The Rise of Venus

The Sixth Star Calls to Reign

Song: sad songs by Saddest Playlist

If silence were a true sound then it would be excruciatingly loud.

I heard the silence in between Leo's sweet whispers and gentle kisses. His affection was so quiet in the face of the looming monster hanging in the atmosphere. I heard the silence from Flora's anxiety ridden pacing. Floorboards creaked and groaned, nothing harsh compared to the roaring quiet. But a nuisance nonetheless.

I heard the silence in Pride's shifting weight as he moved from couch to couch. I wanted to snap at him to stay still. But knowing he needed to keep moving to keep his wits about him forced me to hold my tongue. I heard the silence in Beta Ryan's low rumbling and soft whines of soothing adoration. He held Reign with unreciprocated love and attention.

I heard the silence in Reign's unmoving statue-like form. Upper body scarred, black hair messy, torn black jeans, and crooked glasses. He was the outline of grief and guilt personified.

I tasted his unparalleled thoughts of ringing worry. It was bitter on my tongue. Like charred ash, strong and disgustingly pungent.

"Do you know how he was able to hide that curse within him for so long?" I asked Pride. He flinched at the sound of my voice. I didn't blame him. The waiting room had been plunged into a deafening silence for the past six hours. No one dared to loudly break it until now. "Pride?"

Pride's skittish eyes flicked from Reign to me. He tapped his thigh erratically, drawing out each "note" longer than he normally would have. The nerves in his tense body kept me more on edge than I already was.

I sunk into Leo's arms as he wrapped himself around me. The safety of home dulled the lulling waves of worry building within me. Pressing a gentle kiss to the back of my bandaged head, he whispered words of comfort into my skin. I maintained eye contact with Pride, quietly urging him to speak.

"I asked my mom about it without telling her about Hemlock. She said that those types of curses are undetectable. They don't activate until the afflicted individual succumbs to it," he replied. "It's like a disease that festers, grows with them, until it's ready to be used."

"Grows with them," I repeated. I shook my head at the sudden reality I'd unwittingly discovered. Rowena was a fucking bitch. "Are you saying he grew up with the hemlock poison inside him?"

Pride nodded. "A curse of this magnitude, able to destroy three miles of land, was most likely implanted at infancy."

Infancy.

Hemlock never had a chance. His life was over the second Rowena cut the umbilical cord and stole him away. From day one, just like the rest of us, he'd been another pawn in her elaborate chess game. She knew his original purpose was to somehow bring us all together. Give us a firm foundation to stand on. So, instead, she weaponized him to do the exact opposite.

To destroy us and drive a wedge between those that survived.

It was already working.

There was despair coming from Pride for not seeing this coming. I felt more than heard the way he was beating himself up. There was nothing anyone could say to not make him count this failure as a reflection of his "poor" magick skills.

Leo's loud thoughts of frustration for not doing enough to prevent this couldn't go ignored. Not when I secretly harbored the same thoughts for myself. Flora's soft mumblings of criticism weren't as quiet as she thought they were.

The blame game was going around and not one person was safe from it.

Even now my cousin was running around, trying to get everything back in order. His Luna was overworked, comforting the grieving families for their loss. Fifty lives weren't something to take lightly. Not while thirty more, including Sky's, still hung in the balance.