Chapter 109
*Fair warning, this is shit. I've had a very long day and for some reason, Azriel's POV just doesn't work with my brain on a good day let alone this one. I rewrote most of the chapter because I wanted to change an element in it but slightly regret that now.*
Azriel returned with her brother and Feyre on his heels, his molars grinding to his gums. He'd barely gotten a word out to Rhys before her brother was moving and Azriel was glad for it, because he didn't have many. There was a clamminess at the back of his neck and a painful twist in his chest, which he was sure was a result of not breathing properly. Feyre put a hand to the back of his arm, but he couldn't tears his eyes away from the corridor ahead to look at her.
When he shouldered the bedroom door open a second time, Arwen was not where he left her. His eyes fell to the pool of blood on the floor where she had been sitting, then followed the trail leading from it, all the way to the bed. Rhysand, who hadn't been frightened into momentary stillness, was already striding past Azriel for her.
"Hey, what are you doing?" Rhysand called in a soft voice, gently placing his fingers under her jaw to lift them to where he stood over her. Arwen blinked up at him, her lips parted.
Azriel swore under his breath as he spied the fabric he had made into a tourniquet now lying on the floor near the foot of the bed. The blanket and sheets were smeared crimson, a story of her climb onto it. He snatched the bandage up and pushed past Rhysand to tie it on her arm again, laying that web of magic over the wound.
"Can I see that?" Rhysand asked her, gesturing to her arm that Azriel had grabbed without a second thought. Arwen looked down at it, her brows twitching when she found the tourniquet replaced. Taking her lack of an answer for as much permission as he was going to get, Rhysand gently lifted her arm and inspected the wound for himself. He swore. "I shouldn't have let her come."
"She would have hated you for keeping her at home," Azriel brushed off.
Rhysand snarled. "Let her. Better me be hated than her hurt. I'm used to it."
"I think her head is the more immediate matter," Feyre whispered from behind him.
Rhysand, not taking his eye off the wound, muttered back, "I'm making sure it's not poisoned."
That word, that damned word, panged around his stomach like an explosion had been set off. Even Feyre put a hand to her stomach, paling at the thought. "You think it could be?"
"I'm not ruling out the possibility."
But Azriel knew the language of the High Lord. No, Rhysand did not think that she had been poisoned, but at least that would be an answer to what was happening.
"Don't forget my blood can heal most things," Feyre offered and Azriel had it in himself enough to nod in thanks.
Arwen turned away from them, her eyes returning to that glaze where she did not even seem to see them. She leant her good hand on the pillow behind her, using it as an anchor to turn around. Rhysand wrestled her back as gently as he could. "What is going on with you?" he whispered, kneeling down in front of her.
Azriel slipped further onto the mattress, resting a hand at the low of her neck.
"Dizzy," she said. "Dizzy in my head."
"She said that earlier," Azriel told them.
Rhysand frowned and lifted his fingers to her cheek, ignoring the blood smeared there too from whatever struggle she had getting onto the bed. The lines between his eyes deepened. A grave expression. Azriel stiffened, leaning so close he was almost over her legs.
"There's... Her mind is scattered. I've seen something like this before. It's when a daemati tries to do something they're not ready for."
Feyre straightened. "Another daemati?"
Azriel braced himself as Arwen tipped onto him, though he wasn't sure if she thought he was a wall or not. He wrapped an arm around her, deciding to keep her there rather than try and push her back up. "Rhys," he breathed carefully. "Tell me you can fix this." They could worry about another daemati later, worry about who did it later. Right now, he just wanted her back.
"Of course," he quipped, though Azriel caught the sharpness of itâthe telltale sign that he had just quelled that doubt internally seconds before Azriel asked.
The door to the bedroom banged against the wall. Cassian strode through it in all his Illryian glory, the darkness on his face enough to infer that Rhysand or Feyre had informed him what was happening. "Who the fuck did this?" he demanded, sliding past Feyre, leaning around Rhysand's other side.
"We're figuring that out," Feyre told him when it was clear neither of the two other males would.
Azriel tuned out everything other than Rhysand and his mate, watching Rhysand push into her mind, staring intently. Arwen rolled her head away from Azriel's shoulder. Cassian leant forward, calling her name, but she didn't respond. "What's taking so long? You've torn through people's minds without lifting a finger."
"Because right now," Rhysand said, his voice thick, "I'm trying to rebuild one. I've never done that before."
Cassian's eyes widened in alarm, having apparently missed that part, running an interrogating gaze over Azriel's mate. There was a long pause as they all held their breaths, a tense stillness laying over the chamber. Arwen made an incoherent noise, brows burrowing over her nose.
