Chapter 22 Wren #2
I wonder if he wants me to stay, or if he’s just being polite. I’ve certainly complained enough times about my bed for him to know that it’s probably more comfortable for me to remain here.
Do I want him to want me to stay?
“It’s a nice evening,” I report. “And you do have the nicer view…”
I slide back into my seat. A soft smile twitches in the corner of Cassiel’s cheeks. “I’ll send for some wine,” he says, hollering for Dain.
“Do you want me to describe the view?”
“Not tonight,” he says.
The wine arrives after a short while. We sit by the window and drink.
Cassiel suggests a game of ‘fortunately/unfortunately’ where we take turns adding another line to a preposterous story.
It eventually slides into ‘what would you prefer?’ which gets steadily more ridiculous as the night wears on.
Cassiel doesn’t believe me when I say I’d rather fight a dragon than an elk.
“I’d have so much to brag about!” I insist.
“No, you wouldn’t,” he insists, “because you’d be dead.”
Finally, he yawns, and I take that as my cue to leave. He takes the bathroom first and is almost asleep by the time I emerge, scrubbed raw and covered in the lovely handcream. I take a little longer to unwind, stretching before sliding into my bed with a book to read by candlelight.
I’m just about to nod off when there’s a noise from the next room. A panicked, muffled gasp.
I don’t move immediately. Perhaps he’s just rolled over and banged himself on something. Perhaps—
Another noise comes, low and pained, from the next room.
I bolt from my bed into his room. Shadows pool across the walls, moonlight spilling through the tall windows, barely illuminating the figure curled in the bed.
Cassiel is hunched forward, his breath coming in quick, ragged bursts. His hands grip his face, fingers digging into his temples as if trying to claw something away.
I cross the space in two steps. “Cassiel,” I say firmly, shaking his shoulders. He doesn’t wake. “Cass, wake up.”
He jerks violently at my touch, sucking in a sharp breath. His head snaps toward me, unseeing eyes wide and unfocused.
“It’s just a dream,” I murmur, bracing his arm to keep him steady. “You’re all right. You’re here.”
His breathing slows by degrees, his hands dropping from his face as his body sags. My gaze flickers over him, searching for any sign of real injury—but there’s nothing. Just a nightmare.
Dain steps into the room. “Prince Cassiel?” he calls, wary. “Is everything all right?”
I turn toward him. “Everything’s fine,” I say briskly. “Go back to your post.”
I’m not even sure Cassiel’s awake, but I know he won’t want an audience.
Dain hesitates, eyes flicking past me to the disheveled figure on the bed. “You don’t have to—”
“I said it’s fine,” I repeat, firmer this time.
A long pause—then, with a curt nod, Dain steps away.
He’s right, of course. I’m not on duty. I don’t have to stay with him. I could convince myself that I’m just following my grandmother’s orders—this certainly is one way to befriend Cassiel, after all—but that’s not why I bolted from my room in the middle of the night.
I turn back to Cassiel. He has drawn his knees up slightly, his fingers flexing and clenching against the sheets. He doesn’t speak. I’m not entirely sure he can.
I sink down beside him, close enough that he won’t feel alone. “Are you all right?”
A silly question. I half expect him to rebuff me, or not answer, or even demand that I leave.
“I… I was dreaming,” he admits.
“What about?”
He swallows, chest rising and falling. “The night I lost my sight.” The breath shudders out of him.
I’m not sure I want to hear this story. I think it’s going to hurt. At the same time, I know I have no choice but to listen—to listen and to fight the awful, desperate urge to take his hand.
“I was with Evander,” he goes on. “We were sleeping in a tent on the borders of the Duskfen Forest when I woke up with this unbearable pain in my eyes… I could feel the blood, but I couldn’t see it. I couldn’t see anything.”
I frown. He shouldn’t have bled. Blindness curses don’t usually. Which means either something went horribly wrong—
Or the spellcaster did it on purpose.
Curse you, I think bitterly.
“I screamed,” Cassiel whispers, as though this is something to be afraid of.
My throat is uncomfortably tight. “I would have screamed, too.”
“That’s not even the worst part,” Cassiel continues. “The worst part was Evander’s screams. He… he never screams. He never loses his composure. But that night…”
He scrubs at his cheeks, not brushing away imaginary blood now but tears—real and raw.
“I didn’t… I didn’t even do anything…” He chokes. “I never hurt one of them. I don’t think… I don’t think I did. I’ve never… I’ve never wanted to hurt anyone…”
My arms fly around him and drag him to my chest. He sobs there, coughing and wracking, until the front of my nightgown is damp. There’s nothing I can say. I can’t form thoughts, let alone words. All I can do is hold him until he’s completely spent.
Finally, the sobs subside. I ease him back, brushing a damp lock from his forehead.
“Does it hurt now?” I ask quietly, as if any louder will break us both.
Cassiel shakes his head, his shoulders slumping.
“Good.” I reach for the water pitcher by his bedside, pouring some into a cup and pressing it into his hands. “Drink.”
He obeys without argument, taking slow sips.
“I dream about that night all the time,” he admits. “But the worst part isn’t the dream. The worst part is realising it’s real.” He swallows. “I still wake up expecting to see.”
Slowly, carefully, I reach across and tug the cup from his hands, setting it aside. He isn’t the only one with nightmares. He isn’t the only one who wakes up wishing that the past was a dream.
“My mother died in a fire when I was seven,” I tell him. “I was there. In the house. I—” My thoughts stall. I can’t tell him all of it. I can’t even tell him most.
I didn’t do anything, he told me.
But I did. I did, I did, I did.
“I go back there all the time,” I continue. “Even now. I wake up thinking my room is on fire. For years, I kept expecting her to run in and tell me that it was all a dream. But of course, she never did…”
And my grandmother couldn’t tell me that it was all a dream, that it was all right, because she can’t lie. I never understood before how kind lies could be, how much small children rely on them.
How cruel the world can feel without them.
“I don’t even know why I’m telling you this,” I add, although perhaps that’s a lie, too. It isn’t I know what it’s like. It’s you are not alone in the dark. It’s do not be ashamed of the things that have hurt you.
Cassiel’s hands find mine in the dark, fingers fastening onto me. “Wren?”
“Yes?”
“I’m sorry about what happened to you.”
I raise a hand to his face. “I’m sorry about what happened to you, too.” I move a little closer, the air between us narrowing. “I know you don’t want pity—I don’t either—but I am sorry nonetheless.”
“I don’t think I mind it coming from you.” He raises a hand to his cheek, squeezing my fingers. “What happened to your father?” he asks.
I stiffen. “Died when I was too young to remember him,” I tell him, pulling back. “Are you all right now?”
“Yes, I think so.”
I scramble off the bed. “Try to get some sleep, Prince.”
It feels wrong to leave so abruptly, so halfway to my room I stop and turn back towards him. I hover beside him, trying to read something in his expression. Is he confused, glad I returned, wishing I would go away?
I can’t read it, so I stop trying. Instead, I bend down and kiss his cheek, lingering there for a second too long before scuttling back to my room and closing the door. It’s easier than staying there, easier than facing the other questions that might arise.
Easier than finding something else to say that isn’t:
My father was executed for the crime of being fey.
I hear your father swung the axe.