LEGENDS ▹ the hunger games au

xxiv

IN THE HANGING TREE

BEING a legend wasn't easy.

Valour knew this, firsthand.

She had to be so vicious, she had to be so pretty, she had to be so strong. Only the victors' children were pretty with blood on their hands. From the moment they were born, the children of victors — blessed and honored and so very lucky — were expected to do one thing: win.

"You have to win," Midas whispered in her ear as he died.

Valour didn't win. She barely survived. She was a Career for a reason. She had been trained her whole life for one thing, and what could she do now that she realized it meant nothing at all? None of it meant anything. There had been only one of her, and twenty—three of them. And Snow won, every time. She was put into an academy where they taught her to kill. To be the best. With a victor as her father, she had no choice but to live up to expectations.

Who was she if she wasn't a killer?

Valour was sick.

She laid on her side on her hospital bed, knees pulled up to her panting chest, sweating and shaking. Her long silver nails had been chewed down to stubs. She'd thrown up again.

Valour was in withdrawal.

One thing they didn't tell you about the Career districts: in the academy, the best contenders were given a special cocktail of drugs to increase their chances of victory. It was much like morphling, but instead of soothing the user, it energized them. Valour wasn't allowed to take it in the arena, true, but she had the rush of adrenaline to keep her going. Now... now she was dying for it.

Dying like Midas died.

Cal gritted his teeth as his trident sunk deep into Midas' chest, sword falling from his hands when he shucked the older boy off the blades. Valour released a low and guttural scream, dropping to her knees to cradle her cousin's fallen form.

Even now, the memory brought tears to her eyes, and she hated herself for feeling such weakness. But if she wasn't a successful killer, what else was she but weak?

Midas was much older than her, but he was still the closest she had to a brother. He looked out for her. He guided her. He kept her secret of the academy drugs and she kept the secret that his father was an unknown Capitol citizen. Cashmere was a beautiful victor, a sweet commodity, and much like Finnick Odair, she was sold time and time again just to make Corioloanus Snow happy.

Head pounding, Valour wondered what time it was. Day and night passed without her knowledge, the white lights of the hospital making it impossible to know which was which.

Standing on the other side of her hospital room, Gloss was still glued to the television, waiting for any footage that proved his sister, Cashmere, was alive. Willow Mellark was alive; pretty as a picture, dazzling on screen just as she had for Valour's whole childhood. Growing up, she used to resent the daughter of the star crossed lovers from District 12. Now, she pitied her.

She pitied anyone still stuck in the Capitol.

Valour's mother died when she was young — almost too young to remember, and so her aunt Cashmere was the closest thing she had. She refused to believe Cashmere would die, too.

She wasn't sure when was the last time her father slept. Gloss had been stretched thin, busy with keeping vigil over her, monitoring the television for Capitol footage, watching the door like he expected rebels to come in and execute them at any moment. Sometimes, when he thought she was sleeping, she thought she heard him crying. She had never heard him cry before. All her life, he had seemed larger than life. Big and beautiful and so strong. She relied upon his strength, thrived off of it, had grown to expect it.