Chapter 37
Arwen wrinkled her nose at the morose gloom of Windhaven. It had been many years since she deigned to step foot in such a place, and if it wasn't for the three Illyrians next to her, she wouldn't dare. From neck to toes she was clad in her leathers. A sword was strapped to her back, albeit the length far more suited to her stature compared to Cassian's great sword holstered in the same manner.
She observed the camp as they strode through it towards Rhysand's small cabin. Delvon was aware of their arrival, the letter sent a week prior, but not of their true intention.
Rhysand and Cassian had been deliberating ways of bringing the females into training for months now. Years, really. It had never been done before in Illyria's history and considering their kind's history, it wouldn't be a pulled-off in a day. Illyrians and Fae alike still tested her brother's reign but now he finally had his claws deep enough into his court to begin this endeavour. And Arwen was finally ready.
They needed to plant the idea in the females' minds firstâshow them that they were capable of training. She would be the demonstration; the test and the stick to poke the males with to see how they would react. How Rhysand should prepare when he brings in the official laws.
"Can't say I missed this place," she muttered. Cassian grunted on her right.
"I believe this is where you cut Cassian's hair off once," Rhysand remarked on her other side, his light tone still serrated with caution as they weaved around the other Illyrians. They stared; some scowled or growled snide comments.
Arwen's lips tilted up at the memory he showed her. She had been curious, at her young age, whether letter openers were capable of cutting through more than envelopes. Her hypothesis was proven right.
"I was wondering why I had a sudden aversion standing next to you," Cassian groused but a scant glance in his direction was met with a shadow of a smile meant only for her.
On Cassian's far side, Azriel silently prowled alongside them, armed to the tooth and his siphons gleaming in warning. All seven on them. Arwen spied him for a few more steps but he was too occupied with studying every inch of the camp, shadows swirling around his arms, to notice.
They hadn't spoken of their shared moment, but it hadn't worried her. They both hadn't a chance to sit alone. He had been called back to Hewn City, then he visited the Spring Court and Autumn Court to investigate the extent of their tempestuous relationship. At her own request he hunted down Ianthe's location, who appeared to have remained in the Spring Court.
Arwen concluded that he needed the time that these tasks gave him, in any case. Azriel needed the space and seclusion to unravel his thoughts in the same way that she relied on company.
Her pace quickened at the sight of the warded cabin, the handle unlatching at her touch. She kicked the snow off her boots and slipped inside. She didn't miss this place either. "Mother's fucking tits it's cold."
"Language," Rhysand drawled as he trailed in behind her.
Arwen shrugged. "Cassian says it."
Cassian held his hands in surrender. "I withheld all foul language until she was twenty. After that I'm not responsible for what comes out of her mouth. Besides, you're an idiot if you think that's the worse thing she'll hear here."
Rhysand scowled as he waved through the air, their packs appearing. "Don't remind me. Delvon has some... Issues he'd like to raise with me. I suspect I'll be gone for most of the evening."
Arwen held her arms, her lips shaking with an extended breath. Azriel, still silent as ever, took a gentle hold of her elbow and guided her a few feet across the room. The fireplace she had her back turned to had been struck alight with magic. "Thanks."
Cassian leant against the end of the mantle. "Az and I won't let her out of our sights," he promised. He cocked his head towards her. "You sure you're up for it, kid?"
She looked at him, then her brother and finally Azriel who remained just behind her shoulder. "If I say no do I get to go back somewhere warmer?" She frowned as three distinct laughs softly filled the room. Fine then. "We're going over to the training rings this afternoon?"
Rhysand shook his head. "We'll wait till morning when I'm done with Delvon."
Arwen frowned again. "I trust Cass and Azriel with my life. We'll be fine to go downâ"
"It's not them or you I don't trust," he interjected calmly. "But the camps are still... Getting used to my choice of court. If they start something, it might leave you vulnerable."
She stared at him with a softened glare. It was true that they had predicted the uprise of certain Illyrians against their bastard-born General Commander and even against Azriel but Arwen knew they could handle it. And she could handle herself alone long enough until it had been dealt with.
