THE GOLDEN AGE, sejanus plinth

028. eternal winter

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CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
ETERNAL WINTER
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AURORA CRANE'S WORLD ended on a rainy morning at the end of August. Mrs. Plinth called her awake, sobbed in the phone, and said things that didn't make any sense.

Grief wasn't unknown to her, she had grown up during a war after all. She had lost her parents, her cousin, a girl that she had cared for like a big sister, and now the love of her life.

Grief was her best friend, she could always count on it. But how much grief, how much pain could one person carry with them before breaking under its weight?

She stared at the letter in the woman's hands in shock. Treason was one of the words she could decipher, next to will be hanged.

The letter was dated a few days back and the date for his execution had been set for the previous day, a Friday. Of course, not even urgent mail was delivered on time.

Sejanus Plinth was dead.

She couldn't remember what happened after that, she had sobbed with the Plinths probably and had gone home to an empty penthouse.

She screamed and wailed so loudly that her voice really died, but it didn't bother her. Nothing could ease the pain that she felt in that moment. It was so all consuming and overpowering, something was ripping her apart from within.

It took her a day and a night of staring at her wall before she could call her aunt in Four. Her voice didn't really work and she couldn't bring herself to break the news anyway, so she croaked something with the hope that Pandora would understand.

Saying it out loud would make it real and she didn't want it to be real.

How was that fair? Everything was supposed to finally work out for them, in a way at least. They were supposed to be happy. They had deserved to, right?

Her family came back early, trying to be there for her because somehow they had figured it out. But Aurora wasn't herself (how could she ever be again?), so she didn't let them get close to her.

She spent hours staring at her walls nonstop, her voice not being present anymore. Her family and friends tried to talk to her, but they all failed.

There was only one person who could bring her to talk in her times of grief, but he would never be there again.

Had anyone sprinkled breadcrumbs over his body?

A few days passed and she stayed the same, staring at her walls, sometimes crying silently and other times feeling empty.

One could think that she was used to loss, to the feeling of grief, to emotional pain. But it hit her more every single time.

She couldn't bring herself to do anything. There were only the bed, that she never left, the wall, that she continued to stare at, and herself with a broken heart.

Aurora wished for the brief moment of peace that at least two bottles of posca would bring her, with the knowledge that that would only make it worse, but she couldn't leave her bed. She was glued to it.

Coryo stood in front of her suddenly, rocking a buzz cut and a grim expression. She thought she was hallucinating because of lack of sleep, but then he started talking.

"I'm sorry, Rory."

She squeezed her eyes shut at the sound of her nickname. She never wanted to hear it again, it didn't sound right when anyone else said it, which was stupid. That nickname existed for longer than she had known Sejanus, but it felt like something special between the two of them.