Royal Reboot: Level up, Your Majesty!-Chapter 136: Painted Night

Eydis’s breath clouded in the winter air while she pulled her forest green velvet blazer tighter. Her heels sank into the soft, frost-dusted earth along the lakeshore, not ideal footwear for this midnight trek, but then again, her charming kidnapper hadn’t exactly shared the itinerary.

Two hours on slippery roads from Queenstown, with Astra’s combat boot either romancing—or brutally battering—the accelerator, had brought them here. Lake Wānaka. The lone tree standing in the shallow waters looked like it had better balance than Eydis did.

“Another lake? Haven’t we had our fill of them?” she complained.

“You’ll see,” her kidnapper replied cryptically, probably with a smile as lethally charming as the rest of her. Eydis could tell while staring at Astra’s back.

The night stretching above was dark velvet. Ever since Astra turned off the headlights, it had been rather difficult to see anything, but… her.

The alpine wind softly caressed the silky silver strands. Even in the lightless sky, they looked luminous, and Eydis silently begged that they were.

Because if not, she was in trouble. Big trouble.

That was exactly how those poor lovesick saps described their lov-e-r in the tales she had always ridiculed.

Her heart raced at the thought, and her head was starting to pound, too. To distract herself, she flicked a quick glance around.

This place was in the middle of nowhere, ideal for planning a murder or disposing of a body. Eydis was halfway to asking whether this was Huka’s dumping ground when squeaky giggles, stifled moans and throaty “oh baby yes” rising from the reeds.

The lake was crawling with couples. Lustful, hand-holding (she hoped) couples.

Oh.

Guess body disposal is off the table for now. But what kind of smooth-brained troglodyte shows up here just to—don’t even think about it—at this witching hour?

“I hear your disapproval, Eydis,” Astra said without glancing back, her voice sounding amused.

“I’m starting to think empathy’s one of those powers you haven’t revealed yet,” Eydis said.

Astra halted abruptly, and Eydis bridged the distance in a single stride. Circling her arms around Astra’s waist from behind, she breathed in, taking in the resinous warmth of dark oak in Astra’s hair, braided with the earthy scent of wintry moss.

“Am I wrong?” she purred and smiled when goosebumps crawled along Astra’s elegant neck. “How did you know Natalia would forgive Lionel?” she asked, before punishing that neck with a quick peck.

Astra’s body went rigid. She glanced around before placing her hand over Eydis’s. With a brisk pivot, Astra scooped her up with one arm around her shoulders and the other beneath her knees.

They leaped into the shadows at blinding speed.

“What are you—?” In a blink of surprise, Eydis’s heels had already touched a rugged ledge jutting over the lake’s surface as Astra gently set her down.

The place was quieter now, with no one around, clearly inaccessible on foot. So there were just the two of them.

She scowled playfully, tipping Astra’s chin upward, then leaned in for a kiss, nipping at her lower lip with teasing teeth. “You know I can fly just fine on my own.”

Astra’s mouth quirked. “That’s not untrue.”

“Or… it’s an excuse to princess-carry me around.”

“That might not be untrue either.” Astra licked her lip, crimson eyes sparkling with mischief.

“And I’m starting to think…” Eydis feigned a frown, gliding her thumb lightly across Astra’s mouth, following its tempting curve. “That I’m walking stepping into your cunning traps.”

“Your Majesty,” Astra said, arching her brow, “is empathy part of your power set? Because you might be onto something.”

She stole the kiss back to get childishly even and slipped her tongue inside Eydis’s mouth.

Eydis tried in vain to hold back a groan as Astra deepened the kiss. When they broke away, her arms still wrapped around Astra’s neck, she muttered, “Are you deflecting my question with a question?”

“More like an excuse to kiss you.”

Eydis melted, quite visibly.

But then Astra’s expression turned enigmatic, her fingers threading through Eydis’s hair. “Not every question is a deflection."

Eydis’s eyes snapped back up to Astra’s eyes, who seemed surprised at her reaction.

“What’s wrong?” Astra asked.

“Ah,” Eydis pursed her lips. Then, unable to hide the softness in her voice, she said, “I suddenly recall a conversation I had from a distant past.”

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“With your tutor?”

“My tutor, my mentor, my… friend, or so I once presumed. But now, coming here and reclaiming my powers one by one, I’m finally beginning to remember.”

“So I’m not the only one missing pieces of my past,” Astra’s voice turned reflective.

“It seems not. I still couldn’t figure out how I forgot about him in the first place; it felt like there is something important I’m missing.” Eydis sighed; for reasons she dreaded to know.

Did that mean Damien was right, that she had a hand in Astra’s disappearance? If Astra had been to Mythshollow… then something had happened there and pulled her into this world—most likely another portal.

Eydis had lost her power and had to borrow a body, yet Astra appeared to have retained everything except her memories. Did it have anything to do with the alien glyphs that had trapped her in the portal?

Why couldn’t she remember the shape of them?

As if sensing the sudden tension, Astra spoke up.

“Ever since Lust forced its way into my mind, fragments of my memories have begun resurfacing along with some of my dormant powers. Though, the powers might have reawakened when my healing ability returned.”

Eydis, relieved by the change, asked, “Is that why you can sense emotion now?”

The ancient texts of Mythshollow revealed little about the Celestial Empire. The scholars wrote down what they could see and little else. Something as nuanced as empathy was difficult to observe, and impossible when it came to the Saint or Saintess, who walked a distance from the world that even their humanity felt like speculation.

“Yes,” Astra confessed after a long silence.

