Chapter 71: _ He is the BOY

Elira No-One

...

I didn’t know which was harder to believe: what had just happened, or what was happening right now.

Prince Remus was crouching on the dusty floor in front of me, his hands hovering inches from my shoulders, asking if I was alright.

My mind was a complete mess. Everything had happened too fast. Prince Zev and Prince Remus beating each other into a bloody pulp over me. Lady Vaela delivering a slap that made my jaw throb. Remus screaming at his own twin sisters to get out until the stained-glass windows rattled.

Around us, the whispers from the remaining students were already growing into a deafening roar.

"Did he just banish his own blood for a Dragonless?"

"She’s a markless trench rat! What is happening?"

"Did she blood-bind him? Is it dark magic?"

I shrank back. Heavens, the resolve I’d built to Stonewick’s ostracism was nearly not enough for this place. Being at the center of attention in the most dangerous academy in the realm was a death sentence.

I didn’t want royal protection. I didn’t want royal fights. I just wanted to survive.

Remus, ignoring the hundreds of eyes locked on his back, said to me: "Elira, Look at me. Did Zev hurt you?"

I forced myself to look into his face. Up close, seeing the silver hair, the familiar shape of his eyes with those faint red slits, and concern etched into his features... it hit me all over again.

He was the crying boy from eight years ago beneath that stone archway. I thought I was mistaken at the Initiation Ball... right now, I wasn’t sure.

The strange boy in formal black who had taken my hand, promised he’d remember my scent, and declared he’d marry me... it was him. I wasn’t mistaken.

Tears spilled over my burning cheek. But they weren’t just from Vaela’s slap or the wreckage he and Prince Zev had caused in my name.

They came from the bitterness of the reality that had made me choose to believe he wasn’t that boy in the first place.

He was a Dragon Prince. I was Elira No-One—a markless nobody who spent her life paying for her mother’s choices. He was someone I couldn’t be with.

And worse... he hadn’t claimed me when I stood before him at the Initiation Ball. He had ignored me, stepping right past me. Yet here he was now, looking at me with so much devotion that it made my head spin.

Does he remember me? I thought frantically. He promised he would. So why did he act like I was a stranger at the ball?

"P-prince Remus..." I whispered. "Why are you doing this?"

He reached out toward my arm. But as his fingers brushed my sleeve, his gaze locked onto my right wrist.

The dark bracelet Prince Ajax had given me somehow made Remus freeze instantly. His brow furrowed into a tight line and the concern on his face instantly morphed into suspicion.

"Where did you get this? Elira, answer me. Who gave you this band?"

"Prince... Prince Ajax," I stammered, flinching slightly. "He gave it to me as a gift for dancing with him at the ball. He said it was for protection."

Remus’s jaw clenched so hard a muscle twitched in his cheek. "Ajax gave you this artifact? That bastard... My ability allows me to see emotional signatures. There is an active, pulsing signature coming from inside this metal."

My stomach dropped. "An... emotional signature? How can a bracelet have one?"

Remus shook his head. "I wouldn’t know. I-it just doesn’t make sense that Ajax gifted you a bracelet and now, it’s one that raises questions."

My blood ran cold. "What type of emotional signature are you seeing, Your Highness?"

Before Remus could answer, a tall figure stepped up behind him.

The same Warden Raice told me I’d come to hate back at the concourse stood over us. "Your Highness. It is best you allow the initiates to eat their morning meal and proceed to their lectures. You wouldn’t want them to be punished for arriving late to class, would you?"

Remus clenched his fists, glaring up at the Warden. For a second, I thought he was going to refuse. But the older man didn’t flinch.

Slowly, reluctantly, Remus stood up to his full height. He looked down at me one last time, his eyes burning with an intense warning.

"Do take that bracelet off. And do not trust Ajax. We will finish this conversation later." He deadpanned.

I swallowed hard, my chest rising and falling as Prince Remus reluctantly let us head toward the dining tables.

As Miriel, Bren, and I began navigating the maze of overturned benches and scattered stone rubble, I couldn’t stop myself from glancing back over my shoulder. Remus was still standing right where I’d left him, amidst the wrecked Great Hall, his eyes tracking my every step.

The bruised cut on his lower lip was still bleeding slightly, but he didn’t wipe it away. He just stared at me unblinkingly, it made my skin prickle.

Only after we finally squeezed into an empty bench tucked near a towering stone pillar did he finally leave.

The second the iron doors clicked shut after him, total chaos erupted.

It was as if the room had been holding its collective breath, and now the air was free to breathe again. Several upperclassmen and sophomores abandoned their own benches and swarmed directly toward our table like a pack of starved vultures.

"Hey! Dragonless!" a tall, broad-shouldered sophomore slammed both hands onto our table, leaning down until his nose was inches from mine. "What kind of black-market potion did you drop in Prince Remus’s goblet?!"

A third-year girl with silver-braided hair sneered, violently yanking on the edge of my sleeve to inspect the fabric. "She’s wearing literal rags! How in the seven hells is a markless trench rat getting the Tiger Prince and the Dragon Prince to tear down the Great Hall for her?!"

"Did you blood-bind them?!" another boy barked, shoving his way to the front. "Are you a dark witch from the outer wastes?!"

"Size her up! She doesn’t even have an aura!"

I shrank back into my seat. The wall of bodies pressed in tight, their mocking faces, hostile glares, and overlapping shouts creating a suffocating pressure. I crossed my arms tightly over my chest, pulling my legs up onto the wooden bench to make myself as small as humanly possible.

Bren immediately stood up on top of her seat, putting her hands on her hips and glaring right back at the mob. "Back the hell off, you ravenous birds! She didn’t do anything!"