Crescent (Old Version)

+ Part 51 +

It would be easier to just obey. Playing my part would come so much more naturally when I wasn't waiting for him to land his next blow.

Sitting through dinner was a terror. He was still in a mood, but he hardly looked at me except to toss scraps and bits of conversation my way and watch how carelessly I dodged them. 

He'd won. He could see the defeat sinking into me. And, if his smile wasn't indication enough, he relished it. 

Obey. Don't speak unless spoken to. Be the quiet pretty little thing everyone expects you to be. Easy enough when you accept the gravity of your situation. Someone told me that once. I didn't remember who now.

"Brenna love," Ceth cooed sweetly from behind. Everyone had left the dining table, servants now clearing platters, and he held a hand out expecting me to follow. I carried my skirts as I rose and willingly took it. He led me out to the gardens where the rest of the group had gathered. We all sat sipping wine-flights and enjoying cheeses from far-away realms as the snow fell beyond the balcony's edge. 

The night floated by on a easy breeze as we sat under lantern light. I could feel Gabriel's gaze, urging me to look at him, but I couldn't find the strength to meet his eyes. I'd caked on a mask of makeup in hopes that the bruise developing on my cheek might be gone by tomorrow, but I had seen the way he'd looked at Ceth at the vault doors. 

Gabriel was getting too close to the truth. As the night carried on and I replayed what happened in the vault over and over again, I found it more and more unbearable to be near him... because Ceth had gotten to the vault too late. 

It hadn't seen Ceth who had opened the vault doors. Those doors, spelled to answer to the blood of a high lord, hadn't opened until I'd laid my hand against Gabriel's. And, I couldn't bare to think of what that might mean.

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I did not read in the library that night. Or the night after. 

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I still only slept occasionally. When I did, it was a fight to stay asleep. When I did, I always dreamt. When I dreamt, I saw the sea of faces of everyone I knew would be watching. I saw Rhiannon's dark skin and frost-white hair. I saw Audelia's wrist-full of golden bracelets and Thayer's dark sprawling tattoos of his homeland. But, most of all, I dreamt of Gabriel. Of his knowing looks, the way he watched me of the edges of his books. I dreamt of his dark eyes and his strong hands and the shock I'd felt when the runes flickering brilliantly in answer to our fingertips.

When I felt the sun rising and shining for the first time in months from the study, I only partially remember being awake. Sleep took me under again, and for the first time since I'd first come here, I dreamt of red. Dark red. Red like rust. Red like cherrywood tables. Red like veins leaking droplets onto a slate of silver.

"More red," Ceth said in my dreams.

I dreamt that he wasn't talking about roses or dresses or pretty decorative things. He was talking about dark red. The red of death. Death carried on the back of wings.

I dreamt of the gala coming in just a few short weeks. I dreamt of a single bird, wings frozen in flight. I dreamt of the lilacs and irises I'd picked out in honor of Glalas and Nexus. I dreamt of beaded tablecloths and lace doilies that would adorn tables opposite the dancefloor. I dreamt of each of the nights, the ballroom draped in the fashion of every realm. I dreamt of the lords and the ladies and the alliances to be made. To be broken.

I dreamt of a world broken in two.

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If anyone had noticed that the book had gone missing from the case, no one has said anything. I finished it after the third nearly sleepless night, and I'd spent hours pouring over its every detail.