“You mentioned I held the twin blades of Humility and Kindness.”

Eydis inclined her head.

“Then what I felt was a generous glow of kindness in Natalia’s heart,” Astra said with a smile. “I didn’t understand what it was at first. But it was warm and comforting. Like her fire.”

“Ah.” Eydis turned to Astra and mischievously traced her tongue at the seam of her lips. She wore a knowing smile as she pulled back and cupped Astra’s cheek. “Perhaps I hold those blades as well, for your aura is… scorching.”

Astra’s eyes widened, then she huffed a shy chuckle. “Now you’re just finding an excuse to kiss me.”

“Guilty.” Eydis eased herself down onto a large boulder.

Astra tried to sit down beside Eydis, only to be pulled to straddle her lap.

Arms encircling Astra’s waist, Eydis locked her in place and purred, “Come now, Your Holiness, you’ve been secretive, borderline shady today.”

“Tell me, are you hiding a tent in those leather pants of yours?” She slipped her hand under Astra’s black shirt and pressed flat against warm skin, savouring the tiny twitch of Astra’s toned abdomen before languidly gliding downward. “Or should we give the birds and the reeds a show they’ll never forget?”

“A… show?” Astra’s voice cracked, her ears and cheeks reddening endearingly. “Hey, I’m not—we are not, even if—”

Eydis cut her off with a playful nip at the shell of her ear. Astra didn’t even wear any earrings today, except for her onyx helixes.

“You are… distracting.” Astra’s breath hitched, catching Eydis’s wrist to stop her hand from going further. Then her voice turned playful. “You really haven’t noticed? Someone as perceptive as you?”

“Mm, what am I supposed to notice?”

“Look up, Eydis."

At that, Eydis stilled, and slowly raised her gaze.

Higher.

Breath deserted her.

The cloudless, obsidian sky had given way to a living canvas strewn with stars. They glittered in abundance, gathering in a diagonal river of light. It was breathtaking; it was astonishing.

“This is what they call the Milky Way,” Astra told her gently, then threaded her fingers over Eydis’s.

Eydis couldn’t say anything. Anything would give her away. So she rested her chin against Astra’s shoulder and watched the distant stars twinkling before her.

Even the moon had the grace to stay crescent tonight, just for this view.

“You did promise.”

“I did,” Astra said. “And it isn’t raining.”

“And it isn’t raining,” Eydis repeated absently.

They stayed quiet for an unknowable time.

Until the sky began, very quietly, to change.

At first it was so subtle Eydis might have blamed her own fatigue. But ever since Natalia and Melissa left with Lionel for Alchymia, she and Astra had been granted the remainder of their holiday here in unhurried rest.

It isn’t an illusion then, she concluded, just as the sky gradually blushed pink.

Colour rippled across in languorous, hypnotic waves, as if the light was listening to a secret hymn. Emerald green rose to meet and overtake the pink, igniting the horizon.

Something unfathomable.

Eydis’s heart began to race once more. Through all the years of her childhood she had pored over tales of such wonders, dreaming, doubting she would ever see them.

And now, cast into this alien realm, no amount of foresight could have prepared her for any of this.

For the sky that changes in season, the clouds that never stayed the same shape. The snowflakes that did not replicate. The sincerity of friendship displayed before her eyes, of Melissa risking her life saving Natalia. Of Natalia, whose heart had always been ridiculously honest, and…

The night sky gathered dew upon her lashes.

… And the woman who, time and again, managed to move her deeply.

When a pair of slender fingers glided across her shoulders and the rich, intoxicating scent of dark oaks enveloped her, Eydis’s pulse flared for an entirely different reason.

Astra had abandoned the Southern Lights and now faced her fully.

“You’re moved.” She tentatively brushed away a tiny droplet that trembled on Eydis’s lash.

Eydis found her ear hot, yet just like that, the faint melancholy evaporated.

“You… are growing devious, Your Holiness. For blindsiding me like this.”

“Aurora is fickle,” Astra explained with a tender smile, “and we’re not exactly in the southernmost part of the world. I wasn’t certain it would appear despite the forecast. I didn’t want to promise it and then let you down.” She chuckled. “But you were oblivious.”

“I was preoccupied.”

“With? Your lost past?”

“No.” A real smile curved on Eydis’s lips. “With you, and had been for quite some time.”

Astra’s answering smile was brighter than the aurora itself, then she buried her face in the crook of Eydis’s neck. It was burning hot.

“It’s unfair when you say this and fully mean it."

“I can’t argue with Your Holiness’s superior empathy,” Eydis teased, then began to massage Astra’s shoulders with her palm as she kept her gaze on the ever-shifting sky.

After a long stretch, she finally found the courage to voice her mind.

“Astra.”

“Hmm?”

Taking a deep breath, she asked, “Can we… leave the Eye as is for now?”

Astra pulled back and gazed into her eyes. “For now?”

With her power largely restored and with Astra’s help, it would not be difficult to bind Pride, Sloth, and Wrath altogether. Especially when these Sins had yet to feed on this world’s shadows. After closely monitoring the news and the Council’s data, they concluded that it was unlikely that any of the Sins had broken free from the Eye.

But there were matters unresolved here, connections that Eydis unknowingly might have disturbed in their once-peaceful life. And…

Above all else, she could not bear for this fragile, precious thing between her and Astra to slip away so readily.

Eydis tightened her hold on Astra’s waist.

“Can we stay here,” she whispered, “just a little longer?”

Can I be selfish, just for a little while more?

Perhaps long enough to watch this aurora once more.

When the aurora had already been erased from Astra’s world.