Chapter 280: Going back again!
I froze, my hand still resting against the wood of the heavy door.
My mind raced as I stared at Cassandra sitting on my bed.
Why the hell is she here?
Our relationship wasn’t anywhere near the level where we would have casual, late-night heart-to-heart talks.
And the fact that she had bypassed the top-floor dormitory security just to wait in my room made absolutely no sense.
She tilted her head slightly, her icy grey eyes tracking the micro-expressions on my face.
"What are you spacing out about?" she asked, her voice cool and perfectly level.
I blinked, forcing my baseline posture back into place, and shook my head.
"It’s nothing." I took a step forward, looking directly at her. "What are you doing here?"
Cassandra raised a single silver eyebrow. She was clearly not used to seeing her younger brother act so composed, or so bold in her presence.
In the past, old Jin would have shrunk back under that sharp, aristocratic gaze. Now, I just stood my ground.
A small, unreadable smirk touched her lips.
"Why? Can’t I come here to congratulate my brother on his eighteenth birthday...?" she murmured.
The crossed her arms, her gaze drifting slowly toward the heavy oak door, then back to me. Her eyes narrowed into dangerous slits.
"Though, it looks like someone else already beat me to it."
I felt an involuntary chill run straight down my spine, my hand instinctively twitching toward the high collar concealing the salve-covered mark on my neck.
Cassandra let out a quiet, dismissive huff, shaking her head as if the entire situation was beneath her.
"Here," she said, reaching into the folds of her silk nightgown.
She produced a thick, heavy parchment envelope sealed with the crimson wax crest of the Raith family and set it firmly on my desk.
"Father has summoned you back to the estate. There will be a formal banquet held for your coming of age."
She slid her bare feet into her low-heeled footwear and stood up from the mattress.
The silk of her nightgown rustled softly against the sheets as she closed the distance between us.
She stopped right in front of me. Before I could even register the movement, her hand shot out, her cool fingers firmly grabbing my chin and squeezing my cheeks.
She forced me to look straight down into her unyielding, grey eyes.
"You better not be late," Cassandra whispered, her voice dropping into a sharp, threatening warning as her fingers tightened slightly against my skin. "You better not be late because you were busy trailing after those little bitches of yours."
She released my face and without waiting for a single word of acknowledgment, she brushed past my shoulder, unlocked the door, and slipped out into the quiet corridor, leaving me alone in the dark room with the heavy silence and the letter resting on the desk.
The moment the heavy door clicked shut behind her, the tense atmosphere in the room evaporated.
I let out a long, exhausted sigh, running a hand through my hair and pushing it back from my face. I looked over at the thick parchment envelope resting on the desk, the crimson wax crest of the Raith family gleaming faintly under the moonlight.
"A banquet for me...!" I muttered aloud, a dark, cynical chuckle escaping my throat.
If it weren’t so pathetic, I would have laughed out loud at the absolute joke of it all.
Digging through my inherited memories, the reality was stark. It had been more than a decade since my father had even bothered to look in my direction, let alone do anything regarding my well-being.
To the head of the house, I was a stain on the family lineage, a talentless spare to be tucked away and forgotten.
And now... this?
Suddenly I was worth a formal summon and a celebration?
I walked over to the bed and sat down heavily on the mattress, reaching over to pick up the heavy letter.
I broke the wax seal, the parchment crinkling under my fingers as I unfolded it. My eyes scanned the stiff, overly formal handwriting of the family scribe.
As I stared at the words, the irritation faded into a cold, practical realization.
It had to be this way.
I had officially reached the age of coming, the legal threshold of adulthood for a noble.
In high aristocratic society, optics were everything. No matter how much his father despised him, no matter how much the family wished he didn’t exist, it would be considered incredibly rude and socially improper for a Noble House to entirely ignore the coming-of-age of its bloodline.
Even if it was a hollow, plastic formality, the Raith family had to put on a show for the rest of the nobility to maintain their flawless public image.
I folded the letter back up, my eyes narrowing in the dark.
A den of vipers, I thought, tossing the parchment onto the nightstand.
Then I leaned back against the pillows, staring up at the ceiling.
The peaceful, warm feeling from the rooftop party with Emma and the others was entirely gone.
I let out one final, heavy breath, tossing the letter onto the desk, pulled the blanket over my shoulders and closed my eyes, letting the physical fatigue of the long day finally drag me under.
---
The crisp, biting chill of the early morning air woke me before the academy bells could even chime.
I didn’t waste any time. After securing a formal three-day leave of absence from the administration building using the official Raith family summon, I quietly made my way back to the Dorms to pack a small traveling bag.
Emma was already waiting for me near the grand iron gates of the courtyard, her arms wrapped tightly around a warm wool shawl against the morning mist. Kyle and Sira were there too, both of them still looking slightly bleary-eyed and groggy from the previous night’s antics.
"You really have to go back?" Kyle muttered, yawning loudly as he leaned against a stone pillar. "Can’t we just celebrate here?"
"It’s high society protocol, Kyle," Sira chided gently, though her eyes held a genuine trace of worry as she looked at me.
"Be careful, Jin. Noble banquets are always a nest of vipers."
Emma stepped closer, completely ignoring the other two. She reached out, her fingers lightly brushing against my lapel, straightening my uniform collar with an unnerving, lingering slowness. She looked up at me, her bright blue eyes unusually intense in the dim morning light.
"Don’t stay there too long with those women, Jin," Emma whispered, her lips curling into a soft, sweet smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes.
"Remember, you have to come back to me. I’ll be waiting right here on the top floor."
"Not planning to," I replied.
With a final nod to the group, I turned and walked through the academy gates.
The carriage waiting for me was impossible to miss. It belonged to Cassandra.
It was an absolute masterpiece of luxury and high-end engineering, easily worth a small fortune.
The exterior was lacquered in a deep, glossy midnight-black, reinforced with invisible defensive runes, and emblazoned with the silver-and-crimson crest of the Raith family.
Four pristine, mana-bred stallions stomped their hooves in the morning mist, their coats sleek and glowing with latent energy.
The uniformed driver immediately bowed deeply, opening the heavy, insulated door for me.
I stepped up into the carriage, and the door clicked shut behind me, completely sealing out the morning chill. The interior was lined with plush crimson velvet, the air smelling faintly of expensive winter spices and clean ozone.
And sitting directly across from me, draped in a travel coat, was Cassandra.
She had her legs elegantly crossed, a leather-bound ledger resting in her lap. Her grey eyes slowly flicked up from the pages, locking onto me with the absolute, freezing stillness of a winter storm.
She didn’t say a word of greeting. She simply watched me take my seat, her gaze lingering on my face for a long, suffocating moment before the carriage smoothly lurched forward.