From His Luna to His Rival's Mate

Chapter 26

SELENE

THREE DAYS LATER

The third Lunar Trial started at sundown, we gathered on the wide field behind the east wing in two long lines, students pulling jackets tighter against the cooling air, voices low and restless.

The moon was already visible, pale and patient above the tree line, waiting for the sky to darken enough to give it full presence. I stood in my spot near the middle of the line and rolled my good shoulder slowly.

The bandaged one I left still. It had healed more than expected over the last few days, but I wasn't going to push it.

Professor Harlan stood at the front with two other faculty members flanking him. He let the noise die down on its own before he spoke.

"Tonight's trial tests awareness," he said. "You will move through a marked course in the forest. The objective is to reach the end post before your signal light goes out. You will face interference along the way. How you respond to that interference is what we are measuring." He paused and looked along both lines. "You go in alone. What happens inside is yours to handle."

A murmur moved through the students. I kept my eyes forward. I felt Calder's gaze from three spots down the line before I looked.

When I did glance over, he was already watching me with that tight, coiled expression he had been wearing more often lately. I looked away first and didn't give it more attention than that.

Kael was at the far end of the opposite line. I caught his eye once and he gave me nothing visible, no nod, no expression. But he held the look for just a second longer than a stranger would and that was enough.

The forest swallowed sound differently at night. I moved through the marked course at a steady pace, keeping my steps light and my breathing controlled.

The signal light clipped to my wrist cast a small blue glow on the ground ahead of me. Around me the trees stood close and dark, their branches cutting the moonlight into broken pieces on the path.

The first interference came ten minutes in, two figures stepped out from the trees on either side of the path. Students playing assigned roles, I realized quickly, but moving with real intent.

The one on the left came fast. I dropped my shoulder, shifted my weight back, and used his momentum to redirect him sideways. He hit the ground and I kept moving without stopping to watch him land.

The second one was smarter, he came from behind and aimed for my signal light. I spun, blocked with my forearm, and pushed him back hard enough that he stumbled into a tree trunk. I was already three steps ahead before he found his footing.

My shoulder held, barely, but it held. The course wound deeper into the trees. I slowed at a section where the path split into three directions with no markings to indicate which was correct.

I stood still and listened, the forest gave me nothing useful. I looked at the ground. The left path had more broken branches, recently snapped. The middle was untouched, the right had faint impressions in the soft dirt, old ones, not tonight's.

I took the middle path, fifty meters in, I found a small marker stake half hidden under leaves. Correct direction confirmed. I exhaled and picked up my pace again.

Then I heard a low sound to my right, rhythmic and subtle. It wasn't the wind neither was it an animal. It took me three seconds to place it as a pressure trigger, the kind that activated a mechanism when weight was applied to the surrounding ground. I was two steps from it.

I stopped completely and stood there in the dark and thought about it. The trigger was covering the most direct route forward, going around it meant losing time and pushing through dense undergrowth on my injured side. Going over it meant whatever it activated would go off in my face.

A small stone landed near my foot. I looked right, nothing visible between the trees. But another stone came a second later, landing just to the left of the trigger. Indicating the edge, the safe line around it.

I looked into the dark for a long moment, then I followed the line the stones had marked, stepping carefully along the narrow strip of ground that skirted the trigger's range. I cleared it without setting it off and moved forward onto clean path.

I didn't look back into the trees, but I knew who had thrown those stones.

The rest of the course I ran, crossed the end post with my signal light still burning at full blue and both feet under me, which was more than I had honestly guaranteed myself at the start of the night.

The field was lit with lanterns when I came back out of the tree line, a decent number of students had already finished. I found a spot near the edge of the group and accepted a cup of water from one of the faculty assistants. My legs were tired and my shoulder was complaining quietly but steadily. I ignored both and drank the water.

Kael came out of the forest about four minutes after me. He crossed the field without looking for anyone, collected his own water, and stood apart from the main group, his signal light was still full blue.

He didn't look at me, but I noticed two students near me notice him come out and then look at me and then look back at him with the particular expression people wear when they are filing something away.

Calder came out later, his signal light was half dimmed, yellow instead of blue. He scanned the field immediately and found me standing where I was. Then his eyes moved to Kael, the muscle in his jaw jumped. He turned away and said nothing, but the tightness in his whole body said everything his mouth wasn't.

Professor Harlan called the group together and gave a short summary of results. He noted several students by name for strong performances, mine was one of them.

"Vale," he said, "demonstrated controlled decision-making under pressure and clean execution despite a recent physical injury. That is worth noting."

I felt the shift in attention from the students around me. I kept my expression neutral and nodded once at the professor.

When he dismissed us, the noise of the group picked back up immediately. I started walking toward the path back to the dorms and fell into step beside two girls from my history class who I knew well enough to walk with.

"You were fast tonight," the taller one, Mara, said. She had an honest face and a direct way of speaking that I had always found easy to deal with. "Especially after the arrow thing. I would have taken the whole week off."

"The trial didn't care about my shoulder," I said.

She laughed. "Fair." She glanced sideways at me as we walked. "You and Voss though. People noticed."

I looked at her. "Noticed what?"

"That he came out right after you. Full signal." She shrugged one shoulder like she wasn't making a big deal of it while clearly making a small deal of it. "And the last trial too. You two keep ending up in the same places with the same results. People talk."

"People always talk," I said.

"They do," she agreed. "But this time they are saying it like it is a good thing. Like you two together might be the strongest pairing in the cohort." She paused. "Which is either very exciting or very complicated depending on who you ask."

"Mm," I said, which was not a confirmation or a denial and she seemed to understand that.

I heard about Calder's reaction before I reached the dorm, a boy from the second year named Deon fell into step beside me on the path, not someone I knew well but someone who clearly had information he felt the need to share.

"Vance snapped at three people after the trial ended," he said, without any preamble. "Right there near the faculty table. Someone said something about you and Voss and he just..." Deon made a short gesture with his hand. "Walked off hard. Didn't say another word to anyone."

I looked at him. "Why are you telling me this?"

He blinked. "I just thought you should know."

"Thank you," I said simply, and took the turn toward my building.

My room was empty when I got in. I closed the door, dropped my jacket on the chair, and sat on the edge of my bed.

I thought about the stones landing near my feet in the dark. The careful line they had marked around the trigger. No signal, no acknowledgment afterward, just quiet and precise help from someone who made sure I never had to ask for it.

Then I thought about Calder's dimmed signal light and the jump in his jaw when he saw Kael cross the field.

The rumors were already moving through the student body and they were only going to move faster. I couldn't stop that. I wasn't sure I wanted to.

But I knew what it would do to Calder's already unsteady grip on himself, and that was the part that sat uneasily in the back of my mind as I lay back on my bed and stared at the ceiling. Calder losing control quietly was manageable.

Calder losing control loudly, in public, aimed at Kael, because of something as simple as two people finishing a trial with full signal lights was something else entirely.

I closed my eyes, the trial was done. I had performed well. Kael had helped without making it visible, and somewhere on the other side of campus, Calder was alone with his anger and the rumors that were already spreading, tomorrow was going to be interesting.