Chapter Eight #3
The grin that spreads across his face is sharp, forged with spite and dripping in secrets. “Silas and I have been working together on something. You’ll forgive me for not disclosing what.”
Khiran stares, searching, before he shakes his head. “It’s not enough,” he says, the words soft enough for Anna to hear the honesty in them. “I’m sorry.”
Cassius nods, raising his glass in a solemn toast. “May our futures shine more brightly than our pasts, my brother.” He takes a long drink, a sigh escaping him as he sets it down on the table. His finger traces the rim. “You should know, before you leave, The Bladesmith is dead.”
Khiran’s hand stills, an olive halfway to his mouth and his voice breathy with disbelief. “What?”
Cassius’ pale eyes are sharp with warnings. “It happened years ago. The First believed she was conspiring against him.”
Anna looks between them, her own meal now forgotten. “The Bladesmith? Isn’t that—”
Khiran’s expression darkens, returning the olive perched between his fingers to his plate. “Ying. In her hands, with her blood, she forged weapons capable of killing gods.” A muscle in his jaw strains. “What was she accused of?”
“Attempting to forge a weapon with enough blood that it could even kill him.”
“Was she?”
Cassius scoffs. “Does it matter? She’s dead. I watched her burn, myself.” He pours himself a glass of something pale and frothy over ice. “After centuries of trying to increase our numbers, he burned her.”
Khiran weighs his answer carefully. “I’m sorry to hear it, but Ying’s death doesn’t change my priorities.”
“I didn’t tell you in hopes of changing your mind. I told you so you would understand what you’re up against.”
It’s the wrong thing to say. Khiran’s gaze turns sharp. “Between the two of us, I think I’m more than aware of the cruelty The First is capable of.”
Cassius rolls his eyes. “He’s unhinged. Whatever cruelty he dealt you before was calculated.
Controlled.” Around his cup, his knuckles are so white they match the milky liquid frothing behind the glass.
“I am trying to tell you to abandon any expectations you have, because he has gone beyond any semblance of reason. I am trying to tell you that, whatever the cost, do not let him catch you.”
Setting his glass down, he sighs; the sound tight and ragged at the edges. “He burned Ying over baseless suspicion. Imagine what he will do to someone clever enough to steal the power of a peach from under him? Imagine what he will do to her.”
Anna feels her pulse quicken, loud in the silence that descends over the table. There is a message behind those words, an unspoken threat that makes the gravity of their situation turn from smothering to poisonous. It rattles in her lungs, a sick promise of what their failure could cost.
Whatever the cost, Cassius had said, but what Anna hears is, do not let him take you alive.
She looks to Khiran, seeking answers in his eyes, but he doesn’t meet her stare. He’s too busy looking at the man across the table, a terrible look of resignation softening the line of his jaw. The muscles in his throat move as he swallows, his eyes momentarily shuttering closed. “I know.”
Cassius nods, but there’s no victory in the somber edge of his gaze. “Where do you plan to go?”
Khiran glances away. “We have yet to decide.”
“Travel far from here. Once Marcia figures out that you’re purposefully withholding your magic, she’ll have to track you the old-fashioned way. The more difficult the location, the less likely she’ll think to look for you there.”
“I have a place in mind,” Khiran murmurs, his brow creased in thought.
“Good.” Cassius tips his chin to the marbled sideboard. “If you could fetch a pen and paper from that cabinet, Little Bird. There’s a letter you need to write.”
Anna frowns, curious, but removes the napkin from her lap and pulls her chair away from the table.
She shares a glance with Khiran as she stands, but he seems as bemused as she is.
She finds thick sheets of paper and a fountain pen finer than anything she’s ever held in her life in the top drawer.
“Who am I writing to?” she asks, moving her plate aside to make room for the paper.
“Silas.” When Anna’s head snaps up, he smirks around the rim of his cup. “Write to him, tell him where you’re going, and seal it. I’ll ensure he receives it.”
Anna looks between them, confused. “I don’t understand.”
“It’s a fail-safe,” Khiran says, his finger drumming on the table as he studies the man who calls him brother. “If there’s word that Marcia is on our trail, Silas can shepherd us to safety before she closes in on us.”
Cassius’ smile is crooked. “Precisely.”
The fountain pen feels heavy in her hands as she stares at the blank page in front of her. “Then the letter…”
Cassius finishes where she trailed off. “It’s so Silas knows where to find you, but I don’t.
” He leans back into his chair, watching her over the rim of his glass as he takes a long drink.
When he sets it down, it’s empty. Standing, the chair screeches against the polished tile as he stands.
“I’ll give you privacy. There’s a wax seal in that same drawer.
Once you’re done, seal it and leave it on the table.
I’ll have my assistant deliver money and supplies to your room.
Take it and buy passage away from here.”
Khiran stares. “What guarantee do we have that you won’t open it and give our location to Marcia the moment it benefits you?”
“There are no guarantees, Brother. Only my promise. After what I’ve put you through, that may not be worth much, but you can trust that I want to be deserving of Silas’ love almost as much as I want The First in the ground.”
“Almost?”
Cassius’ grin is wicked and sharp at the edges. “I’d sacrifice my soul if it meant the pleasure of watching him fall.”
He pushes his chair in, walking away. But when he reaches the doorway he pauses, hesitating a moment before turning to look back over his shoulder.
Maybe it’s the shallow smile haunting his lips, or the memories darkening his eyes, but Anna is suddenly struck by how lonely a picture he makes.
“Actually… one more thing.” He meets Khiran’s eyes across the room, a shared connection mapped out in spider silk.
“Her name wasn’t Psyche,” he says. “It was Selene.”
A moment of silence, a few heartbeats, before Khiran asks, “Why are you telling me this?”
“Because she mattered,” Cassius says, and in it Anna can hear lifetimes of grief. Crystalline eyes catch hers, the implication of his words like a knife in her chest. “Because she’s gone.”
And then he leaves—walking away before Anna can fully process what has happened. The pen still sits in her hand, its tip poised over the empty page.
Khiran leans heavily into his seat, staring at where Cassius left. “You were right,” he breathes. “About staying. About trusting him.”
Anna doesn’t need to ask what changed his mind.
She’s certain she wasn’t the only one to see the regrets and warnings dancing around a ghost of a name; not the only one to draw the parallels between the circumstances of the love they share now to a love that lived and died before Anna ever drew breath.
She writes her message, hopes her gratitude is felt in the flow of ink, and silently passes it to Khiran so he can add their destination before sealing it.