Chapter 14: Game of Masks
314 Words
For the next few days, Nora played her role perfectly.
She smiled when expected, bowed her head just enough in the halls, and avoided Serena's squad with strategic elegance. But beneath the calm exterior, a storm brewed—a plan she would execute with precision.
Only a handful of people now knew her real identity—Nolan, Julian, Zane, and now Mrs. Whitmore, the school librarian who had handed her a sealed envelope earlier that day.
“The truth will set you free,” the elderly woman whispered. “But only if you're strong enough to carry it.”
Inside the envelope was a birth certificate.
Elara Noelle Belmont. Born to James and Celeste Belmont. Twin to Nolan Jasper Belmont.
She wasn’t dreaming anymore. This was real.
Serena, however, was beginning to c***k.
Despite Nora’s act, Serena’s instincts screamed that something had changed. She caught Nora walking confidently with Nolan across the quad. She saw Julian slip her a note in chemistry. She watched Zane move closer to her at lunch.
But what really shattered her fragile hold was overhearing Nora laugh—really laugh—just outside the music hall.
“She’s getting bold,” hissed Camilla, one of Serena’s squad girls. “What if she knows something?”
“She doesn’t,” Serena snapped. “She’s still the scholarship nobody. She’s—”
“Becoming someone,” Camilla said under her breath.
Serena’s eyes darkened. “Then I’ll remind her who she’s not.”
That night, Nora returned to her dorm to find her textbooks shredded, her locker defaced, and a note on her mirror:
“Know your place. Before we erase it.”
But Nora didn’t cry. Not this time.
She simply picked up a marker and wrote beneath it:
“You can't erase royalty.”
The game was no longer about survival.
It was about claiming the crown.
- Writer
