A Shattered Dawn

Chapter 19

I have stopped eating breakfast with Lucia, even after the ball. Therefore, I am officially friendless. Even if Lucia said we would stay friends, I haven't acknowledged her in the hallways, so it's hard to believe it. I have had time to think about everything that happened with Fallon that night. I have decided that it would be better for both of us if I put my feelings aside and do what I have to. Do what I came to do. He is just an ally and I need to keep myself from getting attached to him.

So, once again, I am on my own. But it's alright, I've been doing everything without the help of anyone else my entire life.

Friendships aside, today is the day that I move on from searching these rooms for my blade and look in Adrian's office. I've been watching for a few days, and he keeps the keys to his office with him at all times, except for when he sleeps or is in his office.

I walk through the halls near his office, careful to stay unnoticed. I wait until I see him push open the door. He's in the bathroom, which means the door is still unlocked. I only have a few minutes if I'm lucky. I carefully twist the handle and slip into the room. I need to move fast.

It is exactly as it was the last time I saw it. Papers strewn everywhere, books and forms and everything you could imagine would be in the most disorganized office of all time. Think, Acilya. Where would he hide an all-powerful stone? I hurry over to the desk and start opening drawers, rifling through the papers inside.

I reach my hand to the back of each drawer, hoping for my fingers to brush against the blade. He has too many drawers in this Eternity-damned desk. Finally, in the last drawer, as I pull it open a tiny, yellow stone rolls to the front of the drawer as the door to the office creaks open. Shit. I shove the drawer shut with my foot and plop into his desk chair, trying not to shake.

"What are you doing here?"

His tone is tentatively kind. Confused. I can see why he might be scared that I am here. He stole one of my possessions.

I smile.

"I just wanted to surprise you! I know you're working all the time."

He lets out a sigh that has to be of relief and smirks back.

"You know I'm always happy to see you, Celia, you just caught me off guard."

He walks over and hugs me from behind but it doesn't help the pain in my chest at the name he called me. I remember it now, heard at the end of a hallway, shouted across the room. My mother's name.

I suddenly feel the need to breathe, to get some air and escape this place.

I make an excuse as to why I have to go and kiss him goodbye. I feel empty.

Sitting on the sand hours later, I feel no better. I know I should find Fallon and talk to him, but it feels suddenly unimportant. I blink my tears away and realize how desperately I wish my mother were here.

But that's why I'm here, right? To avenge them. But even that feels empty now. Or maybe it always did. After all, she told me that she didn't want me to kill them, that it wouldn't do anything. So why am I here?

I know the answer; I've known it for a while. I'm here because I am afraid. I am afraid of living my life, of breaking free of my past. I have lived in the last moment I saw them my entire life. I have tried to preserve their memory, hold on to everything I have, and in the process, I have forgotten everything I really have.

All I have is myself. And I have spent my entire life trying to convince myself otherwise. But it's time to move on. Maybe I do need to kill one last person to do so.