Chapter 7 #2
He watches me while arching a dark brow. “I said I will give you answers the first moment I am capable of it. After the ceremony, I did not feel capable.”
I’m not sure if I’m angry with him for using such tricky word play or at myself for getting lured into such foolish semantics.
As if sensing my thoughts, Casimir shrugs. “You don’t live four hundred years and not learn a thing or two.”
My mouth opens, but I just as quickly snap it shut. At those words, even more questions pelt me, demanding to be answered. How is it possible he’s alive? How has he lived this long? And what the hell do I have to do with any of it?
“I want answers,” I say, voice stern.
Casimir sighs, raking a hand through his soot-black hair. “I don’t suppose that desire can wait until morning?”
“Not unless you want the hassle of dealing with a very uncooperative captive.”
He studies me through inscrutable eyes. “You know I could call for a guard and have you escorted back to your room within minutes, correct?”
I brace my hands on my hips. “And you know you desperately need me for some undisclosed reason, and if I refuse to cooperate, I can make things very, very difficult for you.”
“And I can make you very, very dead,” Casimir counters.
I shrug. “Do it.”
Casimir lifts a brow, but says nothing. Eventually, he motions for me to sit in one of the two lounging chairs resting in front of the burning hearth. I mock a pointed curtsy, then waltz over to the chair.
Once I’m seated and comfortable, Casimir asks, “Would you like a drink?” As if for emphasis, he reaches for his glass on the mantle.
I scrunch my nose at the offer. “Right. Like I would drink anything you give me.”
Casimir sips from his glass. “You eat and drink the food and water provided to you just fine.”
“Not willingly,” I grumble under my breath.
Casimir only glances at me. With deft movements, he rests himself gently into the chair across from me and folds one leg over the other. “What is it you’d like to ask?”
A lot of things. More than a lot. So many things, simply finding a starting point feels difficult.
Still, I try. “Why am I here? Why did you take me away from a place that, for the first time in a long time, was finally starting to feel like a home to me?” Emotion clogs my throat as their faces flash through my mind. Gray. Marcella. Griff. Kiran.
Draven.
Casimir stares at the crystal glass as he swirls the liquid inside. “I can answer that question. But only to a certain extent. At least for now.”
I rub between my brows, already frustrated. If this is any indication of how this conversation is going to go, I’m in for a long, trying night. Still, I gesture for him to continue.
Casimir sips from his glass. “You are here because I need you. My people need you. You are here because this place and all it’s founded on is where you belong.”
“And why is that?”
“Because it is filled with those rejected by the world of nobility. Those persecuted, spat on, made less than, and forced to suffer because of a broken system that cares more for its one percent than it does the other ninety-nine percent of living and breathing souls.” Casimir leans forward and sets the glass down on the small, rounded table between us.
“You are here because you are going to help me destroy that system.”
My heart picks up in my chest. “How?”
“By destroying the Cycle.”
I fight against the urge to bark a laugh. Surely he can’t be serious.
Yet as his eyes remain glued to me, they are alarmingly resolute. I lean forward, dropping my voice. “You’re joking, right? One cannot simply destroy the Cycle. It’s…it’s…”
“A force beyond reckoning?” Casimir offers in lieu of my stammering.
“Yes,” I breathe. “Not to mention, even if you were somehow successful, who knows what would happen to the order of this world?”
“I do,” Casimir states simply. “Magic would no longer be distributed. It would just…disappear.”
A chill caresses my spine. “And what about the people who already have magic?”
Casimir steeples his fingers in front of him.
“I am still working that part out. All things in this world have a frequency; that is an indisputable fact. Magic is no exception, and as such, the lakt? in our veins is already attuned. But once the Cycle collapses, the structure sustaining that resonance will shatter. I suspect it is logical to assume once the force giving magic is taken away, the essence of magic itself will disappear with it.”
I study Casimir. His face is calm—so indifferent. I shake my head. “Okay, so you destroy magic—then what? What does that even accomplish?”
“It resets the hierarchy,” Casimir says. “It severs the root feeding the Great Houses. Bloodlines won’t matter without their gifts. Power becomes a question of merit, not magic. It will be chaos—for a time. But by leveling the foundation, something better can be built.”
I stare at him, unable to make sense of what he’s suggesting. “You’re talking about collapsing the fundamental root of Solaya’s civilization.”
“No.” Casimir’s voice is quieter now. “I’m talking about rebuilding it.”