"There we go," Rhysand uttered, shattering the tension at the same time that Arwen bowed forward. He caught her frame over his arm. Azriel lurched forward to help pull her back but the sudden sound of vomiting made him pull back. Instead, he threaded his fingers through her hair as she threw up everything she had in her guts, Rhys murmuring encouragements.
With a groan, she fell away from him and Rhysand let her lay back on the mattress, rubbing a hand down her face.
"Is she alright?" Cassian asked as Azriel brushed the hair from her face, finding the violet eyes hidden beneath that were now watery but clear. She was back.
"Fine." Rhysand licked his lips, rising to his feet. "Let her sleep, she'll need it."
Azriel nudged Arwen's head up. She half-lucidly responded to him with another groan, but allowed him to guide her to the pillows which she promptly curled up into.
Feyre wrapped her arms around herself, sidestepping the pile of vomit that Rhysand magicked away seconds later, the blood with it. "I don't understand what happened."
Grimly, Rhysand summoned a piece of paper, earning curious looks. "A mind is like this," he said, shaking the sheet in emphasis. "Daemati can be trained to remove memories. When you're skilled and the memory is something recent, it looks like this." With a flick of his finger, the paper sliced in half with an invisible knife, the cut piece floating to the floor. "Precise. Untrained and it's more likeâ" He grasped the remaining piece with both hands, tearing it apart in either direction with a loud ripping sound. Unlike the cut before with a perfectly razored edge, what remained in the high Lord's fist was jagged and rough.
It made Azriel queasy to think that this was an analogy for what was going on in his mate's mind.
Rhysand's throat bobbed as he sent the paper away. "Someone tore into her memory and did fucking horrendous job at taking out what they wanted."
"So you don't know who did this?" Cassian inquired, arms woven across his chest.
Flashing him a look, Rhys said, "I'll know soon enough. The upside of their shit job is that I found traces of it left. You can't take a memory entirely, you can only rip it from consciousness. Once she's rested, I'll know exactly who we have to kill."
~
It wasn't until nearly midnight that Arwen crawled from her bed. Azriel told her she could rest until morning, but she had only snapped at him that she wanted to know what had happened and she wouldn't be sleeping anymore until she did. She held a palm to her temple the entire time they searched the others which whom they found in a dim sitting room. Nobody ever slept early in this place.
She planted herself in front of Rhysand and told him to find the memory. They stared intently at one another and Azriel was certain that Rhys was taking more caution than he usually did when he poked around.
As soon as Rhys found what he was looking for, Azriel was brought into the memory.
Four High Fae had cornered her in a hallway prior to reaching the palace. Before she could even comprehend what was happening, one had pulled a dagger and sliced it down her arm. Arwen had gaped in shock and pain, tearing herself away from them. They smiled at the blood and made a remark about how she was still 'one of them.' The daemati, a red-haired fae, entered her undefended mind and crushed the memory.
When Azriel returned to the present, solemn faces surrounded him.
"They're working for Keir," Rhys said. "I'm sure of it."
"I don't recognise them," Cassian said gruffly, readjusting his folded arms.
"I'm sorry," Arwen murmured. "I didn't have my shields up. I-I didn't thinkâ"
Rhysand squeezed her hand. "It's fine."
"What do they want?" Feyre inquired. "I'm not sure I understand."
"My attention," Rhysand answered. "And they've got it."
"They want to make a threat," Arwen filled in for her sister, pieces of the conversation still falling into place. "For entrance into Velaris. They know you've been stalling intentionally."
Feyre shook her head in confusion. "Why would they wipe your memories though?"
Azriel sat on her other side, his eyes thinned in thought. "Wanted to make sure the leverage they planned on using was vulnerable. Probably thought their daemati was strong enough to keep that memory down, at least until they executed whatever plan they've got."
Cassian flexed his fingers. "Want me to hunt them down? Chuck them into Azriel's playpen?"
Rhysand bit the inside of his cheek and looked at Arwen. "No," he decided. "Let them find her. I want to see how far they'll go."
~
Cassian hated this plan. Hated even more how Arwen accepted it. They sat with one another over a late meal and he discovered that Azriel shared the sentiment. He argued with Rhys first, drawing on Feyre for reason but their High Lord wouldn't budge and Feyre told them that she supported her mate. When Azriel realised that his efforts were wasted, he turned his pleads to Arwen. Cassian had been growing to dislike her stubbornness more and more, infuriating him even.
When the meal ended, Azriel had turned his badgering back to Rhysand. Cassian decided to follow Arwen who took her leave alone, trailing after her back to her chamber. He shut the door behind him. She sat on the edge of her bed, kicking her shoes off and eying him casually. Dragging the chair from the desk over, the two back legs scraping across the polished stone floor, he sat on it across from her and stared.
She frowned. "What is that look for?"
