Chapter 50
Arwen's heart raced. She hadn't yet opened her eyes, but something swathed her. Trapped her. Something beneath her and above her, lain over her arms and legs. And darkness. Arwen knew of darknessâshe could blink and close her eyes after all. But not of the one that took people in sleep. Not of the one where she did not know what was happening to her body.
Finally peeling her eyes open, she destroyed it. Light pierced through the world around her, illuminating what kept her in place. A blanket. It was white and puffed out, likely stuffed with feathers of geese or some more exotic bird. Arwen lay under it, her head against something equally as soft.
Her fingertips moved over the sheet underneath her, and the sound of fabric scratching hit her ears as she inched her neck up. It made her feel sick. So much to feel. Things she hadn't felt in centuries. Her spine writhed and twisted, trying to get away from the sensations drowning her. Kicking her legs, the blanket folded on itself, piling at her feet which she yanked free.
Arwen flung herself off the bed. The ground met her knees with a painful sting that went into her thighs and hips. Her mouth flew open, a pained gasp trapping in her throat. Pain that she hadn't been able to feel in over two centuries. Her fingers splayed across the wood, feeling each grain and the coldness. She hated that too.
Bile rose into her throat as she pushed to her feet, only to feel the wood on them as well. But it was less striking through the soles of her feet than through the palms of her hands. Chest tightening, Arwen examined the room.
A bedchamber. Simple, but elegant with cream and pale pink décor. The curtains were draped in front of the windows, half pulled open but the translucent layer behind it pulled closed to haze the sight beyond. It was a spare bedroom in the House of Wind. She'd seen it a thousand times.
Arwen clutched at her arms, running over the fabric of the velvet dress, the only thing other than her skin and hair that she had been able to feel since she died, between her fingers. The familiarity soothed her, allowed her to centre her focus.
She looked down at the bed, at the soft ripples in the bedding that marked her existence there. That could be seen.
She made a mark.
She made a mark.
She had been asleep. The velvet dress crinkled at her tightening fingers. Her body felt different as well. Heavier. The soles of her feet pressed into the wood and her knees felt the ache of her weight on them. Arwen shifted to test it. A throbbing beat through her body, between each joint.
The sudden realisation that she was breathing made her knees buckle. Hand shooting to her throat, she felt the air go in and out. Her lungs cried for it when she tried to stop. Eyes wide and unfocused, Arwen turned on her heels, found the door and marched towards it.
She stopped, nose a hair away from the wood.
Usually, she would walk straight through it. Today was different though.
Her hand rose from beside her hip, fingers curling in anticipation as she reached for the rounded handle. The cold metal made her flinch and that sickening feeling returned to her stomach. Forcing herself to hold it, she turned the knob and the door creaked open. Releasing it, Arwen wiped her hand on her dress and twisted her shoulders to slide through the crack between the door and the threshold that its natural swing offered, unwilling to touch more than necessary.
Perhaps Rhysand had pulled into whatever was beyond death. He had died too, after all. And this was her eternity. The thought made her nose wrinkle, despising whatever deity or fate decided that this would be her eternity after the torture it took to get there.
The hallway was barren except for the gentle draft that came through one of the glasses windows. Arwen shrunk away from it, then decided to dash across to the other side where it was weaker. The slap of her feet against the cold ground echoed.
She made sound.
Stopping meant feeling, so she kept going, ignoring everything but the path ahead of her. The House of Wind was familiar to her as the back of her own hand, even during the time of her life, yet it felt foreign to walk down its halls again.
Arwen turned into one of its many sitting rooms and stopped.
Sitting on the loveseat before the unlit hearth, were Cassian and Mor. They sat to face each other, talking in soft murmurs that ended the moment Arwen arrived. They looked over the back of the loveseat and immediately rose to their feet.
"Arwen," Mor called, the planes of her face pulled into relief.
They saw her. They looked upon her as she looked upon them. They were not dead, not at least from what she had watched of the war against Hybern. And if they saw her, that meant that she was there with them. Not in some distant realm, not a spirit trapped. Arwen was there, in their world. Rhysand had brought her back.
The thought locked her body down.
Mor careened around the loveseat, the stunning dress of ruby moving with her body. Cassian trailed behind her, slower. Arwen eyed Mor, the way her eyes traced Arwen's body. Breathed her in like she'd forgotten how she looked. It stung.
Her gaze dropped to Mor's hand which reached out towards her as she stood as still as death. It turned and cupped the air, making a line for her arm.
