All I Need ✔️

Chapter 32

Third Person POV

Emalina walked through, amazed, poking at the little droplets. "Are you doing this?" she asked, impressed. This was easily the most beautiful thing she had ever seen - the droplets twinkling in the sun. It was almost like someone had smashed a chandelier and suspended all the tiny pieces around the room.

"This is amazing!" she exclaimed. Then she caught a glimpse of Safania's face. "Saffy, what's wrong?" she asked, rushing to sit next to her.

Safania hastily wiped away her tears. Her train of thought broken, the droplets all crashed back down onto the plants and the ground. "Nothing, nothing. Just hormones I guess. Show me what you got at the market," she said, trying to smile.

Emalina frowned. "You're a terrible liar."

"I know," Safania replied. "But please Em, I wanted today to be about you."

"Do you think I care about that? I care more about whether you're okay than a stupid birthday."

Safania didn't respond.

"Are you angry about something? I thought your powers only came out when you were angry?" Emalina asked.

"I have no idea how they work," Safania admitted. "It's only ever happened when I've been angry. But to be honest, since my marks appeared, I've been in near-constant survival mode. I really only remember feeling scared, angry, and occasionally relieved. So if it's somehow connected to my emotions, I really haven't tested it out much. Who knows what happens when I'm uncontrollably happy. Something might explode," she said, only half-joking.

"Well, what were you feeling just now?" Emalina asked.

"I don't know," Safania replied. "I guess I was thinking about how I don't think I'm ever going to feel safe anywhere."

"What do you mean? You're safe here."

Safania smiled sadly. "No, Em. I'm not."

"I know you think that Prince Cassius is going to hurt you if he ever finds out about..."

"This isn't about Prince Cassius," Safania interrupted.

Emalina looked at her expectantly.

"I snuck out to make you a surprise cake for your birthday."

"You did what?" Emalina asked, her normal cheerfulness completely gone.

"I wanted to do something special for you..."

"But you brought a guard at least. Right?"

Safania was silent.

"What happened?" Emalina demanded.

"Prince Orphasius walked in..." Safania trailed off.

"Oh God. What did he do? Are you okay? Did he hurt you? Did he force himself on you?" Emalina fired question after question at Safania.

Safania took a deep breath. "Almost. I was in the middle of fighting him off when Advisor Melli walked in." Safania's voice trailed off as she remembered the scene from earlier.

Emalina was silent. She knew Orphasius was terrible, but Melli was in a lot of ways even worse. Not sure that she even wanted to know, she finally asked, "What happened next?"

"He stopped Prince Orphasius. He said that there is going to be a war soon and the brothers have to be united. He also threatened to cut out my tongue if I told Prince Cassius about what had happened. And that he would make sure no one believed me, and would try to have me executed for lying."

Silently relieved that it hadn't been worse, Emalina put her hand on Safania's shoulder. "It's over now. And neither of them can hurt you here," Emalina said reassuringly.