42. Cassiel
I’d like to stay with Wren and eat together, but I’m keen to get this task done, and spending time with her with Edwin there as well isn’t exactly what I’m in the mood for. I send Ru to breakfast with Aunt Imogen, sending my apologies, and swearing her to a silence she’s only too happy to keep.
“It’s not that Aunt Imogen won’t accept you—us—if she knows that we’re part-fey,” I tell her. “And we shall tell her, together, at some point. But she will have the same questions that we do, and I want to answer them first.”
Ru nodes, understanding, and heads off as told.
I do the same, striding towards the barracks.
Fey. I’m part fey. Ru, Evander… even our mother if Wren’s theory is correct. Which I’m almost certain it is. To say I’m shocked is an understatement, but, like Wren said, it does make a degree of sense.
I stare at my hands as I walk, half expecting them to burst into flames, to give me a sudden surge of power. Can I activate runes? Cast a glamour?
Fly by myself?
I’m excited and terrified in equal measure, but I can’t give weight to either of those emotions right now. I have a tomb to raid.
The barracks are already alive when I arrive. Steel rings faintly, boots scuff on stone. I find Dain near the far wall, methodically checking the edge of a blade with his thumb. He looks up the moment I enter.
“Sire,” he says automatically.
“Cassiel,” I correct, just as automatically. “Especially when no one’s watching.”
“There’s a lot of people here.”
“They aren’t paying attention.”
I seem to have slipped in relatively unnoticed, which is useful. A few offered me deferential nods as I walked past them, but their attention isn’t on me anymore. They’re used to me being in here by now.
Dain smiles. “Cassiel, then. What’s wrong, my fine fellow?”
I glance around, double-checking no one can hear us. “I need your help,” I say quietly. “And your discretion.”
Dain straightens, sliding the sword back into its sheath. The humour in his face vanishes at once. “You have both.”
I hesitate for a heartbeat, but I’ve already come this far.
“I want you to help me with something in the royal vault,” I say. “Specifically… Queen Vivien’s tomb.”
There’s a pause. Dain studies me, weighing something I can’t quite name, then nods once. “All right.”
That’s it. No questions. No demands for explanation.
Relief loosens something tight in my chest.
“You don’t want to know why?” I ask, unable to stop myself.
“If you wanted me to know,” he replies simply, “you’d have told me.”
The thing is, I really, really want to tell Dain. Dain likes Wren, he holds no prejudice against the fair folk, but this secret we’re unravelling is huge, and it concerns the entire royal family, including my sister. Edwin already knows. Dain seems one too many.
It’s unfair, and I hate it, but it seems the best option.
“If it’s something you can’t say,” Dain adds, reading my face, “then I’d rather not force it out of you.”
Saints bless Dain and his unfailing loyalty. “I’m going to knight you twice,” I tell him.
“That isn’t a thing,” he remarks. “Though I appreciate the sentiment.”
“Thank you,” I say.
He claps my shoulder once, firm and familiar. “Let’s go grave-robbing, then.”
The entrance to the vault lies beneath the oldest part of the castle, behind a door most people pass a hundred times without noticing. Thick oak bound in black iron, set into stone worn smooth by centuries.
It is rarely locked, but I have the key to it regardless.
No one comes down here very often. I never felt the need to visit the dead, I never felt closer to my father or Evander by visiting their remains.
My mother used to come here a lot, especially with Runara when she was little, trying to connect her with the stone replica of our father.
But Ru never could place warmth into a stone, and the visits started to frighten her the older she grew.
If my mother came again afterwards, she didn’t tell us.
The hinges groan as the door opens.
Cold air breathes out to meet us as the door opens—a slow, ancient exhale of dust, stone, and something faintly metallic. There is no need to light torches, light filters down from narrow windows, high up in the walls. The light is oddly beautiful, turning the stone faintly golden.
The world turns quiet here, until even our footsteps feel muffled.
The royal vault stretches wider than I remember, its ceiling arched high overhead, supported by thick pillars etched with worn carvings: names and sigils and fragments of history half-erased by time.
Rows of stone tombs fill the chamber. Some grand, raised on platforms and carved with intricate reliefs.
Others simpler, older, their inscriptions faded to near illegibility.
