I have recovered from Covid, and am back to writing stories, which is good, because I really didn't want to use another reserve chapter.

Anyways without further ado...


Start Chapter 10


It's the middle of the night when Cinder hears the lock on her door disengage.

It shouldn't be loud enough to startle her, but she's always been a light sleeper. Only ever being able to get four to five hours a night for the majority of her early childhood hadn't instilled healthy habits in that regard.

Still, this is a surprise.

She pretends as if she hasn't awoken, and simply lays entirely still, breathing evenly, as a few figures step into the space. None of them speak, or make any noise, but Cinder immediately recognizes the sound of the lock re-engaging.

She doesn't feel any fear. Perhaps a lesser woman would, but she is not, has never been, that.

Not Cinder Fall.

"No need to feign sleep, Ms. Fall."

The man who's spoken rolls the final word with such hate that Cinder can't help chuckling under her breath.

Though that doesn't seem to earn her any favors.

"Something funny?" The same one from before spits out.

"Perhaps." She says in response, sitting up in her bed and taking in what she's dealing with.

Four Atlesian military soldiers, high ranking intelligence operatives by the looks of their uniforms, and a single 'interrogator'. The interrogator being the man who's been speaking with her thus far.

None of them seem quite as skilled at a glance as the vaunted 'Ace-Ops', but given Cinder's current condition, they likely don't have to be. Down an arm and still healing, it's not as if she can really take on three huntsman at the moment. Even only half-decent ones.

Hell, if they're at the level of Beacon's students, she won't stand much of a chance.

Still… it's that time, then.

Subconsciously, Cinder weighs her options. She can always try and tough it out, to take the torture, and the pain, and the agony, and simply let it pass over her, let it fade, as all things do.

…but then what?

They'd simply kill her at the end regardless, wouldn't they? Once they'd gained everything they want from her, they'd slit her throat, and leave her to drown on her own lifeblood. If that's to be her fate… then Cinder finds she'd much rather go out fighting here and now. At least then, she might have a chance.

She reaches inside herself and feels for the Maiden's fire in her breast. It responds with a cold indifference. At least it's there, which is more than can be said for one of her eyes, one of her arms, and a good deal of her balance, lost with some internal damage to her inner left ear. Even still, she marks the one of them she thinks is the weakest, and prepares to launch herself at them, to go out blazing, when the interrogator himself holds up his hands.

"Woah, woah. Easy now." He says, laughing as he shakes his head, stepping directly in front of Cinder. Had she been in better condition, she might've been able to take him hostage then and there, use him as leverage, but…

He's stood on her left side.

And she's currently short one arm there.

"Let's all calm down now. I'm sure none of us want this to come to blows."

Already, the man is wrong.

"If you intend to torture me, then skip this meaningless prattle."

"Torture?" The man clicks his tongue against the roof of his mouth. "Oh, no, no, Ms. Fall. Torture is not a very efficient method of gaining information. And that's what we're after here. Information. Your boss is a very important woman, after all."

She wonders who they've been told she serves, given that the truth of Salem is a secret kept so closely guarded that Ozma had oft killed to protect it.

"It's not too late for you to reconsider your choice in servitude. You could–"

"If you're going to try and convince me to give over information on Salem, then skip that too." Cinder scoffs. "You're wasting your breath."

The man doesn't at all look surprised, simply nodding his head a few times as he places his hand on his chin.

"Mm. I suspected as much. You didn't strike me as the kind of woman who'd simple give over anything. So how about a deal? I'm sure we can come to some sort of agreement. What would you like? Perhaps some sort of clemency in exchange for working for the Kingdom? Is money what you're after? I assure you that–"

Cinder just growls. "I thought I told you to save it."

The fake smile the man's been wearing this entire time drops, the veneer falling away as he looks at her with a sort of calculating expression. It's almost unnerving, which is saying something when she is who she is.

"I had hoped it might not come to this. After all, we like to think of ourselves as better than the enemy. Better people, who do better things."

"Don't worry," Cinder assures. "You won't be disappointing me. I've never once thought such a thing."

"Hah. Cute." The interrogator just scoffs. "Very well then. Hard ball it is. Perhaps a threat might be taken more seriously."

It's Cinder's turn to scoff, sitting up a bit straighter in her bed as she tilts her head to one side.

"I'm almost curious. What could you possibly think you possess to threaten me with?"

