58. Wren
The trees on the Moonhollow rise impossibly tall, their silver bark catching the moonlight.
Bridges of woven vines stretch between them.
Moon lilies bloom along the stems. Everlight lanterns pulse in the windows, and will-o’-wisps drift lazily through the air, casting that familiar pale glow I used to fall asleep beneath.
For a moment, I hover at the edge of it all, suspended between wingbeats. When I first saw the Moonhollow, I thought that it was the most beautiful place I’d ever seen, and a part of me still agrees with that assessment, even though it pales in comparison to the warmth of Cassiel’s arms.
It is not my home. It never was.
I flit between branches, keeping to the higher canopy at first. Voices drift up, snatches of conversation, laughter, and something more tense.
“…they’re arming the eastern watch—”
“…we don’t even know if the humans will—”
“—the Queen wouldn’t—”
I veer away. Useful as the information is, I need to find Zephyr. If anyone knows how the wind is blowing, it’s him.
I circle a few more times. I’m not used to seeing the Moonhollow from this angle. The old paths come back to me slowly—the curve of the great oak that leans too far west, the split trunk that hums faintly if you brush against it, the cluster of moonflowers that only bloom along the southern ridge.
Zephyr isn’t at any of his usual haunts. He’s not near the elder’s circle, or his own home, or down by the lake. I’m just about to settle into his room (even if it means risking my aunt’s ire) and wait for his return when I spy my own window.
Something in my chest tightens as I approach it.
For almost thirteen years, I called it mine, and in that time, nothing has changed but the fall of the flowers and vines around the windows and railings—railings which are grown rather than built, the entire structure carved and branching from the tree itself.
I land on the familiar balcony and hesitate only a second before slipping through the open window. Dangerous, possibly, to enter into the space I used to share with my grandmother, but I don’t sense her anywhere in the apartment.
Someone else is there.
Zephyr is sitting cross-legged on the floor, papers scattered around him, one of my old knives turning idly between his fingers. He looks older. Not in years, necessarily, but in the way his shoulders sit, the tension in them.
He doesn’t notice me at first, not in this form.
I hop once across the floor and shift in a rush, feathers collapsing into skin, wings stretching into arms.
The knife clatters.
Zephyr is on his feet in an instant, eyes wide. “Wren?”
I grin, because I don’t know what else to do. “Hi.”
“What are you doing here?”
“Here, in my room?” I carry on. “What are you doing here, cousin?”
“I come here sometimes when Grandma is out,” he says. “When I am feeling… sentimental.”
“How human of you.”
“Perhaps you have rubbed off on me.”
For a long moment, he just stares, and for all that I once used to know him better than anyone, I’m struggling to read his expression.
I don’t get much of a chance. He shatters the moment, striding across the floor and pulling me into his arms.
“I’m sorry,” he rushes. “I’m sorry for the part I played in—I’m sorry.”
“I know,” I say, hugging him back. “I forgive you. I know—I know you wouldn’t have had a choice.”
He pulls back, and we both nod. It’s all we need to really say.
Seizing the opportunity before I can forget, I cross the room and throw open one of my trunks.
“Wren—”
“Hang on.” I tug the lid open and dig through the contents. Fabric, old trinkets, a half-finished carving I never got around to—ah.
I pull out a pair of worn leather boots, scuffed but intact, and sit on the edge of the bed to pull them on.
“Do you have any idea how long I’ve been wearing just socks?” I mutter.
“What happened to your boots?”
“I left them on Cassiel’s floor after I fled from his room, completely naked.”
Zephyr stares at me as if he has no idea how to respond to that statement. “Wren,” he repeats, more firmly this time.
I glance up at him. He’s still staring, but the shock is starting to shift into something else. Something more complicated.
“Fates,” he says, rubbing the back of his neck. “I can’t believe you’re actually here. If anyone sees you—”
“They won’t,” I cut in, standing and stamping my foot lightly to settle the boot. “Not unless I want them to.”
“You’re such a liar.”
“I’m really not,” I tell him. “And I wish people would stop saying that. I’m actually quite honest, as far as humans go.”
“You used to be a spy and an assassin.”
“And I was very upfront about it.”
Silence stretches between us for a beat. I tilt my head, studying him.
“Do you want this?”
His brow furrows. “Want what?”
“This.” I gesture vaguely outward, toward the rest of Moonhollow. “The fight. The war. The conflict with the humans.”
He exhales slowly, some of the tension bleeding out of him. “No,” he admits.
