A Court of Vice and Victors - wishcamper - A Court of Thorns and Roses Series (2024)

Chapter 1: Prologue

Chapter Text

Icy water rushed past Thalia’s knees, the threadbare net hanging forgotten in her frozen hands. Her instincts screamed to get out of the creek, to run, but she couldn’t risk giving away her position. Instead she watched and waited, heart hammering, and ducked her chin to stifle the clouds of her breath in the dense fur of her sleeve.

No answering cloud came from the creature. No fur protected its pale skin from the biting wind as it prowled through the snow. It sniffed the air delicately, and when it turned to the side Thalia blanched at the smooth sockets where eyes should be.

Despite seeing nothing, the beast was clearly looking for something, craning its sinewy neck this way and that from where it perched on the bank. She sent a silent prayer to Graal, who blew the wind from sea to land, that her scent be lost in the pines.

Fear thrummed through Thalia, another measured breath sharpening her to the marrow. Open combat wasn’t an option, armed as she was with only a dull fishing knife, and the creature's four muscular legs looked powerful and swift. If she could get up into a tree or outcrop of rock, perhaps she could dodge swipes of those crystalline claws long enough to make a real plan, or for it to get bored and look for an easier meal.

What would Orion say?

That she was foolish for fishing alone, likely. That she was asking for trouble trying to conquer the wild as a male would.

Her wings quivered, flexing at the big joint. Thalia ran a thumb over the black stone at her neck, steadying her nerves. The last token of her brother’s life was worn smooth from a year of worrying.

The creature turned sharply. Its attention narrowed on where she stood, and it gave a guttural cry before landing in the stream with a mighty splash. It couldn’t see her, but from the snarl she knew it sensed her, feeling her with whatever evil guided it. Thalia stumbled back, panic spiking and her feet tangling in something. She had to stay upright, had to think quickly -

The net.

One corner was still anchored to the shore. If she could jump aside in time, maybe she could stall the wretched beast long enough to stand a chance. She recalled her grandmother teaching her to trap rabbits, an absurd laugh rising in her throat. The creature gave her no more time to think as it reared its head and charged.

Thalia braced herself, fighting again the urge to flee. The key to snaring rabbits was the timing, and this was no different. Jump too soon and it could dodge the trap. Jump too late and, well -

It would be much worse than going without dinner.

The creature barreled down the stream, defying belief, defying nature with its speed. Thalia stood her ground, legs and wings shaking, and when the beast was within one vicious swipe she dove to the opposite bank, dug her knife into the snow, and pulled the net taut with her full weight.

The creature yowled, limbs thrashing as those dagger-like claws slashed the net to ribbons in a moment. But it was enough, for it bought Thalia the time she needed to scramble up the high bank and leap onto its back.

Deadly precision, that’s what Orion taught her. You are small, sister, so you must always make your first strike count.

With two hands she plunged the fishing knife into the base of its skull, twisting with all her strength against the sinewy flesh. The beast bucked under her, claws grappling and scoring the leather of her breeches. Pain exploded in her left thigh, but Thalia hooked her knees around its shoulders, the serrated edge of her knife laying ruin to the corded muscle of the creature’s neck.

At last it gave a guttural cry, pearlescent blood leaking from its mouth and spurting up to coat her hands and face. Thalia felt battle-crazed as she kept shoving and twisting until only a scrap of leathery skin kept the thing in one piece. They both crashed into the water, that strange blood mixing with hers in the current and swirling through tendrils of the ruined net.

A great sob echoed off the trees, and it took Thalia a moment to recognize it as her own. She gulped the air greedily, shaking from cold and shock and noticing every needle of the pines, the hawks crying, the criss-cross of prints in the snow.

She doubled over, the pain in her thigh arriving with ferocity, and watched the water run red until her heart slowed and her hands stopped trembling. No one will believe this, she mused as she pressed into the wound at her thigh, wincing.They'll think I fell and stabbed myself with my own knife.That thought made Thalia straighten, resigned to finish the job and drag the head back to town on her sled as proof.

A low growl rose in the wind as she stared into a pair of eyeless sockets in a head of leathery, unmarked skin - a head very much attached to a body that was very much alive.

This time, she ran.

There was no time to ask how the beast was alive, where its wounds had gone, or how she would outrun it. There was nowhere to go, no trees nor rocks close enough to shield her. Dread poured through Thalia so thick and hot she nearly retched. She could hear the creature at her back, chasing close as if toying with her, a mountain cat stalking wounded prey.

A cloud of mist loomed ahead down the stream, the only warning of the waterfall and the sharp drop beyond. Legs pumping, feet slipping in the silt, Thalia raced toward it as half thoughts formed in her head. Took one more step, another one more, wound ripping and muscles screaming with the effort. If she could reach the falls, if she could close the gap between her and open air…

One more step - the lip of the cliff giving way under her foot.

Thalia thrust out her wings and leapt, heart leaping in tandem as they carried her aloft on the updraft from the falls. She felt the yawning expanse open beneath her, her body cradled by sun and sky. In her mind’s eye, she saw herself bloody and triumphant as she slammed open the pub door, saw her father weeping, the camp lord begging her forgiveness. She saw herself atop Ramiel, proud. Carynthian.

And then she began to fall.

Lacking the strength of her back, her clipped wings buckled under the strain and she plummeted into the spray. Thalia watched in horror as they failed her, those beautiful wings the gods blessed all Illyrians with, the gift of the skies. Arms wheeling, mind clawing and raging, she sent a prayer to her sister, her friends, her mother’s spirit.

And to the rest, damn you all. May the ground beneath you decay with every step, so all may see the evil you’ve sewn in this world.

Chapter 2: I

Chapter Text

Nesta

Books read, dresses mended, simple dinners of bread and cheese - these were the ways Nesta Archeron marked the days since the war with Hybern. In the course of a year, she’d found a shaky sense of normalcy in small routines and solitary pleasures. While it wasn’t full or joyful, it was enough, and certainly more than Nesta once hoped for. Owning one’s future instead of selling it to the highest bidder did wonders for a woman’s peace of mind.

Still, she felt stuck. Making decisions about what to do and who to be was a skill no one had bothered to teach her, so she faltered there on the precipice between a life she didn’t want and a life she didn’t know how to live.

It didn’t help that the world outside was still too bright, its people too brimming with unchecked hope. To wander through the markets and squares under the weight of her grief was to be like the spectre at the feast. No matter how well the citizens of the Night Court were moving on, Nesta was resigned to wear pain like a cloak. It was much easier to exist in the confines of her flat, away from smiles and eager hellos.

But when the night spread like a bruise across the sky, the terror drove her down into the parts of Velaris open only after dark. One drink became several, and soon she began sidling up to the groups of men huddled over tables in the back of pubs and music halls. Between her luck with dice and skill with cards, the money was enough to stay afloat after being cut off by her High Lord-in-law. And gambling tables were not so far off from ballrooms; the steps may be different, but the dance was always the same. As was the dance that came after, the hushed moans and shivering pleasures that blocked out her fear of the night. Well, that and the wine.

So the nights she counted in hands won, lovers claimed. Bottles drained, enough to fall into dreamless sleep. She could not bear the dreams.

For in the deep, in the dark, the taunting of the Cauldron came for her. The dream always began the same - she knelt in a spring, not of water but a rush of silver fire. The chilled current would pluck at her skirts, but she never had the courage to move in any direction and remained in place, clutching her arms and shivering until morning.

Beyond the bank lay an endless, misty wood. Some nights she heard screams or moans from the gnarled undergrowth, or saw a flash of ghostly faces, twisted and afraid. Amren once told her they were projections of her fears and could be conquered, but Amren had also told Nesta she would never give up on her.

Both had been a lie.

It was worse when the dead found her awake. They lurked in the flickering edge of the faelight with the face of her mother, her father, sometimes herself. Tonight she hadn’t recognized the face at all, but swore a pair of mangled wings rose from the figure's shoulders. Even the brisk walk to her favorite tavern hadn’t calmed her nerves, her fingers still shaking as she approached the carved wooden door.

Glass crunched under her boots in the alley as High and low fae alike displayed their merchandise in the Red Lantern district. For a moment, the gilded windows seemed to flicker with silver fire before returning to bathe the alley in crimson. She wondered if she was going insane. She wondered if that was perhaps the sane thing to do.

A blast of warm air greeted Nesta, bringing with it the sounds of tankards slamming on tabletops and males shouting in anger and gaiety, the sour tang of spilled ale. She flicked a few coins to the antlered doorman and settled at her usual booth furthest from the fire, wine already waiting. Being the High Lady’s sister still had its perks.

As did being the ‘Kingslayer’.

She poured a generous glass and drained it, ignoring the wine running down her wrist like blood.

“Evening, Archeron.”

At first he was nothing but a hulking shadow backlit by the fire, but there was no mistaking the wings or the ruby siphons at his hands. Eyes adjusting in the dimness, she could just make out the smirk on Cassian’s stupidly handsome face. It set her teeth on edge - she smirked back as she imagined smacking it off him.

He must’ve been waiting for her - what other reason would he have for being in the Brass Bordar? There were no other females save the serving girl, and he had no taste for cards as far as she knew.

“What do you want?” Nesta asked flatly, refilling her glass. The doorman rose from his stool, but she shook her head to signal she could handle it. Cassian’s smile grew, oblivious.

“It’s wonderful to see you, too,” he crooned. “It’s been so long I nearly forgot what you looked like.”

Nesta snorted. Like that would ever happen, for either of them. The image of Cassian in the wood, bloodied and resigned to die, would be carved into her nightmares until the stars fell from the sky.

He flipped a chair around and straddled it, forearms resting on the back. “Word on the street is you’re a regular here. Thought I’d come see what I’m missing, besides the view,” He smirked again and tossed a wink at the barmaid, who was setting another cup and fresh bottle at their table. Nesta rolled her eyes as he ruffled his wings like a preening bird.

“What do you want?” Nesta repeated, annoyed. She was not in the mood to perform as a supporting character in one of Cassian’s little dramas tonight. He may play the rake with his family, but she knew he hadn’t been with another female in months. It irritated her to watch him fake it even here, away from the nosiness of her sister’s chummy gang.

I’ve seen you bare, she thought. I’ve seen you at your most naked. Don’t pretend with me.

Once the barmaid moved along, Cassian dropped the act and slumped forward, wings drooping. His hazel eyes were wringed with red, the same color as the siphons that pulsed sluggishly on his hands.

“Feyre wants you at the river house tomorrow,” he conceded, popping the cork out of the new bottle with a practiced motion.

Nesta ground her teeth, shame flooding her in anticipation. Nothing involving her, her sister, and that hulking monolith could be good.

“Ah, the queen summons me to her castle.”

“We all know who the queen is in your family,” He tipped his head in a mock bow - playful, not pretend. “But it’s not about you. She and Rhys want us all there, they have something to tell us.”

“And she couldn’t deign to invite me herself?”

Cassian’s sigh fogged the rim of her glass as he raised it to his lips. “She left a note at your place last week, but you didn’t answer. That’s why I came to find- eugh,” He broke off, shuddering at the taste of the cheap wine. “Anyway, I wanted to see you. It’s been a long time.”

Four months, almost. Her stomach went sour at the memory of their last meeting, of his face crumpling with hurt. Nesta snatched the cup back and drained it in one draw. Perhaps she preferred the pretending after all.

“You think I should go,” she observed, pouring another.

Cassian drew himself back up, as if bracing himself against her wrath. “I do. Though I can understand why you wouldn’t be crazy about it.”

Worn down by a string of sleepless nights, she didn’t have the energy to ask why he was encouraging this. Every attempt to integrate into Feyre’s new family went horribly, and there was no reason to assume her long sabbatical would change that. When the glossy black note slid under her door last week, Nesta had thrown it into the hearth unopened.

Across the tavern, a fair-haired male whooped in victory and corralled a pile of coin into his lap. Nesta leaned back and took Cassian in for the first time all evening, surveying him over the rim of her cup. He was dressed more simply than she’d seen him, black trousers and a tunic of deep red rolled up to reveal forearms coiled with ink. Cassian saw her appraisal and leaned back too, smiling. Waiting.

Nesta felt something in her chest loosen. Either the wine was taking effect, or Cassian was doing that thing he did, that thing where he managed to crack her open against her will with humor and patience. That thing where he treated her like a person and not a problem.

It was annoying.

“I don’t know if I can. It’s difficult,” she offered, hoping a sliver of vulnerability would get him to drop it. But something had him determined.

“Please?”

“Cassian.”

He smiled again when she said his name, before leaning in conspiratorially and laying a hand on her deck of cards. “I’ll play you for it.”

“No,”

“Just one game, and I’m gone.”

Nesta paused, considering. “I play one hand and then you leave me alone AND you don’t come back here again. Either I’ll decide to come or I won’t”

“Okay, but if I win--”

“Deal the cards, Cassian”

“--you will agree to intend to come to the river house tomorrow.”

“Deal!”

As she stabbed a finger toward the deck, Nesta felt a sharp burning and saw ink bloom in the shape of a card below the joint of her forefinger. Unbidden, her lip curled in disgust, the wine threatening to come back up. Cassian was looking aghast between her and the identical mark on his own hand.

“I’m sorry,” he spluttered, “I tried to word it so this wouldn’t - I know how you feel about -”

Nesta cut him off with a wave. Then she picked up the deck and dealt them each ten cards.

“Let’s just get this over with.”

She was too exhausted to feel truly horrified, too drained and defeated to mourn her humanity and her life before the mess. There were just so many things to grieve, and there would never be enough time to do them all justice. It was simpler when the world was just her and wine and cards.

They played in silence, punctuated briefly by Cassian’s attempts at light conversation that bounced off Nesta like an echo. He had a dreadful showing the first few hands, his expressive face so full of tells even an eyeless creature could read his thoughts. But then he started catching her out, interrupting a run of wyverns and capitalizing on her discarded kelpie. At last he threw down his cards in victory, beating her to a hundred by over thirty points.

He grinned at her smugly, victory giving him a renewed sense of energy. “Don’t be too hard on yourself Nes, I’ve had a lot of practice,”

“Clearly your only advantage,”

Nesta started at the voice that came from nowhere as Azriel materialized in the chair beside her. The shadowsinger tipped his head in greeting before turning to survey the room, a bored look on his handsome face. With a sinking feeling, Nesta clocked where he sat - in perfect view of her cards.

“You cheated,”

She whirled back to Cassian, cheeks flaming and so mad she could spit. The game was rigged from the beginning - he never intended to give her a choice. Why would he lie to her like this? Hot betrayal seared through her chest, the intensity of emotion almost stealing her breath.

“Should’ve insisted on a clean win. Rookie mistake, Nes,” Cassian’s grin was tentative, edged with nervousness as he held up two hands in surrender.

“And you,” Nesta turned sharply, and the shadowsinger met her searing stare. “You went along with this?”

Azriel shrugged and slumped back, tapping his chin thoughtfully. “I assumed you’d catch it earlier. My apologies.”

The thud of Nesta’s forehead hitting the table rattled her brain. Even the wine wasn’t making this bearable. It will always be this hard, she thought. There will never come a day when it's easy to be alive. She heard Azriel murmur something in Illyrian to Cassian, and remained with her eyes closed until the wave of pain ebbed. When she looked up, there was nothing beside her but her scattered cards.

“Look, I-,” Cassian spoke softly, seeming to choose his words with care. “I wanted to give you an out. If you don’t want to come. I said I’d invite you and I did. If you decide not to, I can tell them - truthfully - that you were all set to come and it’s my fault you didn’t because I tried to trick you and pissed you off,”

Nesta gripped the edge of the table to keep from lunging to shout in his face. “And the crux of this grand scheme was to cheat at cards? How are you a general!? That’s the stupidest plan I’ve ever heard!”

To her surprise, Cassian threw his head back and laughed, full and clear. Nesta’s fury surged, but the logical part of her saw the plan for what it was - plausible deniability. A way to keep the door open with her sisters without pushing herself before she was ready. And for Cassian to put himself in the line of fire for her was just the sort of stupid, noble thing he’d always done, because he trusted her to know what was best for herself. Maybe she could weather twenty minutes with Feyre’s family, if she took tonight to prepare herself.

“Okay, I will..” She closed her eyes and furrowed her brow, trying to remember Cassian’s words from before. “I will agree that, as of this moment, I intend to come to the river house tomorrow,”

Magic burned at her finger again, erasing the wretched bargain mark. Nesta loosed a breath of relief - at least that was handled. She would crawl under the bar and drown herself with the tap before a fae bargain forced her to actually show face somewhere. With another shuddering sigh, she sat up and leveled Cassian with a withering stare.

“But that’s all. Whether I make an appearance or not, it’s my decision.”

“Of course, Nes,” he answered quickly, rubbing the spot where his own tattoo had vanished. He rose, smiling faintly. “I’d really like it if you did. Come, I mean. I’m sure everyone will be glad to see you,”

He looked so hopeful, and in her chest she felt a deep ache of longing and regret. How could he still think the best of her, when time and again she brought ruin despite her best intentions? Couldn’t he see that misery poisoned the air around her, infecting everyone who came near?

Didn’t he know they were all better off without her in the end?

She watched his retreating back as he murmured something to the doorman, wings casting long shadows on the alley walls. The wine bottle felt cool and inviting under her fingers, its promise of dreamless sleep a siren song above the hum of the tavern. Nesta’s gaze drifted to the fair-haired male now hovering near the fire, his puckish features alight with interest as he surveyed her back. It would be so easy to fall in again, to forget.

Yet here was a chance, presented to her like a fat, shiny apple on Cassian’s outstretched hand. A chance to feel belonging, to try again at integrating into Feyre’s new life, this strange new world. Perhaps she could change too, time eroding her abrasions down to the smooth, lacquered surface of a pearl.

Nesta ran a weary hand over her face and stood, bottle tucked into her side as she picked her way across the room. The male by the fire smiled, made to come toward her, but Nesta set the bottle idly on another table and kept walking, out the door and into the night-swept street.

Chapter 3: II

Chapter Text

Cassian

“She’s late,”

The drawing room of the river house was bright and airy, the ivory columns and dark green furniture like a forest of birches carpeted with moss. Several of Feyre’s paintings hung between serene landscapes and gauzy curtains that billowed in the soft breeze. From his position on the sofa, Cassian tracked where Rhysand paced in front of the giant hearth, unlit for the autumn morning still burning with summer’s last heat.

“Can’t we just start without her?” Mor yawned next to him, shielding her eyes with a hand as she turned to the High Lord. “And can you speak a little quieter? It’s early.”

Feyre shifted on the sofa across from them. “I’d really rather wait until everyone is here.”

“After a certain point we have to live in reality,” drawled Amren, who was pretzeled in a high-backed chair, before adding a conciliatory, “My lady.”

“What if we attended to Court business while we wait?”

Unease spread through Cassian like a poison. Nesta should be here by now. She seemed at least halfway committed the night before. What if his stupid trick did piss her off enough to stay away? Or worse, what if something happened to her after he left? He trusted Artem, the doorman, but there were no guarantees outside the tavern. Moral lines went a little fuzzy in the Red Lantern district, and Nesta was just reckless and vulnerable enough to -

Rhys clapped his hands, interrupting Cassian’s spiral of anxious thoughts. Right, they had actual jobs to do and things to talk about. He swallowed and tried to reassure himself that it was a long walk here from her place, after all.

“Alright then,” Rhys said, businesslike. “Illyria first. Another pack of hunters has disappeared, this time from Bloodstone. They were last seen at a trading outpost near the Nidras river three days ago. Cassian, Mor - I’d like you to go see what you can find.”

Cassian nodded, grateful for the distraction. Mor was a good investigative partner, at least when she wanted to be, her gift for truth useful in sniffing out leads. They could head out this afternoon if the weather held.

“And be careful,” Feyre added sincerely. “Azriel said these were found in a recent shipment of timber.”

She tossed a pamphlet onto the coffee table. The text was all in Illyrian, but the image communicated enough. A crowned male cloaked in stars lounged atop a pile of coin, the shapes slowly giving way to form dozens of winged bodies crushed under his weight. The artist had at least gotten Rhys’ hair right, though his ears were not quite so pointy.

Amren picked up the pamphlet with the tips of two blood red nails. “How tacky.”

Cries for Illyrian independence were nothing new, but the tenor of the recent movement made Cassian nervous. Many camps suffered huge losses during the war with Hybern, and the lords were becoming less shy with their grievances every time he came for inspections. Not to mention the rising popularity of the young heir to Ironcrest. “I can’t say I blame them,” he offered. “People are still hurting from the losses of labor, income. I’ll bet my left nut Kallon is using that to his advantage behind closed doors.”

“But that’s your good one, Cas!” Mor gripped his thigh in mock concern. He laughed and patted her hand reassuringly before continuing.

“Plus, Kallon’s smart. He’ll try hard not to give us an excuse to question him,”

“And unfortunately an unflattering portrait is not grounds enough for treason,” Rhys murmured as he took the pamphlet from Amren, deep lines of worry bracketing his mouth.

“Which is why we should dispatch the whelp and be done with it.” Amren gave a cruel flick of her fingers, the paper turning to dust in the High Lord’s hand. Rhys’ frown deepened and he wiped at his jacket.

“Um, is it okay that I’m here?”

The tiers of Elain’s rose colored gown rustled as she stood, tentatively. Cassian started - in all the logistics, he’d forgotten the doe-eyed Archeron was even here. She blushed at the sudden attention of everyone in the room. “I can come back when Nesta arrives.”

Cassian flinched at the name, worry twisting his gut all over again. He heard Mor mutter something under her breath about having to wait until next solstice for that, and Amren scoffed.

“It’s your choice, you’re a part of this as much as you’d like to be,” Rhys said kindly before turning to Azriel. “Any movement from Briallyn or the other queens?”

“No. A few large ships have come to port, but nothing substantial.”

The shadowsinger folded back into the corner, his report apparently complete. Elain too sunk back down next to her sister, eyes trained on the shadows curling at Azriel’s feet. Silence fell through the room as they waited for the sound of footsteps in the hallway that weren’t coming.

“Well, Feyre darling, our official business is concluded.”

Rhys’s voice was gentle. Feyre chewed her lip before giving herself a little shake and conjuring a bright smile. “Right. Okay. So. You all are so important to us, and we cherish you as part of our family.”

The words sounded practiced, and Cassian sucked in a breath as he felt a stab of fear that something world-altering was about to happen. Mor reached over to grasp his thigh again - she’d never dealt with change well, either. He saw Azriel’s minute shift in the corner, his shadows swirling around his wings.

“So we wanted to let you know that there will be a new member of that family arriving next spring.”

“Wait.” Cassian felt Mor’s grip tighten, vibrating with anticipation.

Rhys’ grin nearly split his face in half as he stroked the back of Feyre’s hair. “We’re having a child.”

It was as if a small bomb went off - Mor screamed, Amren shouted ‘Well!’, Elain clapped her hands over her mouth before launching herself at her sister. Cassian felt hysterical laughter bubble in his chest as he staggered toward Rhys, beaten there by Azriel as the three of them tangled in a many-armed hug. He didn’t know who was crying and who wasn’t but it didn’t matter, it would all come out in the wash.

The next hour passed in a flurry of embraces, questions, and excited squeals from the females. At some point Nuala served tea, prompting Mor and Cassian to do a good deal of toasting (To love! To friendship! To tiny outfits!). Soon their elation was enough to rope Azriel into a very spirited game of ‘Let’s Mess Up Rhys’ Clothes’, in which everyone was a winner except the top button of the High Lord’s jacket. Even Amren defrosted sufficiently to run a reverent hand over Feyre’s belly (to scary aunts!), though Cassian didn’t miss the sharp look she shot Rhys across the room.

The news of the babe was such a gift, and Cassian felt himself carried above his worries for the first time in weeks. For his friend to find this happiness after all they’d been through, it made the years of bloodshed and sacrifice feel worth something, this future they’d dreamed of finally arriving. He could picture so clearly the family dinners and holidays, first words and steps, teaching them to spar and..

And Nesta should be here.

Cassian glanced to where Feyre sat to find her already watching him, a ripple passing between them. He knew she missed her sister too, that it felt incomplete without her.

With a wink, he backed out of the room under the distraction of Mor and Azriel fighting over the button trophy. Mounting the stairs two at a time to the nearest balcony, he unfurled his wings and took to the sky.

____

Flecks of blue paint shed onto Cassian’s knuckles as he wrapped on Nesta’s door once, twice..

No answer.

She was definitely in there - despite trying his f*cking hardest to ignore it, the bond usually gave him a vague twinge whenever she was near. Right now it was thrumming with an intensity he’d only felt during the war.

“I know you’re home. Let me in.”

With a start, he recalled she’d shouted the same words through the keyhole of the townhouse four months ago. Memory threatened to drag him down into a bitterness thick enough to protect his heart forever. He wondered if she’d felt as scared then as he did now.

This is a mistake, he thought as he pressed his ear to the door. He could hear shuffling on the other side, and something that sounded like.. moaning? He jolted away, jealousy searing through him, before he realized there was no other scent beside hers.

Glass smashed somewhere in the apartment. He smelled blood, her blood, and before rational thought had a chance to form Cassian reared back and drove his shoulder forward into the wood.

“Nesta!”

Her name rang through the hall, his movements frantic as the door refused to give way and he wrenched at the knob. The wards were f*cking strong . A few residents poked their heads out of their flats, but quickly retreated inside. Siphons blaring, he sent his shoulder into the door again, this time at the weak point near the latch, and felt it give under his strength and magic.

At first all he could see were her legs. They were splayed on the ground at an odd angle, bare and white as a fish, the soles of her feet marked with soot and dust. Cassian barrelled forward, and found the rest of her around the corner where the front hall met the sitting room.

Nesta Archeron, self-exiled queen of his heart, lay in a pool of her own vomit, sweat, and blood.

She stirred then, reaching weakly to draw her coat tighter about her chest, and the relief that flooded Cassian made him drop to his knees beside her. Time returned to normal speed as he clocked the violent flush of her cheeks, her cut hand, the unopened wine bottle -

“Oh gods, you tried not to drink, didn’t you?”

Nesta opened a bleary eye, seeming to have trouble focusing on him. It was a testament to her state that she didn’t question why he was kneeling in her living room. “I wanted to be… I didn’t want…”

Nesta broke off as her body was wracked by another shudder, and she let out a soft groan. Cassian imagined her sitting alone the night before, fighting moment by moment to show up for her sister, only to be f*cked by her own best intentions. It was difficult to resist the urge to bend and kiss her fevered brow.

But she needed action, not coddling.

“We have to get you to a healer,” Cassian said decisively, and hoisted Nesta up into a sitting position. He tried to recall the closest one - maybe on Maple Street? - when he felt her pushing at his chest.

“No. I just want to sleep.” Nesta made to turn on all fours, but he caught her by the shoulders. She batted at him again, then at something in the air only she could see.

Cassian remembered another morning like this, dragging a trembling and sweat-soaked Azriel to a healer on the outskirts of Windhaven. The shadowsinger had taken Rhys’ mother and sister’s deaths hard. Fever, shakes, disorientation - the healer said even High Fae could experience deadly fits from cutting themselves off suddenly.

“It’s too dangerous, sweetheart, you can die from unmanaged withdrawal.”

“I don’t care if I live or die.”

The admission left Cassian stunned. He’d suspected it for a while, but hearing Nesta’s indifference to her own life was an ash arrow shot straight through his faith in a happy future for those he loved. Because here she was, staring up at him through strained gray eyes clouded with pain, and he couldn’t do a damn thing to ease that pain in any way that counted. He fought to keep the edge of desperation out of his voice as he lifted her in his arms.

“Well, your family cares. I f*cking care, okay?” He made for the door, casting a cursory glance around for her shoes before quickly giving up. There was time for that later, a luxury they didn’t have at present.

“ No, ” she said again, more insistently. With a burst of strength Nesta grasped the door frame, blocking his exit. Even in the throes of withdrawal, her imperiousness was unshaken. He knew she hated being carried because of her kidnapping - an admission she’d offered fireside one lonely night during the war.

“Nes, you’re going to be an aunt,” Cassian blurted, throwing out a rope in hopes she’d grab on. Her skin was growing paler, her breaths more shallow with every moment.

Nesta’s grip loosened on the doorframe as a flicker of silver flame danced in her eyes. “I’m.. what?”

“An aunt. Feyre is pregnant. She’s having a child,”

“But she’s.. so young.” She was concerned, he realized, and he felt a part of him soften even as he bristled slightly on behalf of his brother.

“Yeah, so she’ll need a tough broad like you to support her.”

He felt Nesta relax somewhat, giving her weight to his arms, so he peeled her fingers off the jamb and took another step into the hallway. “Sweetheart, you can hate me tomorrow, but I won’t gamble with your safety right now. If the healers clear you, fine, but I’m not willing to let you die because you’re too stubborn to let me help you.”

“I don’t want anyone to see me like this,” she whispered into the scales of his leathers. Cassian took in her unbound hair, her dirty feet, her sick-stained sleeping gown. She looked like death, but so would anyone else given the circ*mstances.

“It’s normal to them, I promise.” He tucked her further into his chest to shield her from the wind as he made his way onto the stoop. “I can take you to the ward under the House of Wind. There’s only females there. It’s.. private.”

Nesta nodded, gave a weary sigh that turned into a gasp as he launched skyward. Her fingers clutched the back of his neck in an iron grip all the way across the city.

Chapter 4: III

Chapter Text

Icy flames rushed and rushed, ripping her feet from under her. Nesta clung to a rock before the current swept her down the spring, reached for another to haul herself upright. With her face inches from the flames, she saw them shift and reform into objects in her outstretched hand - an opera mask, a letter opener, a bridle - then another hand, grasping hers. She jerked her arm back, felt her fingers slipping on the rock, panic seizing her. Someone was screaming, the flames were rising and surrounding her, pouring down her throat…

Nesta woke feeling muffled. She was pressed in on all sides by softness, fuzzy sounds, even the world around a collage of blurred colors and shapes. One of those shapes had glasses, and was currently speaking to her.

“Hi Nesta, I’m Piper, one of the mind healers. Do you know where you are?” The shape moved closer, and she could make out a head of dark hair, the foot of an iron bed frame beyond it. “You’re in a ward in Velaris, under the House of Wind. You went into alcohol withdrawal.”

“Oh,” was all she could think to reply. The shards of memory pricked her as she picked them up. Cassian left the tavern and she’d left too, gone back to her flat and lay in the bath until the water was so cold her teeth chattered. She’d tried to get warm, but when she lit the hearth a figure appeared in the flames, its face a horrid mix of her father’s and the King of Hybern. Last she remembered was crawling back from the kitchen with a bottle, intent on oblivion.

And then Cassian was there, telling her Feyre was pregnant. Then darkness.

Nesta looked around now, taking in the simple bed she was tucked into and the understated room beyond. An array of complex runes and numbers floated in the air above a table filled with glass jars, one symbol throbbing in time with her heart.

The shape - Piper - ran through a battery of questions in rapid succession. What symptoms was she experiencing? Pounding head, body aches. What about her mood? Fine. How was her appetite? Horrible. Sleep? Worse. Was she having thoughts of harming herself? Not now. Was she thinking of taking steps to end her life? No. Was she having wishes or fantasies of dying accidentally or in her sleep? No. What did she hope to accomplish during her stay? Nothing.

“Well, I would encourage you to think on it.” Piper gave a brisk nod and headed for the door, the bright sun glinting off the iridescent scales running down her forearms. “I’ll see you shortly for our individual session.”

Nesta sat up suddenly and fought with her blankets as she tried to stand. “When can I leave?”

Piper leaned back on a hip and surveyed her. She was a youngish woman, though she had a look of weariness about her pale green eyes that aged her.“Right after I file this assessment, if you want. Our suggestion would be at least 72 hours. Do you have anywhere to go?”

Nesta’s mind flew back to her flat, the awful night of tremors and visions as she struggled not to drink. She recoiled at the memory even as her tongue tingled from wanting wine. It made her feel crazed, had her grasping for control in a way that frightened her deeply. Exactly when her drinking had gone from choice to need she couldn’t say, but it had likely been long since.

Perhaps this was better for now, until she could figure out what to do next. The bed was comfortable, at least. “No. I’ll stay.”

The healer nodded. “Oh, and,” Piper paused on the threshold. “You have visitor requests. Your sister, and someone named Cassian.”

Nesta sunk back into the pillow, eyes fixed on the small window. “No visitors.”

---

An hour later, after unbraiding and rebraiding her hair four times to keep from cracking, Nesta perched on the sofa in Piper’s tiny office. A sagging armchair was nestled opposite her between shelves of books and other oddments, the large window cut into the red rock giving a view of the late afternoon sky.

Piper was setting down a stack of papers, bracelets chiming at her wrists, having just finished relaying her assessment. “The worst of the withdrawal is over, but if you drink again the dependence will return quickly. I’d recommend complete abstinence, at least here in the beginning, if you’re open to it. But it’s your choice.”

“And if I’m not open to it?” Nesta spat, clutching her hands firmly in her lap. She tried not to wince - her body still felt like a bruise.

“Then we look for ways to reduce the harm.” The healer seemed unmoved as she poured two glasses of water and set one in front of Nesta before settling in the armchair, mouth slightly upturned. Nesta stared back.

“Is it alright if I ask you some questions?”

Nesta nodded, though it felt like a trap. She felt a muscle in her hip kick, saw Piper glance to where her knee jumped under her skirt before meeting her eyes again.

“What’s good about your drinking, what do you get from it? I’m curious.”

The question threw her - hadn’t she just told her to stop drinking? It was getting hard to think. In her confusion, she answered honestly. “It helps me sleep.”

“That seems important. What used to happen when you didn’t?”

Nesta’s tongue felt thick in her mouth, and she could hear her blood pulsing in her head. “I dreamt.”

“Not good dreams, I take it.” The healer nodded and indicated to her to continue, bracelets chiming again. Nesta clutched her hands tighter, trying to fight the wave of panic rising within her. Why was she so addled by such simple questions? Hazily, she saw the bookshelf tilt sideways, almost made a move to stop it falling on Piper’s head. Then the ground rushed up to meet her, the world narrowing to a pinpoint of light.

Then there was Elain, drenched and sobbing from the Cauldron. The crunch of her father’s leg breaking, the snap of his neck. The snarling beast, Feyre standing between them. The Viscount’s stubby fingers pawing at her bodice, Tomas Mandray’s sour breath as he shoved her in the hay. Cassian, broken and bleeding. Cassian, his bare chest slick with sweat under her hand -

“Nesta. You’re here. You’re safe.”

Piper’s soft voice cleaved through her memory. She noticed her sleeve was damp, though the water glass remained on the table.

“Sometimes after hardship, people experience a sort of delayed reaction.” She heard Piper speak again in that soothing tone, how she used to speak to skittish horses. “Only when the danger has passed does their body contend with the pain or fear. Without support or tools, even very strong people can become overwhelmed by it. And because they are strong, they do what they have to in order to survive.”

Piper sighed and removed her thick black spectacles. “I don’t know you, I’ll admit. But I wonder if you’ve spent so long protecting yourself because you never had anyone who felt safe enough to care for you.”

“You assume much,” Nesta said around the lump in her throat. Out the window, she watched a gull ride a pocket of wind, bearing it further out to sea.

“I can respect if you don’t trust me - it makes sense. And I would like to be of support to you, if you’d like that, too.”

They sat in silence for the remainder of the hour. When Nesta stood to leave, she saw her reflection in the darkening window and realized she was crying.

---

The next day was filled with activity - walks around the ward and the library below, drawing, meals together, lessons on managing thoughts and emotions. Nesta sat numbly through all of it, wishing for her room. In the late afternoon they all sat in a circle and were encouraged to talk about whatever was on their minds. Nesta paid half attention, the other part of her watching the dozen or so females carefully. In her human life, groups of women played ruthless games to outmaneuver one another for status and good favor. But these women seemed willing to bare themselves, even eager to do so. They shared things, fragile secret things, about violence, heartbreak, and loss.

“You have to put something in to get something out, you know.”

Nesta looked up and realized she was the only one in the empty circle. She’d been studying the fabric of her borrowed skirt, wrapping a loose thread around her fingertip until it turned bright red. But now she saw a female hovering in a sunbeam near the window, burnished copper hair swinging past her waist.

“Pardon?”

“In order to get something out, you have to put something in,” the girl repeated. “You can’t expect to feel better if you keep it all bottled up.”

“I’m sorry, who are you?” Nesta squinted towards her. She could make out blue robes and a heart-shaped face, but could remember none of the names in the circle.

“I’m Gwyn,” the girl said, snapping a notebook shut. “You’re Nesta. That’s the one thing you did say.”

Despite having her name, Nesta couldn’t recall anything about Gwyn or what she’d shared. The talking had become noise once she fell down a hole wondering what she must have looked like when Cassian found her, if any of the rest had seen them, what they all must be saying about her now..

“It might not be my place,” Gwyn continued, “but I’ve been here a few times and learned it the hard way: nothing changes if nothing changes. I know it can be frightening, but it does help. The talking.”

Nesta glared at her. How nice it must be, to share your heaviest burdens without fear others would bludgeon you to death with them. To not use secrets and silence to survive. “And what has that to do with me?”

“Call it friendly advice. Anyhow, learning to take healthy risks with others is one of my goals right now,” Gwyn said matter-of-factly. “And given you look like you want to squash me under your boot, I’d say this was a risk indeed. More’s the better - now I know I can withstand rejection.”

Gwyn jotted a quick note on her book and made to leave, but seemed to think better of it as she fixed Nesta with a knowing stare. “Does it really work for you? To do it all on your own?”

Nesta thrust her chin forward and drew herself up to full height, even as her mouth ached for wanting a drink. “Yes.”

“Good luck to you, then,” Gwyn said, and in a whirl of blue robes and lilting humming, she was gone.

Nesta returned to her room, unreasonably exhausted given the amount she’d accomplished in the day. A white-smocked nurse appeared with a bottle of tablets, which she swallowed as the female prodded at the hovering symbols to her satisfaction.

“Tell my sister she can visit if she wants,” Nesta mumbled, the tablets already dragging her eyelids closed. Alone again, she collapsed fully clothed on the bed and fell into dreamless sleep.

---

Though she was the ninth person who’d asked, Feyre at least sounded sincere the next morning when she whispered ‘How are you feeling?’ into Nesta’s hair as they embraced.

Nesta was taken back by Feyre’s emotion. The Archeron women were restrained at best, any affection scorned by their tyrannical mother. But Feyre was now clutching onto her so tightly, Nesta wondered if they’d ever truly hugged before. Half expecting to see Elain instead, she'd barely congratulated Feyre on her pregnancy before her sister had fallen upon her, weeping.

“I-I was so frightened, when Cassian t-told us,” her youngest sister stammered as they parted. “I f-felt like my heart might stop. And I don’t know if it’s this b-baby unraveling my sanity, but I couldn’t live with remembering how I’ve failed you. I’m so s-sorry, Nesta. And I’m sorry I’m d-doing so much talking. How are you feeling?”

Like I want a drink.

“Better,” Nesta conceded, even to herself. Living was still horrid, but she had to admit that regular meals and the company of others, however distant, did help. At least no one here was pretending everything was wonderful. For the first time in months she didn’t feel the world shifting out from beneath her, though maybe it was just the night of dreamless sleep.

The nurse from before shuffled by the open door, her cart laden with vials and jars. Feyre sniffled and wiped her nose on her sleeve. “I’m sort of nervous to say this, but I wanted to ask you to come live with us. At the r-river house.”

“I don’t know," Nesta offered delicately, "Being around the High Lord doesn’t sound very.. restorative.” An understatement - her sister’s husband, and his arrogance disguised as devotion, made her want to rend her clothes and scream. Living with him would be like dangling above an open flame.

“Rhys is trying,” Feyre sighed, reading Nesta’s thoughts. “This baby has him wound tight, but he cares, Nesta. He wants you to be well as much as we all do.”

Nesta bristled. So they had been talking about her. “He wants me to behave so he can continue ignoring me.”

Feyre reached for her hands, but Nesta pulled away. The sound of a female crying drifted in from the hallway.

“Please. I’m not-” Feyre gathered herself to try again. “I hate the idea of you suffering alone. I want to help you, and I promise I’m willing to do it on your terms. I just can’t watch you kill yourself anymore. Please, Nesta.”

'Does it really work for you? To do it all on your own?’

Gwyn’s words rankled. It was so tempting to tell Feyre to stuff it, that her care was undesired and inconsequential in the torrent of Nesta’s grief. That no amount of luxurious manors or sisterly affection could save her from herself. The female down the hall cried harder, her sobs raspy from a throat scratched raw.

“I would be open to a.. compromise.” Nesta looked up at the ceiling, imagining the honeycomb of rooms and corridors carved through the mountainside. “I would live here. Up there, I mean,” she added, gesturing upwards.

“In the House of Wind?” Feyre seemed to war with herself, a nervous hand rubbing her belly. “I can agree to that. That healer did say they’d like to see you periodically, and that would make it easier. As long as you think it’s safe, I’m in favor. But Cassian and Azriel will still live there, too.”

“I can live with that,” Nesta conceded, fighting down the thrill of panic at Cassian’s name. He'd brought her here, still wanted to visit her even now. Despite her best attempts he had shown up for her, and whatever bad blood remained between them his intentions appeared genuine. That, and she preferred his shuttered stares to Rhys’ murderous ones. But it would take careful maneuvering to stay out of his orbit, to resist the gravity between them.

Nesta readied her armor. She was adept at these games, at least. Her mother had made sure of that.

Chapter 5: IV

Chapter Text

Every thought that I repent, there’s another chip you haven’t spent,

And you’re cashing them all in.

Where do we begin to get clean again?

I walk home alone with you, and the mood you’re born into.

Sometimes you let me in, and I take it on the chin.

I can’t get clean again.

I want to know, can we get clean again?

And the siren song that is your madness

Holds a truth I can’t erase

All alone on your face.

- God of Wine, Third Eye Blind

Cassian

When Feyre told him Nesta was moving into the House of Wind, Cassian had laughed in his High Lady’s face. Yet here she was, hunched in a dining room chair and staring vacantly toward the midmorning sun, and gods he was f*cking unprepared for this. He had a brief, wild vision of her rushing to him, flinging herself in his arms, of burying his face in her neck. His wings strained against his stillness, wanting to curve around her body.

Sweet, merciful Mother, he needed to get a grip.

“Well, look who’s back?” He tried for casual, but it landed false due to his nerves. Her head swiveled on the long column of her neck, prim as a swan.

“You broke my door.”

f*ck. “You didn’t leave me with many choices, Nes.”

She made to leave then, crossing from the table with those long strides, but surprised him by pausing when they drew even. It hurt, to be so near her and not be able to touch. Her scent was a drug and he was aching for a fix.

“Is my room the same as last time?” she said, looking pointedly at the siphon on his shoulder instead of his face.

“Uh, yeah.” He swallowed. “But you can pick any besides Az or mine. Oh, and you have access to the entrance through the library, so you don’t need anyone to take you down into the city if you want to leave. I asked.” In case she didn't want to see anyone. Didn't want to see him.

“Feyre failed to mention that. Thank you.” And that, apparently, was that, for she breezed past him into the red-walled corridor.

Cassian followed her down the hall at a distance, and finally allowed himself a good look at her. Her blue gown spilled like water down her back, loose, borrowed. Hair covered all but the very tip of her ears, neatly braided and coiled like a crown around her head. She didn’t have that deadened look about her from three days ago, though her apathy for life was still a leaden weight in his stomach.

He’d gotten better in the last few months, stopping himself when he longed for her voice, her mouth, stopped falling so far down those endless ruminating spirals. Had even entertained other bed partners (or the thought of them, anyway) and began the slow work of building a world without her at the center.

But now she was here, and he was ashamed of how grateful he felt to have her close by again, how easy it was to slip back into the rhythm of wanting her. He’d nearly drowned in her that night at the tavern, her smoky eyes flashing when she called him an idiot. And now they were living under the same roof, by her choice for reasons beyond his grasp, but he wasn’t one to waste an opportunity. It took the entire walk to her bedroom door to get his words in the right order, their footsteps muffled by the thick carpet.

“Nesta.”

The brass knob twisted in her hand. He prayed he wouldn’t f*ck this up.

“I just want you to know I’m here for you, if you need me.” He braced a hand on the door, wariness a hard knot in his throat. “And I wanted to offer again, to train with you. Just us, in private. It might help get you back on your feet.”

“You think learning to fight will improve my life.” She didn’t ask - she told him. Shone the mirror back in his own face to expose his assumptions, his flaws.

“I’m just trying to help you,” he offered, and Nesta did not like that, he thought, did not like it one bit as the doorknob rattled in her hand, as she readied herself to cut him to the bone.

“Is brute force your solution for all your problems? Or are you that disgusted with who I am when your expectations don’t matter to me anymore?” Her fury seemed to be spilling out at last, and even as he caught the brunt of it he relished the mighty, silver wave of her rage rolling over him. “No, I forgot, it’s not enough because I’m not wielding a sword or killing people like the rest of you.” She stabbed a finger toward his armor, toward him in general. “You and your precious Inner Circle can’t coerce me into the life you think I should live. I’ll waste it completely if I see fit.”

A chill rose up his spine, causing his wings to tuck protectively behind him. She couldn’t be serious. “I won’t let that happen to you.”

“You don’t get to decide that,” she spat, squaring off with him as if he didn’t dwarf her by several inches. The temperature was still dropping, her words now riding on the clouds of her breath. “I refuse to be a weapon. I would rather let this power consume me than use it willingly.”

The siphon at his chest throbbed in answer. Couldn’t she understand the agony of watching her crumble? He was losing his composure, raw with worry. “That doesn’t mean you get to self-destruct without any protest, Nesta! I just want you to be okay! It’s not my f*cking fault I’m fighting for your life harder than you are!”

“Then stop, Cassian!” She was shouting now, inches from his face. “Stop fighting for my life! I never asked you to! Forget about me and move on!”

A sparkling tear froze on the tip of her eyelash and he felt a triumph in it, this sign that she was in there somewhere. His hands ached for her. This had all gone so differently in his head.

“I can’t,” he admitted. And then the hall warmed, as if the cold were nothing but a memory, and he watched her expression shutter, that high-walled fortress around her returning. She was refusing to let him use her to soothe his own anxieties, he realized, refusing to play the part he didn’t even know he’d been asking her to play. The thawed tear dropped between them, silent.

“That’s not my fault, Cassian.”

She slammed the door in his face. On the other side, he heard her silver voice ask the House for a lock on the door. The bolt clicked, signaling his dismissal.

—-

Mor was pissed at him for making her wait to head to Bloodstone, but her anger was warm where Nesta’s was icy and for that, at least, Cassian was grateful.

From the trading post, they’d been tracking for the better part of an hour; a meandering path of males uninterested in killing anything, cairns of discarded bottles marking their progression more into drunkenness than the woods. Splashes of orange and gold leaves littered the trail, kaleidoscopic as they glowed in the shifting autumn sun. It was making him nauseous, his stomach matching the roiling of his thoughts.

“What’s got you so ruffled?” Mor hooked her elbow in his and guided him back to the trail from where he’d wandered off, half in search of a thick tree to bash his head against. He’d been replaying his argument with Nesta, the moment he realized he was unconsciously trying to manipulate her. The shame pounded him, a hollow drumbeat saying she was right, she was right, she was right.

But her fire. He was relieved to see her fire. Hear she was in there, somewhere. Feel her thrumming and alive.

“Nesta is moving into the House of Wind,” he said, not telling Mor how he felt about it because he didn’t f*cking know how he felt about it. Not yet, anyway.

Mor came to a halt beside him. “Oh, that’s horrifying. It’s a shame the townhouse is being renovated. You could always go to the river house.”

“And suffer through Rhys being more of a controlling prick than usual? No thanks.”

Mor laughed in that unbound way of hers and set off down the trail once more. Cassian returned to his rumination but had to catch himself short, wings flaring for balance, as to not topple over his friend kneeling in the mud.

“Something was following them, look.” Mor’s golden hair brushed the ground where she crouched, pointing. A line of deep gouges scored the forest floor several feet apart. “Whatever it was, it’s fast. And big.”

They debated the possibilities. The tracks were too large for a mountain cat, and a harpy would leave a concentrated patch at the kill site, not these muscular strides. Griffins roamed the mountains in the warmer months, but never this close to the camps. Mor won the round of rock-cloth-dagger, and so instead of barreling forward (per Cassian’s suggestion), they followed the tracks backward in search of a den.

“You could come live with me, if you want. I promise to be much better company.” Mor’s tone was light but she seemed unsettled, though from the creature or his new roommate it was hard to tell.

“You mean I finally get to see your secret clubhouse?” he teased, plucking a bit of twig from Mor’s hair.

She rolled her eyes, smacked his arm away. “I mean my place in town.”

Cassian shuddered as he pictured Mor’s penthouse in the Rainbow, so bedazzled and perfume-saturated he usually opted to wait in the hall. “I think I’ll manage. Besides, it’s-” He cleared his throat, debating how much to tell her. Mor could be.. weird. About Nesta. About him and Nesta. “It doesn’t matter. I was a f*cking asshole, gave her another excuse to run away.”

“I thought you’d sworn off her.” Mor sounded bored, like it was eating junk food or smoking too much skullcap they were talking about - not a person, but a bad habit. The siphons at his hands flashed in warning.

“She needs help. She’s not well, Mor. She hasn’t been for a long time.” And of course he’d made it worse. Mor shrugged, unconvinced.

They walked in silence for a while, following the strange tracks deeper into the woods, where the light was dimmer. Swallows darted in and out of the shadows, curious, the rushing of the Nidras sounding not far off. Cassian smelled something musty, something familiar, that grew stronger as the prints veered north.

“You two have a lot in common, you know,” he offered casually, or his best attempt at it. “Highborn females in a cruel market and all that.” And the posturing, he didn’t say. The drinking.

Mor looked at him aghast, her laugh high and cruel. “If I had anything in common with Nesta Archeron I would drown myself in the Sidra.”

Cassian felt his face heat, Nesta’s confession ringing in his ears. “Would you lay off her for a second? She could’ve died.”

“Which was completely her own doing. And then icing out her sisters like it’s their fault? It’s pathetic.”

He couldn’t take Mor’s sneer, her judgment at the ways Nesta was struggling. His own judgment, he now saw, though he hadn’t admitted it. “What the f*ck is with you?”

“What the f*ck is with you ?” She wheeled, exasperated. “Why are you defending her?”

“Because now you’re being a f*cking asshole, Mor.”

They stared at each other, breathing hard. A sharp wind rose, causing the trees to sway and clash, twigs raining on them as the branches sparred. Cassian picked up that niggling scent again, closer and clearer this time.

The scent of death.

Mor smelled it, too, and they moved on silent footsteps toward the source, argument forgotten, the swallows standing vigil in the trees. The scent grew stronger. Both running now, they crested a small ridge and stopped short at the body laying in the shadow of a gnarled spruce.

The Illyrian female - or so he thought, from the long, braided hair - was curled on her side facing away from them, her body degraded by time and the elements. The wind had blown the leaves in piles around her, as if the forest was trying to bury her, absorb her back into the earth. He looked down, was startled to see those clawed prints leading back to where she rested, and how beyond that, there was.. Nothing. He felt Mor shiver and brushed a wing against her arm.

“This is bizarre. It’s like it just landed here where she died.”

“I don’t like this, Cass.”

Cassian set to work examining the body as Mor circled the trees around them. He turned the female’s face gently, unfolded her wings, searching for any identifiable markers of who she might be. He was at a loss, but hopefully Rhys could find something when they looked it over later.

Mor swore under her breath when he nudged the body on its back. The female’s chest cavity was torn open, the wound cleaner than the rest. Precise. “I really don’t like this, Cass.”

“I don’t either. Give me another second, I’m almost done.” He checked her pockets and found nothing, then sent a prayer to the Mother for the female’s soul to rest peacefully, even as he promised himself the bastard who killed her would suffer without end.

“I’ll alert Caddick, so they can collect the remains.” The Lord of Bloodstone was already fuming at his surprise visit - a murder investigation would make him apoplectic. Cassian took in a deep breath of the crisp air, already tired in anticipation.

“Come find me after you report, I want to go to the Thirteenth Step tonight.” He heard the apology in Mor’s tone, her need for them to be okay and return to the world of happy, bright things. But that was her way. Move forward, leave the past in the past.

“I can’t, I have too much work to catch up on.” Lie. He wanted to make things right with Nesta, needed to, but doubted his friend would consider that a worthy excuse to skip a night out with her.

“Fine.” Mor was all lioness as she tossed her golden hair. “Since I’m such a f*cking asshole, I’m sure you’d prefer we left separately. Have fun flying home.”

Cassian lay on the forest floor a moment after she winnowed away, as long as he dared, tossing sticks in the air for the swallows that swooped above him and trying to figure out how to make it all right.

--

When he’d gathered himself enough to do his job, Cassian left the lord of Bloodstone intent on outrunning the storm gathering to the north. The stinging wind was a welcome distraction, but it didn’t relieve his horror at having pissed off two of the most important females in his life in such quick succession. It must be some kind of record. He’d have to ask Azriel.

Cassian heard Windhaven before he saw it, shouted orders and clanking iron from the training rings. Circling, he passed over the barracks and banked for the end of the high street. The structures were more run down here, the fires weaker, the people hollowed-eyed and hungry. As he touched down, a boy of seven or eight peered out shyly from behind his mother’s skirts and waved. Cassian waved back. The boy seemed overwhelmed and scuttled back into his tent, one gnarled wing drooping beside the other. Heart twisting, Cassian ducked under a crooked sign and entered a shop.

Warm air enveloped him, accompanied by the smell of anise and clove, and he wondered if this was how it felt to be a sweet roll. The thought calmed him as his eyes adjusted; the familiar shelves full of draughts and poultices, the bundles of herbs hung to dry from the low wooden ceiling, seemed cheerful, happy to see him. The female behind the counter was markedly less soothing as she paused in her sewing and eyed him warily. He noted her attention flicker to the sword strapped down the column of his spine and tried to make his movements casual, his tone approachable

“Hi, Emerie. I need valerian root tea. Do you have any?”

“Sleep troubles?” Emerie asked, fingers already sorting through the cabinet behind her. He leaned on the counter and watched the foot traffic outside, the wide berth they gave her door. She’d told him on his first visit that she’d inherited the shop from her father - it seemed the residents of Windhaven were reluctant to accept the change of hands. She set a small packet on the worn wood in front of him.

“Thanks. It’s for a friend.” He reached for the twine-wrapped bundle, but was surprised when Emerie snatched it back. Her wings twitched near the scars that topped them.

“And is this friend aware she will be taking it?”

The accusation made Cassian wince. “I promise, I have no trouble finding bed partners all on my own.”

Emerie held his gaze for another moment, then snorted and handed him the packet at last. “I know you don’t, General.”

He didn’t miss her sardonic smile, nor the furtive sort of way she turned back to her sewing, a clear dismissal. This was a female who saw much, knew much.

“Hey, maybe you can help me with something.” Cassian angled himself between her and the door, to better hide their conversation. She seemed to read his cue and busied herself at the cabinet once more, her back to him. To anyone on the street, it would look like she was still filling his order. “Have there been any disappearances or deaths unaccounted for recently? Any talk of unfamiliar creatures?”

He saw the light tremor slide down her spine. She coaxed an overfilled drawer open with a grunt, shoved a fistful of mayweed in a jar. “No. But someone did vandalize my store a few weeks back, wrote on the door. Stole my tools too, the co*cksucker,” she added darkly.

“What did the door say?”

She paused in her stuffing. Her whisper was a breath of wind, the words forceful as a gale. “ Her sons shall rise.”

It was a line from a very old Illyrian folk song: the wind calls, and her sons shall rise. The song told of the goddess Oleanna calling the first males of Illyria, her sons, to defend their homeland against a nameless evil. Over the centuries, several Illyrian resistance movements had used it as a rallying call for independence from the Night Court. Rhys’ father had even banned singing in public during the uprising following the first War. The four words were enough to strike fear in those Illyrians who remembered the destruction rebellion brought for all of them.

“They’re just restless. It’ll pass,” Cassian offered, though to comfort her or himself he wasn’t sure.

Emerie set the jar on the counter, gave him an arch look. “People are panicking. Many fear they won’t last the winter. And you know who’ll suffer the worst of it.”

He did know: the females, the children. The disabled and elderly. The most vulnerable, while the camp lords slept full-bellied and warm. The same who would suffer most if rebellion razed Illyria to the ground. Cassian didn’t know what to say and so said nothing, though he suddenly felt very cold. Outside, the darkening sky was swollen and angry, ready to burst.

“Which tools?” he said at last, setting down a few coins. “Got stolen, I mean.”

“My hatchet and my frame saw.” She picked up enough for the tea and the mayweed, leaving what he’d overpaid. He kept his hands in his pockets.

“Well, don’t buy any new ones yet. And keep your ear to the ground for me, will you?”

His mind was already on the soggy flight home when she called him back. “Lord Cassian-”

He turned, smiling. “Just Cassian.”

Emerie twisted her sewing in her hands before she spoke again, perhaps despite her better judgment, he thought. “There was a female, a few weeks ago, who went missing. Same night my shop was broken into. I’d start there if I were you.”

Chapter 6: V

Chapter Text

I hope it stays dark forever

I hope the worst isn't over

And I hope you blink before I do

I hope I never get sober

And I hope when you think of me years down the line

You can't find one good thing to say

And I'd hope that if I found the strength to walk out

You'd stay the hell out of my way

-No Children, The Mountain Goats

Nesta

Nesta shut her eyes and pressed the lids hard with her fingers, hoping to banish the image of Cassian’s devastation and the flame that rose within her in response. The flame that always lingered, even when she was at the edge, even on that very worst day after the war, when they buried her father.

She’d stared at her lap during Feyre’s eulogy, because looking up meant seeing his neck lying straight in his coffin. How cold she must’ve looked, the way they’d all avoided her. But then there was Cassian, warm and gentle and gods, she wanted a drink.

Breathing deep measured breaths, Nesta counted to ten to calm her racing heart. Take it moment by moment, Piper said before she left, Don’t try to do too much. Rather unhelpful, as right now everything felt like too much when she hadn’t even stepped into the room.

And she’d almost frozen the hallway. The power still churned within her, treacherous and violent as the sea.

She heard a thump and looked toward the high-arched windows, half expecting to see the insufferable bat banging on the glass, summoned by thought alone. Her attention was instead drawn to a book now resting on an armchair by the unlit fireplace, and a cup of tea on the spindly side table, steam curling. She loosed another counted breath and allowed herself to sink into the cushions, the arms at just the right angle to sit with her feet curled beneath her.

After the gentle busyness of the ward, she couldn’t stomach her apartment sober, to remember all the things she’d seen and done there without the sweet buffer of wine. But it was also clear to Nesta that her drinking was out of control, and without control came the danger of that icy fire deep within her. Because as much as she wanted to fall asleep and never wake up, she feared what would happen if the Cauldron slipped through the gaps between her dreams, and used her as it wanted to. Like calls to like.

She felt it call her now, begging her to release it. To reunite it with the rest.

And that, more than anything, was why she’d chosen the House. Here she could regroup in relative quiet, like in those days after the Cauldron’s violation, as her sister disappeared into sunbeams and she into the shadows. The House had given her books, tea, enough to survive without having to be anything to anyone. It had taken care of her, when Elain was catatonic, when Amren pushed and pushed and pushed.

So it would be fine as long as she kept to herself. And Cassian was an afterthought, as he deserved to be. She picked up the teacup and lifted it in a toast toward the ceiling.

—-

An hour of solitude was enough for Nesta to confirm that her daily life in the last few months was all in support of her drinking. Even without a glass in her hand, she was dragging herself from bed, nursing her hangover, reading to wait for the sunset, taking endless musty half-naps, eating to pad her stomach so the wine wouldn’t come back up, then finding lovers to help her home and help her forget. Without that singular focus here, she felt adrift in a sea of her own thoughts as the autumn sun burned high and clear in the sky. Just a few days ago, that cycle was normal, comforting even. Now it was so lonely she struggled to draw breath.

She wrestled through the book, constantly losing her spot, before the House dropped her a leather bookmark in mercy. After a scalding soak in the adjoined bathing chamber, she ignored the bags of things from her apartment, not wanting to know who collected them or what things they’d deemed worthy. From the armoire, she selected a dress that was simple and gray, the cut high on the neck, and took time braiding her hair so that it covered her ears. Clean and somewhat renewed, she reached for her book again, only to find it gone.

“Can I have my book back?”

Silence.

“Book, please.”

A creak of a door. Nesta felt her dread mounting as the House flicked the faelights on in the hallway. “I don’t want to leave.”

The door opened wider. Unmoved, Nesta hunkered back down in her chair. Why hadn’t it been this hard in the ward? Her teeth ached, and she couldn’t stop thinking about wine. Her head ached, too, though not with the same ferocity on her first night sober, when her skull felt like the clanging of steel on a battlefield, her body awash in sweat.

Memories reared, unbidden. The mud of the wood was thick under her boots, and she was running panting sprinting, her father’s eyes shining shining for her, snap of his neck, smile fading on his face, Elain so feral and vicious and blood hot on Nesta’s hands, spurting in her eyes, her mouth-

One of the windows flew open, a great gust of wind sweeping through the room, kicking up her skirts. She rushed to shut it, but the latch wouldn’t close no matter how she wrestled with it. The window banged open again, the wind nudging her towards the door.

“Fine! Have it your way then. I guess it doesn’t matter which room I’m miserable in.”

With a defiant sniff, Nesta stalked down the hall, the circles of faelight guiding her way like stepping stones toward the small, private library.

