Chapter 62: _ Is Tobin Really Tobin?

Elira No-One

...

Standing in the center of the stone cell, chained to four heavy iron rings embedded directly into the floor, was Tobin.

His dark hair hung in matted clumps over his forehead. But the moment the door swung wide and eyes snapped directly to us, my knees almost buckled.

It was him.

The same sharp nose. The same thin, mocking lips. The exact, cursed face that had loomed over me in the pitch-black ruins of the Sunken Arch,

My hand flew to my stomach as a violent wave of nausea surged up my throat.

Miriel immediately stepped up to the iron bars. "Look at him," she spat with disgust. "Sitting there acting all meek and innocent, like he wasn’t acting like a complete psychotic murderer and core-stealer two days ago."

The moment Tobin heard her, he scrambled to his feet, the iron chains rattling violently against the stone floorboards as he threw himself toward the bars.

"Please!" Tobin cried out, tears instantly brimming in his eyes as his hands gripped the iron rods. "I don’t know who you are! Why are you doing this to me?! What did I do to you?!"

Bren took an angry step forward. "Oh, cut the pathetic act, Tobin. You know exactly why we’re here. You were having the time of your life throwing us against stone walls in that underground chamber! You boasted about killing twenty initiates and harvesting their cores!"

"I would never!" Tobin shrieked, his voice cracking hysterically. "I’ve never even been to the lower drainage vaults! I was in my dorm, sleeping two days ago! Ask my roommates! Ask anyone!"

"And what about me?" I blurted out, unable to believe how much my voice was shaking as the memory of his hands on my skin ravaged my head. "Are you going to pretend you didn’t trap me against a stone column? That you didn’t touch me, strip my clothes, and try to defile me before stealing whatever magic I had left?!"

Tobin stared at the three of us like we were speaking a foreign language. His wide, tear-streaked eyes darted from Miriel, to Bren, and finally to me, filled with horror.

"Defile you?!" he gasped, slapping his own forehead. "Are you insane?! I don’t even like girls! I’m currently courting a second-year fairy herbalist named Pippin! I wouldn’t touch a dragonless girl if my life depended on it! You three are lying! You’re trying to get me executed!"

"Lie?! We have the scars to prove it, you psychotic tree-rodent!" Miriel shouted back.

"I’m not a monster!" Tobin screamed, slamming his chained fists against the bars, weeping loudly. "You crazy bitches are framing me! I swear on the Great Forest, I’m innocent! May the Flame God strike you all down for lying on my name!"

I took a slow step back, my heart pounding hard. I stared at him, really.

When Tobin had cornered us in the Sunken Arch, his eyes had held a bottomless hunger. There had been a flickering, dark, murderous glint behind his pupils that made my blood run cold. But looking at the trembling, sobbing Sylven boy in front of me right now... that glint was completely gone.

He looked... pathetic. Scared out of his wits.

Is he just a master actor? I thought, my mind racing. Or is Clement right? Could the real attacker be a shapeshifter who stole Tobin’s face?

I didn’t even know what to say anymore. The confusion was suffocating.

Tobin continued to wail, dropping to his knees and cursing us, his cries echoing loudly off the stone walls of the holding block.

Commander Clement let out a heavy sigh, stepping in front of us and blocking our view of the cell. "That’s enough. We’re not going to get anything coherent out of him while he’s in this state. Ladies, let’s head back upstairs."

"He’s putting on a show, Commander!" Miriel protested, though she backed away from the bars as Clement guided us out.

"Perhaps. Or perhaps not," Clement replied quietly. "Either way, the Truth Mirror in three days will settle it."

We turned around and began walking down the dimly lit corridor toward the security building exit.

Before we could even reach the main archway, the iron doors at the end of the hall swung wide open. The four armed wardens standing guard along the walls suddenly snapped to attention, their steel armor clanking together as they dropped into deep bows.

Miriel stopped dead in her tracks. Bren’s brow furrowed in confusion.

"Who on earth is coming down here?" Miriel whispered under her breath.

Before I could answer, a distinct scent washed down the stone corridor, cutting straight through the smell of mold and old copper. It was a rugged scent of crushed pine needles, and fresh leather.

A scent that was far too familiar.

A pair of heavy leather boots crunched over the flagstones. Emerging from the torchlight was a towering figure draped in the dark bronze and black trim of the Tiger Academy uniform.

"Sweet Dragonless," he beamed with a charming grin spreading across his face.

I froze, completely struck dumb.

I wasn’t sure what rendered me speechless first—his striking, rugged handsome face, his completely unexpected presence inside the Dragon Academy’s security sector, or the sudden, erratic thumping of my own traitorous heart against my ribs.

What... what in the world was he doing here?

His promise of coming to find me sometime soon echoed in my ears and I wondered—as stupid as it may sound—if he had actually come here for me as promised.

Who the hell was I kidding?

Why would the Tiger Prince care for a Dragonless nobody like myself? Enough to cross Academies and walk into the same security quarters he ought to be avoiding?

Tch. Prince Zev was definitely here for some other reason.

Beside me, Miriel and Bren snapped out of their shock and instantly dropped into formal bows. "Your Highness," they echoed in unison.

Commander Clement bowed as well, placing a hand over his chest, though his expression immediately tightened with professional tension. "Prince Zev. To what do we owe this unexpected honor?"