Chapter 41
It took zero time at all for the entire festival to collapse into pure chaos.
One second everyone was laughing and eating street food, and the next, people were screaming and stampeding in every direction. Stalls were getting flipped over, lanterns were smashing onto the cobblestones, and some giant, out-of-control monster was tearing right through the middle of the crowd.
I just stood there like an idiot, totally frozen.
I wasn't just shocked by the attack. I was shocked because this wasn't supposed to happen. There were absolutely zero monster attacks at this festival in the original book plot. None. This was brand new. Which meant my messing around with the storyline had officially broken something major.
Shit. The future was completely unpredictable now.
I didn't even notice the monster coming toward me until it was way too close.
It cut through the crowd like a runaway truck.
It looked like a bear, if someone had taken a normal bear and made every single wrong decision possible.
It was mutated, massive, had jagged teeth, and its eyes glowed an evil, unnatural red.
"Cassiane, move!" Lucien barked, grabbing my hand. "Those things are bad news. If they find you, you die."
He dragged me along as we ran for our lives, ducking behind a wooden stall to hide. The puppy in my arms whimpered softly.
"Shh, you're not safe here," I whispered. I spotted an empty basket behind the stall, quickly set the puppy inside, and threw a light cloth over it. "Stay here, little guy. Don't make a sound."
I turned back to Lucien, trying to stop my hands from shaking. "Now would be a fantastic time to call your royal guards."
"Yeah," he said, peeking around the corner. "If I can find them. Until then, we stay put."
That would have been an excellent plan. If I had actually followed it.
But when I looked out at the chaos, I spotted a kid.
A little boy, maybe ten years old, had tripped and fallen onto the dirt.
He was completely frozen with fear. He tried to crawl backward, but his legs wouldn't work.
And the monster was walking right toward him, slow and deliberate, like it had just picked out its dinner.
"Oh, no," I whispered. "No, no, no."
I couldn't just sit there and watch a kid get eaten. Think, Cassiane, think.
I looked up and saw a massive heavy bell hanging in a wooden frame directly above the monster. Okay. That could work. It was a terrible plan, obviously. But it was the only one I had.
I stepped out from behind the stall before I could talk myself out of it.
Lucien lunged forward, his fingers snagging uselessly on my sleeve. "Cassiane, what are you doing?!"
I yanked away, ignoring him. I aimed my hand at the wooden frame, closed my eyes for a fraction of a second, and reached for the spark in my chest.
Instead of a controlled pulse, my power surged up like a wild, jagged shockwave, tearing out of my fingers in an unstable burst of static and force. The recoil nearly knocked me off my feet.
Creeeeak. The frame shook violently. The ropes snapped.
And then... only the bell fell.
BONG!
The heavy metal bell smacked the monster right on top of its head. The beast staggered, totally confused, looking around wildly. For one glorious second, I thought I was a genius. "Wow, that actually-"
CRACK.
The rest of the wooden frame split in half and collapsed directly on top of the creature's back.
Silence. Then, the monster let out a roar that was ten times louder and a hundred times angrier than before. And then, it turned its glowing red eyes right at me.
"...Right," I muttered. "That was not the plan."
The good news? The little boy finally scrambled to his feet and ran away into the crowd. So, technically, part one was a success. Part two, however, was a total disaster. The monster was now entirely, aggressively interested in me.
"Okay," I said, taking a slow step back. "New plan."
I paused. "I don't have a new plan."
So I ran. Fast. With zero strategy.
The festival turned into a nightmarish blur as I bolted through the streets.
I dodged abandoned carts, vaulted over shattered lantern glass, and ducked left as a massive claw ripped through a cloth canopy right above my head.
The heat of its breath was on my neck. I couldn't go back into the crowd-I'd drag it right to them.
I took a sharp turn toward the tree line, my boots skidding on the dirt until I hit the edge of the woods, where the ground dropped off into a steep, rocky riverbank.
I stopped. There was nowhere left to go. I turned around, chest heaving, and the monster surged out of the treeline, cutting off my only retreat.
"This," I wheezed, completely out of breath, "is becoming a really annoying pattern in my life."
I seriously needed to stop making plans. I closed my eyes and braced for impact. Well, at least the fireworks had been pretty.
Suddenly, something slammed into the monster with the force of a cannonball, sending it flying backward through the air. The crash echoed through the trees.
I opened my eyes. The beast was lying yards away, completely knocked out. And standing right in front of me, totally still, was Rhaevan.
