Chrome nodded, his face a tight mask of blanketed emotions.
“How do you know you can trust him and anything he says? He just literally came out of nowhere, right? What makes you think he’s not lying for the Elementals?”
Chrome grimaced. “I don’t know. I just didn’t…get that vibe from him. I don’t fully trust what he says, and I’d like more confirmation, obviously, but he sounds like he could be really helpful in getting Forest permanently removed from the throne. And think about it: that would leave Princess Gray in line for succession. If we can train her and get her on our side, then that would be better for everyone.”
I shivered, the cold burrowing into my cells. “Yeah, that makes sense.”
“Just gotta present that to your parents in a way that they can get on board with so they can find a way to convince Forest to get the princess trained. By you.”
I agreed. If I could get Dad to talk to either the king, Amethyst, or Grim, we maybe stood a chance at getting a win in this regard. “So, then what? You kill the king, and then…”
“Then I leave.”
“To where?” I asked, my panic rising and sinking at the same time.
Chrome shrugged. “Anywhere. I just wanna be free.”
“But,” I asked, my brain a swirling mess of questions and thoughts, “what about the Elementals? Are they going to come after you?”
One side of Chrome’s lips pulled upward. “They can try.”
I let the quietude envelop us again, registering Chrome’s downtrodden state. “How bad is the punishment going to be this time for letting the other Elemental go?”
With a snort, he shook his head and sat up. “Nothing I can’t handle. I’ll be sure to have my fake smile ready for my branding ceremony.”
The roar of my bike’s engine reverberated off the parking garage’s concrete structure. I pulled it into my usual parking spot and sat back on the seat, letting the weight of everything I’d just learned sink in.
Chrome wanted to hang back on the rooftop for a bit longer in solitude, but I needed to return before my parents started to blow up my phone. I might’ve been a trained and inducted Warrior in the Guilds, but I was still a fifteen-year-old who had a curfew if it could be helped. The only time curfew didn’t apply was when it involved a mission. However, my parents trusted me, and I wasn’t the reckless type, so I tended to have a bit more leeway.
But still, I didn’t want them worrying.
As I sat and processed everything I’d learned, I wondered if I stood a chance of being the one to train the princess. The thought felt as if I were trying to grab smoke. Though she was our princess, she was elusive and rarely seen. She didn’t interact with many of the Kinetics within the Royal Domain, and there were some who simply despised her altogether for not being the ‘true heir’ to the throne.
Little did they know…
My chest expanded from the deep inhalation as I ran my gloved palms down my face, exhaustion setting in from the night’s mission and then the mental overload immediately afterward.
Finally, after composing myself, I climbed off the bike and made my way through the parking garage with drooping shoulders and a lazy gait. Once I entered the street level, I stepped back out into the Atlanta night. Now that it was approaching eleven p.m., cars still passed, but it wasn’t as busy as it had been an hour earlier. Another icy wind knocked into me, stealing the oxygen from my lungs. Cold weather had never been my favorite. Spring couldn’t get here soon enough.
I dragged my boots across the cracked sidewalk during my short walk to the King’s Palace. Once the cameras detected my presence, I knew the king would be curious to know where my partner was. I would just tell him that Chrome was out tying up a loose end. The growing headache didn’t allow me the energy to figure out a believable response, so I only hoped I didn’t get stopped and questioned before I reached my parents’ penthouse floor.
I pushed on the rotating glass doors leading into the King’s Palace, already feeling eyes on me from the cameras above as chills trickled down my spine. The lobby was relatively empty, with only guards standing about in their black gear, colorful currents on display at their necks.
I ignored them as I made my way to the elevator, lighting up the button for the twenty-eighth floor to my family’s suite. For the building having been renovated recently to better suit King Forest’s lavish tastes, the elevator was still slow as fuck.
My eyes began to droop as I waited for the doors to open. Gods, I was ready to scrub the stale sweat, cigarette smoke, and alcohol from The Phantom off my body and then immediately crash into bed. Getting up in time for school would suck, but that was a tomorrow problem.
“How’d it go?”
I jumped, swinging at whoever snuck up on me. Had I not been so tired, they wouldn’t have got that close. I knew better.
Onyx Valor dodged my fist swinging at his face. “Shit, man.”
“Sorry,” I said on an exhale. “Don’t sneak up on me like that after a mission.”
“I take it the mission went bad then?” My friend winced, his perfect teeth shining brightly beneath lowered brows.
I leaned my head back to where my eyes faced the arches in the ceiling and forced out an exaggerated breath. “It was…an unusual mission.”