I nod once. “Do others feel the same?”
Zephyr hesitates.
“Some,” he says carefully. “Not everyone. But—”
“Wren.”
I freeze at the sound of the voice. The air in the room changes, becoming colder and stiffer all at once. A shift in pressure, like the moment before a storm breaks. The will-o’-wisps flicker, their glow dimming just slightly.
Zephyr goes very, very still.
Our grandmother stands in the doorway, tall and composed as ever, her broad shoulders and arms draped in layers of dark fabric that contrast with the stark white and glittering gold of the tattoos across her dark skin.
Her hair, black as night, falls in a dozen long braids over one shoulder, each studded with gold beads.
Her eyes are on me. They do not waver.
“Well,” she says softly, “this is unexpected.”
For a moment, neither of us speaks. The last time I saw her, I’d pushed her off the castle battlements and thwarted all her plans. I knew, as a shifter, that she’d survive.
I’d been less sure of my own survival, but I’d been willing to risk it to save Cassiel and a woman who now wants me dead.
“Hello, Grandmother,” I say, because politeness is a habit that’s hard to break, even now.
Her gaze flicks briefly to my boots, then back to my face.
“You’ve come home,” she observes.
“This was never my home.”
Her golden eyes flash, like I’ve inflicted a wound, but she says nothing.
“I went to the Star Gate,” I tell her, before I can lose my nerve. “I saw my past. My parents’ past. I saw what you—and the other elders—tried to do to bring about my birth.”
Zephyr’s face snaps towards me. He doesn’t know any of this, like I suspected.
“It was necessary,” she tells me.
“Was killing my mother necessary too?”
Zephyr inhales sharply. He turns towards our grandmother, waiting for a response.
Her jaw only tightens.
“Zephyr,” she says finally. “Leave us.”
“Grandma—”
“Leave us! That’s an order.”
Zephyr’s eyes blaze, but he does as she commands, casting one final, desperate look at me as he goes.
My grandmother and I are alone in my childhood room, the one she brought me to after she murdered my mother. A space that’s been mine for longer than the one she burned down.
“You let me think I killed her,” I continue. “For years, I thought—”
“I told you that fire killed your mother,” Nubaia snaps. “I never said—”
“You knew what I thought. You let me carry on believing it—”
“I cannot help what you believe, Little Bird.”
I swallow. It’s been a long time since I’ve heard that nickname. My father used it, too.
“But you would, if you could, wouldn’t you?” I continue. “That’s why you took me from her in the first place, because you needed me to be a weapon.”
“I needed you to be strong—”
“There are different kinds of strength! You took me from her, and you turned me into an assassin! That wasn’t because I could lie, was it? You didn’t actually need me to spy at all. You sent me on those missions to show me the worst of humanity, to make me hate them—”
“You needed to see what they were capable of!”
“Then you should have shown me everything!” I spit back. “Everything that they were capable of! Not just the bad! You should have shown me that they could be kind and funny and brave and strong and that they grieved just as deeply as we do.”
“No,” says my grandmother, her voice ice, “they do not.”
I ignore her. “You raised me to hate humans, but I don’t.
I love one of them. Cassiel was raised to hate the fey, but he doesn’t.
He loves me. Me, Grandma, despite everything I’ve done, and all that I am.
And I love him just the same. All of the hatred you poured into me, and yet…
I can still love. I’m still lovable. I make that choice.
I reject yours. We chose love over all of the hatred and pain and anger—”
“You can choose whatever you like,” Nubaia replies. “It doesn’t alter the world you live in. Your feelings for each other won’t triumph over everyone else’s.”
“Do you know what would have happened if you had done nothing but place me in Cassiel’s service?” I ask.
Nubaia does not respond. She only watches me, her face stiff, but her fingers—just barely—tighten at her sides.
“I do.” It’s a thought that’s kept me awake at night, but I know the answer, now.
“If you had done nothing, I would have told Cassiel what I was, and he would have been surprised, but it wouldn’t have mattered.
We would have told Evander, and he would have done everything in his power to make things better for the fey…
as he was already trying to do. When he became king, he would have ended the conflict between our people.
And Cassiel and I… maybe, just maybe, our children would have been the next kings and queens of Erelis. But instead, you chose this.”
Nubaia’s composure cracks. Her chin lifts, her eyes flash. “Well, what else could I choose—”
“People are going to die, Grandma! I know you loved my father. Now countless others are going to lose their children—”
“And they will have deserved it!”
The words hit like a blow. “What?”