Chapter 12 Caspian
Caspian
Prismatic briars lurch from the ground, wrapping around me just before I hit the stone. Wrenley sprints over, snatching me out from her briars.
I can barely move. With shaky movements, I hold up my hands. My skin is hardly red, let alone burned, yet the memory of the fire writhes within me. I clutch the moonstone token harder, the bite of pain in my palm keeping me conscious.
“Are you okay?” Wrenley’s brow is beaded with sweat, face flushed. Her eyes search my body as she touches my shoulders, my arms.
“H-hey, Birdy,” I rasp. “Couldn’t h-have come a little sooner?”
She laughs and squeezes me to her chest, the cold press of her armor a balm on my bare skin. “And you couldn’t have gotten yourself imprisoned in a water cage? That would have been a lot fucking easier, you asshole!”
“When Mother finds out—”
“She’s communing with the Baron of the Green Flame right now. We don’t have much time before she realizes what’s happened.” Wrenley reaches into her satchel and pulls out a pair of pants. “Can you move? We need to go.”
I pull on the too-big pants, trying to ignore the fact that I can guess their previous owner. I recognize the inky black fabric as a favorite of a certain fallen princeling. My legs are shaky as I stand, and every breath is ragged. I can’t remember my last sip of water.
Wrenley starts running, then looks back at me. With an exasperated sigh, she returns and wraps my arm over her shoulder, supporting my weight. “Ugh. You’ve gotten pampered from spending so much time with those Castletree weaklings.”
I huff a laugh. “And you’re strong as a gladiator from all your time in Hadria.”
Her muscles tense, and all she says in response is “Come on.”
I try my best to keep up as we amble out of the courtyard and into the nearest street.
As always in Cryptgarden, the sky is merely a swirling cloud of dark purple fog.
The buildings, with their pointed spires and gemstone lights, appear more like glowing daggers than homes.
It must be daytime, as the streets are completely empty.
Cryptgarden folk prefer the night—or whatever the equivalent is down here in the perpetual darkness.
“What’s the plan, Birdy?”
“Get out. Stay out.”
I lick my lips. My mind is too thick with pain to comprehend what this means. Are we doing this? Breaking free of Sira once and for all?
If so…I can’t let us get caught now. I look to the ground, summoning briars. It feels like dragging my hand through sludge. A single briar emerges, frail and ashy. “Well, that’s embarrassing.”
“I’ll do it,” she says.
“My briars are faster.”
“You’re too weak, Cas. We need to get out of sight before—”
“Before what?”
A roar sounds behind us. I look back into the courtyard to see a bright flash as a pile of Wrenley’s prismatic briars goes up in flames.
Emberlash staggers out of the blaze, his barbed whip alight.
He grabs a horn off his belt, holds it to his lip, and blows.
The haunting sound echoes down every street.
“Before that happens,” Wrenley says. “Hold on!”
Her thorns snake up from the ground and wrap around my body. I don’t know where in the seven realms she plans to take us, but anywhere is better than—
“Stop them!” Emberlash screams, his voice crazed. A fireball flares in his hand. He draws back his arm, then throws. Heat engulfs us as Wrenley’s briars burst into flame. The force sends me flying, and I slam against a building. Gems shower me, falling out of their sconces in the wall.
“Wrenley!” I rasp, forcing myself up. She’s face down in a pile of rubble. Her body twitches, and she blinks, staring down the street. Emberlash throws his head back and laughs, then surges toward her.
Drawn by his horn, other figures appear in the streets and doorways around us. Their tattooed faces and heads and filed teeth mark them as more of Emberlash’s company. A pack of them emerges from an alleyway right beside where Wrenley collapsed.
“Watch out!” I cry.
Wrenley grits her teeth and hisses. Her eyes shine with feral intensity. She leaps to her feet, stares down the pack heading toward her, and draws the bow.
