by Ellie Margot
Riette turned to look at Cassian across the way. She knew she had lines of questions etched on her face.
“It seems like it’s starting,” said Trinity, and her voice was soft.
“I’m sorry about all of this.”
“Not your fault. He’s determined to save the world and thinks this will do it.”
“And if it doesn’t?” asked Riette, hating herself as the words left her lips.
“Then Samantha will have to get used to me.”
The short steps that took them back to the others weren’t long enough. Riette didn’t have time to process everything Trinity had said, let alone what she was about to witness.
A soul-tie. A bond beyond this plane.
Expletives rippled across her brain. She had to stop it. She couldn’t let Cassian do it.
She opened her mouth to say as much, but Cassian was already watching her. He shook his head, and his mouth was firm.
Riette was upset with him. The emotions came so easily to her now, when before she had thought that getting mad at Cassian was as close to impossible as she could name something being. But that didn’t mean that she wanted him to make a horrible mistake.
“Cassian,” she mouthed.
He shook his head again, this time more firmly. Trinity was by his side, and she watched the two of them as she tucked herself against him.
It was then that she knew that Cassian wanted this. He wanted to be with Samantha in this unknown way. But why?
She bit her tongue until the taste of blood was present.
The campsite was beautiful. Candles that Samantha must have had with her dotted around the fire, and Damian stood by her side. She wore a black dress. Riette couldn’t remember a time she’d worn something that beautiful. It had been ages, far before she had gone on the road for Corin with the others.
There hadn’t been time to pack pretty things. There hadn’t been need either, and taking in Samantha, she acknowledged that she looked beautiful. Happy even.
Guy might have been kidding when he called it a marriage, but being there, taking it all in, it was hard to call it anything else.
Trinity released him, and Cassian went to stand beside Samantha.
Damian was the one to speak. His voice carried to where she stood, and the presence of it stunned her. She had seen him mouth something, but that was the first time she had really witnessed words leaving his lips.
She didn’t understand the language, and before she could ask what he was saying, Guy moved to stand next to her.
“It’s the incantation,” he said quietly.
“He’s the one delivering it?”
“It’s not outside the realms of normal. This is a case where the three of them, in a way, are becoming one, so it makes sense that he would speak the words to bond them together.”
Damian took out a knife. Riette’s breath caught in her throat. Guy put his hand on her shoulder.
“It’s normal. He’s going to cut a small shape into Cassian’s forearm and into Samantha’s. It’s a signal to the body that this union that is beyond their body is bringing them together.”
“Like a portal point?”
Guy looked at her in confusion for a second before nodding. “A bit like that, yeah.”
When Riette looked back at the three at the center, the ceremony was done. The world was quiet.
Cassian and Samantha were, in a way, one.
What that meant would still be discovered.
Chapter 16
Nothing changed that night. Cassian didn’t go to Samantha and embrace her. They didn’t share a tent with Damian. They didn’t even speak really.
Riette watched them closely. She was looking for something to have shifted, and other than things feeling quieter than usual, things were pretty much the same.
Samantha was the most notably quiet. She had bandaged up her own arm and then did Cassian’s, all while Damian watched on.
Cassian let her, but he didn’t speak while she did it. Trinity didn’t say anything either, but when she noticed Riette watching, she let the expression leave her face and even offered a small smile.
She wondered at her words before. What had Cassian told her about them? There hadn’t been a them to discuss.
She wanted to pull Cassian aside to ask him, but she saw his face, how practiced and still it was, and she didn’t want to overload what she knew was a hard day for him. So she kept her mouth shut, as hard as it was for her to do so.
After checking quickly on Bark and Barry and finding them both fast asleep, Riette found her way to Guy’s tent. She didn’t knock. There was nothing to knock on, but after a moment of standing there and wondering how to announce herself, Guy popped his head out of the tent and took her in with a smile.
He got out and rose to his full height. All Elves were strong and usually ran fairly thin. It made the otherness in them stand out in crowds of people not of their kind, but since they hardly spent time outside of their own, with more exceptions to that growing, the Elves tended not to notice.
“I’m starting to think you like me, little royal,” he crooned.
She rolled her eyes. “We both know that’s a lie.”
“And yet, here you are.”
“What are my options?” Riette asked, looking around. “Encroach on Mekhi and Corin? I’m sure they’d let me in with open arms.”
“You know they would,” Guy said softly. And she did. But she also knew that privacy was at a premium, and Corin probably wanted Mekhi to herself alone. She looked like she had just witnessed a murder when the ceremony had taken place.
“I just didn’t want to be alone for a little bit,” she said, smiling. “It was you or the stars.”
“How poetic. I’m worth more than the stars to you?”
“Oh, how you make me regret my decisions.”
Guy laughed. He threw his head back, and she found herself smiling too.
She wanted to smile. She needed it. There was so little to be sure of these days. Would she save her world? Would her grandmother’s book hold everything that she needed to do it?
