Lady Elswyth
*****The King's Birthday Party*****
The party was in full swing with everyone swaying to the loud music. Tonight was the King's Birthday and even though the King was not there to celebrate his birthday, with him being in the Castle and all, the students wanted to make the party as fun as it could possibly be. It was no secret to Elswyth that not everyone was happy about the celebration, good examples were the Royal Twins. Dominic did not look overly pleased with the way everyone kept toasting to his father's long life and prosperity, in fact Elswyth could bet that he was silently wishing him a very quick death if it could end his miserable life. As for the Princess, it was public knowledge that her brother's needs always came first in every situation.
Removing her gaze from the others Saints in the dance hall, she looked back at her dancing partner, the only person not of noble blood in the entire school. Curtis was a sweet guy that had been successful in sweeping her off her feet at first meeting, she had blabbered about him to her twin brother, Derek, for days before her brother finally decided to arrange a meeting between them, a way to show that he approved of her lover as long as it ended in the Tower.
The song they were listening to then got slower and more romantic, a signal for everyone on the dance floor to come closer to each other and simply caress each other's body while moving slowly to the violins.
"You are really beautiful; you know that right?" Curtis asked her as she placed her head on his chest while his hands went to her hips and placed themselves quite firmly her backside.
"Trust me Curtis, I am well aware of that." She replied while giving him a very seductive smile that had him lean downward to kiss her a firm kiss on her lips. As he released her, they both heard a drunken yell from the son of the Prime Minister, a yell directed to the Prince of Syera.
"You are an abomination and deserve nothing more than a very long and painful life." Edward yelled. "Maybe if your mama had not gone and fucked some slave before your father fucked her, you would have been born with powers like your sister!"
The song stopped at the Saint's outburst which got not only the Prince's attention but that of the Princess who looked like she was ready to kill someone. Prince Dominic dropped the wine he was drinking with his sister before he gave the guy his full attention.
"I don't mind you insulting me or making up some nonsense about me just so that your prick would feel worthy of being attached to your body, but say one more false thing about my mother and I will break your jaw." He said with a deathly seriousness that was rarely seen from the Prince since he was very fond of simply taking whatever nonsense the kids at the Tower were all the more willing to dish out on him.
"You, an abomination of the highest order, will do harm on my person? I think you have a little problem with your thinking faculty." Edward said as the Prince kept a steady gaze on him, as if looking for a fight, Edward looked to the Princess and gave the broadest smirk she had ever seen on a human being. "Or has your sister taken it from you during one of your 'sessions'?"
In a flash, the Prince picked up the wine glass and flung it at the boy before lunging at Edward who barely had enough time to wave the glass away before feeling the full strength on the Prince. Edward was able to use his magic to throw the Prince off of him before sending bottles of wine at the Prince who leaped, grabbed a table and turned it to a shield.
The Twins shared a look which meant the fight was his alone, or so Elswyth deduced, and from the fast movement from the Prince, she was very sure the Prince indeed had it covered. The Prince didn't attack him directly, his tactics was to simply distract the kid with projectiles that could cause physical harm only to attack him head on with punches and kicks. Sure Edward was able to attack him in return but Dominic was always ready for his attacks, almost as if Dominic had studied the guy for a pretty long time, long enough to predict Edward's next moves. If that was not scary, Elswyth didn't know what was.
Moments later, the Prince had Edward's hand above his head firmly held together by his left hand while he used his right to punch the shit out the guy and as the Prince had promised, he did break Edward's jaws before leaving him alone to whimper in pain.
After the entertainment was over, the dancing resumed with the Princess leaving the room a few moments after Edward had left the room. "Let's get out of here." Curtis suggested as Derek also left the room, probably to follow the Princess, his crush, maybe to give her 'comfort' as if her brother had the capacity to do that, or to talk to Edward, his 'boyfriend'.
The two of them left the hall with thoughts of what naughty thing they could get up to now that the eyes of her brother were off her and on the Princess or on Edward. As they entered a room they saw a couple of meters from the hall's door, they were launched to the wall by a very angry Edward.
