Katarina woke up groggy from her dreamless slumber, the events of the previous day were nothing but a blur now, hidden in the deepest compartment of her mind, she stretched her limbs as she got out of bed and marched to the bathroom.
She frowned at her disheveled hair, like a dark blue tumbleweed on her head, and bent down to brush her teeth, glancing up occasionally at the mirror as she did.
When she was done and faced the mirror once more she gasped in shock as Casmir's face replaced hers.
"Cas?" she said in disbelief.
Casmir smiled, he had no fangs and his eyes weren't the silver she'd gotten used to over the years, they were very dark blue, like ink, the way they were before he'd been Turned.
She could already feel her eyes brimming with tears, her voice choking with them.
He placed a hand on the mirror, she didn't know how this was happening or where he was talking to her from but she placed her hand over his and let the tears dribbled down her cheeks.
"Tell them Kat" Casmir said.
She sobbed, the things she said next as inaudible as a whisper.
"You know I can't" she said.
He smiled sadly, relating with her, even in death.
"I know, but you can try" he said. He removed his hand from the mirror, his fingers were so thin, his face so pale.
"I will be back" he said. "I promise"
"No!" she cried.
Katarina jolted awake, her breath hitching and her chest heaving as she struggled to take in huge gulps of air.
She looked around, expecting white tiles all around her, her bathroom sink and a mirror in front of her.
Instead she found herself in bed, the sheets drawn up to her chin.
The room was cold, which wasn't unusual considering the rains that had become more frequent as the days passed, but it was unsettling, and made a literal chill go down her spine as she remembered Casmir.
"It was just a dream" she assured herself.
She felt heavy and clammy, like she was wearing the same clothes she'd worn the day before, it shocked her when she realized she was. Her face felt wrinkled and her cheeks were wet with fresh tears. It might have been just a dream, but the sadness was very real.
She clutched the covers closer to her body and whispered his name.
"Casmir"
She couldn't believe she'd seen him, he looked paler than usual but his eyes were open and he'd smiled at her, maybe...
No!, she scolded, Casmir is dead.
She wanted to believe it, she wanted to move on, but somehow his death felt false, like a lie, was he truly gone forever?
He must still be around somewhere. He'd spoken to her, smiled at her, told her to…
Tell them.
But she couldn't possibly tell them everything, especially Sal. Every reason she had to offer for the love she couldn't give would do him no good.
"Salome Nightshade" she whispered, and it was like everything she'd held to the back of her mind came spiraling out of control, as if his name were the key to every part of her she'd kept locked away. Everything about him drove her to the edge of insanity and it was all because she loved him.
Even if she knew she shouldn't.
She placed her head in her hands and screamed, just to set her mind straight once more.
Then she threw off her covers, deciding that there would be no more crying, no more grieving, no more thinking about Sal.
Her feelings could always wait.
Casmir will still be gone.
And life would move on.
But once again, each sentence felt false and every feeling felt real.
***
Sal got up with a start as a wave of ice cold water poured all over him. He rolled off the mattress and landed on the even colder floor in a wet heap.
"What the hell?" he exclaimed, as he got up from the floor and glared at his assailant.
His assailant—Antony—stood smiling at him with an empty bucket in his gloved hands, he wore a jacket armour zipped up to his chin, along with dark jeans and boots, his trident was strapped to his back, it's forked edge towering over his purple hair.
"Good morning brother" he announced with glee. "The day has come!"
Sal was extremely confused. Of everything Antony had done this was the most confusing and infuriating of them all.
Then he remembered, he'd found the last person on the list, he had everyone he needed to fight Percival now.
But still….
"Is that the only reason why you drenched me!" Sal yelled.
Antony's smile grew annoyingly wider.
"It's salt water, good for your skin" he said.
Sal almost laughed, but remembered he was angry and stormed to his closet.
He grabbed his tunic from the closet; jacket, shirt, trousers and boots, and tossed them on the bed before storming off to the bathroom.
He hadn't even made it to the sink when he heard Antony's voice through the door.
"Sal?" Antony called.
Sal stopped, he didn't go back to open the door, he just stared at it and waited.
