34. Wren
Iwake to the sound of Cassiel breathing.
It’s the soft, even kind of breath you only hear when someone is truly at rest. For a moment I lie still and let myself pretend this morning is like the others—that the sun climbing through the cracks in the hut means nothing more than another day beginning.
His arm is warm where it rests across my waist. The thatch roof smells faintly of smoke and pine sap.
Outside, something small skitters past the door.
This is our last morning.
I turn my face into the pillow so I don’t have to look at him yet.
If I don’t move, maybe time won’t either.
Maybe the world will politely wait while I memorise the weight of him, the sound of his breath, the smell of his skin.
If I can recall everything perfectly, maybe it won’t hurt so much to be apart from him.
I’ll be able to close my eyes and imagine him beside me.
Eventually, Cassiel stirs. His fingers flex against my side, then still, as if he knows I’m awake and doesn’t want to break whatever fragile spell we’re under.
“Do you remember that morning when you fell asleep in my bed after you were injured?” he murmurs.
“Vividly,” I tell him. “You whispered my name. I thought I was in a dream. Then I pretended to still be asleep to save you at least the mortification of how, um, entangled we’d become during the night.”
Cassiel laughs, squeezing my middle. “I knew you were pretending.” He kisses the nape of my neck. “That was a good morning.”
“It was.”
“I didn’t know you thought it was a dream. Did I often feature in your dreams, Thornvale?”
“Only the best ones,” I tell him, which isn’t exactly true, because he features in my nightmares, too, but I don’t want to think about those right now. I finally lift my face from the pillow and kiss him. “Also, my name isn’t Thornvale.”
“If it’s all right with you—on occasion—I think I’d like to use it still,” he says. “Though you should know, I vastly prefer Wren.”
“I don’t mind,” I tell him. “But I do love it when you say my name.”
“Wren,” he murmurs.
“Cassiel.”
The kissing begins again in earnest, but it doesn’t get much further. I’m still sore from last night’s excursions, and I think we both knew that had to be the last time.
We don’t want to stop. We don’t want to get up.
We have to.
We rise slowly, like we’re wading through water. Cassiel sits on the edge of the bed, running a hand through his hair too many times. I pull on my boots and lace them with unnecessary care. Every movement feels stretched thin, as though if we take long enough, goodbye will forget to arrive.
Cassiel reaches for his shirt, then pauses. He turns, crosses the hut, and crouches by our singular pack. When he straightens, he’s holding my dagger.
The sight of it punches the air from my lungs. The bird-engraved one. The one my father used to own. I knew it had it, but I’ve not had the opportunity to ask him about it.
Until now. Now may be the last time.
“You kept this?” I ask.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
His gaze drops to the floor, to the space between his boots. “A part of me thought I wanted to stab you with it,” he says quietly. “But I also don’t think I wanted to get rid of anything that was truly yours, that meant something to you.”
Something inside me loosens, painful and sweet all at once. I take the dagger from him, weighing it in my palm, then smile despite myself.
“You burned my dress,” I say.
“Yes,” he says at once. “I’m sorry about that.”
“That’s all right. I looked hideous in it anyway.”
He snorts before he can stop himself. “Did you?”
“No.”
We smile at each other, small and helpless. The kind of smile you give when you’re trying not to fall apart.
“I’m really sorry I never got to see you in it,” he says, his voice very quiet.
“Me too,” I admit. “At least you have the butterfly dress from the wedding to fill your fantasies with.”
He tugs the ribbon I was given in the same pattern. “I will remember that dress—that night—for the rest of my life.”
“I will remember all of our nights,” I tell him. “Even if I live forever.”
I don’t want to think about that—to think about a future that has me in it, but not him.
I don’t want to think about seeing his children on the throne, and watching his features fade from them as the decades pass and the centuries turn.
When will I stop searching for him in everything I see? A hundred years after he dies? Five?
What if I forget what he looks like? Memory fades in time. It is inevitable.
I shut my eyes tight, turning the dagger once more. I don’t want to forget.
I press it back into his hand. “Keep it.”
He frowns. “Wren—”
“I want you to have something of mine,” I tell him. “Please.”
“I… don’t have anything to give you.”
“I don’t need anything.”
His fingers close around the hilt. He nods, though his throat works like he’s swallowing something sharp. Without a word, he draws the dagger, takes it to the back of his head, and cuts off a small lock of hair, offering it to me.
“Just promise me that you won’t use it in any totem,” he says.
I smile, taking the lock and threading it into my ribbon until I can find a better place for it. “I’ll protect it with my life,” I assure him.
“Oh no,” he says, cupping my face. “Your life is far too precious. Never use it as a shield for mine.”
“No promises there…”
We draw together in another kiss, then part to finish getting dressed. After that, there’s nothing left to do but stand there. The hut feels suddenly too small, like it knows it’s about to lose us.
“I need to see you again,” Cassiel says. The words come out rushed, as if he’s afraid I’ll leave mid-sentence. “We could be careful. Quiet. No one would have to know. You can fly after all. You could come to me after dark. We don’t have to—”
We don’t have to say goodbye.
“Someone would notice,” I tell him.
“And if they do? I’m the Prince Regent. There’s no higher authority in Erelis—”
“And when the other countries—or your nobles and supporters—hear that you’re screwing a fey girl? The one blamed for your brother’s death?”
“I’ll tell them the truth,” he insists.
“The truth doesn’t matter,” I tell him. “What everyone feels will. They’ll say you’ve been hoodwinked, enscorcelled—”
“I don’t care!”
“You will,” I tell him. “You will, when you see what it costs.”
