Abigail Gibbs - Autumn Rose

All of a sudden, the prince grabbed my hand and tugged me along the path behind the hall building. He led me right around until he found a secluded corner, and without noticing how muddy the ground was, pulled me onto the grass.

‘She’s not worth it,’ I heard him say as I was spun around so my back was against the wall and he faced me, arms folded, lips pursed. I registered the blackening anger in his eyes, but it was nothing compared to my own. My breathing would not slow and I could still feel a burning in my palm where sparks leaped around. Dancing on my tongue were several curses that would at least put her in hospital.

‘Autumn, you’re not in control, you need to—’

Animated voices sounded around the corner and he hushed mid-sentence, waited for them to pass, then switched to Sagean.

‘Aclean. Calm down. Take deep breaths.’

I closed my eyes, forcing air into my lungs, waiting for the anger to seep away. I tried not to think of her; I tried not to think of anything, to become numb, but it was impossible with the sound of his breathing, husky and more erratic than my own. Listening to it, I felt the fury ebb away to be replaced with shame. Shame, then fear, as the full realization of what I had just done hit me.

The previous guardian at Kable had been banished for accidentally wounding – fatally – a student. But I had intentionally tried to injure a human. The Terra set out a far worse punishment for such a crime. Death.

I slowly opened my eyes. He was stood in the same position, but this time the composure had disappeared.

‘Are you out of your mind?’ he suddenly exploded after a minute of silence. His arms unfolded and flew into the air beside him as he took a step towards me. I shrunk away into the wall. ‘Do you have any grasp on what you just tried to do?’

Each time I inhaled my breath split in two and my lower lip began to tremble as I shook my head. ‘It was an accident, she provoked me—’

‘How long has she been bullying you?’ His right hand slammed against the brick wall beside my head and his face moved closer to mine.

I glanced at his splayed fingers nervously. ‘W-what?’

‘You’re a Duchess; you were not brought up to lose control so easily. She must have been filing away at your patience for you to do this. How long?’

I kept shaking my head, looking at his shoes to avoid the fire in his eyes. ‘A year, maybe.’

‘Since you arrived?! Why haven’t you reported it? I heard what she said. That was more than bullying, it was racism!’

‘It’s nothing.’

‘Nothing?’ he repeated, raising his left hand and closing his forefinger and thumb so they were almost pinching. ‘Autumn, you came this close to blowing her to pieces! This close to breaking the Terra! I won’t report you, but if that curse had hit her there would be no sheltering you.’

I blinked back the tears in my eyes, feeling a mixture of relief and horror, because his words were true. There was no hiding when the Terra were breached. There was no mercy in the law courts, because they were the only thread that suspended us in a state of peace with the humans.

‘I know,’ I whispered. ‘I know.’

He closed his eyes briefly and groaned, placing his other hand on the wall the other side of my head. ‘Do you have a death wish? Because what you just did makes it seem like you do.’

‘I-I’ I couldn’t answer and neither could I shake my head. Instead, I ceased my attempt at holding back the tears. They slithered down my cheeks and plummeted as I hung my head.

‘Autumn?’

My bisected breathing became rasps, and the rasps sobs. There was no stopping the misery now. I knew that much. It was an insatiable beast, but its touch had become silken and light over the summer as hope had surfaced. But that had been a deception; soft strokes to entice. It was back. Yet. Though it was a cold demise, it was not a product of mine. No. It had been caused by him. The prince.

‘Autumn Rose? Tell me you’re not being serious?’

Now that brief moment of flattery in the car the week before disgusted me, because it was he who had dragged up so many things that I had learnt were better buried, for my own wellbeing and sanity.

‘Please?’

I could not say anything.

‘Autumn, a death wish? Do you mean you want to take your own life? Mortalitas voltana? ’ His face crumpled and his hands closed around my shoulders, shaking me slightly.

I raised one shoulder, intending to shrug, to look nonchalant, but couldn’t summon the energy to do any more; to deny what he said.

‘No? You’ve thought about it then?’

I gave a small nod.

‘B-but why? What is it? Is it your grandmother?’ He shook me even more and when I didn’t answer, pulled me into a crushing embrace. I sprang back before my sobs heightened, tripping over my own feet to put as much distance between us as possible. ‘Autumn? What is it? Tell me!’

It’s you! I wanted to scream, and I would have if it had been completely true. But it wasn’t. It was everything.

‘E-Extermino. Not saving that human man … V-Valerie. Your stupid orders about my grandmother! I hate your stupid orders!’

Through my blurred, frantically blinking eyes I could see him watching me in horror as I backpedalled, summoning the magic still brewing after Valerie’s words and took to the air.

Let me be numb again, I thought. Let me bury the depression as best I can. Burying is better than this.

The wind slapped against my cheeks, bitter and stinging. But behind my closed eyelids, it was not air making contact with my cheek, but a hand. Once, twice. Hard enough to leave an imprint.

‘Stiffen that upper lip, child! Kindness only comes when you are strong because when you grow up the world will fall on your shoulders! You are my heir; how dare you cry? How dare you be so weak? How dare you lose your mask?’

I did not let out a breath until she was high in the air, a retreating speck. Around me I was aware of voices, incoherent interference in the distance, as I struggled to switch my mind back to English – whether those voices were those of human minds or tongues I could not tell. I could barely even think.

Suicide. Any fool could see that she was not happy. But there was a huge cavernous cut in emotion between unhappiness and … and … that. Between dejection and despair; between discontent and utterly losing the will to even live.

A surge of adrenalin passed through me. There was no way she should be alone; not in the state she was in now.

I tossed my bag from my shoulder; it disappeared before it reached the ground. I was meant to have a math lesson that afternoon, and catch-up afterwards, and leaving would mean abandoning my car until the next day, but none of that mattered. School wasn’t why I was here.

Knowing she wouldn’t hang about I took to the air in pursuit, praying she intended to go home. But when I’d risen far above the campus, there was no sign of her and when I expanded my conscious out, hoping to touch upon her own, I found nothing. Making a split-second decision I headed over the river, wondering how she could have disappeared in less than half a minute.

When the town came into view, I searched for the church and graveyard we had passed when I had dropped her off. To my complete relief, frantically walking though the graveyard was the young duchess. I waited until she had passed through the gate in the dry stone wall and then dropped to the ground behind the church tower.

She didn’t hang around once she reached the lane – though she didn’t push herself as far as her magic would allow, but moderated herself to a jog. I took after her as quietly as I could; cursing the crunch of the gravel path and opting for the grass verge instead, weaving between the graves. All around, wilting flowers lay in mildewed jars.