A Shattered Dawn

Chapter 13

I wake to three sharp knocks on the door. I have gotten used to waking up alone, with a note on a bedside table, or sometimes, nothing at all. But I was not expecting a visitor this morning. A week has passed since I last met with Fallon, and whenever I see him he does not acknowledge me, only walks with his eyes straight ahead. Clearly, he has not found anything. And, unfortunately, neither have I. It's quite hard not to lose hope when I don't even know where to start—I have no idea who could be in possession of the blade.

I open the door, hoping to see Fallon, and instead I am greeted by yet another person who I am not sure if I can trust: Lucia.

"Acilya, I've been looking for you everywhere!"

She reaches in to hug me, but it is stiff, awkward, and she whispers in my ear,

"Things are not what they seem. We need to talk."

She pulls away, grinning, lighting up the room with her beauty.

"So, do you want to get breakfast? We need to catch up!"

I nod, forcing a smile and attempting to mask my confusion. Then, I notice the servants stationed outside our door. I beckon her to come into our room, carefully closing the door behind her. I quickly change out of my nightgown, rubbing my temples to relieve the pressure. I make small talk, chatting about the weather and the recent Challenge, though even a simple mention of it makes my blood boil. The air in the room turns stuffy and hot, and suddenly, I feel as though I need to escape.

"Are you ready, let's go."

I practically drag her from the room, and we walk down the hallway, nothing more than two friends going to grab food together.

Once we are in the main dining room, we sit down, but the table feels so large with only two people sitting here. Lucia, who I thought had endless confidence, is tapping her foot and doesn't even touch her food. Her anxiety makes me nervous, and my appetite goes with hers.

"Do you want to...?"

She looks behind her, down a quiet hallway, then back at me. My answering nod is all she needs to spring up from her seat and leave her dishes, still filled with her breakfast, for the servants to clean. I follow suit, however disrespectful it may feel.

She walks so fast I almost jog to keep up with her. Even though she is much shorter than I am, she has as much power and speed in her stride as I do. I follow her down the hallway until she reaches the end, some foreign area of the building I have not yet explored. It seems to be only servants' quarters, but she walks until she finds the room she is looking for, pulling open the door.

It's a storage closet. Before I look at her with raised eyebrows, saying really? A closet? I notice the bags under her eyes and her pale skin—something I didn't notice earlier in the low light of the bedroom. And so I squeeze into the closet and she follows me, closing the door and closing us into darkness. She speaks first.

"Acilya... I wouldn't be talking to you right now if I didn't think you were in danger. I need you to listen to me. I need to put my anger behind me, about—never mind. Please just listen."

I reassure her that I am listening, and she continues.

"You need to watch out for Adrian, please. I was searching for my ring a couple of weeks ago, remember? And he freaked out on me. I'm warning you, he can get really possessive. It can be... scary sometimes. I just want to keep you safe, Acilya, because I know you're new here and you want to please everyone but please watch your back around him. He's dangerous and powerful, and I've been hearing things recently..."

"What kind of things?"

My mind jumps to the worst-case scenario.

"Things like... how apparently he has been talking about murder recently. I heard servants talking about it the other day. Like, killing people kind of murder. Killing for the throne, killing to get the girl he wants... I'm scared, Acilya. Not just for you, but for me, too. The way he freaked out on me... I don't know what to think."

She chokes up, and for a moment I think: this can't be Lucia. No way would Lucia ever be afraid. She is the one who was talking about murdering Adrian, right? But that is if I am to trust anything he has to say. I guess there's only one way to find out.

"Lucia, Adrian told me when we met to watch out for you, that you wanted to marry him, and then said you would kill him, end him—"

"Yes. It is true that I wanted to marry him, but—"

She chokes up, hesitating before she continues her story.

"I backed out at the last moment. I didn't want to, I—I couldn't go through that for the rest of my life. It was torture, it was hell, Acilya, and—"

She takes a steadying breath.

"And yes. Maybe I did want to kill him. Truly, in my bones, wanted to take him away from this world. But more than that, I wanted to make him suffer. Suffer like he made me suffer. But I couldn't, because he kicked me out of the castle, then my father forced me back in when he rented our quarters here just a few weeks ago, and then I met you—I was a wreck, I—"

She starts crying, and my chest hurts to hear it. Lucia, the young woman I look up to so much and who once warned me about Adrian...

"I'm sorry, Lucia. I should have listened to you the first time."

I wrap her into a hug, holding on to her for as long as she needs me.

I've never helped anyone through anything, supported anyone while they cried, and now I know that it was a blessing. Because through helping someone else through their suffering, you feel their pain, feel their anger, have your own anger about everything they have gone through, and the emotions...

The emotions that I have never felt come flooding into me like a tidal wave of the western seas.

And I, too, cry, because if I had trusted my friend from the beginning I would not be here, we would not be in danger and I could have been well on my way to return to where I belong.

"Thank you, Acilya. I know it seems like I am so confident and pretty and everyone loves me, but the truth is, no one has listened. no one has actually listened to me and acknowledged my feelings and experiences. And for that, thank you."

But there is more.

"He has been eating with me, apologizing for how he treated me when we were together. I think he's afraid that I will tell you the truth about him."

I don't know what to say. It would make sense—that Adrian wants to ensure his reputation is pristine. I wish he didn't have to.

We stand there in silence until we hear voices from one of the rooms next to us. She pushes open the door and walks away, bidding me a final goodbye before she turns her golden head around. For some reason, whether it was the emotions or everything she has told me, it feels strangely final.

I walk back to the rooms slowly and in silence, and I am so distracted by my thoughts that I almost bump into Adrian in the hallways.

"Sorry, Acilya! Are you okay?"

It wasn't his fault, but he grabs my shoulders anyway, apologizing. It takes all of my self-restraint not to flinch, pull away, slap him across the face...

And I realize that I have made a grave mistake: that in getting closer to him, even if it may be for show, he may have sincerely gotten attached to me. Which can prove dangerous, hearing about what happened with Lucia when she tried to leave him. But I let him touch me, wait for him to move on, and keep walking, assured that I am not injured. I now feel as though I have no control over what happens to me. It is as if, once I entered the royal grounds, I surrendered my control, any power I had, the one gift from my mother, any confidence in my abilities... The list goes on and on.

And so I walk back to my room without any sense of purpose or motivation, but rather feeling more despair than ever before.