The Bright Fa Dinner was a unlike any Chadwick had ever witnessed, a showcase of opulence so extreme it verged on the absurd. As he stepped into the ba hall, the grandeur was almost overwhelming. deliers of ented crystal hung from vaulted ceilings, bathing the spa golden light that reflected off gilded walls and marble floors polished to an unnerving gleam. Every surface screamed of excess, as if the Bright ss that lived here felt the o funt their wealth with every breath they took.

  Chadwick couldn’t help but feel a twinge of disdain as his eyes swept over the room. Long tables groaned uhe weight of extravagant ptters: roasted game, exotic fruits, and pastries so intricate they looked like miniature sculptures. The mingling sts of spice, inse, and most of all indulgence, hung heavy in the air. He’d seen vish dispys before, as the s of a Marquis’ House of course he had, but this erformance — a spectacle designed not just to impress, but to cow. Of course, had he been in the position of the heirs of House Bright, he would have taken the same approach to his fellow ss.

  Most of the ss of nobility that were present as a part of the Bright Fa filled the hall like preening peacocks, each attire so ostentatious it bordered orical. All were human and, being outside css hours, it was a rare s who hadn’t taken to wearing a silken gown, an embroidered jacket, or jewelry that sighe wearer as ae of Imperial society with ties to House Bright. versations buzzed around him, a steady stream of ughter and carefully measured words underscored by the soft strains of a string ensemble tucked away in a er.

  Against the walls, bodyguards of the various ss stood like sileinels, their presence a grim terpoint to the revelry. Chadwick’s gaze lingered on those o him, noting their varied armor and expressions — or ck thereof. Most stid, their gazes sing the room with a practiced detat. But one shadow elf in dark leathers seemed different, his movements fluid and his sharp eyes never lingering too long in one pce. Chadwick smirked; it was the kind of vigince he appreciated, a remihat beh the Bright gmour y the same cutthroat pragmatism that ruled all politi the Empire.

  While he quickly grew bored with watg most of the sycophants around him, he had to give it to Caspian Bright: he had good taste iertai. The performers flitted through the hall, their presence a deliberate distra. Dancers of various elven races in bejeweled es moved with almost ethereal grace, veils shimmering as they wove hypnotically through the groups of ss. But it was the illusionist who was his favorite. He ahe ter of the room, juring ses of mythical battles and golden dragons with smoke and light. The ss gasped and appuded, their attention wholly absorbed, but Chadwick did his best to remain focused on why he was here tonight.

  The doors on the far end of the hall opened, and Caspian Bright swept in. Chadwioted the shift in the room immediately: the way versations faltered, ughter quieted, and all attention turoward the s whose future was to and the glittering empire of and erce that was House Bright. Caspian’s presence was undeniable, his emerald-green coat trimmed with gold and adorned with gemstotons that caught the light with every step. The man exuded fidence, his every movement measured and deliberate, his gaze sweeping the hall like a mert tallying the s he was about to earn.

  Chadwick’s lips curled into a sardonic smile as he watched Caspiarance. His fellow s ying a role, just like the illusionist, though admittedly with far greater skill. Caspian’s voice carried effortlessly across the room, his words smooth and calcuted to disarm while asserting dominance. Ss responded with murmurs of approval and raised gsses, eager to curry favor. Chadwick joined in, of course, but he paid little attention to what was being said. Meaningless ptitudes.

  Chadwick’s wine gss li his lips, though he didn’t drink again. While his gaze, sharp and calg, tio drift around the room, his thoughts had begun to drift — to a new rival that he had not expected to make so soon into his time at the Academy.

  Krion of House Bcksword. The bastard.

  The name jured an immediate heat of resehat simmered beh Chadwick’s practiced posure. By no means the only s he had his eyes on, most were but beginning to py their games of wealth and influence, while Krion had struck at him in a far more personal way — by stealing the prize that he had meant to cim for himself.

  Hatsuhe bunnykin.

  Just the thought of her sent a shiver down Chadwick’s spine, an uling mix of hunger and frustration twisting in his chest. She was exquisite — soft ears, delicate features, a lithe and elegant figure that seemed to deft the mundane. Her kind was rare within the Empire, a living treasure of beauty and allure, her very presence radiating aic charm that drew his eye and quied his pulse.

  He had been captivated the moment he’d seen her, uo look away as his mind raced with all the delicious possibilities. Not just her utility — though he was sure that, with the proper training, as a bodyguard she would be an enviable prize — but her beauty. She wasn’t just an asset but a fantasy made flesh.

  But Krion had taken her.

  Even now the thought was unbearable. Chadwick’s hands ched into fists, his nails biting into his palms as he seethed in silence. Krion didn’t deserve her. He wouldn’t, he couldn’t, appreciate her the way Chadwick would. He wouldn’t uand what it was to own something so perfect. A bunnykin like her wasn’t meant to guard some s from a half-dead house; she was meant to be adorned, funted, and used by someone like him.

