Chapter 28 Dolericym #3
“We were. But now I fear we’re further than we’ve ever been.” He points to the door. “Now, both of you, get out of my sight.”
Defeated, Cassius goes quiet. Claudia is caught in a daze. The two of them don’t speak for the entire walk back to Claudia’s room.
What is she supposed to do? What can she say?
His stars say death. They’re going to take him from her just like they took her mother.
And just like before, there’s nothing she can do. Lamour said it himself—death cannot be changed once it’s written in the stars.
She clutches her stomach, trying to keep herself from being sick. Her heart sputters and spits sharp blood through her body. Every part of her already aches with grief—for Cassius, some for her mother.
It’s happening again.
It feels like it’s all her fault, like her love is a curse. Is everyone she cares about doomed to die? Who’s next—Alistair? Lamour?
Herself?
Panic rises in her throat, threatening to make her scream. She bites down on the inside of her cheeks as hard as she can until they reach her room. When she opens the door and steps inside, she looks into Cassius’s eyes and finds them full of rage.
He takes a small step forward. “We shouldn’t have done that. We shouldn’t have done any of this,” he says. It feels like a slap.
“What?”
“The High Sage is right. I haven’t been myself since you arrived, and it’s costing me my future.”
This isn’t what she expected to hear. He’s not on her side. He’s blaming her as if he’s not equally responsible for everything that has transpired between them. “How am I costing you your future?”
“High Sage Triche isn’t simply training me to replace him. He’s the one helping figure out how to break my family’s curse. And now he won’t. This night could’ve cost me all I’ve ever wanted.”
“Cassius, we have something bigger to discuss. I need to talk to you about what I saw.”
He clenches his jaw. “What was it?”
She takes a deep breath. “You—” A whimper cuts her off.
You’re going to die. You’re dying right now. You’re already dead.
“You’re not—” Her throat is too tight to finish the sentence. You’re not going to survive. Nothing can change it. No one can save you.
She looks down at the floor and waits for the terror to subside, but it doesn’t. It only gets worse. It feels like a monster in her body, clawing at the underside of her skin, choking her from the inside.
She looks back up at him, and her heart shatters.
She can’t tell him. She just can’t. Every time she opens her mouth, she chokes. It’s just not possible to say the words. She’s not built for this. She’s not strong enough to look a person in the eye and tell them they’re going to die.
Especially not someone she’s so close to loving.
What good would it even do? Why should he know? Does Claudia have any right to poison what’s left of Cassius’s short life?
No. Of course not. It would be cruel. It would be mad. It would be the worst thing she’s ever done in her life.
Cassius runs his hands through his hair and releases an exasperated sigh. “Honestly, Claudia, you were right. I won’t believe it, so I don’t care to hear it. Keep your star musings. Keep your secrets. Right now, I couldn’t care less.” He turns to leave, but Claudia catches his wrist.
“You’re not going to stay with me?”
“Not tonight.” He shakes his head and withdraws his arm from her grip.
“When will we talk about all this?”
“Detention,” he barks, slamming her door behind him.
Claudia is dreaming.
She is in a room she has never seen before.
An estate, large and grand. It smells of citrus and wide-open air.
Clean. She opens a large window and looks out at a glistening lake filled with starlight.
The sun dances with the moon, both impossibly alive and bright in a soft-purple sky.
She’s unable to discern the time. Maybe time doesn’t exist here, wherever she is.
The room turns to white mist around her as if she’s inside a cloud. She breathes it in and it tastes like lemonade. Higher and higher, she floats until morning stars blink around her. She swims through the sky and lets it heal her. The wound on her shoulder fades to a thin white scar.
“Star Girl.”
She turns to find Cassius stepping through the mist, reaching out his hand for hers.
He’s glowing like he’s made of stars. A light lavender aura surrounds him.
Here, he looks so holy. The sight of him makes her heart skip.
She takes his hand and lets him guide her.
They walk through the mist, down and down until their feet fight the dewy grass, soft as clouds.
The edge of the starry lake comes into view.
They lean over and see their reflections in the water.
Here, Claudia herself looks like a god. A crown of stars glows around her head, light coiling in her brown curls.
“You are so beautiful.”
Her eyes meet his in the reflection. “So are you,” she says. Her voice doesn’t feel like her own. She doesn’t know what she’s saying. It’s like she’s split in two, half there holding his hand, half not, hovering above, watching it all from a Jupiter’s-eye view.
Cassius pulls her close and presses a kiss beneath her ear. This feels like they’re home, like they have always been here, dancing through dreams, belonging to no one and nothing but each other.
“Will you save me?” he whispers.
She doesn’t know the answer, but her lips move anyway, like some greater force is pulling the truth from her mouth. “Yes. I will save you a million times.”
She plucks one star from the sky and bites it like an apple. It stings her throat and makes her skin glow. He looks up at her, wide-eyed and awestruck and alive. So beautifully alive.
“I love you, Claudia,” he says.
“I love you, too, Dracoemagyl.”
He kisses her. It tastes like heaven and heat and truth, until something sharp pierces through her belly.
And his.
The taste of their kiss is poisoned. She looks down to find them speared together.
The blade pokes out of his back. Black blood blooms on the bodice of her dress.
Red blood spills from his mouth. Their blood mixes and pools purple beneath them.
She watches the light and the life fade from his eyes and wonders why she doesn’t feel herself dying, too.
“Don’t go.” Her words are all fuzzy. She pulls herself along the spear to hold him, but he fades into the mist, leaving her to care for her wounds alone. In her periphery, a green light glows and blinks like a beacon.
“You’re never alone, Starling.”
She gasps. “Dorian?”
No answer.
“Are you here?” She turns, tugging too harshly at her wound. The pain brings her to her knees in her own blood. “Dorian, help. Help me help him. You made a bargain that changed my fate. Make another to change his.” Her eyes dart frantically around this strange world, but there is no one else.
“Please,” she cries as the world begins to disappear. “I can’t lose him. It will kill me.”
The world fades to white smoke.
When she wakes up, she can’t help but wonder if it was not a dream, but a vision. Maybe she cannot change fate that’s written in the stars, but she knows a devil who can.
And the next time Claudia enters the Realm of Nightmares, she’s going to make another bargain to save Cassius’s life.
Even if it costs all that’s left of her soul.