35. Caspyn
Chapter 35
Ididn’t sleep well that night, possibly because there was still a healing hole in my abdomen that was throbbing incessantly. Every turn sent waves of pain and nausea through me, leaving me staring at the roof of the canvas tent as Ryndle’s story played on repeat.
Two sisters and a Goddess, who, the more I thought about the story, didn't seem as much like the savior that they were playing her out to be.
I shouldn’t care.
I shouldn’t care who The Goddess was. I shouldn’t care about that. I had one goal in my life: to end the queen.
To make her pay for all the lives that she would end, for every single Catalyst that she would end.
But wasn’t that the same as those sisters, that vendetta, that need for revenge that somehow ended in a war and the elimination of Fae? No, it had to be different, it was different, because while I would take revenge for what was done to my sister, I would also save them all.
Every last Catalyst.
The queen would be dead before she had a chance to enact whatever plan she was concocting.
Who cared if what I knew of Princess Elara was taken from some dying religion. Even if it was all a story, even if she could do nothing and was as magical as everyone claimed I would still see the queen dead. I would do it on my own.
Ryndle and his Goddess forsaken stories were muddying the waters. I needed to keep my focus.
I grunted as I rolled over, pain splitting up my side again.
“If you keep moving like that you will tear yourself open again.”
I growled at the intruder, which should have been enough warning for her to stay away. Instead, Lyani rushed in, the chill of morning following her before the tent flap settled behind her.
“What do you want, Lyani?” I didn’t even try to mask the snarl.
“I don’t want anything, especially not from you. I’m here to clean your bandages, same as I do every morning.”
“You come in here every morning and clean my bandages?” I sat up so quickly that pain flowered from knee to navel and I winced, Lyani rolled her eyes and shoved me back down, her frail body once again delivering surprising force.
“Don’t act so surprised. Or did you really not figure out where your new bandages were coming from every day?” She lifted a brow as she held me down. I had meant to sit, still irate at the knowledge that she was barging in there every morning, but the feeling was quickly staunched by the fact that no, I had not realized that someone had changed my bandages every morning.
“Really?” She laughed, clearly having read my expression. “How have you survived so long hunting Fae if you are that oblivious?”
“I’m not oblivious,” I was still snarling, the sound turning to something feral as she lifted my shirt, batting away my attempts to push her back as she went to work.
“If you have not noticed fresh bandages every day, then you are.” She gave me another disparaging look before she unwound the bandage which wasn’t as dirty as I expected, but still dirty enough that I felt a fool for not noticing.
Although, there was a reason for that.
“I haven’t looked at them.” I said as she reached the last layer. She froze in place, the final layer of soft cotton still wrapped around my abdomen.
“Why not? You’ve had wounds before. I wouldn’t think you were squeamish to the sight of healing flesh.” I shook my head and her lips pulled together before she removed the last layer of cotton with a not so friendly yank.
“It’s the words.” She was clearly upset.
“I don’t like them there.” I didn’t even hesitate to answer, just knowing they were there, talking about them, it brought that same rumbling rage right back.
“They are the words of the Goddess, Caspyn,” she snapped. She wasn’t even looking now. “They healed you.”
“You healed me as far as I am concerned.” I tried to place my hand over hers, to stop the harsh motions of her cloth as she moved to clean my skin.
“If that is what you think, then you are a fool. I could not heal you like this.” She gestured to the wound, but I kept my focus on her, purposefully staring into the anger that was sparking there. “For Goddess’s sake, Caspyn. Look at it.”
She shuffled back, damp cloth still in hand as she glared pointedly from me to the wound. She was stubborn, fiery, and I knew she would find a way to force me to look if I didn’t comply. So, for the first time since I saw the marks I looked at them, and looked at the perfectly unmarred skin underneath.
“What in Goddess, name,” I hissed, shuffling back as though I could move away from the perfect skin that was stretched there. I knew what I had seen before, but what I was seeing now, it was as though nothing had happened.
My bones ached as I stared at the skin, my magic rumbling as though it knew exactly what had happened.
“How is this possible?” I didn’t dare touch it, my fingers stretched above the skin as though an invisible barrier was keeping them there.
“I told you. By the power of the blood. You healed yourself, with the help of the magic of Okivo; of the words.” She was smug, if not a little proud of herself, but I didn’t care. I was still staring at the expanse of perfect skin.
Only then did I shift to look at the words, those glittering, golden lines as bright as that first day.
“The marks,” I asked hesitantly, my fingers shifting away as though the lines would infect them, too. “Now that I am healed, will they fade?”
