Royal Reboot: Level up, Your Majesty!

Five Seconds to Ruin (Appetiser)

A soft knock tapped at the door. Right on time. Completely unnecessary, since it was Astra’s room too.

Eydis inhaled like she was about to face her Mother, not her possibly-maybe-sort-of date. She opened the door…

Then she saw Astra. Just a few inches shorter, but standing like the world answered to her.

“Astra,” Eydis breathed. Too soft. Far too soft. Her voice had turned traitor at the sight.

Astra’s crimson eyes did all the talking for her. They wandered slowly down Eydis’s frame, returned to the bow tie, lingering at her throat, and finally settling on her lips. They didn’t rise to meet her gaze, as if that last step might be too much.

So Eydis took the silence as an invitation to look back.

Astra’s silver hair, usually left to fall free, was braided in a waterfall twist — polished, intentionally undone, and traitorously beautiful.

Eydis traced its descent with her eyes: the gentle curve of a neck she wanted to press her lips to, the tight pearl choker, the clean line of a collarbone revealed beneath the open white blazer. And then, the blush-pink dress clung to her like it had fallen in love with her body.

The kind of look that could summon a Sin.

Lu—Envy. 

Definitely Envy.

Your Majesty, it’s not env— Cerberus’s jaws clamped shut, silencing Envy’s voice. 

The ravens, caught in the hell-hound’s other mouths, let out one last muffled whimper before they all vanished back into The Deep.

Eydis barely noticed. She was too busy not breathing.

Yes. This is a date.

Astra normally dressed like she was about to break their hearts or stab them, possibly both. But tonight’s softness was much more dangerous. When she finally met Astra’s eyes again, there was already a spark waiting.

“I guess the massage isn’t the only thing that leaves you speechless?” Astra said, with the smirk of someone who knew she’d just won a round.

That smugness was infuriatingly charming. Eydis’s lip curled upward before she could stop it and Astra looked briefly, deliciously, caught off guard.

“Speechless? No, contemplating.” she purred.

Astra blinked and cleared her throat. “And do I want to know?”

Her voice wavered just a little. Maybe, just maybe, Eydis wasn’t the only one panicking. 

“I’ll let you know in about five seconds.”

Eydis’s finger brushed softly along Astra’s jaw before lifting it. The kiss lasted five seconds. No more, no less. When she drew back, her lipstick remained. Dark merlot against muted rose.

A mark. 

Her mark.

And beneath it, a thought, dark and sinful: 

How many more would it take to ruin her again?

Eydis breathed out, burying the thought. Not yet. Please, not yet. Not until she leashed Lust.

“That’s… exactly five seconds,” Astra muttered, clearly annoyed.

“Hmm…” Eydis smiled. “Looks like reason wins over impulse.”

“And which thoughts belong to each?”

“Reason says five seconds is just enough time to leave these offensively beige walls,” Eydis replied softly, “Any more, and we’ll be stuck here… making the walls blush.”

Being near Astra turned her into a contradiction: clueless and provocative at once. She didn’t know what she was doing, how it worked, how anything worked.

But that didn’t make her some wide-eyed maiden. If anything, it made her curious, it made her want.

To test, to push, to explore, to taste.

Innocence wasn’t about what had not yet happened, but rather about what had not happened yet. It was a blank page, begging to be written on, rewritten, and rewritten again.

Astra’s eyes darkened. “And what, exactly, would we do to shame the walls?”

Now she was playing with fire. It pulsed, it burnt, it consumed.

Eydis wanted more of that recklessness Astra sometimes let slip. She leaned in and brushed her lips against Astra’s neck. Then pulled back, slowly.

She left a faint, dark print behind. A preview, perhaps.

“I don’t know yet,” she whispered at Astra’s ear. “But I promise it’s not for public ears. Just yours. Just mine. And the walls will hear things they can’t unhear.”

Astra stepped back, too fast. For a second, it looked like she might actually say yes. But then she took a deep breath.

Her hand found Eydis’s like it had always known the way.

“We… should get going,” she said, though her body stayed perfectly still, as if some part of her wasn’t ready to move.

Eydis nodded, but the words that slipped from her lips were quiet. Honest.

“We should…before I make a promise I intend to keep. And repeat.”

Astra didn’t answer but the heat in her eyes said everything.

For now, the last words belonged to Eydis. 

And Astra let them linger, simmered, sizzled.

Just enough to awaken the appetite.

The metal door groaned open.

Damien turned as black-suited figures closed in, recognising two faces instantly.

Michael approached first, the cheerful bagel vendor nowhere to be seen, his hands shimmering with restrained magic that warped the air like rising heatwaves. Sonia flashed into place beside him, once a harmless dog-walker in Central Park, now moving so quickly she seemed to appear out of thin air.

Damien almost laughed. The coffee shop conversations. The "accidental" meetings in the park. The seemingly innocent questions.

All of it had been a lie. A well-acted, well-scripted lie.

Well done.

“Sir Damien,” Michael said, almost sincere. “Come back with us. We can talk.”

“We did talk,” Damien replied. “You chose to speak in lies.”

A greatsword of Temperance shimmered into being in his hand, massive and brutal yet sacred. To others, it might have appeared as some lost relic of legend, but to Damien, it was nothing less than an extension of his truth.

Never heavy. Never light. Always balanced.

