Chapter 70: _ Vaela is Coming For You

Headmistress Maisie and Discipline Warden Silas stood near the shattered doors. Zev had already walked out, tossing a final, arrogant smile over his shoulder as he retreated to his own territory.

I wiped my wet eyes with the back of my sleeve, stepping over a broken oak table leg. I forced my posture straight, trying to regain whatever scrap of royal dignity I had left. I reached out toward Remus, intending to take his bleeding arm and lead him away from this disaster.

"Remus... please," I choked out as I tried to grab his wrist. "Let’s go. We need to get your lip cleaned up before—"

Remus violently shrugged my hand off.

He didn’t even look at me. He completely ignored my outstretched fingers, stepping right past me as if I were made of glass.

My heart shattered into a thousand jagged pieces right there on the floor.

I had brushed his earlier coldness off as anger at my behavior before the ball. However, this... this I have no excuse for. This could not go unchecked.

I watched Remus drop into a low crouch in front of the markless girl, who was still shaking on the ground, surrounded by her two pathetic, wide-eyed friends.

"Are you alright?" Remus asked, his voice laced with a softness that he had never used with anyone in his entire life. "Did he hurt you? Did Zev do something to you?"

The whispers from the surrounding students erupted instantly.

"Look at him... he’s ignored his own sister for her!" a second-year whispered behind her hand.

"Is Prince Remus seriously checking on a Dragonless commoner?" another boy snickered. "She must have put a spell on him!"

Every single whisper was a needle pressing directly into my brain. They were laughing at me. The whole academy was watching the Dragon Prince abandon his family for a trench rat.

Veyra’s face was scrunched up in disbelief. She shoved her hands onto her hips, looking down at Remus with disgusted eyes. "Remus, what on earth are you doing?! Why are you talking to this dragonless trash? Look around you! The whole hall is staring!"

For the first time in our entire lives, Remus turned his head and screamed at his own precious sisters.

"GET OUT, VEYRA!" he roared, his voice booming off the frozen rafters with such raw dragon-fire that the remaining glass windows rattled in their frames. "BOTH OF YOU, GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE!"

Veyra flinched hard, staggering back a step, her jaw dropping in shock. Remus had never raised his voice at us. Not once. He was our protector, our golden brother, the one who shielded us from our father’s harsh expectations.

Veyra was stunned, but her shock was nothing compared to the agony tearing through my soul.

It was her fault. That pathetic, markless little plague was ruining everything. She was dismantling our family brick by brick, poisoning Remus’s mind until he looked at his own sisters with pure hatred.

I stepped forward again, my fingers clawing at the air as I prepared to drag him away by his hair if I had to. "Remus, stop this! Stop hurting us for her—!"

"Ladies Drakaryn."

A hand clad in dark iron armor landed on my shoulder, cutting me off.

I spun around to face Discipline Warden Silas. His emotionless eyes bored down into mine. Beside him, Headmistress Maisie adjusted her silk robes, her expression stern and completely devoid of sympathy.

"Your class’s field training assessment in the High Ridge Quadrant begins in ten minutes. The wardens are already assembling the battle lines. Your instructor has arrived too. If you are absent when the horn blows, you will forfeit your practical marks for the term." Silas cruelly pointed out like he was tone-deaf to my aging.

"I don’t care about practical marks!" I shrieked, trying to twist out of his grip. "My brother is..."

"You will care, Lady Vaela," Headmistress Maisie interrupted. "Your family has caused enough disruption in the central hall for one morning. Prince Remus is currently involved in an official academy security. Step out of this hall immediately and proceed to your class, or I will personally place both of you under campus arrest."

Bitch. Filthy old hag who licks Remus’s ass because she hopes to get in the favor of the Dragon King.

Veyra yanked me toward the exit. "Vaela, come on! We can’t afford to lose points. Father will be furious if we fail!"

"No! Remus!" I sobbed, twisting my neck around as Veyra dragged me backward through the shattered doorway.

I looked back over my shoulder, my tears blurring the sight of the ruined Great Hall.

Remus didn’t turn around. He didn’t even acknowledge that his sisters were being escorted out like common criminals. He was completely, utterly absorbed in the girl on the floor, reaching out with a trembling, bloody hand on her wrist.

He was lost to her.

As Silas slammed the doors shut behind us, cutting off my view of the hall, Veyra let out a huff of pure annoyance, storming down the stone corridor ahead of me.

"Unbelievable," Veyra muttered, adjusting her ruined vest. "He yells at us over some markless girl who doesn’t even have a dragon? Wait until I tell father about this. He’s completely lost his mind."

I didn’t answer her. I wiped the tears from my cheeks with a shaky hand.

He cared for her. Or he was terrified of her. Or both. It didn’t matter what it was—the result was the same. She had taken my place. She had stolen the only person in this wretched world who made me feel safe.

I will kill her, I thought with a crystal-clear intent. I don’t care about the Headmistress. I don’t care about Silas. I don’t care if Remus finds anything remotely worthy in her. I will tear that markless girl limb from limb and feed her to the mountain drakes for ever daring to take what it is mine. Count your days, Elira No-One.

Vaela is coming for you.