I met Scarlett’s widened expression.“Does he know her?”
“Do you know her? Have you spoken to her?” Scarlett passed along to him.
Shadow dipped his chin. “It’s a long story, but yes. She was with us when we stopped for the night to rest. But she and Slate were gone when the portal to bring us all here opened.”
“Slate?” Scarlett barked. “He’s dead and has been for nearly three years now.”
“Unless there’s another Kinetic who’s super protective of Princess Gray with dark grey hair with the same name running amok, then I do believe that he’s very much alive, mon chéri.”
Scarlett turned to me, her face blanching from its usual deep tan. “H-how?”
I shook my head, trying to piece it together.“Wouldn’t Hazel have told us if he was still alive?”
Scarlett swept away the red locks that fell over her face. “What if Hazel knew a lot more than she let on?”
“But I feel like she would’ve told me at least. Slate and I were in the insurgency together. I just don’t understand…”
“So, I’m going to continue to ask around about the princess,” Shadow interjected, clearly feeling awkward by our silent conversation. “If you find her, will you let me know?”
“Yeah, sure, whatever.” My best friend waved him off as if he were insignificant. “Cotton,” she said once Shadow was out of earshot, “what the fuck is really going on?”
Three hours later,Valik still lay unconscious in bed. Scarlett and I sat by his bedside in comfortable chairs, courtesy of the Mystics’ hospitality. I had to admit that the water and earthy ambiance of the room were truly calming. My mind still spun with questions from Shadow’s revelation about Slate Helair’s faked death. Seeing Onyx, only to be slapped in the face with the potential truth-bomb of Slate’s survival not even ten minutes later, was quite the shock.
Every time I thought of Onyx, I felt as if a dagger had been plunged into my heart. Why didn’t he tell me he was alive? Or at the very least, try to contact me over the last few years? Ever since his disappearance, I hadn’t been able to bring myself to get close to a guyemotionally. While Onyx and I had shared a secret relationship, it had been real. Or so I’d believed.
Earning my position as the Royal Domain’s Inquisitor seemed to work in my favor when it came to power dynamics. I used that to take on a dominant role, and no one questioned why I wouldn’t kiss them with tongue or perform oral. Curiosity and a need to be submissive drove them to me to fulfil their fantasies. Onyx had been the only one outside of my father, Forest, and Grim who knew I didn’t have a tongue. But before I became Inquisitor, I hadn’t needed to be dominant with Onyx. Being with him had been intimate and liberating. He had seen me, and his patience had been on a level I’d only experienced with Scarlett.
As for Slate, just…what the fuck? I didn’t even know where to begin with that one. I found myself relating to Gray in a way that went beyond the trauma her father had inflicted upon us.
I sat with my elbows braced on my knees with my hands clasped together. I stared at the floor, mesmerized by the water rippling and flowing beneath my feet, fascinated that it wasn’t soaking into my boots with no solid barrier separating us. Lost in my thoughts. I was beginning to think that seeing Onyx had been a lapse in my mind. Perhaps I’d imagined him when it had really been someone else.
But those eyes…I couldn’t have hallucinated them. All these years, I’d tried to picture them, but it was never the same as seeing him face to face.
I sat back in my chair, bouncing my knees anxiously. It could take Valik an entire day to wake up, but I didn’t have that kind of time. Maybe I could reach him in his subconscious state. Scarlett’s head lay slumped on her shoulder, a little dribble of drool sliding down the corner of her mouth.
I closed my eyes and cleared my lungs with a deep, cleansing breath. If there was any hope of reaching Valik, my thoughts needed to be empty. I focused on the sound of the comforting water that wafted throughout the room. It lapped beneath my feet, its soothing properties seeming to permeate into my soul.
My thoughts barreled through my head like a destructive bowling ball. It felt impossible to silence them all. I must have sat there for nearly half an hour just trying to patiently wait out the thoughts battering me and taking me off course of my goal. At last, I decided to mentally place the thoughts into some weird witchy cauldron each time they demanded my attention. Once they were in whatever concoction I’d placed them in, I embraced the dark silence in my mind, then focused on seeking out the thread that would connect Valik to me.
The energetic cord coming from Valik’s forehead couldn’t be mistaken for anything else. The blinding silver thread was thicker and stronger than the cords I’d seen from Scarlett and Nell, and the power exuding from it was awe-inspiring and intimidating.
Cautiously, I reached out with my essence, connecting with the thread beaming from him. I gasped, clutching the space between my brows. The pain that seared through my skull felt like someone had spliced my brain in two, followed by a piercing ring that made my ears want to bleed.
What the fuck?
Instinctively, I tried to pull back, but Valik’s voice echoed in my mind.“No. Stay. It’s fine.”
My eyes widened in surprise.“It worked?”My fingers hurt from wrenching them together to bear the pain searing through my skull.
“It did. I see you’re a quick learner.”Valik lay motionless and pale in the bed before me, not giving any hint of his consciousness.
“Why does it hurt so badly to do this with you?”I grunted, forced to squeeze my eyes shut.
“I’ve been told I tend to take up a lot of space in people’s heads. Part of my charm, I suppose.”
I opened my eyes through the pain, incredulous.“Can you take anything seriously?”
“Of course, I can. For instance, you need to get to Gray.”
