Chapter 27
Rafe
“What a beautiful day. Truly, what an amazing day this is for this work, am I right?”
I didn’t bother responding to the Governor. He was an irritating man, short and portly with four dangerously thin clumps of hair streaked across his bald head.
I fought the urge to recoil every time I saw a flash of said baldness, which thankfully wasn’t often. It was a cloudy day in the Gulf, the impending storm matching my mood. The dark clouds overhead only seemed to add to the creepiness of our current location.
The ghost island, as Skye had called it.
It had no official name as far as I knew, and I was only keenly aware of its existence because Vince Shafer was hiding out on the other end. Skye was the one who’d explained to me that there were dozens of unidentified body parts buried here in one large mass grave.
The word heinous had been continuously ringing through my mind from the moment I’d shadow-walked here. The crowd had mixed reactions to seeing my affinity. A few people boarded the ferry to leave, a few watched with morbid fascination, and several outright scowled at me.
I didn’t blame these people for their reactions to me. My grandfather had failed them. Horrifically. And it didn’t matter that he and I couldn’t have been more different. Just the fact that I shared parts of his face was a crime to them.
Not the Governor, though. He’d been smiling all day, as if he didn’t have a solemn bone in his body. Even now, he laughed in a jolly way at something his assistant said while a grieving family stood nearby. I clenched my jaw.
“Governor Delmar,” I ground out, my jaw already aching. “Is this really an appropriate place for laughter?”
Cameras flashed.
The press murmured in mock horror.
The Governor sputtered for a moment, not sure what to say. He only pursed his lips when he turned to find his assistant had basically evaporated at my ire.
A few shadows snaked along the sand, but thankfully didn’t move closer to the press. The last thing I needed to deal with right now was a dead journalist, even if these journalists were only paparazzi in disguise.
I breathed out slowly.
“Shall we begin the ceremony?” Delmar asked, more subdued after my rebuke.
The next few hours were a blur of photos, snipping ribbons, and shoveling sand, which I almost refused to do. We weren’t breaking ground on a new shopping mall. This was a final resting place. There were people down there.
I didn’t like how everyone kept walking across the gravesite. Parts of people still deserved respect. I could hear some of the journalists like gnats behind me, buzzing with theories on why I wouldn’t get closer to the grave.
Was I squeamish? Did I not care? Did the Gulf disgust me? What would my mysterious Key think of that?
A shadow prodded at my ankle, and I imagined it giving me a miserable look.
We can’t kill journalists, I told it. I cannot start my tenure as the Crown Prince with an act of tyranny.
The shadow seemed to mope, and I made a mental note to keep an eye on that one. I had enough on my plate already. The last thing I needed right now was a fascist shadow.
I almost laughed at the absurdity of that thought.
The relationship between my shadows and I had always been intuitive. I rarely had to command them to do anything, they simply acted how I wanted.
Most of the time.
I’d never spoken to them before, though. Treating my affinity as something sentient was new, but not unnatural. I found myself making comments to shadows more often than not these days, and I was completely unsurprised when they seemed to respond to me.
The feeling that they’d been laughing at me in Wyatt’s office bothered me a bit, though.
The shadows were not things that could see. So how could they have seen Skye getting ready to put a cage around my cock, and then laughed about it?
I shifted my weight a bit uncomfortably, the steel cage feeling tighter as I thought about it. Goosebumps trailed down my arms as I remembered the whole scene.
She’d surprised me.
I loved being surprised.
But the excitement this particularly surprise gave me was not appropriate for this moment. I ran my hands through my hair to ground myself, then looked out to the scene in front of me.
We’d set up operations near a cove, and I glanced across the sparkling water toward the hilltop where I knew Vince Shafer lived.
Part of me wanted to pay him a visit, but what would he even have to say?
He’d already told us affinities could evolve, and he was a condescending dick to everyone except Skye.
I was already in a bad mood today, and I really didn’t want to end my night with beating up an old man.
I was angry about what’d happened in the dungeons.
I should’ve been more prepared, but how could I have taken Shafer’s comments seriously? He was a cryptic asshole at the best of times.