"Oh, I don't know… perhaps…" His eyes lock onto her own. "That boy of yours."

Cinder's blood runs cold.

"Ah. I see that got a reaction."

"You wouldn't…" She says, almost on instinct, and it's such a stupid thing to say, because of course, they would. Because this world isn't fair. Nor is it just. Good doesn't prosper. Bad always wins.

It had been the reason she'd chosen her side once upon a time, after all.

"Would we not? I don't see why not. After all, he's certainly not important." The man says, holding his hands aloft. "Why, I don't even think anyone would suspect anything, were something untoward to happen. After all, you should see him. Roaming about outside, trying to make a difference, rebuild his school… A young boy, in over his head. Why… I don't think it would be terribly remiss for an… accident to occur outside Beacon's boundaries, do you?"

Cinder feels in her soul, then, a fire that's not burned within it for quite some time. The kind of pure fury that had been reserved for Madame. For her step daughters. For those that'd brutalized, and enslaved, and humiliated her.

She'd killed all three of them. She'd made the Madame watch as she cut down her daughters, and then choked the very life from her body as she tried with everything she possessed to stop her.

This man…

Cinder decides in that moment that he will share their fate.

"You'll die." She states with a vitriol she's never heard come from her own lips.

"Oh? Have I struck a nerve?"

"Merely a statement of fact." She hisses out.

"Hm. Cute. So, are you going to talk… or should we go see when is best to make your little boyfriend disappear?"

When this had been only her life in the balance, the decision had not at all been a difficult one. She'd fight because that had been all she'd ever known. But now…

Now her little light's life hangs in the balance as well. Now she can't simply perish here. Not…

Not when she knows that Salem herself would be the kind of being to be petty enough to punish her from beyond the grave. Not when Cinder herself would do something like that, out of some odd sense of spite.

She cannot trust that the man before her isn't just like her.

And so… she has but one option.

"…I'll talk."

"Well, now." The man says, suddenly sounding an awful lot more chipper as the huntsmen behind him laugh under their breath.

"Was that so hard?"

Cinder wishes, in that moment, that she could simply burn the whole world to ash.

/

When he comes to see her the next day, she can tell that he's able to see that there's something wrong.

"Are you okay?" He asks immediately, and it's all Cinder can do to nod her head.

"I'm fine."

"Well… your voice sounds better, at least." He says, sounding so overwhelmingly chipper about it.

How… utterly foolish. That she could end up with this… this bastion of all things good, and happy, and lovely attached to her soul.

How droll for the universe to curse her once again.

To make her care for such an…

"Cinder?"

"…I was interrogated last night."

The color drains from his face so quickly. She cannot deny the way that her heart lurches at seeing it. It's so… wrong. To have to see such a hopeless expression on his face. To see him in a moment of true and utter helplessness.

He can't do a thing. Not here. And he knows it.

"Cinder, what…"

She shakes her head. Speaking is easier, perhaps even fairly consistent for her at this point. but even so, she doesn't want to wear herself out entirely.

"I gave them every relevant piece of information I possessed. I had no other options. Because of that, however… There's nothing else I can offer them."

Jaune seems to get the picture. The writing on the wall.

"I'm not sure how much longer they're going to keep me here. I may very well disappear one night, never to be seen again."

"No… no, no!" The boy almost whines, shaking his head. "That can't…"

She looks at him, and somehow, she can finally understand some of what those people must've felt, looking upon her with such pity when she'd been but a child in the Glass Unicorn. Because it's the only emotion she can bring herself to express as she looks to him, then.

Pity, and regret.

"I… am not terribly adept at utilizing my emotions, I'm afraid."

Her little light doesn't interrupt her, doesn't say anything, and really, thank the gods for that singular thing, for she's fairly sure she wouldn't have been able to continue had he interrupted her. Had he stopped her from saying this. It's…

It's already so hard, even when she knows she wants to say it.

"But I don't know how much time I'm going to have left."

"Wha…"

"When I was a young girl… still serving at the Glass Unicorn, where my stepmother had taken me to work… there came a day that I found a knife left behind in one of the rooms. It must've been left by mistake. It was an ornate thing. Long and shiny. I held it in my hands and… and it was the heaviest thing I'd ever felt. Now I realize it couldn't have weighed any more than any other knife, but…"

Her little light is silent, even as he steps towards her, and leans over her, placing his elbows on the side of her bed as he kneels down on the ground. She's almost shocked when he reaches over and takes her right hand in both of his.

