Chapter 14 Wren
The next morning, Cassiel promptly declares that he wants to skip training in favour of a walk with Runara. He’s excited about the prospect, insisting he doesn’t need any help getting dressed.
“How do I look?” he asks me once he’s done.
His breeches are fine, and his shirt is, too, but he hasn’t quite mastered the art of buttoning up a waistcoat blind, and his cravat is a mess.
“Don’t need any help getting dressed, hmm?” I say, striding towards him. “Here, let me.”
I rebutton his waistcoat and retie his cravat, deciding afterwards that I clearly need more practice with that myself. Cravats aren’t typically worn in the Moonhollow.
Oh well. He won’t know.
“There,” I say. “Much more presentable.”
Runara skids into the room a moment later, grabbing Cassiel’s hand so fast that I have to sprint after them, holding out his cane.
“Slow down, Ru!” I call.
If she understands the meaning of the words, she doesn’t show it. I run ahead of them and catch her free hand, forcing her to slow to a pace Cassiel can manage.
He lets out a breath of relief as I slip the cane into his grip.
“Where are we going, Princess?” I ask her, hoping to stall her further with questions.
“Outside!” Runara declares. “It’s nice today.”
Cassiel laughs. “Is it?”
“Yes!” she insists. “Warm and bright and not windy at all.”
I glance towards the windows. The light streams in strong, and the air carries the rich scent of late summer—warm earth and lush greenery.
Going outside the castle grounds is out of the question, not with two royals to look after and Cassiel still adjusting to life beyond his rooms. Luckily, the castle courtyard is grand: marble archways, high stone walls thick with ivy.
The training grounds lie to the east, but today we veer west, towards the gardens and the shaded paths beyond.
I let go of Runara’s hand and walk to Cassiel’s other side. His cane taps lightly against the stones while Runara chatters away, her excitement infectious.
“I saw a butterfly this morning. A yellow one. I tried to catch it, but it was too fast,” she says. She reminds me slightly of a chirrimoth—a large, moth-like insect that lives in the Duskfen Forest, known for its constant, peculiar chirruping sound.
“Probably for the best,” I remark. “I don’t think butterflies like to be caught.”
“I only wanted to see it closer,” Runara huffs, swinging Cassiel’s hand. “Maybe I’ll find another.”
Cassiel smiles. “You’ll have to tell me if you do.”
“I will!”
She tears off ahead of us.
Cassiel lifts his head slightly. The breeze ruffles through his hair. “I can smell flowers.”
“Over there,” I say, steering him towards a low stone wall. Beyond it, flowerbeds sprawl in neat arrangements, bursts of colour against the grey stone.
“Describe them to me,” he says.
“Um… purple, white, and orange.”
“You’re terrible at this. Pick some.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Pick some for my room. They smell nice, and I should like to take them with me.”
“All right,” I say, gathering several blooms together. I glance around for something to bind them with and, finding nothing, I pull the tie from my hair to use instead.
“Did you just take your hair down?” Cassiel asks, sensing movement, or perhaps hearing the way my hair sifts in the wind, I’m not sure.
“Yes.”
Cassiel leans forward and takes a lock of my hair between his fingers. “Just building up a better picture of you, Thornvale. I didn’t know there was anything about you that was soft.”
“There’s plenty you don’t know about me,” I retort, tying the blooms together.
Like what I’m actually doing here.
“How old are you?”
“Nineteen.”
“Hmm. Well, that explains your immaturity.”
“You—you’re the same age as me!” I protest.
“And yet, I’m so much wiser.”
“I will leave you here.”
“You will not,” he says, smirking. “If something happens to me, there will be no more peaches.”
“There’ll be no more headaches either,” I mutter.
The wind catches my hair, lifting it up straight into Cassiel’s face. He splutters as it reaches his mouth.
“Sorry,” I say, wrestling it back down. “This is why I always braid it. I hope no bandits set upon us. I don’t fancy our chances if we’re both blinded.”
“Very funny,” says Cassiel, and I believe he halfway means it. “You could surely weaponise that hair of yours, or, failing that, your wit.”
“Oh, so you have noticed my sense of humour, most excellent.”
