Chapter 67: Chapter 67

Chapter 67

A rough shaking roused Arwen awake. Her throat gave a short grumble as her eyes opened, blinking lethargically. She made out the black material of fitted slacks just beyond the rose-coloured sheets of the bed. Everything in her cried for more sleep.

"I was beginning to think you'd never wake," came a familiar voice, accompanied by a soft chuckle. Rhysand dropped to a kneel beside the bed she had crawled her way into at the town house. "My next plan was tossing water on you."

Arwen inched her head higher, peering beyond him to her window, wondering how early he had awoken her. But she could not see the sun, which meant that it was overhead. Late. Her mind scoured for a memory of the night, to remember if she had a nightmare that would have had her feeling like this. But she had slept right through.

"You missed breakfast," her brother continued, his voice shifting to a more pointed tone. She pushed against the mattress, letting the blanket pool around her hips, and wiped at her eyes. "I can bring you something if you don't feel like getting up."

Arwen shook her head. "Not hungry," she managed to get out. But she would get up. She couldn't remember a time when she had slept in so late. She pulled her silk-clad legs out from the blanket, shifting them to hang over the edge of the bed, but paused at the sight of what covered the floor.

Carpet. Even just letting her feet hover over it sent uncomfortable itchiness across her skin. She had taken her shoes off last night sitting on the bed but foolishly kicked them away. Rhysand had already found an answer. A pair of flats appeared in his hands within a blink. "Or I can carry you out," he offered.

Arwen took the shoes. "How did you know?" Her shield was still in place and steeled. She would know if he had gotten through it. But even then, he seemed to be able to read her mind.

"Because you're my sister. I can tell your hunger from your thirst just by your scent." His eyes stooped to where she pulled them onto her feet. "But I still wonder why."

At first she put it down to her body not being used to foreign fabrics, but even as everything else grew less and less irritable, the rounded, coarse loops of the rough carpet fabric never ceased to erupt nausea within her. It wasn't until recently that she put the memory together—of falling onto the carpet in the town house's main hall. Dragging her body across it in hopes of reaching the door. How each inch of crawling along it scraped at her knees then her cheek. It was the last thing she felt. It was like a stain in her memory. She remembered Rhysand and Azriel, flashes of their faces beyond the haze, but she hadn't been able to feel them. Or hear them.

When Arwen didn't answer the unasked question; he didn't push.

Downstairs, Cassian was the only one to have remained. Mor, Azriel and Amren returned to their respective homes. Elain and Nesta hid away in a small reading room, sitting together but unspeaking. Arwen could only see them through the crack in the door.

Feyre smiled as Arwen entered the main sitting room, a small stack of discarded papers on the side table next to it. Cassian took residence on the armchair, seeming to have been in a conversation with her that ended moments prior. "I hope you slept well, Arwen. Cassian was intending on waking you at dawn for a training session, but I convinced him otherwise."

The general shrugged as Rhysand quietly left the room. "She's the one that wants them."

"Maybe this afternoon," Arwen murmured to him, falling into the opposing armchair. "Thank you, Feyre."

"What's gotten you so down today?" he asked. "With a sleep like you had, you should be bouncing off the walls."

"I know." She wiped at her eyes again. "Just tired."

"Or hungry," Rhysand's voice called from the hall. He arrived back with a plate of buttered toast that must have been put together with magic considering how fast it was made. Despite her earlier insistence on not having an appetite, he placed it on her lap.

Arwen never did eat it. The morning—or rather, midday—passed over slowly. Cassian, Rhysand and Feyre had something to attend to outside the city for the afternoon so Cassian took her back to the House of Wind. She headed straight to her room and took another nap.

When she awoke again, feeling far more refreshed as one should after a long sleep, the sun had been replaced by the moon and starlight. Arwen groaned to herself, flopping from her stomach to her back. Now she could use some food.

Her bare feet padded down the corridor, almost mindlessly, her head far away from the world in around her. That was until her pointed ears twitched at an unexpected sound. The soft hum of a pianoforte key. Food became a long forgotten venture as she turned down the offshoot that beheld what were once chambers for hosting guests. They still technically were such rooms, but since Velaris had been a hidden city, they weren't often used. Arwen continued down to the only chamber that the sound could come from.

