BEFORE SALEM WOKE UP
Cinder let the fire pour through her. This far out from Shade Academy, the Grimm grew fierce, yet misshapen. Perhaps it was because Vacuo used to be a green place, before it was sucked desert-dry, and hollowed out. The Grimm fed off a type of sickness which was like the absence of anything, no light, no shadow. Sometimes she saw creatures which were no experiment of Salem's: their necks cracked at strange angles, some recognisable chimera and some not, some ape and some bird, some something else altogether, born wrong, if born at all. Today they disappeared into nothing. The air stood still. She was finished. Time to go back.
He was probably waiting with food again. He hemmed and hawed and pretended that he was not watching her eat, but he was poor at hiding it. It should have embarrassed her, because she knew why he was like that, but like all things concerning Jaune, he was overly sincere, and she could not fault him it.
"Dessert?" she said, staring at the pastry he held out.
"You have a sweet tooth," he said. "Admit it."
"I don't."
He hummed. "I have good reason to believe otherwise. I still don't know who ate all the white chocolates from that box Nora got me, though."
She turned very deliberately away from him. "I don't know either."
"It's alright. I don't like white chocolate."
"Neither do I." She heard him restrain a laugh. "Shut up."
It was one of those crumbly pastries like the one he had got the first night she slept in his bed. It was sticky-fingered sweet, and by the time she had finished she had to suck on her fingers to thwart off the viscous assault of rose syrup.
He was watching her with mild concern.
"Set anything on fire today?" she asked.
"No," he said, voice high. "Did you?"
She raised a brow.
"Dumb question. Of course you did." He snorted. "Spy anything interesting?"
She mimicked one of his shrugs. "Sand. More sand. Sand dunes. No sign of Tyrian and company."
Plus, Tyrian might always be eaten up by a monstrous Grimm when she was not looking. She did really want him to die though, and she wanted to watch. Salem would be displeased, but there was little pleasing her. Cinder did what she could to get by.
Jaune fumbled on his knees across the bed until he reached where she leant against on the mattress on the floor. She wondered what he was trying to do. Then tender as anything he loosened the criss-crossed straps across her scalp and peeled off her mask. It always left her skin feeling tight.
Very quietly, she said, "Thank you." He smiled and tucked her hair behind her ear.
It stared quite menacingly from its place on the bedside table. With her things strewn about the room, it looked like she lived here. There were her clothes hanging up. There was her brush he used. Her boots were by the door. The bed, pushed in the corner, looked like it was slept in by two. She had still not returned to Salem's, and she knew the Relics sat in the drawer, stewing beneath the bed.
She did not want to return to Salem's. After all, any threat to her was here in Vacuo, Spring Maiden otherwise unaccounted for. It was not like Cinder had reason to go back. The moment she had considered leaving it had begun to storm. It did not occur to her to try and call back the storm, steady it herself, or wait to ride it out. He had shown her a nice memory and kept her here. It was his fault, if anything. So she had stayed.
The air was ripe with another storm. She thought so, anyway. If she sneakily called on the power, twisted her hand a little, well, that was her secret.
He liked it so much, too, she could not help it. The feeling was unfamiliar. She did not need to do it. But she did it. Besides, she could not fly in this weather. She would have to stay. What a predicament.
When she came out of the shower, he was sharpening Midnight with a whetstone. His eyes intent, his fringe brushing across his brow, which made him seem contemplative, serious. If his tongue were not poking out, perhaps. But that was him. He was serious and silly at once.
He needed a new sword. She searched his room as subtly as she could. The old sword, the broken sword, the one he could not use anymore sat discarded in the corner. The blade was darker than it should have been. It needed cleaning. She would deal with that later. Sometimes he spent evenings late at the clinic. She could surely find reason to stay behind one day and use his room to her own end. She had broken it, after all. In a way. She liked the irony that he would use it against her one day. She liked knowing things that would happen. She knew how it would turn out.
His tongue still poked out.
There was only one direction they were headed. She had learnt to work within her means. It would never last. That did not mean she wanted to leave.
He set the whetstone down and admired his handiwork, stretching the sword out away from her.
No, she wanted to stay. The storm raged outside, but they were ensconced inside, safe and warm. She could just stay a little longer. It would not hurt. It would hurt, eventually.
"I had never wanted anybody to know," she said. His dark gaze met hers.
"Know what?"
"About—" she said, stilted, and then gestured between them as if that explained it.
"The bond?"
"No." She huffed. "What I showed you."
"Oh." He put Midnight away safely. Then he fidgeted. He pursed his hands together and then sat on top of them. She stepped forward hesitantly and joined him on the bed.
They did not speak. She clenched her jaw. She should not have said anything.
He said, sensing her trepidation, "It's because you think it makes you weak. That you were born nobody."
She crossed her arms, and hid the Grimm claw beneath her armpit. It was shameful. Of course it was shameful.
"Then why'd you let me in?" he asked.
"You would never use it against me," she said, and she realised the truth of it as she did. She did not really understand the feeling. Everybody had one reason or another to manipulate the truth. It would be useful for them to know if she could be collared like a dog and taken down, Maiden or not. After all, Salem had seen it fit that Tyrian and Watts had a contingency plan against her. Tyrian had a Maiden vessel backup. Salem knew her weakness. What might happen if she grew too weak or recalcitrant? Cinder had found out. Tyrian had been excited to play with his new toy.
Salem always had reason for what she did. Equally, so did Cinder. She would kill Tyrian. He could not know.
Jaune could know. She let him. He did not make her do it. Salem pressed the wound and waited for the blood to come out. Cinder knew how she worked. It was fair, and what she deserved. She deserved a great deal. She would have all the Maiden powers, and nobody would ever touch her.
Then why did she want him to touch her?
It crept in and it would nag at her. Touch me touch me touch me touch me touch me. It was so hungry. She knew most types of hunger. She did not really know this one. Maybe the idea of it. The one she could use to make pieces on the board move where they were meant to, and to hurry up and do it quicker. This was different. He made her move, and he made her creep into bed beside him. He fussed with the blankets so they were both comfortable beneath the covers. A generous description would have been cramped, but she did not feel cramped. They fit. Sometimes their legs tangled together.
"Why did you never tell them?" she asked.
"I would never tell them what you went through. I thought you knew I wouldn't use it against you."
"No," she said, "the bond."
He fussed with the pillow again. He was calculatedly avoiding her gaze, but he snuck a look and then fixed the blanket over her shoulder.
"You're delaying the inevitable. You're going to tell me," she said.
"No, I'm not." It sounded downright whiny.
She poked him in the ribs, but not hard. "Tell me."
"We already talked about it," he grumbled.
"Strategically, yes."
"Why didn't you tell Salem?" He shoved his face in the pillow.
"She's asleep."
"So you would have if she were awake?"
Cinder considered it. She had been angry and lonely. She did not know what the second feeling had meant, but she knew real anger. She had kept things from Salem before, though. She had lied about Ruby's false demise. The Lamp's last question.
She settled on, "There are things Salem doesn't need to know."
She imagined it. Salem would not have asked her to try to break it. They two had already debated that once, and Cinder had not liked the thought of it. No, Salem would have asked her to use it at her own discretion. She would have tacitly endorsed manipulating him. Cinder was disinterested in manipulating him. The path between her and the Maiden powers was clear. Besides, the help he had offered had been on his own terms. It was easier with him that way.
