Chapter 9 Caspian
Caspian
“This is how I like the precious Prince of the Below! On his knees and weeping!”
“Lookit him. Not so tough now, are ye, pretty boy? Where are ye thorns?”
“Stab me! Pierce me with your thorns! Try it and see what the fire does!”
Voices crash around me, but their mocking jeers are no more than a haze. Their words have as much meaning as the hiss of fire surrounding me.
“Caspian!” a man growls, the sound of my name guttural. “Look at me, Caspian.”
I pry my lids open. Immediately, heat sparks across my vision. There is nothing but the fire. Red bars of a prison trap me on all sides, though it is not made of steel. The bars are forged of flames.
My cage swings from a long chain as I hover fifteen feet above the courtyard of my city, Cryptgarden. The square is crowded with his minions. He, the one speaking now. The one my mother put in charge of my imprisonment.
Emberlash catches my gaze through the flickering flames. A horridly ugly fae, banished from Autumn for his twisted use of fire magic, he grins up at me with a mouth full of teeth filed into points. His bald head, covered in tattoos, shimmers in the light.
“Hah. The great and terrifying Prince of Thorns.” He laughs. “You like my fire, Caspian? You loved it across your back all those times. My whip knows your skin intimately, doesn’t it, sweetling?”
I close my eyes, barely taking notice of him. I can’t lose my concentration. No matter what he says. No matter what pain I endure.
This cursed fire has burned everything away: my clothes, my leather boots, even my briars.
I wish it would take the rest away. Sear the skin from my bones, turn my hair and eyelashes to kindling. End me all together. But that’s not how Mother operates. No matter that this fire is hot enough to set my nerves alight, it will never mar me.
My mother believes one thing above all else.
In my suffering, I am perfect.
I can’t do anything but remain curled in a fetal position.
Every inch of my skin feels like it’s dripping with lava.
My fingers are in such pain, I can’t unclasp them from clutching the one possession that didn’t burn.
Within my grasp is Rosalina’s moonstone token.
Fire burned the chain, but it could not destroy this.
Unfortunately, it’s useless to me. The magic of Castletree can’t reach down here, though even if it could, I doubt it would respond to me at all.
Rosalina. My mate. How many times has the thought of her protected me during my mother’s various tortures?
But the imaginary house I built within my mind is burned away.
The petals are ash, the vines nothing but streaks of black upon the barren ground.
Even Rosie couldn’t survive this pain. When I try to picture her, all I see is a charred corpse reaching out for me.
She can’t protect me here, but I can still protect her. It all comes down to one thought, one resolve.
Keep it out.
A flood of green spills across my vision, like oil over water.
Pain ebbs away as the image emerges before me: changing Emberlash’s pathetic Autumn flames to emerald fire under my control.
Letting the Green Flame run through me, strengthening my body, restoring my magic.
Grabbing Emberlash by the throat and squeezing until every orifice explodes with green flame.
I could raze this entire city and bury my mother in its ashes. This is what you wanted from me, isn’t it, Mother? Let me bring upon the reckoning of your design and see if you survive it.
Yes, you could do it, a voice croons within me. The only company these past—what has it been in here? Hours? Days? Weeks? Centuries?—besides Emberlash and his cronies is my father inside my head. I’m grateful for him in a way. Forcing him out of my mind is the one thing that’s kept me conscious.
But this voice is…different. Lighter. Familiar. Comforting.
Take the Green Flame and free yourself, Cas, he says. A friend. Kill your mother. You don’t need her. Then you can come and find me. We can be a family, all together. Wouldn’t you like that? That’s what you’ve always wanted, isn’t it? For us to see you? To accept you? I know you, Cas.
His face shimmers in my mind’s eye. Auburn hair, freckles across his nose. Farron. He…is my friend.
Take the Green Flame, Farron urges. Free yourself. Destroy Sira, and rule the Enchanted Vale with your true family.
