Royal Reboot: Level up, Your Majesty!

Chapter 87: Root Cause (5)

Root Cause

5

“…Eydis.”

“Hmm? Yes, Astra?” she whispered innocently, her closeness almost criminal.

“Do you know where we are?” Astra grumbled like she was irritated, just barely covering the breath she lost when Eydis tugged her earring with her teeth again.

Eydis, of course, had noticed. And like any responsible monarch, she intended to exploit Astra’s weakness with imperial thoroughness.

Sensing Astra tense, she breathed in. “Let’s see… citrus notes, something acrid, definitely industrial.”

“Eydis.” Astra sounded ready to commit violence on principle alone.

“Bleach,” Eydis announced, as if she’d cracked a murder case. “We might be in an infirmary. Or someone’s scrubbing away evidence. If it’s the latter, I call the role of the glamorous but morally ambiguous suspect.”

“We could be standing in a murder scene,” Astra muttered. The corner of her mouth betrayed her with the beginnings of a smile. “If so, you’re motive.”

“Unfortunately, the space is cramped, dark, and lacking bandages.” Eydis sighed. “That leaves us… Ah! In a cleaner’s closet.”

“Brilliant deduction, detective. You could’ve led with that three lines ago.”

“Where’s the fun in that?” Eydis smiled. “I prefer undressing a mystery slowly. Skip to the end, and the thrill is gone.”

Even in the low light she saw it: a faint blush on Astra’s cheeks. Eydis’s grin slipped into something predatory. “What were you just thinking?”

Astra blinked, schooling her features into bland annoyance. “Eydis,” she said again, low and husky.

She knew what that tone did to Eydis.

Eydis’s pulse sped up. So Astra, too, had learned to target weak spots.

“Explain,” Astra said slowly, “why you dragged me into a closet and then chose not to explain. At all.”

“Because I needed privacy,” Eydis replied calmly. “And I happen to find the ambience… refreshingly unpretentious.”

Astra gave her a look. “This is a supply closet.”

“Unless…” Eydis shrugged, pleased with herself. “You’d prefer we came out of the closet together?”

Astra stared. Then, finally, she smirked. “Did you just weaponise a metaphor? Or was it just one of your usual royal misfires?”

“My aim is quite refined, Astra,” Eydis countered, leaning in to brush a feather-light kiss across her cheek. “And I did warn you I’m a fast learner.”

At first Astra didn’t move. Her expression remained unreadable. Then she seized Eydis by the collar and kissed her back.

Eydis gasped as Astra’s tongue pressed forward, possessive, claiming. She had meant to clarify a few things, important things, but with Astra’s mouth on hers, all that mattered was the way she tasted.

Her hands slipped to Astra’s waist, tugging her closer, seeking heat, and it was a mistake, she knew it the second Astra shifted.

Eydis belatedly realised exactly where her thigh had ended up.

Between Astra’s.

The movement hitched it higher, the bare skin of Astra’s thighs brushing hers, hot and impossibly soft, and because they were both wearing short skirts, there was no barrier, just Astra’s heat pulsing against her, not just warmth, not just metaphor either.

She tried not to think about what else she felt. She really tried. But she wasn’t naïve enough not to notice.

Fuck. 

She noticed. 

And so did Astra.

Astra’s thighs clenched instinctively around her, and a soft, low sound escaped her lips, wrecking Eydis’s already tenuous control.

Abruptly, Astra pulled back, as if terrified of what might happen if she didn’t. Her breathing was uneven, her eyes impossibly dark, as if they were on the verge of devouring her, devouring them, whole.

“I… this…” she rasped, shifting a little further back, just enough to let air between them. “This isn’t the place for this.”

And Eydis’s unhelpful brain followed with, “So there is a place?”

Astra’s glare might have been threatening if it hadn’t been accompanied by a sharp, shaky breath.

“Eydis.”

“You say my name like you’re fighting to stay detached.” No teasing now. “Say it again.”

It sounded like a command.

“You’re not helping,” Astra muttered, though her lips twitched, torn between laughter and another kiss. “Eydis.”

Her name, spoken like that, settled low in her stomach. It trembled through her.

Astra noticed, and then she pressed a kiss to Eydis’s collarbone.

Eydis bit her lip and tilted her head, wincing when it bumped the shelf behind her. Rough surface, sharp scent of disinfectant.

“You’re right. Cramped spaces aren’t ideal for strategising,” Eydis conceded.

Astra laughed against her skin, more vibration than sound. “I thought you’d deflect.”

“I tried to be direct,” Eydis replied, fingers threading through silver hair to rest at the nape of Astra’s neck. “At least with you.”

Astra’s face gave away little, but her frantic pulse against Eydis’s fingertips betrayed everything.

“Are you going to stop giving me half-truths?” Astra asked quietly.

“That depends. Do you trust me?” Eydis hadn’t meant to ask and held her breath once it was out.

She caught the flicker of conflict in Astra’s eyes, and though she disliked to admit it, the reaction disappointed her. Trust was never easily earned, least of all when so much of her remained deliberately concealed.

And when the truth still held the power to tear everything apart.

Then Astra sighed quietly. “Logically, you’re suspicious as hell.”

Touché.

But Eydis listened for the silence beneath the words, places where truth often hides.

“Logically? And what does your heart tell you?”

Astra smiled, devastatingly gentle. “My heart refuses to cooperate.” She pressed her forehead to Eydis’s cheekbone. “And I don’t want to stop it.”

“Nor do I,” Eydis replied softly, sincerely.

“But you’re afraid.”

“Afraid?”

