32. Caspyn
Chapter 32
The loss of Ziah’s hero worship did not last more than a few hours.
When he brought me food alongside Lyani a few hours later it had returned. Worse, it appeared to be amplified. His eyes were glossed over as he stuttered and mumbled and lay food before me like I was a lord, even tripping over his own feet as he tried to back out of the tent in a bow. Two days later and that same intensity was still staring at me, this time from across the fire.
After that first night, Lyani had informed me I needed to eat my meals with the rest of them and stop acting like they were going to skin me alive.
So I was sitting with the rest of them, the firelight flickering over smiling faces and turning them ominous. As though they truly would skin me alive. My magic was still nothing more than a warm buzz under my skin as I continued to heal, but it didn’t matter, I would take them all with my bare hands if I had to. Even if I would have to endure Lyani’s wrath at the possibility of injuring myself.
I did not want to be this close to any of them, but it was either this, or I starve.
I would have preferred starvation. Seeing as I was still healing, if I wanted to get out of there and defeat the Queen, I would need sustenance. So, I sat around the fire, digging into a goat stew that was far better than it should have been considering how stale the veggies were.
The last two nights that I had been forced to eat with them had been without incident, no howling, no dancing, barely even a song. Possibly because Ryndle had gone missing. I hadn’t seen him since Ziah had gone to report me as a Fae hunter. He had turned, vanished, and no one seemed to know where he had gone.
Now he was back, and my luck to evade the religious zealots and their oddities had worn out.
“Tonight, I would like to revisit a story from the Book of the Goddess, a story that I believe will give us a clue into our path and the future that waits for all of us,” Ryndle said from where he sat across the massive fire from me, Ziah only two seats away from him. The boy only broke focus with me to agree to hearing the tale with as much fervor as the rest of them. Agreements, excitement, and low cheers circled the group at Ryndle’s suggestion.
I, however, grumbled my disdain before tucking back into my stew. There was no way I was going to be subjected to a sermon from an ancient book that they liked to tattoo themselves with. The quicker I could eat my food, the quicker I could escape back to my tiny tent.
Unfortunately, my grumble of frustration had been far too loud and now everyone in the circle was staring in horror. Each of their golden tattoos sparkled in the firelight as though those winding words were staring at me in abhorrence as well.
“Caspyn, do you have something against a story from our past?” Ryndle asked, as though he hadn’t vanished for two days. But there he sat, smiling as though he was enjoying this.
He probably was.
“A story from our past?” I asked, refusing to look away from the look he was giving me. “I thought you said it was a story from The Book of the Goddess?” It was either that or some other religious fallacy that I was sure they had been reciting each morning. Just thinking of being any closer to those prayer circles than I was forced to be was making my skin crawl.
Ryndle chuckled, his bright eyes seeming almost gold in the fire light as he leaned toward me, the echo of his laugh filtering through his followers.
“Aren’t they one in the same?”
I narrowed my eyes, “Religion and history?”
“Yes.” He nodded, sitting back on the log he had perched himself on. Every time he did that, he always folded his arms over his chest, the words that were inked there shifting and glittering in the light.
For some reason, with the firelight reflecting against the ink, I saw what I had missed before. One word stood out from the others, the lines tangled over one another so that it looked like a design rather than those foreign letters. Now, however, the word was clear.
Ryndle.
He had tattooed his own name on himself. I would find it odd if Ziah hadn’t shown me the same.
“Religion and history are the basis of it all, aren’t they?” he continued. “The history of the Goddess and the sister and the war that split the world? The war that split magic.” He leaned forward, arms still folded as I stiffened, the way he said ‘magic’ pulling me to attention. “The war that supposedly ended the Fae.”
He spoke slowly, clearly, his voice low as everything in the camp faded away. I wasn’t sure anyone else had noticed the change, they were all too enamored with the coming sermon. But now, I was right there with them.
The bastard did know something.
“Religion. Histories. They are one in the same.” Ryndle leaned back again, our focus still locked on one another.
“Perhaps. But I have a feeling your tale may be more on the religious side.” Which I had no interest in, no matter how he looked at me. No matter how much I was sure that he knew more than he was letting on.
“You might be right. But you would have to hear the tale to know for sure.” This man and his wide, secret smiles. They made my skin crawl, a sensation made worse as they all smiled the same way when they assumed they had won, and they all seemed to win a lot.
“Tell me, Caspyn,” he continued, the fire popping between us. “What do you know of the war that split magic, the war that banished the sister and sent the Fae into exile?”
I sat back as though I had been slapped, a dangerous pull working its way up my spine as my magic boiled to attention deep within me.
The Fae into exile? Not death. He had phrased it that way before, but beyond him I had never heard that. I had heard they had been sent to death, to banishment, yes, but those are very different things than exile.
“What do you know, Caspyn, light bringer?” he asked again, my lip curling at the title. I snarled at him in warning, the sound lost as everyone gazed at their leader with an adoration that bordered on obsession.