"Look, I am sorry, I was just trying to be funny, which I see now I am terrible at" Antony said, he sounded hesitant, as if contemplating what he wanted to say next "And I am sorry about yesterday, I didn't mean to upset you"
Sal placed his hand on the door but he didn't say anything, he just stood there, thinking, until he heard Antony sigh and walk away.
Sal sighed and went to turn on the shower.
He didn't want to think about yesterday, or the day before that. After today it wouldn't matter anyway, they'd fight, they'd try to win, and after that, if they survived, they'd choose between staying or returning home.
Sal wanted them to stay, all of them, but he couldn't expect that from them. So he hoped for the worst instead of the best.
When he came out of the bathroom the room was empty, his mattress was dry, completely void of water, and his tunic had been laid out neatly instead of the jumbled heap he'd left it in.
He wore it hastily, grabbing his wand and rings and walking out the door.
Antony was waiting for him in the corridor, his head down and his back against the wall, clearly unaffected by the trident that was most likely pressing into his back. He didn't raise his head, only stared at the floor, refusing to look at Sal.
"I'm not angry" Sal said.
"About the water?" Antony asked.
"No" Sal chuckled. "About yesterday, you were only trying to be my brother and that's okay"
Antony raised his head, his eyes drooped with weariness, his purple hair no longer as perfect as it had been on that day they met.
"But I'm not your brother, at least not in the way that matters"
Sal moved closer to Antony and he grasped his arm, feeling the bulge of muscle beneath his shirt.
"You are, in every way, my brother" Sal said. "I promise"
Antony nodded and grasped Sal's arm, and in a strange sort of way that was more intimate than any word or gesture he could have spoken or done in that moment.
"Now" Sal said as he pulled his wand out of his boot, "Let's go get him"
He slashed the air and the Portal glyph shone in the corridor of Sal's apartment, the portal shimmering to life as the glyph faded.
When they stepped in and emerged from the portal, they were met with Melchior and Bloom standing on Katarina's front porch. They seemed to be talking to each other before, but their attentions were now fixed on them.
Melchior, leaning against the railing of the steps, was wearing a new set of armour, different from the one Casmir had given him; a hooded jacket, enchantments in the form of runes glittering on the surface of the fabric, with a gauntlet strapped on his left hand and trousers and boots.
He looked…..ready, his golden hair shining in the early morning sun and his ocean eyes alight with a zealous fire.
Bloom stood proud and tall beside him as she always did, her vines for hair in a braid behind her, she wore a brown leather tunic and trousers with sandals, her bangles gleaming on her right arm.
Melchior and Bloom smiled in greeting and beckoned them to come in.
Antony went in first and Sal followed, but stopped when he felt eyes watching him.
He looked up and saw Katarina staring down at them, peeking from behind the curtains of her room window. He smiled at her, not really knowing how she would react, she smiled back sadly, and disappeared behind the curtains.
"Sal, is everything alright?" Bloom asked.
Sal nodded without looking at her and followed them into the house.
Marcus was sitting on the sofa, legs crossed and eyes closed, his body glowing intensely. He opened his eyes when he heard the door click shut and smiled at Sal, the light he exuded dissipating.
"I told them you would come back" Marcus said, his voice young, his demeanor ancient, "they were all convinced you would not"
"What?, why wouldn't I?"
"We thought you had given up, Salome" Melchior said honestly.
"On the hunt?" Sal asked.
Bloom touched his arm lightly as she passed him and moved to Melchior's side. She stood beside him, protective as a soul sister should be.
"On us" she said, her voice strained with relief and the pain she was relieved from.
Sal didn't know what to say to that, and he didn't have to, for at that moment someone else spoke for him.
"It's a good thing he didn't"
They all turned towards the voice but Sal didn't need to look to know.
Katarina came down the stairs, her usually wavy hair was straightened and shone like dark blue silk, she wore a Shemer's tunic, the purple short sleeved jacket inlaid with runed metal wrapped around her body, long purple fingerless gloves ran from her hands up to her elbow, and her black trousers had silver linings on them, intricate and elegant.
"Who knows what he would do without us" she said with a small, delicate smile.
Sal was stunned, his heart rocking back and forth as he looked at Katarina.
