62. Cassiel
Dain points his weapon, but I shake my head, gesturing to the bodies at Moira’s feet. She is clearly not to be underestimated, and I’m not going to lose him—or my sister’s chance at escape.
Moira’s head tilts in our direction, registering our presence, and she smiles. Her hand lunges for her belt, and an arch of black powder springs out, swamping the tunnel in darkness.
Sightsever. Or the fey version of it.
Two can play at that game.
Dain coughs in the dust, half my name on his lips, but I silence him with a whistle.
Fall back. Protect.
I need him to keep Ru safe, and himself safe. I need Moira not to realise that she’s fighting me—someone who is used to darkness, who knows everything she taught Wren.
It’s my only advantage.
I suck in a breath, narrowly missing a shot at my ribs.
A year. A year of this.
A year of nothing but sound and guesswork and the constant, gnawing fear of what I couldn’t see coming.
My pulse spikes. I can do this.
Ru lets out a whimper. Robin barks.
Stay back, I whistle again.
A soft step to my left. I turn toward the sound instinctively, too slowly. Pain flares along my side as something sharp grazes me. I hiss, stumbling back.
She’s fast. She’s fast, and trained, and able.
So am I.
Footsteps sound to my right, air moving around a body in motion. Wren always told me I could sense people. She saw my strengths when I saw nothing.
Moira strikes again, but I turn, catching the motion this time, deflecting it with my forearm. Pain lances through me.
“You’re not a terrible opponent,” Moira mutters.
I don’t give her the satisfaction of a reply or the possibility of knowing who I am.
Robin lunges, snapping toward the sound, and Moira shifts to avoid him. I lash out, connecting with her staff. The impact jars up my arm. She’s strong, and her weapon is clearly reinforced with magic.
Moira moves again, faster now. Her staff whistles past my throat, too close—
I pivot, driving forward instead of back, closing the distance. She doesn’t expect it.
My shoulder slams into her, knocking her off balance.
We hit the ground hard.
Her hand comes up. Magic crackles in the air.
Ru cries out—
I lunge to rise—but she’s already there.
Moira moves like smoke, impossibly fast, and suddenly I’m driven backward, step by step, her staff striking, her magic pressing in. I parry once, twice—fail the third. The blow glances off my shoulder and sends me reeling into the stone wall.
The impact knocks the breath from my lungs.
Stone slams against my back. I fight to visualise the scene, the long spread of the tunnel. I have to get away, but there’s nowhere to go. She’s too close—
My grip tightens on my blade. My heart hammers, too loud, too fast. I try to track her, but there’s no space left, no room to move, no advantage left to take.
This is it. The thought lands with a strange, hollow clarity. She’s going to kill me. I’m going to bleed out here in the dark. And when she’s done with me… Dain, because he isn’t going to abandon Ru. She’ll kill him, and then she’ll kill her. We’re all going to die here.
I’m never going to see Wren again.
A low rumble cuts through the dark. It vibrates through the stone at my back, through my bones.
Moira pauses.
“What—”
A flash—brief, blinding, searing even through the darkness.
Her staff comes down, but it doesn’t hit me.
It cracks.
The sound is sharp and ringing, like metal striking glass. Power splinters outward, scattering in a ripple against a barrier, something solid and unseen, flaring into existence between us.
Moira hisses, striking again, harder this time. The invisible shield holds.
Ru.
“I did it!” she calls. “Did you see that, you old bat?”
Moira growls, rising from her spot towards Ru’s voice.
No.
I push off the wall, driving forwards as Moira adjusts, her focus fractured for the first time. My blade arcs, guided by instinct, by sound, by the brief hesitation she cannot hide.
It finds Moira’s flesh. There’s an awful, sickening resistance as it shudders into her skin, and her breath stutters out of her.
The darkness shatters. Light rushes back in, harsh and blinding.
I blink rapidly, vision swimming as the world reassembles itself around me.
