ELDEN LORD! SUMMER ROSE: CHAPTER ELEVEN

The cave was cold, damp enough that water fell somewhere beyond the darkness in slow, irregular drops. Cinder had long since stopped paying attention to the sound. She sat against the rock wall with one knee drawn to her chest, staring into the small fire burning above her remaining hand as its light danced across the rough stone and the ruined half of her face.

She had stopped trying to count the days. Recovery was slow when half your body had been burned from the inside out.

Her fingers drifted to the scar tissue stretching from her cheek to her neck. The flesh still felt wrong beneath her touch, too tight in some places, numb in others, as though it no longer truly belonged to her.

Ruby Rose had done this. All those Huntsmen hadn't. All those teachers hadn't. Even Ozpin himself had failed. None of the people who had spent years trying to stop her had managed it. It had been a girl. A silver-eyed little huntress who had stumbled into Beacon Tower at exactly the wrong moment and, by some impossible twist of fate, had left Cinder scarred, maimed, and crawling into the wilderness to survive.

Her hand clenched, and the flame surged outward, racing across the cave floor before shrinking back into her palm.

She despised Ruby Rose, and even that felt inadequate. Whatever burned inside her had outgrown hatred. After all, hatred dulled with time. But this sharpened, every memory of Beacon feeding it until it settled in her chest like a furnace that refused to cool.

She remembered Pyrrha Nikos turning to ash. Ozpin falling. The tower crumbling beneath her feet. She had won. The Fall Maiden’s power was hers.

Then the silver light came. One impossible flash. After that there had only been pain.

When she finally woke, Emerald had been crying, and Mercury wouldn’t meet her eye. Even Salem had regarded her with something dangerously close to disappointment.

Ruby had taken far more than an eye. She had shattered the certainty Cinder had carried her entire life.

Before Beacon, people looked at her with fear, lust, and begrudging respect. Afterwards, they looked at her as though she had become something broken.

The memory made bile rise in her throat, and she drove her fist into the stone wall. Cracks spread beneath her knuckles.

“I’ll kill you.” The words came out in a strangled hiss. 

It would have been easy to imagine driving a blade through Ruby’s heart and being done with it. But that was too easy. Death was an ending. Mercy, even.

No, Ruby deserved to watch everything she loved slip through her fingers first. Her friends. Her family. Every person foolish enough to believe the girl could protect them. Cinder would strip them away one by one, leaving just enough hope for Ruby to cling to before tearing that away too.

Only after Ruby understood what it meant to lose everything would Cinder finally allow her to die.

A smile tugged at the corner of her mouth.

For the first time since waking in this miserable cave, the ache in her body seemed to retreat. Revenge had a way of eclipsing everything else.

She closed her eye and reached for the power buried within her. The magic answered without hesitation, and warmth spread through her chest before racing down her arm, gathering in her palm until ribbons of fire danced between her fingers. One became several, weaving through the stale air before scattering into glowing embers.

Better.

The power no longer felt like something she had stolen. It was settling into her, becoming instinct instead of theft. Every day it answered more readily than the last.

Ruby had caught her off guard once. That was all. There would be no second miracle, no blinding silver light to snatch victory away at the final moment. Next time Cinder would know exactly where to strike.

A tremor rolled through the cave, shaking dust from the ceiling. She ignored it. Underground collapses were hardly uncommon this far beneath Sanus.

Her thoughts drifted back to Ruby. She imagined the girl’s confidence crumbling, Crescent Rose slipping from nerveless fingers, and silver eyes stripped of that infuriating hope.

The ground shuddered again.

This time the fire hovering above Cinder’s hand guttered.

She frowned and finally looked toward the cave mouth.

Beyond it, the underground lake had gone unnaturally still.