Chapter 8
Lesya screamed as she fell down the cliff, her bearings completely lost. One second she was in Aeterna’s court of tombstones, and in another, she was plummeting toward jagged rocks.
And then Cassian wrapped his arms around her, holding her tightly. She was no longer falling. His body was a welcome shield against the bitter and cold air that had stung her as she’d fallen. But now she was airborne.
“Cassian!” Lesya screamed at the top of her lungs, but the sound of the crashing waves and the deafening din of the air in her eardrums made it seem as she was just mouthing wordlessly.
“Hold on, Lesya! I’m still getting the hang of this!” Cassian said.
I can’t hear you! she said in his mind.
You have to trust me, Les.
I have to tell you something. It cannot wait!
Understanding the gravity in her tone, he swung upward in the air, heading toward Rubien at breakneck speed.
Lesya adjusted her grip around his body, squinting, eyes watering, watching the city come closer, the spires getting bigger as they flew overhead.
How are you doing this? she asked, bewildered.
A gift by the headmaster, Cassian said. They’re unbelievable, these shoes.
She looked down and saw air being propelled from his shoes.
She’d not even noticed that his shoes looked different than the ones he wore.
Enchanted flying boots were not unheard of.
Magic came in different forms, it could be bound to different objects, and this was certainly a creative manipulation of it.
Won’t you run out of mana?
No. The shoes, they generate their own mana!
Her anxiety lightened at that. She was not worried anymore that they’d fall at any given second.
A mage, no matter how celebrated they were or how accomplished, had a limited amount of mana in their body.
It replenished over time, but the rate of replenishment was almost never the same as the rate of utilization.
However, if a mage were to use a magically enhanced item, an item that could generate its own mana, could store it and replenish it at the same rate as its utilization, then that was another matter entirely.
Can we land?
Are you not enjoying yourself?
Not really.
Cassian headed toward the clock tower, one of the tallest buildings in all of Rubien, and gently landed on top of it.
It looked as if there had been no one atop the roof of the clock tower in years.
There was so much dust there, cobwebs on the corners, and rust seeping in the metalwork that framed the stones.
“Lesya, what’s wrong?” Cassian asked as he let her go.
“I can’t explain it to you,” she said, panting. “So just look into my head.”
“Are you sure?” he asked cautiously. There were places in each other’s mind they never visited, places that were cordoned off and considered one’s own. Not to be shared. Not necessarily secrets, but memories, feelings, opinions, knowledge, experiences.
I’m sure, she said, guiding him inside her head toward her most recent experience.
And then she let him witness it, her meeting with Aeterna, and the conversation they had.
When he snapped out of her mind, Cassian stood there pale-faced, unspeaking.
“You entered into her service,” he whispered. “You…”
“She told me you were going to die!”
“Lesya,” Cassian said, holding her by the shoulders and bringing her close.
“I am not going to leave you all alone. I do not intend to die until we’re both old and gray and our bones creak as we make our way up the stairs of our beach-facing chalet.
I am the master of my destiny. No one else. Well, you are too.”
“Cassian, you don’t know what it’s been like, having her in my dreams every other night. And she does not lie. Did you not listen to the part where she said the Grath Nomad and Mortandagh are the same person?”
Cassian’s face darkened, his hair falling over it as he looked away. “That has been a theory of ours for some time. Clever on his part, don’t you think? Grath Nomad is a perfect anagram of Mortandagh. The headmaster cracked that one.”
“And you still go after him?”
“There are some things you don’t understand, Lesya.”
“Tell me then.”
“Not here. Not now. I brought you here so we could unwind, relax, spend some time with each other,” Cassian said. She could detect subtle frustration in his voice as he spoke with carefully weighed syllables. “Leave it to the Death Goddess to ruin that for us.”
“Cassian. You’re scaring me.”
He turned around, standing on the other side of the clock tower’s rooftop.
“You’re going to be her champion,” he said, his lips pulled in a grimace. “Do you even know what that means?”
“It means if something should happen to you, I can save you,” she said, stepping closer to him, but he pulled back.
“It means Eldric won’t leave you be. He’s already honed his sights on you.