Moira lies beneath me, her blood dark against the stone.
For a moment, I just… stare.
The woman who blinded me. Wren’s mentor. Someone she loved, trusted, who shaped her into the person I love. I don’t know what to feel. Should I be happy, relieved, vindicated, horrified?
I swallow hard, forcing myself to move, to pull back, to breathe.
Ru’s hand is on my arm.
I follow the touch, turning. On the tunnel wall, just behind where I’d been trapped, a crude rune has been daubed in dark, drying blood. One of the fallen guards’, rather than her own, or so I hope. The symbol still hums faintly, its magic thinning now that the danger has passed.
My chest tightens.
“You did that,” I say, my voice rough.
Ru hesitates, like she expects reproach.
A breath escapes me—half laugh, half disbelief. “That was quick thinking.”
“Cass…”
“I’m fine,” I say automatically. It’s not entirely true, but it’s all I can manage right now. “Are you?”
She nods.
Robin licks my face. I rub his ears, breathing him in for a second. “I’m all right,” I assure him.
Dain helps me to my feet. I look down at Moira one last time.
“Come on,” I say, my voice steadier than I feel. “We’re not done yet.”
There’s no time to pause, no time to sit with what just happened. The tunnel entrance yawns ahead.
I tighten my grip on my sword. I doubt Moira was alone down here. Even if she was, I suspect others will be waiting outside. She likely came down here to open the second entrance for them.
“If there are more of them,” I say quietly, “they’ll be waiting just outside.”
Dain nods, readying himself. Ru stays close, her earlier resolve still there, but thinner now, fraying. Robin’s ears prick forward.
We push through the tunnel and open the lever. The gate opens, and we step out into the open air.
I brace for impact. For steel. For magic. For—
Nothing.
Only silence greets us, because although a handful of fey are located outside of the tunnel… they’re all unconscious, or possibly dead.
“Cass!”
Wren.
She’s standing a few paces away, chest rising and falling, hair a mess, boots scuffed, and very much alive.
For a second, everything else drops away.
“Wren—”
Relief hits so hard it almost knocks the breath out of me.
She’s here.
She’s safe—
Beside her stands Zephyr, looking similarly windswept.
Dain steps up beside me, taking in the scene—and then doing a very obvious double take at Zephyr.
“Who’s he?” he whispers, as my eyes circle back to Wren. “He’s like a more beautiful male version of Wren!”
I blink. I’ve not yet found the strength to move, but I manage to pull a face at that.
“No one is more beautiful than Wren,” I point out automatically, because that is simply a fact, “and please save the flirting for now.”
Wren makes a strangled noise that might be a laugh despite everything.
There are a thousand things I want to say. None of them fit in the space we have.
I run towards her instead, yanking her into my arms, breathing into her neck and staying there for as long as I dare.
“You got my message,” I manage.
She nods once. “I did.”
Zephyr steps forward. “We don’t have time to stand around. More will come.”
He looks at Ru, assessing the situation, our reason for coming out here in the first place.
“I’ll take her,” he says. “Somewhere safe.”
Ru stiffens immediately. “I’m not—”
“You are,” I cut in, more gently this time. “Please.”
She looks at me, and then Wren, and then the chaos beyond the castle walls, where distant flashes of magic still light the horizon.
Her jaw tightens. “I hate this,” she mutters.
“I know.”
She nods anyway. “Fine. But if either of you dies, I will be extremely annoyed.”
“Duly noted,” I say.
She steps toward Zephyr, hesitating only briefly before letting him guide her back towards the cover of the trees. I’m placing a lot of trust in him right now, but if he brought Wren back to me, he deserves it.
Robin moves as if to follow them, but hangs back when he sees I’m standing still.
I crouch, pressing a hand briefly to his head. “Go with her.”
He whines softly.
“Go,” I repeat.
After a second, he turns, falling into step at Ru’s side.