Chapter 23 The Paper
“Princess Thea Solenhart and Thalen Barret: A Kiss That Stuns Elarion After Wolventon Attack”
Elarion awoke this morning to a storm of rumors after Princess Thea Solenhart and Thalen Barret shared a very public kiss in the academy dining hall, an unexpected moment that has electrified students and citizens alike.
This surprise followed a harrowing incident in Wolventon.
There, the Princess was reportedly attacked by a royalist extremist. Sources close to the academy confirm she fought for her life and defeated the threat alone, drawing on her emerging Dragontail combat training.
The Royal Office issued no statement. Still, witnesses say she returned to the academy shortly before dawn, exhausted but alive.
Thalen Barret, son of General Barret and long considered the most promising Sunheart bachelor, approached the Princess with visible relief upon seeing her safe.
Moments later, he embraced her and pressed a kiss to her lips in full view of dozens of stunned onlookers, signaling to the public that the pair are officially reunited.
For nearly a year, the couple has been at the center of public fascination.
Their previous relationship ended abruptly under circumstances neither has ever publicly addressed, leaving the island brimming with speculation.
The dining-hall kiss marks the first clear sign of reconciliation, and the potential political ramifications are considerable.
Marriage between the two has long been considered a likely path, but confirmation of renewed romance has sent royal supporters into a frenzy.
If Princess Thea, now proving herself a formidable Dragontail trainee were to marry an Emberkeep heir, many believe it would mark a powerful and balanced future for the throne.
Fan groups across Rionis have already taken to their scrying mirrors and message boards, celebrating what they are calling “the return of the kingdom’s golden pair. ”
Whether this moment marks a rekindled courtship or a fleeting spark born from fear and relief, one thing is certain: the kingdom is watching, closely.”
I flung the paper across my room the next morning. The pages skidded across the floor. The headline alone made my blood boil; the rest only fed the fire. Shakari and Soehl watched in stunned silence. Neither moved, both frozen, as if afraid a single word might set me off.
“I’m sure the queen is ecstatic,” I snapped, my words sharp as shattered glass.
“The whole article is a lie. I didn’t defeat the royalist, Lorik Draventh did.
My mother and her court are butchering the truth, shaping me into some heroic, queen-worthy puppet so I look fit to rule. It makes my skin crawl.”
Soehl opened her mouth, then closed it again. Even Shakari, who rarely held her tongue, stayed quiet.
“I need some air,” I said, and I left before either of them could respond. For a heartbeat, I considered going back to the Hall of Mirrors, burning the anger out of me with sunfire. But
I’d just come from drills. My magic was already stretched thin. Instead, I headed for the sky terrace. If I couldn’t blast flames, I could at least hit something.
Before Dragontail, I would’ve gone swimming in the river or the pools of the Glass Castle, letting the water cool whatever was simmering inside me. But the green uniform had given me something else, something sharper. A way to release everything my tutors had tried to teach me to swallow.
When I stepped onto the terrace, the bright blue sky filled my lungs. I breathed deep, letting the warmth recharge what magic I had left. Wrapping my hands, I focused on the punching bags in the corner, already picturing the rhythm of my fists.
But then a scent stopped me mid-motion.
Honey and jasmine.
My body froze, turning before I could stop myself, my heart pounding and apprehension tightening my chest.
Lorik Draventh stood only a few feet away, bare-chested, sweat-slick on his honey-toned skin, a bottle of water in his hand. He had been working the bags long before I arrived. I had been so lost in my own fury that I hadn’t noticed him at all.
"You," I snapped, fury spilling out.
"You seem tense," Lorik smirked, with that playful edge he had in the tavern. “I need the space to throw some punches and vent,” I said. “Please… go.”
He approached deliberately. "Royal orders don't work on me, Princess." "Please," I said, unable to help it. My heart pounded.
"Why would I? I was here first," he said, mocking.
"You're infuriating. Why are you smiling? I thought you were just a bitter grudge-holder." My voice trembled.
"I saved your life, and you insult me? Some gratitude."
"I thanked you. You did it for yourself." I met his eyes. "We both know that, Moonveil." The title came out like a blade, though a small, shameful part of me hoped it wasn’t true.
"Always have an answer. Always think you've got people figured out," he murmured, stepping closer.
"I kept quiet about your healing potion brewing, so we're even. A Dragontail making potions that most Aurorics can't? That's a secret to keep."
He grinned. "We're even, then. But I'm holding your aphrodisiac potion secret. How does that tally?"
My stomach dropped, dread twisting inside me and sending heat rushing to my face.
He had seen it, the way my eyes had flared red.
He knew the potion had pulled me toward him, warping my will, twisting my restraint until I barely recognized myself.
Even worse, he had witnessed how I’d lost grip, leaning in, desperate for something I couldn’t name.
Heat clawed up my neck as shame rattled through me.
Now, he stood steady, every detail of my humiliation resting easily in his hands.
But I wasn’t in the mood for talking, not with the shame of the potion still burning under my skin and the fury from those papers I’d found this morning.
