Royal Reboot: Level up, Your Majesty!

Chapter 59: The Eye of the Storm

The Eye of the Storm

Red and blue lights cut across the rain-slick street, painting the storm. Lights flashed. Cameras clicked. Reporters shouted. Their voices blurred together, hammering the same question over and over:

“Sir, can you tell us your side of the story?”

Polite, on the surface. Demanding underneath. But Astra knew what they really meant. The real question was louder than the voices, louder than the rain.

Why did you do it?

She doubted Theo even heard it.

Standing just outside the crowd, she watched silently as he was led into the car. He was a head taller than the officers escorting him, his face blank, carved from ice. But that didn’t mean he felt nothing. Maybe it meant he felt everything. 

Astra had learned to read more than faces; she’d learned how emotion leaks when it’s not allowed to speak. It was in the slump of his shoulders, in the way his cuffed hands trembled. The look of someone who had taken a life, and felt every ounce of it.

She knew that look. 

She knew that cost.  

But over time, it got lighter.

With repetition.

Athena was gone, probably whisked away by her “plus one” the moment things turned. A necessary retreat to avoid the prying eyes of cameras and microphones.

They had lost.

Why? 

Astra wanted to ask the same question, but not the one everyone else was asking. Not why Theo killed Thomas; she already knew that. But why would the smoke monster discard its pawn?

Unless… 

Unless it didn’t need Thomas anymore. 

Unless there was a more valuable piece to manipulate. A pawn who had stayed out of the spotlight. 

It had all been too easy, the monster revealing itself around Thomas like bait, almost as if it wanted them to come closer, as if it needed them to strike.

It had been a trap. And they hadn’t just walked into it. They helped set it. Clever. And perverse.

Pride. The name filled her lungs, her veins, her thoughts.

They’d been outplayed. The deception had started the moment they stepped into City Hall, where every move and every step was preordained.

For Theo. 

For Athena.

Had Thomas Blackwood been marked for death from the start? Was that why he exposed his link to the smoke monster after the fight with Noah? Had it been staged?

For her?

Had she just happened to see Noah and Thomas’s fight by chance? Because if her being there was planned… then the fight was too.

Raindrops caught on Astra lashes as the storm momentarily retreated, and she knew this wasn’t the end. Something didn’t sit right. It was like they were being drawn straight into the eye of the storm.

The police sedan’s door slammed shut. Theo disappeared behind the tinted glass as the vehicle pulled away. Flashing lights slowed, then turned. She didn’t flinch, though the shifting crowd reminded her she wasn’t alone.

Some stares bore into her now, followed by murmurs.

Her time was up.

Slowly, Astra uncurled her fingers, one by one. She slipped away from the gathering, her heels skimming the cobblestones in near silence. Past the wrought-iron gates of City Hall, the city pulled her in, until she was just another forgettable presence walking through the tide of moving lives.

Astra headed for the underground parking garage where her motorbike waited, exactly as she’d left it that morning. A precautionary measure. For once, something had gone according to plan.

Tapping her earpiece, she made the call. After three rings, a familiar voice answered.

“Can you track a car?” she asked.

“Of course!” There was a sigh, followed by rapid typing. “I assume the mission did not proceed as planned?”

Astra stopped beneath a surveillance camera, glancing up at the blinking red dot. “I know you’re watching. You’ve seen the news.”

A low chuckle came through the earpiece, followed by the clink of porcelain. “I have no idea what you’re referring to.”

Her eyebrow arched. Slowly, deliberately, Astra raised her middle finger to the camera.

Silent, then, a cough. “I beg your pardon!”

This time, her smirk broke free. “Don’t be so sensitive. Now, where’s Noah Blackwood’s car?”

Another pause, then the sound of a tea cup being set down. The keyboard clicked again, faster this time.

“It’s fairly easy to track a public figure’s license plate. Just give me a second…” His voice drifted off as he worked. “Huh. He’s got a thing for antique petrol cars. Odd choice, given his—”

“Fascinating,” Astra cut in dryly.

