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Love and Starlight, Jasmine & Sophie
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Author’s Note:
Please be aware Wicked Academia is a new adult fantasy and contains mature themes. It is intended for audiences 18 years and over.
Hello, Starlings. I hope you enjoy this bonus Vivian chapter. This chapter takes place right after the Greywick’s Birthday Celebration. You can read that chapter here.
In Which Vivian Feels the Blush of Sunrise
Vivian was staring at herself. Well, not exactly herself, but at the statue that had captured her likeness. Or at least tried to.
A statue. That’s what Darius had given her for her birthday, a grand twenty-foot piece of marble right at the front of Selene Crescent. A sculpted Marion, Timothée, and herself.
It truly was hideous, all sharp angles and lifeless expressions. A hasty monument to celebrate what she hadn’t even yet been able to understand. But that wasn’t why she couldn’t stop staring, wasn’t the part that made her guts twist and hands tremble.
No, it was her smile on the statue: the large gaping, flat-toothed smile.
This is how he sees me, she thought. And maybe she should have felt solace in the fact, comfort that there was no doubt in his mind. Her secret firmly kept.
But she felt no relief.
Because it made every moment she spent with him feel like a play. Smoke and mirrors. She was only pretending to be the girl he felt this strongly for.
“Vivian?” Darius stood behind her, shuffling from foot to foot. “Is everything all right?”
Around them, the partygoers were drifting back to their dorms. And what a lovely party it had been. She had been caught in the pretend for so long.
“I’m fine.”
He stared at her, then said slowly, “Can I escort you back to the Den?”
Vivian turned and looked past the Meadow of Shattered Stars, to the forest beyond. The pink blush of dawn covered it all.
“I’m going to take a little walk and clear my head.” She bundled her cloak tighter around her shoulders. Without looking back, she set off toward the forest.
There was still so much on the Isle of Argos yet to explore. But that wasn’t why she walked off. She just couldn’t imagine going back to her dorm, trying to sleep with these thoughts warring in her mind.
As she walked over the Meadow of Shattered Stars, clouds rolled in, covering the rising sun, and casting the Isle a deep red. She breathed in the crisp morning air. Not ready to head back yet, she trailed down the hill and stood at the edge of the Enchanted Forest. Dimly, she saw bioluminescent lights, still clinging to the night that yet lingered in the trees.
Something rustled and she whirled—it was Darius, heading down the hill. “Sorry.” He held up his hands. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”
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