75. Chapter 75
CHAPTER 75
Cassiel
C assiel felt the strength leave Dyna’s body. Lurching forward, he caught her before she dropped to the floor and pulled her tightly to him. Her heart pounded so hard it echoed in his chest. Her body was cold and trembling. He took her face but her wide-green eyes stared blankly past him at the wall, faint shallow breaths passing through her lips.
He wrapped his wings around her. “Look at me, lev sheli . I am with you.”
But she was trapped in the moment. She had to work though that revelation as he had.
“Your union led to the destruction of the Realms when Kāhssiel enacted his vengeance,” Yelrakel continued. “He died for you then, but you can spare him now, my Queen. Please, do not let history repeat itself.”
Cassiel scowled at her in angry disbelief. “You have said quite enough.”
Yelrakel’s expression creased. “Only one of you can live, sire. Please, I must assure your future. If she loves you, then she will die in your stead.”
“General!” Cassiel bellowed, making Dyna flinch. He forced a breath through his lungs and said with a frightening measure of control, “You are dismissed from your duties here… Leave now before I do something I may regret.”
Her wings went limp. She composed herself and bowed deep. “Sire.”
Yelrakel stepped back into the hall and Sowmya shut the door.
Picking Dyna up, Cassiel placed her in a chair at the small dining table in his room and kneeled in front of her. She blinked at the ground slowly. He took her cold hands in his. “Dyna, look at me.”
“My nightmares…” she mumbled. “Every night for weeks … I dreamed of falling. I dreamed of someone pushing me into a chasm. I had been reliving my death...” Her eyes welled as she met his sad gaze. “And you knew.”
At the hurt and anger swimming in her eyes, Cassiel lowered his head.
Dyna pulled her hands away. “ I cannot let you relive the same fate . You said that to me … before you left.”
He stood. “Leaving you was the hardest thing I ever had to do, but I did it for you.”
“Were you ever going to tell me?”
Cassiel couldn’t answer.
“You are incorrigible.” Dyna pushed to her feet. “I was willing to face anything with you. Why didn’t you stay with me? Why didn’t you share your burden with me?” Her voice rose with emotion and resentment. “Why did you run away? Why did you erase my memories? Why can’t you simply be honest with me!”
“Because I was afraid!” He shouted, making her flinch back. The action tore at him. Cassiel immediately backed away because he never wanted her to fear him. He kept putting space between them until his back hit the wall. He leaned up against it and closed his eyes. “I’m afraid to speak the words ... and make them true.”
Dyna turned away from him and went out to the glass doors onto the balcony with flowering bushes. She leaned on the stone banister watching the rainfall over the land. “Am I to be killed for merely being your wife?”
“I will never let that happen,” Cassiel said, coming to her side. “I broke my soul to protect you. I left to wage war against anyone one who would harm you. I would spill any amount of blood, even my own, for there is nothing I wouldn’t do for you, lev sheli . You are, without question, my only priority.” He turned her to face him. “I know you’re scared but please trust me.”
But her eyes didn’t shine with tears or trust anymore.
They were resigned.
Shattered.
“Trust you?” she repeated coolly. Her chin jerked out of his hold. “That worked out so well for me before.” Her bitter scoff fogged in the cool air. “I asked you more than once to tell me the truth. I gave you a chance, Cassiel, but you couldn’t trust me with that. Instead, you selfishly hid everything from me and declared war on the world.”
“I only wanted to give you the life you deserved,” he said softly. “You didn’t have one in our first life, but by all the Gods, I swore you would live in this one. I don’t care what the cost is.” Cassiel looked down at his fists on the resting on the banister as flames flickered over his fingers. “Because I’m terrified … of what I will do to the world if you are gone. You … you died a horrible death that I couldn’t save you from. I left to prevent that from happening again.”
“No. You ran away . One thing I’ve learned is you can’t run when you’re afraid, Cassiel. That is not love.”
How could that be true when she was his reason for living. He loved so much, but maybe it was the wrong kind of love.
“I thought I understood you better than anyone, but I don’t know you anymore.” Dyna wrapped her arms around herself. “Worst yet … I don’t even know myself.”
“I don’t know who I am anymore either…” Cassiel looked out at the Kingdom of Greenwood, searching for answers in the green hills and gray skies. “I was once so certain of who I was. A third born prince with sullied blood, unwanted and unneeded, and relatively … purposeless. Life had no meaning, and I didn’t care. There was nothing to care about. I had no place in the world or so I thought, until you arrived.”
The wind picked up as they faced each other.
He reached for her hair, taking a short lock in his fingers. “I stumbled upon this delicate, reckless human, who became so precious to me, then I was poisoned with a terrible fear that she would break. So I did the worst thing in my life by breaking her heart, because it meant she would live. In my mind, I thought I was keeping you safe from the darkness of our past, including my own.”
Dyna could say nothing but listen to the softness of his raw words. It reminded him of day in the snow, when he shared everything he held inside. Because she was the one person he could show everything too, and somehow he had forgotten that.
