Chapter 54
Cassian must have suspected that it would have taken more of an argument to get her to join them as they were the first, other than Amren, to arrive. She lounged in a seat by the corner of the table in her grey pants and shirt. Nothing at all had changed about this female.
"He dragged you out?" Amren wondered aloud. Arwen nodded. "Good."
"Always a pleasantry seeing you Amren," Cassian crooned, making a gesture for Arwen to stick to his side. He tipped his head back at her. "It probably only feels like a day for an old crone like her since she's seen you."
Amren leant back in her seat with a heavy sigh. "It is like you just wish for me to castrate you, Cassian. Are you so desperate for someone to play with your balls that you would risk losing them?"
He slid into a seat at the edge, pulling the one on his other side out for Arwen who followed suit. He leant onto the table. "If I wanted someone to play with my balls, I'd choose someone with hands large enough to actually feel something."
Amren snarled and pointed a finger at him. Or rather, a talon. Arwen recognised it as her last gift to Amren on Winter Solstice. She had seen them on the female more than once, and today only one sat on her pointer finger like a trophy.
"Your own hands must suit the deed perfectly then," Arwen muttered under her breath but with the lack of others to drown out her voice, the remark was met with Amren falling into deep laughter (that was honestly quite frightening at times) and Cassian glaring at the side of her head. Arwen met it and gave a small shrug. She had, in great disdain, run into a few scenes over the years where they believed themselves to be in privacy. In consequence, she had swiftly taught herself to read the signs of their moods before venturing to find them at night since her own were sleepless.
"I wouldn't have invited you along if I knew you two were going to team up against me."
"You're a general," Amren drawled. "Anticipate and strategize." As Cassian mumbled to himself, his chin perched in his palm. "And Arwen is welcome at this table, your invitation or not."
Cassian muttered to himself once more. Arwen tightened her lips into something not quite a smile, but resembled it, and tucked her hands between her legs to keep them warm. The coldâand the heatâwere worse than she remembered.
Mor walked in next, the dark markings under her eyes informing Arwen that she had stayed up well beyond the hours that she found Mor and Feyre in the sitting room. "I want to hear no talk of work," she proclaimed. As her eyes travelled over the group, pausing on Arwen, she said nothing to make note of her appearance but a smile. "We haven't had a breakfast like this in an age," she continued, sitting on Amren's left. "If the others don't hurry up, I'm going to start eating this table."
Amren flicked her talon across the table. "Cassian is desperate for someone to play with his balls if you want to chew those."
"They must be amazing since you can't stop talking about them," he grumbled as Mor blinked lethargically, trying to catch up with the conversation.
"This is not the topic I expected to walk into for breakfast," a new voice called. Azriel walked in, dressed in a variation of his leathers, two siphons displayed on the back of each hand. His gaze skidded across them and Arwen only let herself meet in for a fleeting moment before returning to the table. "I would rather discuss something that didn't want make me want to throw breakfast back up."
A round of agreement rose from Mor as Cassian bickered on the point that he deemed them well sought after. Azriel crossed to the table, laying a hand on the seat next to her. When it didn't move out, she peered up at him. He said nothing but made a gesture of a nod towards the seatâasking if she minded him seated there.
Arwen rose the shoulder closest to him, so he sat. She let the chatter ensue around her, blocking it out until it became nothing but undefined sounds like she had dunked her head underwater. That is what she had to do, to save herself from investing her energy into their world. Arwen was so successful at the task, that by the time she broke back into the world around her, Rhysand and Feyre were seating themselves directly across from her and Cassian.
Rhysand looked at her, a partial smile offered. "I wasn't sure you'd come." He glanced to his left and smiled wider. "Feyre told me that the two of you met last night."
She was beginning to wonder if coming at all had been a good idea. The attention laid upon her... Would Azriel hide her in his shadows if she asked? They already seemed to be investigating her, reaching out like snakes before shrinking back to their master. "We did."
However awkward it left the topic hanging, she didn't particularly care to continue it. Rhysand soon waved his hand and a small buffet of food was laid along the table. Arwen stilled, the sudden realisation of the choice knocking through her. Before, it had just been a plate or bowl handed to her.
What did she like? Were her tastebuds the same as before or was that too, different? Her other meals had tasted strange, but it was the memory coming back to her. Arms reached and stretched around her, plates moved and forks clanged.
A dish hovered in front of her. Arwen looked down at the serving dish that was filled with scrambled egg, then to the tanned, scarred hand it was connected to. She had liked scrambled eggs.
Her face must have betrayed her thoughts as Azriel used the serving spoon to scrape off a generous amount onto her plate. Far more than she'd eat.
"Toast?" he asked, passing the serving dish to a hungry Mor.
"Y-yes," she uttered.
He picked up the silver tray with stacked toasted bread and placed two on her plate before placing one on his own where he already had two roasted tomatoes cut in half and sausages. "Anything else?"
Arwen shook her head and picked up the fork next to her plate. The ravenous hunger in her before had tamed since sitting so she took her time, piling and spreading the egg on the bread and taking small bites into it. Light conversation continued around her that she ignored, focusing on her food until the sound of her name drew her back into it.
