Chapter 98: _ Laying My Soul Bare

Ajax’s thumb lightly grazed my cheekbone instead before withdrawing his hand completely. "The bracelet, Elira. It links a small fraction of your core to mine. Whenever you experience a wave of overwhelming emotion, it pulses through the tether to the heartstone. I feel it."

He feels it? Why on earth would a Crown Prince want to feel what I’m feeling?

He paused for a self-deprecating smile touching his lips.

"And as for the rest of it... rumors travel fast in Last Bastion. Especially to a Crown Prince with a few well-placed ears in every wing."

At the sound of that, I couldn’t deny the dizzying relief that washed over me. It was so strong my shoulders visibly dropped.

"So it’s not..." I stammered, rubbing my leather sleeve over the hidden metal band. "I was worried about this thing. Prince Remus said he sensed a strange emotional signature coming off it. He made me think someone was inside it... t-tracking me or something."

Ajax let out a laugh, shaking his head. "I heard about that."

"You heard about that? How? Remus told me that in private in the Great Hall. He wasn’t loud about it."

For a split second so brief I almost missed it, Ajax’s confident posture stiffened. His eyes flickered and his jaw tightened as he scrambled for words.

"Shifters have remarkably sharp hearing, little mouse," he finally recovered so seamlessly I wondered if I’d imagined the slip. "One of my Dragon sources was sitting three tables away during breakfast. He overheard Remus brooding over your wrist and reported it to me immediately. Royal protocol, you understand. I have to know if rival princes are inspecting my gifts."

I considered his words for a moment. It made sense. High-born shifters were observant, and the Great Hall was an acoustic nightmare of vaulted stone arches.

A heavy weight I hadn’t realized I was carrying lifted off my chest.

"Gods above," I breathed, letting out a nervous, airy laugh as I leaned back against the quartz boulder. "I thought this was some dark-magic spy tracking device meant to drain my blood or turn my brain to mush."

"Drain your blood?" Ajax laughed again, stepping over to a flat rock near the edge of the cliff and taking a seat. He patted the space beside him, looking up at me with an inviting smile.

"I assure you, Elira, if I wanted your blood, I would have asked for it properly at the ball. Come, sit. You look like you’ve run three marathons."

I hesitated for a second before walking over and sitting down beside him on the warm rock.

The afternoon breeze blew past us, carrying the clean scent of wild pine and cool lake water. Out here, miles away from the dark corridors of Last Bastion, the suffocating paranoia that had been eating me alive since morning finally began to loosen its grip.

For the first time all day, I felt like I could actually breathe.

Bren and Miriel were my world, but they were just as clueless, terrified, and low-born as I was. We were three trench rats drowning in a sea of sharks. Every time I tried to talk to them about the princes, the bonds, or the faculty corruption, Miriel panicked and Bren reached for her daggers.

I haven’t even had the chance to tell them about the Master Eldritch situation before Headmistress Maisie threw another punch at us. Those girls wouldn’t be in these messes if it weren’t for me.

I didn’t want to burden them with more. I needed a stronger and more capable ally. Clement had told us that was the highest currency in this realm.

Neither of my friends had answers. Neither of them understood the insane mechanics of high-born magic, royal feuds, or academy law.

But Ajax? Ajax was a Crown Prince. He knew how the board was set. He understood the players. And right now, sitting beside me on a sunny cliff, he felt like the only person in this entire godforsaken realm who actually had the power and knowledge to help me understand what was happening to my life.

"You’ve been through hell today, haven’t you?" Ajax asked, turning his head to look at me. "I can see it in your eyes. If anything is troubling you, Elira... anything at all... you can share it with me. I’ll help you."

I looked at him, my brow knitting together in genuine bewilderment.

"Why?" I asked frankly. "Why do you want to help me, Ajax? I’m a markless commoner. I don’t have a noble house, I don’t have a dragon, and I just accepted an academic zero from Master Eldritch. What could you possibly gain from helping me?"

Ajax looked out over the glittering lake and an almost solemn expression settled over his handsome features.

