulders and her whole posture relaxed and easy.

The picture of someone with nothing on her conscience. She looked up when I walked in and her smile widened like she was genuinely pleased to see me.

"Selene." She patted the empty seat beside her. "Come sit. We were just talking about the trial last night."

The girls around her got quiet in that specific way people do when they sense something is about to happen and don't want to miss it.

I didn't sit down. I stopped in front of her and kept my voice completely level. "Can we talk? Just us."

Something shifted in her eyes. It was small and fast and she covered it immediately with a light laugh. "Of course." She stood up gracefully and touched one of the other girls on the shoulder. "Give me a minute."

We moved to the far end of the common room near the window, far enough from the group that they couldn't hear clearly. Close enough that they could see us.

Elara turned to face me with that soft, open expression perfectly arranged. "Is everything okay? You look tired. How is your shoulder?"

"My shoulder is fine," I said. "I want to talk about what has been going around the academy this morning."

She tilted her head slightly. "What do you mean?"

I looked at her. "The story about me manipulating Calder and chasing Kael for status. The one about me crying after the trial, the one that started sometime last night and has been moving through the student body all morning."

Elara's expression shifted into something soft and concerned. "I heard some of that. I honestly thought it was just people talking. You know how it gets after a trial, everyone has opinions." She paused. "I hope you do not think I had anything to do with that."

"I think you know exactly where it started," I said calmly. "And I think you are very good at making sure nothing points back to you when it does."

Her chin came up slightly, the softness in her expression stayed in place but something underneath it went very still. "That is a serious thing to say to someone who has been trying to be your friend."

"It is," I agreed. "And I would not say it if I did not mean it."

She let a small silence sit between us, then she sighed and looked at me with something that was almost pity. "Selene, I think you are under a lot of stress right now. The attack, the recovery, the trial. It makes sense that you would be looking for reasons behind things. But not everything is someone working against you."

"No," I said. "Not everything, just this."

Her eyes held mine, the warmth in them was still there on the surface, but underneath it was something cooler and more focused, the thing I had been catching glimpses of since the first week of term.

"I think you should be careful," she said quietly. "Accusing people without proof is the kind of thing that damages your own reputation, not theirs."

I almost smiled at that. "Is that a warning?"

She blinked. "It is advice, from someone who cares about how you are perceived here."

"Right." I kept my eyes on hers. "Let me give you some advice in return. I am not Calder. I do not get confused by a nice voice and a concerned expression. I see what you are doing and I am telling you directly to stop." I let that land for a second. "Not as a threat, just as information."

The smile on her face stayed exactly where it was, but something behind her eyes went sharp and cold in a way she didn't quite manage to hide in time. It was only there for a second, then it was gone and she was warm and smooth again.

"I really do not know what you think I have done," she said lightly. "But I hope you feel better soon. Truly."

She turned and walked back to the group with easy, unhurried steps. She sat down and said something that made the girls laugh and within thirty seconds looked like someone who had just had a completely unremarkable conversation about nothing at all.

I stood at the window for a moment, she was good. I would give her that, she was very, very good.

But she had gone still when I named her. People who are genuinely innocent don't go still, they get loud.

They get hurt and confused and they ask questions. Elara had gone quiet and careful and then immediately pivoted to making me sound unstable. That was not innocence, that was management.

I went to lunch and sat with Mara and ate my food and let the noise of the cafeteria move around me without getting inside my head.

A few people glanced at me with that particular look that meant they had heard the story and were deciding how much of it to believe. I looked back at each of them with the same steady expression and they all looked away first.

By the afternoon the story had softened slightly, a few people had apparently pushed back on the details that were too obviously invented. The version about me touching Kael's arm during the course had mostly died because enough people knew we had gone in separately.

It wasn't enough to kill it completely, but it was enough. I sat in my last class of the day and looked at my notes and thought about Elara's face when I had looked her in the eye and said I knew.

She had not expected that, she had expected me to be confused or defensive or upset. She had expected me to look around for the source the way people do when they don't know where the water is coming from.

She had not expected me to walk up to the pipe and turn it off directly. Good.

I wanted her to know that I was not going to be managed with a soft voice and a tilted head and advice dressed up as concern, she could adjust her strategy accordingly. I turned a page in my notebook and kept writing.