My Princess | Fem!readerxLloyd

40. Concerns

In the shadowed confines of Yukiteru's dungeon, the stone walls seemed to close in on Kai, Nya, Zane, Cole, Pixal, and Jay as they sat trapped in separate cells. The flickering torchlight was their only company, casting long shadows that stretched across the damp floor. Worry was etched into each of their faces, the weight of the unknown pressing down on them. Lloyd was somewhere else in this dungeon, alone and beyond their reach, his condition a mystery that haunted their thoughts.

Jay leaned his head back against the wall, letting out a slow, frustrated sigh. "I hate this. I hate not knowing what's happening to him. We should be there with him. Instead, we're stuck here, and Lloyd's facing... who knows what."

"I know, Jay," Nya replied quietly from her own cell, glancing across the narrow corridor toward her brother and the others. "This place is twisted, and Yukiteru knows exactly how to mess with us. The worst part is that I keep wondering if Lloyd's even... okay."

Pixal, who was standing close to the bars, her eyes unblinking as she processed, spoke up. "Lloyd is resilient, but there's no telling what Yukiteru has done. And if... if he's been hurt, or worse..." She let the sentence trail off, as though finishing it would make it real.

The group fell silent for a long moment, the implications settling into each of them like stones. Lloyd, their leader and their friend, was always the one they could count on to keep pushing forward, to stay calm under pressure. But here, cut off and alone, they could only imagine what he might be going through.

Kai clenched his fists, his jaw tightening. "This isn't right. We're a team-we're supposed to be there for each other, not locked away like this, separated. It's like they're trying to break us."

"Exactly," Cole agreed, nodding solemnly. "And then there's Princess Y/n. I keep wondering... Can we really trust her? I mean, she's powerful, she's got her loyalties to her people, and we all know she cares about Lloyd. But... can any of us really say she isn't hiding something?"

At the mention of Y/n, a strange silence fell over the group. Each of them thought back to their encounters with her. She was kind, yes, and capable. But she was also a princess-like Harumi. That name brought a bitter taste to their mouths, memories flooding back of deception, betrayal, and the pain she'd inflicted on Lloyd and all of them.

"Harumi," Jay murmured, as if the word alone carried all the weight of what he was feeling. "I keep telling myself Y/n isn't like her, but the more I think about it, the harder it gets. What if she's leading us into something we can't come back from?"

Kai's voice cut through, fierce but tinged with uncertainty. "We can't make that comparison, Jay. I know Harumi hurt Lloyd-and us-but that doesn't mean Y/n is anything like her. I spent some time with Y/n when we were looking for that sacred temple, and she's never given me a reason to doubt her. She's kind. She's... she's not hiding anything. I believe that."

"But Kai," Nya said, her voice softer but still laced with doubt, "we don't know everything about her. We don't know why she's risking everything to help us. What if... what if it's all just a setup? What if she's waiting for the right moment, like Harumi did?"

Pixal listened carefully, her eyes flickering as she calculated the odds and weighed everyone's words. "It's true that Harumi used deceit as her weapon. But Y/n has had so many chances to betray us already, and she hasn't. In fact, she's risked her own life to help us and to save Lloyd from Deimos. We cannot forget that."

Zane nodded, his tone as calm and logical as ever. "Pixal is right. We're letting the memory of Harumi cloud our judgment. Y/n's actions do not align with deception. She has been open in her motives and has shown time and again that she cares about Lloyd-and about all of us."