Chapter 55: King Augustus Malik Last Part
Nearly six weeks have passed since the King forced me into the castle, cutting me off from Lont and any remnant of my old life. True to the king's word, he has not permitted me to leave. Cain, Cecilia, and even Howard are gone, unreachable, their voices replaced by the constant hum of intrusive thoughts and the half-remembered pressure of the King's hand on my shoulder. That touch has become a ghost, lingering even as the days freeze around me. No visits to Lont. No letters, no messages. Nothing, and the ache of that absence gnaws at me more than I'd ever admit.
I sit now in the outside training yard, cross-legged on the stone. The cold bites into me, the wind cutting across the stone courtyard. Snow clings to the edges of the yard, piled up against the walls and gathering in dirty drifts. A week. Only a week now until the Academy. I sit cross-legged in the frozen yard, breathing slowly and deliberately, trying and failing to lose myself in meditation. My hands rest on my knees, fingers numb from the cold. The voices in my head whisper and hiss, impatient, but I ignore them. Mostly.
The morning after, he sent them. My trainers.
Amos was the first, an older man, mid-forties maybe, with sharp yellow eyes that miss nothing and a wiry frame built more for speed than strength. His face is rough, marked by old scars, but he carries himself like a coiled spring, always ready to strike. Amos treats me with a measured respect, never mocking or threatening, but makes it clear that failure is not an option. His mark, the power of electricity, dances across his knuckles as he corrects my stance or shocks a lesson into raw nerves. Every instruction is delivered with flat, clinical calculation, each session leaving me a little meaner, a little more precise.
Jasper is younger and stylish; everything about him screams bad boy: raven-black hair slicked back, skin clean and pale, and mouth always set in a smirk that doesn't reach his blood-red eyes. Where Amos is steady and detached, Jasper is predatory, treating me like both student and rival. His Mark lets him manipulate blood itself, and he uses it with a surgeon's precision and a monster's ruthlessness. He smiles often, but it never reaches his eyes. He never holds back, and his drills leave me breathless. Tests are focused always, relentlessly, on how to kill and how to kill quickly.
And then there's Edith. Mid-thirties, with hair like spun silver and skin so pale she almost looks carved from ice. Her eyes are pure white, pupil-less, and somehow even more piercing because of it. Edith is the quietest but the hardest to impress. Her mark lets her turn intangible, immune to blades, bullets, or the cold itself. She flows through walls and my defenses with equal ease, and her lessons are maddeningly subtle, focused on anticipation, adapting split-second, and learning how and where to strike when an opponent is nearly untouchable.
She's never unkind, but there's a ruthlessness in her approval, as if weakness is a stain to be burned away rather than pitied.
All three treat me with a kind of distant, soldierly respect—no cruelty, no warmth. I'm worth something to them only in how quickly I master control, how effectively I learn to become a living weapon. Their praise is rare but genuine when it comes. Their expectations are plain. Each day, I grow less sure of what lines are left between who I am and what they are forging me to be. With the Academy just ahead, the only certainty I have is that whatever waits there will be colder still.
I stand, brushing snow and grit from my clothes, exhaling a misty breath as I glance back at the desolate training yard. My boots crunch across the thin layer of snow that's settled on the ground, and I head towards the castle, shoulders hunched against the wind. The cold isn't what's making me irritable; it's how I haven't seen the King or Queen even once since that day in the throne room. Weeks have passed, but their absence still grates at me, prickling up my spine. To be used and then discarded, like a blade set aside until needed again, leaves a sour taste I can't shake.
And Prince Adrian, apparently, returned to the academy early. At least that's what Princess Julia told me. That had been a surprise. A week after my "performance," I found her waiting for me outside my chambers, her green eyes wide and unsure. She apologized—actually apologized—for the little insults she'd thrown at me during my first arrival. I almost laughed in her face; I was so shocked. A royal child of those two monsters having the humility to know what apologizing even meant.
Stranger still, we've become friends. Not the kind that trusts easily, but real enough: sharing spare, stolen hours; slipping away from watchful eyes to talk in the library; or sneaking food from the kitchens late at night. The more I learned, the more the differences between the siblings became obvious deep, ugly chasms beneath their polished facades. Julia hated admitting it at first, as if even voicing the truth was dangerous, but it soon became clear: she despises her parents. Especially her mother, whose disappointment is a constant shadow. Julia isn't an Elite, doesn't possess a single mark, and her parents make sure she feels the lack every day. Adrian, on the other hand, has two marks but refuses to use them to the standards their parents demand, earning only contempt in return. No wonder there's so much bitterness behind Julia's laugh, so much distance in Adrian's eyes.