A SYMPHONY OF SHADOWS | grishaverse

.xv.

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fifteen

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'Tick'.

The time looked to be 1am on her little pocket watch, but Nerezza wasn't tired.

Not anymore.

No, she'd woken up and now she couldn't fathom laying here and doing nothing but sleep.

She let herself be comforted by the soothing tick's of the watch as she tried to quell her racing mind.

Jesper had given her this watch for her 14th birthday. He'd gambled something for it, if she remembered correctly, but it was the first birthday gift she'd ever received and was grateful.

Nerezza intended to keep that watch for the rest of her life.

She held it tightly within her fist, so much so that the little clasps cut into the flesh of her hand.

Don't damage the watch.

She sighed and uncurled her fist, letting the watch fall onto her bedsheet with a small fwump. There was a dull pain in her hand where the clasps had cut into, but she didn't care.

She didn't know what to do. To sit here? Confront him? The choices were too difficult and her thoughts were hazy.

Not caring about any of her decorum, she stood up, shivering in the cold.

She pulled on her cloak and shoes, not caring that she was in a nightgown, and pulled her curls out of the bun they were in at the top of her head.

She stood them out slightly, turning to look in her mirror. The shadows in the room made the angles of her face even more pronounced, but her onyx eyes were lingering instead upon the thick lines that dug and dragged into her skin, marring the otherwise unblemished copper.

Unblemished? Nerezza scoffed, did the idiotic general in the other room realise how hard it was to maintain a skincare routine with a bunch of scars dug into your face?

She let out a deep exhale of breath and reached for the small tin that contained her lip moisturiser. It had become a habit, to swipe the sweet balm onto her lips – people did stupid things when they were stressed, and Nerezza had taken to exhausting her supply of lip moisturiser. Literally. She dimly realised the container was almost empty – meaning she would have to permanently borrow (steal) another one from Genya soon.

Nerezza placed the container on her desk and let her fingers close around the hit of the stiletto blade. It was slippery and warm, a consequence of clutching it for the past two hours as she slept.

No matter. She may have needed it for what was to come.

She let her eyes linger on the scars one more time.

And then she knew, really, fundamentally knew, that her inference was correct. It was etched into her very matter. It was the wholehearted truth and there was no way to deny it.

And then Nerezza turned and slipped out of her room, and didn't look back.

She found herself going through the familiar route that she seemed to make several nights a week now. The usual trip.

She didn't bother knocking.

She quietly, but angrily, wrenched open the door and stormed inside the room of the Black General.