It was a gorgeous room, even she could admit, the walls completely covered in row after row of books with golden inlays glinting off their spines, furniture arranged for both privacy and conversation. The shelves framed a ceiling-height window with a resplendent view of the city below, the Sidra a jeweled snake weaving through the streets to meet the sea. Nesta settled herself on the sofa farthest from the fire, the blue velvet soft as a lamb’s ear under her fingers.

“Now may I have my book back?”

The book dropped onto the cushion beside her, place still dutifully marked.

“And something to drink?”

The House set down another teacup, but she didn’t want tea.

One glass, she thought, to take the edge off. It was nearing dinnertime, and who knew what manner of stragglers would make their way up here tonight, from whom she’d have to fend off thinly-veiled attacks - Amren, preening Morrigan or, fate forbid, her sister’s insufferable husband would be torture. She hadn’t even thought to ask before, a gross oversight given her weakened position.

“I mean something to drink ,” she said, waving away the teacup. Because it was useless, she realized, there was no point fighting the inevitable, she just had to learn to control herself, that’s all, now she knew her limits, just one wouldn’t hurt and she needed this, in her bones, in her staticky brain.

The teacup filled with tea. She rose with a sound of indignation, shouted at the ceiling, “Give me wine!”

Now now now now-

“It won’t listen to that one, I’m afraid.”

Nesta balked as she turned and saw Azriel leaning in the doorway, a stack of papers under one arm, siphons winking through the shadows whirling about his chest. With a growing nausea, she remembered the shadowsinger’s penchant for moving silently, vowing to be more careful going forward. She felt her body meld into a long familiar posture, one that had protected her through the viscous scrutiny of the marriage market.

“I was testing it,” she said tartly, as if any thought to the contrary were egregious.

Azriel’s huge wings rustled, but he remained in the doorway, expressionless. “And did it pass?”

She wavered. What was he playing at? She expected a scolding, a threat to tell Daddy Rhysand, and instead was getting.. whatever this was. The brooding Illyrian confused her at the best of times, but from his indifference it appeared he wasn’t keen on playing chaperone, self-appointed or otherwise.

“I’m not sure yet.”

He strolled into the library, dropped the stack of papers on the coffee table before claiming an armchair closer to the hearth. Nesta flinched as fire burst to life in the grate, and awaited his response. She remembered the cane’s sharp wrap when she missed a dance step, the stinging correction on the back of her thighs. Azriel was still watching her, something unreadable in his eyes. The fire banked to smoldering embers.

“Well, let me know when you hand down your ruling,” he said and, with an air of finality, turned to his work.

They read in companionable silence for a time, the only sounds the shuffling of pages and tap of Azriel’s pen, the occasional gust of wind rattling the high windows. She could admit it was nice to not be alone, though she felt his analyzing glances at times, like spiders on her skin. The craving ebbed from its peak and became a dull throb, invading the sentences of her book every now and then with a sharp stab of wanting. When the sky turned overcast, the shadowsinger collected his papers and stood, wordless.

“It passed. I think.” Nesta didn’t look up from her book, but felt him pause, heard the amusem*nt in his reply.

“I’m glad to hear that. Though I’d be happy to listen to any later appeals of your decision. I have some experience in the area.”

She glanced up then to find him smiling softly, a knowing sort of look about him. Shame burned through her as she thought of what he must see when he looked at her, the nakedness overwhelming. She could’ve been a little girl again, her mother pinching at her arm and slapping her abdomen to make her stand up straight, evaluating. No words could fight their way through the hard lump now in her throat, so she just held his gaze and tried not to slouch.

But Azriel only gave a responding dip of his head, and disappeared into the hall. Alone, Nesta read the same page over and over in the gathering dark of a fast-approaching storm.

—

A boom of wings outside soon drew her upstairs, abandoning her book to head toward the great room with its dining table and that long, resplendent balcony. Rounding the corner, she half-hoped to see Cassian, though not quite sure why, but was greeted with the most unwelcome sight of him .

Rhysand.

“Hello, Nesta.” His voice was kind but his body remained on alert, braced back on one foot as if ready to spring forward at any moment. It gave her a small thrill, to know he feared her, or at least that part of her stolen from the Cauldron, the power Amren said that surpassed even him.

“High Lord,” she replied, willing propriety into her movements once again. Her sister’s husband was a predator; weakness was unacceptable in his presence. Her body felt waxy and liable to melt. “To what do I owe the.. pleasure?”

“I came to meet with Cassian, but I’d hoped to see how you’re settling in.” For Feyre, she heard in the silence that lingered after. For her sister, who he wanted around her as little as possible. Feyre had said as much that morning, when they walked up from the ward together. ‘I don’t know how often I can come up here, Rhys wants me to rest.’ Nesta’s eye roll had nearly tilted the world.

Before, right after the war, Rhysand offered her empty titles and an immodest sum to help her ‘get established’, by which he really meant ‘shut up and do something normal’. Nesta accepted the money gladly before he cut her off, though more out of spite than familial affection. These brutes brought their war to her doorstep and destroyed her home, destroyed her body, her sisters’ bodies. Killed her father. She was owed much more than rent.

“I’m well, as you can see for yourself.”

“Good. I’m glad,” he said stiffly. She felt a perverse pleasure watching his skin crawl, that burden of awkwardness his alone to bear. She certainly had nothing more to say, and she wasn’t about to rest on social graces to make things easier for him.

“I hope you know,” he said, with an air of false closeness sugary with disdain, “we want you to be involved. With the child.”

Nesta’s lip curled, her smile nasty. “Thank you for your permission to be in my sister’s life. One that I was in long before you, and will remain in once you’re gone.”

Rhysand reared back as if struck, opened his mouth to retort when a gust of wind rushed through the balcony doors.

Cassian brought the storm with him as he stalked inside, hair snarled and something wild-looking about him, as if his body was formed from the driving wind and rumbles of thunder rolling through the rain-fat clouds. She’d never seen his wings droop like that except during the war. Outside, it began to sprinkle on the balcony, painting the red stone dark as blood. He barely glanced at her before addressing the High Lord.

“We have a problem.”

“The hunters?” Rhysand threw her another dark look, and she knew he’d try to get back at her later.

“It’s..” Cassian paused, as if summoning the will were a challenge. “Things got weird. I’ll show you.”

Nesta was tempted to ask whether she was supposed to be here, but wouldn’t give Rhysand the satisfaction of dismissing her. Without warning, an image flashed into her mind of an Illyrian female, her body stiff, clawed prints emerging from beneath her. And then a horrid wound, Cassian’s siphon-backed hand recoiling at the opening in her chest, the cuts straight.

Nesta returned to herself, shaken. She saw Cassian’s eyes refocus, his face grim as he found her at last. He at least had the decency to look apologetic. The High Lord picked lint off his black tunic. “I’ve never seen tracks like those before. And it was just the one, you didn’t find any others?”

“What happened to her?” Nesta interrupted, couldn’t help the question. It was baffling he focused on the tracks and not the woman.

“You saw that?” Rhysand asked, perplexed.

“Of course, you showed it to me.”

He didn’t respond, but continued to study her. Cassian sighed and rotated one of his shoulders, working out a kink.

“I don’t know,” he answered her, “The Lord of Bloodstone dispatched a unit to collect the remains. We’ll have to find out who she is, first. And there’s more.” Cassian addressed the High Lord again, all general. She saw his wings tense as if he’d flexed them where they met his back. “I got a tip about rebels moving in Windhaven. Signs point to -”

“- Kallon,” Rhys finished as though expecting it, and paced toward the window, elegant as an adder. He looked like part of the storm, with his night-dark hair and that shimmering veil always about him. “Maybe Amren is right. We could just kill him and be done with it.”

“You are unbelievable.” Nesta felt the torch of her anger flare, tried to ignore the frost limning the windows. She saw Cassian step toward her as dark power rumbled in response, then change his mind and tuck his arms behind him, laughably docile. Reflected in the glass, Rhysand’s violet eyes were pools of poison, brewed just for her.

“Don’t speak on things you don’t understand.”

“I understand plenty, my lord , ” Nesta sneered. Ice fractaled down the panes, jagged as the lightning, as the nails pressing into her palms. “I understand you aim to solve a problem with the very thing creating it. Or have you not yet finished waging war?” The killing, the killing, the endless killing - was there no bottom to it? No end through which the means were finally justified? Cassian began to say something but Rhysand scoffed, looking her up and down.

“Only one of us has failed to move on from the war, Nesta Archeron, and it is not me.”

–

The rain was coming down in sheets now, so that looking out the windows Nesta felt like she was underwater. She hadn’t spoken another word after Rhysand’s remark, only turned and made her way to her room on leaden legs. Heard Cassian shout and the balcony doors close with a shudder. Collapsed sideways on the bed and stared out the window, dumbstruck with the need to feel nothing at all. Ignored Cassian knocking on her door, ignored him again. And again. He didn’t need to see her to know she was still alive.

How Rhysand had spoken to her. The pity. It was more than she could bear. She wanted a drink like never before.

Nesta drifted into a fitful sleep, the rain a river rushing down the mountain and she was thrust feet first into that spring of icy flames, strong hands gripped her arms and dragged her onto the shore, gasping, spluttering, and the female was clutching her, begging in a tongue she didn’t know, didn’t understand, a gaping wound at her chest, begging, pleading, and where was her heart? Her heart? Where was her heart?

—

Cassian

Cassian was glad to find Azriel still awake, studying a chart of complex runes, when he wandered into their shared study. A sour mood was weathered worse alone. He collapsed in his usual chair, not caring that his bath-wet hair dripped on the worn leather and down his back.

Rhys had been unmoved by Cassian’s demands to apologize, going so far as to cut off the connection they shared mind-to-mind, and Nesta wouldn’t respond the three times he’d knocked on her door. This day was f*cked. He took the offered rocks glass of Autumn Court whiskey from Azriel with a sigh.

“Long day?”

“You have no idea.”

He stretched his long legs before the fire and sighed again, as if by doing so he could expel whatever curse plagued him. He gave Az the short version as they watched the fire burn down, of Bloodstone, the female, Emerie’s warning. The shadowsinger’s expression remained placid until Cassian shared the graffitied message, when he sucked in a sharp breath.

“I guess we should be grateful it’s only this so far.” Azriel’s shadows swirled around his chair, the whipping of an angry cat’s tail, his expression dark.

“I’m worried it’s going to get worse.” I’m worried I can’t do anything to stop it.

“Kallon has the moment, though he’s untested. I doubt we’ll have much to worry about after the next Blood Rite.”

Cassian snorted. “I heard he’s a sh*t grappler, too.”

They continued talking in this way for some time, trading miseries and sipping whiskey while the fire burned down. Cassian learned his brother was having no luck on the continent, no idea where Briallyn or the queens even were, let alone what they were planning. The drought of information on all sides left him frustrated, fumbling forward in an unfamiliar, unlit room. He wondered if that was how Nesta felt, searching for a future when none of her past remained.

“Our new roommate seems to be adjusting fine.”

Cassian’s attention snapped from where he’d been staring at the door without meaning to. Azriel was turning his glass back and forth, examining its contents thoughtfully.

“Does she?” He avoided the question inside his brother’s observation: How did it go? Her eyes had been chips of ice when she told him off. His throat felt dry. “It’s so hard to tell with her.”

“Not if you know what to look for.”

Cassian was taken aback by the challenge that sparkled in the shadowsinger’s eyes, that way he’d seen across the training ring all those years ago, when a beautiful, blonde female strolled by as if she owned the world.

They’d talked about it some, here and there. Cassian accepted his brother’s terse explanation and supported his decision not to pursue things with Mor. But if Az was thinking of Nesta..

Before his blood ran thick with killing power, Azriel gave a sly smile, and Cassian realized the shadowsinger was goading him. “You’re really in deep, aren’t you.”

He could only laugh in response, though it was more of a choked sound as he fell forward to rest his forearms on his knees. He was not in deep. He was beneath the ocean.

“f*ck. I don’t think I’m ready for this.”

Because despite the perverse joy he got from living under the same roof again, he still had no idea how to actually help her. The space in his mind that should know what to do was a dark void full of anxieties and desires to cart her off to his cabin and not let her out until she was well again. He scrubbed a hand over his face, wishing for some divine wisdom, f*ck, he’d take a nursery rhyme at this point, if only to know how to keep her safe from herself.

As if in answer, the glass disappeared from his hand, and he glanced up at Azriel to find him too holding only air.

They emerged through Cassian’s room and heard a strange ringing, like the trembling of morning air in the wake of a horn. Below there was a thumping sound, then several, and they took off down the hallway, Azriel unsheathing Truth-Teller and Cassian snagging a shortsword strapped under one of the the low side tables.

As they neared the kitchen, the sounds grew sharper - slamming of cabinets, clattering of silverware, the metallic clang of what could only be the kettle hitting the tile. Azriel came to an abrupt halt in front of him, so that he only caught a glimpse of the wreckage before he barrelled into his brother’s back.

“Where is it?”

Nesta stood shaking in the middle of the kitchen, a wide circle of ice-crusted debris surrounding her, a warrior queen on a frozen battlefield. She was still in the same dress from before. He saw her eyes flash to their lowering weapons, color rising high on her cheeks. Undeterred, she stormed towards them, and Azriel stepped aside so that he found himself within inches of her, staring down into that well of silver fire.

“I can’t ask for it, but I know it’s here. Where,” she snarled. He felt the chill roll off her, warrior calm washing over him as his body registered a threat, even through his confusion.

“Where’s what?”

The vase of flowers on the table, a get-well gift from Elain, shattered as the water froze solid.

“You know what!”

And suddenly he did know what. She was looking for alcohol. Of course the House wouldn’t give her any, it was charmed not to per Rhys’ insistance, but she must know there was a stash somewhere still. And she’d torn apart the kitchen trying to to find it.

Her breath was ragged now, tremors running up and down her arms and legs so that she struggled to stay on her feet. She was unraveling, ice spreading up the walls, and Cassian saw Azriel circle behind her, positioning to contain her if needed. It spurred him into action and he tried to bring her back, speaking as he would to a young recruit their first time getting the wind knocked out of them.

“It’s okay Nes, just breathe. You’re fine. It’ll pass.” His heart constricted as she scowled and stumbled back from him, missed the nearness of her immediately. He moved to touch her, comfort her, but she twisted out of his way again, eyes rolling like a battle-drunk stallion.

Then, without warning, Nesta darted from the kitchen, slipping on the frosty tiles as she skidded around the corner, and made for the ten thousand steps to Velaris. Panicking now, Cassian saw her wrench open the door and reel backwards at the endless spiral down.

“Where are you going?” he called after her, closing the distance as quickly as he dared without scaring her away, Azriel following. Nesta backed away, stricken, ice crackling in the twists of her braid.

“Out,” she mumbled, unseeing. His heart seized again. “I have to get out.”

Just then, the door at the end of the hallway banged open of its own accord, the one leading to the giant library below. He heard Azriel curse, knew it was because he couldn’t winnow in the House, knew what was about to happen before it did.

Nesta looked almost sorry in the moment of suspended time before she ran. Cassian sprinted after her down the stairs and sloped hallway, armor clicking into place across his chest, and for a moment thought they were headed toward the healers ward, but she careened forward into the top floor of the library. His siphons burned so hot, he felt them through his leathers.

“Nesta! Nesta, wait!”

They were racing through the stacks, and he was slipping in the pools of water left by the dripping ice encrusting her body, trying to reach her even as something in his chest tugged him back. The few priestesses still awake shrank back as they dashed by, wide-eyed with fright to see two fully-armored Illyrian warriors barrelling past. His mind churned, and she was scared, she was hurt, she didn’t want to be alive, if he didn’t catch her he might never see her again-

“Hey! Hey, I know you!” There was a flash of red and suddenly someone else was running between him and Azriel, blue robes whirling, calling after Nesta. “Wait! It’s me, Gywn!”

The redheaded priestess broke away and circled around the large reference desk, cutting Nesta off. He saw Azriel falter, his brother dropping back as Cassian caught up to where Nesta was doubled over, panting. He raised a hand to place it on Nesta’s shoulder, but Gwyn glared at him and shook her head. She crouched beside Nesta, so she could see the priestess without moving.

“What do you need?”

“I need to get out.” Nesta’s eyes were squeezed shut, and she rubbed her hands viciously over her face, her arms, ice cracking. “I have to get out of here. I have to get out. Please.”

“Okay.” Gwyn swallowed, something unreadable passing through her. “Okay. I’ll show you. Hold on. It’s going to be okay. Is it alright if I touch you?”

With a testing hand at Nesta’s back, Gwyn led the three of them to a small alcove and through a door he’d never noticed, or that perhaps had never been there before. Nesta was breathing in great heaves, the air fighting to get in and out of her, and Cassian again felt the urge to wrap her in his arms until she stopped shivering. Azriel’s shadows slithered along the walls, probing as the tunnel led them deep into the mountainside, until he felt the whoosh of winnowing and they emerged in an earthen corridor, a single dim faelight stationed at the end.

“It’s just through here,” Gwyn muttered, leaning Nesta against the wall before she heaved open a thick iron door.

Velaris shimmered in the downpour, the city lights bouncing off the wet flagstones of a stoop and the small courtyard beyond. Farther on, the street wound down toward the Palace of Bone and Salt, though he could see the archway was hidden from the outside by a glamour of thick hedges. Pain shot through him when Nesta threw herself across the threshold, her desperation a failing he’d never recover from.

He watched Gwyn lead Nesta to the top step, still covered by the overhang, and guide her to sit, watched her make her breaths loud so Nesta could hear them. Noticed her relax her own shoulders, her hands, work to calm her body to bring Nesta down with her. Gwyn was still murmuring in that low, soothing tone, sitting close enough to Nesta that their arms pressed together, ice retreating. It was quite beautiful, framed as they were by the marble columns and the pounding rain, these females coming back to themselves together. He felt his own heart calm and heard Azriel shift behind him, knocked a wing back into his brother’s shoulder.

“What’s going to happen to her? The female.” Nesta’s face was wet when she looked up at him, searching. He crouched so they were eye level, the way he’d seen Gwyn do, wing casting a shadow over them.

“She’ll be given the final rites and prepared for burial. The ground is too hard to dig right now, so they might keep her somewhere for a while.”

“It’s an Illyrian thing,” Azriel added when she blanched. “It’s normal.”

“And then we’ll try to bring her justice,” Cassian finished softly. Nesta took another great, shuddering breath, and turned to face the storm..

The four of them remained on the stoop for some time, Gwyn on one side of Nesta and Cassian settling on the other at a more respectful distance, Azriel leaning in the doorframe looking contemplative. He kept waiting for her to dart out into the night, but Nesta just took in those slow, even breaths, over and over, stared at the rain washing the world clean. She placed her hand between them at one point and he was desperate to take it in his own, but had enough sense to know this moment was not about that.

None of it was about that, he registered. His grand fantasies of Nesta running into his arms, cracking open her wounded heart for him, of nursing her back to a place where she finally accepted what was between them - they were selfish, childish. Her grief had nothing to do with him, and no amount of love alone could heal it. She’d made her feelings clear, and it was his own inability to see it that was causing him pain. He needed to listen. He needed to let her make her own decisions, even when it came to him. Especially when it came to him.

Cassian didn’t know what she wanted from him, if it was anything at all, but he promised himself - promised her - to accept whatever it was. Was willing to let her go, even if it emptied all meaning from his life and he had to start from the beginning once again.

Nesta startled him by brushing a finger against his own, feather light. The rain wasn’t pounding quite as hard anymore, and he saw the stars begin winking red through gaps in the clouds, a sailor’s sign, though he couldn’t remember what for.

Chapter 7: VI

Chapter Text

Nesta woke exhausted after wandering through that space between dream and memory from the moment she tumbled back into fitful sleep. She could still feel the woman’s fingers clutching her arms, the chill of the spring somehow colder than it had ever been.

They had remained on the stoop long after she stopped shaking, until she realized they were all waiting for her to make the next move. The ironclad part of her forged by her mother balked at such attention, so with a perfunctory nod to Gwyn, she reentered the damp tunnel and traversed back through the mountainside. The Illyrians followed, wordless, their stares heavy on her back as she shuffled down the hall toward her bedroom.

Now the watery sun crept up the walls, and Nesta felt hungover despite not drinking a drop. As she rose, a birchwood fire crackled to life in the hearth and she flinched, burying her face in the downy comforter and trying to breathe. In the dark behind her eyes, she saw her father’s neck snapping, Cassian’s wings crunching, the King of Hybern’s spine groaning as she wrenched his head free from his neck -

A ripple of blankets brought her back, an apology. The fire disappeared.

She dragged herself from bed to bathe, already dreading the task of righting the kitchen from its state of ruin. The House wasn’t picking up after her like before, she’d noticed, as if it knew she needed the distraction of hanging up her damp towels and remaking the bed. But when she emerged a half hour later, the kitchen floor was bare and sparkling clean. Only a twine-wrapped bundle lay on the counter, the bold scrawl on the tag stating her name and its purpose: For sleep.

Nosy bat.

She stormed into the great room, and found him shuffling bleary-eyed through a stack of papers and sipping from a steaming mug.

“Did you do this?”

“Do what?” Cassian asked without looking, and circled a line in the long list he was studying.

“Cleaned the kitchen, gave me this.” She held out the packet.

“Oh, yeah, the tea was me.” He yawned and stretched, scratching at the sliver of skin that appeared beneath the hem of his shirt. “Valerian root. You can drink it at bedtime, if you want. It’ll help you sleep.”

Satisfied, he returned to his work, and Nesta wrestled with her ire that now felt like it had nowhere to go.

Over the next few days, she muscled through her new routine - bathing, breakfast, reading, long walks through the spirals of the library. The smell of books calmed her, the rustle of pages and shuffling of blue-slippered priestesses soothing her frazzled nerves. She half-hoped to run into Gwyn, though whether to say ‘thank you’’ or ‘sorry’ she wasn’t sure. Her body was feeling better, though her mind was still riddled with errant stabs of wanting wine and visions of that female’s missing heart.

Nights were harder, though the tea helped with her dreams, she would give the winged bastard that. He wasn’t avoiding her, she didn’t think, but work kept him and Azriel away frequently enough that she had the place mostly to herself, which suited her fine. The House had taken to warning her when anyone was approaching, flashing a light or rattling a table in case she didn’t want to be found lying face down in the kitchen, letting the tile cool her heated skin.

Feyre finally visited after a week, with an invitation to family dinner at the river estate that evening. Nesta was suspicious immediately. It felt like a test, though she couldn't quite say why, and she would’ve declined if Feyre hadn’t looked so desperate to have her there. Nesta was so caught off-guard, she agreed before realizing what it meant. She chose a dress so blue it was almost black, hoping to blend into the scenery of the manor’s navy-curtained dining room.

There was value in the evening going well, Nesta recognized, an opportunity to earn enough credibility to be left alone once more. There still remained the question of what to do next, but if she could mollify her sister, and her husband by extension, she could at least have room to think. She hadn’t conjured much beyond a vague plan to return to the human lands, or maybe the continent, the images obscured by a thick bank fog in her mind. It struck her that she hadn’t even considered her future in months, perhaps not expecting to have one.

Cassian offered to fly her down and accepted her rejection breezily, though she didn’t miss the way he shot high above the mountainside before sailing toward the city. Her walk from the library toward the setting sun was full of temptation, Velaris beckoning with corners and taverns and bottles to disappear into, and it rattled her enough that she was relieved to arrive at the carved front door of the palatial estate. A brisk wind scattered red-gold leaves across the courtyard, mist from a gurgling fountain settling in the grooves of her braid.

“Nesta, you’re here!”

The room stilled for a moment when Nesta entered, not bothering to knock. She’d wanted to see their unguarded reactions to her, to know what she was up against. Feyre beamed and leapt up from her husband’s lap, took her by the elbow and steered her toward the towering glass doors that opened onto the sprawling gardens Elain tended to. Feeling the scrutiny of the others, Nesta bristled at the way her sister managed her, as though she were a petulant babe who could throw a tantrum at any moment.

“Who invited the witch?” grumbled Amren.

It took all Nesta’s willpower to ignore her and exchange a tight greeting with her brother-in-law, to pretend not to notice Morrigan laying an overfamiliar hand on Cassian’s shoulder where they lounged on one of the low sofas. She watched a cuckoo splash in the fountain outside, its striped belly puffed up against the chill.

“Where’s Elain?” she asked, interrupting Feyre’s chattering about some such fabric for the nursery and a weaver in the Rainbow.

“She’s in the kitchen, did you want to - ?”

Hiding from her, likely. “No, I’ll see her soon.”

Feyre did her best to hide her disappointment; Nesta counted the tassels at the edge of the rug and tried to keep her breathing even. Archeron family dinners had been like business meetings until their ruin, when they became an endless wake for their former selves. This one felt like she was on trial for her life.

Elain at last poked her head into the room, hair piled atop it and secured with a length of blue ribbon, and chirped that dinner was ready.

Nesta chose a seat furthest from the head of the table, across from Azriel, who seemed to share her preference for lying low. She felt eyes on her once more and looked up to find Cassian watching her thoughtfully. He smiled, co*cking his head to the side, but was distracted by Mor insisting she simply must! tell him all about a lead she’d found after their trip to Bloodstone.

Nesta unfolded the napkin in her lap, grateful for the muscle memory of manners to fall back on. Feyre had told her a bit, and Cassian more later on, but watching them fuss at each other, Nesta could still not wrap her mind around it. How an overfamiliar friendship could grow from such a dysfunctional beginning. She knew it haunted him, what they’d done to Mor, knew he held himself responsible, even after all this time. I’ve hurt someone before, he told her once, hazel eyes heavy with regret.

To her relief, dinner conversation was mostly dull, and she was able to keep her head down well through the main course. It was a lot of the High Lord droning about the continent and Illyria and that name again - Kallon - that made the males’ expressions darken and Azriel’s shadows rise behind him like a second set of wings. Feyre attempted to lighten the mood with news of her baby, who was apparently growing and healthy.

“I would drink to that, but we seem to be missing the wine,” Mor drawled, making a show of searching up and down the table. Amren smirked.

“Yes,” said Rhysand, “in solidarity. With Feyre,” he added quickly, though Nesta noticed the gazes sliding her direction. Her blood began to heat. “If she has to refrain, why shouldn’t we?”

“I think it’s nice,” Elain said aside to her, and Nesta nearly dropped her fork in surprise. It was the first time her sister had acknowledged her all evening, despite sitting directly to her left.

“Because it’s more fun, for one, and Feyre doesn’t need us to protect her wholesomeness. Besides, all of us are capable of controlling ourselves - well, almost all of us.” Mor gave a tinkling laugh before draping her arm on the back of Cassian’s chair. Nesta recognized the shot across her bow - Annabeth St. Clair had tried a similar move at the Spring Gala, after Nesta outmaneuvered her with a well-timed swoon. She noticed Azriel stiffen across the table.

“Yes, I seem to recall you being very in control of yourself on the Solstice.” The comment rose unbidden, striking out before she finished a full breath. She didn’t dare look up, preferring to stare at the food she’d been pushing around her plate.

“You mean the Solstice your sister paid you to come to?” Mor was still smiling, but it lacked any of the warmth of her golden hair and skin. Nesta saw Feyre open her mouth before her eyes glazed over in that way that meant her mate was speaking into her mind.

“Hey now,” Cassian interjected, “We’re having a nice time. Elain went to all this trouble. Let’s just relax.”

Mor scowled at Cassian and stabbed at a sprout. “At least I don’t make my family miserable,”

“No, you just trick them into sleeping with you.”

And with that, apparently, Nesta had found the breaking point. Mor shoved her chair back and stomped out of the room at the same time Elain rose in a flurry of periwinkle skirts and offered to get dessert, disappearing into the kitchen. Rhysand dropped his head into one hand, eyes closed as if praying for strength, Feyre stroking a soothing hand along his shoulders.

“Is it your personal quest to make every moment insufferable?” The High Lord stared her down from the head of the table, and Nesta felt her spine lock into place and her chin tilt back. Feyre gripped her husband’s shoulder harder, digging her nails into his skin.

“ Rhysand ,” Feyre warned.

“No, I genuinely want to know. We welcome you into our home, to our table - “

“Back off,” Cassian cut in, his features tight. “I’ll go talk to Mor. And you .” He gave Nesta a pointed look. “Don’t leave yet.”

She glared back at him. Of course they all ran off to defend precious Mor, who was so strong yet somehow needed two grown men at her beck and call. Rhysand watched Cassian go, likely making sure he was out of earshot, before he rounded on Nesta once more. His voice pierced through her like a sewing needle in her thumb.

“I am trying to have patience with you, for my mate’s sake if no one else. But my family is where I draw the f*cking line. Never speak to Mor like that again.”

Nesta gripped the edge of the table, shaking now. “I’m not your child to chastise, nor does my dinner conversation fall under the purview of your authority, my lord. ”

The glass in front of her rattled as the water’s surface froze. Amren’s silver eyes narrowed. “Well done. Looks like you're still no better at controlling yourself.” She pushed back, looking bored. “Don’t waste your breath, Rhysand. We have more important things to settle than old, petty scores.”

As they too left the table, Nesta could have sworn the High Lord’s eyes glittered, and she had the panicked thought that he'd somehow orchestrated this. That he knew omitting the wine would direct Mor’s scorn her way, and that she’d lash out to protect herself. There was no proof of this, but she couldn’t let go of the idea that it was possible, that she could even entertain it at all.

Feyre folded her napkin carefully, a rogue tear dripping down her nose. “Maybe this was a mistake. Maybe it’s all too much.”

“I’ve been telling you that for a year.”

Solemn, Feyre rose with a hand on her belly and departed, leaving only Nesta and Azriel staring at each other across the empty table. He had a haunted sort of look about him, and Nesta was surprised to feel a curl of guilt in her gut. There was a third leg to that cursed triangle, after all.

“I’m sorry, I-”

Azriel waved her off with one hand, pinching the bridge of his nose with the other. “It went as well as it could have.”

Nesta gathered her coat and slipped quietly out the front door, not wanting to deal with the fallout lest she tumble into disarray like that first night in the House. She’d come close to losing it a few times since, but nothing like the blind terror that made her want to escape her own skin. It felt like a part of her was floating away, some final hope for home dissolving into the sky and leaving her hollow. She’d almost made it to the wrought iron gate when heavy steps pounded behind her.

“Nes, wait!”

Cassian caught up to her, panting, wings flaring as he took in her curled shoulders and deadened eyes. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.”

He didn’t believe her, she could tell. Saw it in the way his eyes lingered on her fingertips, still returning to their normal color from where the frost had turned them blue. “I’m sorry, this is my fault. I felt it going too far, I should’ve stopped it.”

Nesta scoffed. “You coddle her, you know. Always cleaning up her messes.”

“I’ve cleaned up a few of yours, too, don’t forget,” he said, though not unkindly. She remembered how his face swam above her at the apartment, through the visions of horror made real in her withdrawal.

“At least I have enough dignity to feel ashamed of it.” Nesta shut her eyes to the truth out there so nakedly, accidental. She still burned with shame at the thought of him taking care of her, for finding her, for dragging her to the ward. For believing he could put the broken pieces of her back together.

“Can you..” His voice was low now, and he was having trouble meeting her eyes. “I know you two don’t get along, you don’t have to. But can you not bring that up? Please? You can give me sh*t for anything else, just.. Not that.”

It surprised her, his vulnerability. She breathed the loamy scent of mulch and tried to steady her racing heart.

“Fine.”

He rested a gentle hand on her shoulder, the siphon atop it pulsing softly. “Good. Thanks.”

The warmth of his hand seeped through her gown and Nesta realized how close together they were standing. Revulsion mixed with longing as she felt the desire to step closer, to forget how mangled her life was and lose herself inside the vast expanse of him. She saw his focus dip to her lips, felt them part unbidden, remembered the long ago brush of his hands on her ribcage. Heard the words he whispered in what should have been his last breaths, and then in the dark of the unadorned night. Saw his face those months ago in the townhouse, wild-eyed and wanting -

“Oh, I’m sorry!” Elain backed down the walkway, blushing and glancing between them, a pink paper box clutched in her hands. Nesta jerked away, as though burned, leaving Cassian’s hand still holding her phantom shoulder before he clenched his fist and unlatched the gate.

“I’ll wait outside. Thanks again, Elain,” he said tersely, leaving Nesta alone with her sister for the first time in months.

“How are you?” Elain seemed nervous, though for what she didn’t know. Nesta shrugged on her coat against the gathering chill, if only to have something to do.

“Managing.”

Elain nodded, the ribbon in her hair bouncing. Nesta saw her gaze dart back to the house. “I think it helps to let go of how life was supposed to be. Everything happens for a reason, you just have to look for the positive.”

Nesta felt her gut roil, betrayal rushing through her at Elain’s words. “Is that what you tell Lucien?”

Elain blinked, stunned, and shoved the box into Nesta’s hands. “You know, it would be easier to care about you if you weren’t so mean.”

“Your sisters love you. I can't for the life of me understand why, but they do.”

Nesta pushed past Cassian outside the gate, ignoring his calls after her, though he had enough sense not to follow. On the street once more, she opened the box and stuffed a single pastry in her mouth before tossing the rest, still chewing bitterly as the glamoured hedge came into view.

—-

Emerging from the earthen corridor, Nesta kept to the outside edge of the library in hopes of making it back unseen. The door to the ward was open when she mounted the stairs and she paused, though not quite sure why, until she recognized that lilting humming drifting out from one of the rooms. Glancing around, she ducked into the hallway and found Gwyn in the first room, braiding a length of colored string tied to her bedpost.

“Oh, hi!” Gwyn beamed, which confused Nesta, and she forgot everything she’d rehearsed on her walks through the library. Gwyn looked up at her expectantly.

“Hello, um. The other night, what you saw. I wasn’t, I didn’t -,” Nesta rubbed her forehead, her hand coming away slick with sweat. “I wanted to say, I mean I wanted to-“

“Thank me?” Gwyn asked brightly.

“Yes. Yes. Thank you.”

Down the hall, the nurse’s cart rumbled. The priestess tip-toed to the door, leaving only a crack, and returned to her braiding. “Of course. Are you feeling better?”

Nesta sank into the chair next to the bed, weariness overwhelming her. “I don’t know,” she confessed. “It seems to change from moment to moment.”

Gwyn laughed. “It tends to do that.”

They sat without speaking for a moment, Gwyn humming and weaving and the medicine cart trundling by. Nesta watched her fingers dance, noticed a tiny spider in the corner of the room swaying back and forth on a silken thread.

“What are doing you here?” she asked after a time. A string slipped, though the priestess caught it deftly.

“I had a backslide.” Gwyn stayed dedicated to her weaving, but there was a tightness about her, and she slowed her pace as if concentrating harder.

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

“It happens.” The priestess sighed. “I have a habit of pushing myself too hard and overdoing it. And going outside the other night didn’t help. I haven’t been outside since I got here.” She peered up at Nesta, not suspicious but curious, searching. “You don’t know, do you? Why I’m here.”

Nesta shifted in her seat - this was veering deeper than she’d hoped. “No, but I have a general idea what kind of people the library serves.”

“I’ll trade you. Tragedy for a tragedy?”

Gwyn looked at her expectantly, and Nesta felt the world narrowing in. Flashes of the evening slipped by her, Amren’s sneer, Rhysand’s malice, Feyre crushed and Elain sparked through with fury. Then the images loomed larger, the cold of the Cauldron biting at her heels, the agonizing unraveling of her body and soul.

“I wouldn’t know where to start,” Nesta said at last. “It feels like if I pull one thread, the whole thing will fall apart.”

“I know what you mean. I was brought here after the sacking of Sangravah. Hybern’s soldiers killed my twin sister and then - ,” Gwyn swallowed, shook her head. “Oh Mother, I think that’s about all I can do for now. Seems I have to push myself to not push myself.”

Nesta remembered hearing of the temples, the priestesses slaughtered and assaulted. It took her a moment to realize Gwyn was watching her again, searching for a reaction. “Sorry, I’m surprised, you seem so..”

“Together?” Gwyn’s grin was wry, knowing. “It works against me sometimes. It’s hard to see from the outside if I’m not doing well.”

Nesta watched her tie off the thread and remove the loop from the bedpost. It resonated with her, the confession, though she wasn’t sure why Gwyn was being so candid. “Why are you telling me all this?”

“Because it helps.” The priestess shrugged, as if it were obvious. “Shame thrives in the dark. When I talk about it, I let in the light.”

She looped the braid around Nesta’s wrist, securing it with a tug. “You don’t have to talk about it, ever. But I don’t think you’d regret it. What have you got to lose?”

Nesta ran a finger over the bracelet, the interwoven threads cascading in geometric spirals of black, blue, and gold. A lot, that’s what she had to lose. Sanity. Dignity. The will to keep trudging forward.

“I’m worried the only way anyone will love me is if I hide who I am.” She spoke barely above a whisper, not wanting the world to hear her pain. Gwyn rested a hand on the arm of her chair.

“What if that’s not true? What would you do differently?”

Nesta didn’t answer, couldn’t. Part of her would give anything to be like Gwyn, fearless in the face of her grief. But it just wasn’t possible.

“I’m sorry,” she said, standing to leave. “If I - thank you for helping me.”

“Don’t mention it,” said Gwyn. “I might have to say no in the future, if I’m not doing well myself.”

“Of course.” The genuine smile felt tight on Nesta’s face, foreign. “I hope I can return the favor.”

Gwyn’s returning grin was a ray of summer sun. “I’d like that.”

—-

Back in the House, Nesta felt the exhaustion deep into her bones, tired in a way that transcended her body and burrowed into her soul. She heard heavy footsteps on the floor above. What would she do differently, if she believed someone could care about her unfiltered? Cassian’s eyes flashed with surprise when she appeared in his bedroom doorway.

“Did you mean it? When you said you don’t understand why my sisters love me?”

“No,” he said at once, as though he’d been prepared for this conversation for months. “I didn’t know if you got my letter, but - no, I didn’t mean it. I was angry, but that’s no excuse. I’m sorry, Nesta.”

She blinked, slowed her breaths. Made herself take in what he’d said. Weighed his words and his actions, those of late and those long ago. “I’m still angry at you.”

His smile was sad, but she saw the spark of hope within him, the desire to take whatever she could throw at him. “I know. I have a lot of making up to do.”

“Staying busy helps,” she said, a peace offering. If he was serious about wanting to help her, perhaps she needed to show him how.

“Oh, I can keep you plenty busy.” He winked, the echo of an old game rebounding between them.

“Cassian.”

His smile grew, his laugh genuine as she rolled her eyes, turning back in the direction of her bedroom, his words following her down the hall.

“Welcome back, Nes.”

Chapter 8: VII

Chapter Text

Boneheaded.

That was the word that rang through Cassian’s mind sitting in the study of the river house a few days later, wondering how his life had become so utterly f*cked. Not only were there stirrings of rebellion, murdered females, unknown creatures on the prowl, but now he was stuck between his uptight, prickly family and the female he was trying desperately not to have feelings for. He’d been an utter idiot to imagine dinner going any way other than horribly.

The morning after, when Nesta disappeared down the stairs for her check-in with the mind healers, he’d gripped his mug so hard it cracked. He wanted to bundle her away where no one could poke at her, where she could piece herself back together without salt gleefully tossed in her wounds. Instead he waited, taking her cues and supporting opportunities for her to stay busy, as she’d told him. Didn’t question it when she pulled down half the books in the library to rearrange them by subject, despite Azriel’s look of confusion as stacks spilled out into the hallway.

The shame still burned when he remembered he’d almost kissed her in the courtyard, when he’d thought for a delusional moment that she wanted him to. But when his attention had narrowed on her parted lips, he’d felt his end of the bond rush forward, grasping at nothing. He’d been almost grateful she’d stormed away, except that he knew she was upset, though he felt pretty impotent in that regard, too.

It was torture.

So he couldn’t completely condemn Rhysand, not really, knowing the pull even an unaccepted mating bond could have. He couldn’t imagine what it would feel like after, and his mind conjured a familiar image of Nesta soft and open beneath him. Cassian let the disgust wash over him at his fantasy, beat the sh*t out of himself for panting after her as she wrestled for stability. What the f*ck was wrong with him?

The giant starmap reflected in Rhys’ eyes as he surveyed his general over steepled fingers, his expression cryptic. Cassian rarely requested one-on-one meetings, preferring to drop in more informally, so he knew his brother would be on guard. He found his body preparing for a fight even as his heart shrank from conflict. He never made a habit of rocking the boat, and now he was about to capsize it.

“We need to talk about Nesta.”

Rhys’ mouth tightened. “Yes, we do. Though I suspect we differ as to why.”

Cassian rolled his eyes, already fed up with the sanctimony. He’d been too angry to talk before now, especially once Azriel filled in the blanks after he’d followed Mor, and wanted things to cool down for everyone’s sake. The meeting request was as much to corner himself as Rhys, otherwise he might be too much of a coward to push back in the ways Nesta needed.

“You have to calm the f*ck down with the ‘I protect my family’ thing,” Cassian said. “Nesta is one of us, whether you like it or not, and she deserves your respect.” His brother’s lip twisted in that way that meant he was feeling defensive, as it had when Cassian confronted him months before about cutting Nesta off financially. Rhys leaned back into the rich leather of his chair.

“I’m simply responding to what she’s presenting me with.”

“Bullsh*t.” Cassian felt the sharp edge in his own voice, the way his siphons pulsed in irritation. “Mor provoked her and you know it.”

Mor had locked herself in one of the many bathrooms by the time he reached her, though he’d heard her breathing hard over the splash of water in the sink. He hated thinking about what happened between them, what they’d done to her, and he knew it cut his friend even deeper. But the fact remained she’d drawn first blood, and everyone was well acquainted with Nesta’s venom when cornered.

“There’s a difference between defending yourself and throwing the worst moment of someone’s life in their face,” Rhys said coolly.

“Amren says worse sh*t all the time and you don’t bat an eye,” Cassian countered. The wood of his chair groaned as he gripped the arms hard. “Why do you always assume the worst of her?”

It didn’t make sense to him, the level of spite Rhys showed toward Nesta. They’d been children in that cottage - couldn’t he forgive her for not being a mother to her own sister? He’d forgiven Cassian for much more, much worse.

Rhys closed his eyes and sighed, long-suffering. “I’m thinking of you as much as anyone else, Cas. Maybe even more.”

Cassian heard the concern in his brother’s voice, and even in his irritation felt the tug of fondness for this male who’d been his first friend. “I’m figuring it out. Trust me to know what I’m doing. And please, at least be civil, or stay the f*ck away from her if you can’t. Even if it means disappointing Feyre.”

The moment drew out between them, tension balanced on a dagger’s edge. Cassian felt a ripple of Rhys’ power lick at him before his brother leashed it and gave him a solemn nod.

“Kallon is unveiling a memorial for the fallen of Ironcrest at the end of the month,” Rhys said, switching to the role of High Lord with practiced grace. “His father is planning to host a number of other camp lords. We’ve been invited to make an appearance.”

He stood and began to pace before the high-arched windows, hands tucked into the pockets of his expertly-tailored trousers. The midmorning sun backlit his figure, casting his troubled expression into shadow.

“He’s woven a clever trap, I’ll give him that,” Rhys continued, pausing to regard a damselfly alighting on the glass. “If we go, we’ll be direct reminders of who sent all those males to their deaths. If we don’t, we’re callous, uncaring leaders who only care when we need them to die on our behalf.”

“So what do we do?” Cassian said, only sort of following. He didn’t get how going would be a bad thing, but then the political game had never been his strong suit. Amren or Mor, hell, even Az would be a better consult in matters like this.

“I haven’t the foggiest,” Rhys conceded, sounding much less concerned than Cassian now felt. He resumed his pacing. “What have you found on Bloodstone?”

Cassian felt his body become heavy as he drew a piece of paper from his pocket. He unfolded it to reveal a list of names he’d compiled, the result of hours poring over camp dispatches after the tip from Mor. Eighteen in total, all females. All missing or murdered.

“I haven’t been able to confirm all of them, but a number report similar chest wounds.” He handed the list to Rhys and watched as he clocked the names of camps spread all over Illyria. “This feels too coordinated to be a coincidence.”

“I’m afraid so.” Rhys shook his head, disgusted. “I reexamined your memory. Her heart was missing.”

Cassian swore, getting to his feet. “I’ll look into it.”

“Cas,” Rhys called after him as he stretched his wings on the veranda, itching to lose himself in the wind. Cassian turned to find his brother still staring at the list with a haunted expression. A flicker of the past stole through his mind, of sweet singing and gentle fingers working the tangles out of his hair. Strong, slender arms lifting him from where he’d fallen asleep on the cabin floor and laying him in bed next to another boy, already snoring softly. “Be careful.”

__

Over the next week, an unseasonably warm stint of weather settled over Velaris, so that instead of turning toward winter the city seemed to revert back to early autumn. They fell into something of a routine in the House, both he and Nesta being early risers, often finishing a wordless breakfast before Azriel stumbled out of bed in the midmorning. He and Az had an unspoken policy of giving each other space, but making themselves available if they were up for company. To Cassian’s delight, several nights found the three of them in comfortable silence in the library, the shadowsinger arriving later and Nesta leaving early. He felt his brother’s heavy stares on him when he watched her go, seeing right through him.

He saw her interest pique one evening when Az picked up the deck of cards Cassian kept on the side table, and she even played a few rounds, bowing out once she’d bested the two of them four times in a row. It was after one of those victories he heard her laugh for the first time in a year. His heart kicked in his chest at the sound, proof that some part of her was coming back alive, validated in his choice to believe her when she told him staying busy helped.

So he hoped it wasn’t weird when he asked her the next morning to come to Bloodstone with him. Hoped they’d reached that level of okayness with each other. She frowned at him, confused, as he scraped his hair back and secured it in a knot.

“Why would I go to Illyria?”

“The ground has thawed enough, so they’re burying the female we found in the forest. I don’t know if you’re up for that, but you can come, if you’d like.” He saw her eyes flicker and she shuddered a little, as if also remembering that awful wound. It passed in an instant, her shoulders pulling back as she looked him up and down.

“I suppose you’ll have to carry me, won’t you?”

“On the way back, at least. Az is taking me there.” He tried to stifle the groan of appreciation as he stretched his wings wide, casting a great shadow over the balcony. It had been a while since he’d had a decently long flight, and his wings were aching to be pushed. She narrowed her eyes at him, calculating something he couldn’t decipher, then gave a sharp nod.

“I’ll get my coat.”

Cassian let out his held breath as she disappeared into the hall. Turning to face the city, he started when he saw Azriel blending out of the shadows in the corner of the balcony. Despite his usual stoic expression, from the quiver at the corner of his mouth Cassian could tell his brother was working hard to stifle a laugh.

“What was that?” the shadowsinger asked. Cassian fought his answering grin, clipping on his pack and securing it with a tug.

“Nothing.”

“Well, tell Nothing she needs a warmer coat.”

Nesta strode back into the great room just then, her threadbare blue coat looped over her arm, and passed through the open glass door to where they waited for her. Cassian barely heard Azriel’s snicker as they twisted through the in-between. His feet landed in the mud, the acrid smell of iron and flames bringing his mounting hope to a withering end.

—

The males either stared in awe or spit in their path as they passed through the camp on the way to the grassy outcrop overlooking the gray-capped sea. The bluff was high and windy, a large group of females and one or two males huddled around the small grave dotted between dozens of others, a shrouded body beside it. The white linen was marked with runes and designs similar to the tattoos on Cassian’s arms and chest, though rougher, drawn with the tip of a finger daubed in blue-black ink.

They remained a polite distance away, not wanting to disturb the female’s loved ones by causing too much of a scene. Cassian tucked his wings in and stepped closer to Nesta where they stood, hoping to block her back from the wind. An older female draped in thick furs and strands of pure, white shells approached the body and began speaking in Illyrian, a wooden staff held high. Despite most speaking the Common Tongue, their native language was still used on occasions like this. Cassian leaned down to translate into Nesta’s ear what he could hear over the roar of the sea.

“That’s called the fe.” He indicated to the long elderwood stick the female was now laying flat. “She’s measuring the body to make sure it can pass into the Otherworld. There’s a superstition that if you look at it directly, your death becomes fated because it’s already measured you.”

He felt her tremble and was struck with a pang of guilt that perhaps this was too much for her, that it was irresponsible of him to expose her to it. As far as he knew, the last funeral she’d been to was her father’s. But she dipped her head toward where the younger females gathered and tucked small tokens and sprigs of herbs into their fallen friend’s shroud, indicating him to continue.

“They give her things for the journey, typically personal stuff, and yarrow and rosemary for healing and protection.”

He kept murmuring in her ear as they lay the body in the grave and covered it with a thatch of yew twigs, to protect the spirit from any who would do it harm, he explained. She shifted closer, though leaning toward the warmth of his body or the anchor of his voice he couldn’t tell. She was shivering by the time the ceremony ended, when they trudged back through the camp for a more favorable position to take off for home. Grumbles followed them, though they kept to the outside edge of the settlement.

“What happens once she makes it through the Otherworld?” Nesta asked, her first words since she’d taken in the sprawl of tents and fires upon landing.

“She’ll come back as something else, like we all do.” His people’s belief in reincarnation had always calmed Cassian, the reassurance that those he loved were never truly gone, even if the rational side of him assumed death was a big nothing. It was nice to imagine part of himself returning as a river otter or a vine of honeysuckle. In this lifetime his body was a weapon, but perhaps in the next one it could be an instrument of pleasure or comfort instead of pain.

“What if you don’t want to come back?” Nesta asked, quieter this time - Cassian didn’t know what to say and so said nothing, though his worry spiked hot and fierce in his stomach. She seemed to redirect her thoughts and take in the camp again, chin raised in defiance against the predatory gazes following her every move. Cassian’s fingers itched the grasp the dagger holstered at his waist, but he forced himself to relax his shoulders back and down.

“What will happen? To whoever did this to her.” Her face was hard and blazing from the side when he glanced over, her blue-gray eyes watering in the harsh wind. He led her with measured steps towards the forest’s edge, where the trees would provide enough cover to avoid being buffeted about when they took to the skies.

“If we find him, he’ll be executed,” Cassian answered, pausing to look back at her where she’d halted. “But that’s if nobody else takes care of him first.”

Nesta held him with that bottomless stare, a flicker of silver dancing across her eyes. “What will that achieve?”

“Justice,” he said simply, her nose wrinkling at the word. “Vengeance.”

“Vengeance is a fantasy.”

He saw the frost start to cling to her hair, remembered her hollow eyes as she wrenched the King of Hyberns head from his neck. He continued toward the treeline from where they’d paused, not daring to check if she was following. “Then hopefully justice isn’t. You can’t tear out someone’s heart and walk away clean.”

“What?”

“Rhys reviewed my memory again,” he called over his shoulder. “The female’s heart was missing. Are you okay?”

When he turned, Nesta was swaying, her face ashen. She breathed hard through her nose and seemed to refocus herself. “I’m fine.”

He continued to study her, noting the trembling of her fingertips before she tucked her hands in the pockets of her too-thin coat. His heart twisted as he gambled whether to tell her all he knew, opting for just shy of the truth. “Mor found - don’t make that face - found a report of a female missing near Windhaven. I have to drop something off there anyway. Would you like to come?”

Her eyes flashed again, and knew what her answer would be before he’d finished the question. As Bloodstone fell away beneath them, Cassian decided to place his trust in her as much as she did when she let him cradle her to his body. It seemed important to her to follow this through, though he wasn’t quite sure why, and he felt uneasy not knowing what was going on in her head. But she was determined, and if he knew anything, it was that he’d rather be reborn as Amren’s poor, misused toilet than get between Nesta Archeron and whatever she set out to accomplish.

—

“Ooh, these are nice. What do I owe you?”

Emerie marveled as she turned the tools over, pressing her thumb lightly against the bright steel blade of the hatchet and the tiny teeth of the frame saw. Cassian waved her off, but the female huffed and crossed her arms over her chest, not backing down. He glanced over to where Nesta was trailing her fingers across a basket of undyed skeins of yarn, her other arm tucked about her waist to conserve heat. Despite shielding her from the wind with his siphons, the flight had still been cold. “My friend could use some warmer clothes.”

Nesta glared at him from across the shop but relented without too much of a fight, to his surprise. After some debate and guidance from Emerie on sizing, she selected a long coat of dove gray wool, lined at the collar and wrists with thick white fur. Cassian watched her puzzle over the Illyrian cut, not sure where to begin.

“Here, let me show you.”

His surprise mounted when she allowed him to demonstrate where to thread through her head and arms, the heavy fabric draping over her chest and back well past her knees. He heard the tiniest catch of her breath as he pulled the side panels around her ribcage, tying them in place over her stomach with a quick tug.

“Oh, I see,” she breathed, licking her lips. “For the wings.”

The air crackled between them, and Cassian drew his hands away, sheepish. He forced himself to drag his gaze from hers, towards where Emerie was smirking at them across the counter. “Your friend, huh?”

Nesta rolled her eyes and jerked her wrist out of his grasp where he’d started doing up the buttons on the cuff. “He wishes. I’m doubtful those wings are enough to get his fat head off the ground.”

Emerie laughed. “Well, you know what they say about wingspans.”

Even through his chagrin, Cassian felt a rush of affection as he watched Nesta ease into conversation with Emerie about her store, books, the inadequacy of males in general. She seemed less shaky after their flight, despite the proximity, and it encouraged him to see these flashes of her old self. He let them chat as long as he dared, one eye on the males sneering at them through the shop window, the other on the pink flush returning to her warmed cheeks. When their talk turned to how the Illyrians were adjusting after the war, Cassian sidled up to the counter to lean next to Nesta.

“It seems absurd they have nothing to fall back on,” Nesta was saying of the females who’d lost husbands and sons. “You support someone your whole life, and then when they die you’re just.. discarded?”

“A tale as Illyrian as the wind, I’m afraid,” Emerie responded grimly. “Though what’s more absurd is the Night Court’s belief that training us to fight is somehow the best solution. No offense,” she added quickly to Cassian, who grimaced. She was right - Rhys and his misguided push to arm the females had ultimately caused more sh*t that it solved. He was still searching for ways to empower them that didn’t make them an immediate target.

“What have you heard of the memorial at Ironcrest?” he asked Emerie, who seemed glad for the change of subject, though her smile was tinged at the edge with her characteristic wariness.

“Of Kallon, I assume. Not much, outside the usual. I mean, you know what they say about his family.” Her wings rustled, and she interpreted the blank look on his face correctly when she explained further, “There have always been rumors around his birth. His mother is the Lord’s fourth wife. Apparently none before her were able to produce a son.”

Cassian noticed Nesta had gone still beside him, mind clicking, though she picked up a jar of bruise salve and examined it as though she weren’t listening. “Meaning..?”

“I’m only telling you what I’ve heard,” Emerie continued. “And you know how people talk. But the belief is the Lord resorted to blood magic to secure an heir.”

Hot dread sluiced down Cassian’s spine and spread through his veins. Blood magic was as old as Ramiel, and incredibly taboo in Illyria. Legends told of rituals using flesh and bone to pervert the course of nature, the rewards often coming at a devastating cost. If the Lord of Ironcrest wanted a son badly enough, he could get one. For a price.

And maybe that son was stupid enough to follow in his father’s footsteps, especially if it meant avenging his land and his people against the rulers who sent them to their deaths.

—

Cassian was only half paying attention as they picked through the woods a half hour later, having left Emerie with his thanks and a vow to divert some quality white oak to her doorstep next chance he got. Nesta followed up with a promise of a future book exchange, given their apparent similarities in taste, and he was pleased the two females had taken a shine to each other. Nesta looked lighter than she had in weeks, face upturned to the weak sun, the wind tugging at the golden brown ribbons of her hair fallen loose from her simple braid. He caught her examining a cluster of blue and white speckled mushrooms and told her their name and what he could remember about their use in traditional Illyrian medicine.

He continued to point out different plants and animal tracks as they wound deeper into the wood, following the last known foraging path of the missing female. He could tell she was tucking away every piece of information, and was reminded of why he’d been drawn to her in the first place: Nesta was smart. She wielded her intellect with more skill than he did his blades, and Cassian always felt a little dazzled when she offered him a glimpse into that whirring mind. And as much as he hated to admit it given the circ*mstances, it was sexy as f*ck.

“You’re from here,” she said suddenly, hopping down from a log with practiced grace and ignoring his offered hand. It wasn’t a question so much as an observation, an acknowledgement of the land and what it meant to him.

“Yeah,” he replied, and then without knowing quite why, added, “I used to be here much more before Rhys was captured, when we were all stuck in Velaris.” He tamped down on a shudder at his brother’s frantic final words, all the nights with Mor and Azriel agonizing over finding a way back to him before collapsing in an exhausted heap in whoever’s bed was closest. A squirrel chittered high in the pines, the gathering hush of the forest muffling the sounds of their footsteps.

Nesta must’ve seen the ghosts running through his mind, though she pressed on. “Does it bother you?”

There were too many ways to answer that question, and Cassian could tell she was being deliberately vague to allow him whatever depth he was comfortable with. Yes, it bothered him that Rhys made decisions for all of them, that his brother was addicted to self-sacrifice no matter how hard they begged him to let them in. It sure as f*ck bothered him that his homeland was in ruins, and his own people saw him as an enemy. That he was utterly impotent to help any of them.

A flash of steel in the underbrush caught his attention before he could answer, and he pawed through the dirt until the jagged saw blade pulled free from the forest floor. The edge was dark with rust, or maybe blood, and there - a deep track beside it, the creature’s claws wide and sharp where they dug into the moss.

“I think this is it,” he murmured, his mind thrumming with intent and nerves. The breeze stilled around him, as if the woods were holding in a deep breath - the saw blade glinted in his hand, the metal seeming to dance and shimmer from some inner light. “What the f*ck?”

Cassian rose, torn between the opportunity for more information and possibly putting Nesta in harm’s way. Only Nesta could not see him from where she stood in the middle of a bright light, a diamond of silver flames sketched on the forest floor around her, thick frost enveloping her body and encasing her in ice.

Chapter 9: VIII

Chapter Text

The figure darted into the misty wood, and Nesta gave chase without thinking, dragging her feet from the fiery spring and clawing her way up the bank. Dirt like ash crumbled beneath her fingers, the roar of a great waterfall sounding close off. Nesta saw the female’s wings tangle in a dense thicket, but she did not slow, did not even seem to notice her surroundings as she crashed through the underbrush.

The blackened forest was silent save for the rush of the falls and Nesta’s own heaving breaths, no birds to cry out nor leaves to rustle. The trees loomed like great, burnt-out husks, utterly lifeless yet watchful, waiting. That same ashy dirt settled over everything, and Nesta felt her body throb with stolen power.

When Cassian knelt in the clearing, she’d seen the female careening through the trees, no more than a flicker, and felt that icy river from her dreams kiss her feet before she could even cry out. Here, the world beyond felt half-formed and murky, objects appearing and reappearing, shifting in size against the pale horizon. She couldn’t stop to think too hard about what was happening, didn’t want to call out for fear of waking whatever might prowl in this.. in-between. This dream that was not one, that maybe never had been.

She pushed through the bramble as quickly as she dared, followed the sounds of the female sobbing out words she didn’t understand. The well of power within her surged and Nesta doubled over, fighting the urge to retch. The searing press of it reminded her of the Cauldron, though instead of drowning the depths were inside her, and she felt the power begging to come up and out. Frost gathered on the trees around her, crackling in the divots of the wood.

“Helpah fi!”

The female swam into view and Nesta ran toward her, the carpet of ash deadening the pounding of her steps. The female turned, staring blankly, silver flames alight behind her eyes and a dark wound in the center of her chest.

“Lle mae fy nghalon? Pwy sydd wedi dwyn fy nghalon?”

Nesta felt her breath falter, and she halted as the phantom stepped closer and reached out a hand. A dull ringing sound filled her ears. “I can’t understand you.”

“Oleanna, os gwelwch yn dda achub fy enaid,” the female moaned. Ash rose in a cloud where she dropped to her knees at the same moment a great wind kicked up her ragged skirts and tore through the wood.

Nesta jumped, and the spring appeared beside her once more, as if the wind had turned the world beneath them. She noticed something glinting on the bank, gold in a sea of silver. Fear gave way to deep, ardent curiosity when her vision pulsed, a ripple of energy centering on where the object was half-nestled in the ash.

With tentative steps toward the shoreline, skirting the female now crying softly, Nesta brushed away the dirt to reveal a mask, ornate and golden, inscribed with runes that morphed and danced across its surface. It was beautiful, the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen, and the power purred within her when she gripped it in two hands and thought, This belongs to me.

The moment the cool metal kissed her face Nesta felt herself calm, the Cauldron’s power smoothing into something more docile, more hers. It was intoxicating, after holding that leash so tightly for so long, and she fought the hysterical laugh that threatened to bubble forth. She realized could make out some of the female’s mumbling now, scaled the bank as delicately as she could and approached the female from the front.

“What’s wrong?”

“I can’t find it. I can’t find the river,” the female said. Her brittle wings shook with her sobs.

“It’s right there. Do you see it?” Nesta pointed to her left, but the female shook her head and cried harder. Nesta knelt beside her, laying a tentative hand on her shoulder.

“Tell me what happened to you.”

“He took my soul.”

A clear, pure note rang through the wasteland, shaking the trees so they shed their ash in gray waves. The female hunched over, stricken, and grabbed Nesta’s arm, her touch so cold it burned. “He’s coming. Do you hear that? He’s coming.”