But maybe I should’ve put my feelings aside. Asked more questions. Asked more uncomfortable questions. Uncomfortable for me, uncomfortable for Skye.
Cameras continued to flash, journalists continued shouting out invasive questions that I refused to answer. I signed a lot of paperwork, posed for too many pictures.
I’d never put much thought into what my life would be like once I became the Crown Prince.
I really hoped this wasn’t what I should expect.
My mother wasn’t old, and although her sanity was hanging by threads most days, I’d never imagined what it would be like to move up in the line of succession. I wasn’t even sure I was ready to be Crown Prince, let alone King.
My throat seemed to lock up suddenly as I remembered the Sensors in the Palace once more.
Josefa had called me King even after I’d corrected her. She’d died with the belief that a King had come for her, even if it wasn’t the one she’d been expecting.
I stared at a shadow spinning in circles near my boot, like a tiny tornado.
Why couldn’t this evolution have happened sooner? Those people needed someone to save them, and I’d been prancing around upstairs without a care in the world. I’d barely been at the Palace since last summer, and I was supposed to be making it my permanent address when my mother became Queen.
I pinched the bridge of my nose and sighed, almost growling when more cameras flashed at the gesture.
I still hadn’t talked to Skye about moving into the Palace.
Something told me my stubborn, headstrong Key would not take that news lightly, nor would she approve of being forced out of the academy.
It was just like Skye to continue on with something she hated purely because she was being told to do otherwise.
I almost smiled.
“Your Grace?”
I glanced up to find one of the journalists had managed to get closer than the others.
She seemed a little nervous, but held herself well enough.
Her voice hadn’t even shaken, even though I was known for being an asshole and she’d just used the wrong title to address me. Maybe that’d been intentional?
I raised my eyebrows expectantly, then remembered I was trying to stop being a dick in public.
“Yes?” I prompted.
“My name is Marina Irving, I work for the station here in the Gulf. Can I ask you a few questions?”
She fiddled with the hem of her blouse, the only thing betraying her nervousness.
Her chipped nail polish caught my attention, as did the old sneakers she wore, though her too-long slacks hid them for the most part.
Her simple brown hair was pulled back into a low ponytail, her bright blue eyes smudged with just enough eyeliner to appear put together.
“Of course,” I replied easily, because I was determined to not be a public dick even though the thought of answering questions made me want to gouge out my own eyes.
A shadow stilled on my shoulder for a moment, almost as if it was considering doing just that.
I waved an irritated hand through it and it dissipated like smoke.
Across from me, the woman pulled a notepad from her back pocket, then felt around for a pen before realizing it was through the back of her ponytail. She flipped through the notebook, then looked up at me.
“This is your first official task as the Crown Prince. Why choose the islands? Why choose this island?”
I blinked at her. This…was now the second time she’d used the wrong title for me. But I answered her anyway. “This island was recently brought to my attention, and I felt it necessary to act. These people never should’ve suffered such a fate. They all deserve to be identified.”
“You say this was only recently brought to your attention. I assume by your Key? She’s from the Gulf, right?”
“Right,” I confirmed warily.
She scribbled away on her notepad. “Is it safe to assume your Key has some family member buried here? Is that who you’re searching for?”
I almost clenched my jaw, but managed to answer gently, “My Key does not have family buried here. I am not searching for anyone in particular. The Gulf has been a forgotten part of my family’s kingdom for far too long, and I am doing my part to change that.”
“Is that why you went to Alaska last month? That’s another famously forgotten part of your family’s kingdom. Will you be heading to the Outer Islands next? The Bahamas have yet to rebuild after last year’s hurricane season.”
I blinked at her for a moment. “If that is what is needed, then yes. I will contact someone there myself and see if I can assist.”
“How do you feel about your mother skipping the coronation and naming herself as Queen?”
“I…I’m sorry, what?”
“Ah, sorry. You were busy with photo-ops today. You probably haven’t seen.
” She dug around her pockets again, pulling out her phone before I could bristle at her thin insult.
“Your mother named herself Queen this morning, forgoing a coronation. Clearly you weren’t invited to this announcement, do you have any insight on why? ”