Would they still be together to face the end after they tried to get the most powerful mage in existence on their side?
She shook her head as if trying to shake the thoughts loose.
“I hate not knowing what’s coming.”
“Classic type-A, I knew it,” said Guy. Riette opened her mouth, but Guy cut her off. “I’m saying you’re a control freak is all.”
Riette closed her mouth. She shrugged. “Maybe a little.”
“A lottle,” said Guy.
“Not a word.”
“But it’s still accurate.” He considered her for a moment. His gaze lingered at her eyes, and she thought about the new colors swirling there.
“Still shining?” she asked, wanting to get it out in the open.
“Like caramel swirling in chocolate.”
Riette smiled. Guy made it sound beautiful instead of something that was marring her face. She’d take it until she was confronted with something else forcing her to examine it.
“Now it just sounds like you like me,” Riette teased.
“No, no,” Guy said quickly. “You’re a bit too hardcore for me. You need to be with someone less fragile than myself.”
“I did peg you as fairly fragile.”
“Oh yes, I’m the most delicate of creatures,” Guy said, and he stole a look at Trinity, who still stood with Cassian across the way.
Riette followed his eyes. “You really like her, don’t you?”
“Yeah, I do,” he said easily. Riette was almost shocked by how quickly he admitted it. “She’s beautiful, damaged but strong for the cracks.”
“You like birds with broken wings?”
“Only when they’re earned by flying too close to the sun.”
Riette and Guy talked for a while, but eventually, she could feel the tinges of tiredness pulling at her eyes.
She had heard Samantha say something about
an early departure if they were still planning on traveling by foot, and she wanted to be prepared for it.
Riette found her way to her tent and snuggled in with Bark and Barry as they laid on either side of her. Sleep found her soon after.
The next morning, she thought she was the first up. She had beaten the sun—that much she had known as soon as she had opened her eyes—but when she left her tent with Bark and Barry still sleeping, she found Cassian sitting next to the almost extinguished fire.
He looked up to watch her approach and stood. It was an old-fashioned gesture, something Riette’s father did when her mother was around, and she found herself warming at the memory until she thought about the words Trinity had said.
Cassian saw the shift in her. She could see the change reflected in his face.
“What?”
“Trinity spoke with me yesterday,” Riette said. She stopped there and waited to see if he’d provide clarity for the rest. She saw his eyes narrow, but he didn’t speak. “Well?”
“You’re going to have to say more than that.”
“She seems to be under the impression that we were together.”
Cassian said nothing.
“Cassian,” Riette said, her hands emphasized her words. “What the actual fuck? Why would you tell her that?”
“She shouldn’t have said anything.”
“That’s what you have to say?”
“Riette,” he said, and he sounded tired. She noticed the lines around his eyes. He looked like he hadn’t slept at all. Riette’s face warmed.
“Why, Cassian? There wasn’t anything to tell her.”
“Alluette, okay? I didn’t want to be in a relationship where she didn’t know everything about who I was before her. It mattered to her.”
“What does my mother have to do with anything?” Riette asked. She couldn’t keep the frustration out of her tone.
“Come on,” Cassian said as he ran a hand through his hair.
“Just say it.”
Cassian let out a sigh. “Don’t make me say it.”
Riette didn’t speak. She crossed her arms over her chest and felt a familiar tingle on her palms. She pushed the powers caused by emotion back.
Cassian sighed. “She wanted us together, okay? I thought you knew.”
Riette took a breath and forced a laugh. “Yeah, in a joking, ‘hope you kids work out’ way.”
Cassian shook his head. “Maybe with you. She was more aggressive with me.”
“When?”
“Whenever you weren’t around? When she thought I was leaning that way?”
Riette shook her head again. “It didn’t matter what she was trying to push.”
“It did when she made it sound like I wouldn’t like my life if I didn’t.”
“Is that why you were around me? For the power I’d inherit?”
“Riette,” he said with a laugh, but then she saw him realize she was serious. “Of course not.”
Riette shook her head. “I know that. I just hate finding out my mother was pulling strings behind me, about every part of my life. Even with you.”
Cassian stepped closer. “It was more than that.”
“What more could it have possibly been?”
Cassian hesitated.
“Just say it,” Riette said again. She braced herself as if it were for impact.
“She thought that was the only way people would be okay with you leading.”
Riette stepped back. “Bullshit.”
“Why would I lie?”
She shook her head more fiercely. “My mother wouldn’t think that.”
“You just said she was trying to control you. She wanted to control the narrative too.”
“You misunderstood her,” she said, shaking, but all the times her mother asked her what kind of leader she thought she would be and every look of disappointment her mother had when she looked in her direction flashed in front of her face.
“Think about what is more likely. Me telling the truth, or your mother not trying to force us to be together.”
They heard the soft sound of twigs breaking beside them. Riette turned to see Samantha walking up.
“I didn’t want to interrupt,” she said, but her eyes seemed to glow as they volleyed back and forth between the two of them.
