His gaze dropped. His shoulders curled inward a little. No words came.
I felt my breath catch.
“Why do you even stay near me?” I whispered. “Because you care, or because it’s your duty?”
He looked up at that. Fast. Like the question cut deeper than I meant it to.
“That’s not what this is,” he said, voice low.
“Then what is it?” I asked, my voice breaking.
His expression shifted, mouth parting only to snap shut. His eyes, a brewing tempest, a palpable darkness swirled, holding thoughts too potent for release.
That silence was the answer I didn’t want.
“I saw your face when he said Riven’s name,” I murmured. “You looked like the world fell out from under you. And then you looked at me like I was something you’d already lost.”
Still, he said nothing.
“I trust you,” I whispered. “Even when it hurts. Even when I don’t understand. And you—” My voice cracked again. “You treat me like I’m fragile. Like you’re waiting for me to break.”
He took a slow breath, but it caught halfway. He clenched his hands at his sides now, not in anger, but in restraint. I saw the tightness in his throat, the ache behind his eyes. He looked like he was begging himself not to reach for me.
I hated how much I wanted him to lose that battle.
“I’m not asking for everything,” I said. “Just something. Let me carry a piece of this with you. You’re not alone. No matter how much you try to be.”
His voice, when it came, was almost a whisper. “If I give you even a piece, it’ll change how you see me.”
“Maybe,” I said. “But it won’t change how I care.”
“You can be quite suffocating, you know that?” he muttered and turned. “I’ll be nearby.”
I wanted to scream. To throw the nearest rock straight at his back and make him bleed like he made me bleed with every withheld truth. Instead, I said the cruelest thing I could:
“Of course you will. That’s all you ever are.”
He stopped. Stiffened. But he didn’t look back.
And then he left me there, standing in mist and silence and my own broken hope.
…
I didn’t know where to go, but I couldn’t stay there. I needed a moment, a breath away from everyone else, to clear my head.
The cliffs narrowed fast, the path fraying into jagged stone and patches of brittle grass scorched gold by unseen heat. Steamhissed up from the cracks, curling around my legs, weighing me down. My boots slid on the slick edges, but I didn’t stop.
Let it crumble. Let the world tilt. Let me fall, if it wants to.
I was so tired of being a symbol. So tired of being the fragile one people whispered about, the one who needed protecting, needed guiding, needed deciding for.
Tired of fire blooming in my chest every time I got too close to anger, fear, or something else…a fire I didn’t ask for. A fire that made me feel like a weapon disguised in soft skin. A fire that lit up when I was most afraid and then left me hollow in its glow.
I was tired of people telling me I was destined, chosen, sacred, as if that would make bearing the nightmares easier.
Tired of my mother’s silence, sharper than knives. Of her eyes that never quite softened, her voice that measured me in disappointment. As if I were already failing a crown I hadn’t even worn yet.
Tired of always pretending the weight didn’t hurt when it did.