"You're wearing your tunic" he managed to say.
"Yeah, I'm surprised it still fits" Katarina said, as she reached the bottom step, her boots clicking against the wooden floor. "Who am I kidding, it's magic, of course it fits"
Sal chuckled lightly, he didn't know what to do or say, he just stood there, staring at her.
"Sal, there's so much I need to tell you, so much I have to explain" Katarina said.
"Kat, I don't think this is the right time to…"
"Just listen to her" Marcus said, his golden eyes nearly burning, "you have to"
Sal sighed and looked back at Katarina, her eyes held that same plea in them. A plea to just hear her out, to let her make things right.
"Okay" he said.
"We'll be up in the weapon's room if you need us" Bloom said.
She nodded to the rest and walked to the stairs, they all followed, Antony giving him a reassuring nod as he left, and then just like that it was the both of them in the living room. Alone.
"I'm listening"
***
Katarina took a deep breath as she looked at Sal standing before her, looking absolutely flawless in his tunic. She had told the rest what she was about to tell him, and it had been hard, letting go often was, but with him she knew it would be harder. With him she would be reopening wounds she knew were barely starting to heal, and it felt a cruel thing to do that to him, to hurt him all over again.
Still she spoke.
"You should sit down for this" she said.
Sal sat down on the arm of the sofa close to him, his eyes trained attentively on her, as if he didn't want to miss any of the things she said in that moment they were together.
Katarina took another deep breath as she began to speak.
"In the days that followed after Casmir disappeared I did everything I could to find him" she started, she could hear her own voice tinged with pain, the memory of those nights without her brother and the ones still to come rimmed the edges of her mind.
"I was still with the Shemer then, my last name was Orquidea"
"Orchid, the flower that survives all" Sal said.
Katarina nodded and continued.
"I tried asking them for help but they said he had gone against the Lex by killing his nest member, they left him in the hands of Fate, they wouldn't help me, wouldn't even help keep an eye out for any reports or anything"
Katarina could still remember that day, the day she'd received rejection after rejection. It hurt her even now.
"I renounced the name, renounced the Shemer as a whole, but they let me keep the tunic, I like to think they let me keep it because they understood my pain and my grief but they were bound by a law and a duty beyond them, still I left, and I proceeded to hunt my brother"
She saw Sal adjust, his muscles spasming beneath his clothes. He understood, probably more than any of the rest of them, what it meant to be bound by the Lex.
He'd been abandoned because of it.
Made a Phantom because of it.
And now he was a Shemer, still bound by the Lex.
"I used every contact I made, every lead I found, I spent a fortune looking for him", she paused, remembering the sleepless nights and lightless days, "and then I heard there was a god that was willing to help me"
Sal's eyes went wide, and Katarina almost laughed. It had surprised her too when she'd heard, a god helping a mortal. How special she must have been to be favoured by the very pantheon she'd renounced her service.
She would realize later that she wasn't special, she wasn't favoured, only useful.
"It was Diana, goddess of the moon and hunt, she assured me he was still alive, just trapped somewhere, she didn't…. couldn't tell me where but would lead me to where I could get what I needed to find him, I felt a multitude of emotions in that moment, relief, joy, hope, I felt like everything was finally falling into place"
Katarina scoffed, the memory of Diana, ardoned in silver, her eyes like literal crescents boring into her flashed across her mind.
"But nothing is a favour when the gods are involved, and Diana was no exception, she required payment for her services and I was obligated to give it"
"What kind of payment?" Sal asked.
Katarina sighed and walked towards him, she began to undo the zipper of her jacket slowly.
"Kat, what are you…."
"Relax" she said. She undid the zipper low enough for her cleavage to show.
Sal gulped and looked away, the blush on his cheeks nearly invisible under his dark skin.
"Look"
He looked, hesitantly, and then his eyes went wide.
***
Sal hadn't known what Kat was doing, or what she was trying to do, but when he saw he understood.
Right there, lying in the valley of her cleavage, was a mark. A crescent moon with an arrow piercing it right in the middle.
"Is that….."
