Ice and Fire

Hunger

I don't sleep that night. Even when my eyes finally stop watering, when my tearstreaked cheeks dry, when my throat becomes so hoarse that I can barely manage a raspy whisper, when I feel myself on the brink of exhaustion. Even then, I still tremble where I lay curled into the floor, as if praying it might swallow me, the hard surface deliciously cool against my feverish skin.

Because I am a creature brimming with frenetic energy that damns me, that keeps me awake, even as my eyelids droop and my breathing slows—it's an insidious force, a diminishing agent that makes me less and less, even as I feel more.

More, because my senses are unbound. They are not restricted to... reality.

I hear swift footfalls echoing, despite their furtiveness, throughout the halls. Indistinct murmurs lingering in the air that tease with the promise of forbidden knowledge—because there are so many secrets between us, secrets that would surely tear our House asunder, secrets I must learn, must pry from the unwilling minds of my classmates, as surely as if I was using forceps.

(For one of them has betrayed me. Who?)

Soft rain patters against the exterior of our castle and leaks through slim apertures in the walls, forming tiny rivulets in convenient fissures of the stone, spreading an aroma of earthiness, one born of freshwater mingling with mortar across permeable rock.

These things may or may not be real. I am not sure. But I know what is not.

The graceful step with perfect cadence that, unlike most, advances from the left, rather than right, foot. The whisper laced with barely–dampened zest that seems to convey a grin through mere words. The scent of woodsy sandalwood, warm vanilla, crisp mandarin, and sweet Rose that's heralded comfort to me since Ariadne gifted us the first bottle on our thirteenth birthday.

(Gods above, you boys reek of stale sweat and euphoriant smoke. Are you even washing? Barely. Far too busy, you know—filching from Mother's purse to buy the glittering eyeshadow that made her frown. But he never had the audacity to wear it in front of her, as I did.)

Many things are uncertain. But as surely as Julian was once a constant presence in my life, now, he is a constant absence. As surely as he once lived, now, he is dead. He is not here. He is not coming.

I know this... today. But tomorrow? The day after? The day next?

Because how long can I last, without sleep, without food or drink, before I forget? Before he stands before me, peering down at my pathetic form, emerging from the yawning darkness of the corridor, as clearly as Fitchner does now, reflecting dying torchlight across his polished gravBoots and the golden accents of his otherwise black uniform?

But I smelled him before I saw him—as always, he is preceded by the faintest whiff of metabolizers. My eyes snap to his. He isn't sneering at me. But his earlier pity is gone.

"Get up." He commands. When I don't move, he sighs. "You had your cry. He's dead. You're alive. Tough shit. Time to get up."

I still don't move. He reaches down, faster than I would've expected, and grabs the neck of my highCollar. But he doesn't pull me up.

"Now, you listen good, little prince. I'll make it crystal. I didn't want you. You don't belong here. Neither did your dipstick twin. I tried to tell them, the Drafters. Don't take the Bellona boys, I said, and if you're going to take the older one, for the love of Jove, don't take the younger. But did they listen?" He scoffs.

"No! Of course not. Because I ain't got nothing on Tiberius au Bellona! And his special boy said: I want Mars, Daddy! And I want it now!" He stomps his boot petulantly. "Well, you got your way. Congratulations! You are Mars! Now... start acting like it.