Chapter 31 Cassiel
Wren comes back very late. I know there’s something wrong from the moment she steps inside. She doesn’t talk to Dain at the door. She doesn’t even visit the bathing room to freshen up before bed. Her footsteps seem heavier, her breath too.
“Wren?” I ask, sitting upright. “What happened?”
She pauses near her door. “I went out tonight,” she says. “Your brother was there. He got called away on business—a fey had been arrested. Your brother killed him.”
I freeze. Wren’s not adverse to murder or violence—clearly—but I don’t think she enjoys it as much as she sometimes pretends.
“Was it one of the ones who—”
“No,” she answers quickly. “Not one of the bandits. Just a merchant. Harmless.”
It’s hard to imagine any of the fey as harmless, but I suppose some of them must be.
“I’m sorry,” I tell her. “That can’t have been the night you had planned.”
“No,” she admits.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
Wren is quiet for a moment. “Sorry,” she says eventually. “I was shaking my head. No. No, I don’t want to talk about it. I just want to go to sleep.”
“All right.” I clench the bedcovers in my hands. “If you change your mind—”
“I’ll be fine,” she insists.
A moment later, her door closes shut.
I sigh, leaning back into the pillows. At least I never have to worry about Wren being one of the fey.
She lies as well as any of us.
I wake sometime later to the sound of screaming.
For a moment, I don’t know if it’s real or just some remnant of a dream—but then it comes again, raw and ragged, tearing through the quiet of the night.
Wren.
Dain bursts into the room, but I’m faster. I’m out of bed before I can think, feet moving on instinct. I know the way to her room now, counting the steps in my head, letting my hands brush the doorframe before shoving it open.
Inside, Wren is thrashing against the sheets, breath coming in quick, broken gasps. The air smells of sweat and fear, though I suspect she’s lost in something worse.
I cross the space in a heartbeat. “Wren,” I call, reaching for her. “Wren, wake up.”
She doesn’t—just whimpers, flinching violently away from my touch.
“It’s just a dream, Wren—” Dain tries, though he can’t get nearer than I am.
“Leave her be,” I tell him. “Get back outside. She’s not under attack.”
Dain hesitates.
“That’s an order, Ser Hollowbrook.”
“Right you are, sire.”
He leaves without another word, and I try not to be annoyed at how quickly he rushed in here.
I try again to wake Wren, firmer this time, grabbing her shoulders and shaking her. “Wren.”
Her breath changes. My hands find her face, dusting over her eyelids.
They’re open. She’s still not fully here.
I can feel it in the way her whole body trembles, the way her breathing hitches on a silent sob.
Then her hands shoot out, clutching at me with desperate, clawing fingers, and before I know it, she’s pressing herself against me, shaking violently.
“It’s my fault,” she gasps, barely comprehensible. “It’s all my fault—”
Somehow, I know she’s not talking about the incident with the fey earlier. This is something more, ancient and raw. An unhealed wound.
I know all about those.
My arms wrap around her. She’s shaking so hard it rattles through me.
“Wren,” I murmur, lowering my voice. “It was a dream.”
“No,” she chokes out, burying her face against my shoulder. “No, it wasn’t—it was, but it wasn’t—”
Her breath hitches again, and I feel her fists tighten in the fabric of my nightshirt.
I exhale slowly. I don’t know what she’s seen, what horror has pulled her under, but I can piece together enough.
“Wren,” I say again, softer this time. “Breathe.”
She tries—but it catches, sharp and broken.
I shift slightly, one hand moving up to rest against the back of her head, fingers threading into her tangled hair. I don’t know if it helps. But she doesn’t pull away.
We stay like that for a long moment.
Slowly, her breathing evens. The trembling dulls to something quieter.
I swallow. “You’re not there anymore,” I tell her gently. “You’re here. You’re with me.”
A shuddering exhale brushes against my clavicle. “I know.”
I nod slightly, letting silence settle over us. I don’t say anything—not yet. I know what it is to wake from something that feels too real, to be caught between past and present, drowning in memory.
