Chapter 2
Cassian sought out his revenge the very next morning. Arwen awoke with a grumble forming in her throat. The sun barely slitted through her window even on the mountain's height overlooking the horizon. Not that she would have seen it anyway, as a great shadow loomed over her. He shook her when she clenched her eyes shut. Knowing that she had little choice, Arwen kicked her bedsheets away to free her legs, then nudged him away until she had room to rise.
"Out."
"And miss the show?"
She paused her digging through a drawer where she searched for her training clothes. "The show will be your broken nose when I tell Rhys that you didn't leave." A true enough threat as one ever was, but not the most effective that was in her arsenal. But threatening with Azriel felt like hypocrisy that she did not want to play into.
Cassian, with the memory of how his friend and High Lord reacted to his overnight activity with Mor many years ago, backed away with his hands open to the world. "Be up there in ten minutes," he warned her, even shutting the door behind him. Arwen smiled to herself, wiping the tire away from her eyes. Oh, Rhys had dislocated her shoulder alright, but he'd do far worse to anybody that violated his family.
The smile simmered. She hadn't gone that day with her father and brother to the Spring Court. She was glad for it, but he'd returned covered in blood as she still was, the deaths of Tamlin's brothers on his hands and a new power embodying him. He returned without their father and but with a new title. A mirror of how she found him, without her mother and with no wings.
For weeks after, she had struggled to walk, learning with her new balance as the centre of her gravity shifted, no longer compensating for wings. She had become lost during those days, spent the nights sobbing, cradled in her brother's arms as he cried silently over her.
That is why she now trained.
Because she was given a fighting chance that disaster-stricken day and she had barely made it. Barely crawled her way into the camp where Rhysand trained a new legion, blood spewing down her back, her mother's blood splayed across her cheek. She vowed never that she would ever feel that useless again. Arwen vowed that she would be strong enough to have saved the both of them.
Shutting the drawer, Arwen peeked a glance at the mirror hanging above her vanity. Tired, but she didn't look it. Dressing in fitted black trousers and a loose shirt, she left and headed to the rooftop training rings, wrapping her hands with a cloth as she went.
Waiting for her, or rather just there for training as well, were all three Illyrians. "Morning weaklings," she called, ready to rile them up and entertain herself.
"You won't be saying that after we're done today," Rhysand taunted, pointing a wooden staff at her. She only perked a brow at him in challenge, leaving him to consider what it meant in favour of warming her muscles.
Azriel and Cassian spared lightly to the side, Rhysand returning to practising manoeuvres with the staff to the air. He swung with lethal precision and air-whistling speed. Arwen knelt against the ground and prepped her arms into a push-up position, testing how her shoulder took the weight. Tense, but nothing she couldn't handle.
Even with only a month of rest she had fallen behind by a few repetitions from her usual goal but gave herself that space to have the strength return. Once her muscles felt warmed and her heart beating enough to get blood pumping, Arwen picked up another wooden staff and faced her brother.
"You're barely swatting flies away with that technique," she mocked, twisting her staff to block his downward blow. Rhysand grinned at her and struck again. Not moving out of the way in time, the wooden staff whacked her calf, leaving a sting and red line forming. Her lips rounded, a silent show of pain.
"No?"
He laughed as she led the offensiveâor more so allowing her to. He dodged and parried almost all her strikes except for one good hit to his lower back that had him cradling the area as they took a break. Arwen sat next to him, guzzling down her water. "You never told me who won the snowball fight this year," she mused, watching the other two Illyrians spar. Cassian was laughing, arm around the spymaster's neck who twisted his way out of it with a good kick to the back of the general's knee.
"I'm surprised Azriel didn't announce his victory to the entirety of Velaris."
Arwen raised her brows, shifting her gaze to focus on the spymaster. She too was surprised that he hadn't revelled in the victory. It was quite the feat as each of them spent the coming days formulating plans. She had joined one year and after a snowball to the face that knocked her cold for a few seconds, she declined to remain. "Does the defeat hurt?"
"A little," he admitted. "But it's fuel for next year and if he uses similar tactics, I'm sure to beat him." They watched the other pair for a little longer until Rhysand kneeled at her side. He placed a hand on her knee, prying her eyes towards him. Quietly, he asked, "Would you like to go flying tonight?"
Each time he asked, the question shot a different type of arrow through her. Some days it was a shot of exhilaration, the idea of wind streaming through her hair once more and to feel it rippling her clothes. Other days it was an arrow of mountain ash that crippled her. He always took her answer, for whatever it was. If she snapped at him, he nodded and left her be. If she agreed, he smiled and promised to find her that night.
