60. Chapter 60
CHAPTER 60
Cassiel
T he Valkyrie swopped down from the trees and surrounded them. Dyna didn’t react though. Her eyes stayed on him, grip tight on her sword’s hilt.
Cassiel’s was rooted in place by her words.
Her greatest fear was him .
“My lady,” Sowmya whispered to her urgently. “It is treason to draw a weapon against the king.”
“He is not my king.” Dyna lurched forward and attacked.
Cassiel dodged the swipe. His Valkyrie instantly drew out their swords.
“Stay your weapons,” Cassiel commanded without looking away from Dyna. “Do not interfere.”
Yelrakel clenched her jaw. “If she draws blood, sire?”
“Then your Queen will draw blood.”
Dyna was enraged. He felt it pulsing in the bond. He also felt other things that told him she needed this.
“Dynalya is your High Queen, equal to me in every way. From today her word is law as much as mine. Be this is the last time you ever draw a weapon against her. Even to defend me.”
The Valkyrie sheathed their weapons in unison and clanked a fist over their hearts as they bowed. Dyna’s mouth thinned.
“Do you wish to duel, motek? Then let us duel.” Cassiel drew out his sword and blue flames swiveled around the blade.
Fury simmered in her glowing eyes. Magic pulsed around her, and green flames enveloped her blade. So fierce, his mate. There was a wildness about her he couldn’t help but admire. Even if it was pointed at him.
Dyna attacked. Her moves were swift and brutal, and she was not holding back. Cassiel met her swing for swing. The clash of their weapons rang through the forest as they fought. Many eyes were on them, but they kept their distance.
“Your skill with blade has improved tremendously,” Cassiel said heavily.
“It’s amazing what you can accomplish with time and rage.” She leaped off a boulder as she swiped for him.
He parried her blade’s next attack, and she countered. “Why do you fear me?”
Dyna spun away. “You know why.”
“I gave you my word.”
“And that means nothing to me.”
Cassiel faltered in his next move at her response and his eyes widened. “Am I the one who fuels your nightmares?”
Her blade swept for him and nearly caught his torso. Dyna gritted her teeth and came for him again.
“Tell me what you see in your dreams.”
“No,” she hissed.
Cassiel caught her next swing, bringing their blades to cross between them. “Was that the reason why you went after Tarn? For Witch’s Brew?”
Dyna glared at him for a long moment. “What Herb Master can’t brew a potion?” Her smirk was cold and cruel. It broke his heart because he knew he did that to her.
“Then why go to him?”
“For what other reason? I went there to kill that man, and I did!” Dyna charged and Cassiel retreated from her next attack.
She wanted him to see her bloodthirsty. But he saw past that to her pain and rage.
“No, you didn’t.”
She bared her teeth. “Yes, I did .”
Dyna pivoted around him and swung her sword. Cassiel parried the blow. With a twist of his wrist, he hit Dyna’s hilt and disarmed her. She heaved for breath, her flushed face turning redder. Growling, she snatched her sword from the grass.
Cassiel straightened out of his stance. “You forget, Sowmya was there. Tarn was wounded and you left him on that burning ship, but you didn’t kill him. In fact, I don’t believe you wanted him to die.”
“What?” Dyna bit out through her clenched teeth. “You know nothing about what I want. Tarn asked for my help, and I turned my back on my morals as a healer when I turned my back on him. I left him to burn.”
“You left him alive . As much as you despise Tarn for what he has done, you’re not a killer. A part of you wanted him to survive.”
She shook her head, her eyes wide with outrage. “You’re wrong. He’s nothing to me.”
Funny, how she once said those same words about him.
Cassiel didn’t mean to fall on this topic. Sowmya had told him about everything she had seen on that ship, but it had not been a surprise.
He could only look at his mate and accept the past for what it was. Dyna stared back at him angrily at first, then expression changed to realization, and the flash of guilt crossed her eyes. Cassiel wasn’t angry or resentful though. He had no right to be.
