Chapter 25 Cassiel
The next morning, the pain has faded almost completely.
It has been so long now since I’d had a truly debilitating attack, I’d started to hope they were gone.
After I first lost my sight, the healers thought the splitting headaches would stop when my eyes healed, only they didn’t.
None of them could offer an explanation as to why they occurred.
Or any hope as to whether or not they would fade.
Pain is disorientating enough without sight loss. It’s sinking and being adrift, all at once. So hard to focus on anything else. Such a struggle not to drown in it.
At least Wren was here yesterday. I was still unmoored, but I felt something else. A tether, perhaps. The possibility of rescue.
Never once did she make me feel fragile or burdensome. She didn’t even lie to me, telling me that it would be all right. She just held my hand and read to me and didn’t tease when I know that must have been difficult for her.
I don’t like relying on people, but it’s easier to rely on her.
I manage to avoid meeting with Lady Lunarta again, and Wren and I spend the day hiding in my room, not wanting to be caught doing anything remotely strenuous.
I suspect my mother would order me straight back to my rooms if she finds us training today.
Neither Wren nor myself seem willing to risk her ire.
It’s honestly not unpleasant. Wren has the bright idea of finding two chessboards, one with marble pieces, and one with wood, which we merge together so that I can tell the difference by touch alone.
I expect to hate how long it takes me to play, having to form a new picture of each move every time, but it turns out Wren doesn’t know how to play at all, so we’re both at a disadvantage that causes us to play at the pace of a couple of snails.
I think I’m more frustrated with her pace than I am my own, which makes a pleasant change… and it’s nice to be able to beat her for once.
We sit together late into the evening. I know it’s night, because it’s cool, and the air is thick with the scent of rock cress. It’s brighter than I remember it. My senses really must be adjusting after all.
I don’t want to sleep, for a change. I turn my face towards the breeze. I imagine the courtyard below us, the trees darkening in the distance, the blue swirl of night.
I imagine Wren beside me, too. She’s seated opposite, almost pressed against the glass, as if she’s a bird ready to take flight. I can picture her posture so clearly.
But not her face. Never her face.
“Cassiel?” she asks, her voice velvet soft. Wren isn’t often soft, but when she is, velvet is the best way to describe her—coarse if smoothed the wrong way.
“Hmm?”
“What colour were your eyes before the accident?”
Something almost like panic seizes me. It hadn’t occurred to me that my eyes wouldn’t look like my eyes anymore. “They aren’t the same colour now?”
She hesitates. “No.”
“Do they look bad?”
“No, not bad.” She shifts on her perch. “Just… you know. Blind.”
“What do they look like?”
Wren exhales slowly, like she’s choosing her words carefully. “Like mist,” she says at last. “Frost. Glass.”
It’s a description better than anything she’s given so far, and not unpleasant, either. She makes them sound almost beautiful. “You’re getting better at describing things.”
“I’m trying to,” she admits.
I curl my fingers over the table. Now I’m not just trying to imagine her face, but my own. I still remember what I look like. I wonder if that will ever change, if in five or ten years, the image of it will fade until I can no longer recall it. “Green,” I whisper.
“What?”
“My eyes,” I explain. “They were green.”
Wren goes quiet again for a moment. “Like Ru’s?”
“Lighter,” I clarify. “More sage than forest.”
“Are you sure you’re not a poet?”
I half smile. I wish I was. “Quite sure.”
Wren goes quiet for a moment. “They would have suited you.”
My lips curve into a slow, wistful smile. “I like to think so.”
“They… they still do, you know,” she adds, her voice hurried. “If you were worried about that. It… it might be silly to say that a blind man’s eyes look nice, but… they do. If you wanted to know.”
I almost laugh. “Nice?”
“Attractive. They’re attractive, all right? All of you looks generally… good.”
“I think you might need more practice in the describing department.”
“Oh, shut up,” she huffs, shuffling in her seat. “I’m trying to be nice.”
“You might need some more practice in that department, too.”
Wren flicks water in my direction, which I definitely deserve.
I find my own receptacle and fling water right back.
Wren laughs, deep and rumbling, leaping off her perch and retreating.
I follow her. She bangs into the desk. I flick more water until she knocks it out of my hand.
It clatters to the floor. It doesn’t stop me.
I find her wrists and pin them above her head.
She’s flush against the wall now, breathless and giggling.
She barely even tries to fight me, and for once, I don’t care that someone’s going easy on me. Her breath pants against my chin.
Her breathing slows, her chest surging against mine. She’s warm. Her skin smells of summer flowers. Her hands wriggle out of mine, tentative fingers ghosting my cheek. She brushes off the droplets of water.
“You’re damp,” she remarks.
“So are you.”
Her breath feels closer than ever. All of her does, like there’s barely anything between our bodies at all, barely anything between us. I can’t describe it any better, all I know is that there are lines of poetry inside my mind coming alive with sensation, suddenly making sense.
I tilt my head towards hers.
Dain knocks sharply on the door. “You’re off duty, Wren!” he declares.
Wren prickles, pulling back, and all heat between us freezes. “Thank you,” she calls back.
I drop away from her, and she ducks towards the bathroom. “I’m going to clean up first tonight,” she tells me. “If you don’t mind.”
“No, not all.”
She scurries away from me.
After, when she’s done and safely installed in her room, I enter the bathing chamber. I’m used to it being a hot, stuffy mess whenever Wren uses it first, but tonight…
Tonight, I take some satisfaction in the fact that it’s ice cold.