Winter Boys ~Riven ❅ Fate the Winx Saga

❅ 13: The Fallout

↭Song of the Chapter; Easy by Troye Sivan ↭

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"Anything yet?"

    Stella unlocked her phone, rechecking her messages, "Nothing. Just like there was nothing the last time you asked two minutes ago."

    I paced my room for what must've been the thousandth time this morning, picking at my fingernails as all of my friends, save for Grey, sat scattered across my room. Grey had left late last night for some sort of family emergency but had called to check on me about an hour ago.

I pulled my own phone out, tapping the messages app, sighing when I saw that Riven still hadn't answered any of my texts. He'd been MIA after the fight last night and I hadn't been able to communicate with him since then. In the span of about ten minutes, Beatrix had managed to lay waste to every aspect of my life completely. Stella had been checking her phone for messages from her royal advisor to see whether the Solarian royal family would be addressing the rumors or laying low until they blew over.

Terra stood in the window, peeking out through a small opening in the curtains, "Can you believe they're still here? It's been like twelve hours!"

About thirty minutes after the blog posts had gone up, a horde of reporters had gathered at the gates of Alfea, following us from the clearing until the guards barred them from entering the school grounds.

I left my messages and pulled up my news app, watching as hundreds of articles featuring my face filtered onto the screen. It was unnerving seeing legitimate newspapers write articles about me, filling their paragraphs with the information Beatrix had fed them.

"Soren, don't go down that rabbit hole again, half of those reports don't even spell your name correctly," Bloom said reaching, for my arm.

"Does it matter?" I responded, plopping down onto my bed beside her, "Beatrix put me on blast for basically the entire Otherworld to tear apart."

"Well, I highly doubt it's spread throughout all of the Otherworld already," Aisha interjected.

"If it's about the royal family, you can bet it has," Stella sighed, pushing herself off of her seat on the floor, "All of my friends back in Solaria are saying that it's been the topic of conversation within the upper echelon since the story dropped."

"This is fucking insane," I pull my knees up to my chest and lean my head against them, my face hot. If Solarian nobility were taking this seriously, then there was no doubt Queen Luna was doing the same.

"I wouldn't worry about my mother just yet," Stella spoke suddenly as if she'd read my thoughts, "Your notoriety right now can be used to your advantage. If anything were to happen to you so suddenly, all fingers would point at her."

    "How incredibly reassuring," Musa quipped, cutting her eyes at Stella, "He literally can't even step outside of his room."

    Musa was telling the truth. Once the other students had gotten wind of who I was, they'd been harassing me from any angle they could, hoping to be the first to get a picture of the illegitimate Prince. I'd even had to deactivate my Instagram account due to the sheer amount of messages I'd received in the past couple of hours. Yet somehow, even with my entire world falling apart, nothing hurt more than the wall Riven had put up between us.

    I knew he wasn't missing. He was probably holed up in his room, where he would sulk like a wolf licking away at his wounded pride until he felt strong enough to face me again. The not knowing was driving me crazy. I couldn't help but feel like everything that had happened last night was my fault. If I'd been more forceful in my rejection of Marco maybe there wouldn't have been a misunderstanding in the first place.