59. Wren
Iwake on a thin pallet in a cold stone room, rimmed with iron. I can taste it in the air, metallic, almost blood-like. For a moment, I don’t move. I just lie there, staring at the ceiling. It’s low and rough, threaded with faint lines that shimmer when I focus too hard.
Wards.
I push myself up slowly, reaching for my magic, but nothing answers. There’s no flicker of magic beneath my skin, no hum in the air, no whisper of power waiting to be shaped.
It’s… quiet.
My throat tightens.
The cell is small and bare. There’s a narrow cot against one wall, a thin folded blanket. A pitcher of water. A plate of bread and cheese.
I suppose I should be grateful that she wants me alive, but I try to summon that emotion, and come up empty. I shouldn’t be grateful that my grandmother doesn’t want me dead.
I draw my knees up, resting my arms across them, and let my head fall back against the wall.
She loves me. My grandmother loves me. A year ago, what I would have given to get her to admit that. What I would have done.
But the word feels wrong in my head now, because love shouldn’t look like this. It shouldn’t feel like being pinned to the ground, like being locked away while the world burns just out of reach. It shouldn’t demand silence. Obedience. Sacrifice.
Cassiel—
My chest tightens sharply at the mere thought of him.
Cassiel loves me, and he would never do this.
If I ever did something he didn’t agree with, he would argue. He would fight me. He might even lose his temper and say things he didn’t mean—but he would never take my choices away from me or hurt me or cage me for my own good.
His love isn’t a weapon. It isn’t something he wields. It’s given freely and without condition, even when I don’t deserve it.
Even now.
I squeeze my eyes shut, pressing the heel of my hand against them.
“Idiot,” I whisper to myself. “You absolute idiot.”
Because he told me not to do anything reckless, and yet here I am, imprisoned and useless while an army gathers.
And I can do nothing to stop it.
Time passes.
I don’t know how much.
There are no windows here underneath the earth. No sun. No moon. Just the distant sounds of movement—bootsteps, voices, metal clanging against metal.
Occasionally, I catch the low murmur of spells being prepared—faint, muffled through the wards, like hearing a storm from deep underground.
Every sound is a countdown.
I stand from time to time, pacing the length of the cell. Three steps one way. Three steps back.
There’s a heavy door made of solid iron with no visible lock on this side. I test it anyway.
Nothing.
I scan the walls next. The seams. The corners. Anything that looks even remotely weak.
There’s nothing. Of course there isn’t.
Still—I try. I wedge my fingers into a gap near the base of the wall and pull, but the stone doesn’t budge.
I try the cot next, lifting it, angling it toward the door, using the frame to try and lever something loose.
It scrapes and groans but doesn’t break.
“Story of my life,” I murmur to no one, before gritting my teeth. “Come on,” I mutter, shoving harder. “Come on!”
The frame splinters slightly.
The door does not.
Eventually, I sag back, breath coming faster, hands stinging. It was optimistic at best. I slide down the wall until I’m sitting again, staring at the opposite side of the cell like it might suddenly offer me a solution out of sheer pity.
It doesn’t.
I stare up at the ceiling like I can peel back the stone and scream at the sky.
“You made me,” I hiss, imagining the stars. “Was it to die down here? Was it to let him die?”
But the stone doesn’t answer, and the stars don’t care.
Cassiel.
I imagine him trapped in his rooms. A more comfortable prison than mine, but a prison nonetheless. And if I can’t get out of here, it won’t be his prison.
It’ll be his tomb.
“Please be all right,” I whisper, the words barely audible. Please, let him have the sense to guess what’s coming and get out. He’s always been the smart one, after all.
And Ru. Get her out. Don’t forget Edwin and Anne and the rest of the servants and—
Alessandra.
The name sits strangely in my mind.
I close my eyes, leaning my head back again.
She had been good to me, once. She’d held me while I cried, made me laugh, praised my abilities, treated me like one of the family.
Fates, she’d offered to give me a title if I wanted to marry Cassiel.
She’d been so happy for him that she didn’t care that I was just a lowly guard.
I think she was even happy for me. She was nice to me even before he was.
Before I gave her every reason not to be.
Her anger might annoy me, but I don’t blame her for it. Cassiel had months to come to terms with Evander’s death. She wasn’t processing it in the dreamscape. She’s only had days. She’s an angry, grieving mother. Given time—
Given time…
Maybe she could let it go. Maybe she could be reasoned with. Maybe….
But Nubaia isn’t giving her that, even though she should know that pain all too well.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper.
The words drift into the stillness, unanswered. I don’t even know who I’m saying them to.
Cassiel.
Ru.
Dain.
Evander.
My parents.
My mother, who carried me believing I’d be something that could bridge the gap instead of widening it.
Maybe even myself.
“I’m sorry.”
I hug my arms and cry myself to sleep.
They’re waiting for me in my dreams, the faces I’ve committed to memory, the people I killed. They rise out of shadows, twisted, broken, bleeding.
“Killer.”
“Murderer.”
“Traitor.”
Their voices overlap, a cacophony of accusation and grief, clawing at my ears, my mind. Sometimes, I resist them, but not tonight. I don’t even back away. I stay rooted to the spot. I don’t argue. I don’t make excuses.
“Yes,” I admit. “I killed you. Very sorry about that, in case you haven’t noticed.”
The voices falter, like they aren’t sure what to do with that.
“Any further comments?” I continue. “Questions? Suggestions?”
The voice still, only for a moment.
“Why?” asks one.
“Why did I kill you? It wasn’t on purpose—”
“Why do you keep us here?”
“Keep you here? What do you—”
“Release us!” hisses another.
“Let us go!”
I swallow. “I can’t,” I whisper, because even though I might know how, I’m not sure what that will mean, and even if I do…
Then they’ll be gone.
I don’t deserve the silence.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper again.
It’s not the answer they want. They roar as one, rising, hissing, spitting. Their hands reach for me, cold and endless—
Light cuts through them. Bright. Blinding. Pure. They recoil, hissing, shrinking back as it floods the space between us.
Evander stands before me, whole and unbroken, light spilling from him like something sacred. His armor gleams, the kind of figure you’d expect to see in stories told to children about heroes long gone.
He raises his hand and the spirits fall back.
“Enough,” he says, and his voice carries, calm and certain.
They obey.
He turns to me and smiles. It’s the same smile I remember, although there’s something strained beneath it. Something tight at the edges, like holding back more than he’s letting show.
He kneels beside me, cupping my hands. “Are you ready?”
I wake with a sharp inhale, heart racing, the cold stone of the cell snapping back into place around me.
For a moment, I just sit there, staring into the dark.
“Ready,” I echo hoarsely.
“Good,” says a voice. “Because we need to move.”
I open my eyes. Zephyr is standing above me, shaking my shoulders.
“Zeph?” I murmur. “What are you doing here?”
“Rescuing you,” he says.
“Didn’t Grandma—”
“Order me to stay away? Oh, she tried. Luckily, I was standing just a little bit too far away with a deafness rune carved onto my hand, and I didn’t quite catch what she said.”
“You’re a genius.”
“I have my moments.” He tugs me upright, brushing my shoulders as if to inject warmth into me. “Come on. We don’t have much time. I swiped a transformation potion from my mother’s supply earlier so I can keep up with you.”
“I love you,” I tell him, which is true, but never something we’ve casually expressed before. It isn’t the faerie way.
Maybe it should be.
Zephyr blinks. I expect him to ignore the sentiment, to wave it away, tease me, perhaps, for how human I’ve become. At best, I expect a smile.
It doesn’t come. “I love you, too,” he says. “Come on.”