It wasn't her fear of Illyrians that founded her aversion to the camps, though she could not deny they played a part. It wasn't even the camps themselves. But they were outside of Velaris and anything outside of Velaris made her uneasy. And perhaps Rhys felt the same way for her.
"Morning then," she agreed. "What are we going to do until then?"
"Thought we could go shopping," Cassian mocked. "Try on the latest leathers."
"Stay inside," Azriel drawled. "Where it's warm and we don't have to look at them."
Arwen poised her brows high at him. "Someone's grouchy," she mused.
The corner of his lips twitched. "Not grouchy," he murmured. Arwen almost snortedâshe never thought she'd hear him say such a word. "Just not in the mind to tolerate animals making snide comments around every corner."
"Inside then," she said after a moment where nobody else responded.
Rhysand soon left, leaving them to their own. They lingered in the main sitting room together, first playing a board game which Arwen miraculously won before moving on to their own ideas of passing the time. Cassian took to sharpening his sword whilst Arwen extracted her sketchbook from of her pack and began etching in the light details of the cabin as she sat on the main lounge. Azriel sat next to her. For some time she was enraptured by her mind's eye and didn't care to pay attention to what he was doing until she decided to swap her graphite pencil for a stick of charcoal. He sat still, head turned so he could diligently watch what she had been doing.
"That's a bit unnerving," she muttered to him but revealed her play with a small smile. "I'm surprised you've never been noticed with your spying if that's how intense it feels to be under your scrutiny."
"I'm usually watching from a distance," he said.
Arwen bit her lip to smother her chuckle that rose at his blunt answer. "Let me give you something a bit more interesting to watch then." Abandoning the detailed sketch of the cabin's sitting room, she flipped back a number of pages until she landed on a half-finished drawing.
Azriel snorted then lamely tried to cover it with a husky cough behind his fist. Cassian, sitting on the end of the dining table, foot perched on one of the chairs with his sword across his lap, glanced up at the sound. Arwen sunk deeper into the lounge, using her bent knees to angle the paper away from the warrior.
In her lap, marvellously detailed, was a sketch of the general. He had given her that book on Illyrian anatomy for her birthday after all. But in place of the great Illyrian wings with their hooked talon, she decided to take inspiration from a butterfly that had flown through the garden she was overlooking.
Licking her lips, she snuck another look at the spymaster. He still leant close to her shoulder, his lips almost white from pressing them together to smother the same grin she was. Humming in content of his reaction, Arwen picked up where she had left off on it.
"I'm not sure if I want to ask," Azriel murmured into her ear, "but have you... Redesigned me?"
She swallowed a croak in her throat down. "Not yet," she said, leaving the possibility hanging. "But I have drawn you once or twice if that's what you actually want to know." Craning her neck, she watched his face for the answer, knowing it wouldn't be spoken into her ear.
Azriel focused on her but fleetingly looked back down into her lap.
Arwen handed him the book. "You can look through."
It took a second for him to break from his stillness, but curiosity seemed to get the better of him as he turned his full attention to her drawings. His body shifted away from hers, settling back into the lounge, hunched over the images now displayed on his thighs. Arwen simply watched him as he explored the work of her mind. He stopped on every drawing, no matter how unfinished or plain the subject. He took in every line and shade, every smudge from her hand and every miss-stroke.
"What's so interesting over there?"
She tore her eyes away from her mate to roll them at Cassian. "Can't help but stick your nose in everything," she crooned. "It's my sketchbook. If you want, I'll spend the rest of the evening detailing each one for you so you're not missing out."
Cassian swiftly moved his eyes back down to his prized blade. "No, it's fine. I'll get something for dinner started."
"That's what I thought," she muttered to herself as he slunk from the room into the small kitchen.
"There's none in here of you."
Arwen twisted her head back around to Azriel. "What?"
"You," he said, making a small lift of the book's spine in emphasis. "There's not a single portrait of you in here."
