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madness is a slow descent into you
a jacinter fic
Winter is eight years old. Something strange occurs to her as she’s sitting meekly in her own throne next to her mother’s. She has never known a time before Jacin.
He has always been beside her—always been her most trusted confidant, and her willing playmate.
It’s a mild evening at an uneventful dance in the familiar ballroom. Winter is dressed in a floaty gown with matching velvet slippers. Her nursemaid picked it out for her and she likes the soft pink color very much. Winter’s mother, Levana, was too busy and frankly uninterested in such matters to be involved.
Winter watches Jacin from under a runaway curl that has fallen into her eyes. He stands at attention beside his father, Garrison, at the edge of the throne dais while some inconsequential aristocrat prattles on about the ball proceedings to the filled room.
But nevertheless, her new and peculiar realization will not go away.
It’s a new thought and she can’t reconcile it with how she has always viewed Jacin.
Playmate, yes. Her beloved friend, of course.
But has he always been so regal? So elegant? And shouldn’t she be those things? She is the princess after all and he is just her friend, beloved though he may be. But no. Jacin cuts a strikingly stately image next to his father. He’s a tall boy with golden lashes and Winter thinks privately to herself that he is very pretty.
Majestic even.
He’s prettier than she is, and she is supposed to be very pretty indeed. Or so all the courtiers like to tell her. Not that her mother has ever said so.
Her mother may not think very much of Winter’s looks but Levana has already begun to nag her about husbands. Even more so about the importance of who will be king by her side. If it was Jacin, she wouldn’t mind so much. Getting married sounds about as fun as sitting in the throne room during the long, boring assemblies.
If she married Jacin, they could play chase even more than they do now. No one has more authority than the queen. There would be no one to scold her and she could do as she pleased every day. And, Jacin would be allowed at all of her tea parties. He wouldn’t be forced to sit them out since he’s a boy.
She’s kicking her feet with a soft tuptuptup against her throne as all the pleasing possibilities occur to her. It’s a good thing her mother is preoccupied. Otherwise she would reprimand Winter for being uncouth.
But if Jacin was her husband, he wouldn’t mind this sort of thing. He’d let her kick her feet and hike up her skirts and leave her shoes in the bedroom closet instead of wearing them all day.
Then she thinks better about it. She will be queen someday but her husband will only be king-consort. Jacin deserves to be much more important than a consort. He’s going to do marvelous things when he grows up—much more important things than be king.
But she does ponder.
And she does hope, inexplicably, that Jacin will stick around forever and ever. Even if he goes on to change the universe.
Out of the corner of her eye, Winter sees her father. He stands far off to the side by the ballroom doors. He’s trying to get her attention by slightly wiggling a foot in her direction. When he catches her eye, he winks.
Winter tries to stifle a laugh but no one is paying attention to her. No one is watching either as she climbs from her throne to tiptoe along the edge of the hall towards him. He stays stalwartly at his post but is all too pleased for her to join him.
She leans against the smooth wall next to him and tucks her hands behind her. Father and daughter watch as the conductor lifts their baton and motions for the orchestra to begin. Everyone in the room waits with baited breath. Winter waits too. Then, the first notes of music swell in the still air. It sweeps and sways. So do the courtiers in their fancy gowns and suits, with their ridiculous hats and hairdos. Winter has been present at countless balls, but she never grows tired of this part. It’s mesmerizing.
Her father turns to her, his lips quirking up into a mischievous smile. “Your majesty, will you grant me a dance?”
He bows to her and offers his hand just like a prince would. Winter can’t hide her excitement. She rushes to mimic his sweeping gesture and manages a messy curtsie.
“Why of course, Sir Hayle.” She says it solemnly, hoping to act befitting her royal station now that they’ve gotten to the fun part of the ball. She’s invested, whereas before she could have cared less.
Her father adjusts his face to match. He takes her hands with grave importance and she jumps up to stand on his boots. He begins the customary steps in a waltz. One two three. One two three. One two three. Around they go in a box formation. He keeps them near the towering doors for he will not abandon his post. There are many things he will do for his little girl, but not that.
