Chapter 39

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There is a pinprick of sun crossing above the horizon, the first light of day stretching after a night of rest

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There is a pinprick of sun crossing above the horizon, the first light of day stretching after a night of rest.

Circe has been flying for hours.

It was barely dusk when she left, but the sun is back again and yet she feels as though no time has passed her. There is a new buzz in her mind, a hum in her body and bones. She feels like she could cross the the planet if she had to, that she might rise up into the stars and swallow the sky whole.

It is not a good feeling.

When she lands, she steps onto the ground and stares at that pinprick before her. The glow of the sun, the warmth of its light waking a cold, dark land. She looks at it and she thinks of Anakin. Anakin. His name is like a wound ripped across her skin.

There is a winding craze rising within her. It is a scream, springing up and tearing through her mind. She wants to disappear into that golden coin, slip into its light, and never return. Perhaps it would soothe her—the raging fire of the sun might burn away the pain in her heart.

She thought that maybe the Force would soothe her, as it did when she was young and scared, or hurt, and at first it did. At first, Circe was wrapped in ecstasy—overdosing on the feeling of her power.

But the high slipped away sometime ago. She wonders if this is what it feels like to fall from light, to tip towards darkness and away from everything she once knew.

Everything she once trusted.

She wonders if this is what Phaedris had felt all his life. This burning, ravenous poison. An ache and a throb. A knife in his throat. If Phaedris had suffered the way she does now.

Thinking of him only makes it worse. The images won't stop. Phaedris's body at her feet. The blood in the hall, covering her hands and face. The sound of Anakin crying for her. They grow within her like the swell of the sea, rising and falling, leaving almost as quickly as they come.

She is haunted by memories. Glimpses.

Anakin's eyes. The stir of his breath before battle. The curls that brushed against his neck, fell into his eyes. His hand on the small of her back in House Naberrie, the flicker of his smile in the candlelight.

She presses her eyes closed, trying to turn the thoughts away.

The timber of his voice, the sound of her name on his lips. Circe. Circe. Like a drug on his tongue. The very smell of him, cedar and sparking flint, it wafts around her like a dream.

She wants to rid herself of it. Of all of it. She wants to cut off her hair, burn her clothes, tear her ship to pieces. Destroy every place his hands have been.

She would have to tear herself limb from limb.

Anakin is a fire, he always has been. A child of the sun, of flame, of smoke. Circe is covered in ash. She thinks of their years together, the way their bodies have changed, voices deepened, hands toughened. She thinks of the years laid to waste behind her now.

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