Chapter 39 #2
“You mean…” My eyes widened in realization. “So you’ve been trying to tell me this entire time to kill you?”
Chrome nodded, looking at a mysterious sword that Cotton wielded. Its blade was white with illuminated blue sigils inscribed on its face. “Please.”
“I don’t know if I can, Chrome,” I whimpered. “I—”
Droplets of rain began to sprinkle on us, gradually picking up intensity.
Chrome clenched his jaw and grabbed the sides of my face to force me to look at him. “Gray. You can. And you will. You have to. Or things will only get worse.”
“But there has to be another way…” The rain increased until it became a downpour. I watched a droplet slide down his cheek as if it were a tear. Maybe it was, and I would never know. But he remained strong for me, knowing he needed to or there was no chance I could go through with what was needed.
I looked around, seeing that all the Infernals were gone. Cotton stood beside Onyx, the ethereal sword in his grip. It was just as described in my mother’s letter. How had he ended up with it? His gaze clashed with mine, and I swallowed the lump in my throat before facing Chrome again.
“I—” I started to protest before Chrome’s eyes widened and his jaw opened in shock.
I followed his gaze downward, seeing the point of a sword protruding from his diaphragm. “Please…” he said once more before stumbling toward me.
“No!” I shouted, panicking before realizing that he would heal. He would heal. It was just a Kinetic or Elemental sword.
Chrome fumbled forward as the blade was snatched from his body, jet-black blood pooling from his mouth. I wrapped my arms around his waist before Slate dashed over to catch him beneath his arms to ease him to the ground.
When Chrome cleared from my view, Royal Okrafor remained in plain sight with a smirk on her face. “Nice to see you again, sis.”
I lunged for her, but she stepped out of the way just in time.
I glimpsed the sword she’d just impaled my Twin Soul with, realizing with horror that it wasn’t a Kinetic or Elemental sword.
It was the metallic color of Slate’s hair.
Through the blood being cleansed from it, thanks to the rain, I spotted black wisps climbing up the blade.
“What have you done?” I growled, summoning my heightened Kinetic power and my enraged element.
“Returned him to the Syphon Bond, of course.” Royal smiled, rotating the blade in her fist.
I spun around, finding Chrome on his side, Onyx and Slate crouched beside him.
No. No…
I launched a gust of wind at Royal, and within the air, I infused it with my electricity.
Once it landed true and immersed her in the volts, I commanded my element to thrash her unpredictably while the rain mixed with my Kinetic ability.
Hoping that would be enough to kill her, I sprinted for Cotton.
“If you didn’t kill her, I was about to…” The look in his olive glare was murderous—something I’d never seen on his unreadable exterior before.
“I need the sword, Cotton. Now…please.” I shoved my wet hair from my face before I held out my hand toward him, pleading with him through my eyes.
“Are you sure this is the only way?” he asked. “And how do you even know about this sword?”
“My mom, Queen Lilliana, left me a note. She knew about it somehow.” I turned around, my heart twisting at the sight of Chrome fighting against Slate and Onyx’s restraint, the Syphon Bond taking hold once again. “I don’t have time, Cotton. Please.”
Cotton closed his eyes, dipping his chin. “Of course, Your Majesty.”
I bit my bottom lip, doing my best to push aside the reality of what I was about to do.
Cotton flipped the sword around so that its hilt faced me.
“Thank you,” I whispered, my heart already disintegrating. Then, I raced to Chrome, dropping to my knees.
His eyes sought mine out upon my arrival. “My Rainbow.” The silver in his irises faded in and out with the black trying to push through. “Take me to the other side now, will you?”
My face contorted as I forced back a sob. “I’ll find you.”
“I know, Princess,” he said before he groaned. “Hurry, I can’t hold it off much longer.”
His stab wound had already nearly healed, the Syphon Bond closing in, snatching him back in its grip. And there was no doubt that when he came back around this time, he would be merciless. None of us stood a chance.
Only a few breaths later, the demon that possessed my Twin Soul broke through again.
“I’ll punish you so fucking hard for this, little savage!
