Chapter 35 Wren
Afew days later, Alessandra announces over the dinner table that the castle will be hosting a ball in a couple of weeks time, to signal the end of the harvest season.
It’s been a while since they’ve hosted anything, and with very little merriment traditionally held over the winter period apart from the midwinter celebrations, she’s keen to do something ‘before the darkness of winter truly descends’.
She shudders at the thought. Cassiel smiles, leaning into my ear. “Mother hates the winter,” he explains. “She says she feels suffocated by the darkness. I’m sure I can make a joke in that regard now, but I will not.”
I understand her feelings. Although the fey often revel in the moonlight, I myself have always lived for the sun.
When winter came to the Moonhollow, no amount of conjured light could ever displace the gloom in my bones, which would scrape against them until the world turned once more into the light.
I am a creature of fire. I was not built for the cold, or the dark. I wither beneath it like a plant.
In the days that follow, the castle is alight with preparations.
Servants move through the halls carrying swathes of fabric, crates of candles, and armfuls of autumnal garlands.
The scent of beeswax and fresh polish lingers in the air as floors are scrubbed, silver is buffed to a mirror shine, and chandeliers are inspected for missing crystals.
The great hall begins to transform. Carved wooden tables are rearranged, their surfaces soon to be laden with delicacies from across the kingdom.
The long banners that usually display the royal crest are taken down and replaced with woven tapestries depicting scenes of harvest—the golden fields, the overflowing baskets of fruit, the bounty of the land before the stillness of winter claims it.
Cassiel, for his part, seems bemused by the fuss. “All this effort for one night?” he remarks as we pass a pair of seamstresses discussing the final touches to a lady’s gown.
I glance at him. “Do you not enjoy such things?”
He hums in thought. “I used to,” he admits. “When I could see it all.” His fingers trail briefly over the petals of a bouquet one of the servants carries past—deep red dahlias, golden chrysanthemums, and trailing ivy. I whisper what I can see to him and try not to imagine all that he is missing.
Elsewhere, the kitchens are a frenzy of activity.
The scent of spiced cider curls through the corridors, mingling with the richer notes of roasting meats and sugared nuts.
Margot commands her staff with quick efficiency.
“Not too much cinnamon in the tarts—Her Majesty hates it,” she instructs, before turning to a younger kitchen maid.
“And for the love of the saints, don’t burn the caramel this time. ”
Beyond the kitchens, the seamstresses and tailors work tirelessly to ensure every noble has something fine to wear.
Fabrics of deep burgundy, forest green, and midnight blue are laid out across worktables, shimmering in the candlelight.
I catch glimpses of half-finished gowns adorned with delicate embroidery, coats lined with soft fur for warmth against the evening chill.
“Will you attend the ball, do you think?” I ask Cassiel one evening, as I describe the various merchants currently arriving in the courtyard with their latest deliveries.
He muses on this for a moment. “Yes, for a little while. It would be good to show my face again, but I don’t imagine I’ll stay long. Too much noise and movement, and I daresay dancing will be out of the question.”
I raise an unseen eyebrow at him. “If you can fight, I don’t know why you can’t dance.”
Cassiel smiles weakly, his face turned towards the window.
A light breeze ruffles his hair, lifting it from his face, making his pale eyes seem lighter and more ethereal than ever.
“I imagine, one-on-one, I could probably dance almost as well as I used to, but not in a room full of other people, when my limbs could hit them in the face.”
“Hmm. Fair point.” I lean back. “I’ve always wanted to attend one of those courtly dances.”
“People don’t dance in Thornvale, Thornvale?”
“Ah, they do,” I reply, thinking not of the dances amongst the commonfolk, but the revels I’ve attended in the woods. “They just don’t follow the same steps. They’re not organised or neat.”
“I assure you, it will not be neat if I’m dancing.”
I stifle a snort, then sit back again in silence. I watch his face intently. I know it bothers him that he can’t see people’s expressions, but sometimes I find it hard to read his, too. His face gives nothing away right now. Is he content, mournful, wistful? Who knows.
“Did you like dancing, before?” I ask.
He pauses. “Yes,” he says, “I liked dancing, before.”
“Is that how you met her—the last girl you were with?”
