Young Writers Society

Author's Note: This update didn't go quite as anticipated, but I do like what ended up happening. I'm sure it'll answer some of your questions and give you more new ones~ It was especially fun getting to write interactions between Orpheus and Cass, seeing that they haven't gotten to chat since the incident in the throne room.

I hope you enjoy this chapter!

Words: 1,947

Last Line(s): “I don't know what else you were expecting me to say,” she further teased, grabbing onto his hand and leading him towards the door. “You know I hate talking about myself. It's far more fun talking about you and your kingdom. Now, we probably should hurry—Dari wanted me to bring you to his shop today.”

Before he could get another word in, she darted out into the hallway and dragged him down the stairs to the main hallways of the castle.

When she opened her eyes, it was to sunlight streaming in through the window beside her bed. She blinked away the last remnants of sleep and reluctantly left the warmth of the quilt. In the short time she had been asleep, she had managed to knock a good portion of the pillows to the ground; the plush dragon she had been cuddling was the only thing that remained in relatively the same place. She wasn't sure what she was supposed to do next. Kartiel had said to wait for the Dark Mage, but it didn't seem like he was up yet.

Or maybe he was, and he was avoiding her, too.

She tried to push the thought out of her mind, but it stubbornly remained as she started to pick up the pillows. She finally was able to switch her focus to her latest dream. Kartiel had seemed so different back then, whenever that dream had happened. It was as if she had experienced memories of a completely different person. It was a very strange dream in retrospect. Though she couldn't put a name to his face, she was sure that she had seen the man somewhere else—and not just in the dreams.

Cass sat down on the edge of the bed.

Whoever he had been, Kartiel had certainly loved him. He had made him feel happy, and feel like he wasn't alone. They were two peas in a pod, joined at the hip, soulmates—the phrase didn't matter. They were connected, and the man had made all of his hurt fade away. Cass knew the feeling; she felt the same way every time she was around Aspen.

But for Kartiel to change so much from the time of the memory to now, Cass was sure something had happened to the man.

She didn't even know the man's name, but the thought made her eyes begin to well up with tears. She knew she was right. There was no other explanation, and the sorrowful pang in her soul confirmed her guess. King Kartiel missed him dearly. He felt other ways about him, too, but it was the longing that made her heart hurt so much now.

There was a knocking on her door.

Cass unsteadily got to her feet, wiping her tears away with the sleeve of her hoodie. She couldn't let whoever was there seeing her crying. She didn't even want Aspen to see her crying, so a stranger seeing her right now was out of the question. When her cheeks finally looked deceptively dry—confirmed by a quick check in the mirror—she opened the door.

It was the Dark Mage.

“Can I come in?” he asked.

Cass hesitated.

Then she gave a small nod and stepped aside. He slipped into the room, softly shutting the door behind him. The two quickly fell into a surprisingly awkward silence. She remained by the door, and he lingered in the center of the room. She nervously watched him; all she could imagine was his angry outburst from the previous night. The lack of visible facial features only made things worse. They might have provided a clue to what he was thinking, but right now she could only guess that he was glaring at her from underneath his hood.

He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, his gaze traveling throughout the room. The only direction his head didn't turn to was hers.

“I'm sorry for what you saw last night,” he apologized. His voice was surprisingly quiet. “I was tired, and Ka-the king and I argue all the time about...that. He's stubborn. But I guess it must run in the family, because I couldn't stop myself even when it was to give you a better welcome to the king-”

He stopped and stared at the bed.

Cass watched, confused, as he rushed over. Had he seen something out the window while he was glancing around the room? She didn't know what that something could be, but it made a knot of worry grow in her chest.

But then he leaned down and grabbed something off of the bed. When he turned back to face her, she was surprised to see that he was holding the dragon plush. “That's where I left you,” he said to the toy. If she had been startled by how quiet his voice was earlier, she was shocked to hear how relieved and upbeat it sounded now.

He suddenly seemed to remember that she was there, freezing awkwardly in front of the bed and staring at her from underneath the cowls of his cloak. He was the Dark Mage. She was supposed to be afraid of him; that was what Lira had said. But it was hard to be scared of someone who got embarrassed over his apparent love of stuffed animals—it just made him seem more human, even though she knew that was a silly thing to think.

“I have stuffed animals, too,” she quietly told him, finally finding her voice.

His shoulders relaxed. “Oh.”

“...I like yours,” she hesitantly added. “Does it have a name?”

He glanced down at the dragon in his arms. He seemed like he was mulling over an answer; she wondered why he would be so reluctant to share something like that.

“Her name is Axima,” he said.

She gave him a shy smile. “It's a pretty name.”

He pulled the dragon closer to his chest. “Thank you.”

They fell back into an awkward silence.

