Dance of Fate

Chapter Eleven

The next day, I didn't rise in time for breakfast. Or lunch.

I couldn't bring myself to do much of anything but stare outside the window. Mor came up to my room to talk to me a few times a day, try to coax me to go outside. But every time, I told her that I wasn't ready. Maybe tomorrow, I'd say.

Cassian had come too. He'd thrown himself on my bed and started talking about casual things, as if nothing had happened. But I could still tell he was being cautious. He completely avoided the subject of Under the Mountain, to my relief. Only once did he try to get me to leave my room, and when I'd said no, he had only nodded as he tried to hide the sadness in his eyes.

Rhys had only come once. He asked me how I was, and if I needed anything. I had only told him that I was fine. He didn't need anything else to worry about, not when he was doing no better than I was. And with the whole Court in shambles... this wasn't nearly important enough to concern him with.

Azriel had never come, to my relief. I didn't even think he was staying at the Town House anymore. As much as I missed him, I knew it was for the better.

For days, I didn't leave my room. I could barely function, with the haunting memories that rang in my ears and took form whenever I closed my eyes. I barely slept, either. I would much rather be exhausted than live it all again at night.

I sat alone behind walls of regret, running off everyone I loved as they tried to help me. 

On the seventh day of this, Mor marched into my room. "Get the hell up." She snapped, watching me with hard eyes and crossed arms. I turned my head halfway to look at her. "You can't spend your freedom locking yourself away in your room." I opened my mouth to shoot something back, but the words didn't come. Her words stung- but she was right.

Mor left, and I finally forced myself out of my bed and urged my feet to the bathroom. Once I walked in, I realized I had forgotten how big the bathroom's mirror was. I usually avoided looking in it whenever I went in, forcing my eyes to the floor. My bathing quarters Under the Mountain hadn't had a mirror, to my request. I didn't think I'd looked at myself in forty nine years.

Before, when I stared at my reflection, all I could see was my father staring back. Mocking me through my eyes that really belonged to him. Now, as I stared at the stranger before me- her too pale skin, her sharp cheekbones and those haunting violet eyes- all I saw was myself.

And that was so much worse.

In the reflection of my eyes, all I could see was what that horrible power that lay inside me, and all the things it had done. All the people it had hurt, all the people I had killed.

I was a monster. I didn't deserve to be here, alive and well with my family. I deserved to be dead. I deserved worse than death.

The mirror shattered into a million little pieces, the shards of glass glistening with purple light as they fell rapidly to the floor. I stared at them for what felt like a lifetime- until I caught a glimpse of my own eye in one of the larger shards that lay on the floor.

I looked away, lifting my hand to fix what I had broken. I quickly wiped a tear from my eye, turning away from the newly fixed mirror as I turned on the bathtub.

...

It was nearing winter. I hadn't realized that before, hadn't realized how much I missed the seasons, either. The first snow had yet to fall, but the chill of the air was enough to warn us that it would be here in mere months, if not weeks.