Chapter 63
A thunderous banging resounded throughout the entire apartment. Arwen jolted, lifting her head from the lounge's armrest. Her legs were entangled with Cassian's who stretched out towards the other end, their legs meeting in the middle.
The knocking on the door continued as she and Cassian pushed themselves up, but neither made way to answer it. A glance out the window revealed a white, snow-clothed world, but a clear one. Lucien thumped his way down the stairs, muttering something vulgar about the early hour. Arwen peeked over the back of the lounge.
Lucien yanked the door open and on the front step stood Azriel, head to toe in leathers. Lucien stiffened. "Azriel?" he asked, voice still gruff from sleep. Arwen's neck lengthened instinctively to get a better look, but then she shrunk back down to look at Cassian. Rhysand must have reached out to him last night.
Azriel pushed past Lucien without even a word of greeting. Arwen shrunk even more as he veered around the lounge and stood over them. Wide hazel eyes darted between her and Cassian, urgency fleeting from them.
"You stayed here?"
Arwen's lips were dry and her throat parched, which was no matter as she had no words to answer with anyway. She only could look at Cassian, who sighed and tented his knees, the blanket strewed over them. "In case you didn't notice, there was a bit of a blizzard that I didn't fancy flying through."
Azriel scowled. "It was hard to miss. Why didn't you come back before it started? Or go to the town house?"
Lucien shuffled into the shadows of the room. Arwen felt like a child being scolded, even though Azriel's glare had shifted onto Cassian. Why had he come down here?
Cassian sighed with an empty chuckle, raising his hands halfway before letting them flop against his legs. "Why are you here, Az?"
Azriel had no answer, but the question seemed to bounce through him. He looked up to Lucien, then down to Arwen who held his gaze only because she had nowhere else to look, then finally to Cassian again. As if he was just realising where he was.
Cassian pushed from the seat and stood shoulder to shoulder with his brother, laying his hand on Azriel's. "You can ease up, Az. Everybody is safe, sound, and warm. Except for me since I had your damn cold feet on me all night," he said, moving away from Azriel to smack the side of Arwen's calf. Cassian straightened with a chuckle. "We'll come home since you're missing me so much."
He started to gather his boots that Arwen had taken off him last night so she leant down to do the same. Azriel remained silent, almost swallowed by his shadows and did not offer Lucien an apology for barging into his home so early. Lucien didn't seem keen on stepping into the light to demand one.
They head out the door, Arwen murmuring a low thank you to Lucien as she clutched the black box. Cassian leaned into her shoulder. "Sleep alright?" he asked her. She nodded mutely. He continued looking at her, the silent question etched into his skin when she glimpsed back at him.
Arwen parted her lips with a breath and glanced ahead where Azriel stalked onto the street. She hadn't expected him to be there in her waking moments. Hadn't, especially after her late-night confessions with Lucien, known what she would say if she saw him. The claws had dug themselves back into her, dragging her down into the depths she managed to clamber out of yesterday.
Cassian straightened and squeezed her shoulder. They took off into the sky and back home to the House of Wind. Cassian placed her down on the balcony but looked over his shoulder towards the city. "I need to see Rhys."
"You haven't had breakfast," Arwen murmured disapprovingly.
Cassian, however, grinned at her. "I see I've been wearing off on you, and I'll say the same back. Besides, I'll eat the High Lord out of home before I go hungry."
Azriel folded his arms beside her. "I'll make sure she eats."
Cassian nodded firmly, and with a beat of his wings, soon became a black blur against the grey plane of the sky. Arwen watched him until she couldn't anymore. When she turned around, Azriel still stood waiting just feet away. They walked with an agreement of silence to the kitchens.
Arwen took an apple, munching away on it between the corner of two benches as the shadowsinger hunted down something more suitable for his appetite. As he heated the oats, he asked, "What's in the box?"
Arwen untucked the arm that had been held to her stomach with the other, holding the silver-lined box of black. "Rhysand's gift," she answered.
He stirred the pot, the concentration in the action making his eyes thin. "You used to take more than a day to find something," he mused. "I remember that you had him waiting an extra month once because you had to wait for a shipment to come in."
She had spoken to the merchant at the very last minute and the silk Arwen wanted that year had already been sold so she had to wait for the merchant's next return. But feeling the material in her hands had been well worth the wait. It was almost a shame she had it tailored into a shirt for him and not herself.
Arwen shrugged. "Took all day. Probably why we got caught in the storm." In truth, she wasn't even sure he would like it. It was only that pinch in her gut that she trusted.
"And why you had to stay at Vanserra's."
Her chewing slowed. "You don't like him," she said. Not a question. Was it because he was Elain's mate? Elain showed no interest in the idea of that bond with the firehead. But the scent of the mating bond would be strong enough for him to sniff out if they were near each other.
"I don't see why you do," he muttered.
"Because he's a decent male," Arwen proclaimed, her edging louder. Stronger. More defensive. "And I don't think he minds me either."
Azriel snarled lightly into the air, his face twisting in distaste. "You've met him four times."
Her cheeks burnedâwith anger, frustration, or some sort of embarrassment, she didn't know. "Yet I feel like I've had more intimate conversations in those four meetings than I ever have with you." The words tumbled out her lips before a thought of reason could grapple them back into her throat. Azriel forgot about his meal, stiffening, and staring at her with something between fury, and like she had just slashed him across the face. Wounded.
The silence between them became long and painful. Just as Arwen began to feel like she was becoming a statue, Azriel snapped back to his cooking meal, shrouding his face from her. "He has a mate, you know."
