Chapter 21: Cassian’s Past

Night pressed soft and cool against the deck, the ship groaning as it shouldered through velvet-black water. Stars littered the sky like careless jewels; the moon had the good sense to keep its mouth shut. I leaned on the rail and let the spray salt my lips. Freedom smells like brine and old wood and ropes drying in the dark—don’t let poets tell you otherwise.

Below, in the tiny cabin we’d bullied the quartermaster into giving us, Cassian finally slept. The bruises around his ribs were an ugly map of someone else’s choices; the split on his lip had stopped bleeding. Serine was a small, fierce crescent beside him—curled in the chair, head tipped against the mattress, one hand resting on his bandaged forearm as if her palm alone could hold him in the world. It probably could.

Arkanthos sat in my travel bag at my hip, swaddled like a holy relic in too much canvas. To anyone else he was quiet bone. To me, he was the familiar weight of a voice always waiting.

You’ve been watching the horizon for an hour, he said across the thin, private bridge between us, tone mild.

I’m counting stars to avoid counting the ways I want to re-kill Varax, I answered. It’s not working. Also, stars don’t line up into fine motivational posters the way bards swear they do.

A pity, he murmured. I would have enjoyed a poster. “Hang in there,” with a cat dangling from a mast.

I huffed. You win. I’m thinking about what Cassian told us. The chill bit happily into my cheeks; the wind tasted clean. Run it back with me? I don’t want to forget any of it. Not a word.

As you wish, Mistress. His presence settled, patient and steady.

The sea went on doing its breathing, in and out, in and out, and I let the memory open like a door.

***

We’d dragged him out of the cavern’s stink and noise and into the small side chamber where the air didn’t taste like smoke and cowardice. Serine had insisted on washing the blood from his face herself—gentle strokes, small cloth, a frown that could have threatened a god. I melted the manacles at his wrists with a casual press of heated fingers; the iron ran like dark wax. Arkanthos rested on an overturned crate where he could see—and be seen—eyes coals in a quiet hearth.

Cassian sat on the floor against the wall, blanket across his shoulders, sweat still drying in his hair. He did not quite meet my eyes. Fair. I wouldn’t have met mine either.

“Water,” Serine whispered, holding the cup to his mouth. “Small sips. Please.”

He obeyed. Cassian always obeyed care. It slays me every time.

When the cup was empty, I rested my forearms on my knees and tilted my head. “All right, puppy,” I said, not gently. “Tell it. Start at whatever hurts least. Or I can start and make wild inferences and embellish with poetic nonsense about destiny and tides and heroic cheekbones.”

“Rissa.” Serine shot me the kind of look made to puncture egos. “Be kind.”

“I am being kind,” I said. “Cruel would be dragging him back in there and making him watch me smush more lizards. Which, to be clear, is still on the table.”

Cassian breathed out a sound that was almost a laugh and almost a cough. He lifted his eyes then—storm-gray even when one was half-swollen—and nodded once. “You want truth,” he said. “You’ll have it.”

His voice was raw, low. “We weren’t always like that. The clans of Vaelor—the isles, not this miserable harbor—they were fishermen first. Sailors. We read tides the way scribes read ledgers. We traded with Liraen: salt, smoked eel, coral tools, net-silk.” He swallowed. “We were warriors when we had to be. But the oath was always the same—protect our shores, don’t take what isn’t ours.”

Arkanthos inclined his skull fractionally. “I recall pearl-slate treaties etched in the Third Tide Cycle,” he said, respectful. “The Vaelor isles supplied moon-salt and driftwood iron. Liraen sent glass and looms. It was… a good accord.”

Cassian’s mouth ghosted a smile. “My father kept that accord. Azhren Tyvar.” He said the name like a prayer he didn’t believe would be answered. “He was… you’d have liked him. He believed strength had a purpose beyond fear. During a trade run to Liraen, he met a human woman. Elara. She laughed at him when he tried to pay too much for lemon cakes, and he decided he’d marry her. She decided she’d let him.”

Serine’s eyes warmed. “Elara,” she repeated softly, as if tasting sweetness. “Pretty.”