“Suddenly my existence depended entirely on the future I fought to give you. I would kill for you, Dynalya. I have killed for you. I have done horrible things that make me unworthy of you. Agreed. I was never worthy of anything. But you are.” Cassiel took her cold hands in his, cradling them in his palms. “Before you, I didn’t understand what it meant to care for someone. To love them because … because I couldn’t remember what it felt to be loved. But the night we were wed, when you came down the steps in your white gown and chose me, I knew I would do anything to protect you. Call me a coward if you must, and deem me terrible and worthless, but please do not deny my love for you. I hate that I hurt you, and I hate that you hate me.” He pulled her into the shelter of his wings, holding her against his chest she closed her eyes. “But I will endure it because everything I do, no matter how painful will always be to protect you.”
Dyna had told him his vows no longer mattered. But there was no other vow more valid than this one. It was chiseled in his bones, inscribed on his skin, woven through whatever matter that made up the threads of his soul.
They stayed that way for a moment, breathing each other in. Now that it was all out there, he clung to that last kernel of hope she could forgive him.
“Is there anything else I need to know?” she asked faintly.
Cassiel opened his mouth to lie on instinct, but Dyna stepped back. She heled the crumpled message that he forgotten was stuffed his pocket. She retreated from him as she read it.
“Ignore what it says,” Cassiel blurted. “They are empty threats.”
“Empty?” Dyna retorted faintly, her sharp eyes rising to his. “You call this empty?”
The message slipped from her fingers to land on the ground between them. Raindrops smeared Gadriel’s scrawled message.
As you deign not to honor me with your presence, I am forced to send my reply by messenger. Nazar will not stand with the King of Hilos while the human witch yet lives. We refuse to be ruled by such abominable power, including your own. Do away with her and stunt your fire. Prove you are worthy of the throne, and you will have gained our allegiance.
Refuse, and the life in peril will be yours.
“Perhaps we cannot run from our fate…” Dyna said. “But I alone will decide my future. Not them.” She looked away from him to the dynalya petals floating on in a pool at their feet. “It’s over, Cassiel.”
The foundation shook beneath and his lungs wouldn’t let him inhale for a moment.
“You were right to leave me. I should never have allowed myself to fall for you from the start. Staying together means I die—or you.”
He lurched forward, “Dyna?—”
She took a step back. “Your people need you, Cassiel. Mine need me here. Stage my death again if you must and return to the Realms where you belong. I will go to Red Highland as I came to do.”
Then she went back into his room and picked up her satchel.
“But I must stay by your side,” Cassiel said urgently as he followed. “Separating now is too dangerous.”
“Every day I risk my life, but I decided a long time ago I would no longer be afraid of death.” Dyna slid her satchel onto her shoulder. Then she checked her weapons, tightening her sword belt and returning her falling knife to the sheath on her thigh. She met his startled gaze with a dour expression told him she had already made up her mind. “I told you. The person I used to be is gone. I’m the one who is angry, violent, and who doesn’t feel safe . The girl who used to believe in the goodness of others, who had faith that everything would be all right, she’s gone. And I miss her.” Dyna’s eyes glistened for a moment, then dried with her next breath. “I miss who I used to be, but that girl is never coming back.”
It broke him to hear her say that.
He never wanted that for her.
“The only thing I care about right now is saving my friend. Whether going is right or wrong, it’s my decision to make. I made a promise to Lord Norrlen.” Her gaze hardened. “And I for one, keep my word.”
That line drove clean through his ribs and out through his spine.
Cassiel had to lean against the desk because he thought his legs might give out. He wanted to speak but the words were locked behind his teeth. Please don’t say you are finished with me yet. Even if you never forgive me, please …
As if she heard him, Dyna’s anger softened.
Her next words were so faint. Brittle. That little hope he had been cultivating withered at her resolved expression. “When you left, I tried so hard to rid myself of you as if that would make a difference. I can’t love you and hate you at the same time, Cassiel. It is splitting me in half.” Dyna removed the crystal necklace around her neck and placed it on the table. “To live, I need to remove you from my heart. I need to not think about you or care about you at all. You must let me go. I need you to let me go.”
It took everything Cassiel had not to show how much that destroyed him.
He clenched his teeth with the effort. He curled his fingers around the crystal and turned away because he had to. Because if he looked at her, she would know he was nothing now.
“At times … I regret remembering us,” Dyna said faintly. “I see now, it’s kinder not to remember. Maybe the memories you should have erased were yours.”
Cassiel waited until his voice was clear before saying, “If it would ease my pain and yours, perhaps you’re right. But I have already broken too many promises to you.”
“…There is no need to keep them anymore.”
Then it was Cassiel’s turn to watch his mate to walk away from him.
He braced his hands on the table, feeling his body go numb. He couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t speak or move.
He wanted to say more, to plead for another chance.
But she was already gone.
Netanel quietly came through the terrace doors with sympathy lining his features. “I’m sorry, Cassiel. What will you do now?”
Inhaling a ragged breath, he rubbed his face and found the strength to move. He went to the desk in the corner, laid out a piece of parchment on the table, and dipped a quill in a well of ink.
“What I should have done from the beginning.”