Finally she speaks.
“My mother died in a fire,” Wren murmurs, her voice hoarse from sleep—or from screaming. “I was a little girl. Seven. I was seven.”
I don’t move. I just listen, all the while painting a picture of a tiny, shivering Wren. I lost my father when I was just a few years older. My mother took our hands as she told us. I remember they trembled.
I remember that I wasn’t alone.
“Sometimes, I wake up there,” Wren continues, barely above a whisper. “Even now. Even after all these years. I wake up, and the house is on fire. Everything I love is ashes.”
A deep ache settles in my chest. That, I can’t imagine.
“Did you get hurt?” I ask softly. It seems strange that she’d survive such an event unscathed.
She stills against me. It takes a moment before she answers. “No,” she says, the word thick, heavy. “Not a scratch.”
And yet—
I hear it in the breath she takes, the weight pressing down on her ribs. I don’t know what she looks like. I have never seen her face—never traced the sharp angles or soft curves with my own eyes. And yet, in this moment, I feel like I see her more clearly than anyone ever has.
“You think you should have,” I murmur. It’s not a question.
A long pause.
“…Yes. Yes, I should have been hurt.”
I tighten my arms around her, surprised I’m not crushing her. “It wasn’t your fault.”
“It was,” she croaks. “It was. It must have been. I must have, I must have… left a candle burning, or something. It’s not fair. It’s not right. It’s not fair that she’s gone and I’m here without her—”
She gives a small, broken breath, and dissolves into sobs.
I let her cry until my nightshirt is almost soaked through.
“There are a dozen reasons why it isn’t your fault, if you ever want to hear them,” I tell her.
“But—”
“But they don’t matter. You’re still here, Wren. Your mother would have chosen your life over hers, and I think you know that. And even if she wouldn’t have… I’m glad you’re here, all right? There’s no one else’s snot I’d rather have on my clothes.”
Wren laughs at that. My chin brushes the top of her head.
“Thank you,” she whispers.
I let her go only when I’m sure she has steadied, her breaths no longer ragged, her body no longer shaking against mine.
“Let me get you some water,” I murmur.
She doesn’t protest, just lets me go as I rise from the bed and cross the room back to mine.
I move carefully, mapping the space in my mind, fingers grazing the edge of the table until I find the pitcher and cup.
The water sloshes softly as I pour, and when I turn back, I hear the rustle of fabric as Wren shifts, sitting up properly.
I press the cup into her hands.
She takes it without a word, though her fingers brush mine for just a second too long.
I stand nearby as she drinks, listening to the slow, steady gulps, the soft clink when she finally sets it down.
“You should rest,” I say at last.
I turn to leave.
A hand catches my sleeve. I freeze as surely as if I’m falling under a spell, motionless in a minute.
“Would you think less of me,” Wren asks, voice barely above a whisper, “if I asked you to stay?”
Her fingers curl around the fabric of my sleeve, as if she fears letting go will unravel something inside her.
I’d think less of myself if I left you right now.
“No,” I say finally. “I wouldn’t.”
I hear her exhale, soft and relieved.
Wordlessly, I sit back down. Wren tugs me down further, until I’m lying flat on the bed, her body flush against mine.
“Saints,” I whisper.
“What is it?”
Your body. Your breath. You. You, you, you Wren.
“This bed really is uncomfortable.”
She laughs. “I’m not going back to yours,” she tells me. “Not tonight, anyway.”
I really don’t know what to say to that, whether or not she means it to sound like I want it to sound. There’s mead in her breath. It’s entirely possible she’s been drinking.
“Please just stay until I fall asleep,” she says.
It would be easy to make dangerous promises of staying much longer than that, but I manage to keep them at bay. I nod against her temple, and, when I’m sure she’s sleeping, I place a kiss against her brow, shift from beside her, and make my way back to my own bed.
I hope Wren knows as I do, that it is much better never to be alone in the dark.
And that she never has to be alone again.
Neither of us do.