“She was,” Cassian said. “Stubborn. Clever with knots. Better swimmer than most of the men. The old ones grumbled when Father brought her home, but he was Azhren—he convinced them without raising his voice. When I was born, they marked me as heir.” A pause. “Some of them even smiled.”

His hand flexed uselessly under the blanket, remembering weight. “I learned boats before blades. How to find quiet water for nets. How to mend a tear in moonlight. My father would put my palm on the mast and tell me to feel the tree it used to be—’Wood remembers wind better than men do,’ he’d say.”

My throat did a stupid thing. I looked away and pretended to scratch my cheek with a knuckle.

“It didn’t last,” Cassian said, and the room cooled. “My uncle was named Varax Tyvar. Father’s younger brother. He liked being seen. He liked the way fear looked on people when they realized he was watching.” His jaw set. “The night it happened, I woke to smoke. Not fire—torches. Too many of them. I remember the sound of boots on stone. I remember my mother grabbing me and shoving me under the net-chest. ‘Do not make a sound,’ she told me, and when I tried to argue she covered my mouth and kissed my forehead.”

He stared past us. I could hear the echoes, too. “Varax came with six. Maybe more outside. They were drunk on their plan. They had the elders with them—some willingly, some not. He dragged my father out into the sand and made a speech about the old ways being chains. Said we were meant to rule the coastline, not feed it fish.” A bitter smile. “Father told him he could have the first punch if it would make him feel better. Varax didn’t laugh. He cut Father’s throat and shouted ‘change begins with blood.’”

Serine made a small noise, hand flying to her mouth. She tried to hide it and failed.

Cassian’s voice did not shake. “He left the body where the tide could take it. Said the sea could decide if Father was worth keeping. The next morning, he claimed the chiefstones and told anyone who looked sideways at him that he’d do worse to their families.” A long breath. “He meant it.”

I let silence sit on us a moment. Then I said, very calmly, “If I’d known that before tonight, I would have skipped punching and started with flaying.” I looked at Arkanthos. “Please add that to the list.”

“As you command, Mistress” he said gently.

Serine shifted closer to Cassian, careful not to jostle his ribs. “What happened to your mother?” she asked, voice small but steady.

Varax’s shadow slid across Cassian’s face again. “He kept her.” The word scraped. “Not as… not like that. As a leash. Any time I fought back, he’d take her outside the caves. No one sees what happens in the dark on the cliff path. But they hear.” His throat worked. “I learned fast. I learned too fast. He liked to say he was forging me.”

“Forging?” My fingers curled until the nails bit. “I’ve met kinder forges.”

“He made me learn everything.” The rhythm of his voice changed; the recounting shifted into the old cadence of drills. “Short blade. Long blade. Spear. Axe. Hook. Net as weapon. Chain. Staff. Bow in wind. Bare hands in water. Every time I improved, he raised the mark. When I failed, he took me down to the rocks and made me hold the cold until I went numb. When I succeeded, he had one of his men try to break my guard while he watched and laughed. If I fell… he didn’t strike me. He struck my mother. So I stopped falling.”

Serine’s other hand found his blanket and twisted in it, knuckles white.

Cassian’s eyes went dark as winter water. “When I was fourteen, she fell ill.” His mouth shaped the word delicately, like it would shatter. “Fever. That’s what they called it. But there are fevers, and then there is the way someone stops very suddenly, the way they don’t sweat, the way their lips go a little blue. There is a powder the clans sometimes use to fetch fish to the surface. White algae. A little makes you sleep. Too much makes sleep permanent. Anyone can ‘fall ill’ if the one preparing the tea has steady hands.”

Serine’s breath hitched. “Cassian… I’m so—”

He shook his head once. “There’s no proof. Only timing. She had argued with Varax the morning before. She told him if he meant to make me into a dog, he’d have to accept that dogs bite.”

I stared at the wall because if I stared at him I’d scare him with how much I wanted to break the world. “When?” I asked. A cruel question. Necessary.

“The tide was at quarter. Sea birds were quiet.” Cassian blinked slowly. “I sat by her and counted the breaths she wasn’t taking. Then I stood up and asked Varax what the rule was for what happens when a ‘chief’ kills his brother’s wife.”

“And?” My voice had razor edges.

