Elysium: Desired by the Cold-hearted Princess [GL]-Chapter 327: Unknown culprit

E’s POV

The room felt too still after I explained who I was. Their eyes stayed on me, each of them holding a different kind of silence. Irina looked like she was trying to piece things together, Penelope’s mouth hung half open as though she had questions but couldn’t find the words, and Roxana just stared with a sharp expression on her face while keeping her arms crossed and making it obvious that she was waiting to pick apart whatever I said next.

I gave them a moment to take it all in. Then I asked the question that had been sitting like a stone in my chest since I woke up.

"Do any of you know where Seraphina is?" I asked. "Did something happen to her?"

That snapped them all out of their silence. Irina’s eyes flicked away, Penelope’s lips pressed tight, and Roxana, of course, didn’t bother holding back.

"Why do you ask if something happened to her first?" she said. "Does Seraphina have something to do with what happened to you at the tournament?"

I sighed, dragging a hand down my face. "Just tell me first if she’s alive," I said. "That’s what matters. It’s important that I know."

None of them spoke right away. They all exchanged those looks again, the kind humans seemed to give each other when they didn’t want to be the one to say it. I didn’t need them to speak yet. Their faces told me enough. Something had happened, and I’m guessing it was bad.

Irina stepped forward, her voice low. "Unfortunately... Seraphina is in the hospital, and she’s currently in a coma. You know what that is, right?"

I already knew that something bad happened to her, but hearing it myself, my stomach dropped so fast it made me feel dizzy. My knees wobbled, and I gripped Irina’s arm tighter just to steady myself.

"What happened?" I managed to force myself to ask. "Why is she in the hospital? How did she end up there, and how bad is it?"

The questions spilled out of me a little fast, but I didn’t care. I just wanted to know what the hell happened and who the hell was responsible.

This time Penelope spoke, her voice trembling. "She was stabbed."

Her hands fidgeted as she went on. "She was stabbed in the stomach, and because of the whole mess with the tournament, as well as your sudden switch, it took a long time before anyone found her—too long, in fact. By the time they did... she had already lost so much blood."

I stared at her, my mind refusing to picture it but unable to stop.

"They said she was supposed to have died," Penelope added softly. "The doctors. That’s what I heard. They said it’s a miracle she’s still alive at all, but she hasn’t woken up. Not once."

I pressed a hand against my stomach without thinking, my body reacting before my mind could catch up. My chest tightened so badly it hurt to breathe.

I forced myself to meet their eyes again. "Who stabbed her?" My voice cracked as I asked it. "Do you know who did it?"

They glanced at each other again. Irina shook her head slowly. "We don’t know yet. There were too many things happening during the tournament. Just way too much chaos, and nobody saw the attack itself. She was just... found like that afterward."

Penelope’s eyes filled with tears, though she didn’t let them fall. "It could have been anyone. People were moving everywhere, fighting everywhere, and by the time someone noticed she was missing, it was already too late."

I let out a hard sigh, trying to keep myself from snapping. My chest burned with frustration, and my hands curled slightly against my sides. I tried to calm myself, but my frustration kept creeping in because I still couldn’t believe that they had just told me that no one knew who stabbed Seraphina.

No one saw anything, no one heard anything because of the stupid-ass tournament, and it almost sounded like she had simply been attacked and left without a trace.

It didn’t make sense.

It wasn’t just the helplessness of it, it was the fact that I had a feeling I already knew who it was. Deep inside me, I could feel it. My instincts screamed a name, but since that person wasn’t even being treated as a suspect, and since I was weak and barely standing as it was, there was nothing I could do right now.

Nothing besides hope. I could only hope that Electra would somehow come back to me and that Seraphina would wake up soon.

Irina’s voice broke into my thoughts, quiet but direct, almost as if she had been listening in. "Do you... suspect anyone?"

I turned my head toward her, and she was watching me closely, her brows pulled together. It almost felt like she could read what was in my mind. 𝓯𝓻𝓮𝙚𝙬𝓮𝙗𝒏𝙤𝒗𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝒐𝓶

I didn’t answer right away. Instead, I asked, "Can you guess who I’m thinking of?"

Irina didn’t even hesitate. "Iris," she said. "As soon as everything happened, we had a feeling she had something to do with it, but the only person who could have possibly known for sure... is dead."

Her response took me by absolute surprise, and my brows furrowed hard. "Wait," I said sharply. "Didn’t you just tell me Seraphina is in a coma, not dead? If she were dead, I would’ve never woken up." My voice shook, but I kept going. "So who are you talking about?"

It wasn’t Seraphina. It couldn’t be.

Roxana cut in before Irina could respond. "We’re not talking about Seraphina."

Her words only confused me more. "Then who?" I pressed. "Who are you talking about?"

For a moment, no one spoke. Roxana exhaled, long and slow, like she didn’t want to be the one to say it, but finally, she did.

"Yuna," Roxana said. Her eyes narrowed slightly, though there was no fire in them, just something grim. "While Seraphina was found on the stairway that leads to the rooftop, Yuna’s dead body was found at the bottom, and the conclusion was that someone pushed her off the rooftop."