Winter closes her eyes, a smile creeping over her lips despite her resolve to appear princess-like. This is what it feels like to have wings, she thinks. Flying has never been easier.
This must be how it is in outer space without artificial gravity and recycled oxygen. A soaring in her chest. The sensation of floating. And the exhilaration of holding her father’s hands, knowing that he will never let go.
Jacin and her father both, she knows they will never leave.
Thinking that Jacin is pretty doesn’t stay private long, however. Levana begins to mock Winter mercilessly for her adoration of Jacin that she cannot hide.
Her affection and fondness for him only grow as the years pass.
Her father only exchanges covert looks with Garrison Clay. Evret doesn’t say anything. Their knowing smiles may give them away, but never their words.
Jacin chases her through the royal gardens one day. She’s laughing and shrieking and running as fast as her legs will carry her. Jacin on the other hand is single-minded in his focus. And catch her he does. His legs are so much longer. He’s quick too.
He grabs her by the wrist and swings her around, but she topples over and takes him with her.
They fall, sprawling, into the soft grass.
Winter is out of breath from laughing. She has a stitch in her side and her throat is painfully dry from the exertion of playing chase. And she’s delirious with joy. It’s so pleasing. She feels full to the brim with sunshine. That’s what plants on Earth grow from. They use photosynthesis like food. Winter imagines herself as a plant. Jacin is the sun shining bright and warm. Without him, she might just wither away.
The only sign Jacin lets slip that he has won is a slight smirk that turns up the edges of his lips.
Winter reaches for his hand in the grass and her little fingers grasp his.
“Jacin?”
He turns onto his side and quirks an eyebrow at her. Winter stays on her back with her eyes focused intently on the colorless expanse of the protective dome over Artemesia. Her fingers tighten and she holds on to his as though he might suddenly disappear.
“Will you be my friend forever?”
Jacin doesn’t scoff at her, though she is horribly afraid that he will. He’s twelve years old which is so so much older than ten. He must think she’s silly. Her mother does.
He leans over her and he’s frowning. “Of course I will.”
“Even when we grow up? Even when I get married?”
His face hovering above her shifts from a frown to a scowl. Winter climbs up to hug her knees, and he shifts to sit next to her with his legs crossed neatly.
“Why would that change us being friends?” But he crosses his arms defensively and his scowl deepens.
Winter feels a tinge of assurance—does the thought of her marrying someone else feel as wrong to him as it does to her? Because she may have contemplated the possibility, but she can’t actually visualize marriage to a faceless man.
No one will ever mean as much to her as Jacin does.
“Mama says that I will someday be married.”
He is silent. She looks over to him but he’s studying his boots.
“She says it as though it will be sooner rather than later and I know that we won’t be children forever and we can’t always play like this and—”
“And what? I’m not going anywhere, Winter. I’ll become a royal guard just as my father is. I will always be here to protect you.”
“But don’t you want to travel?” She asks.
He looks at her then. His eyes flare with something she can only guess at. “You’re my princess and someday you’ll be my queen. That’s all that matters.”
Winter grabs his hands and she’s squeezing and squeezing. She throws her arms around his neck, beaming like a lunatic and laughing with delight. “Thank you, Jacin! Thank you!”
His arms settle around her back protectively.
The ball of sunlight in her middle blazes with such warmth that she feels dizzy.
She doesn’t think she’ll ever be happier than she is now.
Winter’s feelings for him begin to take over every part of her life. She cannot do anything without him nor is she content when he is missing.
Plants need sunlight to grow, but Winter needs Jacin. If she needs air to breathe, then she needs Jacin in order to live. One cannot exist without the other: her very lifeforce and his presence.
But that is how it should be, isn’t it?
Even her father approves of Jacin. Garrison and his wife flit in and out of every special occasion. Evret takes Jacin under his wing and mentors him on the conventions of the royal guard.
Levana watches it all with displeasure.
But it doesn’t matter what her mother thinks because surely her father will advocate for the right thing. Winter trusts him to take care of her like she trusts that the moon will orbit Earth. His love for her is constant. Just as Aretemisa persists unchanged, so does her father remain the pillar of her life.