She would not have let Salem stop this, either. It was just buying time. It was an unexpected detour she did not want to turn around from, but eventually it would wind back, and she would do it over again. It would probably break her. She would mend herself. How could she protect him?
He switched out the light. She assumed that was his attempt at ending the conversation. So she said, "I've kept many things from Salem. It wouldn't be the first."
"Like what?"
"Small things. What I ate. Where I went. What I was reading. When she found me, for a number of years she tutored me. Reading and writing, literature. She hates philosophy, but she likes talking a great deal about it; you wouldn't be able to tell. I usually tuned out. Mathematics was necessary, of course, but Salem's courses were archaic. I don't think algebra was invented in her time. Most of Beacon's curriculum was opaque to me. The texts were too modern."
His dark blue eyes were black. She liked tracking how the light changed them. Sometimes they were close to indigo, indecisive purple. There was always something new she was seeing, new yet familiar. She wanted to keep learning.
"She couldn't tell," she said. "I did as she said. Sometimes it was good to lie. But you don't like lying. You don't like that the old man lied to you."
He said, "I've lied."
She smirked. "So you have."
"I'm not ashamed, if that's what you're thinking." He searched her for evidence of it. She did not think him ashamed.
"But," she added for him.
"No buts. It's just going to sound stupid."
"Oh, of course. You really need to worry about that with me. I might think you stupid."
She thought it would make him huff in response, or roll his eyes, but he just smiled secretively. How indolent. She found herself wishing for him to keep smiling. Finally he relented, "They would have kept me from you."
"So it's what you should have done, then," she said.
He kept watching her sweetly and then put out his hand to touch her chin. "Don't be silly."
"I'm not silly," she insisted.
"So you'd rather we stopped."
"No," she said, sullen. Then she asked, hesitant, "Would you?"
"Of course not," he said, very, very low, sweet and lovely.
"That's very confident."
"Cinder." There it was. He really had to stop saying her name. Or never stop.
She took what she could. She imagined it, as she had said to him that night: in another life.
When he was this close to her in bed she wondered. She turned over on her side to stare at the smooth, finely grained sandstone wall. She had always peered through glass, watching other people. Madame had told her to stop staring all the time. Her eyes were ugly, and she was unkempt. She would scare the patrons with how she looked. The sisters would giggle and call her a freak. Cinder spent most of her time then as voyeur. Salem made an art of it, of course. Anything in her hands became sculpted and intentional. She even could make the Grimm do as she bid, violent and mindless, yet given direction. She experimented. She made Grimm with vacant stares, and drooling intimidation. That Hound had scared her.
But Salem had taught her how to watch the world properly. How to see, and how to use. She had encouraged it, welcomed Cinder's longing, even. Wanting something gave her direction. She knew that as the Maiden vessel she fulfilled a singular purpose. It was good to keep her eyes on the prize.
So then why was she still hungry for more? She heard him shuffle behind her. They were just close enough she could feel his exhales against her neck. It heated her skin and made it feel fresh. What would it be like, if they had grown up together? If they had gone to school together, if she had met his family, if maybe there were a path sooner where she could have turned back? She did not want forgiveness; that way lay madness. Bully for Ruby and Neo if they thought their cute little island reconciliation meant anything. It did not.
It was not like he would ever forgive her anyway. It would never be undone. It would always play out the same way, just as she had told him. She could dream a little, though.
It was not that she wanted to not kill her. Cinder had killed too many to be worried about the death of one. She could still turn back the clock and peer through another window. If they had grown up together, she could not imagine what family she would have had. Probably none, still. She was not wanted when she was a child, let alone a baby. That would never change. He had such a big family. All those sisters. He had that particular one he liked, Sapphron. She seemed kind. She had a wife and baby. Cinder did not go near babies. Her hands were made for killing, after all. It was the only way to become what she needed to be.
So she could not figure out where she would grow up, or what family she would belong to. That did not work for her scenario. Maybe she went to Beacon. How dreadfully dull. She had liked Vale, more than anywhere she had been before, but she did not care so much for the school. She would need a team, of course, and Emerald and Mercury would not and could not be plausibly worked into her plan. They needed a fourth anyway. They would not want to be on her team as it were. She had no team, then. No Beacon. If they had gone to school together, he would have been with the girl Pyrrha.
Now she had gone and voiced it internally. If the girl-warrior were alive, he would be with her. He would never have hated her, and he would never have healed her. He would never have bothered to speak to her; he would never have wanted to know why she was the way she was, and keep asking, and keep asking, and keep asking when she wanted to tell him the first time: if only you knew. When she had killed Rhodes, her only smile had been in relief. It was not fair. Jaune thought it was unfair she had killed Pyrrha? Well, Rhodes had tried to kill her first, and then it had never stopped. It would never stop.
She raised her flesh fist to her mouth. Yes, he would be with Pyrrha. Of course he would be. She bit her knuckles. He would be happy. She bit harder. She cared if he were happy. If he were content, if he were safe, if he laughed. She bit harder and harder. She drew in breath through her nose. With her Aura supressed her knuckle bled. He had said to breathe in according to some sort of a pattern, in and then out and count it as she did. It felt childish to forget how to do something as unconscious as breathing. She was working on it when he said, "Hey, what's wrong?"
"Nothing." It was near enough to a snap, but not quite.
"It's never nothing with you," he murmured, sleepy-soft.
"I can't sleep."
He would say too bad and then drift off, surely, and she could return to tracing all her missteps. This was why Salem discouraged her thinking; she welcomed her commentary, when it was measured and asked for. But this was what Salem warned against. Her bloody knuckle. It was not even that deep a bite. It bled almost pathetically. This is your work, it said, which was that she was not even good at hurting herself or killing herself. Nobody was very good at killing her either if she were fairer. Salem had always told her to be proud of what she had endured, shameful as it was. She was good at suffering punishment for her misdeeds; she did not need to punish herself. And yet. The knuckle.
She pushed her Aura down and let it bleed. It wanted to rush forth and fix it, but she did not let it. That was when he put his arm over her waist. It was heavy and warm. It encircled her as if to keep her here in bed, but he should have known she was not leaving yet. His hand rested against her and now his nose was pressed against the apex of her spine, and then he ran it up her neck, nosing at the soft baby hair of the nape. Just when she was sure she could settle, she felt his Semblance pour over her. It glittered very gently, watery.
It only took a moment or two for her hand to heal over. No scar, nothing left, just the whitened skin stretched over clenched knuckle.
"Is this okay?" he asked. She felt his lips move against her skin as he spoke.
"Yes," she whispered. If she spoke any louder, it would break the secret, she was sure. She begged, borrowed, and stole. Nothing had ever been given to her. Then why did he use his Semblance on her? Did he know how it made her feel? It was as soft as a worn blanket, like the one he put over her. As bone-deep warm as sunlight on her skin, but they were inside. As comforting as a lullabye she had never heard sung before.
Before dawn, she left. It was easier to leave when it was still dark, and the city had not yet awoken. The markets would be well on their way to setting up, but they were far enough away from the school it was not a problem. The scent of myrrh and saffron wafted on the breeze, the settled desert morning air beginning to heat up. If she brushed his hair out of his eye when he slept, that was her parting secret. Sometimes she would stay. Sometimes she would go.