She laughed. "Of course there's not. I'm not about to spend hours of my time sketching myself. There are far more interesting things to draw."
"But you drew me." Azriel looked down at the page the book sat on. It was something of a full length portrait but beheld the scene of the Sidra behind him. It was from the night that he pulled her from Rita's and they talked under the pavilion as it rained. She hadn't finished the details of the river, nor the garden around the pavilion but he was utterly complete.
Arwen could only shrug with an unsure smile. "Would you draw yourself?" she challenged.
He blinked towards the carpeted floor. "No. But you should."
She laughed again, but the sound cracked. "I... I don't draw things like that for the sake of it. I draw memories. Feelings. Things that I want to remember." Patting her knees, Arwen pushed to her feet. "I'm going to help Cass with dinner. Hopefully Rhys is home soon."
Rhysand didn't come home soon. By the strike of the next hour, the warm scent of stew graced the cabin and there was no sign of her brother. So Arwen only put three bowls on the dining table as Cassian brought the serving pot over.
"Magnificent," he declared, sucking off his forefinger.
Arwen tried to ignore the fact that he stuck it into the main serving of stew and tucked herself into his side. "Thank you, Cass. It smells wonderful." She kissed his cheek. It wasn't a compliment the dinner deservedâsomething he probably knew tooâbut she was holding to her silent promise that she would never speak ill to him when it came to his visits at the camps. Not when the moment he stepped outside, insults would be hurled at him and his position undermined. She would not let this space for him, safe inside the walls of the warded cabin, feel anything less than a sanctuary.
"Does it make up for the incident with the potatoes?" he asked.
Arwen laughed and shook her head as she moved around the table. "No, nothing ever will." Taking her chair, she untucked it from underneath the table but noticed a distinct lack of movement from the sitting area. With a glance over her shoulder, she found Azriel still sitting with her sketchbook. "Az?" No answer. With her brows pressing together curiously, a small smile still stable on her lips, she wandered to the back of the lounge. "Azriel," she said again, placing a hand on his shoulder. He jolted under her touch, gaze cutting over his shoulder to her. "Dinner's ready."
Whatever lingered of his thoughts swept away at her words, leaving her with no hint of what they had been. He left her sketchbook closed on the stand next to the lounge. Dinner was as normal as it was and she could almost forget that outside there were brutes who despised her existence. How ironic it was that they initially loathed the High Fae part of her history, and now wingless, they would dismiss the Illyrian part of her. But they were consistent in that they despised her equally through both sections of her life.
Arwen stood in front of the window. It was dark outside, save for the sparse licks of flames of mounted torches. They had just finished cleaning up their supper and there was still no sign of Rhysand. "I'm worried about him."
"He's fine," said Cassian. With a scant look in his direction, she watched him tap his temple. "Told me so himself. Just running later than he thought."
It did put some unease to rest, but Arwen still didn't move away from the window. She wouldn't admit Cassian or Azriel her thoughts, but she didn't feel safe without her brother whilst she was inside the grounds of the camp. Arwen trusted Cassian and Azriel with her lifeâthat had never been a lieâbut if something happened, it was her brother she wanted around. "I'm going to stay up a while."
"You'll need your rest for tomorrow," Cassian reminded her. "Which is what I'm going to get." He offered a squeeze to her bicep before moving out of the kitchen, his heavy steps echoing down from the short hall.
"He's right."
Arwen glanced at Azriel's reflection in the glass. "Don't tell me not to worry."
"I won't," he said. "But you can worry away from the window and closer to the fire where it's warmer."
She managed a scoff at that, but something unconscious in her obliged as she turned around. Azriel gave a low smile and walked with her to the sitting room, sinking down into the lounge next to her. "What had you so distracted before dinner?" she inquired.