They're so soft. So much softer than her own. Just… warm and inviting.

And kind, and nice, and a million other things that her calloused, scarred, one-handed grip can never match.

"I was going to kill myself." Cinder finally says.

Her little light gives a quiet gasp, though she can tell it's not in shock. He'd known. She can tell, somehow, some way, that he'd known already. It's…

"I had the dagger poised over my heart. I was about… a second away from taking my own life… and then…"

She turns to look into his eyes. That azure blue within them is like the ocean, gleaming with the light of the sun. She almost finds herself blinded by the light within, forced to look away.

Not this time. She'll make herself see it all.

"And then I felt it for the first time. That connection we share."

This he hadn't known. She can see it clear as day. There's no reason he should know, but… well, she's glad for it, really.

"Before I'd even met you, you saved my life." She says. "I wouldn't even be here if it wasn't for you."

The emotions play upon her little light's face for quite a while after that. Just… taking time in silence to process what he's learned. Eventually, after what must've been about a minute, he speaks.

"That's not true."

"Hm?"

"You don't give yourself enough credit. I think… I think, even without that… you wouldn't have done it." The boy says, looking up at her and squeezing her hand more firmly. "I think you still would've made it here, even if I hadn't been there. You're… strong, Cinder. Very strong. Stronger than me, for sure."

Cinder's brow crinkles slightly, and she has to resist letting out a titanic sigh.

"That's not… I wasn't trying to say I was weak; I was trying to say that I care about you!"

The boy's eyes widen.

"Oh."

"You are…" She bites down on the inside of her cheek, before letting out a groan. "Insufferably dense."

Far from being offended, her little light just laughs, running his hand up and down the back of his neck in embarrassment.

"Yeah, uh… I've kinda' heard that one before."

"Not at all shocking." Cinder rolls her eyes, groaning. "You… I suppose I appreciate the sentiment, for what it's worth."

"Well… that's good. I'm glad."

"Even if you are undeniably an idiot."

"…Yeah… I've heard that one before, too."

Cinder's not really sure how it's possible after everything, after the interrogation, and her little confession, but out of her mouth comes something completely alien to her.

Just…

A tiny little laugh.

No. It wasn't even that dignified. She'd snorted, like some muddy breed of swine.

She reaches up with her right hand, and covers her mouth, mortified that she'd done such a thing, but she can tell by the glint in her little light's eyes that he's both seen and heard her moment of weakness.

"Did you just–"

"You will forget you ever saw that."

"Cinder, wait, wait, did you really–"

"Cease this immediately!"

"Oh my gosh, that's so cute!"

"I said cease!"

And internally, despite the way that Cinder complains, despite her red face, and the abject mortification running through her breast… she finds herself enjoying the way that her little light's face crinkles with laughter, how his cheeks scrunch up, his dimples showing. How his eyes close, and his laugh blankets the room in warmth.

She doesn't deserve it. To bask in that light.

But she's always been a greedy, selfish person. So regardless, she'll reach out, and she'll cup her hands around it, and she'll do everything in her power to keep it for herself.

Because she can't know how much time she has left, even if she's fairly certain it's not long.

So just for a moment, she indulges.

Just for this moment, she allows her deadened heart to beat.

/

Jaune's awoken sometime in the middle of the night by a rather frantic sounding knock on his door.

Well, he says his door, but really, he's been given a guest room in the teacher's section of Beacon. Apparently, given he's the soulmate of Cinder Fall, he's actually pretty important. If anyone figured out about that, they'd told him, then they might try and harm him.

He'd bought the excuse at first. After all, being the soulmate of the most dangerous woman in the world – or, well, of the second most dangerous, it seemed, given what he'd been told about Salem – probably didn't make him particularly popular.

Now though… he finds himself not quite buying that as much. Jaune's finding himself growing a bit more pessimistic these days, and so some part of him clues itself into the fact that he's also a helluva lot easier to keep track of here. Sleeping in an area that's guarded on all sides by Atlas soldiers, that likely has cameras everywhere…

Maybe he's paranoid. But he's starting to feel like that's a more reasonable conclusion than anything else.

Regardless, for right now, he heads to his door, unlatches the lock, and opens it.

Seeing Qrow there, a bit out of breath, and looking like he's quite literally just run here, has the hairs on the back of Jaune's neck standing up, and a pit forming in his stomach.