“But the implications of that…” I stop, my face scrunching as I try to grasp the sheer magnitude of what he’s saying.
“The world would lose its healers. Its Gardners. The Jurafen. And what of the creatures lurking within our borders? Who would be able to protect the people from them? Not to mention the rebellions sure to rise from the power imbalances you’re proposing.
You wouldn’t just be plunging our continent into structural chaos, you’d be damning the next generation to war. ”
“Drastic change requires drastic action.” Casimir stares off into the distance, silent for three heartbeats before returning his eyes to me. “Provide me with a better alternative,” he murmurs. “Show me a better option for cleansing the filth of this world.”
My lips part as I will persuasive words to form on my tongue, but…nothing comes. I have nothing to offer him.
And the way Casimir watches me shows me he recognizes I’ve come up empty-handed. “If it’s any consolation,” he says. “In destroying the Cycle, I would not just be taking. I would be giving as well.”
My voice is sharp. “And how is that?”
“My people would be free at last.”
His people. The Abdites.
“Free from what, exactly?”
“The madness that was never theirs to claim. The cruel reminder that, at one point, society deemed them completely expendable.”
I press a hand against my reeling head, feeling suddenly exhausted.
“And how is it I am supposed to help you accomplish this? What about me is so special, you felt the need to extract me from my home? Leave a journal for me to find?” I pause, perking up and lifting my hand.
“Actually, before you answer that question, I’d like you to answer this one instead: why the hell did you leave me your journal? ”
This is a question I’ve pondered a lot lately.
Why Casimir felt the need for me to read his most personal thoughts.
His own account of history. I’ve had a gnawing feeling about it—one telling me it surpasses a simple desire for me to learn the truth of my magic.
Odds are I would have discovered the truth eventually, so… why?
Casimir’s voice is soft. “Because I wanted you to understand how I arrived at my conclusion. To know evil deeds don’t simply exist from nothing; they are born from necessity.”
I think of his journal entries. Of the faith he had once placed in humanity. In his early entries, he always seemed so good and optimistic. An idealist over a pragmatist. He advocated for peace and diplomacy. Reached for something which would mend instead of break.
How far removed that person is from the broken man who sits before me now.
I realize then that I could continue asking him why.
Continue to demand answers which could potentially help me understand how it is he arrived at his conclusion.
Yet we would simply go round and round in circles.
I’m not ever going to understand—ever going to agree with him nor his methods.
So, for now, I might as well save myself the headache and move on.
“And how do I fit into all this? What is it you’re expecting me to do?”
“For now, all I want you to do is train your magic. Discover the depths of your abilities. Explore the Veil. And get to know my people.”
I lift a brow. “That’s it?”
Casimir leans back in his chair. “For now.”
“And when can I go home?”
He doesn’t answer, instead only observing me.
“When. Can. I. Go. Home?” I ask again, not bothering to pull any of the bite from my voice.
Another moment of silence. And then—
“It depends.”
I grit my teeth. “That’s not good enough.”
Casimir shrugs. “It doesn’t have to be.”
“And if I refuse your request?”
He pulls his eyes away from me, now looking at the glowing hearth.
“You seem to have forgotten my words to you the night of your attempted escape.” Casimir sighs, mussing a hand through his hair.
“Make no mistake—I wish for civility between you and me, but I am not asking you for any favors. You will do this, like it or not. Because if you don’t, the cost of your resistance is the lives of those you love most.”
Thorned vines twist in my stomach, rising up to pierce the skin of my throat. An immense weight sits heavy on my chest, and I know I’ve hit my capacity for one evening. I rise from the chair and make for the door. “I’ve had enough answers for one night.”
“Good.” Casimir’s voice has grown cold. “You can see yourself back to your chambers, then.”
I throw the door closed behind me and walk at a quickened pace down the stairs, through the corridors and back to my bedchamber.
Once inside, I slam the door shut and press my back against it, heaving shallow, jagged breaths.
It isn’t until I’ve again become the master over my own breathing that I strip the clothes from my body and crawl into bed.
Yet sleep does not find me like I had hoped—even if I figured it wouldn’t.
No.
Instead I lay tossing and turning in silky sheets that bind around me like a blanket of guilt, mulling over all Casimir said tonight. And as his words echo in my head like a resounding war drum, what unnerves me most is not the repercussions of his decision.
It’s that I see the logic in it.