“He laughed,” Cassian said. “Said if I could prove it, I could bury him. Then he took me outside to the rocks and told me to hold the cold until I understood it.”

Serine’s eyes were wet, furious. She reached up, thumb hovering near his cheekbone, not quite touching the bruise. “How long did you stay?”

“Until the stars came out,” Cassian said. “Then I stood up. I wasn’t numb anymore. I was… awake. Something in me had stopped asking permission.”

He rolled his shoulder, wincing as the bandage pulled. “My blood always felt wrong to them. Not enough scales. No crest. Humans called me strange; my own called me thin-blood. But after that night, I learned I could call it on purpose. Scales where I needed them. Hardness along the knuckles. The eyes… adjusting faster to dark. I could hear the way stone carries footfall. I could smell what fear does to a man.” He glanced at Serine, apology in it. “I’m not telling you this to frighten you. Just… this is what I am.”

She shook her head fiercely. “You’re telling us who you are. That’s… that’s different.”

Arkanthos inclined toward her, approval in the tilt. “True, Lady Serine.”

“That night… Transformed, I… killed many of my own kind and fled.” Said Cassian with sadness in his stormy eyes.

“I hit the mainland shore at dawn, three coves south of Myrath. I stank. My hands bled. I wanted to go back and burn the caves to their foundations. Instead I walked.”

“And you didn’t stop,” I said.

“I didn’t stop,” he agreed. “Not until I could look at a sword and see a tool instead of a memory. Not until I could feel the scales come when I called them and fade when I asked them to. Not until I could kill Varax. That was the plan.” He lifted a shoulder. “Then I met you.”

Serine made a sound that was more exhale than word. “I’m glad you did,” she whispered. “I’m sorry for everything before. I’m… just glad you did.”

I reached over and flicked him, very lightly, on the blanket-covered knee. “For the record, if you ever suggest again that we shouldn’t have come for you, I will personally throw you back into a bandit cave just so I can rescue you twice and win the argument.”

A ghost of a grin. “Understood.”

Arkanthos, who had listened without interruption, spoke with quiet finality. “Your blood is not a chain, Cassian Tyvar. It is a tool. Tools serve the hand that holds them. See that you keep your own hand on it.”

Cassian looked at him, then at Serine, then—reluctantly, like it hurt—at me. “I don’t know how to… thank you.”

“Don’t,” I said. “Heal. Sleep. Eat breakfast. Growl at me in the morning when I tease you. That’s plenty.”

He closed his eyes. The tightness around them eased. For the first time since I’d met him, I watched a chain I couldn’t see slip, even a little, from around a throat that didn’t deserve it.

***

The mast hummed in the wind. A gull cried somewhere, late and lost. The horizon was a blade of ink where sea and sky agreed to pretend they were separate things.

So, Arkanthos said in the hush of my head, what will you do with this truth?

“I didn’t come to this world to play queenmaker,” I said, low. “I wanted warm beds, good wine, a museum of shiny trinkets I ‘found’ in places that accidentally didn’t want me to find them. Adventure, sure. The kind with witty banter and dramatic cloaks.” I touched the rail with my fingertips until it warned me with a splinter. “But I’m not walking past something like that. Not again. If I have to stand between a child and a whip, between a clan and the thing poisoning it, then that’s where I stand. If I can keep one more kid from learning to count by the number of blows it takes to forget pain… I’ll do it. I don’t care if it tangles me in politics or paints a target between my shoulder blades. Let them come.”

Arkanthos’ answer was warm iron. Then I am honored to stand there with you. I am proud of you, Mistress. A small pause. I will accompany you to the end. To my death— the wry glint was unmistakable—or to my second, should fate insist on comedy.

“Try to avoid both,” I muttered, and blinked hard because salt air is rude.

I will endeavor to oblige, Mistress.

Below, a floorboard creaked: Serine shifting, perhaps, or Cassian turning in sleep. I glanced toward the companionway, then back to the sea. Somewhere ahead lay Liraen, with its moon-glass looms and starlight cloth and, undoubtedly, a fresh set of catastrophes stamped with our names.

Fine. Let them line up.

I set my chin, squared my shoulders, and let the ship carry us forward.