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Even as Lena felt her horse slow and grow weary at the wretched pace she was riding, her own heart seemed to only thud faster in the hours since she had left the horrific site of Lady Mari’s– no, Princess Jehan’s –confinement.
Where she had left Cas.
This was too much. All of it. The portrait box seemed to burn a hole through the satchel against her hip. Jehan of Brisa. Jehan of Brisa. Jehan of Brisa. That tiny, accusing thing that had destroyed her reality with a few brushstrokes. The face that had looked back at her had not belonged to the woman who had walked up to an altar in a borrowed dress, with fierce tears in her eyes that she refused to let escape. The one who liked to rest her hand on Lena’s hair in the way a mother never had. Her sister. A stranger.
A small, desperate part of her wanted to destroy the thing and never speak of it. But it was the truth. And if truth was a God then Lena was its priestess. She fought for it, pieced it together, recorded it so it shall never be forgotten. Still, this did not ease her heart. Abiding by these principles was noble enough in theory, but this was her family. Her family . If the truth would unravel her family, perhaps she was not so devout after all. Things were hard enough without this buried secret ravaging their lives.
The womb in the jar burned in her mind, bringing bile to her throat.
Jehan of Brisa, torn apart by a monster . What would happen to the Jehan she loved? Rayan, betrayed. Faustina and Abril’s lifeless bodies carried off as a woman laughed. The womb in the jar. The bloodstained chains. Cas’ beautiful, gentle hands reaching for his spiked mace. Cas, Cas, Cas. The womb in the jar.
She took a shaky breath. Rayan would decide. Rayan deserved to decide. Oh god, Rayan . His love for his Queen was true. Jehan was his anchor, the first light after a year of unending death. Betrayal, from the two people he loved and trusted most in the world. Could he rule a broken kingdom and guide a broken people with a broken heart of his own?
Of course he can , she thought bitterly. They’d all spent the last two years brokenhearted. What’s one more blow in a series of beatings?
Pain does not lessen with repetition. You think you grow numb to it, but it’s a spear to the gut regardless. God knows there wasn’t a single person left alive in all the land who didn’t know this. Lena would forge onwards anyway. She would smile anyway. They would all hold each other up, her family, her kingdom. There was a way through this, even if she didn’t know it yet. She focused on this thought, steeling herself.
She pulled her horse to a stop. Still days from Elvira, there was no way to make it in one sprint. There was little purpose in working her horse or herself to the bone. Day had long since broken, the light burning her tired eyes, but now was good a time to rest as any. Lena dismounted, murmuring apologies to her disgruntled horse as she led it off the path and began tying it to a nearby tree before collapsing onto the ground herself.
___
Wandering somewhere halfway through wakefulness and rest, she lay there. Unsure of how much time was passing, but periodically jolting to alertness when the voice in the back of her mind screamed to hurry to Elvira.
She wondered if Cas would catch up to her soon. The thought of him sent a pang through her chest. Cas, who still stiffened sometimes when Ventillas clapped him on the shoulder, whose breath caught when he jostled a stranger walking through his hometown streets. Who had owed her nothing and less, but had held his arms out anyway before dropping her on a forest floor.
Had wrapped his arm around her and tucked her head under his chin. I think you’re beautiful. I think you’re kind.
For the first time in these years of hell, she had felt truly safe. She had let something grow. A bloom in her chest when she spotted him in a crowd. A space in her heart for something she had unconsciously abandoned as everything certain and absolute had been mercilessly crushed to bones and dust: the hope for something that could last.
Lena drew her her knees up tight to her chest. He and Bittor would have stopped, wouldn’t they? Cas was the stronger fighter by far, but he would never truly hurt Bittor. Would he insist on destroying the portrait when he found her? What would happen when she refused? He had become someone else, in those moments. The look in his eyes channeling something she didn’t recognize. No, she did recognize it, if she was being honest with herself. The singular intent of an animal bent on survival. She had seen in too many eyes in these years of plague. And, the clawing desperation of holding on to someone you loved. To your family. That, she recognized from her own reflection. She knew it with her soul.
