Bleeding Ink

Chapter 19

Chapter 19

Dessa was having a difficult time staying still as she watched Milena reading through every line of her final draft of her thesis paper. It was the last step between now and graduating top of their university class and she was more than ready to hand it in, to be able to finally accomplish something after those last two and a half years.

After their morning of flying, the two of them had plans of reviewing each other's final papers that afternoon. Fin planned on joining them, but he'd come in one moment then turned around the next after realizing he'd forgotten something back at his apartment. That was an hour ago. An hour of watching Milena's every move as she read through every line so, so slowly. She was going way too slow for her liking.

Dessa's fingers started thrumming out a rhythm on the wooden table of their private room in the library. It was one of the few places the students were actually able to speak in normal tones.

But right now, the silence was deafening.

When she was finally finished, Milena gently placed the dozens of sheets of parchment back on the table, her eyes misted over with tears. "Dessa..."

"What?" she asked, voice quivering as she reached for the parchment. "Is it that bad you're crying?"

"No. I'm crying because it's absolutely beautiful. Professor Britheva and the other ones evaluating our final theses are undoubtedly going to give you top marks plus more. I wouldn't be surprised if they decided to make you publish this and teach it to the next year's students."

She let out a snort of laughter. "Please."

"I'm serious. You have me crying, Des, and you know me. I hardly cry. I'm just like Daddy."

True. Milena had never been one for tears when she was upset and angry. She was more likely to pull out her sword and fight anyone who made her so. But now, seeing her tears glistening against her cheeks, it made Dessa's heart clench with the thought of that final paper of hers being so powerful.

Because it had been a recount from her parents on those last few months of the Dark Wars – the loss of her grandfather Bence and the fall of Escarral, the journey they'd gone on to find a way to rid their world of the darkness, those weeks in the ruined human lands, and the sacrifices both the Crown Prince and Crown Princess of Dalcaine made – their lives – to rid their world of the darkness.

Even Dessa was crying, though she'd rewrote the whole thing after finishing the first draft since tearstains blotted out some of the ink. It had been a story she'd been told her whole life, one that had become legendary around their world ever since, and yet this paper she'd written told it in a way no one else had heard before other than herself when her parents told it to her growing up.

"Have your parents read it yet?" Milena asked, scrubbing away her tears with her shirtsleeve.

Dessa nodded, neatly placing her thesis in its leather-bound folio she was going to turn in in just a few hours. "They practically fought over who got to first. Daddy won, read it, and couldn't say anything after. He disappeared for a little while after, even missed dinner. Momma got it after him and read it last night...before they both came into my room and practically smothered me in my sleep. They ended up spending the night just like they used to when I was little and had bad dreams. Except now, they were the ones reliving the nightmare and needed to know they'd already lived through it and had their own happily ever after. I withheld the last section from them until then, though. I let them read together. I'm actually surprised they let me out of their sights this morning when we left home."