“The evidence was irrefutable. He was part of the coup to see me dead.”
His uncle had been his surrogate father, the only one who spared him any care. And yet to find none of it had been genuine only made him feel more worthless.
Dyna’s expression flickered with something. “Whatever may have happened, I know one thing for certain. Lord Jophiel loves you like a son, and he told me so with a truth bell in the room. He couldn’t have lied to me.”
Cassiel shook his head, immediately dismissing that. Because he couldn’t accept the possibility that he had been wrong.
Dyna leisurely walked to the other end of the room, passing him with a thoughtful frown on her face. “Could it be that his judgment was impaired because he feared you, Cassiel? You were not exactly in control of your power in Hermon. Perhaps he felt as if he had no choice.”
The moon had shone on Jophiel’s face in the room that night, his eyes pained with regret.“I wish I did not have to be the one. But you have left us no choice…”
Had it been done out of fear?
“After what I heard of what became of Skath, and what I witnessed in Nazar, he had reason to be afraid.” Dyna turned to face him with narrowed eyes. “Your uncle is not the only one with impaired judgment. A king should know better than to attack his people or contain them without trial.”
She lifted her foot and took a deliberate step backward into the wall.
But there was no wall.
The room rippled with the luster of glamor, and the door behind him vanished, revealing a dingy wine cellar.
And him, standing within a cage.
Cassiel inhaled a sharp breath, and he ran for her. “Dyna!”
She yanked the cell door closed with a loudclang. Zev and Lucenna appeared behind her, their expressions cold. They lurked in a dark hallway leading to a shadowy set of stairs.
“What is this?” Cassiel gripped the bars. “What are you doing?”
“I may have lied about the chains, but this cell truly is constructed with Skath metal,” Dyna said.
It was. He could feel the divine power within the craftsmanship of the steel. With a wave of her hand, green light coated the cell, imbuing it with her magic, assuring he couldn’t break free.
Cassiel’s chest compressed under the weight of shock, his lungs struggling for air as panic bubbled up his throat. “Don’t do this.”
“I did you the kindness of providing a window.” She motioned to a small gap in the wall near the ceiling. It was level with the ground outside, the sky barely visible past a tuft of grass.
“No.” Out of fury and desperation, Cassiel hit the bars, and they pulsed with green light, knocking him back. A shaky breath heaved from his lungs as he got to his feet again. He stared at her, still in disbelief that she would do this to him. “You don’t understand the danger you’re in now that the Realms know you’re alive. I need to be free when they come!”
“I can take care of myself,” Dyna said as Zev and Lucenna headed for the stairs. “If you want out of your cell, you will free Lord Jophiel of his.”
She turned away.
“Dynalya.” Her name trembled on his lips. He gripped the bars with shaking hands. “You … you locked me in a cage.”
She paused with her back to him for a moment. Turning slightly, she looked at him over her shoulder with pain shining in her teary eyes. “It’s no different than what you have done to me.”
Then she ran.
“Dyna? Dyna!” Cassiel’s voice chased her down the hall until the wine cellar doors slammed shut behind her.
CHAPTER 46
Cassiel
Cassiel idled between waiting for Dyna’s return and wondering if she ever would. His back felt cold and stiff where he sat beneath the slit of a window. He leaned over his folded legs as he watched the bars cast lined shadows on the floor.
There is a difference between justice and revenge,his uncle once told him.
