The Act of Duplicity [General Kirigan]

eight

▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪

Nataliya sat in front of the vanity in her room, staring into the mirror. Her eyes looked lifeless, the blue in them didn't quite get to the full potential not when she looked so tired. She looked old when she was tired and she noticed every bit of imperfection on her features. Her kefta was still hanging by her bed, her usual kefta, the one with special features, now clean. Nataliya sighed deeply and pushed strands of her red hair back from her face before she gathered them at the base of her neck. She kept looking at herself now with even a deeper frown.

Her fingers trailed her pale neck which now included deep blue marks on it, in form of four fingers. Damn him, thought Nataliya as she rewound the night of their fight back in her mind. His yelling echoed in her head and the memory of her burning throat with prevented airflow didn't seem to want to vanish. Her day to day duties acquired her hair being pinned back away from her face somehow. She didn't want the blue marks to be seen, she couldn't even excuse them as hickeys.

She put her hair over her shoulders again and took a deep breath. No, her hair will bother her the whole day. She pushed them back and frowned more. Her eyes glanced at the kefta by her bed through the mirror. Is the collar of that high enough to hide them? She had her hopes high too soon and she sunk in her chair, her shoulders dropping. She thought of staying in but that would be too suspicious and she really didn't have a good enough reason for that.

She'll have to endure the whispers, the chit chat between Grisha who will theorise why she has those marks on her neck. Nataliya sighed and leaned on the desk with her elbows, putting her face in her hands. She hated it. She hated being the one who others talked about behind her back. She was fine with open opinions because she always had something to say back. That was the worst thing happening to her over and over again once people started finding out about her and Kirigan. People gossiped about her using him, him using her only for sex, girls scowled at her because she was suddenly his favourite, they thought she only got the promotion because she was sleeping with him.

Nataliya became the talk of every day and it was almost as bad as with Genya. Suddenly the two sisters were both being preferred by either the General or the Royal family. And it took a toll on their sibling relationship as well. Their privileges and their positions were often the topics of conversation and the two sisters rarely agreed on it. Nataliya missed the time when no one knew when she and Darkling were keeping it quiet because once they were caught, her previous reputation of loyalty, friendliness and good Heartrender power (she was quite good in most of her classes) turned into snobbiness, favouritism and privileges in people's eyes.

She lost friends because of rumours, she was in the centre of attention because of it and everything began to crumble. People thought she had everything brought on a silver platter to her like Genya, but they failed to see what all Nataliya had to go through to get there. She grabbed her temples harshly and tried to erase the memories of what it was like all those years of training and climbing the social ladder in the Second Army. She was like everyone else yet something had to be different on her for her to get Second in Command.