36. Wren #2
They do not spit when they say my name. They do not curse the fey.
They do not assume I’m still manipulating Cassiel, or that there’s some evil reason I’ve not healed the queen.
There is curiosity in their voices and speculation, but no hatred, no questioning of my motives.
They don’t call me traitor. They don’t accuse me of seducing a prince or poisoning his mind.
Hope stirs, small and fragile.
Maybe, just maybe, the future I ache for is not a complete fantasy. Maybe there will come a day when a fey woman and a human prince can love each other in the open. Maybe the old stories will loosen their grip.
Just not right now.
Right now, the conflict still breathes. My grandmother still pulls her threads. Cassiel still walks a throne room that smells of polish and politics and expectation.
But perhaps in a few decades—when those who remember this conflict have grown old, when the sharpest prejudices dull—
And if my grandmother dies—
I swallow hard.
The thought tastes bitter.
I cannot believe I want her to die.
The admission sits heavy in my chest. She raised me, wiped my tears, healed my injuries. She taught me about the forest and magic and introduced me to Zephyr.
And then I remember the smoke and the smell of my mother burning. I remember that she let me think that I was responsible.
I set my spoon down.
Yes. I can believe that I want her dead.
The tavern’s noise swells around me—laughter, clinking cups, the scrape of boots. Life continues, unbothered by the war at its edges.
I finish my meal slowly, thoughts turning like distant thunder.
Maybe one day I can live here without hiding.
Maybe one day I can stand beside Cassiel in daylight without fear.
Maybe one day my grandmother won’t pose a threat.
But not yet.
I try to force my thoughts somewhere gentler.
I picture Cassiel crowned. It’s a strange image, because I know it’s not one he wants.
He never, ever expected to wear the crown, and even if it ever crossed his mind that something could happen to Evander and that it would eventually fall his way, he could not have predicted that it would happen so soon.
But I meant what I told him. I think he can be a good king, fair and thoughtful and stubborn in the right ways. The sort of king who listens before he commands and who could mend what this war has torn.
I curl my hands around my cup and stare into the ale as if I might see that future in its cloudy depths.
I hope—fiercely, selfishly—that whatever he becomes will be due, at least in part, to me. That I have left something good behind in him. A softness. A widening of perspective. A refusal to hate blindly.
Maybe, in a couple of decades, there might be a world where we can be together.
If he still wants it. If he hasn’t moved on and found a woman truly worthy of him, who can make him laugh and push him and tease him and give him the children I know he desires.
Of course, he’ll be in his forties then. Perhaps older. There will be silver at his temples. Lines at the corners of his eyes.
I will look exactly the same.
Not that it would matter to me. As long as we get some time together—
My hand trembles so badly the cup rattles against the table. I set it down quickly before I spill it. A cold sweat prickles along my spine.
I keep thinking of how awful it will be to outlive him, to watch him turn weathered, to hold his hand as it grows thin and papery—
To stand at his grave while I remain unchanged.
But what if that isn’t what happens? What if whatever is wrong with me takes me first?
I’m still not sure what’s wrong with me, if it’s just a lack of food and rest and warmth, or if it’s something else. It feels like something else. I’m frayed, weary down to my bones, carved into slivers of myself.
I press a hand to my stomach, nausea rolling through me.
I don’t want to live in a world without Cassiel in it.
But I don’t really want the reverse, either.
I am not sure how well he would cope in a world without me. He feels so deeply. Would another death be too much for him to bear? Would it break him? Would it harden him forever?
Tears spill before I can stop them, sliding hot and humiliating down my cheeks.
I should never have let him fall in love with me again. I was only supposed to give him back his sight. That was the bargain I made with myself. Heal him. Leave. Protect him from me.
I’d destroy you, I’d told him once. I was right, I just didn’t know I’d destroy myself in the process.
A shadow falls across my table.
“You don’t look well,” the barmaid says gently.
I blink up at her. The room tilts slightly.
“I’m—” The word catches in my throat.
Fine.
The lie hovers on my tongue, heavy and wrong. My lips twitch around it. For a fleeting, absurd I wonder if I’ve become truly fey, unable to speak a falsehood.
“I’m…” I swallow. “Tired.”
Her brow furrows. “Can I fetch you anyone? A healer, a friend—”
“I’m alone,” I whisper. The admission feels like stepping off a cliff. “I’m just… I’m just really tired…”
She studies me a moment longer, then nods slowly. “We have rooms upstairs.”
“I can’t pay,” I say at once. My voice is flat with truth. “I’ve no more coin. And I…” I hesitate, dizzy again. “I can’t…”
I could ensorcell her, get her to think she sees coin in my hand, or enchant a few leaves to take on their shape. But even if I had the energy—and I’m not sure I do—I don’t want to get her in trouble. I don’t want to get anyone in trouble, especially not someone showing me kindness.
I’m not even sure I could slip into my bird form and flit upstairs unseen. That shape usually comes as easily as falling into water, but right now it feels impossibly far away.
The barmaid’s mouth curves into a small smile.
“This one’s on me,” she says.
I don’t protest.
I don’t have the strength.
She slips an arm around my shoulders and helps me to my feet. The tavern blurs as we cross it. Stairs loom. I grip the railing and let her guide me upward, step by step. The hallway above is quieter. She nudges open a door with her hip and steers me inside.
It’s a simple space, furnished with a simple narrow bed, a trunk for belongings, and a washstand. A small window overlooks the street.
She eases me down onto the mattress.
“Your glamour is slipping,” she says softly.
My heart jolts. I lift a shaking hand to my face, wondering what it now shows, if I’m recognisable—
“Don’t worry,” she adds quickly. “I won’t tell anyone. Although,” she offers with a faint smile, “I hear there’s no price on your head anymore.”
I stare at her.
“Why are you helping me?” I ask.
She meets my gaze without flinching. “Why did you help so many others?”
I struggle for words. My thoughts feel thick, slow.
“Because I had to,” I murmur at last.
She nods as if that is answer enough.
“Well,” she says, tugging off my cloak and pulling the blanket up to my chin, tucking it around my shoulders with surprising tenderness, “rest here for the night. The innkeeper isn’t working until tomorrow morning. You’re safe here.”
Safe. When’s the last time I was truly that? I suppose I was safe with my mother, long ago, but I don’t really remember what that feels like.
I only remember that I miss it.
I was almost safe in the Moonhollow, but never from the sneers and sharpness of the residents who hated what I was, where I spent every day being forged into my grandmother’s weapon.
There was the threat of the enemy, too, the fear that one day, the humans would find a way to reach us.
I was never safe from my grandmother’s hatred, never safe from her stories about Queen Alessandra and the castle where my father’s murderers slept.
The same castle she sent me to. Where discovery would have been instant death.
Where I experienced the closest thing to safety I’d known since the night my mother died.
In Cassiel’s arms.
Him, him. Only him. Always him.
But I lean into the lie, and let myself pretend I’m safe here, too. I let it settle over me like another blanket. I let the word safe hum softly in the dim room. It rocks me gently, like the lullabies my mother used to sing—low and lilting, human and ordinary.
My glamour flickers once more and fades as sleep drags me under.
And for a few fragile hours, I let myself believe I am held.