Their Fireheart

Chapter Twenty Eight

All those people. From Terresan, from Eyllwe, and Melisande, and Fenharrow. All toiling away in agony - while I draped myself in lavishness, attended extravagant parties and danced to the tune of glorious music for hours on end.

The one time I'd managed to save any of them, it had only resulted in one thing - the sharp impact of Arobynn's fist crashing against my cheek, the cold metal of his rings cutting into my flesh - followed by my broken, bleeding body shipped off into the Red Desert.

Every moment of the time I'd been Celaena Sardothien was etched into my very bones, and I relived it all as I stood on that rooftop, each sensation as bright and cutting as it had felt at the time. The isolation. The pain. The horror. The cold, gaping maw where my heart had once resided.

It was all so painfully clear to me.

A decade of harrowing memories crashed over me, threatening to crush me under their weight. The shame of each vile, wicked act was nearly enough to lead me to ruin. It was difficult to draw breathe under the strain of it all, but it was better I face them now -

Before they were thrown in my face by the males who owned my heart and soul.

Absentmindedly, I wondered if was better to have known what it was like to be cherished, to be showered in adoration in the way only my mates could - the kind of love I might have deserved in another life - only to have it ultimately ripped away, leaving me bereft and shattered once again.

Just like I'd been when Sam was taken from me. I hadn't deserved him either.

At least, this time, when I was abandoned, I would still have my purpose.

Because it didn't matter that they would forsake me after tomorrow - in all honesty, I didn't even blame them - they were still mine. Mine to love. Mine to protect.

They were still the males who had walked that dark path with me until I'd emerged into the light for the first time in ten brutal years. The males to whom the solitary bright speck of my soul was credited.

And it was for them that I would save this world, and theirs. For them that I would reforge the realms, gladly giving all of myself, until not even a speck of dust remained, until I was nothing more than a spark of a half-formed memory. 

I would do all of it, without complaint, for them. Only them.

It was nearing three when soft footsteps disrupted my solitary vigil. At that point, I was utterly, impossibly drained. There wasn't even a solitary ember remaining capable of rousing my desolate spirit. So I said nothing. I stood there, soaked to the bone, facing westward - across the city, staring towards the insidious Keep that marked the birth of my downfall.

I could feel the heat of the towering male body as he stopped several feet behind me.

The sodden tiles beneath my feet bled golden where the lamplight glinted off the golden combs in my drenched hair, the golden dragon still carving a path up my spine. Damp tendrils clung to my face, but I didn't have the energy to push them away.

"It would truly be a shame if you ruined that dress standing out here in the rain." Cassian's deep voice rumbled.

I couldn't muster the strength to turn to look at him. Knowing that he would see the streaks of kohl the rain had left on my cheeks, read the guilt, anger and anguish in my eyes as clear as day.

Knowing that whatever I would see in his face would hit me like a blow to the gut, knocking the air from my lungs more effectively than any opponent ever could.

So I just continued to stare out at the city. "It doesn't matter. I was never going to wear this dress again, anyway."

How could I? When all it would do would be to remind me of this night - the last time my mates looked at me with love in their eyes, right before I'd burned it all to the ground.