48. Chapter 48
CHAPTER 48
Dynalya
D yna felt her strength vanish the moment Cassiel was gone from her sight. She was filled with such keen sense of loss it took all her will not to break down behind the front door. Her steps moved silently across the foyer, and worried eyes followed her. Her composure remained in place as she climbed the steps to her bedroom. Dyna walked through and shut the door. Her lungs spasmed as she gasped for air, ragged breaths. A tear fell, then another, and she collapsed against the wall as she sobbed through it all.
Her body shook with it. Her legs gave out, and she dropped to her hands and knees. Her visions blurred and droplets hit the floor by her clenched fists.
It had been torturous to see him. Even more to say goodbye.
Lucenna knelt next to her.
A sob shuddered through Dyna’s throat. “Why is it that I have my magic back and yet I have never felt so helpless? It hurts. It hurts so much.”
Lucenna hugged her tight and she clung to her, trying to muffle her sobs. She cried uncontrollably, as if another part of her had died. It probably had. She didn’t cry merely over the end of her marriage. It was everything that had happened since she walked out of the front door of her cottage.
She wept for the girl she had been.
That day, she left home searching for the power to fight more than the Shadow but the darkness within herself. Only then would she finally find happiness. Dyna thought she had found it when she met a beautiful prince in a glass tree who lured her into his life with a gentle melody.
But she was beginning to believe happiness was unattainable, and this was the extent of her life.
Twilight came and passed, draping the room in a dull darkness. Lucenna stood to light the hearth, but Dyna told her to leave it, and that she wanted to be alone. She didn’t move from her spot against the wall or answer anyone coming to knock on the door. The storming skies rumble with distant thunder. Eventually came the flash of lightning, and the glass doors of her balcony pattered with rain. For hours she sat on the floor, watching the deluge fall over Sellav.
Cassiel was still out there.
She could feel him.
Dyna shut her eyes. He said he would go if she commanded it. More lies.
A winged shape moved across her balcony, and Dyna braced, but it was only Sowmya. The Valkyrie slipped through the doors, her golden armor dripping wet.
Dyna sighed. “You’re still here?”
“I am charged with protecting you, my lady.” The lieutenant closed the balcony doors behind her. She paused by the curtains framing the south windows that faced the front of the estate. Her gaze flickered to Dyna, then to the floor.
Dyna narrowed her eyes. “Speak your mind.”
Sowmya hesitated before saying, “It’s been raining all evening, my lady. This is unbecoming of a king.”
“He decided to be out there, so leave him,” Dyna said sharply. “You will not interfere.”
Sowmya’s mouth bracketed with disapproval, but she bowed her head at the command. It angered her. She was not their queen anymore.
“Why are you still here? Why didn’t the Valkyrie leave? Why didn’t he leave?” Dyna demanded. “Didn’t you hear us?” She shut her eyes, feeling embarrassment and shame. The whole damn estate must have heard her shouting. “I am not his Queen anymore...”
His Majesty cannot leave while you are not safe.” Sowmya lowered his gaze. “I asked you to stop him … despite knowing it would place a target on you again. Now that the Realms know you are alive, so do his enemies. War is not coming, my lady. It has already begun, whether you wish to be a part of it or not.”
There was something in her tone that made Dyna stand. She walked to the window, keeping behind the curtains.
Cassiel was still on his knees, his gaze trained on her window. It was too dark inside for him to see inside. Nonetheless, he sensed exactly where she was.
“You may not fight for him,” Sowmya said, “but he will always fight for you.”
Dyna followed her gaze to the shadowed forms moving through the dark trees that lined the main path. At first, Dyna thought they were other Celestials, but…
She gasped. “Are those elves?”
Dressed in black and armed, but their skin was gray, their yellow eyes like reptiles.
“Not elves. Not anymore,” Raiden said quietly from her doorway.
“What are they?” Dyna asked.
“May I?”
She nodded. Entering her room, Raiden came to stand beside her and crossed his arms as they watched the shadows come closer.
“Shades, we call them. They have walked through the veil of the Shadow God to embrace black magic, turning themselves into creatures of the night. They are fast and vicious assassins who lend their dark skills to those who would pay for it.”
A horrid chill swept down Dyna back as she recalled what Rawn had once said. There are elves who move through the shadows. They sever lives for the right price, and there is a substantial one for mine.
“But why are they here?” Dyna asked him. “Do they come because of your father or because of the bounties on our heads?”
“No, my lady. They have come for you ,” Sowmya answered, and Dyna’s breath caught. Cassiel had yet to move from his position. She had the urge to yell at him to run, but he stood, and his shoulders shifted with a deep breath. He already knew they were there. “My people do not have jurisdiction to enter Greenwood territory in any official authority without risking reprisal against the Realms.”
It seems Lord Raziel found a way around that. Akiel must have immediately notified him of her survival.
“You have enemies in high places,” Raiden said.
Dyna swallowed, her pulse beginning to climb. “Forgive me, I never meant for this to happen. I have put Princess Aerina in danger.” She moved to leave the room, but Raiden caught her.
“I hope you don’t mean to go out there.”
“I have to make sure they won’t get inside,” she said.
“There is no need.”