” His face contorted as he lunged at me from the ground, his shadows lashing out.
Slate and Onyx shoved his shoulders back down, slamming the back of his head into cobblestones.
My hands shook, sobs wracking my chest as I watched the man I loved lose his battle. “Chrome…”
Eyelids fluttering open, the real Chrome’s metallic irises swirled, gazing at me—despite the internal war he fought—as if his soul spoke through them.
He panted, allowing Slate and Onyx to hold him down.
Love and hope beamed in his lazy grin as he cupped my cheek with a quivering palm.
“You’re my only hope.” He grimaced, swallowing through the struggle.
“It’s always been you, my queen. Thank you for setting me free. ”
Squeezing the sword in my fist, I summoned what bit of inner strength I had left, my mother’s words from her letter ringing in my ear. “I’m so sorry.” I leaned across his front, delivering one last desperate kiss—one kiss that said everything I’d wanted to say over the past few months.
Salty tears splashed between our entwined lips, as I let my love and pain be the final thing he tasted.
I took the Eternal Sword, as my mother had called it, and sat up so my back was straight.
“It’s—about time—I returned these…” Chrome kept his quicksilver gaze on mine, a soft smile on his face as if he was at peace. I raised the sword above my head. Sobs shook my shoulders as I brought the point of the sword down, spearing him right in the heart.
A second before the blade struck true, I was slammed with memories. Memories that, at first, I believed belonged to him, but as they rolled through my mind, I realized they belonged to me from years ago.
The whole truth.
Memories of a young Chrome and me in the King’s Palace, where I sat on the floor drawing in my notepad, and he sat beside me. It was the first time he’d called me “little savage.”
There was a memory of us outside the elevator, and I’d been so angry with him, but he told me not to give up during a time when I’d been at my lowest.
I remembered riding on the back of his motorcycle, hugging him tight against my body as he sped through Downtown Atlanta, but the memory stopped there.
A memory from a few years after he’d left the Royal Domain resurfaced.
I’d been seventeen, and I stood outside the towering luxury hotel’s grounds.
He’d appeared frantic, his eyes wild and panicked.
I remembered feeling confused, but at the same time, I knew him.
Chrome had kept reaching for my face before curling his fingers into frustrated fists as he caught himself.
He’d been erratic, and I had no idea at the time who he was, but regardless, I’d been mesmerized by the troubled boy in the woods. I wanted to help him.
The most painful one that returned was the night he’d taken these memories—the one where he’d fled the Palace and taken on the identity of Griffin Silas.
I’d been half-asleep, and he’d appeared in my room to bid me goodbye.
Even then, he’d promised he’d find me again one day.
Then he’d kissed me, taking with him the few but special memories that we shared.
The realization that he’d done that to protect me all those years ago felt as if Royal had just run that evil blade through my heart.
I collapsed across his body, hugging him as his life slipped further and further away. He wheezed, never pulling his eyes from my own. Even dying, I saw his heart shine for me as his eyes glossed over. Then it was just raindrops pelting off his body.
Burying my face into his neck, I clung to him in his final moments. Chrome's last breaths were harsh, each one sounding like a broken whistle. When his final one sputtered out, his chest stilled, and the wheezes silenced.
I wept on him, not ready to let him go. Not prepared to face the world without him. Again.
Moments later, I felt it. The cord that connected our souls. As if someone had taken a pair of scissors to it, it snapped, severing the remaining fragile threads connecting us.
The pain had me screaming. I seized my sternum with my fingertips where the cord had previously been. My power erupted. Another lightning bolt struck the ground nearby, quaking the earth around us.
The space within me was barren, like a massive piece of my soul had been ripped from my heart. I wailed into Chrome’s chest, my nails digging into his biceps.
The rain didn’t cease, and I wasn’t sure how long I lay there with Chrome, broken. “Gray, we gotta go. Valik is on his way,” Onyx said, his voice solemn and gentle as if not to spook me.
“I can’t. I can’t leave him.” My voice was muffled in his clothes, determined to bury his scent in my nose so it would permanently reside there.