The female shoved to her feet and swayed with delirium, tearing off into the wood before Nesta could think to ask what it all meant. The mask dropped from her face with a thud and she felt her power leap, that well inside her churning and churning, and the rush of the spring became impossibly louder as the ground began to vibrate. Nesta pushed against the surge within, pushed with her hand against the dense bank of mist gathering before her, groping, back and back and up and up and up -

—

A warm body was upon her before she could register what was happening, arms like iron hugging her tight as crystals of ice sprinkled down upon the forest floor. Nesta saw a flash of red in the corner of her eye and remembered - she was in Illyria, she was with Cassian. She felt his shuddering breath in her neck, hot against her frozen skin.

“Thank the Mother. Nes, gods -” he gasped, pulling back and smoothing her hair. “Are you okay? What the f*ck happened!?”

“I was dreaming,” she said, and watched the confusion bloom on his face before taking in the scene around her.

They knelt in a mossy patch in the clearing, a diamond of ground beneath them withered and decayed, as if all life had been leached from the soil. The sparrows overhead cried out their alarm, skittering about nervously from the wrongness they sensed below, this death come to visit the land of the living. The fur of her new coat was growing damp where it brushed her chin, and Nesta shivered. Cassian drew her close again and ran his hands up and down her arms and back, trying to brush off what now-melting ice he could.

“We have to call Rhys,” he said at last, as if he knew she’d be unhappy to hear it. He was right - Nesta jerked back, rigid.

“No.”

“I know you don’t want to see him, but I don’t know who else will know what the f*ck to do.”

That accusation in his words had her snarling, intent on protecting herself and reestablishing some sort of control in whatever this was, whatever was happening to her.

“What to do with me, you mean?” Her flare of anger brought the crushing grip of craving, and her mind immediately cascaded into feverish planning of how to get away, how to find enough alcohol to tamp that wretched power down before they could use this against her. “Will you threaten me with that awful Prison as Amren has?”

We should lock you up, girl, before you destroy us all.

“Amren did what?”

She pushed away the memories of those months training, the ache of failure almost as painful as the devastation on Cassian’s face. She flung her elbows out, shrugging him off. “Let go of me.”

“Nes,” Cassian pleaded, drawing his hands back to give her space and she continued to brace herself, breathing hard through her nose. “I’m not scared of you, I’m scared for you.”

His words sank in, and she noticed him flexing his fingers to work the blood back into them, shaking from the cold still rolling off of her. He was not repulsed; he was worried. She could see his inner conflict in the way his hazel eyes clouded and became heavy, how his desire to keep the peace sparred with his deep sense of devotion and care. How he wanted her to be free but also safe, like he had back at her apartment. The thought softened her terrifyingly, but somehow filled her with courage enough to let him see her fear.

He must’ve noted the shift in her, because Cassian gathered her back to him, his large palm cradling her head against his shoulder. She felt her tight muscles begin to unclench, her breathing begin to slow and the craving ebbed, as though his body were a haven where her pain could find respite.

“Just give me a minute,” she mumbled into his leathers, battling the shame that threatened to crawl up her throat. The sparrows had stilled above, their chirrups lower and more sedate. “I know we have to tell someone, and it likely has to be a person who hates me. So I need a moment to prepare myself for that.”

“Okay,” he agreed, a thumb brushing her ribcage in gentle strokes. “Let me know when you’re ready.”

And there it was, that unwavering presence that unraveled all her reasons for staying hidden, that made her believe she could reconcile with her sisters and be sober and maybe even allow someone to see the huge swirl of emotion that raged within her. She let the wave of feeling wash over her, the terror, the shame, stayed tucked up into his chest as she rode it out. He smelled like mountain air and woodsmoke when she breathed in deeply, releasing the effort of ignoring the barrage of sensation her new body was capable of. Her attention narrowed down to the subtle creak of his leathers, the brush of his dark hair against her cheek, and for a moment it could all be quiet and okay.

Cassian pulled back when she began to shiver in earnest, her coat now soaked through with melted ice, but made no comment. He hesitated when she told him to call the High Lord, ran a rough hand over his face before standing with a sense of purpose, warrior strength straightening his spine.

Rhysand appeared in the clearing moments later in a wave of dark energy, his raven hair more ruffled than she’d ever seen it. He began surveying the scene at once, casting a cursory glance at the patch of dust beneath Nesta’s feet. “Tell me what happened.”

“I found this,” Cassian said, producing a saw blade from his pocket. He seemed to be choosing his next words carefully. “And then Nesta was.. She froze.”

“May I see?” Rhysand’s tone was even but there was something on edge about him, like a nervousness he was trying to suppress. Images flashed across Nesta’s mind - the unearthed blade, a reflection of silver light. Then she saw herself through Cassian’s eyes, the barrier of flame circling her body where it froze mid-step. Saw him rush toward her, shouting, blasting with his siphons and trying to throw himself through the flames. His eyes were fixed on the forest floor when they returned to the present. Rhysand watched her thoughtfully.

“Did you see that as well?” he said. Nesta nodded, wordless. Rhysand nodded back, as if her answer confirmed something he’d suspected. “May I see your memory?”

Nesta cringed at the gentle press of him inside her thoughts, the soft pop like a needle breaking through leather. She returned to the spring, though her fingers stayed warm as she took them along in the chase for the female, and when she put on the mask she felt Rhysand’s presence buck in her mind, struggling like it was trying to extract itself. Once the female ran from her the second time, the clearing swam back into view, along with the two stony faces staring back.

“I’ve been worried about this.” Rhysand gritted his teeth and began pacing. His night-dark power blanketed the moss in his wake. “I’ll contact the others and send someone to sweep for any other evidence. We need to talk about this. Now.”

Nesta felt her mouth go dry, and her breathing kicked up as frost began to sparkle at the tips of her fingers.

“You’re not in trouble.” Cassian’s voice was low, just for her. She felt his warm hand on the small of her back and, against the screaming panic in her head, leaned further into the anchor of his touch.

—

Everything happened very rapidly after that - Rhysand summoned Nuala and Cerridwen to investigate the clearing, the wraiths oozing out of the dark split in a tree before he winnowed the three of them back to Velaris. It was dark by the time Feyre rushed to meet them at the gates of the river house, and the wild fear in her eyes confirmed that her husband had already informed her of the situation. Nesta felt the press of her sister’s bump when Feyre threw her arms around her neck, not caring that it left a dark circle of water on her gown once they parted. She leapt into Cassian’s arms next, and he hugged her back with equal fervor, planting a kiss on the top of her head.

Once inside, Cassian took her sodden coat and hung it before the fire in Rhysand’s study, and Nesta found a seat as far from the small hearth as possible. The rest assembled quickly - Morrigan’s grumpiness morphed to trepidation as she took in the High Lord’s grave expression, and Azriel slid in without a word behind Amren, who eyed Nesta with a vicious curiosity.

She was still feeling floaty and out-of-body, unsure in moments if the carpet beneath her feet existed at all. Her brush with the phantom world still hung about her like smoke, a vague sense of otherness rippling through the air. She shivered again, and Cassian spread a wing behind her from where he leaned against the bookcase, rebounding the heat of the fire from the far side of the room.

Feyre was the last to arrive, having disappeared after speaking with Cassian and returning with a towel she gave to Nesta to dry her hair. Rhysand summoned his wife to his side and settled her comfortably on one of the low couches, feet propped up, before recounting the events of the last hour.

“It has to be one of the murdered females,” Feyre said at once upon viewing Nesta’s memory, and Amren grunted her assent. “It’s just like the other one, the wound is identical.”

“What was she saying?” Mor asked, and Rhysand tilted his gaze up, accessing the memory once more.

“You couldn’t understand us?” Nesta said aside to Cassian. He shook his head.

“I could, but you were speaking Illyrian.”

“‘He took my soul,’” Azriel answered Mor darkly from his perch near the windows. “She said she was searching for the spring but couldn’t find it, I’d imagine because a spirit can’t cross over without their soul.”

Feyre shuddered. “Where even was that place?”

“Death,” said Rhysand, at the same time Cassian responded, “The Otherworld.” They frowned at each other before Rhysand continued, catching Nesta with his cool gaze. She felt the fear lick at her insides and the frost beg to appear. “It seems the power you stole from the Cauldron allows you to pierce the veil between life and death.”

Silence rang through the study, settled in the spines of every book and stitch of leather, and Nesta tried in vain to comprehend what he’d just said. After a pause, the High Lord strode over to the giant star map suspended near his desk, and it whirred to life under the brush of his attention.

“But that is not the problem,” he continued. “The problem is what you put on your face, and why that female may have been murdered.” Rhysand nodded to Amren, who uncoiled from her chair. Her black nails beat an irregular rhythm on the wooden arm as she addressed everyone and no one.

“It’s from a collection of magical artifacts known as the Dread Trove. There were three objects Made by the Cauldron itself, fifteen thousand years ago: a crown, a harp, and a mask. The crown can control the will of any the wearer chooses, and the harp allows the player to traverse space and time in an instant.”

“And the mask?” Mor asked. Amren’s cold smile struck Nesta down to the marrow.

“The wearer can command the dead.”

Her vision narrowed and Nesta felt the looks burrowing into her, gawking like she was some wretched circus animal. It was too much to make sense of, and her mind rejected it even as she knew it was the truth. Mor sank back into her chair with a low whistle. “And what does that have to do with the female?”

“I may have a lead,” Cassian interjected, causing Nesta to jump. He’d become very still behind her when Amren started speaking. “A source in Windhaven told me the Lord of Ironcrest has been accused of using blood magic in the past. Maybe the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”

Feyre furrowed her brow at Cassian. “You think Kallon is trying to access the trove through some kind of sacrifice? How would he even know of it?”

Rhysand huffed a weary sigh. “I’m not sure, we’d need to get closer to his operation. But it’s not a stretch to imagine Kallon seeking weapons of a greater caliber for his rebellion.”

No one spoke for a long moment, and Nesta watched Rhysand regard her sister, unable to deny the love and concern so naked on his face even as her heart curled away in fear. She saw him glance at Cassian before striding in front of the fire and facing them all.

“We’ll go to Ironcrest,” he said, perfunctory. “For the memorial. We can get a better measure of Kallon’s plans and resources and, if Nesta can learn to use her powers more consciously, we may be able to make contact with more victims.”

“f*ck no.” Nesta felt Cassian’s wing snap out wider behind her, vibrating with tension, his voice sharp-edged. “You’re not dragging her into another fight she didn’t start.”

“We can investigate regardless,” Azriel added, and his shadows skittered along the glass between the moonbeams. Nesta studied the star map where it continued to rotate lazily, the gleam reminding her of the mask winking on that ashy shore, the female’s pleas, her broken sobbing. That well of magic rippled.

“I’ll do it.”

She didn’t know how, but Nesta felt Rhysand’s power shudder when she spoke, like a filly shying back from a proffered bridle. She ignored Cassian’s sharp intake of breath and watched the High Lord school his face into a casual smirk, his violet eyes unreadable.

“Then all that’s left to decide is who’s going with you.”

—-

Nesta excused herself once the conversation devolved from there, Cassian and Rhysand bickering about security protocols and Mor complaining loudly that it wouldn’t be fair for her to be left behind yet again. Nesta was surprised to find Elain hovering in the hallway outside, and considered going back in before Feyre emerged from the study behind her, trapping her between them. Hydrangea petals quivered as Elain set down the vase she was carrying on the entryway table. Her skirt whispered against the carpet.

“What’s happening? Is everything alright?”

“No,” Feyre said, and a cool splash of surprise hit Nesta when her sister stepped out in front of her and spoke to Elain. “We’ll be going to Illyria at the end of the month, for a memorial. I’m not sure how that affects you but I’ll let you know when I do.”

Elain wrinkled her brow, not following. “Oh. Alright.”

“Look,” Feyre sighed, the soft brown of her hair glowing in the faelight, and Nesta suddenly saw the weariness hanging off her sister. Feyre looked thinner despite the fullness of her belly, a hint of purple shadowing her undereyes - Nesta was shocked she hadn’t noticed until now. “I need you two, okay? We don’t have to be all everything-is-fine, but I need us to be okay enough with each other for now. As much as we can.”

She held out both her hands and Nesta took one without thinking, tangling her sister’s tattooed fingers with her own. Elain took Feyre’s other hand, though Nesta noticed she kept a wary distance.

Just then the others spilled out of the study, sweeping the moment away and splitting them off in various pairs and directions until only Cassian, Azriel and Nesta remained in the hall. The shadowsinger clapped a hand on his brother’s shoulder and sketched a bow to Nesta before disappearing out the front doors and into the night. She heard the creak of the gate as she turned to Cassian, exhaustion and horror still pulling her down. But looking at him, something cooled within her, something like the balm on her power she felt when she first put on the mask.

“Cassian, can you take me home?”

It was dangerous territory to tread, she knew, as he gathered her in his arms and flew them up to the House. It was dangerous to flirt with this edge of soothing herself with feeling without losing herself to it, and Cassian made that line thin as a hair. The back of his neck was warm and smooth under her clasped hands. When they reached the House, he set her down on the balcony lighter than he ever had.

What would he say, she wondered, if he knew how terrifyingly his calm presence was holding her together. Knew her mortification at the ways her mind and body were starting to relax when he walked in the room. Blaming it on fate’s influence was so tempting, but Nesta knew in some secret, untouched part of her - the part that resisted glamour, resisted all of it - that she wasn’t feeling this way because of some cursed cook pot.

They slipped through the balcony doors in silence, his large hand never leaving the small of her back as he guided her down two flights of stairs. And there in the darkened threshold of her bedroom, in the space beyond thought or reason, she let her eyes flutter closed and drew his mouth to hers.

Chapter 10: IX

Chapter Text

She was going to kill him, this woman, and Cassian was going to die in bliss even as he cursed his reckless heart.

All day, the subtle touches, how she’d let him hold her in the clearing - he’d felt the pulse of yearning between them, or thought so, anyway. But in the wake of everything that happened, the last thing he wanted to do was throw himself at her like a selfish prick. So he’d been very careful with his hands when they flew up to the House, not wanting to spook her, letting her lead in case his instincts were off.

And then Nesta was leaning up toward him and her long fingers were untying his hair and all he could do was marvel at how beautiful her eyes were this close up before her perfect lips came home to his.

She tasted so f*cking sweet he could kiss her for hours, he thought, could spend a week learning to draw those little gasps from just his mouth on hers. Her cheeks were warm again at last, her skin velvety as a fawn where he held her face in his hands. He rolled her lip gently between his teeth before brushing his tongue against hers, always testing, looking for any sign she didn’t want this even as he was dragged under the ocean of her scent.

Relief bloomed when he felt her soften and Cassian gathered her closer, wrapped an arm around her low back and lifted, taking some of her weight. She moaned faintly and relaxed into him further. The sound cracked something in him, as did the blatant trust Nesta gave him with her body, and the answering surge of affection only doubled his intent to give her refuge in the storm.

He felt them float away from time as he kissed her harder, tried to fill her with as much warmth and pleasure as he could. Tried to sweep away her terror in the wood, when she’d looked at him like he might raise his blade against her.

It was that thought that had him pulling back at last. She glared up at him, and he resisted the urge to plant another kiss where her nose wrinkled in annoyance. Her golden brown hair was a halo about her face in the moonlight, her chest a distraction where it rose and fell rapidly against his own.

“You don’t have to go to Ironcrest,” he murmured, and he felt her grip on his hair loosen. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to.”

Nesta snorted. “That’s debatable.”

“I mean it,” he pressed, sensing her true doubt in the way she went rigid against him. He could feel her retreating already, freezing back over. “You’re allowed to say no.”

She softened once more when he drew his thumb between her brows, smoothing out her frown. He needed her to understand this - that she didn’t have to let them use her, that he’d tell Rhys and all of rest of them to f*ck off and fight their own godsdamn battles. That he was on her side.

Cassian watched her push back and slump against the doorframe, missing her nearness immediately. The day seemed to hang off her like her wet coat had in the clearing, sodden, heavy. He ached to scoop her up and carry her to a bath. Instead he waited, resisted his natural inclination to take charge in moments like this, the surging river of his devotion in desperate need of a dam.

“I want to,” Nesta said at last, and a wave of silver rolled across her eyes, “Those women - females - they deserve better. And I believe it’s worth helping them if I can.”

Mother, she was everything. Cassian couldn’t help himself when he reached for a lock of hair fallen loose from her braid, wrapped it around his finger and gave it a light tug. Her eyes fluttered.

“You do, too, sweetheart.”

She drew him to her once more, gentler. He braced a forearm on the doorframe above her head and wondered how many people had the privilege of witnessing her like this. Her gaze when she pulled back from his lips was the first blue of dawn in winter, her pupils shiny as river rocks.

“You’re not afraid of me,” she said and he blinked, caught off guard. He’d been lost in the thrill of seeing her open after so long shut away, but had no idea if his thoughts had shown on his face. And yet he couldn’t find it in himself to care, not when she was looking up at him like she was glad he was there.

“Well, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m very strong.”

She rolled her eyes and Cassian grinned, shameless, felt a thrill low in his stomach as she ducked under his arm and disappeared into her room, a smile playing at the corner of her mouth. Beyond the door he heard her ask the House to draw a bath, and then, quieter, for a cup of valerian root tea. He mounted the stairs to the training ring two at a time, and ground his body into the dirt until the moon was a sly cat’s smile on the horizon.

—

In the general shuffle of planning for Ironcrest, Cassian felt himself calm a bit, the soldier in him relieved to have a list of duties and some sense of forward motion. A nervous thread ran in the background of his thoughts, always, of the female barely on her feet upon whose shoulders this whole operation rested.

While Rhys and Feyre covered the diplomatic arrangements, Mor was off to scour Helion’s libraries for mention of the Trove. The High Lord of Day was delighted to host her, if the dozens of hothouse orchids lining her windows were anything to go by, and Cassian sneezed the rest of that afternoon he came to see her off. Things had been briefly tense between them since the disaster dinner, but Mor barreled forward as if it never happened like she always did, and he wasn’t about to argue.

Azriel spent most of his time on the continent, trying to make sense of the shiploads of rope and iron arriving at their shores every few days. Cassian didn’t know what Amren was doing. The tiny terror had flatly refused to participate in Nesta’s training until she ‘showed some promise’, which left the task solely to Rhys, much to the displeasure of all involved.

Still, Nesta didn’t waver. She did return from their sessions in various states of fuming, and on those nights would remain shut up in her room instead of joining Cassian in the library.

He remained determined to support her, shepherded packages back and forth from Windhaven to lure her out with the promise of a new book and a letter from her new friend. She kept her distance after their moment in her doorway, but he felt an ease grow between them, a stretching out of muscles once held close and tense. The night she got comfortable enough to fiddle with the end of her braid while reading, Cassian had to marshal all his strength not to reach out and wrap up her in his wings.

His rampant nocturnal fantasies certainly weren’t helping, though by the Mother’s mercy Azriel shared his need to cope through punishment in the ring. They sparred brutally and often in the early mornings, when Cassian was starting the day just as Az was finishing it.

On one such morning he came bearing news from the library: a lead on the blood magic riddle. His brother knocked back the dark tea Cassian offered in two large gulps before stalking down the stairs, his shadows dense and roiling.

The archives were located in a vast antechamber of the mountainside, the outer wall carved with intricate designs creating a tapestry of light that crept up and down the wall with the sun. Even this early the priestesses were at work, the sound of slipper-footed shuffling punctuated here and there by a bell from the harbor below, an osprey calling to its mate from a nest on the cliff above.

“You two are just determined to be in my debt, aren’t you?” Gwyn’s tone was irreverent, but laced with curiosity as they trailed her through the stacks. “Not that I mind, per se. I’m sure I’ll find some way for you to be useful in the future.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” Cassian said as he edged around a cart of books, trying not to knock anything over. The library was clearly designed for fae much smaller than him. Gwyn laughed.

“I can always get you banned again, tell Clotho you’re doing…” She twiddled her hand in the air. “I don’t know, dagger things. Whatever you do.”

Cassian heard Azriel stifle a snort behind him. They had received an appropriate amount of sh*t for storming the library fully-armed, though Gwyn was kind enough to vouch for them before Clotho could rain down her fury. The priestess had even offered to help in their blood magic search after discovering Cassian passed out over a tome of gruesome rituals the week prior.

“Anyway, I found something tucked in the pages of a manifesto, from the uprising after the first human war I think,” Gwyn said. “Take a look.”

They arrived at a desk along the far wall, cluttered with ink and notes and books cracked and peeling at the edges. A single brittle page lay alone amidst the chaos, intricate runes bordering what looked to be an Illyrian poem. It was untitled, its three stanzas much too short to inspire the dread Cassian felt gathering low in his belly. The text seemed to dance in the violet light of their siphons pulsing in tandem.

Azriel must have felt something, too, for he stepped up tentatively, tucked his wings in tight. Gwyn remained unaffected, and indicated toward the final section. “This word. Calon-hollti - heartbroken. Or heart-cleaved, technically. And the rest sounded relevant, given what you told me of your victims.”

Cassian felt the dense moment dissipate in his surprise that Gwyn could even read Illyrian. He gave a short laugh without meaning to. “You already translated it?”

“It might not be pretty. It was hard to make it rhyme in the Common Tongue.”

He saw the corner of Azriel’s mouth twitch, though his eyes were sharper now, evaluating. “You made it rhyme, too?”

“Of course, how else would you translate a poem?”

The shadowsinger’s smile appeared in earnest this time. Gwyn cleared her throat and held the page at a distance from her face, squinting through the gloom in their hushed corner. Her voice was low and musical, the words riding the notes like leaves on a stream.

“On hoary hooves and ice-tipped claws,

By star-crowned night, through hidden veil,

The spectral hunt, greed’s snarling jaws,

Carve wicked waste ‘cross dell and swale.

Her winged sons, birth-blessed with flight,

When Mother’s cries ring o’er the pines,

By gilded courage masked, unite,

‘gainst bloodless gods of stolen wine.

O’ fated clash of frost and wing,

Fourth heart-cleaved star, proud Ramiel’s skies,

Sweet note of life, realm-walker’s string -

The wind calls, and her sons shall rise.”

Cassian stared at her, dumbstruck, and from the corner of his eye saw Azriel shut his mouth where his jaw had fallen open while she translated. The poem was both familiar and not, close enough to the song he knew to clearly be the same, but richer somehow, darker.

“What was that part in the last verse?” Azriel asked, having collected himself once more. He leaned over and scanned the parchment. “‘Fourth star’ of Ramiel’s skies.”

“What the f*ck?” Cassian said. “There’s no fourth star over Ramiel.”

“The next line is what interests me.” Gwyn’s long finger underlined a word. “Realm-walker. That’s definitely the translation, but - it’s not very common, is all. I’ve only heard it one other place before.”

She’d come across it in the research of her mentor, she explained, who was attempting to prove the existence of other worlds through universal mathematics. Cassian felt his eyes glaze over as Gwyn detailed a complex calculus of realities somehow stacked atop of one another like pancakes.

“The theory is that it’s more about perception than separate places, because all places coexist simultaneously. And some beings, referred to as ‘realm-walkers’, are said to have the power to manipulate their perceptual presence and traverse different realms, or even exist in multiple at the same time,” she said. “It’s an offshoot of winnowing theory, except you don’t just move across space but up and down through it as well. Or within it, rather, because you’re not actually somewhere different, you’re just perceiving that you are.”

“So it’s less about traveling to another world, and more expanding your senses to take in the layers already there.” Azriel’s expression was unreadable, but Cassian saw his fist still clenched on the table, as it had been since Gwyn read that last line of the poem. “But what has any of that to do with some failed rebellion?”

Gwyn’s teal eyes sparkled with challenge. “That’s the question, isn’t it?”

As they fell into debate Cassian heard the osprey’s cry above, tried not to consider it a warning. But he couldn’t shake his deepening sense a trap had already been sprung, and that perhaps they were about to walk straight into the dark heart of it.

—

The cloud of discontent hung over him for days after, so consumed he was by the looming trip that he barely registered Emerie’s knowing smile when she handed over the next book to swap with Nesta.

“Tell her to be careful with this one,” the female warned, and Cassian looked down at the title: Wings of Love. An Illyrian proxy of those smutty bodice-rippers Nesta loved so much, he gathered. The frigid flight back to the House was barely enough to cool his blood, and he willed calm into his voice when he called through her door about her Special Emerie Delivery before making his way to the kitchen.

She appeared not long after, hair still wet from the bath, and a weightiness hung about her that suggested a long day battling for composure. She had on one of the simple dresses she’d taken to wearing in the evenings, likely finding her sleep clothes too exposing when he and Az were around. Cassian pretended to search a high cabinet for something as she picked the book up from the counter, opened the green leather cover and clucked her tongue. “Such a meddler.”

“Meaning?”

“Oh, nothing.”

The sound of Nesta’s bare feet padding to the sink was intimate in a way that demanded his attention. He watched her fill the kettle, his cabinet ruse forgotten, and was struck through with a memory of her doing the same long ago at the Archeron estate, setting a cup before him while she tried to hide the shaking of her hands. The shaking of his own when he’d picked it up, knowing everything was about to change.

Cassian was moving toward her before rational thought could stop him, lifted the heavy kettle from her hands and set it on the small blue flame conjured by the House. His siphons guttered when her arm brushed against his as she reached for the tea tin in the drawer to his left.

He felt the tug of the inevitable deep in his gut. They’d been dancing around each other for days, for years it felt like, orbiting closer and closer toward the crash.

So he shouldn’t have been surprised. Shouldn’t have choked in shock when Nesta fell into him the moment he faced her, no hesitation from the last time, frenzied, seeking. His body responded immediately, meeting her mouth with a hunger that would’ve terrified him had he not been stone drunk on her taste already.

Her hair was slick and damp where he grabbed a handful of it, and he sank his face into her neck like he’d longed to do since he found her on the floor of that rundown apartment. He could smell the lavender soap from her bath, feel her body mold against him as she backed into the cabinets behind her.

The tea kettle was whistling low now but she didn’t seem to care, her long fingers never faltering in their mission to pull his shirt free from his waistband. With a groan, Cassian hooked around her hips and hauled her onto the counter, pressed himself between her open thighs. Her nails dug into scalp, ripping the tie from his hair, and he felt delirious, the kettle shrieking in tandem with his thoughts to take her, make her his, steal her far away from all this sh*t for her own good, for her own f*cking good -

Icy fear crackled in his brain, and Cassian stumbled back into the island, turned to stare at the butcher block to avoid looking at the valley between her legs. He felt his end of the bond drawn taut, an arrow pointed straight at her heart. Slumping with shame, he dug the heels of his hands into his eyes until all he could see were pinpricks like stars.

He was so f*cking mad at himself, at his f*cking non-existent self-control. He was utterly failing to be the friend Nesta needed when every touch threatened to bury him under the weight of his own desire.

And this was not the first time she’d come to him this way. She was looking to hurt herself back then, to make herself feel nothing at all. He should’ve realized, should’ve kept his head.

He heard her slide off the countertop to land on the floor. Fingers skimmed down his back, between his wings, a question.

“Sorry,” he said, straightening. Fought his coward’s heart and faced her. “I’m wound a little tight these days.”

Nesta looked briefly sad at that, he thought, as if he’d given the wrong answer, or answered the wrong question altogether. He remained still as she finished making tea, staring at the tile, felt a sharp pang when she murmured her thanks for the package before leaving him to his misery.

On the roof, he ignored the clouds gathering over the sea and pushed his body until he settled into the pain. The rain plastered his loose hair to his face and neck, and his missing tie still circled Nesta’s wrist three floors below.

—

“It’s… unique?”

“It’s ridiculous,” Feyre huffed, a tattooed hand on her lower back as she surveyed the extravagant crib just unboxed in the front hall of the river house. Silver so pure it shimmered was crafted into a long arm dangling an ornate, crescent moon-shaped cradle, the lining plush and white. A nesting present, apparently, courtesy of her mate. “We’re having a baby, not a godling of the night.”

It felt nice to laugh, given the week he’d had, and Cassian was grateful he’d stopped in to see Feyre for this alone. He couldn’t wait to give Rhys sh*t for it at just the right moment, his favorite game.

“What’s even the point?” he asked. “The kid’ll grow out of it in six months, tops.”

Feyre sighed and led him to the courtyard in the center of the house, where she eased herself onto a wrought iron bench. He noticed a stiffness about her that felt new, though might be excused by her pregnancy. Dead stalks rattled in the wind between the swatches of burlap bedding down the small garden for winter.

“I don’t know what’s gotten into him. When he’s not giving me more things I don’t need, he’s either shut up in his study or winnowing across half of Prythian.” Feyre turned her face up toward the watery sun, closing her eyes. “How are you doing with all this, by the way?”

“What do you mean?”

She slit one eye open to peer at him. “Rhys has been having a hard time, given what happened to his family, and I wondered if it was the same for you. You’ve just seemed heavier recently.” She shrugged. “You don’t tell as many jokes.”

“Oh. That.” Cassian cleared his throat. He had definitely felt heavier these past weeks, though the reason was much closer than Feyre thought. “Yeah, it doesn’t feel great, but I can handle it.”

“How is she?”

She must’ve read the conflict in him, for his High Lady leveled him with a gaze so like Nesta’s then, piercing to the rotten core of him, to all the emotion he’d been putting away to give her sister space. He crumbled under the weight of her attention, his heart heavy and sore and longing for someone who wouldn’t sneer immediately at what he was about to say.

“I’m so in love with her,” he confessed, and the words rushed out of him all at once, the pressure too great. “I tried to tell myself I wasn’t, or I wasn’t anymore, but she’s my mate and it’s terrible and I just want it to go away.”

If Feyre was surprised she didn’t let on, though she sat up and patted the bench beside her. Cassian’s chest felt like it had been torn open with a blunt sword, his pain pouring out like blood.

We can talk like this if you want some privacy, she said into his mind, but he waved her off.

“It doesn’t matter, everyone f*cking knows anyway,” he continued, collapsing beside her. “I’m just terrified of hurting her.” The lump in his throat was growing and he hung his head, his hair a dark curtain against the world. Feyre kept listening, rubbed a hand across his back in time with the one on her belly, like his secrets were a poison he needed to purge.

“I want to be here for her, because I want her to be okay whether she’s with me or not. But I don’t want my own f*cking feelings getting in the way of that. I’m worried I’m not strong enough to be who she needs me to be. And that if I’m not, I need to stay away.”

And there it was, his truth laid out stripped and shivering before him. He didn’t doubt his love, but beneath it always was the desire to go further, to pin her against the wall and to tear apart any male who looked at her, to consume and protect her totally, absolutely. The bond always craving more more more of her, chanting the name that called him on the wind: Nesta Nesta Nesta.

Feyre rested her cheek on a hand, and he saw that weariness once more, the worry bracketting the corners of her mouth. “I mean, Nesta isn’t exactly shy about how she feels. Has she asked you to back off?”

“No,” Cassian answered honestly. “Not since that family dinner.” He felt a swirl of guilt as Feyre winced. “Is this weird for you?”

“A little,” she conceded. “I want both of you to be happy, whatever that looks like.” Feyre chewed at her bottom lip, gestured at her stomach, the gilded monstrosity in the foyer. “I won’t lie, being mated can be a lot sometimes. It’s beautiful and I’d never trade it for anything but it can be.. intense.”

“Are you okay?”

Cassian studied her, wondered if her humble roots chafed with her surroundings, as his often did. And he knew firsthand how bullheaded Rhys could be, though he could only imagine the level of it as his mate.

“Yeah. Yes,” she said firmly. “I can handle it.”

It was strange to hear his own words coming out of her mouth, as if his friend too possessed a high tolerance for suffering. It occurred to him to push back, but that felt more invasive than he was willing to risk at the moment. He let his face fall into an easy smile and gave her a wink.

“Well, he certainly didn’t make you High Lady for your track record of listening to him.”

She laughed loud and swatted at his arm, and Cassian escorted her back inside where they spent the next hour one-upping each other with alternate uses for the ridiculous crib. He crowned her the winner with ‘make Rhys row it down the Sidra like a gondola’’, and when his very confused brother emerged from his study to see what the noise was about, they’d laughed until tears gathered in the corners of their eyes.

–

The House was quiet when he returned that evening, and his good mood dissolved when he registered that this time next week they’d be bound for Ironcrest. The thought had his wings shuddering where they met his back, his siphons casting the dining room in soft maroon glow. He ignored the light on in the study he shared with Azriel and slipped under the water in the bath to just below his nose, breathing deep and trying not to get ahead of himself.

A book lay on his nightstand when he wandered back into the bedroom. Confused, he cracked the green leather cover and read the synopsis inside.

In Wings of Love, we follow Lianus, a proud Illyrian who knows nothing but violence yet, despite his extraordinary abilities, yearns for a peaceful existence. When he meets Oriana, the woman of his dreams, he decides to leave his turbulent past behind and embark on a journey towards a tranquil life. As they navigate the challenges threatening their love and safety, they discover the healing power of connection and the beauty of starting anew. Wings of Love is a tale of redemption, second chances, and the transformative nature of love in overcoming the past.

Cassian felt a stillness in his mind, a warmth spreading through his chest so different from the violent jerks of the bond. A note slipped out of the pages - two words in a feminine hand.

Your turn.

Chapter 11: X

Chapter Text

If I were a girl in a book, this would all be so easy.

- Little Women, 2020

Six weeks spanned between Nesta and that night at the Brass Bordar, and she felt both nearer and not to whatever destination she was fumbling toward. She was getting better at managing the huge spikes of fear and deep troughs of grief but, always, it was hard. And almost always, the day ended with her pressing her face in her pillow, trying to remember the point of it all.

She was finding answers in moments, though, brief pockets of relief from her pain. The first sign arrived the morning she could look down on the wide-sailed ships, the workers crawling over the docks of the Sidra like ants, without hearing her father’s neck snap. Without seeing his face shining with love on the deck of the Nesta, the largest of them all, fighting for her only once she’d given up on him for good.

Anger surfaced, if only a little at a time. “Sometimes I’m so angry I can’t see, and I just want to destroy everything, including myself.”

“It’s normal,” Piper said, her glasses lit orange in the setting sun. “The fact it’s coming up means you can handle it. You’re probably doing better than you think.”

It was always hardest on the days Nesta trained with Rhysand, when she felt the phantom tendrils of his mind inside hers long after they were through. She couldn’t bear to see anyone after their lessons, but the House would coddle her like a lover with warm, fragrant baths and chocolates on her bedside table.

On better days, Nesta walked the library with Gwyn in the early evening, discussing books or the strange poem’s riddle, sometimes just watching the light filter through the stained glass as the shadows grew long. She liked the music of the priestesses’ services below, their voices quavering and rebounding off the walls of their worship hall and up through the stone.

“Do you think it’ll ever feel normal?” Gwyn asked, her blue robes whispering against the floor. They’d been speaking of internal distance, and feeling separated from others by your experiences. “Or do you have to tear it out, like a bad tooth?”

Emerie wrote longer and longer letters with each exchange, mapping out her dreams of seeing other courts and expanding her business, and Nesta learned more than she expected about Illyrian life and the history of discord with the Night Court. She even got details of Emerie’s own shockingly active bedroom activities, written in code, the key slipped in one of the books they traded. Her penpal seemed personally offended that Nesta wasn’t capitalizing on her living situation, and the Illyrian romance novel was only the latest in her scheme to get Nesta bedded, and properly, by her talented roommate. If the rumors were anything to go by, Emerie said.

He’d be a good male about it, that’s all I’m saying, she wrote. Never heard a bad word about him in that sense. Now his politics, on the other hand…

Nesta didn’t know how to explain. It was all so much more tangled than that.

And Cassian kept pulling back, the tortured idiot. Her experiment in the kitchen had been of middling success, confirming he definitely still wanted her, yet he felt some angst on the matter. It certainly wasn’t lack of enthusiasm on her part, so why the hesitation?

Though she wasn’t completely upset about it, not really. Without her blood singing with alcohol, being that close had felt too exposed, too vulnerable, and even as part of her strained toward him another recoiled back. His mouth promised salvation, his hands ruin.

On a late evening in the House library, he brushed one of those ruinous hands across her back, reaching across her for a pen on the side table and tucking it behind his ear. “Sorry,” he rasped, and the sound shivered down her spine, dangerous and inviting.

It was nothing like those spare, hazy couplings with her lovers before, when Cassian touched her, when the world went quiet and she felt herself soften, a phantom pain finally at ease. She felt a safety in her body she’d lost when Hybern’s soldiers dragged the bed sheets from her bare legs, before she took her last human breath and burning cold water filled her ears. That maybe she’d lost long before that, even, in the dance studio, in her mother’s parlor being pinched and prodded and slapped.

But he’d looked so stricken in the kitchen, she couldn’t bring herself to test the line again, as much as she wanted it. And yet he wasn’t avoiding her, so what was the issue? When he rubbed his chin in concentration playing some game with Azriel involving colored stones, she watched him over the top of her book, trying to see past his thick skull into his thoughts.

Early on, the House refused to serve her meals in her room, forcing her to sit at the table if she wanted to eat and loudly banging the armoire doors when she tried to go without food. It was as endearing as it was annoying, the ways it made her worst habits much harder to stick to, and she often felt a deep gratitude even as she grumbled at the walls.

So that morning, like many others before it, she found herself stepping into the dining room to find Cassian in his leathers at the head of the table. Unlike the other mornings, instead of field reports he was cradling Emerie’s book in one of his large hands, the other shoveling eggs into his mouth fast enough to be a choking hazard.

“Ghuufh moneen, Nes’a,” he said without looking up, and she clicked her tongue in response, earning a wide grin after he swallowed. “What, are my manners not up to Her Majesty’s standards?”

“I’m surprised the House hasn’t given you a trough by now,” she said dryly, and he barked a laugh. The sound pinged through her as she took her place at the opposite end, the ease of it all settling a nervousness she hadn’t noticed until it was gone. Damn bat.

“I’ll give you my review once I’m finished,” he said, flicking to the next page with an academic flourish. “So far the action is bullsh*t, but we haven’t gotten to the sex yet, so I’m reserving my judgment until then.”

Nesta didn’t miss the smirk that disappeared behind the book’s cover, nor the annoying ache of fondness from knowing her peace offering had worked. She filled her plate with fruit and a fat chocolate-dipped pastry, trying to sound bored. “Is this your attempt at flirting with me?”

“Yes,” he said candidly. Hazel eyes darted upward, catching hers. “Is it working?”

“Would you two like the room?”

Approaching on silent footsteps, neither had noticed Azriel where he came to lean in the archway. An awkwardness faltered between them, a fraction of a moment. Nesta recovered faster, Cassian tucking his wings and ducking low in his chair to bury his face further between the pages.

“No, you can stay. And Azriel has excellent manners, to your point,” she said to Cassian, who, having recovered as well, flipped another page with pointed casualness.

“Ha! You should see him when he’s losing at cards. No manners to be found then.”

Nesta felt her brow furrow, remembering one of her first tolerable evenings in the House, when the popping of the fire had perhaps not seemed as loud. She narrowed her eyes at the shadowsinger where he settled in a chair between them, his back to the sun. “Are you saying you let me win that night in the library?”

Azriel shrugged, buttered a piece from the steaming stack of toast now before him. “You needed it more than my pride did. You put up a good fight, though.”

Cassian’s low whistle sounded behind his book. “Well, you can’t take that lying down, Nes. Daggers at dawn?”

“I don’t need a weapon to eviscerate him.”

“Then I look forward to defeating you at your best.” Azriel took a long gulp of his tea and set it down delicately. “Unfortunately, it will have to wait. A convoy carrying silver and furs down from White Eagle was hijacked last night. They set the highway outpost on fire. Rhys wants us there now.”

The atmosphere in the dining room shifted immediately, and she watched Cassian close his eyes, tip his head back in resignation. “Okay. Gimme ten to delegate some things and I’ll be ready.”

He lumbered off into the hallway, and she felt the cruel sting of that bubble popping, the realities of circ*mstance crashing in once again.

“Elain asked me to give this to you.”

Before returning to his rushed breakfast, the shadowsinger slid a folded note across the table, Nesta in neat handwriting on the front. A strange expression passed over his face when he said her sister’s name, but it was gone so suddenly she wondered if she’d imagined it. Nesta barely heard Cassian calling out his goodbyes as she read the three short lines with a strange sense of forboding.

Meet me by the north gate of the Palace of Bone and Salt at midday.

Please come alone.

Elain

—

Nesta had ventured through Velaris many times on her way to and from the river house for magic training, but stuck mostly to side streets, not wanting to veer too close to temptation. The throbbing cravings were getting shorter and lighter, she’d told Piper, but the danger still lurked in every darkened doorway, every male laughing a little too loud. Though she missed the music more than anything, truthfully.

Elain carved a path ahead of her through the labyrinth of the Palace of Bone and Salt, a determination about her movements that felt at odds with the fluffy white tiers of her cloak. She looked like a dandelion puff floating downstream, Nesta thought, swirling past vendors and groups of chattering fae toward a singular, unknown destination. The market was loud and cluttered, with cages of waterfowl and barrels full of strange, dark liquid, the air perfumed with rich spices and, underneath, the scent of blood. Nesta pulled her scarf up over her nose, hoping others would assume she was fighting the chill that had settled over the city as autumn turned in earnest toward winter.

They ducked into an alley, much to her surprise, and wound through the rabbit’s warren of side streets, the shops seedier and buildings more rundown the father they ventured. Her sister at last halted before a crumbling sandstone townhouse, a set of steps leading down to a dark basem*nt shop with three golden keys on the sign above the door. Her growing unease spiked - how did Elain even know of this place, let alone have any business here? And why did she ask Nesta to accompany her?

Before she could speak, her sister fixed her with a defiant look, though it was somewhat lessened by the movement of her hands twisting inside her fox fur muff.

“Do you trust me?” Elain’s voice wavered but she jutted her chin up, and Nesta was reminded of a day she stormed the ballroom demanding to learn the big girl dances, too. It made her ache, the thought of Elain once so young and self-possessed.

“What is this about?”

“Do you trust me?” Elain repeated, stubborn. Feyre’s words arose in her mind, her plea for them to get along. Nesta nodded, unable to banish the thick knot now in her throat. “Thank you.”

The lesser fae behind the counter scanned them with amusem*nt when they entered the dusty shop, scratched at the curved horns jutting from his shock of red hair. Nesta wondered if he was used to seeing highborn ladies in.. whatever this place was. All sorts of oddments lined the walls, jars with shriveled creatures suspended in liquid, scrolls with strange symbols and seals, the gaping jawbones of some long-dead beast mounted over the empty hearth. The smell of mold and brine flooded her nose, the skittering sounds of small feet making her skin crawl.

They picked their way toward the counter past a moth-eaten sofa, a dark stain on the cushion next to an ominous sign stating someone named Telethien had been murdered on the very spot. The male gave them a reedy smile when they reached him, teeth blackened by the dreamflake he likely chewed to catch a buzz. The root was popular among the pleasure halls, though Nesta had only tried it once, finding the hypnotic effects more distressing than relaxing. Elain placed a hand delicately on the wood, her bright voice lowered to a dull whisper.

“We’re here to..” she paused, as if trying to remember. “Release the golden hound from its leash.”

The male’s smile grew. “And by what manner would you like it to be released?”

“Completely,” Elain answered quickly. “A full severance.”

“Ahh.. the male is not to your liking?” he asked. “Or, perhaps there is another.”

“My reasons are my own.”

Nesta was surprised to hear the assertiveness from her sister, though her confusion spoiled quickly into dread. Whatever this male was peddling, there was no way Elain was thinking rationally if it involved the redhead from the Autumn court.

“There are simpler ways, you know. To eliminate the unwanted party.” His tone sent a chill through Nesta that had nothing to do with the damp cold of the shop. “I have friends who take such contracts.”

Elain paled and shook her head, her cornflower blue hat bobbing with the motion. “No, that won’t be necessary. I don’t want anyone harmed, I just - ” She swallowed. “I want my freedom.”

“Very well.” He turned his back to them then, collecting a number of vials and a box of what looked like small bones from the cluttered wall behind him, speaking rapidly now. “The procedure is straightforward. You will drink a tea of marrow dust and shadowfell sage, and fall into a deep sleep for eight hours. The heart will slow and the body will cool so as to appear dead. If your mate believes you passed on, the bond may be severed.”

“What?!” Nesta hissed. “This is why you brought me here?”

“Let him finish,” Elain said through gritted teeth. Nesta felt the frost start to tingle at her fingertips, rage and disbelief hot in her throat.

“There are risks, of course,” the male continued, eyeing Nesta warily. “It does not work on all occasions, and the dose is delicate. Too little, and the mate won’t be fooled. Too much - ” He shrugged, and her stomach went sour at the casualness of it. “Well, you’ll be free in a different way.”

“Absolutely not,” Nesta said, and grabbed Elain by the upper arm, ignoring her protests. The strength of her High Fae body startled her as she hauled her sister toward the door, but she remained undeterred. “We’re leaving. I’m not doing this with you.”

“Farewell, Kingslayer,” the male’s voice drifted after them, dripping with amusem*nt. “I hear they miss you at the tables.”

Elain tried to break free the moment they hit the street, but Nesta dragged her up the alleyway until they reached a small vista overlooking the sea. Her sister opened her mouth - to say what, Nesta didn’t find out, for she felt the venom rise in her own throat at once.

“What the f*ck are you thinking?!” she shouted, and Elain gave a small gasp at the profanity, still so proper after all this time. “You will not go back to that shop. You will not take whatever he is offering you and you will not consort in places like that ever again.”

“You aren’t Mother ordering me about. I’m a grown female, I don’t have to listen to you.”

Nesta reeled to hear her sister refer to herself as such - it was all fading away, these pieces of their old life shedding like dead skin. A tern shrieked overhead, its white belly flashing as it dove toward the sparkling bay. “If I were Mother, I’d beat you with a willow switch until you saw sense.”

Elain stamped her boot, and Nesta saw the tears begin to gather in her lower lashes. “You can’t bully me in the name of protection anymore. It’s my life.”

Nesta bent over the rough stone of the balustrade, feeling like she was going to be sick. “Then it’ll be your death, too.”

“I thought you’d understand more than anyone, especially because of C-”

“Don’t say that.” Nesta jerked up, power overtaking the nausea to roil in her gut.

“I don’t want to be shackled to him.” Elain’s tears were falling in earnest now, in thick streams down her cheeks tinted pink from the cold. “Don’t you want to be free, too? Don’t you want the choice of who to love?”

“Love is a fool’s dream, Elain,” she said, and the tern called out in agreement, frustrated by its failed dive. “Anyone who tells you otherwise is trying to get something you don’t want to give.”

Nesta tried not to care as her sister’s face crumpled in devastation, tried not to flinch when Elain tucked her despair back under the surface in that way she knew so well, when she hid her hurt and let it fester.

“I don’t think I know you anymore.” And then Elain’s sneer was one she’d felt on her own face a thousand times, sharp and unrepentant. “Maybe I never did.”

—

They’d found an effigy of the High Lord among the wreckage of the burned outpost, and Nesta felt the worry radiating off Cassian in waves. For the next few nights, he pored over the blueprint of Ironcrest’s keep in the library, looking for weak points. Plans hadn’t changed, as far as she knew, but everyone was on edge as the visit loomed and it was difficult to settle, both within and without.

But it wasn’t all dark, not completely. Her argument with Elain aside, it seemed using her power more regularly was limiting the outbursts, that frost a less frequent visitor of late. Nesta could now enter that strange realm at will, though the mask had not turned up again, as if the ash had swallowed it whole. No other figures appeared though the burned wood, though she thought she saw things shifting in the underbrush when she’d lingered too long.

They spent most of her lessons trying to draw her power out with intention - first by connecting to the well of it deep within her, then by manipulating it into small objects within the other world, to gain control. The night before their departure, they were working on drawing objects back into the real world, though it was so far proving unsuccessful. Rhysand’s voice was edged with impatience when it rang in her mind.

Picture a dagger.

She was ankle deep in the spring, nearer to the bank. The flames arched under her touch when she bent to stroke them, and a shudder went through her, a deeply-buried human part of her still unnerved by engaging the magic so willfully. “I am not well versed in weaponry.”

Fine, picture a knife.

“Like a butter knife?” Nesta felt more than heard his sigh, hoped he couldn’t see her smirking from her mind. Her only solace during these lessons was in driving the High Lord mad by playing the vapid and witless dame. He’d once spent a quarter of an hour explaining the importance of breathing out after breathing in before realizing she was mocking him.

Like a f*cking letter opener, I don’t care.

Nesta smiled and pictured his scowl instead. “Very well.”

Another sigh.

Picture a letter opener in your outstretched hand. Imagine the heft, the balance of it.

The flames danced under her fingers, curling toward her hand like she’d learned to do. The power made her buzz in a way she’d been aching for since becoming sober. Feet braced in the crumbling riverbed, she imagined the letter opener from her father’s study - brass, the haft an owl with a crossguard of outstretched wings, its eyes inlaid with rubies.

The flames morphed in hand, taking its exact shape. She grasped it and the fire shivered, solid and liquid all at once.

Now come into connection with your body. Feel the tension of it against the rest of your perception.

Nesta felt the pull of the river house study, the sudden wrongness of the air around her. The objects on the horizon were changing rapidly, the dunes of ash shifting in the weak orange light. The falls roared, closer than they’d ever sounded.

Try to return. Stake your claim on the blade, and bring it back with you.

She tried to feel her feet on the floor of the study, the way she usually returned, but it still felt wrong, and Nesta felt like she was choking, her vision narrowing and the landscape undulating and she went into freefall, the ground swooping away as she tumbled down a tunnel of memory -

The Viscount Blackburn’s smile was oily as he whirled her around the floor, candle flames blurring in her vision and a vague, sickly feeling rising in her stomach. All she knew of him was that he was missing two of his fingertips from some hunting accident, apparently, though more likely he’d done something idiotic while drunk. Her mother insisted she dance with him, given his rank and standing with the other gentlemen. Dread poured slick and hot down her throat as she felt the missing press of those phantom fingertips where he gripped her waist, steely, possessive.

She held her breath so color would rise in her cheeks, praying he was the sort to get bored and move on if she feigned lightheadedness. Instead he turned wolfish when she mentioned feeling faint, and under cover of applause for the orchestra he snaked them between the crowd and steered her down the deserted hallway. His grip never left her arm until he shoved her across the darkened threshold of her father’s study.

Moonlight glinted off the brocade of his doublet and Nesta bit down on her tongue when her knees hit the floor hard, rebounding as fast as she dared. The Viscount stalked toward her and she crawled away without thinking, tangling in her skirts, grasped the edge of her father’s mahogany desk and hauled herself to her feet, scrambling for something to defend herself with.

“This is what you get for being a f*cking tease.”

He grabbed her and spun her, pawed at her bodice and she flung her arms back, panicked, grappling for anything to get him off, the cool metal of the letter opener kissing her fingers, grasping, then with a great heave rearing back and slashing, his shocked expression, the waterfall of blood from the gash on his cheek, the waterfall in the otherworld roaring, the ash coating her mouth, her throat, the blood on her tongue -

Nesta.

“Nesta.”

Someone was calling her name, hands were gripping her wrists and she reared back once more, stumbled into something solid and sank to the ground, squeezing her eyes shut. A faint silver light throbbed through her eyelids, and she opened them slowly to find the fiery letter opener still clutched in her right hand. Mystified, she looked up to see the High Lord sprawled on the carpet, disheveled and pale, a glowing silver cut healing on his cheek.

“This is why Amren stopped training with you, isn’t it?” he panted, seeming to have trouble believing his eyes. “Why she refuses to, even now?”

Nesta didn’t answer, and she felt the letter opener dissolve, leaving her palm chill and damp. A thrill of pride ran through her - she’d done it, she’d done it - but she locked it down quickly as Rhysand’s expression turned grave. He appeared to try and collect himself, his voice crisp. “I don’t want you near Feyre until we get this under control. Is that understood?”

“You don’t get to decide that,” Nesta snapped back, returned to herself once more, and spat out the blood gathering in her mouth as she shoved to her feet. “And you cannot control her any more than you can control me.”

The High Lord stared unblinking, eyes wild, and with his hair and clothes unkempt he looked somewhat unhinged. “I will remove any threats to her, whether she likes it or not. Even if that includes you.”

Nesta felt silver fire flicker in one of her hands, looked down to see a quick flash of something rope-like dangling from her clenched fist. It emboldened her, even more so when she looked up and saw Rhysand falter back, his hand going reflexively to the faded cut on his cheek.

“You once made me sick from your flying,” she said, though unsure why, the words overflowing. She took a step closer, towered over him and that power surged in her, no longer frozen but churning, begging for release. “You should know, it was not because of the speed nor the height. It was because I’d only felt such malice and cruelty before when being abducted.”

Nesta was trembling now, starving to draw that look of terror from him again, but she gathered every piece of will to back slowly toward the study door and pick up her coat from the ornate rack.

Because she would not become him, she promised herself. She would not sink to his level of violence and intimidation, would not be anyone’s weapon, not even her own, even if she had to fight herself the whole way.

Her voice surprised her with its clarity when she looked down on him with pity in her heart, even as a part of her was unraveling. “You think of yourself as a great protector. But who are you protecting?”

But Rhysand only stared at her dumbly, as though seeing her in full for the first time.

___

The cool of the wine cellar kissed her skin moments later, the damp earthen smell cut with dust and cork and stale spilled wine. A small barrel was set up under the lone dim faelight, a decanter of amber liquid and a trio of glasses abandoned from some late night competition. The bottles glinted as her shadow shifted the light over them, ruby and butter yellow, blush and the palest green of early spring. Nesta ran her fingers along the rows, breathing deep and trying to talk herself out of it.

The High Lord must be truly distracted to leave the cellar unlocked, she thought, and she slid a bottle off the rack without thinking, cradling it to her hip like a child. Her mouth ached, her body pounding with the need to go dark, to submerge in the warm quiet of nothingness. Layer upon layer of emotion clawed to the surface - confusion, rage, pride, and a bone deep terror of herself and what she was capable of, a drop of the High Lord’s life force flowing sweetly in her blood.

She was down here just to look, she told herself, just to touch. Not to drink, just to know she could if she needed to. Her power felt weak and drained, and Rhysand’s face still swam in her vision, so deathly pale.

“Are you f*cking kidding me?”

Gilded sandals appeared on the steps and Morrigan descended into the gloom like a firefly, all decked in gold, her expression thunderous. Nesta steeled herself, met the female’s gaze defiantly, daring her to continue as she took in the bottle tucked to her side.

“You’re so predictable, aren’t you?” Mor’s blazing fury glanced off her, hot where she was cold. “You’re given every opportunity to do something useful and you always find a way to f*ck it up.”

Nesta didn’t bother to respond, having nothing to say, and tried to walk past Mor up the stairs. A taloned hand grasped her wrist tightly, jerking upward until they were eye-to-eye. She struggled, but the female held fast, and her wine thudded to the floor where it rolled under the shelves.

“This isn’t about you.” Mor was breathing hard through her nose now, speaking inches from her face through gritted teeth. “Get the f*ck over yourself one f*cking time and do something that benefits others for once in your miserable, pathetic life. And don’t -” She paused, staring at where she still gripped Nesta’s arm, her expression stony. “What the f*ck is that?”

Nesta felt her blood freeze, swallowed and glanced to where Mor was looking. She’d gotten so used to Gwyn’s bracelet she hadn’t noticed the leather tie still around her wrist - the kind only one person they knew wore.

Mor dropped her wrist as if scorched. She looked on the verge of tears, Nesta thought, but the female whirled toward the stairs before she could register much beyond that. With her Fae ears she heard heavy footsteps dashing through the hall above, the slamming of a door. She followed, not desiring to be caught again, still tingling with want when she emerged from the ground, running from one vice and trying to keep herself from tumbling into the other.

Snow began to fall on her walk back to the library, fat flakes gathering in the folds of her coat and hair, driving the residents inside and dampening the sounds of the city to a soft hush. The stacks were nearly empty when she wound her way up, the priestesses taking meals or at their sundown services, most likely.

The House above was equally deserted. Nesta walked automatically toward the private library, as though her body were driven by another and she was merely along for the journey. Cassian was standing at the window, looking out to where the cloak of night was settling over Velaris, hair loose and wings casting his face into shadow. She felt herself come closer to the surface, called forth by a song unheard.

He tipped his head toward the window when she approached, leaning it against the cool glass, all that humor from the other morning long gone. “And how was your day?”

Nesta rested against the windowsill beside him, her back to the city. Her heart felt bruised from beating so solidly in her chest, her composure shredded and raw. “Apparently my life is miserable and pathetic, and I’ve never thought of anyone but myself.”

“Did Rhys say that?” He looked at her sharply, leaving no room for deception.

“No.”

He nodded but didn’t press further, rubbed a hand down his face and was silent for a moment. When he did finally speak, she saw the war in his mind, the turmoil matching his eyes darting between the falling snowflakes. “I know you don’t think your life is worth living, but I would love nothing more than to try and prove you wrong. If that’s what you want, too. I’ll accept whatever your answer is.”

She felt something velvety brush down her arm, realized with a start that he was touching her with his wing. That beautiful wing that meant his freedom, his purpose, that he’d sacrificed twice for her, that he’d curled over her like a canopy on a summer night long ago.

He managed to hide his surprise better this time when she rose up toward him, managed to meet her sooner when she threaded her fingers through his hair and tugged him down to meet her lips.

It was overwhelming, the feel of being kissed by someone who clearly took so much pleasure in it. Cassian lived so intensely in his body that when he touched her, when he ran his hands up her back and gripped her tightly as his passionate mouth laid claims to hers, Nesta thought she could feel the whole of him at once, so consuming, so alive.

They stumbled backward toward the shelves with the force of their desire, never separating, her fingers finding the spindly ladder that scaled the high bookshelves. She braced her foot on a low rung to pull him closer between her legs, and his rough hand slid up her thigh at once, the blue cotton of her evening dress pooling around her hip. He groaned into her mouth and hitched her leg up higher on the ladder, and she couldn’t help the sound that rose from her throat in answer.

“I love hearing you moan.”

It spilled out of him so naturally, as if he’d said it in his head a thousand times before, and when his large hands bracketed her ribs she felt herself soften, giving over to the terrifying thrill of letting him do whatever he wanted to her.

His breath was hot when he bent to nip and suck his way down her neck and Nesta shivered, clung to him tighter, buried her face into the space below his ear, the smell of pine and snow melting her further. The rough press of his hips against hers had her reeling, the scrape of his teeth at her throat, and she was stabbed through with a spike of desire when his fingers edged up her thigh, closer to the hot center of her.

“Nes, you have no idea what you do to me.”

This is what you get for being a f*cking tease.

He was dragging his mouth across her now-bared shoulder and her skin felt feverish, his wings flared wide casting her in a reddish glow, but something in her mind was slipping and his hands felt wrong, the boom of a book tumbling from the shelf above and a fierce pang tore through her, fear turning horrid and delicious, the sweet numbness beckoning to make everything blank if he would just use her, if he would just make her feel anything, feel nothing, feel f*cking nothing -

“Wait,” she breathed, barely managing the sound. Cassian pulled back from her at once, face awash with concern. She saw frost climbing one of his rounded ears beneath her fingers. “I’m fine, I just-” She was having a hard time catching her breath. “I don’t think this is a good idea.”

“I’m so sorry,” he stammered, and he looked stricken again like he had in the kitchen, so guilty as he stepped away to give her space, both of them still panting.

“No, I- don’t be. Trust me.” Nesta held a hand to her chest, trying to steady her galloping heart. “I don’t think this is a good idea for me right now.”

“Of course, I’m an idiot, shouldn’t have-”

“Oh f*ck off, Cassian, you’d never force yourself on me and you know it.” She couldn’t help the anger that rose, the frustration. The splintery ladder bit into her palm where she clutched it still. “So stop it, okay? I’m not afraid of you.”

And that was it, she realized, when a pain long-held and carefully buried sparked behind his eyes, what held him back and tore him away from the promise of their bodies tangled together. He was afraid of hurting her. And Nesta had been about to use him to do that very thing to herself.

Shame, liquid and poisonous, coursed through her, and he must’ve noticed for he stepped closer again, tentatively, pulled her skirts back over her knee to fall toward the floor. She hadn’t even realized there was a fire in the hearth, but she heard it now over their still-labored breathing.

“I don’t want to use you to.. to hurt myself,” she said. “And I can’t tell if that’s what I’m doing right now. And I know how you feel about.. all this. I don’t want to take advantage of that.”

Understanding dawned on his features, and he reached to skim his fingers up her arms, leaving a rash of chills across her skin. “I have no expectations of you, sweetheart. I just want to be who you need me to.”

But it wasn’t his responsibility to hold this line for her, she recognized, wasn’t his duty to see the parts of her she refused to show. She felt exhausted all at once, the labor of having to transcend her worst parts leaving her drained and unguarded. Without meaning to, she rested her forehead against his chest, and whispered into the leather of his armor, her voice small and childlike to her own ears.

“I produced something corporeal today.”

“Really?” His hazel eyes were awestruck when he cupped her face and drew her gaze to his. “Of course you did, that’s f*cking amazing, I knew you could.”

She let him kiss her gently then, the first he’d initiated, and warmth spread through her like sunlight between the cherry blossoms when she was a girl lazing in the estate’s orchard. It felt so blindingly good to be here in the circle of his arms, a safe pocket away from all the ruin. The kiss turned heated once more, and she held tightly to his hair when he finally pulled back, lips wet and eyes hazy.

“I don’t want to stop,” she confessed, and he groaned in that low way again, tortured.

“Neither do I,” he sighed at last, pressing his forehead to hers. “But we should tonight, I think, try and get some sleep. We have a long few days ahead of us.” He extracted himself with some reluctance, a lingering brush of his fingers down her throat. Nesta felt something within her twinge at the tenderness, and at the loss of it when he stepped away again. “Later?”

Her blood spiked as she took in that powerful body, those capable hands, a smirk rising to her lips when his wings flexed under her attention. “Is that a deal?”

