Chapter 5 #2
“Leading up to the time we met, there was a secret insurgency. Our plan was to perform a coup to remove Forest from power. We knew he was up to something big. We weren’t sure what, but things weren’t adding up with the increased Endarkened depletions at the time.
Chrome and I were partners in the Warrior Guilds.
Obviously, he was the most powerful, and it was then that he earned his status.
But we grew up together. Trained together.
We were more than cousins—we were brothers.
And Peri…she was close with Hazel.” Slate dropped his chin, grief hollowing out his features before he continued.
“There was a plan,” he said, looking up at me to pin me with his softened gaze. “You.”
“Me?” I asked flatly.
Slate nodded. “We knew Forest had a tight hold on you.
We also thought it was ridiculous that you were fourteen and hadn't begun your standardized training yet. You were due to start at thirteen when your magic awakened. It was a security threat at first. Because we thought Elementals were the enemy, that put you at risk of being vulnerable and defenseless if they somehow kidnapped or attacked you.”
He rose to his feet, using his shirt sleeve to wipe the blood and sweat from his face.
“I never lied to you when I said we didn’t know the extent of your father’s abuse until the first public punishment.
None of us knew. Chrome couldn’t train you, so he insisted I did.
I was the next best qualified, and he believed you’d trust me.
But we needed the go-ahead from Forest first.”
“That day in the gym when you caught me crying? That wasn’t a coincidence, then?” I asked, feeling my lungs deflate.
Slate paused, guilt shining in his eyes. “No,” he replied. “Hazel told me where to find you.”
I worked to school my features. “Hazel, too?”
The knot in Slate’s throat bobbed as he swallowed. “And Cotton. Onyx, too.”
I pulled my lips inward and closed my eyes, the betrayal of being on the outside of everyone’s secret stabbing me deeper and deeper with each word he spoke.
“Chrome knew that you were the true heir to the Kinetic throne as well as being a hybrid. He’d always known.
” Slate clenched his fists at his side. “But it was my father, the leader of the insurgency, who suggested that we get to you first before Forest realized your value to the Guilds. Then one day, we would take him out, and you’d replace him. Except you’d be a fair leader.”
“So I was just part of your agenda?”
“No. The night I witnessed your first punishment, I lost it. I nearly stormed the dais to stop it myself at fifteen years old!” Slate threw his arms out wide, his eyes rounded. “Don’t believe me? Ask Onyx. He was there and stopped me.”
I shook my head. “I don’t believe any of you. But thank you for finally telling me somewhat of the truth.”
“I’m sorry, Gray. I loved you. I promise that was never a lie. But…”
“But what?” I prompted, my heart racing in my chest.
Slate’s mouth opened and closed. “But…” he started again, seeming to search for the right words. “You were never mine.”
The ancient symbols scrawled within the Book of the Arcane blurred together, forming odd pictures that reminded me of cloud gazing from the King's Palace balcony when I was a child.
Squeezing my eyelids shut, I puffed out my cheeks and blew out an anxious breath.
Propping my palm on my forehead, I threaded my fingers through my hair as I glanced up at Orion sitting across from me.
Orion’s eyes were bloodshot. Hours. We’d been at this for hours as the sun began to set.
Exhaustion and strain were wearing him thin as he studied the texts with every spare minute he had.
Ever since Chrome disappeared, he’d hardly left his office, determined to decipher the sigils of the language that we believed originated from Arcadia.
He’d definitely made some progress with his translations, all thanks to Slate, which annoyed me because it gave him another excuse to linger around.
After I managed to fade us back to the Hollow from the leveled King’s Palace, Slate had explained how he’d been traveling between our world and Arcadia for the past two years.
During his time in Arcadia, he’d picked up on a good portion of the language and learned quite a bit about its history.
Since then, he’d been working with Orion, helping him to translate The Book of the Arcane while informing everyone about what we were dealing with when it came to the Tempest queen, Celanea.
“Well?” Orion asked without pulling his eyes from his notes. His short hair, the shade of pale sand, sat askew on his head, evidence of his frustration.
I leaned back in my seat, slumping down. “Nothing that we didn’t already know.”
“Please elaborate,” he droned.
“Well,” I started, “we already know that Infernals are basically Celestials, cursed to be more intelligent forms of the Endarkened. They’re dangerous.”
Orion hummed his agreement. “Nothing about the veil at all?”
“Not yet,” I replied as I continued to flip through the pages, seeking any information about the Twin Soul Bond or how to rebuild the veil.
Orion straightened, running his hands over his face. His beard grew longer by the week.
“When was the last time you got a full night’s sleep?” I asked, my eyes narrowed.
“That,” he began, “is a question I don’t think I’m capable of answering.”
“Orion…”
Dropping his hands to his lap, he shrugged.
“It’s the burden we carry. I just wish I could carry it with the strength and grace that Jonas and Lilly did, or even Chrome.
He was born to lead, as were you. The only difference is that you haven’t accepted it yet.
” Orion reached for a glass bottle about a quarter full of brown liquid.
His drinking had escalated in recent months, but I genuinely couldn’t blame him.
I wanted nothing more than to join him, but I had to fix the veil and restore Chrome.
I scoffed. “I’m not meant to be a leader, Orion. I can’t even lead myself.”
Orion’s smile grew wistful as he seemed to revisit the past. “That’s not the first time I’ve heard those words.”
