Supernova

Chapter Fifty Eight - Here Lies Princess Cassie Stronghold

A/N: Well, to be honest, this one's kind of messed up. But hey, if you've gotten this far, I assume you have picked up on the theme. Besides, I like it anyways. So, here we go. 

Elias and I fell back into our comfortable dance of nice while it lasts, but I was fucking pissed at Demon, and he knew it. Everyone did. My rage was different than his had been, though. It was not loud, not mocking, not begging to be reacted to. I had taken a page out of Queen Ragnor's book and greeted him with nothing but cold indifference.

Which was fair enough, I decided, since he'd shown me that was exactly the regard he held for me. I didn't go to his room. I'd refuse to answer or leave when he came to ours. I didn't go to the training gym I knew he frequented. I ignored him and walked off the rare, sporadic occasions that he swallowed his pride and sought me out. I didn't even get annoyed when Elias told me he was going to the library.

Have fun, I'd tell him with a big smile. That made Elias deeply uneasy, I could tell in his eyes, but he didn't comment on it. Maybe I didn't feel as bad that Elias was just lying straight to his face and he was being kept out of our circle of secrets, because Demon was just as horrible a liar as the rest of us. He was just too stupid to keep up appearances.

Needles tried to push it a little, which I understood. I knew who's side he was on. That was no mystery. I did feel a little bad for him, because I knew I was disrupting his room and his life within it, but I didn't care. I hated Demon and it was me who was drunk on that hatred this time around. But Needles was kind and honest and wanted to talk about it, and because our friendship was built on the basis that he deserved the same courtesy, that hatred came out the worst around him.

He's upset, Needles told me one day at target practice.

I'm upset, I signed back, with heavy emphasis on the first word.

It's not his fault, he tried to tell me. I didn't understand it then, but I do now, which makes me feel some type of way about my reaction now.

Yes it is! My hands screamed furiously. He's a liar and a terrible person and I hate him!

No, he's not, Needles signed back, and with a flick of the wrist, all five pins were sent flying into the middle of the target. And no, you don't.

That was how our conversations about it always went. When we got to this point, I'd always pout and go back to target practice and refuse to look at him for a while, because if I took my eyes away, I effectively silenced him. In case you were wondering, it didn't fail to dawn on me that I was pouting because I knew he was right. Observant, a good friend, and right. As much as I wanted to, I didn't hate him. I was, as laughable as it seems to admit, hurt.

Would you listen if he wanted to apologize? Needles asked me at the end of one of these talks.

His golden eyes were hopeful and pleading as they looked up at me, unblinking and flaring at me with all the beauty and brightness of the sun on those rare days when the snow stopped falling and the clouds parted here at the Academy. It was almost a moment of weakness that I could have been caught in like a bear trap, but then I replayed Momo's words in my mind and shook my head.

He can apologize to my fucking corpse, I told him back.

More than that, the thought of Demon apologizing to anyone, about anything, was fucking laughable to me.

I genuinely thought I may never speak to Demon again, and there was a haunting calmness that came with that thought. I was spending a lot of time in the bath lately, filled to the brim with hot water, a glass of bubbling soda sitting on the side, diamond and sapphire diadem taken out of its hiding spot and placed on the top of my head. I'd watch the snow falling outside the window, pretending I was somewhere else, someone else, and Demon was far, far away from me and Elias was with him, because of course he was, he certainly wasn't with me, and in these moments, I would find solace and peace. There would be a time, I realized, that things would be like this.