— juneaux —

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I don't remember much of the victory tour through the districts. Simply an uncountable number of prying eyes that stared as I rambled through whatever speech Esmé had written for me. If asked to recite anything I'd said, I doubt I'd be able to.

The train ride was just as memorable. Slightly better food than what I'd been living on in district nine, but even that paled in comparison to the phantom memories replaying themselves during my waking moments. And even though the white tablecloth was pristine, the red stain from Harlan's spilled juice was still ingrained in my mind. The soft pitter patter of his feet as he followed me back to my room. His presence at my side as neither of us truly ever slept. The gentle conversations of broken promises and memories of an even more distant past.

"Linette liked to dance," Harlan said as I brushed through his wet curls. He sat cross-legged on my bed, playing mindlessly with the silver moon charm on his necklace. "It was magical, watching her out in the fields as she twirled with the grain. She was good too, probably could have been a professional if we had the money for lessons."

"Marcus liked to sing," I slowly shared. It hadn't been easy to speak of my brother then, especially not while his doppelgänger was sat before me. However, the more I opened up, the easier it was to smile and reflect on the memory. "He was tone-deaf and lacked all sense of rhythm, but that never stopped him from doing the things he enjoyed. He did have a knack for playing blades of grass like a kazoo. I could never figure it out, but it was never a challenge for him. He would've sat in the fields and created little songs all day if he could."

"I think they would've liked each other," Harlan determined with a nod of his head and a gentle yawn.

"I do too," I agreed with a whisper as he began to nod off, leaning back against me for support.

I don't know why that's the memory I chose to remember as I sat on the bed we once shared. Maybe because it was delicate and hadn't been tainted by the horrors of what was to come. True, it hurt to reflect on those that we'd already lost before fate had declared our names at the reaping ceremony; however, it was cathartic to speak with someone who understood. Harlan didn't fill the hole that Marcus had left. He mended it. Not replacing the brother I'd lost, but becoming a new one.

"We've arrived," Caius announced, clearing his throat as he knocked on the doorframe of the room.

"Thanks," I sniffed and quickly wiped away the tears gathering in my eyes. "I assume Cypress has big plans for this evening."

"Grand," Caius corrected. "I think the exact word he used was grand."

"Of course it was," I scoffed, playfully rolling my eyes as if chastising myself for even thinking otherwise. "I doubt he knows any other way."

"A fair assumption," Caius agreed. His gaze softened as he noticed the way my fingers lingered on the sun charm hanging from the delicate golden chain around my neck. "It belonged to his sister, right?"

I glanced down at the sun, allowing it to rest just below my clavicle once more as my hands dropped to my side while I nodded ever so slightly. "Yeah... his parents said he'd have wanted me to have it."

Caius nodded along, remaining quiet for a moment. "I'd like to say it gets easier..."

"But then we'd both know you were lying," I finished his sentence after he dropped it. "Otherwise your drinking habits wouldn't have increased with the closer we drew to the Capitol."

"Which is still better than your morphling intake," Caius noted, redirecting whatever accusation I'd thrown into the air. "You realize what that stuff is capable of?"

"I understand enough," I countered defensively. "And it can't be much worse than whatever shape your liver is in."

Caius bristled, and appeared genuinely insulted by my implication. "I'm not an alcoholic. I know my limit."

"And how long did it take you to learn?" I asked, softening as if extending an apology. "All I need is time to figure out where my limit lies."

"Well it's my goal to make sure you don't kill yourself in the process," Caius retorted, crossing his arms as he stepped away from the doorframe and closer to my bedside.

"And why would that be so bad?" I muttered the question under my breath, slowly reaching my fingers up to trace the scar trailing my neck down to my clavicle. Although I wasn't actively trying to end my own life at this given time, I was hardly opposed to the idea after everything I'd endured in that arena. The last four months had been absolute hell—reliving a new memory each night from the nine weeks that I'd spent in the arena.

The longest game in the entire history of the hunger games. And the people of the Capitol were still on the fence about whether that was a positive or a negative. For a while I'm sure us fighting for our lives was entertaining in their eyes, the mundane every day tasks required to survive in that frigid wasteland was likely the opposite. However, Seneca Crane was claiming that game as the start to a long and successful career. That he was cooking up something even better for all the years to come. As if the murder of twenty-three children was something to be proud of.

"Smile." Esmé hissed between the sealed teeth of her obnoxiously faux grin.

Apparently the morphling had finally kicked in toward the end of my conversation with Caius, creating a thick haze of indifference as I was once more polished in gold to be placed on display for the Capitol. It could be said that Cypress was a man who could work wonders as every single look he offered never fell short of magnificent. Today was certainly no different as I followed a step behind Esmé up the steps of the Presidential Palace in a marble patterned dress of black and gold. Unfortunately, that's when the desireable effects of the morphling began wearing off, leaving me in a lucid state of trying to differentiate between hallucinations and reality.

"You really ought to smile to keep up appearances." Whatever hopes I'd had of seeing Harlan were dashed as Romulus stepped out of the shadows. He chuckled and shook his head as if feigning insult. "You look displeased to see me."

"Annoyed is the stronger word," I muttered under my breath, placing a false smile on my face as Esmé began leading me through the crowd.

"I know, I know." He sighed, holding up his hands as if they'd been tied. "We don't exactly have a choice of which one will surface whenever the drug's effects begin to wear off. And it's clear which one you prefer to have haunting you."

"It's not that I don't want to see you," I kept my voice low. "But you're hardly helpful in this environment."

"I'd say you could use some help charming the masses," Romulus countered, folding his arms behind his back. He looked stiff—rigid like a soldier prepared to be called into battle.

I scoffed and rolled my eyes. "I charmed this crowd long before you had. And not that I'm encouraging it, but which one of us claimed a title of royalty."

"Touché." He glanced around the room, observing the painted faces and surgically enhanced features of the Capitol attendants that the evening has summoned. "Then perhaps a strategic mind to keep you sharp. There's a lot of important people here this evening and we have an image to maintain if we want to win the game."

"There is no winning the game," I countered.

Romulus shook his head then gently pushed my chin to direct my gaze toward the balcony where the self-proclaimed Zeus surveyed all ongoing beneath him on Olympus. "Remember his deal."

"Harlan says I should live." The retort was weak—a pitiful excuse that even I saw through as just words.

"And I agree with him." Romulus was beginning to make my head spin as he bounced back and forth between sides. "But I wasn't ever one to force you to do anything you didn't want to."

Images of our shared final moments flickered through my mind. They way he emphasized over and over again that I would have to take a life should I want to live—and yet when it was just the two of us standing at the Cornucopia he'd fallen on his own sword to prevent any more blood from staining my hands.

"And somehow being alive is killing you worse than had you succeeded in that arena." Romulus almost looked apologetic. "Poisoning yourself to escape the horror and trap yourself in a past you can't change. Which is no way to live."

"Well thank you for that astute observation," I scoffed, but my eyes never left those of Snow. My gaze was hardly defiant, but it would not be easily subdued. The President looked mildly amused as our eyes locked. Unlike anyone else that risked looking in his direction, I did not immediately shy away. Perhaps it was hubris or plain idiocy, but I could not let him believe that I was less than he. For even if he was simply tolerating the titles of the game, he had still acknowledged I was queen. Little did I know how dangerous that word could truly be. For mere mortal men had a desire to claim what was not theirs, and a King often does what is necessary to quell the masses... or appease that own desire within.

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