Chapter 33 #2
“About the only glimmer of light left here,” he whispers, as if should he speak any louder, even that light might extinguish. A chill licks up my spine. Yet his eyes hold mine, pleading me to find that light. To persevere here.
“I’ll keep coming, as much as I can. Until I have a way . . .”
To free you.
I rub his chest where he holds my hand to him, the wooden armband I gave him pressing against my wrist. “It’s too dangerous,” I croak. “If he knew how much you mean . . .”
His gaze sharpens on me, hand holding mine closer against him. Anguish floods his face.
I swallow tightly. “The duke wins this move if you give your weakness away.”
He closes his eyes and breathes deeply, in and out, and again. He drops my hand.
“You should remove yourself from this particular weakness entirely,” I murmur, “I can’t have anything happen to you because of me.”
Once the duke has been dealt with, when Nicostratus is a prince without troubles and my troubles are solely related to medicine . . . Perhaps then there could be a chance for us.
I breathe deeply on the dream. I’ll do everything to work towards it.
But I can’t promise him more until it’s reached.
“You’re ending things between us?”
I say nothing, but my silence is its own answer. His gaze holds mine, and for a moment, I think he might spill a tear.
“I just want to be your hope,” he whispers.
I briefly shut my eyes. “You coming here before anything else,” I murmur. “It’s already made me lighter.”
His breath hitches. He shakes his head over and over.
I tug the golden feather from my belt and hold it out to him, but he closes his hand around mine and pushes it back towards me.
“Nicostratus . . .”
“I’ll keep my distance. But . . . keep this.”
When he’s gone, I take water from the canal and pour it gently over the planting. It forms a smooth layer of pale mud. Murky. A stagnant pool in the darkness.
I glance through the mist toward the crumbling ruins.
What kind of light survives a place like this?
I find Casimiria meditating alone in the courtyard.
As if sensing me, she opens her eyes. “One thing to know about me.” She rises in a single, graceful motion and dusts off her robe. “I’m quite meddlesome. I listened in on you and Nicostratus.”
I blink at her. Then, unexpectedly, a short laugh escapes. “You are certainly his mother.”
She lifts her chin with quiet pride and a dry, unapologetic smile, and beckons me forward.
We descend into the ruins, deeper than I’ve gone before. A small orb of light flickers in her palm, casting long shadows that stretch along moss-eaten stone.
“Would you have shown me this,” I ask, “if Nicostratus hadn’t said something?”
“I’m still not sure I should.”
I glance at her sharply.
She stops at a wall overgrown with ivy and parts the veil with one hand to reveal a weathered door. “He called it light. Others call it hope.” Her voice turns cool. “I call it stagnation.”
The hinges creak as the door swings open; behind it, stacks of tomes on sagging shelves, every surface bulging with a forgotten time. A library, swallowed by dust and silence.
I step inside, heart lifting as I run my fingers along the spines. “This is history.”
Casimiria’s voice is flat. “History is written by victors. This is folklore.”
I flip through a book at random. Ancient scriptions, ones I’ve never seen before. “No,” I say, shaking my head. “This is a vault of wisdom.”
Her gaze sharpens. “It’s the past, Cael. Not the now. Not the future.”
She steps closer, her expression unreadable. “Be careful not to live for something that can’t be reclaimed.”
Casimiria isn’t wrong.
I start spending more time in the hidden library than I do in the garden—the very place that would help the most. But . . . how can I not?
I’ve found more than ancient scriptions.
I’ve found writings from my forefathers.
My great-great-grandfather, my great-grandfather.
Their notes, their trials, their hopes. I feel part of a legacy written into these walls, and I want .
. . I want to add to it, to keep it alive.
I want healing methods to grow. I want to take what they’ve learned and push it further.
But how can that be done in this cold, forgotten tomb?
I drag myself back to the muddy patch of earth. I’d hoped for weeds at least, something stubborn and wild. But the patch remains bare. A sickly looking bed stares back at me like a dried-up puddle, mocking.
A bet starts: when will I give up? When will I start living like the rest of them, playing games to predict who will die next, scratching patterns on their skin to ward off fate, singing songs under the stars in memory of those long gone?
Lucius passes me with a sighed grimace. “You’re not growing herbs. You’re just digging a grave.”
I swallow. “Then I’ll be the one to lie in it.”
With Akilah’s quiet support, I tend the garden every morning.
By the tenth day, the laughter fades, replaced by pity.
On the fifteenth day, Akilah crouches beside me, her breath caught.
A sliver of green has broken the cracked surface. Frail. Curled, as if it’s afraid of this place. We stare at it, not moving, not breathing—afraid even that might crush it.
It does.
I stare at the bed, the withered remains, my fingers coated in soil. Maybe Lucius was right. Maybe false hope is all there can be.
Akilah leans into me, defeated. “Does this mean you’ll bury yourself in those books again?”
It’s tempting. I admit it—I even thought that exact thing. But as the sun dips low and the light sharpens along the ruined walls, something inside me flares. Something stubborn. Something alive.