She would pick a direction north or west and then just fly. She had never thought she would call on the power with such ease. It took conscious effort, and it felt like sometimes the more she tried to understand it, the more it attempted to resist her. Like it was angry with her for trying, or because she did not value it enough, seeking the other Maidens. What good if there were three others? What was the point of having only one?
It was when she thought those thoughts that it seemed to resist her. Here, it said, as she tried to call on it to cut the foot of a Griffin, you see how it feels. She groaned in frustration and said back to herself: have it your way. You're mine, and then it did as she said, so that was better. She only called on fire, but now, in Vacuo, she had begun to appreciate the wind, and the thunder, and the lightning, and the rain. It was not supposed to rain often in Vacuo anymore, but once or twice, she had done it just to see what would happen, near-environmental vandal.
When she came back today, desert roses grew in the earth. Magenta, red, purple. They dotted as far as the eye could see, where Grimm and dust storms ravaged, and the civilian did not go. She followed where they grew, flame underfoot, drifting and drifting, absently striking Grimm. They grew, and grew, and she had been flying for who knew how long, the sun at its midday peak, the moon weakly visible, so much so she did not notice when she reached the oasis.
They were supposed to be fiction. The visions of the delusional. Green grass grew. It was patchy, and sharp, and quite ugly. There was a tiny spring, its water muddy. It should not have been here. Surrounding it were the desert roses.
She spent at least an hour figuring out how to clean the water. It was just an experiment. There was algae growing that had to be removed first, and then she replenished the water, burning away the muck, watering the hole. She sat down and admired her handiwork.
Jaune poked his head in and she was not surprised to see him. "It's my lunchtime and I'm out in one of the courtyards pretending I'm talking on my Scroll," he said, as if he had to explain to her how he was avoiding looking mad.
"Otherwise they might think you're crazy talking to some woman named Cinder," said Cinder drily. "It's the talking to thin air that will be the problem, not me."
He held out a pita bread and she took it without comment. He was suppressing a smile, and he knocked his knees together like he was trying, on purpose, to be coy and cute.
"Ruby came into the clinic today," he said.
"Cause trouble?" she said, without looking up.
"Mildly. She's not always… great with people. Like, give her a sword or a gun and she's fine, but watching her trying to make small talk is painful. I think that's the reason she keeps me around, honestly."
"I'm sure it's for more than that," and at that he huffed, so she added, "you're the eye candy, after all."
"I— am not," he whined. He was whining. "I'm— you know I thought you were going to say maybe it was for my Semblance, but you decided to just bully me anyway."
"Would they disagree?"
"Obviously!"
"Well, I suppose they also like you. Perhaps they keep you around for that," she said wryly. He cupped his jaw on his hand and scrutinised her. She was not sure what he was thinking.
"And what would you say you keep me around for?" he asked. His eyes were alight with mischief. In the daylight they were bright, bright blue. It was troublesome.
Cinder affected carelessness and studied her lunch. He was always plying her with food. She did not know the true answer. It was as familiar territory as Vacuo was when she first came here. She knew the oppressive rolling plains of Anima, and concrete desolation of Atlas, and the open-air niceties of Vale with its beaches, but Vacuo: Vacuo the once-green place, desert of endless corners and Grimm. Then there was his room, as time-out-of-place as that beach he was stuck on. She did not understand it. The longer she said nothing, the more his face fell, and his jocularity shifted into an expression which looked guilty.
So she tried to think of the real answer. The safe place, with the one who would not hurt her, the one who cupped that little fire inside her. The place she wanted to return to every single day. She could not tell him that. But he looked so vulnerable. So she said very slowly, untested, "Jaune, I come home to you every day."
His eyelids fluttered like he was not expecting that answer. What did he think she would do, condemn him? He may have been her once-enemy, but surely he knew how much she enjoyed being around him. Strip away the conflict and they might have even been friends once. Never lovers. Cinder knew that. Her chest ached and she brought a hand up to rub it, and then at her shoulder, where the Grimm ate at her skin. Her chest should not have hurt so much.
"So it's just because you're stuck with me," he said, and it was so ridiculous she barked out a caustic laugh.
"Yes, yes, if it had been anybody else, I'm sure I'd just let them in my head. Of course. They would have wasted their Semblance on me, of course. If it were anybody but you." She tilted her head at him and hoped he got the message. Like she wanted anybody but him.
Her chest ached again. That was territory she could not cross.
"I found an oasis. I was here the other day and made it rain to see what would happen. Desert roses grew. The water here was muddy so I cleaned it," she said, near awkwardly.
"What does it look like?"
She was thankful he accepted her diversion. So she told what she could see, and hoped she told him correctly.
She reached across and plucked a desert rose at random, a warm purple, almost lilac. Its petals were veined with mysterious colour, textured like skin. She turned to him, expectant, and he did not know what she was going to do. She had to use her Grimm arm with its sharp claws to tuck his flaxen hair behind his ear. He did not flinch when he touched her, but she nearly did. She could feel very little through the hand, and it felt frostbitten, most days, numb and no feeling to it. There was just the barest hint of his soft hair, a ghostly sensation. Then she held him steady as she tucked the flower over his perfect, sweetly rounded ear.
"There," she said very quietly. "The flowering desert."
He had a very pretty blush. Now his hair was out of the way, she could see the tips of his ears were as deep as the flower. They matched.
At his silence she said, "You would probably like it here. But I suppose it would be awkward explaining how you ended up halfway across Vacuo. I'll take a photo." She still had her Scroll. Who needed an Aura bond? Well, she did. Wanted it, at least.
She reached out to touch his shoulder, and thought very hard about him there, but not really there. Then, just to be difficult, she snapped a photo of him with the flower over his ear. He was looking down and being coy again. "Look up," she commanded. He did not look up. "I'm taking a photo, look up."
"What are you going to do with it," he asked flatly.
"It's of great import to the cause," she said, as sarcastically as she could. "I just want a picture. Look up!"
Neo was difficult about it too. She barely even let her take the contact photo for her as it was.
"Fine," he mumbled, and crossed his arms and looked up. He was trying not to smile and he was failing, which pleased her. She took a few. Well, more than a few. More than a handful, at least.
Satisfied, she scrolled through her gallery. "Good," she said, mostly to herself. "I'll show you later. I imagine you're due back soon. You really have to stop cavorting with me."
He sent her a look which was strangely soft.
"I think you're a little late on that front," he said. "Ruby's waving at me, though. Ah. She's stuck in the middle of an awkward conversation." He sighed. "She needs my help."
Cinder did not expect that she would ever feel sorry for Ruby. Maybe it was just by extension, because he had that sweet endearing smile, and she liked when he rolled his eyes. Or maybe because she was no good at small talk. She tried to be. When they posed as students at Beacon, Emerald kept getting on her case talking about normal things, like classes and being late and whatever television show everybody else was watching. Salem had not prepared her for it, and neither had Madame. Cinder wanted to talk about weapons, but eventually her interlocutor would tire of it. They all had too many guns, anyway. She just liked swords.
She could manage with Jaune because he liked talking to her, for whatever reason. Even if that reason were to do with her moral wrongs.