He coughed lightly. “Yes. In any case, he still needs to maintain a public image. An event like this? I imagine he took the only EV he has. Patching into the City Hall cameras…”

“Or you could brainstorm in silence,” she muttered, pulling her leather jacket from the Ducati’s boot and shrugging it on.

“I could…” he mumbled distractedly, still typing furiously. He rambled on, narrating every unnecessary detail of his process before his voice abruptly shifted. “Interesting…”

“I’m listening,” she sighed.

“Last camera ping puts him up north, just outside the M51 Northern Ring Road." His voice lowered, all business now. "Far from his residence. Sending coordinates.”

Astra sliced the helmet’s visor down, swinging a leg over her bike. “He should be home. Giving a heartbroken speech about his brother.”

“Ah, and yet he’s not,” came the pointed reply, “which m—” 

She ended the call before he could finish.

Astra twisted the throttle, the electric Ducati surging forward. She launched into the crowded streets, weaving through the traffic. Car horns screamed around her, but she paid them no mind. Red and blue lights streaked past her as she accelerated.

She felt as though she was running out of time. A hunch. And it was never wrong.

Her tires screeched against the wet pavement as she came to a sharp halt. Astra ripped off her helmet, shaking out her damp silver hair. With frustrated movements, she shoved the helmet into the bike’s boot.

Sighing, she fished out a cigarette, rolling it between her fingers. A bad habit. One she only indulged when the world seemed intent on opposing her.

And tonight, nothing was going her way.

Drip.

On cue, a raindrop struck her forehead. She glanced up, resisting the urge to curse. Again? It felt like she’d been circling this rough neighbourhood for hours, scanning every alley, every shadow. Still, no sign of Noah Blackwood’s car.

Her partner had said the electric car had left City Hall earlier, only to vanish into the night. So where the hell was it?

Exhaling a plume of smoke, Astra let her irritation simmering, the ember of her cigarette reflected in her crimson eyes. Then, out of the silence, a sound pierced the air, a distant scream.

Astra whipped her head around, senses on high alert. A heartbeat later, thunder rumbled across the sky. But it wasn’t the thunder that captured her attention.

It was the faint, flickering green light on the horizon.

The cigarette slipped from her fingers, forgotten, as she swung onto the Ducati. She thought the day couldn’t get any worse.

But it did. She had faced worse. Or so she thought. But she was wrong.

Again.

As she arrived at the source, her eyes immediately locked on the black car that matched Noah’s. She parked silently behind it, the rain now pouring in torrents, but Astra didn’t notice. Her focus was consumed by the scene ahead.

Violet light blazed like smoke, distorting the air. The faint scent of lavender was barely enough to mask the stench of charred flesh. And there, suspended in the sky, hung Noah Blackwood. His face was lifeless, ink-black fluid dripping from his eyes.

Below him… Eydis. Astra’s heart skipped a beat as her gaze darted to the large, dark blotch of blood on Eydis’s abdomen.

Noah’s anguished cries broke the trance. “What manner of torment is this? You vile, wretched creature!”

His voice sounded strangely like Thomas’s during his possession, but it carried two distinct tones.

“Don’t we all love winning?” Eydis replied smoothly, an edge of madness in her… golden eyes.

Astra blinked.

“You will win. And you will lose. Over and over. Forever. Isn’t it fitting?” her roommate continued.

Astra blinked again. And again. Each time, the familiar features of her roommate's face seemed to shift and slide. Where warm amber eyes should have glinted with mischief, molten gold now blazed with cruel amusement.

She knew that face. Eydis, yes, but not Eydis. The golden eyes? Those weren’t hers. They belonged to something that lived in the spaces between memory and nightmare.

And that wicked smile. That silken, tender voice that had whispered: remember.

“Remember me, for I am Pride.”

Astra had known fear before, but this—this feeling—was something different. Noah’s body hit the ground with a thud, but she barely heard it over the pounding of her own heartbeat.

Her eyes burnt as she stepped forward. Twin diamond blades flared to life in her hands, blazing with a searing white brilliance.

Drip.