“It does matter. Don’t lose hope.”
“I’m not allowed to hope, Slate. I don’t get that luxury.”
My heart sank for Gray. I wanted nothing more than to take the princess far away from the cutthroat society of Kinetic royalty. I wanted to protect and hide her if only to give her a chance to have hope and experience genuine happiness in life.
I looked around the empty playground and furrowed my brows. “What are you doing out here anyway?”
Princess Gray shrugged again and turned, heading for the swings. She grabbed the chains on one before sitting on it as her feet dug into the dirt beneath the sawdust.
I couldn’t help but stare at how pretty she was, but just beneath her helpless exterior lay a faint level of danger. When she shot me a questioning look, scrunching her brows, I snapped out of my stupor. I started toward her on the swings and took a seat beside her, relieved that spring was here.
The chain bit into my palms, reminding me of some of the trainings and missions I’d been on which had involved metal restraints. “So?” I pressed. “Why’d you come out here?”
“Reminds me of…” the princess started, “of a certain memory that is super fuzzy. I keep hoping if I come out here enough, it’ll jog my brain to remember the details.”
“Ah,” I said, nodding. “Must’ve been a good memory then?”
Gray chuckled. “Hardly,” she retorted but smiled wistfully to herself anyway. “Well, it kinda was in a weird way.”
“What happened?” I asked, wondering if it was the memory from all those years ago.
Gray breathed in a deep breath, sat up, and walked the swing backward so she stood on her tiptoes before she jumped, plopping her butt in the seat. She swung forward, then pumped her legs back, climbing higher and faster as her ice-blonde hair whipped around her face and the chains she clung to.
“I was being bullied by some kids. Nothing unusual. But a boy showed up. One I’d never seen before. I could tell he wasn’t human. His eyes…his bright blue eyes were so unnatural they couldn’t have been normal human eyes. He stopped the bullies. With his magic. He said he was ten, but his magic literally destroyed the playground,” she explained, her breaths growing shorter with each pump of her legs. She looked at me from theside as she swung back and forth in a reclined position, her long hair sweeping the sawdust beneath her. “Do you remember?”
“I do.” My head shifted from left to right as I watched, mesmerized, as she swung in a carefree freefall, thinking this was possibly the lightest I’d ever seen her. My heart did somersaults as I sat enthralled. I cleared my throat. “The playground was quite the spectacle when I saw it later that day. It was an Elemental kid, right?” I asked, playing into the false information that Forest had spread about the event.
“It was an Elemental, yes. I remember that much,” she mused, tipping her head all the way back, gazing at the clouds. “But that’s where it’s weird. I can’t…really remember much else about him. But he felt…familiar. Like I’ve met him before somehow.”
Alarms went off in my head, wondering if she could regain her full memory of that day, and if she did, would she piece together that the Elemental boy had actually been Chrome Freyr. And if she learned of that, what would that mean for her regarding her father?
“Perhaps you’d just seen him on the playground before,” I suggested.
As Gray’s swing slowed, she sat up straight again to begin pumping her legs. “Maybe…” But I could tell she didn’t quite believe the idea.
The bell rang, cutting short our conversation and signaling for us to return to class. Instead of slowing the swing to a stop, Gray jumped from it and soared through the air, her skirt flying up at her waist. On instinct, I turned my head out of respect.
“See you in the morning,” the princess said as she landed on both feet. She pulled the necklace from her pocket and carefully tied it around her neck. “Thank you again for getting this back.”
I questioned if she would actually show up this time. For the past few weeks, she hadn’t shown up for any of the trainings. I began to wonder if the decision for her training had been pulledby the king, but my father insisted that it wasn’t the case. The only reason I could fathom was that she was being punished for something. And I assumed that withholding her from training was now part of that punishment.
“It’s what friends do.” I offered a soft smile and rose from the swing. “See you in training in the morning, I hope. You’ll be there this time, right?”
Gray’s eyes lit with excitement. “Yeah. See you in the morning. It’s a Saturday,” she said. “I never get to leave the suite on Saturdays.”
Chapter 22
Chrome
Ilolled in and out of consciousness, unaware of the passage of time or where this dark, foul place even was.
Who am I?
My mind felt detached from my body as if fragmented into disjointed thoughts that wanted to drift away, yet they were still tied to my brain, keeping me trapped. My intestines seemed to gnaw on themselves as my hunger soared to new heights, while my mouth was so dry it could have withered to sand for distant deserts.
But it was the blistering yet icy flames of severe magic depletion singeing my veins and cells that kept me locked in my personal purgatory. I wanted nothing more than death, as it was the only escape from this hell. But they’d never allow it.
Most of the time, Grim paid me visits, but my mother and Forest gifted me with their presence as well. They were using this time to truly test my strength and power. My self-control. To see how far they could push their weapon before they’d lose control of it.
