Chapter 101-Drawing lines

Chapter 101: 101-Drawing lines

The questions Addessa raised struck the garden like thunder.

Not a single soul moved an inch or disturbed the silence by speaking even Kayden was silent. No one could believe their eyes or their ears.

Lumi’s expression had gone pale. Addessa’s arguments weren’t baseless, and that’s what scares her. Using Aziza’s case to argue Maisa’s guilt was indeed the best way to get Maisa a sentence.

’Addessa, what is this that you are doing? Why are you behaving like this with Maisa?’

Zolani tightened her hold on Maisa’s hand. Hee heart was hammering in her chest. The sound was so loud she was afraid everyone in the garden would be able to hear it.

"You’ve lost your mind, Addessa," she muttered, but the whole garden heard her.

Maisa stared at Addessa. She finally understood that either this matter wasn’t simply about her or that Addessa was simply taking advantage of the situation to harm her.

’What will it mean to actually get sentenced? What is a blood trial?’ She began to panic. ’How dangerous is the trial?’

Addessa was forcing Varitreya to confront the very contradiction that had been haunting the vampire nation for generations.

Rules were rules. If they were changed for Maisa, then everyone would demand to know why they hadn’t been changed for those who came before her.

And if they weren’t changed for Maisa, then the princess had to prove that her protection of the redblood wasn’t simply favouritism.

Varitreya looked across the garden. Hundreds of vampires were watching her.

Some were curious, some were angry, some were waiting for her to defend Maisa again as she’d done before, while others were waiting for her to prove that the crown didn’t bend its laws for favorites.

Her eyes found Maisa, and the girl looked terrified. She didn’t wear the face of rebellion or entitlement. She was just frightened.

Varitreya felt her insides twist. She had woken with the intention of getting justice for Maisa, and now, Addessa was twisting her hand behind her back and forcing dor the opposite to happen.

She was the future queen, and she couldn’t rule by emotion alone. Her eyes closed briefly. She swallowed down how uncomfortable that moment made her.

When they opened, the decision had been made. "Blood trial it is!" She declared, her voice clear and sharp enough to pierce through the entire garden.

Zolani’s face fell. She hadn’t expected Varitreya to fold to the pressure of the fire that Addessa lit. Alas, at the end of the day, Varitreya was a princess first before she was a friend or a lover.

"No... no," Lumi’s breath caught. The blood trial, she had seen eighteen since her start of studying at Veris Academy. This would be the nineteenth, and the horror left her in slight shivers.

Maisa stared at Varitreya as though she hadn’t understood because she hadn’t. The whole gathering started as a means to get her justice. Wouldn’t punishing her also saying that she too was wrong?

Wrong? The word made her head spin. Wrong for being picked on? Wrong for being bullied? Wrong for being uninformed? Since when were those crimes? She wondered.

"The punishment is effective immediately."

The words seemed to echo through the garden long after they had been spoken. Silence descended like a brutal blizzard wave.

Varitreya’s expression froze. It was as though every trace of warmth had been stripped from her face, leaving behind something sculpted from ice and winter snow.

Her white hair fell motionlessly around her shoulders, her pale features becoming impossibly still, while her white eyes lost every flicker of emotion.

She looked less like a princess in that moment and more like an ancient statue carved from frost, which screamed of beautiful, regal, and completely unfeeling.

Not a single muscle in her body moved, but beneath that terrifying stillness, something had changed.

The atmosphere around her seemed to grow colder, and even those who had been whispering moments ago fell completely silent, suddenly aware that whatever decision had just been announced had crossed a line they could not take back.

Zolani shook her head. "No, princess."

Varitreya looked at her. The chill in the princess’s eyes was enough to make Zolani instinctively retreat several steps.

For perhaps the first time, the warmth that usually softened Varitreya’s presence was completely gone. What stared back at her was not the friend she had fought beside, laughed with, and struggled alongside to earn her place within the council.

It was the princess, the ruler, and the whiteblood whose word carried a weight that a mixedblood could never hope to challenge.

Disbelief deepened in Zolani’s eyes. She had fought for this position. She had endured countless challenges just to earn a place beside them, believing that once she finally stood among the people she admired, she would have the power to protect those who mattered to her.

But now? She couldn’t even protect Maisa and it was not because she didn’t care enough or lacked the courage to fight for her but because the person demanding punishment was a blackblood, while the person making the final decision was a whiteblood. And Zolani? She was a mixedblood.

In this hierarchy, her voice could be dismissed before it was even heard.

The realization burned through her skin. Zolani clenched her hands and stepped forward anyway.

"You can’t do that to her. She is innocent."

Varitreya’s expression didn’t change. "I have made my ruling. Do you dare to defy me?"

Her voice was quiet, but there was nothing gentle about it. Every word carried the finality of a verdict already carved into stone.

Zolani’s heart sank. She glanced toward Maisa for a brief moment, then forced herself to look back at the princess. "This isn’t fair."

"And what about Maisa?" Lumi’s voice came quietly from the side.

Varitreya turned toward her. "Her too," the answer was immediate. "The blood trial isn’t unjust. If she is innocent, then nothing will happen to her."

Lumi’s face crumpled for the briefest second. The words shouldn’t have hurt because they were logical, reasonable, and even. But standing there and hearing them apply to someone she cared about made the injustice suddenly feel different.

For years, Lumi had watched low-born vampires face punishments she never had to fear. She had heard their complaints, witnessed their frustration, and perhaps even understood some of it, but it had always remained distant from her.

Their punishment wasn’t hers. Their helplessness wasn’t hers, and their voices didn’t affect her. So she looked the other way and never intervened.

So why did she care now? Simple, now she understood the helplessness that comes with being an outcast since Maisa was the one being punished, and she didn’t like the feeling.

She looked at Maisa and then at Varitreya. "Can’t we put it to a vote?"

The garden went still. The students waited to see the outcome of an Ashbourne and a Mortensen standing up for an outcast.

Varitreya’s gaze settled on her. Something in the princess’s expression hardened. "Are you defying me, Lumi Ashbourne?"

Her voice had changed. It was no longer the voice of a friend speaking to another member of the council. It was formal and sharp.

The voice of a princess reminded everyone to present exactly where the line stood and who had the authority to draw it.

"Are you questioning the ruling of the blood heir of the vampire nation, Lumi Ashbourne?"