That didn’t stop the pang that had nailed him in the chest when he felt his mate kiss another man. It was so sudden, so unexpected, Cassiel had nearly dropped out of the sky.
He glanced at his Valkyrie, and they bowed their heads before retreating into the woods.
Cassiel straightened out of his stance. “You forget, Dynalya … We share one soul. You cannot lie to me.”
“I am not ashamed,” she snapped.
It was inevitable, he had told himself. Leaving his mate to start over with her life meant she would eventually find another to share it with. The last thing he had expected was for her to pick Tarn.
But he had never questioned why.
“You have nothing to be ashamed about. I am the one who led you to do it.” He met her eyes, so ferociously burning with anger and the emotion she denied. “I’m sorry.”
“I don’t want to hear again how sorry you are!” Dyna cried. She swung her sword and their blades clashes. “That useless word will not heal all the pain you have put me through. I hate it and I hate you!”
Cassiel parried her next blow and brought her close with the next. “Good,” he said. “Hate me.”
It was another echo of words he once said to her before. In another forest. In another time.
She growled in rage and attacked again. Cassiel met each attack she gave. The clash of their blades rang sharply in the cool air.
“Did it ever occur to you to at least discuss your worries with me?” Dyna shouted. “To try and face this hardship together? You didn’t give me the chance to fight beside you. Why was breaking our souls the best decision to make?” She swung again but he captured her wrist, bringing them face to face. “I hate that you did this to us! To me . Did you believe yourself something gallant by sacrificing yourself to spare me?”
Her scream ricocheted against the chasm, louder than the roar of the cascade. She was nearly sobbing. The agony rolling from her left Cassiel immobile. He let go and she tackled him. Landing on top of him, she whipped out her opal knife, bringing it to his neck.
Cassiel didn’t stop her. He didn’t move at all. His silver eyes stayed on her, even as the trickle of blood leaked down from where her knife had nicked him. The sky rumbled with distant thunder and rain began to fall.
“No…I do not believe myself gallant,” he said. “There was nothing noble about what I did.”
“It was cowardly.”
“Yes…” he admitted. “It was.”
“Why did you do it?” Her eyes brimmed with tears. “Tell me why, Cassiel or by the gods I will stab you again.”
He wanted to tell her but even now the words lodged behind his teeth. At his silence, Dyna’s hand shook with her pain and fury. Cassiel didn’t flinch even as blood leaked down his throat.
He could bleed out on the wet ground, and he didn’t care because she was finally looking at him. Those fierce green eyes acknowledged his existence. They were angry, and sad, and shining with tears. But she saw him. The relief slammed into him like a stone wall.
Cassiel couldn’t stop himself faintly brushing his fingertips across her cheek. She stiffened but she didn’t move.
“Stab me. Flay me. Torture me. I deserve it all in the end,” he muttered. “Each night I close my eyes, I see your face and relive the pain I put you through. It’s like dying over and over again yet I accepted it because I thought that pain was worth keeping you safe and it nearly killed us both. So I am finished standing in your way, Dynalya. I can do nothing more than follow behind you.”
She stared at him wordlessly, her ragged breaths clouding in the air. The patter of rain took over the silence.
Dropping her knife, Dyna climbed off him and stumbled back. “Each night I asked myself why you did this but from the beginning it was clear I was no more than a stupid weak human to you. Best to fake her death and leave her behind, trapped where she cannot get herself killed, right? I resented that so much…” Her voice cracked and she covered her face. “I spent so much time making myself stronger to prove to you that I’m not weak … but deep down I knew I truly was. I am reckless, and I make stupid decisions. Fair was killed and Rawn was taken because I am so stupid.”
Dyna shook with quiet sobs. She couldn’t stand anymore and toppled to her knees, weeping on the grass. To hear the fault she carried triggered something in him, and Cassiel’s vision misted. The reason he left had nothing to do with that.
