Burning Castles | ✓

Chapter 26 - Empty

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∞ | Chapter 26 - Empty | ∞

Endyr's Cliff, Carvensland

Heart-stricken, she stared at the crashing waves of the sea in a daze. A grief-laden daze.

Is this what loss and grief felt like? Like the pain from a dagger being plunged into the very organ that gave life? Or how it was like when you lost the only person that mattered to you? Or a pain so deep that she couldn't even describe it and that it goes on and on?

How could she explain and describe the gaping hole in her heart?

God, it didn't even feel like she had a heart anymore.

Empty.

That's right, she was empty.

How could she be anything but empty when her other half was gone.

Rhydderch was indeed her other half.

He had entered her life and made her question everything, he changed the reality she was living, the way she saw things. He didn't complete her. They weren't that opposite but he made her want to complete herself. To be better.

And she couldn't imagine life without him. Without living the rest of her life without him at her side.

She couldn't seem to feel or hear anything except the agony of her scream when Rhydderch plummeted down from the cliff.

She couldn't even feel the tears in the back of her eyes that was wont to come anytime soon.

If she closed her eyes, she could picture Rhydderch's shellshocked expression as he toppled backwards into the dark sea. His hands were outstretched towards her and she could only watch helplessly and in horror.

A brief tap on her shoulder made her flinch and open her eyes. Adrastea turned and was met with Darius who was watching her warily.

Bitterly, she noted that he was regarding her as if she would collapse on the ground in tears and screaming and raging at the world that it wasn't fair that Rhydderch had been taken from her.

"What is it?" she asked, meeting Darius' eyes.

Around her, she could see that the rebellion had everything under control. Vlad's men had surrendered when they had seen their leader plunge headfirst down the cliff and within minutes they were on their knees.

She just didn't know how long she had been standing at the edge of the cliff.

Some would think that she was mad for standing so perilously close to the border but she didn't care. It could crumble and it would be her turn to go tumbling down.

Truthfully, she didn't care.

Adrastea half hoped that the cliff would crumble at where she was standing and she could join her soulmate in the afterlife. After all, there was nothing holding her back. She had no family to speak of, no close friends that would mourn her death.

But it was the thought of Izla alone that made her pause through her silent grief.

Rhydderch - God, it hurt to even think his name in her own mind. Izla had only been reunited with her brother for what seemed like two weeks before he was brutally snatched from her once more.

She almost sunk to her knees as the frightening reality encroached into her mind that Rhydderch was gone. Truly gone.

"What do you want to do about the rest?" Darius questioned carefully.