Chapter 4 Wren #2
I arch a brow. “You sound like you’re speaking from experience.”
“Who, me?” He places a hand over his heart in mock offence. “Never. I am the picture of composure and mental fortitude.”
I smile at this. It feels good to smile with someone. It feels like I’ve spent weeks without it.
Dain’s smile falters as he spies the sleeping prince beside me. “How’s he been?” he asks. “Truly.”
“Mean and miserable. Even to Anne.”
“To Anne? Unforgivable.”
I know I’m not exactly the softest of people, but I don’t think I’ve ever been rude to anyone offering me food. I’m usually too busy eating it.
“She seems nice,” I remark. “Anne, that is.”
“Anne is a delight,” Dain continues.
“Has she been here long?”
“I think she grew up here. A lot of the servants have.”
“And you?”
He’s obviously not from Caerthalen if his name is Hollowbrook, although humans often change their name after they’ve lived in a new place for long enough. It might be different for knights, though—otherwise they could potentially all end up with the same name eventually.
Stars, I should have prepared better. Usually, I have weeks to get to know my mark before my grandmother orders me off on a quest. I doubt the decision to send me here was made lightly. Why was I not given more time to prepare?
“Four years,” he says.
“Do you like the work?”
“Wouldn’t have stayed so long if I didn’t.”
“How did you get the scar?”
Dain winces. “I fell out of a tree as a boy.”
“That’s… that’s it?”
“Unfortunately, yes. Occasionally I come up with a fantastic lie that makes me seem oh-so-daring, but there it is.”
“I’m honoured by your honesty.”
“You caught me off guard.”
It occurs to me that it might be rude to ask how someone received a scar. “If I’ve offended you—”
“Not at all,” he says. “Although I’d appreciate it if you didn’t go telling everyone the disappointing story. Most folks assume I got it in the line of duty.”
“My lips are sealed.”
I yawn a moment later, and Dain suggests heading to bed. It’s probably not the best idea to be chatting in the Prince’s doorway anyway. I bid Dain goodnight, and slip away to my room.
The next day’s the same.
The Prince does nothing. I do nothing. The sun rises, crawls across the sky, and sets, all without incident.
I try, once or twice, to draw him into some semblance of conversation, but he refuses to bite.
It’s not that I want to get to know him—Fates, far from it—but the silence is deafening. How can anyone live like this?
“Can we open the curtains?” I ask at one point. “It’s a nice day out.”
“No.”
“It makes no difference to you whether they’re open or closed.”
“Then why do you care?”
I open my mouth, then shut it again. Because it’s unnatural for a fey to go this long without feeling the sun on their skin. It’s unnatural for anyone to go this long.
Has he really been living like this for months?
Anne comes and goes. Dain, at least, spares me a few minutes at the end of his shift, smuggling in bits of gossip and tossing out teasing remarks about my predicament. It’s not much, but it’s something.
By the fourth evening, I’m starting to suspect this assignment might actually kill me—not through danger or violence, but sheer, unrelenting tedium.
I ask Anne if she can bring me some seeds to feed the birds that occasionally perch on the windowsill. It’s one of the few joys in my day. And it’s not entirely without purpose—I’ll need to enchant the birds at some point to carry messages to my kin. I mentally draft a few:
Dear Zeph, have you ever killed anyone out of mercy?
Moira, you’re blind. Were you ever awful about it?
Dear Grandma, could you please just let me kill him already?
I finally do send a message back to the Moonhollow. I know my boredom is of no importance, so I send only the briefest of reports, letting them know that all is well, the prince has no interest in me, and no one suspects a thing.
A day later, I receive a reply from Zephyr.
Play nice.
I scrunch up the message in frustration. This is me playing nice.
The week stretches on. At least the seventh day will be my day off. It still feels a lifetime away. I can’t wait to leave this place. The Prince hasn’t warmed to me, and I’m growing tired of feeling like a ghost haunting his chambers.
That dullness shatters on the sixth day when the door bursts open with the force of a small hurricane. A girl around eight or nine stands in the doorway. Her dark hair is wild from running, her green eyes bright with excitement.
“Brother!” she declares. “I have returned from Aunt Imogen’s!”