"Qrow?"

"Kid… they're…" He pants, shaking his head. "Shit… kid…"

"What's… what's wrong?"

He actually growls, before turning his head, and then pushing Jaune back into the room.

He stumbles backwards, barely avoiding falling, as Qrow shuts the door behind both of them, latching the lock.

And then, he looks around, eyes locking on the nearby alarm clock by Jaune's bed, grabs it, and smashes it against the ground.

"H-Hey!" He makes to complain, even as Qrow raises his foot and crushes the device beneath his heel. "What are you–"

"Destroying the cameras." Qrow says, shaking his head. "Gods damnit, I knew having Jimmy on this would be a shitshow!"

"Qrow, what are you talking about!?" Jaune feels the need to stress that the man had barged into his room and then immediately destroyed one of his appliances.

"I'm… I'm going to tell you something that I'm definitely not supposed to," Qrow says, turning to him. "Because frankly, you deserve to know. Glynda agrees with me, but Ironwood's pulled rank, and… look, suffice to say, things aren't great right now."

"Uh, yeah… I can… sorta' tell?"

"Right, so… I don't know if you heard what happened last night…"

"Cinder was interrogated, right?" Jaune says, taking a step forward. "Is this… is this about her–"

"Yeah, she was interrogated," Qrow says, shaking his head. "She was interrogated without bloodshed. Without us having to give into her. Without her getting a thing out of it. It should've been an achievement. Honestly, I should've known how garbage that was. She… do you know how they got that information out of her?"

"N-No? Cinder didn't tell me that."

Qrow nods. "Yeah, I didn't think she would. She really seems to have a soft spot for you."

"Qrow, you're really not making sense," He says, his lip quivering, his hands shaking with stress. "What's going on? Can you please just tell me–"

"They threatened your life."

That kind of saps the remaining strength out of Jaune's breast. He feels he can be forgiven for the way that he falls backwards, the bed beneath him his only respite from tumbling to the floor below.

"…What?"

"They told her that if she didn't give up the information she had on Salem, then they'd kill you." Qrow says, his face betraying no amusement. No joke.

He's serious, then.

Jaune, he… he can't believe it.

"Surely… it was a bluff, right?" Jaune says, trying to conjure up a smile, or a laugh, or anything to get Qrow to admit that he's right, because of course he's right. They're the Atlas military. They're on his side.

Qrow just stares at him, with these eyes that look right through him.

"It… it had to be… right? They wouldn't…" Jaune feels the need to say his exact thoughts. "C'mon, we're the good guys, right?"

"There are no good guys, kid. Not in this case."

"But that's…"

He doesn't even know how to say what he's feeling in that moment. Because…

Because he finds himself, more and more, not able to hate Cinder for what she's done. He can't help but feel that if he'd been in her position, if he'd had everything taken and taken and taken from him, that he'd have ended up in the exact same place.

And gods, does that feel horrible. Because he wants to understand her. He wants to help her.

But he doesn't want to become her.

"I've… got more news."

"Please tell me it's at least good?"

It's not. Jaune can tell by the man's desolate expression.

"The information she gave them… all of it was confirmed as outdated. Or, well… I imagine that the moment Salem didn't hear back from Cinder, she'd already pulled out in every position that the girl knew about. And that's another thing… she knew shockingly little for what we'd expect. A major ringleader in an operation usually has enough to bring down the entirely thing… Cinder barely knew enough about her fellow compatriots for us to even get an idea of what Kingdoms they were in."

"So…"

"They're realizing that Cinder doesn't have enough information. Or, more that she doesn't have what they were hoping to gleam. Salem, it seems, plays her cards rather close to the chest, only giving her major lieutenants information on the missions they're specifically assigned to. And because of that… They've decided… that she's not going to give them any useful information. And with the council still clamoring for someone to pin the blame on…"

"What are you…?" And then Jaune's mind makes the connection, and that pit in his stomach descends further, tunnelling until he can't feel anything but that endless chasm. "No…" His voice comes out weak and ineffectual, just like everything else he's ever done.

"Kid… they're… they've made their decision." Qrow says, and he looks right into Jaune's eyes, and the pity there… for once, Jaune finds he cannot blame the man for it.

What with the tears running down his face…

"They're going to execute her."


End Chapter 10


Dun dun dun!

Honestly you might've been able to see this coming.

Anyways, apologies for the cliffhanger, see you around this time next week!