Flames And Starlight

Chapter 12

The storm started the moment my first tear fell. I sat there in the pouring rain for half an hour, arms wrapped around my knees, just staring.

I would have been cold if my skin wasn't burning. There were no flames but the moment the rain hit my bare skin, it turned into steam.

How could I have been so stupid? Why did I think he would be any different? Why did I hope? Everything I told Kyan was proven to be true.

Eventually, I stood and started the long walk back to the castle. The tears never stopped pouring, and so the rain wasn't any different. In fact, the longer I walked, the more I gave in to my rage, the angrier I got, the more unforgiving the storm became.

Lightning flashed the sky around me, guiding me back to the castle in the otherwise pitch black darkness. Dark clouds filled the sky, ruining the perfect view I had been admiring only an hour ago. Thunder cracked as violently and often as the beat of my own heart.

I stomped my way into the castle and went straight to my room. The beautiful golden dress was soaked, leaving a trail of water everywhere I went.

Only hours earlier, Kyan and I had been joking about his eight pack. Only hours earlier we had fallen asleep in the training field, wrapped in each other arms. What a difference a couple hours can make.

I stripped out of the soaked dress, and tearfully put on the white shirt and dark brown pants I had worn less than a week ago. This week had felt like forever.

I laced up my old, worn boots. I would feel bad if I left here with Mor's shoes. I was sad I couldn't say goodbye but it was for the best. Because if I did say goodbye, I might not actually leave.

And I needed to leave.

I can't pretend that I belong here. This place isn't my home. This place isn't even my world. I have to be mature and realize that this never could have been.

Sure everyone was nice and I had grown attached to all of them, but I always knew deep down that it could never be. Kyan and I were doomed from the start.

Yet I still let him in. I still let myself love him. I let myself hope. And I got hurt.

I strapped Goldryn to my side and stuck my dagger into my boot. Cassian has given me one of his daggers but I couldn't bring myself to take it. It belonged here with Cassian. I didn't. So I laid it delicately on the bed.

I opened the portal and I would have jumped through right then. I could see my laboratory on the other side yet something caught my eye.

Sitting on the black couch was a shoulder bag, one I had seen Kyan carry all the time. He must have left it here when he came to tell me about the naga this morning. I walked towards the bag and opened it slowly. Lightning flashed and thunder sounded louder and louder as my blood began to boil at what I saw. The storm raged on. And so did I.

My notebook. He had it all along.

I shut the portal and shook my head to clear the blurry tears from my vision. I threw the shoulder bag over my one shoulder and opened my bedroom door.

I stomped down the hallway, the storm outside raging on and on. I barely made it to Kyan's door when I sent a gust of wind to burst the door open. The door splintered like shattering glass and I walked in.

Kyan's room was destroyed. Not a careless mess like Sam's room is sometimes, but destroyed. A dresser laid tipped over, clothes thrown everywhere. The black couch was broken, the stuffing pouring out of its rips and the wood itself broke in two. Kyan's bed sheets were everywhere but his bed. A mirror lay shattered on the ground.