She can only be Princess Runara, the youngest of the royal family. She looks more like the queen than Cassiel does, though she has his pale skin—dewy where his is sallow.
“I gathered,” Cassiel drones.
Runara doesn’t seem to register the dry tone. She hurls herself across the room, leaps onto his bed, and throws her arms around him. I fully expect him to stiffen, to pull away or yell at her, but instead, he returns the hug, resting his chin gently on her head.
“I have a new story!” she declares. “May I read it to you?”
“Go ahead.”
She turns to grab the satchel she flung off in her rush to reach him, and her gaze falls on me for the first time.
“Oh! Hello!” She beams. “Who are you?”
“Serawen Thornvale,” I say, dipping into a small bow. “Your brother’s new guard, Princess. Pleased to meet you.”
“Serawen is a pretty name.”
“Thank you. My friends call me Wren.”
“Can I call you Wren?”
“If you wish.”
“Would you like to hear my new book?”
“Absolutely.”
Runara flips open the small, leather-bound book she’s brought with her. She reads with all the enthusiasm of an eight-year-old—which means stumbling over words, rushing through sentences too quickly, and pausing to make sure she’s got the right parts.
I glance at Cassiel, expecting him to cut in, to correct, to snap, to scold. But he does none of those things.
When Runara stumbles over a word, he prompts gently, “Spell it out.”
She does, though she fumbles halfway, repeating various letters twice.
Cassiel sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Thornvale, assist her.”
It takes me a moment to remember that’s my name. I spent plenty of time memorising it before my arrival, I’m just unused to the prince actually using it.
I lean in, murmuring the word quietly. Runara grins, repeating it carefully before carrying on.
By the time she reaches the end of the chapter, she’s bouncing with pride. “Did you like it?” she asks, turning to look at Cassiel. She puts her arms around his neck, pressing her cheek to his.
“You read well,” Cassiel says.
It’s a lie, but it’s a kind one, and the girl practically glows at the praise.
“Come for a walk with me?” Runara asks.
Cassiel stiffens. He shakes his head. “Not today.”
She huffs, dramatic in her disappointment, but rebounds quickly. “Then let’s play hide and seek! Cass is very, very good at seeking, Ser Wren. Have you played with him?”
“I have not,” I admit, not troubling to hide my smile. It’s very difficult to imagine the prince playing hide and seek when he scarcely moves from the bed.
“He always finds me,” Runara says.
“I find you because you giggle,” the prince tells her, running his fingers down her middle and making her squeal with laughter.
“I won’t giggle this time!”
“Promise?”
“I promise!” Runara beams, already scrambling off the bed. “Wren, you play too!”
“No,” the prince says, not as harshly as usual. “One giggling princess is more than enough to locate. Thornvale, stay out of the way.”
He sighs as he shifts to his feet, but there’s something lighter in his expression now, almost a smile.
“You can use my chamber too,” I offer Runara, thinking it’ll at least make the game last longer.
Runara hastily scrambles toward my room… then doubles back again and scoots under the bed.
Sneaky.
I haven’t had much experience with small children. Fey reproduction is rare. There are only two in Moonhollow younger than I am—Asha and Feynor—who are thirteen and four respectively. I have memories of playing with the village children before my mother died, but they’re hazy at best.
All I remember is that they didn’t often play nicely.
I climb onto a chair to keep out of Prince Cassiel’s way as he moves carefully through the room, trailing his fingers along the furniture, searching for movement. He listens, head tilting, pausing at the faintest sound.
Something about the intensity almost makes me laugh. I manage to stop myself, but I emit a small sound nonetheless.
The prince turns, reaching out—and before I can react, his hands land on my thighs. He taps them twice, thinking, I assume, there’s a chance they could be Runara’s shoulders.
There’s a pause.
“You are… not Ru,” he says eventually.
“I am not.”
His fingers twitch against the fabric of my trousers before he drops his hands away, stepping back as if burned.
“You told me not to move,” I remind him, amused. “To stay out of the way.”
“Right.”
“Just as well I was on the chair,” I muse, stretching out one leg. “You could have grabbed a lot worse than my thighs.”
The Prince makes a choked sound and turns his head slightly, as if that might somehow shield him from his own embarrassment. A faint flush touches his cheeks.
