Chapter 9
Chapter nine
Cassia leaned against the wall outside the throne room.
Pressing against the hard stone helped quell her urge to pace.
Inside, Finn was debriefing her father. She’d been kicked out.
Of course, she’d been kicked out. Her father believed her knowledge of Elyria began and ended with the city’s nightlife.
She couldn’t blame him, though. Once… maybe it had.
Not only was she curious about what Finn had seen at the border, Cade needed him.
Now more than ever. She hadn’t seen him since Castor arrived, which told her he was planning something.
When he accidentally had pulled her into his head, she’d briefly seen the formations of it.
Heard the whisper of Alexia’s voice telling him about Quinn using the gate to communicate with the Sanguis.
A bubble of anxiety sprung in her gut. Her brother was too relentless and reckless for his own good.
He wouldn’t listen to her, that much she knew for sure.
But maybe Finn would be able to reason with him before the plan came to fruition.
When the heavy, wooden door of the throne room popped up, Cassia sprung forward. Grabbing Finn by the arm, she said, “I’m so glad you’re back.”
Finn blinked, and then pinched his leg. “Am I dreaming? Because that was the last thing I ever expected to hear you say to me.”
Too concerned to roll her eyes, Cassia replied, “I don’t know if you’ve heard, but Castor finally came back a few days ago. He couldn’t find Bridget. Obviously, Cade didn’t take it well.”
She shivered, remembering the intensity of what he’d let slip through to her.
“Don’t worry, I’ll go find him now,” Finn said. “It’s not like Deckard was the first person I wanted to talk to today. Orion cornered me and basically dragged me to him the second I arrived.”
“Don’t say this to him, but I’m worried he’s planning something.”
Finn frowned. “Like what?”
“I don’t know,” she said, not wanting to say her thoughts aloud. What if she was wrong about what she heard? She didn’t want to accidentally give her brother the idea. “It’s just a feeling I have, and I know he won’t listen to me if I try to talk to him.”
“Alright, I’ll see what I can do. I know I gave that Warlock a hard time, but I don’t think he would have left Bridget somewhere without taking her to the hospital.
He did help us, at the end.” Finn sighed.
“It should have been me to go. This wouldn’t have happened.
At least I have something that will distract him. ”
“What is it?”
Finn checked the corridor before he answered, “I saw Quinn, or at least I think I did.”
Cassia narrowed her eyes. Pulling him further into the corner, she asked, “Are you kidding? Where?”
“It was in Kyryn, near the Kastronian border. One of the creatures attacked us in the night. We had to use fire to kill it. Nothing else seems to work. Through the haze, I swear I saw her face in the trees.”
“You think she’s the one creating the creatures,” Cassia stated, reading his drawn, tight face. “She has to be using the Bloodstone.”
“If she is, I don’t know how it hasn’t killed her yet.”
Grinding her teeth together, Cassia said, “Burning every piece of information about the Sanguis was the most idiotic thing my ancestors ever did.”
“The Shamans might know something,” Finn suggested. “I can think of one that’s old enough to have been around during that time.”
“Echnav was the only trustworthy one. Too bad he’s gone. I liked that he wasn’t up my father’s ass constantly,” Cassia replied scathingly.
“That’s one way to put it,” Finn snorted. “What about Marin?”
“She’s still getting her beauty sleep, apparently.”
Finn sent her a droll look before he turned his attention to something behind her.
Cassia turned around. Underneath a moss covered, stone alcove, just past the entrance of the throne room’s large, marble corridor, stood Castor and Delphine.
Their conversation seemed innocent, but when red-faced Delphine suddenly smiled, Cassia’s own face heated.
Breathing deeply through her nose, she tried to numb the onslaught of prickly emotions stabbing her chest. Cassia wanted to smack herself for feeling so possessive.
After all, she had been the one to end things with him.
And he’d accepted it… without a fight. The threat of reliving the memory hardened her heart.
She’d made a promise to herself to never think of it again.
When Cassia felt Finn’s eyes on her, she straightened and smoothed out her thick, silver jacket.
“You should just talk to him,” Finn said.
“About what? The weather?” Cassia drawled, hoping her face remained blank. “Besides, he looks fairly busy at the moment.”
