Page 43 of Legacy Found

Sophia gives me a look that is definitely not nothing, and I have to physically walk away before I lose it.

The Great Hall has been transformed into something out of a dream — hundreds of candles, crystal catching the light. The banners are the part I can't stop staring at — three of them, each dropping the full height of the wall, and even I can tell they're the whole point of the room.

Deep forest green, a grey wolf sitting sentinel between two crossed spears. Dark navy, a silver wolf caught mid-leap over a single sword. And a deep, royal purple, a snarling wolf's head crowned in gold flame — that last one looks exactly as proud as I'm starting to suspect its House is. Three colors, hung like they've always been here and always will be, like the room was built to hold them.

And I'm so busy drinking it all in that it takes me a second to clock the way the room ripples as we enter.

Then I notice the princes.

And — holy hell.

Formalwear should be illegal on wolves. It should come with a warning label. Soren, enormous in perfectly tailored black, looks like a mountain someone dressed for a coronation. Ander looks like the storybook prince the academy clearly thinks he is. And Luke—

Luke looks up. Catches sight of me.

And just… stops.

I'm used to Luke composed. In the arena he always has something to say — correct your stance, again, faster, stop bracing for the hit. He is never, ever without a next word. But right now, across a candlelit hall, Prince Lucian Draeven is looking at me in my burnt-orange dress and saying absolutely nothing at all. His gaze travels down and back up to my face, and his expression goes almost comically blank, like someone unplugged him mid-sentence.

I become suddenly, acutely, delightedly aware of exactly how good I look.

I smile at him. He still doesn't say anything. And then I watch it spread — Soren notices Luke noticing. Then Ander notices. Then people near them notice, heads turning, and I don't fully understand why a prince being briefly speechless is apparently A Thing, but I can feel that it is.

So I give him a little wave.

That snaps him out of it. He blinks, and the smallest smile tugs at his mouth, and I turn back to my friends feeling roughly ten feet tall.

It's when we cross toward our seats that I catch Jon.

He’s watching me come—and his eyes drop to the dress. His expression shifts, startled at first, then still and careful. Almost recognition. It’s there and gone before he smooths it into a polite nod.

Huh.

Dinner is a masterclass in rules I didn't know existed.

Assigned seating, of course — the Great Houses at the prominent tables, everyone else arranged in a hierarchy I can feel but can't see, and the scholarship six seated together like a little island. And once the food starts, it just keeps coming, the invisible rules. Certain people get greeted first, and everyone seems to know the order. Nobody touches a particular course until a higher-ranking wolf has begun it. Conversations physically change shape when someone important drifts near, voices adjusting, postures shifting.

"I'm starting to think," I whisper to Sophia, "that wolf society is like ninety percent invisible rules and ten percent actual dinner."

"I am very concerned about the fork situation," Sophia whispers back, staring at her place setting like it's a trap. "There are four. Why are there four."

"Start from the outside?"

"Is that a real rule or did you make it up?"

"Ninety-nine percent chance I made it up."

We muddle through together, and honestly it's the most fun I've had at a formal anything, mostly because Sophia keeps up a running commentary under her breath.

After dinner, the music starts, and the whole evening loosens a degree. The tables clear from the center of the hall, couples begin to drift onto the floor, and the rigid formality softens.

I watch for a while. And then I spot Luke, off to the side with Soren and Ander.

And here's the thing. Somewhere in the last several weeks — every afternoon, in that arena, him drilling me until I stop flinching, him being the first person here to see something in me worth his time — Luke stopped being Prince Lucian Draeven in my head. He became Luke. The guy who knows exactly when I'm about to flinch. The guy who makes me do it again, and again, and again, until I get it right. My friend.

So I do what I'd do with any friend at a party.

I walk over.