Chapter 3 #2
We said our goodnights, and the moment I was alone with only my thoughts for company, dreaded anxiety regarding everything sunk in. The headboard hit my spine as I scooted back on the bed and drew my knees into my chest.
This was insane. Every single little piece of it.
A hidden kingdom—created just for me. Talk about a lot of pressure.
And Sebastian’s betrayal…which had burrowed so deeply into my skin that I swore I felt it tearing through the layers of my being.
Aside from grieving my mother, the pain from what he did was the worst part of this all.
Although every part of my body was sore and my mind was exhausted, sleep never found me. Which was saying something, because I didn’t even know they made mattresses as soft as the one I laid upon.
After a couple hours of trying, I called it quits and crept out of the room.
I tracked my way by the lanterns lining the walls, using their faded glow to escort myself down the hall.
After a few misleading turns, I spanned a rounded corner and bounded down the stairs, following the lights until I found the common room from earlier.
The air surrounding me turned solid as I tried to force my lungs to inflate.
Sebastian sat in the same chair as earlier, although this time he lacked reading material. Instead, his muscular frame was motionless and relaxed, his jaw tilted towards the ceiling while he studied a revolving fan.
His body was so still that if his eyes weren’t open, I would have thought he had fallen asleep.
Though I contemplated leaving, my maturity got the best of me. Grasping the engraved molding of the doorway, I leaned my cheek against it. “Hey.”
Sebastian shook his dark hair out as he angled his neck towards me. I could see the sigh escape his lungs.
“Hey.” He steadily breathed out, leaning over to brace his elbows on his knees. “Why aren’t you resting?”
I peeled my face from the doorframe to lift my shoulders. “I’ve been asleep for days.”
“Being unconscious and sleeping are not the same thing.” His attention was glued to me, his presence still stealing my breath despite the rage firing off inside of me.
I sauntered into the dimly lit room, pausing a few feet from where he lounged. “Were you able to sleep when you first learned of all this information?”
“No. Still can’t. Hence why I’m here and not in our room.”
Our room. I still didn’t know how I felt about that.
My elbows met my thighs, my head dropping into my cupped palms when I settled into the chair across from him. The lanterns flickered against the wall in a way that was uncannily reminiscent of the unsteady beat of my heart.
“I don’t know what to think about any of this,” I mumbled almost inaudibly into my hands, unsure why I even found myself confiding in him.
“It’s a lot.” The cushion of his chair released a quiet rustle as he adjusted his posture.
“That it is.” And the fact that my faith in him had been broken only added to that. Straightening my torso, I raised my face and narrowed my eyes upon him.
His chiseled jawline looked even more pronounced as he clenched it, waiting for me to say more. It looked like it was killing him to not approach me, but he remained static.
I picked at a loose thread on the armchair while ever growing tension and silence filled the room. It stretched across every square inch of the space until I forced it to break.
“Why did you do it?” I had to know.
“None of my reasons seem good enough now knowing what I may have lost.” He didn’t so much as hesitate, having known exactly what I referred to.
“Tell me anyway.”
His devastated, blue eyes latched to mine, and I had to fight myself to remember why I was so angry with him.
He had his response prepared, as if he had rehearsed this exact conversation.
“I thought I was protecting you. Protecting all of you. And in all honesty, when I first met you, I had zero intentions of ever telling you. The journal was something between my mother and I. Something I felt like she left for me to find, and no one else.”
“But when you got to know me—when you fell for me—you didn’t think that the information in there was something I deserved to know?” I choked down my gulp. “Do you not trust me?”
His dark eyebrows cinched together as if my question caused him physical pain. “Of course I trust you. And yes, you did deserve to know, but so much time had passed and I didn’t want to lose you. I didn’t know how to approach the situation without pissing you off or hurting you.”
“Well, you managed to do both,” I scoffed, my words having an intentional bite to them. When he didn’t respond, I added, “I want to read it.”
Sebastian shook his head ever so slightly. “I don’t know that that's the best idea—”
My spontaneous motion cut his words short. I rose, stepping towards him with my hand outstretched because I knew he had the damned book on him. “Let me correct myself. I am going to read it. If everyone else got to look at it, then so do I.”
“You’re not going to like what you read,” he cautioned.
“I already don’t like what I’ve been told, so what does it matter?”
His jaw ticked, but he shuffled forward to release the journal from the back pocket of his pants. Reluctantly, he passed me a book that was no larger than his palm.
I tucked it under my arm and began to turn away, but his calloused hand clasped around my wrist, drawing me back in.
“Maeve,” he said my name in that low, gravelly way that usually had me coming undone for him.
“Sebastian?” I retorted with a slight snarl.
“Did you really mean what you said? Do you hate me now?”
A twinge of pain gut-punched me. “No. I was just…mad. I shouldn’t have said that.”
Relief washed over his face. “Okay. Then please tell me, have I lost you for good?”
My heart clenched then twisted, squeezing every drop of life from my chest by the time my answer found my tongue. “I don’t know yet.”
Sebastian’s mouth lowered into a frown. “How many times do I need to apologize before you forgive me?”
I ripped my hands free from his grasp. “Start counting.”