It was a tradition that become when one day, young and restless, she found him sneaking from a balcony in the middle of the night. Arwen threatened tears and screams (very young, indeed) if he didn't let her come.
"I think I'll be exhausted after today," she decided.
He smiled with a tipped head. "You know I do all the work."
Arwen laughed but nodded. "If I'm awake when you find me," she agreed. He gave her knee a squeeze and stood.
"Oi!" Cassian waved his hand. His bare torso glistened with sweat and his chest moved in pants but not an inkling of tire showed in his stance or face. "You've had a month of rest, that's enough. Now that you've had a play fightâ" Rhysand scoffedâ "It's time for some actual training."
Arwen pushed back to her feet and joined him in the ring where Azriel had just left. His recent fight gave her a slight advantage that he had yet to have a break, but in almost every other aspect he overpowered her. Moving into a fighting position, hands braced in front of her, Cassian let her make the first move.
He kept the fight light enough that she kept up without too much trouble against his promise. Azriel and Rhysand mimicked them in another hand-to-hand in the next marked ring over. "Good," Cassian praised. "Remember your feet."
Arwen nodded and her consciousness drifted to their soles. Fighting, at least, she didn't have to relearn without wings. She hadn't started until after. And she was goodâa natural, Cassian had often commended. He was the finest trainer there was, though often he pushed until her limits were tested. Today seemed no different.
After moving into the pattern, he began to strike harder and faster, pulling her into holds that required more than a good elbow to the face to get herself out of. Arwen held a grin, exhilaration overriding the oncoming exhaustion. It wasn't until he managed to knock her foot out from underneath her, and she crashed into the ground sore shoulder-first that it changed.
"Cass."
Arwen squirmed under his hands that held her to the ground, not even hearing another calling of her partner.
"Cassian!"
The hands lightened. Arwen collected herself, adjusting her arm through a wince until she could bear the weight on her uninjured one instead. Rhysand and Azriel had stopped fighting, watching hers instead. "Sorry," Cassian muttered, offering a hand. "You alright?"
She took his offered hand and let him haul her to her feet. "Yep. But that counts as a punch which I asked you to avoid."
"My bad."
"You need to be more careful." Arwen narrowed her eyes, snapping them to the shadowsinger who she expected to be berating her, but his hazel irises were settled on her sparring partner. Azriel didn't shy when the attention of everybody turned to him.
Cassian poked his tongue at his cheek, blinking at his brother then down at her. He had never said anything about her complicated relationship with the shadowsinger, but like many things, he knew. "I know, I'm sorry." Though he seemed to be saying so more to her. Tossing an arm across her shoulder, hand hanging loosely in front of her chest he called for their training to be cut short. "You're unusually quiet," he said after chatting away in her ear.
"You smell of sweat so I've been holding my breath," Arwen chortled, ducking out of his arm. Cassian stood for a moment with offence crafted into his features before launching after her, hooking an arm around her neck once more, holding tight enough that no amount of squirming would set her free.
Arwen laughed freely, bent with her head level with his stomach and the prints of her fingers marking his arms. He smelt worse even closer. "I'm choking! The air is toxic!" Her cheek was slick with sweat, filling her stomach with a vile feeling. Her fisted hands beat into him. "Rhysie!" She called out, praying for her brother's assistance.
"Rhysie? No, I'm good," she heard him say from some distance away. Arwen cursed at herself, knowing she should have pampered him with compliments beforehand. Underneath them, she could see the edge of the rooftop nearing, and past it, the steep mountain slope that led to Velaris below.
Arwen threw both her arms around his muscled thigh and heaved her weight against him. For a moment, the general balanced, then he lifted a leg, then they both went tumbling to the side. Still they struggled, wrestling to keep the other to the ground. She didn't even care that her shoulder was twinging with pain again.
Arwen had felt the wind under the foot that hung from the end of the roof. It grew and grew and she struggled to keep herself atop of her opponent who had somehow managed to twist them around. Looming over her, her only warning was a flash of a grin, then he rolledâlurching them both off the edge.
There was no instinct in her to gasp, not even to be frightened of the falling sensation. Illyrians weren't scared of being in the air, they weren't born with the fear of falling. The two figures plummeted for a few seconds, black hair whipping around them both, the mountain behind him. Shadows of leathery flesh grew larger and wider.
A large hand clasped around her calf, pulling her fall to a sudden halt. A sharp ripple of air hitting wings sounded and the mountain stopped moving, Arwen looking at the world upside down. "You oaf," she chuckled. Cassian soared above her, holding her leg in a single hand so she hung upside down underneath him.