She shook her head, “No, they will always be there. Now they have a different meaning, a different purpose. Instead of healing your wound, they can serve as protection.”
“Protection?” Something about that didn’t make much sense. “They are just words.”
“Yes, but as we have already told you, words have power. These words more than any others.” That soft prayer-like voice I had heard when I first met her came back as she kneeled before me, her touch gentle as she swept the wet rag over the now healed skin, and over the words that covered me front and back. “In time, you will figure out what that power means to you, and how to use them.”
Lyani exhaled, her hands soft as she wiped them down the skin again before replacing my shirt over the tattoo.
“No bandage today?” I asked, shifting as she stood, already moving toward the door.
“Not today.”
“Does this mean you will stop yelling at me to be careful and not tear my scar?” Or even better, does this mean I can have my blades and leave?
My heart clanged at the thought, the sudden sense of joy plummeting down to my toes in a tangle of emotions as Lyani turned to me and smiled in that all knowing way that seemed to be everywhere in this blasted camp. I pushed off the twist of loss that was attempting to rise away, shoving the thoughts that came with it down into the darkest pit I could find.
I should not feel any remorse in leaving these people. None. No matter what they did for me, they were crazy, the lot of them, with their tattoos and stories and crazed ideas.
I jumped up, ready to take off out the door and never look back. Pain lashed through me with the sudden movement and I winced. Lyani froze, swallowing a laugh.
“Not yet. You may not need bandages, but you aren’t out of the woods yet. There is more healing that we cannot see, I think.”
“I’m fine.” I snarled, trying not to hiss at the pain that was still rippling through me. “I am ready to leave this place.”
“You aren’t,” she chuckled, the gold in her eyes flashing as she folded her arms. “But you’re stubborn, and that will help you to heal, too.”
“I am not stubborn,” I hissed, knowing full well that I had the same thought not a second before.
This place, these people, this woman, they were all trying my patience. I folded my hands into fists, willing my power and my fury to calm.
It was yet another thing that she did not miss. She tsk’d, smiling as I proved her point.
“I can fight, Lyani. I’ll prove it to you, and be on my way.” I straightened my shoulders, knocking my head around in preparation to spar. I would go easy on her,
“You are going to fight me, a frail female, to prove you are strong enough to leave? You will lose, Caspyn.”
“You just said you were a frail female. I won’t lose.”
“Don’t make me knock you on your ass just to prove a point, Caspyn. You wouldn’t be the first male I put in his place.” She stepped right up to me, her own dangerous smile matching my own as she looked up to me.
“You wouldn’t–” Before I could finish, she pressed her hand against my chest again, shoving me right back down.
I landed hard against the thin mat I slept on, more pain lashing through my gut and I hissed.
“Oh, I would. Now get your shoes on.” She turned toward the door again, I didn’t move.
“Why would I do that? It’s the middle of the night?”
“It’s dawn,” she opened the flap to my tent, revealing the golden light that was filtering through the trees of the forest we had been traveling beside. It had taken me a day or two to realize the Lightens were taking the seldom used Dead Road to the Temple, and not the Spine Road as most did. I kept waiting for those trees to turn red and spindly, which was the sole reason most avoided this road, and this part of Okivo.
“Get up, Caspyn. You are going to protect me while I do some shopping.”
“Protect you?” Something bright flared through my chest and I sat up straighter. “Does that mean I get my weapons back?”
I shouldn’t have been as eager, for she turned, still holding the flap to the tent open so that I was sure the entire camp heard her as she laughed, the loud mocking tone carrying through the dew dipped grasses of the meadow we camped in and sending more than one animal into a fit.
“No. You were so keen to fight me a moment ago, Caspyn. I am sure you can hold your own without them. Just don’t go fighting any more frail ladies.” She grinned, looking me up and down in such a way that made me sure she didn’t believe it.
“You say I can’t move too much or risk tearing things, and now you want me to fight and protect you?” I retorted, throwing her own words at her and swallowing the grunt of pain as I pushed myself back to standing, sliding my feet into my boots, the only things to have survived my injury, even though they were as bloodstained as I am sure everything else had been before they burned it.
“Don’t worry too much about that, I am sure you can scare anyone away with that ugly scowl you always have on your face.” She was smug, and for the first time I was caught between a sudden need to punch her and push her against a wagon and show her exactly what that ‘ugly scowl’ can do.
She didn’t seem to care, however. She laughed and turned, already heading toward a small cluster of people with hand wagons and baskets who were making their way out of camp. I didn’t miss that Ryndle was not with them, I suppose today wasn’t his turn to protect his people.
It was mine.
Fine.