Hall of Shadows [The Celestial Chronicles #2]

Chapter Thirty-Two: Dilemma

  "Why can't you see what we had  

Let the fire burn the ice

Where's the love we once had

Is it all a lie?"

- "Fire and Ice", Within Tempation

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Soundtrack of the chapter: Fire and Ice by Within Temption ( PLS PLAY PLS PLAY PLS PLAY IT!)

Media: I see this pic of Erza and can't help thinking of Cady in this chapter ( red hair and tears :'))

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Chapter Thirty-Two: Dilemma

Zoroth was dozing in Cady's mind when she summoned his energies. In a flash, the familiar pain of his claws emerging from her finger tips and his wings expanding from her back hit her. She soared over the seas and toward the little hut nestled within the Darkling Woods. Cady couldn't believe it, she just...couldn't. Jasper would never harm another person, especially not Eli. The dark look on his face had made her reel, a cold fist closing around her heart, rendering her breathless from shock.

However, she still did not trust the judgment of the Oracles. She needed to see evidence with her own eyes before she would believe Jasper's betrayal.

Hot tears came to her eyes which she rubbed them out, angrily. Was she just a ploy? A piece of chess in Jasper's game so he could gain whatever he wanted?

But I love him, she sobbed in her heart. I love him so much.

She couldn't shake his touch from her head, the perfect imperfectness which made Jasper as her other half. The cold sting of his necklace was still on her fingers, and the way his lips had made their way down her neck to her breasts made her shudder. His passion and tolerance for her and her kind was out of the world. He was the only person who could understand her, someone whom she could be herself with. But why, all of the sudden, she felt like she didn't even know who Jasper was?

Her wings folded behind her back as she landed on the familiar patch of grass. She looked around, taking in the large slab of rock jutting out to the river-the place where she and Jasper would always train on. Used tea lights littered the roots of a great oak tree by the rushing waters. She closed a hand around her mouth, holding back another sob.

She prayed that whatever she was looking for wasn't there. Jasper, please, do not betray my trust. If you do, there would be nothing left inside me. I could never trust another ever again.

She had left her Celestial Blade back at her dorm, and there were no Celeslights in the hut, being abandoned for a few months since Jasper moved into the Hall of Spirits as Master Physician. Cady then remembered Jasper stored candles in a chest by the kitchen, having taken out a few during one of Eli's seizures.

Groping her way through the darkness, she walked twice into the table and once into the wall, earning a good throbbing lump on her forehead. Complaining, her hands finally found the smooth surface of the chest. Sliding the lock open, she lifted it and rummaged through the contents for the slippery feel of candles.

Bundles of cloth slithered through her fingers. Some of them came loose. It felt slippery enough to be candles, but far too large. She drew them out and placed them aside before she found the candles. Hastily lighting one, she lifted it where it cast a flickering light on the loose bundles.