No one remembered it anyway.
But the victim….
And the academy?
It devoured her.
Her standing in the royal family had always been brittle—ornate, but hollow. She was the princess, but only on paper. A courtesy title. A political piece left behind by a marriage the court never acknowledged and blood they never truly claimed.
At the academy, she was disposable.
And when the rumors started festering, no one lifted a finger to defend her.
Not her professors, who once praised her discipline but now hesitated to place her name near distinction.
And certainly not the crown, which had no intention of shielding a girl it had always considered…filthy....
The combination was suffocating.