Her father sits with her one afternoon in the royal parlor. He is still wearing his stiff uniform. She has on a flouncy gown with lace on the bell sleeves and hem. Her nursemaid still dresses her as a child. Well, she is one. Winter is proud of this. Adults are just so stuffy and unimaginative. She doesn’t look forward to growing up. Even so, Levana finds the tiniest things to fuss over.
It is five past three o’clock and Evret has been dismissed from his duties of attending the queen. Winter is old enough to hear the gossip. She’s not silly. She knows that her father and mother have a strange marriage.
It does give her hope, though. Look at how successful their union is despite their separate stations in the palace! But she does wonder at Levana’s cool indifference toward Evret. Surely they must love one another.
Otherwise, how would a royal guard have married a princess at all?
Like she and Jacin will.
Winter sits in the squishy lovechair and kicks her heels against the wooden legs absently. Evret has his portscreen balanced on a knee and pours over a newsfeed of Earth. Winter studies him. His reading glasses are perched on the end of his nose and she doesn’t know how they don’t fall off.
“Papa,” She begins timidly, “When did you know that you loved Mama?”
He glances up clearly startled. “Your mother?” He asks.
They’ve had this conversation before. In many different ways. What color were her eyes? How did you meet her? Was she kind? This time he appears tired. Somehow she knows that he’s thinking of the faceless woman named Solstice and not of the flawless queen named Levana. Questions about Solstice always bring a faraway look into his eyes.
And a wistfulness.
It’s not the happy kind.
“Not my birth-mother.” She corrects, “My living Mama.”
He slips his glasses off and rubs at his eyes. Winter doesn’t often see him so worn but that’s how he looks. Evret is slow in answering.
“Someday I think you will understand, Winter.” He glances at her and then away as though he can’t bear to see her face.
That irks her.
She scoots to the edge of her seat and takes his calloused hand. “What will I understand, Papa?”
“That life is strange—that it doesn’t always go how you intend.”
“But?” She asks, hanging onto his every word.
“But you find joy where you can. Even in the unlikeliest places.”
He smiles at her. It doesn’t entirely reach his eyes. She leans over to give him a peck on the cheek. Evret’s smooth cheek is warm.
He’ll have to explain himself better someday. His words are so cryptic. Maybe she will understand when she’s older but she still wants to hear his explanation.
Evret pulls her in for a hug and places a gentle kiss to her forehead.
She closes her eyes, relishing his love with such zeal that she doesn’t think any other will ever compare. Not even her love for Jacin.
And then the impossible happens.
They all stand out in the pale morning light. It is artificial just as all light on Luna is. It paints everyone present pallid and pale. How fitting, Winter thinks. Today of all days. No one should be happy or healthy. Her mother Levana, the courtiers, the royal guards—they all wait in a passive silence broken only by the shifting of the gravel under their feet.
The silence is intended to pay homage.
Winter thinks that wailing would better honor her father. It’s what she so desperately longs to do. She stares at the casket. She does see it, yes. But she can’t quite reconcile it in her mind. It signifies something unthinkable.
It’s a cold day. Her father is dead. And Winter aches.
She feels hollow. More like a seashell than an empty bucket. She knows that if she were to put an ear up to her own self that she would hear her father’s steady voice instead of the sea. She strains to hear it. She longs to hear it right now. Winter knows that she never will again.
Her father’s voice was so confident yet so gentle and so warm. So soothing. So perfect. There isn’t another word for it, not really. Perfect.
And forever missing. No voice will ever replace it.
Winter can’t say that she has ever imagined what grief would feel like. And why should she have? She has never had a reason to before. Though she does miss her birth-mother in a way that she can’t explain, Winter has no memories of the woman named Solstice. She can’t mourn someone she never met.
But oh.
Oh how she mourns her father. It is like there is a shard of glass wedged deep into the pit of her heart. The body will eventually expel a shard of glass, or a splinter, if the object is small enough. Winter doesn’t think she will ever stop feeling how she feels right now. The shard will always be there.
The ache is so raw. The pain so sharp. The cavity in her chest so deep that it can never be filled.
