[You’re on for a ride, haha - Author]
From a distance, Evelyn couldn’t tear her gaze away from Verena.
The sunlight filtering through the academy windows caught in the strands of her dark hair, giving it an ethereal sheen.
The usual sharp glint in her eyes was dulled by fatigue, yet she still carried herself with a poised indifference.
Evelyn’s heart pounded.
Did Verena even know what she did to her?
How unfair it was, the way she could stand there, barely holding herself together, and still look so... strong? So composed?
Evelyn wanted to rip her apart.
So much so that she was so broken, she would be forced to lean on soone for once. To force her to lean on Evelyn.
It was frustrating.
No, it was maddening.
To always watch from a distance, to always hesitate, to always let Verena be sowhere without her and probably made her have other friends she could lend on.
She wanted to be her only friend.
She had to move. Had to take a step forward, past the invisible chains of doubt, past the gnawing voice whispering that she would be brushed aside, ignored, abandoned.
She approached.
"Lady Verena," she said, her hands clasped together, voice carrying an unexpected urgency. "Would you... have lunch with today? Outside? In the garden?"
With her. Just her. Away from everyone else.
Finally, Verena said yes.
After all the waiting, after all the aching loneliness, she was by her knight’s side.
Safe. Sheltered. No monsters lurking in the dark, no fears clawing at her chest. Verena was here, and that ant nothing could hurt her.
But Verena was dazzling. Too dazzling. The kind of light that drew others in, that made them reach, made them want.
Other princesses would see her, would try to take her away.
No.
Verena was hers.
Evelyn had spent too long in her cold, empty castle, waiting, wanting, wasting away in the silence.
She couldn’t go back to that. To being nothing, to being forgotten.
"Oh? Lady Verena, Lady Evelyn. What a coincidence. Are you here for lunch as well?"
Evelyn barely registered the voice at first. Just a sound. Just noise. But then she saw her.
Another woman. Plain. Unremarkable. Unworthy.
Yet she was close. Too close. Laughing, standing so comfortably beside Verena, as if she belonged there.
As if Verena had allowed it. Had welcod it.
Evelyn’s pulse pounded against her skull.
After everything, after all that laughter, after Verena had saved her again, after Evelyn had finally, finally gotten her to stay by her side...
Why was there soone else?
"Want to co over again?" the woman asked casually.
Again?
Again?
What?
Her knight.. HER knight was visiting another castle?
Stepping through another’s gates, lingering in another’s halls, speaking in that low, steady voice that was supposed to be hers?
This couldn’t be. This wasn’t right.
Verena was hers. The one who saved her, the one who shielded her, the one who could take her away from the endless, suffocating loneliness.
So why was she looking at soone else?
In the end, she went to the dragon who imprisoned her.
Norvan.
She found him in the dorm’s garden, where the flowers swayed under the afternoon light soft, gentle things, too fragile for the world. Just like her. That’s what he believed, anyway.
"My lady?"
A shaky breath. A delicate tremble in her hands. She faked a cry.
She sniffled. "It’s so unfair," she whispered, voice trembling. "I try so hard to be good. To be kind. But she... she’s just awful to , Norvan. Always looking down on . Always laughing behind my back. And now...."
His expression darkened imdiately. Hooked.
"Who?"
Evelyn wiped at nonexistent tears, voice small, fragile. "Beatrice." A pause. Then, soft as a knife slipping between ribs. "She hates , you know. She said so herself."
That wasn’t true.
Beatrice had never said a word.
But Norvan’s hands curled into fists.
Good. Good.
The matter was taken care of.
Beatrice was gone.
The academy was in chaos. Shrieks, whispers, the suffocating weight of horror settling over the halls.
And in the middle of it all, Verena knelt on the cold stone, cradling the crushed, broken body. Holding her.
Even in death, she was holding her.
Evelyn bit her nails until she tasted blood.
Guilt crawled up her throat like bile. She wanted to tell the truth. She really, really did.
But Evelyn had never been good with guilt.
So she did the only thing she knew how to do. She twisted it.
She mustered up the courage to find Verena, her heart pounding, her breath shallow. And then she let it spill.
"It was my fault!" she finally scread, her voice breaking as tears stread down her face. "I didn’t kill her, I swear! I told Norvan everything. I told him how it was eating alive, how jealous I was. I was crying, I was desperate. I tried to stop him! But he... he pulled sothing, and then... then he pushed her!"
To be honest, she hadn’t even realized she could lie like this. That it could co so easily, so naturally like breathing.
Wait.
No.
She’d always been a liar.
A chaleon, slipping into whatever shape they wanted, whatever version of herself would earn their favor.
Sweet. Helpless. Pure.
A delicate thing to be pitied, to be protected.
She hadn’t learned to lie today. She was made for this.
If Evelyn had to clip her knight’s wings to keep her here, then so be it.
Because being alone was worse than being a monster.
But sothing was suddenly wrong.
"Argh!"
Verena staggered.
A sharp, wheezing gasp tore from her throat, her gloved hand flying to her neck like it was clawing and desperate.
Her breath was cut off, ragged, like sothing inside her was breaking.
"Verena?"
The knight’s knees buckled. She coughed. A sick, wet sound. Sothing dark splattered onto the stone floor. Blood.
Blood?
Evelyn’s lips parted, but nothing ca out. Her fingers twitched at her sides. She hadn’t done anything.
Had she?
Verena’s mouth opened like she was trying to speak, but only a strangled, gurgling noise ca out.
Her eyes that were sharp, strong, always so steady were wide now.
Evelyn didn’t move.
She should.
She should run to her, help her, scream for soone, but she didn’t move.
Verena collapsed.
Their body hit the ground with a sickening thud.
Silence.
She wasn’t breathing anymore.
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