“I’ve noticed it in the way one would notice a wild horse in a pottery,” he mumbles. “In that it’s impossible to ignore but that doesn’t mean that I appreciate it being there.”
Before I can come up with a retort for that, Runara hurries back towards us. “Cassiel! I just saw the world’s biggest squirrel!”
All the sharpness in Cassiel softens the minute he hears Runara’s voice. “The biggest, eh? Impressive.”
We resume our walk, heading towards Runara. Cassiel’s hand reaches out for my arm, but instead pinches the narrow strip of fabric of my sleeve, under my vambraces. I expect him to readjust and go for my elbow again, only he doesn’t. His grip hovers there.
I’m about to speak when his hand moves again. His fingers trail under my palm, towards my own digits, his touch feather-light.
He links his hand into mine.
A tightness passes over my chest. His fingers are warm against my skin. I glance down at our joined hands, unsure what to make of it. It’s a simple thing, really—Runara had done the same only minutes before. I’d held her hand too, and thought nothing of it.
You’ve held the hands of attractive men before, Wren, a voice reminds me. Get a grip.
I accidentally squeeze Cassiel’s hand.
No, not like that.
If Cassiel notices my response, he doesn’t mention it. His attention is solely on Runara.
“What colour was it?” Cassiel asks, his voice indulgent.
“Brown,” Runara says brightly. “But very big.”
“That’s not very descriptive,” he teases. “Was it the size of a dog? A wolf? A bear?”
“A bear-sized squirrel would be terrifying,” I mutter.
“It would, wouldn’t it?” Cassiel agrees. “We’d have to build fortifications.”
“I think it was the size of a small dog,” Runara says thoughtfully. “But it ran off before I could get a closer look.”
“A shame,” Cassiel says. He turns his face towards me, his expression far too innocent. “Or maybe our dear Thornvale scared it off.”
I roll my eyes. “Yes, I make a habit of terrorising local wildlife.”
“I had my suspicions,” he says.
Runara giggles, and despite myself, I smile.
It’s far too easy to fall into this—this lightness, this warmth. It’s dangerous. I should pull away. I should keep my distance.
Instead, I let his hand remain in mine, our fingers twined together as we walk beneath the dappled shade of the trees.
In the evening, I escort Cassiel through the halls, my fingers still tingling from where his hand had been hours earlier.
I let him hold it for far too long.
He has to hold onto you, a voice reminds me. You’re the one being weird about it.
But why my hand, and not my arm?
Perhaps he just prefers that. Maybe he doesn’t want to put up with your terrible gait again.
I shake the thought away as we reach the grand dining hall, where golden candlelight flickers against polished wood and high-arched windows catch the last light of the setting sun. The table is set for five. Queen Alessandra, Prince Evander, and Princess Runara are already seated.
I frown. “Are you expecting someone else?”
I aim the question at Cassiel, but it’s Queen Alessandra who responds instead.
“You, Ser Thornvale.”
I freeze. “Me?”
Cassiel lets out a quiet groan. “Am I to have no escape from her?”
“You said you wouldn’t have dinner with us until she returned!” Prince Evander protests. “What were we supposed to think?”
“That wasn’t—I didn’t mean—” Cassiel’s cheeks go faintly pink. “Well, no matter. She’s here now. Hide the fruit.”
I lead him to his seat, my pulse quickening. This is a test. It has to be. I’m here as a spy—an intruder in their midst. Maybe Queen Alessandra suspects me and means to use this dinner to smoke me out.
Calm, Wren, I hear my grandmother’s voice say. Doubt your enemies, but not yourself.
I draw a careful breath and slide into the chair beside Cassiel, schooling my face into something neutral.
Opposite me sits Evander, the crown prince. The next king.
The man I will eventually have to dethrone.
Or kill. There’s always that.
I really, really wish my grandmother had given me more instructions.
“Ser Thornvale, good to meet you officially,” says the prince.
He’s dark-haired like his mother and sister, but his features mark him easily as Cassiel’s brother. They have the same strong nose, the same sharp cheekbones and jawline.
“Likewise, Prince Evander,” I say, my voice steady.
“I’ve heard a great deal about you.”
My stomach twists. “Good things, I hope.”
Cassiel makes a thoughtful sound. “That depends on how much you value honesty.”
