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“I have never seen flowers look like this.” I nodded in agreement. She was talking low enough that no one turned, they were all too focused on mumbling the responses to whatever ordinance had been given anyway.
“They are Caspyn Lilies.”
I could have sworn the entire world had been pulled out from underneath my feet. I was falling and flying and forgetting how to breathe all at once.
Caspyn. The word written in blood and ash on the wall by that Fae. Was she Fae? Dozens of questions rattled through me as I gasped, trying to find air to put voice to them. What came out instead was near an explosion.
“What did you say?” I was far too loud, some of the ladies and nobility closest to me turning to scowl as I hissed over the silence of the next long ribbon being wrapped over the joined hands of Aeinya and my brother.
I was sure if I looked up I would see the knowing scowl of my mother, who so accurately predicted how I would ruin this day. I didn't look to her, however, I looked only at the woman who leaned closer to me until she was whispering in my ear, her hair ticking my nose. She smelled like sun, the aroma bright and foreign and somehow forbidden. If light had a scent, that was what she was. Her voice was a soft whisper in my ear, her words suddenly broken with tears.
“They are called Caspyn Lilies. They bring light into dark spaces,” she whispered, the words heavy as I swore the world moved and shifted under my feet. A few people around us gasped as the temple groaned. I tried to pull away, to see what had happened, but her fingers wound around my elbow even as everyone’s voices raised in gasps and awe.
“A union blessed! The Goddess approves!” My mother’s voice rang over all of the hissed concerns as the rumbling slowed and everyone turned back to the ceremony. I, however, couldn’t move. I was frozen as the woman hissed with a sound near a sob in my ear.
“Take care of him will you?”
“Him?” I pulled back, ready to demand answers, or passage, or even to simply say anything that would make sense of the last few hours, but she was gone. Swept away by the ladies and pilgrims that were filtering toward the wide doors as gauze curtains were being pulled round the altar, the ceremony moving to the next part of the binding.
Aeinya’s family and the last of the nobles moved closer to the altar; closer to those curtains and the shapes of Bastian and Aeinya as he laid her over the altar. The look of joy on his face was radiant as he gazed down at her, pushing at her skirts.
“Step forward for the taking,” My mother’s voice rang over everything and I stepped back, taking one last look at the people who should be my family. The people who didn’t see me at all.
“I’ll be going,” I whispered the soft farewell as though they cared before I turned, racing after the last of the noble ladies before the door to the temple had closed, blocking off the bright candles of the ceremony and leaving us in the pitch of night, only the stars above leading the way.
“What a lovely ceremony,” one of the ladies sighed as though she had witnessed miracles, and not the loss of everything that at one point in their life had meant something.
The knot was still there, but so was the taste of freedom, if not mixed with confusion.
Caspyn.
I had no idea what that meant, or what that woman had meant, but I suppose it didn’t matter. I needed to find her, and if not now, then later when we were away from this place. When I was one of them. Perhaps I would even get one of those pretty tattoos.
The priestess’s gaze followed me as I raced down the steps; impossible seeing as all but their lower jaw was hidden by those oversized hoods. Nevertheless, I swear I could feel them watching me, their heads turning after me with every step as I raced past the ladies and children that were making slow progress down the long winding steps in my attempt to reach the forest.
To where I was sure the Boy was waiting for me.
No one even looked my way as I reached the foot of the stairs and beelined for the forest, doing my best to blend in with group after group as they headed to their glowing tents and warm beds. Their banter about the beauty of the ceremony blended with the sound of crickets and night owls as I walked past the last tent and raced toward the tree line, toward where I told him I would be waiting.
I had grown up hearing the stories of this forest, of the dead Fae who walk through the red trees and snatch travelers who had lost their way. They were all stories, but my heart still tightened, every muscle knotting as I plunged myself into the trees and the heady aroma of musk and death that I wouldn’t expect from them. I half expected some monster to dart after me and suck my blood or devour my soul, or any of the other dozens of things I had been told Fae did. Of course, that was before I had realized they were all stories.
Or, at least the Boy didn’t do those things.
I had only broken through the trees by a few steps when the lights of stars and tents fell into darkness, leaving only haunted shadows of red skeletal trees that stretched over the bare forest floor. They stretched and grabbed, shadows blending with inky fingers that dripped and twisted from bark.
Forcing an exhale, I darted between two gnarled trunks, telling myself that this place was not haunted, no matter how much it felt like it was. No matter how much each step brought on a new horror I didn’t expect. All but him.
The Boy who stood like a shadow against the trees.
“Boy!” I gasped and he turned, his cloak billowing as I raced to him, that expanse of fabric over his face turned toward me.
He had come!
We could leave together, and soon, there would only be freedom. We could dance barefoot together, and he could take off that shroud.
I nearly ripped it off then. I would have if I had gotten close enough. He raised his hand to capture me, but instead a blast of what felt like lightning ripped from his palm and slammed into my gut, sending me flying through the air and into a tree.
A crack that surely couldn’t have been just bones echoed in my head. The impact rattled in my joints as I screamed, the dirt of the forest floor rising to meet me as I fell.
