BEXLEY BRIAR
Violence has been visiting. Bexley sleeps in fits and bares her teeth, bursts awake at midnight, finds the edges of the known world and throws herself off them. Saltier is half-prison and half-ecstasy. Her scar lives in every silver mirror, and she hates the sight of it, and thanks Solis for all the shattered windows in the capitol, for the cool, swallowing darkness where glass, where the reflection of her face, once lay. Her heart is a swallow in her chest - loud, harsh, spastic. Violence has been visiting, and Bexley welcomes it like an old best friend. It might as well be.
She is thinking of violence, as she often is, when the guard comes to fetch her. Bex nearly flinches as his shadow spills over the doorway. What is he doing here, sneaking in like something evil - through the army she cannot even see his eyes, his hard expression, the curve of his mouth. Something about it gives her chills. Seraphina wants to see you, comes his voice through the still air, and before she can open her mouth to ask merely the first of many questions, he is gone, steps clattering down the staircase, disappeared as quickly as he came. For a moment she wavers in place, wondering: is this her punishment? Has Seraphina found out about the revenge exacted on Acton? Are they closing their own gates, fearful of the fire burning in the Arma Mountains? Bexley’s worries heighten until they are a whirlwind. And then, at the moment that her body cannot contain the speed of thought, she takes off toward the citadel in a blur of white hair and quick feet.
The Day Court passes by in a mirage. Sand and sandstone, broken glass, the smell of metal welding. She whirls through it all without a second glance, knowing with intimacy the steps she will have to trace to the citadel, sure in step, loud in movement, and all the time worrying and worrying. The guards at the tower open those huge wooden doors with nary a question - how strange is that? As the stairs rise ahead of her, she forces her steps to slow. The air in her chest seems harder to breathe. Bang-bang-bang - her pulse is strange venom. Be calm. Be calm. Easier said than done, of course, and as Bexley pulls herself up the last step, winding with unnecessary feline grace into the last room at the end of the hall, she feels the heat of the air like a living thing with teeth and claws outstretched just for her.
Seraphina, she starts. Her voice is raspy with disuse, and the rarity of that makes her tone seem nearly disembodied. The Solterran forces herself to stop, and stand, a respectful distance away. Solis, please give me something good. Though her pulse still flutters like a hummingbird, she meets the Sovereign’s eyes with practiced calm, and finds a way to pretend the flyaways in her hair, the rapid flit of her gaze back and forth, is a chosen decision and not a human weakness. You called?
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