THE GOLDEN AGE, sejanus plinth

epilogue

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EPILOGUE
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THE AIR WAS crispy cold in the mountains. They were getting close to National Heroes Day and Aurora Crane had just dropped out of university.

She stood there on the balcony of the freshly finished newest luxury hotel, being there to make sure that everything was as it was supposed to be before the first tourists would arrive.

Medicine had been a tough subject to study and she had enjoyed every second of it. It had taken her mind off things, especially during her first semester. Between all the studying hadn't been room for the grief that she was still carrying with her now, two years later.

But it had caught up on her during the birthday dinner that the Plinths now held yearly in memory of Sejanus. The moment in which she had realized once again that he would never come back to her.

She breathed in deeply. The air in the Capitol would certainly never be as fresh as the air here in Two.

Snow was falling slowly, but it was only the first snow of a long, long winter, she could feel it.

Lysistrata had been sad when Aurora had broken the news about her giving up a career in the medical field, they had studied together for two years after all, but she had understood.

Of course she had, Lyssie was understanding by nature.

The snowflakes tickled her nose, but she kept her eyes closed to enjoy the silence. Sejanus had been right about District Two being a beautiful place, which made it even sadder that he hadn't gotten to see it one last time.

Aurora was now twenty-one and he should be too, but he was stuck to forever being eighteen, stuck to being a memory, stuck to being a story.

At least he didn't see what they had done with the Games. What Coriolanus had done with the Games.

The first cracks in their friendship had occurred once university had begun. Maybe it had been because of his affiliation with Dr. Gaul and his internship as a Gamemaker and the fact that Aurora secretly accused him of not looking out enough for Sejanus, but whatever reason lay behind it, the fact was that she didn't count him as her friend anymore.

Especially now since he was on his way, his direct way, of becoming a Gamemaker. The Games were now bigger than ever, a rising interest in them by the Capitol residents had been detected and they were planning on making them even more huge.

A festivity, a holiday, the best part of the year.

She felt sick even thinking about that. She felt sick thinking about Coriolanus, the boy she had known all her life, who was now nothing more than an inconvenience she tried to avoid, but failed.

She couldn't believe that her intuition had failed her that deeply. How could she ever trust it again?

But hadn't it been clear from the start? When he'd suggested the bettings?

In her first ever week at the University, she had run into Dr. Gaul on her way between classes. It had been indescribable awful, of course, but the woman actually talking to her had been the cherry on top of that horrendous situation.