I knew Birdy wielded the Bow of Radiance in Summer. Knew her queen’s blood would allow her to do so. But I had no idea what it would be like to see my sister draw back the bowstring on a weapon forged for a living goddess.
Light illuminates Wrenley’s body, basking her in a glow. Her short hair blows back, and her eyes seem to burn with a holy fire. Without hesitation, she releases radiant destruction upon her enemies.
The glowing arrow slices through the air like a comet, leaving a golden tail in its wake.
It strikes the center of the pack and detonates in a burst of light, brighter than a noonday sun.
The force ripples outward, vaporizing the nearest attackers in an instant, their screams drowned out by the roaring energy.
Where once stood men, there is nothing but scorched earth in their place.
Wrenley doesn’t lower the bow. Another arrow materializes in her grasp, and with a flicker of determination, she takes aim again, spinning to an attacker running up the street toward her.
The shot finds its target, striking just beside a building.
Impact reverberates through the towering structure of obsidian and gemstones, a crack forming at the base.
A deep groan echoes as it splits further, blasting shards of emerald, ruby, and sapphire into the air.
Slivers catch the light like fragments of a shattered rainbow.
Part of the wall collapses with a deafening crash, sending a kaleidoscope of glittering debris raining down on the streets.
I stagger to my feet, shuffling over to Wrenley, who already has another arrow nocked, this one aimed for Emberlash. “Stop.”
She doesn’t even turn to me. She pulls back.
I grab her elbow. “Wrenley, stop.”
A look of betrayal flashes on her face as she stares between me and the charging Emberlash. “I’m protecting you!”
“This is my city.” I gesture to the crumbled wall. “You’ll bring it to its knees.”
“So?”
So? How can I convey in a single look the pain that Cryptgarden has suffered? That this is a city already destroyed and rebuilt? That I trusted Keldarion, and his best friend brought a reckoning here?
“Briars,” I urge. “Get us out of here.”
Wrenley lets loose a scream of frustration, then stows the bow on her back. Prismatic thorns erupt around us once again—
A crack rings out as Emberlash’s whip strikes. Wrenley’s briars ignite, curling into ash under the flames. Smoke billows upward, choking the air with the acrid scent of burnt foliage.
“Trying to escape, are we?” Emberlash laughs, snapping his whip. Sparks fly, falling over our skin. “Finally, Sira’s brats are out of tricks. And Mommy’s not here to save you.”
“Run!” Wrenley tugs my arm, looking back at me with a cat’s grin. “I’m not out of tricks yet.”
I hobble after her. “You better have a good idea.”
“I do,” she says, tugging me faster. “We lure him into the tunnels, then shoot the fuck out of him with the bow.”
“Simple. Classy. I like it.”
Every step is agony as I force my body to respond, trying to keep up with my sister.
We bound over the fallen debris from the building, heading to my castle on the hill.
Wrenley drags me up the stairs, the crack of Emberlash’s whip at our backs.
From up here, we can spot the white stone bridge that leads into the tunnel system out of the city.
Emberlash blows his horn once again, tearing me from my thoughts. Swarms of his soldiers come to the call. He leads the pack, sprinting after us. The boom of a thunderclap sounds behind me, and I know his whip is only inches away.
Wrenley doesn’t look back, feet flying across the cracked obsidian pavement.
I grit my teeth and push harder, but the stinging heat of Emberlash’s whip bites too close, forcing me to dodge sideways.
A shower of gemstone shards explodes near my head as the whip strikes a wall to my right.
My lungs burn, each breath searing, heart hammering against my ribs.
The bridge looms ahead, a slender span of white stone suspended over the deep abyss that borders Cryptgarden. The soldiers’ footsteps grow louder, echoing across the cavernous expanse.
Wrenley sprints forward. “Caspian, move!”
I leap onto the bridge, the ground trembling beneath my feet as Emberlash’s soldiers surge behind us. The faintest flicker of hope rises as we near the tunnel’s entrance—a jagged maw in the side of the mountain. I glance back to see Emberlash, his whip ablaze, the flames hungrily licking its barbs.