Sebastian was right when he alleged that I wouldn’t like what I read in his mother’s journal.
The following morning, I sat crossed legged on my bed, the open journal lying flat in front of me on top of the duvet. I didn’t think that it was possible to get any more angry than I already was, but after reading everything he hid from me over the past year, I was fucking fuming.
His mother’s elegant handwriting swirled over every page of the notebook, the letters crafted into beautiful little secrets that until days ago, only Sebastian knew. Secrets ranging from minuscule details of people’s lives, all the way to the prediction about the battle.
In the lines of the first few pages, I read about Sebastian—things his mother had predicted in regard to his life. Concerning Seb, the one foretelling that hurt the most was the one Cicily wrote regarding her own demise.
My sweet son, though I know that I cannot change the future, I still pray that this vision does not come to light.
By the time you are reading this, I will already be gone, and you will be left with the trauma of my death.
If there was anything I could have done to protect your precious, young mind from what you would see, I would have done it, but protecting your life was much more important.
I am forever sorry and I will eternally miss you beyond the veil. I love you, Sebastian.
My eyes shrank as they fought to stifle back tears.
After a few pages of Sebastian’s fortunes, Cicily’s writing addressed predictions for Caelestis and the war. She wrote about Caelestis’ inevitable demise—
When the castle no longer remains, the rest will fade.
I read the outcomes she predicted that had Seb terrified; things regarding Aldous that I could have lived my entire life without knowing—a feeling I’m sure Sebastian also felt when he first read it.
Then, about halfway through, I read about myself in the lines of parchment.
My appearance was described perfectly, from the texture of my hair all the way down to the size of my feet.
I perused the text, absorbing Cicily's predictions about my power, her claim about my mother, and other oddly precise details about my life.
Having lived through most of it, her writings actually made a lot of sense. On the very last page however, I found myself stumped.
What happens when too much godly power is forced into one body?
The same words overflowed the last pages of the journal, filling every spare inch of parchment, except for the very last line.
There is more. I have more.
Slamming the journal shut, I then tucked it into the dresser Sebastian had claimed. He hadn’t been in the room since I’d been shown to it. I doubted he would until I gave him the okay, which wouldn’t be happening any time in the near future—if ever.
Digging through my own wardrobe to find something to wear, I repeated Cicily’s writing to myself out loud.
“There is more.” I pulled a shirt over my head.
“I have more.” My feet stepped into a pair of pants.
“Talk about vague and cryptic.” Pulling them up, I spun on my heel and let out a horrific shriek when I spotted Sawyer standing in front of my closed door.
My fingers spread over my thrashing heart. “Hell, Sawyer! You scared the life out of me!”
He smirked with a one-shouldered shrug. “My bad.” Casually, he sauntered into the room and threw himself down sideways on my bed, propping his head up on an elbow.
I never buttoned a pair of pants faster in my life. “Why didn’t you knock? Oh my gods. Did you see me get dressed?”
“No. But what does it matter? Remember when I walked in on you and Seb? And then…courtyard…battle…clothes burnt off…”
I sucked my lips in along with a pacifying breath. “Yes, Sawyer. I remember. Though I certainly wish you didn't."
His face softened as he watched me twist my hair into a tight braid, then his voice lowered. “Are you doing okay?”
“You just asked me that yesterday.”
“Yeah. And I’m asking again because I want the truth.”
“I told you the truth then. I said, and I quote, not even close.”
“Elaborate, Maeve. And don’t bullshit me, I know you better than that.”
“Okay fine,” I enunciated, taking a seat at the edge of the bed. “It’s a lot to take in but I’m…hanging in there.”
“We're all just hanging in there. How are you really doing?” he persisted.
Amidst my moan of blatant annoyance, I blew out a bubbled breath. There was no point in trying to skimp around an answer. Sawyer was one of the most well-trained soldiers I’d ever met, and he would certainly know if I wasn’t telling the entire truth.
Falling to my back, I stared up at the ceiling, just now noticing how the plaster was sprinkled with flecks of gold.
“Not good. Everything I thought I knew has been ripped out from under me.” A lock of my hair fell into my eyes as I arched my neck, giving myself an upside down view of his saddened expression.
“And you know, out of all the shit that's happened and all the new information I’ve had to absorb, I think the thing that hurts the most is what Sebastian kept from me.”
“I’m not going to sit here and tell you that what he did was justified, because it wasn’t, not really. All I’m going to say is that you can choose to harbor anger over it—which isn’t good for yourself, or him, for that matter—or you can try to move past it.”
I groaned, palming the lingering exhaustion from my eyelids. “I know. I know. But how can I trust him after this? You read the journal. Didn’t you find it kind of…uncanny?”
Sawyer sat upright and grasped my arms, using his strength to pull my full body onto the bed, then vertical. “Oh, for sure. Especially the end. Super fucking weird.”
“Super fucking weird,” I echoed and bowed my neck. “I just don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to feel about any of this.”
Feel it all. The best advice my mother ever gave me.
He used one arm to pull me into his side, tucking me into a half hug. “Well, if it's any consolation, we’re all on the same page when it comes to that.”