The terror emanating off of him. The pleading horror in his eyes. They will kill him. A broken, half whisper.
She had to put her brother before his. This was beyond them, and Cas knew it too. She tilted her head up to the blinding sun, irrationally hoping her thoughts could reach him somehow, that he could know she wasn’t going to abandon him. She would convince Rayan, who would never want to kill Ventillas. She would not let Cas lose his brother when he’d only just gotten him back. When he’d only just learned to smile again. She swore it.
Lena!
She flinched, momentarily filled with the irrational belief that Cas had actually heard her. Well, Cas could see dead people. It wasn’t too far fetched if he was also telepathically endowed.
“Lena! Lena, open your ears, damn it!”
No, it was not Cas. It was Bittor, waving wildly and approaching fast on his horse. Lena sat up sharply and flushed with embarrassment at her fanciful thoughts.
“Bittor!” She scrambled to her and jogged toward him as he slowed his horse. “How did you catch up with me so quickly?” Bittor was no poor rider, but Lena’s skills were superior by far.
Bittor raised an eyebrow glancing at her spot by the tree, but noted her exhaustion that he undoubtedly felt himself, and chose not to comment. “I wasn’t far behind you. You have it safe?”
“Right here.” She patted her satchel and pulled the dainty box out and opened it to show him. They were both silent for a moment. Bittor breathed out a shaky laugh at the sight.
Lena grabbed his arm with a free hand, trembling. “I know this is insane and terrifying. Just…let’s not talk about it. Please?”
“We’ll do our duty to the King. Nothing else we need to think about,” he said. Pragmatic, her friend was. Cleverer than he often liked to let on, too. Seeing her strained demeanor, he let the matter drop.
As an odd silence stretched between them, Lena’s eyes were pulled to the dried trickle of blood running from his ear down his neck. The wound was not severe, but it still revived the image of Cas’ brutal, precise swing that missed Bittor’s head by a hairsbreadth. Bittor noticed her gaze, but looked away, face tightening with anger and remembered betrayal.
“You..said you weren’t far behind me.” Lena shifted uncomfortably. She knew Bittor could feel her unasked questions hanging in the air between them. Did he manage to convince Cas? Or did he hurt him? Badly? Did he despise her now? She did not know what they were to each other anymore, but she just had to know where Cas was.
Bittor sighed. “He’s fine. I knocked him unconscious, but I told the sisters to let him out in a few hours. He’ll be far behind. Lena, I know you care for him, and he for you, but he’s not on our side. Cas will be after us, and we can’t predict what will happen if he catches up—”
“—I know.” Lena cut him off. She did not want to hear about what would happen if Cas caught up to them. Something needled in her stomach. “What do you mean you told to sisters to let him out? Let him out of where?”
Bittor waved his hand dismissively. “The lower chamber. Didn’t want to touch anything that disgusting bastard of a doctor used, but there wasn’t much else.” He shrugged. “Chained him up to the wall.”
Lena’s blood went cold.
“Like I said, I gave instructions to the sisters,” Bittor said, noticing her discomfort.
Livid, gouged out swaths of flesh. Carved so deep she couldn’t fathom how they no longer burned.
They look like they’re from chains.
They are.
He had not offered more explanation. She had not asked. There wasn’t a need to. The story was mapped out over every inch of his skin.
She was going to be sick.
“Really, you don’t need to look like that. He’ll live!”
Oh god, how long had it been? Half a day? More?
Bittor was shaking her by the shoulders. “Lena, are you listening?” he said, worry now seeping into his voice.
“I have to go back.”
She hadn’t even realized she had spoken aloud. The words came out small.
“What?”
Stumbling back, she rushed towards her horse. I have to go back. She made it one foot in the stirrup before Bittor reached her and held her arm fast.
“What’s wrong with you! Did you not hear a thing I said?
“What’s wrong with me? ” Lena wheeled on her friend, wrenching her elbow out of his grasp and twisting both hands into his collar, yanking him down violently. “Bittor, how could you!”
