I'm mad.
No mad doesn't even begin to cover it. I had dragged Noah and ran back to our base in the exam . Luckily the others were there visibly shaken except Yelena. Surprising.
My hands won't stop shaking, and I don't know if it's anger or the leftover vibration from the explosion. My pulse is hammering in my ears like a war drum, and every time I blink, I see her face again.
Her eyes wide.
Her mouth open, begging for air.
Why am I so fucking angry?
She wasn't even my real mother . My real mother is dead I know. I haven't even been in this world up to a month. So why do I care about a woman I never met. It doesn't make any sense.
She wasn't supposed to die like that. No one is.
Rhazar didn't just kill her he enjoyed it. Every second. Every scream. Like it was an orchestra and her pain was the music.
My chest feels tight. Too tight. I want to break something. Punch a wall. Punch him. Punch myself for even feeling this shit.
Because emotions are useless. They don't stop monsters. They don't save anyone.
And still… I can't breathe right.
Noah comes at me , of course "the hero". Driven be emotions and always making irrational decisions.
"How could you?" he says, voice low but full. "You dragged them. You led them....."
I cut him off. I don't lecture. I don't give platitudes. I say the thing he needs to hear.
"So what ? I led them to their deaths , so what happens. Let me clear your delusion, the only reason you are standing here talking to me and spilling bullshit is because you are useful, if you were dead weight I'd left you there to die and I won't feel even a speck of guilt . They were dead weight so they are dead ."
He blinks. Pride flashes and then something like fury refocuses in him. He steps forward, chest tight. The words stack; he wants to throw a sermon at me.
"You used students as bait!" he spits. "You left people to die because you want to save your own ass "
I don't speak. The silence is a blade.
He doesn't lower his hand. He doesn't move away. He comes anyway because he's not a coward and the punch fires out of me faster than I planned. I connect with bone and tooth. The sound is ugly and immediate. Blood blossoms at his lip. He staggers, one hand to his jaw, but he doesn't fall down and he doesn't whine.
Good. He needed that crack.
"I think you needed that to wake you up to reality " I said in a calm low voice. " Of course I would save my own ass. Let me be realistic with you , if you were there what exactly were you planning to do to "help" . Please enlighten me, you are a what an expert maybe and you want to make a scratch on a transcendent . How delusional are you . In this world is eat it be eaten, that monster is a predator and you are just prey . You are weak and painfully so , get that into your thick skull .
His face tightens. He's furious. He breathes hard, and for a moment his chest heaves with sound like a bell. He wants to tell me off. He wants to save faces and people. He's a hero in the bones, and that's what makes this harder for him to swallow.
"You really think that?" he asks. Not a sermon hope trembling under the words.
I don't soften. I'm blunt because blunt is what will keep him alive. "I do. You're an Expert. Did you want to throw stones at him or what let me guess you wanted to scold him ?. Not now. You're good, and you hate the nobles, and you love people, and that makes you dangerous in all the ways I respect. But you could have died in a heartbeat out there with those students. I won't pretend that's honorable. It's stupid."
Silence. The others listen. They all know why we're here: an impossible dome, a child laughing as it paints the world red, and the teeth of a war that might carve us out like bone.
My throat tightens. " You think I'm not mad , you think I don't want to rip his head apart I do . I really do . That monstrosity out there ripped my mother apart while I watched. Not only did he break her bones , he corrupted her made her go mad and wanted her to kill me , she still had a little humanity and refused . My voice was breaking at this point "He ripped her head of her body and I'm forced to keep replaying that scene in my head for years . How do you think I feel after recovering for all those years just to see that same innocent face again. Yeah not so great it's obvious."
Noah stares at me like he's seeing the face of the bastard again. The group's expressions change what had been murmurs and adrenaline flattens into a grim, private horror. Even the ones who play at courtly hatred like a sport go still. Clara Valecrest mattered. The image of herfighting, begging, then being taken lands on all of them with weight.
Yelena begins to clap, slow and deliberate. "Wow , very tragic indeed." Her tone is cold , obvious she doesn't care. " I'm sorry to break it to you Valecrest but I don't care, you don't need our pity or did you expect us to give you tissues ".
Her tone is deliberately cruel; she has no patience for stories. We all look at her like, she was an alien but she's right in the way that matters: sentiment doesn't stop a dome.
"We need a plan, not a pity story," Yelena says. She's not cruel for cruelty's sake—she's cruel because being soft would have killed her a long time ago. She spits it like a fact. "Tell us what to do, Valecrest. Now."
I breathe once, hard. I don't apologize for what I said because that would be a performance. I don't hide the truth, because truth is what gets people alive.
"You're right," I say, voice steady. "I'm sorry for the pity. It was… misplaced. We don't have time to mourn here. We have minutes, maybe more if he's playing, but minutes are all we get. No speeches. No funerals. This is what we do."