Her jaw inched open. "Yes," she whispered. "I'm very well aware of that fact. I'm also aware that his mate doesn't seem to even want to acknowledge his existence and maybe he's looking for someone to talk to."
He pursed his lips tight together, the skin under the bottom one stretching as his tongue pushed from the inside. Cocking his head to the side, he said with a voice so flat that it was something belonging to a nightmare, "Maybe I have that in common with him then."
Arwen's hands dropped to her sides, her lips parting and closing. The pathetic argument, I'm talking to you now, came to her tongue, but unlike before, she smothered it back down. He had moved on from herâshe had seen it. Had been there watching each day. It wasn't fair for him to say that. "You didn't have to come down," she whispered, hearing the failing in her voice. "You ignored the bond for ten years, I'm sure you can resume doing so."
The way he looked at her was so unexpected that something in her stomach dropped. He turned away from the pot, the planes of his handsome face that naturally honed a sharpness now softened and... Weak.
"You haven't realised, have you?"
The heaviness inside of her nearly pulled her to the floor and her fingers loosened around the apple and the box. Arwen was almost too scared to ask. "Realised what?" she croaked.
"The bond, Arwen." She could count on one hand how many times she had ever seen such a cracked expression upon him, but there it sat. Arwen felt his next words inside of her, but her mind refused to put them together into a coherent thought. Azriel placed a hand on his naval. "I still feel it, but it's... Broken. It shattered the day you died, and it never came back."
She couldn't feel her face. That was the only thing reeling through her. I can't feel my face. I can't feel my face. I can't feel my face.
"It hurts." He frowned at the ground between them, each word struggling to form. "Every single day, I wake up and I have to prove to myself that you're alive. When you didn't come home yesterday... Y-you weren't here when I woke up. I couldn't smell you. Couldn't sense you."
Arwen searched inside of herself. She searched and searched. But there was no pain that he spoke of. There was no bond inside of her at all.
"I feel like I'm fighting myself."
Arwen turned around, placing the apple core on the bench but kept the box in her grip as she pushed the sides of her fist into the marble, bracing down with her weight. A blazing heat travelled up her spine. Her knees failed in their strength and she buckled slowly down to the floor. Keeping the box tucked to her stomach, Arwen curled in the shadow of the counter's corner.
She scarcely discerned Azriel kneeling next to her.
"Arwen?" he whispered. Her name in his voice became a dagger's tip to her heart.
"I-I..." The words refused to come. But she forced the strength, even if as she spoke, not every vowel and consonant made it to her ears. "I can't feel it." Her eyes shot away from the stained wood to the spymaster. "Bath," she mumbled with a slight hoarse in her throat.
Confusion crossed his sculptured face but she didn't bother to explain. Searching into the depths of herself, Arwen pushed back to her feet, clutching the countertop until she found steadiness. Azriel rose with her, her boundary of touch remaining unbroken.
She didn't know how it happened, or how long it had been, but she awoke from her own trance as she submerged in her bathtub. The water was clear, no lathers or oils added this time. It engulfed herâgave her something to feel when a piece of her was now missing. It kept her safe.
Arwen still wore her underthings, which were plain as could be since she had been more attentive to her choice of outerwear yesterday.
Azriel crouched next to the tub, turning the golden faucet off near her feet. She couldn't help but stare at him. Couldn't help but search again. After all this time, she hadn't noticed its disappearance. It had been gone through her half-death, but that she had expected. Then on her return, everything felt heavier and harder and... And she missed it.
For so long she had wanted it gone. Wished that the Mother hadn't fated her to a male that did not wish to be hers. Yet she still grew to cherish it and in the short time they had together... Now it was gone, and perhaps it would never come back.
Azriel leant against the edge of the tub, letting one hand dangle in. Two of his longest fingers teased the water, forming small ripples along the surface. "Do you wish for me to leave?"
Arwen stared at his fingers. And though she didn't say anything, didn't do anything, he understood her answer. Azriel turned his back to the wall, leaving his arm to dangle with now all fingers but his thumb breaching the water as he sat. She leant her head against the bath's curved lip.
It was hard to pull her thoughts apart. It was hard to understand whether she should be elated at the discovery. The emptiness inside of her, however, could never be something celebrated. It reminded her of the prisonâthe unfeeling. The loneliness.
Her eyes inched towards him, observing his dark shadow in the corner of her eyes. "Why are you here?"
Arwen had been certain he would ignore the bond. That he had moved on and wouldn't be prepared to have her back in his life. That he would turn more to Elain in a silent declaration of his interest and pursuit of affection. But the bond was gone, and he was here. He had always been there.
Azriel chewed on his tongue, staring intently at the counter opposite him. A shadow slipped from between his finger, moving through the bathwater like spilt ink. "Because I want to be," he said. "Because I need to be."
Arwen frowned, eyes moving permanently back down to his fingers. "Because you need to... Smell me?" she murmured in question, recalling his earlier declaration.
"Yes," he said. "It helps calm me. But you didn't give up on me." Arwen couldn't drag her eyes away from the scarred hand, shadow and water mingling around it. But she listened. "Not even after ten years. Now it's my turn."
He wasn't giving up on her. What did that even mean?
It was a question she knew even then that she would in long debate of. That she would spend nights wondering to what context and extent those words stretched to. But it loosened a piece inside of her. The tiny bite of her heart that she had refused him before.
Arwen's hand moved under the water, rising through the pooling shadow until her fingertips brushed his. They repeated the motion, testing each way it made her feel. He kept his hand there, allowing her every authority of control. She hooked her fingers over his, letting the water take most of her weight, and looked to the tiled wall.