Chapter 20 Ezryn
Ezryn
“Whatever you say, Daddy,” Caspian purrs. “Be a good boy, Farron, and sit down before Ezryn puts you over his knee—”
“This is not a joke,” I snarl. Though as they both sit across the table from me, they do look like petulant children. And I will treat them both as children if I have to.
“Look, Ez—” Farron begins.
“No, I am talking.” Whatever just happened in this dining room, it’s sitting with me like a plague. I was there when Dayton drew the first breaths of his second life.
And it wasn’t Caspian leaning over him.
“I know you two are lying. You did something, Farron, didn’t you? Didn’t you?”
Farron’s lip twitches, then he raises his jaw. “I will not apologize for protecting one of Rosalina’s mates. I hope if you were in my position, Ez, you would have done the same.”
My paws thud on the stone as I pace the length of the table. “What is this magic you possess?”
Farron doesn’t even have the dignity to look ashamed. “The power of the Green Flame.”
My breath hitches, sharp and uneven. Heat and cold crash through me like a storm. I can’t stop my voice from raising to a bellow: “That magic killed your mother!”
Farron stands, his chair clattering to the floor. He slams his hands down. “And if I had been able to wield it, I could have saved her!”
I face him head-on, a war raging between our eyes. Meanwhile, Caspian puts his bare feet up on the table and leans back precariously, grinning like a fox.
With a growl, I turn away from Farron and set my sights on the deceiver beside him. “Why would you lie to Rosie? To Dayton? This is his damned life we’re talking about!”
Caspian breathes out a laugh and looks up at the ceiling, as if an answer is written there. “Honestly? I don’t know. I couldn’t stand to see dear Farron sweating. Besides, what’s done is done.”
I resume my pacing, each step sending more clattering thoughts through my brain. I don’t like this. Don’t like that they’re lying to Rosalina when I know the truth. Don’t like that Farron is dabbling in this strange, unknown magic. Don’t like how out of control I feel.
Caspian sits forward and steeples his fingers. “Look, here are the facts. The truth will come out. Nothing comes without a cost, especially life. So you figure it out, Farron. The price you paid. And then you tell them.”
Farron sucks in a breath. “This power… It can turn the tides of the realms. It can protect everyone. I can protect everyone.”
“I don’t care if you save the whole fucking Vale with this magic. You will tell Rosalina the truth,” I growl.
The Autumn Prince nods. “Just…give me some time.”
I search his face, the determination in his gold eyes, the grief written in his down-turned mouth. Can I blame him for saving the one he loved at any cost? Would I not do the same?
Soul-deep weariness fills me, and I shake my head, causing the bones tangled in my ruff to clack together. “Go to them, Farron. But this discussion isn’t over.”
Farron sighs, then walks to the doorway.
He stops and looks back at me. “Magic itself is neither good nor evil—it simply is. But men can be evil, and through them, magic can be twisted. Yet I swear to you, Ez, I am the master of the Green Flame. And when my reckoning is done, we will stand together on the soil of a better world.”
“Should one man define the nature of a better world?” I mutter.
Farron’s eyes narrow, then he storms out of the dining room and down the hallway.
With a sigh, I turn to Caspian.
“Are you raising a brow at me?” he muses. “How is that even possible as a wolf?”
“She’s going to be angry with you when she finds out the truth.”
“Well, making Rosalina unmad at me is my speciality.” He examines his fingernails in what seems to be a blatant excuse to avoid my gaze.
“You’re protecting him. Why?”
“I’m much more accustomed to being the villain than Farron is,” Caspian says. “If I can keep him from that, why not?”
“You care for him.”
Caspian takes in a long breath through his nose, then faces me, purple eyes shining. “I care for all of you. I always have.”
A knot appears in my throat, and now it’s me who has to look away. My words are thick and painful. “Th-thank you.”
“For what?” he says, almost exasperatedly.
“For delivering my father from his suffering.”
Silence passes between us, the only sound Caspian’s quickened breath. “I didn’t want to do it, Ez,” he whispers. “But I wanted you to do it less. And you would have had to. It was inevitable.”
“I know. He’s at peace now, with my mother.”
Cas shrugs, then looks away, eyes darting anywhere but my face. “Ez, can I ask you something?”
“What?”
“All those years ago…why did you do it?”
Silence echoes between us. “Do what?” I ask. I know what.
“Attack Cryptgarden.”
Caspian and I had disliked each other since we first met.
Or at least I had disliked him. But that act, the attack I ordered, was what carved the true depths of our hatred, what broke the final threads between Kel and Caspian all those decades ago.
