The Whisper of the Nightingale

Chapter 56: A Spoke in the Wheel

Apart from the near death experience with the Panthera Drakes, the rest of the Lunar Trials passed relatively uneventfully.

Raven and the boys had harvested everything of use from the twelve spirit beasts before climbing a tall tree where the Everest Hawk had picked them up and taken them to the campsite by the gigantic tree in the middle of the valley. The look on Dunlin's face when they arrived, torn and bloodied but seemingly unscathed, had been utterly priceless - and it had only improved when their haul was presented in exchange for merit points. Then again, Dunlin hadn't been alone in being shocked beyond belief by that haul. . . .

Following their display of hunting prowess, the four youths had happily remained at the large tree, spending the final thirty hours of the Lunar Trial quietly cultivating. There had been no need to bother about the actual trial anymore; for the first grader Raven, the merit points from only one Panthera Drake would be more than enough to guarantee a solid first place in her grade and, no matter how much they insisted, she took no more than that. The remaining points were split evenly between the three boys and although Dunlin managed to engage his friends from higher grades to help him win in the end, it made little difference to Javelin and the Twins; they were much too curious about Raven's plan.

Once the three moon-lit nights had come to pass, all students were flown back to the Academy where a small award ceremony for the best achieving students was held. Surprisingly enough, Regulus, the smallest and weakest boy in Raven's Spirit Control Class, received an honorary award for saving the life of one of his classmates by performing a - for a martial student - fairly advanced healing skill in the nick of time.

After the ceremony was over, all students were given a day off before classes would start up again. Raven and the boys left the academy, heading for the Griffin Clan's city dwellings on the noble's Mansion Tier. As they expected the Griffin estate was mostly empty, except for a handful of servants; there was a council meeting up at the imperial palace so not only the Griffin's own council member but also all other nobles had taken the opportunity to visit Indigo Cloud Palace, if only for the food and view.

As instructed by Raven, the twins harshly ordered all the servants to leave the second the four of them arrived, barging in fuming with anger. They made a show of barricading themselves in the estate's library, slamming the doors so hard that it could be heard even by the servants who had already left the premises.

Since both Lark and Martin were generally very considerate of their servants and rarely threw any kind of tantrums, their current behavior really stood out and the servants quickly started talking among themselves.

"Something must have happened. . . ." said one servant to an other, who in turn nodded solemnly. "We'd better inform Lord Griffin's aid about this."

Inside the library, Raven smiled mysteriously; she had been listening for the servant's reactions, and it had turned out just like she expected it to.

"What was that for?" asked Lark, displeased, as he slumped down in a large armchair. Acting angry wasn't hard for him, he just had to think of Dunlin and it would flare up uncontrollably, but he didn't like taking it out on the staff.

Raven was silent for a moment as she waited for the last few servants' presences to move out of earshot before she gave her reply. "It's to give us an unknowing ally," she said, smiling mischievously.

"An unknowing ally?" echoed the twins.

"We have agreed to make things hard for Dunlin by undermining the Talon Clan, right? Well, we won't be able to do that on our own - we're only children after all - but let me ask you this: if your father, Prefecture Lord Griffin, learns that Dunlin knowingly almost had you killed, what would he do?"