“Sophia,” he tells me. “And yes. A spring ball, last year.”
“What was she like?”
“Oh, you know. Elegant, refined, highly educated. Wicked sense of humour, though.”
“Nice to know you don’t have a type.”
“I’ve never had a type,” he tells me, and I remember what Evander said—that Cassiel has never been one to fall in love with his eyes.
What do you fall in love with, then? I want to ask him. Why do you like me?
I don’t ask, of course. It’s best for both of us if I don’t. And, however wrong it is, I don’t want him to say that he doesn’t like me—that he only kissed me before because he was confused and I was there. It’s not right to want his affection, but that doesn’t make me desire it any less.
“What about you?” he asks. “What sort of people are you attracted to?”
Witty, intelligent blind princes with soft smiles and softer hands and hearts too big for the darkness they’ve been exposed to.
“Um… don’t take this personally,” I start, “but I’m a big fan of tall, dark and handsome.”
Cassiel clutches his chest. “I’m not those things?”
I laugh. “You know you’re at least two of those things.”
I think he might be tall for a human, although there’s not much disparity between our height.
I am tall for a human woman, small for a fey.
They all tend to be tall and willowly. None of them have shoulders like his.
I’ve been with fey and human men alike… Cassiel is not like any of them.
But then, he isn’t like anyone I’ve ever known before.
He snorts. “Personality wise, what attracts you?”
I’m not sure I can answer this. I’ve never had a relationship before—nothing more than a fling with someone who was attractive and there.
It’s always just been physical. I didn’t need anything else.
I’d started to think that there was something wrong with me.
Perhaps that’s what came of never being fully fey or fully human.
I’d lost something in the middle. My soul wasn’t meant to find another, wasn’t malleable enough to affix itself to something else.
At least… that’s what I used to think.
“I’m not sure,” I admit.
Cassiel tilts his head. “You don’t sound unsure.”
“Are you trying to get me to say nice things about you?”
He pouts. “I could go for some nice things.”
I chew my lip. “Promise me you won’t let this go to your head?”
“I make no such promises.”
“Fine. Promise me that you won’t read into it, or think I’m flirting with you. I am… merely a friend, reporting what I like in a partner, who may or may not share some characteristics with you.”
Cassiel grins. “All right.”
“I like people who make me laugh,” I tell him.
“I think, fundamentally, I would want to be with someone I considered a friend. Someone easy to talk to. Someone who wasn’t afraid to admit their own fears and could make me less afraid of my own.
I like intelligence, but not arrogance. I like people who push themselves but know their limits.
And… and I like people who are kind. I’ve not exactly had a surplus of that in my life, and it still surprises me sometimes to see it. ”
Cassiel is quiet after I finish. “That’s… quite the list you have there.”
“It’s expanding,” I tell him.
It expands every day I find more to like about you, and wonder if anyone else will ever measure up to it.
“Wren—” He shifts in his seat, moving as if to take my hand.
I stuff them under the table. “You promised you wouldn’t take it as flirting.”
“I’m not flirting—”
“You have flirt voice on!”
“That’s… I do not!”
“You do. You’re saying my name all soft and… soft.”
“Has no one ever said your name softly before?”
I freeze, because, yes, they must have, but no one says it like he does, and it’s been a long, long time since anyone said it anywhere close.
“That wasn’t supposed to be a hard question to answer,” he says. “I suppose I could go back to calling you Thornvale?”
“No,” I tell him. Because that’s not my name. That’s not who I am.
Cassiel gets up from his seat. “Then Wren it is,” he says, tilting his body towards me. “But you’ll have to get used to me saying it softly. I don’t know how to say it any other way.”
His hand cups my face. I freeze under it. I know I should pull away. We promised each other we wouldn’t—
“I’m not going to kiss you,” he promises. “I’m just going to do this.”
He leans his forehead against mine, cupping both of my cheeks in his hands, which suddenly seem much larger than I remember them.
I lean against him, my hands braced against his chest. It takes everything in my power not to curl my fingers into his clothes and tug his mouth to mine. I can taste this breath. It twins with mine.
I inch back before I can do something I’ll regret, and offer another game of chess—a small, useless shield of marble and wood that won’t protect either of us.