"You both stood there and watched me get humiliated by that dog!" Edward yelled in anger as he pointed his fingers at them. "You will pay for that."
"Look Edward, you may be best friends with my brother, for the Divine knows why, but you are nothing more than a stranger to me, so I advise you to stay the hell away from us before I give you another lesson on how to talk."
Edward sniffled in anger before he stretched his hand and uttered a spell directed at Curtis. The result was instantaneous as Curtis began to clutch his neck and vomit blood while struggling, clearly in pain.
Without giving it much thought, she sent a spell of wave that threw Edward across the room and unto the wall. With Edward no longer controlling the spell that had left Curtis now gasping for air on the ground, she ran to him to cradle his head. "You alright?"
"Yeah." Curtis said as he massaged his neck while giving Edward a glare. "What is your problem bug face?"
Edward looked miffed at the name calling and in his rage, let out a spell of roaring flame that Elswyth created a spell to protect herself and Curtis from. Once her shield was brought down, Curtis sent a frosty wind before creating knives from thing air to the angry Saint. Edward was able to part the knives like a hot knife through butter and then send a powerful wave of air that threw Curtis through chairs and tables. Elswyth could see that Edward planned to stop at nothing until her lover was killed, something about his eyes and the speed with which he cast the spells as well as the level of strength he put behind each spell. He didn't simply want to beat up Curtis and leave him for her to nurse back to health, it seemed he was interested in something much darker. With Curtis being a Peasant he couldn't fight back with his full power which put her in a terrible position.
Looking around, she saw all the knives had vanished into the thing air they had been created from, and not wanting to leave any damage on the boy which was caused by her magic, she decided not to use her magic at all. Looking at the teacher's desk, she saw a knife nicely placed there for her to pick up and stab Edward. She would not kill him of course, but a stab would stop this madness before it got out of hand.
"Hey Edward." She said once she had the knife in her hand and his back to her. "I suggest you stop this before you do something you are going to regret."
Edward released the bleeding Curtis from his grip before he let out a chuckle. "And let me guess, you are going to stop me?" His response was a very condescending laughter that had her glare at his back.
"Yes." Was all she said before he smugly turned around to face her only for him to find her knife buried deep into his stomach. "This is for all the times you bullied Curtis." She said and stabbed him again, at the second stab, her pent up rage boiled beyond her control and just like that, she found herself stabbing Edward multiple times in his belly.
She kept stabbing him, letting out yells as she did until Curtis was able to pry her off Edward's body and hold unto her in a bear like hug. She wept and wept into his arms, not only had she stabbed someone, she had killed a very important person in the school, there would be consequences. Her cries instantly became a gasp of fright as the door opened and in walked her brother who was looking a bit perplexed at her tears before his eyes fell on the now dead Edward.
"Oh no." He whispered in panic as he ran to the corpse of his best friend. "How?"
Before she could reply, the Princess walked into the room, positively angry, the first to feel her rage was the table Elswyth had taken the knife from. After placing her hands on the table and taking calming breaths, she turned around to see three shell shocked teens all gathered around the body of Edward Adeyemi.
"Now if this is not the best thing that has happened tonight, I don't know what is." Princess Dominica began. "Well one thing is certain, nobody knows about this, not even my brother who is going to enter here very soon. If we all play this right, we will all get away with murder." Dominica said as she nodded in approval at the dead body that moments ago, Elswyth had been shit scared would be the end of her life. "Out of curiosity, who did this?"
"I did." Elswyth whispered.
*********************************
Elswyth turned in her bed for the nth time, trying to find a comfortable sleeping position on the bed that had become very uncomfortable in recent times. With her brother now next in line for a little reputation damaging task, she was in full panic mode because she knew that sooner or later it would be her turn. What made this worse was the fact that this was her fault, if she had not killed Edward, none of this would have been happening. The Princess would not have had to damage herself in the eyes of the people, Curtis would not have had to end his stay in the Tower and her brother would have not been in this kind of situation where he has to cheat in order to keep her secret a secret, or do something that could break him.
