Chapter Thirty-Two
Wynessa
Caerthaine Castle never truly slept.
Even in the late hours, long after the torches had dimmed and the silk-draped halls fell quiet, something stirred beneath the marble and stone, like a hush drawn too tightly across a mouth that had too many things it could never say.
I lay stiff beneath heavy covers, my eyes fixed on the ceiling’s painted relief of the moon goddess, Kaelor’s sister, her face hidden in shadow. I wondered if she ever turned away from what she saw below. If even the divine could look at this place and flinch.
Sleep had eluded me for days, but tonight, the weight pressing on my chest felt unbearable. The palace walls were closing in like ribs. Ornate. Polished. Too elegant to breathe in.
I pushed the sheets back quietly and slipped out of the bed. My bare feet touched the cold floor in prayer. I moved in silence, the way Jasira had taught me when we were small and sneaking pastries from the kitchens.
I didn’t need to think about where I was going. My body remembered the steps.
The stairs to the servant quarters were hidden behind a tapestry on the eastern side of the wing, past the portrait of Queen Solen the Just.
I’d overheard Jasira mention it, and I had tucked it away like everything else I wasn’t supposed to hear.
The hallway outside was cold and dim, lined with flickering sconces and shadowed alcoves. Tapestries hung like silent judges. I slipped behind it, and the air changed.
Stone. Old, damp, and close. The narrow stairwell curled upward like a spine. It smelled of forgotten candle smoke, cold iron, and dust, not the kind that dirtied but the kind that settled after years of silence.
Each step creaked slightly underfoot as I climbed. I held the candle high, its flame bobbing with my breath. There was no banister. No windows. Just the stone, and the hush, and the sound of my pulse echoing in my ears.
Each step felt less like forward motion and more like an emotional excavation, leaving behind the weight of expectation, the pretense.
As I reached the top, an ironbound arched door loomed like a maw. I pressed my hand against it, expecting resistance, but the door groaned reluctantly and opened, revealing a cold breath of air more chilling than anticipated.
The rooftop garden spilled out like something caught between a dream and a graveyard.
It wasn’t like the castle’s lower courtyards, manicured and prim.
This space had been left to the wild breath of the gods.
Stone planters lined the balustrade, overflowing with strange white roses and thorny vines that curled like ribs around statues long worn by weather.
The gods carved into them were unfamiliar.
Not Kaelor. Not Vireya. Their faces had been devoured by time and moss, their features erased as if the stone itself had forgotten.
Frost glazed the pathways.
Clouds veiled the sky above, violet-tinged and heavy, but the stars still blinked faintly, above the low-hanging moon.
I moved through the garden slowly, running my fingers over vines as I passed. A few roses had already withered, their petals curling inward like secrets.
The frigid air bit at my cheeks, but I didn’t care.
Because I could finally breathe.
I walked to the edge of the terrace, the cool balustrade beneath my fingertips. Far below, the sea lapped at the rocky shore. The lights of Caerthaine shimmered like broken glass reflecting the stars.
Up here, I didn’t have to smile. I didn’t have to wear silks or rings or fear.
No one was touching me. No one was watching.
No one was asking me to become anything. I was just me.
“I miss who I was becoming,” I whispered aloud.
And for a moment, the wind didn’t answer.
But it didn’t argue either.
Behind me, a soft sound broke the hush.
A footfall. Measured. Familiar.
I turned toward the sound, half-expecting a guard, or worse, a shadow where no person should be.
Instead, it was him.
Erindor stepped into the garden’s moonlit hush like he belonged there. Though his stance was tense, his arms were crossed over his chest. His breath steamed slightly in the air, but he wore no cloak, only his undershirt and the weight of a long day.
“I didn’t expect to see you out here,” I said, trying to swallow the flutter that rose in my chest at his physique.
He raised a brow.
“Didn’t expect to be followed,” I added more softly this time, unsure why my voice had dipped.
“You didn’t cover your tracks very well.” His tone was light, but his gaze searched my face. “Even Jasira would’ve noticed.”
I laughed, a soft, breathy exhalation of surprise escaping me before I could contain it. I hadn’t laughed in days, not like that.
His eyes softened. “I miss that,” he said.
I gave a disbelieving blink, and my heart lurched, a frantic, tripping rhythm. His gaze darted away almost instantly, as if he hadn’t meant to say it aloud.
A comfortable silence stretched between us.
Erindor moved to the balustrade a few feet away from me. He didn’t lean on it, but stood steady, silent, the way he always did when he didn’t know how to put something into words.
I turned back to the view, but my hands wouldn’t stop fidgeting in the folds of my cloak. The words pressed against my teeth.
“He touches me,” I said at last.
