Elsa didn't wait for security. She didn't tell anyone. She grabbed the keys to one of the Jefferson family's low-profile rides—an old midnight-gray Ardent Vale with zero tracking—and tore out of the estate like the world was burning.
Because it was.
🏙️ A Trail She Wasn't Supposed to Find
She didn't know where she was going.Only that her instincts screamed one name:Chess.
His cold silences. The haunted flicker in his eyes. The way he knew things he shouldn't have. It wasn't just arrogance.
He was hiding more than wealth. More than identity.
He was hiding a war.
A war that somehow… she was born into.
She hacked into the private system Chess had once used to message her, pinging a signal he thought was dead. But Chess had left it there. On purpose.
It pinged back.
Coordinates.
Not far from Obsidian Wharf, inside a dilapidated tech warehouse long abandoned—at least on paper.
"You want me to come?" she muttered. "Fine. Let's play."
🕶️ The Cloak of Chess Golding
She slipped into the dark compound like a whisper, avoiding obvious paths.
What she didn't know?
He was already watching her.
From above. From below. From everywhere.
Chess stood in the surveillance chamber, arms crossed, a thin smirk tugging at his lips.
"She moves like a storm now," he muttered.
"Should we stop her?" came a voice behind him—Grimm, his ghost-thin operations lead.
"No. Let her come."
"Why?"
"Because," Chess said, eyes glinting with something unreadable, "the truth's too big to hide anymore."
🧩 Confrontation in the Shadows
Elsa finally reached the inner vault.
No guards.
No alarms.
Only Chess—leaning against a rail, dressed in simple black, the kind of effortless danger that needed no theatrics.
"What are you hiding from me?" she asked, voice cutting.
"A better question," Chess said, "is what are you hiding from yourself?"
"Don't play games."
"Elsa," he said softly, "you walked through five shadow traps to get here. Do you think I'd leave those unarmed unless I wanted you to reach me?"
"I found the archives."
Silence.
"My bloodline… the Celestial Keepers. The seal. The prophecy."
"Then you're farther than I thought," he murmured, standing straight. "Good."
She blinked. "You knew?"
"I've always known."
🫥 The Man Behind the Curtain
Elsa stepped closer, the tension between them electric.
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"Because knowledge has a cost. And you weren't ready to pay it yet."
"And now?"
He met her eyes.
"Now you've seen too much."
For a long moment, they just stared at each other. Her breath shallow. His pulse unreadable.
"Who are you really?" she whispered.
Chess didn't answer with words.
Instead, he pressed a button.
The room changed.
Walls slid back. Lights dimmed. Dozens of holograms lit up showing continents, sigil patterns, black-market assassins, ancestral maps, ancient gate points—a hidden war stretching across the world.
"This," Chess said quietly, "is the real world. One that lives in shadows and bleeds into everything you know."
"And I…" he turned to her, "am its unwanted prince."
👀 A Spark She Couldn't Explain
Elsa should've been terrified.
But all she felt was a strange… fire.
Rising in her chest. Not painful. Not loud. Just present.
Chess noticed.
"You're beginning to feel it, aren't you?"
"What is it?"
He stepped close—so close she could smell the steel and smoke on him.
"It's you. The real you. And soon…" he brushed a strand of hair from her face, "you won't need me to explain anything."
Elsa's lips parted to speak—but a tremor hit the floor beneath them.
Chess turned sharply.
"They're here."