3. Cassiel #3
Lying against her chest was a small, squawling, red-faced infant, with a shock of brown hair.
For a moment, I was almost disappointed.
A part of me had hoped the new baby would have golden hair like mine—like Father’s—but then she opened her large eyes—blue, back then—and stopped crying, and for a moment, I was certain I’d never be disappointed about anything ever again.
Quietly, the rest of the attendants swept from the room, and it was just the four of us for the first time.
“Are all babies that loud?” I asked, reaching forward to examine one of her little hands.
Mother, despite her exhaustion, laughed. “This one is particularly loud, so it seems. That’s good. It means she’s healthy.”
“It’s a girl?” asked Evander.
Mother smiled. Light lit up her eyes. “Yes, Ev. Meet your little sister.”
I had never loved anything so quickly, so surely, so absolutely. I had never been so happy to meet anyone. For a moment, just a single one, I didn’t miss my father quite so much. Our family didn’t feel quite so small.
It does, now. It feels so small, so minute, that it fits neatly in this narrow bed. Is family even the right word for two?
Your fault, a voice reminds me. You lost half your family, all because you did love someone else more. Your love killed your brother and took your mother.
Quietly, I get up from the bed, tucking in the covers around Ru, and shuffle back to my chambers. A fire burns in the hearth, but the warmth doesn’t reach me.
I stand before the window.
The sound of the whistle comes again. How many days had I sat here, practising them with her? How many days had I whistled in her absence, hoping for a reply, before all of… this?
It’s just wishful thinking, strange as it sounds. I ought to hate her. Most of the time, I think I do hate her. Her kind have caused us nothing but misery. She was sent here—most likely—to kill me.
Or seduce me. That idea hasn’t left me, and I know I’m not the only one who thinks it. Maybe she was sent here to kill Evander and worm her way onto the throne. Tactically, it makes sense. It’s certainly one way to win this war.
And yet…
And yet, I can’t help but feel that some of it was real—or she was the best actress I’d ever met.
Even before her betrayal, I’d considered the idea that she was placed here, before deciding it was unlikely.
She’d have been nicer at the start if was.
She wouldn’t have pulled away when I pressed for more.
She wouldn’t have warned me that she’d destroy me.
I rub my face. If only she’d stayed, just for a little bit. If only she hadn’t run away after Evander’s death. If only she’d had the chance to explain herself fully.
If only I’d been willing to listen.
I sigh, turning slightly towards the door in the corner of my room.
I haven’t been in it for months, not since shortly after her departure.
Captain Fellwood had searched it for clues by then, but found little to nothing of value.
He’d left everything else behind. My fingers traced along every surface.
I inhaled the blankets, searching for a trace of her, then threw them down in disgust. I found pillows, clothes, her hairbrush, her satchel.
Finally, my fingers found the images she’d pinned up, the ones of mine she’d taken to decorate her room. It ought to have been proof that she cared, because why bother otherwise, to pin up a blind man’s drawings?
But how could she care when she’d done what she did? How could she care if she’d left?
I tore the images down and threw them onto the fire.
I ripped the blankets from the bed and added them to the blaze too, followed by her clothes, her pillow, her hairbrush and ribbons and laces…
. Even the dress I’d bought her for the autumn ball, the one she said she’d keep until the day she died.
I couldn’t destroy her, but I could destroy something she loved.
Anything that didn’t burn, I hurled out of the window.
I nearly set fire to my own room in the process, filling it with smoke. That was worse, because even though the scent of her was expunged, the smoke reminded me of the fire at Benedict’s, how I crawled through the rubble towards her, how I burned and she cried.
An act, an act, I reminded myself. Or if it was more than that, it doesn’t matter now.
I purged my room of everything that reminded me of her…
everything but one of her daggers. The one with the engraving.
A bird. Her favourite. That, I kept. I take it with me every time I leave the castle.
I don’t know if it’s because I plan to give it back to her, or stab her through the heart with it.
I’ll make up my mind if I ever see her again.
I take another deep, steadying breath, and slide into my seat by the window, trying not to imagine all the times I sat here with her. I try not to recall the lilt of her voice, the warmth of her body, her breath in the blackness.
I realise, now, why I want the whistle to be Wren’s. Why I want to know that she’s alive, and here, in spite of everything.
It’s not love. At least, I don’t think it’s love. I think it’s because, however mad I am, however furious, I just want to know that I’m not alone in the dark.