A glowing gold light sparked outside the windows. Within the grass in the front of the courtyard, the light formed a line and rapidly spread as it circled the entire estate and grew until they were encompassed within an enormous, enchanted dome.
“Eldred has shielded the estate. No one will touch my mother—or you.” At Raiden’s definitive response, she glanced up at him and he gave her an assuring nod.
Dyna was surprised he cared enough for her wellbeing as well, but it seemed Raiden had inherited his father’s kindness for others.
They all watched the Shades creep forward like black ghosts to surround the only one standing between them and the estate.
“Your …” Raiden frowned, struggling to find the right word to label Cassiel. Not friend. Not husband. In the end he settled on, “Your Guardian would be better off flying away now since he cannot call on reinforcements.”
The Valkyrie couldn’t fight with him on Greenwood land, yet Dyna didn’t sense any disquiet from Cassiel. Her shield blocked all her emotions, but since they spoke, he had dropped his. Everything he felt was out in the open for her and, at the moment, the only thing he felt was calm.
“I wouldn’t worry about him,” Dyna said.
Cassiel’s eyes flared to vibrant blue with flame, glowing as bright as a forge. He faced the path and wind whipped his long black coat around his legs. Seraph fire blazed from his fists and wreathed his feet as he strode idly down the path.
Raiden murmured a shocked word in Elvish.
“His Majesty does not require reinforcements,” Sowmya added, a hint of pride in her voice. “He is enough.”
Two Shades flitted in a veil of black smoke, sighted only by the flash of steel of their blades. Dyna jerked instinctively closer to the window. They moved so fast, she blinked, and they were falling on him.
Cassiel vanished from view.
She gasped. Before she could ask where he went, Cassiel reappeared behind them, and his knife clashed against the blade of Shade. He winked out of existence again, reappearing to parry the attack of another. It wasn’t that he could teleport. Cassiel was moving too fast for her to see.
He hadn’t done that in Nazar.
Sowmya nodded. “Witness the power of the true High King.”
Dyna’s brow furrowed at the way she put it.
What did she mean by true ?
Cassiel’s seraph fire swept across the ground, dousing the area in flame. The firelight gleamed on his wings, lighting his silhouette. The Shades screeched and retreated beyond the smoke screen. But the fight was not over.
Blue embers hovered around Cassiel as he waited.
“Dyna.” Zev rushed into the room with Keena on his shoulder. “Did you see?”
“Yes,” she said, not looking away from the fight. “Where are the others?”
Klyde and Lucenna are downstairs with Eldred manning the front door. Von is with the guards.”
She was pleased to hear of them working together, but Cassiel very well may not need any help.
They all huddled by the windows while watching in silence. She searched the dark trees. The dancing flames casting writhing shadows, making it difficult to distinguish anything.
The Shades leaped through a black cloud and landed on either side of Cassiel. He parried their blades with incredible speed. His blade shoved through the stomach of one and he turned to deflect the other. The wounded Shade leaped into the air with a wild screech as it came for him. Cassiel cast out his hand and a torrent of seraph fire turned the Shade to ash.
He faced the second Shade, drawing Esh Shamayim free. Beautiful blue flames spiraled around the divine sword. They ran at each other and flitted too fast for her to catch the moment they clashed. Cassiel reappeared as his sword swept down in a flash. His boots dragged through to the gravel, bringing him to a stop. The Shade stumbled couple feet behind him, swaying on his legs before he dropped on the ground and his body was engulfed in flames.
Minutes.
It only took minutes for Cassiel to kill them.
The way he moved, the agility and speed, it was unlike anything she had seen from him before. Every attack had been swift.
Instinctive.
Demise had arrived on wings of flame.
Cerulean fire wrapped around Cassiel as he shot into the sky for the Celestials flying his way. There were so many of them.
“You said they wouldn’t come here,” Dyna murmured to Sowmya.
“Assassins have no borders, my lady.”
All this. To kill her.
“Should we help him?” Keena’s small voice asked worriedly.
Dyna glanced at Zev, and he grimly looked back at her.
“No.” The Lieutenant shook her head. “His Majesty would want you in here, where it’s safe.”
Dyna turned away from the window and sat on the edge of her bed, having no answer for either of them.
For three days, Cassiel was out there in the cold rain without food or shelter. Celestials came by day and the Shades came by night.
Cassiel slayed them all.
Why?
Why stay?
Why stay and fight for her after she tossed him out?
Dyna wondered as she stayed in her room, standing by the balcony. The estate was quiet. The guards stood on alert, nearly everyone watching Cassiel’s battle from the windows.
Seeing all of this made her realize what kind of danger her life was truly in.
There was an inaudible awe in the air. All rendered speechless by the destructive beauty of his flame, turning everything to dust. Grass no longer carpeted the path. There were no more trees. No more green . Only smoke and ash.
But even the High King needed rest.
Cassiel stumbled as he cut down the last Shade. His legs wobbled and he sunk to his knees, breathing heavily.
Dyna moved to the balcony doors but halted with her hand on the knob. She closed her eyes.
If she went to him now, she would never be?—
Dyna gasped at the sudden tremble in her chest. The bond.
Outside, on the charred path, Cassiel collapsed.