Erindor didn’t move, but I saw the tension return to his shoulders.
“Kaelen,” I clarified, my voice flat. “He touches my wrist. My shoulder. Not always in obvious ways. But it’s constant. Quiet. Like it’s his right.”
A pause. A breath.
“And I don’t know how to say no without…without it costing someone something. Jasira. You. Elyrien.” I looked down. “Maybe even me.”
He didn’t respond at first. I glanced over. His jaw was clenched, his mouth set in a thin line. His hands had curled slightly at his sides.
“It’s not your job to protect me from that,” I whispered. “I wanted to speak of it freely for a moment, that's all.”
He turned to face me finally. His voice was low and rough at the edges. “Then why does it feel like it is?”
My breath caught.
Not because I was afraid. But because I wanted to lean into the warmth I saw flickering in his eyes.
But I didn’t know how.
I didn’t know how to move toward something that might disappear the moment I reached for it.
I looked down, blinking so fast it felt like a silent plea for the tears not to fall. “I don’t belong here,” I whispered, the words catching my throat.
“You’re not the only one who feels that way,” he said quietly.
His voice held no pity, only something that sounded like understanding.
We stood there like that for a while, both of us watching the sky, both pretending we didn’t want to say anything else.
The silence between us stretched, silver and fragile, like a thread caught between stars.
I shifted slightly, brushing the back of my hand along the stone railing. His hand was already there, fingers barely touching the surface, and the light contact between us sparked like frost cracking under sunlight.
I stilled. So did he.
Neither of us moved. Although our hands weren’t truly joined, they were close enough to share warmth. Close enough to make my pulse trip over itself.
His voice was low. “You know…” A pause. “If I were a braver man, I’d say something wildly inappropriate right now.”
My heart hiccupped. I turned toward him slowly. “Like what?”
He glanced at me sidelong, with that rare, crooked half-smile playing at the corner of his mouth. His eyes gleamed.
But he didn’t answer.
Instead, he leaned forward slightly, a breath closer, enough for the air to shift. Then he let the moment dangle there, teasing.
I stared, stunned, heat crawling up my neck. “You’re doing it again.”
“Doing what?”
“Looking at me like that.”
His brow rose faintly. “Like what?”
“Like I’m…” I trailed off, realizing I did not know how to finish the sentence. Like I’m something worth staying for. Like I’m not meant to be locked in someone else’s cage.
He said nothing, his eyes looking intently into mine.
The fire stirred beneath my skin.
The heat a steady pulse, like something ancient and golden waking in my chest. It wasn’t demanding or loud. But…aware. Present. Like a flame waiting patiently to be chosen.
I curled my fingers around the edge of the railing to ground myself.
A bell tolled somewhere far below, signaling the change of shift for the night guards. The soft chime echoed across the stones like a breath let out.
We both stepped back as if summoned back to ourselves.
He turned away. The closeness unraveled.
The stairwell back to my chambers felt colder on the way down.
My palm brushed lightly against the rough stone wall, a small point of contact and reassurance on the way down. My fingers skimmed patches of frost, caught briefly on a chipped edge where time had worn the stone soft.
We both walked in silence, like we’d both dropped something invisible between us and quietly agreed to leave it there.
At the bottom landing, he stopped. One step behind me.
I turned to face him, my back to the door in the shadowed corridor. The castle, usually a living, breathing thing of sound, was held in a profound and unnerving silence.
“I don’t want to go back in,” I whispered, surprising myself.
“I’ll stand outside. Until you sleep,” Erindor offered softly.
A lump formed in my throat. My voice caught on it. “You don’t have to—”
“I know.”
His gaze flicked to the floor. Then, slowly, back to me. The candlelight from a nearby sconce caught the edge of his cheekbone, the sharp line of his jaw, the quiet storm behind his eyes. All of it steadier than I felt.
Then I saw it—the subtle motion of his hand brushing over his coat, a light tap against the pocket near his heart. Absent-minded. Gentle.
What did he keep there, so carefully guarded?
I gave the slightest nod and turned the handle of my door.
I hesitated as I crossed the threshold.
Hesitation tightened my grip on the doorframe as I crossed the threshold. Without turning, I admitted, “If you ever do say something wildly inappropriate…I don’t think I’d mind.” My words hung in the silence before I disappeared into my room.
The room was still. Too still. Once again, someone had drawn the lace curtains closed. The mirror reflected only my silhouette, all cloak and wind-flushed cheeks. I let the fabric fall to the floor in a heap and stood by the window, one hand pressed to the glass.
The garden now felt a world away. But the warmth remained low in my chest, like a flame wrapped in ribbon, pulsing quietly as a heartbeat.
I looked down at my hands. They were still trembling. But not from fear this time. Hope possibly?