Ever since that night, she had been wracked with guilt, night after night she had barely gotten enough sleep as her dreams kept bringing up the death of Edward and the grave consequences of her actions. Some nightmares featured very horrific kinds of deaths bestowed upon her new friends, Dominic and Dominica, while her brother and lover remained free from the comeuppance. Another nightmare had the Prince figuring out that his sister had indeed been innocent of the crime and had only lied in order to protect her friend and the other two guys related to her friend and had then in a fit of rage exposed the truth of that night, which ended up in the most horrifying deaths of Elswyth, Derek and Curtis. No night was nightmare free for her, and no day was fear free for her. If her night brought heightened horrors, her day brought devastating possibilities.
She had the murder weapon and Lady Clarence knew, but somehow this Lady Clarence believed that it was Princess Dominica who killed Edward which only made it worse. Because if she believed that the Princess was the murderer, the Princess would be punished even more severely by the Blackmailer which was not a good idea in any way at all. It did seem suspicious that the Lady Clarence only knew what the Prince knew, and even though a part of her was very willing to go down the path of investigating the Prince who seemed to have benefited from the recent blackmails, she could not. What would it say of her person if she suspected the brother to her protector as the person blackmailing them?
However, the thought couldn't leave her head. First there was the very public make out that was so steamy she could feel it which then resulted in them having sex. Then there was Curtis who after Burning the Library would be sent out of the school, providing the Kingdom with something and someone to talk about and mistreat in order to give the Prince a breather and now if her brother did as he was told, Derek would never be able to marry the Princess which would leave the Princess available for the Prince for at least a while longer. Yes, everyone cheated but even those who cheat would come together and stone the one who is exposed, all in a bid to protect themselves from exposure. The Prince could be Lady Clarence, but one fact blew her theory out of the water, and that was the fact that the Prince had no magic. So unless if he had convinced someone to do this for him, it was highly unlikely that the Prince was the Blackmailer.
If the Prince was not Lady Clarence, then who could be Lady Clarence? She had asked every single person in the female dormitory and none of them had been able to fit the profile ever so slightly so now, she was out of ideas. Turning once more in her bed, she saw the Princess standing beside her bed with her index finger telling her to remain quiet.
"We have an emergency meeting to attend." She said and snuck out of her room with Elswyth in tow leaving three sleeping noble girls in the room.
The journey was short and direct without any small talk along the way and in a matter of moments, she entered the room which had the Prince, her brother and her lover.
"I guess we are not here for a rematch?" Curtis asked as he slowly sat down on his chair. His body still hurt from the whipping despite the healing she had done for him; well it was not her fault that her power laid not in healing primarily and since no one else who could heal him was willing to do that, he had to endure the redness on his skin which was formally bleeding out. The Princess could help of course, but they had decided against asking her for more help when they were the ones that caused all of this.
"On the contrary, we have to stop Lady Clarence before this gets way out of hand. We are going to ask…" The Prince trailed off as Derek spoke.
"We have asked every female Saint already and not one of them fit the profile." Derek said as he took his seat in the classroom which they had repaired after the fight.
"That is because she is not a lady. Lady Clarence is a guy that probably worshiped Edward. There are about five people in the Tower who worshiped Edward and they are Karim, Adewale, Mustapha, Collins, and Emefiele. We question them and by the end of tomorrow, we should have our blackmailer." Dominic said confidently, leaving no room for doubt. "I have written down who gets to question who in the paper on his desk according to your personalities, we would not want to botch the inquisition because your personalities clashed."
Elswyth nodded her head in understanding as the Prince passed the papers around, once she received her paper, she saw her name which was pared with Karim, one of the guys that followed Edward around and was fond of flirting with her.
Releasing a sigh, she looked up as the Prince spoke. "Let's catch this bastard."