How to Make a Sinner Sleep

112 | deceit; in three days

"The whole time, you've been lying to me?" The words reverberated across the crumbled castle walls, mixed with the raging flames that slowly retreated into oblivion with the disappearance of their master.

There was the sound of the floor breaking, shattering in coiled anger that unraveled in terrible bursts.

Nicola jerked her head in the direction of the nearby sound, her eyes wide. Two swords collided with each other, fury burning in each heavy swing, and when her head turned to the standing window, she saw two figures emerge into the ruined gardens.

One wide, weighted sword and the other an elegant blade that could withstand any force.

The crown prince's expression was frighteningly cold, leeched of all colour and feeling as he gazed ahead, past his raised blade. "Do you want to save him when he bears a new label, or do you want to save him as Kaden Chauvet, the miserable dog of mine?"

He slashed across and Lux slammed his sword down, the air rippling around them, cracks spreading across the ground.

"Do you think he'd want to be saved by you, for either of those reasons?" Reed continued, his voice clear and ringing across the expansive space.

Lux growled and slammed his blade again, over and over.

From beside Nicola, the man standing beside her kneeling figure muttered Kaden's name under his breath, empty gaze staring distantly at the scene outside.

One arm was stretched out wielding a slender knife, casually primed at her delicate throat, the tip nicking her skin.

The other arm clutched a stack of papers with messy handwriting, torn out of the pages of a journal. They were dated methodically.

There was an ugly flap of skin across his youthful face that had been sliced open with a knife, and her hand under his boot, bones crushed as agony pulsed in her body.

She bit her tongue and did not scream.

"He always leaves. He never stays."'

And perhaps, he was never meant to. Decided by fate themselves, realized Skye as he clutched the old, yellowed pages more tightly.

He'd found them in Reed's office in the midst of the chaos, after the collapse of the wall shook the building and sent papers flying to the ground.

One had slipped out the window, landing at Skye's feet.

He'd picked it up. Read it. And then he was upstairs, in Reed's office, tearing through the remaining papers.

Nicola faltered, the wilderness in her cherry gaze settling, the satchel over her shoulder pressed against her tightly. "Would you prefer him if he were dead, Your Highness?" prompted the woman gently, although her words were cruel and unforgiving.

The sky blue gaze looked over, innocent eyes that were more ignorant than sweet. The pressure on his foot intensified.

"Have you ever dreamed," she continued, swallowing back the pain that bubbled in her throat and her thoughts that strayed to her unmoving fingers. "Of his corpse bleeding into the running rainwater?"

"A dead body so far away, you couldn't reach him even if you wished to? A time where even his corpse fled your cruelties."

Skye's eyes widened and narrowed into sharp slits, but she did not stop. Once, she'd been a girl in the slums without a voice. Her voice had been that gentle, proud salvation in that awkward but kind boy.

He was not here, but she was not that same girl.

Bitterness fueled her, rage numbing all other feelings. An ancient rage from many, many years prior.