“Go!” Wrenley yells, gripping my arm and shoving me toward the tunnel. The roaring wind howls around us as we dive into the darkness, the only light from luminescent jewels along the ceiling. “Just a little farther!”
Just a little farther. Just a little farther. My legs feel like they’re going to give out with every step, but if we make it just a little farther, Wrenley can bring this whole fucking cave system down for all I care—
A scream tears through the air, and I turn. Wrenley’s flat on her stomach, struck down by Emberlash’s whip, which coils…
Around her bow.
With a maniacal laugh and a deft flick of his wrist, Emberlash cracks the whip back, the bow landing right at his feet.
Wrenley gives out a cry, arm outstretched.
“Well, now you’ve done it, haven’t you, little bird?” the bald bastard laughs. “As if Mommy wasn’t going to tear you apart piece by piece for that little rescue attempt, now you let dear Emberlash take your precious bow. No wonder Sira’s always babbling on about what a failure you are.”
“I’ll fucking kill you,” she snarls, briars jutting out around her.
Emberlash cracks his whip again, turning her briars to ash. The rest of his pack rushes to his side. Like Emberlash, they sport a variety of weapons, from maces to spiked gauntlets to crossbows.
“I don’t think you will, little bird,” Emberlash says with a smile. “You’ve got no bow. Your thorns are kindling.” He motions to his men. “And you’re outmanned two to twenty. If you can even count Pretty Boy as one.”
Despite the panic raging through my body, I can’t help myself. “Oh, trust me, I’ve been told I’m worth more than one.” I smirk, then give a pointed look to his whip. “But you, dear Emberlash, look like you may be…compensating for something.”
Emberlash’s face squints up, and he roars, “I’ve had enough of you two! Years of your arrogance! Of your annoying jokes and constant theatrics!”
“Oh no, sister.” I stick my lip out. “The nasty bald man doesn’t think we’re funny.”
But Wrenley’s done with my theatrics too.
Her eyes are wide, rabid. She looks back and forth: the entrance blocked by Emberlash and his men, the ceiling, clustered with stalactites and shadows, and farther into the tunnel, where we’ll only get cornered.
Her gaze lands on her bow, sitting at Emberlash’s feet.
“I won’t get taken alive,” she says lowly to me, to them. A warning. A threat.
“Fine by me. I’m tired of you both. Sira’s little pets. I don’t care what she does to me as long as I get the honor of stripping the skins from your spines,” Emberlash snarls.
I take a step back, my leg nearly going out from under me. Fuck. Come on, Cas. Think of something. But what have I got? A body barely able to stagger. Magic I’m too weak to wield.
I look to Wrenley, her muscles tensing. I know that stance.
She’s not going to run anymore. She’s going to fight like a wildcat with whatever she has because she’d rather die in battle than be taken to Sira as a prisoner.
My gaze runs over Emberlash and his men, sending my heart into a sickening gallop.
He’s right. Two to twenty, and I’m weak as a kitten and Wrenley’s without her bow or briars.
There’s only one thing that can save us now.
To save my sister, will I condemn the Vale?
“Wrenley,” I whisper, “Get back—”
A rush of wind blows my hair. I feel it before I see it—a shadow soaring overhead, impossibly fast. The air crackles as something lands in front of us. It shakes the ground, sending up a cloud of shattered gemstones and dirt.
The dust settles, revealing a figure straightening from a crouch, towering between us and Emberlash.
They’re holding a war hammer—no, wielding it like it’s an extension of their body.
The weapon glints in the gemlight, massive and brutal, with veins of glowing energy running along its surface.
The air around them feels charged, heavy, as if the hammer itself is drawing power from the earth beneath our feet.
I can’t help but take half a step back, both awe and relief flooding through me.
The figure turns their head, just enough for me to catch a glint in their dark eyes, burning with purpose. “How about three to twenty?” Ezryn says. “I like our chances.”