Tales Untold

Dead Promise

Cinder walked into the Throne room, the smell of blood not completely erased by the cleaner. She had a headache from all of the crying she would have done had she been able to. Her gray skirts swished about her as she moved towards the spot. The spot where it had happened.

Pain ripped at her heart, making her collapse to the floor with sobs. She felt as though the world had ended, and maybe it had. Maybe there was no reason to live anymore. Maybe there had never been a point to begin with.

No, he had been the point. He had wanted to be with her. He had told her his plans for after the war. The plans he had envisioned of the two of them together. The two of them ruling the Eastern Commonwealth side by side. Together for the rest of their lives, but instead, Cinder was alone.

The funeral had been held in the Eastern Commonweath, though that had been days ago. Cinder still wore the gray color of mourning, unsure whether she would ever be able to stop grieving.

Already there had been petitions to dethrone her, claiming she was more mentally unstable than Princess Winter, unfit to rule a country. Cinder agreed with them. She wasn't mentally stable at all, breaking down at all hours of the day.

All of her friends had decided to stay at the palace with her for a while, claiming that they were just helping her adjust to her new life as queen. It was thoughtful of them, though Cinder wished that they would go. They were wasting their time. She was broken, and there was no fixing her. She was destroyed, and the only person who knew how to put her back together was gone.

"Promise me, promise you'll wait until the fighting is over. Stay with Iko. I need to go and finish what I started." Cinder whispered into Kai's coronation shirt, listening to the sound of his heartbeat.

Kai smiled, kissing the top of her head, promising that he would stay with Iko and Torrin.

Cinder looked up at him, noticing her worry reflected at her. "It's okay, Kai. I'm stonger than her. I need to end this." Cinder said, reaching up to touch Kai's face. He nodded, but had tears in his eyes, and Cinder watched as one fell from his eye, rolling down his cheek. She rubbed it away with her thumb, before standing up onto her toes to kiss him.

The kiss was deep and passionate, the two of them holding on as if their lives depended on it. For a moment, nothing else mattered except for Kai.

Everything was his scent, his heartbeat, his lips, pressed hotly against hers. For one last moment, everything was Kai.

They broke apart, and Cinder smiled, trying her best to remain strong. Kai had hugged her again, crushing the breath out of her, telling her to be careful, telling her that he loved her.

Cinder froze, hardly anyone had ever told her that, and most of them were dead. She didn't hesitate to say them back to him though, kissing him quickly, before turning and running down the hall, trying to hold everything in.

Cinder gasped, unable to breathe between her sobbing. She crawled to the spot. Looking at the marble where his blood had been. Where he had been stabbed through the heart, killed by Levana.

"I accept," Cinder said, dazed. She had done it. She had won. Cinder grabbed the gun from Levana, just as the large doors had swung wide. Cinder turned and watched as Kai ran to her.

She smiled, forgetting about Levana, wanting nothing more than to hug Kai, tell him that their dreams could finally come true.

They crashed together in the middle of the room, Cinder throwing herself into Kai's arms, gun still in hand. She had felt so much joy, her heart overflowing with her victory.

"If you are taking everything I love away from me," Levana murmured, "then I shall take everything you love as well."

Cinder broke away from Kai, filled with confusion and suddenly, horror. She turned just in time to see Levana stab the knife through Kai's heart. She didn't live another second.

The sound of the gunshot rang through Cinder's ears as she watched Kai drop to the floor. She fell to the floor beside him, screaming as though she were the one who had been stabbed, not him.

She screamed his name, before letting out a sob of agony. This was her fault. If she hadn't been so ignorant, so idiotic, he wouldn't be laying on the floor, turning more pale by the second as the blood drained out of him. As his life disappeared like smoke in the wind.

Cinder cradled his head in her lap. He had a soft smile on his face that didn't fit the scene. He was dying, though he was the one who reached up and touched her face. He was the one who told her it was alright. He was the one who told her he loved her, before he closed his beautiful copper eyes and let out his last breath. He was the one who was fine, the one who had died.

Crying had never been something Cinder could do, not since she was a small child. She wished she could cry, she wished she could let it all out in a waterfall of tears, but instead she lay on the floor of her Throne room. The very spot where she had watched the light go out of the love of her life's eyes.

Cinder curled into herself, wishing it would end. Wishing that knife had taken her instead, wishing Kai had stayed put. He had promised her that he would. Promised that he would wait until she came to get him. Promised he would stay safe.

But Kai was dead, and with him was his promise. Because that's all that it was now, a dead promise.