The Before: 3 Months To The Screening
We were walking back along the Healer's compound, cutting across the Gardenia. Another day, I would have been noticing the elegant trees that curved into the ground and kissed the grass blades just as it arched out of it and promised itself to reach the sky. Red cressyia flowers caressed the grass all around me: crimson against emerald and something that always calmed me.
Except, not today. Definitely not today.
She walked beside me, her red hair in a high pony-tail, the end of it brushing her neck. Tatianya was not what you would describe as a wild person - but that didn't mean she didn't have those rare explosions of anger when she got really pissed off. And though I couldn't look into my own future - though Sol knows I tried so I could shwing the answers to a few tests here and there - I was fairly sure at least five futures involved her slapping me.
"You're quiet," she noted, with a smile on her lips. "I don't think I've ever heard you so quiet since Valeryan challenged you to that ridiculous silent contest. And even then, he won that too. Are you having a vision again?"
We turned a corner. The Gardenia turned into asphalt and the industrial area: a place where building projects sprouted up like weeds. They were ugly to me but exact for each purpose they were created for.
Her hand sought mine and I let her because it comforted me... even though part of what I was about to say meant that I was encouraging the separation of those two hands.
"No, not a vision," I replied, a touch of snark in my tone. I wasn't thrilled I couldn't see a thing about my own future. Whenever I tried to delve into it, all I got was a head-ache and my eyes were blinded in darkness for about twenty minutes. Which really hadn't helped when I was trying to cram for my Persuasive Technique exam.
About half an hour of studying, I realised that no, you can't try and stuff a whole syllabus of knowledge into your mind after failing to pay attention all term. I'd managed to scrape through the test with a good but not quite up to standard, Katarina from my instructor which dear Dad saw as your child is a moron. Yeah, seeing the future would have really helped back then.
Tatianya waited quietly, knowing sooner or later I would speak. Our feet were the only sounds in the street, night just beginning to make itself known in the city. I was probably just going to make curfew as it was - but I stopped. My hands uselessly twitched by my sides and my mouth opened and closed several times making Tatianya raise her eyebrows: a gorgeous action that had made me first like her at the start.
That and the fact she had the best hair in Twelfth Training. And the light dusting of freckles across her nose and her pale skin that she hated but I loved mainly because it was one of her few flaws: a faulty tanning system. I used to tease her she would stay like an albino forever. Despite it, Tatianya was beautiful: a tall, willowy, scarlet-haired calm to my storm.
She'd also been my first girlfriend if you didn't count when I'd kissed Laney Ferris on an impulse decision when realising that I didn't like to be limited by just one gender. I'd been pretty drunk which is probably as well because Laney was very straight. It was a good thing she'd been smashed because it was a fairly nice kiss for thirty seconds before she suddenly remembered I didn't have a Y chromosome.
"I'm breaking up with you," I blurted out, my execution both tactless and swift. I cringed almost immediately as the words were out of my mouth: really, Katarina? Maybe you should have punched her in the face as well to make it go over just a little easier.
YOU ARE READING
Legacy
Romance"There's a war going on, Katarina," he hissed into my ear. "Remember which side you're on. And know that neither is the right one." This world was built on power, lies and corruption. Our hands were always stained with blood. Our eyes were windows t...