Effigies lie atop many of them in eternal repose, hands folded, faces serene in death.
Queens, kings, dukes, duchess, princesses and princesses.
Dozens of my ancestors, more family than I could ever hold in life.
It’s supposed to be my final resting place, some day, though I’ve never liked the idea of being trapped in stone. If I had the choice, I’d much rather be outside in the earth beneath the sky.
“Are you all right?” Dain prompts, reading my hesitation.
“Fine,” I say, stepping forward, only to stop immediately.
Because the tomb closest to the door is Evander’s.
I hadn’t meant to look for him, but his presence now is unavoidable. The stone is still too new, too clean compared to the others, pale and untouched by the slow decay of centuries.
And atop it…
Him. The effigy is perfect. They’ve captured him as he was: strong, composed, a faint suggestion of a smile at the corner of his mouth, as though he might open his eyes at any moment and make some dry remark about how dramatic I’m being.
My chest tightens. It’s wrong. He shouldn’t be here. He should be—
Something inside me twists sharply, cutting the thought off before it can finish.
Dain’s footsteps stop beside me. “Do you need a moment?”
I don’t answer straight away. I can’t seem to look away from Evander’s face. The first time I’ve seen it since that awful night when I lost my sight, and I’m seeing his death mask.
A few months. That’s all it’s been.
A few months since he was laughing, arguing, living—
My hand curls into a fist at my side.
“I—” My voice falters. I swallow hard. “…no,” I manage eventually, though it comes out rougher than I intended. “No. We should keep going.”
It takes a moment for my feet to listen. I move forward, still half expecting the stone to come to life and take my hand. Of all the powers in the universe I could have, that’s the one I wish for most. The power to call souls into stone, warmth to cold. The power to bring him back to us.
But, as Edwin told me before, no one has that power anymore.
We precede down the rows of stone effigies until we reach the one belonging to Queen Vivien.
I can’t quite remember how many monarchs ago her reign occurred.
She is my great-great-something-grandmother.
Despite her fearsome reputation as the Mad Queen who tortured the fey, the rest of her rule was a peaceful one.
Nothing of note happened during her reign, no great wars or events.
“All right,” Dain says, stopping beside me. “What are we robbing, again?”
I cringe. “Her bones.”
Dain stares at me for what feels like a solid minute. “All of them?”
It didn’t occur to me to ask Edwin how big of a sample we’d need, but I don’t suspect it needs to be that big, if a mere drop of Wren’s blood incurred such an explosive reaction.
“I imagine a few fingers will suffice.”
“Thank the Saints for that. We’d look a tad suspicious lugging around a bag filled with a royal skeleton.”
It’s a grim thought, but a funny one.
Dain steps up to the tomb, rolling his shoulders once as though preparing for a far more noble task than this.
“Right,” he mutters. “Let’s see how cooperative Her Majesty is feeling today.”
The coffin lid has been sealed flush into the base. No easy seams, no helpful gaps. Just a solid slab. No one, of course, expected her to be opened up again.
We wedge our fingers into the faintest lip at the side.
“On three,” Dain says.
I nod.
“One—two—three.”
We heave.
The stone doesn’t budge. Dain looks at me.
“Again,” I tell him.
“One—two—”
This time it shifts. Only a fraction at first, a grinding protest of stone against stone that echoes far too loudly in the vaulted chamber. Dust shakes loose, the sound scraping down my spine.
This is harder than I thought it would be. I hope we don’t have to fetch someone else to help. Wren will want to, of course, but I don’t want her exerting herself unnecessarily, and I’m not sure how strong Edwin is.
Maybe I’ll have to call Runara down here with a strength rune…
“Let’s try again,” I insist.
We push once more, slower this time, working it inch by inch until there’s just enough space to put a hand into the dark, musty space.
We both lean back slightly, trying not to breathe too deeply. Neither of us reaches in immediately. The reality of what we’re about to do settles properly between us.
Dain clears his throat. “I can do it,” he offers, glancing at me. “I am, after all, your humble servant.”
“I don’t think you’re paid enough for this,” I murmur.
“You’re welcome to gift me an estate somewhere, if you like,” Dain suggests. “Early retirement would suit me.”
“Would it?”
“Well, not yet,” he clarifies. “But I wouldn’t say no to a house in the country at some point.”
