Chapter 55 Cassiel
The world is noise. Screams. Crashes. Shouts. It all blurs together in a mess of chaos I can’t make sense of. I stumble through it, hands brushing walls, outstretched for something—anything—familiar. I’ve lost my cane. I’ve lost all sense of where I am.
“Mother?” I call out, louder than I mean to. “Evander? Wren?”
Her name slips out like a mistake. But I don’t take it back. Not even now.
I still want her to be safe. Or maybe I just need her to tell me why. There’s so much for her to explain, if she dies now—
Heat blasts through the air. A wave of it, blistering and bright across my skin. It prickles across my face, crawls down my arms. I stagger, choking on the air—it’s thick with ash and something else. Something metallic.
And then it’s gone.
Silence.
No flames. No screams. Just… heat. And the smell.
Smoke. Charred stone, burning fabric.
Flesh.
I inch forward, a hand to the wall, the other groping the air like I can ward off the dread pooling in my gut.
“Hello?” I try again. My voice breaks. “Is anyone—”
“Cass…”
It’s Evander’s voice. But it’s wrong—strained and thin, like it’s coming from somewhere far away.
“Ev?” I whisper, stumbling toward the sound. “Evander, where—”
“Here…”
I drop to my knees. My hand lands in something slick and warm. I flinch, forcing myself forwards, crawling until my fingers meet cloth, skin, the solid weight of my brother’s chest.
“Are you hurt?” I ask, voice already climbing into panic. “Evander—are you—”
“Yes.”
Pain laces his voice. Fear slashes through mine.
“Help!” I shout, louder now, desperation cracking through. “Someone! The crown prince is—”
Evander’s hand closes over mine. There’s something final in it. Like he knows. Like I should know.
I feel the blood now. Sticky beneath my knees. It’s all around us.
“You’re bleeding,” I whisper. “Where? Gods, where—”
“I’m not bleeding anymore,” he murmurs. His breath hitches.
He’s clearly losing too much blood.
“Help!” I scream again. “Please, someone!”
Evander squeezes my hand. “Don’t shout, Cass.”
“It’s all right,” I tell him, because it has to be. Because any other outcome is unthinkable. “Someone will be here soon. They’ll fix you right up—”
“Cass…”
I don’t like the way he’s saying my name. I wrench my arm out of his, patting down his body, searching for the wound myself.
He lets out a sharp inhale when my fingers press against something in his middle. It’s not a bleeding wound, though. It’s a burn.
“Wren,” Evander says. “She tried to… she tried—” He swallows, wet and shaky.
I’m not sure what he’s trying to say. What did Wren try to do? Help him? Or… or hurt him?
“I… I really wish I’d asked the bard to dance,” Evander whispers.
It’s the last thing he says.
His body stills beneath my fingers. There’s no sound. No breath. No heartbeat.
Just stillness.
I press my forehead to his chest and wait for his heart to start thumping again. Because it has to. He can’t be gone. He can’t be.
I wait. I beg. I plead, praying to the Saints, to any power that might hear me.
But his chest stays still.
Evander is gone, and there is nothing I can do but scream.