Chapter 120: The Horrifying Possibility

Lorien:

The meeting room was filled with absolute silence. It was the kind of silence that wasn’t peaceful but suffocating, created by too many people trying to process something none of them wanted to believe.

I sat at the head of the long table, my hands resting against its polished surface while Professor Rowan’s report hung heavily in the air.

Princess Argentis had returned to the academy only hours ago, and already someone had placed a horrifying message outside her dormitory.

At first glance, it could have been dismissed as a cruel prank between students, but the moment we examined the details, that possibility became increasingly difficult to accept.

Someone knew that Elara had a familiar. Someone had known something she hadn’t even trusted the academy professors enough to reveal. They had deliberately chosen an animal that looked exactly like her familiar and placed its corpse inside a Christmas gift box outside her dorm. And even though the dead cat wasn’t actually her familiar, that hardly made the incident harmless.

In Starfall, familiars weren’t ordinary pets. The bond between a familiar and its master was sacred, deeply connected to magic and emotion, and harming someone’s familiar was considered an act of extreme hostility and was punishable by law.

Whoever had done this hadn’t simply wanted to frighten a student. They had wanted to send the Princess a message. A very specific one.

We know about you. We know what you care about. And we can reach it.

I could barely keep my thoughts from returning to Elara. Even after nearly an hour, I could still see her face in my mind.

The moment I received the news, I nearly ran all the way to her dorm only to find her completely broken while she stared at the box with ethd ear cat inside.

I hadn’t been able to forget the terror I saw in her eyes, the way her entire body had trembled, and then the way she had completely broken after discovering that the cat wasn’t Crazy. I had seen her angry. I had seen her frightened. I had seen her injured, exhausted, frustrated, stubborn, and even vulnerable on rare occasions. But I had never seen her cry like that. Not once. And perhaps that was what disturbed me most.

She had endured far worse than a horrifying imitation of her familiar. She had lost her entire family without even knowing the truth of her identity for years. She had been kidnapped, drugged, attacked, and had been targeted by students since the very day she stepped in the academy. She had been thrust into a world she knew nothing about while some powerful people complicated nearly every aspect of her existence. And somehow, through all of it, she had kept standing.

Maybe tonight wasn’t about the cat at all. Maybe everything she had been fighting against for months had finally caught up with her, and the moment she believed Crazy was dead, the wall she had built around her grief simply collapsed.

But there was another image I couldn’t force from my mind. Elara falling apart in Jasper’s arms. The way she had clung to him. The way he had held her without hesitation.

Jasper was her blood knight, and the bond between them was sacred - far deeper than most relationships in this realm could ever hope to become. But somewhere during these past weeks, they had also become friends. Good friends, apparently. Trusted friends. I had watched it happen from a distance.

And tonight, seeing her seek comfort in him so instinctively, I felt something sharp twist inside my chest. I refused to name it. There was no place for such an emotion in this meeting. So I forced myself to look away from that memory and toward the problem sitting before us.

Someone had once again targeted the Princess. And this time, they had done it inside my academy.

I finally broke the silence.

"Let’s be absolutely clear about what happened tonight," I said, looking around the table at every council member. "No one from outside the academy entered these grounds. Our wards would have detected an unauthorized entrance, and we have found no indication that they were breached. Whoever placed that box outside Ms. Argentis’ dorm was already inside the Academy."

A few members exchanged uneasy glances.

I continued, my voice becoming colder as I explained that the magical examination had once again revealed no identifiable energy signature, exactly as it had during the previous attack on Elara.

"That cannot be ignored. We have one incident where five unidentified men somehow attacked a student without leaving a magical trace, and now we have another deliberate threat inside the academy that has also left no magical signature. I don’t believe we are looking at two unrelated events at all."

Warren Brook shifted in his chair before speaking hesitantly. "Headmaster... is there any possibility this was the doing of Valemont?"

Before I could answer, Vice Headmistress Noctis spoke. "No." Her response was immediate and firm. She folded her hands on the table and continued, "The Valemont heir may have made his hostility toward the Princess very clear, but Reign and the other heirs aren’t foolish or degraded enough to do something like this."

Her eyes swept across the room. "If they wanted to threaten the Princess, they wouldn’t hide behind such a low act. They are powerful enough to confront her directly, and everyone in this academy knows their personalities."

She paused before adding, "And whatever their disagreements with Princess Argentis may be, the Heir Regents have made it very clear they see her as one of their own because of her identity. So I find it difficult to believe they would deliberately manufacture a threat that could cause this much political fallout."

Another council member nodded slowly. "It makes perfectly sense. The Regents undoubtedly intend to secure her loyalty before her coronation." He glanced around the room before continuing, "Each of them has something to gain from having the future Queen on their side."

Warren Brook shifted again, looking increasingly uncomfortable before saying, "Unless they don’t want her on their side at all."

The room fell silent once more.

He swallowed before forcing himself to finish the thought. "What if they want the Princess removed?"

Several heads turned toward him.

"Getting her loyalty might benefit one or two Regents more than the others. But if Princess Argentis were simply... out of the equation, every Regent could potentially benefit. No competition. No need to win her favor. No future Queen capable of changing the balance of power between them."

It was a bold accusation, and perhaps months ago I would have dismissed it immediately. But I had built this council precisely so people could voice uncomfortable possibilities without fearing that I would silence them simply because I disliked what they said or because I was one of the Regents.

Every eye in the room eventually turned toward me, and I could see what some of them wanted. They wanted me to deny it. They wanted me to tell them there was no possibility that the other four Regents could ever consider killing the Princess.

I wanted to say it too. But when I opened my mouth, no answer came. Because as much as I hated the thought, I couldn’t deny that it made sense.