by Nina Walker
The lights dimmed.
And it’s my cue to leave.
I jumped up and muttered something about the bathroom as I hurried out of the back door. Two of our security guards peeled off the wall to follow me. Of course, I was expecting that. But I had years of experience dealing with these guys. All I needed was one moment of distraction and I could slip away.
As soon as I was out in the hallway, I realized my mistake. The whole area was completely empty.
I should have realized this during Richard’s outburst. Cursing myself, I had only seconds to try something else or I probably wouldn’t get another chance.
I decided to take a different tactic.
“Chill out,” I stopped and allowed the guards to catch up.
The men studied me for a minute, then relaxed. I was the prince, and we’d been through this many times before. Just let me use the bathroom in peace!
I walked away, rounding a sharp corner. I passed by the men’s bathroom and headed toward an unmarked door. I hoped this was the right one. I quietly slipped inside, locking myself in.
The woman waiting was younger than I expected, probably nineteen. She was also much prettier than I would have imagined. I guess I’d wrongly assumed spies weren’t beautiful.
The black dress she wore hugged her small, curvy body. Her smooth hair was long and blond. Her dark blue eyes sparked impatiently.
Wait, did she just say something? Well, I did always have a thing for blondes. No surprise here.
“Uh, what?” I stammered, bothered that the small janitorial closet was so brightly lit. I was probably blushing. Not a good look on me.
“Shhh! Seriously? Do you have it or not?”
She put her hands on her hips and raised an eyebrow. I noticed the way her red lipstick perfectly stained her full mouth and momentarily felt off balance. Was I too frightened to talk to a beautiful girl? I needed to get a grip.
I gave her my best grin and shrugged. “Maybe I do.”
She sighed and moved toward the door. “I don’t have time for your games.”
“Wait, I’m sorry. I was just kidding—I have it.”
She paused when I handed her the slatebook I had tucked in my suit jacket. I studied her carefully. Was she relieved or suspicious?
“You’re doing the right thing.” She smirked at the screen and swiped it with her index finger, turning it on.
“What do you want with it, anyway?” I asked, though I was pretty sure I could make an educated guess.
“To spy on him.” She peered at me like I was dense.
“Okay, yes, I get that. But what are you looking for?”
Her expression grew unreadable. “Why would New Colony’s only prince turn on his own father?”
All the times my father had nagged me to be a better prince flashed through my mind. The weeks my mother had locked herself in their dark bedroom with another headache. Or the way he always appeared kind and trustworthy to the public. The way he talked to his advisors about the country, as if the citizens weren’t real people with real feelings and real problems—just people to be manipulated and used as he saw fit.
Surprisingly, none of those things would’ve caused me to turn on him. I wasn’t just some child crying for attention, as this girl seemed to be suggesting.
There was something much bigger going on here. And my anger toward my father had gone beyond the merely personal. This wasn’t about me.
“I’ve seen some of the things he’s done. I know about the tests he runs.” Fleeting images of the shadow lands came to mind, even though I hated to think of it. The way he’d been using alchemy in the rural areas was devastating to the people there. Many were left with nothing, or worse, dead. And it was all kept hidden from the rest of the citizens, brushed under the rug. It’d made me sick when I found out. But honestly, I couldn’t say I was surprised. Richard was all about more power, more money, more control. If we were ahead of West America, keeping our borders secure from their democratic influence, then it was worth it.
“I want to change things, and your people can help me.”
Her guarded expression relaxed into one of pity.
Great, she’s sorry for me. Just what I need.
But I could understand the sympathy. My own father was a corrupt man. I was supposed to follow in his footsteps. It wasn’t an ideal situation.
Still, I didn’t want her pity.
I looked down at the slatebook in her hands. The device glowed as she maneuvered through the programs. She smiled knowingly. An icon appeared, indicating that a new program was downloading —although I couldn’t quite make out what it was. Within seconds, the download was complete and she passed the slatebook back to me.
“All done. Make sure he doesn’t figure out it was ever gone. Do you think you can handle that?”
I slipped it into my pocket. “Where’s your faith in me?”
“Right. You’d better get to it, then,” she said, the slightest crescent of a smile unmistakable as she moved for the door. I wasn’t ready to let her leave.
“What’s your name?” I slid in front of her and blocked the exit.
The heat between us was sudden and thick.
I expected her to do what other girls did. Right about now she’d either freeze up or lean into me. Instead, she held her ground. It was the kind of unexpected reaction I thoroughly enjoyed.
“How did you really get involved in all of this, Lucas?” she asked.
I considered how much to reveal. Ultimately, we were part of the same cause, right? Stopping the corruption that was happening within the Guardians of Color. The corruption of color alchemy that was slowly creeping across our country without the citizens being any the wiser.
“Your people approached me first. Turns out being a prince makes me someone of interest.”
I never expected to end up here, but maybe I never had a choice. The memory of my first contact with the Resistance flashed through my mind.
