Light of Stars [2]

Chapter Fifty-One

♕ Unstate of Grace ♕

Izabella turned to her as they both made their way up Lynx, the sky about to settle under the horizon line. They had made it their routine to go down the mountain and into the town each day, doing anything they could to stay as far away from Stella and all of those who followed after her old day, filling her ears with rumors about what exactly happened in Infernum.

Rumors she'd quickly realized where nothing more than lies, and others that had sounded so close to reality they made her doubt enough to consider them true.

The shift had concluded, so all of them were just expecting news from Aubrette, about when exactly she'd return to Starhaven.

"You need to worry less about her" Izabella said,"Or your hair will start turning white again" Sybilla smiled.

"I know, I know" Syb said. "I just can't help but feel something horrible will happen and I won't be there to help."

"Our nightmares are across the sea Syb" Iz said. "They'd have to come a long way to find us here."

Sybilla nodded, both looking up to Lynx's front entrances, where Zander sat, staring down at them. Their eyes met and she smiled at him, before noticing the sadden look of his eyes.

"You better go" Izabella said. "I'll take this up to my room" she said grabbing the books Sybilla held, and turning around, taking the long way inside.

Sybilla hurried up the last trail, Zander standing to meet her as Sybilla reached him, he tried to smile, but she could feel it, deep in her bones, something was wrong.

"Hey" he said, leaning to kiss her cheek. "Lets go inside. Aubrette has sent you a letter"

☆

Sybilla grabbed the letter in her hands and reread it, over and over until she'd learned every word written in it. She looked at Zander who had just stared out the window the whole time.

"Zander" she said, touching his hand. He turned to her. "Its not so bad, she just will take longer to..."

"Theres something more." He said. "Something she avoided saying in the letter. She wanted you to hear from someone in person, not from a piece of paper."

"What are you talking about?" Sybilla said.

"Nerezza... she went into Luna Bay and ..." his voice turned numb in her ears. Zander explained everything, his words carefully selected, his tone perfectly calm and composed, the voice of a true prince, of someone who'd been trained to deliver bad news and gain a good outcome. But she could only feel herself burning and burning and burning.

She closed her eyes, tightly, as hard as she could to prevent tears from falling. It happened slowly, like droplets of rain falling onto her skin. One by one her tears started falling onto the dirty, numbing her vision until she felt like drowning in them.

She tried to breathe, tried to erase the picture of her standing in the middle of the white sand, looking out into the frozen sea, waiting for a piece of it to fall apart, she had taken part of this, she had teared a piece of Luna Bay apart without mourning it, without hesitation, and now all of it was gone.

"Syb" He said, trying to grab her hand. Sybilla moved aside. Stepped from the bed, and crossed the room in a second.

Sybilla made sure her breathe was back to normal before turning to face him, Zander's cheeks were a soft shade of red. She could see the pain flash behind his eyes, pain for her, not for what had happened. She flinched away.