Chapter 49 Cassiel
The book slips from my hands and slaps against the table, loud enough to make Dain flinch beside me. Pages flutter like startled wings, and the silence that follows is heavier than before.
“Saints,” I mutter, pressing the heels of my palms into my eyes.
As if that will change anything. As if I haven’t already memorised the feel of every useless page, every dry, inkless promise.
I don’t even know what’s written right in front of me, but I hold onto them like they might crack open and spill her voice back into the world.
Wren.
Her name lands in my chest like it always does: a burning absence. It’s been seven days, maybe eight—hard to tell when you don’t sleep properly and every hour is just more dust and silence. Dain reads aloud when I ask, but we’re still no closer to a definitive answer.
Does it even matter? the voice inside me hisses. You’re never going to see her again.
I grit my teeth, not wanting to give weight to my doubts.
It doesn’t matter, because whatever she is, she’s still Wren.
Wren, Wren, Wren. Come back to me.
I shove back from the table, standing too fast. My chair legs scrape like a scream. Dain hisses at the sound.
“Sorry,” I murmur.
There’s a soft knock at the door, almost hesitant, followed by the faint scuff of boots on stone. I recognise the steps before the voice. There aren’t many people in the castle as small and light as she is.
“Cassiel?”
Runara. Her voice is quieter than usual.
“Ru?” I say, clearing the grit from my throat. “What is it?”
Runara hesitates. “Are you reading?” she asks.
“No,” I say, at the same time that Dain says, “yes.”
“Dain’s helping,” I add.
“What are you reading?”
“It’s a research project.”
“Can I help? I’m getting quite good at reading—”
“No!” I say, more sharply than I mean to. I step between her and the table, hoping to shield whatever’s on view. I can’t explain what we’re looking at without implicating Wren, and I have no convincing lie to hand.
Runara stills. “That’s all right,” she says. “I didn’t come up here to read, anyway.”
I force my voice into something soft. “Why are you here then?”
“I was wondering if you would train with me?”
Ru hasn’t asked me to train with her in years, and even then, it wasn’t really training—it was me chasing her around the courtyard with a wooden sword and letting her beat me with hers when I caught her.
A part of me wants to deny her, to insist that we’re too busy, to get back to our researching, but the voice telling me it’s all pointless rises up again, and I realise something else, something far more important:
Runara misses Wren too.
“Let me get my cane,” I say, already stepping away from the table. “Dain, are you all right to—”
“I’ll continue to read in your absence, Your Highness. I’ll let you know if I find anything.” He passes my cane to me. “You don’t need an escort?”
I know he’s joking, but I humour him. “There’s nothing in this castle more fearsome than my little sister.”
“At least until Wren gets back.”
I smile, but it’s a weak one.
Runara falls into step beside me. We walk without words, the corridor cool under our feet, the scent of old parchment and candlewax giving way to the sharper tang of frosty air that crawls in through every crevice.
Runara takes my hand as we step outside. I don’t need it, but I cling to it nonetheless. Her fingers feel smaller today.
It’s possible I’m just missing someone else’s.
Runara bursts into the training hall and demands that all the knights ‘take a break’. She’s a little more polite than Wren, but only just. I imagine Ru smiling sweetly even as her eyes gleam with fire. She has always enjoyed ordering people around.
The training room smells like dust and oil and sweat. The mats are scuffed underfoot, and the air carries the faint echo of effort. I let my fingers trail over the wall until I find the rack, then set my cane down with a soft scrape of wood on wood.
Runara doesn’t speak as she collects her own practice sword, and I don’t ask if she’s ready. I can feel her shifting her stance—barely a shuffle, just enough for me to sense her balance settle. She’s waiting.
I raise the staff. “Are you going first, or am I?”
“You are,” she says, and her voice is too flat.
The first strike comes fast—faster than I expect—and I parry by instinct, wood cracking against wood with a satisfying jolt that runs up my arms.
“I thought I was going first?”
“I ‘lulled you into a false sense of security,’” Runara explains, striking my thigh. “Wren taught me.”
“That sounds like her.”
She whacks me around the middle, not holding back. That’s good. I don’t want soft. I’m almost impressed by how hard she’s swinging. I hold back a little, of course, but mostly because I’m having trouble with her small stature and I don’t want to risk accidentally stabbing her in the eye.
One blind child is quite enough.
We trade blows, moving in rhythm. I rely on the sound, the shift of air, the pressure of each movement. She’s much, much better than she used to be.
I guess it wasn’t just me Wren changed.
We move like that for a while, until the sweat prickles down my back and my breath starts to come harder. My footing slips, and the next hit lands against my ribs with a solid thud.
I grunt and step back.
She freezes. “Sorry—”
“No,” I breathe, shaking my head. “Don’t hold back.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
I lower the weapon slightly, catching my breath. The room feels heavier now, like the silence is pressing on both of us.
She breaks it first. “I keep thinking I’ll turn a corner and find her there. Wren. Just... leaning on a wall like she always did. Smirking like she knows something I don’t.”
I swallow hard. My grip on the staff tightens.
“Me too,” I say.
Runara’s voice wavers, and for once she doesn’t hide it. “I don’t know how to stop waiting for her.”
I don’t either. But I won’t say that. Instead, I lower the weapon all the way and cross the mat toward her. She’s trembling a little. Barely. Like if she stands still long enough, the grief might catch her.
I wrap one arm around her shoulders, draw her into a brief, solid hug. She doesn’t resist.
“We train,” I murmur. “We keep going. That’s how we wait.”
She nods against my shoulder, and I kiss the top of her head. Her hair is loose around her shoulders, and I reach out to brush it behind her ear.
Once, I reached out and touched Wren’s ear during training, convinced for a second that I’d find a pointed tip, and being relieved beyond measure when I didn’t.
I remember Wren froze. There was a hardness to her voice when she spoke again.
I think of all the books in the library, all of the descriptions she doesn’t fit. But she’s something.
No, I correct. Wren’s not something, at all.
She’s everything, and when she gets back, I’ll make sure that she knows it.
I just hope I have the chance to ask her if she wants to be mine as much as I desperately want to be hers.