All he wanted was to hold his mate. To undo all the cracks left behind. But he couldn’t stand it if she flinched away from him anymore, so all Cassiel could do was sit beside her and drape his wing over her like a blanket, shielding her from everything else.
“I never thought you were weak,” Cassiel murmured, prompting her to look up at him. “I cannot help but protect you. It’s an instinct which has turned me into this overbearing fool from the day we met. But I haven’t for one moment forgotten the utter strength that you have, for not even I have that.” Tears spilled down her cheeks like drew drops in the twilight. “You are what my people call Eishet Chayil. A woman of valor. Not only for what you did in Nazar, but the for the utter courage you shown me every day that I have known you.” He cupped her face, gently wiping away her tears with his thumbs. “ Ahuvati … at mehamemet.”
Dyna closed her eyes a moment then pulled down his arm. “Don’t speak so lovingly to me. Do you think I’ll forgive you simply for saying such things?”
It worked before.
As if hearing his thoughts, she glowered at him but surprisingly didn’t leave. They stayed right where they were, gazing at each other as the rain fell around them.
“You paint me as pure and good, but I’m not. Not anymore.” Dyna brought up her knees and wrapped her arms around them. “I also took lives.”
That was the last thing he ever wanted for her. He was supposed to be the one who killed in her stead. “Do you refer to the Shades? Why did you do that?”
Because if he had perished then, and she would be free of him for good.
“I may hate you, Cassiel, but I don’t want you to die.” She looked out at the camp. “The one death I can’t forgive myself for is Fair’s. Yet I … I can’t bring myself to tell them...”
Cassiel sighed. He wanted to comfort her but that wasn’t what she needed from him. “They don’t need to know. We will fix it.”
“Is that what you tell yourself when you hide things from me?”
His tongue caught.
Narrowing her, she straightened up, slipping off his wing. “I heard you in the woods last night. What happened in the past? What are you keeping from me?”
Trying to mask his panic, Cassiel rubbed his forehead. “Dyna…”
“If we are ever to repair a shred of our friendship again, the secrets and lies end now.”
Gods, to know there was even a possibility of that filled him with a desperate hope — and fear. He didn’t want to lie, but he couldn’t tell her the truth either. Speaking it aloud would do no one any good.
Cassiel amended with telling her part of the truth. “Do remember when Lord Jophiel spoke of the first king of Hilos and that he had turned on his people?”
She nodded. “King Kāhssiel …”
He swallowed, lowering his gaze. “The reason he turned on them was because they turned on him first. Those in his circle both feared and coveted his power, and so they plotted to remove him. The only way to weaken Kāhssiel was to kill his True Bonded Mate.” Dyna sucked in a soft breath. “Now another seeks to do the same to me…”
Dyna fell quiet a long pause. “You left me to prevent that?”
He met her wide eyes. “In my mind, if the Realms thought you were dead, no other assassin would come after you. But now they know you survived, and wherever you go, death will follow. For he will never stop.”
Her chest heaved with a beath. “You speak of Lord Raziel.”
It was his turn to be surprised she knew.
“Zekiel confirmed it before he tossed me in the pond.” Dyna’s lips thinned. “What did you do to him?”
Cassiel felt his blood heat with his fire at the reminder of the Royal Guard who nearly took her life. “I tore out his heart.”
She went still, and her throat bobbed. “Why?”
“Whoever dares lay a finger on you revokes their life. I will spare no one .” His reply came out as a growl, as if the very thought of anyone hurting her awoke the beast of flame that roamed inside of him.
A breath shuddered on Dyna’s lips as she stared at him. The blue glow of his eyes reflected on her pale face. She glanced down at where the grass smoked beneath his burning fists. Rain droplets hissed as they landed on his skin. Cassiel forced himself to take a breath to calm himself.
“Was that the reason you destroyed Skath?” she whispered.
It was a weighted question that extinguished his ire and left behind the ashes of shame.