  The ache in Chadwick’s chest greer, tinged with a dark, possessive fury. Krion might have won this time, but he was not oo accept defeat lightly. That bunnykin beloo him. She just didn’t know it yet. And if he had to take her — through charm, ing, or force — he would make her his. Or she would belong to no one.

  Yes, Krion’s victory was a temporary one, he vowed. The bastard might have the bunnykin now, but nothing was ever truly secure in this world of shifting alliances and hidden khere were ways to recim what was his. Hopefully, tonight would afford su opportunity to gain support. Otherwise, he just had to wait for the right moment, the right weakness, to strike.

  And when that moment came, Chadwick wouldn’t simply take his bunnykin back. He would ehat Krion, for all his audacity, learhe cost of crossing a House on the rise.

  A butler annouhat dinner was ready to be served, and Chadwick joihe press of saking their way to the nearby dining hall. Mind still ed with thoughts of revenge, he sat without a word in the seat a servant directed him to. The ptter pced before him revealed a thick, marbled steak seared to perfe, glistening with golden herbs and a drizzle of fiery emberroot gze. Beside it was a medley of roasted carrots and potatoes, their hues a striking blend of silver and deep indigo, seasoned with a crystalline salt even he did not know the provenance of. The aroma was nothing short of intoxig, but the smell faded into the air as he gripped his steak knife.

  He stabbed the meat with deliberate force, then began to hato small, bite-sized pieces. Around him, the room buzzed with renewed polite versation and muted ughter, but all Chadwick could see was Krion’s faderh his knife as he worked it across his pte.

  While he turhe meat into ever smaller pieces, his friend, Rondale Harvestfell, a son of a baron near his own family’s territory, came to sit beside him. Dressed in subdued finery befitting Harvestfell’s agricultural roots, he leaned closer to whisper.

  “Chadwick,” Rondale said with , “I fear for your dinner. Surely, that steak hasn’t wronged you enough to deserve such punishment?”

  Chadwick ignored him, slig another pieeat with savage precision.

  “Ah, the silent treatment,” Rondale mused, pig up his gss of wine. “A sure sign that something — or someone — has gotten under your skin. Tell me, old friend. What is b the s of House Copperhand this evening?”

  At this, Chadwick paused, his knife h over his pte. His jaw ched, and for a moment, he sidered unleashing his thoughts. Then he resumed his atta his meal.

  Uerred, Rondale leaned closer. “e now, Chadwick. The way yring at that steak, one might think you’re imagining it as someone else’s throat. Am I close?”

  Chadwick’s knife smmed down onto the table, the sudden ctter drawing a few curious gnces from nearby ss. He exhaled sharply, his gaze fixed oe as though summoning the will to respond without exploding.

  “I was outmaneuvered,” Chadwick growled, the words tasting bitter on his tongue. “By that bastard of House Bcksword. Krion. That s of a half-dead House stole what was rightfully mine.”

  The name rippled through the air like a thrown stone breaking the surface of a still pond. Ss in nearby seats began to listen more closely, their versations faltering as their attention shifted to the unfolding drama. Rondale himself leaned in closer.

  “And ray tell, did the Bcksword steal from you?” Rondale asked, his tone filled with curiosity.

  Chadwick’s fists ched against the tablecloth. “Not what — who. The bunnykin. Hatsune.”

  Reition flickered in Rondale’s eyes. “Ah, you are still upset about the bunnykin bodyguard? I’ll admit, she was a rare find. Agile, deadly, and — how did you put it? — ‘A vision of lethal beauty.’”

  Chadwiodded grimly, fists grinding the fabric of the tablecloth together between his fingers. “She erfect. I had her within my grasp. I made it clear she was mine. A, Krion…” He trailed off, uo give voice to the rest through the fury building in his throat.

  Roilted his head, staring at him. “A, Krion took her from you,” the baron’s son cluded for him.

  “No,” Chadwiapped, his voice rising slightly. “He did not take her, he ht stole her! Wrenched her from my grasp in the most humiliating manner possible. And worse, that son of a dying House defied me in public!”

  Rondale did not smile, but Chadwick swore that there was a trairth in his friend’s eyes. “A, here we are, dining peacefully. No challenge issued, ribution taken. Why is that?”

  Chadwick’s face darkened further. “Because that Sentinel intervened. She stopped me before I could act!”

  At the head of the table, Caspian Bright’s smooth voice cut through the growing murmurs. “Chadwick,” he said with an amused smile, “while your passion is endable, I suggest tempering it with patiehe Academy is a pce where fortunes rise and fall swiftly. There will be opportunities for you to recim what you’ve lost — and to remind Krion Bcksword of his station.”

