The Empress' Descent

Chapter 50 - Hopes Emptied

Clary was not in the ballroom. Derek figured she had retreated to her chamber for the night. He headed there, afflicted in having to tell her the Emperor's advisers' decision for the academy. It was clear that Lord Miller's disdain for it was greater than the others'. Like most pig-headed noblemen in Solaria, especially in the South, he loathed the notion of women standing in equal grounds with men. Derek couldn't do anything but relent—at least for now—since this misogynistic upbringing of theirs had dated back for centuries. One could not simply teach an old dog new tricks.

Derek tried to look at the bright side, Clary would never be as dejected as he is now. Her stubborn spirit would find another way, carve a new path if she had to. All he had to do was make sure she was getting enough support she could have.

And this wasn't the only thing he needed to say to her. Erix had passed on the "confirmation" from Derek's spies. His suspicions for the past months had been made solid, given shape so that it became true. An ominous feeling churned Derek's stomach. What would her reaction be, if he told her?

Derek rounded a bend in the hallway. Distracted, he bumped into someone. He remained rooted in place, but the person who had collided with him flung backward, their own force repelling them.

To his surprise—and a little dismay of having less time to prepare the words—it was Clary. She'd changed into a simpler gown. She was lovely still, but she seemed harried. Her azure orbs, murky as the deep ocean, were wild and constantly shifting.

"Clary," Derek said as he steadied her. "Are you all right?"

She gazed up and her oceans cleared in recognition. Clary appeared relieved. "Derek."

It hit Derek that this was the first she uttered his name. The sound of it almost seemed nostalgic in her lips. There, it hardly sounded new or foreign. If he had allowed himself some delusion, he thought she would've said it like they'd known each other for a long time. As though his name were a fishing boat finding the dock after a storm, coming home at last.

He felt afloat, drifting above his body in happiness. Then a rope tugged him back to the ground, to reality. There was a wet sensation below his palm upon where he had been holding Clary by the arm.

Derek drew his hand back, turned it over and saw blood.

"Oh..." Clary mumbled.

He looked at the red smudge on his palm and to the girl. Girl, blood, girl, blood.

There were tiny wounds running along her arms, marking and seeping into the fabric. There were also lines of dark-red on her navel and stomach. If you were to see her from a distance, you'd assume that these were merely part of the gown's design.

Derek clenched his jaw, pulling a handkerchief from his breast pocket. What was he going to do, wipe the blood off? This was stupid, Clary had to be tended to. But it would have to do, he told himself.

"You got attacked again?" Derek said, barely hiding the anger in his voice.

He had called her a beautiful kind of a bloody mess once. But wasn't this too much? Derek had had enough of seeing her in this state.

Clary accepted the handkerchief. "Let's talk somewhere private."

And so they went to Derek's study, far from the reaches of the ballroom. On the way there, he noticed that Clary's breathing was ragged no matter how hard she tried to conceal it. He wanted to wrap his arms around her and offer calm. But he had an inkling that this was not what she wanted as of the moment. Being clueless irked him, he craved to be of use to her more.

Clary sat on the couch while Derek poured her tea. The steam curled up hazily into the stream of moonlight coming in from the windows.

"I almost had her killed," Clary mumbled to herself. Her eyes were distant. She repeated her sentence, as if some truth had just dawned on her. "I almost had her killed."