Winter is only 11 years old. These thoughts and feelings seem too big and too abstract for someone her age, but she thinks them and she feels them all the same.
Her father gave her wings to soar and without him, she is stranded on the hard and unforgiving ground. She hears the officiant speaking, but just like with the casket, Winter can’t process his words. They mean nothing to her.
“How droll.” Levana mutters, almost to herself. But she doesn’t say anything else.
She, too, must not be feeling well. She too must be grieving in her own way. But you would never know it for her glamour is as perfect as ever and her sharp eyes are dry. Winter has always wondered if her mother truly loved her father but now she wonders if her mother will miss him.
Winter walks out into the gardens after the funeral.
She still feels adrift and she suspects that she always will in some way or another. It’s an altogether gloomy contemplation. Doesn’t change the fact that it is very likely true.
Winter yearns for some kind of respite from her grief.
She also suspects that there is none to be had.
Jacin approaches her shortly after the funeral.
She is sitting on a stone bench by a grand, moulded fountain. Water falls from the lip of a stone vase held by a stone cherub. She is studying the still child’s lifeless eyes. She assumes that her own must look like his: empty and devoid of light.
Jacin sits beside her. He looks smart in his stiff collar and black pants. His boots shine. He looks grown in a way she doesn’t think she will ever feel. He seems to be saying something but she hears him as though from a very great distance away. The words, much like the officiant’s, mean nothing to her.
And then his hand settles onto her shoulder. Jacin has slender fingers with short, neat nails. She stares at them. His hand in no way resembles her father’s. The man who once comforted her in any situation will not again.
Again.
It is a final word. It means the end. Because there won’t be an again .
Winter glances up at Jacin. Suddenly, the world is in focus again. It’s in such sharp focus that she lets out a wordless gasp. Tears spring into her eyes and she begins to cry. To cry hard. Hopelessly.
“Oh Jacin!” She wails. “Jacin! He’s dead! He’s dead, Jacin!”
She can’t form any other words and she breaks down into uncontrollable wracking sobs.
His arms wrap her up in a resolute embrace but his expression is so grim. It’s a surprisingly grown-up gesture. Winter feels like a child—and she is a child—but she feels like one in a way she never has before. Utterly helpless and impossibly small.
“Jacin! I can’t go on!” She laments.
It feels that way. History must be over. What can happen next? It doesn’t seem like there is anything left to happen.
He pulls her in close and tucks her head to rest on his shoulder as the tears continue to stream down her face. As the horrible, horrible, empty world crushes her.
She should have cherished her father more despite her love of Jacin.
And now she will never see him—or hear him—or feel his arms wrapped around her like Jacin’s are now—again.
“Please Jacin, don't leave me, too. I couldn’t bear to be all alone." Her voice is shaky.
Jacin grips her shoulder firmly and his fingers dig in. “I gave you my word. I’ll always be beside you. I promised.”
Winter may never soar again. She does hope that someday the lightness in her chest will return. As long as Jacin stays, the moon will continue to orbit earth and the sun will continue to shine.
And Winter will continue to live—because she believes Jacin wholeheartedly.
At 13 years old, Winter chooses not to use her gift. It is a curse as much as it is a part of her. If horrible, cruel Aimery Park can choose to torture people like throwaway dolls, then Winter’s act of defiance will be to never touch another person’s mind again. Again —the word no longer carries the weight of her father’s death but personal strength. She will not be like the other aristocrats who manipulate and torment each other. Nor will she compel those under her whom she should protect. It is her duty as princess—as their future queen.
But when Winter makes her altruistic choice, she has no way of knowing what the price will be.
Visions come, and there is nothing she can do to stop them.
The walls bleed, her body turns to ice, bugs crawl out of her eye sockets and from under her fingernails. She knows with an indisputable certainty that they will never stop. Choosing to abandon her gift is difficult. The resolution to maintain it is even harder, but she must maintain it all the same.
It’s better for her to suffer than to cause others to suffer for her own gratification.
Knowing this doesn’t make the hallucinations any easier to bear.
These days, they come with a frequency that frightens her.
