Chapter 4: The Trial

By the end of the week, I'd learned three things about Alliance Elite Academy that I wished, more than anything, I could unlearn.

One: every first-year was required to complete the Founders' Trial, a public tournament of skill and bloodline held in the Academy's central arena, attended by the entire faculty and half the ruling houses from all four kingdoms. It wasn't just a test. It was a spectacle, broadcast and recorded, the kind of event that made or ended reputations before a student had even chosen a major, the kind of event alumni traveled across kingdoms to attend because it doubled as a marriage market and a political audition in equal measure.

Two: the Trial required every competitor to fight paired with a bonded partner and mine had somehow, impossibly, already been assigned before I'd even finished my first week of classes, buried in paperwork none of us had signed and nobody would admit to filing.

Three: Dorian, Ashur, and Rhys had found out about Kael's visit to my dorm within a day, courtesy of whoever from his father's house had come sniffing around that night, and none of them looked remotely happy about it when they cornered the four of us in the training yard the following afternoon.

"You went to her alone?" Ashur's voice carried across the yard, low and furious in the particular way of someone who'd spent seven years perfecting the art of controlled rage instead of letting himself feel anything messier. He'd always run hotter than the other three, quicker to anger, quicker to defend, and right now that heat was aimed squarely at Kael.

"Someone had to," Kael said, unmoved, arms crossed like he'd already had this argument a dozen times in his head before they'd cornered him about it properly.

"That wasn't your call to make." Dorian's eyes cut toward me, sharp and assessing, cataloguing everything Kael might have told me, everything I might now know that I hadn't before this week. He'd always been the strategist among them, the one who thought three moves ahead while the others were still reacting. "We agreed we'd handle her together, as a unit. Not one of us running off to make unilateral decisions that could get all of us noticed by the Council before we're ready."

"I'm not a possession you get to negotiate custody over," I said, loud enough to cut through all three of them at once, tired of being discussed like I wasn't standing directly in front of them.

Four sets of eyes turned to me simultaneously, and for one unsteady second the weight of all four of them looking at me at the exact same time made the bond-mark on my collarbone flare hot enough that I nearly gasped out loud in front of half the training yard, students pausing mid-drill to glance over at the commotion.

Rhys noticed. Of course he noticed he'd always been the observant one, even back when we were children who didn't know any better than to trust each other completely with everything we had. He hadn't said much since I'd arrived, content to watch from the edges the way he always had, but his silence had never meant inattention.

"It's getting stronger," he said quietly, not to me, to the others, like I was a phenomenon to study instead of a person standing three feet away with her own opinions on the matter. "The longer she's here, around all four of us at once. It's compounding. I don't think any of us fully understood what a four-bond reunion would actually do."

"Then she shouldn't be here," Ashur said, flat and final, like the matter was already settled.

"She doesn't have anywhere else to be," I snapped, before any of them could decide that for me. "In case none of you remember, you're the reason for that particular problem. I don't have a house to go back to. I don't have a name that isn't borrowed. This is the only place I have left, and I'm not leaving it because it's inconvenient for the four of you to be reminded of what you did."

The training yard went silent enough that I could hear the wind move through the banner flags overhead four house crests, the same four that had once knelt in front of me as children and promised forever without knowing what forever would eventually cost any of us. A few students nearby had stopped pretending not to listen entirely.

A new voice cut through the tension before it could break into something worse.

"Miss Vale." Headmaster Thane stood at the edge of the yard, flanked by two Council representatives I didn't recognize, both dressed in the severe gray of official Council business, both watching me with the particular stillness of people who already knew exactly whose blood ran underneath my skin. Thane himself was tall and silver-haired, his expression pleasant in a way that didn't reach his eyes. "A word, if you don't mind."

The four of them went tense around me, a wall forming without any of them discussing it, an old instinct clicking back into place after seven years of dormancy.

"You'll be paired with all four bonded candidates for the Founders' Trial," Thane continued, ignoring the four sets of narrowed eyes aimed in his direction. "An unusual arrangement, I'll admit. The rules typically restrict pairings to a single bonded partner. But the Council has taken a special interest in your case, Miss Vale, and special interest tends to come with special exceptions."

"All four," I repeated, certain I'd misheard him, though some sinking part of me knew exactly what this meant.

"The Council," Thane said, with a thin, unreadable smile that made my stomach turn, "would very much like to see what a four-bonded Vale is capable of. Publicly. On record. In front of every house that once decided, quite officially, that you didn't exist. Consider it an opportunity, Miss Vale. Not every scholarship student gets the chance to prove themselves in front of the entire ruling class of four kingdoms at once."

"And if I refuse?"

His smile didn't change, but something colder moved behind his eyes. "The Academy would hate to lose such a promising student over a simple scheduling matter. I'm sure that won't be necessary."

He left before I could respond, the two Council representatives falling into step behind him, their footsteps unhurried and deliberate across the training yard stones. I watched them go, my heart hammering hard enough that I was certain all four of the men beside me could hear it.

"That wasn't a request," Dorian said quietly once they were out of earshot, all traces of his earlier irritation replaced by something far more serious. "That was the Council telling us they already know exactly what you are, and they want proof they can use."

"Use for what?"

Nobody answered me. Nobody needed to. The answer was written plainly enough in four sets of grim, familiar faces.