“No,” he said, winking, and Nesta felt her knees tremble when he added darkly, “It’s a promise.”

Chapter 12: XI

Chapter Text

It was going to be a long trip.

Cassian tugged at the neck of his dress leathers, already irritated by the stiff golden embroidery circling his collar. They were all outfitted in the Illyrian style, as was custom, Rhys and the females dripping with furs and the precious metals the land was famous for. He swapped a dark look with Azriel, who seemed only slightly more comfortable, his adornments silver where Cassian’s were gold.

They’d begged their brother to lay off the pageantry, but Rhys insisted the Lords would be more insulted by a lack of effort than an overabundance of it. At least it was already the afternoon and Cassian would get to take the damn thing off soon, thank the Mother.

Mor was a shock of red silk and ermine among the rest of them, gold cuffs on her arms and a circlet on her brow in the shape of a twining vine. Elain nearly disappeared into the forest in a gown of hunter green accented with bronze, a shadow behind Feyre draped in velvet and jewelry of their host’s colors, purple and silver.

Amren remained behind, researching and keeping watch. The ancient female was becoming increasingly more reclusive of late.

He knew only that Nesta was in deep navy - when they’d gathered at the river house, he hadn’t been able to look at her for long without getting overwhelmed, like staring into the sun. The rush of wanting rose sharply within him, memories of the night before gusting through his mind.

Her sweet mouth. Her moans when he’d pressed between her thighs. Her expression so open and soft, so unshuttered when she’d confessed the confusion of body, her heart.

It was going to be a long, long f*cking trip.

They’d winnowed just outside the keep’s wall and processed along the main thoroughfare ending in a vast courtyard, the gray stone ornamented with moss and winter ivy. Cassian clasped his hands behind his back tightly, tried not to fidget. Tried to ignore where Nesta was glinting in the corner of his eye, pewter flashing in the long braid that trailed down her back. He was relieved at last to see a small retinue approaching from the yawning mouth of the castle, banners splashed with the crossed sword and hammer of House Ironcrest.

“High Lord. We welcome you warmly.”

Powerful arms spread wide, Breckon Ironcrest had the air of a male slightly gone to seed, Cassian thought, though he still radiated a strength only centuries of noble warrior breeding could produce. Tight braids climbed the sides of his head, threaded with gray at the temples, his leather and steel scale armor somewhat tight across the chest.

Rhys bowed, magnanimous, his mask of gracious authority perfectly in place. “We are honored by your hospitality and invitation to commune with our people. Allow me to introduce you to your High Lady.”

Cassian watched Breckon give Feyre a confused nod. The asshole probably wasn’t used to acknowledging the females among them, his own lady not even present. “And this is my son, Kallon.”

The male of the hour stepped forth, tall but not broad, with dark hair braided like his father’s. The sneer was practiced, and Cassian saw Rhys clock it, searching for weaknesses. Kallon was young, that was for certain, but seemed more self-assured than co*cky somehow, a righteousness in the defiant thrust of his chin that reminded Cassian startlingly of Nesta.

“Our people welcome your presence at last, High Lord. Long has it been since you graced us. In fact, I cannot remember you in these halls in my lifetime.”

When Kallon spoke his voice was smooth, noble - not the errant rebel they’d expected, but a courtier. And, to his brother, an opponent.

“Perhaps that is more a comment on your lifespan than my devotion,” Rhys replied, and Cassian suppressed a shudder at how cold that facade could become, how serpentine. “We have a gift. Please accept it as a token of our continued goodwill.”

A square parcel appeared in Rhys’ outstretched hands, and he unveiled it to reveal a painting of a snow-covered Ramiel, likely done by Feyre, the three stars atop the peak glittering in the setting sun. Kallon accepted the canvas, studied it with apparent amusem*nt. “Remarkable. I’m sure gazing up at it will provide solace to your people while their wings shiver and stomachs rumble this winter.”

A few members of the Lord’s guard hid their snickers, and Cassian tensed behind Elain, felt Mor shift to her other foot beside him. So this was how Kallon would play it, knifing them in the open, putting their failings on display for his supporters. It was Feyre who spoke next, to the surprise of everyone.

“What a wonderful idea.” Her bright voice was syrupy, encouraging, the way she spoke to her smallest artists. “They can admire it in the warmth of your home. With such a large keep, surely there must be room for all our people here! How generous of you.”

“Why don’t you retire and get yourselves settled?” Breckon cut in, his smile tense. He placed a hand on his son’s shoulder, tightened it. “Dinner will be in our private quarters this evening, for you and your…” He looked among them, lingering on the females, alighting at last on Nesta. “ …companions. I hope you will find your rooms to your satisfaction.”

Cassian felt his blood boil, grateful for the muscle memory that kept him from leaping forward and wringing the male’s neck for the disgusted way he looked at her.

With another sweeping bow, the Lord excused himself but Kallon hesitated, as if unable to help it, Cassian thought. The young heir smiled, wolfish, clenched a fist around the hilt of his ceremonial sword. “And I hope you will take care, my Lord, to remember why you are here.”

Cassian felt his siphons pulse watching the embroidered hammer glint between Kallon’s wings as he disappeared into one of the low outbuildings. Rhys swiveled to face them all, his expression grave.

“Anyone still doubt his involvement?”

The answering silence was deafening. Cassian turned to look at Nesta for the first time since they’d arrived to find her already staring back at him, dread taking root in his mind as he spiraled into visions of all that could go wrong.

—

After the tense greeting things moved quickly, and Nesta was grateful for the moment of reprieve, though short-lived. The mission was making her nervous, but her part was still far-off, their investigation delayed until there was a plausible opportunity to sneak away. Rhysand had eyed her warily before they winnowed, had spoken into her mind a warning to keep her silver fire in check.

Do not speak unless spoken to. Do not show your powers. Do not jeopardize this. They will be watching our every move.

She and her sisters were relegated to Elain’s room at present, the first to receive a thorough security sweep before the males moved on to the rest. Morrigan had insisted huffily that she could check her own room and disappeared into her quarters, hopefully to change out of that dreadful gown.

Nesta shivered against the gathering chill. The air here felt strange, dense, and a dull ringing sound plagued her, like a pestering gnat.

“It’s more robust than I expected. I assumed all camps were like Windhaven,” Feyre observed, fingering the edge of the heavy, plum-colored duvet before tugging at her bodice, muttering under her breath. “I can’t wait to get out of this thing.”

Nesta had to agree with Feyre’ observation, though she didn’t bother to say it aloud. Their accommodations were surprisingly lush, the guest wing of the keep warm and secluded, far from the main hall, with large stone hearths in each room veined with opal and gold. She gathered that Ironcrest was wealthier than the camps she’d seen before, though less keen to spread that wealth given the derelict tents they’d passed on the hill. The furniture was of the same red cedar she could see piercing the sky through the rough-cut windows, the woodsy smell a welcome distraction from the brimstone of the forges that permeated the rest of the camp.

“It reminds me of the Forrester’s, their big, drafty old house. I would’ve sworn it was haunted as a child.”

Nesta started when Elain spoke, surprised to hear her so calm in the middle of enemy territory, though from true boldness or naivety it was hard to say. She kept her vigil by the window, watched a hawk skim the snow-dusted treetops before catching an updraft, mounting to the sky once more.

Elain’s tight hello that morning was the first word spoken to Nesta since she’d stormed away into the city's underbelly. But she was trying, Nesta could tell. For Feyre. She could try, too. “I’d forgotten that. We stayed awake half the night huddled around a candle.”

“When was this?” Feyre asked.

“You were too young,” Elain continued. She traced the wrought iron design backing the door, so like the tattoos that marked the Illyrians’ skin. “They were some cousins of somebody. They lived in a place much like this, more of a castle than an estate. Father took us to stay with them, likely to size up their four sons.”

A thick silence settled over them. Feyre sniffled.

“I wish he could be here. Especially now.”

Nesta turned her head to see her sister run a slow hand across the swell of her belly, growing by the day. A sickly feeling stole through her to hear their father mentioned so openly, so separated from the violence and pain of his death. She realized she was envious of her sisters just then, of their ability to remember him in moments other than his very last.

The fire popped and Nesta jumped, tried to count and slow her breathing. Tried to relax her body, as Gwyn had taught her, to brace against the wave of feeling.

But it would never feel normal. It would never be just a word, something she could excise and leave behind. He would always be my father, and he would always be dead because of her.

When she returned to herself, Feyre was studying her, radiating a sympathy that Nesta didn’t want.

“We’re having a boy. We found out a few weeks ago,” her sister offered, holding Nesta with eyes so like her own. Like their mother, who Nesta thought would be thrilled that Feyre wasn’t saddled with a daughter. She fought the absurd laugh rising in her throat.

Elain clapped her hands to her mouth and rushed to the bed, gathering Feyre in the tightest hug their formal clothing would allow. “That’s so wonderful, I’m so happy for you.”

“And!” Feyre brightened when she pulled back, brimming with excitement she could no longer contain. “He has wings. I didn’t know what the chances were, but I had hoped..”

The smothered laugh emerged at last, a choking sound Nesta tried to cover with a cough.

Wings. The child had wings. The floor tilted up for a moment, and Nesta braced a hand on the windowsill, trying to steady the nausea that bloomed within her. It shouldn’t shock her, after all the upheaval, the destruction, but the thought of her youngest sister giving birth to a winged baby, hoping for it, killed something in her. Another piece of their humanity, lost like smoke in the dark.

“That’s..” Nesta cleared her throat again, tried to drum up enthusiasm from nowhere when she realized they were awaiting her response. “Congratulations.”

“That’s why I’ve been feeling so ill, according to Madja. She told me it could cause some complications, but I have to admit I was too excited to listen much after that.” Feyre struggled to her feet as she spoke, grabbing the bedpost. Her center of balance was shifting, and Nesta could see her sister working to readjust. “It’s best we don’t talk about it here, though, except between us. It’s a bit - oh Mother, when did standing get so hard? - a bit controversial, apparently, given I’m High Fae. Something about wanting to keep Illyrian bloodlines pure.”

Nesta wondered what that meant, given her sister’s own husband was mixed-race. The child was a quarter Illyrian, regardless. “So will your son train here? In Illyria, I mean.”

Feyre frowned. “I don’t know. I hadn’t thought about it.”

“It’s an awfully harsh place. Harsh people. Though not all,” Elain added sheepishly, eyes darting to the ground.

Nesta drew another measured breath, focused on how her feet felt in her boots. “He’ll have the rights to it, at the very least. Only those low-born have to prove they warrant training.”

And, according to Emerie, it was incredibly difficult for non-noble Illyrians to qualify for the upper ranks of the army, let alone receive siphons. She’d stared at all seven of Cassian’s across the breakfast table after learning that, his dark hair still mussed from sleep. She remembered his beautiful, deadly dance on the battlefield, the siphons backing his hands flashing up and down her body in the library.

Feyre shrugged. “Well, I have time to decide, I guess.”

But Nesta saw her sister worry at the corner of her mouth, and felt a pang all over again for the dying embers of her youth. They’d all grown up so quickly, though for different reasons. She’d once hoped for Feyre a second chance at that freedom in her new life, though it seemed farther beyond her sister’s reach with every passing day.

—-

An hour later found Cassian beneath a large four poster bed in the final room, checking the underside of the frame for subterfuge that didn’t exist. “I don’t know why we’re bothering. He’s clearly not trying to hide anything. And it’s not like they’ll they’re dumb enough to put faebane under your pillow.”

Rhys’ answer came back muffled, as though his head were in the wardrobe. “I want nothing left to chance.”

“Okay, tell that to your kid when they’re dangling in that silver deathtrap, Daddy Moon Cradle.”

Cassian shimmied out from under the bed and stood, ruffled his wings to shake off the dust. They’d swept the female’s quarters first, to allow them to prepare for dinner, but he was going to need more time than anyone at this rate. Azriel emerged from the bathing chamber empty-handed as well. “Nothing in here.”

“And did you check beneath the mattress?” Rhys asked.

“Yes,” Cassian huffed. “Will his lordship require a bedtime story as well?”

While still a threat, Kallon wasn’t stupid enough to attempt an assassination in his own house, his goal more about optics than bloodshed if the standoff in the courtyard told them anything. A cursory sweep was protocol, but this level of detail was excessive, even for a worrier like Cassian. He’d been trying to loosen his brother up since they’d arrived, but the humor only seemed to deepen the depression.

“Sorry,” Rhys mumbled, sinking into a chair near the hearth. “After White Eagle, the fire, I don’t…” He broke off, and that haunted expression visited his face again, from when he’d first seen the list of names. “There’s too much at stake.”

When they’d gathered that morning, Mor had whispered to Cassian of the wicked fight she’d overheard the night before, of his brother begging his mate to stay behind. Feyre had flatly refused, to no one’s surprise. He couldn’t blame Rhys for being beside himself, though he needed to calm the f*ck down if they were going to get any information out of this trip.

“We have the High Lady,” Azriel said firmly. “No harm will come to her. To any of them,” he added with a quick glance at Cassian - one Rhys didn’t miss. Cassian noted the furrow that cleaved his brother’s brow, though he banished it quickly and turned back to the shadowsinger. Cassian busied himself inspecting the small desk as Rhys heaved another sigh.

“There’s more. I’ve been told an emissary from Ravenscroft will be joining us tomorrow.”

Cassian froze. His heart stuttered when dark shadows gathered in the room, slithering across the floors and up the furniture from where Azriel stood against the far wall. They snaked up his arms, the legs of the desk, their cool kiss tightening as if to squeeze all the air from the room. Ravenscroft. It couldn’t be. “Is it..?”

“No,” Rhys said quickly. “I’ve never heard of the male before. I’m certain it’s a pointed move to try and undermine us, or goad us into causing a scene. But we cannot risk hostility when we’re under scrutiny like this.”

The shadows slithered back as abruptly as they’d unwound, returning to wreath Azriel’s face in darkness. The shadowsinger nodded. “Understood.”

Cassian had to agree with Rhys- it was a dirty trick, inviting a representative from Azriel’s home camp. The one he refused to acknowledge, even now, even with his half-brother continuing their father’s legacy. Maybe Kallon was cleverer than they thought.

He watched Rhys stare into the fire, night dark power retreating from where he’d been on alert. “On a lighter note, we’ve been invited to participate in the Dawn Rite in the morning.”

Cassian groaned, cracked his head on the underside of the desk in his attempt to stand. “Ow, f*ck. Please tell me it’s not a full one.”

“Only four events, thankfully, though I’m sure they think we’ll use it as an excuse to snoop. Which is why we will be there, and make sure they know it.”

“You already enlisted us,” Azriel said.

“I thought you never pass up an opportunity to show off.”

Cassian could’ve beaten the smug smile off his brother’s face if he weren’t so glad to see it. “You’re an ass, you know that?”

“We’ll be expected for dinner soon. Az, can you escort Elain? Mor can take care of herself, as she’s made abundantly clear.” The shadowsinger nodded again, and Rhys cut a hard look at Cassian. “And you do whatever you can to make sure Nesta’s on her best behavior.”

“I mean, you don’t have to say it like that.”

Cassian felt his anger spike as Rhys ignored him and rose wordlessly before wandering toward the door, staring at the wood as though he could see his mate through it. His voice was soft when he turned to regard them once more, something unreadable passing across his face.

“I wanted to tell you, our child… a boy. We found out yesterday.”

Such wonderful news, to be delivered so solemnly. Cassian could’ve sworn there was more left unsaid, though he wasn’t sure why.

—

Dinner was an intimate affair, only their retinue and the Lord’s family, his wife and two silent daughters flanking him and his son at the head of the table. The food was surprisingly spicy and rich, to warm the bones against the winter chill, the Lord explained, and Nesta felt like she could breathe for the first time since their arrival.

Ironic, considering the abundance of wine flowing like rivers of blood. It was most difficult when she caught a whiff of it, but by looking directly at her plate she could mostly block it out, turning her attention instead to the delicate game playing out across the table.

Kallon and the High Lord traded barbs throughout, Feyre or Mor occasionally interjecting, the rest content to watch the match unfold without inviting friendly fire. From what she gathered, the heir and his father disagreed on the solutions to Illyria’s problems, the Lord simpering in his praise where his son was cutting. Nesta puzzled over it up to the last course, a tangy mountain goat’s cheese smeared on thick, sweet bread, crushed purple berries atop oozing juice through their broken skins. Perhaps the Lord of Ironcrest preferred things as they were, she thought as she chewed. He was certainly living comfortably under the current arrangement.

“Interesting company you keep, my Lord. Bastards and females. Are there no adequate males in all of the Night Court?”

Kallon was leaning back in his chair, wings splayed wide behind his sister whose own wings, she now noticed, were clipped. Emerie had explained very little of the practice so far, but Nesta felt a low rumble of anger, her power stirring after being depleted in the study the night before. She watched Rhysand survey the young heir over his wine, calculating. “That depends on your definition of adequacy.”

“Whatever your definition, it must include witches,” Kallon continued, cutting his gaze to Nesta. Her power rippled again, as if recognizing itself as the topic of conversation. “Tell me - is it out of charitable sentiment, or is the Night Court dabbling in the dark arts intentionally?”

She heard Cassian suck in a quick breath beside her. He’d been quieter than usual today, consumed by diverting his attention in so many directions, she assumed. Now he sat back and dropped a hand into his lap, and she felt him vibrate from the effort of keeping still.

Rhysand’s mask of serene elegance had never looked so sinister. “Both fascinating theories, though both false. I am simply blessed to be mated to a female with extraordinary sisters.”

Rage exploded inside of Nesta, hot silver rushing like wind in her ears, like the shrieking depths of the Cauldron, hearing him compliment her while she was on display for his benefit. Using her for his own gain, acting like he didn’t capitalize on every f*cking opportunity to dismiss and demean her in private, just like her mother. She gripped her fork so hard it rattled against the side of her plate.

“Easy.” Cassian’s low whisper sounded in her ear, his warm hand on her thigh beneath the table. She ignored him, ignored the frost climbing her fork, winding through the tines. Ignored the flood of memories all crashing on top of one another, the public praisings and secret beatings.

“Illuminate us, High Lord.” She prayed her voice wouldn’t tremble, that those caustic violet eyes couldn’t see her unraveling. “What is so very extraordinary about Elain and me?”

Rhysand’s gaze flicked to Feyre, and she felt the cold press of him against her mind. Resisted it, though she could imagine his words in her head: don’t start this, think of your sister, of anyone but yourself for once. She pushed back hard with that impervious piece of her, casting him out. He frowned, feigning thoughtfulness.

“Your restraint. Given the chance to bring the world to its knees, you choose not to.”

Nesta would’ve been impressed if she weren’t so furious. The threat was multi-directional, all at once a warning to her to behave while dangling not only his immense power in front of Kallon and the Lord, but her own as well. He wanted her as his weapon to wield when he pleased, even against herself.

Worthless, selfish child. Remember who you belong to.

Her mother’s voice echoing, the tug of the otherworld was searing and sharp, that strange ringing louder as silver flames rippled in her mind’s eye. They must’ve danced in her real eyes, too, for she saw the Lord of Ironcrest’s own narrow slightly, one hand reaching to cover his lady’s.

Before she could unfurl the stinging whip of her rage, Cassian stood abruptly and made to pull out her chair. “Speaking of restraint, my High Lord was kind enough to volunteer me for the Dawn Rite in the morning, so I should take my leave. May I escort you back to your room?”

Her vision still swimming, he smiled down at her through gritted teeth and held out a hand. Nesta took it without thinking. He threaded her arm through his, his grip firm, though she barely felt it, barely heard him wish the rest goodnight. She kept waiting for the relief to wash over her at his touch but she was still cold, and as they passed into the corridor beyond sight of the attendants, she wrenched free, stumbling with the force it required.

“Get your hands off me.”

Cassian let go and followed at a distance, but kept his wings outstretched to keep her from running back toward the dining room, she assumed. “You were freezing the table. They’ll burn you in the courtyard for less.”

“I’d like to see them try.”

“No, I mean - f*ck. I won’t let that happen, but you have to calm down.”

“Or what,” she spat, whirling. He towered over her and she’d never felt smaller, more childlike in his presence. “You’ll drag me off and send me to my room? Fancy locking me up? Might as well tie me down, just to be certain.”

Hazel eyes sparked with hurt, and she almost felt sorry. “That’s not what I’m saying.”

“It’s what you’re doing. It’s what you always do.”

“I’m just trying to protect you, Nes, you have no idea what it’s like up here.”

But she didn’t want to hear his concern, didn’t want him to justify it because it would never be okay and she’d trusted him, she’d trusted him. She felt cornered, wild as she shouted in his face. “Don’t you dare manhandle me again, you brute. You can’t bully me-”

You can’t bully me in the name of protection anymore.

She stalled, and Elain’s face rose in her memory, the tip of her nose pink with cold and fury. The ways she'd dragged her out of the shop, the threats she’d leveled in the name of protecting her sister.

The panic ebbed, replaced by a dull ache. Worry was still lining Cassian's handsome face when she looked at him truly, the unmet promise of the night before hovering between them like a phantom. She burned sickly to let him have her, take this hurt away, but she froze herself against the warm redemption of his hand, gentle now at her back. Left him reeling in the corridor without another word, and stared out the window for long hours after, searching for her face but only finding her mother’s.

—

In his younger days, the whispers of Enalius reborn and Lord of Bloodshed filled him with smug pride when they followed him into the competition ring. Now they hung around Cassian’s neck like a yoke, his steps grinding heavily in the dirt.

The Dawn Rite commenced at the first kiss of the sun on the horizon, the frozen Illyrian sky painted with watery blues and pinks. Competitions of strength and skill would last until midday, when the music and feasting began and stretched into the star-flecked night, through to the dawn of the following day.

Cassian pointed his sword tip toward the ground and circled, getting his bearings and mapping the areas of light and shadow in the ring. Even if they were only using blunted practice swords, vigilance was never wasted, and clear vision could mean the difference between a flesh wound and a severed wing.

His opponent for the longsword, his first event, was of indeterminate age, though the lone opal siphon at his chest signified at least some experience. Unusual light gray eyes stood out starkly against his dark hair and the purple of his House Ironcrest tunic, his sword flipping idly in a hand as he waited for Cassian to advance.

Interesting. Not scared sh*tless, like his typical opponents.

Not afraid of him, like Nesta had looked last night. He threw a dark look toward Rhys high above, cursing him for roping them into this charade when he should be on his knees, begging her favor.

At the herald’s signal, Cassian cut the the left before feinting, and they clashed and separated over and over, circling, steel ringing high above the gasps and jeers. Onlookers packed into the circular stands, townspeople and delegations from the other camps here at the first light to see the warrior god reborn. He felt his siphons throb, killing power begging to go harder, faster, but he checked his next swing, catching the male in the side hard enough to wind without breaking ribs. His opponent anticipated the blow, rolled to the side and leapt up, smirking.

Cassian smirked back. Overconfidence was the easiest weakness to exploit.

When they next clashed, he let a blow glance off his shoulder, ignoring the jolt of pain to whirl around and catch the male undefended on his followthrough. Raising his arms, he made to smash the sword hilt down into the male’s face, expecting him to duck so he could throw him off-balance with a knee and pin him facedown in the dirt.

Instead Cassian watched as the male went oddly still, eyes blank where they tracked the pommel crashing toward his jaw until the moment of impact, and he crumpled to the ground in a heap, wings twitching and blood trickling from his mouth.

Cheers erupted from the stands as the loser’s comrades rushed to retrieve him, a pack of Ironcrest males around Kallon’s age. Cassian noticed them throwing furtive looks his way, even caught a snicker or two, but was soon consumed by the sight of Nesta Archeron sitting in the Lord’s box between her sisters, arms folded and a thunderous expression on her face.

All the sweetness of victory faded away when he imagined what it must be like for her, to witness the violence that had stolen her life. To witness it at his hands.

The shame burned in him, and he couldn’t bear to look for more than a moment. He dispatched his next three opponents in much shorter order, going for clean drops across the board - no blood, no broken bones - until he stood at last as the champion.

Stomach knotted, Cassian swiped a sleeve at his brow and inclined his head toward where the Lord and Rhys were applauding. But really he bowed to her, an apology. He saw her mouth tighten into a line and she nodded back, as if to say Okay, let’s talk.

Azriel gutted the competition in the quarterstaff next, his longest match lasting all of forty five seconds. Mor pointed out the emissary from Ravenscroft when Cassian joined her in the stands to watch, though he only caught a glimpse of blue-black armor and a high, haughty forehead.

Hand-to-hand followed after; Ironcrest had saved their best, it seemed, and he was scraped up, bare chest covered in red dirt by the time he reached the final round.

Kallon was circling him, lip swollen and bloody from his brawl in the penultimate match, though the novice from Bloodstone had fared far worse. Cassian tried to bury his shock at the whelp making it this far, but he couldn’t deny that Kallon had style. What he lacked in muscle he made up for in speed, dexterity, and a certain unpredictability that made him hard to pin.

They traded a few blows, testing each other. He decided his best strategy was to bide his time, let Kallon tire himself out with cheap attempts until his speed was less of a threat. Cassian watched the shifting tattoos on Kallon’s arms where they stood out starkly, the fresh ink not yet settled into the skin. Twin amethyst siphons backing his hands fluttered with light.

“What will you do, Lord of Bloodshed? When you realize your life has been a lie,” the male taunted.

Typically the mouthier one in the ring, Cassian kept his silence. The air rippled strangely around Kallon, though it might have been a trick of the light. You know what they say about his family, Emerie had said, that day in her shop now feeling years past.

Kallon caught his distraction and lunged forward, aiming for the weak point at his shoulder. Cassian twisted, took the opportunity to land a kick to the young heir’s back, into the kidneys. Kallon staggered but righted himself quickly, created space between them.

“Who will you become, when you discover you’ve been a lapdog of tyrants, begging for scraps?”

It was Cassian’s turn to advance this time, ducking the blow meant for his cheek and tackling the male to the ground, their bodies carving battle runes into the dirt where they grappled. Cassian could taste the tang of power on his tongue, and wrapped his arms tightly around the male pinned beneath him, but he wriggled free, slippery as a river eel.

“No doubt your bastard blood makes you suited for such a thing.” Kallon wiped the blood from an eye, a souvenir of Cassian’s elbow. He laughed, taunting. “But perhaps your whor* mother expected more of you.”

His restraint snapped. With a snarl, Cassian barrelled forward even as he hated himself for it, threw his fist into Kallon’s stomach, again, again, ribs groaning and cracking, but the male continued to laugh, as if he couldn’t feel the blows or the pain.

“Perhaps -”

But Cassian didn’t wait for what he’d say next, pinned Kallon to the arena wall with two hands around his neck, legs dangling inches above the dirt as rage pounded through him, killing power a roar of wind in his ears, drowning out the crowd. The male’s breath was sour in his face and Kallon smiled, teeth coated red when he choked out so only Cassian could hear.

“Perhaps her son shall rise.”

Cassian twisted and threw Kallon to the ground with his full might, siphons flaring bright and hot to cast the crumpled body in a crimson glow. He didn’t wait to be crowned the victor before stalking out of the arena, the applause hitting his back like a volley of arrows, thick enough to block the sun.

He did not stay to watch Azriel rise in final challenge against his half-brother’s emissary, hear the arrows whistling straight and true, each splitting the one before it to hit the same spot on the target. Did not see the shadowsinger pause before his final shot and beckon his High Lady down from the stands, her golden brown hair rippling in the midday sun. Did not see her draw the bow taut, proud stance accommodating her belly, and strike through the heart of the ninth arrow, cleaving it in two.

Chapter 13: XII

Chapter Text

“Abuse grows from attitudes and values, not feelings. The roots are ownership, the trunk is entitlement, and the branches are control.”

― Lundy Bancroft, Why Does He Do That? Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men

The revel was well underway by the time she knocked on Cassian’s door, a fervor of drums and stringed instruments drifting down the corridor, shoring up her courage.

Nesta had realized, sitting in those stands under the mounting sun, that she’d been judging him by the standards of her own world, and had never once thought of the soil he’d been born into. Had never imagined the roots he’d had to grow, just to survive.

What had happened to her, she wondered, to his mother. He’d only ever said enough for Nesta to gather she was no longer living.

“Oh, hey.” Cassian seemed surprised, as if he’d been expecting someone else. He glanced up and down the empty hallway before opening the door wider, stepping aside. “Come in. I’m almost done getting dressed.”

A fact Nesta was painfully aware of, given the expanse of bare back she was greeted by when he turned. “Do you always open the door shirtless to strangers?”

He chuckled and the sound warmed her, how simple and true it was. She closed the door and leaned back against it, still gripping the brass handle. The tunic he slung over his head was the same deep black of his hair, edged in silver, and left a slice of his tattooed chest on display. Crimson siphons winked when he straightened, tentative.

“Nesta, I’m-”

“I wanted to -”

“Sorry, you go first-”

“No I -” She stalled, feeling like her words were all in the wrong order. “I wanted to apologize for calling you a brute last night. I thought you were taking me back to punish me.”

“Never.” He looked aghast where he sat on the edge of the huge bed, pulling on his boots. “I would never-”

“I know.” She cut him off before he could say something that tore her shield away, when she was doing her utmost to lower it slowly. “I know you wouldn’t. There was so much happening, and I felt like I needed to protect myself. So I went for what I knew would hurt you. And I’m sorry for that.”

Nesta saw his wings relax and he stood, crossed to where she leaned against the door. Still at a respectful distance, he took her hand off the knob, the one he’d clutched so tightly the night before, and placed a kiss on the back of it. “You don’t have to apologize. I’m sorry I crossed a line. It won’t happen again.”

She felt her breath catch when he met her eyes, the nakedness of his expression altogether thrilling and terrifying. He must’ve felt the same fear, for he let go of her hand and moved to the window, the line of his shoulders tense once again. She found herself trailing after him, looking out onto the treetops buffeted by a rising wind, the mountains painted golden in the fading afternoon sun.

“This f*cking place,” he muttered.

He seemed as heavy as the dense clouds looming, promising snow, that same weight she’d seen dogging him when he stormed out of the ring. Some long-buried part of her had the instinct to lay a comforting hand on his arm, but she kept them clasped in front of her. “I thought you loved Illyria.”

“This isn’t my Illyria.” The light filtered through his wings, illuminating the faint scars running through them. “Is it possible to love and hate something at the same time?”

She snorted. “Don’t you have siblings?”

He laughed again, and Nesta was surprised to feel a triumph at it, at the way his manner seemed to loosen. “Rhys wants us to poke around the keep tonight, once everyone is hammered. See if you sense anything.”

“But I still don’t have the mask.” Her power flickered at the mention, stirring, and she breathed in and out through her nose, that strange ringing of the otherworld sounding far off in her head.

“Any evidence helps, at this point.”

Nesta heard Cassian speak but the ringing was getting louder now, not just in her head perhaps but here, coming from somewhere in the keep. “Do you hear that?”

“Hear wh -” he began but she shushed him, moved back to the door to press her ear to the wood. The sound grew louder.

Nesta slipped out of the room without answering, Cassian unquestioning on her heels as she followed the sound through a series of labyrinthine corridors. She noticed her power stir once more, something beckoning, a subtle push in one direction every time their path split off.

They snuck down into the lower levels of the keep, the air growing musty and dank the deeper they traveled, the occasional root curling between the stones. Iron braziers guided their way, their shifting shadows beastly where they were thrown against the walls.

A door creaked open around the bend ahead. Cassian made to grab for her wrist, but stopped himself, taking her hand instead as footsteps sounded far off.

“Someone’s coming this way,” he whispered urgently, and she glanced behind her, panicked, saw the staircase they’d just descended winding upward into the rock. She yanked on his hand and he followed immediately, creeping up until they were out of sight but still close enough to hear the voices traveling up the corridor. The ringing was near deafening now, and Nesta grabbed at the points of her ears, willing it to calm.

“ - just don’t tell them my jaw’s fixed, and I can move while everyone’s distracted.”

Two males rounded the corner, conversing in a low murmur. She didn’t recognize the voice of the one who’d just spoken, but could picture the gray eyes of the warrior Cassian had bested in the longsword. She suppressed a curl of revulsion, pinched her lips together to listen closer.

“No, we need to regroup. My father is furious.” Kallon’s insistent whisper sounded, and dread sluiced through her at his next words, icy and gripping. “It’s the Lady - that’s how we get to him.”

The pair drew even with the foot of the staircase and Cassian drew her up another step, silently, pulling her into him and whisking her skirts out of sight.

“She’s his weakness, clearly. Break her and we break him.”

Nesta felt Cassian shaking where she gripped his forearms, fighting the impulse to charge down the stairs. She pressed him closer into the wall with her body, placed a careful hand on his chest, fingers brushing bare skin. Prayed the look she shot him translated through the gloom.

Don’t, she mouthed, for good measure. He looked agonized as he leaned his head back against the stone and swallowed.

“We can’t risk being discovered.” Kallon again. “There’s too much at stake.”

Booted footsteps faded until they moved too far off to be heard. Cassian loosed a long breath and cursed. Nesta found herself stroking a curl of tattoo with her fingertip, suddenly too aware of the press of her body against his, the iron band of his arm around her waist. The terror keeping her body on alert was still thrumming through her and she was mesmerized, feeling a deep tug toward him that was more difficult to ignore with every strong thump of his quickening heart beneath her hand.

It was inane, foolish, she knew as she raised onto her toes to capture his lips, a horrible choice to slide her hand behind his neck and ignore his look of surprise because he didn’t mean it, because he wanted this just as much as she did, always wanted it, always wanted her. The surging of her blood from the pressure and the danger, from all this sh*t, begged her to throw herself against him over and over, to smash herself apart so he could reassemble her into someone better, someone braver. The ringing was so loud now it was inside and out, becoming a part of her.

Cassian’s mouth lingered on her own for only a moment, attaching to her throat hungrily, as though he teetered on the edge of madness right beside her, the same whirlpool of wanting from that long ago night when the faelights at the townhouse seemed molten and alive. His broad hand dragged up her front, cupping her breast, and her answering moan echoed eerily off the stone.

The sound seemed to break the spell for both of them, and they pulled back at the same moment, panting, Cassian’s eyes cloudy and ringed with gold.

“What are we doing?” she asked.

“I don’t know.” His hoarse voice raised the hairs on her arms, though from fear or anticipation it was difficult to say. He gave his head a doglike shake. “We have to go find Rhys.”

Nesta felt another tug in her gut, almost painful, begging her to shove him down on the steps and climb atop until he was begging for her mercy. She shoved it down and followed him, stared at the strong joints where his wings met his back, not noticing that the ringing had stopped.

—

Rhys hadn’t burned the keep down when they told him of the threat, shockingly, though he did insist on Feyre keeping to their rooms for the rest of the day. In the meantime, they coordinated their story - the High Lady was feeling ill due to her pregnancy, needed to rest - and Azriel offered to stand guard for the rest of the night.

Their plans for investigating they’d delayed until the morning, when the rest of the assembled would be at the memorial ceremony. Even so, Cassian felt the strain of being on alert, having his attention spread in so many directions when he wanted to devote all of it to the female at his side.

They were tucked into an alcove of the great stone courtyard, the snow steadily dusting the crenellations held back by the warmth of a hundred siphons pulsing to the rhythm of the drums. Their post was far from the roaring bonfire at the center; far from the wine, too, at Nesta’s request, though he suspected a double motive of keeping watch over the party and her sister in the thick of it. Rhys was escorting a fur-clad Elain at Feyre’s insistence, once the middle Archeron made it clear she hadn’t come all this way to be locked in her room as well. Cassian tracked where she floated beside his brother, a fawn in a dark wood.

“Caddick of Bloodstone you’ve seen.” He pointed toward the male hovering near the wine casks, laughing loudly. The curve of Nesta’s waist begged him to place a hand there, but he resisted, gripped his cup tighter. “And that’s Murstan of White Eagle. He’s more of a village elder, White Eagle sends their able boys to train at other camps.”

He was distracting himself by telling her of the other camps, the alliances and rivalries, the long-held grudges. He didn’t miss the way her eyes lit up at the musicians, the striking movements of the males in the war dance. It must be very different from the balls of her youth, he thought, ladies swirling demurely, lords bowing in poncy tailcoats and hats. Illyrian revels were passionate and cathartic, a people spinning their ancestral rage into a kind of euphoria.

More fitting for this passionate, rage-filled female, though he’d never say it. Nesta’s long-sleeved gown was the slate blue of a winter lake, her hair braided into her signature coronet.

“Caulder and Bromwell,” he continued, jerking his head toward the Lords decked in glossy black scales, holding court for a crowd of younger males. “The Twin Pines. Sister camps on either side of a deep gorge, Honor’s Peak and Valor’s Peak. The families intermarry often, to keep the peace. Though it does make them a little.. unique.”

Nesta pursed her lips, as if stifling a laugh. Cassian felt a swoop of affection low in his stomach, resisted the urge to pull her close and run his fingers over the impossibly soft spot behind her ear, the one he’d tasted earlier in their ill-advised, fear-fueled arousal. It would be a mistake to let them know what she meant to him, especially here. He busied himself once more searching for Mor’s golden head among the crowd.

“And Windhaven?”

“Not here. Devlon and the others don’t get along.”

The revel was reaching its peak now, talk loud and unbound, challenges thrown over tables of cards and dice, wine flowing. Males pulled laughing females onto the floor to join in the dance, and an attendant tossed another thick bundle of herbs on the fire, the fragrant smoke blanketing the courtyard, the air hazy. He felt Nesta flinch beside him. He followed her gaze to where she observed the raven-haired emissary at a nearby high table, where males were trading swigs from a bottle of acrid green windberry mead.

“And that’s-”

“Ravenscroft.” Cassian tried to keep the bitterness out of his voice, wondered if his brother had other reasons for offering to stand guard tonight. “As rich as they are f*cking backwards. I still don’t know how Az made it out of there alive.”

The male must’ve felt their attention because he locked eyes with Cassian, sneering. With a casual arrogance he pushed away from the table, weaving toward them, cronies following in his oily wake. He sniffed the air delicately as he approached.

“Do you smell that? Seems the kennel master missed one of the dogs this evening.”

Before Cassian could retort, Nesta’s tinkling laugh cut through the night, her posture strong and undaunted. “Surely you’re referring to yourself? I’d want somewhere to hide too if my sister humiliated me in front of everyone.”

“How dare you address me. I should cut you down for your insolence.” The male glared at her, then muttered in Illyrian to his followers something so vile, so disgusting, that Cassian felt the anger blast through him, muscles screaming, siphons burning on his hands with the need to kill kill kill-

Nesta’s arm threaded through his, bringing him back. The male’s eyes glittered. “She suits you, Prince of Bastards - a mongrel mated to a bitch. It’s almost touching.”

Cassian tried to focus on where her long fingers were tracing a slow circle on the underside of his wrist, out of sight. The male gave him another smirk and weaved onward, distracted by a shout calling him to another drinking challenge.

“You shouldn’t let him get a rise out of you.” Nesta’s fingers kept circling, though she followed the male with steely eyes. “It’s what he wants.”

“That doesn’t mean he can talk about you like that. He should face me himself, like a male.”

“What was that he said in Illyrian?”

“He said -” Cassian hesitated, grimacing, but knew she’d be angry if he watered it down for her. “Maybe the slu*t’s bastard will have wings and save us the trouble.”

“What does that mean?”

“Winged pregnancies are rare but dangerous for High Fae. They can be fatal,” he explained delicately, not wanting to frighten her. He knew well the terror she sometimes felt in her new body, the Cauldron’s violation. “The babes are big, and if you survive the demand of developing wings, the birth itself can go very wrong. Most terminate, rather than risk it.” He searched for Elain again, found her and Rhys picking their way toward the door, the former looking a tad overwhelmed by the growing raucousness. “And you High Fae are the enemy to them. It makes me worry for Rhys and Feyre’s son.”

Nesta’s face was tinged green, her voice shaky. She scrutinized him, searching his face for something he couldn’t understand. “How long have you known? About the child.”

“That they’re having a boy?” he asked, unclear why this was so unsettling to her. Surely she’d known the sentiments toward the Night Court, given the nature of their mission. “Since yesterday, Rhys said they found out the day before we left. Are you okay?”

She stumbled a bit at that, and he caught her under the elbow, steadying her. She shook him off, blue eyes unseeing as his concern mounted. Whatever he’d just said had confirmed something for her, and she turned that searing focus toward the crowd. “I’m fine. I’m just tired. I think I’m finished for the evening.”

“Do you want me to -”

“No,” she insisted, avoiding his eyes. “No. I can do this myself.”

—

Nesta’s heart was hammering so hard she feared it may burst through her chest, the terror and rage pounding in time with her frantic steps as she pursued the High Lord. She found him returning from the wing where they were housed - back from escorting Elain, she supposed, from playing the part of gallant brother-in-law.

What a farce. He had the nerve to look confused when she approached, the black brocade of his tunic glinting menacingly in the light from the braziers. Her thoughts felt all on top of one another, torn between wanting to fall to her knees in tears and smack him so hard his head spun.

She chose the latter.

Rhysand reeled, not expecting it, his midnight power throwing up a shield about him too late.

“How long have you known?” The spike of her fury was sharp and hot, pointing at his heart. Silver light danced at her fingertips.

“What the f*ck are you-”

Nesta raised her hand again and she felt the press of him against her mind, cold and invasive. She evicted it, quicker than before. “That the baby has wings. Cassian said two days ago, but Feyre told us it’s been weeks.”

The High Lord froze for the slightest moment, a predator suddenly realizing himself the prey. He clasped Nesta by the shoulders, his grip a dark vice, dragged her into an empty maid’s chamber nearby before she could protest, power sealing the door.

He released her at once and began to pace. His raven hair was mussed, violet eyes frantic and searching. “She told you.”

“Did you tell her not to?”

“You must understand -”

“How long.” Nesta held her ground despite the fear pounding through her, knowing she could resist his worst should it come to that, given his panic in the study. Knowing if she were truly in danger, a flare of ruby siphons would break down the door in an instant. “Fine, I’ll ask Feyre, she can clear this up. And I’m sure she’ll be thrilled you locked me in a room alone with you.”

“Six weeks.” Rhysand ceased his pacing, as if reading his own defeat and trying to regroup.

“And she doesn’t know it will kill her.”

“It will not kill her.” His voice was desperate in its viciousness, agonized in its anger. “I will not allow that. I’ve been searching for a way to save them both from the moment I found out.”

Nesta felt like she was going to retch. He’d hidden it from his wife, his brothers, all of them. “You’re unbelievable.”

“She will choose to die.” Rhysand gestured wildly, gripped at his hair as if to tug it out by the roots. He looked utterly mad. Wind lashed at the windows, the snow swirling in a white squall. “Feyre has seen our son, has known of him since before his conception. She will give everything for him, even her own life. But I cannot.. I won’t lose her. And if I can spare her the agony of that choice, I will.”

The fury that grew in her was so cold it burned, at this male who had stolen her sister’s humanity, her youth, her womb, and now her life. “You don’t get to decide that. You don’t get to take that choice from her.”

“I know. I know. I promised myself I’d tell her, while there’s still time. We have three more weeks, I’m going to tell her in two.”

Nesta felt the floor tilt beneath her. “Every moment that goes by, she falls more in love with this child,” she hissed. “Tell her now, or I will.”

“Don’t. Please. Please.” The High Lord sank to his knees before the empty hearth, pleading. Nesta would’ve felt triumphant were it not for the horror of it all, to see him lay himself so low before her. But her sister was dying, her sister was going to die, and he was going to get her killed for his own selfishness.

Silver flashed in her hand again, that long, rope-like object. His eyes widened. “I will tell her, I promise you, as soon as we return. Give me one more day. Let me get her out of here safely first. Please.”

The snow was so thick now the forest beyond was a blur in the darkness, and Nesta felt her nostrils flare as she breathed hard, considering. This maybe was not the best place to tell her sister this news, given the stress of the trip so far, the threats, and Feyre already so weak. Now she knew why.

It was true they would return to Velaris the next evening, where she could get away from her husband, if needed. A memory flashed of group from the ward, a distant voice warning that the most dangerous time in a volatile relationship was right after leaving. And Azriel was standing guard all night - she trusted him at least, not to let any harm come to her sister. They needed a plan. She needed help.

But it killed a part of her to agree, and she left her fury unchecked as she glared down at the High Lord, let the silver flames flicker at her fingertips once more. “One day. You tell her the moment we return, or I will.”

—

Cassian was debating whether to cut his losses and knock on Nesta’s door before retiring when Mor appeared at his elbow.

“Having fun?” she asked. A large fur stole circled her shoulders, her neck dripping with strands of gold.

“Buckets. Did you have fun in Day?” They hadn’t had much of a chance to talk since her return, and with all the drama in their family her trip had been pushed to the side. The revel was breaking up now, pairs wandering off to secret nooks, some with a third or fourth in tow. “Was Helion generous with his.. hospitality?”

“You males are all the same.” Mor rolled her eyes, but her smile turned sly. “Maybe I put on a little show for him.”

“Gross.”

It felt clumsy somehow, trying to find that pocket of lightness that had always been their friendship. He wondered when things had grown so distant between them, why he felt a prickle of unease when she leaned against him now.

She punched his arm lightly. “Oh, like you’re one to talk. You forget I know everything you got up to the last few decades.”

Cassian winced. Memories flashed of the debauchery he’d sunk into while Rhys was in that bitch queen’s grasp, dark days in search of anything to make him feel, make him forget.

“It feels nice to travel again, even to this cesspool.” Mor seemed ignorant to his chagrin, looked out over the courtyard, taking in the spitting fires, the drunken laughter. The snow was breaking through as the crowd spread, dusting their shoulders.

He tried again to fall back into that easy manner, but still it chafed. “No one here is up to your standards, I’m guessing.”

“Cass, you know you’re the only Illyrian for me.”

And when she smiled up at him, white teeth flashing, he felt a stab of revulsion, shame curling. “Don’t say that.”

“Come on, if anyone’s allowed to joke about it, I am.” She reached to brush the snow from his hair, but he pulled away.

“It’s not funny, Mor. Drop it.”

“Fine, you f*cking baby.” She drew the stole around her tighter, turning up her nose. “Maybe I will sample another Illyrian after all.”

If she was trying to make him jealous, her remark had the opposite effect. Cassian felt sickly watching her saunter away, lay her hand on the arm of a tall warrior from Valor’s Peak and laugh loudly, tossing back her golden head. Had she seen him the same way, he wondered, as some exotic beast to tame? He knew he’d played a part in what happened to her, but-

He shook his head. It wasn’t worth following that road now, not here.

The bell clanged, twelve tones signaling the hour. He breathed deep through his nose, watched the snow swirling around the bell tower. A nuthatch huddled beneath the awning. It puffed up and gave a trembling note, as if in reply, and Cassian felt a small hand thread fingers through his own and tug him backward out of the courtyard.

—

Nesta still couldn’t catch her breath, couldn’t make her lungs draw enough air. She’d left the High Lord in a tearful heap on the floor of the maid’s chambers, promising to reveal all once they returned to Velaris. She could hear the bracelets jingling at her wrist where her shaking hand still covered her mouth in horror, clutching Cassian’s in the other.

“Sweetheart, what’s wrong? Are you hurt? Did something happen?”

The concern in his voice hit her like a wave, left her spluttering and coughing on the shore of her own despair as she dragged him toward her room. A lesser male might find a very different reason for such a move, but he seemed to read her panic immediately.

“No. Yes.”

A couple stumbled down the hallway behind them, the male already clutching the female possessively to his side. She caught Cassian’s distressed expression when she turned to look at them, and her throat seized. She gripped his hand tighter.

“Not here,” she whispered, though she doubted she could choke out the truth once they were alone, either. He nodded and quickened his pace, taking the lead through the winding corridors of the keep. The relief that flooded Nesta was short-lived once they reached her room, the door closing behind them with an ominous thud.

Nesta sank down onto the bed, pressed her face into the pillows, trying to breathe. She heard Cassian pour a glass of water from the ewer on the bed stand, close the iron grate over the fire to dampen the sound. His hand was warm at her back for a moment before he knelt to begin unlacing her boots. “Talk to me.”

“There’s - it’s -” She struggled, picturing his fury, his unstoppable impulse to rend apart the male who’d hurt her, hurt her sister. Or the worse possibility, though it was hard to fathom - his misunderstanding. His indifference.

But that seemed absurd when she sat up and he was still calmly at his work, freeing her foot from a boot. She drew another shuddering breath and he looked up at her, expectant, lay a large hand on her knee.

“I can’t,” she said at last, and his brows drew together. “I’m fine, nothing is wrong with.. I just feel like I don’t know anything anymore. It’s all so f*cking ruined.”

Cassian was undeterred by her turmoil as he eased off her other boot with a grunt. “It’s not. Look at all you’ve accomplished, how hard you’ve fought for yourself. It’s not even close to ruined.”

His shoulders were broad and solid under her palms and she braced herself against him, hanging her head. It hurt, to hear him speak of her so, to want his comfort so badly but not know how to find it, how to ask. “Why are you trying to make me feel better?”

“Don’t you know?”

There was no expectation in his answer, only an understanding Nesta felt in that untouched part of her. Even with the peace they’d found these last weeks, she still didn’t know why he still cared about her, after all this time. After the rejections and the stinging words, after freezing him out and falling apart - still, he didn’t give up on her. Maybe she couldn’t tell him, not yet, but she could show him, could learn to ask for the comfort and safety of his regard.

The kiss was tentative at first, as though he wasn’t sure whether he should be accepting it. He tasted of the mint sprig she saw him chewing on, not of the faerie wine flowing freely, the dark amber meads and glistening spirit that had made her throat ache. No hint of alcohol, as if he’d known his mouth could be on hers and had wanted to be ready, even after she’d left. Nesta brushed her finger down his cheek in thanks, felt his soft touch at the back of her calf. “The only time it feels simple is when I’m with you.”

“I know.” He swallowed, and she captured his mouth again, heard the whisper of his wings against the floor as he relaxed them. “I just want to do right by you.”

Nesta buried her head into Cassian’s shoulder to avoid the affection shining in his hazel eyes, how painful it was to be looked at so lovingly. He embraced her, and they remained that way for a time, a siphon-backed hand drifting up eventually to pull the silver pins from her hair, glinting red where he lay them on the nightstand.

“I need to sleep, I think,” she mumbled at last, though a wanting reared within her. She thought he felt it too, from the way his shoulders tensed beneath her hands. But he only hummed in her ear, approving.

Preparing for bed didn’t take long - she changed in the cramped bathing chamber, drew the plush robe the House had packed snugly about her, sighing. Cassian busied himself putting her boots and clothes away before coming to lean in the open door to watch her brush her hair. Nesta rummaged around in her small bag, felt his attention on her like a warm summer breeze.

“f*ck, I forgot my tea.” She slammed the bag down in frustration, the night spinning away from her once more. “I won’t sleep for a moment.”

“And I take it you didn’t sleep last night either,” he drawled, raising that scar-slashed eyebrow. Nesta splashed her face with water from the sink, but it did little to cool her heated skin. “What can I do?”

“Nothing. I don’t need anything from you.”

“Then what about what you want from me?”

His tone made her pause, the depth in it. That same promise from the library. “Pardon?”

“There are other ways to help you sleep, you know.” He grinned, forearm braced on the frame. “Fun ways.”

The words sounded familiar, and she bit her lip in spite of herself, caught her gaze roving over the great shape of him, his body. His hands.

“No pressure, no expectation. Just offering my assistance, should you require it.” His eyes glinted and she placed the reference at last - a passage from Wings of Love, when the hero’s expertise proved very helpful to his sleepless lady. Warmth flooded her, softening the hard knot between her neck and shoulder. This was either a horrible idea or a brilliant one.

“Tempting,” she breathed, and she pictured her sister, sleeping soundly with a ticking clock inside her belly. “But I’m not on anything.”

“That won’t matter.”

Nesta shivered at that, the boldness of his offering. He was waiting for her to come to him, she realized, true to his word, leaving space for the battle raging within her. She felt her power calm for the first time since she’d confronted the High Lord, flames banking, purring in contentment. “I see.”

“I can’t fix any of these things for you. But I can try to give you a moment where things aren’t completely f*cked up.” His voice was husky as he loomed over her, backlit from the window. She drifted toward him on slow steps, a hand coming to cup her damp cheek, and she let him draw her mouth back to his. Those hazel eyes were wicked when he released her at last.

I should stop this, Nesta thought. And she shouldn’t have kissed him in the stairwell, or the library, or the kitchen, or f*cking anywhere because that untouched part of her was cracking wide open and now he knew. Now he knew that she couldn’t get enough, that ever since all she thought about was how his fingers would feel between her thighs, the indecency of his groans at the wetness waiting for him there. Heat shot through her, scorching sensation into every nerve, but she lowered her eyes to hide her desire.

“Look at me?” he asked gently, and Nesta did even though she knew she was showing all her cards. Her cheeks burned with shame. He ran a hand through her unbound hair, all the way to the end.

“I want you to have this,” he murmured, brushing a kiss across her flaming cheekbone. It was so tender Nesta wanted to scream, wanted to shatter something because she was torn open and raw for wanting him so badly. She hated herself for wanting him to take care of her. Needing him to, after everything she’d done.

His lips were soft on her neck now, merciful, giving her time to decide. She knew this was on her terms, but feared Cassian’s influence over her. If he wanted, he could take this greed she had for him, for his body, and use it to shatter her completely.

Yet she burned for him. And not in the cold fire of the spring or the inferno in the kitchen or the stairwell, but like the braziers that had lined the corridor, powerful but contained, giving off warmth.

Illuminating.

“Do you want this too?”

“I do,” she said after a long moment, and felt a sweet swoop of relief, knowing she was about to be entirely in his hands, that she could put all the pain down for a moment and be here with him. With a soft smile, he peeled off her robe and swore with appreciation at so much of her skin suddenly on display, ran his hands up her arms experimentally.

They wandered toward the bed and her breath went shallow when he turned her and untied the collar of her night dress, drew it down over her shoulders. She felt his lips on the back of her neck, almost worshipful, his hand stroking down the bare skin of her back as he revealed it, her body fevered and begging for a cure only he could bring.

When Nesta turned, he kissed her with such intensity that all her thoughts disappeared because there was only him, only this. He played her desire masterfully, and she was heady from giving over to how delicious it felt even as a gnarled part of her screamed in panic, the fear and pleasure riding her nerves and she was so, so beyond saving from this.

Her nightdress was on the floor the first time she truly hesitated - Cassian was on his knees kissing a line down her stomach, his fingers hooking to pull down her underclothes. The brush of his hands on her hips made her jump and he paused, looking up at her for permission. She ran a hand through his deep black hair and he kissed her stomach again, softer this time, before finishing his task and guiding her to the bed.

“This stops whenever you want, sweetheat, no questions asked.” Eyes wide, he looked somehow more naked than she.

A tangle atop the sheets, he explored her while she made tentative strokes down his arms and across his back. His skin was so cool, and it soothed her in the places they overlapped, a blanket of soft snow. She felt thirsty for him, greedy to consume him even as he pinned her beneath him.

I want this, she thought as he retraced his path toward her thighs, and ran his tongue across her lower stomach. I’m allowed to have one thing I want. His hand brushed down between her legs, a whisper of touch that had her grasping his hair a bit too tightly.

“Tell me if you don’t like anything, okay?” She nodded as one of his fingers dipped in, and Cassian’s groan rattled the bones in her skull, made that power purr once more. “Or if you do. Especially if you do.”

He cursed again, and Nesta was blinded by pleasure as he made another slow stroke up upward, circling lightly. His pace was languid, drawing her desire forth and she knew all at once that this was going to wreck her, that before the end of this she would be wrung out so thoroughly that there would never be any going back. That wasn’t a choice anymore - she couldn’t turn away from this pull, from whatever was between them. She wanted him more than she’d ever wanted anything.

Cassian propped up on an elbow and scraped the leather strap off his wrist with his teeth, secured his hair back roughly. Never had a gesture so innocent been so obscene, she thought, and the wanting pulsed sharply, demanding.

He grinned to see her watching him, to be this close with her soft beneath him. Those velvety wings draped on either side of them, brushing her legs. And for a moment they were not in a keep full of enemies, hedged in by stone, her sister down the hall sleeping next to a snake. She was not a freak in a twisted, foreign body, tugged by forces beyond her control, stranded between worlds real and imaginary. Her life was not a waking nightmare to trudge and claw through, to suffer and endure.

There was just this, them. Him.

“I’ve got you, sweetheart. Let go.”

She nodded again, and he lowered his mouth to taste her.

Chapter 14: XIII

Chapter Text

Though the pressure's hard to take

It's the only way I can escape

It seems a heavy choice to make

But now I am under, oh

And it's breaking over me

A thousand miles down to the sea bed

Found the place to rest my head

(Never let me go, never let me go)

(Never let me go, never let me go)

And the arms of the ocean are carrying me

And all this devotion was rushing out of me

And the crashes are heaven for a sinner like me

But the arms of the ocean delivered me

• Never Let Me Go, Florence & The Machine

Nesta had a habit of performing pleasure, he could tell, holding onto control while making all the right sounds and moves and expressions. Cassian cursed whatever bed partners had brought that out in her, or had ignored her to the point she’d given up and retreated within herself.

Because, Mother above, he did not want that. He wanted her release, in more ways than one.

So he took his time. Studied her carefully, threw away all his tricks and let her body guide him. Marveled at every precious piece of herself she allowed him. He felt vibrant, defenseless, knew his love was embarrassingly obvious but he didn’t care because he wanted to swim beneath her waters, to feel her wash him clean.

With the patience of his hands, his lips, she began to emerge, slow as the sunrise. He saw her shoulders relax, felt her deep sigh warm his neck when he laid her out before him. It was mesmerizing to watch her soften like this, and Cassian wanted to drag the mirror over to the bed so she could see how devastating she looked in bloom.

f*ck, he needed to calm down.

It didn’t help that soon she was squirming and moaning beneath his mouth, hair splayed on the pillow where it wasn’t stuck to her forehead. It didn’t help that her body was f*cking staggeringly beautiful, that she tasted like a summer-ripe peach. That he would probably die happily for one more moment between her perfect thighs.

He wondered if that was too much, if he even cared.

Still, Cassian wasn’t above smirking when he caught her pleasure-glazed eyes staring down at him, when he confirmed they both knew who was making Nesta f*cking Archeron feel this good. His smirk widened when she gave a sharp pull on his hair, felt an identical pull low in his gut when he added his fingers alongside his mouth.

The bond had been yanking at him all day, and he could tell it wasn’t happy he was holding back, either. He ignored the urge to claim her, focused instead on working her up until Nesta’s moans were continuous and unending, her body shaking on the edge.

“I don’t,” she panted suddenly. “I’m not..”

He gentled his touch, flicked his eyes upward to see her own squeezed shut. “Do you want to stop?”

“NO,” she insisted, and he snickered against that hypnotic thatch of dark curls, making her shudder. “Don’t stop. I just.. I can’t..”

Cassian nuzzled his face into her thigh, hoping the contact would help ground her. He was prepared to stop, fully, but it would be a lie to say he didn’t need this as badly as she did. There was so little he had to give that would actually help, that could keep her tethered to something good.

“Tell me.”

“I’m frightened.” Her voice quavered, and he felt her stomach tensing beneath his palm. “I don’t want to lose control.”

He’d noticed her nervousness from the beginning, had remembered other bed partners with pasts and wounds. But this seemed different somehow, a confession. One Nesta found him worthy of receiving.

“What do you need?” he asked, not caring that it was so obvious, he was so obvious because he’d do anything for her, give her anything she wanted.

“Nothing. I just wanted you to know.” She gripped his hair harder, covering her face with one hand. “Don’t leave.”

The pain in her request broke his f*cking heart for a moment - he might break down altogether if he thought too long about what it meant. Instead Cassian drew his wings upward, draped them over as much of her as he could. He felt her trembling ripple across the membrane.

“I won’t, sweetheart. I’m right here. I’ll give you what you need, I promise.”

“Cassian,” she pleaded, and he ached all over again at how vulnerable she sounded even as the thrill of his name in her sweet mouth urged him further. He kissed a hot trail along the juncture of her thigh and redoubled his efforts, never one to break an oath.

Soon her whole body was flushing violently, and as he felt her come apart beneath him Cassian understood why she’d been frightened. He couldn’t believe how clearly he could see her, how unguarded her face was in the moment before she smothered it once more with her hands. This was better than any drug, he thought wildly, the permission to see the truth of this beautiful, complicated woman. To cover her with his body in the moment she felt most exposed.

Cassian kept a steady grip on her thigh in the aftermath, rubbed slow circles into her lower stomach, easing her down. Nesta’s face was still buried in her hands, as if she couldn’t bear to be looked at. She shifted to throw him off and he obeyed, wings flexing, leaned back against the bedpost and tried to catch his breath.

A relief settled when he remembered they’d agreed to stop here, even through the thick haze of his longing. Anything further was a risk he’d never f*ck around with. He knew all too well how an unwanted child could ruin a female’s life.

Perhaps your whor* mother -

The cool water was grounding when he left to wash his face and hands, though he waited until it ran warm before dampening a cloth and returning to the bedroom. Nesta was on her side now, nestled up under the heavy coverlet, having already put her night dress back on. She didn’t protest when he peeled the blankets back to clean her off, flinching a bit but keeping her eyes closed.

He didn’t miss the way her mouth lingered on his neck when she pulled him to her to mumble a sleep-heavy thanks, nor the easy slope of her shoulders when she settled back into the pillows. He wrapped a strand of her hair around his finger, tugging softly. “Sleep well, sweetheart. I’ll be down the hall if you need anything else.”

