Chapter 94: _ Suspicious Prince, Ajax

He was standing right beside the marble basin of the fountain, surrounded by an eager entourage of high-born noble initiates who were practically climbing over one another just to breathe his air.

He didn’t look like someone who had spent his night two nights ago handing out parasitic dark-magic trinkets. He wore his tailored gold and white sovereign jacket. He had one hand casually tucked into his trousers pocket, while the other rested on the stone rim of the fountain, forgetting how ridiculously handsome he was.

Resting right between his long fingers was a blood-red heartstone.

The moment my eyes landed on that stone, the iron bracelet hidden beneath my left sleeve slammed tight against my skin.

BZZZZT!

A wave of searing, needle-like heat shot up my forearm, turning my blood to molten lead. I gasped, clutching my left wrist with my right hand as a wince pulled across my face.

"Elira?" Bren asked instantly, her eyes darting down to my arm. "What’s wrong?"

I wheezed through gritted teeth, rubbing the burning leather sleeve. "Nothing. Just... a cramp."

"A cramp doesn’t make you turn the color of chalk, glitch," Bren murmured, her eyes narrowing as she followed my gaze across the crowded plaza.

At the fountain, Prince Ajax slowly turned his head away from a swooning third-year noble girl who was trying to get his attention. His silver eyes swept effortlessly over the sea of initiates until they locked directly onto mine.

A wolfish smirk spread across his handsome face.

"Oh, great," Miriel groaned under her breath, shrinking behind Bren’s shoulder. "First Prince Raice’s murder accusation, now Prince Ajax is giving you the death stare across the courtyard. Elira, do you have a secret magnetic charm under your tunic that attracts dangerously unhinged royals?!"

"If I do, I’m throwing it in the lake," I muttered, my heart jumping as Ajax took a step away from the crowd, heading straight toward us.

The mob of gossiping initiates parted like the Red Sea, falling silent as the Crown Prince strode across the cobblestones.

"What is he doing?"

"Surely, he’s not going for the Dragonless girl..."

"I think he is... remember he danced with her?"

"Perhaps she’s bewitched him."

"Don’t be ridiculous. She doesn’t even have a dragon."

"Then why is he walking toward her?"

"Maybe he wants to finish what he started at the ball."

I nearly choked.

What exactly did I start at the ball? A dance? A diplomatic incident? A royal scandal?

Apparently, breathing in the same direction as a prince was enough to inspire an entire conspiracy.

Ajax kept coming.

"Bren, Miriel... step back," I said as my fingers tightened into fists at my sides.

"Not a chance. If he tries to drag you into an alley, I’m stabbing his boot." Bren replied deadpan, her hand resting casually near her dagger holster.

This was the first time my friends would give a hostile reaction towards any of the Princes who seemed not to want to let me be.

"Bren, he’s the Crown Prince!" Miriel squeaked.

"And my daggers are steel," Bren retorted without flinching. "He bleeds like the rest of us."

Before Miriel could pass out from anxiety, Prince Ajax stopped three paces in front of us. The surrounding initiates lined the perimeter of the plaza, whispering behind their palms as they watched the Crown Prince confront the markless commoner.

"Initiate No-One," Ajax purred and my chest rose as his gaze drifted down to my left wrist, where the bracelet was still pulsing with feverish heat. "You look remarkably pale. Has the academic rigor of Last Bastion already exhausted you?"

"I’m surviving, Your Highness. Though the local wildlife is proving remarkably persistent."

A delighted chuckle escaped Ajax’s throat. He took another step forward, closing the distance until he stood barely two feet away from me.

I forced myself to keep my spine straight, refusing to take a single step backward despite the scorching iron band digging violently into my flesh beneath my sleeve.

"Your Highness," I began, bowing my head with the bare minimum of proper academic deference, "if I may ask... what brings the Lion Crown Prince to the Dragon Academy? And here... a-at the lower dormitories?"

Ajax tilted his head. "I came for you, Elira."

An intake of breath echoed across the crowd of watching initiates.

I exchanged a swift bewildered glance with Bren and Miriel. Miriel’s eyes were bulging out of their sockets, while Bren’s brow furrowed into deep lines of suspicion.

"For me?" I repeated, letting out a quiet laugh. "Your Highness, how could someone like me... a markless, dragonless nobody possibly bring the Lion Crown Prince all the way across the sovereign grounds?"

Ajax didn’t answer with words right away. Instead, his fingers closed around my right wrist—the exact arm wrapped in the burning bracelet.

Before I could pull away, he lifted my hand between us, bowed his head, and planted a kiss directly onto the back of my knuckles.

Gasps, shrieks, and furious, heartbroken cries erupted across the plaza like a flock of startled crows.

The high-born noble girls who had spent every waking hour preening, flattering, and throwing their sacred lineages at Ajax’s feet looked like they had been physically struck.

A second-tier dragon heiress clutched her pearl necklace, her eyes welling with tears as her jaw dropped. Nearby, another noble girl who had spent the entire morning parading in front of the fountain to catch his eye turned deathly pale.

"Did he just kiss her hand?!" someone shrieked from the crowd.

"In broad daylight?!"

"Is he out of his mind?! She’s a commoner! A markless trench rat!"

"I spent months trying to get a single glance from His Highness! And he crosses academy lines for her? She doesn’t even match up to the mud on my boots!" A third-year girl choked out.

My face burned with scalding heat under the weight of a hundred envious glares. I tried to yank my hand out of his grip, but his fingers were like forged steel. He held me firm, looking up through his blond eyelashes with a gaze so intensely golden, it felt like he was burning straight through my skull.

"I had a strong feeling," Ajax murmured, his thumb gently stroking the skin near my pulse point. "A very strong pull that told me you needed me today. So, I came."

I stared at him in jaw-dropping disbelief. The unmitigated unrealism of his words made my brain momentarily freeze.

He had a feeling? A nobody needed him, so the Crown Prince strolled across academy lines?

Did he honestly expect me to swallow that romantic, fairy-tale garbage while his dark-magic padlock was currently threatening to brand my bone?