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12/ GO AHEAD AND CRY, LITTLE GIRL
Pure madness was lingering in the air and spreading inside Maelora's mind like a fever.
Maelora was...calm – at least for someone who just paved the way for her fate with gory-painted bricks.
Ariyana's blood stained her hands like a pomegranate. It felt warm and dirty on her flesh – like holding a bittersweet sin. Her consciousness was split from the ugly reality like a sea tore the lands. The pulse of ferocity was frozen on her fingertips. Heaviness fell to her body like a night terror.
Blood. There was so much blood. In messy puddles on the ground, in Ariyana's petite body, in her own hands, on her knuckles. Soaking her limbs. Maelora wiped them off on her black dress, no, she kept saying in her head, no, this is just sweat, not blood. But the trick didn't work and, Maelora realized she couldn't get rid of them. She kept wiping off until the fabric scrabbled her flesh, burning her skin as if the fire was licking and consuming each inch of her.
It never disappeared. The blood was there, coating her hands and stuck in her nails. Reality cut through her heart, filling the empty spaces with dread. Maelora just killed someone. She killed the girl who was a friend to her until today. She took a life without even blinking. And she had no regrets at all — at least, not for killing Ariyana. Her only regret was due to the consequences that would fall upon her like a shadow.
Aegon's hands covered her bloody ones, not caring about getting his hands dirty, after he recovered from his shock, his sanity patching her insanity like an antidote. "Oh Gods, what have I done?" She whispered mostly to herself as the fire of anger inside her had died down now and her sensible thoughts kept yelling inside her head how stupid she acted spontaneously.
Ariyana's black eyes seemed hollow as if they were gouged with a crow's beak. Her blood-dry lips were still agape, and all the things she couldn't force out of her mouth as she choked on her own blood were frozen on her tongue. Her head was thrown back and her neck was cut open as if it had a zipper.
"I just wanted her to shut up," Maelora whispered, her voice cracking like a mirror of girlhood. However, she didn't know if her words could be trusted. Even she herself didn't have a sensible reason for why she did it. "That was all I wanted."
Aegon's one hand moved to hold her firmly by the chin and forced her to look away from the dead body of Ariyana. The warm waves of his cyan eyes that were stained with bright violet demolished the sandcastle of her panic. Safe, she thought immediately. She didn't know what it meant, or what she was safe from but that was the first thing that flickered in her mind.