  The murmurs of agreement that followed helped abate Chadwick’s anger. As the room’s lively atmosphere of indulgend wealth began to settle, Caspian rose to his feet. With his gss of wine in hand, he swept his gaze across the gathered ss of his fa, his expression shifting to one of disdainful irritation.

  “I must say,” Caspian began, his voice smooth but filled with a hint of anger, “it is being increasingly tiresome to hear about this test s of House Bcksword. We are the Bright Fa,” he tinued. “We are the arbiters of power, the architects of wealth, the guardians of tradition in this sector of the Empire. A, it appears a certain other believes he act with impunity, despite his House barely surviving off past glories.”

  The room stilled, no other s daring to breathe, let alone ent, on the Bright s’s angry words about House Bcksword.

  “Take, for example,” Caspian tinued in the silehis little ihat s Copperhaions.” He paused for effect, allowing his words to ripple through the room. “House Bcksword is a House in dee. A relic of a bygone era. A Krion has the audacity to challenge one of our own — my fa — and walk away with his prize.”

  Chadwick’s heart raced faster. This was it. This is what he was hoping for.

  “This… bunnykin,” Caspian tinued, his tone sharp, “will serve as a message. A warning to all other first-year ss that would dare to test us.” Caspian smirked, a glint of mali his eyes clear for all to see. “The Bright Fa is not to be trifled with. And what better way to demonstrate that than by removing a piece from the game?”

  The gathered ss reacted with varying degrees of shod intrigue. Some gasped, while others leaned forward eagerly, their eyes alight with the thrill of intrigue and cruelty. Chadwick, however, felt a surge of exhiration. Caspian’s words, though terrifying in what they implied, also carried an undeniable appeal — they gave Chadwick the power to act.

  “I will leave the specifics to you, Chadwick,” Caspian said, turning his pierg gaze directly on him. “After all, it is your honor that was affronted. Make it clear to everyo the Academy that those who stand against the Bright Fa do so at their peril.”

  Slowly, a smile began to spread across Chadwick’s face. He set his gss down deliberately, his movements steady. “Thank you, Lord Caspian,” he said, ining his head. “I won’t disappoint you.”

  Caspian gave a satisfied nod auro his seat. “See that you don’t.”

  The room erupted into a mixture of ughter and appuse, the gathered ss swept up in the energy of Caspian’s decration and Chadwick’s determination. Bodyguards and servants gathered along the walls or moving about in service to the ss ht’s Fa did not react at the shift in focus of the young lords and dies. The versation turo the logistics of the pn. Suggestions were made — some practical, others ced with dark humor.

  “Perhaps poison,” one young noblewoman suggested with a sly smile. “A slow-ag venom. Elegant and subtle.”

  “Too mundane,” tered a young man with sharp features from further dowable. “What about an ambush? Something dramatic. Let their bodies be found as a warning to others.”

  While the versation took on a life of its own, Rondale leaned in with a grin. “Better yet, let them disappear entirely. No bodies, no answers, just whispers of what happens to those who cross the Bright Fa.”

  Chadwick shared a grin with his friend, but as the other ss tiheir plotting, he leaned ba his chair, swirling the st of his wine in his gss. A realizatio over him: if he were to succeed in this endeavor, he couldn’t be directly at fault for Krion’s death. The risks were too great. He needed someone else — someone disposable, someone skilled but expendable.

  He needed a catspaw.

  Chadwick’s thoughts turo the Academy. It was teeming with students of varying talents, many of whom would do anything for the right price or the right es. Perhaps a desperate student looking to curry favor with a powerful fa would be best. Yes. He would find someone capable of carrying out the deed without implig him or the Bright Fa directly.

  But who?

  The question g him as he stared into his empty gss. The face of the bunnykin — her defiant eyes, he silver fair — fshed in his mind. His fiightened around the stem of the gss as he thought of Krion again.

  “Whatever it takes,” Chadwick muttered under his breath. “I’ll see the bunnykin beine or I’ll see them both fall.”

  “What was that?” Rondale asked.

  “Nothing, just thinking about how best to hahings.”

  The ughter of the ss rang out around them, mingling with the smoke and lights of the illusionist’s renewed performanow that the first course was plete. Many stared enraptured at the show, Rondale among them. But for Chadwick, the night’s festivities had taken on a new purpose. As the feast tinued, his mind ed with pns and possibilities, the seeds of his move already beginning to take root.

  By the time dinner ended, Chadwick’s mood had shifted entirely. No longer was he the humiliated s, lig his wounds over a lost prize. Now, he redator, biding his time, waiting for the perfeent to strike.

  And when that moment came, he would ehat Krion Bcksword would pay the price for defying him.

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