Supernova

Chapter Twenty Eight - I Want to Play a Game

We camped for a couple days. After that, we put out the fire, packed up, and stashed our stuff in a few hollow logs we found in the woods. The four of us made our way into the nearby city where we would eventually find a large mansion property that belonged to a well-known thief and housed our target retrieval item: a diamond covered necklace shaped like a snake with ruby eyes that when worn, wrapped itself around the wearer's neck.

The plan was simple enough. Demon's job was transporting us up to the house. Needles would take out the cameras. Elias would paralyze the security guards. After that, Demon and Needles would keep watch around the outside, and Elias and I would sneak inside and retrieve the necklace from what the clipboard outlined as a type of trophy room. My main job, as Demon was keen to remind me, something that had a completely different meaning now, was to keep everyone alive. As I always had, I took my job very seriously.

The inside of the house was quiet. Elias and I held gloved hands as we walked the corridors to the room. I was swimming in bold confidence, and Elias' calm demeanor was rubbing off on me. We were walking slowly, admiring paintings on the wall, as if simply on a date. There were guards to paralyze and more cameras to disarm, but they were more of a bother and annoyance than they were threats or worries. This continued as we entered the trophy room. We found the necklace quickly, and Elias placed it around my neck before he rested his hands on my cheeks and pulled my mouth into his. We stayed like that for a long while.

After we separated, I still failed to feel any urgency, so I took some time looking around at the other trophies. There was a shiny sword with a jade handle. There was an entire cabinet of glass bottles, some with labels, with varied degrees of wear, and some without, all of which seemed to boast about their emptiness. There were seashells that had been painted on the inside, a collection of vases, figurines of ladies dancing in ballgowns. I could have spent all night there. I looked over at Elias, to see if any of this impressed him at all, but as always, he was watching me with a calm, intelligent smile on his face.

I spent the longest time looking into a glass case that held a diamond and sapphire diadem. It sparkled even in the minimal light provided by the moon through the windows. I leaned down until I could see my reflection wearing it in the glass and stared until I realized it was not my reflection at all. On this side of the glass, I was Cassanova, the Invincible Hero. I was Cassie Stronghold, youngest yet only daughter of top hero and head councilman Heir Edric Stronghold. But the person looking back at me was Queen Cassiopeia Stronghold of Heir Elias Claeson and I fell in love with her a million different ways.

Elias watched me do this for a while before he came to my side, placed a hand on my back, and told me it was time to get going. I nodded and spent some time tucking the necklace into the collar of my shirt. Elias helped me get my mask back on before he took my hand and we left the way we came, using the same leisurely pace all the way back to Demon and Needles, who celebrated with us as I pulled the collar of my shirt down proudly.

We sent a signal, made our way back into the grass field, took the helicopter back to The Academy, handed in the necklace, chose another R labelled clipboard, got more equipment, took our sweet time completing the job, and continued that cycle until our month was over and it was time to return to our rooms and our training regimens and recalibration and Deathmatch. Even though I had been reluctant to leave, I now felt some type of mixed way about returning, consoled only by the fact that it was only one more month until we'd be able to do it all over again. I felt as if I was starting to fall in love, not with a person so much as with The Academy itself, everything that it was offering me, and the version of me that it was allowing me to become.

The first night back in our room, I took a bath by myself in the light of a single candle. When I was finished, I wrapped a thin robe around my wet body and was about to brush my hair out in the mirror when I saw Elias come in, his arms clasped behind his back. He was smiling, and in the mirror, I could see a smile come over my face as well.

"What are you up to?" I asked him. His bright blue eyes flared with something I didn't quite recognize in the mirror, but that is not to say I didn't enjoy it.

"I'd like to play a game, of sorts," he told me. "I think you'll find it fun."

"A game?" I asked, suddenly interested, placing my hairbrush on the counter. As I looked at him closer, I realized his arms were not clasped behind his back at all. He was holding something. "What do you have there, my angel?"

"A gift for you, my God," he said, his smile widening. He removed his bare hands from behind his back, and he was holding the diamond and sapphire diadem. "Or should I say, my Queen."

I gasped, whipping around to face him. My eyes were wide, and horror ripped through me so rapidly that I heard my back hit the counter. In my peripheral vision, I could see my hands clutching the edge of it so tightly, I was surprised I didn't crack the marble.

"Elias, what the fuck?" I hissed in a low whisper, my eyes darting around the room. "You stole that?"

"Technically speaking," he told me casually, as he continued to approach me. "It was already stolen."

His steps were slow and careful. The diadem's diamonds and sapphires sparkled even more vibrantly, the candle's flame dancing on each of them. It looked different now that it was here, out of the case, able to be touched. Now that it was suddenly in my reach, I was fearful to touch it. I thought it might burn me. I thought it might explode. He stopped just in front of me, holding it in both palms, the scarred and the unscarred, and lines were beginning to look extremely blurry. My heart was blaring like an alarm bell through my skull. I looked at it for a while, and when I looked up at him, his eyes looked just as blue as the sapphires.

This was a crossroads. I was standing at a fork in the road marked the point of no return. It didn't matter how much of a mirage he was dressing this up to be, no matter what I said, I was writing in concrete, and this was going to change everything.

"It's just a game?" I finally whispered, bowing to him, just like I always did. "We're just playing?"

"It's just a game," he assured me, his eyes flaring wild with victory as he placed the diadem on my head.

His hands found my cheeks and he kissed me for a long while until I started to feel how heavy the crown was as it rested on my head. It was not uncomfortable or unbearable, but I could feel the weight. His tingling hands then guided my hips and shoulders until I was facing myself, crowned in diamonds and sapphires, Queen Cassiopeia Stronghold of Heir Claeson standing on both sides of the glass. The image of the Queen I could become. The Queen I would become. The Queen I was destined to become. I watched his blue eyes continuing to watch me as he pulled my robe back just enough to lay a very soft, tingling kiss on my shoulder. It was tender and delicate, both visually and sensationally, but the moment was as tense as watching a shark in the water. This was monarchy, I reminded myself. It was intense. This was the time of courtships and allyships and I wanted Elias as my ally.

Right?

Right. Of course I did. I exiled every doubt I'd been carrying in my next inhale and the next thing I knew, I was watching tears stream down what seemed like a very unfamiliar version of my own face, losing myself entirely to the game. It frightened me how much I enjoyed it.

Once we had tucked into bed for the night, diadem left on the marble counter of the bathroom, his arms back around me, I reminded myself over and over again how much of a victory this was. I was doing right by my father, my duty as a Princess, the Stronghold name, America's legacy, but I couldn't shake the feeling that I was once again tiptoeing my way towards something very dangerous. I wanted this, didn't I? Of course I did. I wanted to be an impressive Queen to a prestigious King more than I'd ever wanted anything. Plus, every tingling brush of his skin against mine reminded me that Empresshood may very well be within the realm of possibility. I was being handed everything I'd ever desired, everything I'd ever been taught to desire, on a silver platter. So why did it also feel like I had just started digging my own grave?

"Is this really a game?" I asked him, my voice coming out sounding small. "We're just playing a game?"

He brought my head to his chest and held me there. "Are we?"