Outside he managed a lazy smirk when she slit her eyes open to peer at him, but inside he was buzzing, thoughts ricocheting. They’d just crossed a huge line, and while he knew she’d enjoyed it, he wasn’t sure she’d be happy about it in the morning. Cassian left the room on unconscious steps, mind reeling, eased open the door and found himself face-to-face with Elain.

f*ck.

“Oh, hello,” Elain said. “I was coming to check on Nesta, but it seems you already have that covered.”

“She’s sleeping,” he said too quickly, and Elain’s eyes narrowed. She was still wearing the same ivory dress from the revel, the hem splattered with mud.

“That’s good. I know she struggles.” She sniffed lightly, nose wrinkling. Cassian froze, not knowing if she could scent what they’d just done, even knew what it meant. Mercifully, Elain only gave a breezy smile and tossed him a “Well, goodnight.”

It wasn’t until her door shut that he even thought to ask why she was still up, not to mention coming to check on her sister in the darkest night hours. He’d seen them exchange only a handful of words of late, but siblings had their secrets, he supposed. His certainly did.

Now he had a secret of his own. Had for much longer than tonight, despite popular belief he was transparent as glass. A hot summer evening reared in his memory, the crickets keeping time to the tuneless piano.

I want this, Cassian. I want to.

A shift in the shadows caught his attention at the end of the hallway, and the landslide of his thoughts at last gave way under the day’s intensity. Nesta, Feyre, the competition, the revel. Kallon hadn’t shown his face since they’d overheard him in the depths of the keep. Cassian had been relieved at first but now the thought nagged at him, throbbing like a bad tooth.

Your whor* mother -

The storm had lightened somewhat, and he could see out the thick-paned window where the constellation of the hunter rose high over the snow-tipped cedars. Cassian advanced toward where he knew Azriel lingered in between the moonbeams. He didn’t stop until the two of them were chest to chest, ignored the protests and laid his forehead on the shadowsinger’s shoulder, wings drooping.

“I hope there’s a good reason for this, considering where your mouth’s been.”

“Can you just f*cking hug me?”

Az grumbled but relented, and Cassian slumped further when he felt arms and shadows circle his shoulders. “So, how bad was it?”

“Horrible. I’ll never get over this.”

Ever the torture master, Azriel peppered him with questions where they leaned against the windowsill, voices low. Cassian watched his brother’s confusion mount through the brief interrogation.

No, she hadn’t shot him down. Yes, she’d had a good time. Yes, she probably wanted to do it again.

“Then what is the problem?”

“I can’t f*cking take it, Az. It’s not, I can’t..”

Cassian searched for the words to explain the deranged longing he felt. How he both wanted to burst into her room and confess the whole thing - his love, the bond, all of it - while also wishing to move to the continent and never speak to anyone of this ever again. Azriel observed him shrewdly, shadows rippling across his hands clasped before him.

“I know where this is going,” Cassian said at last, puncturing the silence. “I don’t know if I have it in me to do it again. Last time it f*cking broke me.”

It was all he could manage for now, not ready to share the full story, to face his own failings. He shoved down the jagged memories, feeling the bile rise in his throat. If Azriel noticed he was generous enough not to say. It struck Cassian that a past version of himself would’ve gone to Mor, even Rhys for this conversation.

A new ache bloomed. They both felt so far away, out of reach.

“I didn’t know. I thought you might have, after the war,” Azriel said. He flicked at a shadow hovering about his ear. “But you’ve never been great at keeping secrets.”

“It was short, and a long time ago now, but we were figuring it out. Until I f*cked it all up.” Cassian heard the thickness in his own voice. The windowsill was cold under his hands and he pushed off with a heavy sigh, trying to hold back the earthquake threatening to rupture his heart.

I wish you weren’t my mate.

“Then I trust you not to f*ck it up the same way twice,” Az said, expressionless, and Cassian tracked his gaze to where he watched Nesta’s door. He resisted the urge to force his brother into another hug, knowing the greater gift would be to spare him. He was more grateful than he could say for how Azriel supported his decisions in this. How he’d been supportive of Nesta as a person regardless of whatever was between them.

Cassian managed a weak smile. So much had changed since Rhys went Under the Mountain. “I’m not sure I deserve your loyalty, but thank you for it anyway.”

“What will you do?”

What will you do, Lord of Bloodshed?

Cassian gave a shrug, out of answers. An owl hooted far off, and he retreated back to the windowsill, not yet ready to face his thoughts alone. They shared the silence until Azriel prodded him in the side, indicating he should go to bed and leave the shadowsinger to his brooding disguised as guard duty in peace.

Dead tired, bones aching, Cassian sank down on the rug before the opal-veined hearth in his room, felt the nubby fabric on one cheek while the fire warmed the other. He knew the bed only held tortured memories of one kind or another, from tonight or long before. Only the floor felt solid enough to hold him up, still a source of comfort after all this time.

Your whor* mother -

“I’m sorry,” Cassian muttered to no one. A memory floated by of the whistle of winter wind, of gentle hands cradling wings he could barely flex yet. The light of the flames danced beyond his eyelids, lulling him to sleep.

—

The horizon throbbed, burnt out trees rising and plunging into view, ruins of stone swallowed by the ash surging like a great ocean. The silt was slipping under her feet and she stumbled through the flames, aiming toward the bank. Something was prowling in the underbrush, she knew, could feel it, could feel its hot breath gusting on the wind, searching for her unseeing and he was coming, he was coming but the current surged under her hand and she would not be cowed because the glint of gold on the shore was there, had always been there, she just hadn’t been ready to see, to become -

Nesta had woken in a cold sweat to the braying of horns at dawn. The memorial was erected on a high peak above the demesne, and they were all to climb the mountain path to the summit in a procession of banners for the ceremony, which would take all morning.

After, they would leave. And after that, she would make sure the truth was revealed.

She was grateful to be in her sturdier pair of boots, at least, being told to ‘pack something you can run away in’. That descriptor had plunged her into a dark well of memory that took the House flinging her book across the room to break out of. She doubted the purple roughspun dress and her Illyrian coat qualified, but she was warm and could move well enough to sneak about some silly woods.

Since all the other victims had been found deeper in the forest, they’d agreed to search the surrounding area to see if they could find any evidence or Nesta could sense anything. Rhysand had spoken into their minds the plan to break off from the procession once they reached the wooded trail. Nesta felt him linger in her head longer than the others before shoving him out.

“Sleep well?”

Azriel’s small smile was perhaps a touch too knowing as they picked their way through the woods, having blended into shadow once the path gave way to a set of massive stone steps halfway up the mountain. They’d startled a covey of quail where they reappeared, a whirl of feathers scattering into the frigid air. Nesta hoped it distracted the shadowsinger enough to forget her flinching in that brief moment when the blackness filled her ears.

“Meaning?”

The haunting must’ve shown on her face then, for she saw as he faltered, pivoted. “I know you have nightmares. Mine act up when I’m under stress.”

Powdery snow kicked up around their boots, sparkling in the frozen air. Nesta stepped down particularly hard on a branch, forcing herself to take in the loud crack.

He was right, of course. The dream had found her just before dawn.

She’d slept soundly, aware of Cassian’s dark shape hovering over her before leaving, the creeping shame that usually found her kept at bay by the sweet unspooling of her muscles, her thoughts. Exhaustion from being awake for two whole days finally dragged her under. It felt different from the wine, though. Gentler.

Azriel was still looking at her warily, and she glanced back to see the trail of trampled branches in her wake. He raised an eyebrow, as if to remind her they were supposed to be sneaking. Nesta felt her cheeks heat, stinging in the cold. She hadn’t sensed anything in the last hour, other than her own deepening dread.

“Bit ironic, isn’t it? Seeing as you often feature in the nightmares of others.”

She watched him swallow the jab, digest it. “The children of Velaris and I have that in common.”

There was a bitterness in his tone, the taut line of his jaw. Shadows spilled over his shoulders like smoke, pooling at his feet before rising up again behind those enormous wings.

Nesta didn’t respond but regarded him as they continued walking, considering. She wanted to trust him, and she needed someone to tell about Feyre. Elain had no sway or resources not tied to Rhysand, and she’d doubted Cassian’s ability to hold back from acting until they returned to Velaris.

Azriel had shown, on a number of occasions, a dedication to protecting both her sisters. But his loyalties ran deep, and Nesta wasn’t sure how far he would stray from the High Lord’s favor.

“You seem distracted.”

It was a nicer way to tell her she was staring, she could tell. They’d come to rest under a great cedar, the circle of ground beneath it untouched by the drifts of powdery snow. A pair of speckled quail roosted in the branches, looking down on them. Nesta’s ears began to ring.

“I’m thinking of my sister,” she offered vaguely. “I’m concerned for her safety.”

“As am I. She’ll be safe until we return to the city,” he said, reassuring.

“And then what?”

“What do you mean?”

A hot wind whipped through the wood, ruffling their long coats about their legs. The ringing grew louder, sliding up the scale to a higher note. Nesta rubbed at her ears.

“I think something bad is about to happen - ” To Feyre , she meant to say, but the words caught in her throat, coming up mangled.

Azriel scanned through the trees, sent his shadows skittering across the snow. “Are you sensing something?”

Nesta didn’t know how to answer. All she could think was how her training seemed so odd now that she stood here in this damned forest. What had Rhysand been training her to do all this time? Why had he been so focused on drawing her power into their reality, and why was none of that useful now?

The ringing leveled out. A flicker, the burnt forest of the otherworld, stole across her vision.

With creeping fear she felt the frost begin to climb the back of her neck, willed it down with the breathing techniques she’d practiced with Gwyn. The woods seemed to shudder around them, the quail imperceptibly still where they huddled together on their branch.

A low growl rumbled on the wind, distorting the pure note to something dissonant, wrong. It was everywhere and nowhere. Nesta felt something jerk her head to the side, one foot soaked and freezing as it plunged into the spring. Echoes of a voice sounded far off before she yanked herself back.

“Dilyn y llwybr.”

Another growl sounded, louder now, and Nesta felt the pull of the otherworld again, stronger this time. She fell to her knees in the spring, could still sense her body in the forest crusting over with ice. She shook her arms and felt it dislodge, enough to keep straddling both worlds.

“What do you see?” Azriel asked quietly, clearly unable to hear the ringing, the chilling growls. But Nesta no longer had attention to spare him.

A young Illyrian female stood on the bank of the spring, looking down at her. The wound at her chest looked fresh, still leaking dark blood, and there was an unfiltered rage in the way she stared toward Nesta, challenging. Buried in the ash between them lay the mask, just where it had been before.

The female flickered, her outline guttering like a candle flame. Nesta scrambled to the shore, shoved the mask on her face without thinking and the growling sounded again, closer, shaking ash from the trees.

“What happened to you?” she gasped, lurching up the bank.

“I cannot say. Follow the trail backward,” the female said. Her eyes blazed. Nesta’s own stung in the whipping wind, tearing. “He’s going to let them all out. It’s the only way.”

The female flickered again and Nesta could see both worlds at the same time now, snow overlaid with ash, the trees shifting and pulsating wildly. The mask squeezed at her face as if compelling her to look harder. “I don’t understand.”

“You have to bring it back to the source. It’s the only way,” the female repeated, flashing rapidly, and disappeared.

The tightness became unbearable then, the ringing deafening and Nesta ripped the mask from her face. It shuddered in her hand, runes cascading like the spring frothing behind her, the power churning within. She felt her body in the real world shuddering too, heard the metallic snick of Azriel drawing his shortsword from the scabbard down the column of his spine.

Things were quickly spiraling away from her, she knew she had to get back but the mask was here, it was here. She wouldn’t lose it again, not when it was the only way to reach these females, not when it seemed another had already been taken. Nesta darted toward the trees in search of a place to stash it, pushed down the thrill of terror that the growling was coming from the same direction.

She was only vaguely aware of Azriel’s far-off cry of alarm before he blended out of shadow in front of her in the forest. Saw her ice crusted left arm shove him out of the way too easily, the mask still tucked under the other, growing hotter by the second.

A stone ruin rose out of the ash in front of her. It looked like a temple to some long-forgotten god, and ornate spray of celestial bodies carved into the crumbling archway. Nesta dashed inside, ignored the next rumbling growl, nearer than it was before. Whatever creature pursued her drew close, she knew, and she may only have seconds to hide the mask before wrenching free from the otherworld and the mask was burning and the ringing, the ringing, the ringing.

A dense cluster of roots gathered in one corner, and Nesta shoved the mask inside it, fingertips scalded as she pushed it far out of sight. The temple walls began to sink back into the ground as quickly as they’d emerged, and she flung herself toward the archway before the ash could swallow her, too.

Nesta cleared the threshold just in time to see the hulking creature prowl out of the mist.

Her breath faltered. The creature was powerfully built and sleeky muscled, with glossy black claws that gouged the ground with every step. The size of a large horse, its mottled green skin covered over everything, even the sockets where eyes should be, jagged fangs bared.

Fear scorched through her. She had never seen something so grotesque.

Panicking, Nesta tried to will herself back to the forest but it wasn’t working, and she couldn’t keep her footing in the roiling ash, couldn’t pull herself enough one way or the other to shake free.

She cried out for Azriel and he flickered into view where the temple once stood. She saw his head whip toward her, eyes wide in a shock that so rarely graced his face. She sobbed with relief to see the forest fade back into view behind him then, though the worlds still layered each other, the wind blasting hot and the beast getting closer, the growls more feral but she’d be safe once she could get to him, once he could get her out.

The beast gave an awful, guttural cry that shook her bones, rattled the snow off the cedars. Nesta watched as Azriel raised his sword and charged past her, straight toward the creature, and with mounting horror realized that he could see it, too.

—-

Cassian grumbled when Rhys paired him up with Mor that morning when they strategized the investigation, though he understood why. Nesta looked so f*cking cute in her Illyrian coat, and all through the short walk up the slope he’d wanted to yank her backward by the slits, to wrap her in his arms and bury his face in her hair.

So it was probably for the best when Mor pretended to have problems with her shoe and winnowed them away from the procession, reappearing in the shadow of the keep.

His relief was short-lived. Mor rounded on him the moment they were alone.

“You reek of her. I can’t believe you.”

“Can we not do this, please?” They were supposed to be canvasing the camp, to see if the Lord and Kallon had any detractors who might be willing to talk. He didn’t have the energy to convince people to report treason and fight with Mor at the same time.

The first few houses and tents they peered into were empty, most of the camp having cleared out to attend the memorial. Only a few remained behind, those unable to make the trek up the mountain and, hopefully, those unhappy enough with the rebellion’s sentiments to find it all distasteful. Those who would perhaps be a bit less cagey with all the warriors far away.

They’d managed a few words with a male leaning heavily on a walking stick, but only enough for him to tell them to f*ck off and mind their own business. It was a harbinger of the rest to follow - every door that actually opened was soon slammed in their faces.

Cassian let his anger stew to distract him from his worries about Nesta and Azriel up in the woods. He hoped they were having better luck, though wasn’t quite sure what that meant. Mor made it halfway down the main thoroughfare before she started in on him again.

“I just want to make sure you’re thinking about this clearly.” Her pockets shifted where she was clenching and unclenching her hands inside them.

“She’s a good person, Mor.”

He knocked on the next cabin before she could respond, having seen the flutter of a candle flame inside. The female who appeared was stooped in her old age, though she cracked open the door with an iron grip.

“What do you want?” she asked. Her gray eyes were flinty in the sun reflecting off the snow.

“We were hoping to ask you a few questions, if you have a moment?” Mor switched immediately into her courtier’s mask, friendly and warm. It was creepy, if he was honest with himself, how smoothly she could go from one to the other. The female was unmoved.

“Not for you and not for everyone else who wants to speak today. I told you I don’t know anything,” she groused, and Cassian tucked his wings tighter behind him, trying to appear polite.

“We’re just looking for some information.”

The female scowled, looking him up and down. She didn’t approve of whatever she saw. “I don’t know where my son is, stop asking me.”

“I’m sorry, what about your son?” Mor tried again. Cassian felt his instincts prickle. That careful tone in his friend’s voice usually meant they’d stumbled on something important.

“I told them already, he was with me all last night recovering, not with that serving girl. Now leave me alone.” She slammed the door in their faces, leaving them staring at the knotted wood before exchanging twin looks of bewilderment. They retreated toward the treeline to converse in private.

“What the f*ck was that about?” Cassian rubbed at his jaw, turned his front windward to shield his wings.

“I have no idea. It sounds like someone was looking for her son, or someone he was with? A female.” Mor muttered the last part to herself. Cassian felt his mind clicking, catching on a thought he couldn’t quite grasp. He remembered the poem in the library archives, that sense of an imminent trap.

“Maybe we should find Nesta and Az. Something feels weird about this.”

Whatever she’d been expecting him to say, it wasn’t that. Mor threw her hands in the air, exasperated. “Can you not be away from her for five minutes now?”

“I told you I don’t want to talk about this.”

“You’re in love with her, aren’t you?” She said it like he couldn’t commit a worse crime. He avoided her eyes, left her to interpret his silence. He didn’t want to give her this piece of him, to let her shine the golden light of her scrutiny upon it, but it only seemed to incense her further. “Of course you are. You’d love to think that only you can see how great she truly is. It would fit your little knight-in-shining-armor fantasies.”

“Drop it, Mor, I’m serious.” Cassian gripped at the hilt of the dagger strapped to his waist, refusing to rise to the accusation. He looked out over the tents and sagging buildings, the portrait of his failings. She was trying to provoke him, he knew, and he felt his restraint begin to unravel.

“Do you know what Rhys told me?” Mor’s eyes were wild now, her red cloak an enemy banner snapping in the warm wind. “That her power sucked the life from him. It’s like a parasite, feeding off the vitality of others. That’s what she is. That’s what she’ll do to you, like she did before.”

“And what difference does that make to you?” he snarled.

“Because I care about you, Cassian, in case you f*cking forgot.”

And from the tears that lined her eyes, the press of her long nails into her arms, he knew all at once that this was not about Nesta. It never had been, not really. It was about them.

About Mor not wanting to share his time, his attention with another female. About how he’d been protecting her from herself for so long, helping her home from the pleasure halls when she drank too much, kicking out males who overstayed their welcome, keeping an eye on where she danced. Keeping an eye on Azriel, even. Shame rose in his stomach, curdling into something meaner.

“And I’ve asked you three f*cking times now to drop it. So if you really mean that, Mor, stop. I won’t ask again.”

Her tears spilled over now, running hot and angry down her flushed cheeks. “She doesn’t love you! She’s just using you to make herself feel better!”

An image of Nesta flashed through his mind, trembling beneath his wings. He looked at Mor and tried to imagine a time she’d been so open with him, so generous with her trust. He couldn’t think of a single one.

“Cassian,” Mor pleaded. She grabbed his arm to pull him towards her - to shake him, probably, and make him see reason.

An older image flashed: a red gown sweeping over midnight snow, her golden hair in the faelights outside the cabin on the edge of Windhaven. The dark tear in his soul when he realized what he’d just done.

Cassian wrenched his arm out of her grasp. He couldn’t help the words he spat then, bitter and poisonous, even as his heart cracked to see his friend look so like a stranger.

“Well you’d know all about that, wouldn’t you?”

—

Nesta barely registered the diamond of decay beneath her, the several dotting the forest floor before the beast was upon them. She stumbled backward over a thick root and fell hard, turned to crawl as best she could to find a lower-hanging branch to hoist herself off the ground.

As she climbed, Azriel moved in a silent dance below, shadows surging in every direction as he darted in and out of darkness. He vanished one moment, appearing the next behind the beast and cut downward in a mighty arc.

The thing dodged, breaking its unseeing focus that had been fixed on Nesta where she groped higher on the cedar, searching for handholds. Its next duck wasn’t so lucky, and Nesta's blood curdled as the shadowsinger drew his dagger across its sinewy throat with a decisive swipe, felling the creature in one blow.

“What is it?” Nesta stammered. Birds shrieked in alarm above her, across the whole mountain it seemed. She was freezing, she realized, and brushed with trembling fingers at the thick ice crystals on her sleeves. The High Lord must’ve kept the ice at bay in the study somehow. She’d forgotten how cold the spring could be.

Azriel circled the creature’s body. “I’ve never seen such a thing in all my memory. It could-”

The shadowsinger’s reply was lost in a deep growl that shook the ground. Claws lashed toward his legs and he dove to the side, rolling. The beast staggered to its feet, the wound at its neck sealing over until the leathery hide was unbroken once more.

Nesta watched in horror the standoff that unfolded, unable to fathom how the creature could survive Azriel’s onslaught. It was fast, cunning, flexing those sinewy muscles to pounce toward the shadowsinger in violent bursts. He slashed and slashed, stabbed it in the heart, the head, over and over and still the thing kept snarling, swiping, kept standing once more and knitting that mottled skin back together faster than he could strike. They were a whirl of shadow and fangs and ebony claws and she could see Azriel beginning to slip in the powdery snow, beginning to tire.

Splinters jabbed into her palms when she gripped the trunk tightly. She’d managed not to cry out, not wanting to break his concentration, but when those claws barely missed tearing open his side she couldn’t help shouting his name.

All the beast’s focus returned to Nesta, as if the shadowsinger were nothing but an annoyance. Azriel darted forward, cut in between them but it rammed him aside, his blade stuck through the fleshy part of its shoulder as it leapt impossibly high. Hot panic slammed through her, knowing she could go no higher, knowing she had no weapon, nothing to defend herself.

Silver flashed in Nesta’s hand - a short blade, a crossguard of outstretched wings.

And before she could think further, the beast was upon her and the blade was burning cold and she thrust upward, felt the hot spurt of blood on her face, in her mouth. They toppled from the branch to the forest floor, pain screaming in her shoulder and the beast thrashed, howling, collapsing on top of her. Nesta felt her chest crush under the huge weight, struggled to draw air until strong hands were pulling her free, dragging her across the clearing.

Vision swimming, she saw a shadow version of the creature split off and tumble into the spring, its yowling fading away once it passed beyond the unseen falls. She looked down to where her father’s letter opener still throbbed in her hand. The owl’s eyes glittered, and it shuddered before disappearing.

“Are you hurt?” Azriel’s voice was low and gravely, and Nesta felt his fingers shaking where they pushed into the pulse point at her neck.

“No,” she lied, blinking rapidly. His shadows whirled about his head, waspish and angry. “Is it dead?”

“Yes.”

Nesta could tell he was trying to stay calm, leaning back on that warrior’s terseness to keep the shock from his voice. She looked past his shoulder to where the corpse lay, rotting quicker than nature should allow. The fetid smell made her eyes water.

“I saw a female,” she said, pushing down her revulsion. “She told me to follow the tracks.”

Azriel shook his head, now noticing the slash through her coat as he looked her over. “I’m taking you back to the keep.”

“No.” Nesta pushed to her feet, muscles groaning. She wrenched her arm out of the spymaster’s grasp when he tried to pull her back into shadow. “If we leave now, this whole trip is wasted. Either help me or see what happens if you try to take me back.”

Without waiting for an answer she strode across the clearing, in the direction she’d first seen the creature. Azriel fell into step behind her after a long moment, placing his boots carefully atop her own footprints.

The forest floor was covered in fresh, undisturbed snow, so the deep tracks were easy to follow where they wound through the trees. Bright red spots began to dot the path, and she bent down to examine it - blood, stark and violent amongst the whiteness. She looked down at her coat and noted, with confusion, that the creature's blood appeared shiny, near clear.

She heard Azriel swear and traced the tracks to where two figures huddled in the gloom ahead. It took her several seconds to register what she was seeing.

A winged female lay at the foot of an elm, chest torn open. A male knelt over her, covered in blood, a thread of pearlescent silver drawn between his hands. He was marveling at it, and his gray eyes were glassy when he stood and turned toward where they approached on quickening footsteps.

“He’s coming,” he whispered, reverent. “He’s close. Can you hear him?”

He continued to stare at Nesta, a vacant smile on his face even as Azriel bound him in shadow and shoved him to his knees.

“What did you do?” Nesta shouted, falling to the ground by the female, who stared up at the circling crows, unseeing. She fought the urge to be sick. “What have you done to her?”

That hot wind gusted through the wood again, rattling the cedars, so sudden and unnatural that Nesta felt the hairs stand up on the back of her neck. The string in the male’s hands shimmered, reverberating with a note both pure and dissonant.

“The wind calls.”

His eyes were unfocused, his face serene when he stared back at Nesta, a night-dark power gathering around them. She saw at last the pamphlets scattered across the snow, soaking up the female’s blood like spilled wine.

TREATISE ON A FREE ILLYRIA

HER SONS SHALL RISE

Chapter 15: XIV

Chapter Text

And I can go anywhere I want

Anywhere I want, just not home

And you can aim for my heart, go for blood

But you would still miss me in your bones

And I still talk to you (when I'm screaming at the sky)

And when you can't sleep at night (you hear my stolen lullabies)

I didn't have it in myself to go with grace

And so the battleships will sink beneath the waves

You had to kill me, but it killed you just the same

Cursing my name, wishing I stayed

You turned into your worst fears

And you're tossing out blame, drunk on this pain

Crossing out the good years

And you're cursing my name, wishing I stayed

Look at how my tears ricochet

- "my tears ricochet", taylor swift

Cassian and Mor were at each other’s throats when the bond began yanking at him frantically, and he shot into the sky mid-sentence, possessed by the singular aim of finding Nesta. Mor winnowed across the ground below him, a blur of crimson, trying to keep up.

Where was she? What was happening to her that could wrench so hard at his stomach, like his guts might spill forward for the second time in as many years?

Flooded with visions of her captured, injured, his wings beat a ruthless pace as he scanned across the camp, soaring up over the keep. A familiar patch of shadows in the courtyard caught his warrior’s eye and Cassian dove without thinking, speared past the empty battlements and flared his wings out at the last moment, ribs groaning.

A male lurched out of the darkness before him, landing on his knees in the overcast courtyard. His hands were bound behind him with tendrils of shadow. Before Cassian could react, Azriel stalked toward the prisoner, Nesta on his heels.

“We can’t leave her there!”

Nesta’s voice was tight, and relief flooded Cassian as he staggered forward to where she was shouting at the shadowsinger. His stagger became a run, and Nesta reached out a hand toward him even as she continued to stare hard at Azriel. He grabbed it gratefully as she said, “We have to go back for her.”

One sleeve of her coat was torn, and up close he could see the fabric was sodden not with blood, but a strange lustrous substance. It shimmered in the angry pulse of Azriel’s siphons. Mor finally caught up and looked between them and the prisoner, confused. The shadowsinger kicked the bound male in the back, sending him sprawling face first in the dirt. “Rhys has her.”

At that, the High Lord appeared before them, followed by Feyre and Elain, both ruffled as though they’d left the memorial in a hurry. He fell to his knees, his power a thick miasma around him, and lay down the female he cradled to his chest.

Only two bodies had ever made Cassian sick at the sight of them: his first kill, a fellow Blood Rite warrior attempting to knife him in his sleep, and the camp lord of his birthplace, who’d begged and soiled himself before Cassian squeezed his throat until his spine snapped. Both times he’d ended up on all fours after, emptying his stomach.

The female threatened to be the third such body. The devastation at his failure to save her, the viscous wound at her chest where he knew her heart no longer beat - he had to force a swallow and grip Nesta’s hand tighter to keep his sense of self from fracturing. She squeezed back and they watched hollowly as Mor draped her cloak over the body.

“Mor, take Feyre and Elain back to Velaris. Amren will meet you there.” Rhys’ voice hadn’t been that cold, that deadly since he’d said a terse goodbye to his brothers and disappeared into the inky black night, vowing revenge for his mother and sister. He’d returned with hands stained with the blood of two High Lords.

Elain just stared at the female, unblinking. Feyre seemed like she wanted to protest, but the star-flecked power gathering around her mate, the menacing clouds of dark energy shifting in the inconstant wind made her reconsider. Cassian watched her press her lips to his, place his hand on her stomach for a brief moment.

“Be careful,” she said, before Mor winnowed the three females out of sight. Rhysand seemed to buckle slightly watching his mate disappear.

“Tell me what happened. Now.”

“We were attacked,” said Azriel, “A creature, the one leaving those tracks.”

Cassian’s head spun, and he clutched Nesta at arm’s length again, looked her over frantically but still found no blood, no wound. As much as he preferred keeping her close, a small voice wondered why Rhys hadn’t offered to send her to safety with her sisters. Azriel continued.

“The trail led back to her body, just like the others. And this f*ck was at the scene.” The shadowsinger stepped on the edge of the bound male’s wing for emphasis and handed a red splotched paper to Rhys. The male didn’t react, kept staring up at them unseeing.

“Are you okay?” Cassian murmured aside to Nesta. She nodded, but her lips remained in a tight line.

Rhys peeled away Mor's cloak and shifted the female’s body to expose the wound at her chest once more. Through the blood, they could see the crossed hammer and sword of House Ironcrest stitched into her apron. Azriel’s shadows lashed around him and Nesta gasped, covering her mouth. Cassian felt a tortured groan rumble through his chest.

“Her heart is missing,” Rhys said uselessly, for they all knew it. And knew they’d been too late, that no amount of truth or justice could ever make her whole. “The deaths, whatever they do must call the creature somehow. And the Trove?”

Cassian felt Nesta tense beside him. He could’ve sworn a wordless conversation passed between her and shadowsinger, but it was over too quickly to register.

“Nothing,” Azriel answered.

A strange expression flitted across the High Lord’s face in answer. “We don’t have much time. They’ll be coming from the summit any moment.”

Cassian knew he should be strategizing, noting resources, planning routes of escape. But all he could focus on was where Nesta still gripped his hand, the hummingbird flutter of her pulse at her wrist. A vee of winged soldiers swept across the sky above them, straight toward the keep. Twin purple siphons flashed from the figure out in front.

He looked hard at the bound male, searching for answers. He’d yet to utter a word, respond to a single question. Cassian’s instincts prickled again, something about those foggy gray eyes, that placid expression.

“I know him,” he said, cutting off his thoughts. “I broke his jaw.”

“He was the other one in the cellars with Kallon,” Nesta added, and he felt his bones rattle from how badly he wanted to fly her out of here. He distracted himself by running his thumb over the back of her hand.

“Mor and I spoke to a female in the camp. She said someone was asking for her son. If he was with a missing female, one who worked in the House.”

Before he could explain futher, wind gusted through the courtyard at the Illyrians’ descent, a thundercloud of booming wings above as Kallon landed hard before them, snow spraying outward from the impact. The air crackled, and Cassian felt Nesta’s hand grow cold in his own.

“Get behind me, sweetheart,” he muttered, and she stiffened at first but obeyed, tucking behind him where he flanked Rhys.

“Your cruelty knows no bounds," Kallon shouted, prowling forward. "You abandon a memorial for warriors who died for your Court, at your orders.”

Cassian could tell the moment the young lord comprehended the scene before him, the slow slide of his eyes from the male, bound and dormant, to the female’s blood turning the crimson of Mor’s cloak even darker.

“Let my comrade go at once,” he spat.

Rhys’ anger was profound, his voice feral. “Your comrade murdered a female from your own house. Tore out her heart. Sent a creature to attack my family.”

A sharp cry rang through the cold air and a child darted out between the legs of the gathering crowd, pitching toward the body. A male grabbed her about the waist, but she strained her arms forward, sobbing.

Warriors thudded on the battlements like hailstones until they surrounded the courtyard in all directions, even the sky. Kallon seemed to draw strength from them, a steely self-possession in the broadening of his chest, the straightening of his spine. “And what has that to do with me?”

“You take no responsibility for this?” Rhys shook the paper Azriel had given him in the young lord’s face, and Cassian saw what it said for the first time.

An open invitation for rebellion. Treason.

He shot a look at Azriel who shifted his position to guard their exposed side, leaving Nesta in the middle of the three males as Rhys said, “You were overheard making threats against my mate.”

Kallon scoffed, and Cassian’s fist clenched at the apathy in his sneer. “Your mate is but another jewel in your blood crown, High Lord.”

Surging, Rhysand’s power wrapped around Kallon, dark bands constricting his chest and forcing the air from his lungs. At once, blaring siphons from all directions painted the snow in a dizzying whirl of color.

“You see, brothers?” Kallon coughed. “This is what the Night Court does when we speak our minds. They bind us like animals.”

A murmur of assent rippled across the crowd.

“We are born for more than breeding and dying for them. Our birthright makes us free. No tyrant can govern the skies.”

Rhys’ face twisted and the bindings tightened, causing Kallon to double over. Cassian felt a growing dread as warriors began to curse and protest around them, hands going to the hilts of swords and strings of bows.

“Rhys,” Cassian warned, and felt Nesta go rigid against his back.

“You can kill me. You can bury me in the deepest cell of your prison,” Kallon panted, eyes glittering fiercely. "But you cannot cut out the beating heart of this land.”

The cries around them grew louder and Cassian heard the hiss of blades being drawn. Rhys seemed to come to himself at last, the dark bands releasing the young male. He threw up a shield around them.

"Azriel, take the prisoner to the Hewn City," he said aside, and they tightened their formation, readying to winnow away.

The scene was devolving rapidly now that Kallon was freed, several of his crew rushing forward to hoist him up from the dirt. Warriors began to thump their weapons against their shields, a crash of tables upended sounding as their discontent spiraled. Broken glass littered the snow where thrown bottles smashed against Rhys’ shield; someone filled a barrel with straw and pitch and set it alight.

Nesta gripped Cassian’s hand tighter. He felt Rhys place his own hand atop where they were joined, and he pulled Nesta close to his body, curved a protective wing around her back.

And as they twisted toward the in-between, he saw Kallon emerge from the mouth of the keep once more, an object held aloft. Cassian realized it was the painting of Ramiel they’d gifted the Lord on their first evening.

Feyre’s painting.

The young heir made sure he held Rhys’ attention before he threw the canvas onto the fire. The edges curled and blackened, sparks crackling skyward. He seemed pleased, Cassian thought, to see the hard look of terror on the High Lord’s face.

—-

Just as after she’d found the mask at Windhaven, things moved quickly once they landed in the gardens of the river estate. Unlike Windhaven, no sister rushed to greet Nesta, and no sense of relief filled her at their return.

The sky above Velaris was heavy with clouds, the crows casting no shadows where they circled over the green rooftops and the deep, stormy blue of the Sidra. Nesta breathed in the crisp, metallic tang of imminent snow, trying to regain her bearings. The strange silver thread felt like a snake in her dress pocket, squirming against her thigh, and she understood why Azriel hadn't wanted to touch it. She felt it beg for her own touch, call to her power that was weak and sluggish from her time in the otherworld.

From producing the letter opener. From stabbing the beast.

Cassian shucked off Rhysand’s hand immediately but kept hold of hers, all but dragging her inside. He seemed to realize the excess of force when she lurched forward and moved his touch to her back, gentler.

Once inside, Rhysand darted up the stairs ahead of them, no doubt to seek out Feyre. Nesta felt her stomach plunge briefly when she remembered the revelation to come - as soon as possible, if she had her way. She kept an eye on the top of the stairs as Cassian led her to a bench in the front hall. He untied the front of her coat and peeled it off her arms, causing pain to shoot through her nerves.

Three jagged lines scored the skin below her shoulder. There was no blood, but the gashes glowed an eerie silver that seemed to shift in the faelights. “What the f*ck?” Cassian said, alarmed. “I’ll get something for it.”

Nesta shrugged her coat back on quickly before anyone else could see, ignoring the sting. “I’m not bleeding.”

“No,” he conceded, swallowing. “But we should cover it at least, I think. Just in case.”

He mounted the stairs two at a time and she watched him go without protest. The task would focus him, she realized. He needed something to do, some way to feel useful when everything was out of control. She could sympathize.

Azriel entered the foyer and slumped onto the bench opposite her, a fine layer of snow dusting his wings and hair. A plan began to slide into place, one that she’d first glimpsed in the forest before they were attacked. Nesta was sure she would not leave this house until Feyre knew the danger of her pregnancy. She was not sure if Rhysand would let her leave after.

“I need your help. Feyre..” Nesta whispered quickly, before the others returned. She searched for the words, the horrid truth. “I need you to protect her. I can’t tell you why, but you’ll know soon. I need you to trust me.”

He paused, eyes drifting to the pearlescent blood she knew was crusted on her neck. “I will.”

The questions lingered between them, why he hadn’t told Rhysand about who’d killed the creature, about the string still wriggling in her pocket. She reached down and clutched it tightly. It felt like a rat’s tail thrashing around her knuckles.

The whole exchange was over in seconds, and soon Rhysand descended the stairs with heavy steps. Mor emerged from the drawing room followed by Amren, whose grin was a bit too triumphant given the circ*mstances. Her eyes bore into Nesta’s in a way they hadn’t since their last training session all those months ago, when she’d said a Prison cell was Nesta’s destiny.

What would they do now, she wondered, if they knew she’d just killed an unkillable creature?

“This is bad. This is so f*cking bad,” Mor groaned, sinking down next to Azriel. She laid her head on his shoulder wearily. “So he wants rebellion. Fine. But why kill that female? Why take the heart at all? It doesn’t make sense.”

Amren ignored her, still staring at Nesta unblinking. “What do you have in your pocket, girl?”

Against her better instinct, Nesta produced the string, and it dangled limply from her fist.

“What is that?” Mor asked.

The High Lord’s face turned awestruck, and he gazed at the silver cord, transfixed. “It’s a harp string.”

No one moved, even seemed to breathe.

“I remember reading, in Day,” Mor murmured, her tone hushed. “It said the strings may have been destroyed. ‘Returned to the source’.”

Rhysand nodded, snapping out of his reverie. He tucked his hands behind his back, began to pace. “This confirms Kallon has been trying to amass the Trove. He may already have the harp itself. And it seems he’s using blood magic to create new strings.”

Nesta felt a small piece of herself break off and wither at the atrocity of it, the utter brutality of this fae world. For a moment she wished to be in the creaky bed in their shack beyond the Wall, curled against Elain’s back.

“You knew," she said to the High Lord, unbelieving. “That was why their hearts were cut out.”

“I had a suspicion when we found the first victim, and you finding the mask at Windhaven all but confirmed it.”

Deep black despair swirled in Nesta's heart, sucking her down.

“There is an old blood magic ritual, where one can draw the soul out through a cleft in a still-beating heart,” said Amren. “The soul can then be placed into another body, or into objects to imbue them with power. This is how the Trove was first Made. How you were Made, girl,” she finished, sneering at Nesta.

A cascade of rage tore through her, stealing her breath. “This was never about the victims at all. You used me to see if Kallon had any other part of the Trove.”

She felt the room tense, but Rhysand regarded her coolly. “Like calls to like. You know this. Give me the string.” He produced a small wooden box from nowhere, held it open to her.

“No,” she said, clutching it closer. The soul quivered in her fingers, the way her power rippled when she was frightened. “I don't even think you wanted to stop him.”

She remembered Amren’s words from the night she’d first used the mask, how the Trove could traverse space and time, command the dead. How, by then, Rhysand must’ve already known of his child’s wings.

“This is about Feyre,” she said, more to herself than the silent room. It felt as if no one were breathing, as if she and the High Lord were on a battlefield for two. “You were going to use the Trove to save her. Those victim’s souls. And you were going to manipulate me into helping you.”

“I will protect my family by any means possible.”

And suddenly it all fell into place - their strange lessons, his pressing into her mind, the rabid protection of her sister against her despite his insistence on her training. Still she was nothing but a tool, honed to his liking, to be discarded again once no longer useful.

Nesta squared off with her brother-in-law, drawing up to full height. This had gone on long enough.

“Tell her.”

He shook his head, stars cascading off his tense shoulders. “The time is not right.”

“Tell. Her. Now.”

“She’s just been through a-”

“She deserves to know!”

“What are you talking about?” Mor spoke at last from where she was looking between them, bewildered. Azriel edged toward the steps and Amren, Nesta noted, remained tight-lipped, arms crossed firmly over her chest.

Rhysand ignored Mor, stayed trained on Nesta. “She deserves to have a happy pregnancy and enjoy our child.”

“You’re unbelievable. You’d rather condemn your wife to die than inconvenience yourself with her feelings.”

“What?!”

Feyre hovered at the top of the stairs, foot suspended in the air above a step. Rhysand turned, stricken, and stared up at her in horror. No one moved. She cleared her throat. “I heard shouting.”

Cassian appeared on the stairs behind Feyre, hands full of bandages, concern carving a deep line his brow. “What’s going on?”

Rhysand made to usher her sister up the stairs but Nesta sucked in a breath, rushed to get the words out before he could stop her.

“Your pregnancy is killing you, and if it doesn’t then the birth itself will. Your husband has known this for weeks, and has hidden the truth from you intentionally.”

The devastation on Feyre’s face was immediate, and she staggered forward, Azriel darting up to catch her before she slipped. Nesta moved toward her sister without thinking, but Rhysand stormed to the foot of the stairs, cut her off.

“Look what you’ve done.” His face was inches from her own, and he looked deranged, wide eyed and choking on a laugh.

“Is this true?” Having found herself at last, Feyre’s voice was thunderous. But the High Lord kept staring at Nesta with that crazed expression.

“You will pay for this, Nesta Archeron.”

Cassian’s snarl ripped through the foyer, just as Feyre shouted, “Don’t speak to my f*cking sister like that!”

Instinct took over and Nesta readied her venom, keeping deathly calm the way her mother taught her. She saw the King of Hybern’s face mingle with Rhysand's, pictured ending him the same way. “Careful, High Lord. Those who threaten me tend to regret it.”

He recoiled just a fraction at that, and she knew silver must’ve flowed across her eyes. The disgust twisted his features into something grotesque, and the finger he jabbed in her face trembled with his fury. “You are poison, the festering, rotten core of your own misery and we are all worse for knowing you. I’d end you now were you not such a waste of life already.”

Blank.

Everything went dark inside her, a candle snuffing out with no one to see it. She barely registered Cassian leaping over the banister and crashing atop his brother in a tangle of wings, Feyre bent at the waist in Azriel's arms, overcome with tortured sobs. People were moving, shouting, but she couldn’t hear, her vision too fuzzy to do more than stumble toward the door and out into the snow now falling thickly.

Inside, she froze and froze and froze.

—

Cassian felt a sick triumph with every slam of his fists into Rhys, his arms, his stomach. For the first time, truly, he wanted to hurt his brother. Wanted to smash his face until it looked again like the one that disappeared Under the Mountain, not this mask of hatred and venom.

Rhys tore back at him, magic burning Cassian’s lungs where it poured down his throat but he kept hitting, bit down on the hand Rhys shoved in his face, trying to pin him down. He felt someone try to pry him away but resisted, the killing power barrelling through him, urging him to destroy this wicked creature living inside his brother's skin.

A mighty force shoved him backward, and he crashed into the wall beneath the stairs, unable to move.

“Stop it!” Mor was yelling, and he thought it was her power that bound him until Feyre was sweeping down the stairs, a blistering tornado.

The High Lady grabbed her mate by the shirtfront where he sprawled on the carpet and he raised his hands, entreating.

“You f*cking lied to me.”

“Feyre, darling,” Rhys pleaded, and she reared back and slapped him hard. He took it, took the shove that followed that sent him to his knees again.

“You told me it was nothing to worry about. That you had it under control.”

“I did, my love, I do.”

A great clang came from the upper level, followed by the awful screech of metal twisting and rending. A swarm of silver arrows shot down the stairs, pointed at Rhys from all sides where he knelt, frozen in midair.

The cradle, Cassian realized. A symbol of his treachery.

Rhysand gaped up at Feyre, still stammering terms of endearment, but she cut him off. “Shut your f*cking mouth. If you say one more word, you will never see me or this child again."

Cassian tried to shove to his feet again but the magic held fast. Mor had her arms wrapped about herself, looking dumbstruck, and Amren stood stone-faced in the entrance to the drawing room. Had they known? Did her sisters? He couldn’t fathom any of the females keeping this from Feyre, but until a moment ago he couldn’t fathom Rhys doing the same, either.

“Go sit in the study until I’m ready to speak to you.” The arrows quivered, inching closer. Cassian saw one prick the soft skin under Rhysand’s eye when he failed to move.

The arrows followed as Rhys rose slowly, a star at the center of a silver galaxy. He trudged up the stairs like a male walking to his execution. Cassian couldn’t bring himself to feel sorry him, for the bite mark healing on his hand.

Feyre’s power released Cassian at last and he slumped against the wall, hands still throbbing with the urge to wring his brother’s neck. For the deceit, for his friend, for his mate. For all their f*cking lives damaged by Rhysand’s secrets and lies, the pain of living under the heavy crown of his authority.

“Did you know?” Feyre rounded on the rest of them, and Cassian saw the sparkle of tears threatening to spill over. “Tell me the truth now, or I’ll never speak to you either.”

“I didn’t. I swear to you,” Cassian said at once, at the same time Mor blurted, “Feyre, I would never.”

“Nor I,” Azriel added, and his eyes were blazing, shadows crashing against his wings and spilling down in ribbons. She regarded each of them in turn, seemed to find them truthful. Then turned once more.

“Amren?”

The ancient female tilted her head to the side. “If I say yes, will you point your silver arrows at me, too, girl?”

“Yes. Get out.”

Amren had enough sense not to retort, so towering was the High Lady’s fury, but Cassian saw the slight curl of her lip before she disappeared into the garden.

Feyre loosed a shuddering breath and sank down onto a bench, the hand at her belly firm despite the shaking in her voice.“This is what’s going to happen. I’m going to go speak with my mate, and then I’m getting the f*ck out of here. We’ll meet in three days, decide what to do then. One of you should stay here, in case.”

In case Rhys tried to find Feyre, or to find Nesta and make good on his promise. Cassian’s rage begged him to charge up the stairs again, to eliminate the male who’d spoken her cruelest fears aloud.

“I’ll stay. I don’t trust either of you not to kill him,” Mor said, her voice hollow. He saw the flutter of her hem against the floor, realized she was shaking hard. “I barely trust myself not to, to be honest.”

But Cassian didn't hear the last part as his lungs collapsed under the weight of his dread. He made eye contact with Feyre, both realizing in one moment the same horrible truth.

Nesta was gone.

—

The snow was falling in earnest now, thick flakes plummeting fast and straight from the gray heavens. Nesta carved a wandering path through the deserted streets, aimed her shoes for the sparse patches of cobblestone not yet slick with ice. She had no purpose, no goal, nothing but a desire to slip into infinity and leave the world behind. The string twitched weakly in her pocket.

She vaguely registered a figure stepping out of shadow before her, hands raised in front of their chest. Soft blue light pulsed on the snow - Azriel. The wind whipped his dark hair down into his eyes.

“I have a feeling you shouldn’t be alone right now.”

She sounded far away from her own ears when she replied. “Where’s Feyre?”

The corner of his mouth twitched, the only sign of that deep well of rage she'd glimpsed in the courtyard. “She’s safe. Are you thinking about hurting yourself?”

No, just drinking herself into a stupor. Letting her body be used by anyone who wanted it. Visiting that shop Elain brought her to, taking everything on offer until it all went quiet.

“Yes.”

“Okay. It’s going to be okay.”

She heard someone shouting her name far off, wild and desperate, and then another figure appeared above the rooftops. Azriel turned back to her as Cassian banked and began his descent.

“Do you want me to tell him?”

Nesta nodded, numb. The shadowsinger met Cassian halfway down the block, where they conversed with their heads close. She saw Cassian lurch as if to run back in the direction of the estate, but instead he scrubbed a hand over his face, pulled Azriel into a brief hug, and walked over to where she waited.

“Az said you need some help staying safe. What can I do, sweetheart?”

“I don’t know, I just need to get out.”

He arced a wing over them, the snow hitting the membrane in soft thuds. “Do you think going back to the ward would help?”

“No, I just need to be..” she paused, searching for the right words through the numbness of her mind. “Not here.”

Here where these people could see her, weigh her, condemn her. Here within reach of all her favorite vices. Cassian brushed his knuckles down her cheek, calling her back.

“I have a cabin up in Illyria we could go to,” he said. “It’s quiet but not completely isolated. I don’t want you to feel trapped.”

She leaned into the embrace he offered, the warmth of his body abating the shivers she hadn’t noticed before. A sharp desire rose in her to crawl inside his chest, to nestle in the snug chambers of his heart and sleep forever. The string in her pocket flicked against her leg, as if in agreement.

“I’d like that.”

Cassian drew a gentle hand up her back, smoothed her snowy hair away from her face. She was vaguely aware of Azriel still up the street, watching them. The nothingness began to envelop her, filling her ears.

“I’m going to pick you up now, okay?”

Nesta could only nod in answer, and he looped a careful arm beneath her knees, lifting her to him. Out from under the canopy of his wing, the snow gathered in her lashes, melted into rivulets that ran down her cheeks in place of the tears that wouldn’t fall.

—

Cassian flew Nesta to the House in silence, unable to find the words that could extend far enough into the deep well of her pain. But she’d reached for him in the courtyard, hadn’t run away when they found her in the street. She was here and warm in his arms, leaning into his touch, even if her eyes were hollow.

His heart ached with pride when Nesta left a note at the ward asking if she could meet with her mind healer in the next few days. He gathered some books and warm clothes while she penned another note to Gwyn, who was expecting her back that evening, and made sure they packed her tea. He shuddered when she dropped that glowing string into a jar and tucked it into her coat, felt his rage flare all over again from when Az shared its grisly origin in the street.

There was time for that tomorrow, for the lies, all of it. Just not yet.

Azriel met them on the roof of the House, a pack slung over one shoulder. He filled them in briefly - Feyre was okay, she would be heading up to the family cabin in the Steppes by the evening. Elain would remain behind to respect her sister's request for space. Their gray-eyed prisoner lay deep within the Hewn City, for Az to deal with later. Amren was in the wind.

All Cassian could think, over and over, was how the Rhys he knew was just a mirage. He wondered if Azriel felt as relieved as he did to be leaving Velaris, to lessen the likelihood of hurting their brother beyond repair.

Nesta seemed grateful to be on the move as well, and he shielded her with his siphons while they rose high enough to winnow away. In a wink the forests sprawled beneath them, rising up to skirt the mountains surrounding the valley. The fields ahead were turned over for winter, and the cabins dotting the far side of the river breathed smoke into the air, alight with birchwood fires.

Cassian tried to remember the last time he’d been so glad to be home, wished it was for a less morbid reason. He'd imagined bringing Nesta here so many times, the way her eyes would light up at the natural splendor of the Steppes.

His house used to be an old mill, from the days before the new one was built closer to town, and a giant wheel rolled briskly in the current where it dwarfed one exterior wall. They landed on the wide upper deck and he set Nesta down gently, guiding her toward the stairs that led to the kitchen and the sitting room below. The wood stove sprang to life, and when he’d deposited her in a kitchen chair he turned to shut the grate to block out the sound. He was setting the kettle on top when he saw Azriel kneel in front of Nesta from the corner of his eye, hand her a slip of paper.

“Thank you,” she said, tucking it into her pocket next to where he knew the harp string still glowed.

“We both know who should be thanking who.”

“You know what I mean.” She rolled her eyes, and Cassian felt his heart leap at how normal the gesture was. Az chuckled.

“I’ll take sweeping up a few broken dishes if it means I don’t get mauled to death.”

Cassian hugged his brother long and tight before the shadowsinger stepped out into the gathering storm, promising to check in and bring more provisions in the morning. Nesta looked tiny curled in her chair, as she had so many weeks ago in the dining room of the House. This time he expected no grand declarations, no sweeping embraces.

“I know you can make it on your own, but I also know you’d never tell me if you couldn’t,” he said, trying to thread the needle between support and suffocation, and knelt where his brother had been moments before. Her face looked haunted in the gathering dark. “So on the off chance this is one of those moments, I want to take care of you. Will you let me?”

She braced a hand on his shoulder and nodded. He helped her stand, taking care to avoid her shoulder. Her hair stuck in the blood on her neck when he tried to brush it away from her face. “Can I help you get clean? I think you'll feel better.”

Nesta nodded again and he led her down one level to the bathing chamber, the water in the deep cedarwood tub already warm from the hearth in his room below. She set the jar and note on the windowsill that overlooked the rushing river, plucked weakly at her gown.

Cassian felt that familiar urge to sweep her up but tempered himself, coaxed her hands away and brushed his lips along the back of each one. She didn't protest when he bent to untie the stays himself, and he felt her remove the tie from his hair and rake her fingers through it gently. Still, he was surprised when she pressed herself against him once she was undressed, when she snaked an arm around his neck and kissed him hard, imploring.

“Nesta,” Cassian murmured against her lips, and he pushed back on her shoulders but she only surged toward him harder, voice desperate as she said, “Don’t stop.”

“I’m too shaken up, sweetheart. I can’t be careful in the ways you might need.”

Nesta was undeterred as she tore at his shirt, reached for the fastening of his pants, only stopping when Cassian held her wrists gently to keep them from undressing him further. His mind flashed to that night in the townhouse, her shadow in the antechamber, the bloom of jasmine in her hair.

“Cassian, please.”

Please.

Her face twisted in his memory, first in pleasure, then in pain.

Chapter 16: The Townhouse

Chapter Text

“You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone for ever. I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your own, than when you almost broke it..”

- Persuasion, Jane Austen.

Nes,

I’m so f*cking sorry for what I said, and for acting like an ass in general. I didn’t mean it, and it wasn’t right. I don’t have any excuses, I’m apparently just dealing with all of this horribly and that’s not your fault. You have every right to hate me, but please don’t hold it against your sisters. They really miss you, and I guess I do, too. I’d like to make it up to you someday, but I get it if you don’t want anything to do with me. I hope you’re finding what you were looking for.

Yours,

C

When he saw her on the longest night of the year, their first time face-to-face since she’d shattered his heart, Cassian recognized with both dread and elation that it still beat only for her. That crack through the middle of him split wide open again, and all his devotion came gushing forth like a hidden spring in his chest.

Even after Solstice, and those awful words he hurled at her, he held onto hope that Nesta would change her mind. Held onto that image of her he’d seen so briefly in those days after the war, open and soft as a dewy morning in spring.

But she did not return, and that first spring in Velaris came hot and raging, clouds breaking open so forcefully they flattened the optimistic heads of the daffodils poking out of the soil.

Give yourself time, Rhys said. Mor suggested he get over it by getting under someone else, and Azriel met him in the training ring until the dirt was flecked with their blood. Amren remained tight-lipped, but he felt her ancient gaze assessing him always, finding him wanting. Only Feyre didn’t try to give him answers, looking just as lost as he felt when it came to her eldest sister.

It seemed to him like everyone wanted him to move on, expected him to, and he didn’t know how to let them down. So when they offered up the bitter pill of failure, he tucked it into his cheek and spit it out when no one was looking.

The others had abandoned the townhouse for the shiny new estate on the river, so there were no witnesses but Az’s shadows when Cassian shut himself up in Nesta’s old bedroom. And when his family finally asked how he, of all people, tolerated the solitude, he let them assume it was a den of bachelorhood instead of a mausoleum.

If Nesta was the ghost who skulked through the halls, then he was her devoted keeper.

He put his clothing beside hers in the wardrobe, thumbed through the books she’d left behind in search of any clue, any kind of closeness. Her scent in the pillows pervaded his dreams, the dappled sun through the shutters bringing memories of her mouth under the cherry tree, so that more mornings than not, he had to wrap a hand around himself until his blood cooled. Until he could rise and begin another day without her in it.

The city swelled as it stretched into summer, dotted with markets and street bands, every pub and cafe spilling patrons out into the gilded night. Cassian hated every moment of it.

He avoided her part of the city until he didn’t, until he began sidling up to back-alley taverns and pleasure halls in the seedier districts he hadn’t frequented since Rhys’ capture. He still could not admit his hopes for a chance meeting, and justified his solo wanderings as self-reflection, as if her face were the only mirror in which he could see himself clearly. He felt himself going fuzzy around the edges as the weeks wore on, disappearing into the loss.

And then he saw her on the barge.

She glowed in a simple black gown, her freckled shoulders on display, a curl of shadow in the colored faelights. There was jasmine in her golden hair, and he could smell it high and sweet above the scent of her and the night-hot air. Only Amren was brave enough to approach her, and with the advantage of height he saw the flash of pain in Nesta’s expression, though their raised voices were lost among the crowd. Her stormy eyes found him at once and he bolted, rushing down the gangplank toward the safety of the townhouse.

He’d barely sucked in a steadying breath, stretching his wings to relieve the tension, when the knock came on the outer door.

“I know you’re home. Let me in.”

Seeing her across the crowded party had been torture - up close, it was even harder to bear. Her steely eyes were ringed with kohl, smudged at the corners. She stepped across the threshold without asking, backing him into the foyer.

He wanted to touch her, to hold her to him and whisper into her hair that he was here, that it was going to be alright. Instead he backed toward the foot of the stairs, fists clenched so hard he feared his thumbs might snap.

“What are you doing here?”

Another step. He held his ground, teeth grinding.

“Amren said you were living here alone,” she said airily.

“Why aren’t you training with her anymore?”

“Don’t you know?”

He felt her coiling around him, squeezing the air from his lungs. The purr in her voice made his blood spike with wanting.

“I know her version.” Some bullsh*t that Nesta was better off not knowing the extent of her powers, that she was too volatile to teach her more than suppressing them. “Give me yours.”

“That’s not what we’re here for.”

She stepped closer, running her hand up his chest. He caught it in his own. “You don’t want to do this.”

“Stop talking, Cassian.”

“I’m trying hard to be a male of my word here, sweetheart.”

Her lip curled, though at his promise or the nickname he couldn’t tell. “f*ck your word.”

“After Solstice you were pretty clear you wanted nothing to do with me.”

“A natural consequence of telling me no one loves me.”

“Nes, I’m sorry.”

“So, make it up to me.” Her voice was a silk scarf tightening around his throat. She stood on her toes and brushed her lips against his.

And even as he knew it was a bad idea, perhaps the worst he’d ever had, he was so empty from her absence Cassian could do nothing but grab her face and press her mouth harder to his.

She tasted sour from the wine and from the moment she moaned against his lips he was a male lost, swept out to sea. He let himself drown in her, dragged a hand down her side while the other stroked the hot skin of her neck. They staggered into the dining room, his grip growing possessive and she tugged at his hair sharply, ripping out the tie.

With a groan, he made to lift her hips onto the table and found her willing, helped rake her midnight skirts up over her knees to press himself flush between her open thighs. She was reaching for him too, untucking his shirt, tearing at the buttons of his trousers, and he felt that familiar madness of needing to be inside her, that pounding beat of take her take her mine mine mine -

Nesta freed him at last, and he hissed sharply as she stroked up the length, drawing him closer.

They were feverish, ablaze, and when he felt the tight heat of her around him a moment later he buried his face in her neck, too consumed by her scent, her silken hair cascading down her back to remember why this was a mistake, to even care.

“f*ck, Nesta,” he said through gritted teeth and she moaned in answer, moving against him with a tight grip still in his hair. His release grew closer and he felt like she was going to shatter him, rend him into irreconcilable pieces. She must’ve been unraveling as well, for her cries grew more desperate, her fingernails gouging into his shoulders as he drove into her over and over and over.

The devotion in him swelled, painful and sickly. He tried to memorize every sensation of her body against his in case this was the last time she’d let him close. He was tumbling into something like dying, erasing himself to make room for her when all at once his side of the bond came rushing up to meet her. It was exquisitely painful, and Cassian slowed, his mouth at her neck more tender, trying to give her the love he’d kept stored away all winter.

Nesta shoved him away without warning, and he stumbled backward into the foyer.

When he looked up, still reeling, he saw her folded at the waist with her head in her hands, breathing hard. Cassian righted his clothes and approached on tentative steps, trying to wade through his profound confusion. He felt dizzy from the whiplash, his body cold where it missed hers already.

“Nes, what’s wrong? Talk to me.”

She didn’t answer. He looked at her truly now, without the haze of desire, and noticed her nails were dirty. Up close, the threadbare patches of her dress were more apparent, the weight of sadness laying over her like a cloak.

“Look, I know Rhys cut you off. I’ve tried to reason with him but…” Cassian struggled for the words, how best to get past her defenses. “I can loan you some money. At least until you get back on your feet.”

He knew he’d never accept anything back, offered his help freely, but wanted to shield Nesta’s pride. It only seemed to incense her further.

“I’ll do many worse things before it comes to that,” she scoffed, and stormed from the dining room, aiming for the door. He felt his fear twist into something more chaotic, more anguished.

“Do you enjoy torturing me like this?” Cassian was aiming to hurt now but he didn’t care, he’d do anything just to make her hear him. “Is it fun for you to twist the knife? You keep showing me you need help and then refusing to take it.”

She whirled on him. “I’m so sorry that my pain is difficult for you .”

“I just want you to be okay.” The prickle of tears shocked him, and he clenched his jaw hard, not wanting to break down in front of her. “We all do.”

“You all want me to be quiet,” she spat. “You want me to behave like I haven’t been altered by this. I can’t do that, Cassian. I can’t put it away. I can’t be okay for you.”

Her eyes were the blue of the Sidra at sunset, turbulent and shimmering. A memory unearthed from a shallow grave in his mind, of her body curled over him in a thick wood. The soft brush of her finger at his cheek, the world shifting on its axis.

“Let me go.” Nesta’s strained voice wrecked him, dashing him against the rocks of their ruined love. “Please.”

“Okay. Okay.” His liar’s heart split in half, knowing he could never forget her. That he’d always hear her name on the wind, calling him home. That he’d always wish for more time. “Do what you need. I won’t stand in your way.”

She hovered in the antechamber, the faelights gilding her hair, the sweeping planes of her cheeks. “I hate that I can’t stop thinking about you. I hate that you still care about me.”

“Sweetheart,” he pleaded, reaching out a hand. She stared at it, and for a hysterical moment he thought she might take it. But after a beat Nesta’s face twisted, and she recoiled from him.

“I wish you weren’t my mate,” she said bitterly.

