6 DAYS. 9 HOURS. 51 MINUTES.
Meena could feel Cinderella watching her as reality slowly took over from slumber, and as the fog faded, she remembered why her lover might be doing that. The first thing she heard was the ticktock of her lifeclock. Thrum . Thrum . It beat despite the knowledge of every last hour she had. After all, she’d been counting them down since she learned basic numeracy.
They had failed.
Meena would never again be able to dance at a ball or sit beside her father on the throne or be in any of the annual family paintings. She’d never get to love again.
She was safe here, in her last moments. She could fall apart, and she knew El would be there for her.
“Where’s IoN gotten to?” Meena asked.
“He stopped by earlier before leaving to get Captain Hera.”
Meena shot up too quickly, coughing and spluttering into her handkerchief. “El?” she choked out.
“I don’t know what your past is with that woman, but she is on your bucket list, is she not?”
“She is.” Meena opened her mouth to explain, to offer something to the beautiful woman now in her life, but she kept drawing a blank. She settled on a simple, “Thank you.”
“I can leave you two be, if you’d like?”
Despite El’s careful demeanor, Meena could tell she didn’t want to do that. She was jealous—had been from the start. Meena couldn’t help but find it sweet. “No, that’s all right. It’s nothing you can’t hear.”
“Are you sure? I don’t want to impose.”
Meena made her way across the small space and sat on El’s lap, facing her. “There’s nothing in my past you can’t know about. Besides, I don’t want to be alone.” She wouldn’t be with Hera there, but that wasn’t what she had meant, and hopefully El knew it. She didn’t want to spend a single second of the time she had left without her.
Just as they were kissing, a knock sounded at the door and Meena stood back up, a groan escaping her. “One moment,” she tried calling, but it wasn’t loud enough.
El repeated it louder as Meena put on pants and a robe, readying herself as best she could for the visitor behind the door.
The door swung open, and Hera stepped through, as chipper as ever, if a little confused as to why she’d been summoned to the temple. IoN, however, flew in after her without a care in the world; or rather, she assumed it was without care, but reading his emotions was something only Cinderella was skilled at.
“You summoned?” She raised an eyebrow at the word, clearly finding the summons hilarious. “It’s been a while since you summoned me, Jemeena. You usually just barge through my front door as though you own the place.”
“I do own the place.”
Meena had purchased the house and the dirigible her friend resided in long ago as a birthday gift, so she’d be free from working hard. That knowledge brought new hurt to the surface—a different one to the recent pain.
Meena had ended things poorly with Hera, and she needed to apologize and explain herself now she was free to do so. “For such a long time, I wasn’t allowed to speak of my illness. My parents forbade it for fear of inciting panic and rumor among the citizens, and for that, I am sorry. I’m sorry I kept it from you, but most of all, I’m sorry I let it be the reason I hurt you.”
Hera sat down, dumbfounded for a moment before asking, “Is this really the moment you’re choosing to have this conversation?” She looked at Cinderella with a small scowl but said nothing about her being here.
“I don’t have enough time left for it to be anywhere else.” Meena carefully unwrapped the gold cloth that had become a permanent feature of her life but had been removed so often of late she was increasingly aware of it tightly winding her wrist every second.
As it fell free and she turned her wrist up so Hera could see, a single tear fell from Hera’s eye and drove a lonely path down her cheek and off her chin. “I...I didn’t know. I always assumed it was a chronic illness you’d just have to live with. I didn’t realize you were dying?”
“I’ve known for as long as I can remember that I would never reach my twenty-first birthday. Nothing anyone has ever done has changed the numbers.”
“Nothing at all?”
Meena just shook her head.
“But you’re royal. You have the best healers and doctors money can buy.”
“Father even sent for doctors from distant lands, hoping they might know something we don’t.” She shook her head again, her eyes resting on her lap. She couldn’t bear to look anyone in the face. “Nothing worked.”
“I tried,” El added. “I tried to find a cure to the lifeclocks. A way to extend her time.” El looked at Hera’s crying face, the same look in her eyes. “But I couldn’t do it. I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay, El,” Meena said. “You tried, even knowing it was illegal, punishable by death. And you still tried for a complete stranger.”
Something shifted on Hera’s face, and she looked at Cinderella as though through new eyes. “Is that why we’re here, at the Temple of Seren?”
“We thought we found something,” Meena said, “but I can’t use it now. It’s too late.” She shook her head again, as though it were the only action she knew how to perform in the moment. “I’m so sorry I didn’t let myself love you, and I’m sorry I used the love you had for me for my own gain. It wasn’t fair.”
It was why Meena had bought her the house and the dirigible, because she felt guilty and wanted her to have a money-trouble-free existence, even if that was all she could offer.
“Shhh,” Hera whispered, grabbing Meena’s hand. “It’s okay. It was a few years ago and I’ve come to terms with it. Don’t let the guilt destroy your final days. Not for me.”
They spent the last few hours of the evening reminiscing over old times, the trouble they got up to in their youth, and eventually, when the light was beginning to fade, Hera left. It was a teary goodbye, and Meena didn’t know how she felt about it, but she knew one thing: She wanted El to know how much she was loved.