She nodded against his chest.
“Do you care to tell me what that was about?”
Dyna shook her head. Embracing him tighter, she tucked her face against his throat.
Her nightmare had already terrified by her, then she woke to find the room … dark. His insides tightened with guilt. He shouldn’t have turned off the light. Zev had always gathered extra firewood to keep the campfire going until sunrise. Now he finally understood why.
It’s not the dark I fear, but the things that may lurk within it.
“You fear the Shadow that only appears at night,” Cassiel murmured. She stiffened, and he briefly closed his eyes, annoyed with his stupidity. He should have known. “I have done nothing but fail you today. Forgive me for dousing the lamp. I swear I won’t leave you in the dark again.”
Dyna’s hands trembled on his back, and she released a shuddering breath at his promise. It was the first pact between them. Cassiel shuddered as it settled over their bond, branding his words. He stilled.
The bond continued to do things he knew nothing about. It made him question everything he learned and didn’t yet know. Why’d he been so foolish to ignore his studies? He had preferred to stare out the windows, watching birds soar through the sky, envious of their freedom.
“When I was a child, my brothers found it amusing to lock me in a birdcage,” Cassiel told her after some silence. “Malakel said if I made a sound, the poachers would find me and sell parts of me for gold. They left me in the castle garden alone. I hardly fit in the cage, and I could not move. Too afraid to call for help, I was trapped there for a day.”
Dyna didn’t comment, but a flash of her irritation swept through him.
“The gardener eventually freed me, but it left me with a fear of cages. It mattered not how small it was. The sight of one terrified me. You can imagine how my brothers found enjoyment in this.” He worked his jaw as the sound of Malakel and Tzuriel’s mocking laughter echoed in his mind.
“My uncle set to plucking that fear out of me immediately. He forced me into a cage and left me there for an hour each day until I learned how to break it open.” Cassiel smirked and shook his head. “It was an eccentric way of doing things, but it worked. He taught me I had the means to free and defend myself. I despise poachers, though. It angers me to see animals in cages. They cannot free themselves or call for help as I can. I have half a mind to return to that poacher’s ship and release them all.”
His teeth clenched at the thought of Draven. The man had the audacity to send his dwarves after Dyna. That was something he wouldn’t let pass. He’d inform Zev about it first thing tomorrow, and they would take care of it.
Cassiel looked down at her face, marred with tears. “I merely wanted to explain that our fears are sometimes unfounded. You said yourself the Shadow arrives each decade. You are safe.”
Dyna slipped out of his arms and moved away to curl under the sheets with her back to him. “I saw it,” she whispered. “I saw the Shadow the night it took my brother.”
She looked so small and frail. His chest hurt, and he pressed a hand over it, knowing the pain came from her. He couldn’t say anything, so he only listened.
“The Shadow came to our house first,” she said, her voice straining to speak. “It was a black shapeless cloud with eyes like fire that held more evil than all the wickedness in the world. My father had made Waning Amulets that harnessed the moon’s power into a cloaking spell to protect us, but we had failed to give it to my little brother in time. The Shadow snatched Thane through the window and devoured him before my eyes…”
Cassiel watched her shoulders silently shake, aghast at what she had seen. He couldn’t imagine it. Her sadness and helplessness flooded their bond, drowning him. He wanted to erase her pain, but he didn’t know how.
“My father opened the Netherworld Gate to cast the demon back, not caring that it would claim his life. I tried to stop him, but I lost my amulet. The Shadow came after me, and my father sacrificed himself to save me.”
Dyna shook her head, coughing on another heartbreaking sob. “He told me to run. So I did. I ran through the woods, blinded by the snowstorm. I made my way up the mountain. I tripped down a ravine and sprained my ankle. I couldn’t stand on my feet, but I dragged myself through the snow until I found the glass tree outside of North Star.”
He hadn’t known there was aHyalustree in her village.
“When the Shadow found me, I thought I was going to die. But white light attacked the Shadow when it tried to come near. The glass tree protected me.”
Cassiel frowned at that.Hyalusleaves gave off a pure white light at night, but there was nothing known about it being sentient. Then again, it was a sacred tree.
“So, the Shadow retreated into the darkness and waited. I hid in the hollow under the tree and stayed there all night, watching those flaming eyes. Every faint growl, every branch crack or gust of wind struck me with terror. Knowing at dawn, when the Glass Trees’ magic faded, it would come for me.”
He held his breath.
“But then … my father came.”
Wasn’t he already dead?
“Somehow, he made it to me,” she said, staring at the wall, lost in her memories. “He could barely stand, leaving a trail of blood from the gash in his stomach. With his last breath, my father told me I would be safe. He opened the Netherworld Gate and shoved the demon through—going with it.”
Shudders crawled along Cassiel’s spine. Her father had sacrificed himself for her. He had already been dying. May the gods have allowed him a swift death.
Dyna laid an arm over her eyes, tears trickling down her face.
