// Chapter 42 \\

Tears came to my eyes before I even realized it because there was no more glass to block them from falling. I tried to blink back the tears because, now, there were no shadows of my mind where the dream world tried to uncover what was hidden. The fuzz was completely gone from my head, revealing the past I'd blissfully forgotten. I want to forget it again, but I'd already done it once.

The fuzz had left me more distraught than ever that night at Eastern Court. I'd taken the boat that I knew would have me wreck, despite my body's protest to live. I remained restless until I was buried under those waves and I had a glimpse of everything. Those wild waves had bored into my eyes and gave me sight at who I was for a single moment. It was too late for my body to react to my dying light and I'd been ready to die with what I remembered. Such a creature like me shouldn't exist. Yet, here I stood, because I'd convinced everyone that they either needed me or trusted me.

Mingi had come to stand in front of me and I gazed at him with new eyes. I blinked back the tears to get a better look at his features— my sight was now suddenly not as perfect. He used to have peachy orange hair before it became red and now it was completely black. His red eyes stared at me like he himself was a Chroniki, but he wasn't. He was a native-born of Dusk Court, filling out a debt to his mentor that turned his weakness into a thirst for vengeance.

An old bitterness settled into me with that. Rione Hala, my father, had mentored the man I now stood before and I'd seen him mentor Mingi. My father never treated me the way he treated Mingi. He was barely there to treat me like anything.

I clenched my fists just as Mingi lowered himself to one knee and bowed towards me, just as millions of other Takers had done. I am their everything. My hands began to shake as the weight of it all settled over me. I lifted my hands up to peer at them.

"Maddis Hala, the Crescent Wielder." Mingi spoke. "Take my powers. I am a wielder and this power rightfully belongs to you."

I immediately took a step back, now seeing his powers before me. Magic of liquid magma that had a silver texture that could form into any mineral. That silver ringed around several tears— portals— which revealed small glimpses of all the Courts. That was the Crescent ability of the Jumper that I was seeing and Mingi wanted me to take it.

I didn't want to, but I couldn't resist. Just as everything had dawned on me, so had the hunger. Somehow, I didn't feel it with the glass in my eyes. I had somehow ignored the terrible nagging feeling that ached through my flesh and bones. It was hunger in the form of the feeling of needles and knives within and throughout my body. The chaos of the feeling never stopped from what I was told.

It never stopped, except for that very moment my hands clasped around his neck. The hunger flooded through my arm and out to him, just as euphoria flooded from him into me. Bliss, starting from my fingertips, etched its way through me. It was paradise, paradise and more. I needed more. I couldn't stop— if I stopped, for any moment, that hunger would return. I just needed a little bit longer without it. Please, just a bit longer without pain.

Suddenly, I could feel the bliss diminishing. The itch of pricks and gashes began to return. The hunger was starting once more. As soon as my hand left his neck, it had returned entirely.

Mingi was gazing up at me now with a glimmer of pain; the last light of life in his eyes. A single tear of blood trickled from an eye and his lips slowly moved into a cracking smile.

"I paid my debt." He rasped out weakly and quietly.

Then, the light in his eyes flickered out. The expression was gone from his face and his body went limp. He fell forward and I quickly moved as he dropped to the ground with a thud and an arousal of dust.

It was eerily quiet and I took a moment to just stand there and watch, hunger clinging to me as much as the guilt did at what I'd done.

Drops of tears had found their way to the ground, shattering on marble. I knew what it meant: I was losing myself. I'd always cried off the feeling of all I had to do. It would numb that feeling and I wouldn't feel that part of me anymore. But I'd had the feeling so often when I had that glass in my eyes—

More tears poured out of my eyes as I let a sob escape me. There were too many killed— I killed many. I killed too much here.

I wiped away the tears, but the ache of the feeling still wasn't gone. It was back to being the monster I'd always been.

I then looked away from Mingi's dropped over body to where San still laid unconscious, blood trickling from the gash he'd obtained.

My powers of reading minds— they'd been his ability. I'd taken them a long time ago on a night I didn't wish to remember. Night, there was so much I didn't want to remember— especially of anything with him and Wooyoung. But I remembered one thing and I now understood why San had wanted to get me out of here.

"They're insane." I muttered to myself in a shaky voice. It was weak but it had more truth and emotion than I ever let myself speak about the Chroniki.

I didn't turn back when I ran from there. I knew I had to get out of Dusk Court, but where would I run to?

Chronos.

I immediately faltered in my step with a cringe at the thought. We'd always been taught to flee to Chronos in hard times— to go home. The pulse thrummed and a shiver went through me from the term 'home.' Right now, it didn't feel like home to me.

I decided to center my focus on getting out of Dusk Court. I kept running. I ran through the halls and rooms in a blur of panic. Blue, red, black, gold, and the in-betweens blurred past my vision as I ran. I paid no attention to it— none of it matters— just escaping this maze of a palace.

I entered a room and the pulse in my shoulder lurched just as something black with the sound of a whistle moved in the corner of my vision. I didn't have time to move. There was a clang and a glint of silver before the black arrow shot past me and made a loud thunk as it hit the wall behind me. I'd spared it a glance before I whirled around.

She was there. I remembered her by many looks and suits, like the Chroniki mask and high ranking garbs from Eastern Court. Instead of those garbs, she wore silver armor of a Night Court guard and, instead of the wrist crossbow, she held a traditional bow made of black metal.

"There you are." Her voice muffled and echoed through the silver helmet that covered her face. Of course, she wouldn't want to be seen.

She thrusted the bow onto her shoulder before she let her hands grab onto the helmet. Then, she lifted it and tumbles of luscious pink locks of hair rolled down to her chest. She held the helmet in one hand as she swept the locks away. Her chocolate brown eyes only focused on me in the silent room as she allowed the helmet to slip from her hands and fall to the ground with a loud thunk.

"Hello, Maddis." Aurora spoke with a heart-warming smile and hatred in her eyes, "Or should I say sister?"

REMEMBER:​​​​​​

1. Smack dat butiful star

2. Leave a comment talkin abt dis tea

3. Share dis tea induced book with yo fwends

WHY? Because I appreciate it 🥺

\\ See u in the next chapter! \\