Chapter 59
Arwen stared at the painting before her. It was taller than she was and stretched the length of her arms. An extravagant, almost gaudy, golden frame hosted the picture of her mother. Her father's hung just to the left of it.
A low whistle had her head turning, eyes slowly removing from the strokes of paint. Cassian stood a few feet away at the junction of the corridor. "Breakfast," he told her.
Arwen looked back at the painting. Usually, art would ignite something within her. It was why the Rainbow had been one of her favourite places in the city, just below that bridge on the Sidra. But today, when she looked upon what used to be her favourite in the House of Wind, she felt nothing.
Rhysand had kept their mother's portrait up. Had kept her memory. A female of his close family who had died a brutal death. Murdered. Just as Arwen had died, yet the space where her portrait once hung (though smaller), still lay bare.
"I'm not hungry."
She heard Cassian's sigh and the heavy steps he took to reach her side. "I don't particularly care, princess," he said. "You're coming to breakfast."
Arwen had awoken with company in her room that morning. Azriel had pulled her favourite chair away from the window to sit beside her bed. She had barked at him for moving the chair and once he stood, dragged it back into place. In her pathetic defence, it felt like she barely had a wink of sleep. And her wristsâthey were tender.
This voice, right in the back of her head, above the nape of her neck, kept whispering to her. It was indistinguishable, but nonetheless, she understood what it tried to tell her.
"Do I look like one of your soldiers?" she muttered. "You don't order me."
In the corner of her eye, Cassian peaked a single brow. "I'll ignore that in consideration that you had a rough night. But you're still coming to breakfast. I've got to go back down to the camps today and I won't be back until tomorrow. I leave after this morning."
A stone dropped in her stomach.
Cassian smiled flatly. "Regret your words now?"
Stubborn, she said, "No."
He tipped his head towards the adjoining corridor, the smile growing softer. "Come on."
His hand clasped at her elbow. Arwen yanked her arm away from him, earning a shocked, but not irate, expression. She replaced the connection by gripping his wrist. Her choice. Her holdâher grip. What the voice in her head denied she had the ability of.
Arwen had two choices in her spirit realm.
It only took a year before she mastered control over her body to move through things, to let the tether pull her freely to and from the mountaintops and out of the borders of the Night Court. She could isolate it, stepping through doors so her foot landed solidly on the other side. Nothing, not even the stone of the mountain could stop her from moving through it if she desired.
Or she could remain solid. But she could not touch, nor feel, nor move anything. The corporal realm held power; it would move her if she remained in its way. On the streets of Velaris, she had been trampled once. Didn't feel the pain of their feet, but bodies rammed hers until she gathered the control to switch over to a form that let them walk through her.
So now Arwen wanted that control back.
Cassian said nothing about the change.
Only Mor was present for breakfast. The whereabouts of Feyre and Rhysand, whom she knew to have stayed in the House, were unknown to Cassian and Mor. Azriel had shadow travelled somewhere also unknown after their interaction.
"I'm taking the day off," Mor said, smiling across the table at Cassian and Arwen.
Arwen glanced up from her near-empty plate, peering first at Cassian then at her cousin. Cassian pretended to have no recognition of the obvious. Mor had work to doâplenty of itâbut they were keeping someone around the House. Around Arwen.
Mor continued. "Is there something you want to do today? We could relax and drink wine on a balcony."
Cassian snorted. "Could you not think of something a little more invigorating?"
"Says the male who takes naps whenever and wherever he can," Mor replied, her red-painted lips pursing forward. "Besides, I hardly feel like climbing a mountain right now. And Arwen looks like she barely slept a minute." Eyes ran over her again. "How was last night?"
Arwen parted her dry lips, but Cassian answered in her place. "It was fine. Arwen and I just stayed up late."
Mor frowned as she picked out the tomato mixed into her omelette. Arwen offered a derisive smile. "Fucking."
Cassian, who had poorly timed his drink, choked. The juice splayed across the table and even Mor balked in her seat. Arwen's smile dropped as she slumped her chin into her palm and scraped the prongs of her fork across the top of her dry toast. She wasn't in the mood for light banter but wanted her voice heard at least once.
"Well," Mor chirped tightly. "Explains the tiredness and your current interest in invigorating activities."
"Arwen wants me slaughtered for some unknown reason," he growled, glaring at the side of Arwen's head. "Azriel is already up my fucking arse without the help of your comments."
Arwen stared at the far wall, bringing her own juice to her lips. Into the glass, she murmured, "Azriel wants to fuck Elain Archeron. I'm sure he wouldn't mind."
She could take the knife from Cassian's thigh and cut the air with it. "Where did you hear that?" he rasped out. Arwen only shrugged since she hadn't heard it from anywhere technically. "Arwen, that's not true."
Mor made a point to Cassian. "She's as boring as a wallflower that one. And Azriel is your mate, Arwen, just as you are his."
Arwen shrugged again, biting into her toast. Mor and Cassian looked at each other and she could see the debate happening between them. They decided to leave the topic and Arwen lost interest in listening. The only thing she picked up on was that Rhysand had gone to the library underneath the House to study something.
