“I was not meant to be bonded, Dyna.” He sighed heavily and dropped his forehead against his hand. “There was no plan for it, so I did not bother to learn what it entailed. I do not know what to do about it or any of this.” He motioned to the world around them. “And now … I’m afraid I have made a rather big mess of everything. The entire ordeal has become so tangled, I’m at a loss of how to unravel it.”
Dyna heaved a deep breath. “You don’t have to do anything. What’s done is done. I say we shouldn’t try to unravel it and simply start from the beginning.” She held out her hand. “Let’s start over, agreed? Hello, my name is Dynalya, but friends call me Dyna. Occasionally, one of them likes to call me stupid human.”
One end of Cassiel’s mouth lifted in a faint smirk. He took her hand, and it sent an electric flutter to her stomach. “Hello, stupid human. You may call me—”
“Stupid Celestial?” She grinned. “It’s only fair.”
His expression twitched. “Should you get bored with that one, I answer to Cassiel as well.”
“Hmm, and what is it you do, Cassiel? I studied to be a healer, and now I hold to the trade of a Herb Master.”
He leaned back on his hands in the grass, giving her an appropriate expression of surprise, pretending this was the first time she’d told him. “Impressive. Did you always want to be a healer?”
Dyna tucked her hair behind an ear and bit her lip. “No … I wanted to sing.”
His eyebrows shot up. “Oh?”
“When I was a little girl, I heard the most talented singers in all of Azure perform in the Blue Capital before the Azure King. I thought perhaps that would be me someday.” She blushed under his stare and fidgeted with the belt of her greaves. “I could sing, once upon a time. Don’t ask me to now. It wouldn’t be pleasant to your ears. I … the day after my family died, I became ill. My throat caught an infection, and well, that was the end of that.”
God of Urn. Why did these conversations always have to become so depressing?
“I am certain you had a beautiful voice.”
“How would you know? You haven’t heard it.”
He shrugged. “Something tells me it was.”
She smiled. “And you?”
“There is nothing remotely interesting about me. I’m a prince. It was decided at my birth, and I had little choice in the matter.” He picked at the frayed edges of the new hole in his black pants. A darkened spot encircled it, but the wound had long since healed. “I have little choice in anything.”
“I very well doubt that. Your flute, for instance. That was something you learned on your own, was it not? The music you play, there is a fondness in it.” Well, there had been. “I don’t hear you play anymore.”
“There has been little time for it these days.” Or rather, he had lost his joy for it. She saw it in his frown.
“It’s important to you. Was it a gift?”
Cassiel frowned and crossed his arms. “It is hardly worth a conversation.”
“So, it was a gift, then. By your father?”
“No. My father bestowed upon me a crown and a sword, and both came with responsibilities I did not ask for.” His wings spread wide, the splayed feathers fluttering in the mild wind. “No matter how far I fly from Hilos, I do not have the power to refuse their burden.”
A trickle of his anger carrying a tone of anxiety settled in her chest. Cassiel had left home for a reason connected to Mount Ida, but it was also more than that.
“Is that why you’ve come?” she asked softly. “To escape your father?”
Contempt twisted his lips. “Him. That place. The throne.”
Dyna balked. The throne?
“He means to make you High King?”
Cassiel braced his elbows on his knees and kneaded his forehead. “Ridiculous, is it not? Malakel should be the High King. He is the firstborn and a pureblood. It is his birthright. Should the Queen learn my father plans to put a Nephilim in his place…” He shook his head, closing his eyes. “That is not something she would accept, let alone the Realms.”
He didn’t want it, Dyna realized. Many people lusted for power, position, and wealth. But here was a prince who wanted none of it. That was why King Yoel chose Cassiel to succeed him. Other than his son being the bridge between Celestials and humans, he didn’t covet the throne. And those who didn’t want power were the ones best chosen to have it.
“No reign is ever perfect, but I think you would be a great king,” she said.
