Chapter 48 Wren #2
The time will never be right. How can they expect me to go back to Caerthalen and dine with the royal family—become more a part of it than I already am—and then murder them?
“Prince Evander is a good man,” I say quickly, like that might protect him. “He’s sympathetic to the fey—”
“Prince Evander will never stand up to his mother,” someone interrupts. “And we have waited long enough. He does not enjoy the company of women. You’ll have no luck manipulating him that way.”
Manipulate. I flinch at the word. I don’t want to manipulate anyone. Least of all them. Least of all Cassiel.
“This… this is truly what you wish for me to do?” I ask, quietly.
“It is,” Grandmother says. “It is the best way. Think of it, Wren. With two slain, we could save all our people.”
I doubt it will be as simple as they’re suggesting. There will be more bloodshed, and heartbreak is an immeasurable beast. This plan will destroy Cassiel.
I think it will destroy me, too.
But I remember what I can do. What I was born able to do. The one thing no other fey can.
I can lie.
So I lift my chin, softening my mouth into the shape they want. “Forgive me,” I murmur. “I’ve been too long amongst the humans. I’m forgetting myself. Of course I will do as you bid.”
“Good girl,” Grandmother says.
I smile, but it doesn’t reach anything inside me.
“One final question,” I add, voice deceptively light. “Were you the ones that blinded him?”
The air shifts. I know the answer before they speak.
It’s Moira who answers. “It was my idea,” she says. “And my magic.”
I blink, slow. “You?”
She doesn’t look away. “Blindness isn’t that terrible. But it takes a while to adapt. We needed a reason for him to seek a servant from outside the castle.”
“There were other ways,” I say, barely holding back the tremor in my voice.
“Of course,” she says, infuriatingly calm. “But this was the best. It rendered him helpless. It allowed you in, and gave you the ability to shield what you truly are… to be able to cast enchantments right in front of him.”
My stomach twists, thinking of all the times I have done just that, relied on his sightlessness to achieve my own ends, but more than that, I think of all the other things—watching him stumble, watching him stare out of the window at nothing, watching him curse in frustration or hiss in pain or hold his precious books in his hands, the words forever lost to him.
I think of the art pinned to my bedroom walls, and how bitterly unfair it is that he’ll never paint again.
And my people did that to him.
I did that to him. My very existence began this chain of events. All we knew was that a half-blood had to enter the service of the second son…
But this isn’t how I end this war. I don’t care what is written in the stars.
“I see,” I say quietly. “When should I return?”
“Tomorrow,” Grandmother answers.
“Very well.”
I rise, bowing my head. The light dances on my back as I step out of the circle, out of their voices, out of their reach.
I wait until I’m alone, deep in the quiet of the trees, before I let my breath shake free.
Tomorrow.
Tomorrow I return.
And Stars help me, I’m no longer sure if I’m on the right side.
The door to my room shuts softly behind me, and still, I feel like I’m being watched.
The silence presses in. I try to sit. Try to pretend I can rest. But the fire in my chest—lit not by power, but fury—refuses to let me breathe.
Moira. It was Moira who blinded Cassiel. Everything he’s gone through—that he’s still going through—is because of her.
The person who taught me spellcraft, who taught me how to fight without my eyes. I taught Cass using her methods.
It makes me want to be sick.
Her voice replays in my head, calm and careless. “It was my idea. And my magic.”
There are dozens of curses that can take a person’s sight. Simple hexes. Traps woven into illusions. Potions laced with venom. But Cassiel said it hurt. That it still hurt. Not just the absence of sight, but pain. Persistent. Lingering.
Before, I’d thought that something must have gone wrong with the spell. But Moira doesn’t make mistakes.
Which makes me think it’s a different kind of curse.
I stand, pacing. I try to reason with myself.
To talk myself out of it. I can’t be turning against my people.
I owe them everything. I don’t know what I am without them.
They’re my family. Yes, some of them can be cold, and cruel, but that’s what years of living under oppression does to people—decades, centuries of watching their family and friends die.
I can’t expect them to be kind after everything they’ve endured.
They’re still mine. Zephyr alone is worth being one of them…
But it wasn’t Zephyr who blinded Cassiel.
Cassiel. My Cassiel.
I pull on my cloak and gather my weapons.
The elders are still gathered when I pass by the glade. I can hear their voices—low, murmured, smug. Plotting the future like it’s a game board and Cassiel’s just one more piece.
Something pricks at my eyes. I’m a piece of theirs, too.
They don’t see me slip by.
Moira’s chambers are seated in the base of one of the great oaks, half-swallowed by roots and shadow. The door creaks as I push it open. My heart is hammering, but I can’t stop. I won’t.
Inside, the air is thick with the scent of juniper and old smoke.
There’s a table covered in scraps of vellum, chalked circles, bundles of dried plants.
I move quietly, lifting paper, opening drawers.
Everything in Moira’s space is meticulously organised.
She may be ancient, but she doesn’t cling to things she has no use for.
I find what I’m looking for in a box beneath her bed, hidden beneath folded silks.
It’s a small totem, carved in Cassiel’s likeness.
It steals the breath from my throat.
It’s unmistakably him. His shoulders, his form—the slight downturn of his mouth.
And tied to it, looped and knotted around the neck, is a strand of silver-gold hair. His hair. I’d recognise it anywhere.
Two pins spear the figure’s eyes. I flinch just looking at them.
No wonder it hurt. No wonder that it still does.
I reach for it and hesitate. I can’t just pull the pins out. It could make things worse. The sight loss might already be permanent. But if I leave it…
Moira could do anything. She could steal his voice or his hearing next. Even his life, if she wanted to.
Stars, how could I have ever thought that they’d ask me to kill him? They could have ended his life any time if they wanted to.
I cradle the totem in my hands, wondering if, somehow, he can feel my touch back at the castle. I doubt it. Softness is never felt as strongly as pain.
Don’t worry, I tell the totem, like I’m soothing an infant, I’ll keep you safe. I’ll protect you.
I slip it back into the silk, careful not to touch the pins. Until I find a way to break the enchantment on it, it’s safest with me.
I leave as silently as I came. The elders haven’t moved from the glade. The rest of the wood sleeps—
A soft sound reaches my ears, a creak from above. I glance up. Zephyr is perched on one of the branches, watching me with one brow arched.
I wait. How long has he been there? Did he see me come from Moira’s—
If he did, he says nothing, just tilts his head, ever so slightly, and then vanishes into the shadows.