Chapter 48 Wren
The next few days pass in smoke and silence.
I wake before the sun, always cold despite the thick woven blankets, the enchantments in my room, and the crystals we use to generate heat. The fire beneath my skin ought to keep me warm, but I sense this coldness is not something born of the weather, but by the absence of something else.
I dress in layers, braid back my hair, and eat quietly with my grandmother. She has not yet told me what she and the other elders are discussing in regards to my return to Caerthalen, and I have given up asking.
I want to know. I need to know. But I also know that there is nothing to be gained from pestering her. I might as well scream at the mountain.
Moira meets me after breakfast, usually by the stream or the stone circle near the elder tree. Training is quiet and ruthless. She doesn’t raise her voice. She doesn’t need to. Fire is not my enemy, she tells me; I must stop treating it like one. It will not listen if I do not trust it.
Some days, I manage. I coax flame into spirals across the surface of the stream without scalding the water.
I hold it in my palms like it belongs there.
Other days it buckles out of control, leaps too high, burns too fast, and I feel that old panic claw up through my ribs.
One afternoon, it catches the sleeve of my tunic, and Zephyr throws what feels like the entire stream at me with a curse and a wild-eyed look.
I sit in the grass afterward, damp and miserable, and Moira only says, “Again.”
She won’t let me run from it.
And I—I won’t let myself. Not this time. Not when it might mean protecting Cassiel. Not when it might mean keeping him safe from me.
But even as I focus on every flicker of heat, every curl of smoke, my mind drifts. At night, when the music floats in from the kitchens—flutes and strings and the low hum of someone singing in the old tongue—I lie awake and ache for something I can’t name.
I’ve missed it here. Gods, I’ve missed it. The air is sharp and clean, bright with magic. The moss glows faintly under moonlight. The food tastes like memory—roasted roots, spiced stonefruit, fresh bread still warm from the oven. Even the dirt smells right.
And yet… it’s cold. Not in the wind, or the stream, or the shaded corners of the glade, but in me. The grove is beautiful, powerful, endless. But it doesn’t see me. Not the way he does.
Cassiel.
I think about him more than I should. His voice, calm and careful, or cross and frustrated. His hands reaching for me, clinging to my fingers. His body knocking against me as we spar. How he tilts his head to catch every word I say.
I miss him.
His steadiness. His warmth. His maddening presence.
I miss the sound of his heartbeat when he stands too close. The way he says my name. The way he trusts me in a way no one else ever has.
I came here to find control. To burn without breaking. To become something better than what I was.
But the more I master this power, the more I realise I’m not really searching for strength. I’m searching for something warm. Something real. Something human.
And it’s not here—not in the roots, or the rituals, or the endless silence of the trees.
It’s him.
And I don’t know how long I can bear to stay away.
Another day. Another lesson.
The morning sun cuts through the trees like gold through glass, painting everything in long streaks of warmth I don’t quite feel. I flex my fingers as I walk, each step toward the glade steady. I no longer dread the fire. But I haven’t yet welcomed it, either.
Not fully.
Moira waits by the stream, her staff resting across her lap as she sits on the flat stone she always chooses.
Beside her stands Grandmother, arms folded in that no-nonsense way of hers, her mouth a firm line.
They speak in low voices, but I can feel their attention on me the moment I step into the clearing.
“Again?” I ask, arching a brow.
Moira gives the smallest of nods. “Again.”
I toe off my boots, step into the damp grass, and square my shoulders.
No fear. Not today.
I close my eyes. Breathe in moss, pine, magic. I’ve done this a hundred times now, maybe more. I’ve coaxed fire into my hands, guided it into shapes, danced it across the water. I’ve set logs ablaze with a thought. I’ve held flame in my mouth like breath.
But today is different. I can feel it in my spine. In my bones.
The fire is there, as always—waiting.
And this time, I don’t ease it forward. I open myself to it.
It roars.
Heat blooms across my skin like sunrise. It kisses my fingers, my arms, my legs. I feel it spread down my back, curl across my shoulders, wrap around my scalp like a crown. I should be burning. My clothes should blacken, skin blistering. But nothing happens.
No pain. No panic.
Only warmth. Only light.
I open my eyes—and everything is aflame.
I am aflame.
And I am not afraid.
I look down at myself, and I barely recognise what I see.
My entire body is cloaked in fire—glowing, dancing, flickering over every inch of me like a second skin.