I smile, staring down into the narrow gap. The sour smell quickly dissolves my expression. “I’ll do it,” I insist. “It’s my idea.” And my ancestor…
“Cass—”
“I mean it.”
He studies me for a second, then lifts his hands in surrender. “All right. But if something grabs you, I’m not diving in after you.”
“Very reassuring,” I mutter. “And nothing’s going to grab me. She’s been dead for over a decade.”
“An insect could have burrowed in and—”
“Please stop.”
I crouch beside the opening. Cold air seeps from the gap, stale and dry, carrying the faint, unmistakable scent of old decay. My throat tightens.
Saints preserve me.
I brace one hand against the stone edge and, before I can think too much about it, slide the other into the darkness.
For a moment, there’s nothing but emptiness. I scramble about, fingers sliding and the stone, searching for something that feels more like—
Bone.
I want to recoil in horror, but I force my fingers to travel down what I think is likely her arm, until the bone branches out. Her hand.
I swallow hard, fighting the instinct to yank my arm back.
“Still dead?” Dain murmurs.
“Shut up,” I hiss, though there’s no real heat in it.
I find what I’m looking for—a finger, thin and fragile beneath the remnants of whatever wrappings once preserved her.
I grip it firmly and snap. A dry, brittle crack that seems far too loud punctures the silence.
Revulsion surges up my throat. I clamp my teeth together, breathing sharply through my nose.
“One,” Dain says helpfully.
“I hate you,” I mutter, reaching in again before I can lose my nerve.
The second time is worse. I know what’s coming now and feel it before it happens.
Crack.
I nearly gag, jerking my hand back this time, the broken pieces clutched tightly in my fingers.
I sit back on my heels, swallowing hard, willing my stomach to settle.
Dain looks at my hand, then at my face.
“Well,” he says, entirely too amused, “you’ve certainly got a future in less reputable professions if this prince business falls through. You can add grave robber to your list of talents.”
I let out a short, humourless breath. “Remind me never to ask you for help again.”
“And miss out on this?” He gestures vaguely toward the coffin. “Not a chance.”
I shoot him a look, then quickly unwrap my handkerchief with my free hand. The clean white fabric feels absurdly out of place here.
I drop the bones into it, then fold the cloth over them until they’re hidden from sight and slightly less unbearable.
I shove the bundle into my pocket.
Saints. I have human bones in my pocket.
“Done,” I say, pushing myself to my feet.
Dain nods and moves back to the coffin. Together, we ease the lid back into place. It settles with a heavy finality that echoes softly through the chamber.
“Let’s go,” I say quickly.
I don’t want to linger. Not here. Not with—
My gaze flicks back across the vault, to the tomb nearest the opening. I stare at the empty space beside it. Who will be next to join the bones here? Mother’s? Mine?
Ru’s?
We make our way back towards the stairs. I hesitate as I pass Evander’s tomb again.
Dain stalls too.
“It’s all right,” I tell him. “Head up without me.”
Dain nods, saying nothing, and vanishes up the stairs. I wait until everything is silent once more, then move to the space between Evander’s coffin, and my father’s. I try to imagine what either of them would say to me if they were still alive. I try to imagine what they would want me to do.
I’ve walked past my father’s portrait often enough not to be too startled by his similarities with me, but it’s different seeing him rendered in stone, or perhaps it’s been too long since I’ve stared at him for any length of time.
His face looks so much like mine that I can almost see my own tomb.
He married young, like I always planned to.
He was only in his thirties when he died, and yet he still had more years than Evander.
I think back to his regretful expression when he killed Wren’s father. I think back to her account of his terror as he faced death. Would he want revenge?
Evander didn’t. His last breath was spent trying to clear Wren’s name.
“I’m going to fix this,” I tell him, or our father, or maybe myself.
“I am going to find a way to end the conflict, to create a world you’d be proud of me for making.
” I hesitate, hardly knowing the words before I think them.
“But if either of you could give me a hint as to how to accomplish that… I’d be really grateful. ”
I swallow, throat tight.
“I miss you,” I whisper.
I place my hands, briefly, over the folded ones on their chests, but it brings me little comfort. Stone is cold, unyielding.
I head upstairs to join the living.