Cal

And there will be no comfort for you. No comfort as you witness the breaking of your world. She will forever linger in your darkness and shame. You will forever dwell in your sorrow, bound by grief, until  the sword or the decay of time takes you.

Chapter Music: Oh My Love

I hold her close, feeling the warmth drain from her. Her smell fills my head, turning from a faded, homesick memory to a twisted poison. It reminds me of everything I have done. What I've done to her. I saw the hope fill her eyes and I killed her all the same.

It's too quiet, and I am vaguely aware of the gazes of my friends on me. Everyone's stopped fighting for a moment. Kilorn's heavy steps near me. I look up at him for anything. For him to tell me it is okay. His face is contorted in pain as he falls to his knees. He only whispers one thing as his hand lays on the tip of her boot, "What have you done?"

She stares past me, to the ceiling. A trickle of blood forms out of her lips. Julian's fingers tremble as they run through her hair. He lowers his head to her and kisses her forehead before closing her eyes forever. "Get away from her!" Gisa's fists slam against my shoulder. If she were any bigger they might actually hurt. I wish they would, or that she would use one of her daggers on me instead. Half of her face is covered in blood from a deep cut. She doesn't seem to notice it at all. Gisa pushes me away, cradling her sister's head. Her cries pierce through the air like a thousand of her daggers.

I look up, Farley stares at me with dead eyes. She doesn't say anything to me, but I see her hand locked on her gun. As if she can't decide if she should raise it up at me and squeeze the trigger. Beyond her, Queen Iris begins to move as if she had been asleep. Her eyes follow everyone, one by one, until they lead her to Mare.

"NO!" She screams, pounding her fist onto the marble. The water on the floor swirls in her anger, moving towards one another to form large puddles. Evangeline finds her, whispering something to her and then helping her up. She turns her eyes onto me.

"I would kill you, but it seems you're already dead," she yells across the hall, "No, I'll let you live with what you've done. Make you wake up everyday next to the people that Mare loved and you'll know in your heart you killed her. A fate worse than death"

"Surrender, now." Farley turns, gun raised at them.

"I don't think so," Evangeline growls. The gun shoots out of Farley's hand towards Evangeline and she grabs it pointing it towards Farley herself. "This war isn't over. This is my gift today to you, Red. Your life." They back out of the hall, Iris leaning on Evangeline as they limp away. Where they're going I do not know.

Farley looks back at Mare, wiping the blood and tears out of her eyes. Julian's faded face finds me. "Maven is alive," he murmurs. I gape at him, feeling my insides burn. My brother has been dead to me for months. But, Julian wouldn't lie. Would he?

"What do you mean?"

"Go to him, Cal. He knows things... things that even Mare wouldn't tell me."

"Where?"

"You already know the answer to that. There's only one place here that could have held him." I feel my limbs crank into action. I feel so heavy, but somehow I stand. I have to get away from her. To do something other than sit there and feel the weight of what I've done. Someone stands with me, and they press a gun to my skull.

"Kilorn, do not fire," Farley orders from behind.

"He murdered her," he mumbles, "We were supposed to bring her home and he murdered her." I inch around to look at him. We were friends, brothers, even. I don't see that in his eyes now. I see anger and pain. So much pain. I caused that.

"Let him go," Farley says. His breaths are fast and short. I see his fingers tense, as if testing himself to see if he can let the bullet fly. He drops the gun, pinching his eyes to stop the tears. He looks up, spitting with anger. No, not just anger. Grief.

"You have no right to mourn her. You stuck a dagger in her heart and for what? Nothing. You've murdered her for nothing. I never want to see you again." I watch him go back to her body and take her hand. He should have shot me. It would have made it all easier.

The darkness of the cells turns my vision to shadows. I follow the light that shines at the end of the hall. If he's alive down here, he'll be where the lights are. He's hated the dark all his life. The light is only a few feet now, and the black blob I noticed earlier has taken shape into something else. A pale face pokes out of the blob. Was I too late?

Jon's face stares up at me, red eyes not quite as repulsive as they were when I first met him. His throat sits open in sick, jagged flaps. His blood is everywhere, the color leeching onto me and to him. I taste the bitter disappointment in my mouth as anger flares up within me. Mare told me she spoke to him, that he told her she couldn't come back with me. The bloody seer knew what was coming for her and let her do it. Let me do it.

"You did it then," a voice murmurs. My eyes fall on a figure in the back of the cell, curled up into a ball. It's strange seeing my brother now. A man that's supposed to be dead. But, somehow he's still here staring at me, very much alive. How could he know already? "You have her blood on your face. Just like he said you would." I raise a hand to my face, feeling for what he says is there. Parts of it are still wet, and my fingers come back red. I wish I had been a Red so that I could tell myself that it's my blood. Jon told him this. Could Maven have stopped it? Something tells me he couldn't. I know my brother. He would have chosen Mare to save, not me. I don't have the words for him. I've dreamed of this moment even before he took Mare. When I could see him again and speak to him. I never could have predicted it would be like this.