Today she is drowning. Her lungs fill with water. She can’t breathe.
She’s writhing on her bedroom floor as the lights all around her splotch and spot with blackness.
She knows she’s drowning on seawater because of its salty and acrid taste. Winter claws at her throat but she. Can’t. Breathe! Panic chokes her just as much as the water does.
The whole room dissolves into blackness.
When Winter stirs, her head is pounding and her neck and shoulders sting where her nails have scored marks. Darkness still covers everything. She is vaguely aware of Jacin cradling her limp body. His arms are steady. They always have been.
Slowly, reality returns.
She struggles to open her heavy eyelids.
She drags in a shaky gulp of air. Then another and another. She wants to fill her lungs so full they feel about to burst.
And she’s crying.
Silent tears, not the loud ugly ones she wants to shed. Not that kind of crying with sniffles and hiccups. Her quiet tears well up and slid down her face. They work their way along her chin, down her neck, and gather in the hollow of her throat.
Jacin gently lays her head down on the cool stone floor.
Lying here on the floor beside Jacin and squinting up at the high ceiling of her room reminds Winter of that day years ago in the grass. He has kept his promise so far. Winter hopes that he always will. She can’t imagine life without him by her side.
Her hysterical breathing slows. Her heaving body stills. She sags, exhausted.
She fiddles with the edge of her sleeve, trying to find the words to thank Jacin. Instead her lips form a plea. “I am adrift, Jacin. I am lost at sea. I’m crazy .”
“Trust me,” he says, “You’re not crazy.”
She scrambles to her feet, her unbound curls leaping with the movement. She knows that she must look demented. Her eyes are wide and her nostrils flare with an urgent breath. “But I am Jacin. I am crazy. I am!”
Jacin slowly rises. He doesn’t touch her, though she desperately wants him to. Instead, he glances down at his shoes. “Trust me, you are sane. If you were crazy, you wouldn’t notice the hallucinations. They would appear ordinary to you.”
Winter desperately wants to believe him. His reasoning sounds so correct, so logical.
Listen to my voice.
Stay with me.
It’s all in your head.
He says these things to her whenever the madness takes over her mind. He always brings her sanity back. And she does try. She tries to remember these things when the visions are at their worst. It only helps half of the time. Usually, her efforts are in vain when the hallucinations manifest.
Jacin takes one step forward. Then, he stops. His hands curl into fists by his sides. “I’m going to cure you.” He says it so matter-of-factly.
She wants to believe him but the terrors have visited too many times.
“I’m studying medicine, Winter. I will find the answer.”
If anyone can save her, she knows it will be Jacin.
Being 14 is more difficult than being 13 because men begin to look at her body. But Jacin doesn’t. In fact, as she matures physically and emotionally, he seems to grow less interested in her. Time marches on and Jacin seems to march farther and farther away from her.
For one thing, he stops calling her Winter. Princess this, Princess that, Princess everything.
He stops pursuing the medical field and instead dons the starched royal guard uniform.
Maybe he doesn’t love her anymore. She can’t blame him. Winter is a disaster and her madness only progresses.
Her disillusionment with her mother comes soon after when Lavana takes Jacin away from her. Out of all the royal guards in the palace, why did she have to choose Jason to be Sybil Mira’s personal guard? It feels like a personal injustice. Almost like a punishment. And maybe it is.
The more beautiful Winter grows, the worse her mother mocks her. Every opportunity Levana finds to humiliate her daughter, she takes. Winter thinks of Levana less as Mother and more as Tormentor. She begins to wonder about her birth-mother. In the past she had never been curious. Now, she wishes she could have met her. Would the faceless woman named Solstice have been so cruel? Or would she have loved Winter as her own child?
Because Winter is finally old enough to understand that Levana has never viewed her that way. Old memories take on a new light under this epiphany. When she was a child, her mother would never hold her. Levana always dismissed her from her presence as though she was a pestering insect ruining the peace and quiet. Her words were sharp and unkind.
Now there are blatantly hateful.
Jacin begins to leave the palace at Sybil’s side. His return is sporadic.
Winter sees him less and less.