"I'm trying to remember your face," he said, "because come tomorrow, you'll be dead." He meant to be blunt, meant to get the reaction which he did; her startled paleness. "This is stupid, Arwen. I have no damn idea what is going through Rhys's head to think it is a good plan."
Arwen sighed and Cassian could read the tiredness in it, perhaps from hearing the same argument all through her meal. "I wish you would trust me. I have no desire for death and would not put myself so quickly before it."
"Yet you fell to a kneel to it only an hour ago, without a word of complaint."
She rose from the bed and crossed to the small dresser which had a mirror overhead. Fiddling with her jewels, she pulled each one out and tucked it neatly in a small box. Running her fingers through her hair, she tussled it and loosened it from the braid, leaving raven strands in waves, messy and free. Exactly how he loved it. "Trust me, Cassian. Or tomorrow I will be telling you 'I told you so'." Arwen turned and smiled, leaning her back against the dresser as he stood. "And we both know you hate being wrong."
"And I will hate myself if I am right about this." Cassian threw his arm out towards the door. "Is it not enough that Azriel does not want you to do this? That I do not?"
He watched her even exhale. "Rhys wants me to."
He couldn't stop his next words, and wasn't sure if he regretted them. "Rhysand's last great idea kept him trapped under a mountain for fifty years."
Arwen's eyes darkened, like a fire giving out but none of its heat was lost. "Don't hold that over his head. He did that because he thought he would be protecting his home. His family. He was tricked and spent forty-nine years paying for it."
Throat tightening, he said, "And why is he doing this? It's not protecting anyone but it's putting you in danger." He couldn't help the anger the words came with, the accusation he was laying against both her and his brother for this frustration.
She pushed off the dresser and slowly walked towards him. Her arms had to nearly stretch to their full length to rest on either one of his cheeks. "I will be in the position of least danger if they decide to act tomorrow. Don't you trust me, Cass?"
"No," he muttered. "I'm not sure I do." Not after everything, whether by her choice or by some play of fate, she had hurt him more times than he could count. Grief and guilt still sat in him, kept him up on restless nights. Hurt flickered on her face and he felt her hands beginning to withdraw but he placed his own on her wrists and kept them there, feeling the edge of the bandage under his left hand. "I trust you with my life, but I'm not sure I trust you with your own."
Her chest pressed against the constraints of her dress as she took a long breath. His eyes wandered along the bareness open to him, a faint memory settling in his mind of what that skin had felt like against his. He moved his hands along her arms, down her shoulders and her sides until they settled at her waist. He wanted to do more, to hold her in other ways but he would not cross that boundary without Azriel's knowledge.
"Then trust me with Rhys's. Trust him with mine as I trust you with mine. This isn't some mad plan that I think you expect it to be. Rhys is just going to affirm his power. Nothing he hasn't done before."
He clenched his teeth. "I will disobey him," he declared in no louder than a whisper. "If I think you are in true danger."
Her violet eyes narrowed on him, but not in anger or accusation. Almost the resignation he sought that would give him his way. "Then perhaps I should have it ordered for you to return home," she said. "I admire your protectiveness, Cass, but it's becoming insulting."
"What's insulting is that you will not listen to me. Have I ever done anything to you in ill will?" Cassian's hands dropped from her and hers dropped from his face, instead loosely scraping down his chest. "After all that I try and do for you, all that I have done and you don't listen to me when I am trying to keep you safe."
Her lips pursed as if keeping something locked away behind them. Her eyes set low on his chest as she mindlessly fiddled with the leather and the siphon planted there. "Tomorrow you will see," is all she said.
He felt like it was all being thrown outâhis care and affection for her, the instinct to protect and the willingness to stand as her shield. It felt like she was bundling in her arms and handing it all back. "You are doing the same to me as Nesta." His tone was hollow. Flat. "Refusing what I try and give."
The comparison was enough to knock her back a step, her hands falling back to her side. "If I am such a thorn in your side then go. I don't care to host you here anymore. My fate is my own responsibility, and you can rid yourself of the burden of believing it is yours." Arwen turned away from him. "And tell Azriel he can sleep in his old chambers here. I don't want to have a repeat of this conversation."
Cassian found that was already quickly coming to regret his words. He could see exactly how hard comparing her to Nesta had struck herâthe cold sister who showed little kindness and no love. Not only the complete opposite of what Arwen was, but who she wanted to be.
But before he could open his mouth, Arwen had peeked over her shoulder, eyed him and said, "Don't bother with your efforts trying to coax me back into your arms. You can find other females to satisfy you in every corner of Velaris."
It felt like a knife being dragged down his sternum. "You believe I think of you as nothing more than a night of pleasure?"
She shrugged and turned back away from him. "One night. Two. However, many you could take."
"Then you are not as good a listener as I thought."
"Words mean shit when actions speak over them."