Chapter 32 #2
Blood stained Golden’s hair, his eyes fluttering shut as he fell limp in her arms. She didn’t relent until several seconds later, ensuring he was unconscious before she let go.
The silence enveloping the training room shifted the hostile energy that previously followed the princess. The people may not like her yet, but at least now they respected her. They knew to think twice before challenging her for a laugh.
Gray stood up, face bloody and swollen. Her magic would soon heal the wounds. She scanned the crowd with her lip raised and chin tilted upward. “Now, bow before your princess.”
It wasn’t a unanimous bow as if it were the king, but one by one, Kinetics reluctantly dropped to a knee.
My heart soared for her. Gray had just made her bold statement to the Royal Domain that she was no longer one to be easily targeted or bullied.
She wasn’t the weak girl her father made her out to be.
She wouldn’t roll over and just take anyone’s abuse—aside from the king, unfortunately.
The princess claimed her respect, and whether the people accepted her or not, she was the king’s heir, and she belonged.
Naturally, there would be others who would challenge her, desperate to knock her down.
“You may rise,” Gray announced, dismissing the onlookers but refusing to relax her shoulders after the fight.
Finally, I allowed my feet to carry me toward her, a smile beaming across my face. “You fucking did it! I’m so godsdamn proud of you!” I declared, lifting Gray off her feet and spinning around with her wrapped in my arms.
Golden still lay unconscious on the floor, and a few Kinetics squatted beside him to try and bring him back to the present. I couldn’t help the smirk at his demise.
After placing a chaste kiss on her bloody forehead, I set her back on her feet. “You kicked his ass, baby.”
Gray shrugged, trying to hide her smile. “Should’ve done worse to him.”
“If you’d done any worse, then you would’ve killed him,” I said, chuckling.
“Exactly.” Gray held my gaze, fierce determination settling in there.
Fucking hell, she was going to be so deadly.
A simmering black flame flickered within the depths of her stare. No fear. In its place resided vengeance and anger. I only hoped she could keep it on a tight leash so it didn’t corrupt her.
“Ah, there’s my nephew.” Amethyst’s swift yet biting voice cut into the bubble surrounding Gray and me.
The two of us pushed away from each other like opposing magnets. My heart lurched into my throat at my aunt’s sudden appearance, catching the princess and me in such an intimate position.
Fuck.
Amethyst stood at the edge of the sparring mat with a smug grin on her perfectly contoured face. “I thought I’d find you here. Didn’t expect to find you in such a position with the princess, though,” she added with a raised brow, an all-knowing glint in her cunning glacial eyes.
“She just won her first challenge against Golden,” I explained, gesturing with the tilt of my head behind me toward Golden, rousing in a dazed state on the floor.
My aunt leaned just enough to peer around Gray and me. Shocked, she puckered her lips. “So many surprises.”
Gray stood rigid. The fierce, cold expression she had before the match with Golden had returned. This time, directed at Amethyst, probably envisioning every way she wished to kill her.
Amethyst studied the princess from head to toe before challenging her glare. Silence stretched between them, thickening the oxygen in the training room. At last, my aunt broke it with, “There’s something different about you. What’s changed?”
Gray shrugged. “I guess we all have a little bit of ruthlessness in us. Just gotta know the right buttons to push.”
“Interesting,” Amethyst hummed. “I’ll talk to your father about when to start your magic training.”
Gray didn’t respond; she simply maintained her icy stare on her father’s second-in-command.
“Well, I hate to break up our little chat, but I’m going to need you to come with me, Slate. Important matters call.”
Chilling pinpricks inched up my neck, and my heart sank. Shit. This was it. Off to the Inquisitor, and then to be thrown into the prisons for treason.
I swallowed, forcing my face to remain neutral. Nodding to my aunt before turning back to the princess, I said, “I’m so proud of you. See you tomorrow.”
Gray’s suspicion razed through me, her eyes narrowing and her head tilting. She knew something was wrong, but she kept her mouth shut.
“Make ‘em bow, beautiful,” I whispered, soft enough for only her ears, before leaving her side and joining Aunt Amethyst’s instead to walk me to my doomed fate.
The walk to the elevator was brief, and the ride to a floor below us to the prisons was even briefer. Amethyst’s expression gave nothing away.
The prisons were ice-cold and reeked of death and decay.
I tried to ignore the prisoners in the cells on either side of us as we strode down the long concrete hallway toward the interrogation room at the end, but their pleas for innocence and freedom overwhelmed me.
In light of our new information about Forest, I wouldn’t be surprised if most of them had been framed to cover up some form of corruption exercised by the king.
Keeping my spine straight, my pulse pounded in my head as Amethyst reached the interrogation room door, typed in the electronic code, and led me inside the dark space.
Her red currents snaked up her arms in languid waves, indicating her relaxed nature. Mine were covered by the training uniform’s long black sleeves. At least my currents wouldn’t give away my nervousness.
“Have a seat, Nephew.” Amethyst gestured to the metal table bolted to the floor. Upon sitting down, I noted the cuffs attached to the arms and legs of the chair.
Fuck, I hoped they didn’t use those on me.
“After recent developments, I have some follow-up questions,” she explained as her heels clicked across the floor to face me from the opposite side of the table.
She didn’t sit. Rather, she remained standing, resting her palms on the tabletop, disappointed.
“And if I feel that you’re lying to me, I will have no choice but to call in the Inquisitor.
I’m offering you the opportunity to come clean on your own as a courtesy of being my sister’s son.
You’re the second-rated Warrior of your generation.
You’re just below my Chrome, so know I’m granting you some leniency with that in mind. ”
I inhaled, nodding. The worst thing that could happen to the insurgency was for me to be questioned by the Inquisitor.
Inquisitors were selected based on their energetic magic source—particularly one that could tell whether someone was lying.
There was no getting around the Inquisitor.
Being brought before him would put everything at risk.
“So, I’m going to ask you, Slate,” my aunt pushed. Something in her feline glare didn’t fit. A mixture of hope, desperation…no way. “Did my Chrome kill Kale Brighton?”
I knew the question before she asked it.
Based on her hints of “recent developments” and the disappearance of Chrome in the past month, I knew something was going on.
I could continue to lie, but if they already knew he’d committed the crime, then that meant this was a trap question that would lead me to the Inquisitor.
I made up my mind about which game to play that would best protect the insurgency.
With a sigh, I relaxed into my seat, spreading my legs wide and propping my arms on the rests. I maintained Amethyst’s stare as I responded, “Yes. He did.”