Chapter 86: _ Meet Clement Cross

Clement Cross [Commander of the Dragon Academy’s Security Wing]

The desk in my office smelled of old books and cheap ink, the same scent as the tiny back room in my father’s farmhouse twenty years ago.

I was the son of a dirt-poor farmer from the outer provinces. I had no noble bloodline, no ancestral estate, and no powerful family shielding me. I had clawed my way into Last Bastion on pure stubbornness, survived the brutal initiation rites, the cruel missions and training, and spent a decade working my way up the security wing to commander.

It hadn’t come without a price. Every stripe on my uniform was bought with scars, suppressed principles, and compromises I swallowed in the dark. But I had made it. I had built influence and connections across the realm.

Unfortunately, I also knew how this institution operated.

The Academies didn’t give a damn about student lives. They cared about noble bloodlines, aristocratic donations, and political optics. If a high-born heir died, the realm would suffer a political attack. If a commoner died, they wrote it off as a training accident and swept the ashes under the rug.

This year, the so-called "anomaly clause" had dragged a handful of commoners and markless kids into the lion’s den. Those poor fools thought they had hit the royal jackpot by getting accepted into Last Bastion. They didn’t realize they had just walked into a slaughterhouse where they were entirely dispensable.

The anomaly clause itself smelled rotten. It reeked of a manufactured plot, though I couldn’t prove it yet.

Right now, I had to focus on what I could control. Or rather, who I couldn’t stop thinking about.

Every time I looked at her, something tight and unnatural clenched behind my ribs. I had a deep, aching urge to step between her and protect her—and it terrified me. I wasn’t the type to court students. I had kept my professional code unblemished through years of bloody service. She was the first initiate to evoke this kind of protective madness in me.

It was a disaster waiting to happen. She came from the same trenches I had crawled out of. But she was here now, standing on the precipice of a world where she could potentially catch the eye of a high-born noble and marry up, securing a life far away from the mud. I couldn’t selfishly drag her down or ruin her chances.

I dragged a hand over my stubbled jaw, staring down at the thick stack of investigation files scattered across my desk.

I ran the numbers in my head, cross-referencing the residues recovered from the drainage sector and the magical frequency of the attacks. My gut, honed by ten years of hunting academy predators, screamed a harsh truth. There was a seventy-five percent chance that the Sylven currently locked in our detention cells wasn’t the real culprit at all.

The true monster was still loose, which meant Elira and the girls were walking targets.

The Academy council had originally tried to bury Tobin’s disciplinary hearing at the end of the next Moon, prioritizing noble disputes. I had pulled every string, leaned on every back-alley contact, and forced them to move the hearing up to tomorrow morning.

I stood up from my desk, stripped off my sweat-stained undershirt, and washed up in the basin. I needed to move fast. If the Sylven in the cells was a decoy, then keeping him locked up safely was a waste of time—and I had a dangerous, entirely illegal idea on how to test it.

I dressed in my heavy black wool tunic, strapping my service blade to my belt, and waited in my office until the courtyard bells chimed. I needed to make sure every single initiate was safely locked inside their morning lectures before I made my move.

The door of my office burst open.

"Commander!"

My youngest subordinate who looked like he was about to throw up his breakfast, skidded to a halt.

"All initiates are accounted for and seated in their lectures," the kid panted, wiping sweat from his forehead. "The courtyards are completely cleared."

"Good. Get your gear. We’re going down to the lower holding cells."

We stepped out into the arched corridor of the security wing. As we made our way toward the stone stairs, patrolling wardens caught sight of me and immediately straightened, offering respectful salutes.

"Commander," one veteran guard nodded, eyeing my packed holster with a knowing look. "Headed down to check the Sylven before the council hearing tomorrow?"

"Just tying up loose ends," I replied, offering a brief nod and a steady look that let them know I trusted their perimeter.

I didn’t micromanage my men; I gave them clear boundaries and expected them to hold the line, which was why the boys in the security wing would walk through fire for me.

"Keep the upper checkpoints locked tight until I’m back," I added as we passed.

"Understood, Commander," the guard answered, resuming his patrol.

After that, we moved through the corridors of the security wing in silence. As we rounded the final corner leading to the solitary detention block, a strange pressure hit the back of my neck.

I stopped dead in my tracks and my hands dropped to the pommel of my blade.

"Commander... do you smell that?" Nicolas whispered as he sniffed the air.

Blood.

Fresh blood.

We broke into a sprint immediately, our boots splashing through the puddles on the floor. We rounded the final iron gate... and the sight waiting for us made my blood run cold.

Slumped against the stone wall outside the threshold were our two senior security guards, their throats cleanly slit, dark pools of blood spreading across the flagstones.

"Gods above..." Nicolas choked out, stumbling back.

"Stay behind me," I snarled, drawing my blade as I rushed past the dead guards into the cell block.

Further inside, at the very end of the row, lay the Sylven initiate, Tobin. He was dead. His chest had been violently torn open, blood soaking his uniform and pooling beneath the iron bars of his cell. ℯℯ𝘭.𝘤ℴ𝘮

And standing directly in front of the blood-spattered cell door was Prince Raice Ignis-Dominus.