"I'll see you later," he said, awkwardly hovering, and he looked back at her twice, and then a third time, like waiting for her to do something. No one else would see her sadly interacting with the air, so she stood up beside him and thought about what to do. She gave him a very brief hug. He could not reciprocate it, but it gave her an odd sensation in her stomach to be close.
She did not expect him to say anything, but he said, "I'll give you a proper hug when we get back."
Then she stepped back and did not look at him and waited for him to disappear.
Everywhere she looked, the lively colour of the desert flowers stretched as far as the eye could see. The desert yellow giving way to flower upon flower upon flower, fresh and lovely, until there was only one colour.
It was hardly a sight she deserved. Her left arm spasmed. She had thought about Emerald, and it had not hurt. No. She knew she was with better people, now. Jaune was kind to her too, and the boy. Cinder went over the names as she had once to him, starting from the bottom this time.
The thought persisted every day that followed. She was back early, and when he was not here, she stewed. She kept trying to imagine it. Beacon, of course, was a no go. What if she had turned around at Haven? There was no convincing her there. She did not need convincing, anyway. She had already killed Pyrrha by then, so it did not matter. He had wanted to kill her for it. No, it would never work, she swiftly realised. There was no point where she could have turned back, or even wanted it. He had disrupted it. The way it was now was the only way it could be. The only other life she could imagine was one where he had never found her or she had never been hurt in the first place. They would never have met there, then.
They would not have spoken to each other. She would have been alone, and alone for much longer, and alone, and alone, alone as she always was. He would never have spared her a second glance. Who would have killed her, then?
Probably him. If there were one hand she was meant to die by, it was his. She had personally wronged him, more than any other; his friends might have vied for her blood, if they cared enough— and Ruby did not, penitent and dismissive towards her— but it was him whom she was always tied to.
It would be some time, of course. Cinder always survived. Beacon, the plummet, the Winter Maidens; nothing stopped her, and she barged mercilessly on. Salem yet slept, and she bid her time. Or perhaps Salem did not sleep. Maybe Salem did not grow bored this time, and instead possessed newfound vigour. She oscillated between idle dismissal and fervent interest in the world, and Cinder never knew how to track her moods. That was part of what kept her on her toes, of course. Sometimes Salem would want everybody to watch her do a magic trick. Others, she wanted to rip the knowledge of magic straight from their dizzy heads.
He would find her somewhere. Maybe it was Vale. Vale was right. That was where she killed his partner, so that was where he would kill her. She would taunt him again about who his Fall Maiden candidate would be. Twist the knife of Pyrrha's death, for one, and his lack of strategy, second. When he had found her—
He did not find her in this life.
She did not ever have such a conversation. Of course. When he found her, how could he possibly go up against a Maiden? She was caught off-guard. Or his friends helped, and they let him do the honour of gutting her. You could not just gut somebody like a butcher. She had told him that—
It did not happen.
His Semblance evolved, then, to rip her Aura in two. It was just like when he reached out to shut Tyrian up—
IT DID NOT HAPPEN.
There was some way he did it. Cinder had let Pyrrha think she could win: everybody loved a good fight. The Vytal Festival knew that well enough, but they did not like the ultimate answer: that a good fight ended in a good kill. So here they were, playing out their parts again. A good fight, and a good death.
Did she find the Relic? Perhaps she did. Perhaps it was like that old story about the king… Salem had told her it once. There was a bad king, a foolish king, who knew little and acted on even less. He murdered a man, and his widow came to court to plead to stay. The foolish king let the beautiful woman stay, and gave her a home, until she stole the crown he wore and killed him in his sleep. Cinder thought the moral of the tale was not to trust anybody. Perhaps not to kill. That obviously had no impression on her. But it was said that the woman hid the crown where no one would bother to go. Of course, the old man built his elaborate Vaults. He was just like her master.
So they found the Crown, the Relic which the Fall Maiden protected. He would find her there, and catch her unawares. He would spit in her face, but he would be kind about it. After all, he had been angry once. Now he was simply putting her down, the way all good heroes kill all bad villains. Cinder knew well what she was, and who he thought he was. All Huntsmen were the same. They were heroic and just. They left little girls to fend for themselves and learn to fight to earn their freedom.
"You'll need a Maiden puppet," said she. Their lines were rehearsed.
"Do you have anybody you'll even think of? When you die?"
He would not speak to her that way.
"Of course I don't," she said. "Emerald may have been the only choice once. But I shall think of nobody. I shall die, here, on that sword of yours. How did you mend it?"
It was half-black, and half-white. It gleamed dark, and it gleamed bright. What had been used to forge it?
THAT. WOULD. NOT. HAPPEN. But it was a good idea.
The sword righted itself until he did not wield anything anymore. Then what was he here for? The red trees fluttered, undisturbed by their presence. She was searching for the Relic by herself. Her master grew angry with her. What season was it? It was the season of the Fall Maiden.
"You don't have anything to kill me with," she said.
"I'm not going to kill you," he replied simply.
He did not find her in the alcove, and he would never say that. It kept disrupting it. The memory of his approach. His hands empty.
"Then what good are you?" She tried to smirk, but she could not smirk; she knew him. She only smirked at him now when she teased him or was cleverer than him.
It was simply impossible.
"Hurry up and kill me," she urged. "That's what you're here for, isn't it? It's what you've wanted since the Fall of Beacon. It must go this way. It's either you or Ruby, and we all know she leaves you the dirty work."
"I've seen what you've done."
Red leaves rustled. She said, "No. You haven't. You don't know anything."
"I do. You helped us. And that Grimm arm of yours is eating you alive."
It grew up the side of her face now. She could not wear a mask to hide it because it was angry and tumourous. It throbbed beastly, like an imitation of a heartbeat. She felt it against her face and the miasma of it permeated her nose at all times. She never forgot what monstrousness she bore.
"We could help you," he said.
He would never do that. It was ridiculous.
She held a sword against her stomach. "Go on," she said. "Try it."
She would let him try. Many had, including him. She had to let him have a go again and see if he could do it. The first time he had tried he made her angry. She was hard to kill.
"I won't." He said it like she was trying to make them play a game, not force him into murder.
What a waste of time. He was so difficult. She could not even make him do what was necessary in her own imagination. But it would happen, anyway. She would die. She knew it was coming. If she had all the Maiden powers, then perhaps it would not happen. How could she want to die, and be afraid of dying all at once? Salem had said she understood. She longed for death, but she hated it. At least if she chose it, it meant something.
"Cinder," he said, stroking her horrible cheek. At least she could still see out of her true right eye, so she could see his lovely face. She came up to his shoulders, and he was taller than her, and that should have annoyed her. But she liked his height. His eyes, the perfect blue where night met day. Salem would beat her for the comparison. It was stupid. His nose, sweetly sloped. Pink-mouthed. There was a mole behind his ear she could imagine in her mind's eye. It was only there if you brushed his hair aside and stood close enough to look. His shoulders. Oh, she had seen those. She had probably looked too much. She only caught him when he was changing and she knew she was not supposed to look then with his back turned. He was always polite and let her change without looking. But he had muscular shoulders, and arms, but not too much. He was still lithe, and in that ethereal zone between handsome and beautiful. She should not have noticed. Beautiful things died.