The woman had approached me while I was alone.
I was running along one of the paths, working out. I stopped to catch my breath when a middle-aged lady practically materialized from out of the shrubbery. She was dressed like any other palace gardener. I figured she was just doing her job. But then she walked over and asked if I had done any new traveling lately.
As the only child of two distant parents, I tended to make friends with people around the palace quite often. Our conversation was no different. Every day for some time, she stopped me on my run to talk. I didn’t mind it so much. It was always toward the end of the run, anyway. And she seemed kind, curious, essentially harmless.
But after a few weeks, she told me who she was.
She said she had been watching me for a reason. She’d studied my reactions to see where my loyalties lay and whether she could trust me. And after enough time, she felt comfortable asking me to join her cause.
Normally, I would have refused. Who was she kidding? This kind of thing wasn’t okay. I would have called for a palace guard under normal circumstances. But there was something different about her. Trustworthy. And I was still livid at the way Richard had destroyed whole communities. On a short trip weeks before, my father had brought me to the shadow lands. It was just a “little experiment.”
“You’ve seen things you wish you could forget, haven’t you?” she’d asked. And then she told me what she knew about my father. About what the alchemists were really doing. She knew what I knew.
And she wanted to help me.
I needed more proof than that. Could I really align myself with these people so easily? It wasn’t that simple.
The bodies. That’s what did it.
She sent me a file of classified information, straight from the email server of Royal Officer Faulk. Faulk was my father’s most trusted officer. How these people had an inside line into Faulk’s computer, I didn’t know. In the file were photos of the dead: adults and children. The color drained right out of many of them. Also attached were mem
os explaining what happened to these people. Essentially, they were murdered. They were test subjects. Failed experiments. The result of alchemy pushed to its brutal limits. And why? What was so important it mattered more than human lives?
My father, Faulk, they’d both ordered these tests. And then ordered more.
Before that experience, I didn’t even know that the Resistance existed, or that anyone cared what the GC did. Sure, my father had enemies—lots of them, in fact. And our country had enemies, too. We’d been on the brink of war with West America for decades. But this was different. This was about magic, about an evil that was consuming the palace from within. Not the other way around.
So when this woman told me that the Resistance was a nonviolent group, I wanted to believe her. If they were violent, wouldn’t I have heard of them before? She said they were people committed to making change happen quietly and without bloodshed. They wanted to do this the right way. For everyone involved.
Was that still the case?
Looking at this girl now, I couldn’t help but wonder. How had she became a part of all this? Had someone approached her, too? Did she know the woman who’d disguised herself as a gardener?
“But why would they trust you? You’re the last person I would trust. No offense.”
“I already told you. I know what’s going on. I know what my father is doing. It needs to be stopped civilly. I’ve been promised that assassination isn’t something your group supports. That better be the truth, or I’m dead, too.”
Yes, I was a traitor. I could admit that now. But it was for the right reasons. I wasn’t turning on the people. I was turning on my father. And it wasn’t like I wanted Richard dead. But there was murder on his hands. I hated that truth. And knowing that I likely had decades before Richard would step down, allowing me to rule, I needed to find another way to stop him.
The girl stared back at me. “I guess you have more on the line than me, after all.”
She ran her hand through her hair and brushed it away from her face. The motion sent a waft of sweet perfume into the air. Was that citrus or vanilla? “Anyway, thank you. You did a good thing today.”
“You still haven’t told me your name,” I reminded her. We were still just inches apart.
She smirked and kissed my cheek. I felt the thick mark of her lipstick stain my skin. One small movement and I could have my mouth on hers.
“Play along, little prince,” she whispered. Abruptly, she laughed aloud and pushed past me, opening the door and stumbling out in the hallway. I followed behind, amused but somewhat irked by her “little prince” comment.
What did she mean, “play along?”
“There he is,” a voice called from down the corridor. The two security guards appeared, their blue uniforms now uncomfortably rumpled. “Some bathroom break, huh?”
The girl continued to laugh. “Oh, Lucas, you’re trouble!”
She grabbed my tie, pulled me in, and kissed me hard on the lips.
Before I could get control of myself and kiss her back, it was over. Not that I exactly minded the surprise. I still didn’t know her name.
Giggling, she skirted down the hallway, stumbling as she went. This girl, whoever she was, could seriously put on a show. I’d given her exactly what she wanted. And what did I get in return? Nothing.
The guards seemed embarrassed but not at all suspicious. For all they knew, I had been hooking up with some girl who’d had a little too much to drink. Not really my style. I preferred my women sober. But they didn’t have to know that. Nature calls, right boys?
I winked at the pair of guards and coolly shrugged before heading back down the hallway to my parents.
My father didn’t even bother to look in my direction as I sat in the plush seat beside him. I assumed he was angry with me for taking off. What he would do if he knew where I had been?