"The mark of Diana, the crescent and the arrow" Katarina confirmed as she moved away from him, her cheeks were flushed pink from embarrassment, her hands unsteady as she zipped up the jacket.
"Diana's payment was your service" Sal said. "And you agreed?"
Katarina nodded, her eyes staring intensely at her fingers entwined in her laps.
"Why?", Sal asked, "you hate the gods why make a deal like that"
"I didn't hate them then, I admired them in fact, Diana most of all, and I was desperate to find my brother, I was willing to do anything, including serve among Diana's hunt", Katarina raised her eyes to meet his, "but there are certain rules that come with being Diana's Hunter, rules that I didn't think I'd be prepared for"
Sal leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees and clasping his hands together.
"What kind of rules?" he whispered.
Katarina tucked several strands of hair behind her ear and wrapped her arms around herself before she spoke.
"Firstly, when the moon calls me I have to answer, no matter what I'm doing or where I am, as long as Diana has summoned me, I must come, whatever the situation or the circumstance"
Sal shifted uneasily, memories of cults he'd heard of from Boulder replaying in his head.
"And the second one?" he asked.
Katarina took a deep, shaky breath.
"Secondly, I'm expected to be chaste, forfeiting all forms of Eros, with any man, forever"
"I don't understand" Sal said. "All forms of Eros as in..."
"Romantic love, Salome" Katarina said.
It was as though everything stopped, and for a second Sal thought he was going to pass out.
He struggled to keep his hands steady, they were shaking of their own accord despite how hard he clasped them together, his lungs refused to take in air, and his heart, his heart couldn't find the strength to beat again.
"Sal?" Katarina called, he heard, but she sounded miles away, it was the words she'd spoken from another time that muffled the words she was speaking now.
I have to stop loving you, I have to.
She'd sounded so hurt, so frantic, and Sal hadn't understood why, but now he did.
Because loving you is my sin, Salome.
"Sal!" She called again.
Sal felt hands grab him and shake him, he looked up and her dark eyes met his, and despite everything that he knew now they still, somehow, made him come alive again.
"Sal, I'm sorry, it all seemed worth it, I never thought i'd fall for anyone, ever, but then there was you and I didn't know what was happening, I didn't think…."
"Stop" he said.
She flinched and kept quiet, letting her eyes fall away from his. He raised her chin, keeping their eyes trained on each other.
"It's okay Kat" he said, "I understand"
She shook her head, her hair shimmering like a disturbance in the night sky.
"You don't mean that" she said, her eyes pooling with tears.
He didn't, he'd never understand, but for her sake he pretended to. For her sake he would do anything.
"I do and I'm not angry, I'm not upset, I know you didn't mean to hurt me and if you could do it all over you wouldn't", he cupped her cheek, wiping the tears away as they fell from her gorgeous, depthless eyes, "I forgive you"
"You do?" She said, her voice gentle, like a breeze.
"Of course, no matter what you do, I'll always, always come back to you"
She chuckled, a smile lighting up her face, and before Sal knew it he was wrapped in her embrace. He closed his eyes and wrapped his arms around her, pushing his fingers into her silky hair, holding her close to him and enjoying the experience of euphoria.
He did forgive her, for to love is to forgive. He just didn't know how he would survive with the knowledge that she could never love him and that he could love no one else but her.
Now I know what it's like. To love and to long for and yet not have what I long for.
"I feel so stupid now" Katarina said, her warm breath kissing the side of his neck. "She gave me immortality and strength and weapons but she never gave me what I wanted the most, she never helped me find him"
"That's why you hate the gods so much, why you hate Antony"
"I know that he's not like them, that he might be different, but I just can't seem to trust him at all", she pulled away from him, "but I trust you, I trust in you, I trust that you've made a right choice by accepting him so I will too"
Sal smiled, ignoring every dull pain thrumming in his chest and focusing on the smile on her face and the light in her eyes, focusing on her.
The girl he could never have.
"We should probably get to the others" Katarina said as she rose, she seemed lighter now, more free than he'd seen her these past few days.
"Yeah" Sal said as he rose as well.
"I'm glad that I was able to speak to you about this" she said with her signature smirk.
"Me too" he replied.
I just wish it didn't hurt so much.