This was not the way it would go. If they had never met in the alcove, he would never stroke her cheek. She would not know what he looked like shirtless, either. Though he had stripped when he appeared in her room at Evernight. She had certainly noticed then. But that was not likely to happen. There was no beach he would have been stranded on to talk to her with. If she had not appeared to him, he would have found his friends, surely. Perhaps he would have never been alone. She made his ruin.
He kept stroking it. Like that night when he went inside her head.
That was still wrong.
When he brushed his hand along the back of her scalp, stopped, and then did it again at her wordless command. And then touched her. And touched her. And touched her. And touched her. And did it again and again. Hair behind the ear, arm across the waist. Finger on the chin. And touched her and touched her and touched her and touched her and do it again. Do it again. Do it lower.
She was supposed to be imagining something else. Not that. The life where he had the girl. The only other possibility she could see is if he went with Pyrrha and then Cinder killed him when he begged for Pyrrha's life. That would be much worse. That would be the worst of all possibilities.
Then write herself out of the picture. She never killed Rhodes, and lived under the thumb of Madame for longer. She grew more weary, and could not balance Madame's treatment with Rhodes' training. But she endured. She did not take what she wanted. He did not give her the sword, which condemned her in the sisters' eyes. Then when she tried to leave when she was of age, Madame found her.
There was no way out of the Glass Unicorn without Madame's say-so. Rhodes may have visited her to train her, but as she grew older and Madame more suspicious, eventually he had to stop coming. Madame's temper became shorter, if that were possible. There was no leaving the Glass Unicorn. There were eyes everywhere. Once, she had succeeded in running away. It was not a special day. It was a mere stroke of luck. She had gunned it for Atlas Academy. She had been returned as a runaway. The special operatives were Ironwood's best; Madame was a long-time patron of Huntsmen and Huntresses. The ward she had taken in had simply lost her mind from stress. She would not make a good Huntress, they all agreed. She looked sickly. She did not dress well. Madame elaborated on the difficulties of her behaviour when they returned her. How much she tried to curb her worst impulses.
Cinder never left the Glass Unicorn again.
So they never met. He would be happy with the girl.
He was aggrieved for her death and the injustice of it. She knew he was no scorned lover. He did not have the ego for it. He cared too much. Cinder had seen Pyrrha around Beacon, posing as a student. It was obvious how she watched him. If she were happy, she wanted him to see. He was oblivious.
It would become clear to him whom he belonged with, though. They made a sickeningly proper couple: they were combat partners, after all, and she was very tall, with long red hair, sharp green eyes, and she tolerated Jaune's goofiness and she encouraged him to be a better warrior.
Cinder would never bother handholding him like that. If he wanted to fight properly, then he would fight her. She did not need to tell him what to do. Just like they had fought at Haven.
So it would work out. Cinder had cut it short. But she was sure somewhere between Beacon and the end of the world they would love each other as was right. Amber might have been the Fall Maiden still. Cinder had known she had not enjoyed being the Fall Maiden, and that was kept quite tight-lipped. Cinder had made her life easier. So then Pyrrha would be selected as the next one instead.
Jaune would love the Fall Maiden. It would be as proper. Pyrrha would not fight Raven. She would never use the powers against another Maiden; she was too kind, and she would consider them sisters. Besides, she never relied upon her Semblance. She would not rely upon the limitless font of magic.
Cinder was the disruptive element. If Madame kept her in the Glass Unicorn, nothing would go awry. Salem would have her meddling and her great performance for everybody to watch. But there was no other Cinder than Cinder; Salem had always told her she was the perfect Maiden, and the key to victory.
He would be happy.
It was very late and he was still not back yet. It was pathetic that she waited for him. Her arm had been painful recently. It did not usually ache so. She endured it. But he had not called her back tonight, and she had wanted to return home— a sad word, a word she should not have used, she of no home— so she had risked it and snuck in his window. She was thankful for the false greenery of the hanging gardens, and the distraction the power would lend her. Now she stole his clothes again. He had offered her some undergarments he had got from the school, which he had offered with a deep blush, so she did not need to steal those.
He must have been working late in the clinic. Or he was with his friends. He must have enjoyed pretending that Cinder did not want to kill Ruby. Sometimes, she almost did not. Her silver eyes hurt, of course, and she was a brat who had got in her way one too many times. But there was another Ruby in her head who made Jaune laugh, and she could tolerate her. Her, and Ren and Nora, Oscar and Yang and Blake and even Weiss, though he had told her to stop calling her the Schnee. They all got on with Jaune and made him smile, and he had to stop coming to her so frequently in his room and spend time with them. It was indecent how long they spent together. She liked hearing his stories, anyway. Nora was passionate about the Mantle civilians, which Cinder did not understand. Why would she care? Ren had been cruel to Jaune once about cheating into Beacon, he had told her, but he had overcome it quickly and apologised. Cinder had said to him, "But cheating was clever," and he had laughed, like she had told a good joke.
The boy was kind, but he could manipulate if he wanted; Yang had the best of her mother; Blake was like Ruby, it seemed, and Cinder admired her murder of Adam; Weiss, well, Cinder had very little to say in her favour. But she made Jaune happy. Maybe he could be happy with her. He had said he had an embarrassing infatuation with her in their early days at Beacon. He had calculatedly gauged Cinder's expression, which was completely blank.
Now she had to adjust her scenarios. Cinder might have killed Pyrrha, but he could find happiness with Weiss. Or somebody else. There was still, perhaps, a chance yet. But she felt the thread of loneliness inside him, where it was cold. She had only wanted to warm it.
Cinder tapped her knee and then bit her knuckle again. There was no other life. She had said to him, in another life, but there was no other way. Now she considered it: there was no going back, there was no convincing her away from the edge in any other time, like she had tried to reassure him. There is no need to bother now. But it might have worked in another life. She saw the thought enter his head, maybe I could help her, a long time ago, before that very night. Before he even realised it. It was when he found her bleeding, her blood mixed with the ash, staining his knees.
It was still too late. She could never be talked back. Any time and place he could have been happy, it meant her total removal altogether. He would never be happy with her.
But she wanted him to be. Traitorously, barely voiced, she wanted to him to be happy with her. She liked when he touched her, and she liked touching him. No, no, worse than that. It was not the simplicity of him making her laugh, or something mean he would say about his friends that made her laugh, or the sweetness with which he treated her, or the way he challenged her, or any of that social goodness. No. He touched her. It was always above the waist, though there were times he moved her legs when she hogged the bed and pretended to not let him in to sleep. He had never done anything like pick her up. She had wanted him to pick her up, which partly motivated hogging the bed.
He did not know that when he touched her she wanted him to touch lower, between her thighs. She rubbed them together. She was lucky he could not see her wetness.
Cinder understood the way women were supposed to act. She wanted to be older. She wanted to be clever, and powerful, and if there were ever another Madame in her way, she would cut her down cleanly.
The truth was nobody had ever touched her or made her wet like him. Her heart thudded so hard it hurt. He had touched her chest, but not her breasts. His eyes never wandered, and he was always chivalrous. He had long, slender fingers, neat nails, pretty knuckles, pretty veins criss-crossing the top of his palm, the lines on his palm reading a long life and a long love, and good fortune. So he had that, at least. He had held her hand before, and his were bigger, but they did not dwarf hers. She wondered if her breasts would fit in his palms, and what it would be like if he kneaded them. She was not worried if he would like it; he would never do it. But his room was empty without him, and she was by herself, and her arm hurt.
