A/N: Hey, this will probably be a shorter story (2/3 chapters). A spinoff loosely based on real life.
The only things you really need to know are: this is set after Lady Knight. Cleon and Kel are back together.
I:
"Where did I go wrong?, I lost a friend,
Somewhere along in the bitterness,
And I would have stayed up with you all night,
Had I known... how to save a life."
-How To Save A Life, The Fray
He drew his lips away from hers, his blue green eyes troubled.
"I'm sorry, Kel. I can't take it any more. I just can't."
Confused, Kel stared back at him. "What?"
"I can't do it anymore," Cleon of Kennan repeated, his voice low and upset.
"Can't do what?" Kel asked, her brow furrowed with puzzlement.
Cleon closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "See you, looking at him... I'm second in your eyes. I've seen the way you look at him, Kel- you can't deny it."
"Look at who?" she demanded, now truly worried. "Cleon, what?"
He didn't open his eyes. "Masbolle, of course. You look at him like he's Mithros himself. I can't stand second to that. I'm sorry, Kel."
As those fateful words echoed in her mind, a sickening feeling of faint relief coming over her, Keladry of Mindelan didn't realise what those words were. To her, they seemed like a break up line, a closing of her relationship with Cleon of Kennan. But little did she realise that they would be the final words that she ever heard from his lips, and the dawn of a new grief.
"It was terrible," Neal bowed his head at the sheer memory, horror on his every feature. "There was blood everywhere... and in the middle, just lying there..."
He trailed off, leaving Domitan of Masbolle no doubt at the outcome of the story.
"That's... awful," Dom shook his head dumbly. He hadn't known Cleon of Kennan personally, but still... "So there's no clue as to... well, why? Did he definitely do it to himself?"
Neal nodded, grimacing. "Yes- he did it to himself... The way the dagger was lying... And that sheet of paper with the message..."
Dom gulped slightly. "That's awful... I don't know how you could ever, well, do that to yourself..."
He trailed off uncertainly, but in the silence, the same horrified emotion was conveyed clearly between the two cousins.
At Cleon of Kennan's funeral, there were exactly nine people who cared.
One and two, his mother and father, both with the same orange hair of their late son.
Three, four and five, Cleon's younger sisters, their heads hung with grief.
Six, seven and eight- Neal, Merric and Faleron, the only ones of their year group with the time to attend.
Keladry of Mindelan was the ninth, her face a stone mask of hidden misery.
It was all her fault.
Cleon's self-inflicted death... everything.
And such a monster that had caused someone's death deserved never to be happy again.
The next several weeks were full of agonising, slow moments. Visitors, their faces all one big blur, coming over and over again. The only thing each had in common with the last was the look of pity on their faces.
Kel couldn't stand pity.
She deserved to be hated, hated for what she had done to Cleon.
It was the worst when Neal came to visit. At first, he came constantly, his vivid green eyes full of worry for his friend.
"Kel, you have to eat. You can't just waste away... Kel, you need to come out of your room. I know that it's been hard on you but no one blames you. You need to start living again."
But that was the problem. No one blamed her, and they should.
Kel simply nodded and returned to staring out of her window at the grey, bleak sky.
Neal, however, was persistant despite her silence- and horribly perceptive.
"You blame yourself, don't you," Neal's voice was soft as he looked down at his friend's face. "What was it? Did you have a fight before he... did it? Did he say something that made you think that?"
The silence reigned upon them.
And yet, he didn't stop.
"Keladry!" Neal finally exploded one day. "Look at me. Look at me now."
Surprised, Kel turned her eyes onto him.
"Good," Neal said firmly, placing one finger under her chin to force her to keep looking at him. "Now hear me, and understand me. What happened to Cleon was not your fault. He killed himself, Kel. Nothing you could have said or done could have stopped him."
Kel's eyes somehow managed to find the floor, and fix on it.
"Kel." This time, Neal's tone was not merely firm, it was deadly. "Listen to me. Cleon was selfish to kill himself like that and leave you like this. It wasn't your fault."
Something inside of Kel snapped as she heard Neal's words against Cleon.
"Get out," she stated coldly, her voice a monotone.
Neal's mouth opened slightly and he stared at her. "What?"
"Out," Kel repeated darkly, her voice steel. "Now."
And that was how she finally drove Nealan of Queenscove away- or so she thought.
"She doesn't eat, she won't talk, she refuses to come out and now she hates me!" Neal's voice rose at the end of his sentence, his frustration showing through clearly. "What am I supposed to do?"
His cousin's blue eyes stared back at him thoughtfully. "This is bad," Dom commented quietly, trying to hide his bubbling emotions. "This is really bad."
"Oh well, thankyou for that piece of information, I hadn't figured it out myself!" Neal scoffed with annoyance, before registering the look on his cousin's face. "What's wrong with you?"
Dom shook his head and looked away. "Nothing. It doesn't matter."
Neal was oddly perceptive for someone of his personality. "No, tell me."
There was a long silence between them, before Dom swallowed painfully, his expression uncomfortable. "I... Well I... I kind of..."
"Spit it out," Neal told him impatiently.
"IkindofmaybesortoflikeKel," Dom's words came out in a rush, but Neal somehow still managed to understand them.
"You like her?" He demanded increduously. "You and Kel?"
Dom's cheeks went slightly red. "Shut up, Meathead," he muttered rudely.
Neal was actually smiling, his eyes wicked. "Oh, that's funny. It really is. And all this time I thought you just flirted with her because you could!"
His cousin shook his head awkwardly, and gave in to his turmoil of thoughts."Now, though... Well it's not going to happen, is it? If she's shut down... And I haven't seen her before I went away on my assignment... It's been so long... I don't know..." He mumbled, a desperate look in his blue eyes.
"You should talk to her," Neal pointed out, hope filling him suddenly. "You were always friends... Maybe you could help."
A knock on the door made Kel jerk out of her sombre memories.
"Come in," she called reluctantly, wondering who on earth it was. Barely anyone visited anymore- Merric had come a while ago, but had never come back. Neal hadn't returned since she'd told him to get out, and her mother had been last time her family was in Corus- but for a long time, Kel had seen no one.
Some days, she wondered absently if she missed human company, and conversation.
Others, she revelled in her solitude- her chance to remember Cleon, and what she'd done to him.
After all, she didn't deserve to be happy.
The door opened slowly with a creak, but Kel didn't bother turning around. It didn't really matter who it was- she wasn't going to talk to them anyway.
"Hello," a familiar voice said awkwardly.
Kel froze, her heart racing. It wasn't... It couldn't... It shouldn't...
She turned her head ever so slowly, and her eyes took in her tall, male visitor.
"I can't take it anymore... I'm second in your eyes..."
Gradually, her gaze travelled up his bright blue tunic and to his face.
"I've seen the way you look at him..."
Her own hazel eyes met puzzled yet concerned blue sapphires.
"... Masbolle, of course..."
Here, standing in front of her, was the temptation that she had been unable to take her eyes off, the unforgivable sin she had committed that had driven Cleon to his death...
It was her fault. It was all her fault.
Keladry of Mindelan opened her mouth, tears already overflowing from her hazel eyes, and screamed loudly.