Arwen let out a whimper and fled away from it, pulling her arms to herself before Mor could touch her. The blonde Fae retracted her hand, hurt flashing through her eyes. Mor glanced over her shoulder towards Cassian who moved to her side.
"Arwen?" He took another step forward, his arms hanging loosely by his side. "Sweetheart?"
The name sent a shot of agony through her. Arwen observed him back. He hadn't changed. Neither of them had. Perhaps it was because she had seen them day in and day out for two hundred years that she wouldn't notice anything, but even upon her return after fifty years, they were still the same.
"Are you in pain?"
There was no voice in her to answer. She wasn't in pain but the world around her was painful. It was bright and loud and heavy and... Arwen looked around them, unable to hold their gaze but even the feeling of it on her made her spine writhe again. Taking a half-step to the side, the muscles in her leg seized at the feeling of a carpet rug rubbing against her foot's sole. She leapt away from it, holding her foot up until she was sure there was only wood again.
"Hey, hey, hey." Cassian had moved forward again, his hands raised with small waves downwards. "You're safe. You're home." He turned one hand over, stretched towards her like Mor's had, only his palm faced the ceiling. An offering.
Arwen did not move to take it. She didn't want to be touched or held. As much as she used to beg for it, the thought of it now, so long after she had given up made her nauseous. She had stood in front of him for decades, pleading with himâwith them allâto just see her. And it had been refused to her when she most needed it.
Cassian's eyes diverted to somewhere over her shoulder. Arwen's ears twitched, hearing the footsteps that he did and she twisted her neck to peer at the archway. Rhysand came turning in, Amren at his side.
He only looked at her. Violets, the mirror of hers, flickered up and down her body. His mouth parted and a short puff of air blew out of them. She could read it all, everything that he was thinking. A single word came from him, as though he had lost sense of all else. "Hi."
A meek moan rose in the back of her throat. There were too many eyes on her, too many things that were crashing down on her at once that she didn't have the mind to process each one. They all barged in together, fighting for space in her head.
His boot lifted from the floor and the sight of it moving towards her sent her leaping away. Her feet made contact with the rug again and the muscles in her calves seized. Unable to move forward, Arwen veered back, blindly searching her way off it. Her hip banged against something, the sharp corner of whatever it was piercing the back of her hip. In a wild, instinctive attempt to escape it, she twisted her hips and stumbled to the side. But her own weight was too much and she fell to the floor.
Arwen screamed as the itchiness of the rug enveloped her hands and her exposed knee from the slit in her dress. It was too much. It was too much. The pain in her hip, the rug, the weight of her own body, the way her lungs ached for air. Chaos ensued both around and in her.
She was stuck.
Their voices mixed with the one in her mind, undefined and loud. Something crawled up her back and vomit started pooling in her throat again. The world tipped and veered around her as she blindly scrambled away from it all. But there was no escape.
"Rhys. Do something!"
With a single blink, the world went back to that dark. It wasn't the dark from behind her eyes or the darkness of sleep or death. In fact, it wasn't really dark at all, because Arwen couldn't see. There was nothing. She couldn't feel the rug anymore, or the eyes raining down on her. The pain in her hip had gone. All of it, gone.
Arwen focused instead on each breath, letting them fill her lungs even though she couldn't see her own body. Something touched her face, something she couldn't see. She flinched away from it and then that feeling was gone as well.
The nothingness remained her only companion for some time. It did not scare her. A part of her hoped it would stay.
But alas, it had not been a common thing for her since her death to get what she pleased. With another blink, the world returned. Arwen curled herself up in preparation for what it would come at her with, but it was something she had already felt. Her hands ran over the smooth sheets, the blanket still kicked down at the base of the bed. It wasn't great, but it wasn't overwhelming.
Rhysand crouched next to it. She looked away.
"You can mock me for my poor choice of greeting," he said. Her ears twitched as the deep tone shot through to her core. He was speaking to her. "But in my defence, I don't think anybody knows what to say."
She offered no reply. He placed his hand on the bedding, but one hard look from her and he kept it still.
"Do you need anything?"
No.
"Would you like me to go?"
Yes.
Arwen knew he was taking the answers from her mind. He tightened his lips into an understanding smile. The hand on the bedding furled and he tapped his knuckles softly against it. She turned her head away as he stood, but peeked out of the corner of her eye as he retreated to the door.
Rhysand paused at it, looking back. She didn't move. He offered another solemn smile and left.