"Nothing important," he said. "Just how... You called me a prick." Arwen baulked, her lips parting in a quick defence to tell him that she never called him such a thing. But she had. Weeks ago now, but she had. Azriel didn't look at her as he continued speaking. "I have been. Something Cassian said a while ago stuck with me and that was that I haven't only been denying myself a mate, I've been denying you one as well. I didn't want to see it like that, but every time I imagine someone else as your mate doing what I haveâsaying what I didâI... I want them dead." His low voice was honed with dangerous promise and she had no trace of doubt that every word was raw truth.
"Some people aren't even lucky enough to meet their mates," she whispered. "Some people aren't lucky enough to have them as a friend. Some people aren't lucky enough to know, that despite never speaking of the bond, he would do anything for me. And know that I would go to the ends of the world for him too."
Azriel stared into the fire, blinking consistently.
Whatever the conversation was, he had spoken all he had intended to and Arwen took it as a victory. She didn't know exactly what she wanted from him, whether she truly desired more from their relationship or just a reassurance that he cared. But it still didn't worry her; because her words were true. Many weren't lucky enough to have their mate as someone that they considered family. Some females may claim that she had the most fortunate circumstance, for Azriel never once set a claim on her. And now that she understood what had happened all those years ago, now that they had spoken of it, she was okay.
Arwen settled into the lounge, giving another look to the empty window next to the door before laying her head on a pillow, determined to wait for her brother's return.
~
Arwen jolted as something dark hovered over her. The shadow moved and the sensation of a light pressure on her head lingered. Though she still couldn't see as her eyes adjusted, she smelt him. "Rhys?"
A soft sigh came as the shadow lowered once more and he crouched before her on the lounge. The fire behind him was out and not a single light came from the windows on the moonless night. "I didn't mean to wake you."
"You're so late," she said, her voice dry with sleep.
"I know," he whispered. "There were some things that came up and... I needed some space before I came back."
Arwen sat up, rubbing at her eyes. "Is everything okay?"
"Fine," he whispered again. The word sent her into a haze of ire, but he must have had sight more adjusted for the darkness and seen her face because he added, "I'm fine, that's not a lie. Delvon just likes infuriating me and I didn't want to bring that back here. Why aren't you in bed, or Azriel for that matter?"
Her eyes parted even wider as she looked to her side. Sure enough, the spymaster sat on the opposite end of the lounge, tipped against the pillow, but his legs stretched to the floor. "I was waiting for you," she told him.
In her mind's logic, she knew that it wasn't any Illyrian who cut out her wings. But she had been in these mountains, between these trees just beyond the borders of a camp. The distinct scent of the earth here was the same as when Tamlin pushed her face into the ground, pinning her still. She supposed she should have felt safer inside the camp, where Tamlin and his family would never dare set foot inside uninvited, but it wasn't the camp that she had run to.
"I wasn't far." His calloused hand, tainted with coldness from being outside, laid against the side of her face. It held her steady as he leaned forward, resting the slope of her forehead into the crook between his own and nose. "I promise."
Arwen closed her eyes and concentrated on his touch. He was right. Nobody would touch her here. She was safe. And if she wasn't, he was right in front of her. "I know."
She felt the twitch of his skin and she opened her eyes again, faintly making out the smile. "Come to bed now that you're awake." With a heavy sigh, Arwen pressed off the lounge, but her eyes fell to Azriel's still sleeping form. "I'll wake him when I come back."
She agreed with a loose nod and they padded down the hall towards the small room they shared. Azriel and Cassian shared the other, considering the small cabin only had two bedrooms. He left her at the door so she could change and he returned to awaken Azriel. Arwen's lips tilted into a small smile hearing the spymaster's deep grumbles of ache from his choice of position.
Until a bout of dizziness enveloped her. Arwen stumbled blindly, the room in complete darkness except for the silhouettes of shadows. She caught the lip of the dresser with one hand, the other lifting to her chest. She stood there in the dark until the door opened again.
"Sweetheart?"
Arwen stood straight, dropping her hand. "I'm fine," she said, frowning to her feet. The feeling had moved on. "Goodnight, Rhys." Walking to her bed, she slipped in and listened to his movements following. A headache lingered.