Setting his jaw, Bittor glared straight back at her. “So, what, then? Going to run back and play savior? That’ll go wonderfully! I’m sure he’ll be so moved by the power of your oh-so-perfect love that he’ll even send his own brother to the gallows himself!”
“Take the box to Elvira then! I never said I’d become a fool,” she scowled, snatching the portrait box out of her satchel and thrusting it toward him. “You saw his scars, yet you still took your first chance to chain him up like some kind of animal!” Lena accused.
At this, Bittor averted his eyes, but the hard set of his face remained. “He’s my friend too, Lena. Or at least I thought he was, before he nearly divorced my brains from my skull, ” he said bitterly, “This is all rotted. This whole thing. But I left him unharmed. What would you have had me do?”
Lena did not know what he should have done. She didn’t know anything anymore, except that she needed to find Cas. Silent, she pressed the box into Bittor’s hand and squeezed, knowing that at least with this, she could trust him.
The horse reared as Lena swung her legs over and urged it into a gallop.
___
Night had fallen again. Lena’s skin prickled at the sight of the cottage, the moonlight glistening sickly off the white slabs. The wind groaned through the hills. As if the cries of all the souls who had once been trapped there weighed the structure down, sutured into its pale bones.
Cas’ mare was still tied to the fence post, agitated now. So he was still here. Frustration rose in her throat again. Sister Roslyn had proven herself useless after all. The sister had told her as much, but she had still hoped her chaotic detour to the hospital hadn’t been a waste of time.
The bright moon illuminated her path, a mocking reminder of the passage of time. Nearly a day, since she had left for Elvira.
Choking against the odor, Lena quickly lit a torch and made her way through as efficiently as possible whilst avoiding the rotting corpse. Finally, she stood before the door of the lower chamber. The frantic beating of her heart slammed in her ears. It was too silent.
Swallowing her unease, Lena held her torch up and pushed open the door.
“Cas?”
___
People had always told Lena she had a spark to her. An inner flame that burned bright and gave warmth to those around her. Wading through the horrors of the past two years, she had desperately protected that indescribable something, so as to not let herself drown and take the others she held up with her.
Everything would be okay. She would will it into existence, and when it failed she would simply push harder for whatever was left, damnation to it all, salvation to it all. It was a cultivated habit. She became an optimist by necessity as much as by nature.
She loved. She was loved. She dealt out smiles like candy, mass produced them in her people.
It was a strange thing, then, that she could be so captivated by something she already had in abundance. Oh Saints, he smiled like the sun. Like the flashing glimpse of it, through passing clouds. Leaving her aching to catch it just once more. Resplendent, rare.
Though perhaps not so rare, these days. It was all of this, that caused her to unconsciously believe a vision. Though she had noticed Cas’ attention snag over the chamber’s bloodstained chains, his body tensing in remembrance. Had seen, time and time again, his eyes go distant with something she could not place. Heard the Palmerin staff whisper about his tortured nights.
Despite it all, she had pictured it in her mind. An explanation, one that made perfectly good sense. He would distrust her for risking Ventillas, and she had to admit she was still a bit shaken by his fight with Bittor, but they would be fixed. A return to Elvira, burdened by truths but unified nonetheless.
He would look at her with that furrow in his brow, fix her with that gentle, searching stare of his, the one where warmth was held back by some wall but seeped through the cracks anyway. And everything would be alright.
___
Cas stared at nothing with dead, vacant eyes.
Every speech, argument, apology, sputtered silent in Lena’s throat.
He was shaking violently, pressing himself into the corner against the dim torchlight seeping into the room. His pupils contracted at the light, though he didn’t seem to even register her presence.
Lena’s mind was blank. She had to help him. She had to…to fix this. Fix this?
She had done this.
Lena barely felt herself move. Suddenly, she was across the room, rushing to be near him. Cas, she made to say, I’m here.
