Chapter 116: _ You Made a Mess

"I’m sorry," I whispered, feeling my heart shattering as I took another step toward her, holding my hands out pleadingly. "I swear to you, I tried to figure out how to tell you. I was just so scared of hurting you..."

Her cries cut me off. "You didn’t care about hurting me! If you cared about me, you would have told me the moment he looked at you! But you liked it, didn’t you? You liked watching me make an idiot of myself while you kept him tucked in your pocket! You’re a horrible person, Elira. You’re a backstabbing, selfish liar, and I hate you!"

The word forced a pained gasp out of me.

I hate you.

They weren’t just angry words thrown in the heat of a fight. They were the bleeding truth of a girl whose heart had been put through a meat grinder.

"Miriel, please..." I choked out, a sob finally breaking past my lips.

"Get away from me!" Miriel shrieked, thrashing violently backward until her chair tipped over with a deafening crash against the floor.

"Miriel!" Bren yelled, struggling blindly against her own bonds.

Miriel ignored her. With tears streaming down her face, she managed to wrench her bound wrists free from the weak wooden armrest she had somehow managed to splinter, scrambling backward on the floor like a wounded animal. She scrambled to her feet, stumbling past the wreckage of the desk.

"Miriel, wait!" I cried, dashing forward to catch her.

"Don’t touch me!" she screamed, pointing a hate-filled finger right at my face. "If you take one step closer to me, I swear to the gods I will kill myself right here in front of you!"

I froze. My foot hovered an inch above the floor, terror freezing the breath in my lungs.

Miriel didn’t wait. She turned on her heel, threw open the door, and bolted down the hallway.

"Miriel!" I shouted, instinctively moving to follow her.

"Stop! Don’t you dare go after her, Elira! Leave her alone!" Bren barked from her chair.

I halted and looked back at Bren, tears blurring my vision until the entire room swam in a sickening swirl of red and grey.

I felt like absolute filth. A betrayer. A monster wearing a fancy dress paid for by a prince who used girls like juice boxes.

"Untie me," Bren demanded quietly, her eyes fixed on the floor.

I scrambled across the room, falling to my knees as I fumbled with the thick knots binding her wrists. My fingers were shaking so badly I could barely get a grip on the rope, but after an agonizing few seconds, the hemp unraveled.

Bren rubbed her red wrists, standing up slowly and stepping away from me as if I carried a plague. She didn’t look at my face nor did she offer a single word of comfort. She just walked over to right Miriel’s fallen chair.

"Bren," I choked out, my voice quivering as I knelt on the ruined floor, looking up at her like a dog begging for scraps. "You have to believe me. I wasn’t expecting any of this. I swear to you, I didn’t plan for Ivar to... to do any of that."

Bren let out a humorless scoff. She finally turned her head, looking down at me with a gaze so devoid of warmth it made my stomach turn.

"Didn’t plan for it? Elira, spare me. You’ve been sneaking around behind our backs since day one. Everyone in this academy knew Ivar was circling someone, but we were all stupid enough to think it was just another noble game. Turns out it was you."

"Because I’m fated to him!" I yelled, the frustration and desperation finally boiling over into an ugly defense."He’s one of my mates, Bren! Okay?! Are you happy now? He’s the fourth one! Not Ajax like you girls blindly assumed without even bothering to confirm with me first. It’s Ivar! I didn’t ask Miriel to be so self-absorbed; she assumed the Prince was after her without even making sure."

I pointed squarely at the floor, shaking with frustration. "It could have been you... or me. Did she take a moment to consider that before concluding that just because she is the noble blood among us, it is her he was interested in?"

Bren’s jaw dropped. The color completely vanished from her face as she stared at me. "The... the fourth one? You’re actually truly fated to four different royal heirs?!"

"Yes!" I sobbed, wrapping my arms tightly around my midsection as if I could hold my shattering body together. "Raice, Zev, Remus, and now Ivar! I didn’t ask for this! My soul is tangled up in a four-way clusterfuck of magical destiny that I never wanted, and every single day I feel like I’m drowning!"

Bren stared at me, dumbfounded. The anger in her posture slowly gave way to comprehension. "Four... holy gods... Elira, are the gods making you some sort of entertainment?"

"Probably!" I cried, wiping my nose with the back of my sleeve, completely abandoning any remaining shred of dignity. "Probably I lost my mind the second I set foot inside Last Bastion! But don’t look at me like I’m a demon, Bren! I’m just trying to survive!"

That made Bren snap. Her anger flared right back up as she stepped closer, pointing an accusing finger at my face. "Survive? Is that what you call lying to your best friends every single day? You let Miriel pour her heart out about Ivar every night! You sat there and watched her fall in love with a man who was already fated to you! How could you be so callously cruel?!"

"Because I was scared! I was terrified of breaking her heart! I thought if I ignored it, if I kept my mouth shut, maybe it wouldn’t be real! I didn’t want to hurt her, Bren! I swear to you, I never wanted to hurt her!" I screamed.

Bren dragged a hand down her face, groaning in exasperation as she paced across the ruined floor.

Finally, she stopped pacing and looked down at me and she looked like she’d aged ten years in the span of ten minutes.

"You really made a mess of things, Elira," she said quietly, the lack of shouting somehow hurting worse than if she had screamed. "You made a massive, unforgivable mess."

"I know."

Bren crossed her arms, leaning against the edge of the remaining intact table. She looked at me searchingly.

"Alright," she muttered, shaking her head. "Putting Miriel aside for one second—though God knows how we’re ever going to fix that—what the hell happened yesterday, Elira? Why were you broadcast across the entire academy? Why on earth did you let Prince Ivar take you out in the open like that? What the hell were you thinking?!"