65. Wren
The forest falls away beneath me. I fly over the Rosey Duckling at breakneck speed, over towns and villages stirring with unrest. People have noticed the smoke coming from Caerthalen.
Some are mounting horses and carts, charging towards it to offer assistance or investigate, while others hang back, terrified, unsure if there is anything that can be done.
Ahead, the castle burns.
Smoke curls into the sky in thick, choking plumes, lit from beneath by bursts of wild, uncontrolled magic. Even from a distance, the clash of steel and the crack of spells claw across the air. There is no difference between fey voices and human ones when both are screaming.
I dive.
The battlefield surges beneath me. Fey warriors move like shadows and flame, their magic arcing in bright, lethal bursts—green, gold, violet—colliding against the cold precision of human steel and powder.
Arrows surge in staggered volleys, the sharp percussion cutting through the chaos.
Blades flash. Shields splinter. The air itself is torn apart—nature against industry, instinct against invention.
A human soldier falls, clutching at his throat as vines burst from the ground to drag him under. A fey woman screams as a shot catches her mid-spell, her magic collapsing into sparks around her.
I bank hard, wings beating as I climb, avoiding a streak of wild magic that sears past my feathers. Someone shouts below—someone else answers with a spell that detonates in blinding light.
This is what we’ve made.
This is what I’ve been part of.
My wings drive harder.
I clear the main courtyard and veer towards Edwin’s tower. It is, thankfully, still intact, though it bears the scars of the assault. Smoke curls from shattered windows. The door below hangs half off its hinges.
I crash through the open window in a flurry of feathers, stumbling as my boots hit the stone floor.
The room is chaos.
Tables overturned. Glass shattered. Shelves half-emptied, their contents scattered in frantic disarray. The sharp, acrid scent of alchemical powder burns in my nose.
Edwin stands hunched over a workbench, sleeves rolled, hands stained dark with soot. He doesn’t even turn at first, too focused on grinding something into a fine, glittering dust.
“I need your help,” I say, breathless.
“This isn’t the best time,” he replies flatly, not looking up.
A distant explosion rattles the tower. Dust sifts from the ceiling.
I step closer. “What if I told you it would end this?”
Edwin stills.
Slowly, he sets down the pestle and lifts his head. His eyes find mine, tired in a way that goes bone-deep.
“I’m listening.”
“I need ingredients. Quite… quite a few of them.”
“What for?”
I hold his gaze.
“Bodies.”
Silence stretches between us. Outside, the battle rages on—another crack of gunpowder, another scream, another surge of magic—but in the tower, the world seems to narrow to the space between us.
Edwin studies me, no doubt weighing up whether or not I’m in earnest and whether or not he can afford to question me.
Whatever he sees makes something in his expression shift.
“…Right,” he says quietly.
“I need you to do some calculations, too,” I tell him. “I’m not sure how much I—”
He turns without another word, already moving. He sweeps a desk clear, wipes his chalkboard clean, and looks at me, waiting.
I tell Edwin everything I can. He works lightning-fast, covering the board in formulas, working out exactly what we’ll need.
“Can you get all of this?” I ask. I don’t know what half of them are.
Edwin scoffs. “Most of these are all around us,” he explains. “You can take care of oxygen and H20, I assume?”
“What are those?”
“Air and water,” he says, grimacing at the lack of my education, or at least a human one. Why would I need to know those words for them?
“Yes,” I tell him. “I can manage that.”
There’s a substantial pond and a fountain in the castle courtyard. That part shouldn’t be hard.
The rest…
Calculations finished, Edwin begins pulling open drawers, sweeping items into a satchel, grabbing sealed vials from a reinforced chest.
I join him. I don’t ask what anything is. I don’t need to. He presses things into my hands—powders, oils, something thick and dark in a stoppered jar. I gather them all, my mind already racing ahead.
“Right,” Edwin says. “Where should we take all of this?”
Another distant impact shakes the tower. Something collapses outside with a thunderous crash.
My throat tightens. “The royal crypt.”
The castle tomb is cold.
It lies deep beneath the chaos, untouched by fire or steel or magic. The air is still, heavy with the weight of the dead. Stone sarcophagi line the walls, carved with names long forgotten, their surfaces worn smooth by time.
I stand in the opening, the satchel at my feet. Edwin appears after me, tugging in various jars and salt we’ve pilfered from the kitchens. We measure it out, gather it together.
“You should… probably leave,” I tell him. “I don’t know what’s going to happen next. I wouldn’t want you caught up in another violent reaction.”
Edwin nods. “Very well,” he says, stepping back.
He reaches the stairs before I stop him. “Edwin?”
“Yes?”
“If… if I don’t get the chance to, would you tell Cass I’m sorry?”
Edwin does not say anything. He merely nods.
A moment later, he’s gone, and I’m alone in the tomb, staring down at the effigy in front of me, contemplating a dozen faces.
I’m sorry. That’s all I could think to ask him to pass on? How could that possibly be enough to—
Breathe, I tell myself, just breathe.
My hands shake as I double-check the ingredients. Powder. Oil. Bone-dust. Things I’ve forgotten the name of.
This is what it’s come to.
This is what the Fates have given me.
Choice.
My throat tightens.
“The child of both fey and mortal blood,” I whisper, the words still echoing in my mind, “can be anything she wants to be…”
My fingers curl into my palms. Flames whisper at my fingertips, coating my arms, bathing my clothes.
I do not burn, not even when the heat increases, turning blue, gold, purple, white.
I separate my senses, casting them out. A thousand sensations flood my skin.
The blood from the battlefield fills my nostrils and coats my throat. I can smell sweat, fire, pine, stone.
I can smell Cassiel, too, like he’s right next to me.
Water pumps in my veins. I pull the pond towards me, though I cannot see it. I feel it split the stones. It cascades down the stairs, circling around me. Earth erupts from the floor, dirt spilling into the space. Stems shoot out, flowers bloom.
And suddenly, I understand all of Edwin’s calculations. I don’t know the words, but I understand everything that makes us up, every cell, every atom. The entire universe flattens itself around me, as readable as a book.
I understand everything.
Including what this will cost.
Tears tremble down my cheeks as I pour the elements into the coffin ahead of me.
I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.
The Fates said that the child of both fey and mortal blood could be anything she wanted to be. And I want to be the person that saves everyone, the person that stops war, the person that brings about peace between both of her people.
But more than that, I want to be the girl that saves her lover, that gives him a future.
My body flickers with fire and light. Something erupts behind me, but I don’t turn to investigate. I don’t have time. The glow intensifies, curling around me like something alive, something ancient and waiting.
There’s no more time, but there’s one more thing I want above all else.
I just want to live with the man I love.