“That this is your Sin’s doing,” Astra said. “Because we both accessed that site…”

Only then did Eydis remember why she had brought Astra to this place. “We were wrong.”

“We were?”

“It wasn’t that website,” Eydis sighed.

Astra leaned back slightly, her eyes scanning Eydis’s face. “But the pattern… are we sure we’re wrong?”

“We still have no clear way to compel the Obsidian Legion to act without a grand cause. And no way to prevent Lust from jumping between domains. And now, even the main assumption proves false.”

“Natalia told you this?” Astra asked.

Eydis absently played with the edge of Astra’s sleeve. “She returned two days ago. Avoided me at first. I wanted to respect her space but…”

“But Lust’s hold wasn’t broken. Only muted.”

“Precisely,” Eydis admitted.

Astra’s gaze softened. “You care about her.”

“Do I?”

“Queen of Shadows, trying so hard to maintain an image,” Astra teased.

“…an image you seem to take great pleasure in unravelling.” Eydis nearly huffed but managed to maintain her image. “So you weren’t…? You left without saying anything.”

Astra hesitated. “Maybe for a second. But Natalia tightens up when I’m around, so I thought it was better to leave.”

Eydis lowered her gaze, smiling. “Now who’s keeping up appearances? Your Highness the Ice Princess?”

Astra started to reply, thought better of it, and said nothing.

Eydis circled back to the thought that had been bothering her. “The adult site was actually blocked on campus.”

Astra frowned. “I didn’t consider that. My laptop bypasses those restrictions.”

“Does it?”

“The school’s magical barrier kills all regular signals,” Astra said, “but the Council gave me a workaround. Satellite relay. Encrypted, off-grid.”

“Makes sense. Now that I think about it, I only visited the site back when we were still in the city. Not since we returned here.”

Astra’s voice turned serious. “Which means we’re back at the beginning.”

“No traceable origin. No way to contain it,” Eydis murmured. She sounded tired, even to herself.

Astra looked her over, then allowed a reluctant smile. “You realise this closet is a spectacularly awful place for strategy.”

Eydis’s sigh almost became a pout. “We’ve established that.”

She tried not to sulk. But apparently failed.

Astra’s gaze gentled, though a shadow of thought passed behind it. “What if we went somewhere less… uninspired, as you once said?”

“Such as?”

“My place,” Astra whispered. “Important revelations like to appear there.”

“Now?” Eydis blinked, thrown off.

Amusement glinted in Astra’s eyes; she looked like someone who had advanced three squares without announcing the move. “It’s Thursday.”

“I’m aware of the calendar.”

Astra leaned close, her breath grazing Eydis’s ear. “Then figure out what that means. I’ll come get you… two days from now.”

Eydis arched a brow. “What am I supposed to figure out? Our plan to capture Lust, or your plan to ambush me?”

“You handle ambiguity so well when it isn’t pointed at you, Your Majesty.”

Eydis narrowed her eyes even as the fondness sneaked past her walls. “Why two days?”

Astra took a step back. “Because this closet isn’t ideal for doing anything.”

She even had the audacity to smirk.

“I meant planning.” Astra paused, then added, “Or rewarding good behaviour.”

Eydis’s heart pounded, entirely uncalled for. Whatever reply she might have given vanished as Astra stepped out, closing the door.

Eydis remained still, lips lightly pressed together.

Of course Astra took the last word.

Tactically, it had been a timely retreat. 

Personally, it felt like an ambush disguised as a reward.

Damien was no fool. 

Not anymore.

What he loathed most was not betrayal itself but the assumption that his faith in human goodness signified weakness. Faith, however, was not naïveté. He never believed blindly; he simply offered people the chance to be worthy, to honour their words.

Once again, they had failed him.

The last time he gave mercy, he didn’t finish her. And now he was trapped in this hollow, almost artificial world where nothing seemed real anymore.

He looked down.

Cold steel and concrete laid beneath his boots. In the Celestial Empire, his people had lived alongside nature, not above it. Sunlight was revered, not harnessed. Nothing pierced the canopy. No towers scraped the sky. Glass mirrored only what the stars permitted.

He lifted his eyes. 

There it was. 

The Eye.

A vast, sickly pink iris spread across the night like an open scar in the heavens. It pulsed with a power he had yet to understand. The phone in his pocket had revealed more than the Council wished: the Eye arrived the day he did.

The pilot he had taken refused to fly within two hundred meters of it. The last attempt ended in a fatal crash, after which the Council Chief banned further attempts. So Damien had come alone, rooted to this rooftop ever since, stalled not by fear but by indecision.

It could be a portal home. But judging by the dark magic seeping from it and the whispers about smoke monsters he heard from a local Banh Mi vendor, it might well be one of Eydis’s cursed creations.

Should he strike the Eye now and escape? 

Or hunt down Eydis first and end the threat at its root?

He sank down onto the ledge, bit into his Banh Mi, and watched red and blue lights paint the dark streets below. When he first arrived, the city had been relatively peaceful. Now sirens chased sirens.

Chaos. 

Chaos was Eydis’s herald.

Then, he decided: Eydis first. This time, mercy stayed dead.

The internet had gotten him this far, but he knew only one organisation could give him the answers he needed.

Silver eyes caught movement overhead. A bee, half an inch long, golden-brown with soft black stripes…

A honeybee. Yet there were no flowers here. No hives. The rooftop was bare, save for a helicopter and some scattered machinery.

Bees did not fly in winter. 

Not this high. 

Not without purpose.

Not a bee.

Damien masked a smile with another bite of bread.

Come then. Let us see whose will breaks first.

Indigo.