Feyre leant forward."I was thinking back to something I told Cassian a while ago," said the High Lady. "That I saw you once. I had died and come back too."
Arwen had just taken a bite of her breakfast and Feyre's words caused the food to lodge in her throat. Not in the way that made her cough, but the one where it was stuck and uncomfortable. She very easily recalled Feyre's temporary deathâand could guess her brother's connection to the mortal at the time. Arwen hadn't seen Feyre, but she hadn't been looking to find her.
The table lapsed into silence as Feyre's remark drew all their curiosities. Rhysand glanced at his mate with a slight frown.
"You were there, weren't you?" Feyre continued. "Under the Mountain?"
Despite the innocence of the question, Arwen found herself becoming overwhelmed with a sudden bitterness for her family's new addition. Images flashed before her. Terrible, terrible memories that would never surface to her lips. Before she could find the wordsâand perhaps saving her from something regretfulâCassian said, "Arwen doesn't remember anything. We were just talking about it on the way here."
Feyre cocked her head. "But I saw her."
"You were in Rhys's head," Cassian said with a shrug. Rhysand didn't respond to that.
"Just because she doesn't remember doesn't mean she wasn't there."
Rhysand shot out his hand, silencing Cassian's oncoming reply. "Arwen wasn't there," he declared, his voice soft but strained. "She couldn't have been." He glanced at Arwen as if waiting to see if she would argue. There was a plea in his eyes. Not to her, but to the world. Arwen answered it.
She looked back to Feyre and shook her head. "I don't remember anything," is all she said.
"Do you remember before, though?" The question came from across the table. Mor was prying apart her own scrambled egg with the prongs of her fork. Rhysand shifted in his seat. Mor looked around, but nobody continued her path of thought. "We never figured out what happened that day," she said cautiously. "Azriel and Rhys-"
It was Rhys who interrupted, his voice curt and low as he growled, "Let's not discuss this now." Arwen expected to see something akin to sympathy from him, but his eyes turned down and he rolled his unoccupied fingers into a fist along the table. Anger. Her throat hurt even, though the food had already gone down.
Arwen pushed her chair out, rising and leaving her half-eaten meal. "I didn't come here to be an oracle for your burning questions." The table watched her with an assortment of expressions. Her bare feet padded against the cold, polished floor, leaving the dining room and everything else behind. Silence reigned behind her until she was out of earshot.
She wiped the balls of her palm across the bones under her eyes, berating herself for letting tears fall in the first place, but at least they had the decency to wait for privacy. With nowhere else in mind to go, Arwen retreated to her room and curled up on the pile of pillows at the headboard.
That day had become agonising to remember. Not the poisoning or the pain it caused, but... before that all. And what came after.
There was no warning knock at her door this time, but she didn't have the energy to scold whoever stepped in. Azriel was the one to slip through the door. In his hand, her abandoned plate of breakfast.
He walked over and placed it on the bed next to her. "I know you didn't eat last night," he said. "You were recovering for a week and lost weight." He arched a single, dark brow at her, then nodded down at the plate. "Eat."
She took the plate into her lap without a word and ate her scrambled egg sandwich. Azriel sauntered from the bedside to her window, crossing his arms, standing at it like a guard. He shifted his wings slightly, a sign that they were probably still tender and in need of rest. Had he been flyingâhe never listened to Madja. Swallowing, she whispered, "You don't have to stay."
Azriel didn't look back.
Arwen chewed slowly, wanting to say something more but neither of them were in the mind for talking. She could almost forget he stood there with how silent the room was. He only turned back once the sounds of her eating had diminished. Looking down at the empty plate, he asked, "How do you feel?"
"Not like I'm going to throw up any time soon, if that's what you're asking," she replied.
"Partially," he admitted.
Still with the flame of irritation from the gathering, she remarked shortly, "You're overly terse today."
The small drop in his shoulders told her that he realised it too. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to aim it at you."
Arwen eyed his active shadows, the way tendrils lashed like short whips around his legs. "I probably haven't been making it easier," she murmured pulling at a loose thread on her blanket. It was obvious that her behaviour hadn't been anticipated. They didn't know how to... Handle her. "I'm sorry things haven't been the same."
"I'm happy they aren't."
Arwen felt the blow to her stomach and considered changing her answer to yesâshe might be throwing up.
Azriel winced. "That'sâthat sounded terrible. And not what I meant." Not knowing what to say, she said nothing at all. He carried a wrinkle between his brows as he said, "I mean that..." He rubbed his hand over his mouth. "That it has been a long time. Pretending that it was only last week I saw you, I... I can't do that. I can't pretend that I didn't watch you die in front of me. That I haven't spent half my life grieving you."
He had pretended. Maybe he didn't even need to pretend-
She threw the thought away, no matter how true she believed it. Those thoughts ate at people. Tore them down. And she was already too broken to bear one more crack. "Do whatever is easiest for you, Azriel."