Their lips had nearly brushed when their foreheads had touched. Did he know how dangerous that was? But then, he pretended, too, just the way she was used to. He pretended she was another Cinder, a Cinder who had never ruined his life. He could pretend, too, that he was not close to her. But he had to. He had insisted the other day they were not enemies anymore, and he would never hurt her. He would never kiss her, either. Sleeping maidens always needed kissing. He never kissed her awake. He would settle the blankets around her shoulder again, or gently jostle her and ask if she wanted breakfast, but he did not kiss her.
She wanted him to kiss her. She rubbed her thighs together again and chastised herself. She usually took things as she wanted them. But he could not be taken, and, irony of ironies, was barred to her forever. She had condemned herself to this: the tower, the murder, and her.
Well, she could not feel sorry for herself. She felt little regret for anything she did. She would bear this easily. It would hurt. She could do it.
She waited for the ache in inside her to dissipate before he came back. When the door opened, she did not look up, and he chattered away about the clinic, the nurse who had taken him under her wing (she had too many grandchildren to the point Cinder could not keep track of them), and whatever else his friends were getting up to.
Cinder did not have friends. Emerald and Mercury had hardly counted. They were more like her employees, if she were generous, and they were free of her, and free of Salem. All the better for them. They took an opportunity presented to them. It was possible, for them. Mercury had wanted to protect Emerald, which she found funny. They had not got along. She did not know where that had come from, but then, she could not pay attention to that sort of thing.
He was still talking and undressing himself to wash the muck of his shift off. She tried not to look. She looked.
"When did you get back?" he asked, throwing his shirt in the laundry bin. It was the one she gave him.
"You seemed busy when I checked in on you… so I came home early through the window. No one saw me," she said, and then she floundered to say something to distract him, because he sent her a funny look when she said home, and she could not tell if it were good or bad. It was probably bad. She decided on, "I'm not about to be ordering you around whilst you have better things to do."
"It wouldn't take me much effort to find an excuse to come back to my room," he said measuredly.
"Oh, yes. You should be at the Fall Maiden's beck and call. That's your lot in life."
He crossed his arms. It did her no good. He had dark, flushed nipples, and his forearms tensed across his torso in a way that made it difficult for her to decide where to look. She really was in trouble. She swallowed. His flaxen hair brushed against his collarbones. That was worse. She had really created a disaster with that. So she looked lower. That was even worse. He had jutted out his hip with his raised brow. So she had to look away. She had no choice.
"How was the clinic?" she tried. She rested her head against the wall.
"I'm not at your beck and call." He ignored what she had asked. "I'm still here to help you. I don't care what trouble it would be if anybody saw you, but I don't want them trying to fight you."
"It'll happen eventually," she said under breath. She huffed when she saw his response form in his expression before he even opened his mouth. I won't hurt you, he insisted, but he could not help what his friends would do. They were the only ones with any sense. She would have to kill them. It was complicated.
She stared at the chessboard tossed aside. He had just got that for her and then acted like it was nothing. They played. He was good at it. Cinder used to play with Salem, before she grew bored of it. It was stressful. Salem played to win, and used it to demonstrate Cinder's failures. She was a good teacher. Or an awful one, by equal measure.
It was fun with Jaune, at least, especially when he could see her winning a few moves ahead. He would not sulk, just shake his head at her with a smile. She did not know what the smile meant.
"What do I even do for you?" she sniped. "There's no material gain from this. You give me things I don't even ask for."
She flicked her gaze to him quickly and then away again. He tilted his head at her curiously. She rolled her shoulders. She was not invested in the answer. Well, she was. He said, "Did you consider that I like having you here?"
Hesitantly, she said, "No."
"There's your first mistake, then." He came over beside her to gather his clothes and she saw him bend over. He fled to the bathroom and the door shut before she could see him undress any further. She felt a contradictory mix of disappointment and relief.
He could never know what she was thinking. All the sad little things she imagined in her head. He would refuse to call it fucking, she was sure. He would make love to her. He would not actually make love to her, of course. That would not happen. Cinder was certain about her destiny. She knew well what was possible for her. But shamefully, sadly, pathetically: another her and another him would make love.
Salem had instructed her on the issues it would cause her. After all, Salem had loved Ozma once. Look where it got them. Do not waste your time on beautiful things. Do not allow him to distract you. Do not lose sight of what you were meant for. Cinder had asked her what Salem was meant for, and Salem had silenced her. She assumed that Salem did not remember anymore. She was probably right.
But he could hold her hips tightly. From front or behind? She beat the pillow. He would not have sex with her. He was in the adjacent room. She had to share a space with him. She felt sorry for him, even if she had cautioned him away from the cascading error that had got them here. He was kind. Everything he did, he did to help; he would have done it for anybody. If had not been her wounded in that alcove, it would have been someone else whom he helped. It was just proximity that made him bleed sweetness, like blossom sap sticky on her fingers. If he had another person in his room this frequently, there would be some sense of complacency to his behaviour, much like this.
That it was her only meant they argued more to begin with when she had not wanted to be alone, and he had goaded her on. Or she had goaded him on. It was not even clear to her anymore who asked whom what horrible question. It was like entropy.
It would be from front and behind, if she had her way. She groaned. It was a new form of hunger and torture. If she just ignored it, it would go away. He came out and noticed her absent stare, and he said, skin water-fresh, "What's wrong?"
It felt like the right kind of punishment.
"Cinder?" he said again.
She burst out laughing. At least her predicament was funny.
"What did I do now?" he tried.
"I'm not laughing at you." She covered the eye that could see.
"Oh, good. Well, that's different to everybody else."
She sobered. "They don't laugh at you." She sat up on her elbows. "I take back what I said at Haven. Well, the deathwish part wasn't incorrect. But you're not pathetic." He grimaced at that.
"You don't need to apologise," he muttered, and at that she did laugh meanly, because in terms of things she had done, that was very far down the list.
"Why would they laugh at you?"
"I'm the stupid, clumsy one," he said, flopping on the end of the bed as if to demonstrate that.
She was nonplussed. "That's certainly not the only side you show me."
"It's not like I feel sorry for myself about it. It's just the way it is," he said. His head was near her curled up feet, and his hair fanned out across the bedspread.
"The stupid one who cheated into Beacon."
"You keep saying that like it's a compliment," he mused.
"It is. It's harder to cheat."
He snorted. At least she had amused him. That was a victory. "There are things about me that you see that I don't see. That nobody else sees. Like, cheating into Beacon was bad. I couldn't fight, and I was totally useless. Pyrrha helped me. She made me better because she cared, and I had to work my way back from that. Then she died. She was the good one. Not perfect— everybody called her perfect, and she was never perfect. She was high-strung, and when things went wrong, she couldn't talk to me. She used to leave her wet towels out on the bed and never hang them up. She used to leave passive-aggressive notes if you did something to annoy her, but she'd always sign them with a smiley-face. It was worse than her just telling me what I did wrong. But because she was perfect, they needed her to be the Fall Maiden. Then look what happened." He laughed, but it was humourless. "I had wished that I had died instead of her."