Then the suffocating veil of night swallowed her whole, and Cassian felt the future sweep away into nothingness.

He barely registered the light on in the study before slamming his - her - bedroom door and driving his fist into the wood. The next morning he moved his things up to the House of Wind. And when his family asked about his broken hand at dinner that night, he let them believe it was a barroom brawl and buried his love deeper toward the center of the earth.

Chapter 17: XV

Chapter Text

In the blossom of the months

I was sure that I'd get driven off with thought

So I swallowed all of it

As I realized there was no one who could kiss away my sh*t

I was your starry-eyed lover and the one that you saw

I was your hurricane rider and the one that you'd call

We were just two moonshiners on the cusp of a breath

And I've been burning for you, baby, since the moment I left

• “Paul”, Big Thief

Present

Nesta felt like her body was splitting. One half barrelled down the path toward Cassian, toward release, that funeral shroud of numbness she’d wrapped herself in all those long months. The other half responded to his hesitation, how gently he pulled her hands away from his clothes. It wanted her to fall still and focus only on the lavender- and cedar-scented air, the feel of his stubbly cheek pressed against hers.

“Not now,” he said, and she felt relief when he turned her slowly, deciding for the both of them.

The bath loomed large in the corner of the room, wooden steps curving around to a raised platform skirting the far side, wide enough for a winged person to sit comfortably. It made her feel wobbly, the steaming water gushing from the copper spout too loud, too forceful. Her stomach plunged and in her mind the freezing water bit at her heels, soaking the hem of her gown and they were all screaming, Elain was soaked and sobbing, Cassian unmoving beneath his shredded wings and she would not go in, she would not, she would not -

“Nes.”

Cassian in the present kissed a soft line across her shoulder and Nesta realized she’d halted, staring at the tub. She angled her face toward his, felt the warmth of his chest behind her as he said, “It’s okay. You don’t have to get in.”

Shame flooded her when he curved his wings halfway around them, that he knew why she was afraid. There was no real reason to be embarrassed - she hadn’t chosen to go into the Cauldron, hadn’t chosen any of this. But there was still, always, the lingering sense that her inability to banish the ghosts of the past, to handle normal life, was somehow her fault.

“I’m disgusting,” she said, though unsure whether she meant the creature’s blood or the blight in her soul. The festering, rotten core of your own misery. “Let’s get this over with.”

Cassian shucked off his shirt and rolled up his pant legs as Nesta climbed in carefully, ignoring her own nakedness and suppressing the jolt of fear when her toes first touched the surface. She told herself the water was warm, she could leave at any time, that she would emerge the same person, all the ways to remember she was here and now and not in that damp chamber in Hybern.

The blood was crusted all down her front and along one arm, having poured down her collar and sleeve when she’d stabbed upward in panic. The wound at her shoulder had closed, finally, though the faint glow of silver still raked beneath her skin, a grotesque memento. Nesta pressed her palms into her eyes, trying to shoot down the images flying past of those dagger-like teeth snarling over her, that horrible pond-scum skin.

When she looked up at last Cassian was perched on the platform, his long legs dangling in the water. The tattoos on his chest curled downward along his sides, whirled forward again over his hips before disappearing beneath his waistband. He gave her a questioning look, and she could tell he was torn between wanting to give her privacy and not wanting to leave her alone. She grabbed a cloth and set to work on the blood stuck to her neck to avoid imagining tracing that ink all the way down.

“I’m okay,” she assured him, though not quite sure why, because it certainly wasn’t true. She just wanted that drawn expression to smooth out, to not see the burden of caring about her so plainly on his face. The minty smelling soap tingled on her skin, suds coming away shimmering.

“Are you?” he asked, unmoved. She didn’t respond, kept scrubbing at her arm as though the answer should be obvious.

And perhaps it was. Perhaps it was obvious she was dangerous and volatile, that this fae world was a realm of nightmares and war and this was normal. This was how things would always be, and she was possibly the worst creature of all. And someday another would be splattered with her blood and she would be left to decay to nothing, her body scattered across foreign snow.

Cassian surveyed her through the steam, waiting. Nesta ached to tell him what happened in the forest, how she’d killed the creature. The secret pressed against her skin, though it still left a hard lump in her throat, as did the fear of signing her own warrant for imprisonment. For execution.

I’m not scared of you, I’m scared for you, he’d said that day in Windhaven. She rubbed harder at her hands, the pearly white in her nail beds proving as stubborn as she was.

“Here,” he said and picked up a small wooden tool from a tray of bottles and jars on the lip of the tub. “You’ll scour your f*cking skin off.” He beckoned her close and she allowed it when he picked up one of her hands, cradled it in his lap and began removing the grit from beneath her nails. The pads of his fingers felt cool against her own.

Something settled around them as he worked, a kind of separation from anything and everyone, startlingly intimate in a way that had Nesta’s breath hitching. With the snow still falling thickly past the window, they could be the only two for miles and miles.

In that space between, with her body held by the warm, fragrant bath and Cassian’s hands dutifully cleaning her own, Nesta felt the tight grip of her control begin to relax.

“I killed the creature,” she said shakily and he didn’t look up, only reached for her other hand and started again. “Azriel tried to, so many times. But it kept coming back.. to life.” Her voice choked off. It was all so surreal. Cassian nodded, indicating her to continue.

“So I went to the.. otherworld and brought something back. And I stabbed it.” She saw her vision going blurry, trying to make sense of it all. His hands felt like the only thing tethering her to sanity. “And it died.”

Still he didn’t jerk away, didn’t tense. So she dared one more.

“I found the mask.”

Nesta blinked and Cassian was leaning toward her then, threading a hand through her hair, soft yet insistent. “I’m so glad you’re okay.” He drew in a great shuddering breath and loosed it in a long, slow sigh. “Thank you for telling me. And I’m so sorry if I ever made you feel afraid to tell me these things.”

“I don’t think I would’ve trusted you anyway.” She felt guilty even as she knew it was true, those months she’d spent cursing his memory. Wishing he’d forget she existed.

Cassian sighed again and cupped a palmful of water, ran it over his face. “Yeah that doesn’t shock me.”

“Are you okay?” she asked. He’d been nearly silent on their flight to and from the House, his usually lively expression stony and empty.

“No,” he said wearily, “I keep trying to find a way in my head to make it not true. I know that’s crazy. I just don’t want to live in a world where someone I love can do something like that.”

She felt a pang of heartache beneath the surge of anger, Rhysand’s rabid face swimming in her mind. “In my experience, the people you love are capable of hurting you the most.”

He didn’t respond, only finished off her pinky and released her hand, but she sensed she’d wounded him. Not wanting to confirm it, she turned her back to him and stood, washing down across her stomach.

“Nes.”

She heard the apology in his tone. “No, that wasn’t - I just meant that it hurts more. When they betray you.”

“I know. Just making sure.”

He splashed at her from behind, playfully, and the bubble of ease settled around them once more. By now Nesta had finished scrubbing her body - she’d been avoiding her hair, not sure how to tackle it. Cassian seemed to sense her hesitation. “Do you need something else?”

“I don’t want to put my ears under.”

He reached over to the washstand and retrieved a pitcher, its silver handle carved with images of waves and leaping trout, a long-necked crane with its wings flared across the front. He dipped it in the water and made to pour it over her head, but Nesta shirked away, her blood going frozen.

“I can do it,” she snapped, snatching it away from him. She poured the warm water over her head, ignored the stutter of her heart when a trickle blocked out her hearing on one side. When she opened her eyes she saw Cassian had settled with his back against the wall, staring out at the river. “Sorry.”

He shrugged. “What for?”

“This. All of this. Me.”

His laughter surprised her, as did the way he leaned forward with his forearms rested on his thighs, their faces close. She saw his eyes dart down to where her breasts were half-submerged, then back up to meet her own. “You know, for someone so smart you are a slow learner, aren’t you? I’m not afraid of you.”

“You have a very particular form of masochism, it seems. It should be studied.”

She didn’t miss the way his eyes danced when she smirked and drifted away to pour a stream of washing liquid onto her scalp. They sat in silence while she worked it in, his hand making trailing swirls in the soapy water. Instead of turning it murky, the blood had settled in the bottom of the tub, a layer of glittering sediment. When it was time to rinse, Nesta stalled, unsure how to both lift the heavy pitcher and wash the suds from her hair.

“Let me,” he said, reaching for the pitcher, but she backed away, not wanting to be at the mercy of the water, of the fear. Cassian beckoned her closer again. “You pour.”

She moved so she was between his legs, the damp rolled hem of his pants against her arm, and when she tipped her head back under the stream his hands in her hair were practiced, efficient. She lowered the pitcher when she felt him wring the last of the suds from the ends, felt the burn to turn and kiss him again but resisted, ignored the flutter when his fingers brushed a sensitive spot on her neck and waded toward the bottles again.

“I’m impressed you have hair softener,” she mused, working the fragrant oil in. She twisted the length once it was saturated and coiled it atop her head.

“We can’t all be blessed with your luscious locks,” he said, and she imagined the way people must fall all over themselves for that grin, those infernal wings. She loosed a cascade of water from the pitcher over her front in revenge, noting how his gaze followed the trail down her stomach and below the surface.

“It’s such a pain. I haven’t cut it since before I was…” Before she was fae. Before the world fell apart. Nesta felt the grief open up beneath her, tried to throw out a lifeline before it could swallow her whole. “It was the only thing that still felt like mine.”

She poured another waterfall over her front and caught Cassian still watching her carefully, a sadness now pulling at this brow.

“To be honest, I never saw much of a difference,” he offered. “I think you look the same.”

Answering was too difficult, and the way he was looking at her like there wasn’t anything he’d change made her resolve crumble. She drifted back between his legs and ran her hand through the dark hair that hung loose about his face, mortified she was giving herself permission to touch. He only smiled down at her, said, “You like my hair, don’t you?”

The thick strands snarled on her fingers and she worked through them until she could comb it smoothly. “It reminds me of our horses, from when I was young.”

His laugh was loud and unbound, echoing off the tile. “I don’t know if that’s a compliment.”

“It is. I loved braiding my pony’s mane.” She could see even now the bright red ribbons bobbing up and down on the quarter horse’s neck as they raced across the estate grounds, outpacing her confused tutor. Maneuvering mid-canter to sit astride, the leather of the bridle supple and powerful beneath her fingers.

She retreated again, filling the pitcher to pour over her shoulders, down her back. Her eyes alit on the jar on the windowsill, the silver glow pulsing like a tiny heart.

“You’re still young, you know.” His voice was low, unsure, but the string glowed brighter at the sound.

“I feel like I’ve been here since the first days of existence.” Grief rose in a wave over her once more, dark and looming. How she’d twined with the poison water of the Cauldron, how it ripped her in two. She wondered where the other half went, if that Nesta was somewhere living a better life. The water sloshed and she felt hands close over her own where they clutched the silver handle tightly.

“Lean your head back,” Cassian said behind her and she tensed until his nose trailed down her neck. Her shoulders dropped from where they’d been crowding her ears. “You’re letting me take care of you, remember?”

The river rushed by out the window, born from the mountains and bound for the sea. The whole world moved forward, and she must as well.

So she let him rinse and comb the oil from her hair, let him help her from the bath and towel them both off. Let him slip one of her night dresses over her head, the cream-colored cotton cool against her skin. Even let him grumble to himself about her not being warm enough, and wrap her in a thick wool robe so big the hem trailed in her wake as he led her down the hall.

The room at the end was understated, all warm wood and the stone hearth reflecting the landscape, the wide bed piled high with quilts and furs. It must be a guest room, she thought, as she imagined Cassian’s room would reflect more of its owner. The lack of swords laying about was a giveaway, if nothing else.

She let him pull her down to the bed then, lay with her back against his chest. The warm circle of his arms curled around her waist and beneath her head, and they lay there for a time listening to the rhythm of the snow at the windows, the gentle hush of their breathing in and out. Nesta felt something stir within her, wondered if it was her power beginning to replenish. She shuddered, unsure if she wanted it back.

But the feeling continued to rise, working its way from her stomach up to the base of her throat. Her nose was prickling incessantly, and her body twitched as if trying to grapple with the sensation, the muscle at her hip kicking where Cassian’s thigh pressed to the back of her own. A horrid anticipation stole through her, that something awful was about to happen and there was nothing she could do to stop it.

Cassian didn’t seem fazed, seemed to know exactly what was happening when he held her more firmly still and said, “I’ve got you.”

And then the tears came.

Rushing forth on an angry tide, they burned and they burned and she was drowning in them, lost in the sea, in the Cauldron, suffocating on her need to breathe air from a mouth not her own. Someone was sobbing, sharp and anguished, and she wished they would shut up, wished they’d leave her to the deep dark black in peace because there it was quiet and numb and safe.

But agony was rippling across her body, through her chest, and there must be a wound for it to hurt so badly. Her hand rose to clutch at the night dress above her heart and she felt Cassian’s there already, holding her in, felt his generous mouth press kisses to her damp hair, heard the words he whispered into the midnight of her pain.

“That’s it, sweetheart, let it out. You’re safe. I’ve got you. You don’t have to hold on right now. I won’t let anything bad happen to you. I won’t let you disappear.”

She focused on the brush of his breath across her cheek, letting the tears flow freely, hearing the sobs now as her own, the desolation of her mind. She cried for all of it, Feyre, Elain, their father, the females, the waste, the waste of it all. The utter pointlessness of the violence and soul-rending fear. It felt like wandering through the otherworld, memories leaking out of her as the ash shifted beneath her feet, calling out desperately in search of unknown comfort, a baby bird in want of its mother.

—

Nesta didn’t know how long they lay there, both curled around the bright, painful center of her grief. Didn’t know how many times Cassian stroked her hair, ran his hand up and down the side of her body, grounding her to the moment. She only knew that her breath slowed and her eyes adjusted to the faelights that flickered on at dusk, the snow drifts purple in the dying light.

Cassian heaved a sigh behind her, nuzzled his nose into the space below her ear.

“We should eat something.” His voice was thick and relaxed. “Are you hungry?”

Nesta found herself laughing at the absurdity of her first thought, which she voiced aloud. “I have a somewhat skewed tolerance for hunger.”

“Same.” She felt his smile curve against her neck. “Which means we definitely should.”

They rose at length and he led the way to the kitchen a floor above, two large windows pointing up and down river, the whirr of the wheel just audible over the rushing water. A huge leather couch dominated the sitting area, flanked by chairs closer to the stone hearth that was a larger version of the one in the room below. She noticed with some amusem*nt that the sofa back curved up and down at odd intervals, likely to accommodate for wings.

The small hamper the House packed contained a few loaves of bread, thick slices of salt pork, and a wedge of hard, nutty cheese. Cassian stored half in the larder and split the remaining half between them.

It reminded her of the makeshift meals they’d shared in the days after the war, and it felt childlike then as it did now, grinning and eating with their hands. Cassian wolfed his portion down in huge bites standing at the counter, and it made Nesta laugh again without meaning to, the sound startling them both. He winked after a moment and dug out a tin of chocolate biscuits from the bottom of the hamper.

“I think the House likes you,” he said, popping off the lid and offering her the tin. She couldn’t help noticing the sharp points of his canines where he held a biscuit in his teeth, the strong line of his forearms while clearing away the rest of their dinner. Though he’d changed into drier trousers, he still hadn’t put on a shirt, and she watched the joints where his wings met his back flex as he moved.

“I like it, too. It keeps me from indulging in my worst habits.”

“I don’t think there’s any alcohol in the house, but I’ll check. Though obviously there’s the village.” He shrugged and continued chewing thoughtfully, as if she hadn’t just been wracked with sobs in his arms. “What should we do with the..” The look he gave the floor was wary, and she assumed he must mean the string.

“I have no idea. I remember, when the creature finally died, I saw it go into the spring.” She kept waiting for the shame to rise, the panic, but the rush of the river and flicker of the woodstove felt comforting, the grooves of the counter grounding beneath her fingers. “But I don’t know how to take anything there, only bring things back. Well, twice I’ve brought things back.”

Cassian got a determined look about him then, and he disappeared down the stairs, returning a moment later with the jar and her sachet of tea. “Choose a good spot for her,” he said, and she was touched by the seriousness in his tone.

As he busied himself putting on the kettle, Nesta wandered into the sitting room and surveyed the massive shelves flanking the unlit hearth. They were littered with mementos of a life lived wildly, the expected weapons and bits of armor alongside strange animal skulls, jeweled amulets and ornate chalices, one half of a cracked stone disc with runes spiraling toward the center. She chose an open space between a curving ivory horn capped with gold and a statue of a wide-hipped woman carved in onyx. The string coiled slightly, wrapping about itself like a sleeping cat.

Cassian had come up behind her while she pondered, and held out a steaming cup of tea. She accepted it gratefully, drinking long and slow, and let the familiar anise flavor settle her thoughts. “You have quite the trophy collection.”

His smile was tight. “Yeah. I’m just not sure what I’ve won.”

Nesta felt a pang of guilt - in the onslaught of her own emotions, she’d failed to notice the dark circles beneath his eyes, the weary droop of his wings. She reached out and placed a tentative hand on his arm and he drew her close, burying his nose in her hair and inhaling deeply.

“How do you want to sleep?” he asked.

She stalled, distracted by the warmth of his body around her, the slow tide of his breath. She’d always been someone who needed a lot of alone time, given it was the only time she could truly let down her guard. Being so close with Cassian was beginning to get overstimulating. And it had been an intense day, an intense.. forever. She felt her exhaustion threaten to slide her back into numbness, into self-protection.

“On my own, I think. I need some space.”

He twisted a lock of half-damp hair around his finger, tugging it lightly.

“Okay.”

So she left him at the door of the guest bedroom, where they whispered their goodnights. Where she leaned her face toward his, and where he kissed her forehead, her cheeks, each of her closed eyelids. He lingered on her lips last, as though drinking her in before disappearing into the stairwell, his wings fading into darkness like ships in the night.

—-

In the drift of sleep, Nesta found herself wrapped in visions of girlhood, back to that brief time when her mother was recovering from giving birth to Feyre. Her mind swirled with the memory of skinned knees and the damp skin of frogs from the creek and tea cakes and cream. Giddy rides into town with Papa to survey the newest shipments, the silly limericks that made his daughters shriek with laughter. The huge jar of sweets tucked under his arm, the smell of pipe tobacco and the metallic tang of coins changing hands. Racing through the orchard, coaxing Elain from the hazel thicket, taking pride in being the only one willing to brave the thorns to get her out.

She settled at last within a version of herself wandering the halls with a guttering candle in the night. Easing open the creaking door to twirl in the moonlit ballroom, pretending she was dancing with a mystery suitor who would sweep her away and kiss her passionately like the ladies in her books. As dawn approached the man’s face became Cassian’s, and he whirled her about the floor until sleep merged into waking.

It made her dizzy, and in her confusion it all came back to her slowly. And she stared up at the ballroom ceiling and hoped she wouldn’t feel too horrible about herself in the morning.

She'd clung to him in terror last night, desperate not to fall back down into the well of her own pain. But when she woke the next morning, Nesta felt better than expected. She lay there for a long time with her eyes closed, puzzling over it.

Perhaps it was being sober, or just the consistent meals and sleep. Or the books tucked in her bag, the woven bracelet on her wrist, Emerie, Gwyn.

And Azriel. He’d been there, too, in the background. She’d thought Cassian was lying when he denied cleaning the kitchen after her meltdown the first night in the House. It was still gut-wrenching to think of the High Lord’s words, but she could survive it, could try to ride the wave of her own feelings knowing she didn’t have to do so alone.

Nesta knew Cassian would make sure of that, if nothing else.

She could hear him upstairs now in the kitchen. Cracking open an eye, she was startled to see a small tortoiseshell cat sitting on the end of the bed, watching.

It puffed up slightly upon realizing she was awake, and with a lazy stretch of its forelegs the cat leapt off the bed and sauntered toward the door. Turning back to regard her with knowing green eyes before slipping through the crack, Nesta felt its impatience as clearly as if it had spoken.

Get up. We have things to do.

The voice she imagined sounded like the cook before their ruin, who always smelled of yeast and left smudges of flour on Nesta’s face whenever she buried it in the old woman’s skirts.

She followed the cat out of sheer curiosity at its self-possession, its curled tail beckoning her up the hall like a hovering question mark. The sounds and smells of cooking breakfast drifted from the stairwell, and her mouth watered despite their post-breakdown picnic the night before. The cat paused to sniff the air as well before slinking into the bathing chamber ahead.

The snow had stopped sometime during the night, and the river rolled along lazily beyond the window, the blue-gray water reminding her of the priestesses' robes in the library. She could see now the mountains that rose beyond the forest, like a great sleeping beast curled around the valley.

The cat yowled and something fluttered to the ground from where she saw her new acquaintance perched on the windowsill. Nesta bent to retrieve it and the cat hopped down with an indignant chirrup, disappearing into the hall once more.

Feyre’s note was slightly sodden at the corners, though the smudges in the ink were dry.

Nesta,

Thank you for telling me the truth. My mind is all over the place and I’m not sure what to do. I really hope we can all find a way to move forward from this, and that I will have your support. I hope you know I support you, too, and I’m so sorry if I ever made you feel like I don’t.

I love you.

Feyre

It was.. so Feyre, she thought as she skimmed the words again. The desire to find a solution, for it to be okay. The belief that everyone was better together. She wanted her sister raging, as she was, but she supposed that had always been the difference between them. Feyre was determined to make the best of things, and Nesta the worst.

Feyre endured. Nesta crumbled.

“Malka, hi! I was wondering where you’d turn up. When were you born?”

Nesta was climbing the stairs with absent steps when Cassian’s voice sounded a floor above. She paused on the landing, temporarily mesmerized by the small cooing sounds she’d never heard him make before. When she emerged into the icy morning light of the kitchen, she saw him tending to a pan of sausages with his back turned to her, the cat perched atop his broad shoulders and rubbing its head in earnest on the side of his face. He speared a sausage and the cat accepted it greedily, hopping down with its prize clamped between tiny teeth.

He looked so at ease it felt a shame to burst the moment, but Nesta couldn’t help herself when she slid onto a stool at the counter and said, “I never would’ve pinned you as a cat person.”

Cassian fixed her with a wry grin and slid a cup of tea her way before removing a cloth from a stack of toast and setting it before her.

“Ha! Come on, I’ve lived with Az for years. But this one doesn’t belong to anyone, do you?” He bent to scratch under the cat’s chin and it purred, leaning into his hand.

Nesta kept waiting for things to turn strange between them, for him to suddenly remember all the ways she was an inconvenient mess. But he just kept setting things in front of her, jam, cream, honey, until the counter was littered with tokens of his dedication to her breakfast.

“I heard you ask it when it was born,” she said.

Cassian nodded, the motion making his dark hair curve down over one eye. She had to cram the toast in her mouth to hide her open staring. “Malka’s a phoenix.”

Nesta fought down the huge bite of jammy toast and watched him pile his own plate high. “I thought those were birds.”

“They can be. It’s more of a catch-all term for creatures that are reborn once they die.”

A vision of the beast rose to her mind, the wounds that healed no matter how the shadowsinger slashed and slashed. She shoved it down and stole a sausage from Cassian when he turned to retrieve his own tea, sneaking it to Malka who’d taken to winding around the legs of her stool.

A raven arrived midway through breakfast, with a message saying her mind healer could make it up that afternoon if she still wanted to meet. Fighting the swarm of guilt that rose within her, Nesta wrote back that she did. It was fortunate, really, as Cassian needed to do some damage control after the riot and she didn’t relish the idea of spending the whole day by herself. He soon emerged from downstairs in his leathers and, after an awkward moment in which neither knew quite how to say goodbye, kissed her on the cheek and told her he’d be back before sundown. He left her with keys for the house, a pair of gloves lined with rabbit’s fur, and a crudely drawn map of how to get to the town if she wished.

He was placing enormous trust in her, she realized, and as she watched his figure disappear in the sky it shored up her own courage to know he wasn’t worried about leaving her alone. That he could read the way she’d settled and did not feel the need to tiptoe around her as if she might shatter.

Nesta curled into the corner of the sofa farthest from the fire and tried to finish the latest book Emerie had lent her. She missed her friend, and despite the fact they’d only met in person once she felt so close through their letters. They both felt alone in the world, battling upstream. Maybe she could find a way to visit again in the coming days.

Malka leapt into an armchair before the hearth and stretched out on her side, warming her belly. Her speckled tail swished back and forth, agitated, and Nesta followed those green eyes to the shelf where the string lay coiled in its jar. When she looked back to the chair the cat was staring right at her, as if to say, What are we going to do about that?

—

“What are your hopes for the conversation with your sister?”

Piper had been winnowed in by a service in Velaris, preferring to arrange her own transportation despite Nesta’s offer to have someone fetch her or go back to the city herself. She hoped it wasn’t a reflection of any distrust or a belief she was so bereft as to be unable to move. When they’d met on the stone steps up to the house, Nesta was relieved to see a bright smile on the healer’s face, as if there were nowhere she’d rather be.

“To make sure she’s alright. To undo her husband’s hooks.” Nesta paused with her foot poised above a fallen branch, chose to step over it. They’d been walking through the woods skirting the river to help Nesta familiarize herself with the surroundings, the snow drifts shallower between the trees.

“You’re concerned for her.”

“Of course I am. We’ve been in this world so briefly. There’s still so much she doesn’t know.” She’d come to appreciate Piper, how unruffled the healer was by her inconstant moods. She’d given the basics of the situation, that Feyre’s husband had lied to her, though not what about, and that Nesta had been the one to reveal it. The beast, Ironcrest - they still loomed too large to tackle at the moment, considering they’d never even spoken of her powers.

“What would you want her to understand?”

“That I didn’t…” She searched for the words. “That I’m never trying to be difficult. But I don’t think I can explain it in a way she’ll understand. Feyre believes that trying is everything, but only accepts the version of it that makes sense to her.”

“Which is..?”

They’d reached the riverbank and Nesta bent to pick up a shiny rock, feeling the slippery smoothness beneath her fingers. She didn’t know what to say to Feyre to make her see that it was never going to be perfect, that there would always be a smear of grief across her life.

“Throw it.” Piper nodded toward the rock in her hand. “Say whatever comes up.”

“Feyre understands being cheerful and forging ahead.” Nesta chucked the rock at the water, startling a nearby pair of ducks. They paddled to the far bank, out of range. “She found her mate and she’s having a baby because it’s so romantic, the next grand adventure. Didn’t even think of the risks. We’ve been dropped into a faerie story, I can’t say I blame her for getting lost in the fantasy.

“I just thought, after the war, when our father…” She felt Piper place another rock in her hand, and aimed for a rotten log snagged in an eddy. It bounced off with a satisfying thunk. “I just thought after the war she’d finally see how treacherous this world is, and be on her guard. But sometimes I think she helped pull the wool snugly over her own eyes.

“And I hate that I want to blame her for that, because this is not her fault. I worry that I played some part in whatever lack led her straight into his arms. If I’d been a better sister, maybe she wouldn’t have fallen so quickly.”

Piper had kept up a steady supply of rocks as she spoke, but Nesta paused, consumed by the thought.

“Love is powerful,” the healer offered. “It’s hard to rationalize someone out of. Throw another.”

“It makes me feel crazy, to be on the outside.” Nesta felt her nose prickle, the harbinger of tears. “Like the building is on fire and I’m the only one who can smell the smoke.”

“But he’s been revealed. Others can smell it now, too.”

Piper offered her another rock, but she didn’t take it. “I hope so.”

“I hear hope, but I see resignation. Throw.”

“Do you know what it’s like to survive your own death? I’ve lived as a ghost.” The grief was bubbling over now and she felt like she was unraveling. “I wake every day in someone else’s body, in a bed provided through the charity of another, waiting for the goodwill to run dry. And when it does, I’ll fade away and disappear.”

“You feel trapped.”

“I feel furious! It’s like we dreamed our old life and I’m the only one who can’t wake!” Nesta threw the stone so hard it shattered the surface of the water, sending ripples in all directions. “Why am I the only one stuck here! What’s wrong with -” The words wouldn’t come, leaden and unmoving.

“Can I touch you on the arm?” Piper asked softly. Nesta nodded and felt a gloved hand rest on her shoulder. She noted that the weight of it was firm without being oppressive, holding but not held hostage.

“There’s nothing wrong with you because you look at horror and feel horrified. You are aware, and this is good. It protects you, it probably has all your life.” The healer’s voice was in that low, soothing tone she’d used the very first time they’d met. Nesta let it calm her, let it remind her of how far she’d come from that awful day. Tears ran hot and thick down her cheeks, steady as the current. “And it sees you letting go and trusting others as a threat. I think there’s a part of you that knows you don’t deserve the ways you punish yourself for wanting to feel good. What happens if you listen to that part?”

“It tells me I have to let go.” The answer surprised her, but it felt true as she said it. “That I’m only hurting myself the more I hold on. And I hate that.”

“I know, isn’t it annoying?” Piper mused, and Nesta laughed through her tears, her breath coming out as a great plume. The healer gave her a bemused grin, returned her hand to her pocket. “Mother, I never knew Illyria was this cold.”

“Are you not from Night?” Nesta felt her curiosity pique. The healer had never offered personal information, and she didn’t know if she was allowed to ask. But Piper seemed to sense her trepidation and waved an errant hand.

“I have Summer blood.” She smiled again, if a bit sadly. “You asked me if I know what it’s like to live through your own death. I lost my wife and son in the battle of Adriata.”

“I’m so sorry,” said Nesta, not knowing what else to say, knowing there was nothing else worth saying.

“Thank you. I’m grateful for the time I had with them, and I miss them every day.”

“How do you bear it?”

Piper stared down the river, watching the current roll. “It waxes and wanes. Grief is a strange thing. I’ve found it helps to meet it intentionally, instead of treating it as inconvenient. I’d give anything to hear my son tell me something inconvenient, so I honor him now by taking time with his memory.”

A silence settled between them, and Nesta felt her power flicker.“It’s so painful,” she said. She thought of her father, carving those wooden figures in the hut. The way his hair had grown grisled past his shoulders.

“It is,” Piper agreed. “But it’s more painful to act like they didn’t matter to me.”

Nesta felt the rush of tears once more, stinging her cheeks. “I’m afraid of what will come up if I do.”

“Listen.” Piper placed a hand back on her shoulder and Nesta felt the beat of her own heart beneath it. They watched the river go by, coming down from the pain. “Your body is wise.”

Nesta saw Cassian flash in her mind then, that grin, how at ease he’d looked with Malka perched on his shoulders. His smoldering gaze between her legs. She shrugged off Piper’s hand, flushed and shivered all at once. “My body is confused.”

The healer looked her over and laughed good-naturedly. “Is it?”

Once the hour was up they tromped back to the cabin, both freezing but pink-cheeked and content. Piper declined her invitation to stay and warm up, saying she had to return to the ward, and Nesta’s mind whirled once she was alone again. Malka was nowhere to be seen but she found herself drawn upstairs to stand beneath the string, took it down from the shelf and cradled the jar to her chest in gentle hands.

“It’s going to be okay,” she whispered, unsure if her words meant anything. The light pulsed in time with her blood. “I won’t let anything bad happen to you. I won’t let you disappear.”

Far off an owl hooted, heralding dusk.

Chapter 18: XVI

Chapter Text

“You should talk to him, though. Make him stew over it, of course, but … hear him out.” Mor didn’t look at me as she spoke. “Rhys always has his reasons, and he might be arrogant as all hell, but he’s usually right about his instincts. He makes mistakes, but … You should hear him out.”

-ACOMAF, Chapter 53

---

The long flight to the Hewn City was much needed, and Cassian didn’t block the wind or the cold in hopes they could sweep away the rage still burning through him.

He’d managed well enough last night, able to put his feelings aside to be present for Nesta in the ways that she needed, and had fallen into a fitful sleep from sheer exhaustion more than anything else. He’d dreamed of Nesta wearing the golden mask in the wood, fighting a beast - one he’d slain in his youth, scaly and serpentine, the color of stone - and woken before dawn to bits of the rebel poem playing his memory.

By gilded courage masked, unite.

As he alit on a balcony of the Moonstone Palace, Cassian knew he’d need every scrap of courage he could dredge up.

All the wars, all the violence, and he’d let a snake strike in his own house. His heart ached for Feyre, for their child, who he’d already started distancing himself from in his mind. He was assuming that Feyre would terminate her pregnancy, couldn’t yet handle the thought she might give her own life willingly, again, for the good of another. How hollow it would feel to hold her son without her there to see it.

Feyre, whose selflessness had saved his brother, saved them all from terror and subjugation. Saved him from going down a road of no return at the prospect of being trapped in Velaris for the rest of his long life.

To lose her for good was unthinkable.

Cassian approached the dungeons, having descended through the winding passages to avoid rousing Kier’s suspicion. His wings scraped the ceiling of the narrow tunnel every now and then and he held his breath, uneasy in the tight space. Rumors of the riot must be churning by now, and it would be dumb as f*ck to encourage them by having the Night Court’s General show up unannounced.

Azriel met him at the mouth of the chamber holding Truth Teller, the blade unstained but drinking in the dim faelights.

“Anything yet?”

Cassian could tell the prisoner was still alive from the sound of the beasts below growling their frustration, their pacing rattling up through the stone. His brother shook his head darkly, shadows roiling about his wings, and kicked at a lump in the corridor as they walked back toward the cell, as if it were the source of his frustration.

“What are those?” Cassian asked, noticing now the other lumps that lined the wall.

“Our bags,” Azriel said. “Ironcrest sent a message with them, said they were sorry to see us go in such a hurry.”

“I’m sure they were,” Cassian said grimly. “I’m sure they would’ve loved to host us just a bit longer." Kallon's hard expression rose in his mind, the acrid smell of the fire as Feyre's painting burned. What happened at Ironcrest would ripple outward, had already begun to. The reports this morning told of rebel movement in the Twin Pines, and a vocal dissenter at Ravenscroft who had been very publicly dealt with by the Lord. Cassian looked through the small window at their prisoner, who was staring up at the ceiling serenely.“He’s really not talking?

Usually the occupants of these cells were shouting out everything they knew before the torture-master even drew his blade, making the male's silence all the more eerie.

“No. You should see this, though.” Azriel handed him a pamphlet, the corner splotched with a rusty stain. Cassian felt his blood go fiery as he scanned the inside: a list of grievances against the Night Court, numbered one through twenty one.

“Unlawful occupation. Exploitation of natural resources. Discrimination of religious and cultural practice. What the f*ck? If he’s talking about wing clipping, I’m going to f*cking lose it.”

“He’ll say what he must to get support.”

Cassian sighed, exhausted though the day had barely begun. They had to plan next steps, but it felt like trying to find his footing in a dark river. “Breckon doesn’t want this. I don’t know what the f*ck his response will be, but my guess is Kallon will go to ground, start operating through others.” His eye caught on a line near the end of the list, something vaguely familiar about it. “The Night Court’s insatiable, snarling jaws of greed lay waste to the land. What does that even mean?”

Az gestured toward their prisoner with Truth Teller. “I’d ask him, but all he’s done so far is smile at me like he has no idea where he is. I think he’s glamoured.”

As they both looked at the bound male a silence fell, one which would usually be filled by Rhys making the final call. Cassian faltered, not sure which one of them should be in charge, and opted to split the difference. “I vote we keep him for now, he may be useful later. If we can find out how to break through whatever that sh*t is.” He waved a hand in front of his face.

Azriel’s mouth was a grim line. “It won’t help, but it doesn’t hurt to be cautious. And we should keep our information siloed.”

“Agreed,” Cassian said, though it killed a part of him to admit he was suspicious of his friends. His f*cking family. “I don’t know how Mor..” He trailed off, not sure where the thought ended. He didn’t know how Mor felt about all this. She had a bad habit of giving Rhys the benefit of the doubt when he didn’t deserve it, like in his deal with Kier and Eris. It was a habit Cassian shared, apparently, given where they’d ended up. His brother seemed to read his thoughts.

“This is serious, Cass. We should’ve caught what was happening.”

“We f*cked up,” he admitted, the shame bitter in his mouth. f*cked up didn’t even begin to cover it.

They made their way back up the passage, emerging into a darkened parlor of the Moonstone Palace. Azriel had updated Cassian on what he’d discovered since the day before, including that Amren had conveniently gone to Summer to visit Varian, and was unsure when she’d return.

“Coward,” Cassian muttered darkly.

His brother gave a small smile. “Seems to be catching these days.”

He smiled back to hear Azriel make a joke, here of all places, even as the thought stabbed him through with guilt. It had always been Cassian’s job to lighten the mood. He could be big and loud and impossible to ignore, especially during their training days when the High Lord’s heir and the shadowsinger had drawn much unwanted attention. That version of himself felt like it had died, though he couldn’t remember when.

“How’s Nesta?” Azriel’s voice was quiet, probing.

His hands tingled as if they could still feel the curves of her beneath them, the silky length of her hair. She’d looked so content sitting at his counter last night, sharing their soldier’s meal. So far from how he’d imagined her when they first met, when in his insecurity he’d misjudged her as a prissy snob.

“Okay,” he sighed. “Better than I thought she’d be. She told me about what happened in the woods.”

The questions hung between them, of why Az had lied to Rhys. He suspected it was because the shadowsinger had been concerned about the repercussions if he told the truth, but he didn't want to take any chances. Cassian opened his mouth to confirm it just as his brother said, “I think she winnowed.”

They blinked at each other for a moment, the sun shining down patchily through fitful clouds where they'd stepped onto a balcony. Shadows wafted about in the chill wind - one darted out to swirl across the siphon at Cassian's chest, settling in the grooves of his leathers for a moment before returning to its master. Azriel cleared his throat. “Or something like it, maybe more like me. I’d teach her, if she wants.”

“I’ll ask. Thanks,” said Cassian, confused. His brother was being even more cryptic than usual. “And Feyre?”

“She seemed alright when I left the cabin last night, but I think she was putting on a brave face. She has to be terrified.”

“Is there any..” Cassian began, unsure what he was asking. The guilt pressed down on him like packed earth on a grave.

Is there any way this is all a dream?

Azriel shook his head. “You know what we have to do.”

Az was right - Cassian did know. They had to intervene, as Rhys’ mom had hammered into them. He could picture her lecturing them now, one hand on her hip and brandishing a carving knife in the other: never stand by when females are being harmed. It is your job as males to stand up to one another. If you don’t check each other, no one will.

It had felt like a sign to have Portia’s familiar strut into his kitchen this morning, when everything was crashing down. Cassian had almost fallen to his knees to see Malka run straight toward him, tail held high. Since his second mother’s death, the cat had bounced between the Illyrian houses, sometimes disappearing for years, even decades at a time.

The last time he saw her was before Rhys went Under the Mountain.

He didn’t want to know what Portia would have to say now. Couldn’t bear the thought of her seeing all three of her sons so morally f*cked.

As they took off from the balcony to winnow to Velaris, Cassian was shocked he could even leave the ground. It felt like he should be crushed under the mountain himself, suffocating under the weight of all his failures.

—

“She said ‘if he truly loves me, this is his last opportunity to prove it’.”

Mor sat back on a covered sofa, in the midst of updating them on the happenings in Velaris. Dark circles ringed her eyes, a patch of her red dress wrinkled at the thigh where she’d been worrying at the fabric.

The townhouse looked like a tomb, Cassian thought, the furniture shrouded in white cloth during the renovation, paint and tools stacked neatly on the temporary shelves. They’d spent months here during Amarantha’s reign, years, every available surface piled high with books and scrolls instead of linen and dust. He remembered a night thirty years in when Mor sent a stack crashing to the floor with a sweep of her arm, how he’d held her in front of the fire while she cried.

“I believe he thought he was doing the right thing,” she said. “However misguided it might have been.”

Rhys was sequestered in one wing of the river house, she’d told them, and had so far done nothing but stare between the window and the newly inked bargain tattoo on his hand. Feyre had insisted he agree to stay away from her until she was ready to speak to him, and that he was not allowed to hurt anyone, including himself.

Cassian was reminded with a shudder of a similar strategy the High Lady used when she found out Rhys was her mate, when she’d learned of his lies. How his brother had raged and shattered glass after glass in this very room. He suspected this time things wouldn’t end so happily.

“I don’t give a f*ck what he thought. Mor, he lied to her. To all of us. And you’re just fine with that?

“He’s terrified. Losing Feyre would..” She broke off, teeth worrying at her lower lip. “Do you remember what he was like when he came back? He was beside himself when she was wasting away in Spring.”

It seemed so far away now, that brief, golden time when his brother had just returned home. When the impossible became possible and every ugly thought fell away in the unrestrained joy of seeing his face, of being a full family again. “I do. But now he’s Tamlin. Worse.”

The rot crept in slowly, he realized now looking back. The callous way Rhys ordered the execution of Illyrians who’d sided with Amarantha. The disregard for how the rest of the Night Court had suffered during her reign. Indifference that the Hewn City had fallen completely under Kier’s power in his absence, that they were still trying to regain ground in liberating the citizens who wanted out.

He'd glimpsed it in moments, if he was honest with himself, a certain malice edging Rhys' tone at times, the cruel facade that seemed less and less like an act every day. It was clear the male who went Under the Mountain was not the one who came out. And Cassian had been a f*cking idiot to ignore it.

“You’d really turn on him that quickly? We’re his family. He needs our help , Cass, not our judgment.”

“No. Bullsh*t. We’ve been helping him for the last two years. The last fifty two. And look where it’s gotten us.”

Rhys had never even apologized for trapping them in Velaris, and now they’d enabled him to abuse his mate. Because it was abuse, full stop. He was mystified that Mor couldn’t see it.

“What the f*ck are we going to do?” he said uselessly, knowing there was no good answer, no way to will himself back into ignorance. His body felt leaden, his thoughts thick and congealed.

“We wait,” Mor answered. “You handle Illyria, I have the Hewn City, Azriel does whatever he does. Feyre decides what she wants to do, and when she and Rhys make up, we go from there.”

“Morrigan.”

They both jumped and turned to Azriel, who’d been silent so far, lurking in a corner farthest from the fire. He looked disappointed, and Cassian was even more startled to see the emotion so plain on his brother’s face. “Things are not going back to the way they were. Ever.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Rhys is compromised. We can’t trust anything he says for the foreseeable future.”

Now that the truth was laid bare the flood of memory was relentless - the way his brother had hidden the depths of Illyrian dissent over last Solstice, Cassian's pleas to keep supporting Nesta ignored. His caginess these last weeks, shut up in his study. Feyre's illness. It was all Cassian could do not to charge over to the river house and demand answers, though he knew Rhys likely had none that would satisfy him, none that would excuse him being so f*cking ignorant.

They should’ve been skeptical long ago. Mor threw her hands up, exasperated.

“Well we can’t just leave him there. No one can stay locked up forever,” she said.

Pinned down under the tide of guilt, he watched Azriel size Mor up, fix his face once more with a neutral expression. “These are the facts: Rhys knew of the danger to Feyre, as well as Kallon’s connection to the Trove long before the rest of us. He sent you away to research it,” he said, pointing to her. “And attempted to train Nesta to bring the mask into our world.”

“He trained her because she’s dangerous -”

Cassian gripped the arms of his chair hard enough to make the wood creak. “Mor, shut the f*ck up.”

Azriel ignored them both. “He lied to all of us about why we were in Ironcrest. As to why, we can only speculate.”

“He wanted to see if Kallon had the Trove,” Mor countered. “To save Feyre.”

“Then why wouldn’t he go the moment he suspected Kallon had it? Why wait for the cover of diplomacy?”

No one spoke. The thought crossed Cassian’s mind that Rhys might have hoped Kallon would create more strings in the intervening weeks. He felt like he was going to be sick.

“I can’t believe you two would abandon him just like that, after everything he’s done for you.” Mor looked between them, wide-eyed. She shook her head and stared at the floor, her voice almost childlike. “He’s our family. He’s made mistakes, I will be the first one to admit that. But we can’t turn away from him now, when he needs us the most.”

“He’s the one who created this, not us,” Cassian snarled.

“He’s a f*cking wreck, Cass. You haven’t seen him.”

“Maybe he should be!” He was on his feet now, a hot wind of rage sweeping through him. “Maybe he should think about how his f*cking actions affect other people! But I guess it’s just fine that he lied to his pregnant mate because he was so scared. Just like he had to sell you out to Kier and Eris, right?”

“How f*cking dare you -” Mor rose to storm toward him, but Azriel cut her off, eyes blazing.

“Stop it. We have to keep it together,” he said fiercely. “For Feyre. For the Night Court.”

“Oh, now is when you choose to get patriotic,” Mor scoffed. “That’s just great, Az,”

His brother kept staring at her with that hard look, shadows dense and quivering behind him. “I’m going to speak plainly and I need you both to hear me.”

Mor sat back down, still glowering at Cassian. He crossed his arms over his chest and glared back, siphons pulsing. Azriel rubbed a hand at his temple and moved to the window, bracing himself against the sill.

“It’s time we all accept that Rhys has been seriously altered by what’s happened to him," said the shadowsinger, his mouth a grim line. Outside the wind kicked up the powdery snow that had settled overnight, and it glittered in the intermittent sun. "His actions were easy to excuse during the war, but we’ve been at peace for over a year now and he’s still trafficking in control and deception. He’s unchecked and desperate, which makes him both independently dangerous and vulnerable to influence.”

Cassian sank bank into his chair, the words crashing over him, unrelenting. He could barely register what Azriel was saying before his brother continued.

“I don’t think any of this is an accident, nor is it a coincidence. I have on good authority that Amren has been researching Made objects since the end of the war.”

“What? Really?” Mor whipped her head toward Azriel, her gold hoops flashing with the movement.

Cassian swallowed, dread gathering in his blood. “Since she lost her powers.”

“Have you been spying on Amren?” Mor asked.

“Yes,” said Az, nonplussed. “I have for centuries.”

“And do you spy on us, too?” She was looking at Azriel like she’d never seen him before, and for once Cassian didn’t have the energy to move between them, let them face each other unfiltered. He wondered what secret could make her flush so violently as the shadowsinger said, “Cassian usually tells me whatever I want to know.”

“Are you f*cking kidding me?” Mor tipped her head back against the couch and closed her eyes, breathing out hard through her nose. “So who the f*ck is in charge.”

“Feyre,” Cassian said at once. They were veering off track, and had to keep their priorities straight. The tactician in him sprang to the front, alert and decisive. “She’s still our High Lady. We swore oaths to the Night Court, and to defend it from any who would threaten it. I think Rhys qualifies as a threat right now.” His mind flashed to the victim in the woods at Bloodstone, how the forest wanted to swallow her whole. “We know Rhys suspected the Trove's involvement after we found the body at Bloodstone. And it’s not a stretch to think Amren either directed or supported his attention to it as a solution. We have to assume she’s compromised as well.”

Mor shook her head. “If Feyre dies, Rhys will fall apart. And be that much more open to risky moves. That’s exactly what happened with his father.”

He could never forget that sound, of the High Lord’s wild howls when he’d learned his mate and daughter had been murdered, the anguish that untethered him from reality. And they’d seen how bereft Rhys was when Feyre went back with Tamlin. It wasn’t hard to imagine him acting recklessly out of desperation, as much as it made Cassian want to spit in revulsion.

After a long silence, they all seemed to agree there wasn’t much more to say and planned to meet overmorrow at the cottage in Windhaven, as Feyre requested. As he stepped out into the chill, Cassian let the crisp air sharpen his resolve. It felt like Rhys was barrelling down a path of ruin, they all were, and he hoped that this time they could change the course of fate before any more blood was spilled. The snow danced in cyclones up and down the block, whirling frantic and directionless until they came apart and scattered in the wind.

—

An hour later as he approached his house, Cassian was surprised to see a figure covered in heavy furs taking off from the upper deck. For a wild moment he thought Rhys might have come to find Nesta, but as he flew closer he saw that the figure was older, the ascent seeming to take more effort by the slow sweep of wings.

Marwin. ‘Crow’s Eye’, they called him, given his skill in spotting even the most negligible sign of a trail. The children of the village told stories of the time he'd caught a griffin terrorizing the valley using only a bow string and a single gold coin. Now in his older years, he ran a general store with his wife, much like the one Emerie helmed in Windhaven. Cassian had placed an order in the morning to make sure they had enough food for the week - the old trapper must be returning from the delivery he’d insisted he didn’t need.

He called out to the male, who swiveled midair and waved in greeting. Marwin smiled when Cassian drew near, his one worn eyetooth evidence of the centuries he’d spent cutting snare lines with his teeth.

“Well, if it isn’t the warrior god reborn,” he said wryly. His wings flapped in short beats that allowed him to hover. “We haven’t seen smoke from your chimney since the spring.”

“I’ve been busy.” Cassian shrugged, though his gut roiled at what the older male would have to say about everything on his plate at the moment.

“Imelda was beside herself to get your note. She told me to give you this.” The trapper landed a sharp blow on the side of Cassian’s head, making his ear ring. He laughed, grateful - the reprimand would've been twice as hard had the female delivered it herself. “And to ask if you’re well.”

“As well as I can be. How’s business?”

“Slow. My back isn’t what it used to be. I’m trying to teach my granddaughter to take over, but she doesn't have the advantage of the skies.”

Cassian knew the girl’s father had her wings clipped forty years ago, when the practice had a horrid renaissance without their presence in Illyria. She’d fought through the mountains to seek asylum in the valley with her grandparents, but the scars still lingered, both within and without.

“I can give you an advance, if you hand out whatever you trap to those who need it.”

Marwin gave him an arch look. “Your houseguest already tried that. I won’t take payment for work I haven’t done. You should know this by now.”

His heart clenched at the mention of Nesta. He pictured her picking through the small pouch of coin at the bottom of her bag he’d seen last night, Mor’s words haunting him.

No one can stay locked up forever.

“High Fae, huh?” Marwin’s gray-threaded eyebrows rose high on this forehead, deepening the wrinkles, and Cassian gave a chagrined smile. The Crow’s Eye clapped him on the shoulder. “She’s a beauty. Don’t f*ck this one up.”

“But f*cking it up is half the fun.”

His image of Nesta morphed into the version of her he’d seen last night, raw and trembling and then so soft, peaceful. It must’ve been terrifying to let him see her that vulnerable, he thought, and the depth of her trust still baffled him. A creeping fear came in, that perhaps she didn’t believe she had a choice, that he’d coerced her up here where she was isolated and unfamiliar with her surroundings.

“I hear your High Lord made quite the statement at Ironcrest.”

Cassian snapped back to the conversation at that, and the scrutinizing look Marwin leveled him with was a little too knowing. “Word travels fast,” he said tersely.

Marwin laughed. “Illyria is small as a sewing circle when it comes to gossip. You know this.”

“Have you heard of any dissent around here? Anyone unhappy with the ways things are going?” He noticed the trapper starting to pant, the effort of hovering wearing on his aged wings, and gestured toward the village. They both tipped into a glide, voices raised over the wind.

“Oh, there’s plenty of unhappiness. Whether they have the time or constitution to dissent is another question.”

“What do you mean?”

“The winter will be hard.” Marwin drew his ruff tighter around his neck, having no siphons to fight the chill. “We had a poor showing in the harvest, not enough to work the fields. After taxes we’ve little left.”

“What about the reserve stock?”

“Sent it south during the war, as we were asked. We wanted to help.”

Cassian clenched his jaw. It was unacceptable that the townspeople should suffer for their kindness. “Tell me what I can do.”

“Nothing much to be doing, I’m afraid.” Marwin drew up short over the roof of a stone cottage on the outskirts of the village, its windows inlaid with shards of colored glass. Cassian could hear the gentle cluck of chickens in the shed below as the trapper said, “Pray to Oleanna that spring comes early.”

“Are you..?” he began, not sure what he was trying to say. “Do you trust me to have our people’s best interest at heart?”

Marwin looked at him for a long time without speaking, and Cassian felt something inside him fall away, another of his delusions splattered in his face. So it didn’t shock him when the male heaved a sigh and shook his head, the weak sun bouncing off the silver hair that fell to his shoulders.

“Your court’s interest is like the snow when you’re thirsty,” the Crow’s Eye said at last. “It sates you at first, but leaves you more parched in the end.” He paused and scrutinized Cassian once more, as if deciding whether to say more. “Down the way, past the stables - Melchior’s widow. Do you know of her?”

“I knew him, I fought with him. He died in the last battle.” A sick feeling bloomed in his stomach, the wind sending a skittering chill across his cheeks and nose.

“Her child went to the Mother’s arms last week. A fever, and the snow too thick to cross the mountains for a healer. A little boy, two years old. Never even left the ground.” Marwin sighed again and looked skyward, toward the gathering clouds. Cassian couldn’t think of a single thing to say as the male bore through him with that evaluating stare. “These are our interests, General. We aren’t dazzled by false promises anymore. In this age, Illyrian hearts are born to break.”

“I hope that won’t always be the case,” Cassian said, though he knew the words rang hollow. “Thanks for giving it to me straight. And for the delivery, diolch yn fawr iawn. ”

“You’re welcome.” Marwin smiled for a brief flash before turning pensive, the crags of his face settling as he stared over the valley, the smoke curling from fires in the village. “You know the young ones don’t even know the old language? Our legends, our history. Lost like rain on the river.”

They said their goodbyes and Cassian soared back over the rooftops, more ashamed than he’d ever felt. He thought of the widow’s son, Feyre and Rhys’ son, the thin walls of his tent where he’d slept curled around a rock he’d heated by the fire. Kallon’s words, how he’d laughed as Cassian brutalized him.

What will you do, Lord of Bloodshed, when you learn your life has been a lie?

He would not crumble, he thought bitterly. He would not fail again to see the threat until it was too late.

And he would f*cking not make the same mistakes as his brother.

—

The sun had fully set by the time he returned, and as he landed on the roof his thoughts were only of Nesta, that maybe he’d made decisions for her she couldn’t easily back out of. Descending the steps from the upper balcony, Cassian half-dreaded and half-hoped she wouldn’t be there, if only because it meant she felt free to leave.

But there she was, curled in the corner of his sofa with a book and a blanket of deep green wool tucked around her legs. He barely noticed the jar with the string in her lap before sitting down in a chair opposite to address her directly.

“What do you want? Where do you want to be?”

Nesta paused with her mouth open, and he registered too late that he hadn't even said hello. “What are you talking about?”

“Have I trapped you here?” This was going weirdly. He scrubbed a hand over his face and leaned forward to rest his forearms on his thighs. The stretch in his low back settled him somewhat, and he spread his wings out, relaxing them down. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to come in so hard. Today has been a lot.”

She made a face at that, and he felt the nervousness reignite inside him, wanting to talk about this with her before doing anything else.

“I never want you to feel trapped by me,” he managed. “But I don’t know if that’s possible. I don’t think…” His voice choked off, and she continued to stare at him, posture rigid, the flickering string casting her gray dress in a faint silver light. He felt frantic, the words spilling out on top of one another. “I accept that you might never feel completely safe with me, because of who I am and the ways I’ve already hurt you. But I need you to know that I’d rather fall on my own f*cking sword than cause you fear or pain, because I lo-”

f*ck. Cassian buried his head in his hands before something tumbled out he couldn’t take back. When he looked up again Nesta was alert, her expression wary, knuckles white where she clutched her book.

So many times he’d pictured the moment he told her that he loved her. He hadn’t been able to say it in the woods that day, didn’t know the full depth of his feelings for her before it was too late. He’d always known she got under his skin, had suspected she was his mate from the first time he’d been fixed with that imperious gaze at the Archeron estate.

But loving her was different. The bond made him feel tortured, turned him greedy and stupid and possessive. Loving her was easier than breathing.

He tried to let it soothe him, thought of the ways she bloomed in the light of his affection when he let it glow gently upon her.

Nesta was still staring at him, which he took as a good sign given a past version of this conversation had ended with her walking away saying she never wanted to see him again. Cassian ran a nervous hand through his hair, shot to his feet to stand with one hand braced against the mantle, staring at the fire.

“This is not how I wanted this to go,” he muttered, feeling the heat wash over his chilled wings. f*ck, this had all gone so differently in his head. But his head was also a tangle of self-indulgent fantasies and illusions, and she deserved better than that. He'd put his foot in his mouth with her so many times, and selfishly he didn't know if he could handle another failure right now.

“Then what did you imagine?”

He felt a jolt of shock to hear Nesta close behind him, not realizing she’d risen from her place on the couch. Cassian turned and she was standing before him with her hands clasped tightly in front of her. The corner of her mouth twitched, as though trying to hide a smile, and he could smell chocolate from the tin of biscuits he now saw laying open on the sofa.

“Oh, lots of different things,” he said vaguely, testing the temperature. Her stormy eyes flashed in the gathering dark and she stepped closer.

“Like?”

Cassian felt the stone press into his back as she took another step toward him. His thoughts felt all jumbled up, so much that he answered honestly. “You know, romantic sh*t. Night flights, moonlit balconies. Walking along the Sidra. Sunrise.”

He wanted so badly to sweep her up and claim her mouth, to make her endless promises and declarations both fanciful and unattainable. To tell her the lies he told himself, that he could protect her from it all, even the worst parts of him. But Rhys had believed so too, that same insidious, utterly male arrogance proving his downfall.

“Oh?” She was so close she had to tilt her head to look up at him now, the warm brush of her breath against his neck.

“Sometimes we’d be here,” he said, meeting her gaze. She blinked slowly, and he could see her taking in his every movement, a cat observing her prey. He made himself notice the softness of her expression, the clear blue unclouded by fear. “I’d bring you up here to get away, and we’d be tucked up together in front of the fire. And I’d tell you.”

“Tell me what?”

He was equal parts horrified and thrilled with himself, at what he was about to do as he reached down and grazed her fingers with his own, nearly crushed by relief when she didn't flinch away. Nesta’s eyes fluttered shut after a moment, and it emboldened him, made him risk saying what he’d held close all these months.

“That I love you.”

Cassian watched the words roll over her, the way her shoulders relaxed just the slightest. He was in freefall but he didn’t care, would smash himself to the earth over and over again for her. “But this is a bad time to tell you that. Not how I want it to be.”

“Why is that?” Her voice was barely audible over the rush of the fire. He felt her curl a finger around his own, brush her thumb across the back of his hand.

“Because I want you to hear it the way you deserve.”

“I guess I’ll just have to wait until it’s time, then.” She opened her eyes and stared up at him, her pale skin glowing like the moon in the dying light, her braid a golden aurora about her face. He'd never seen her look so at peace. They didn’t speak for a long moment, only sharing the quiet, until she reached up and wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling him close.

And Cassian knew he was the luckiest bastard alive when she let him gather her in his arms so that she was lifted onto her toes. He felt her smile quirk against his neck, her voice sounding muffled.

“I always forget how tall you are. In my head we’re the same height.”

He laughed and set her down, grateful for the ease that stayed nestled around them. But he felt her tolerance for vulnerability at its limits, and didn’t want to push her. Nesta’s nose wrinkled in false annoyance when he bent his knees so they were eye level and said, “Mine too.”

She rolled her eyes but didn’t move when his hands came to rest on her waist. “To answer your question: no, you haven’t trapped me here. And I don’t even know what to want. I’ve never had to do that before, so this seems as good a place as any.”

“No.” Cassian couldn’t help himself when he cupped her face, felt her warm cheek so soft where she pressed into him. “I want you to be - f*ck. This isn’t about what I want. I promised to try and help you see that your life is worth living.” Less than a week ago he’d said those words to her in the library. It felt like decades. “And part of that is you being free to want things. So think about it. And when you know, tell me and I’ll make it happen.”

Nesta murmured her assent, and he tried his best to put away the heartbreak that she’d never felt in charge of her own fate.

He peeled himself away from her with enormous difficulty, not wanting to push his luck, the intensity beginning to make his head spin. After he removed his leathers and rinsed off the day, they shared a lazy dinner in front of the dampened fire. His appetite had returned raging, Imelda’s rabbit stew so thick and satiating Cassian would’ve licked the bowl had he not been sure it would scandalize his company. He told Nesta briefly of what was happening in Velaris, the plan for the day after next. Malka turned up to beg for scraps as they were finishing, and he warmed to see Nesta reach out a tentative hand for the little menace to sniff.

“I want something,” Nesta said as he cleared the dishes, so quietly he thought for a moment he’d imagined it. He looked up expectantly, and was surprised to see a blush staining her cheeks, so at odds with the determined set of her shoulders. “I want to see your room.”

A landslide of impure thoughts surged through his mind but he held them back, not wanting to get ahead of himself. “Okay.”

He led the way down the two flights of stairs, watched her take in the double height-ceilings and massive oak-framed bed, the stone hearth. A row of ruby siphons was embedded into the grate, ones he’d burnt through over the years, and they sparkled in the firelight where they were fissured with cracks, casting the room in a warm, moody glow. He tried not to fidget as Nesta ran her fingers over one experimentally, glanced back at the two strapped to his hands.

“Anything else you want?”

“Tell me about this.”

She was looking at the circular rug in the center of the room, the work of a weaver down in the village. He’d been so taken with the design that he bought it immediately. Concentric circles fanned out from a deep blue core, each ring intricately woven to depict one layer of nature - earth, trees, mountains, sky.

“It’s the world,” he said simply. “And everything in it.”

Nesta tapped a finger against her chin. “Where are we?”

“Here.” He pointed at the craggy mountains, their peaks capped in pure white snow.

“But sometimes I’m here,” she countered, indicating the outermost ring. It was the same deep blue as the center, swirled with spectral animals picked out in glittering silver thread, the open hand of the Mother at each cardinal point. He watched her trace the outline of a hare with her toe, was reminded of his brother’s offer.

“Az thinks you can winnow. He said he’d teach you.”

“I don’t know. I’ll think about it.”

Nesta tucked her arms about her body, regarding him warily. She seemed to hesitate again, and Cassian could tell she wanted to ask for something else. “Yes?”