A second later, a bunch of mages and knights swarmed the clearing. They wrapped the beast in glowing, enchanted chains, locking it down completely.
For the first time in ten minutes, I actually breathed. "...Wow. Nice entrance."
He didn't say anything. He didn't look relieved. He looked absolutely, violently furious.
Uh-oh. I needed a good excuse, fast.
I cleared my throat and tried to smile. "Well, that was certainly a wild par-"
Before I could even finish the word, he grabbed my wrist. The world violently twisted. The forest disappeared, the air folded in on itself, and a second later, we were standing inside a hallway in the Tower.
I blinked and immediately regretted it. My stomach did a massive flip. We had just teleported. Let me tell you, teleportation is way less cool when you're the one getting dragged through a dimension like a sack of potatoes.
I stumbled, catching myself against the stone wall. "Next time," I gasped, holding my stomach, "give a girl a warning before you attempt reality distortion."
"Are you completely out of your mind?!"
I looked up. Rhaevan was glaring at me, his voice dangerously low and shaking.
"What?" I asked.
"I leave you alone for a few hours," he said, stepping into my space, "and you somehow manage to end up in the middle of a monster attack. What were you thinking?!"
"I-there was a kid-"
"You went to the festival?"
I frowned, getting defensive. "Is that seriously what you're mad about?"
"You promised me you wouldn't leave the Tower, Cassiane."
I opened my mouth, then shut it. Right. I had.
"There was a boy," I said, making my voice firm. "He was about to die."
"So you decided to handle a mutated beast by yourself?!"
"What was I supposed to do?!" I snapped back. "Stand there and watch him get eaten?!"
"You should have found a guard! You should have asked for help!"
"There wasn't time!"
"There wasn't time to make a perfect decision, I get that!" he yelled, running a frustrated hand through his dark hair.
I blinked, confused. "Then what are you so angry about?"
He looked at me, his eyes dark and intense. "Because your magic is untrained, raw, and dangerous right now. Do you have any idea what could have happened when you exposed your power in front of that entire crowd tonight?!"
I stared at him.
Dangerous. Of course. That was always the word, wasn't it?
I let out a short, bitter laugh. "So that's what this is actually about."
His eyebrows drew together. "What?"
"You're just worried about my magic."
"Cassiane, I'm worried because-"
"Because it's dangerous," I finished for him, the words tasting like poison. "Because if people find out what I can do, it becomes a massive headache for the Tower."
"No. That is not what I said."
"Isn't it?" I looked him dead in the eye. "You didn't ask if I was hurt. You didn't ask if I was okay. We've been standing here for two minutes, and you haven't even checked me for scratches."
Rhaevan flinched. The rigid, mask he always wore cracked for a single fraction of a second, his jaw clenching as his gaze involuntarily dropped to my dirt-stained hands and torn sleeves.
He reached out-a tiny, hesitant twitch of his hand toward me-before forcing his arm back to his side and going completely stiff.
"You just asked what would happen if my magic got exposed," I swallowed hard, my throat feeling tight. "Do you know what I hear when you say that?"
He didn't answer.
"I hear that I need to sit in my room because my existence is a safety hazard. I hear that the Tower and the kingdom's reputation matter way more than whether I actually made it back alive tonight."
I laughed softly, but it felt miserable. "Maybe you shouldn't have brought me here in the first place. I was doing just fine before all of this. At least nobody was reminding me every single day that I'm a monster waiting to happen."
A horrible, painful thought hit me, and I whispered, "Tell me something, Rhaevan... Did you actually bring me here to help me? Or did you just lock me up because you were terrified of what I'd do if I stayed out there?"
He stared at me. For the first time since I'd met him, the great master mage looked completely speechless. He didn't deny it. He didn't say anything.
And honestly, that silence hurt way worse than him yelling.
I nodded once, my chest aching. "Understood," I whispered.
I turned around and walked away. He called my name, but I didn't stop. I shoved open the door to my room, slipped inside, and shut it behind me.
The heavy latch clicked into place, locking out the corridor. The sudden, suffocating silence of the room crashed over me, suffocating in contrast to the roaring crowd and exploding fireworks from earlier. I backed against the door and slid down until I was sitting on the cold floor.
The tears came anyway. By the time I buried my face in my knees, I couldn't even remember when they had started falling.
I only knew that my chest hurt.
And that, for some reason, being misunderstood by him hurt far more than it should have.