𝔸 ℂ𝕠𝕦𝕣𝕥 𝕠𝕗 𝕃𝕠𝕧𝕖 𝕒𝕟𝕕 𝕎𝕣𝕒𝕥𝕙 (Book 2)

Eighty-Two

I was a coward. A damn coward.

    And yet I didn't care. Not then. Not now. Not if it meant I would hurt someone else.

    I knew I was I coward the moment I'd woken up that morning, warm and comfortable. I'd known the second a wash of contempt fell over me like a thick fog. When my nightmares hadn't chased me from sleep, and my mind felt like it had the best night's rest I'd had in years.

    I'd known the second I had snuck from Rhys's bed as the panic hit me like a physical blow. As I realized how wrong it was for me to have stayed with him. To have let myself be comfortable and let down my guard under that blinding moment when Rhys had asked me to stay. I should have said no. Should have left and gone back to sleep.

    When I let down my guard, the people I held dear got hurt. Got killed. Astrid, Flynn, Kai, Feyre, Gods even Clare and Maya Bedder.

    All of them dead, because of me.

    Astrid and Flynn had been killed because of my insolence, simply due to the fact I hadn't attempted to find my way back to the Flame and forsake my sister in Prythian. My family.

    Their throats had been slit in front of me.

    Kai was killed because I hadn't stopped him. Hadn't prevented him from seeking revenge even as I knew it would be a bad idea. I could have kept him from going, forced him to stay and live.

His head had been sent to my doorstep the next morning.

Feyre had died because I hadn't been able to get to her. Because I had been foolish enough to underestimate Amarantha. I had experience when it came to corrupt people in power. And yet I had underestimated her anyway. And Feyre had suffered the consequences.

I watched her neck snap.

We were only forced to give Rhysand Clare and Maya's names because I had provoked him. He had gone into my mind after I had threatened him. He had asked for our names, and I had given him theirs.

They hung from the walls of Under the Mountain.

All of them my fault...

I only been lucky enough to one back.

I was an hourglass, as my mind betrayed me, and I let those brick walls in my mind fall to ash. As I let someone in that hourglass ticked to the side, flipping and swaying. Counting down the moments, seconds until their lives ran out.

I was a curse. A damnation.

And I couldn't...I couldn't put anyone else's name on that hourglass. I refused to doom another with everything that was me, especially if that person was as good and unselfish as Rhys was.

And so when I snuck out that morning, I knew I was a coward.

And I didn't care this time.

─── · 。ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

A/N: Short one for ya, lovelies.