Finn’s lips twitched. He leaned in and whispered, “You’re not fooling anyone.”
Cassia recoiled away from him. Glaring, she hissed, “Don’t try to read me right now.”
His ability to sense emotions had been a pain in her ass almost her entire life. It had taken her years to get over feeling like a walking open book whenever she was around him and Cade. Plus, it had made every game she’d played with them impossible to win.
Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted Castor and Delphine moving toward them. Reflexively, she took a step back. She hated that Castor zeroed in on the movement. His narrowed eyes locked on her retreating form.
To Finn, Cassia added, “Just find Cade and knock some sense into him.”
And then she fled into the throne room, hoping the panic she denied didn’t make her look too rushed.
Taking a deep breath, Cassia crushed more of the lovage she’d bought from a shop in Astraeus.
The words in the old spell book she’d found in the library were barely visible in the candlelight of her room.
Squinting, she muttered one of the Latin phrases aloud and then blew the tiny particles of the lovage into the candle closest to her.
For a split-second, the flame roared brighter before returning to its flickering state.
Cassia closed her eyes and mentally searched every part of her body for a sign that her magic had worked.
Air had always been the easiest element for her to draw upon, and it was a simple strengthening spell.
Peaking an eye open, she looked down at her hands.
Did they feel firmer? Or was her mind playing tricks on her?
The light from the hallway suddenly illuminated her flexing fingers. Heart stuttering, she whirled around. It calmed, but only slightly, when she discovered Castor in her doorway. Grinding her teeth together, she muttered, “You can’t come in here without knocking anymore.”
His dark eyes, full of bewilderment, gazed around at the numerous candles littered across every surface in her dim room. “What are you doing?”
“What does it look like?” she snapped, pointing at the spell book on her bed.
Cassia crossed her arms and hoped she wasn’t as red as she felt at being caught doing the one thing she’d told him she wouldn’t.
Castor raised a brow and moved to stand beside her bed.
Silently, he thumbed through the stiff, dusty pages of the grimoire.
Cassia swallowed hard as she watched him. Gold reflected off his dark skin in the candlelight and seeing him so close to her bed reminded her of the last time he’d been on it. When he’d slowly undone the straps of her thin, blue ballgown and moved his mouth all the way down her body until…
Clearing her throat, she backed into the corner by the closet.
The heat rushing to her core was about to make her do something very stupid.
The more space between them, the better.
“I’m sorry I shoved you the other day,” she said, hoping the mention of one of her transgressions would make him keep his distance, as well.
Instead, Castor tilted his head and studied her. She trembled when he took a step toward her. “Is that why you avoided me outside the throne room yesterday?”
Cassia breathed a sigh of relief when he stopped in front of her sapphire metal table to inspect the herbs she’d placed there. He picked up a few petals of echinacea and rolled them between his fingers.
“Are you going to let me help you?” he asked, keeping his gaze on the herbs.
She wanted to say no. Wanted to remind him about the last time he’d tried to teach her.
She’d failed so spectacularly, she’d almost burned off all his hair.
And then their sessions had turned into a different sort of teaching entirely.
She’d learned all about beds, dark corners, and which clothes she didn’t mind being ripped.
But when Castor locked eyes with her, she knew this time would be different.
Cassia couldn’t ignore the urgency in his eyes.
Last time, there’d been no revival of blood magic or mysterious creatures threatening Elyria.
Last time, she’d had two brothers, and a sister not yet corrupted by her father.
Everything was different now. She could no longer hide away in her room and hope life would work itself out.
Time had already proven that lie to be false.
“What if I never get any better?” Cassia croaked, heart pounding as she admitted her greatest fear. “What if I’m always the dud Witch that can’t defend anyone, let alone herself?”
Her confession softened his eyes. Inches from her now, Castor searched her face.
His gaze brought a flush to her skin she’d forgotten could be so intoxicating.
With his breath on her face, she could see the scar above his full lips from when he’d defended Cade in a bar fight on his seventeenth birthday, and count every thick, dark eyelash that breathtakingly lined the penetrating orbs she dreamed about at night.
Cassia dug her fingers into the seams of her pants to keep herself from touching him.
“You will get better,” he promised, “I’ve thought about this a lot, actually.”