Before I can tease him further, he drops to the ground, seizes Runara by the ankles, and drags her out from beneath the bed. A triumphant shriek rings out.
“How did you find me?” she asks, incredulous.
“I told you, you giggle.”
“I do not!”
He grabs her around the waist and spins her in a circle, her delighted laughter echoing through the chamber.
A knock sounds at the door. A servant steps in with a bow. “Princess, the Queen has requested your presence.”
Runara groans. “But we just started—”
“Off you go,” the prince says, setting her down. “Before Mother sends someone more important to fetch you.”
She huffs but obeys, scampering off after a dramatic sigh. The door shuts behind her, leaving silence in her wake.
I exhale and stretch. “Skies above. Can I be her guard instead? She’s a delight.”
The prince scoffs, running a hand through his light hair. “Oh, shut up.”
I blink. Is that a smile?
It’s faint, barely a quirk at the corner of his lips, but it’s there. The first one I’ve seen since arriving at the castle.
I decide not to mention it.
“What are you staring at?” he snaps.
“I wasn’t—how do you know?”
“I just do!” he says.
I snort. “You’re remarkably defensive for someone who just hauled a giggling child out from under a bed.”
He mutters something under his breath and turns away, but not before I catch the flicker of colour still lingering on his cheeks. It’s strange—disarming, even. I almost prefer frostiness over this glimmer of warmth.
Almost.
“You’re good with her,” I say, softer this time.
He pauses in the act of straightening the blankets, his hands going still.
“She’s easy,” he replies after a beat. “She doesn’t know better.”
I tilt my head. “Better than what?”
His jaw tightens. “Than to be afraid of me.”
I cross my arms, unsure what to say to that. I’ve only been here a short while, but I’ve seen the way the staff tread around him. The way Anne is so careful with her words, the way she flinches if he so much as breathes wrong. It’s not fear of him, exactly, or even fear of his wrath.
I think it’s fear of his pain.
“She’s a sweet girl.”
“She’s an utter menace.”
An utter menace who’s brought him the first semblance of joy in my week here.
I hop from the chair and step around the bed, keeping my voice light. “If you’d like, I can giggle and hide under furniture too.”
That earns a genuine huff of laughter, however brief. He shakes his head. “You’re strange,” he says at last.
I grin. “So I’ve been told.”
He doesn’t smile again. But he doesn’t bark at me, either.
Today has not been quite as boring.
Night settles heavy and quiet, the way it always does here.
A few guards patrol quietly outside. There’s the occasional clink of metal or boots scuffling on stone, and little more.
There’s no birds, no whispering wind. In the Moonhollow, sometimes the trees would sing.
Always, there was some noise around me, even on the quiet nights.
I would lie in bed at night as the rushes played like flutes, as the elkasha crooned in the dark, as the birds of the forest conducted their orchestras.
There’s nothing here.
The candles have long since guttered out, and my chamber is cloaked in shadow, soft and still. I’m half-lulled into sleep when there’s a sound in the next room.
A shuffle. Rustling blankets. A sharp intake of breath.
Then—half a moan. Stifled, low. Like someone in pain.
I blink into the darkness, pressing my hand to the mattress, debating.
Is he hurt? Should I check on him?
He’s probably just bumped into something. The last thing he’ll want is his bodyguard swooping in because he stubbed a toe or knocked his shin against the bedpost.
And besides, I’m off duty.
I close my eyes again—but then comes the scrape of a drawer opening. The soft clutter of things being pushed aside. Metal taps against wood. Something clinks—glass, maybe? A vial?
My brow furrows.
Then—nothing. No more movement. No more sound.
Just silence.
A beat passes. Then another. I hear the faint creak of the mattress as he lowers himself back into bed.
I lie still, staring up at the ceiling, listening to the quiet.
I tell myself it’s fine. He would have called out if he needed anything. If it were serious, he’d have shouted. Or groaned louder. Or… something.
I shift, turning over to face the wall, and let the blankets wrap around me again.
He’s not my concern—not tonight.
And yet the image of that soft moan won’t quite leave me. Not the pain in it.
Still, I sleep eventually. Because I have to.
Because I can’t help someone who doesn’t want to be helped.