I scrunched my brows, ready to press him further, when the door opened and Slate strolled inside Orion’s office without so much as a knock.
“Would you please go away?” I snapped. Just being around him triggered my anger. It was impossible to go anywhere without him crashing the party, even if he was helpful. It was just another painful reminder of how he’d been living a separate life behind my back.
“Nope.” Slate walked further into the room, pulling out a seat next to me before plopping down into it. “I can help you.”
I clenched my jaw. I’d rather eat glass. “Are you going to tell me who this mysterious person is that you know who could help us?”
“Nope.”
“Then you can’t help.”
“You’ll meet him when he’s ready for you to meet him,” Slate said, shrugging. Leaning his forearms on the oak desk littered with scratch paper, he angled his head to peer at me from the side. “Let me see the book. I know I can help you.”
I stared at him, the tension between the three of us tightening by the second.
Orion sipped from the liquor bottle, weariness tugging his features down more and more by the minute.
Now that Slate was actually alive and Chrome was…well…somewhere biologically altered, my emotions were all over the place.
I hate them.
I love them.
No. I hate them for what they did.
But I also love them for what they did, too.
When it came to the two of them, my emotions wavered on a precarious tipping point between love and betrayal.
Currently, my anger won out, outweighing the love I held for both of them.
The difference with Chrome lay in our bond.
I needed him to be here. The agony I’d felt in my soul when he turned dark reminded me every day that I needed to get him back to normal.
Yes, I loved him. Yes, I needed him alive.
And he was probably the solution to fixing the fucking veil that he destroyed.
And I needed Slate for his knowledge of Arcadia, but it pained me to admit it to him.
While having him at the Elemental Hollow was a surreal blending of two lifetimes, I found some comfort in knowing he was nearby.
As angry and hurt with him as I was, his presence still grounded me, even if it was only in microscopic amounts.
But needing someone and wanting someone were two totally different things. I wouldn’t let my need for them dictate my emotions. It didn’t excuse the lies and deception they’d wielded to use me for their big endgame, and I refused to be played by their manipulations again.
Against my better judgment, I reached for Orion’s liquor and took a drink, the burn of the alcohol singing my throat on its way down. But fucking hell, it tasted so much better than homemade moonshine.
After several minutes, Slate sat up straight, pointing to a spot in the book.
“Here,” he murmured, looking at me. “It essentially says that in order to rebuild a veil should a catastrophe like ours ever occur, it must be done by the anointed High King and Queen of all of Arcadia, who are Celestials. It requires a lot to achieve, but at least it can be done.”
I sighed, my hopes deflating. “And there’s no current High King and Queen sitting on a throne in Arcadia.”
“No. But…”
Slate had explained this before. Not once. Not twice. But a whopping five times at this point. I needed to know that I wasn’t missing anything. “But what?”
Slate shifted his gaze hesitantly between me and Orion while chewing on his bottom lip. His knee bounced, rattling the table.
I held my breath, dangling in suspense as I waited impatiently for him to speak.
“But…” Slate began, “some people in Arcadia believe that there will be soon enough.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose, frustrated by his cryptic comments. “What about Chrome?” I mumbled, going out on a limb and hoping he would actually give me something useful about him this time. “Remind me again of everything you know about Infernals.”
Slate licked his bottom lip, swallowing.
“I mean, as you said, you already know that they’re basically intelligent forms of Endarkened who were once Celestials, bound to a Tempest’s will through dark magic.
Infernals are soulless and apathetic beings who no longer wield the power of a Celestial, but a magic as sinister as the Tempest who created them. ”
It was Slate’s turn to reach for the liquor bottle and take a large sip before continuing.
“The reason Chrome is Infernal and not Endarkened is because Forest didn’t simply manipulate Chrome into shattering the veil with his power.
He’d bound Chrome to Celanea through a Syphon Bond, which prevented him from turning Endarkened when he depleted for the third time.
For an actualized Celestial, it only required the Syphon Bond cast by a Tempest to turn them into an Infernal.
You two might be Celestials, but you haven’t actualized that power yet.
Because Celanea cursed the Celestials to split them into two separate species a thousand years ago, you’re still technically considered hybrids until that curse is broken.
A hybrid, though, needs to deplete someone three times for the Syphon Bond to take effect.
It doesn't matter when the bond is cast, so long as it happens before the third depletion. "
“And you’re sure there is no way to restore them to their original state?” I asked numbly.
Slate rubbed his jaw with a minor shake of his head. “I’m sorry. As I’ve said before, there’s nothing from the past to indicate that there is,” he said gently. “You two are an unusual case, so there may very well be something that we’re missing.”
I glanced at Orion, who stared up at the oak rafters above us, broken.
My eyes began to burn, and I bit my cheeks to fight off the emotions that clung to me. Chrome’s loss devastated not only me, but so many others around us. With Kinetics all over the world organizing to take us out, we needed him now more than ever.
I exhaled, trying to blow out the pent-up emotion in my chest.
The door to the room burst open, slamming into the wall and jolting me from my seat.
River stumbled into Orion’s office, breathless, her brown complexion paling several shades lighter than should be possible.
She clutched her trembling hands to the door, tears brimming in her eyes.
The three of us leaped to our feet, dread soaking my body in ice from head to toe.
“Chrome,” River whimpered in a very uncharacteristic manner. My heart slowed as her words cut to my soul. “He…he killed Aster.”