Chapter 26 - ANASTASIA
1219 Words
I am weeping…
It occurs to me for one moment how ridiculous the action is. I am tempted to wipe my tears away before anyone sees them. Before I have to answer questions about who or what I am crying for. But I do not. My heart is in a kind of deep pain as I have not known for a long time. I cannot let this continue. I cannot let my feelings guide me into something stupid. Not again.
Around me, the cave is an inky black void. A wave of my hand is all I need to light the torches on the walls. But I don’t. For at least a moment, I want to be Anastasia. I want to let the hurt take over me, emotions cloud me. I want to cry and mourn.
She is not anybody to you. Not anymore.
My mind lectures me sternly. I have trained it well. It has kept me alive for so long. Kept the voice of my heart a prisoner in the deepest corner of my soul, never to rise. But seeing her collapse…Seeing Siren pick her up and take her away to a certain death… My heart spoke at the moment. It lead me into doing some pretty idiotic things.
She must know by now, who you are. She will be furious…
It has been a long time since I thought about that day. When I heard a panicked voice in an alley calling out my name and I rushed in to help… Siren on the ground, terrified… All those people looming over her…
The torches light up. I see Luna walking towards me. Her eyes are red and I can see that she hasn’t had rest in quite a while. She is still in mourning, I realize. Unable to let go. She is letting her heart guide her.
“What are you doing here all alone in the dark?” She asks me as she sits next to me. “I have been looking all over for you.”
“What do you want Luna? I ask. Her glimmer is off and I can see every inch of her rotting face, her dying hair… I shift uncomfortably.
“The little boy you have assigned to me…I…I can’t!”
“You can’t do your duty to your people?”
“No!” Luna cries. “I…I just can’t see another child…”
I sigh. “That is the reason you treat them like charges, Luna. They are not your children. You are not their mother. You forgot that. You got too attached and you got hurt.”
Luna’s eyes are burning with emotion as she stares at me. “So that’s it, huh? I’m supposed to be an emotionless being so that I can continue to do my duty after children die!”
“No, Luna. That is not what I meant.”
“Then what is it that you mean?” She yells. “Please make me understand.”
I know I should be angry at her emotional outbursts, her defiance. But the pain I sense in her is too much a mirror of my own. Every word of anger towards her will feel like a jab at me.
“I meant,” I say gently, “That you shouldn’t let emotions be your master. If you neglect your duties because of your grief, you are letting your kind down. You are making it easier for Siren to lead an army here and take us down.”
“How am I supposed to want to survive.” The look in her eyes is pure despair. I can sense sadness choking her out. “How…”
“But you do want others to survive, don’t you? All those other children, your friends... Would you really be willing to let them die because of your own loss?”
Luna scoffs. There is a glint of tears in her eyes. “Of course, I wouldn’t let my sorrows cause the end of our kind,” She said.
We sit there in perfect silence for a while. Many times I am tempted to tell her to go away, to leave me alone to sit and think in the darkness, but I don’t. I just…I don’t bother trying to justify myself for falling prey to the matters of the heart. I feel her pain. I want to make her feel better…I just didn’t know how and no matter how much I try to deny it, that hurt.
“I’m so sorry, Luna,” I say, finally. “I wish it hadn’t turned out this way. I wish we didn’t have to sit alone in a cave, thinking over and over about our losses. I wish we were something other than what we are. I wish we could live without all the death and blood and suffering.”
At my words, Luna breaks. Her body shakes with silent sobs and she covers her face with her hands. “Tell me,” She says softly, “Will sending children out into the night, barely giving them a few days to live, ever stop being a good outcome? Can anything in the world ever make me forget my Ari looking at me like I am a monster…”
I look at her, a dark pool of unease bubbling in the pit of my belly. Luna is still crying, apparently unaware of what she unwittingly let slip. I gently touch her shoulder. “You broke the rules, Luna.”
She meets my gaze and I do not see even a hint of fear. “I would have died with her.”
I nod sadly. “I know dear,” I say.
I close my eyes. I don’t expect Luna to run and she doesn’t. My grip tightens on her shoulder as trickle by trickle, her life essence drains and flows into me. I could have used a faster spell, true. But I didn’t want to do that to Luna. I didn’t want her to go thinking I thought her a traitor and hated her.
“Will you promise me something, Head Witch?” Her voice is serene as her body rots in front of me, her hair falling down in clumps, her lips losing their color, the life in her eyes fading…
“I will,” I say. It is as if a stone is strapped to my heart. Tears well in my eyes.
Luna’s lips curl into a mangled version of her kind smile. “Please do not hunt her down. Let her live her last few days in peace. She is my-“
She crumples in front of me. The scent of death fills the cave. I take her in my arms, my fingers shaking as I slowly shut her eyelids.
“I promise,” I whisper to the lifeless shell that used to be my friend.
- Writer
