#capitol!everlark

She reaches up and unclips the armor from one shoulder. The bullet proof material is designed to look feathered. She holds it out to the camera.

“The forests of Twelve are full of beautiful songbirds, called mockingjays,” she says. “A jabberjay is a mockingjay’s father, and a wild mockingbird is its mother. They are both Capitol and district … and neither of those things. People of Panem — ” She puts the armor back on, and then stops, suddenly at a loss for words. Finally, she manages a soft, “please” and hopes that will suffice.

And here we are! Last chapter of Burning Brightly! There is one more story left to go in this series, the four-perspective epilogue, And the Rain Comes In, that will wrap up the war and the postwar for the Mellark family. I hope you’ll stick around for that … but in the meantime …

Here is Chapter Three!

Please heed the warnings in the tags and in the author’s note. There are some elements of this chapter that are not “The Usual Cate Brand” so to speak, so just be aware of that. Onward!

Thank you to everyone who has commented and reblogged and liked. It means the world. ♥️

a little Capitol!Everlark, anyone?

She mumbles the words, and he looks over at her. The cold wind blows her hair against her cheeks as they sit on the roof, watching the party below. His first instinct is to reach and push her hair back behind her ear, but he doesn’t. The lights, even from way up here, reflect in the silver of her irises. A kaleidoscope of color, of chaos. Wild and manic and bright. Like her.

“I’ve never fallen from quite this high,” she whispers, and he wonders if it’s possible to hear madness in someone’s voice.

“Well, I wouldn’t recommend it,” he tells her, and he hears it in his voice, too. The madness. The light. The chaos. It’s from the purple smoke that cloaked the room inside, clung to your lungs, the kind that makes everything fun and hazy. The kind that slurs your voice, your thoughts, your reason, until flying off a rooftop seems possible.

Except she isn’t talking about flying. She’s talking about falling.

“Does it hurt, do you think?” And she looks at him with those eyes. He knows she won’t actually do it—the force field prevents it, anyway—but he thinks he knows what she means.

Falling.

He feels like he’s doing it now. Feels the wind burning his skin, the gravity pulling him in, the rush and the fear.

“I want you,” he says, strained and miserable. “Or — I wish — I wish I could want you.”

“I wish I could want you too,” she says. “It’ll be easier when this is over, when we’re home. It — it has to be. You promised me, remember? This is ours.”

“Yeah,” he says sourly. “Ours and half of Panem’s.”

Katniss and Peeta fight for their family and their freedom, from the Games, the Capitol ... and from the secrets that still plague them.

Burning Brightly is up!

I have had to split this fourth installment of The Light and the Red into three chapters, to be published within a few days of each other.

Here is Chapter One!

“I wish,” she breathes into the hollow of his throat after the hiccups are gone, “I wish we could live in this moment forever.”

“I wish that too.”

Maybe there’s something to it. Something about the enchantment of this house. Maybe if they don’t move or make a noise, they’ll be washed away on the current to a place where sunrise never comes.

Thank you to everyone who has shared and commented on Burning Brightly! You’ve made my week!

Chapter Two is up!

It is shorter than the previous chapter, and sweeter, so enjoy the family fluff while it lasts. The third and final chapter will be up near the end of the week!

If the City Never Sleeps(Then That Makes Two)  - arollercoasterthatonlygoesup

Panem’s Daughter - Dustwriter

The Highest Bidder - ktface3

Savior - Miss Mustang

Behind the Veil, Beneath the Shroud - ghtlovesthg

Five Loaves of Bread: Dark Toast - aimmyarrowshigh (and Dustwriter’s unofficial follow-up What to Fight For)

The Wish - misshoneywell

Portrait of a Victor - sponsormusings

I’m sorry this took forever! Hope you enjoy.

Katniss and I used to play in the large field on the outskirts of the city. Not many people tended to go out there - too dirty and natural for their liking. But I loved it because Katniss loved it. There was something about the open air that helped her, allowed her to breathe easier and clearer than she could in the city center. So I indulged her in these visits.

Often times, we played Tributes and Victors - and she was always the Victor. I didn’t mind. Each day we went I came up with a way to die that was more ostentatious than the last.

"I…I can’t go on now. This is just too hard."

And she’d laugh and laugh and sometimes point at me, exclaiming that I wasn’t as strong as her because she was from One and I was from lowly Twelve - because I always seemed to be from District 12 whereas she could be from anywhere.

It was a good game and a way to pass the time. We grew out of it eventually, favoring to bet on the real tributes rather than pretend to be them. My tributes, the ones that I placed bets on, always seemed to win. Katniss hated that. She hated that I could read them when she herself could not. I tried to tell her that the games are more about head and strategy than they are brute force (although that certainly plays a role too) but she never listened.

I bet on Johanna Mason when everyone called me dumb for it. Look who won.

I bet on Annie Cresta too for that matter.

I even bet on Madge Undersee. It was the one year that Katniss won too because she bet on Gale Hawthorne and they won together.

The only year I lost was the year after the war. The first and only Hunger Games where I was eligible for the Reaping. I didn’t get picked but it was the scariest day of my life. And that’s saying something when the last months were spent cowering in war torn streets.

Katniss was chosen first and of course I bet on her. She was always the strongest and the perfect one among us. It seemed like a no brainer.

Besides, she was the president’s granddaughter. Of course she would win.

I still remember that last day watching her. She looked so fragile and broken, huddled in some cave shaking.

And she was talking to me.

"Peeta, I can’t do it…it’s just too hard."