horology | the darkling

behind your façade

dear society - madison beer

You're bad for my health
I should probably get some help
I can't control myself, I'm addicted to the hell

/

'we are made of all those who have built and broken us' - Atticus

-

konstantin

Dull beams of dawn streamed in from the intricate windows as Konstantin Baranov hurried from one room to the next, desperately searching for a particular black-haired Inferni. Genya had instructed him to tell the girl that she was coming to tailor her new outfit late morning today. Konstantin wondered what would happen if Seraphina missed the appointment. He already sensed that the two Grisha was weary of each other. He promised himself that he wasn't going to get Seraphina in trouble; as little as he knew about her, he had decided that she was a good person.

Konstantin's surprisingly light footsteps pattered along the cold floors of the magnificent little palace but he felt anything but magnificent. Despite having slept well, he woke to a heavy atmosphere in the air; the storm that was brewing in the east had crawled its way closer. The displays of lightning flashed without the sky, pulsing, almost rhythmically. Thunder rumbles were the sharp cracks of a whip, relentlessly beating the horses of a foreshadowed battle.

Konstantin peered his head into an empty room. His light blue eyes caught on his reflection in the mirror. Konstantin was an attractive boy, as all Grisha are, but his shy childish personality and his inability to stand up for himself meant that he was often the butt of jokes from the other Grishas. They weren't mean to him in person but he heard the curbed whispers and the dirty looks as he walked by them.

The boy staring back at him front the mirror had sandy blonde hair, Carolina blue eyes and a cute dimpled face. His turned up nose was lined with small freckles that only added to his boyish looks. Despite this, his muscular build was far from boyish; the herculean definition of his muscles was evident even though his kefta.

Konstantin ruffled his hair, annoyed at what he saw.

He hated the boy in the mirror because he wanted to be admired and respected but all he got was jeers from the others.

It hurt him, of course it did. But the pain in his chest doubled when he saw that the mockery and the hurtful words were led by Irina Andreyev.

Irina was a Tidemaker and she was extremely beautiful. Her hair radiated a dark auburn with some locks darker than others that highlighted the sharp curves of her diamond shaped face. The fierce spark in her eyes and her ambition was unmatched by any other, perhaps not even the General himself. She stood out like a blood in milk.

They were inseparable for 3 years. On his first combat day, the day he arrived on the brink of tears, Irina sat him down in the middle of training and told him he was going to be alright. She told him how scared she was when she first came and how she got through it by finding a thought to hold on to, an anchor. From that moment, his anchor was the thought of her, sitting with him by the lake, laughing as wind streamed through her hair.

But that was a long time ago. They were young, naïve children blind to mistakes that were made in the name of friendship. As Irina grew older, she realised the error she made, that he wasn't worth her kindness because he could never be in a position of power. He wouldn't be able to satisfy her ambition so she had to discard him.

He didn't know if it hurt her, bullying the shy kid who realised too late that he loved her. He hoped it killed her to pretend that she didn't care about him, he hope it burned. He hoped it hurt her as much as it hurt him.