Myth Breaker

04| Sunlight

CEDRIC POV

I push past the pine needles of the tree and come out on the other side of the school, the back painted in the soft yellow glow of the early morning sun that had just started rising somewhere behind us. My body is shaking with the after-effects of adrenaline still skating around in my veins.

"You did good, kid." Behind me, Mr. Hunt pushes through the same path. I scoff back at him, I did horrible and we both know it. Mr. Hunt just shakes his head, a few pine needles falling silently to the ground around him.

I realize that his words had forced me to stop walking, I move my gaze from him, watching the trees trying to keep my anger at me.

"If I was half as good as you and Lucian tell me I am, we wouldn't need to come out every single night." My words are stressed and tense but Mr. Hunt patiently watches the anger coursing around my body.

He shakes his head.

"Cedric, you are the best fighter this school has ever seen, I can promise you that. However no one is perfect the first time and you need to accept that it's okay to fall down, that winning is just as much about failing as it is coming first."

I scoff again and turn my back on him looking at the room of the school slowly filling with light, wondering if Lucian will be up and waiting for me already.

"Failing is losing and right now we don't have the luxury to lose. Not now and not anymore." He doesn't say anything back, instead, Mr. Hunt allows me to storm my way across the small grassy field and into the backdoor of the school left unlocked for me, close enough to our dorms.

As soon as I close the door behind me I know he's there waiting for me. I sigh, as much as I don't want to have this conversation and just head to the comfort of my warm bed I know we need to talk. It just won't work out the way I know he wants it to. Nothing works out the way we want.

I breathe in deeply before heading towards the small seating area where I find Lucian waiting on the large comfortable sofa, he's watching the last of the fire slowly dying down. No one had put in the new logs of the fire sitting, waiting right besides it before going to bed last night. I think about it briefly but instead, throw myself on the leather recliner next to Lucian with a loud groan.

Neither of us speak for a while instead of just sit there waiting for the other to start. I don't know how long it takes before Lucian finally sits up in his chair and I look over at him. His eyes filled with worry and nerves, he was scared for me and everyone else. He places so much pressure on himself that one day he's going to be crushed by it.

"How was it?" His voice is so low and I know that he already knows from the way I had walked in here. I sigh loudly and turn away from him back to the fire.

"I failed." I don't elaborate and he doesn't ask me to. An understanding passing through us.

"It's fine you'll get it soon." He promises but it doesn't soothe me as he expects. Instead, his words send a new spark of adrenaline through my body and I sit up straighter copying his stance as I glare into the fire.

"Maybe I won't."

He doesn't look at me, his eyes focused on the fire as I take the moment to really take him in.

"Cedric, you will get this. You just need to work harder, push yourself further." His words rub me the wrong way and suddenly it's like my insides are on fire burning to open my anger out on the world. I have to swallow the pain down for a second.

"What if I don't want to, what if pushing myself further ends in innocent people getting hurt?" I'm angry, I yell - I scream - the words and I feel the chair below me shaking with my anger but besides a quick glare from Lucian, he doesn't say anything about it. I try taking a calming breath but the oxygen just burns its way into my lungs.