I was justified in my actions. This was my first assignment, and I’d done it without hesitation. I had to.
You crossed a line, a small voice rang in my head.
No. Richard crossed a line. I can’t let myself feel sorry for him.
I peered over at my mother, who had gone from gently massaging her temples when I’d left, to furiously rubbing her forehead. It was always hard to watch her unsuccessfully fight off a headache. She noticed me and shot a glare in my direction. Ah, finally, some fire out of the woman!
But I’d done it. I’d actually pulled it off.
Normally Richard banned me from using my slatebook at events. But he failed to notice when I’d so easily made the switch and stolen his own identical device tonight.
I guessed correctly that he wouldn’t pay attention to it. Richard always made a point of not using his slatebook while he was in the public eye. He wanted everyone to love him, feel that he was one with the masses. To an extent, anyway. It wasn’t like having the whole upper level of the auditorium to ourselves could be perceived as normal.
Most people didn’t have access to luxuries like our family. Even though this was the wealthiest country on the planet, our people didn’t live like royalty. They had slatebooks, sure. But not like the technology we carried.
He doesn’t suspect a thing, does he?
When I was sure no one was watching, I discreetly slipped his slatebook back into the pocket of his suit jacket. It was simply lying over the back of his chair, exposed. It was almost too easy and that made me uncomfortable.
I had made a bet. My family would never suspect anything out of the ordinary. Not from their own son. So far, it turned out I was right.
And just like that, the stakes got higher.
I spent most of the ballet nodding off. Sure, it was nice, but it was the same orchestral music and sweeping jumps across the stage, times ten, which got boring fast. At the very least, I was grateful for the dark auditorium.
Maybe I could sneak in a nap?
I tried to focus on the ballet, hoping it would get better soon. The dancers were talented. I’m sure they were the best of the best, or something like that. After a long piece involving a lot of identically costumed women running around, the lights dimmed and a girl dressed in violet stepped out onto the empty stage.
As she began to move to the piano’s melody, I leaned forward in my seat.
Of course, she was technically trained but she also had something else. Something about her motions couldn’t be taught. This girl was born to be a ballerina, even an unappreciative guy like myself could admit that much.
I was momentarily surprised by my reaction. Who knew a dancer could have such a magnetic effect on me?
Just as I was about to come to my senses, the tempo increased and I was pulled back into her dance. I joined the rest of the audience, mesmerized.
She began to twist into a series of spins. Her delight flew off her as if it was contagious. As her moves accelerated, she was transformed into a blur of purple.
And then all at once, the colors changed.
Is that what I think it is?
She just kept going. Apparently oblivious to the swirling cloud of purple that was lifting out of her costume. She continued to dance.
So did the color.
She was free, alive, the hues exploding around her like wildfire.
The audience was stirring now, something pulsed like a collective heartbeat. Fear? Of course I had seen color alchemy countless times, and I certainly knew quite a bit about the magic behind it, but most of the audience didn’t.
Color alchemy had taken our country to the top. The wealth, the prosperity, the magnificent advances in technology. I’d spent much of my education studying alchemy. I knew all about its powerful uses. And its negative side effects.
Which is how I knew that the sheer amount of power coming off this girl was staggering. It was bright, moving above and around her, dancing with her. Her costume was completely gray at this point, which meant she had taken it all, removed all the color. In only a few seconds. And from an artificial item no less. Remarkable. I wondere
d if she knew how to harness that power and actually do something useful with it.
Then something strange began to transpire. The purple colors slowly separated. Shifted. Together, spinning with lavender, were shades of blue...and red. The two colors that combined to make purple had actually separated. And there it was. Red.
How is she doing that?
This girl was about to change everything. Her level of talent was absolutely unprecedented. To separate the colors down to the primary sources like that? It was rare enough to find someone who had the ability to harness color at all, but this display of skill was unfathomable.
My father erupted from his seat, shouting instructions to his operatives. The audience snapped out of their trance. Calls of confusion pummeled like a tidal wave. Most people hurried to exit the theatre, practically crawling over each other. Others stayed frozen in their seats. And a reckless few actually pushed their way toward the stage.
The girl finally stopped moving. She stared wide-eyed at the spectrum still whirling around her body. I could see her features better now. She was young despite her height. Wispy, tall, and uncommonly beautiful. Her pale skin contrasted nicely against her dark hair and large eyes.
I studied her expression and looked for any indication that she knew what was happening. Would she take control over her alchemy? But she was utterly stunned. Just as the curtain began to descend, her knees buckled and she dropped to the floor.
3
Jessa
I woke lost to the world. Floating in a foggy void. I was lying on a hard surface in a nearly pitch-black room, my eyes focusing in and out on a sliver of light coming from under a door. Was someone there? I tried not to come undone as the images of my most recent memory flooded me.
Oh yes, I’d been dancing. And I had felt so good. Alive. Free.
