The Raven and the Dove (The Raven and the Dove #1) - Kaitlyn Davis Page 0,29
slumber, just to see what it was like in the day. But the sun couldn’t penetrate the world beneath the mist. Everything was painted in shades of gray, dull and muted. The ocean had been dark and dangerous, a hidden world she had no interest in exploring. The air had been thick and uncomfortable to fly through, even as nothing more than a spirit.
The extreme differences in the landscape made it easier for Cassi to separate what happened here, in the world below, and up where her body resided. As though one life was real and one pretend. As though maybe this truly was all just in her dreams.
In the world above, she was Cassi Sky, orphan girl, best friend of a princess, loyal, steadfast and protective, an outsider who had somehow been accepted into the highest fold. Her owl wings had never fit, but in a way, that was what had drawn Lyana to her. She had no magic. No secrets. No family. And no real purpose other than living a normal life, a good life, whatever that might be.
In the world below, Cassi was another person entirely. One she wasn’t sure she liked. One she had no choice but to be.
Cassi pushed the thought from her mind as she always did, and instead thought of him, stretching out with her magic, letting it guide her to her king. Sometimes he was visiting one of the many floating cities of the world below. Sometimes he was on the few strips of land that had been left behind when the isles were lifted into the sky.
Tonight, he was on a ship in the middle of the sea. The window of the captain’s quarters was open as though he’d known she would come, and he’d left it that way just in case. She could have drifted through the wooden planks, but he knew her spirit preferred the open air, as any bird’s would. Yet when she visited him, her wings always disappeared. He’d never seen them, not even in a dream. Because in the world below, she always pretended she was just as human as he, as all of them.
Cassi hovered over his bed, pausing for a moment. People were at their most vulnerable in their sleep. Sometimes when she talked to him now, she forgot how young he was—only a few years older than she. But with his eyes closed and his face peaceful, free of the weight of leadership, Cassi remembered. Remembered too much. She pressed her phantom palm to his face, taking the barest moment to brush her fingers over his defined cheekbone, to shift them through the sandy hair that must feel so soft, if only she could touch it in reality…
Malek.
His name came unbidden to her mind, a forbidden whisper cutting through her thoughts, bringing long-buried memories to the surface. He’d been her best friend once upon a time. Long ago, back when her wings had been fresh, Lyana a stranger, and the House of Peace a foreign world, the boy king of the world below had been her lifeline.
They’d both been torn from their families as children. Handed over to the cause because of their uniquely opportune powers. Alone. Afraid. Unsure. Cassi used her dreamwalking as often as she could to visit him in the world below, and together they’d escape. To grassy plains and snowy hills. To make-believe lands where they painted the sky purple and the grass pink, where the moon was made of sugary confections and they plucked candy stars from the sky. Oh, how they’d laugh, for hours upon hours, their imagination knowing no bounds as he commanded she create more and more ridiculous things in the nighttime worlds they spun together. And there had been quiet moments too, when she told him of her mother, when he confessed to fears he was too afraid to acknowledge in the daylight, and they shared visions of the future they were fighting to one day see.
A future free of the war the avians knew nothing about.
The war that had claimed their whole devotions.
The war that had once connected them, but slowly ripped them apart over time. Age and duty had stolen his sense of play, his sense of fun. He didn’t dream anymore, not really. They met, they spoke, but not as Cassi and Malek. As Kasiandra and her king. A spy and her sovereign. Nothing more. Nothing less. No matter how much she hoped things could be different.