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“Go get ready for the funeral proceedings. The people need you more than Onyx right now.” Jude turned her attention back to my best friend, who’d become like a brother to me over the years since finding refuge here. She took a rag and wet it in the bowl full of water at his bedside before wiping his skin clean of the carnage. “But first,” she said, straightening her spine and digging in her pocket, “take this. You’ll need it soon enough.” Holding out her hand, she met my palm with a tin can of Mushweed.

I smiled softly, almost feeling guilty, before shoving it in my pocket. “Thank you, Jude. You’re truly a life-saver. Let me know if there’s anything I can do for you,” I said, sighing in defeat. I stood from the chair at Onyx’s side, breathing out an anxious breath. I needed to do something. My energy was restless, and I felt the need to be in action after the battle that had just occurred. I hadn’t even begun to process everything that had happened yet.

Jude remained hunched over Onyx but tilted her head over her shoulder to offer me a gentle smile. “You’ve done more than enough, Chrome. Thank you for everything. This attack will have its ramifications on the Hollow, but with you and Princess Gray, we’ll recover and come back stronger than ever.”

My chest tightened with emotion in the amount of faith people had in me. I didn’t understand it, probably because I had been literally losing my mind for the past several years as I became Endarkened. I held on for them. For the people here that Forest tried to wipe out of existence.

I dipped my head, my throat constricting with so many heavy emotions. “I’m going to help clean up down there. Let me know if anything changes with Onyx.”

“Of course,” she said and returned to her charge.

I left the healing ward and hurried back to the lawn, hoping to find Orion and the others. I immediately thought about how I should try out the new power I’d just discovered. It had been unintentional, and I hadn’t had the time to think much about it. But one minute, I was fighting aKinetic when I saw Royal’s blade go through Onyx’s stomach. And the next, I was fading into ash and floating away in the wind to land beside Onyx. In my urgency to save him, I tried it again, desperation squeezing my heart viciously.

I reached the top of the landing and stopped, imagining the front lawn in my mind’s eye again. I pictured the massacre that had taken place right outside my home, imagining the sensation of my body dissipating into nothingness and traveling through space and time in the form of what looked like black ash. I felt it as the bits of ash pieced themselves back together to form my body, which felt heavy after the travel.

The bloodbath had been cleaned up significantly since I left to find Onyx. The deceased were piled in shallow trenches as a temporary holding space while the earth Elementals worked on constructing the pyres.

I scanned the area, searching for my closest friends. Anxiety climbed in my chest, fear taking root that they were one of the bodies in the trench. I stopped a passing Elemental man, irises the color of gold, to ask where everyone was.

He looked haggard, ready to collapse into a deep sleep for two days, judging by the reddened eyes and dark circles beneath them. “They went to get cleaned up for the funeral.”

“Everyone is alive, then?” I asked, and he understood who I meant. Everyone knew.

With a nod that seemed to take all his effort, he assured me they were before hurrying inside the lodge.

I focused on the bond, trying to place Gray’s essence. It wasn’t shut down on her side; I could feel that much, but I couldn’t find her. I stood near a copse of trees, spinning in circles as I tried to pinpoint her location. The panic was now effectively taking hold.

Something was wrong; I could feel it. Where the fuck was she?

I kept trying to calm myself by saying she was probably in the shower, but that wouldn’t explain why I couldn’t sense her here. She’d be too close to not feel. And our bond wasn’t shut.

“Fuck!” I yelled to the darkening sky, shoving my fingers in my hair.

I couldn’t sense Gray, but my elemental magic sensed the metal of the blade sailing toward me from behind.

I sidestepped and spun just in time to block Golden’s attack. He swung his broadsword as his face warped in vicious determination. I didn’t have my sword in hand, but I ducked the swing and blocked his forearm with mine. Summoning my Kinetic power, I landed a punch to his gut in the same breath. Compact electromagnetic energy expelled from my fist upon impact, causing a pulsating blast to slam into him.

Fuck, that always felt too good. I knew my magic and its unpredictable nature. And when I was going through my Endarkening, that magic got even more unstable. I didn’t want to risk it getting out of control, but desperate times called for desperate actions.

Golden soared backward, not exploding into bits, as I didn’t exert much power in the blow. He slammed into a thick tree trunk, his skull cracking against the bark. I needed him alive. For now, at least. Just long enough to get info on Gray because I suspected he had something to do with her disappearance.

The Kinetic pain in my ass lolled his head to the side, a humorless laugh leaving his lips. “I can’t wait to drag your head back to the king.”

I bit my lower lip, pulling out an Elemental dagger using my magic. “Where. The fuck. Is she?” My voice took on the deep, murderous timber that came out when I spiraled.

I was wound tight with icy rage as it slithered beneath the surface of my skin, waiting for the right moment to strike at this piece of shit. Even if he had nothing to do with Gray’s disappearance, which I doubted, then he deserved a slow death for thinking he could lay a finger on her and get away with it.

Golden sneered, already beginning to heal his cracked skull. “She’s dead.”

It was my turn to laugh, something akin to a demon seemed to raise its head from within me. And it wasn’t related to my devolution, although I was beginning to feel the echoes of the withdrawal symptoms wanting toreturn with Gray nowhere to be seen. “Oh, yeah?” I prowled toward him, honing him in my trap. “Is that so?”

“I slit her throat myself. But not before I fucked her like the little whore she is. It was so thrilling…watching her fight against me. But she got what she deserved, the little cunt.”

I saw red. Actually, I don’t think I saw anything because next thing I knew, I was straddling Golden, mutilating his severed corpse. I was bathed in his blood, his face a dark crimson, as deep cuts marred every inch of his upper body. The iron from his blood that I extracted blended with the crimson from his face. There was hardly any spot left unscathed that wasn’t protected by his armor.

I blacked out in my rage, and I wasn’t sure how long I’d been there wasting time carving a very dead Golden Figgaro. My chest heaved, and I pushed away from him. I needed to find Gray. The blackout rages were not a good sign.

Fuck, where was she?