“We were just finishing,” Riette said.
“So I heard,” said Samantha, a smile still on her face.
Chapter 17
The others woke up a little after they did. It wasn’t in their nature to sleep late, and the sun was already starting to shine brightly overhead.
Riette watched as Mekhi’s red hair first appeared outside of his tent. It was longer than it had been when they were at camp, more unruly. The red in it hit the sunlight shining through the trees, and she watched Corin come out after and seem to marvel in it.
Guy came out right after them, and she saw him look around. She already had guesses that it was Trinity he was searching for, and that was all but confirmed when she saw the expression on his face fall and then him trying to recover when he noticed Riette staring.
She was still reeling over what Cassian had told her. It shouldn’t have surprised her that her mother was trying to orchestrate things to such an extent, but she was still left feeling shocked. Upset at the puppetry of it all, she felt her face flush at the notion that Cassian could have been forced to be with her in that way. It was something neither of them had ever wanted, and she was thankful that if her mom had to have set sights on someone, it had been him because he was one of the few that could have stood up to her and seemingly did.
Cassian looked at her, and with the look he delivered, she felt, not for the first time, that he was a twin to her in a way. He always knew what she was thinking, and with a few annoying exceptions, she felt the same about him. It was something that made them great team members and partners when it came to trouble, but it cemented how unlikely the two would be as a romantic pair.
Guy took a seat beside Riette. She was sitting on a log she had dragged over to the fire, and she listened to the sounds of Damian and Samantha talking quietly behind her. They had been in the same conversation since Samantha had seen Cassian and Riette having their discussion.
She was still unnerved to hear the low tones of Damian’s voice, a voice that she didn’t know existed.
“What’s going on?” asked Trinity when she joined the rest. She looked beautiful, fresh from a night of sleep, and after stealing a look at Cassian, her face turned scarlet.
Riette wondered if she had made good on her promise to take Cassian in the primal sense, and honestly, she didn’t blame her.
Riette hadn’t dated much. Being the daughter of the only royal in their land made her more notorious than popular. That and her mixed powers made her a freak. When Riette was feeling generous, she called it intimidation, but when she was being honest, she knew deep down it was fear.
“They’ve been at it for a while,” said Riette calmly. She had tried to figure out what they were saying, but either the words were foreign or the accent they acquired for just such an occasion was so thick, she couldn’t muddle through it.
“Looks serious,” said Guy. He stood close to Trinity, intimately close, and Riette watched to see if Trinity would move. To her confusion, she didn’t. Maybe she saw a challenge in it. Riette couldn’t tell.
“Well, if they are going to make decisions that affect us, the least she could do is talk to us about it,” said Corin uncharacteristically. Riette knew from their earlier conversation that there was no lost blood there, but she was scared to see the bottom of that well and to truly know the horrors Corin might have felt at Samantha’s and Damian’s hands.
“I like you with claws,” said Mekhi, nibbling at her ear. Corin tried to hide the smile, especially at the look on Cassian’s face, but she couldn’t shake it.
Not for the first time, Riette was happy—so happy—that Mekhi and Corin had each other. They were both like two broken piec
es who only came together and were whole when they were in each other’s company.
“We need to go to the prison now,” said Samantha. She didn’t mince words and sound her approach. Her appearance in the group circle happened so suddenly, Riette wondered if magic was at work.
“What’s the rush, doll face?” asked Guy.
Samantha smiled like something was broken deep beneath the dimple in her cheek and smiled at him in reply. “I’ve killed for much less,” she said, her voice dipped in caramel.
“Besides our world on fire?” Riette asked Guy. She couldn’t close her eyes without seeing embers jumping from tree to tree to where her father lay deep in the ground beneath Vitan.
She hadn’t voiced it because acknowledging it when she didn’t know how to help the situation made her edge toward hysteria, a trip she couldn’t afford if they were to be successful in saving their world.
Samantha rolled her eyes. “We need to go faster to get to the prison if you really want to involve Zeke.”
“Of course we do,” Riette said. “That’s why we’re here. That’s why we made the deal.”
“He made the deal,” said Trinity bitterly, looking down instead of meeting Cassian’s stare.
“Like I don’t know that,” said Samantha. “I’d call a fucking truce with you if I thought it would make a shit lot of difference. It happened. Move the fuck on. I have.”
“Because you won, you sadistic bitch,” said Trinity, stepping forward.
Samantha looked at Cassian. “How archaic. People as prizes.”
Trinity growled deep in her throat, and Riette reacted to the power she could feel growing inside of the fiery girl. She wanted to touch her hand, but she knew there was danger in their contact as well. Riette forced herself to stay still.
“We’re already heading that way, aren’t we?” asked Riette, trying to regain control even as her palms started to warm.
“Zekariah is always two seconds away from being destroyed,” said Samantha.
“Why bother killing him if they already have him imprisoned?” asked Corin.