"She was born to rule the glittering court of the eleven dynasties. He longed to see it burn. Together, they may uncover the first crack in a crown built on lies."
They say Elysian Prep used to have twelve banners.
If you stand in the rotunda, just below the glass dome, you'll see them—eleven crests, lined in perfect symmetry, each stitched with gold thread. Valmont. Blackwell. Montrose. Sinclair. Names that rule this city as surely as kings once ruled kingdoms.
But there is space for one more.
A patch of empty marble, smoothed clean, as though nothing was ever there.
The twelfth family.
The story shifts depending on who you ask. Some say House D'Arclay tried to kill a rival heir, that blood was spilled at a midnight ball. Others whisper the family fell into scandal too dark to print, their fortune seized, their name erased from every ledger. The official history books don't mention them at all.
What everyone agrees on is this: the D'Arclays were guilty, and the Eleven were right to wipe them out.
But…
Sometimes, late at night, the seniors tell it differently.
They talk about a trial that was rigged, about evidence buried, about fortunes stolen by the families who still walk these halls. And if you press your ear to the locked archives in the east wing, they swear you can still hear the verdict being read:
"By the judgment of the Eleven, House D'Arclay is guilty. Their bloodline is ended."
The dynasty vanished. The school moved on.
But the city has a long memory.
And secrets have a way of clawing back to the surface.