“The captain of Kel’s squadron, Hylix. He told me he discovered your plot to betray Kel, occupy Frostfang. ”
“Hylix?” Caspian digs his palms into his eyes. “How could I have not expected it? Bloody Hylix.”
“Care to explain?” Hylix was Kel’s most loyal soldier and a friend. When he presented the evidence to me, I had no choice but to do whatever I could to save Kel from his fate. Not that I succeeded. Caspian’s plan still worked, and the Below’s forces occupied Wolfhelm for a time.
“He was my mother’s spy,” Caspian growls. “She must have orchestrated the whole thing.”
“You mean you never intended to betray Kel?”
“Don’t be stupid. Of course I did. At first. But then…” Caspian’s hand wraps around the ice and thorn bracelet. “Well, I changed my mind. I suppose Mother could tell she was losing her grip on me and took matters into her own hands.”
My mind reels. No, it can’t be. If Caspian never intended to attack… “I trusted Hylix with my life. He was a spy? Then everything he told me…” I loose a breath. “Sira manipulated me.”
“She manipulates everyone. It’s what she does. She turns people against each other so they’ll do her dirty work for her. Don’t be flattered. You’re just one of many brilliant men she’s snared in her traps. Myself included.”
A long silence echoes between us. Finally, I say lowly, “Not that it matters much anymore, but…I am sorry, Caspian.”
It’s such a little, pathetic thing. Three words. What retribution are they for dead friends, for a city that had to be rebuilt from ashes?
“I’m sorry too,” he mumbles.
And though they’ll never bring back my father or soothe the chaos his actions wrought upon my realm, I accept the words as a man starved would accept a loaf of bread.
I forgive you, I think. But not for him. For me.
His eyes glint, and I hear the soft purr of his voice in my head. I forgive you.
A lavender breeze seems to whisper through me, and I close my eyes, basking in this strange feeling. What is it?
Absolution.
It’s pleasant.
I hear the shuffle of a chair and open my eyes to see Caspian standing and leaning on the table. His dark hair shadows his face. Dressed in white pajamas, it’s hard to imagine him as the Prince of Thorns, the demonic monster who tore apart the Winter Realm.
“You’re going to have to stop doing that,” I say softly and start to amble toward the door.
“What?”
“Bearing all our sins. It’s time we started carrying them on our own.”
He releases a laugh. “I’ll try. Stars know I have enough of my own to worry about.”
I attempt a smile—or the best I can do with the wolf’s maw. “Good night, Caspian.”
“Wait…you’re not going to keep me under lock and key? Watch over me all night? Monitor whenever I take a piss?”
“I’m tired. Don’t tell Kel and I won’t.” Besides, where would he even go? Like it or not, he’s Rosalina’s mate.
And if he’s Rosalina’s, that means he’s ours.
“Hey, Ez?” Caspian calls as I’m just about out the doorway.
“Hmm?”
“You gave me advice, so let me give you some.” He pushes a hand through his hair, the movement slow and deliberate, before his gaze drifts to the wall.
His eyes lose focus and become distant, as though seeing far beyond the room.
“You and I share something in common,” he continues.
“We’re both fighting with our whole hearts to keep our magic out.
But power’s a tricky thing. Ignore it, curse it, bury it deep…
it only waits, quiet and patient, until you wield it, or it wields you. ”
His lips press into a smile, more bitter than amused, and for a moment, I think he might stop. But then he sighs, his shoulders sinking as if the words are heavier than he wants to admit.
“Now, I’ve got to keep fighting, but you? Your magic isn’t here to break the realms. It’s here to help you save them.”
Caspian straightens, his gaze locking on mine, sharp and clear now, all traces of that faraway look gone.
“You’ve got the chance to do what I can’t. Take hold of it, shape it, and turn it into something that heals instead of destroys.”
I open my mouth, but no words come out. Caspian keeps looking at me, steady and unflinching, like he’s daring me to argue or to agree—maybe both.
“I’ll think about it,” I say. It’s weak, I know it, but my chest feels tight, and his words are still rattling around in my mind, too raw, too close to everything I’ve been trying to ignore.
Days ago, I’d attempted to kill the man in front of me.
Now, he’s inside my head like a prophecy, whispering truths I don’t want to face.
“Don’t think too hard tonight. It’s been a big day, and you need your rest,” Caspian says.
“How can I sleep after all this?”
“Good question…” Caspian trails off, then raises a dark brow. “Say, I don’t suppose you can play moonlight mastery while you’re in that form?”
I think of the game Caspian and I spent countless hours playing decades ago, before the war, before we betrayed each other, before we were the High Prince of Spring or the Prince of Thorns. “Oh, I can play,” I say. “Just be prepared to lose.”
He smiles. “Then let the game begin anew.”