36. Wren
Igo back to the cave in the Duskfen forest.
I stand at the mouth for a long time, staring into the dim hollow as if it might have rearranged itself in my absence—grown warmer, perhaps, or grown into anything faintly resembling a home rather than just space.
But it hasn’t.
The stone walls glisten faintly with damp. The air smells of moss and mineral and old smoke. It is as cold and empty and as far away from Cassiel as ever.
I step inside.
The sound of the Duskfen softens behind me, wind threading through black-barked trees, water moving through peat and root.
The silence in the cave is heavier than the forest’s hush.
There is no steady human breathing, no quiet, thoughtful voice asking me questions about stars or spells or why the moss glows faintly blue along the eastern wall.
No Cassiel.
It is warmer now. Spring presses green life into the fen. The fog lifts earlier in the mornings. Pale blossoms dare to open along the marsh edges.
But the cave is cold.
Or maybe it is only me.
I sink down onto the single blanket that I didn’t pack and haven’t lost. I pretend we shared it together, that it carries the scent of him still. I have pretended most of my life to be something I’m not. I can manage this.
But the blanket is cold and musty, and I can’t conjure any trace of him, no matter how desperately I clutch at his lock of hair.
Cassiel.
I still can’t believe I found the strength to leave him. I’m not sure I could have managed it if he hadn’t closed his eyes. But then, I’m still not used to him seeing me. It shouldn’t have mattered if he could see more or not.
And it didn’t. It doesn’t. All that matters is that I am here and he is not, and I might as well have torn myself in two. We are not meant to be divided.
I count the days that follow by the thin spill of light across the cave floor. One. Two. Three. I leave only to drink from the stream and gather a few bitter roots. I do not hunt. I do not sing. I do not shift.
I lie on the stone and let the cold crawl into me. It seeps through my skin and settles in my bones. The season may be turning, but something in me is locked in winter.
My mind wanders back to Brindlewick, to the low doorways carved into the roots of ancient trees, lanterns hung from twisted branches, windows no bigger than my palm glowing amber at dusk.
Brownies bustling with baskets twice their size.
Gnomes arguing over clockwork contraptions beside the mossy square.
I think of Marnie and Tob, and baby Eva, and Cassiel’s face when he held her.
We walked their narrow earthen lanes without fear.
Children stared openly at Cassiel’s height and shining hair.
An old gnome pressed sugared nuts into his hands as if he were only another traveler and not the human prince of a realm at war with our own.
At night, music drifted through the trees—fiddles and pipes and the low thrum of something ancient—and Cassiel laughed in a way I had forgotten he could laugh.
For a few fragile days, the world forgot to hate us.
I want to go back.
I want the smell of fresh bread and sapwine. I want the warmth of crowded burrows and the murmur of small, ordinary lives. I want to stand beside him again in the lanternlight and pretend the war cannot find us there.
But I can’t return to that place. Brindlewick may have opened its doors to us, but most of the fey still look at me and see betrayal. Word travels through Duskfen’s roots and rivers. If I stay too long, I endanger them.
Ironically, it may be safer for me beyond the forest’s edge at the moment than beneath its boughs.
I roll onto my back and stare at a jagged seam in the cave ceiling. The Moonhollow and my grandmother are not far from here. An hour’s flight, maybe less.
I could go to her. Demand answers. Demand that she admit what threads she pulls in this war. Demand that she stop.
But I am too weak for that, and I know it. If the visit turns violent, as I imagine it will, I can’t fight her, no matter how much I want to. I want her to hurt as much as I do.
She already does.
Zephyr’s face drifts into my thoughts next. My memories after I was hurt are few, but I remember his face above mine, hauling me back from death.
I owe him my life.
I should forgive him.
Perhaps I do.
Or perhaps forgiveness is a thaw that comes slowly, reluctantly, like frost melting from the fen at dawn. I do not know what I would say if I stood before him now.
Thank you?
Why did you help me?
Do you regret what you did?
I am not sure how I feel about him. Gratitude tangles with suspicion.
He stood between me and annihilation, but he too bears some responsibility for Evander’s death.
I know he didn’t mean it, but he knew more about the plan than I did.
He helped make me into a fool. I lost a friend, because of him. I lost Cassiel.
