i could be the reason you can't sleep at night
Flora’s expression tightens, her jaw clenching beneath the weight of Sohalia’s anger. Her heart races at the tears, the shout, the fuck Flora that slices through the Glade like a thrown dagger, sharp and true and aimed to wound. "Yes, I am," she says, quietly at first. "In the grand scheme of things, Soh, I am expendable. You know how many people live in Torchline? How many people count on that city to be a place of freedom, a place they can run to when everywhere else starts falling apart? I’m just one person. One person who got to be queen because I ran my mouth at a meeting and didn’t die fast enough to get voted out."
The words sting even as she says them, her fingers curling into fists in her lap, digging into the fabric of her dress. Maybe it was because, for all the ways in which Flora resented the heroic nature of her demigod parents, she'd been steered more by their natures than she'd had liked to think.
"I didn’t just throw my life away," Flora insists, voice cracking just slightly. "I had a plan. I sent letters, I picked my moment, I waited until the timing lined up just right. I thought it through. I took every precaution I could." A breath, shaking, but her chin stays lifted. "But it was still worth the risk, because this—" she gestures vaguely around, thinking of Torchline despite being surrounded by the Glade. "—all of this is more important than me. It always will be."
She swallows thickly, curling her arms around herself now, mimicking Soh’s own posture like some mirrored ache. "I didn’t want to hurt you. Or Hadama. Or Jack." She'd kept Soh ignorant, had tried to communicate her intentions as best she could to the Tidebreaker, and had given Jack mageglass and a revivify feather. What more she could have done she truly didn't know, save for sitting on the sidelines and letting the Family continue to take and take and take.
The words sting even as she says them, her fingers curling into fists in her lap, digging into the fabric of her dress. Maybe it was because, for all the ways in which Flora resented the heroic nature of her demigod parents, she'd been steered more by their natures than she'd had liked to think.
"I didn’t just throw my life away," Flora insists, voice cracking just slightly. "I had a plan. I sent letters, I picked my moment, I waited until the timing lined up just right. I thought it through. I took every precaution I could." A breath, shaking, but her chin stays lifted. "But it was still worth the risk, because this—" she gestures vaguely around, thinking of Torchline despite being surrounded by the Glade. "—all of this is more important than me. It always will be."
She swallows thickly, curling her arms around herself now, mimicking Soh’s own posture like some mirrored ache. "I didn’t want to hurt you. Or Hadama. Or Jack." She'd kept Soh ignorant, had tried to communicate her intentions as best she could to the Tidebreaker, and had given Jack mageglass and a revivify feather. What more she could have done she truly didn't know, save for sitting on the sidelines and letting the Family continue to take and take and take.
