A moment of tense silence.
Letting a short breath through her nose, Vale finally stepped forward, clearly agitated, and addressed the group directly rather than continuing to argue with Reyes over their heads.
"He’s right to be angry," she said, evenly.
"I’d rather he be angry at me than at any of you, so let him have that."
Her gaze moved down the row.
Darrow’s carefully blank expression, Rudra’s stillness, Milena’s guarded composure, Oizys’s practiced calm, Bellamy’s uncharacteristic quiet, Cordelia’s wide, uncertain eyes, and finally at Elian with his hands still shaking from the nervousness.
"But he’s also not wrong about what today confirmed, apart from the surprise the two new faces gave."
"Which is what, exactly?" Rudra asked, tone grim.
"That whatever is coming for the five of you, which i still stand by the fact that’s it’s only going to be the five and not a single person more, isn’t going to wait for you to finish growing up first."
Vale let that settle before continuing, quieter now.
"Reyes wants to argue you shouldn’t have to be so combat ready this young. I don’t disagree with him, having the ability to take lives at a whim isn’t something that a child should need to worried about. But what I don’t agree with is his argument that I don’t get to make that choice for you, because the people hunting you certainly won’t."
Reyes exhaled hard through his nose, shoulders lowering in defeat, and dropped into a seat near the arena’s edge like the fight had finally gone out of him.
"That still doesn’t change the fact." he said, quiet now. "You’re trying to arm children against something you won’t even name."
A pause.
"I know you aren’t going to listen to me, you never have in the first place. At least promise me you’ll tell them everything. Every scrap of it. Not the censored version you most likely gave them already."
Vale’s expression didn’t shift, but something in the room’s air did, her powers betraying her before her restraint could act upon them.
A small, eerie stillness settled over the whole before she answered.
"I can’t promise that."
"Why not?"
"Because some of it isn’t mine to give them yet, and some of it would get them killed faster than the thing hunting them will."
She said it flat, no apology in it.
"I’ve told them what they need to survive training. I haven’t told them everything, and I won’t, not until they’re ready, and definitely not until I trust the room it’s said in."
Reyes stood again, slower this time, something harder settling into his voice.
"That’s not good enough, Rowan, you know that."
"It’s what I have."
"Then let me ask you something else."
He crossed his arms, gaze steady on her as if he had decided on something.
"Has the cult actually made a move yet, or is this still all theoretical? Because if it’s still theoretical, this whole situation is premature, they don’t even have to be burdened with this before we even know whats happening."
The silence that followed lasted just long enough for Elian’s stomach to drop before Vale even answered.
"It’s not theoretical."
Her voice had gone quieter, more careful.
"Two days ago, a courier carrying correspondence between Zimovia’s border garrison and the crown was found dead close to here. The letter he was carrying never arrived. Whoever took it left the Davidian sigil at the scene. It was unmistakable, they were not subtle about it in the slightest."
Milena went rigid beside Elian, the snake at her shoulder lifting its head at the sudden tension in her posture.
"That’s not a coincidence given the timing,"
Vale continued without bothering for an answer.
"It’s a message. They know we’re aware they’re active again, and they’re telling us they don’t particularly care."
Reyes’s jaw tightened, whatever argument he’d been building visibly reorganizing itself around this new information.
"And you weren’t going to lead with that?"
"I was going to lead with it once I’d decided who in this room needed to hear it."
Vale’s gaze moved, deliberate, to Bellamy and Cordelia, both of whom had gone very still, clearly aware they’d just stumbled into something considerably heavier than a combat debrief.
"Which brings me to the two of you."
Bellamy straightened. "I’m not... I don’t need to be dismissed, I can handle—!"
"This isn’t about what you can handle." Vale’s tone stayed even, not unkind, but entirely final.
"It’s about how many people know the courier’s dead before that information gets out of my control. The five of them are targets already, whether or not they know of everything. You two aren’t, yet, and I intend to keep it that way as long as I can."
Cordelia looked, for the first time since Elian had met her, genuinely rattled rather than delighted by a piece of information.
"You want us to just... forget we heard any of that?"
"I want you to never repeat it. To anyone. Not each other, not your families, not in a letter, not in a diary you think no one reads."
Vale held both their gazes in turn, weight settling into every word.
"I need you to promise me that right now, before you leave this room."
Bellamy glanced at Elian, something unspoken passing between them, before he nodded slowly.
"Fine. I promise."
"I promise too," Cordelia said, quieter than her usual excited register, already looking less like a delighted scholar and more like someone who’d just understood, properly, what kind of mess she’d wandered into.
Vale studied them both a moment longer, then nodded once, satisfied.
"Go. Both of you. I’ll talk to you later and explain it properly, if you are still confused."
Cordelia didn’t wait a single more moment before she got up to leave.
Bellamy however, seemed to be hesitating, he gave Elian a worried glance.
Elian gave his friend the most reassuring nod he could, trying his best to show that he was already.
He lingered for another moment, before finally getting up and leaving with Cordelia.
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