“Let’s try somewhere else,” I say, suddenly inspired. “New location. Better light. Different soil.” I glance across the courtyard to Lucius, already snoring in his sunny corner.
She follows my gaze. “You wouldn’t.”
A few hours later, I’m digging in the sunniest patch of earth while Lucius bemoans his lost napping place.
By the fifth week, herbs have sprouted in neat little rows. Pale green, bright against all the grey. The whispers have ceased. In their place . . . something like a held breath. Like hope.
Casimiria appears beside me, humming in approval, though a shadow of pain lingers in her eyes.
“He is right about you.” Her voice falters, her breath hitching sharply. She stumbles, and I catch her before she falls. My fingers seek her pulse.
“You’ve been hiding this,” I whisper, horrified.
“It’ll pass,” she says, her teeth gritted.
Her condition is worse than I feared.
“When did you last get the antidote?”
Her silence answers for her.
I swallow, my resolve hardening. “Then we’ll find another way.”
Casimiria’s pain started weeks ago and has only worsened. That she hid it from me . . .
She laughs weakly when I bring it up, her breath catching mid-sentence. “Nothing you could’ve done.”
At least I could have needled some acupoints, curbed her suffering a little.
I spend the night poring over armfuls of books from the forgotten library, the flickering candlelight blurring the text. Spells for healing burns, staving off infection, even for regrowing limbs—but nothing for her.
She groans and I’m at her side instantly, holding her hand as another spasm racks her body.
Her face is pale, drawn, but she still finds my efforts to distract her amusing.
I tell her how Quin once pretended to be an aklo to meet my family and how my mother took one look at him and declared he should marry Akilah.
“You spend a lot of time together,” she muses.
“Mostly accidentally,” I reply. “And definitely to his chagrin.”
She chuckles, though it’s cut short by another wave of pain.
The duke must have known; Quin’s facade of indifference wouldn’t fool him. This is punishment—a demonstration of power. No doubt Quin already knows.
He’ll be on his way back. At the news of his mother’s delayed medication, he would’ve torn away from his entourage, riding day and night, stopping only to change horses. And when he arrives, when Casimiria gets the antidote, he’ll . . .
Casimiria’s hiss snaps me out of the thought. Her fingers are crushed in my grip.
I loosen my hold. “Your son is smart,” I murmur. “He knows what to do.”
She gives me a faint smile, on the brink of sleep. “He’s a good man. I want him to live.”
I sit with her through the night, the sticky air pressing down, my knees aching from the weight of it all.
The first pale light of morning filters into the tower. I drag myself upright, wiping at my gritty eyes.
Casimiria squirms on her mat, her discomfort evident. I take her outside, hoping the fresh air and some food will help. Akilah and I coax her toward the herb patch, where we sit on a woven mat and I receive a lesson on how to play Chaos of the Escape.
I stare at the unfamiliar symbols on my wooden cards, groaning theatrically. “Akilah, help me!”
She laughs, reaching over to tap the card I should play.
Her help doesn’t last. Soon, she’s leaving me to fend for myself. I throw down a card at random.
Casimiria shakes her head, amused. “Try again.”
“This game’s aptly named,” I mutter.
Air stirs behind me, and I feel Akilah’s return. “Finally,” I say. “Which card?”
A hand points, and I freeze.
Not Akilah’s hand.
Blunt nails, calloused fingers, familiar strength.
I grab the fingers and still for a heart-quickening moment. Then I slowly turn.
I launch myself up to grab his face and check every inch of it for signs of ill health. His cheeks are flushed, lips full and smooth, but his eyes are heavy with fatigue. His spirit is laden with worry, and he’s depleted his magical energies.
He must have come straight here. “You’ve exhausted yourself. Get Florentius to prepare you some pearl heart.”
Quin cocks his head, his expression unreadable. “Interesting.”
His voice and the darkening intensity of his eyes bring me to my senses. I drop my hands from his face and scramble back. “Instincts.”
“You’re supposed to be distancing yourself,” I snap. “Don’t make my sacrifice for nothing.”
Quin smirks faintly. “Sacrifice? Is that what we’re calling it?”
“What would you call it?”
His expression flickers, just for a moment, before he answers. “Bad strategy.” His voice is too light, but his eyes linger on mine.
“Go,” I say.
He doesn’t move. “I’m here for my mother.”
Heat floods my face. “That . . . makes sense. I’ll go.”
Casimiria grabs my arm, her gaze snapping toward the canal. “The duke.”
“Coming personally?” My stomach churns.
“A first,” she says tightly. “Hide. It’ll be worse if he sees us together.”
Quin groans softly as I tug his arm, the pain from his leg evident. He leans on me, and we stumble toward the castle.
We won’t make it.
I glance around, heart pounding, and shove us into a wild patch of coffinweed. The tall blades fence us in, cushioning our fall. His breath is against mine. I don’t dare breathe.