The palace was thrown into chaos. The king tried to investigate the fog, but got no answers. Anything he tried proved useless. All the scholars and experts he sent to research the fog, and none of them had any answers.
Cassius could sense the tension in his father, as well as around the palace, for the people were becoming more panicked and searched to the monarchy for answers. He himself, however, was preoccupied with something else. Namely, accepting the fact that Selene was suddenly just gone.
It seemed as if one minute she was bothering him, teasing him and toying with him, and the next she was pulling away and dying on him. The moment he had heard the news, his mother almost callously nonchalant as she mentioned it over breakfast, his heart had stopped for one terrible moment.
Anastasia was shocked, and seemed quite horrified by the news as well, but Cassius could sense she felt relieved at the same time. Cassius thought he should feel the same, all his life he had been trying to get rid of Selene's presence after all, but now that she was truly, genuinely gone? Now he felt more lost than ever.
He loved Anastasia with all his heart, he knew that, and he knew that would never change, but... but losing Selene broke something in him. Unbeknownst to him, she'd actually had a piece of his heart all this time, without him having ever realised it. And now that she was dead, it was all too easy for his grieving mind to put a rosy filter over his memories of her.
He remembered hating the way she used to follow after him, chasing away any girl that seemed even remotely interested in him, but all he could think now was that he missed it. He missed hearing her shrill voice lecturing the other girls that dared to get close to him, and he missed the way she used to look at him, so intense and filled with passion.
It was maddening, because even if he wished to blame it all on her death, he knew that his mind had been slowly drifting in this direction even before she was killed. Recently Selene's personality seemed to make an odd change. She was still as antagonistic as ever, but something was different about it, it felt more pointed, and sometimes it didn't feel like it was about him anymore. There was no love in her eyes, only venom on her tongue, and for whatever reason, it shocked him as much as it intrigued him.
Secretly, he had to admit that she was right about one thing. The more time he spent with her, thinking about her, engaging in their push and pull dynamic, the more he felt his relationship with Anastasia was getting boring. He hated to think it, let alone admit it, but while he loved how sweet and gentle she was, and some days loved her more than he believed he could love any other person, there just wasn't that... spark, that passion.
What he felt for Selene was far from love, he knew that, she knew that, but it was still something. He'd been expecting that he would still have more time to deny it, before he could eventually attempt to explore it, but she was gone, taking all those possibilities and what ifs with her.
All he was left with was Anastasia, only now it didn't feel like quite enough anymore.
So, in an attempt to try and get some closure, Cassius did the only thing he could think of, he invited Sophia for an impromptu afternoon of tea.
When Sophia stepped into the room, the first thing he took notice of was her missing hand, before his eyes darted up to her face once he realised that was impolite. Despite the fact that she looked well put together, he could see that there was something off about her. The edges of her face seemed almost sharper, and her eyes were dark and steely. It was clear that the loss of Selene had a much more profound effect on Sophia than it did on him.
"Prince Cassius." Sophia greeted, before sitting down in the seat opposite him.
If she looked curious as to why she was there, she didn't show it.
"I wanted to speak about Selene." Cassius announced.
Sophia sipped at her tea, as proper as ever, but her eyes felt like knives cutting into his skin when she looked at him. "Was there something you wanted to ask?"
Cassius paused for a moment, not knowing where to start, or how to verbalise what he wanted to say.
A silence stretched between them for a long few seconds, before Cassius coughed and spoke again.
"I know it might be impertinent of me to ask you something like this at a time where you must be mourning your sister, but..."
"You want to ask about her feelings for you?"
"Well... essentially, yes."
For a moment it looked as if Sophia was going to laugh, but she instead set her teacup down and looked at him seriously. "I know you thought of her as nothing more than a nuisance, but her feelings for you were strong, and they were real, and she expressed them the only way she knew how."
"... I see."
"When you disappeared suddenly and there were suspicions that you'd been kidnapped, or murdered, she had been worried sick, and prayed for your safe return everyday. Then when you returned with another girl... her heart broke."
Cassius swallowed slow, feeling his guilt poking at him, even though he knew it wasn't his fault that he fell in love with Anastasia, and that he shouldn't feel bad for it.
"Is that why she...?"
"You must have been surprised when she began acting colder out of nowhere, yes? It was her defence mechanism. It was either be stone cold and angry or be sad and heartbroken. She chose the easier option, and I didn't blame her. If it had been me, I would've done the same."
He thought again about how it felt like Selene had put up a strange wall when they met each other after he returned with Anastasia, now it made sense. She must have been doing it to prevent herself from feeling any more hurt.
"I'm-"
"Don't. You love Anastasia, you've never loved Selene, and that's that. Do not apologise for something you can't help."
Sophia left after that, her words lingering in the room long after she walked through the doors. Cassius wondered if the closure was worth it.