Chapter 118: _ Backfired Plan

VAELA BERTRAM DRAKARYN [Step-daughter of the Dragon King]

My dress was currently being ruined by pearl-clay face mask, mascara, and a dreadful volume of snot.

"HE MARKED HER, VAELA! HE SANK HIS FANGS INTO HER TRENCH-RAT NECK AND HE MARKED HER!" Veyra howled into my shoulder, her voice reaching a pitch that was actively vibrating the crystal chandeliers in our private suite. "IN MID-AIR! IN FRONT OF THE QUADRANGLE! HE DIDN’T EVEN LIFT ME IN MID-AIR!"

"Shh, Veyra, please. You’re going to give yourself hives." I muttered, wincing as she blew her nose onto my silk sleeve.

"I ALREADY HAVE HIVES!" she shrieked, sitting up violently. Her face was now ridden with cracked white clay and blotchy red skin. She looked less like a royal Dragon princess and more like a gargoyle having a psychotic break. "Beth! Where is my crying towel?!"

Across the sprawling bedchamber, Beth, Veyra’s handmaid was currently ducking behind an antique wardrobe to avoid a flying silver hairbrush. The poor girl held a damp cloth like a shield, eyes filled with horror.

"I have it right here, Lady Veyra," Beth quavered, taking a careful step forward. "Perhaps some chamomile tea—"

"I DON’T WANT TEA, YOU BAT! I WANT IVAR’S HEAD ON A SPIKE!" Veyra grabbed a crystal perfume bottle from her vanity and hurled it against the stone fireplace. It shattered into a thousand gleaming shards, filling the air with the suffocating scent of crushed orchids.

The maids huddled in the corner shrank back, trembling like cornered rabbits. They had been scrubbing Veyra’s bath for two hours, but no amount of hot water or lavender oil could cleanse the humiliation currently scorching my twin sister’s soul.

I rubbed my throbbing temples, feeling a headache blossoming behind my eyes.

I hated Ivar Wulfram. I hated his mismatched eyes, his arrogant swagger, and the fact that half the noble girls in this academy treated him like a god. I had always known Veyra was obsessed with him. Ever since the idiot had taken her to bed during our first year, she had been pathetically hooked.

And what had the Wolf Prince done? Exactly what he did to every other desperate noble girl who threw herself at his feet. He took a fraction of her mana, tossed her out of his bed, and never gave her the time of day again.

It pained me deeply to see my twin in such agony—mostly because I knew, deep down, that I was the one who had accidentally brought this nightmare upon us.

The scrying glass. The public broadcast.

My plan was supposed to be a masterclass in social execution! Corvus was supposed to use his Eros arrow to trap that markless slut in a disgusting display with a common-born Cindervale boy. It was supposed to ruin Elira No-One forever! She was supposed to be dragged out of the academy in shame, leaving Remus free of her sickening, hypnotic spell!

Instead, that useless, incompetent ironsmith’s son had botched the execution. He had locked his scrying glass onto Elira while she was tucked in an alcove with Ivar.

Now, instead of being ruined, the markless plague had been elevated. Word was tearing through the campus like wildfire: Prince Ivar had publicly claimed her in the Dragon courtyard. He had frozen a third-year’s legs for throwing rotten fruit at her. He had called her a future Queen of the Wolf Realm!

My plan hadn’t destroyed her. It had crowned her.

"Veyra, look at me," I said, grabbing my sister by her trembling shoulders and forcing her to face me. "Stop crying over that gluttonous wolf. He is a predatory leech! He was never a good choice for you anyway."

"He’s a prince and I LOVE HIM!" she sobbed, a fat tear rolling down her cheek and leaving a clean track through her face mask.

"So is Zev!" I argued fiercely. "I would tell you to go after the Tiger Prince if he hadn’t forced my own hand to strike Remus over that same markless whore, but look at Prince Ajax! The Lions are the wealthiest sovereign dynasty in the realms, Veyra! If you mated Ajax, you’d be swimming in liquid gold! You’d have three palaces!"

Veyra kicked her feet like a toddler throwing a tantrum on the duvet. "I DON’T WANT AJAX! I DON’T WANT ZEV! I WANT IVAR! How could he do this to me?! What is so damn special about that markless nobody that every single prince in this academy loses his mind over her?!"

"Nothing!" I hissed, my eyes narrowing into venomous slits. "She is a trench rat who got lucky! But listen to me, Veyra... marked or not, this isn’t over."

Veyra’s sobbing hiccuped to a sudden halt. She blinked through her mascara-stained lashes. "W-what?"

"You want Ivar back?" I smoothed a stray lock of hair from her forehead. "We can make it happen. We work together. We teach that markless shit a lesson she will never forget. We will drive her so mad, break her so thoroughly, or get her expelled so fast that she’ll go crawling back to the Stonewick mud. And once she’s gone? Ivar will come running right back to the noble girls who actually matter. He’ll be yours."

Veyra sniffled, wiping her nose with the back of her hand. "Can... can we really do that, Vaela? She has the wolf mark now. Ivar said he would kill anyone who touches her."

I let out a cold laugh, reaching out to pat her cheek reassuringly. "You have me, twin. Have I ever let you lack anything? Anyone who stands in our way—whether it’s a markless commoner or a sovereign wolf—is going to be destroyed. We are the Daughters of the Dragon King. We do not lose."

A wicked smile slowly broke through the cracked clay mask on Veyra’s face. She nodded, her sorrow instantly hardening into malicious conviction. "We’ll destroy her."

"We will," I promised, matching her smirk. "Piece by piece."

I meant it... Every. Single. Word.