He returned to the bed and sat down on it with his legs crossed, cloak draping over the side of it. Axima was carefully placed beside him. A gloved finger absentmindedly twirled a strand of black hair as he watched her from the mattress. Cass didn't know what evil was supposed to look like away from fiction, but the Dark Mage didn't seem evil. He seemed so normal. If it wasn't for what Lira had told her and for his strange attire, she could have easily thought of him as a regular person.

“It's nice getting to talk to someone around my age,” he commented. He continued to spin the strand of hair around his finger, gaze wandering to Axima. “...The people in the castle are all kind to me, but sometimes I don't think they understand what it's like to be a teenager.”

Cass stared at him. He was only a teenager? His voice had sounded young, but Cass hadn't put the pieces together. King Kartiel's feelings about him suddenly made sense; he felt so protective of him because there had to be an age gap between them.

He gave an embarrassed laugh and sheepishly rubbed the back of his neck. “I know it's a stupid thing to think...”

She frantically shook her head.

“It's not,” she reassured him. She was still trying to reconcile with the implications of him being just at teenager—if he was just her age, could he really be that powerful?—but she pushed her conflicted feelings aside. “I just thought you'd be older.”

“Because I'm the Dark Mage?”

She hesitated, then nodded.

He stopped twirling his hair. “The other kingdoms like to spread rumors about me,” he said. “I don't go out much, so they end up guessing most of the time. They think that I'm the king's subordinate because I spend so much time around him.”

“It's because you're related,” Cass guessed.

He nodded.

“...Is he your uncle?”

A small noise escaped him; Cass was almost certain that it was a giggle. “I'm the uncle, actually,” he informed her. He glanced in the direction of the dragon, and suddenly his tone grew more somber. “My sister i-was his mom. There...There was a large age gap between us, so I never met her...”

Cass followed his gaze to the dragon. Its design almost reminded her of the fallen she had seen in her vision—the same black wings, same violet eyes and same black scales. As they fell back into silence, she tried to imagine that mysterious fallen. The Kartiel of that dream had been more like the Kartiel of the present day, sharing his detachment and loneliness.

She hadn't given his heritage much thought before now. She knew that he was a fallen, and she could guess that fallen could hide their inhuman parts of their appearance. That was why he looked so normal to her. But she didn't think his father—who had appeared human in her dream—had been a fallen. He had mentioned that only Kartiel's mother could show him how to fly; he must have been missing the wings to.

That would mean his mother was the fallen.

Lira had almost been right in her guess about Orpheus. He was hiding his face, but it wasn't because he had corrupted it with his darkness magic.

He was hiding it because he was a fallen, just like his sister.

“You became a fallen a year ago,” she guessed.

He grabbed the dragon and got to his feet.

“Did you see it in a dream?” he asked.

She nodded. “I saw right after you...fell.” She wasn't sure if she was using the word correctly, but he didn't seem to care if she was using it wrong. He walked over to the door and lingered in front of it. Another moment passed. Neither one of them spoke. Cass wasn't sure what she was supposed to say next. Maybe she was biased because Kartiel was part fallen, but she didn't feel as afraid of Orpheus as she had been when they first met.

And, when he removed his hood with trembling gloved fingers, any fear that remained vanished in an instant.

How had she missed how young he looked the first time?

“Are you scared of me?” he asked.

She shook her head.

“Aren't you at least worried that I fell because I did something bad?” he asked. One hand rested on the doorknob; the other still held onto the dragon. The way his violet eyes kept darting around the room was akin to that of a terrified, caged animal. “Gods become fallen for a reason.”

She thought over the question.

“I know I should be,” she admitted, “but you seem...nice. People our age can do horrible things, too, but I don't think you're one of them-”

She stopped when she saw the tears rolling down his cheeks.

“I-I never thought an outsider would say something like that,” he said. He tried to wipe the tears away with the edge of his sleeve, but it unsurprisingly did little to help. He gave her a small smile. She quickly returned it. “Kartiel's lucky to have you as his contracted, Cassandra.”

Her smile faltered. “...I don't think he sees me in the same way.”

His own smile faded as well. “Before...Before I fell, Kartiel lost someone important to him.” His hand dropped from the doorknob and hung limp at his side. “He doesn't even like to talk to me about it. I think...I think he's forgotten how to trust people. It's not you that's the problem—he just doesn't want to be someone's contracted.”

“Isn't he the one who will make the contract?”

Orpheus hesitated.

“He will,” he confirmed. “But people change a lot before they eventually make contracts, and no one can ever really predict how a contract is going to happen. He might want one with you in the future, but right now it's the last thing he wants.”

She thought of the man with the beautiful blue eyes and windswept light brown hair.

Orpheus cleared his throat.

“I can show you around the castle and some of the capital now, if you want,” he offered.

She gave a small nod.