“I know that the Goddess fought with the first Ramal to banish the Fae,” I said, begrudgingly. “That the Goddess and the Ramal declared war to punish them for taking the Lynar’s magic and in turn they split it apart, turning what was the strong magic of the Lynar into branches.” It was what everyone knew, it was the story that was told before a fire on cool evenings when there was nothing else to discuss.
Of course, that had not been the story I had been told around my hearth as a child. I had been raised with the story of The Queen and how she took control, how she slaughtered the Catalysts and how the princess had faced her, about how the powerful Elara had failed but had promised to return to save them all.
It was only after I met Jayse that I had really heard the story of the Goddess. In the world I was raised in, no one cared about that, they only wanted to find solace from the tyranny of the Queen.
I couldn’t very well tell him that, however.
“You know what has been passed down, then. What has been shared by priests and at hearths. Would you like to hear what is written in the Book of the Goddess?” I really didn’t, especially not with that wide haunted smile still painted on his face. My hands flinched, as though I could simply reach for my blades and find whatever he knew.
There was something in that look, the same look that he had given me the other day, that was pulling me forward, even as my soul rebelled against it.
“Not really. But if the last few days are any indication, you are going to tell me anyway.” A few of those around the fire laughed. Even Lyani smiled before she turned her head away from me.
“You are correct about that. I believe this history might be more important to you than you think, Caspyn. In the days of the Fae there was a good King who had two daughters–” I cut him off with a laugh.
“In the days of the Fae?” I repeated what he had said, laughing again. “I thought this was the story of the Goddess and the Black War that divided magic.”
“It is,” he nodded once, his lips pulling up as he leaned in, that look of his cutting right through me.
“Didn’t you know that the Goddess and the sister were Fae?” His voice lightened as he grinned. He was playing with me. I wouldn’t have cared if I wasn’t still trying to wrap my mind around what he had said. “It is written in the books, although that fact seems to have been forgotten. The Goddess, Leilan, and her sister, Cassia, were Fae, the daughters of a Fae king.”
“Her sister?” I interrupted again, sending a wave of murmurs through the group. Ryndle, however, was still enjoying himself.
“Yes. Not the sister as many say, but her sister. It seems there is much you do not know, although we may never reach the story if you keep interrupting me.” He was playing, leading me into the story until I was trapped like a spider in his wicked web.
I glowered at him, and he smiled. Just another of his tricks.
That’s all he had. Tricks with words. Once he returned my blades, I would show him some others.
“The King of the Fae promised his eldest daughter, Cassia, to a mate from a high born family. They were to rule together, but the male was a wicked man with a vile temper. She refused to follow that path, for she loved another, a Lynar man. She gave up her title and birthright to be with the one she loved, leaving her younger sister, Leilan, to mate and bed the cruel Fae male and take up the mantle of the Queen of the Fae. After centuries living under the cruelty of her mate however, Leilan had become cruel herself, and decided to seek out her sister to demand retribution for the life she had left her in. When Leilan found Cassia, she was married, with three children of her own. Three children who had inherited the magic of the Fae from their mother.”
“Let me guess, the pillars of light you were telling me about.” Ryndle’s eyes sparked before continuing on, all of the Lightens around him listening with rapt attention even though they had clearly heard this story before.
I, however, was lost. This was nothing like what I had heard before, nor did it have anything to do with the war.
“Leilan was furious, jealous of the life her sister had while she had been left to pain and torture. Leilan tried to kill Cassia in what she saw as retribution, but Cassia’s magic was strong, and her younger sister could not best her. So, the younger built herself an army of Lynar to take her, and when Cassia was captured by the powerful magic users, the younger sister made her pay for the cruelty she endured under the fist of the Fae. Leilan took the children of her elder sister and slaughtered them.”
A few of those who listened gasped and clutched their hands to their hearts in obvious horror. I didn’t dare move, I didn’t dare breathe, even as every muscle in me flared and tightened at the memory of Lilly falling into the black, and Jack being whisked into smoke, and Amari… Amari standing alone. The bright power of my fire roared right to the surface, stronger than it had ever been.
It pushed against my skin, growling like a living thing. The fire between us sparked and grew, embers flying through the air in a shower, as though someone had called to it.
“In her pain,” Ryndle continued, oblivious to the fire and the snarling danger that was roaring inside of me. “Cassia went to her father, the King of the Fae, and told him what Leilan had done. The King and Cassia declared war against the younger sister, but she had already built herself an army of Lynar, the ancient people who carry a remnant of magic of the Fae.”
“The Lynar,” I interrupted, “You say they have Fae magic, not that the Fae stole their magic as the stories say.”
“I do. I have always known the Fae to have magic, but I assume you know that as well. Fae who are not supposed to have magic that suddenly do.”
I shifted, subconsciously reaching for the blades that were not there. My magic rumbled and growled under my skin as Ryndle’s knowing gaze burrowed into me. I didn’t dare look at Ziah.
“The stories say that the Fae–”
“Odd thing about stories,” this time he interrupted me. “They can be changed, mutated to fit those who have need of them. Who enslaved who, who stole what magic. It’s all an abstract thing, isn’t it?”
