"Think of it this way, Kasiandra. What if Aethios himself came to you one day and told you a great battle was coming, and few would survive? Then he offered you a choice. If you sacrifice one man or woman now—a knife to the throat, quick and done, delivered to his feet—he would save one hundred later. Would you do it? Could you?"
"I—" She squirmed, made uncomfortable by the choice of analogy. Was Xander the sacrifice? Were innocent people the victims? Did her mother have information she didn't? "I don't know."
"The king knows, because he has to know. He makes this choice every day. Countless people need him, but there is only so much time and energy he can give. So, if sacrificing one will save a hundred, he'll do it, over and over again, to keep as many people safe as possible. You and I, Kasiandra, and others like us? We're the one. Our lives are forfeit to a greater cause. Is the sacrifice fair? No, of course not. But is it worth it? That's something you must decide on your own." She sighed, wrapping a lock of Cassi's bronze hair around her finger and tugging gently. "In the meantime, go see him. Hear what he has to say."
Cassi stared into the blizzard, watching it strengthen as her mother's hand dropped away. She didn't want to see Malek, but if she were being honest, it was about more than that.
She didn’t want to see Lyana.
No, she didn’t want to see Malek and Lyana, the king and queen of prophecy, united in ways Cassi could never dream to be, not even with her magic. She'd lost more than just a foolish crush. She'd lost her best friend. For, surely, Lyana would never speak to her again if she learned what Cassi had done and what she might yet do. Malek had always been able to sense her spirit outside of the dreams. Now with her new magic, Lyana might too. And the thought of facing her, of staring into her eyes and seeing hate, was too much to bear.
Had her sacrifices been worth it?
Cassi didn’t have an answer to that question yet.
"Come, Kasiandra, let's not waste all our time in deep, dark thought. I do too much of that during the day as is. Do you know what scene the dormi'kine the king sent imagined for us?"
She turned toward her mother absently. "What?"
"My own ship! As if I don't spend enough time there already. It was all gray and cloudy. No wings. No color. No life. He was such a bore. I couldn’t wait for him to leave so my own mind could twist my thoughts into something beautiful. He had none of your spirit. None of your imagination."
"Perhaps he needs to read more."
Her mother laughed, a sudden, barking thing, and then she found her daughter's eye. It wasn't their way to be overtly affectionate, yet Cassi saw the words deep in the captain's irises just the same. I missed you. On her lips, they came out differently, but just as warm. "Let's fly."
With a shrill shriek, the captain jumped off the cliff, letting the winds of the storm carry her, copper feathers stark against the snow. Cassi did the same, launching herself over the edge before remembering she'd forgotten to give herself wings. Instead of the wind catching her weight, she fell, plummeting head over heels as her stomach surged into her throat to block her scream. Her body had never felt so heavy. The air had never felt so foreign. It whooshed around her, empty and cold, like a lover who had turned away. The ground rose to meet her, jagged rocks like a bed of daggers, sharp and deadly.
Was this how Rafe had felt when she'd thrown him over the edge? As though his body had betrayed him? As though the one thing he'd always been able to count on was suddenly gone?
Just before impact, her spirit tore free of her mother's body and everything fell away. The mountains. The blizzard. The fall. She was back in her phantom body, surrounded by humid air and groaning wood, hovering at the edge of a four-poster bed. A soft smile played on her mother's lips while she slept, and her single wing stretched back, feathers rustling against the sheets. Somewhere deep in her subconscious, she was flying, and the last thing Cassi wanted to do was disturb her.
Instead, she drifted through the cabin door and into the dark halls she knew so well she could have lived there. The swaying did little to bother her floating spirit. Her soul bobbed with it, as though somewhere deep inside, the ocean called to her. She had, after all, been born for the sea and not the sky before fate intervened.
It only took a few minutes to find him. Cassi could go no farther than the door. She poked her spectral body through the wooden planks and froze as soon as she spotted Rafe. Tortured grooves cut into his forehead. He winced in pain, his body curled in on itself. Soaked with sweat, the sheets wrapped around his limbs like binds. This was not a man at peace. He was haunted by nightmares, and though she knew she could help—could sink into his dreams and shape them into something kind—she couldn't face him or what she'd done.
Her spirit flew back as though jerked by a string, sailing through wood and metal until she was in the mist and the ship was far away, vanishing into the gray depths. The fog was suffocating. She felt as though she couldn’t breathe. Up and up and up she rose, until finally, the vapors gave way and the stars flickered to life.
Normally, entering the world above felt like waking from a dream, but not this time. Part of her was stuck in that ship, trapped in the mist. Part of her was still falling through the air, racing toward the ground. She needed a distraction. She needed a little bit of good to hold on to in a world that at the moment seemed a thousand shades of bad.
As she neared the city of Pylaeon, she found her diversion. A light in the tallest spire of the castle glowed bright against the night, large windows offering a view of the bookshelves housed within. Xander was awake. And though she knew it would only make things harder, she found she couldn't help but gravitate toward him.
8
Xander
Just as Xander was ready to pull yet another heavy history volume from his shelves, a little tap, tap, tap, sounded against his window. He spun, surprised to find Cassi hovering behind the glass. After quickly crossing the room, he twisted the latch and yanked the pane open.
"Cassi?"
"I hope you don’t mind," she said and soared past him, shuffling the pages of his books as she swept into the room. It was refreshing that she didn’t ask for an audience or tiptoe around him, though at the same time a little alarming that she felt free to barge into his study. He supposed he had opened the window for her, but still… "I couldn’t sleep, and I saw your light on. What are you doing?"
"Oh, this?"
Xander turned toward his desk, thinking of the hours he'd spent roving through his library while the rest of the world was asleep, all in search of information he feared he'd never find. His books held only vague mentions of what the world looked like before the isles were lifted into the sky, the same stories he'd heard as a child—they'd been slaves to cruel masters who wielded magic like a weapon. There was no explanation of what that magic was or how to fight it, only cautionary orders to kill any who possessed it lest they anger the gods. Worse still, there were no theories as to what lands might now exist beneath the mist, and hardly any mentions of Vesevios, as though writing his name would conjure him into being.
He blinked away his frustration. "It's just research."