Chapter 57 Cassiel
The shrine is quiet. I can feel the warmth of the light on my face, slanting through the stained glass. Morning sun, too bright for a day like this. The air smells faintly of incense and flowers, but underneath it, always, is the sharpness of blood and stone and loss.
I kneel beside Evander’s body. I know he’s there—I reached out earlier, felt the silk of the shroud, the fold of the banner laid across his chest, the bump in his nose from where I broke it as a boy. At the time, I thought I’d never feel more guilty for anything in my life.
But now I do. I feel guilty that I ever fell in love with Wren Thornvale.
They’ll move him soon, take him to the royal vault to lie beside our father. Another body I didn’t get to say goodbye to. Another goodbye I never imagined saying.
I’m the Crown Prince now.
The Regent, until—or if—my mother wakes. The healers are optimistic, but I’m not sure. It has been three days since the attack now, and still she sleeps. There’s such an awful silence to her, and I don’t blame her if she doesn’t want to return to a world without Evander in it.
I sit with her sometimes, in the deep hours of the night. She never stirs. I hold her hand and wonder if she hears me. I wonder if she knows Evander is gone.
The castle feels hollow now. The fey who survived the attack were rounded up and killed within hours. Most chose to end their own lives rather than risk interrogation. We have no intel, no understanding of what happened.
Of why I was spared.
I’ve done some research on Nubaia—Wren’s grandmother, from what I’ve been able to piece together. She’s an ancient, powerful fey shapeshifter who favours birds. When she fell from the ramparts, no one found a body. I’m not surprised. There’s no way she’s dead.
They say she’s the one who killed my father.
Did Wren know that, I wonder? Did she hold my hand and teach me how to fight and kiss me and hold me, knowing what her grandmother had done?
I might never know. No one’s found her, either.
I tell myself she’s gone, but some part of me—traitorous, stubborn—doesn’t believe it. I think I’d know if she were dead. I think I’d feel it. I don’t know if I want her to be. Maybe that would be easier. Cleaner.
Because my brother is still dead. And whether she meant to or not, that’s on her.
I love you, she’d said. Whatever happens next, remember that.
Was that the truth, or another manipulation, meant to catch me off guard so that she could get the drop on me? As long as I live, I don’t think I’ll forget the feeling of her hands drawing on my neck, slick with blood, before my entire body turned boneless.
I’m not sure how long I lay there, unable to move, to speak, to see. It wasn’t that long in the grand scheme of things, but it seemed to stretch on forever before Fellwood found me and washed the mark from my skin.
Wren is fey. Wren was sent here by our enemies. Wren used magic on me.
Wren is gone.
So is Evander.
I lean closer, brushing my fingers over the edge of the shroud. “What were you trying to tell me?” I ask.
What would you tell me now, if you were still here?
I press my hand to my mouth, breathing hard. The memory of his voice comes back too clearly—strained and wet with blood.
Wren. She tried to… she tried…
Tried to do what?
I don’t want to believe she’s the one that killed him. But I don’t want to believe she’s fey, either, and I know that that’s true.
In the end, I’m not sure her intentions matter. Evander is dead because of her, Evander and so many others, their bodies reduced to ash. So many people are dead because she came into my life, because I trusted her.
Because I loved her.
The silence stretches, thick and final.
In my heart, I make a vow.
I swear to bury what I felt for her. The ache. The confusion. The hollow place where hope used to live. I won’t let it distract me again. I’ll finish what she started. I’ll make sure no one else loses a brother to their war.
I’ll make them pay.
There’s a faint whisper of movement in the corner of the shrine—no footsteps, just air shifting. I tense, turning my head.
“Who’s there?”
Nothing answers.
I strain, listening.
There it is again—soft, almost delicate. A rustle.
But a second later, there’s a flap of wings. It’s just a bird.
I’m completely alone.
I will find you, Serawen Ashwood. And I will make you pay.