Cassiel searched for the right words but there were none. “When I left Skelling Rise, my only thought was vengeance. I pursued the Vanguard into the north, set on finishing the fight they started. I thought if I eradicated them I’d feel gratified …but I didn’t.” He dug his fingers through the scorched grass into the earth and it crumbled around his hand. “I was the last one standing in the Realm I razed, and I felt worse than when this all began. I felt … empty.”
Skath Celestials were warriors. Even those not in the Vanguard had joined in the battle. They fought valiantly for their lives. If he had been anyone else, they might have won, but against his power, they never stood a chance.
“I didn’t pursue the survivors. There was no justification in hunting down females and children. I had taken so many lives at that point, the thought of taking innocent ones…” Cassiel’s stomach churned.
He almost said it would damn him, but he already was. His people viewed him as thing that shouldn’t exist, and they may be right.
Dyna fell quiet a long moment before asking, “How did you learn of Lord Raziel?”
Cassiel had known who his enemy was since he regained the memories of his past life. He played with a petal of flame, weaving it around in fingers. “Lord Hallel confessed before the end.”
“Then why go after Lord Gadriel next?”
“I intend to save the Lord of Edym for last. For the best way to alienate an enemy is by removing his supporters.”
One by one.
Dyna’s mouth purse with disapproval. “And that included destroying another Realm?”
“That was not my intention. I only came for those who took part in the coup.”
“Yet if I had not arrived, you would have destroyed Nazar.”
Cassiel didn’t argue because she was right. In his rage, he had lost himself to his Seraph fire and Kāhssiel’s wrath had arrived with it.
“Your people feared you for your abilities and you have done nothing but prove them right. This cannot be the way your father wanted you to rule. What would he say about this?”
Cassiel pressed on the tension pinching his temples. “I doubt he would come to me with any complaints.”
“Don’t be morbid.”
He frowned at her aghast expression. “I’m not.”
She shook her head. “Cassiel, the Realms may no longer concern me, but?—”
“It does”
“What?”
“It does concern you, as much as you wish to deny it. You came to Nazar not simply to stop me but to protect them because you are their queen.”
She had always been their queen.
Dyna shut her eyes a moment wiped the soaked hair from her face. “Cassiel, have you ever thought perhaps you should align yourself with the Lord instead of attacking them? Do not follow Kāhssiel’s footsteps. We must find another way to contend with Raziel.”
His first instinct was to declare he would never allow Raziel to keep his life, but she had said “we” and he couldn’t help but be thrilled by such possibility its weight was monumental on the scale constructed from his existence.
Two letters more valuable than gold.
“If to rule means a constant battle against your people, then perhaps you should pass the crown on to another.”
“To whom?” He sighed. “Who could possibly take the crown and not use it to strike me down? There is no other I can trust to rule in my stead without fearing they would condemn us both. Like it or not, I will always be a threat to them, as you will always be my only weakness.”
Dyna looked at him in a way that made his chest ache. “What fate the gods have given us. They must find this all rather amusing.”
“They are certainly laughing at my foolery.”
A small smile played on her lips. “I think I hear it.”
They fell quiet as she simply looked at him, a river of crimson hair cascading over her cheeks. He drank her in, admiring everything about her and the deep emerald eyes that seemed to absorb what was left of him.
“I missed this,” Cassiel admitted. “Talking to you.” Their sparring match somehow cleared the muddled air between them, at least a portion of it. “Shall we go for a flight?”
It was the wrong thing to ask by the sudden guarded look on Dyna’s face. He was then reminded of the way she had recoiled away from him last night. This was as close as he could get without frightening her. But touching her in any way that made her feel confined was out of the question.
“I understand.” Cassiel stood, stretching out his wings. “Perhaps another time.”
He turned to go because he needed some space to feel what he couldn’t feel in front of her. But a violent rumble echoed over the land, shaking the earth. They froze.
“What was that?” Dyna whispered, slowly standing.
Cassiel motioned for her to quiet as he studied the forested hills. The rumble came again, and the hair stood on end on the back of his neck.
“We must leave. Now.”