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“She will do it again,” he said before I could fully form the thought. “Very soon you will be faced with a moment in which you alone can change the course of time. Very soon the fate of magic will be in your hands. Do not be afraid to fight, Elara. Do not be afraid to release the light that you have held within you.”
“You aren’t making sense–” I began, but he stopped me with a smile, his hand wrapping around mine again as he lifted it, bringing my blood and dirt covered knuckles to his lips.
“It will soon, love. The next time I see you, it will all make sense. But for now, I leave you with the wise words you have given me so many times before.” He paused, that soft smile returning as his free hand reached up, pushing some of my hair behind my ear. His hand lingered there, one wrapped around my hand, the other soft against my jaw as he leaned in enough that every muscle in my chest tightened. “Go forward in bravery, my dear, holding good in your heart.”
“Words I have given you?” He had said that nothing about Fae made sense, but this was bordering on insanity.
“We will meet again, love.” He pressed his lips to my knuckles again, the soft touch whispering through me and sending everything back to starlight again. His blue eyes burned into mine before he dropped my hand, turning toward the door as though he was simply going to walk through the wall.
“Wait! You haven’t–” I grabbed his shoulder, turning him back toward me, but instead of the tall Fae male, it was the spindly priestess, her face absolutely affronted as I forced her back around.
“Your bath lady,” she said in that windy voice, those spider fingers pointing toward the bathing chamber again as though the last few minutes hadn’t happened. As though she wasn’t aware that anything had. “If we wish to be ready on time we must hurry.”
I could only stare as she bustled past me, leaving me staring at the dirty fingerprints on the wall, and the single word written in dirt right below.
Caspyn.
But hadn’t he said his name was Vaelar?
Who… or what… was a Caspyn?
Chapter 46
Caspyn
My focus should have been on the queen’s carriage, on the gilded monstrosity and the feeling of ice and death that was hidden within it. I should have been focused on that faded sense of light and death that bled through the wood.
I should have been watching my target, on the flimsy wooden conveyance that concealed the woman I had trained for many lives to end.
Instead, I stared across the field to where that same blood stained carriage from the night before sat, the back window smudged with the figures of two people. Two people, yet I could still feel every type of magic within that tiny rickety thing. Every magic tangled with something dark, something more.
I should be concerned for the future Queen that I had caught mere inches from impact with the ground, the frail dehydrated woman that the priestesses were gingerly taking from my arms, but right then all I could see was that carriage, on the familiar buzz of magic that had lit the world on fire the night before.
I stared at the carriage, at those blood stained doors as a guard yanked them open, everything rocking as a girl was forcefully removed from its depths. Her hair was everywhere, the light catching a bit of red in the dark strands that made it look on fire. She was small, her frame frail even as she faced the guard defiantly, her jaw set, her eyes hard.
Firm. Strong. Even from there the strength in her caught me off guard.
The guard didn’t even seem to notice that power that was waving from her as he pulled her around, his hands firm as he yanked her to him. Her silk dress dragged on the ground as she was forced to turn, revealing the front that was absolutely covered in blood. The bright red color was everywhere, it ran in streaks down the front of her bodice, it cracked in patches on the skirt and in the lining of her cloak. It was matted in her hair and smeared on her jaw and hands.
The people around me hadn’t noticed the girl, they still talked about the poor sickly Aeinya. Even Lyani whispered about the poor woman who was inches from death. I could only stare at the blood covered girl.
“Caspyn,” Lyani’s voice was an echo in my ear, but I didn’t turn, even though I was sure she had been trying to get my attention for a while. “Caspyn. What is it?”
“Who is that?” I said with that growl that I hadn’t heard seep from me in nearly a month, the sound so sharp that even Lyani stepped back as she turned to the girl who was being dragged our way, the girl who was still pushing against the guard with all the defiance she could muster.
It was then that everyone noticed her, the gasps of what we were witnessing rumbling through the crowd like a wave.
“Princess Elara,” Lyani inhaled in shock and horror before she fell to her knees. As they all did.
I couldn’t make myself move. I was frozen in place as the feeling of her magic hit me, the power that I had felt before running into me like a wall.
Every type of magic. Powerful magic. Not the muted rumble of the Requisites, but something more. Something strong. Something I had never felt before, and it was only coming from her.
From this girl who was fated to end the queen, who looked as though she had escaped a war and was now staring with a strength I would have never expected from her.
A strength that we had been told did not exist. This was not a dying, weak, princess I was expecting.
Everything about her was powerful.