“I want to stay in here tonight, with you. If that’s alright.”

Lightness poured through him, so sweet it was almost unbearable. In all his fears of her running, he'd never expected it to be straight toward him. He could only nod dumbly in response, barely managed to keep his mouth from hanging open as she wandered back up the stairs to change into her night clothes.

He’d been so sure he’d scare her away with his words, with his care. But it seemed his confession upstairs had only drawn her closer, and as much as he was terrified of f*cking it up Cassian wasn’t going to pass on any opportunity to show her that her trust in him was well-placed.

And after today, he could really use a reminder that he didn’t ruin everything he touched.

Nesta was already settled against his pillows when he emerged from the adjoined bathing chamber, her hair loose about her shoulders and an open book nestled in the crook of her arm. He slid in beside her, and she reached out without looking at him, guiding his head to nestle against her stomach. It was so achingly normal, and despite all his bed partners these moments of intimacy were rare. Her hand in his hair felt like paradise, and he almost drifted off to the rustle of pages as she whizzed through her book.

At some point her fingers drifted lower to his arms and began tracing over the swirls of ink, her nails scratching across his back above the joint of his wings, and he couldn’t help the groan that rose from his throat. “Oh Mother, never stop doing that.”

He heard her huff of laughter, could envision the smug smile on her face. But she kept scratching and he arched further into her touch as she said, “You’re such an ogre.”

“A what?”

“An ogre, a big grumbly warty creature. Grinds your bones to make his bread.”

He chuckled and buried his face into her stomach, nuzzling at the soft fabric. Her hips shifted beneath him, angling closer. “Is that a human thing? That can’t be real.”

“Excuse me, you have wings and your lover can traverse life and death, but an ogre is unfathomable?” Her tone was irreverent, but Nesta’s eyes were narrowed with challenge when he looked up at her.

“My lover, huh?”

“Is that not what I am?”

Cassian paused, not wanting to say the wrong thing. f*ck yes, that was what he wanted, but to hear Nesta speak of their connection without a sneer on her face and venom in her voice nearly stopped his heart. Her hands stilled, and he reached up to graze the underside of her chin. “You can be whatever you want to me.”

Her brow softened then, and he felt a loosening in his chest as he brushed her hair out of her face, so moved by the pieces of herself she offered him. His own voice sounded low when he spoke again, seeping through the dissolving bank of fear. “I want you to know, I take this seriously. You letting me close. I know what it means.”

“I want to kiss you,” she said softly, and Cassian thought it must all be a dream when she leaned down and slid her lips over his, because nothing real could be so good, could feel so right. A guilt tore through him for a moment, that he should feel so happy when everything else was falling apart. It left him feeling strangely like he might burst into tears.

How could she feel safe with him, after all he'd done? When he could hurt her at any moment, without even meaning to?

Cassian didn't have answers, but as she pulled his face toward her once more, as her gentle hands began to explore his body and he tried his best to stay still, he couldn’t find it in himself to care.

He’d never been able to deny her anything, anyway. Nesta's fingers dipped below his waistband, pulling him into the fire.

Chapter 19: XVII

Chapter Text

He felt so solid beneath her hands, so tangible and vibrant that Nesta couldn’t help but trace that dark trail of hair all the way down.

She wanted him.

When he’d asked her the question upstairs, it was everything she could do not to blurt it out. She wanted him, badly, and while she couldn’t tell if it was a self-destructive impulse, there was something too good about the way her breathing slowed and her body went lax when he walked in the room. Still, it was frightening to want him, because it meant she was inviting herself to feel, the very thing she’d been determined not to do for months.

Cassian was bucking up into her hand, and she smirked and squeezed around him, heady from the groan that poured out of his throat. He looked just as wrecked as she felt, with his head thrust back and eyes shut, panting.

“Nes, you don’t have to -”

“Shut up.” She squeezed again before removing her hand and he cursed, a filthy prayer. “Tell me you don’t want this.”

It was all Emerie’s fault, she decided. Those Illyrian novels, whoever Sellyn Drake was, had planted visions of snowy cabins and powerful wings in her head. No matter how the love interests were described, she only ever pictured one face.

Cassian’s hands were wandering across her now, running over the sides of her breasts and she wanted him, she wanted him. He looked up at her through strands of his hair, mussed from where he’d burrowed his face in her stomach. “We both know I’m incapable of lying to you. You’re way too clever for that.”

Nesta bent to kiss him again, and he met her so sweetly it took her off balance for a moment. While her own impulse was to hide away, it both terrified and mesmerized her how open Cassian stayed when she got this close, how perfectly honest every expression was that crossed his handsome face. How those eyes stared up at her now like when his mouth was between her legs, as if he knew each of her most sordid fantasies and was dedicated to making every one of them come true.

She’d once thought him embarrassed of her, of how he wanted her. But now his feelings were so clear, so obvious. She didn’t know how she’d missed it before.

“Cassian,” she sighed against his mouth, because she didn’t know what else to say, if it even mattered. It felt so f*cking good to be pressed against him, secure and out of control at the same time, her desire a rising tide. “I want to feel good. I want to make you feel good.”

His kisses grew hungry at that, and as he pulled her in tighter all Nesta could think was that no magic could conjure the air that settled around them, no glamour could trick her eyes and hands and mouth so thoroughly. Especially when no ice crystals crawled up the walls, no panic spiked in her chest, just a sweet sort of sinking feeling like settling in a warm bath.

Nesta wasn’t ready to consider what it all added up to. Not yet.

Instead she let the sensations consume her totally, the heat of him beneath her hands, the lushness of his mouth at her neck. Cassian flipped her on her back and the rock of their bodies together was like floating in a gentle sea, carrying away her burdens like barrels bobbing in the waves.

“You didn’t somehow get a contraceptive in the last two days, did you?” His voice was strained where it ghosted across her ear.

Nesta shook her head, immune to any barriers in her way, threading her fingers in that hair she always wanted to touch. She wanted to stay under, never wanted to surface. “I don’t care.”

She’d had partners pull out before when she’d been late on her dose a few times, just in case, though it seemed the belief that fae pregnancies were rare held true. Too late the thought of Feyre stabbed through her mind, so she was grateful when he said, “We can’t risk it, sweetheart.”

His lips were tender on hers then, and he kissed her long and deep, making her head spin. “Where do you want me to touch you?”

The silver scratches stood out where he brushed his hand down her shoulder, making her freeze. A pulse of magic reverberated through her body, the tug behind her ribs all at once acidic, demanding.

“Getting shy on me, huh?” Cassian ran his nose down her neck, extracted one of her hands from his hair and placed it on her stomach. “Then show me.”

His fingers felt too good on her skin, too tempting an invitation toward numbness and darkness. She pulled back and scooted up against the headboard, so there were eye level.

“No. I want to touch you.”

Something sharp flashed across his face then, a pain long-lived and closely held. The weight of all that was between them hung about her neck, sobering her fervor.

“Is that - Do you want that?”

With a curl of doubt, Nesta remembered his hesitation the night before, how he’d pulled her hands away from his clothes. Perhaps she’d been presumptuous in assuming he felt as comfortable as she did.

“Yes. Yes I definitely want that.” His throat bobbed as he swallowed, the dim light gilding the planes of his body. He moved to lay on his back beside her. “You can do whatever you want to me, just don’t touch my wings. It’s..better if you don’t.”

Nesta leaned down without thinking and placed a kiss on his chest, right over his heart. It was thumping wildly, and she stroked a swirl of tattoo, a line made of tiny, interlocking hawks with their own wings spread wide.

“I won’t, I promise.”

The other words stuck on her tongue, as they had in the sitting room two floors above when he told her that he..

But he’d been right. It wasn’t time for that.

“Then do your worst.”

The look he gave her was full of warriors' wildness, delighted yet determined, ready to spar. It filled her with the urge to see him drawn out, to see just how many things she could discover about the powerful body laid out beneath her.

To show him, in detail, exactly how clever Nesta Archeron could be.

Alert for signs of discomfort, she slowly reached beneath his waistband and grabbed ahold of him once more, reveling in the sharp hiss he let out through his teeth, those wings draped across the white sheets like a shadow on the snow.

He lasted longer than she expected, swearing loudly and running his large hands gently through her hair when she finally lowered her mouth to him. And when he fell off the edge, pleading her name in a broken voice she’d never heard before, it was all she could do not to climb atop him and follow after.

—

For the second night in a row, Nesta did not wake in the spring.

The dream began patchily, Feyre running through a dark wood, her belly shrinking and swelling with every step. Then there was Elain dressed as a ballerina, twirling on the pink velvet lining of a music box their father had gifted her for her birthday. Rhysand sneaking into homes in some unknown village, pouring poison into the ears of sleeping women.

Then Malka was there, but different, a shimmery veil trailing behind where the cat led the way through a deserted castle.

Nesta felt the heat on her face from the candle she held aloft, though it barely penetrated the dark, only showing glimpses of the crumbling stone walls. The gloom was oppressive, her footsteps the only sound beyond a faint ringing as they passed through the endless, labyrinthine halls, the ceiling so high it seemed to merge straight into the moonless night sky.

Malka paused, sniffing, and approached a door ahead on the left. Nesta felt a mounting dread as she pushed it open, which only grew when she saw what lay beyond.

Her mother’s parlor.

“Come child.” The voice that rang out from the darkness made Nesta's knees wobbly, and she fought with everything she had to remain upright. “We must prepare.”

Suddenly she was sitting at a dressing table, an array of cosmetics intermingled with weapons, some bloodied or rusted with age. She recognized the dagger Azriel had pressed into Elain’s hands that day, the last of the war. The dagger she’d used to sever the king’s head. Spidery fingers wound through her hair, yanking her back.

“Stop dawdling. Do as you’re told.”

Nesta felt a sharp sting against her cheek, looked up to see her reflection distorted in the cracked mirror. The fractured Nesta’s fearful expression was half-obscured by the mask, and she reached up to feel the cool metal against her own face, too.

The room behind her wavered and pulsed, reforming into a vast chamber, white columns soaring toward a ceiling scattered with constellations and winged figures in scenes of battle. The black stone floor gleamed, and in it Nesta could see the long dress she now wore, cascading iron scales that overlapped like armor, like snakeskin, growing heavier with every step.

Malka was slinking through the shadows at the edge of the chamber. Her luminescent green eyes bobbed like lanterns of some wily spirit come to guide her safely across treacherous ground, for a price.

As Nesta drew closer to the center of the chamber, the floor split and a yew tree sprouted forth, silver leaves budding, unfurling, decaying and falling in an endless cycle. A chorus of wailing rose from between the gnarled roots, dissonant notes in female voices shrieking, lamenting in a language Nesta couldn’t understand.

The mask tightened, the heat against her face starting to intensify.

“My Nesta.” Her mother’s benediction cut through the cacophony, silky and approving. “Come and take what belongs to you.”

A crown sat on a crumbling pedestal before the yew, its golden spires fanning skyward like rays of the sun. She saw her mother reach for it but a clawed paw struck out from the darkness, viperlike despite the skin wrinkled and veined with age.

“Useless child, always wanting what isn’t yours.” The woman that emerged spoke with the voice of her grandmother, high and cracked and cruel, her whole body shrouded in a billowing black veil.

Her mother staggered back, three silver claw marks scoring one high cheekbone, and Nesta felt the identical wound on her shoulder throb, and the aged hands snatched the crown, the yew decaying, the fetid smell of rot and death stealing her breath, her very thoughts -

Nesta.

And the mask was crushing her now, the bones in her skull collapsing in and turning to dust and it was torture, and the wailing was deafening, the mangling of the Cauldron, the robbing of her soul -

Nesta.

She thrashed against it, fighting, pushing out against anything she could touch, scorching metal under her fingers, the water, the screaming, the darkness, the fear -

“Nesta.”

Cassian’s face wavered into view above her as if she were underwater, his sleep-mussed hair gilded by the low morning sun peeking over the mountain ridge. “Sweetheart, you’re dreaming.”

She was flooded with a memory of another dream he’d woken her from, when the damasked walls of the Archeron manner had risen behind him instead of warm wood.

Back then he never would’ve slid a comforting hand across her stomach as he did now, never would’ve bent to brush his lips over her shoulder when he settled back in behind her. It made her wonder if he had any idea how malignant she truly was, and she felt the bile rise in her throat, but Nesta focused on the kinder sensations as she willed her breathing to slow.

They’d crossed some barrier the night before, though she hadn’t realized it at the time. Cassian was touching her with a casualness, not possessive so much as it was knowing, familiar, but still new. He seemed to share the same awareness, and pulled away just a fraction as Nesta said, “Don’t stop, that feels nice.”

Cassian nuzzled the back of her neck and resumed his idle petting. Nesta felt her body settle back into the mattress, the terror of the dream receding.

“My grandmother was there, I think,” she said at last, turning to face him. “She and my mother were fighting over something. A crown. And there was a tree.”

He ran his fingers through the hair at her temple, tucking the strays behind her ear. “I don’t think you’ve talked about your grandmother before.”

“She was a horrid woman.” Cold, cruel, bitter. A gnarled vine, twisted by time and a thousand indignities. “She used to starve Elain to punish me for disobedience. I’d hide biscuits in my skirts so she wouldn’t cry from hunger.”

Nesta didn’t know why she was telling him all this, but Cassian was looking at her with a curious brow quirked and the words kept bubbling up like water from a spring.

“She was very strict about propriety. And she hated my father. My mother was a noble lady but my grandfather apparently gambled the fortune away, which made the match with my father advantageous enough to endure the scandal. She didn’t even have a dowry.”

Her mother had been in her thoughts frequently of late, though Nesta didn’t know what to make of it. Cassian was still watching her carefully, eyes half-hooded with receding sleep. The dawn light on his wings cast faint shadows where the raised scars ran through the membrane, and splayed out behind him they looked like a map of a hundred mountain ranges.

“I bet she would’ve hated me, too,” he said with a lazy grin, though the heaviness in his eyes caught her off guard.

“Don’t take it to heart, she hated everyone.”

She imagined what her mother would say now, to see her eldest daughter, unmarried and deflowered, in the bed of a fae bastard. To see her youngest on the throne, a reversal of fortune too sad to be ironic.

“We’ll be meeting in Windhaven tomorrow,” Cassian said, as if knowing her thoughts had drifted to Feyre.

“I’m invited?”

“Of course you are.”

Nesta tried not to process what it meant, to be included so definitively in his eyes. “Will he be there?”

Cassian sighed. “Not as far as I know, unless Feyre changed her mind.” He stretched, looking contemplative, the same way he did when playing cards. “What are you going to say to her?”

“I have no idea.” Nesta buried her face back in the pillow and felt him brush her hair off her back, running his fingers through it. “It’s so tempting to pretend it’s not happening. I could stay in this bed all day.”

It wasn’t an exaggeration - besides the bed being comfortable and warm, the soft skim of Cassian’s hand across her back and shoulder lulled her like nothing she could remember. It felt so good to be touched.

“Now, that is tempting.” The grin reached his eyes this time when she looked up. “I just have to go down into the village for a bit, if you want to come. But that can wait.”

His warm mouth was soft on hers, teasing, making her melt. Strange, she thought, to be so content when everything was falling apart. He eased down the sleeve of her night dress, moving his body flush against hers once more and it felt like those quiet days after the war, seeds growing among the wreckage.

He was kissing across her collarbone when the crash came from upstairs, and Cassian jumped up at once, grabbing a dagger from the nightstand and easing open the door. A shadow darted in and danced about his wrist, encircling the blade, and he sighed loudly.

“Mother, Az, what the f*ck?” he called upstairs, but they could both hear terse voices coming from above. Nesta rose and followed behind where Cassian was already making his way up the stairs.

When they emerged, they found an apologetic-looking Azriel on the sofa in the sitting room, with another pacing before the fire.

“Emerie?”

Nesta felt a rush of happiness and made to embrace her friend, but the female didn’t acknowledge her, continued pacing. She turned to Azriel for answers, but the shadowsinger raised his hands in front of his chest in surrender. “I’m sorry, I stopped in Windhaven before coming here and she insisted. She was rather persuasive.”

The corner of his mouth twitched at the last bit, and it must be some sort of code because Cassian smirked and crossed his arms over his bare chest. “Got the drop on you, huh?”

“Nearly caught me in a snare.”

Cassian raised his eyebrows, amused. “Impressive.”

“You owe me a new one,” Emerie grumbled at last, throwing the shadowsinger a dark look. “You shredded the last of my rope.”

The anger was radiating off the female in waves and Nesta felt her patience growing thin. She crossed toward the fireplace to cut Emerie off in her pacing.

“What are you doing here?”

“Making sure you’re alive. Which I can see you are.” She dismissed Nesta with a scathing look and turned to Azriel, arms tightly knotted. “You can take me home now.”

The guilt came crashing in so swiftly Nesta feared she’d be crushed beneath it. She could see now the slight tremble in Emerie’s wings, the dark circles beneath her eyes that suggested nights of worry while Nesta was tucked up safe and sordid. The string pulsed in its jar on the shelf behind her head, a steady clip.

“Emerie,” Nesta started, but her friend cut her off.

“I heard what happened at Ironcrest, that a female was killed. I thought..” She met Nesta’s eyes, a stricken look flitting across her face before it hardened back into disappointment “It doesn’t matter. You’re clearly fine.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t think..”

I didn’t think you’d care.

“Well, try it next time. You’re smart, you’ll figure it out.” And with that, the air seemed to clear, Emerie giving a curt nod and uncrossing her arms before addressing Cassian. “You have shadowfell sage growing by your cellar, did you know? I’ve never seen it this close to Solstice.”

“You’re welcome to take some,” he said, gesturing toward the kitchen. The males had remained silent during their exchange, Azriel’s smirk of amusem*nt a shadow of Cassian’s shiny grin. “Have breakfast with us.”

“No, thank you,” said Emerie. “I have to get back to my shop. My security needs updating, apparently.”

Malka gave a low chirrup announcing her presence and Nesta felt a brush of fur against her ankle. She saw Azriel’s eyes widen a fraction when the phoenix leapt into an armchair near the fire, though he said nothing.

“Emerie. Do you know of any winged half-Illyrians born to fae mothers?” Cassian tried to sound as casual as possible, but the question was odd and Emerie squinted at him, her expression wary.

“I don’t think so. Why do you ask?”

“Just wondering if it’s possible.”

Nesta felt her cheeks heat as Emerie looked between her and Cassian, suddenly aware that she was still clad only in her thin night dress. Azriel pretended to be very interested in the ceiling.

“Okay, you all are sh*t liars,” Emerie said. “What’s going on?”

Nesta clamped her jaw shut, though she was dying to ask her friend's advice. They were so out of their depth in this world. But she was smart enough to know her sister’s decision had political implications, even if she didn’t know what they were, and didn’t want to provoke a scandal on top of everything else.

Malka gave a winding yowl, the notes climbing in pitch and volume until she was shrieking with her teeth bared and all the hairs on her back puffed up. The four of them stared at her, dumbstruck, as the cry squeaked into a yawn and she resumed licking at her paw. Emerie gave a startled laugh.

“Mother, is that cat a demon?”

“Close enough,” Azriel muttered as he stood gracefully, and Malka flicked her tail at the shadow that danced around it. “We should be going.”

But the shadowsinger lingered once Cassian talked Emerie into harvesting some sage, stared at the glowing string as he said, “Feyre asked if you’d come see her tonight. You and Elain. I’d take you there and back.”

“That’s fine.”

“I’ll be back a little before sundown.”

“I want you to teach me to winnow. If I can. If you still want,” Nesta said before she could talk herself out of it. She’d been thinking of winnowing ever since Cassian mentioned it the night before, and while it was risky to delve deeper into her magic she couldn’t deny it had also saved her life. And since she was practicing wanting things, freedom of movement seemed as good a thing to want as anything else. She could see her friends, wouldn’t need someone to take her to her sisters.

Azriel’s eyes flickered in the pulsing light of the soul. “We can start whenever you’d like.”

—

They walked to the village, to her surprise, but she had to admit it was nice to be outdoors and feel the pale sun on her face. The day was warmer than the two prior, birds tittering and disturbing the snow on the pines so it fell in sparkly showers where they walked through the sparse woods. Cassian pointed out the snapdragons and acid green windberries, and they paused to crouch over the careful prints of a vixen and her three kits before they emerged from the forest’s edge.

The town was simple but cheerful, like Windhaven without all the shouting and ringing steel, the dense smoke of open fires. Here the thatch-roofed homes were all grouped around a large square paved with gray cobblestones, people milling about the stalls and the public well at the center.

Cassian left her at the communal stables in one corner of the square, saying he’d only be a few moments before disappearing into a small cottage a few doors down. Nesta noticed a tightness about his posture that hadn’t been there before, as though he were muscling through each motion. She hadn’t asked about the package in his hand as they walked, nor the several handfuls of coin he’d stuffed into a pouch, not wanting to pry.

But now Nesta wanted to do nothing pry, to see the parts of him she hadn’t glimpsed before. When the old trapper landed on the roof the night before, she’d been reminded Cassian had a whole life before she met him, knew people other than her sister and his family. Got those scars somehow, like the jagged one on his chest she’d skimmed her fingers over the night before.

The stables were modest but well-kept, with the sweet scent of hay above the musty undercurrent of animal smell. There was a variety of squat, sturdy mountain breeds she didn’t know between several draft horses over twenty hands high, with gleaming chestnut coats and furred ankles the same color as their cream-striped noses.

Nesta held out her palm to a dapple gray palfrey who nuzzled it, velvety lips searching for a treat. “I should’ve brought you sugar cubes.”

“Don’t bother, you’ll only spoil them.”

Nesta jumped and turned to see someone looming in the entry, a female by the voice. She couldn’t see her expression, but from the female’s hands on her hips, Nesta could guess her displeasure.

“You’re the houseguest, I take it.” The female stepped further into the stables and Nesta could see she was an older Illyrian , her wings intact and veined with age. There was a humorless look about her, of a person whose every gain was hard won.

“I’m not sure. I’m Nesta.”

The female took her in, and Nesta watched her shrewd brown eyes bounce over her pointed ears, her lack of wings. “You’ll spoil him too, you know. He’s not doing you any favors, bringing you here.”

Trying to find something to say that wasn’t cutting or dismissive, Nesta clenched her fists and stuffed them in her pockets. The ceiling felt too low, the walls pressing in. “What do you mean?”

“Hi, Imelda.”

Relief flooded Nesta when Cassian, divested of his package, strolled into the stables with a practiced casualness. “This is Nesta.”

“I’ve heard.” Imelda said something in Illyrian that Nesta didn’t understand, Cassian responding in kind with a stern look on his face. The female gave a loud huff and threw a dark look at Nesta before storming away, the waist height door slamming on her way out.

“Is she angry I’m here?” Nesta said after a moment, turning back to the palfrey who was nudging at her shoulder, more to avoid the apologetic furrow in his brow than anything. She smoothed a hand up the horse’s long nose, shushing it.

Cassian shook his head, the smile not reaching his eyes. “Don’t worry about Imelda. She’s not big on outsiders.”

“It seems many Illyrians aren’t.”

“We’re pretty insular, that’s true.” He jerked his toward the door and she gave the palfry a final pat before following, hearing the jingle of a full coin purse with his every step.

As they picked back through the woods, Nesta couldn’t stop thinking about Imelda. She was reminded of the emissary from Ravenscroft, how he’d sneered when he believed they were together. She thought it was because of her power, but perhaps it ran deeper.

“Interrelationships aren’t common, I take it,” said Nesta when they’d been walking for a time, stealing a glance sideways at Cassian, who looked like he’d retreated into his own thoughts. He shook his head at the sound of her voice, doglike.

“I think it’s a trust thing,” he said. “Some High Fae look at us like sh*t on their boots, call us slurs. It makes you wary.”

Nesta saw Emerie in her mind, her face hard and blazing in the cabin. Maybe she didn’t know what it meant for the female to trust her.

“That makes sense. I imagine it’s difficult for you to navigate both worlds.”

She noticed Cassian was leading her on a different path home, skirting closer the river. There was a wide rock in the middle of the current, large enough for a person to stand on, the water dividing around it like an arrow pointing upstream.

“Yeah, it gets all f*cked up with my job sometimes. It killed me to call up those regiments for a war they didn’t start, knowing what would probably happen to them. But I took an oath.” His voice was heavy, and when she looked sideways at him, Cassian was stepping over stones and logs unseeing, as if by muscle memory. They mounted the rocky bridge near his cabin but he stopped at the peak, staring down into the swirling water.

“I didn’t hate the idea of a memorial when I first heard about it,” he said quietly, and Nesta came to rest beside him. “Maybe it’s not political, maybe it’s sincere.”

“But Kallon is responsible for those females’ deaths. He’s pursuing the Trove,” Nesta countered, confused. They’d both heard him in the keep, she had seen his comrade over the female’s body. Cassian’s head snapped up, and he slapped his hand on the railing, startling the birds from the trees.

“See, that’s what doesn’t make any f*cking sense,” he said. “Why would he risk creating another string right beneath our noses?”

“To summon the creature?”

“What did it do? When it attacked you.”

Nesta thought back to the moment that sent shivers through her, independent of the cold, when the creature had first appeared. “It was stalking me, and then Azriel tried to kill it. But I made a sound and it charged at me, like he wasn’t even there. It didn’t have eyes, so I assumed it could only find me by sound.”

“Eugh, really?” Cassian made a face but continued to puzzle, running a hand along his jaw. “Here’s what I don’t understand. How does Kallon plan to use the Trove? Mor said they have a violent history, it’s not a shock anyone who tries to wield them ends up mad or dead.”

“I’ve used one,” Nesta said, unsure how much to say. But he’d taken everything else in stride, so it seemed silly to hide this part from him. “It feels good, at least at first. It starts to hurt if I wear it too long.”

They both stared down into the water again, and a trout splashed at the surface briefly, its silver belly flashing in the murky current. Cassian spoke beneath his breath, as if the trees could overhear them.

“Remember Amren said something about the blood magic ritual producing Made objects, even living beings? And what Emerie told us, those rumors around his birth.”

Nesta’s ears were full of the roar of the otherworld falls, the ringing from the Ironcrest keep, the roaring of that hot wind in the woods. Kallon had shimmered in the ring when he fought Cassian. She’d thought it was a trick of the light. But Cassian must’ve had the same suspicion because he didn’t balk when she said aloud what they both feared was true.

“What if Kallon is Made?”

—

Nesta knew even before Feyre opened her mouth that she was planning on forgiving her husband.

Feyre flitted about the modest cabin with a gentleness that was almost offensive. So far from the girl who’d thrown herself in front of a beast, who’d charged off to rescue Elain from Hybern’s clutches.

Now she was cowed, bred, docile.

These ugly thoughts were ridiculous, Nesta tried to tell herself, the fact that her sister was going to such a fuss to make them tea only evidence of her desire to be hospitable. But it smacked of an apology, as if with cakes and cream Feyre wanted to soften the blow when she spelled out whatever reasons she’d found for forging ahead with her fractured marriage.

Nesta’s teacup rattled against the saucer every time she lifted it to her lips, and she felt like a doll placed in just the right position, waiting for a cue to say her line. And yet as Feyre sat across from her and Elain with a pained expression and told them that no, she wasn’t leaving, and no, she wasn’t terminating her pregnancy, Nesta couldn’t find it in herself to say the things her sister hoped to hear.

“You cannot have this baby,” she said instead, setting her cup down so forcefully it upset the sugar bowl, the spoon clattering to the floor. “I’m sorry, Feyre, but no child is worth your life.”

Elain rose, tutting, and strode into the kitchen to fetch something to clean up the mess. The iced-over windows groaned under the force of the winds outside, the fire rushing.

“I won’t abandon my son,” Feyre said carefully. “He didn’t ask for this, I can’t punish him for our mistakes.”

“Our.” Nesta felt her fingernails bite into her palms, hiding the frost. “You mean Rhysand’s mistakes. Even if you survive, you’ll be tied to him forever.”

“That’s true either way. He’s my mate, Nesta. That means something to me.”

“There are ways a bond can be broken.” She saw Elain shake her head furiously over Feyre’s shoulder as she returned with the broom and dustpan, but Nesta ignored it. “Elain found shop in Velaris. The owner sells a -”

“Nesta, please,” Elain said, and Nesta tried not to hear the disappointment, tried to focus on Feyre who now had a steely expression on her tired face, eyeing their middle sister.

“That way was foolish, and dangerous,” said Nesta. “But I bet there are other ways. There must be. We can find them.”

Elain began sweeping loudly, knocking the broom against Nesta’s ankles where she chased the grains of sugar. “I wish you wouldn’t interfere.”

“Elain?” Feyre still had that hard look, her voice soft but with an undercurrent of anger. “How do you know about this?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Nesta cut in, heading off the mounting argument and directing the scorn back her way. “What matters is that you have options. You’re not cornered.”

She’d learned of pregnancy termination soon after returning to Velaris, after a kind healer found her crying over a display of contraceptive teas during her first Fae cycle. She’d assumed Nesta was with child, but when she realized how little Nesta knew of her body and how it worked, the female had given her a full lesson on menstruation as well as methods and options for preventing pregnancy.

Nesta had listened to the whole thing in fascinated horror. Such talk in their human life was completely unheard of outside whispered gossip and brothels, so it was possible Feyre didn’t know either.

“Look, I don’t expect either of you to understand,” Feyre was saying, and Nesta felt her heart freeze. “But I made a vow to be with Rhys through whatever comes. I don’t agree with what he’s done at all, I’m f*cking furious at him. But I understand why. I couldn’t live with myself if I just gave up after all we’ve been through.”

Nesta couldn’t contain her anger then, and kicked at the broom where Elain was trying to sweep between her feet. “And you want that to be your child’s father? Do you honestly trust him not to pull some other trick in the future? He clearly feels entitled to make decisions on your behalf.”

“I don’t want to debate it. I just wanted to explain my decision.” Feyre stuffed a cake in her mouth and sat back in her armchair, arms crossed above her belly.

“Well, I don’t accept your decision.”

Elain nudged the tea table suddenly, scooting it away to reach beneath and toppling her own cup in the process. “Of course you don’t, Nesta.”

“And you do?!” She couldn’t contain her disbelief at Elain’s indifference, that she’d just let Feyre sign her own death warrant, let her stay in bed with a monster. Though her sister had known of Tomas Mandray’s reputation, and hadn’t protested that either.

“It’s Feyre’s life!” Elain was unraveling now, her savage sweeping no longer focused on the sugar so much as channeling her anger against the planks of wood. She glared down at Nesta and spat, “It’s her body, her mate, her child. Not yours.”

Nesta jumped to her feet at that, squaring off with her sister. A flash of silver must’ve rolled across her eyes, for Elain faltered before Feyre sat forward again and spoke in calm, even tone that made Nesta’s blood burn, the one she used as High Lady. “I really don’t want to fight about this.”

“Some things are worth fighting about, Feyre!” Nesta heard her own voice jump an octave, felt the rawness of the worry in her throat. “I’m not going to sit by and watch you throw your life away!”

Cassian’s wild eyes in the House all those weeks ago flashed in her memory, his begging for her to fight for life. She sat back down on the sofa heavily and put her head in her hands, took a breath.

“I know it’s your choice. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t pressure you. And whatever you choose, I will walk by your side until the very f*cking end.” Beyond the Wall. Into the Cauldron, war, death. “But I would be a horrible sister if I didn’t tell you that I think you’re in over your head.”

“Oh, what do you know about that, Nesta?” The derision in Elain’s voice surprised Nesta as much as the slap of the broom when her sister threw it to the ground. “We’ve been trying to care about you for years and you never listen to us.”

“Then learn from my mistakes.”

“Nesta.” Feyre looked at her with sympathy, but she didn’t want it.

“No,” she said sharply. “Don’t make excuses for me. I don’t need them. I do need to know you hear me when I say I am terrified for you.”

“I know. But I can’t turn off my love like that, not like you can. And all over one lie.”

Nesta ignored the hurt that washed over her, that Feyre could think her so callous. Left it to bury itself in the dark soil of her heart. “It’s not just one lie. It’s hundreds. Thousands maybe. Every smile the last few months, every gift, every name you’ve picked out, every time he’s fussed over you - he knew.”

The silence that followed was oppressive, suffocating. Feyre was staring at the floor, her eyes darting back and forth as if scanning through her own memories as Elain said, “Azriel is here.”

A flash of blue lit up the snow beyond the window, the boom of wings heralding the shadowsinger’s arrival. He must’ve wanted to give them a warning by flying down instead of winnowing. Feyre stood with some difficulty, the tattoos on her arms stark against her pallid skin.

“Thank you for coming. I’ll see you both in the morning.”

“No.”

The objection slipped out before Nesta could catch it, and she could’ve sworn her sister looked relieved. “I’m not leaving you. I’ll stay silent, I’ll sleep in the snow outside if you wish, but I’m not leaving you alone.”

Elain looked between them, as if waiting to be told what to do. When Nesta and Feyre just kept staring at each other, she backed toward the door and slipped out with the smallest goodbye Nesta had ever heard. She must’ve told Azriel not to expect a second Archeron, for after a moment they heard the beat of wings fading into the night. Too late she thought to ask him to tell Cassian she wouldn’t be back tonight.

They didn’t speak for a long time, even after Feyre flopped onto the couch with a heavy sigh and Nesta cleared the tea before making them a proper dinner. If she’d learned anything in the last few months, it was that being hungry usually made everything worse.

Later, when the fire had burned to embers, they both climbed in the same bed. Feyre lay with her back toward Nesta, who stared at the ceiling.

“Please, Nesta. He’s my son. I can’t leave him.”

Feyre sounded more childlike than Nesta had heard in years, the soft edge of her voice stuttering in a way that threatened to break her heart. She saw a young Feyre in her mind, clad in a pair of the milk boy’s stolen trousers held up with a length of rope, her hair littered with twigs and a wide, wild grin on her face.

“What would you have done, had you known sooner?” Nesta whispered.

“I’ve been thinking about that for two days. I don’t know. I really don’t.” Feyre turned so they faced one another, and she looked so sad Nesta felt like apologizing, though she didn’t know what for. “There’s a lot I’d do differently if I had the chance. Slowed down. Asked more questions. I feel so f*cking stupid, Nesta.”

Tears spilled over onto Feyre’s cheeks, and Nesta brushed them away with a thumb, tucked a few strands of hair behind her sister’s pointed ear, the charms glinting in the moonlight. It felt awkward, clunky, but Feyre seemed soothed and eventually closed her eyes. A new pain formed, seeing how starved her sister was for a kind touch.

“You can only know what you know,” Nesta said, remembering something similar Piper said. “But once you do know, you can’t pretend you don’t.”

She scooted closer and gathered Feyre into her, their arms interlocking around each other as they had on the worst, coldest nights, only missing Elain between them.

“I’ll make an appointment,” Feyre said, the words muffled by the burgundy quilt she’d pulled up to their chins. “For if we don’t find a way. But I want to try”

Nesta couldn’t say anything through the hard knot in her throat and so she held Feyre tighter, trying to avoid thinking about the press of her sister’s belly, the babe in the middle in place of their third sister.

“What do you think he does with them? The hearts.” Feyre’s voice was soft and breathy with near-sleep, and Nesta wondered if her sister had rested at all the last two days. Behind her closed eyes, she saw a flash of the wounds, the female in the woods, the string coiling in its jar. The rage and despair she’d felt, the blank finality of flickering out.

“Maybe they disappear,” Nesta murmured into the darkness, “once they have no one to beat for.”

Before drifting under, she had the thought that the evening had mimicked so many from their cabin across the Wall - Feyre trying to manage them, Elain worrying about the mess, Nesta raging. Tonight she didn’t hate herself for the things she said, didn’t drown in regret in that wretched bed where they’d all been born.

And as she hugged her sister closer, Nesta felt the time compress, the two moments converging into a solitary flame of understanding that flickered to life within her, flooding her with light.

Chapter 20: XVIII

Chapter Text

“Fire’s the sun, unwindin’ itself out o’ the wood.”
― David Mitchell, Black Swan Green

---

“So we’re trying to find a way? That’s what you want?”

The cabin on the outskirts of Windhaven felt tiny with all of them crammed into it, and Cassian had to bunch his wings up to avoid knocking Nesta off the couch every time they flared in anger and disbelief. Which was often, given what he was hearing.

When Nesta hadn’t returned the night before, Cassian was hopeful it was because they were finding comfort in one another and not at each other's throats. The real truth seemed somewhere in the middle, with Feyre stealing furtive glances at her sister as she affirmed her desire to save their child, at least up until the last date she could safely terminate.

He found himself nodding along even as his insides roiled. It felt wrong to know the intimate details of his brother’s marriage, of Feyre’s body, like he was peering in their bedroom window, unable to look away.

Nesta sat stone-faced and unmoving throughout, except for the slight kick of her hip every now and then that caused her leg to jerk and the string to glow where it was jostled in her pocket. She’d tucked the jar there the moment he delivered the phantom string into her care.

That had felt wrong, too, to leave it at home, though the string had squirmed beneath his leathers the whole flight over.

“Feyre,” Mor was saying delicately, laying a hand on the High Lady’s knee where she sat in front of the fire. “It’s your choice, you don’t have to-”

“It is my choice,” Feyre said firmly. “That’s why I expect you all to respect my decision, because it’s not up for debate. So I’d like to move on to Illyria.” Her fierce tone brooked no room for argument, and even as Cassian’s stomach flipped over he found himself sliding back into the role of general, conditioned from so many years in his dual position.

“Kallon hasn’t been seen since the night of the riot, though his followers are certainly making up for it.” He filled them in on the reports of the dozen or so smaller riots in the interim, including another handful of dissenters publicly executed at Ravenscroft. “I’ll go throw my weight around, get the lords in line. Though my guess is we’re only seeing the beginning.”

Thankfully news of the uprisings had yet to spread beyond Illyria, and Mor reported no mention of it in the Court of Nightmares or Velaris.

“There’s one more thing,” Feyre added after Azriel shook his head when she’d asked of news from the continent. “We need to decide who will rule if.. When I give birth. A High Council, or something. This is too much for just us to do alone, especially with one or more of us out of commission.”

“But Rhys..” Mor started, and Cassian saw Azriel shoot her a look, the same he’d worn so often when she’d tried to keep their hopes up during Rhys’ capture.

“I don’t think Rhys is able to think straight, let alone run a court,” Feyre said sadly, and every breath seemed effortful, her long limbs waxy. “Call it family leave, whatever you want. We need time. I need time. The one thing we seem to be short of. And we need whatever he knows about the Trove. Not for me,” she added quickly at Nesta’s sharp inhale. “But to know what Kallon might do next.”

Azriel, who’d been silent so far, now slid into the conversation like a blade between the ribs. “I can take Rhys to the Hewn City.”

Elain stifled a cry from where she was tucked in at the table in the corner, a small hand over her mouth as Mor said, “Mother’s tit*, Az, he’s willing to talk.”

She looked nonplussed between the shadowsinger and the still-cold expression Cassian knew graced his own face, and he felt the three of them sizing each other up, deciding who would make the final call. In unison they all turned to Feyre, awaiting her order.

“When I left Velaris, he said that he wants to speak to you all. But only if you want to.”

The three of them looked between each other again, a different ripple passing through them. Az was still staring hard at Mor, who gave a flustered gesture and turned to Cassian with pleading eyes, because of course she did. It always came back to him.

He sighed and slumped back into the sofa, staring at the wisps of hair curling on the nape of Nesta’s neck. “Then let’s get this over with.”

Mor volunteered at once to retrieve Rhys, and she edged around the far end of the couch on her way out, avoiding the route that would take her past Azriel. Once she’d gone, Cassian sat up with renewed purpose, hoping to capitalize on their time before Mor returned.

“Feyre, is this truly what you want?” he said with seriousness, and he felt Nesta relax slightly beside him, her shoulder pressing into his. “You’re not trapped, you have options. We can get you out, just like with Tamlin.”

He saw the High Lady’s attention flick to Nesta and then back to himself, one eyebrow slightly raised. “I know. This is what I want. He’s not forgiven, trust me. But it doesn’t change how I feel about our son, about our Court.”

“And what of Amren? She’s still in Summer, but we could easily lose her.” Azriel was scanning the forest’s edge from the window, his mouth a tight line. Feyre rubbed at a temple.

“Amren will have to wait, I think. Until we get this under control.” She took a deep breath and shook herself a bit, as if shoring up her resolve, and Cassian’s heart clenched when she leaned toward him and put a hand on his knee. “Mor is going to take him, to keep searching for a cure, so I’ll have some space to think. It’s best this way.”

Voices sounded outside the cabin, two sets of boots crunching in the snow. Nesta shot out of her seat and Cassian looked up at her, alarmed, though her face was still expressionless as she said, “I’m going to see Emerie. Come get me when you’re done.” Before he could think to respond, her blue skirts whipped behind her out the back door.

He tracked her figure where she trudged up the street, and Cassian wondered if he should’ve let things escalate the night before last, with everything going on. He was still reeling from the past week, the past decade, really, and couldn’t imagine how it all felt given her short years. But Nesta’s body had been so warm between his sheets, across his skin, her eyes so clear and wicked as she systematically shattered his reality that even now he couldn’t bring himself to regret letting her have her way.

Even if he was still terrified it would all disappear, would all blow away in the breeze. That she’d run from him once more, from all he represented.

So lost he was in self-torturing worry that when Rhys stepped in front of the fire Cassian felt like he was seeing his brother’s face for the first time. It was as if part of him expected Rhys to sport an evil leer or maniacal laugh, to have sprouted horns or fangs or glinting claws. But while maybe his hair was a bit less shiny, the slump of his shoulders more pronounced, he looked.. Like Rhys. Proud, determined. Secretive.

Like he’d looked ever since returning. And it scared the sh*t out of him.

Because there was a desperation in Rhys’ eyes that wasn’t new, if Cassian was being honest with himself, a haunted air in the night-dark power that drifted about him ever since his rescue from Amarantha’s court.

Rhys arranged himself in the chair before the fire that his mate had vacated, and he seemed almost fuzzy around the edges, Cassian thought, like the ring around a full moon. Feyre shattered the thick silence at last by clearing her throat, a protective hand atop her stomach.

“This is your opportunity to give them answers, like you said you wanted to,” she said, looking pointedly at all of them. “Mor, would you like to go first?”

“I don’t have any questions. I’m just really f*cking worried about you. This isn’t like you at all.”

Rhys gave Mor a small, relieved smile, and Cassian felt his anger spike, the rush of betrayal so hot he couldn’t look at her when she said his name. He gritted his teeth and forced himself to meet his brother’s eye, to face his failure like a male.

“Why didn’t you trust us?”

The question left his mouth before he meant it to, and Cassian clenched his jaw tighter at the tears that wanted to come, the emotion that had been surging under the surface these last few days. “Actually, don’t answer that. I don’t want to hear whatever your excuse is. Tell us what you know about the Trove.”

A muscle ticked in Rhys’ cheek and his eyes dimmed slightly, but he nodded. “Of course. I know that the harp was dismantled and the body was hidden somewhere in the Night Court, though not where. I know the crown has a bloody provenance that ended eight hundred years ago, last seen on the continent. The mask -”

“Mor found all that in Day,” Cassian interrupted. “What made you think it would help Feyre?”

“It’s said that each object allows the bearer to draw power from the Cauldron, because they maintain a connection to their maker, and thus control the flow of life and death. But most who wield the Trove are driven mad by the power, and those who survive only do so because of their own will to resist it. Having defeated the Cauldron before, I thought I..” Rhys paused, taking in the unsympathetic looks from his brothers, the swords strapped down their spines. “I believed I had the strength. And I would risk madness to save my mate and my son.”

Cassian sat back, considering. A heartsick part of him wanted to accept the reasoning, but it didn’t excuse the lies, the cruelty. “Then why recruit Nesta, if you planned to use it yourself?”

“Nesta decided to come of her own will.”

“Under false pretenses, you f*ck.” His blood rushed as he thought of the silver scratches down Nesta’s arm, her trembling fingers in the bath when she disclosed who killed the beast. He heard Azriel shift behind him, the tense rustle of his wings like banners snapping in the wind.

“I saw it as an opportunity to help her control her powers that would still protect her pride.”

“So you decided to throw your mate’s vulnerable, traumatized sister into the middle of an active political crisis for her own good?”

The moments came back to him sharp and fragmented, Rhys’ insistence that a barely recovering Feyre join the trip to Summer for her own benefit, even as she almost drowned retrieving half of the Book of Breathings. Feyre in the present readjusted herself on the corner of the sofa, eyes darting between him and Rhys, who’d dropped his head into a hand to tug at the front of his hair. “Cass, I never-”

“Shut the f*ck up,” Cassian snarled, steeling himself against the remorse radiating from Rhys in waves, siphons burning now on the backs of his hands, the center of his chest. All the dangerous missions, the Weaver, the Bone Carver, the war, all justified, according to Rhys, if only because nobody died. “I said I don't want to hear it.”

“You saw her outbursts, freezing things. She was volatile, her magic was pouring out uncontrolled and needed to be contained.”

But Cassian couldn’t hear him as Nesta’s hollow eyes swam in his mind, the Illyrian female’s still-cooling body, barely noted where Mor hovered in his periphery, prepared to jump between them.

“Do not f*cking blame this on her.” He steadied himself with a hand on his dagger, the cool metal of the pommel against his palm. “Did you lie because you knew we wouldn’t agree if you told us the truth?”

Rhys swallowed hard, looking away. “Yes.”

“And then you stood by while those females were murdered.”

“No, I never -”

“I do not. Want. To hear. Excuses,” Cassian ground out, and the grip on his dagger almost painful now, his wings shaking. “Tell me why.”

He willed the killing power surging through him to sharpen, made his vision narrow in on one of those violet eyes to see if it swooped left or right. Truth or deception. Rhys’ gaze darted to the left.

“I did not want to accuse Kallon falsely and incite further rebellion, which would lead to many more deaths. I deemed it a necessary risk at the time.”

Are all our lives a necessary risk to you?

The question hovered on his tongue, begging to be asked, but it was too raw, not a truth he was ready to hear. Instead Cassian released his dagger and scrubbed a hand down his face. “I’ll be watching you. And if there’s one hint of a lie or a scheme or if you f*cking cheat at cards, I’ll lead the rebellion myself.”

The threat hung between them, and Cassian saw the slight ripple of his brother’s cuff, the only indicator Rhys was holding back rage or fear or whatever the f*ck now lived inside the male who’d been his first friend. Azriel slid from the window where he’d been lurking since Rhys entered, bracing scarred hands on the back of the couch.

“Where is Amren?” he asked, and Rhys cringed, shaking his head.

“I don’t know. I didn’t know she’d left until Feyre told me.” His mate’s name seemed to lodge in his throat, but the shadowsinger wasn’t finished.

“Did Amren first direct your attention to the Trove?”

“Yes. But I made the decision to pursue it.”

“What has Amren told you about Prythian’s former High King?”

A shockwave passed through the room that made all of them sit up a bit straighter. Only Elain looked confused as Rhys met Azriel’s stare, and Cassian saw his brother take in the dense, creeping shadows, the flash of Truth Teller unsheathed.

“She’s suggested a number of times that events are aligning in our world that herald one ruler uniting Prythian against a greater threat,” he said tightly. “She believes that ruler is me. I remain unconvinced.”

“Did Amren advise you not to tell Feyre about her pregnancy?”

Cassian sucked in a sharp breath, his lungs feeling like they’d burst.

“No. That mistake is mine alone.”

Azriel nodded, as if he’d confirmed something, and stepped back toward the wall where his shadows once more obscured his face. Rhys seemed to deflate then, all the fight leaving his body, his power a drifting miasma around him. “I recognize that I must do whatever is required to regain your trust. I will find every one of those strings and free the souls myself.”

And even as he hated Rhys, hated his selfishness and deception, Cassian couldn’t help feeling that this was bigger than him, bigger than all of them, their birthright. He saw the vague shape of his own mother who lived in his mind, how he’d ripped her life apart just by existing, ripped the males apart who’d worked her to death. Then there was Portia being lowered into her grave, the shower of night-blooming roses that rained down from the heavens to cover her body.

Velaria, her violet eyes mischievous, braids bobbing where she trailed behind Rhys.

He’d barely let himself think of her, the pain of it now fracturing his heart.

“It won’t matter.”

Wood and leather creaked as they all turned to Elain in the corner furthest from the fire, where she’d been sitting shrouded in shadow. From the corner of his eye he saw Mor’s throat bob nervously.

“What do you mean?”

“Nothing.” Elain brushed at her skirts and resumed her idle stirring of the tea Nesta had set before her, still undrunk. “It’s nothing. Forget I said anything.”

—

“Hello?”

Nesta edged into the shop on tentative steps, taking in the familiar smell of lanolin and herbs she’d loved the first time she’d been here. The room had seemed much larger then, though she supposed that was a side effect of generally being out of the world for a while, everywhere feeling a bit too bright and loud and open in those early days. It felt like a life’s age ago, the time stretching across everything that had happened, the unchanged shop a reminder of all that had shifted within her since the last time she’d been inside.

But the female who popped out from the back room was very much the same, Emerie’s grin a mix of wry knowing and sordid excitement where she surveyed Nesta over a length of rope she was attempting to braid.

“So my plan worked after all.”

Nesta snorted, though she remained wary of the ease between them, unsure if the female was trying to catch her out. She’d know women to use lesser offenses against one another. “I thought you were angry with me.”

Emerie shrugged and kept fumbling with the fibers, cursing under her breath. “I was. Now I’m not. You have a tear in your coat. Are you going to tell me what’s going on?”

Desperate as she was to rant and rave, Nesta stalled, unsure what she was allowed to say, what could possibly put Feyre at risk. But Emerie was producing a sewing kit from under the counter and beckoning toward her and Nesta shucked off her coat and handed it over before she realized what she was doing. Emerie held up the garment with a bemused grin, examining the raw edges from the beast’s claws.

“Either you fought a very restrained mountain cat, or the book worked too well”

“Neither. I climbed a tree,” Nesta said once she’d regrained her voice, still tight from feeling Rhysand’s presence so close, though her friend’s calm presence was easing her down slowly. “I thought I should try something new, expand my horizons.”

The look Emerie shot her was arch, disbelieving. “Uh huh. And you just happened to be staying at his house, alone, and likely in the same bed given your scents were all over each other. I’m actually impressed you lasted this long, I would’ve broken weeks ago.”

Nesta rolled her eyes but couldn’t suppress the smirk that rose at the memory of Cassian beneath her hands, looking up at her like she was rain in a drought. She leaned against the counter and watched where Emerie had flipped her coat inside out and was making tiny, even stitches along the rip.

“You’re quite good at that. I can patch things and do up a hem, but never that neatly.”

Emerie laughed around the length of string clenched between her teeth and flicked a hand at her without looking up. “Stop deflecting. Tell me what’s going on.”

Yet even in the warm bubble of the shop, the glow of Emerie’s company was not enough to hold back the weight of it all, the knowledge that he was here, her sister’s jailer, the agent of their ruin. The string thrummed in her pocket as images flashed by, his crazed expression, that light inside her winking out.

Emerie’s fingers were gentle where they lay on top of hers, squeezing for a moment, and she felt the frost beg to envelop them both.

“Nesta? I was joking about the book, but did something happen?”

“No, no, not like that.”

The rage rose like an angry sea within her, wanting to destroy. She’d felt it in the cabin when she heard Rhysand approaching, the same burning to rend and destroy when she’d first produced the letter opener in his study. That hunger to see the fear in his eyes was like ash in her mouth, and she was dying to wash it away.

“f*ck, I want a drink.”

Emerie shrugged and withdrew her hand, going for a bottle she must have stashed beneath the counter. “It’s a bit early, but I don’t think that matters.”

For a brief moment Nesta saw a version of herself knocking the whole thing back, whatever it was, sneaking into the village to find anyone who wanted her, anyone who’d have her. But the vision curdled quickly from peace into loneliness and hatred, and Nesta grabbed her friend’s wrist before she knew what she was doing.

“I can’t..” She swallowed down the shame, and it burned her throat on the way down. “I don’t, I mean. Drink. Anymore. For now.”

She waited for the scoff, the smirk, the insult that never came. Instead Nesta felt rough fibers scratch her palm as Emerie dumped her half finished rope on the counter and resumed her sewing with a perfunctory, “Then here, make yourself useful.”

A quiet shock wound through her as Emerie guided her through the pattern, things between them no different than they’d been a moment before. It took a few tries to find a rhythm, and it certainly didn’t look pretty, but soon Nesta was weaving the fibers over one another, the rope growing bit by bit.

“It’s complicated,” she said at last. “I don’t know where to begin.”

“And it definitely has nothing to do with the informal summit being held in the High Lord’s cabin, right?”

Nesta felt her heart sink, tried to conceal it by tugging the braid taut. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Emerie snorted, shaking her head. “So the High Lord and Lady, the General and spymaster of the Night Court, and whoever that pretty one is-”

“A beauty skin-deep, unfortunately.”

“Whatever.” Emerie flipped the coat the right way to examine her stitches. “You expect me to believe that all of them together in Windhaven three days after a riot means nothing?”

“It’s not..” The sinking feeling returned, though Nesta felt a pull to disclose, that Emerie knew so much more about this world than she did. “Alright, it’s partially about that. But it’s mostly my sister.”

“You have my confidence, whether you believe me or not.”

Nesta shook her head as the fear came spilling over again, the foreignness of the fae, terrified she’d let herself be swept away. Yet Feyre had not shared, had not asked questions. Had not confided in anyone but her mate, it seemed, about her thoughts and choices. Perhaps she hadn’t even known how to, their family so cold and unfeeling, support a word stripped from their vocabularies at birth.

The guilt of it threatened to drag her under until Nesta reminded herself that she was here, now. That she couldn’t make up for the failure of their human lives, but could perhaps try again in this new one.

So she told Emerie everything - Kallon’s threats, the female’s murder, the riot. Her voice faltered when she disclosed Rhysand’s disdain for her, and she watched her friend’s eyes widen until they were as round as the moon, her sewing forgotten. To her credit, Emerie listened without interrupting until Nesta got to the child’s wings and her sister’s upcoming choice, her growing weakness.

“Mother, is she even being nourished properly?” Emerie waved an impatient hand at the confused expression on Nesta’s face, her tone urgent. “More bones, more everything really. You need to eat differently, especially as you progress.”

Nesta suppressed the disturbed skitter up her spine, not wanting to offend Emerie, and tried to refocus on her braiding. A memory of her own mother pregnant with Feyre stole through her mind, blue eyes looking up from a cradle, so like her own.

“But it doesn’t make sense,” Emerie was saying to herself, and she turned in a circle as she looked about the shop, evaluating. “Illyrian wings are passed on by both parents, that’s how your High Lord ended up without them. The only way a High Fae female could have a winged child is if she’s somehow part Illyrian.”

So much of it didn’t make sense that Nesta could barely keep her thoughts straight. It felt impossible to know how much was Rhysand’s lies and not the cruel hand of fate that dogged her sisters relentlessly. “But Feyre was human before, there’s no way. Unless.. I wonder if when she received the High Lords’ power, it.. Altered her.”

“I take it you were human once, too.”

Nesta didn’t answer, the rope dangling in her hands long forgotten, though she felt Emerie’s assessing gaze, her deep sense of shame curling within. The familiar thoughts pelted her, that she was a freak, a thing to be reviled, and anyone who got close would find out eventually and want to lock her up. Bracing against the rejection, she was shocked to see Emerie’s expression shimmering with pride when she dared to look up from the counter.

“I’d heard the rumors, that two High Fae sisters who used to be human killed the king and ended the war.” Emerie seemed to make a decision then, though Nesta could see a current of anger still running beneath the surface in the hard set of her brow. The female leaned in, wings shifting nervously. “There’s an elder, up in White Eagle. You may find answers there. I can’t say more.”

And with that, she immediately started flitting about the shop, rummaging through shelves and drawers, tossing jars and sachets into a small hamper produced from beneath the counter as She whirled from place to place so efficiently that Nesta could barely track her, could barely even choke out a response.

“Can you give me a name?”

“Sulevia. But she might not agree to see you.” Emerie settled from her flurry just as quickly as she’d begun, made a count of the contents before noting it in her ledger and pushing the hamper toward Nesta. “These are for your sister. There are instructions on each one. Except the silver tin on top, that’s for you. Though don’t go spreading it around, many in Illyria see it as immoral to prevent a child.”

The familiar mint and juniper scent wafted up from the square container, same as the one the kind healer had pressed into her hands a year ago, and Nesta felt her heart clench at the gift. It was overwhelming, and she didn’t know how to process the kindness, the generosity of her friend’s support.

“Thank you. This is..” Nesta felt her nose begin to prickle, the emotion swelling in her chest. She’d expected rejection, indifference, not this. Without thinking she rounded the counter and took Emerie’s calloused hands in her own. “I’m really grateful to have met you.”

She watched Emerie look around the shop, taking in the bundles of herbs, the skeins of wool. Her wings flexed near the top, near the thin, brutal scar. “When my father used to beat me, I remember lying in bed thinking that I would never let another female suffer if I could do something about it. We look out for each other how we can, even if our joy lives in the shadows.”

“I think I’d kill him if he weren’t already dead,” Nesta whispered into Emerie’s shoulder, her fingers tingling with her power wanting to be drawn forth. But the female shook her head and pulled back to hold Nesta by the shoulders, her voice firm.

“I wouldn’t. I’d want him to have to live for the rest of his miserable life knowing he didn’t break me,” she said with a wry smile, and she added a book to the top of the hamper with the same green cover as the last. “I learned a long time ago that pleasure is rebellion in a world that wants you in pain.”

—

The silver spires of Ravenscroft pierced the sky so sharply it was a wonder blood didn’t drip from the horizon, Cassian thought, even the wind seeming harsher when it rushed over the craggy ridge. The keep could only be reached from above save for a crude staircase cut into the mountainside, a sister to the stairs at the House of Wind, meaning no one came in or out without functioning wings.

The perfect castle for a lord disgusted by weakness, who wanted the world to know his disdain for the most vulnerable among them. Cassian banked and made for the wide receiving tower, where a retinue of guards in gleaming, black-scaled armor waited to escort him. Several ravens circled the spires, croaking their discontent into the wind.

They’d sent a message to White Eagle at once after Nesta had burst back into the cabin, pink-cheeked and laden with herbs and supplements she dumped out onto the kitchen table. He hadn’t missed the way Rhysand ducked out the moment their business was finished, nor the slight shaking of her hands when she slipped one of the silver tins in her pocket beside where he knew the string still glowed.

She’d requested to return to his cabin for the book she’d left on a cliffhanger, though Cassian suspected the knowing stares of his family were part of the draw as well, despite the scent of him long-gone from her skin. He’d felt a fierce surge of protectiveness toward her, and was relieved when Azriel silently held out a hand to both of them and winnowed to the roof deck.

Cassian let go before Az could feel his palm sweating, tried to school his expression into one of indifference despite knowing where he’d be traveling in the morning. After making sure Nesta was settled with Malka stretched out across the sofa back behind her, he let himself get lost in the woods, alternating between pushing his body to the limit and watching the swallows flit through the shafts of light, purple shadows flickering on the forest floor. The curl of smoke from the chimney was a welcome sight upon his return, proof that Nesta was feeling well enough to handle the fire.

She’d come to his bed again last night, though they’d done nothing but sleep. Several times he’d woken to the jerk of his wing wanting to curve over her, eventually squashing both under his back to get some peace.

Peace he was sorely lacking now that he stared into the face of his brother’s tormenter.

“General. To what do I owe such an unexpected visit?”

Lord Reuel of Ravenscroft lounged in an armchair of rich velvet, a lazy hand swirling a glass of deep red wine where he sneered at Cassian from a dais of carved black marble. He had all the swift grace the clan’s warriors were famous for - quick, with a deadly efficiency that made them popular recruits as spies and assassins - as well as the arrogance of highborn breeding. His wings gleamed in the light of the braziers, coated in a sheen of fine oil, and below them the clash of steel rang out from the training rings, positioned so the lord could survey them from his perch on high.

“Skip the pleasantries, I don’t have time,” Cassian ground out, ignoring the open looks of contempt from the guards surrounding the dais, the casual hands on their sword hilts. “And calm down with the public executions, you’re embarrassing yourself.”

Four in the last three days, if the rumors were to be believed. Once dissident had been subjected to Ravenscroft’s signature brand of torture, wing amputation followed by a shove over the steep cliff abutting the castle. No more terrifying view for an Illyrian than the ground rushing up with no wings to save you. He nearly shuddered to think of it.

“How else should I respond to treason? I am only acting in service of the High Lord’s interests.” The lord smirked and sipped at his wine, and Cassian felt a surge of killing power that set his siphons flashing, though he crossed his arms over his chest and willed it down.

“And on behalf of the High Lord and Lady, I’m ordering you to stop.”

Reuel looked for a moment as if he wanted to argue, but instead rolled his eyes and hooked a leg over one arm of his chair, the picture of petulant ease.

“So you’ve read this screed, I take it,” he drawled, gesturing toward a low table laden with food and more wine, where there lay a pamphlet identical to the one Azriel had taken off Kallon’s male. Reuel spared a bored glance down at the fighting pits where two novices sparred with shortswords, the cold expression on his face eerily familiar when Cassian nodded. “I’m surprised a mutt like you knows how. Maybe that High Fae c*nt has you dreaming above your station.”

She could wreck you without blinking, he wanted to say, but Nesta’s words from the revel echoed into his head, the phantom press of her fingers on his skin when she told him they weren’t worth his anger.

“The Night Court is considering numerous courses of action and is taking all necessary steps to ensure safety and prosperity for all citizens,” Cassian recited, a line he’d said hundreds of times before when what he really meant was go f*ck yourself. To his chagrin, Reuel clapped his ornamented hands in delight, his many rings clattering against one another.

