“Alistair received a message from the god of death and flowers.” The air grows colder, the room darker. Outside, a strange blue light pours in like the moon is coming close enough to watch.
“What was it?”
His face hardens. “He said you’re going to kill me.”
He takes a long pause as though waiting for Claudia to make a confession.
“Wh-what do you—”
Underscored by one sharp breath, Cassius wraps his fingers around her throat and squeezes mercilessly. “Tell me the truth.”
As she claws at his hands, her eyes and mouth widen. “Cas—”
“You’re a fucking killer, Claudia. You killed your father before you came here, and now you want to kill me.”
Blood builds under her nails from where she claws at Cassius’s knuckles and wrists. She can smell the sour scent of the blood on his hands, staining her neck.
“I didn’t—I’m not—” she whimpers. His grip tightens.
Black feathers the edges of her vision. He pushes her down onto the desk, back pressed flat to the wood. The back of her headslams against a sharp corner. Warm wetness spreads over her scalp as the wound bleeds. Cassius leans over her, crushing her lungs with his weight. His hands find her throat again.
“But I’m going to kill you first.”
She spends the last of her air to say, “Please, Cas. I”—she chokes as he squeezes harder—“love you.”
He laughs as the light spills out of her. “You’re too wicked to know real love.”
Unable to open her eyes, she feels around the desk until her fingers find something cold and sharp. A pen or something. She slams her knee between Cassius’s legs, granting herself a moment to catch her breath when he relaxes his grip. This moment is all she has. Whatever is in her hand, she springs up and slams it into Cassius’s neck. Her vision is still black and blurry as Cassius slumps to the ground. She, too, can’t stay standing. Sinking down, she lands on her knees with a crack. Claudia presses her hands to her chest, fighting for air. She touches the back of her head, and her fingers come back red.
When her vision returns, all the candles in the room have gone out. The room is cast in thin blue moonlight. To her right lies Cassius, blood spurting from his neck, the hilt of a letter opener bobbing from his throat as he chokes out his final breaths.
She did it.
She really did it.
Panic builds in her body. Rapid breaths shoot out her nose.
She killed him. She killed the love of her life.
But she had to, didn’t she? It was self-defense. It was even more necessary than killing her father. Cassius had his hands around her throat. She has the bruises to prove it.
But will anyone believe her? They must’ve all heard this message tonight that Claudia was going to kill Cassius. They knew she was going to do it. It’s too easy to argue that Cassius was actually the one fighting in self-defense.
She’s going to lose.
And now the love of her life is dead. He died by her hand, and he died thinking she never loved him at all.
She looks down. There’s blood all over her hands.
There’s blood all over her body.
“What have I done?” she whispers, and reality comes crashing down.
It’s happening again.
A bloodcurdling scream erupts from her mouth, and the floor falls from beneath her. The walls melt away and the night yawns above her, the stars sharp as shattered glass. For an eternity, she falls freely through endless black space, blood drying on her skin in the frigid wind. Weightless, she wonders if she’s dead, too. If she died from Cassius’s hands around her throat, or from a broken heart upon seeing his body.
She lands softly on white ground. It takes her a moment to fit words to her surroundings—snow beneath her; black above; cold everywhere.