Michael sighed. “So be it.”

The attack came instantly.

Flame erupted from Michael’s fingertips. Sonia moved with it, her path crackling through the air in a violent zigzag, almost too fast to see.

Almost.

Damien stepped aside, the world slowing around him as his perception accelerated. He felt Sonia’s claws slice through the air, missing his throat by inches, and, without effort, batted her away.

She rolled on impact, touched down lightly, one hand bracing against the concrete as she skidded backward.

Michael’s flames struck a helicopter behind them, detonating on impact. The door tore free, metal shrieking across the rooftop.

Silver eyes flashing, Damien swung his blade once. Light exploded outward in a crescent wave.

One agent raised an earthen wall in panic. It cracked apart the instant it met Damien’s strike. She dropped, silent, already unconscious.

The others froze, faces draining pale.

Good. Let them fear what they do not understand.

Damien warned, “Leave now, unless you are Indigo.”

The agents exchanged uneasy glances before slowly edging backward. But a calm voice rose from behind them.

“Hello, Sir Damien. It has been some time.”

The agents parted to allow two figures to step in: Professor Indigo Crane and Doctor Adrian.

Adrian appeared young, easygoing even, but his eyes held an ancient weight that didn’t belong to the body they inhabited. But it was Indigo whom Damien heard. Whom he answered.

“You lied to me,” he said sharply.

Indigo reached out. “Sir Damien, we need to talk.”

“We do,” Damien growled, raising his greatsword and aiming it toward Indigo. “And it’s your turn to answer.”

Adrian stepped between them. His eyes, golden and flickering like candlelight, locked onto Damien’s.

“You don’t see the whole picture. Lay down your weapon.”

He didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t need to. His words rang in Damien’s skull, vibrating through bone and memory.

When Damien made no move, Adrian spoke again.

“Sir Damien, by my command, kneel.”

Damien’s fingers loosened. The brilliance in his gaze dimmed, and a tremor worked its way into his legs. 

“…Understood.”

His greatsword dissolved into particles.

Adrian’s face relaxed and he took a cautious step closer. 

“Sir Damien, the Eye is an illusion. You never left New York. You’re still a guest of the Council. Remember this. This is the truth—“

Adrian never finished.

Damien’s palm struck with the speed of lightning and Adrian crumpled without a sound.

Indigo’s eyes went wide, his earlier confidence smothered. “This… this is—”

“Predictable,” Damien rumbled. He drew a small case from his leather jacket and removed the earbuds, sliding them inside without rush.

“Adrian’s voice magic has been no secret since it surfaced on the internet,” he said. “So I made sure I was ready.”

“Even then, I almost bent.” His hand snapped forward and closed around Indigo’s throat. “Fortunately, I’ve always been quite good at reading lips.”

The agents reacted immediately, magic surging toward Damien with lethal intent. So, Indigo mattered more than he let on.

Not just a scientist. Another lie.

Damien moved. 

One spin. 

Three strokes. 

Heads fell.

The bodies collapsed. Blood splattered and steamed on the rooftop’s cold surface.

He turned back to Indigo. “Now, tell me, where is the Queen of Shadows.”

“I told you before, with your description it’s almost impossible to—“

Indigo’s words strangled to silence as Damien hoisted him higher, his tan Oxford shoes scraping uselessly against the concrete, legs kicking with diminishing strength.

“Is that another lie?”

The professor sputtered. “The system…we’ve categorised every known anomaly of energy. If… if something strange had happened, we would have been alerted already.”

“Is that how you found me in the first place?”

“Y-yes! It’s the truth!”

Damien’s hand tightened slightly, daring him to lie again.

But in Indigo’s terrified eyes, Damien found only fear.

Which meant… he couldn’t lead Damien to Eydis.

“Professor,” he said quietly, “did I not tell you that mercy is offered only once?”

Indigo fought to breathe. “There’s really… no one like her.”

The illusion of the respectable, intellectual, composed academic shattered. What remained was small and cowardly. His hand reached out weakly, then fell, exposing Damien’s face: solemn, disappointed.

Perhaps this was why the High Priests warned him: show no mercy to those outside the light.

The forsaken had made their choice.

“When we first met,” Damien said, “you spoke of trust. I offered it freely, and you took it. Only to break it.”

Indigo choked. “There are reasons… please, listen—”

A powerful gust swept past them, scattering dust, but Damien’s silver hair held its place, defying nature itself. “Are there? Then you have five seconds to give me one. One reason I shouldn’t end this here.”

Indigo sputtered, breathless, panic strangling him. “You don’t understand… if you attack The Eye… everything ends!”

One.

Damien’s gaze did not soften. “All of this. The lies. The misdirection. Just to keep me away from it? That is why you deceived me?”

Indigo gave a desperate nod.

Two.

“And still, I remain unconvinced. In the lands I serve, those who lie to the chosen of the gods are shown but one mercy.”

He raised Indigo higher, tone softening into something nearly reverent.

Three.

“A swift death.”

He looked directly into the man’s eyes, searching for something worth sparing. Remorse, conviction, anything.

He found only cowardice.

Four.

“Tell me, Professor,” Damien said softly, “do you even know what you’re doing? Or are you just following orders, too afraid to ask the wrong questions?”

Everything went still. Even the wind paused. Silence.

Five.

“Your time is at an end.”