Cas flinched at her approach, and Lena froze. Slight but noticeable, his muscles tensed at every motion, drawing further into himself like a cornered animal. He had always towered over her, and most everyone, but in that moment, he seemed small. Fragile, like he could break at any second. She saw recognition in his eyes, now. It didn’t seem to matter. He continued to stare blankly through his blood-matted hair.
Blood. Reflecting the torchlight, glistening off the cuffs, splattered across the walls and floor. Something unidentifiable panged through Lena’s stomach.
“You’re hurt,” she choked out. She couldn’t talk right. Her breath came in gasps and her face was damp. Was she crying? Fingers trembling, she knelt reached for his bloodied hands.
“Don’t touch me.”
Lena stilled. She did not recognize his voice. It was wrong, all wrong. Cas’ voice was low and gentle. Warm. This was not his voice. Even when he was a stranger, even when he spoke of horrors, or in anger, he did not sound like this.
“The keys.”
“Yes, of course.” She stumbled to her feet, swinging the torch in search of the keys. She was here to help him. That was what she had come back for.
“The table.” That awful, chilling voice.
They were right beside her. She grabbed them off the table. Useless. The one way she could help and she couldn’t do it right. Everything was wrong.
I didn’t mean for this to happen. The words spilled out, sounding more like an excuse. “I didn’t know he had cuffed you. I came back as soon as I heard.” It was the truth. The truth always helped, didn’t it? Silence stretched between them as Lena shoved the torch in the wall and made to kneel beside him.
Her chest constricted when she saw the vomit on the floor. No, nothing she said could help. It didn’t matter how, or why. Lena had left. Cas had been left with the dark and the chains and the hell of his memories. These were the truths.
“Hold out your hands,” she whispered. Her hands were shaking. Everything in her field of view seemed red through the blur of her tears. The open wounds on his wrists were angry and deep, the blood coating his hands like hellish gloves.
How long had been fighting to escape the chains, scraping his wrists raw, until he had given up? Her sun, smothered by the dark. He was supposed to be home. He was supposed to be safe.
The lock finally clicked open. She managed to say, “Your head. Your poor wrists. I have bandages. Let me—”
Cas ignored her, ripping the cuffs off and rising. He swayed unsteadily, supporting himself on the wall, leaving smears of blood. Dark embers burned fiercely in his cold stare. “Where is he?”
He could barely stand. He needed her help, but he also needed to know what had happened. “When he caught up with me, he said that he had left you here, that the sisters were to let you go after a few hours so that you would not stop us from reaching the king. I turned around right away. I went to the hospital first, but those wretched sisters! Sister Ivette is in jail, and Sister Roslyn forgot all about you—”
“I don’t care about the sisters. Where is my horse?”
“Outside this whole time,” she said. Cas immediately made towards the stairs. Lena tried not to let his indifference sting. I care for you , her heart whispered, please let us be as we were. Please forgive me.
“Cas. I am so desperately sorry.” Even as the words left her mouth, she knew it would not matter. But she wanted him back, so desperately.
Though he had most certainly heard her, the words seemed to mean nothing to him. She had to follow him before this abyss between them became insurmountable. Everything was slipping from her grasp, but she couldn’t move.
Terrified, she tried again, “It’s not safe for you to travel alone. You’re hurt. Please let me help you.” Please don’t leave.
Cas stopped. Hope blossomed in Lena’s chest. For the first time that night, he slowly met her desperate gaze. She held onto his frigid stare like a lifeline, heart beating in her throat.
When he finally spoke, his voice was flat; deliberate. “You’ve helped enough, Lady. Don’t come near me again.”
It was a dagger to the heart, twisting and filling her lungs with blood. There was nothing she could say. She couldn’t get the words out even if there was. Cas turned and left without another word.
They couldn’t end this way. This wasn’t supposed to happen. She stumbled up the stairs the way Cas had gone. Gagging through the dead man’s stench and her own tears, she reached outside just as Cas swung onto his horse.
He did not so much as look back once. Lena watched her sun set under the moonlight and buried her grief yet once more.