He’s going to prod around your mind until he finds what he’s looking for, and then, when he sees that the Death Goddess herself has decided to be your patroness, he’s going to do something terrible to you.
He’s a fierce Solignite. He does not believe that Aeterna is a goddess.
More a subservient being to Sol. He’ll see you as a threat.
Worse, he’ll think that you’ll be joining the Grath Nomad. ”
“The Grath Nomad is a necromancer. Why on earth would I ever join with him?” Lesya protested. She placed her hand on Cassian’s cheek and pulled his face so that he was facing her, and not looking away.
“Lesya…I never wanted you to be in this mess in the first place. I wanted to keep you safe and hidden from these dark politics. Can you please trust me and stay hidden, stay safe until such a time when things have cleared up a little?” he asked, holding her hands tenderly in his own, kissing them as he asked this earnest question.
“I…”
“Swear to me,” he said.
“I…” she breathed, then finally nodded. “I swear.”
“That’s my good girl,” Cassian said, hugging her, running his fingers through her hair, holding her tightly to his chest.
“I don’t understand what’s happening,” Lesya confessed.
“In some time, it shall all make sense, I promise.”
* * *
They came down from the clock tower through the old meta lift, a rusty old thing that made a lot of noise as it descended. But it was cozy, and Lesya did not mind putting her head on his chest as they waited for the elevator to reach the bottom.
They stepped outside into the same square, but the festivities had wrapped up for the day. Tents and stalls had disappeared, and the only sign that remained of the revelries were the little mounds of trash that the janitors had swept at each corner of the square.
“I find those unsightly,” Lesya said, flicking her wrist and making those heaps disappear.
One of the janitors tipped his cap to her and gave her a grin. She smiled back at him.
“Ever the people’s champion, eh, Rosefield?” Cassian chuckled good-naturedly, his arm around her shoulders as they headed to the same inn as before.
“People are all people have got, Veilmonte,” Lesya said. “Without people, it’s just…”
“Pointless,” Cassian muttered.
The inn’s main hall was emptier, although there sat in the corners some brooding folk with their hoods over their faces, smoking pipes, drinking ale, whispering to each other.
Cassian frowned at them as he took Lesya upstairs, to where the rooms were.
For a crammed establishment wedged between a boutique and a linen store, the inn was actually quite spacious from the inside.
Fifty rooms in one long, uneven hallway.
“How?” Lesya wondered.
“He owns the area behind the shopfronts,” Cassian said, pointing to the portrait of the owner, Mr. Braddock. It hung at the end of the stairway, showing a pudgy man with a wide grin and a long handlebar mustache.
“Must be a rich guy.” Lesya giggled as she followed Cassian to their room. Some part of her was scared. They had never done something like this before, ever.
She had snuck around with Cassian all over the campus, and had even gone on some long day trips to nearby villages and hamlets, but she had never booked a room at an inn with him.
For two years he had gone to Romania for his studies and further research.
They had only kept in touch through their thoughts.
That had been tough. And then he’d come back, not as a student but as a teacher, so the relationship had turned into an even more furtive one.
Now, as she stepped into this room with him, this quaint little room with a maroon bedsheet and a window that overlooked the main market below, she felt her heart beat frantically in her chest.
They would share a bed.
For an entire night.
For two people who had stolen moments for the entire length of their relationship, one night felt like all the time in the world. Time endless. Time to sleep together, explore each other for as long as they liked, however they liked.
Perhaps it was the same thing going through Cassian’s mind, because the moment he bolted the door shut, they were upon each other like ocean waves crashing against cliffs on a moon-bathed night.
He was gentle with her, as he always was, taking off her dress delicately, taking his time with it as if it was an act of worship he was performing.
He undressed her shoulders, kissing along the length of her neck, then her shoulders, and finally her chest. He descended to his knees as if in front of an altar, pulling off the rest of her dress till she was standing in the nude before him.
He focused on her breasts, nuzzling them, cupping and kissing them, running his tongue across her nipples.
She let out a moan, holding his head close to her body, but not tight enough that she took away his agency. She wanted him to keep his agency, to keep giving her pleasure in the way only he knew.