I search his face, the determination in his gold eyes, the grief written in his down-turned mouth.Can I blame him for saving the one he loved at any cost? Would I not do the same?
Soul-deep weariness fills me, and I shake my head, causing the bones tangled in my ruff to clack together. “Go to them, Farron. But this discussion isn’t over.”
Farron sighs, then walks to the doorway. He stops and looks back at me. “Magic itself is neither good nor evil—it simply is. But men can be evil, and through them, magic can be twisted. Yet I swear to you, Ez, I am the master of the Green Flame. And when my reckoning is done, we will stand together on the soil of a better world.”
“Should one man define the nature of a better world?” I mutter.
Farron’s eyes narrow, then he storms out of the dining room and down the hallway.
With a sigh, I turn to Caspian.
“Are you raising a brow at me?” he muses. “How is that even possible as a wolf?”
“She’s going to be angry with you when she finds out the truth.”
“Well, making Rosalina unmad at me is my speciality.” He examines his fingernails in what seems to be a blatant excuse to avoid my gaze.
“You’re protecting him. Why?”
“I’m much more accustomed to being the villain than Farron is,” Caspian says. “If I can keep him from that, why not?”
“You care for him.”
Caspian takes in a long breath through his nose, then faces me, purple eyes shining. “I care for all of you. I always have.”
A knot appears in my throat, and now it’s me who has to look away. My words are thick and painful. “Th-thank you.”
“For what?” he says, almost exasperatedly.
“For delivering my father from his suffering.”
Silence passes between us, the only sound Caspian’s quickened breath. “I didn’t want to do it, Ez,” he whispers. “But I wanted you to do it less. And you would have had to. It was inevitable.”
“I know. He’s at peace now, with my mother.”
Cas shrugs, then looks away, eyes darting anywhere but my face. “Ez, can I ask you something?”
“What?”
“All those years ago…why did you do it?”
Silence echoes between us. “Do what?” I ask. I know what.
“Attack Cryptgarden.”
Caspian and I had disliked each other since we first met. Or at least I had disliked him. But that act, the attack I ordered, was what carved the true depths of our hatred, what broke the final threads between Kel and Caspian all those decades ago. “The captain of Kel’s squadron, Hylix. He told me he discovered your plot to betray Kel, occupy Frostfang.”
“Hylix?” Caspian digs his palms into his eyes. “How could I have not expected it? Bloody Hylix.”
“Care to explain?” Hylix was Kel’s most loyal soldier and a friend. When he presented the evidence to me, I had no choice but to do whatever I could to save Kel from his fate. Not that I succeeded. Caspian’s plan still worked, and the Below’s forces occupied Wolfhelm for a time.
“He was my mother’s spy,” Caspian growls. “She must have orchestrated the whole thing.”
“You mean you never intended to betray Kel?”
“Don’t be stupid. Of course I did. At first. But then…” Caspian’s hand wraps around the ice and thorn bracelet. “Well, I changed my mind. I suppose Mother could tell she was losing her grip on me and took matters into her own hands.”
My mind reels. No, it can’t be. If Caspian never intended to attack… “I trusted Hylix with my life. He was a spy? Then everything he told me…” I loose a breath. “Sira manipulated me.”