My tunic and trousers are untouched, my hair still braided and whole.
The fire isn’t destroying anything. It’s mine. It listens. It follows.
I lift my hand and twist my fingers, and the flame responds—arching, curling, spiralling into gold-threaded shapes that hover and shiver in the air.
I laugh. It bursts from my chest, wild and relieved and full of wonder.
From the edge of the bank, Moira rises.
Grandmother watches, arms now loose by her sides, lips parted.
Moira smiles, eyes gone soft, reverent. “You’re ready.”
The words hit like an echo through the grove.
I let the flames slide from my skin, willing them to fade like breath on glass. When I look down again, I’m just Wren. No sparks. No light. Just my pulse, still quick in my throat.
“Ready for what?” I ask.
Moira’s smile deepens. “To return.”
My heart stumbles.
Return.
To the palace. To Cassiel. To the world I’d started to believe I might belong in…
I glance at Grandmother. Her gaze is sharp, but not cold. There’s something like approval there. Or maybe pride.
“You’ll still need to practise,” she says. “But the fear is gone. And that was the real trial.”
I nod slowly, mouth dry, head full.
I should be thrilled.
A quiet terror hums underneath my skin nonetheless. What if Cassiel doesn’t believe my story? What if he has discovered what I am and hates me for it? I know how much he despises the fey. Could he hate me with the same vigour?
Still, the thought of seeing him again—that steadiness, that voice—
It lights something in me deeper than fear, than fire.
I will not smother it. I have to return to him.
The crystal pit sits low in the centre of the clearing, castin blue-green shadows across the elders’ faces.
I sit cross-legged on the mossy earth, the circle closed around me.
Grandmother is to my right. Moira sits across from me, her gaze steady and unreadable.
The others—seven in all—range in age, gender, and temperament, but they all share the same look tonight: calculating. Expectant.
I keep my breath even. My spine straight. My expression neutral.
“Your training is complete,” says Eryndor, my former tutor—a man with silver coils braided into his beard. “You’ve reclaimed your fire at last, Wren. Congratulations.”
The praise doesn’t warm me as much as it used to. I wait to be told what’s to happen next.
“We have been debating several courses of action,” my grandmother continues. “Based on what you’ve reported to Zephyr.”
My heart hammers. “And?”
A look passes between the seven elders.
“The prince,” Lamia chimes in eventually—a woman with cloud-white eyes and a voice like honey cooled in winter. “Does he love you?”
The question lands softly. It echoes like thunder.
I blink. Once. “I… I’m not sure.”
They wait.
I think of his touch, his breath next to mine, the way he kissed me, how he crawled to me in the fire. I think of the fear in his voice whenever I’ve been hurt, how I whispered about vastren in the carriage, and how he held me closer.
I hate how warm my cheeks feel. “He might.”
A murmur passes between them. Not surprise. Just acknowledgement, perhaps even approval.
“Do you think,” asks Eryndor, “that you could make him love you?”
The answer bursts in my mind before I can stop it.
Yes.
He cares about me. That much is obvious. And he’s made no secret of his desire. I’m not unversed in the art of seduction, and I know Cassiel. It wouldn’t take much. An admission on my part. An invitation.
But I don’t say any of that.
“I suppose it’s… possible,” I say instead.
“See that he does,” Lamia replies, leaning forward. “Secure his affection. Do whatever you have to. And when you are sure… dispose of his mother and brother. Marry him. Take the throne for yourself.”
I stare at her. Surely I’ve misheard.
“You… want me to marry him?”
“Yes.” Moira’s voice now. Calm. Steady. “Become queen. The first fey queen. Bend him to your will. Take over the country. Make it ours again.”
I can’t breathe. “I thought… I thought you sent me there to kill him.”
“If he wasn’t amenable to you, that might have been our order,” Grandmother says, as if discussing the weather.
My voice comes thin. “Why wouldn’t you tell me this before?”
“Because we weren’t sure,” Eryndor says. “We didn’t know which path would open. All we knew was that a half-blood had to enter the service of the second son.”
His words linger around the glade. A few eyes turn upwards, towards the stars.
What have they read there? What does it have to do with me?
“Why?” I demand. “What aren’t you telling me?”
Silence falls. Tight. Measured.
“There’s plenty you don’t know,” Grandmother says at last. “All will be revealed in time. But first—secure the prince’s love. We’ll help you take out his mother and the Crown Prince when the time is right.”