CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE: OF LANTERNS, LOOKING BACK, AND THE ROOFTOP THAT HELD EVERYTHING
RIYEE's POV
The festival was alive again.
Solencia Courtyard had never looked brighter—awash in colors, glowing lights, and laughter that stretched endlessly into the sky. Booths lined every path, paper lanterns swayed with the soft breeze, and the scent of roasted chestnuts mixed with sugar-dusted pastries clung to the air like a spell.
Honestly, it was annoyingly perfect.
Like none of the chaos ever happened.
Every rumor? Wiped clean. Every scandalous post? Gone like they'd never existed. No trace, no whispers, not even a passing glance from the crowd. It was like he—Khaizer freaking Dylan himself—had scrubbed the entire campus clean with one flick of his icy fingers.
Typical.
Lockdown had officially been lifted. Students from outside the academy flooded in again. Visitors. Alumni. The media—carefully vetted and assigned zones. Security was tight, sure, but it didn't feel like surveillance anymore. It felt like control. Quiet. Calculated.
His kind of control.
I leaned against the old sakura tree near the edge of Solencia, half-hidden under its golden fairy-lit branches. The lights wrapped around the bark like they were trying to pretend nothing had fractured here.
And, of course, my eyes found him instantly.
KD.
There he was. Calm. Collected. Untouchable. As if he hadn't shattered the entire school days ago and then rebuilt it with the same hands.
Honestly? It was irritating.
He walked through the crowd like he owned it—like every single festival light was just there to reflect off his sleeves. Students stepped aside instinctively. Unconsciously. Like their bodies remembered who they were supposed to bow to.
And the worst part? I couldn't stop staring.
"You should approach him instead of glaring at him like you're about to incinerate the ground he walks on," a voice beside me drawled.
I didn't even need to turn.
"Are you watching me again, Xythe?"
"I never stopped," he said easily, stepping into view with his usual Prince-of-Chaos smirk. "Especially now. The threat's still walking around."
He tilted his head slightly toward the left of the field—where Bianchi stood, framed in festival light like a perfectly composed villain who hadn't moved in three hours.
"She may be quiet now," Xythe murmured, "but who knows what she's planning?"
I didn't answer. Because he was right.
Something in Bianchi's silence was louder than any war cry.
And still, as the sun dipped lower, the laughter grew louder. Students danced between stalls. The lights brightened. The whole school looked like a storybook flipped open to the one chapter where nothing went wrong.
I couldn't breathe in it.
So I left.
Arcanum House Rooftop | 8:00 PM.
The wind was different here. Higher. Sharper. Quieter.
I stood near the edge, arms crossed, letting the breeze steal the warmth from my sleeves.
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STRINGS BETWEEN US
Teen Fiction"A slow-burn teen romance threaded with secrets, rivalries, and a dangerous past neither of them remembers-until it comes for them." ✧ STRINGS BETWEEN US ✧ She left her crown behind. He ruled with silence. But some strings pull-no matter how far you...
