Chapter 96-Called out

Chapter 96: 96-Called out

Varitreya finally spoke. "Kriza," her voice was soft, but it carried the authority of a future ruler in the making.

The blackblood stiffened. The princess calling her name was like a death sentence. She was sweating buckets just imagining what verdict would befall her.

"Look at me, Kriza."

Kriza slowly raised her eyes.Her black eyes were filled with fear and panic. There was hardly a more frightening force in the vampire kingdom than the queen except, perhaps, her daughter. The princess.

"Why did you do this?"

It was such a simple question. Varitreya deliberately gave Kriza the opportunity to explain herself. Perhaps there was a reason behind her actions that could be understood, even if not forgiven. Perhaps, if her justification was reasonable enough, she might still find a way to offer her mercy.

But to everyone watching, the question carried far more weight than its simplicity suggested. There would be no escaping it for sure, and there would be consequences, depending on the princess’s judgment of whether the reason was justifiable or not.

The princess was not someone one could cross so easily and expect to walk away untouched.

Kriza opened her mouth. She had spent so much time constructing explanations in her head, reasons she could use to justify what she had done. She could have spoken about the ancient bloodline laws, the boundaries Maisa had crossed, the unfairness that became more clear with her arrival, and everything that had pushed her toward that decision.

But not a single word came out because the princess had already chosen to stand beside Maisa. No matter how convincing her explanation sounded, Kriza knew she would still be held responsible.

Her gaze fell, and the fear in her eyes gave way to a quiet sadness.

The rules had always seemed so absolute. Bloodlines were never supposed to mix. There was supposed to be a clear boundary between superior and inferior bloods, between those granted privileges and those expected to know their place.

Those rules had shaped generations of vampires, becoming so deeply ingrained that questioning them had once seemed unthinkable. Then Maisa arrived, and somehow, everything had begun to change.

Rules that had been treated as unbreakable suddenly seemed negotiable. Boundaries that had been guarded for centuries were being crossed, and the very princess who represented those traditions was now bending them, protecting a redblood as though Maisa mattered more than the rules themselves.

Kriza pressed her lips tightly together. ’Why?’ She thought. Why was the princess so eager to defend a redblood?

The question burned silently inside her. She met Varitreya’s white eyes, ’Would you be this furious if it had been me in Maisa’s shoe?’ she wondered bitterly. ’Would you have demanded justice this fiercely if it were anyone else who had suffered this injustice?’

Her gaze flickered toward Maisa. ’Or is all this fury simply because it’s her?’

Bitterness clawed its way through Kriza’s chest, sharp enough to make her resentment almost unbearable.

For the first time, she wondered if the thing she had truly been fighting against wasn’t Maisa at all. Perhaps it was the realization that the world she had spent her entire life believing in was beginning to change, and she had no idea where that left her.

Varitreya’s gaze remained fixed on her. "Why did you do it?" She repeated the question.

Kriza’s jaw tightened. "For the same reason everyone else is thinking, but nobody wants to say aloud."

A murmur swept through the garden. It was barely more than a ripple of sound, but it was enough to show that most shared Kriza’s point of view.

Heads lowered at the same time as though they had an agreement. Eyes shifted away to avoid being spotted by the princess.

Students suddenly found the floor, the trees, the flowers... anything preferable to meeting the princess’s gaze and being singled out and yet beneath their silence, they had a sea of questions concerning what they were seeing.

Since when did a redblood’s matter warrant a trial? Why was a blackblood, a blueblood, and a mixedblood being placed on the chopping block for what they had done to an outcast?

Redbloods had suffered worse, far worse in the past. There had been countless incidents before Maisa arrived, incidents people had whispered about for a few days before the academy simply moved on.

In such incidents, there had been no council hearing, no furious princess, and no threat of consequences reaching beyond the academy walls had ever occurred in their defence. So the trial seemed a little extreme.

So why was Maisa different? Why did her suffering suddenly matter so much?

Varitreya’s eyes sharpened. She could feel the surge of emotion from the students. The resentment rolling through the garden wasn’t coming from Kriza alone. It was spreading through the crowd like an invisible current, carried by every lowered head and every pair of eyes that refused to look directly at her.

She understood that this wasn’t merely about Kriza. This was about everything Maisa’s arrival had disrupted. Still, the princess remained composed and said, "Then say it."

Kriza swallowed. For a moment, she looked as though she might retreat, but then she lifted her chin. "Because she doesn’t belong here."

The words landed heavily, and she meant each and every single one. It was how she and many other high-borns felt.

"She doesn’t belong by your side. A redblood doesn’t stand next or close to a whiteblood," Her voice grew steadier. "Hasn’t that always been the rule?"

Maisa felt something twist painfully inside her because Kriza wasn’t entirely wrong. She didn’t belong beside the princess.

She had been a vampire for barely two weeks, yet because of the zing, she had climbed a social ladder that others had spent years struggling to reach. She had gained protection, attention, privileges, and connections that some students could only dream about.

It wasn’t fair, not to them or to the students who had spent years proving themselve and definitely not to those who had followed every rule because they believed those rules meant forging a foot for themselves.

Kriza continued. "She’s a redblood. She arrived here so suddenly, and suddenly everything changed... not for everybody, just for her."

Her fingers curled at her sides. "The princess protects her... why not the rest of us... Zolani visits her dormitory carrying luxury items that even I can’t get access to because of the limitations placed on people like us.... and Lumi, our prodigy, suddenly spends all her time with her... sharing notes that every student here would kill for... how come such kindness doesn’t extend to the rest of us?"

She paused. Her voice trembled with restrained anger. "She’s being invited onto the council bus," a bitter laugh escaped her. "I’ve been going to this school with all of you for a year and a half, and I don’t even know what the inside of that bus looks like."

Varitreya clenched her fists but kept her surface appearance calm. It was the first time she was facing such questions directed to her, straight to her face.

Was it that she didn’t know of the difference in treatment between bloods? No. She knew she wasn’t blind or deaf to her surroundings, but to have someone openly call her out as bias, that was new.

Lumi tilted her head to the side. She was still nowhere near recovering from the anger of being manipulated, and now, somehow, her name had been dragged into the argument yet again.

Her eyes narrowed with imense anger, "It seems I’ve been too polite lately." Her voice was dangerously calm. "Now, anyone can use my name for anything?!"