“Cassiel,” Queen Alessandra chides, though there’s amusement in her voice. She looks different outside of her battle leathers, though the gown she’s wearing at the moment—deep, dark blue—has wide shoulder pads and sleeves that look like scales. She’s still every bit the warrior queen.
“I hear you have been an exceptional guard thus far,” she says to me. “My son speaks highly of you.”
I glance at Cassiel, who is pouring himself a goblet of wine, the picture of nonchalance. He said something about me to his family? My throat feels tight.
“No, I don’t,” Cassiel says, but not unkindly.
“Don’t be rude, Cassiel.”
“Yes, Mother.”
I stop him from overfilling his goblet, and he knocks most of it back almost immediately.
“You know there’s a full goblet to your left, right?”
“No, strangely enough, I didn’t.” He puts down his goblet and feels around for his own. Runara slides it carefully towards him. He doesn’t seem to notice. “Whose goblet was that, then?”
“Ah, mine,” I tell him, wondering if it’s all right for me to use it now. I know I ate crumbs from his face before, but that wasn’t in such… company.
I don’t have much time to wonder. Evander pours me a drink from his own, untouched goblet, and summons a servant to whisk away the other.
I curl my fingers under the table. They’re all being... nice. It unnerves me more than outright hostility would. These are humans—royalty, no less. Aren’t they supposed to be cruel? Aren’t they supposed to be like the ones who taunted me as a child, who called me unnatural, fey-blooded filth?
The fey called you things like that, too.
But not all of them. Not Moira or Zephyr or Grandmother. Not most of my tutors, or the little ones.
Were all the humans awful to me, before? I can’t remember. It was so long ago.
My mother certainly wasn’t, I remember that much.
The first course is served—warm bread, fresh sage butter, and a fragrant soup I can’t quite name. I take small bites, watching the family as they speak, measuring each response before I dare to join in.
Evander turns to me again. “Tell me, Ser Thornvale, who taught you the sword?”
It’s a simple question. An innocent one. And yet it could unravel everything if I answer carelessly.
I reach for my goblet, hoping to mask the pause. “Lots of people,” I say smoothly. “I was raised by my grandmother, but the entire village helped out here and there.”
It’s not a lie. Just not the whole truth. There’s no need to mention that the village wasn’t Thornvale at all, but the Moonhollow.
“One of Thornvale’s instructors was blind, if you can believe,” Cassiel tells them.
“Really?” The Queen lowers her knife and fork. “I’m surprised you didn’t mention that in your application.”
Shoot. “In hindsight, that would have been a good idea,” I say. “But Moira—my instructor—has been blind for most of her life. You forget about it most of the time.”
“How would that work, exactly?” Evander asks, his expression thoughtful. “A blind instructor, I mean? It would surely be difficult for her to know how you were standing, holding your weapon, and so on…”
Moira didn’t instruct me in the way of the sword. She instructed me in magic—although she did give me a few tips and insisted we all knew how to fight blind. “She found a way,” I say. “And, in any case, she wasn’t my only tutor. Like I said, it was the whole village.”
“Do you miss it?” asks the Queen.
I think achingly of the Moonhollow—the way the mist clung to the trees at dawn, the scent of our everlight, clean and fresh, and fresh bread stuffed with herbs. The safety of it. The strangeness.
Zephyr laughing. Grandmother’s proud smile. The feeling of not having to hide.
“Yes,” I say quietly. “I miss it.”
Cassiel shifts in his seat, the leg of his chair scraping lightly against the floor. “You’ll have to tell me more about it sometime,” he says, almost gruffly, like he’s embarrassed to have said anything kind at all.
A familiar pang starts low in my belly, coupled with a rather uncomfortable wetness. Oh, great. Wonderful timing.
“Ah, Your Majesty,” I say, pushing my chair back slightly, “I understand that I’m supposed to be guarding the prince, but might I be excused just for a moment?”
The Queen’s eyes soften. I think she recognises the look on my face that most women get from time to time.
“Of course, Thornvale,” she says. “By all means.”
As I rise and slip away from the table, I glance back. They don’t look suspicious. They don’t look cruel. They look... concerned.
Perhaps humans are more complicated than I thought.
And that’s far more dangerous than them being monsters.