Cassandra

I'm silent on the ride home, my legs tucked up to my chest and my hair in waves over my face. I hold my legs with my arms, and I try not to show my hands to let the world see that they're shaking.

The world in front of me is decorated within slits, my golden hair covering the majority of my eyes.

For a moment, I feel nothing.

And the next my fists are clenched. My jaw is set. I want to destroy the world.

And then it all comes clashing down. It's useless, I'm trying to avoid the inevitable.

It's like dropping a brick from the first floor or the millionth. All you're trying to do is get more time, but it's useless. It's all useless, and that's the truth.

I feel everything. Every twitch of sadness, every cry of anger. I want to murder the Queen. I want to destroy Cal. I want to tear apart Mare. I want to die.

I want to cut my damn hair.

When we get back to the Hall of Fire, I walk straight to my room and scavenge through my drawers to find something, anything, that would make me feel better. When I find a sharp, silver blade that I stole from a battle between Mare and Evangeline.

It feels foreign against my fingers, but I quickly get used to the coldness of the blade and walk over to a mirror. I don't look like me, I'm not me. My hair is too pretty, my eyes are too pure, my clothes are too fancy. This isn't me.

My hand doesn't even shake as I grab a locket of my golden locks and slice it right off so that it's only up to my shoulders. I do that for the rest of my hair until my hair looked as sharp as a razor. Not good enough.

I grab another fistful of hair and raise my blade to cut it even shorter when I hear a voice.

"Cutting your hair won't fix anything." I hear and turn around to see Julian standing there, his eyes bright and full of something that I don't recognize.

"You can't stop me." I whisper softly and raise the blade. "Nobody can stop me."

"Please stop this." Julian continues, but he makes no move to stop me as I only scoff at him.

"Do you know what I am to this world?" I whisper softly. "I am a weapon. I am nothing more than a curse. They would kill me, they are going to kill me, just like how they did to my Mother. They're going to kill all of us!" I scream as I throw the stupid dagger to the ground and let out a pathetic sob.

"Please don't cry." Julian whispers and walks up to me and puts a hand on my shoulder as my body shakes so violently, I'm worried that I'm having a seizure. I don't even remember how to heal that anymore. I don't know anything. "You look so much like her when you cry."

I let out yet another sob and press my face against Julian's soft, beautiful clothes. I cry for myself, loathing in a sea of self pity as I shake my head again and again. I don't want him to think of me as his sister. I don't want anyone to think of me as anyone but me and me myself.

But who am I anymore?

&^%

The ballroom is empty and horrible gloomy, and it doesn't help that my dress hurts my back and squeezes my waist much too tightly. The Princes are standing by their betrothed, and then there's me, sipping some wine without anyone else noticing. Sometimes, I wonder if they can notice me, but just don't care. I don't know which is worse anymore.

I casually take a gulp of red wine, trying not to dribble any on my house colours. I let out a sharp exhale before stumbling backwards and observing the crowd before me and doing the thing I've been doing best now a days. Observing.

Cal's face looks too forced, his smile is creased into his face, his hair is too glossy. Maven is sweating, despite the fact that I'm pretty sure that the Prince of Flames doesn't think that it's very cold. Mare is talking too much, and she's always whispering into Maven's ear with a frown on her face. The only person who seems to be enjoying themself, seems to be Evangeline. I envy her for that.

Perhaps we're all wearing masks, just some of us wear them better than others.

I think faintly about Maven and Mare in the Guard. The incident really didn't bloom in on me until now, and now that I think about it, why did they trust me? Why did they believe that I would join the Guard in the first place?

As I continue to watch them talk and dance, they're smiles pasted on their faces as if it was with glue, and they're movements rigid and not at all graceful, I can't help but notice that Mare is shaking and Maven keeps on looking at me. The world seems to spin as I slowly begin to put two and two together.

They didn't plan on me joining the Guard.

And in that moment, eternity and a moment passed. In that moment, I've realized that never in my entire life have I been so tuned in with my surroundings. For the first time, the shackles over my wrists feel much too heavy to be a reality. The veins in my arms stand out as I fumble with my wrists, suddenly more desperate than I have been in weeks to get these stupid, stone bricks off of my hands. I know what's going to happen, it's so clear.

How did the Queen know I escaped? How did anyone know I escaped?

The answer was in front of me this entire time.

The enemy was in front of me, this entire time.

And it was then, when the lights came out.

And a piercing pain tore through my stomach.

&^%

Miracles do happen, people. And this time, this miracle has grew in the form of an update.

Thank you for LongLiveDreams, for reminding me that people do read this story. Thank you so much, you are my inspiration to write. :)

Luv ya,

Emily