Chapter 20 Cassiel
Dain is a lot less ruthless and a lot more hesitant than Wren, but it’s good to fight with someone else. If only I could spar with someone I knew wasn’t holding back. I don’t think there’s anyone in the entire castle willing to treat me the way she does.
Mind you, if she keeps teaching Runara, she might be a formidable opponent before long. I know she says she wants to learn how to protect me, but she is still my sister, and I doubt that protection will extend to herself. She will absolutely fight me to the best of her abilities.
I quite look forward to the day.
I’m still not sure how I feel about her admission, or about Wren’s. It isn’t bad to need protection, but that doesn’t suddenly make me fine with it.
I want to be the protector, not the protected.
Maybe you can be both.
I don’t know how to be.
Perhaps I’ll figure it out at some point.
Dain and I finish sparring. He lets me win, but I still feel good for the exercise. The day passes quickly enough. We eat, we take a walk, I return to my chambers and he takes his post outside.
Wren returns just as I’m drifting off.
“Enjoy your day?” I hear Dain ask her at the door.
“I did. You?”
“’Twas pleasant.”
They pause for a moment, and I imagine them smiling at each other. It is not an enjoyable image.
“Dain?” Wren asks, voice soft.
“Yes?”
“Could you come in here…”
“Look, Thornvale, I find you very attractive, but I don’t think we should be doing this on duty…”
Wren laughs. The sound shouldn’t bother me so much. I usually really enjoy her laugh.
But then, she’s usually laughing with me.
“Easy there. I want you to teach me how to tie a cravat.”
Wren’s already tied my cravat for me before, so I have no idea why she’s asking Dain for assistance in this matter. She’s clearly just invited him in to get to know him better.
It shouldn’t irk me who Wren wants to spend time with, but this is my room and I’m never going to sleep if they’re just going to stand there giggling, so I roll over in my sleep and make noises like I’m waking up.
It does the trick. Both of them cease their infernal chortling and go utterly quiet for a long, drawn-out moment.
“Another night, maybe,” Dain says eventually.
The door closes again, and Wren tiptoes back to her room.
The next morning, I promptly declare to Wren that I would like to go for a ride.
The pause after I speak is a long one. “A ride?” she says eventually.
“Do you not think I’m capable?”
“I think with enough time I could teach you how to do just about anything you could do before apart from read.”
She’s wrong, of course, but I don’t want to argue. For a moment, I want to believe her.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” I say, pressing before she can reconsider.
“Of course. Let’s just make sure we choose a docile horse…”
It doesn’t take long before we’re out in the stables, the air rich with the scent of hay and leather. Wren leads me to a sturdy gelding.
“His name is Alder,” she tells me, placing my hand on his neck. “Steady, patient. Won’t throw you off when you decide to be reckless.”
“You’re the reckless one,” I say, but she snorts and doesn’t dignify that with an answer.
She guides my hands towards the saddle and places my foot against the stirrup, but she doesn’t hover long as I swing myself up.
She mounts her own ride and brings it up to my side.
It does feel odd to be on horseback again.
The sensation is familiar, but not being able to see anything at the same time isn’t.
Wren clicks off, my own horse following her. Captain Fellwood kicks up a bit of a fuss at the gates and tries to push a second escort on us, but I ignore him.
We step under the portcullis. Its shadow crashes over me like a wave. The last time I went under it, I was on a stretcher. It closed behind me like the lid of a coffin. Pain presses against my eyelids in memory, but I don’t want to give it weight. Not today.
The palace walls soon fall away behind us, the rhythm of hooves soothing, the morning air crisp. We continue at a slow, steady pace, away from the city, north bound, I think, into the shade of the trees. I breathe deep, letting the forest wrap around me once more.
Wren doesn’t describe our surroundings unless I ask. She lets me fill in the blanks, listening for the rustling of leaves, the occasional snap of a twig underfoot. Somewhere, birds chatter. The world is not as dark as it was in the palace.
The sun soaks my skin, the breeze shifting my hair. The ground is uneven beneath the horse’s hooves, scattered with roots and fallen leaves.
“Are we in a clearing?” I ask.
“We are.”
“What else?”
There’s a pause. “The grass is thick, damp with morning dew. Wildflowers—white and yellow. There’s a stream nearby.”
I tilt my head, listening. “I hear it.”
Wren shifts beside me, bringing her horse in close. “What’s it like?” she asks.
It’s better than how are you doing? It doesn’t assume the negative.
“It’s different,” I say at last. “But I don’t feel… trapped out here.”
She exhales, almost like she’s relieved. She moves again. There’s the ghost of a touch over my arm, before she pulls away.
I wish she hadn’t.
“Come on,” she says. “You wanted a ride, didn’t you? Let’s go further.”
We leave the clearing behind us. The earth gives away to a gravel road. I know this one—at least, I think I do. It winds east, away from the palace. It’s a long, straight stretch. I’ve ridden down it a thousand times, racing my siblings, laughing till our lungs burst.
“Race me,” I demand.
Wren doesn’t try to object. “Where’s the finish line?”
“You tell me.”
She thinks for a moment. “There’s a big oak about a hundred meters ahead. That should do.”
“Great,” I tell her. “Let me know when I’ve won.”
I click my tongue, urging the horse forward.
We lurch into motion, wind rushing past my face.
The ground is uneven, but I don’t care. I trust the horse to know the way, trust the rhythm of his stride.
I’d forgotten how good this could feel. I’d forgotten speed.
My heart thrums with exhilaration, the trees whipping past.
“Cassiel!” Wren cries out.
I laugh at her.
I’m still laughing when a branch catches me across the chest and knocks me clean from the saddle. The impact jars through my bones, the air torn from my lungs as I hit the ground in a tangle of limbs.
Distantly, I hear Wren’s startled curse. Her horse slows. I’m fairly sure she leaps off, her boots thudding against the earth as she races toward me.
“Cassiel!”
I should answer and tell her I’m fine. But I’m winded, dazed, and I can’t help it—I laugh as soon as I have enough breath to.
Wren drops to her knees beside me, hands on my shoulders, checking for injuries. “You absolute idiot—”
I reach for her, still breathless. My hand finds her wrist, then her waist, and I pull her down, holding her flush against me as my laughter fades into something quieter.
It feels good to hold someone like this.
Someone bigger than Runara, someone who’s not holding me to help me, or out of any kind of pity or sorrow.
It feels good to hold a woman, too, although I don’t really want to admit that.
It’s baffling that I’ve never seen Wren’s face, that I know her by her shape and scent, the sound of her voice and the cadence of her laugh, but if my sight was miraculously restored tomorrow, I’d never be able to pick her out in a crowd.
It bothers me, but the thought doesn’t hurt as much as it used to.
Wren’s breath is uneven, her hands curled into the fabric of my shirt. I don’t know what expression she wears, but I imagine it’s a soft one.
“Thank you,” I whisper into her hair.
She doesn’t ask what for. I don’t clarify. I lie in the dirt with her against me, slowly relaxing in my arms. She smells amazing out here, like the scent of all the wildflowers has flocked to her skin.
It might just be my expensive soaps that she’s been using.
Wren’s hands come up around me. She holds me back, just as fiercely. “You’re welcome.”