“We aren’t leaving him, Princess. We’re bringing him with us.” Slate slid his forearms beneath my armpits, dragging my limp body to my feet. I couldn’t breathe. My chest seized up, my lungs begging to collapse.
I stood, paused in a moment of time. Each second that passed meant that it was another second that Chrome Freyr was not in this world. The ability to reconcile that thought simply didn’t exist.
A crowd began to form around us, both familiar and new faces. The warriors in white joined the Elementals as a somber silence swept over us.
Beside me, Slate slowly lowered himself to one knee, bowing his head. He rested his palm on his cousin’s shoulder. “Be at peace, brother. Raise hell with Peri.”
Others began to follow suit, dropping to a knee. Onyx placed his hand on Chrome’s other shoulder as he paid his silent respect. Cotton was next, resting his hand on his chest.
Void, Aella, and River followed, but instead of touching him, they placed their fists over their hearts and bowed their heads.
“You saved our kind. Saved us. Your sacrifices weren’t in vain,” Void said.
His deep timbre rumbled through the silence, but it felt rich and reverent, trapping more emotion in my heart.
I hiccupped for a breath, my body forcing air into my lungs. The world began to spin, and my limbs grew weak, but a pair of arms encircled my waist, holding me steady. “You’re not alone,” Slate’s voice murmured in my ear.
“I can’t believe I just killed him,” I whimpered, unable to stop staring at Chrome’s lifeless body. It shattered my heart to know this was the most serenity he’d ever felt in his life.
“You gave him a peace he’s never had,” Slate said into my hair, his words unsteady from his own emotion. But then he stilled. He pulled away from me, holding me by my shoulders. His eyebrows bent, creating creases in the skin between them, while his eyes swept over me.
“What?” I asked, confused by his sudden mood change.
Slate’s brow furrowed. “If he’s dead…” he muttered, “then why aren’t you?”
“What do you mean?” My voice shook, and for a second, I dared to hope that maybe I could join Chrome.
Void and Onyx drew up on either side of Slate and me. Onyx pulled me into his chest, resting his cheek on the crown of my head, but I didn’t break my attention from Slate’s growing panic.
“Tell me, Slate.”
“When I took the oath to be your Guardian, I learned that because you and Chrome are two halves of the same soul, if one of you dies, then so should the other; therefore, it was my duty to protect you both. He’s…
gone, but that means you should be, too.
” Slate glanced back at Chrome’s corpse, cupping his hands over his mouth in anxiety.
He snapped his attention to Onyx. “You said Valik was on the way. When?”
“I don’t know exactly. I was told to be ready for when he does.”
An unfamiliar woman’s voice cut through my haze. “Any second now.”
I jerked my head in the direction of the voice as a woman with chestnut hair streaming down her long torso appeared in our huddle.
She turned her astute gaze on me. “The fact that you aren’t gone tells me something isn’t right. We need to get Chrome and all of us back. Leave it to Valik to take his sweet fucking time, the idiot.”
I looked over at Chrome once again, pulling away from the others as if being summoned in his direction. My feet moved on their own, one foot staggering before the other, until I crumbled to my knees at his side.
Too many emotions. They were like a tidal wave battering me into submission.
I couldn’t do this without him. The restored memories kept replaying in my mind, each one slicing me open more than the last. He’d always been there in the shadows.
Not just that day on the playground, but for years following it.
And I never knew. No one told me. I never would’ve had Slate if it weren’t for him.
He gave me a chance. It occurred to me that the only war he’d been truly invested in fighting his entire life was the war for my freedom and safety.
I trailed my quivering fingers along his stubbled jaw. When I closed his eyelids, the dam choking me erupted, and my decimated heart flowed through my tears. Words wouldn’t suffice. There were no words for what I felt or for what I wanted to say. It wouldn’t have mattered, anyway. He was gone.
Slate squatted beside me, pulling me into his chest as I mourned my other half. He didn’t say anything, just held me as I soaked his shirt with my grief. At last, I gasped, “I know…I know he’s always been there. He always loved me.”
Slate swallowed, although it seemed to take him some effort. “He has. Everything he’s ever done was for you. You’re all he saw.”