"That's not a nice thing to call the person who is holding your life in his hands."
"You'd catch me."
He raised a brow, looking down at her. "Would I?"
Arwen pondered for a moment, peeking down underneath her. It was still a fair way to fall. Without offering him warning, she twisted her leg around in a manoeuvre that force his fingers to unclasp lest her broke his hand. Wind tore at her once more, barely able to see anything by the winged figure against the pale sky as thick tendrils of black encased all sides of her sight.
She knew, with every drop of her blood, with every grain of her skin that he would catch her. The question was how long he'd wait and let the panic settle in that there was always a chance that he may not. Arwen flipped herself around, the city below her, though she would hit the bottom of the mountainside before she levelled with the true ground. She could almost imagine it again; spreading her wings at the last moment. So very much at the last moment that it was often that Rhys flew close enough to catch her. When she'd break into flight, she would catch his head shaking softly, swallowing away a growing paleness. A troublemaker, he'd call her, for making him worry. Arwen knew he wasn't lying for she would hear his heart racing.
Only it wasn't her that waited until the last moment that day. Arwen could see her shadow on the stone growing larger and closer, warning her. She could see the second closing in, but at a speed well below what he was capable of. The buildings and the shimmering sapphire of the Sidra disappeared, her vision encased by the red stone mountain that bore her home.
The pattern of the blur changed, her arm stretched towards the ground, just a few feet from reaching it as she swung like a plucked pendulum. Cassian had taken her leg again and her laughter continued to reach his ears as he swerved around the low lying rocks. Blood pooled in her head which became a beating cherry by the time he took her back to the rooftop.
Rhysand and Azriel conversed, arms folded without an inkling of concern of either's face at their disappearance. It was her laughter that drew their attention back and Rhysand cocked his head in mirth at her predicament. Cassian hovered just above the ground, her fingers barely scraping the rooftop but he would not let her go.
"Dearest brother, glorious High Lord and the best Illyrian and High Fae there ever was or is to be," she sang, nausea starting to travel into her throat, "please get me down." Cassian teased her by dropping lower until her entire palm flattened, then lifted again so she could not reach anything. This time, she didn't fancy twisting herself out and knocking her head against the hard ground.
Rhysand strode forward, arms remained tucked into one another, stopping a few feet away. "That is quite the string of compliments," he noted. She hovered head-to-head with him. He looked rather odd upside down. "But you do look absolutely glorious yourself from this angle."
"Must be a family trait," she hummed, head starting to pound. Seeing that she'd receive no help from her own blood, she reached down to the ground again, examining whether she could use her hands to hold herself while she slithered out of the general's hold.
The examination never calculated the results. An arm wrapped around her back, another around the front of her legs. Even if Arwen was blind, she would know, even if she couldn't smell his scent of cedar, she would know. She would always know. The hand on her leg unlatched, and gently, her posture was corrected. "Thank you."
Before she had felt the bond, they were friends. More than that, they were family. She had grown in their shadows, watched them fight and begged them to teach her to fly before her mother allowed it. They had laid out, watching the stars, laughing, and drinking. That hasn't changed. Just the way she feels when they do.
"My only saviour," Arwen added pointedly.
"I caught you," Cassian defended haughtily. Brushing off her sleeves, she then ran her fingers through her windswept hair, very much aware of the spymaster's looming presence at her side. He never said much, but now she wasn't sure if it was his natural reservation or the shift between them that caused it so often.
"I would have come if I heard screams," Rhysand said.
Arwen sent her brother a mocking glare over the spymaster's shoulder. "I'm going to take a bath and get the sweat that isn't mine off me before it seeps into me, and I start permanently smelling like that oaf." Clearly, there was no need to further identify who 'oaf' was when Rhysand and Azriel both laughed towards the general.
Before she was out of ear shot, Azriel called her name. Turning, she waited for him to speak. Cassian was muttering to Rhysand behind him, smelling his arm then holding it out for her brother to sniff (who eagerly refused). "Probably want to brush your hair while you're at it."
Arwen's lips curled in disbelief. She flipped a finger to him which set him into a quiet laugh that didn't reach her ears, but she could see the rise of his lips and the movement in his shoulders. Her own smile lasted until she returned to her room and found herself looking in the mirror.
She only had one tattoo. One bargain. Black swirls crossed over one of her shoulders, a tendril flicking up the nape of her neck the others stretching down towards her elbow where they stopped. It wasn't the bargain that wavered her smiledâshe loved the bargain. She loved what it meant. It was what it had come from that hurt.