"What good that would have done you," she said. He seemed surprised by her answer. "Survival is not about fairness. You know well why I did what I did. You already put yourself to task of trying to be better than you were. That's as much as you can do. Pull yourself up from nothing. But you were never really nothing, were you? Your friends might consider it wrong you cheated the system, but I don't. I told you: if I had it my way, I'd burn them all down, and I think it's cute you got one over the old man. Who manages that anymore? Well, other than me."
"Yeah," he said, "none of them would ever say that."
It was not clear what he was trying to imply. So she said, "I'm not them."
"I know," he said, like a verbal caress. Then he added, "Do you want to keep playing?"
"Yes."
So he brought the board up to the bed. She sat cross-legged and he across from her, the room dimly lit by the lamp, and idle fire she juggled in her hand between turns.
"I saw you breathe fire. When we fought you on the way here. Well, on their way here. Not my way here. You were my way here." He blinked quickly. "Is it bad to bring that up?"
"I'm unperturbed. Yes. I breathed fire." She furrowed her brow. "You make me sound like a dragon."
"Do you think you could…" and she waited for him to finish, until she realised what he meant. Nobody had asked her to demonstrate before. He sort of bounced in his seat. She opened her mouth and breathed fire, minding that she did not set the room alight. She was not an arsonist. Most of the time. It was hot in her mouth, but it did not hurt.
"That is cool," he murmured, more to himself than her. She attempted to ignore his idle comment. When she did, his eyes glittered. "It's cool," he said again.
"It's your turn," she grumbled.
"Yes, yes." He moved his rook.
There was fire inside her. She wanted him in there, too.
A dance needed a date, but he did not mention whom he was taking. She imagined that he had asked Weiss. That fit into her speculation. It made sense he would not tell Cinder, either. That was fair.
He was very, very handsome. Cinder did not have the vocabulary for it. Soft and beautiful things applied to him: his lips, balmed and pretty. His hair tied back with his soft fringe brushing at the front was distracting. She had touched his hair when he slept, and it was soft like downy fur. His shirt fitted him well, with the two buttons undone teasing a lovely collarbone, and his jeans— the less said about that, the better.
He teased her. He was being mean. He had no idea what he was doing to her. They would all be at the dance party tonight, and there may have been backup Huntsmen patrols, but she did not trust it. Their Winter Maiden was going to be making an appearance with the Happy Huntresses. They were putting up a unified front. There would be no Maiden to protect the school or the city for that matter from Grimm. No, worse: protecting him.
He was absolutely essential. Cinder had accepted that. She could work it into her plan.
She heard him through the door, "I am not a hottie!" and she muffled a laugh. When she drifted out, flying on fire, she said, "You look—" but he was not supposed to hear, and she could not even say what she thought in her own solitude.
So she left.
Her arm ached again, sharper and meaner. She could see through the pain, clouding her movement as it did. It spasmed and she righted it. The wave would pass. She just had to bear it. As she pushed out of the Vacuo city boundary again, it began to settle, and she let out a long sigh. The sky was black. Flying up this high, she might have just been a comet to the grounded eye.
There was another dust storm on the horizon. Dust storms always brought Grimm. It was like they bred out here. Grimm did not have children, but their number might have had her believe otherwise. It was errand work playing with them. That was, of course, when she began to notice the Grimm grew and grew long. A ruined fortress, at the heart of the storm, sand in her eye, was uncircled by Grimm. Her arm throbbed again like a siren.
She had not travelled this far into the Devil's Belch before, but she had hoped against hope she would find Tyrian here. It was mostly because she was not entirely sure if she were committed to finding the Summer Maiden. She wanted him dead, but it would happen in time.
She had liked coming home to Jaune. She had liked it a great deal. She had stolen her time.
Her arm hurt once more, a sick, throbbing punctuation. The dust carried on it death. She could not hear her own breathing or the sound of her own voice in her head over the whipping roar. By the time Tyrian came outside she had already decided what she was going to do. It did not take as long as last time.
"You said she was awake!" he said, as loudly as he could from his little vantage point, poised over broken brick. "You lieeeeeeeeeed."
"You believed it!" she yelled back.
"You LIEEEEEEEEEEED."
"I lie all the time! You're the idiot who—" but she did not finish her sentence, because the Summer Maiden, golden-flared eyes, hair licking the wind, poked her head out.
"You LIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEED and she is AWAKE NOW!" Tyrian said, waving his head back and forth. "She told me! You know, I said to her— but Cinder came here and picked a fight with my new Summer Maiden, and she said you were awake. But you WEREN'T. I was lonely, waiting out my days here, the Summer Maiden and her partner too, and we had to deal with that terrible old Bertilak— I was waiting and waiting and WAITING. FOR. MY. QUEEN. AND WHERE WAS SHE? SLEEPING!"
Cinder had to go.
"TAKING A NAP!" he bit out. "BORED! TIRED! FROM ATLAS! AND I WAITED HERE. AND SHE WASN'T HERE."
Cinder had to go and tell him. Carmine hovered in the air. She seemed undisturbed. She must not have met Salem in the flesh yet, at least. Cinder could work with that.
"We thought eventually you'd turn up. We bid our time here and waited, we thought, Cinder would come and bring her carnage and we'd cut her throat clean because she always. Causes. Such. Trouble. AND NEVER KNOWS WHEN TO QUIT. She tells me my queen is awake. Surely, she wants the Maiden power. I think to myself: Salem will be so happy, she'll—"
"Cut the bullshit," Carmine said. "Do I fight her now or what?"
The agony that ripped through Cinder's Grimm arm was like no other. It had no point of comparison. It was pain to the very centre of herself, it was pain drawn down deep. It was like her skin had been opened and then dragged over salt and then dragged over acid and then exposed to the air for everybody to see. It could not be stymied. She could not press the pain away with a tough enough touch. She did not know what sound she made.
"That is my queen," Tyrian said companionably to Carmine. "I would suggest you take advantage—" and then the molten hot metal pierced Cinder. Her Aura took a good battering.
Maiden fights were like no other. Any fight with a Huntress or Huntsman was like dancing. They had their gentility and rules, some sense of decency or respect. They were made for fighting Grimm, after all, not each other, unless they got themselves into a tournament. It was simply not the same. Throw in the old man's magic and it was a completely different game. It was like trying to duel in a swordfight with a missile. It was worse yet with an audience: Tyrian kept clapping his hands together as if they were putting on a show for him.
Cinder dreaded to think if any of their number trickled out to see what they were up to.
Carmine went for the jugular, Cinder would give her that. She did not play fair and more than once she pulled Cinder's hair, which was so unsportsmanlike she heard Jaune in her head decrying it. When they hit each other, it thundered like rockfalls. The dust storm made their fight little more than fire, dirt, and annihilation. Cinder dove straight for her when she saw an opening and Carmine feinted like she had planned it, and her comet-fall left a tidy greeting to Carmine's summoned, molten-red knife. It cut clean through her Aura.
The Grimm arm had already done some of the work.
"When that freak found me in the desert, I thought he was crazy. I mean, I had seen the broadcast. Maidens? Some Queen of the Grimm? I'd just been beaten by some kids, and Gillian was gone. There was this guy offering me everything. All the power I wanted to get the things that I really needed. Any doubts I had were gone when he showed me what his weird little Grimm orb could do," Carmine said. Her eyes glowed. It made Cinder jealous. It looked right, with the two of them. "She spoke to us tonight, you know. She's not really set on me killing you, so there's that. But she's not my boss, either."