The two tangled together, shame and fear mixing into something hotter, sharper.
Something that felt a lot like the urge to hit something.
So I launched at him, aiming a punch straight at his jaw.
He moved effortlessly, letting my fist cut through empty air.
"Feisty today," he almost laughed. "Fight me, not the bag."
“Finally, something we agree on. I’d gladly punch you today,” I muttered, pulling my hair back.
He stepped onto a magic-suppression mat, and I followed.
The moment I crossed onto it, the familiar hum of my power snapped off, leaving only muscle, breath, and anger.
I lifted my fists and began circling to the right.
His hands hung loose at his sides, relaxed, as if he truly thought he could beat me half-asleep.
"So, tell me. What had you worked you up before I got here?” He asked.
“Your magic-bending tricks don’t work here,” I snapped, swinging at him again. He caught my fist midair, fingers closing around it with infuriating ease.
“Control yourself,” he said, releasing me. “Don’t let your emotion control you. I thought we’d established this already.”
"Why did you save me?" I demanded.
"You're no good to me dead."
The words landed wrong, too flat, too fast, too rehearsed. A lie. Or something dangerously close to one.
I launched into another sequence, just like all those late-night practices with the twins. Cross. Hook. Uppercut. Kick. But Lorik blocked every strike with irritating ease.
“I must say, those two red-haired menaces have taught you well,” he said, sounding almost impressed.
"You hate me. Why save me? Answer."
“I should hate you, but I don’t.”
"Liar," I hissed.
“I have never lied to you, Princess.”
I launched at him again, driving an uppercut toward his jaw, then a cross-hook right after. He blocked them easily, still refusing to hit back, even though I knew he could. Fine. I’d use that.
“Who taught you to make healing potions?” I asked, keeping my guard up.
"You want answers but won't give yours. That's not trust," Lorik said, walking forward, guard down.
Without responding, I drove my knee into his gut with all the strength I had. That one landed as he was distracted.
He grunted and staggered back a step, the hit hurting just enough to satisfy me.
“If you must know, my mother is using the attack and Thalen for her own political gain and twisting the truth. Again, no one cares what I want,” I said while hitting a roundhouse kick. But he caught my leg mid-air, twisted, and yanked. My balance vanished, and I hit the floor hard.
“I learned healing potions from my mother,” he said.
A knot tightened in my chest at the mention of his dead mother, a piercing ache that nearly jammed my next movement. For an instant, sympathy clawed at me, raw and unwanted. Not now. Not with anger and regret writhing inside me like barbed wire.
I swept my leg out, catching his ankle. He stumbled and hit the floor beside me. Before he could recover, I lunged, straddling his torso and pinning him down. His wrists were solid beneath my grip, trapped above his head, our breaths crashing between us in the charged space I’d forced us into.
“I am sorry about your mother,” I said, leaning in.
He didn’t move. His breath hitched, barely, but enough.
“I am sorry you are forced into marriage with a vain and self-righteous Sunheart,” Lorik said, almost with kindness. He knew exactly why I was upset when I got here.
We both shared a truth for a truth. Now we both stood still in silence.
My legs were braced over the hard lines of his core, my weight pressed against him. His face was only inches from mine, too close, dangerously close.
I lost myself in his silver-bright eyes, the same eyes that had undone me in the tavern days ago. My grip on his wrists trembled, nerves sparking through me like static.
His gaze flickered to my mouth for half a heartbeat. But he didn’t blink, didn’t shift, didn’t even try to break free.
He just looked up at me, gaze steady, sharp, searching, as if trying to decode something written on my skin. I could feel his chest expanding below my tights. Our breathing from the fight was at the same fast rhythm.
If anyone walked onto the terrace right now, this would look compromising and completely inappropriate.
And for one suspended heartbeat, I didn’t care.
Then I heard footsteps and voices approaching. The sound snapped me back to myself. My grip faltered, and before I could fully scramble off him, Rory and Ugo stepped onto the terrace.
I froze.
Then I shot to my feet so fast I nearly tripped. Lorik stood as well, slow, unbothered, almost bored and broke the silence before their stares could settle into judgment.
“It seems the princess has recovered,” he said casually. “She almost kicked my ass.”
He stepped off the mat, uncapped his water bottle, and drank like nothing remotely compromising had just happened.
I followed him off the mat, my face burning. “I didn’t almost kick your ass,” I said, louder than necessary. “I did kick your ass. I swept you and pinned you to the…”
I stopped.
Because I suddenly realized exactly what I was about to describe in painful detail—right in front of his friends. And exactly why he’d beat me to speaking first.
“Seems the Princess is proving herself in Dragontail,” Rory said, her voice surprisingly warm. “Let’s see how you do in the trials next month.”
The tone caught me off guard—almost intrigued, almost… kind. Even the other night in the tavern, she hadn’t been as vicious as she’d been when I first arrived at the academy. Maybe she wasn’t as heartless as she pretended.
But I wasn’t about to linger after yet another wildly inappropriate moment with a Moonveil. Heat crawled up my neck as I realized how it must have looked.
So I left—quickly without saying another word.