“All stories can be changed, Ryndle,” he didn’t even flinch as I said his name. “Including this one.”
“True. Then, perhaps I will tell it the way that you know. About how the elder Leilan saved the Lynar from the Fae rather than the truths that I know, that she used them to build her own army. Either way, the Lynar were under her thumb as she declared herself a Goddess and drove them into war against her sister.”
“The Goddess and the sister,” I whispered, putting the next piece together. A few people nodded even though I was sure I had only whispered. Ryndle nodded before he continued, roaring the story to life before the flames.
“Yes, it was in the beginning that the Goddess stole the mind of her sister’s lover, turning him against her as she made him the first Ramal, made him fight against the one that he loved. The sister was fighting for her life and the family that had been taken from her, but was fighting against the man who she had left everything for. The Goddess and the sister fought for a century, the Fae trying again and again to reach the Goddess through her army of Lynar, the sister fighting again and again to end the Goddess who had become cruel and twisted toward the Lynar.
In the end, they met at the end of the Forest of Ok, and in a rage they fought. The Goddess pushed the Fae back, sending them into exile. The sister would not accept defeat, however, she vowed to stop her younger sister. She vowed to send her light to end Leilan, to take the Goddess’ life in return for the blood of her children that was spilt.”
Ryndle ended the story with a flourish, a few of his followers gasping and clapping as he took his seat.
“What happened next?” I hated that I was suddenly interested. I hated more that Ryndle enjoyed it.
“That we do not know, not yet.”
“But that’s not… that’s nothing…” I wasn’t even sure how to voice all of the questions that were rumbling in my head.
“Is there a problem, Caspyn?” Ryndle asked, settling back in his seat now that he had finished his very dramatic presentation.
“Where is the enslavement of Lynar by the Fae, the severing of magic?” I asked, my mind wading through everything he had said.
“As I said, things can be changed to suit the interests of others. This is no different. I believe you will find the truth.”
There were his damn riddles again.
“Are you sure you aren’t a Izyarian witch, Ryndle? You speak like one.” I snarled and sat back against the barrel I had perched myself against. There was no getting answers out of him now. If I had my blades I could easily get answers out of him. Of course, my magic was healed enough that I was sure I could get answers out of him that way.
“Not a witch, although I have known many in my years.” My focus snatched over to him, but he only smiled with the vile secretive look of his. “All things make sense in time, Caspyn. I first heard that story at the knee of my grandfather as he read it from The Book. I share it here because I want it to live on, I do not wish it to mutate as so many histories have such a way of doing.” Several of his followers nodded in agreement at that, Ryndle nodding alongside them before he continued. “I want my people to be prepared for when she returns so that we can help her in her quest.”
“When she returns? The Goddess or the sister?”
He shrugged, “There is only one who will return to save the ones lost in the war, that will save magic. She will return to save us all.”
The fire stopped its crackling, the stars blinking out as the breath locked in my chest.
She will return to save us all.
It was the same verbiage as with the Princess Elara, the princess who faced the Queen before she ended the Catalysts. Princess Elara who faced her mother before the crimson stained altar and was to come back and save us all. A Goddess who was to come back and save us all.
The tale that Da had told us in hushed tones around the fire, it wasn’t about Princess Elara. What if it was about another princess, the Fae princess who vowed to return and save them from the Goddess.
It couldn’t be both, not when the Princess Elara was sickly and dying. There was no way she could face the Queen, because she never did. It was The Goddess who everyone worshiped.
Everyone but the Lightens, it seemed. Nothing in that story said the Lightens worshiped her. It was the sister they looked on with awe. It was her book they read, her temple that we traveled to.
But then, didn’t everyone journey to that temple, didn’t all follow that book? Why did Okivo worship the Goddess if these people followed the sister?
Everything had become twisted and backwards in a millennium of time, and if Ryndle and his story was to be believed, it would continue to mutate into the tale of the Princess Elara returning to save them all.
“May we always wait for the lights’ return.” They all said into the silence as Ryndle and I continued to stare each other down. The solemn prayer echoed in my head as what they had said slowly sunk in.
Not her return, the lights’ return.
The three pillars of light.
The three children.
It was all lore and histories and prophecies that right then I couldn’t give two shits about. Tales from zealots. Right then, the biggest problem was that if I was right, and that language about her returning was only stolen from a religion that dwindled in the next eighty years, then the Princess Elara wasn’t going to make some grand return to save them all. She sure as shit couldn’t save anything. She and her Catalyst had probably died before that bloody alter and I’ve been chasing nothing but fucking ghosts.
In his last few breaths Theadore had said that I should kill the princess and take her magic, which suddenly made sense if she wasn’t due to return.
I no longer knew what I was heading into, but if I needed to give Lily a chance at having a life. Give Amari a long life. And Jayse…
If I was going to give any of them a chance, I needed to hurry.
It was up to me to kill the Queen, to kill the princess.
To end them all before anything had a chance to begin.