She misses him more and more.
It doesn’t get easier as the days pass, and the months, but she waits patiently.
He is her very world. He is the planet she orbits around.
On her 15th birthday, Levana throws a grand ball.
Winter knows that it isn’t for her own benefit. The festivities are simply to flaunt her mother’s own affluence. And, in a way, to auction Winter off to the highest bidder.
Winter sits primly on her throne as Levana gives a flowery speech. It’s all about Luna’s prosperity and their technological advances over the past 15 years. Winter does her best to pay attention and not to yawn but it’s no easy task. The speech is dull. It’s painfully self-centered.
When the dancing begins, Winter dutifully waltzes with the handful of men her mother has picked out ahead of time. She smiles and laughs and listens politely to every self-absorbed word from her dance partners. She retains none of it. Her mind is preoccupied with one specific guard standing faithfully by the sweeping windows displaying Artemisia and the vast black lake.
Jacin is lit by the sparkling chandeliers as he serves at his post.
As she is passed around by her dull suitors, she sneaks glances at him.
He looks bored.
And impossibly handsome.
Oh how Winter wishes she could be dancing with him.
At the first opportunity, she sneaks away from the dance.
Winter steals along the edge of the ballroom to hide behind the towering velvet curtains by the windows. She pokes her head around the edge of the curtain separating Jacin from the rest of the ballroom. He stands rigidly at attention, stoic as usual. Winter smiles and tugs at his sleeve. He looks around at her.
Even now he is unfazed.
She tells him, “I am a woman now, Sir Clay.” And it’s true. Winter is newly 15 years old.
She hopes that this in combination with her low cut gown and tasteful jewelry will elicit from him a similar response to the ones she receives from grown men when she is dressed in even the most modest of dresses. He studies her from behind an impassive expression. Looking at him you would think she’d merely commented on the weather.
Winter’s disappointment is almost routine. She wonders if next time she should forgo the dress entirely. Not that she thinks it would make any difference.
Jacin shows about as much interest in her body as he might show in a speck of dust on the ceiling. Surely he must think of sex too! And it’s not even that she thinks about sex often herself but isn’t that what all men want? Shouldn’t Jacin be tempted at least?
She longs for him. Longs to feel his skin against hers–even just a brush of his hand against her own. They used to touch so casually as children. They used to be inseparable in every way.
Now he won’t even glance at her.
She misses the way in which he played with her as a child, the way in which he confided in her and trusted her and loved her. But now he is as distant as Earth. What can she possibly do to retrieve him from the disinterested state he has adopted since his installation into the Lunar Royal Guard?
“What happened to forever?” The words just slip out in a rush and then she’s blushing furiously.
She waits for him. As hard as it may be, she waits. He doesn’t answer right away. His stoic back is turned to her. If it weren’t for the way his shoulders stiffen, she might not have said anything at all.
His words are calculated and careful. “I am your guard and nothing more, Princess.”
She sinks to the ground with a cry of distress.
Jacin is beside her in a heartbeat. His wide hands grip her by the shoulders. “What? What is wrong? Are you hurt?”
She begins to cry. Tears prick at her eyes. “Yes.”
“Where?” He begins to feel along her arms, her sides, her knees. He prods gently and methodically, searching for the offending area. It seems that his studies of medicine have stuck with him. She wonders privately if he’s kept up with them despite his initiation into the royal guard.
The swelling orchestra music is all around them as well as the noisy chatter of the partygoers, but Winter and Jacin exist all by themselves in a separate world. It’s just the two of them. As it should be
As it always has been.
“Right here.” She takes one of his wandering palms and places it over her frantically beating heart.
Jacin doesn’t pull away despite the improper motion of touching her chest.
“Can you feel that?”
He glances from his hand up into her wet eyes. His gaze is intense and she feels it burning her like an open flame. The pressure of his palm against her chest should be luxurious. It should elicit some kind of carnal reaction in her. It only reminds her of how long it has been since he has touched her. He used to touch her so casually. A brush of a hand or his arm across her back or even the press of his thigh against hers.
It had been so innocent yet so natural.
She was his and he was hers.
