"Crowns topple easily. Thrones crumble like dust. Hearts cease to beat. Thorns draw blood."
In a country torn into two, there should have been no room for mistakes. Especially not at the very core of the royal family. That was what she was. Yes, a...
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The next couple of days were empty.
Void of sunlight, of warmth, of joy. It was as if the sun itself was blotted out from the sky, coating the entire world in darkness. Whereas darkness was a comfort, too much of it meant that one could not see where one was heading. Who would want to wander the world blindly?
Then again, one does not need to waste time avoiding the darkness if one was a monster who thrived in it.
Irina did not even know where she belonged now. Growing up, she had been taught to love the light, to bask in the glow of all things that were good and perfect. She was a Lantsov, a golden-haired angel who only knew joy.
Meeting Aleksander had changed her. Rather than cherishing the sun, she craved the pull of the darkness. She craved him. It was him that she wanted to stand by, not anyone else's.
Perhaps that had been her downfall. The allure of the darkness called to everyone but she had succumbed to it, leading her down a path that none would ever be ready for. It had led her to him and she embraced him with open arms, opened her heart to his.
Even now as she slept in Maria's tent, she laid awake. She could hear the soft snores that her friend was emitting and the purrs that Vasilka let out while sleeping but there was something else.
As her blue eyes gazed into nothingness, her front facing the canvas of the tent, she thought she could feel quartz eyes staring back at her from the darkness. Forever watching and unwilling to let her go.
If she extended her hand, the pads of her porcelain fingertips touching the brown cloth, she swore she could hear his heartbeat from all the way to the other side of the camp. It was tempting when she thought of herself holding all the power.
Saints, she hated him. She hated him so much. She didn't think she despised someone as much as she despised him. She wanted to take her heart back from him forcefully and command herself to feel nothing but disdain for him, for his treachery, and his lies.
If he had been a different man and if she had been a colder woman, she would've commanded his heart to stop beating and make him pay for hurting him.
But at the end of the day, only one truth stands.
Irina Lantsov still loved Aleksander Morozova.
It was that very same reason why she hated him. She hated him for being the man she loved, for creating an untrue identity, and wearing his visage so easily. It was cruel and it was painful to realize that the man one loved was not real.
Most of all, she hated herself for not being able to control how she felt. She could manipulate feelings. She could manipulate the workings of people's bodies. She held the balance of life and death in her hands yet somehow she could not cease her feelings for him.