Cassiel stares at me. He’s smarter than this, and we both know it.
I step closer. “We can’t be together in secret. Discovery will happen. It always does.”
“Then let’s do it in the open,” he says, insistent.
I blink. “What do you mean?”
He straightens, as if bracing himself against the world. “We could always try solving the conflict with a marriage between our people.”
For a heartbeat, I can only stare at him. Then I laugh—a short, incredulous sound.
“I’m serious, Wren.”
“No, you can’t be,” I tell him.
“And why not?”
“Because that idea is even dumber than your last one,” I tell him. “And also I can’t believe you’d propose that way.”
Cassiel narrows his eyes. I can tell he’s genuinely annoyed. “How, exactly, am I meant to propose?”
“You? When you propose to someone, there will be flowers, tears—yours, of course—a romantic declaration, probably poetry—”
“I’m never going to propose to anyone but you, Wren.”
I swallow. I want that to be true, but at the same time, I desperately, desperately hope it isn’t.
“You are the first person I have ever loved,” I tell him. “But I really don’t want to be your last.”
“You don’t mean that.”
“I do,” I tell him. “I want you to be happy.”
“Then come back to Caerthalen and marry me—”
I shut my eyes, taking a deep breath. I want so badly to say yes, to damn the inevitable consequences, to say anything that will keep us together. But I see that future unfurling as clearly as vision in the Star Gate. It will not end well for either of us.
“No one crowns a traitor, Cass,” I say, as softly as I can. “They execute them.”
Cass flinches at my words. “I wouldn’t let anyone hurt you.”
“You can’t promise that,” I say, my voice cracking despite my effort. “We’re from two different worlds—”
“And I love you in both of them.” He steps closer, cupping my face in his hands. “In all of them. In your world, mine, in the next. In all the realms and all the ages, I will love you, Serawen Ashwood. We are written in the stars.”
My breath shudders out of me. His words settle into my bones, luminous and terrifying. I press my forehead to his, because if I look anywhere else I might break.
“Those stories don’t always have happy endings,” I remind him.
“Ours will,” he tells me. “I’ll find a way.”
I want to believe him, but I don’t. The world has never been particularly kind to me, after all.
There’s no reason to think it will start now.
There are bits of kindness in the world.
There’s people like him, and Ru, and Marnie and Tob, and good people who try to do good things, but it’s not enough.
It never is.
“I… I need to go,” I tell him.
“I know,” he whispers. “I know.”
“If… if you need me at all… if there’s a genuine problem that needs my attention, some magical conundrum… hang something blue outside your window.”
Cassiel nods, incapable of much more. His hand rests against my chest, over the tattoo on my heart, visible just beneath my shirt.
“Do you know the story of how the word vastren came to be?” he whispers.
“I know I’m going to enjoy you telling me.”
He exhales softly, as if bracing himself.
“There was a woman named Vastra,” he says.
“And a man called Renwall. They lived during the age of the Endless War, when the world was split clean in two and no treaty ever held. Vastra was a healer. Renwall was a soldier. They were on opposite sides—destined to be enemies.”
His thumb presses lightly, right over my heart.
“They met by accident, when Renwall was wounded and confused for one of the allied soldiers. Vastra helped him escape when he was healed. Then they met again on purpose. And then there was no stopping it. Renwall used to say that loving her felt like standing too close to the sun—that she’d burned away everything he was, until there was nothing left but her. ”
My chest tightens.
“When the war finally came to its worst,” Cassiel continues, voice low, reverent, “Renwall was mortally wounded. Vastra tried to save him, but she could not. And do you know what he said to her, as he was dying?”
I shake my head.
“He told her she had consumed his soul entirely. That without her, there was no point in living. And when he died, something in Vastra changed. She marched straight onto the front lines, where the leaders were fighting each other—and do you know what she did?”
“What?”
“She sang. She sang with such love and grief, that the armies laid down their weapons and listened. Vastra’s song washed over the battlefield and touched their hearts like sunlight.
For a moment, everyone understood the true cost of war.
No one had the heart to fight after that.
The leaders came together, and arranged a treaty that lasts to this day. ”
“A song… can’t do all that.”
Cassiel shrugs. “Maybe love can.”
My throat tightens. “What happened to Vastra after?”
“She faded from history. But her name—Renwall’s name—survives as a testament to all that they were. She consumed his soul, and his death ended a war.”
Silence settles between us.
“I’m not sure I do enjoy that story, actually.”
Cassiel swallows. “Neither do I.” He strokes back my hair. “I can’t live without you, Wren.”
It doesn’t matter if he can’t. He has to. Just as I have to learn to live without him, no matter how hard or how impossible.
I don’t think either one of us has the strength to say goodbye.
But we have to leave. We have to.
“Close your eyes,” I tell him.
Cassiel frowns.
“Humour me,” I tell him.
Reluctantly, Cassiel closes his eyes.
I inch away from him, each step feeling like walking over knives. “I’m still here,” I tell him. “You cannot see me, but that doesn’t change the fact that I’m here, Cassiel. I’m just in the next room. I’m always with you.”
I’m stepping in the wrong direction, and I know it, so I close the gap between us, kissing him fiercely.
I want to drown in him. I want to die. It’s not fair that I can’t do either, because we’ve still got a world to save, and I don’t want to die, not really, I just don’t want to live in this stupid world where there’s no hope for us as a pair.
I pull back. His eyes are still closed. I place my hand over his heart. “Vastren,” I whisper.
He catches my wrist and kisses the inside of it. “Infinite,” he says.
I am gone before he opens his eyes.