And yet…
Unlike my grandmother, I know he is sorry for it. Did he even have much choice in the matter?
No, I realise, probably not.
But I lack the strength to seek him out, and so I stay exactly where I am.
The days stretch, and I do little to help speed them along. I trail my fingers across the cave wall and imagine it is Cassiel’s hand instead. I whisper his name into the dark, just to prove that it still exists.
It feels as though I’ve buried him myself and laid him in the cold, dark earth. My fingers trace rock, but I imagine a gravestone.
I close my eyes and let the cold settle deeper.
I cannot return to Brindlewick. I cannot confront my grandmother. I cannot seek Zephyr. I cannot go to him.
I hover in this hollow between worlds—traitor to one, danger to the other.
The cave holds me like a tomb, but it does not let me die.
Eventually, I cannot bear it any longer.
I’m too close to her, and too far from him.
The forest presses in on me from every side, the Duskfen’s damp breath against my skin, its roots whispering old loyalties I no longer fit.
Every path curves, eventually, toward my grandmother’s influence.
Every gust of wind feels like it carries her scent.
And Cassiel is nowhere in it.
So I pack what little belongings I have, and shift. The forest drops away beneath me, black water and pale blossoms blurring together. I do not look back.
I fly toward Erelis. I don’t dare head towards the capital. It’s too close to Cassiel, too close, and too far. I’ve dreamt of returning to his rooms and haunting them like I did before we were together again, but it’s not right now. It’s too cruel to the both of us.
Instead, I settle on a random town towards the east. I drop behind a bush to transform, and draw on a glamour, making myself as ordinary-looking as I possibly can.
It slips over me more easily than it once did, like pulling on a well-worn cloak.
The faint glow beneath my skin dulls. The sharpness of my features softens into something human, forgettable.
I have grown far better at this in recent months. Necessity is a ruthless tutor.
I wander into the market place. Stalls crowd the square—bolts of dyed fabric rippling in the breeze, baskets of apples and onions, copper pans catching sunlight. Children weave between legs. A dog barks. Someone haggles over the price of smoked fish.
I move through it all unnoticed.
I try to imagine what it would be like to live here, to wake each morning in a narrow room above a shop, to buy bread from the same baker and argue about the weather and taxes and whose cow has gone missing. To exist inside the small, ordinary rhythms of human life.
I could.
If I wanted to, I could remain.
I could don a glamour each morning and live amongst them, work and exist and maybe even laugh.
Grow older at a slower pace than they do and pretend it is good fortune.
I would never be able to be myself—not truly.
No wings. No shifting. No wild magic flickering at my fingertips without careful concealment.
But I would not be alone.
Would that be worth the lie?
I don’t know.
The thought lodges in me as I push open the door to a tavern.
Warmth and the scent of stew wrap around me immediately. The room hums with low conversation. I approach the counter and order food and drink in a voice that is not quite mine.
My fingers shake as I pass over the coins. There are the last ones I have.
The barmaid—a broad-shouldered woman with flour dusting one sleeve—studies me. “You all right, love?”
I force a small smile. “Just tired.”
She nods, unconvinced but unwilling to pry, and moves away.
I take a seat near the wall. The bench is solid beneath me. My meal arrives—thick stew, dark bread, ale that smells faintly sour. I eat slowly, willing my hands to steady.
Midway through the meal, a conversation drifts from the next table.
“…told you, didn’t I? Prince Cassiel’s lifted the price on her head.”
My spoon stills halfway to my mouth.
“Former guard, wasn’t she?” another voice says. “What was the name?”
“Serawen Thornvale.”
The name strikes like a blow. I keep my head bowed.
“Says she was being manipulated by Nubaia too.”
“Quite the tale.”
“Apparently she restored the prince’s sight.”
A chair scrapes. Someone laughs softly. “Good for him! Pity she can’t wake up the queen.”
“I wonder why she can’t? Says here she’s healed others.”
“I dunno. Magic?”
“If she can heal him using magic, why not the queen?”
The other voice shrugs. “Maybe it don’t work that way.”
“Wish they’d taught us theory of magic in school, don’t you?”
“I wish they’d taught us a lot of things in school, Bob. Perhaps they could have taught you to eat with your mouth closed!”
They laugh and move on to other topics soon after while I sit there, unmoving.