No one slept.
Queen's Crest Academy had turned into a coffin of whispers.
A place once drenched in luxury polished marble floors, perfume trails, and the sound of heels like applause, now reeked of fear. The walls themselves seemed to be listening.
By dawn, the dorm halls felt colder. Someone's prayer playlist leaked softly from a phone in the next room. Someone else was crying, quietly, into her pillow.
Toni Wuraola didn't show up for breakfast.
Not at the dining hall.
Not in class.
Not even at the chapel, where she always took her 7 a.m. "queen's walk," hair curled, perfume expensive, sins forgiven before sunrise.
The absence was too loud to ignore.
Some said she'd been kidnapped. Others swore they saw her leaving the Headmistress's office at midnight, wrapped in a scarf and fear. None of it was proven, but truth rarely mattered here, not in a school where gossip was both blood sport and survival strategy.
And with Toni gone, someone had to wear the crown.
That someone was Amara Okonkwo.
She came strutting into the study hall like she owned oxygen itself.
Black Balmain blazer. Champagne silk slip. Her gold name tag glinted like a badge of conquest. Her girls trailed behind her, perfectly synchronized, perfectly silent.
Every eye in the room followed her as she slid into Toni's usual seat at the front. That was the moment the hierarchy cracked.
"I'll be leading today's reading," she announced.
No one argued.
Not even Miss Kure, the teacher, who just blinked behind her glasses and nodded like her salary depended on obedience.
Amara smiled. Too wide. Too bright.
She opened the book , Wuthering Heights, because of course and started reading, voice smooth as butter.
Then the projector blinked.
Once.
Twice.
And without anyone touching the remote, the lights dimmed.
The projector came alive.
A photo filled the screen.
Gasps rippled through the room like a wave breaking.
It was Toni.
Lying still. Blindfolded. Hands limp. The Cartier bracelet on her wrist glinting faintly in the flash.
Someone screamed. Another girl fainted. A chair toppled.
Amara froze mid-breath. Her knuckles turned white on the desk. For a heartbeat, she didn't move then her face twisted, ugly with rage.
"Who did this?!" she screamed. "WHO?!"
No one answered.
The screen flickered again.
A sentence appeared, typed in red.
"Every queen pays her debt. Yours is due."
The room dissolved into chaos.
Miss Kure dropped her Bible. Students scrambled for exits. Someone shouted a prayer.
Seconds later, Headmistress Nwachukwu stormed in, gele tilted, expression carved from stone. Behind her, four security guards and one man in a dark suit Adrian's father's bodyguard.
That's when everyone realized: this wasn't just school drama anymore.
This was scandal. The kind that trends, the kind that ruins families.
---
Adrian walked in twenty minutes later.
Crisp navy uniform. Polished crest pin. Face unreadable.
He didn't sit with anyone. He didn't speak. He just watched like a chess player mid-match.
Amara didn't meet his eyes. She couldn't. Not with that image still burning in her mind. Not with guilt crawling under her skin.
At lunch, the academy descended into paranoia.
Security tore through lockers. Bags flipped. Secret flasks discovered. Notes confiscated. The cafeteria smelled like sweat and fear.
Then the voice note dropped.
An anonymous upload on the school forum.
Toni's voice.
Shaky. Crying.
"He knows… I swear I didn't mean to… Adrian, please… don't tell her… don't let her ruin me… please…"
Then static.
Then silence.
And the world went mad.
#QueensCrestScandal
#WhereIsToniWuraola
#WhoRulesTheThrone
The hashtags were everywhere before dinner. The school's PR team shut down Wi-Fi. Too late. The screenshots were immortal.
By evening, Amara's dorm was ransacked.
Her perfume bottles shattered. Her wardrobe gutted. Even her gold-plated hairbrush snapped in half.
Across her mirror, written in Toni's favorite lipstick shade:
"I see you, darling."
Amara screamed a raw, animal sound that shredded her composure to pieces.
For once, no one came running.
No prefects. No guards. No friends.
Because even the boldest girls at Queen's Crest had learned one thing:
You don't go near the throne when it's cursed.
---
Meanwhile, Adrian stood in the chapel the same one where the blood was found two days ago.
Candles flickered around him, painting his shadow across the altar.
In his hand, the letter. The one Toni had hidden in her vault. The one sealed with his family crest.
He opened it. Slowly.
His eyes moved across the paper, each line pulling the air out of his lungs.
When he finished, he just stood there staring into nothing.
Then he whispered, brokenly,
"No…"
The word fell like glass.
He lit a match. Watched the flame devour the letter.
Ash curled into the candlelight.
And as the wax dripped, a single thought carved itself into his mind sharp, final, unshakeable:
Some secrets don't stay buried.
Some crawl back wearing crowns.
---
Outside, thunder rumbled. The academy slept in fragments one eye open, one ear tuned for ghosts.
But somewhere, between the marble chapel and the east wing dorms, a phone buzzed in the dark.
"Round one is over," the message read.
"Now, let the real Queen fall."