“Oh, well said, dog. Rhysand has properly trained you after all.” He plucked a hunk of meat from the tray beside him and threw it at Cassian’s feet, flashing straight, white teeth as he grinned. “It’s clearly nothing but iconoclasm to appeal to the lowers. The son wants to marshal support before killing his father, it’s laughably transparent. But I do hope he tries, I love a succession scrap, though nothing so beastly as those savages from Hornswood. They make the rest of us look like aimless thugs.”

Cassian thought of the western clan who lived deeper in the wood than the other camps, their leader chosen every fifty years with a trial of strength and skill that culminated in a race to the top of a towering ash tree. Hornswood warriors were intuitive fighters who valued instinct and grit over viciousness and cunning. He smirked, giving the gilded chair a long sweep with his eyes. “Because you civilized males prefer to give declarations from your velvet cushions?”

And so their dance began, trading barbs for an audience of two. Cassian was no courtier but he had a thorough training in talking sh*t, which was close enough when it counted. He noted the tension in the guards, the subtle flickering of the few siphons they wielded. Reuel may be full of it, but he clearly didn’t want to meet one-on-one.

The lord clicked his tongue, sounding bored. “One does not have to land the killing blow to claim the death.”

“Yet you couldn’t be bothered to kill your own father.” Cassian countered, and the male sneered. Below one of the novices landed a hit and his opponent cried out, his shoulder gushing blood. “Though I hear you tricked your brother into doing the dirty work for you that time.”

Reuel laughed, the sound so cold it nearly made Cassian shiver. “Arcanion didn’t want the lordship because it would get in the way of his drinking and whoring. I love my brother but he does have his vices. He and the bastard share that, at least.”

Reinforcing his authority while reminding Cassian of the elder Ravenscroft’s well-documented bloodlust, of the unsettled score. Smart, but not enough to make him back down, even surrounded by guards.

“Stop torturing dissidents. Turn over any prisoners if you can’t help yourself.”

But before Cassian could drive home the order, there was a great commotion beneath them as the wounded novice made one last attempt at life, staggering to his feet with a roar and swinging downward at his leering opponent in a mighty arc. The other male caught him in the ribs with a short blade, pushed upward into the lungs so that his gasp came out thin and rattling.

“What Kallon does not understand is that he works against himself. He thinks the rabble will revere him for freeing them, when they’re more likely to chant for his head.” Reuel was looking down on the dying male with indifference, rubbing an elegant hand across his smooth jaw. Several robed and hooded figures dragged the novice’s body out of the ring, another shoveling sand over the pool of blood as the lord leveled Cassian with a conspiratorial gaze. “The lowers need a firm hand, for they do not know what’s best for them. This is how the world works, Prince of Bastards. You’d do well to tell that half-breed High Lord and my father’s mongrel the same.”

Cassian ignored the jab at his brothers and turned to leave without responding, not wanting to give the asshole the satisfaction of seeing him riled. But the lord called out a parting shot toward his retreating back, one that took all his willpower to not sprint back and shove his dagger into Reuel’s neck.

“Does she know how you sully her, dog?” His cold voice echoed off the stone, raised a raucous cry from the ravens above. “Or is that part of the appeal?”

The flight back to the cabin was freezing, and Cassian turned the conversation over and over in his mind, Reuel’s entitled dominance, his true belief his people were better off under iron rule. By the time he alighted on the roof he was exhausted and angry and not in the mood for Nesta’s evaluating stare where she was curled in the corner of the sofa, though she was kind enough not to question it when he stomped past with barely a hello.

He really wanted a drink, if he was being honest, but that seemed rude and there were less stupid ways to get warm, anyway. So instead he opted for a brief plunge into the freezing river before even attempting to sort out the confusion in his head, the hot bath that followed unspooling his muscles, the salts stinging the small cuts still healing on his hands from the day before.

The novice’s death still clung to him, the cries of pain. The indifference of the spectators, the dark pool of his heartsblood covered over as if he’d never existed. Faces paraded through his memory, shocked eyes of last breaths, the pleading, the smell of sh*t and sweat and fear even the bath couldn’t wash away.

Still clad in only a towel and unsure how much time had passed, Cassian lay down on the rug in his room, cheek pressed against a cloud of fluffy lamb’s wool in the circle depicting the sky. He’d just begun to drift off to the rush of the fire when something prodded him in the ribs, gently at first, then more insistent when he failed to move. He swatted outward, caught an ankle, and he peered up to see Nesta towering over him with her hands on her hips and a purely female look of reproach on her face.

“You can’t sleep here,” she said. “Come get in bed.”

But he couldn’t bring himself to taint her sheets with the blood in his mind, the dark rain of his thoughts, Cassian shook his head and released her ankle before closing his eyes again even as she continued to hover over him.

There was a rustling sound before a blanket was draped across his bare back, and he felt Nesta’s careful steps edging his wings as she tried to cover him completely. There was the sound of several deep, even breaths followed by a loud clunk - he cracked an eye open to see her socked feet skittering past, a fresh log now popping on the fire.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbled, though not quite sure what he was apologizing for. “You don’t have to do this.”

“Nonsense.” She took another deep breath and he found himself taking one as well without thinking. “The sleeping on the floor I’ll allow, but I draw the line at freezing.”

As he drifted once more, he felt Malka curl in the crook of his arm where his head was pillowed on a hand, her rumbling purr like the thunder preceding a flash storm in summer, a quiet warning before the clouds break open all at once.

—

Their return to Velaris was unceremonious at best, and Nesta felt the dread pulse through her at the sight of those green rooftops, the Sidra gray and sluggish where the current ran thick with ice floes. Solstice was approaching, and with so many garlands of spruce and holly lining the railings and windows the city looked like it was being absorbed into the natural world, as if the foliage was trying to swallow it whole.

She’d been sad to leave the cabin in a way she wasn’t too keen to examine, ignored Malka’s wide green eyes and flicking tail when they ascended the stairs. The string still lived mostly in her pocket, ticking away like the clock in her father’s study while she waited in anticipation for the tiny mechanical bird that would never pop out.

Cassian had disappeared onto the roof with Azriel immediately after landing on the dining room balcony, and returned hours later bloodied and exhausted before shutting himself up in his room once more. Thankfully the House proved how much it missed her with a deluge of new books spilling out of the wardrobe, and after a brief respite it lured her into the library with the scent of a dense slice of chocolate cake.

The days went by slowly as they waited to hear back from White Eagle, punctuated by startling moments of panic that seemed to come out of nowhere, to seize her all at once. She went to see Feyre every other day, who’d update her with a sense of dogged optimism on the things Mor and Rhysand were learning from the Peregrins, from healers all across Prythian, though none with a confident solution yet. In the interim, Nesta tried to busy herself however she could, but even reading made her feel too deeply unhelpful despite there being nothing for her to do.

Which was how she’d ended up with her back pressed against the stone wall in the courtyard of the library, squinting toward where Azriel stood on the far side as he tried to explain how to do something neither of them fully understood.

“Perhaps the intention is important,” he said, watching a shadow twirl about the siphon at his shoulder. “When you moved last time, your purpose was very clear.”

Apparently feeling just as idle from the lack of activity on the continent, the shadowsinger had left her a note at the breakfast table that morning telling her to meet him. She’d found him tossing daggers at an impossibly far-off target as he explained how the courtyard fit their purposes - contained, warded, private, but able to be winnowed into by those who knew its location.

“Yes,” Nesta said slowly. “But in Windhaven it was the same, and I didn’t move at all.”

They’d been trying for hours with no success and her body was tiring, her optimism flagging.

“Maybe it’s how you move that matters,” said Gwyn from the steps where Nesta had broken down all those weeks ago, so different now in the fading afternoon sun. The priestess’ tongue poked out between her teeth where she scribbled in a newly bound tome, turning the uncut edges with a fierce determination when she ran out of room on each page. “What was different about the two times? Or can you not tell me.”

Gwyn knew just enough to be helpful - that Nesta was able to winnow, maybe, but not how or where or why. And that it might involve Merrill’s research on overlapping worlds, but any mention of the Trove was strictly forbidden, at Azriel’s direction. I’m not worried about Gwyn, he’d said when Nesta argued back, I don’t want to put her at risk with this information. Thankfully Gwyn was unfazed by the whole thing, apparently used to confidential information given her mentor’s work.

What had been different about the two times? Nesta tried to remember that day Cassian led her through the woods, the day she’d met Emerie.

“The wind..” she said slowly, the memories unthawing. “The first time, it was only in the other world. The second time, it was in both.”

Azriel tapped a finger against his chin, thoughtful. “There was wind, I remember that as well. The.. thing emerged from the same direction. You said you could hear it before I did.”

“I could. And I could see both places at once, almost like a bridge had opened up between the worlds.”

They stared at each other across the courtyard for a long moment, only broken by the clink of Gwyn jabbing her pen in the inkpot. “You know, many texts describe realm-walkers as manipulating natural elements of the worlds they traverse. Wind, water. Forces they can harness to move unseen.”

Nesta looked back at Azriel who only shrugged, as if to say, It’s worth a try.

So she entered the spring once more, the chill barely a bite after feeling it so many times in a row, and fought to keep one foot in Velaris, the ashy bank sloping toward the curling ivy on the walls. Her vision narrowed to a spot on the far end of the courtyard, remembering how she’d seen the female flickering and rageful, how they’d been too late. The wind rose at her back, pushing her to step forward but it felt too hot, too thick and suffocating, caustic and burning in her lungs, and she was shaking, gasping.

“Hey.”

Azriel stepped out of shadow in front of her, and the otherworld shuddered, that wind pushing, pushing her forward toward somewhere far from here if she’d only lift her foot, if she’d only take a step.

“Nesta, stop. Come back.”

The otherworld dissolved like smoke and Nesta shivered at the ice climbing her legs, her muscles screaming with cold and fatigue. She’d failed to move even a hair.

“I do not have the stamina for this,” she confessed, panting, and doubled over to rest her hands on her knees. She’d been stiff and sore for days after fighting the beast in the wood. The weight of the last year hung around her neck, the toll it had taken, and she was filled with a sadness so heavy it threatened to bury her. “I’m sorry, I feel like I’m wasting your time.”

“Take a break,” Azriel said without pause, turning back to his target practice like it was his main reason for being here. Gwyn gave Nesta a concerned look but she waved her friend off, though the priestess tossed her one more furtive glance before setting aside her notes and approaching the shadowsinger.

“Can you show me how to throw like that?”

Their mercy did not go unappreciated, and Nesta felt a stab of guilt knowing Gwyn had agreed to both come outside and be around a male in order to help her. She looked up to watch the paper winter clouds float across the sky, counting the birds that flew overhead as her breathing slowed. Gwyn’s bright voice drifted over from where she was gaily chucking knife after knife that a bemused Azriel handed her, spirited despite every blade falling lengths short of the target.

“You know, I’ve been thinking about that poem,” the priestess said, a bit breathless. “How it says the Mother’s cries summon her sons, but later it says the call comes on the wind.”

“It’s said Illyrians are born hearing the song of the wind,” Azriel noted, though his expression quickly turned dark “Many forget it, choosing instead the song of their own greed and cruelty.”

“That’s sad. I wonder why they forget.”

Nesta was only half listening as she stared hard at the far end of the courtyard, willing her body toward it. She’d run to this very place when she’d felt trapped, when the world felt like it was collapsing in, but she’d gotten out, just as she’d escaped the Cauldron, the war. A fierce determination seized her as it had the day she’d marched up to the mercenary in the town square, as she’d plunged into the woods with nothing but a singular mind to get over the Wall.

When she’d pointed at the King of Hybern before her ears filled with water. When she’d lain her body over Cassian’s.

The otherworld flickered into being, the husks of trees jutting skyward where their roots burrowed into the cobblestones, and she willed the wind to her back, invited it to push her forward. The glamoured hedge rustled in a phantom breeze that shifted neither Azriel’s hair nor Gwyn’s blue robes where they were tucked in an alcove, but Nesta felt it on the back of her neck, urging her forward.

I want my freedom. It belongs to me.

The hot wind gusted harder and the ash shifted beneath her and Nesta let herself ride it, the burnt trees sinking as if into water, the world rolling forward to meet her as she stepped and found herself inches from the chilled stone of the far wall.

Joy exploded in her chest as everything happened at once - Gwyn’s whoop of excitement almost drowned out the tinkling laugh Nesta heard behind her, the smell of moss and fetid water so faint on the wind she might’ve imagined it before the otherworld flickered away and she was back in Velaris. But then the priestess was crashing into her and jumping up and down and she felt so swept up in the victory of it even Azriel smiled to see the two females twirling about in the yellows and pinks of the setting sun.

Nesta emerged into the House an hour later sweaty and triumphant, having managed to winnow twice more, summoning that hot wind to turn the world where she wished to step. It took a lot of concentration and drained her magic thoroughly, but it was the satisfying tiredness of a long day’s work she hadn’t felt in a while. Scarfing down a sweet roll the House had shoved in her face, she passed the library and found Cassian laying out the game with colored stones she’d seen him play with Azriel.

“I winnowed,” she said airly, leaning in the doorway and pursing her lips to contain the self-satisfied smile that wanted to bloom.

Cassian’s eyebrows flew up as he gave a shout of celebration, throwing his arms wide for a moment, and she watched his eyes trace the flyaways that framed her face, the flush of her cheeks. “You look beautiful like this.”

“Like what?”

“Happy.” A sly grin stole across his face. “Sweaty.”

“Oh, stop it.”

“Sorry,” he said, though the grin remained as he gestured at the board before him. “Come play me after you get cleaned up? I think you’d be good at it.”

Nesta scrubbed off in her room before slipping into the simple evening dress the House had laid out for her. The fabric was a deep green, identical to the blanket she’d claimed back at the cabin, though it smelled of soap instead of that woodsy smell that seemed to follow her everywhere.

She was unsure where they stood after returning to Velaris - Cassian hadn’t sought out her bed, nor she his, though she felt a keen awareness of him always, knew where he was and how deep the shadows were beneath his eyes. She wondered if he saw the numbness she’d started sliding back into in moments, the feeling of helplessness that made her go slack unless she fought against it.

Cassian seemed relieved when she wandered back into the library, and she studied the colored stones arranged before him as she settled on the sofa opposite. “What is it?”

“Gwyddbwyll. Uhh.. I don’t think there’s a direct word in the Common. ‘Wood intelligence’ would be the direct translation.” A laugh rumbled through his chest at that, making her blood heat, and she watched his tongue flick across his full bottom lip as he laid out the basic moves and play styles, an unending list of common traps and tricks.

“This game seems very difficult.”

“Az calls it the Pride Destroyer.”

Nesta remembered the shadowsinger’s disdainful remarks on his own kind, the scowl that permanently marred his face whenever he visited Windhaven. “For someone who hates Illyrians, Azriel does like your games.”

Cassian frowned, thoughtful, moved one of his white pieces forward. “He has his reasons for being angry. It’s not for me to judge.”

They didn’t speak of Azriel anymore after that, nor the ticking clock that was Feyre’s window to save her own life, only one week remaining. It felt invasive and disgusting to know such a thing in the first place, Nesta thought, Rhysand’s choices making Feyre’s body a topic of scrutiny. Of debate.

Nesta movedher own black piece toward the corner, capturing one of Cassian’s stones, and he laughed again at her smirk of satisfaction, the sound warming her in that untouched place that he seemed to reach so easily.

They played until the fire burned to embers, until he vacated his chair and came to rest on the sofa beside her, one arm stretched so that it pillowed her head when she leaned back. She heard his deep voice ask the House for her tea, and she sipped it blearily as he made idle strokes down her shoulder, across her back. Exhausted, her power drained and feeble, Nesta at last felt herself being guided with gentle hands into someone’s bed, though she didn’t care much whose.

And that was what had shifted, she realized in the breath before sleep, a quiet trust had bloomed within her for Cassian, her friends, herself. In the wisdom of her body, that had yet to lead her astray. The same wisdom that told her she was safe as a strong arm looped around her middle, as breath warmed the back of her neck, the slow thump of his heart beating in time with her own.

Chapter 21: XIX

Chapter Text

Lucien Vanserra was a handsome male, even Nesta wouldn’t deny that, and despite his unwelcome entry into their lives at the worst possible moment, she had nothing poor to say of his character so far. Yet, past the veneer, a ferality lived inside him that reminded her in moments of Rhysand, some fire he kept dampened with elegant manners and courtly grace. It seemed he was using all of the above to steady himself as he politely invited Nesta inside for tea instead of asking her why of all the doors in all the city she’d knocked on his this bright winter morning.

“My lady, I must confess ignorance as to the purpose of your visit.”

His hands were folded neatly atop his crossed legs, and the formality of it oriented Nesta, helped her lower her guard enough to attempt a small smile as she leaned back in the comfortable chair in his front parlor. She knew these rules of engagement, and had come prepared for her opening moves.

“I have a few questions that I hoped you’d be kind enough to entertain for me.”

The parlor was warm and sumptuous with furniture in velvets of red and purple accented with burnished brass, temperate despite the low fire as the only source of heat. Once she got over the shock that he owned a tea set in the first place, she tried not to marvel at the scenes of an autumn hunt adorning it, the tiny hounds chasing hares and pheasants through a golden forest as a cadre of archers pursued on horseback. Past the plush-curtained front window, the people of Velaris streamed past laden with bags and packages for Solstice, called out good tidings to each other as they rushed to and from their errands.

Her mouth ached looking at the group huddled around a vendor selling spiced mulled wine. She could almost feel the hot liquid sliding down her throat, warming her insides and setting her mind adrift.

Unfortunately (or, perhaps, fortunately), the task at hand required wits the wine would not permit.

Once she’d assured him that Elain was fine, and that she was not here to rip his head off for some unknown offense against her sister, Lucien settled once more in his wingback and indicated her to proceed.

“Are there ways to detect glamour? Or to reveal its influence?” Nesta said conversationally, trying to seem interested in the theoretics. She’d chosen to arrive spontaneously to get his honest, unprepared answers, though it did come with risk of his suspicion.

“Yes, many,” Lucien said. The faelights caught the copper in the long ponytail draped over his shoulder. “You can buy charms that are rather expensive, or certain fae can learn revealing spells. But more advanced glamours can evade both.”

If he was surprised by the question he didn’t let on, and his answers seemed truthful, but there was a furrow in his brow as he took a sip of his own tea. She’d never known much of Lucien beyond what Feyre told her, but he didn’t seem inauthentic or crafty despise his vulpine looks. He reminded her of Cassian in a way, his inability to stifle his natural reactions.

“Are there similar ways to detect the influence of daemati?” The word felt unwieldy, like a marble in her mouth. Lucien frowned.

“There aren’t.” He trailed off, a finger tapping beside his saucer, and that furrow appeared again as he didn’t speak for a long moment. Nesta cleared her throat, disrupting whatever line of thought he’d gotten lost in, and he looked up with a somewhat guilty expression. “When your sister.. When Feyre returned to Tamlin after Rhysand called in their bargain, we tried to find a way to see if he’d altered her memories, but it doesn’t exist.”

“I see.” Nesta stored the information away - no one had shared the full story of Feyre and her mate, for good reason it seemed. Nothing to push too far now, but perhaps at a later time. She asked a few more questions about glamours and daemati, hoping to bury her intentions in the flow. “What about influence from a mating bond?”

She could tell immediately the tactic didn’t work - both of Lucien’s eyes narrowed on her as he fell still with his cup half-raised to his lips, as if he’d let himself relax too much in her presence and was just now realizing his mistake. He set the cup down without drinking and continued to squint at her, metal eye clicking.

“My lady, why are you asking me this?”

“It’s nothing to do with Elain. You’re the only one -'' Nesta paused, swallowing around the lie, around the horror. “You’re the only one I can ask who knows of a mating bond from a male’s perspective.”

It took a moment for the words to wash over him, and Lucien blinked at her unseeing until his whole body slumped in the chair, where he dropped his head into a hand and muttered, “Cauldron boil me.”

Nesta froze, and Lucien jerked his head up at her sharp intake of breath, noted her flutter of panic with a guilty half-smile.

“Apologies. That was in poor taste.” He gave a long sigh and surveyed the tea before them with a grimace. “This won’t do at all, will it?”

Blind fear turned to mounting fascination as Lucien gave a curt nod to whatever he’d just decided and produced a gold filigree case from the breast pocket of his green velvet surcoat to reveal a row of tightly-rolled cigarettes. He offered Nesta one and she took it gratefully before leaning forward so he could light it with what she thought was a slim lighter but turned out to be a flame on the tip of his finger.

Exhaling a slow cloud, Nesta felt the familiar buzz from when she’d play cards long into the night, though it felt much stronger and less relaxing without the undercurrent of wine. But there was a small measure of satisfaction in knowing the woman she’d become would make her mother thrash in her grave.

“Well,” Lucien sighed heavily through the smoke, one leg stretched out long and a rakish tilt to his mouth as he resigned himself to his fate. “What would you like to know?”

As it turned out, everything.

In a halting baritone, he told her of the natural progression of bonds, how males typically knew sooner, how both could be aware and feel its effects without the bond being fully accepted, like sharing emotion, sensation. How rare and blessed it was, that mates did not always love one another, but that most accepted in the end. The presentation of food, while not strictly necessary, was common.

The frost wanted to appear at her fingers as she listened but Nesta willed it down, breathed in the smell of fine tobacco and tea leaves, felt the soft fabric of the chair arm beneath her palm and took in Lucien’s easy repose. He’d decided to play her game, it seemed, and even if she was using Elain’s influence over him to her own ends, Nesta couldn’t help but respect his candor.

“What changes when a bond is accepted?” Nesta interrupted when he took his next drag, and in response to his wary look, she added, “You can speak about sex, it’s fine.”

So he told her about the frenzy, the territorial spirals the males were prone to. Cigarette trembling between her fingers, Nesta listened with growing dis-ease to his details of the possessiveness, the destructiveness that often followed, of mates who tried to love others but couldn’t stay away.

She thought of the shop with the three golden keys on the sign, the risks some would take to break free from a mating bond. “What happens if a bond is rejected?”

“It is said to be a slow agony, a grief that haunts you all your days. But you’re free to love, as we all are. How often have hearts changed the course of fate?

Red light flashed in her mind, the eerie absence of the Cauldron’s pull in her gut above the battlefield, the rising dread threatening to drown her, the rising scream in her throat, her only thought his name over and over -

“Why are you really asking, my lady?”

Heart pounding in fear and remembrance, Nesta met the russet and gold of Lucien’s too-knowing stare. It still made her feel sickly, the whispers that followed the war of what happened in the wood, the rumors that haunted her shuffling footsteps when she’d returned to Velaris alone. No male would touch her for weeks at first, until she made clear none had claimed her.

Her instinct to hold information close, to form that barrier around herself was so tempting, but the male in front of her could understand the pain of overexposure better than perhaps anyone else.

“I know Tamlin was controlling, though they were not mated.” If what Feyre had told her was true, anyway, though she’d seen the Lord of Spring’s ferocity firsthand. “I’m trying to discern what is typical of all fae males, what is influence of a bond, and what is cause for concern.”

Lucien’s face turned grave, and the fire sparked up behind him suddenly, making her flinch. “Do you fear for yourself?”

Nesta shook her head. She truly didn’t, not in this way, anyhow, though she was taken aback by how quickly he’d jumped to her defense. It seemed her sister had been right to call him a friend. “I am concerned for Feyre.”

The air grew smokier still as she told him about the pregnancy, the shoppers outside oblivious as she disclosed their High Lord’s lies and antagonism, his controlling nature. She left out everything about the Trove, but Lucien seemed familiar enough with Rhysand’s reputation to extrapolate what kinds of lengths he’d go to for his loved ones. The Autumn lord’s cigarette flared bright and hot in tandem with his eyes, as if a barely suppressed anger smoldered under his skin.

“I can’t imagine how this looks through your eyes.” The tight knot of worry had begun to ease Nesta’s stomach, even as guilt spread for going behind both her sisters’ backs. “You have been a loyal friend to her, though at times I wonder why.

Lucien gave a humorless laugh. “Your concern for Ferye is well-placed, though I’m not sure what I have to offer.”

“She won’t hear the truth about Rhysand from me. I’ve failed her too many times.”

“How?”

“I’ve been prideful, selfish.” Nesta looked out at the street once more, where a father pushed a toddler in a pram, its fat fist grabbing at the flakes of snow now falling. That feeling rose, where a part of her broke off and withered away, though she wasn’t sure why. “I’ve let my anger rule me. Pushed her and Elain away.”

“So, you’ve been a sibling?”

Lucien’s smile was genuine if not a bit weary, and Nesta realized how little she still knew of him, this wayward male with gentleman’s manners who offered her cigarettes and spoke to her like an equal. It occurred to her that in another life she could’ve loved him, and the thought was comforting somehow, that perhaps there were other versions of herself across the layers of time for whom this was normal.

But a storm in that untouched part of her kicked up at the thought, knew her heart was already spoken for. Knew this Nesta couldn’t give up her teeth, not yet.

“Please speak with Feyre, if you’re willing,” she urged. The end of her cigarette glowed silver before she quickly stubbed it out. “She is recruiting a High Council, and I think you should submit your name. I don’t know enough about your world, she needs someone with experience on her side.”

“I shall consider it. As much as I’d love to avoid Rhysand, your father was very kind to me, and I owe him a debt.”

Nesta ignored the last part, unable to stand the warmth in his voice. Lucien stood as she rose from her chair, walked her to the door and helped her on with her coat. She could tell he wanted to say something more but didn’t know if she could take it, if she could stomach any more praise of her father. So it was with a twisting gut she turned back in the doorway when he called out her name.

“You should tell him if you have no intention of accepting the bond.” Face half in shadow, mouth in a half smile, Lucien looked like a wounded animal trying to mask his pain. “Don’t drag it out or give him hope.”

“Give hope to whom?”

Lucien laughed, warmer this time, that fire simmering as he joined her in the doorway.

“Archerons,” he said with a chagrined look at the clouds dusting snow across her shoulders. “You’ll be the death of us all, I fear.”

—

The raven from White Eagle was deeply strange to Cassian when it alighted on the fountain in the garden of the river house, its milky eyes depthless and knowing. So much so that he felt a ripple of distrust as it opened its beak, a rattly, accented voice pouring forth on a cloud of breath in the bone-chilling cold that gripped Velaris.

“Come, Cursebreaker. The familiar knows the way.”

The strained lunch he’d been sharing with Feyre came to an abrupt halt, and the afternoon descended into a flurry of writing, planning, and strategizing a trip to White Eagle for the next day. He and Az had been trading shifts at the river house since Mor was away, and even though the High Lady rolled her eyes every time she saw one of them sunning their wings in the courtyard or pacing in the drawing room, he could tell she was grateful for the company. Cassian hated the waiting too, the impotence, how it reminded him of the end days of their forty nine-year quarantine.

So as Feyre stared dumbstruck at the raven’s retreating shape he found himself rallying everyone to get out of Velaris for the evening, selfishly wanting to run from the ghosts that haunted every doorway in the city after dark.

Only Elain declined, claiming she was feeling ill and wanted to be well enough to travel with them tomorrow, though he suspected it had more to do with avoiding her eldest sister. A final note disappeared from his palm, reappearing moments later with Mor’s affirmative that she would pick Elain up to join the party in the morning.

The remaining four of them ended up at his cabin, and he caught Feyre marveling at the water wheel with a look that said she was imagining it captured on a canvas.

Malka was smug, the haughty swish of her tail saying I knew you’d be back, and Feyre looked wary when the creature hopped up beside her on the sofa. Az’s shadows buzzed around him, as if on edge.

It had been a weird thing to explain to the sisters, and a flicker of betrayal had passed over Nesta’s face when they’d all met together, when he told Feyre of the familiar from the message. That there was a cat that wasn’t really a cat, that Malka had belonged to Rhys’ mother, that as wild as it sounded they could trust her to lead them to Sulevia.

It didn’t help the tension when Malka sniffed at Feyre’s proffered hand a few times before pulling her ears back and retreating to her chair by the fire, where her lamplike eyes tracked the High Lady’s every move.

But his cabin was warm and there was enough left in the larder for Cassian to scrape together a pretty serviceable meal, by all accounts, so after a time the four of them settled at the table in much calmer spirits. With no small amount of pride, he watched Nesta drop her face into her hands at her first bite, shaking her head with pained disbelief.

Azriel was regarding her with sympathy when she raised her head. “I know. It’s infuriating.”

Feyre moaned. “It’s so good I might cry.”

“I’m touched that such fine ladies enjoy my peasant’s food,” Cassian said, and he caught the quirk at the corner of Nesta’s lips, felt the thrill of her humor sparking alive.

“We were poor, too, you prick.” Feyre shot back, though her mouth was full which somewhat dampened the effect. “Though nobody bothered to learn to cook like this. Do you have a bigger spoon? I need to shove this in my face as fast as possible.”

Cassian rose with a laugh, scooping up the High Lady’s bowl to save himself the later trip for seconds.

“Where did you learn?” he heard Nesta ask as he walked back to the kitchen, signaling she wanted to leave the topic of their human life. He felt another curl of pride that she chose to do so instead of lashing out or shutting off.

“Portia taught me.” Cassian pulled open a drawer and almost dropped the bowl on his foot when he saw the silver tin next to the gold one holding Nesta’s valerian root tea.

The scent hit him like a blow beneath his chin, unmistakable. He swallowed down the lump in his throat, begging his f*cking heart to slow down because Feyre was asking him something and it was probably rude to abandon a conversation over a contraceptive.

“Who’s that?”

He grabbed randomly at the spoons, still unable to think straight. “Rhys’ mom.” Then the question sank in, and he squinted at her, confused by her confusion.

“Oh, I..” Feyre’s freckled cheeks grew slightly pale, and she glanced sidelong at her sister, as if nervous of her reaction. “I never knew her name.”

Cassian shrugged, not wanting to embarrass her further, though it was weird to him that it hadn’t come up. Azriel was frowning too, and he could see his brother tuck the information away, evidence of something he could only guess. From the corner of his eye he saw Malka leap onto the arm of the sofa, a perch from which to observe them.

“He doesn’t talk about her much,” he said vaguely through the steam above the bubbling pot before returning to the table. He set Feyre’s bowl and her new spoon in front of her but the sisters just stared up at him, both smirking now for some reason.

“What?”

“Should we take it as an insult or testament to Feyre’s dexterity that you’ve given her a slotted spoon?” Az drawled.

Feyre burst into laughter but Cassian could only look at Nesta, the devious minx, at the glint in her eyes that said she knew what he’d found. That he’d fallen right into her trap and would have to muscle through the rest of dinner knowing what lay in that drawer, unable to touch her, to taste her.

“I kept stealing food when she first took me in,” he said to Feyre, more to distract himself than anything. Nesta crossed and uncrossed her legs under the table. “I was sure she was going to kick me out any moment. So she made these deals with me, gave me extra to stash away if I helped her. Kept my feral ass from becoming a career criminal, probably.”

“Or having your hand cut off, being sentenced to the mines,” Azriel added darkly. Feyre shuddered.

“I’ve wondered about that before. If the camps are so brutal, why did she - Portia - why did she keep you all here? Why didn’t she take you all back to Velaris?”

“I imagine all the buildings would need reinforcement first,” Nesta said, but Cassian caught the worried glance she threw his way, the slight angle of her body toward him as she gave him an out. He didn’t need it, but he was touched all the same.

“I’m sure Velaris was not ready to have us menaces unleashed on it. But I don't know, honestly.” he’d never thought about it before, and it was hard to imagine Portia’s motives, all that went on in her powerful, enigmatic mind. “We weren’t her kids. I think she wanted to keep us from being naive, better than the alternative.”

Azriel’s shadows had whisked away the slotted spoon for one without holes, but they returned now to hover about his face like a shroud. He brushed them away with a hand. “Most Illyrians would take being called brutal as a compliment, anyhow.”

“What other options are there for people up here?” Feyre asked. “If you’re not cut out to be a warrior, what do you do?”

“There are trades, like smithing. The mountain camps always need males to work the mines. Farming where the land will allow it. It’s been tough after the war.”

But Feyre kept shaking her head at him, as if he weren’t making sense. “What are we doing about it? Like, we must be helping them somehow.”

“Wouldn’t that be your job?” Nesta scoffed, though her eyes stayed trained on the table. Cassian opened his mouth to smooth things over but Azriel beat him to it, a derisive laugh rumbling through his chest.

“Illyrians don’t want help from us that doesn’t allow them to keep killing each other or controlling their females.”

“Hey now. Remember where you are.” Cassian wasn’t a stranger to Az’s anti-Illyrian sentiments, but it chafed here in the warm light of his kitchen as the snow fell outside, as their bellies were full with the gifts of the land. “There are good people here, even if you don’t know them.”

“Emerie - my friend.” Nesta flushed as she explained to Feyre. “She runs a business. Though she says expansion is hard, since there isn’t a good enough road system connecting the camps, that you get sort of trapped if you can’t fly.”

Feyre didn’t ask any more questions after that, but he could see her worrying at the corner of her lip. Malka slunk closer, winding through the legs of the High Lady’s chair and the fear crept up his throat, the terror that he was traveling at high speed toward a stone wall, that he was crashing to the ground with no way to save himself.

Desperate to salvage the evening, Cassian prompted Az to tell the story of the time Malka found them trying to catch several toads to unleash in a rival trainee’s tent, yowling wildly as they pounced in the creek. The toads turned out to be violently poisonous, and touching their skin prompted hours of hallucinations. He could still imagine looking up from the kitchen floor where he performed a slow, peaceful backstroke to see Portia’s exasperated smile as she patiently explained to her son that the chair was not upset he was sitting in it, all while Azriel formed his shadows into various curse words in the air.

The conversation moved past him as he sank into memory, and Cassian watched as a circle of pink bloomed high on Nesta’s cheekbones when he extended a foot beneath the table, boot tapping her own. An ease settled over her as she and Az fell into debate about something to do with Gwyn’s research he didn’t understand. He felt Feyre clock the way he watched her sister with that evaluating stare of hers, the one that saw to the very bottom of him.

And the fear crept back into the edges of his thoughts of all the ways he could f*ck this up, that maybe he already had and didn’t even know.

—

After dinner, Azriel unearthed a pack of cards from a closet and they all settled around the low table in front of the sofa. Malka stretched across the arm behind Nesta, and she felt the cat’s tail flick against her arm, heard the rumble of her purr beneath Azriel’s methodical explanation to Feyre of All Fours, a popular pub game Nesta just happened to dominate at.

Sisters versus brothers was fair, they decided, and it soon became clear that Feyre was middling in ability but very obvious in her tactics, while Cassian was so haphazard it was both laughable and strangely impressive. So the real game whittled down to a battle between Nesta and Azriel, who circled each other in a deadly dance while trying to get their partners to behave long enough to win.

The sisters snatched the victory in the end, Nesta having a better read on Feyre’s instincts, though Azriel put up a nasty fight while trying to neutralize Cassian’s randomness. If it weren’t for the roiling shadows and obscene grumbling under his breath, Nesta would’ve believed he was letting them win again, though the corner of the shadowsinger’s lips quirked every time Feyre loosed a bright, easy laugh.

Later, when the males settled at the kitchen table to plan for the morning, Feyre wandered toward the shelves bracketing the hearth, devoured each artifact with her full attention before moving onto the next. Nesta slid in beside her, steeling herself against the fire, and took the jar from her pocket to sit in its former spot next to the onyx woman.

Feyre’s smile when she turned was self-congratulatory, and Nesta saw her glance back at the table, assuring their privacy. “Sooo… you and Cassian.”

“I’d rather we didn’t speak about this.”

Nesta felt her gut twist, low and acidic. Her sister frowned. “He’s your mate.”

“Don’t say that,” Nesta hissed, and it felt like the floor could open beneath her, like the fire could wind around and consume her whole.

“Okay, he’s your accomplice then, I don’t care.” Feyre rolled her eyes, but Nesta could see the tightness in her posture, the stutter in her confidence before she barrelled forward. “I’m just saying I’m happy for you, for both of you. And I’m a little jealous, honestly.”

The string pulsed in its jar, and Nesta saw it catch Feyre’s attention, one hand cupped beneath her growing stomach. She looked much better since beginning Emerie’s regimen of tonics, though the stress still weighed on her, made her look much older than her twenty one years.

“There is some money, if you ever need to get out,” Nesta found herself saying before deciding to, and Malka was there winding between her legs, tail curling around her ankle. “It’s what was left of father’s estate, I saved it for Elain’s dowry if she ever wanted to marry, but it’s there for you, too.”

Feyre looked offended, and the deep blue of her sweater rippled in the firelight as she straightened, squaring off. But the fight seemed to go out of her a moment later and she laid a hand on her sister’s forearm, nodding, and Nesta knew that no more needed to be said, that this was enough.

Once the planning was done, there was a deeply awkward moment when Feyre realized Azriel, not Nesta, would be accompanying her to the family cabin for the night. It was mortifying, so much that Nesta considered jumping into the night-dark river just to escape her sister’s effusive giggling.

But the air thickened as she descended into the living area after seeing them off, drinking in the sight of Cassian’s body revealed with every step down. She’d kept her distance all evening, not wanting to draw unwanted attention, but she allowed herself to look at him fully now, at the dancing light filtered through his wings where he stood before the fire. They hung relaxed behind him, tips brushing the floor, and for the first time she really saw how they were part of him, how it didn’t frighten her.

Not that he’d ever been frightening, but wrapping her mind around the varied bodies of the fae had been one of the hardest challenges after being Made. Her own body notwithstanding, some things took time to adjust to, the higher sex drives and heightened senses.

She didn’t think she’d ever get used to the violence.

Cassian was watching her from the corner of his eyes when she wandered into the kitchen, and she saw his spine stiffen when she pulled out the silver tea tin. Felt the caress of his attention when she filled the kettle with deliberate slowness and set it down on the woodstove, the clang like a bell tolling the hour, calling them in. Once brewed to her satisfaction, she let him pull her onto his lap in the far corner of the sofa as she sipped, and his hands began a lazy roam up her thighs, first over her skirt and then under, so that by the time only dregs remained Nesta was both very warm and very flustered.

“You set a trap for me, witch.”

She shivered, so aware of the brush of his breath behind her ear, the hand on her hip that refused to delve inward. “It’s only a trap if you don’t want to be caught.”

Down in his room under the ruby glow of his cracked siphons, their deep, world-halting kisses devolved into an increasing frenzy to tear off the others clothes faster, to rid themselves of anything keeping them apart.

Nesta cursed as she fumbled with the ties of his shirt, still unused to the strange cut. “I can see why you forego this often.”

Cassian’s laugh warmed her neck, his lips pausing in their expedition across her collarbone as he dispatched her simple gown. “You know, I used to just go shirtless all the time at home.”

“Why don’t you anymore?”

“You moved in.”

He said it so simply as her dress pooled to the floor, and it made Nesta flare with an anger that turned her blood fiery, made her grip hard to his hair when he caught her mouth once more. Because how dare he topple her over like that, how dare he be considerate of her comfort when all she’d wanted to do was hurl enough rocks to scare his hopes away.

How dare he care about her when she had nothing to give.

Almost like it didn’t matter to him what she’d done. Like they could forget the damage between them and find their way back to that peaceful summer, the chatter of the swallows in the hazel thicket, the smell of wet hay in the wake of a storm. Like the roots still lay dormant of some strange, beautiful thing, something secret and fragile that made her come alive.

And she knew it was stupid of her to want that as Cassian hoisted her onto the dresser and sent the silver pitcher toppling to the ground, so utterly foolish to believe in it as he knelt between her spread legs but then his mouth was on her and oh, f*ck, he was really good at this.

“You taste,” he panted in a voice that would’ve sent her the way of the toppled pitcher if not for his hard grip on her thighs, “even better than I remember.”

Nesta had tried to convince herself Ironcrest was a fluke, the product of stress and whatever strange magic lived there, but no - there was no denying the rumors Emerie heard about his talents were right all along. Talents it felt like he’d been developing for this very moment.

Because how else could he touch her like that, like she was worthy of it? How else could he look up at her so dizzied and desperate, as if drunk off her taste alone?

Something started to unfurl in her chest at that, something so warm and painfully sweet she could scarcely catch her breath, could barely keep her hold on his shoulders. It wasn’t an unpleasant feeling, not at first, but then it kept rushing upward, kept tugging her forward, demanding more more more and then she could feel him, Cassian’s pleasure, his devotion, his tight coil of nervousness. It felt so wrong it made her queasy, the fear and sensation set her body to panicking.

“Cass, stop,” she said with as much fortitude as she could find, pushing back.

“Huh?” He lifted his head and rubbed a hand at his own chest, pain pulling at this expression. He was having trouble meeting her eyes. “Talk to me.”

“Can you..” She couldn’t find the words, didn’t know how to ask him to shut down his end of their connection without saying it outright. “Can you calm down? It’s making me nervous.”

He looked at the floor littered with the items he’d swept off the dresser, then to where she was splayed above him, guilt simmering in his eyes. “Sorry, I’m really in my head. I don’t want to f*ck this up.”

Nesta still felt the soft pulse of surprise every time, how bare he’d strip himself for her. She stroked back the hair that had fallen into his face and said, “It’s okay, I just feel sort of alone up here.”

“Sorry. I’m here now.” He stood and gathered her to him, pressed his lips to her neck, breathing long and hard. “I won’t leave you again. Sweet Nes. Sweet heart.”

And whether he’d always said it that way or this was the first time, Nesta heard the words anew as he said them, the term of endearment he saved only for her. Not dismissal or denigration, but recognition. Invitation.

Nesta drew his generous mouth back to hers to distract from the prickle in her nose, that heat at the corners of her eyes.

With patient hands he helped her climb down from the dresser and, entangled in one another again, they tumbled onto the huge bed where they traded long, lust-thick kisses. The low groans that poured from his throat consumed her, his deep voice telling her every way he wanted to have her sent bolts of pleasure spearing through her, unraveling her fears, her solitude.

When he could no longer stand it, Cassian scraped his hair up and settled back between her legs until Nesta was shaking all over, until the borders of her body faded into the air around her and she was a being of pure sensation, the bed beneath her and him above. He reached a broad hand up across her torso right before she came, his palm covering over her thundering heart as her org*sm swept her away.

Emotion swelled within her as she floated down, large and chaotic but tinged with relief, her hot skin soothed where his hands ghosted up her body with reverence as he came to hover over her, his wings shadowing them both. It was arbitrary, she knew, that this felt like a point of no return when her maidenhead was long gone, but Nesta was near trembling with nerves even as she thrummed with desire.

Cassian seemed just as terrified, and he said as much as he looked down at her with starved eyes, this male who had known true hunger.

“You should be,” she said, smiling. Hazel eyes went unfocused for a moment and she smiled wider at the thrill that shuddered through them both.

And then there was only them, the slide of their bodies together, the hitch of her breath when he first pushed inside her, the presence of his every touch as if he were pouring himself into her, filling her with warmth and pleasure and light. And in her gratitude she tried to give it back to him, kissed him long and deep for his patience in bringing her into her body, tangled her fingers in his hair and pulled, keeping him here with her instead of wandering the halls of his head.

Eventually Nesta climbed atop him like she’d wanted to in the staircase at Ironcrest, in this very bed just two weeks ago, and drank in the sight of him blissed out and sweat-gilded beneath her. Cassian’s hand snaked between them to have her moaning with her head thrown back, her own hands braced against his chest so their bodies formed a circle that left her reeling. The current pulled Nesta over first, Cassian following close behind, and she let his moan wash over her, felt him shake where her thighs hugged him tightly, heard his wings snapping out wide before drawing upward to shelter them both.

And there was no sickly pull in the aftershocks like she’d been so afraid of, only a laxness that left her draped over his chest, her body rising and falling with the slowing tempo of his breath.

“f*ck,” Cassian said on a slow exhale before a wild laugh escaped him, the motion jostling her. “Is this real? Did I hit my head and start hallucinating or something?”

A memory rose unbidden of the night at the townhouse, his hurt and confusion after she’d shoved him away. The shame tasted bitter on her tongue, as bitter as the words she’d spat when she’d felt caged in by her desire, her longing for him.

“Don’t worry, you’ll come back to reality and be sick of me soon.”

I wish you weren’t my mate.

“What? No. I keep waiting for you to get sick of me. After this summer, I didn’t want to get ahead of myself.”

It just spilled out of him, the truth. Same as it had in the townhouse, as when he stood vigil with her in the manor’s foyer waiting for her sister, her traveling case a tombstone between them.

You’re killing me, Nesta.

In her mind’s eye, she saw herself as a great wind sweeping through Cassian’s life, snuffing out the flame of his optimism. Or she was a huge wave drowning him as she’d drowned in the Cauldron, the black water thick as oil in her throat, her sodden dress dragging her down -

Coming back to the sound of him gently calling her name, Nesta felt his hand trail down her back, drawing slow circles. She took a deep breath, focused on the thump of his heart beneath her cheek.

“You get flashbacks, don’t you?” he said softly, and the shame flooded her, whiting out her vision. “That’s why you don’t like the fire.”

“I hear my father’s neck..” Snapping. She couldn’t finish the sentence, but of course he knew. He’d heard it, too. “And other things. It’s better than it once was, but it feels like it’ll never end.”

“Of course it will.”

“You don’t understand, I’m not like you or the others. I can’t move on and pretend it’s all fine.” Nesta rolled off him and began to search the room for her night dress. Cassian made no move to stop her, but watched from the bed with concern painting his handsome features, those wings splayed out beside him once more.

“I know. I like that about you.”

And it was such a simple thing to say, but Nesta found herself immobilized by it, barely able to think as she sank back to the bed, his hand resuming those slow circles on her back. “I don’t know what there is to like. I don’t even know who I am anymore. I feel like some twisted, freakish thing.”

She didn’t know how much of herself was left, what had been there to begin with. Sometimes she wondered if the real her existed at all, if she was merely a gruesome collage of everyone who had tried to forge her for their own benefit.

Cassian sat up behind her and pressed a kiss to her shoulder, brushing her hair back away from her neck. He touched her so tenderly, and she melted into it even as part of her wanted to scream.

“We’re all changed by the bad sh*t that happens to us. It doesn’t mean you’re not you.”

“But I killed my father.”

“Hybern killed your father.”

The pain was unending, a wellspring gushing forth. In her grief, Nesta let Cassian pull her closer, let herself indulge in the safe circle of his embrace as he pulled her once more into his lap, his hands intent to soothe her this time. She could’ve been a child for how small she felt, how useless.

“I hated him, even when he was telling me he loved me. I think I still hate him now.”

Nesta - my Nesta. I am so sorry, for all of it.

For letting her mother distort and punish her, for letting older men prey on her. For sitting there broken before the fire, killing himself, a slow death of a thousand failures. Her rage had been towering, the same rage that urged her to rip the king’s head from his neck as he was already dying.

“Does that make me a monster?”

Cassian’s lips were soft at her temple, his voice low and warm. “No, sweetheart. You could never be a monster.”

“How do you know that?”

His laugh surprised her, as did the gentle fingers he poked into her side, making her squirm. “Because you’ve got enough power to conquer Prythian, and all you want to do is read your books and eat things dipped in chocolate.”

Nesta gave a very undignified snort that would’ve mortified her if she didn’t feel the loosening in her shoulders at the same time.

“But honestly? Because of this feeling,” he said, moving his calloused hand up so it settled over her heart once more. “The soldiers you should fear are the ones who leave battle and never think of it again.”

They took a leisurely bath before returning to bed, staring out at the star-speckled river and sharing the chocolates the House had snuck into her bag. She couldn’t help but laugh when Cassian shook his head like a dog and sent water spraying, couldn’t help but fold herself into his arms and trace the motif of mountains inked along the tops of his shoulders. Nesta fell asleep with her fingers threaded through the wet strands of his hair, Malka curled in the crook of her bent knees, and dreamt of nothing.

—

Cassian woke gasping from a dream of his time trapped in Velaris, a vague swirl of bodies and bottles and broken bones. He had a shadow opponent pinned to the ground, featureless before it morphed into Rhys’ face beneath his fists, mangled and bleeding before it become Reuel’s, then Kallon’s, Cassian’s arms still wheeling, the killing power pulsing through him and then it was Mor, her blood the color of her gown and then Feyre, smiling up through red-stained teeth but he couldn’t stop, and then a female with wings and kind hazel eyes, her fingers gently combing his hair as he smashed her apart, unable to stall the force of his own momentum.

It took a moment to remember it was Nesta who lay beside him now, her braid tickling his neck in the darkness. He heard snuffling in one of his ears before he felt the brush of Malka’s whiskers on his cheek, her rumbling purr as soothing as it had been the first night he’d crawled into a real bed.

He’d been so angry in those final years, taking it out on anyone who volunteered, in the ring, in his bed. Now the memories left him cold and shaking.

Unwilling to chance slipping back under, Cassian watched Nesta sleeping until the sun peeked over the ridge, finally let his eyes close and woke hours later to an empty bed, the sounds of her shuffling in the kitchen two floors up.

Nesta was wearing a pair of buckskin pants he layered under leathers in the coldest months, rolled up several times at the ankle, and on top a shirt he typically wore beneath heavier armor. The deep green brought out the rich brown in her hair, the wing slits offering a delicious slice of her back where it was turned to him as she put on the kettle.

He couldn’t resist sticking his hands through the slits and squeezing her full breasts, which earned him a half-hearted smack on the arm and an eye roll that belied the satisfied smile on Nesta’s well-kissed lips. The morning light gilded her braid where it wrapped around her head like a crown of laurel, and it made something flutter in his chest to see her so relaxed.

His queen, ruling over her rightful kingdom.

He felt drunk, to be so full of her, her fingerprints all over him like new ink splashed across his skin. Cassian was happy, way too happy for what the day was about to be, and he looked out over the river trying to figure out how to come down.

It wasn’t just that he’d had the best sex of his long-ass life last night, but that Nesta had.. seen him. Had noticed he’d been stuck in his own anxious thoughts and called him back, kept him grounded. Had opened a new chamber of her heart to him when she let him see beneath her armor. Despite already being in love with her, it was like that love had made him larger, that instead of breaking him apart when it swelled, the whole of him had expanded to fit around it.

It was a sensation he’d never had before, and even as it felt f*cking amazing there was a part of him that twisted with doubt, not wanting to be leveled if Nesta decided to walk away again.

They needed to talk about this, he decided, about whatever was happening between them. She’d called herself his lover and he’d as good as given her his heart on a platter, but now that others knew it felt fragile and he didn’t want to do anything that would make her bolt.

Nesta seemed to read his mind because she padded over next to him, held out a cup of tea - dark and unsugared, just how he liked it.

“Feyre asked what was happening between us,” she said with a sigh, her eyes turbulent as the current, though still open to him. “I suppose it would’ve gotten out eventually. I mean, not that it was a secret before, but-”

“You don’t have to do anything you’re uncomfortable with. I’m fine with whatever.”

The furrow in her brow said she didn’t believe him, but she took a sip of her tea and didn’t challenge it. “I don’t feel compelled to explain myself to anyone but you, but I know your family has opinions. About me. And my.. Habits.”

It made him sick to think of the looks Mor and Rhys exchanged every time Nesta’s name came up, Amren’s snickers and sneers. His own anger and envy at the bed partners she’d entertained, as was her right. He could kick himself for every time he’d failed to stand up for her, even to himself.

“f*ck them. I want to know what you want.”

“I don’t know. I truly don’t.” Nesta sighed again, and he saw how the week hung on her, how a part of her longed for that quiet nothingness she used to live inside. “There’s so much happening at the moment it’s difficult to keep it all in perspective. And I don’t relish being the subject of scrutiny.”

A cascade of worries rushed through him, that she was embarrassed by him, that she was having second thoughts even as her body leaned toward him now.

“But I don’t want to stop,” she said at last, and his hopes swelled even as he tried to temper them. “I just don’t want to make any promises I can’t keep. My reservations are still what they once were.”

It was as close as she’d been to acknowledging what was between them since coming back into his life. The familiar fantasies rose of wanting to love her well, wanting to banish every shadow and ghost with the enduring flame of his devotion.

But Nesta had fought on battlefields he’d never seen, been hurt in ways he could only dream about. Her words from the night before hung over him like a low cloud, that she didn’t know why anyone would like her.

“It’s okay. We have room for you to figure out what you want.”

We have time, he’d almost said, too close to his dying wish in the forest. Stepping behind her, Cassian wrapped his arms around her front and rested his chin on the top of her head, craving the comfort of her body and unable to bear the uncertainty her feelings for him brought out.

“What woke you up last night?” she asked, and he tensed, focused on a doe upstream picking her way down the bank for a drink.

“I was dreaming about being stuck in Velaris.”

Nesta’s reflection in the window looked confused. The dreams of that dark time had left him heartsick and sad, and he was afraid the truth might frighten her, but she’d offered him her trust so many times that it only felt fair to do the same.

“When Rhys was being held captive. Before your sister came. Az, Mor, Amren and I were tied to the city, to keep the wards up.”

“You couldn’t leave ever?” She turned her head slowly, her gaze traveling up the length of his wing.

“Not as bad as being stuck with me in the House of Wind, right?”

But the laugh he hoped for didn’t come. Instead her reflection only looked sadder, and it tugged at him, scooped another shovel of dirt from the long-buried pain that had been starting to surface. She scratched her nails lightly along his forearm, his skin breaking out in a rash of chills. Malka chose that moment to wind in between their legs before returning to where that eerie string sat on the shelf, reminding them of more pressing matters.

When they landed on the outskirts of White Eagle the rest of the party was already waiting, and Rhys stared long and hard at where Malka was perched on Nesta’s shoulders until Feyre stuck out a gloved hand to her mate. He took it gratefully, though not without trepidation, knowing at any moment Feyre could summon one of her water wolves to take a great bite out of him.

After a brief conference they kept to the edge of the village, not wanting to draw too much attention, and rounded the empty training ring for a more discreet spot to enter the woods. A gaggle of boys up ahead chattered and shoved amongst themselves, daring one another to take a step beyond the treeline, their clothes splattered with snow from where they’d been wrestling at the forest’s edge. At the sight of three armored males, the boys scuttled into a shaky formation, and with wide-eyes watched their group approach the trees they’d been told never to play in.

It gave him a pang, to see them so trained already, so desperate to be good soldiers.

The Forest of Argadnel swallowed them at once, the boy’s resuming chatter silenced, and Cassian felt the press of magic all around him, the answering pulse of his siphons. Nesta’s eyes flashed silver in the dim light as they passed through the curtain of the wards, the flame within them so brilliant it took him a moment to notice that the air here was warm, the forest lush and humid as the height of summer.

The ground beneath his feet felt saturated with magic, seeping up through his boots and sparking his body alive, and the punchdrunk look Azriel shot him said he felt the effects, too. Malka set off through the labyrinth of trunks, her crooked tail held high, and Rhys’ gait as he followed was looser than he’d seen in years.

The trees grew strangely here, twisted around themselves like corkscrews or else bent at odd angles to accommodate one another, the leaves of oak and elm and maple leaving shimmery wakes where they fluttered in a phantom breeze. Intermittent shafts of light penetrating the canopy made the forest floor appear to shift beneath them, so that it was easy to dismiss the movements in the corner of his eye as a trick even as Cassian was sure he saw things lurking in the undergrowth.

“What on earth was that?” Nesta’s harsh whisper was just for him, and she pointed toward where a wide patch of green slithered lazily over a rotting log studded with phosphorescent slugs.

“Spider moss,” he said, and narrowly avoided tripping from the heat of her palm against his. “It’s harmless. Bit of a sense of humor though.”

He’d heard many of the non-fae creatures had escaped Amarantha in safe zones like this, fleeing their roosts and caves to seek asylum where natural magic was concentrated. His suspicion was confirmed when Malka suddenly veered off course to swipe at a swarm of jewel-winged pixies, scattering them from where perched on a spray of bluebells that chimed when set to swaying.

It had the unintended effect of breaking the strained silence that had fallen over them, and Cassian felt the tightness in his heart unclench a bit when Nesta accepted his proffered hands to haul her up the side of a steep bank. It was all he could do not to grin like an idiot as he turned back to help Elain.

Sulevia’s house loomed ahead of them so quickly Mor nearly pitched headfirst into the ancient well. It looked like a strange assortment of boxes all toppled together, three chimneys belching smoke of different colors into the sky, the eaves covered over with moss and dripping ivy that seemed to reach toward them, tendrils curling and releasing. There was no mistaking a powerful fae lived here, even the bucket Mor righted from where she’d sent it crashing feeling imbued with magic.

The female herself was already waiting for them on a milking stool by the front door, methodically peeling a basket of deep purple roots that smelled like rotting meat.

“Grimalken. You’re looking well,” she said without looking up, and Malka trotted over with a chirrup, brushing against the sorceress's legs. “And you, High Lord, not as much. I’ve been wondering when you’d darken my door. I suppose you want to come in.”

She heaved to her feet, and with a swat at Azriel’s offered elbow hobbled through the gnarled front door of the stone cabin, the movement making the loops of white shells about her neck and in her braided gray hair clack against one another.

Once settled in a pile of cushions before the fire, Sulevia surveyed their party over gnarled fingers she steepled before her, though Cassian was unsure what she could actually see. It was dark as f*ck in here, and he could barely tell what was furniture and what wasn’t in the smoky room. The earthy smell of sage wafted over him, confusing his senses.

“The lines of fate cross strongly here,” she said at last, looking between all of them. “Things have been set in motion that cannot be undone. You carry a winged child in your womb - this is proof of it.”

A snarl came from the corner beneath a low-slung faelight, and Cassian could make out a younger female lying on her stomach on a pile of cushions, unclothed from the waist up, a male with one wing hovering over her with some kind of stick. With a jolt he realized the male was tattooing her, one tiny dot of ink at a time.

“Are you prepared for an Illyrian child, Lady? Prepared for the disdain of your kind?” the female said derisively, and Feyre opened her mouth to respond but Nesta beat her to it.

“We are human,” she snapped, before faltering. “We were.. human.”

Sulevia waved a bored hand. “This I know. Your Making shook the ground from across the sea, Nesta Archeron. But even you cannot subvert Oleanna’s will. As well you know Cursebreaker, carrying a child you’ve no way to deliver. So how does this come to be?”

Silence fell thickly among them, the only sound the small taps of the male working.Cassian caught the movement of Feyre gripping Rhys’ hand tightly, the glint of sweat on her brow. “I’m able to conjure Illyrian wings. That’s how I was when our son.. When the child was conceived.”

“Are you f*cking kidding me?” The younger female shoved upward, grabbing a cloth to cover herself along the way before coming hover behind the sorceress. “You wear our wings. Do you fly with them, too?

Sulevia ignored her, kept those milky eyes trained on the High Lady. “And you cannot transform back?”

“I haven’t been able to shift since I got pregnant.” Feyre confessed tightly. “I haven’t been able to do much magic at all outside of.. Extraordinary circ*mstances.”

When she’d melted the cradle and pointed those silver arrows at Rhys. He was sure his brother was remembering it just as vividly from the way his posture went rigid. Mor coughed, batting at the smoke that circled around her head.

“As I suspected. It’s just as well. For the birth itself, we have many methods we use for the younger girls, so this is not of consequence,” Suelvia replied, and Cassian couldn’t suppress his shudder, the thought such methods needed to be developed in the first place. “Until the birth, the problem is not the body, but the magic. You don’t possess the killing power, and so it poisons you. But if you’re able to withstand transformation, perhaps if another can transform you, though it would take considerable skill.”

“Yes,” Feyre said slowly, chewing at her lip once more. “Yes it would.”

Cassian felt a mounting dread as silence settled once more, Nesta tensing beside him. Because he knew what Feyre was thinking, knew that Rhys hated it, but would do anything for his mate, even if it meant seeking help from the last person he wanted to trust.

“But you must remain that way, lady,” the sorceress warned. “And for my price - you must promise to transform with clipped wings, so you learn what it is to be Illyrian.”

Rhys stepped in front of Feyre at once, Elain catching her from behind where she went off balance. “Absolutely not. I will not subject my mate to that.”

The younger female scoffed. “But it’s fine for us, right? Not cruel enough to use that legendary power of yours to protect your own people. You’ve congratulated yourself long enough for writing on a piece of paper.”

“I will offer you anything else, any amount, land, whatever you want.” Rhys looked halfway to falling to his knees, so dense was the desperation that rolled off of him, but Sulevia remained unmoved.

“What I want is only this,” she said as she adjusted her furs around herself and picked up a large pipe, lighting it.

“Are there no other options? We’ve been told rumors about the heir of Ironcrest. I know Breckon was a frequent visitor here in the years around his birth.”

The sorceress shook her head, smiling. “Kallon’s trick is a much simpler illusion than the lady’s wings.”

“You cannot tell me -”

“Rhys,” Feyre interjected. “This is my choice, remember? You gave up your say.” Cassian saw Rhys swallow as Feyre turned back to Sulevia, her voice trembling. “If I can convince someone to transform me, I agree to your terms.”

“I will give you something to dampen the effects of the killing power in the meantime. Calon bach!” she called out, and there was the sound of footsteps at the backdoor.

“Nain?”

A girl of sixteen or seventeen emerged, her clipped wings lopsided where she leaned heavily against a walking stick. She was looking between them, her eyes lingering on Nesta curiously, at Nesta’s shoulder, as if she could see the silver scratch marks that had once glowed beneath the skin. The stone around her neck drank in the light, a deep black obsidian Cassian had only seen in two places: Truth Teller’s hilt, and the ground surrounding the summit of Ramiel.

“Hello,” she said, still looking at Nesta, her voice much weaker than her years should warrant. “I’m Thalia. What have you got in your pocket?”