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He had tattooed his own name on himself. I would find it odd if Ziah hadn’t shown me the same.
“Religion and history are the basis of it all, aren’t they?” he continued. “The history of the Goddess and the sister and the war that split the world? The war that split magic.” He leaned forward, arms still folded as I stiffened, the way he said ‘magic’ pulling me to attention. “The war that supposedly ended the Fae.”
He spoke slowly, clearly, his voice low as everything in the camp faded away. I wasn’t sure anyone else had noticed the change, they were all too enamored with the coming sermon. But now, I was right there with them.
The bastard did know something.
“Religion. Histories. They are one in the same.” Ryndle leaned back again, our focus still locked on one another.
“Perhaps. But I have a feeling your tale may be more on the religious side.” Which I had no interest in, no matter how he looked at me. No matter how much I was sure that he knew more than he was letting on.
“You might be right. But you would have to hear the tale to know for sure.” This man and his wide, secret smiles. They made my skin crawl, a sensation made worse as they all smiled the same way when they assumed they had won, and they all seemed to win a lot.
“Tell me, Caspyn,” he continued, the fire popping between us. “What do you know of the war that split magic, the war that banished the sister and sent the Fae into exile?”
I sat back as though I had been slapped, a dangerous pull working its way up my spine as my magic boiled to attention deep within me.
The Fae into exile? Not death. He had phrased it that way before, but beyond him I had never heard that. I had heard they had been sent to death, to banishment, yes, but those are very different things than exile.
“What do you know, Caspyn, light bringer?” he asked again, my lip curling at the title. I snarled at him in warning, the sound lost as everyone gazed at their leader with an adoration that bordered on obsession.
“I know that the Goddess fought with the first Ramal to banish the Fae,” I said, begrudgingly. “That the Goddess and the Ramal declared war to punish them for taking the Lynar’s magic and in turn they split it apart, turning what was the strong magic of the Lynar into branches.” It was what everyone knew, it was the story that was told before a fire on cool evenings when there was nothing else to discuss.
Of course, that had not been the story I had been told around my hearth as a child. I had been raised with the story of The Queen and how she took control, how she slaughtered the Catalysts and how the princess had faced her, about how the powerful Elara had failed but had promised to return to save them all.
It was only after I met Jayse that I had really heard the story of the Goddess. In the world I was raised in, no one cared about that, they only wanted to find solace from the tyranny of the Queen.
I couldn’t very well tell him that, however.
“You know what has been passed down, then. What has been shared by priests and at hearths. Would you like to hear what is written in the Book of the Goddess?” I really didn’t, especially not with that wide haunted smile still painted on his face. My hands flinched, as though I could simply reach for my blades and find whatever he knew.
There was something in that look, the same look that he had given me the other day, that was pulling me forward, even as my soul rebelled against it.
“Not really. But if the last few days are any indication, you are going to tell me anyway.” A few of those around the fire laughed. Even Lyani smiled before she turned her head away from me.
“You are correct about that. I believe this history might be more important to you than you think, Caspyn. In the days of the Fae there was a good King who had two daughters–” I cut him off with a laugh.
“In the days of the Fae?” I repeated what he had said, laughing again. “I thought this was the story of the Goddess and the Black War that divided magic.”
“It is,” he nodded once, his lips pulling up as he leaned in, that look of his cutting right through me.
“Didn’t you know that the Goddess and the sister were Fae?” His voice lightened as he grinned. He was playing with me. I wouldn’t have cared if I wasn’t still trying to wrap my mind around what he had said. “It is written in the books, although that fact seems to have been forgotten. The Goddess, Leilan, and her sister, Cassia, were Fae, the daughters of a Fae king.”
“Her sister?” I interrupted again, sending a wave of murmurs through the group. Ryndle, however, was still enjoying himself.
“Yes. Not the sister as many say, but her sister. It seems there is much you do not know, although we may never reach the story if you keep interrupting me.” He was playing, leading me into the story until I was trapped like a spider in his wicked web.
I glowered at him, and he smiled. Just another of his tricks.
That’s all he had. Tricks with words. Once he returned my blades, I would show him some others.
“The King of the Fae promised his eldest daughter, Cassia, to a mate from a high born family. They were to rule together, but the male was a wicked man with a vile temper. She refused to follow that path, for she loved another, a Lynar man. She gave up her title and birthright to be with the one she loved, leaving her younger sister, Leilan, to mate and bed the cruel Fae male and take up the mantle of the Queen of the Fae. After centuries living under the cruelty of her mate however, Leilan had become cruel herself, and decided to seek out her sister to demand retribution for the life she had left her in. When Leilan found Cassia, she was married, with three children of her own. Three children who had inherited the magic of the Fae from their mother.”
“Let me guess, the pillars of light you were telling me about.” Ryndle’s eyes sparked before continuing on, all of the Lightens around him listening with rapt attention even though they had clearly heard this story before.
I, however, was lost. This was nothing like what I had heard before, nor did it have anything to do with the war.
“Leilan was furious, jealous of the life her sister had while she had been left to pain and torture. Leilan tried to kill Cassia in what she saw as retribution, but Cassia’s magic was strong, and her younger sister could not best her. So, the younger built herself an army of Lynar to take her, and when Cassia was captured by the powerful magic users, the younger sister made her pay for the cruelty she endured under the fist of the Fae. Leilan took the children of her elder sister and slaughtered them.”