"I didn't know I was going to do it."

"Yes, you did. Why?"

"I don't know."

"Liar. You could lie to our father, but not me. You know exactly why. I deserve to know why." Did I know why? I would like to think I did. I asked her what would happen if I let her win this war, and in her eyes where I should have seen caution and calm... I just saw death.

"She was going to go on liberating Reds and betraying people until the only people she was ruling over were corpses." Maven squeezes his eyes shut, shaking his head.

"We ruined her didn't we?" I sit down on my side of the bars, ignoring the blood that I feel seeping in my clothes. I'm already covered in it, what does it matter? We sit together for a long while. Time seems unmeasurable here, the air stagnant and dead. I feel the silent stone behind me. I wonder what it must feel like for Maven. To have your ability denied and to have no way to bring it back.

In the silence, what has happened creeps up on my mind. I can still see myself walking back upstairs and finding Mare alive. But she isn't alive. She is dead. Dead. Dead. Dead. Because of you.

"I killed her, Maven. You'd think that would be the worst part. It's not. The worst part is-"

"You're not dead with her," he says. I lean my head back on the cell bars. Maven's hand falls on my shoulder, squeezing softly. It's like seeing the ghost of a brother I thought I had lost. "We were terrible to each other, brother. The seer promised me I would have Mare again. I know what that means now. There is no place for me here anymore. I am sorry." He opens his hand, showing two blue petals. He puts them on his tongue, swallowing them.

"What were those?"

"My farewell. You should know something before I go. Mare did it all for you. Jon told me it all. The possibilities of the life that could have been. Every single line of fate that he snipped. He seeked her out, knowing she wanted to escape back to you. She wanted to save all of you from me."

His voice has begun to crackle and fade, making him breathe harder to have enough air to talk at all. He squeezes his eyes close at the effort, straining every muscle in his face to finish. "He told her what to do. How to do it. Promised her so many grand things. But then you arrived to rescue her. Listen close, brother. Jon knew that was the one moment where Mare would have left back to the Guard. There was no way to make the decision for her without her realizing what he was doing to her fate. She had to make the choice, then she saw how you looked at her... well her choice was made. I don't tell you this to hurt you of course. Mare knew there was a price in making her world Jon promised. She just never thought the price was her. You delivered it just like he said you would. You played right into Jon's dead hands." I lunge through the bars, reaching for him. I catch nothing but air. Maven laughs bitterly at my efforts. "You killed her, brother," Maven continues, "I hope you suffer for it." He slumps over on the floor, mouth foaming and skin purple. I clutch onto the bar as I hear his breaths die. I flinch away, hands falling on Jon's corpse.

I skid away from him. The coldness in him is maddening. Colder than the bite of all the winters I've ever known. He's lucky he's already dead. I would have hunted him down to the ends of the Earth to repay him for what he has done.

I float around the palace, not sure where to go now. Outside, there aren't any signs of battle. Iris must have called back her troops, and now all I see are the dots of bodies. I'm not sure of where I'm going till I get there. I've been here only once before, even despite living here for most of my life.

Mare's room looks exactly as it was that day I came for her. I sit in one of the chairs, feeling the soft fabric that I know she has touched before. Her bed is marked with thin, scraping lines. I run my fingers over them until I realize what they were to her. She was counting the days.

I can't touch them anymore, moving on to the small desk in the corner. I've never seen Mare write a letter in my life, but I can't help but open the drawers. Empty papers lay in stacks, unused and forgotten. I shuffle around in them until I find something else. A thin, weathered slice of red fabric is in the drawer. It's stained, but it had to have meant something to her for her to keep it. It feels wrong touching it, and I put it back, closing the drawer and sealing the room as I leave.

There's only one place that may have me. It takes me a long while to get to it. I listen as the sound of the waves slapping Earth grow louder. The irony in the peace is daunting. I'm a prince of fire who likes the sea. I'm going to let it be my final peace. I'm going to walk into the ocean and let it drown me.

On the shore, a figure stands up from where they were sitting on the sand. Julian holds his arms open wide. I clutch onto him, shaking like a scared little boy. That's all I am now. A boy who stripped away everything he had into nothing at all.

"I wish she never fell onto that shield at Queenstrial, Julian. That she and the rest of us would have died that night Maven came for her. That she never met that damn seer. I wish I was the one dead." I feel the tears run down my face as I speak, turning to steam before they can fall. Julian says nothing to me. "Maven told me what Jon said. All the things he changed. She could have been the best of us."

"She was once," he whispers, "but that's a sadder story."