Mor ended up following her around, but Arwen had promised Cassian that she wouldn't return to her room until at least late afternoon. So she listened to the perky blonde and although Arwen was hardly in the mood, she knew that on another day, perhaps, she would appreciate her cousin's effort. It just so happened that it wasn't a good day for Arwen.
The muscles at her jaw's hinge swelled as her teeth were set in a permanent clench. The nightmare remained engrained in her thoughts. Was it to be called a nightmare if it had emerged from her own memories?
Her heartbeat thumped into her ears, the artery in her neck pulsating and twitching.
They stood in one of the darker sitting rooms, the hearth alight to supply light as only two small windows on the far wall offered the remnants of daylight. The dark rug that used to cover much of the floor had been removed recently. Mor dropped herself onto the lounge, ranting about Nesta who Arwen could find little care to think of at that moment.
Arwen ran her finger over the top of an ornamental glass vase. It was cold, despite being displayed near the fire and the edge, even rounded, felt sharp against the pad of her index finger.
Arwen could touch it.
She could move it.
Could break it.
Mor jumped from her seat as the vase shattered at Arwen's feet.
"Are you alright?" she fussed.
Arwen looked down at the glass with an infectious glee spreading through her. She had done that. She had finally done, what she had begged the world to let her do, for so long. The glee curdled inside of her, reforming into something else.
"Arwen?"
Arwen meandered around the lake of glass and set her eyes on the unlit candlestick holder sitting on the narrow display above the hearth. The three metal strips were curved into whorls, each one higher than the one before. Knocking it off, it landed on the stone floor with a resounding clang.
The anger piled onto her. The anger from the years of screaming at them, doing anything she could to get their attention. Now she could make her mark. Now she could get their attention. Arwen set her sights on a display shelf on the wall. Item after item she threw off the wooden ledge, each one crashing to the floor. Each one the product of her desire.
"What is going on?" Mor asked breathlessly.
Arwen strode towards the bookshelves, not hearing those words, but felt the light touch on her arm. She yanked herself away from Mor, the skin on the back of her neck prickling and her stomach seized in protest. It was Arwen's turn to touch things.
Gripping the leather spine of a random book on the middle shelf, she pulled it out, letting it fling behind her to the floor. She pulled out another, and another, and another. The symphony of pages and leather colliding washed out the rest of the world. Arwen pulled the room apart, just the way she wanted. She knocked things over that she had near-broken her fingers trying years ago that now only took a light push.
"ArwâArwen." Two hands, large and firm, gripped her shoulders, pulling her to a momentary standstill. Azriel's hazel eyes pursued her own. When had he shown up?
Arwen panted, suddenly aware of the hot streams down her cheeks. Mor was gone. "Let me go. Let me go!" She pulled herself away, letting the wail pour from her lips. Her blood turned to fire; hot and raging. Azriel remained on the spot he stood. Arwen returned to a new bookshelf, reaching high onto her toes and pulling more from their place. Many of them hadn't been touched in decades.
When there were no books left, scattered, and littering the floor or tipped on the shelves, Arwen turned back around. There were no small ornaments left. Another hard sob racked through her chest. Gripping the edge of a small lounge-side table, she tore it off its legs and hurtled it to the floor. A painting of the Illyrian Steppes was her next victim, pulled down from the wall and skidded along the ground.
The room became unrecognisable.
Arwen marvelled over what she had doneârevelled in her marking. Her shoulders shook endlessly as her hands trembled at her sides.
Mor returned, Rhysand at her side. He gaped at the room, then at her. It was only her brother who dared step towards her, even Azriel remaining frozen. How many times had she stood before him, begging to be seen? How many times had she screamed at his face, only for him to look at something beyond her?
Arwen slapped her palms into his chest.
Rhysand stumbled a step back. Arwen took the step forward and pushed him again. With a foot bracing him, he didn't falter this time but she still felt how her own strength moved him. How she touched him. How he looked at her.
He whispered to her, "Don't shut me out."
She pushed him again, a short scream rising with it, burning her throat. "I hate you."
"Scream at me," he said. "Scream at me, Arwen. Hit me."
Arwen couldn't even see his face anymore, her sight too blurred with her own tears. But she screamed again and balled her fists, using the side of them to thump against his chest over and over again. Talk to me, hit me, cry, scream at me. I will take it. But do not shut me out. Arwen hadn't shut him outâthe world shut her out. That stupid tether, that her wrists still burned at the thought of, kept her trapped. Trapped to him. He forgot her. He cut out the memory of her life from this world, leaving nothing but the ghost of her name. She hit him for how he hurt her. He didn't see her, didn't hear her.
But now he did.
The sides of her hands pounded into him, and he kept saying those words to her. Hit me. Scream. Just like he promised, he took it.
Eventually they slowed as her arms grew too weary to keep up. Hands pulled at her from behind that she was too depleted to pull away from. She fell into their chest, arms encircling her. "Cassian," she wailed, barely able to gather the air to cry his name. "I want Cassian." Like her punches, she kept repeating it until she was too weak to speak it anymore. Arwen fell to her knees, weight against Azriel's chest as he held from collapsing entirely.