Now they are simply Guard and Princess.
But Winter refuses to accept that. She refuses to believe he feels nothing for her. She refuses to believe that he has changed when she hasn’t and never will.
“I’ve known you, well, I’ve known you for forever Jacin. Don’t lie to me.” Her voice catches, but she barrels on anyway. “What have I done to displease you? Why have you broken your promise?”
His words from when they were children hang unspoken between them: I’m not going anywhere, Winter.
His bitter expression tightens and he swallows with difficulty but he doesn’t look away. “I haven’t broken it.”
“Yes, you have! I’m all alone without you.”
This leaves them at an impasse.
He wets his lips. Her gaze falls to trace the motion. She wants to kiss him.
It’s an overwhelming desire but she knows he won’t welcome it.
“This is how it must be, Winter.”
Her name from his lips is like a slap to the face. How long has it been? She moves to throw her arms around his neck as she has done her whole life but he anticipates her.
Jacin catches her by the wrists, halting her. “We cannot be how we were as children.”
“But why!”
“Because we are not children anymore.”
Winter draws away from him.
They study each other.
Between them is all their years as playmates. All the longing she knows he must feel too. Every wasted second not spent in the other’s company.
But Jacin must have much more willpower than she.
He takes her gently by the elbows and helps her to stand. He brushes the hem of her sweeping ball gown off and tucks a corkscrewing curl behind her ear. He means to set her right before he releases her back to the masses.
Does he know that he is sending her back into a pit of vipers and not to safety?
He must.
Jacin is no fool.
Winter does what he asks because she loves him, not because she understands him.
But, before she leaves him, she takes his gloved hand in her slender ones. She squeezes and tells him, “I shall always be yours, Jacin.”
She still hopes that he will stick around forever and ever.
Then she lets go and pushes the curtains aside to rejoin the party.
And that is the end.
The end of everything.
But it isn’t—Jacin catches her by the wrist and draws her gently back to join him in the quiet and the shadows. Winter’s heart skips a beat. She looks up into his painfully blue eyes. They blaze with longing. There is no other way to describe the intensity in them. Her pulse is hammering through every vein in her body and she feels suddenly dizzy.
Dizzy not with joy like she was as a child, but with fear.
If he turns her away now, she will never recover. Maybe even never survive. She will shatter into a million billion pieces. Into more fragments than there are stars in all the galaxies in all of the universe. This one and every universe that has ever existed.
“You must understand that—I do love you, Winter—I do care for you but you are the princess I can’t just—I just can’t—”
Winter tugs his face down to her, and she searches his eyes for a lie. She’s looking for any sign of the love he felt before his cruel desertion. If he is a liar, she can forgive him.
If he feels nothing for her, she will never look at him again .
What she finds is almost worse—he is hesitant and restrained. The same gravitational pull that keeps her anchored to him doesn’t reflect. She can only see herself.
But his eyes are wet and they shine even in the dimness surrounding them behind the curtain.
She releases his chin. He allows it without complaint. Her arms fall limply to rest at her sides. She feels cold. Colder even than when the hallucinations of ice take hold of her mind and body.
The only small kindness is the way Jacin’s gaze clings to her.
He clears his throat, trying to regain his composure. “I must return to my post and you must return to your party, Princess.”
She hates the way his lips form that distant title: Princess . There is no affection in it.
He reaches for her hand but wavers between action and retreat. Something shifts in his gaze. Something like resolution blooms. Its roots are deep and strong and not even an iron will can halt the momentum of what happens next.
Jacin grips her hand and lifts it to his lips to press one feather-light kiss to her smooth skin.
Winter’s breath catches in her throat, and she covers her mouth to stifle the traitorous sound.
Jacin lets go as if he’s been burned. Without another word or even a glance back, he pushes past her through the heavy curtains and out into the fuss and flurry of the party. She is left standing with one hand over her mouth and one clutching at her heart.
Forever seems like an eternity of agony without Jacin in it. The dizziness, and the fear, and the hurt, have been replaced with one frail spark. It sputters away in her breast like kindling.
Winter knows hope.
She will guard the flicker of light unto death itself.