"Because I’ve liked you from the very first moment I set eyes on you."

I was completely stunned.

My mouth opened, but no sound came out.

"W-where? At... The... the ball?" I stammered, shaking my head in disbelief. "Ajax, that’s ridiculous! That dress wasn’t even mine. Commander Clement provided my friends and me with those because of the investigation, and I nearly broke your toes during the royal waltz!"

"I know the dress wasn’t yours; you told me that back in the ballroom," Ajax chuckled, turning back to face me. His eyes locked onto mine with an intensity that made my stomach do a strange, fluttery flip. "And I’m not talking about the ball."

I frowned. "What?"

"When I first saw you," Ajax murmured, leaning in slightly, "you weren’t wearing silk, sapphires, or fine velvet. You were in your unpolished low-born glory. Frayed tunic, mud on your boots, and a fire in your eyes bright enough to burn down a kingdom. I couldn’t help the obsession, Elira. It caught me completely off guard."

Confusion warred with the sudden spike of adrenaline in my chest. "Wait... what do you mean? You saw me before the ball? Where?!"

Ajax’s enigmatic smirk made him look like a rogue out of a legend.

"Of course it’s at the ball. I-I was just... being metaphorical. I meant I saw beyond the glitters and the courtly nonsense long before we stepped onto that dance floor. I saw a girl who refused to bow to a realm that wanted to break her."

His words were like a warm key turning in a rusty lock. He made me feel seen. Not like a problem to be solved, not like a markless anomaly to be dissected under a magnifying glass, but like a person.

Before I could stop myself, I broke.

The weight of everything I had been carrying by myself for days tumbled out of my mouth in a desperate flood.

"I don’t know what is happening to me, Ajax," I whispered, pulling my knees up to my chest and burying my face in my arms. "I feel like I’m losing my mind. The other princes... I don’t understand what they want from me, or what’s happening between us."

Ajax sat quietly, listening with rapt attention as I laid my soul bare.

"Prince Raice..." I swallowed hard, my cheeks burning with shame and confusion. "Back during the ball, when I stepped out into the courtyard after the situation with the heartstone... Raice followed me. He cornered me against the stone wall. He was acting completely unhinged and disoriented, but... Ajax, he kissed me. And I didn’t stop him. I kissed him back. We made out in the dark, and it felt like an electrical storm exploding in my veins. And now he’s locked in a solitary cell covered in blood, and I’m terrified for him, and I don’t even know why!"

Ajax’s jaw tightened just a little, but he didn’t interrupt. He simply nodded, encouraging me to go on.

"And Prince Ivar!" I continued frantically, the words pouring out faster. "Ivar saved me from the Sylven, but then he kissed me and used his mind magic to compel me to forget it! I only remembered because my brain fought back! And Remus... Remus is... he’s special to me," I muttered, stubbornly clamping my mouth shut on the deeper details of my past with the Dragon Prince, refusing to give up that piece of my heart. "And Zev! Zev says he wants to help with the investigation and he’s so charismatic, treating everything like a game!"

I dragged a hand over my face, letting out an exhausted breath.

"I don’t know what’s real and what’s magic," I confessed quietly to the quiet lake. "And on top of all the royal madness, Master Eldritch tried to extort me today! He told me he’d give me a failing zero on my practical test unless I gave him the exact directions to where my adoptive mother lives in Stonewick! And Headmistress Maisie..."

My voice dropped into a fearful, angry whisper.

"Headmistress Maisie trapped my friends and me in Clement’s office. She threatened that if we don’t stand before the Realm Council tomorrow and give false testimony—lying that the Sylven told us Raice was his accomplice—we’ll disappear in a ’training accident’ before graduation."

I fell silent, my heart pounding in my ears, completely breathless.

I had said it all. Every secret, every fear, every terrifying piece of the puzzle that had been crushing me. I looked up at Prince Ajax, waiting for him to tell me I was insane, waiting for him to laugh, waiting for him to tell me I was doomed.