An old music room.

The sound of pianoforte stopped long before she reached the threshold. Shadows would have warned her coming to their master. It was a plush room, with smooth hardwood floors and long curtains pulled across the two tall but thin windows. A seating arrangement played audience to the ebony pianoforte and the fiddle set in front of it. An audience of none for the shadowsinger who sat at that pianoforte, his hands now resting on his thighs as he stared at the empty stand where sheet music would sit.

It wasn't terribly surprising to find him here. Arwen had once learnt to play at her mother and father's command, but never took to instruments the way she did pencils. Azriel rarely touched it, only in the privacy of his own shadows. They all knew he had dabbled in playing, but never in performance for them. He had told her it was like a meditation for him. Something to do alone and undisturbed. Not for the joy of others.

"I can go if you'd like," she said. He probably came here under the impression that she would be asleep for some time more.

Azriel's chin turned to hover over his shoulder, not quite looking at her. "I don't mind."

Arwen slipped further into the room, eyeing the seats before choosing to move across to the pianoforte. She sat down next to him on the small bench, keeping her eyes on the ivory keys. "What were you playing?"

His lips twitched into a ghost of a smile. "A Once Dance." His scarred hands lifted from his thighs, fingertips skimming across the keys before softly pressing down on a select few, moving them again, and pressing down to offer her a slice of the tune. She knew it—a song of two lovers destined to only have one dance, separated by their families feuding.

"That's a sad song," she noted quietly.

"That is one way to look at it," he agreed, eyes finally meeting hers. "Or one might see it as a beautiful moment. A moment that will never be forgotten. Cherished for eternity."

"And the rest of that eternity is spent remembering what could have been but wasn't." Arwen straightened her back, examining the keys and placing her fingers on the ones she recalled. Pressing down, a low and soft sound played. Her fingers moved again, pressing down on a new combination. The end of the song. The moment the two lovers knew that it was the end of their story, however short it was.

She winced at an off sound but couldn't figure out which finger was placed wrong. Azriel's hand drifted over her arms. Her stomach tightened as he grazed the back of her left hand, his thumb nudging hers wider to rest on the key next to it. She played again, the melody like a lullaby to her ears. Being all she could remember, Arwen pulled her hands away from the keys, and from his touch.

Azriel had his other hand join again, a new melody playing. This one was just as soft and slow, but lighter. She didn't recognise the tune but smiled and listened with her heart. "I like that one," she whispered when he finished.

"Redamancy."

Her head tipped towards her shoulder as she fingered a random key in front of her, the single note ringing throughout the room. "I wish you played for us. Happier songs, perhaps. There's been too much grief lately."

"I just played for you then, didn't I?" he said, the tease evident. "That song was happy."

That was true. He had played for her—which he had never done before other than the sneak peeks she had stolen over the many years both in death and her early life. "A proper gathering then. With drinks and singing and dancing."

Azriel smiled, broadly and she was tempted to call it a grin. He shook his head. "I have no desire to hear Rhys and Mor singing again."

"I noticed Cassian isn't on that list." Arwen hummed to herself in thought. "He's not actually that terrible, though, is he? Perhaps after a few drinks to warm up his vocal cords." Azriel's laughter was softer than silk. If she could bottle up a sound, she would choose that one. "I'm not on that list either."

He turned that smile to her. "I've been refining my skills in the art of politeness."

Her jaw broke apart. His laughter grew as she jabbed his elbow with her side. "Rhysand used to tell me that my singing was like hearing the morning birds at his window," she informed him with mocking righteousness.

A smirk crossed his cheeks. "Rhysand is a skilled liar. And he always shuts his windows so he doesn't wake up to them."

Arwen put a hand to her chess. "Could you hear that, Azriel? It was my heart breaking by the betrayal. My own family leading me into a lie." Rounding off her shoulders, she let her own smirk reveal. "It is fine I suppose. I'd been lying to him for years. His hair looks awful when he lets it fall to the left."

