Though now she lived in the districts, she was capitol born. She knew all of his hardships and never looked at him any differently. She handled him with such gentleness, and kindness. She was a rare bird, His Nightingale. Just like he had been for h...
MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE! 🎄🎁✨ We're over 1k reads. Thank you all so much! I hope you enjoy my Christmas gift to you all. Chapter 10! Earlier than planned.
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When he made it home, the Grandma'am took one look at him and told him to go take a nap before supper. He fell on his bed, feeling too stressed to ever sleep again. The next thing he knew, Tigris was gently shaking him awake. A tray rested on his night table with a bowl of comforting noodle soup. Sometimes the butcher would give her chicken carcasses for free, and she'd boil them into something wonderful.
"Coryo," she said. "Satyria has called three times, and I'm out of excuses. Come on, eat your supper and call her back."
"Did she ask about Clemensia? Does everyone know?" he blurted out.
"Clemensia Dovecote? No. Why would she?" Tigris asked.
"It was so awful." He told her the story in all its gory detail. As he spoke, the color left her face.
"Dr. Gaul made the snakes bite her? Over a little white lie like that?"
"She did. And she didn't care at all whether Clemmie survives or not," he said. "She just shooed me out so she could get her afternoon snack."
"That's sadistic. Or completely demented," said Tigris. "Should you report her?"
"To who? She's the Head Gamemaker," he said. "She works directly with the president. She'll say it was our fault for lying."
Tigris thought it over. "All right. Don't report her. Or confront her. Just try and avoid her as much as possible."
"That's hard as a mentor. She keeps showing up to the Academy. Playing with this rabbit mutt and asks all these crazy questions. One word from her it could make or break my prize." He rubbed his face with his hands. "With Arachne's dead, Clemensia all full of venom, and Juniper... well, that's another really awful story. With the way things are looking now, I doubt she'll make it to the Games, and part of me...part of thinks maybe that's for the best."
Tigris placed a spoon into his hand. "Eat your soup. We've gotten through worse than this. Snow lands on top?"
"Snow lands on top," he said with so little conviction they had to laugh. It made him feel a bit more normal. He took a few bites of soup to please her, then realized he was starving and made short work of it.
When Satyria called again, he almost launched into his confession, but it turned out that all she wanted to do was ask him to sing the anthem at Arachne's funeral in the morning.
"Your heroics at the zoo, combined with the fact that you're the only one who knows all the words, made you the faculty's first choice."