Cinder crawled backwards.
"But there's your Aura thing. With that guy. You got the one up over Tyrian. I didn't even know that sort of thing was possible. Is it a Semblance? Sorry about my curiosity. I mean, not really. I'm not actually sorry. But yeah. I do want your Maiden power. You've failed to get any of the others, right? Maybe I can show you how it's done."
She did not smile. Cinder might have expected her to smirk. But she was a young Maiden, and had only come into her power recently. Cinder had figured that out with Winter. Winter had used hers like someone who had been given a lighter for the first time. That was how it had been for Cinder, too.
Cinder had a little longer with the power. It had been kinder to her recently. She had tried to cup it and stop ignoring it.
"Show me how it's done?" Cinder repeated. Then she laughed, hard. "You need to work on your speeches."
The wave of fire was like water. Fire was water, and water was fire. It was as fluid and chaotic, and at the same time, she made the storm stronger, so none could see except her, where fire marked her path out. Her arm burnt, but she burnt through it, and leant into it. She could not beat Carmine now. She would allow that. Salem's anger could be felt through the arm, and Tyrian was about to join in. There was only one option.
The sky could not be seen for the Grimm. They blotted it out black, deeper than black, not a black even tangentially blue. Salem slept well. She was refreshed.
The little flyer with its cursive writing had told Cinder where to go. Fancy dress, but Cinder was not wearing her best. Her silver arm was tarnished, and some of her skirt was ripped, the long side. Her hair was probably a mess, and her scalp felt raw.
She could not see, her whole flight back. She was used to the protectiveness of glass, but landing hurt. It dug into her forearms when she plummeted face-first in the dance hall. She felt him beside her, of course.
"She's awake," she gasped out, only looking at him, only seeing him.
"Why did you come here? Why didn't you call me?" His tone was urgent, and she was so angry. She would have called if she could have.
She barely noticed her armour of her Grimm arm breaking off when she said, "I was trying to give you time. I couldn't— through—" and then he did that thing again, the breathing. She could breathe. It just came a little rough. Her left arm spasmed and it was at that she noticed he was wasting his Aura on her. "What are you doing? Go. Go! I was giving you a head start! Don't waste it on me!"
She was watching him too long, begging with him silently to try to convey her urgency. This was her job now. He had to listen. Like the arm mattered. Like Salem's sick, bobbing head mattered. Cinder wanted to say, She's really not that big.
"Hm," Salem pronounced, turning a hum into a proclamation. "A party. Well, don't allow me to interrupt."
Jaune's hand protectively covered Cinder's. His Semblance throbbed over her, and she needed to tell him to move. His teammates and Salem, all in one horrible cocktail. But she still pressed her hand against his back.
"I thought we had longer," she said, pathetically. It was so sad. She should not have said it. But it was true. She had stolen time and she thought they had just a little longer. One more night.
"Hey, hey, it's okay," he said.
"You need… to get back…"
He shook his head. "I'm not."
"No. Salem will…" she gasped out, but did not finish, mostly because Salem would do everything.
"You know I can't watch you—"
"Cinder," Salem said, and her blood ran cold. The room could have been as empty as Salem's reception hall and she would not have noticed. This was routine. "What have you been up to?"
"I was gathering information on the Summer Maiden."
Salem hemmed. "She's Tyrian's business. So imagine my surprise when I awoke to find my Seer dead, and the Relics gone. What did you do with them, exactly? Lose them?"
"I borrowed them," she said. It was not exactly a lie. She was going to give them back, after all. The pain swelled.
"Fascinating. And what," Salem said, pausing for her own drama, "is he doing?"
She wanted to go back to their room when he looked at her. "Making a grave error," she snapped, because he was letting up the game. They were never supposed to know.
"Cinder," he said, as if in sweet reprimand. She felt her jaw tremor when she shook her head at him.
"Liar," said Salem.
"I don't know! He's not doing anything!" She felt like a little girl again.
"LIAR."
The pain again coursed through her but she paid it no mind. She said, very intently, "She's going to come, now, the Summer Maiden and Tyrian too. It will be a siege of greater proportion than Atlas—"
"Why are you—"
"I'm protecting you," she hissed. Did he not know? That if he wanted so badly to protect her, she, too, would do the same now? It was horrible. It was wonderful.
"Cinder, Cinder, Cinder," Salem said. Cinder did not watch her, head bowed. "What a terrible mess you've made."
Four shadows cast themselves across her. Salem was very large and looming, and the dance lights painted her pink, green, blue, yellow. Salem at a dance. Cinder wondered if she had ever been to one. She did not listen to what they were saying, only heard Salem's reprimand, but Cinder's focus was on him mouthing no. He did it again when she said the words she was supposed to say: Without you I am nothing, and that was it.
"Don't," Cinder said, "don't, don't, don't, DON'T. Go and prepare yourself. Do you think Salem was kidding around? It's all over now."
The exits would all be crowded. The north and west would be worst hit. The Summer Maiden was volatile, and the Winter Maiden had been locked up like a fragile snow globe. They would come for the Relic. Salem had something up her sleeve about Theodore.
"You want to stop the Summer Maiden," Jaune said, "come on. Stay. Don't just give us a head start."
"It's the only way, and it's the only option. Did you think it was ever possible for me to turn back?" She laughed cruelly, but it was mostly at herself. She knew it better than him. "I'm merely operating within my means."
She took what she could. Then his friends wanted to know, just like Salem, and it was as disastrous as she had assumed it would be, even if the shock of Salem's appearance had not worn off. It wore off Cinder a long time ago. She liked being big. Salem did not realise it, but she struck more fear into Cinder when she sat plainly across her at a table.
"I have to go," Cinder said lowly. She could sense his panic. He had played his card too early.
"No, no, just— stay. You could stay—"
"I can't stay. You know I can't."
"You—"
"Look at them," she whispered. "They loathe me. They hate me. They know what I've taken from them. You might pretend to forget, but we both know which way this goes." She knew. He did not. She could see it all over him. "For what it's worth… is it even something possible to apologise for? There's no forgiveness, and I don't think I even want to hear it. But it ends here, I suppose." It took all of her effort to pull her flesh hand from him away. It was more work than trying to see through the pain.
"Cinder," he said, in that low sweet way, "what are you… are you…"
"You would have been happy. I can't imagine the life you would have led, but it would have been happy. I took that from you. And her." Then she had to lie. She had to be what she needed to be. "Now I'm going to hunt a Maiden."
She thought he would let her go. It was a clean cut, and it was what he needed.
He took her by the waist. It was kind and cruel, all at once. "What do you mean pretend? What do you mean pretend? I never pretended. I forgave you, hundreds of times over, before you even— you don't get it, do you? Didn't you listen to me? I'm going to look after you. I will. I don't care if you leave—"
"Stop it, stop—"
He took her hand and put it on his chest, and the press of it against her hand was strong and sure. For just a moment she felt that heartbeat as familiar as her own. "You're in here, sweetheart. I'll see you again."
She had been called many things. Migraine, bitch, freak, dirty, failure. Never that. Whatever that was. No. What did he think he was doing, being kind to her? Expecting to see her again? Like she would leave and turn around? Like she would come back to him? Like he would call her that again. Say it once more. Say it once more in my ear. She would like to feel his breath against her.
But that was not for them now.