Azriel scoffed at her. "And you let him go on for years prancing around in his own court looking as foolish as he did?" She lifted the bone of her shoulder to her chin in her façade of innocence. "I must admit to my own lie then." Arwen had to wait for him to continue as he looked back down to the pianoforte, her heart beating like a drum being played. "Your voice is the most beautiful sound that I have ever heard."

Nothing could have prepared her for the sensation that washed over her. The light-headedness, the tingling in her feet, the utter surrealness that made her believe this might be a dream. "I do not think you need to refine your skills in politeness with the way you flatter me," is all she could say. He hummed distantly and it left a silence between them. "Rhys... Rhys said you were avoiding me." Her stomach twisted as soon as she said it aloud, immediately wishing to shove the words back down her throat. She wasn't ready to have that conversation.

Azriel set a heavy gaze on the ivory keys. "Is that what you need from me?"

She wished he hadn't asked that even more. Arwen didn't know the answer—didn't understand Azriel or herself enough to know what she wanted from him. His attraction to Elain was undeniable, as was the fact that their bond was broken. Did she want what might have been? Was this yearning inside of her a result of what was lost? To want something she could not have?

At her silence, he continued. "I will give you everything you need and desire. You have shown me what that is." He would not meet her eye, no matter how hard she pined for it. "Forgive me if I cannot remain close to see it unfold."

Arwen looked straight. "You have your own desires and needs to seek after. Do not weigh yourself down concerned with mine."

"Do you have what you want, Arwen?"

Her brows twitched together at such a simply worded question that meant so much more than any single answer could satisfy. The thought of even attempting to had her heart fluttering with panic. In a stumble to avoid figuring that out, she murmured a small: "Yes."

"Then I am not concerned. I can't fight for you when you don't want to be fought for, especially when you're happy."

Though she remained a statue on the small bench, everything inside of her slumped. Azriel closed the polished black casing over the keys, the hard sound of the wood meeting breaking the fragile air between them. "I'm sorry," she spat out as he began to move away. He paused. Arwen turned to him. "The day that I... Died. I avoided you."

Dark brows formed a trench over his straight nose. "Avoided me?"

She nodded. "When Cassian took me to the town house, I wouldn't let you see me. I wish I had."

His face turned downward as he sat back in the seat and shadows swamped him like a cloak. Arwen didn't try to imagine what he might be thinking or feeling, but when hazels lifted to her violets, she was shocked to see the confusion swirling inside of them. "What do you remember, Arwen?"

Her lips parted. "R... Rhys and I fought when I started to feel strange."

He looked at her like she was the strangest thing on Prythian. "You had felt ill? For how long?"

Arwen wrung her hands in her lap. "A few hours maybe. I told Rhys but he was upset about what happened at Dawn so Cassian took me home. What do you remember?" Cassian hadn't recalled their last exchange of words either. Perhaps she had recreated the entire day in her mind.

He didn't answer her. "What did we say to each other that day?"

There was an answer he searched for—she could see it in his eyes. But she could only offer him what she knew. "We didn't speak at all." A stillness overcame him. The same unreadable coldness honing his features that the court of Hewn City is an audience to. Lethal. "Azriel?"

Like his name plucked a chord, he twisted silently off the pianoforte's seat, shadows whipping around him. Arwen barely stood by the time he was already out of sight in the hall.

Arwen dashed into the hall that he was already near the end of. "Az! Azriel what is it?"

He pivoted like a storm that suddenly changed wind. Arwen continued running towards him until they were only feet apart. "Rhysand is a skilled fucking liar! That's what it is." She didn't have the chance to ask anything more before his back was to her and he was gone. Arwen stood dumbfounded, her mind reeling.

Snapping from it, she continued her chase. But by the time she caught up with him, her feet stopping inches away from the edge of the open balcony, he was only a black dot in the sky, barely distinguishable from the night.

There was no way for her to get down.

Her feet skipped back towards the House. It was late. He had to be home by now. "Cass! Cassian!"