With you? I ask. My true family. Could Farron let me in? Bring me back to Rosalina and Kel—
With me, Farron says, but his voice darkens, skin paling to a sickly white. His hair grows down to his waist, the color of a corpse. His face elongates, cheekbones sharpening, ears tapering to a knife’s point.
My heart erupts into a gallop. Keep it out, keep it out, keep it out—
Caspian, it is time, my father, the Baron of the Green Flame, croons. There is no escape. Is this your fate? To be tortured and humiliated and used? No one is coming to help you, son. Your mother hates you. Your lovers scorn you. There is only me. I am your future.
The image nearly suffocates me: standing over my mother, my body writhing with a phantasmal green glow, a pointed briar at her throat.
Tell me the truth of your desires, the Baron growls.
I want it. I want her to pay.
Then take my power.
No. No, I can’t. I have to—
No one is coming for you! It is me or nothing! he screams, his face appearing in every flame around the cage.
I squeeze my eyes shut, palm biting into the moonstone token. Excruciating pain erupts within my body as I feel every lick of the blazing prison. No one is coming…
A woman’s voice cuts through the fire’s roar. My father’s face disappears from the flames. I know that laugh, raspy with a little snort at the end…
Peering through the surrounding glow, I see her down below, arms crossed and sneering at Emberlash. Emberlash has gone bright red from his bony cheeks to his tattooed skull, and I can only imagine what cutting remark she said to embarrass him so.
Birdy Girl.
“Haven’t seen you in a while,” one of Emberlash’s goons says, pacing by Wrenley. “Come to show off your shining toy?”
Wrenley is dressed in full Nightingale garb, her prismatic armor gleaming.
She’s left her mask off, revealing a cruel smirk as she observes the courtyard.
Her short, curly brown hair is tucked behind her softly pointed ears.
With a dancer’s grace, she turns to address the goon, and I see the toy he’s talking about.
The Bow of Radiance sits on her back, gleaming with the light of the Above.
“Pretty thing, isn’t it?” another one of the cronies says and reaches over her shoulder toward it.
My adopted sister darts her hand out and snatches his wrist. With a flick of her own, a crack sounds across the courtyard, followed by the crony’s scream.
“Try to touch my bow again, and I’ll let you,” Wrenley purrs. “You can enjoy eternity as a pile of ash.”
Emberlash growls and crosses his arms, his barbed whip hanging from one hand.
“What are you doing here, Nightingale? Come to marvel at your brother’s punishment?
” He flicks his gaze down to the crying goon, cradling his wrist. “Cross me like that again, and I’ll make a matching cage for you, little bird.
Don’t imagine even your pretty armor will stand a chance. ”
Wrenley smiles. I know that fucking look, that dangerous, cunning look. Don’t try it, Birdy. Don’t try it—
“Oh, Emberlash, it’s so cute you think you could put me in a cage.
” Her smile grows wider. Prismatic briars burst forth from the ground, shining as if they were slicked with oil.
“Here’s the thing. My wings are far too big, my talons too sharp.
And I have the nasty habit of biting the hand that feeds me. ”
The briars slither up the legs of Emberlash and his goons. A few cry out and try to stumble away. But the briars hold strong, thorns like barbs pinning their arms to their sides.
Emberlash struggles against the snare, eyes frenzied. “Nightingale! I have direct orders from Sira. Release me at once!”
“In fact,” Wrenley purrs, waltzing in front of the pinned man, “I’m starting to believe I’m not a bird at all. I am a serpent, and I think I shall start devouring my masters whole.”
Emberlash screams, but briars cover his mouth.
Wrenley shakes her head, then looks up at me. “Cas.”
“Run, Birdy,” I try to say, but my throat is so parched, it’s nothing more than a wheezing breath. “Your briars are no good here. They’ll burn up.”
She doesn’t summon more briars. Instead, she widens her feet, juts out her arms, fingers curled like claws, brow furrowed. Magic sings in the air. Not Emberlash’s cursed flames but something familiar.
This magic feels like Aurelia.
The flames around my cage burst bright for a moment. Pain sings along my nerves. Then the fire dies.
I fall.