Chapter 79
Rhysand watched from the wall as Helion's personal healer examined Arwen. She was sitting on the side of the plush bed, distracting herself with looking around at the décor. Azriel, in the corner adjacent to him, was swathed by his shadows and rather out of place against the light that reached every other inch of the room.
'It was remarkable that you returned from the dead, Rhysand,' Helion said into his mind, continuing their unspoken conversation that had initiated the moment the healer began attending to his sister. 'Even more so remarkable that you were able to bring that demon back with you.'
'I'll take it that you mean Amren and not Arwen,' he crooned.
'Yes.' The humour twitched his lips. 'Which makes this scene in front of me still quite unbelievable. Over two hundred and fifty years and she returned looking exactly the way she did the say she died. You are certain that it was no last trick of the Cauldron?'
Rhysand rolled his jaw. 'Certain.' He held back the growl in those words. 'I would have sniffed out a trick the first moment I entered her mind. You said it yourself that it is her celestian power that allowed me to find and bring her back.'
'I don't mean to insult or deny her existence,' Helion replied evenly. 'Just searching the possibilities. From what I understand there is a plain between our realm and the realm of the dead. Arwen had far greater control over her spiritual form than any of us and it is possible that she chose to move through them. She still doesn't remember?'
'No.' Rhysand hadn't been able to see much in the snippet that he pulled from her mind that day Azriel had dragged her from the bath. There had been panic. Her surroundings were a blur which was understandable for being in a dream. Nothing was ever quite real in those. It was as though she was trapped in a world that moved around her.
Helion approached the bed, a light tone in his voice as he spoke to the healer and Arwen as though their conversation carried nothing more than the importance of what sandwiches they would have for lunch. 'Is her body still where it was buried?'
Rhysand blanched. 'What?'
'Her body, Rhysand. You, Feyre and Amren all returned to your bodies. Since it has been over two centuries, I'm curious whether the process rebuilt her body or not.'
'I haven't checked.' He didn't want to check. Rhysand hadn't been back to that site since the day he buried her. His breakfast curdled in his stomach. 'Are you asking me to find out?'
'Yes.'
Helion continued talking away as though he wasn't requesting a solemn task of a brother to unbury his sister's body. Although, he wouldn't be the one to do it. Rhysand swallowed the lump in his throat, glancing at Azriel who had not removed his eyes from the one spot on the bed since they arrived.
Stretching the perimeter of his mind, Rhysand searched. 'Cass.'
Cassian's bellowing voice echoed through his head. 'Missing me already, Rhysie?'
Rhysand smiled to himself. 'Not in the slightest. And neither is Arwen.' He shared the world through his eyesâthe sight of Arwen laughing at another of Helion's teases.
Rhysand could almost hear Cassian's grumble. 'Are you seriously reaching out just to taunt me that the lack of my presence is going unnoticed?'
He wished. 'I have a job I need you to do. Sooner rather than later.'
'I swear to the gods Rhys, if I have to speak to Amren aboutâ"
'I need you to dig up Arwen's grave.'
The long pause was expected but Rhysand loathed every second of it. He knew exactly what he was askingâwho he was asking. It would be hard enough for Rhysand to even go there and dismantle the tribute of her life, but Cassian was the one who visited it. Rhysand knew that he did. Cassian was the one that spent hours by it, talking or just sitting, he didn't really know. And now he was asking his brother to tear it apart to see if he could find her remains.
'I can't do that.'
"Helion needs you to,' Rhysand told him.
Another pause. 'How the fuck is this supposed to help?'
The healer leant down, applying a salve to her bruise-littered legs. Arwen's smile was lost by now, the signs of tire taking over. "He needs to know whether she's retaken her body or not. I don't know the specifics. Just... Please. I'll contact you tonight.'
He cut the link off there, not wanting to deal with more guilt. Kicking off the wall, Rhysand strode over to the bed. She reached for him once he stood close enough, and he let her lean forward to rest her forehead against his sternum, cupping the back of her neck to support its weight from tipping. "Slept over a day yesterday," he told Helion. "Woke up for maybe an hour then slept again until this morning."
"I have my theories," Helion muttered. "But I'll need confirmation on theâ"
"Cassian will report soon."
He nodded, then smiled down at Arwen despite the fact that her face was hidden away in Rhysand's tunic. "Take away her pain for a moment," Helion asked of him.
Rhysand didn't like what it insinuated, but tapped into her mind and erased any sensation of pain. Helion took her forearm, holding it before him and running his thumb deep into the flesh. As Arwen tilted her head to peek out, Helion pressed and Rhysand heard the unmistakable snap of a bone.
He couldn't begin to explain the terror that washed through him like a void that devoured reason. All he could hear was that snapâthe breaking of Feyre's neck now sounding from his sister.
Arwen winced but made no other signs of pain as Rhysand worked to keep it at bay, silently putting himself back together in the meantime. Helion extended her arm, letting his magic weave through to mend it once more.
"And you had to break her arm because?" Azriel's low voice inquired from the shaded corner.
Helion glanced over his shoulder, then at Rhysand. "Because it was as brittle as the bone of a bird. I'm surprised she didn't have any coming here."
~
Cassian stood in front of the marked grave. Illyrian wings had been carved into the headstoneâsomething he had hoped would be returned to her once upon a time. His knuckles whitened around the shovel's handle. He didn't know how long he stood there, just staring at the mountainside forest that overlooked the length of the Sidra, upstream from the city.
"I'm going to kill that bastard prick," he hissed to himself. Cassian swung the shovel sharply through the air in a vent of the agitation running amok through him. He couldn't believe he was going to do it.
With a grunt, the tip of the shovel pierced the snowed earth. The ground was frozen and hard, but his strength broke it apart as he dug. And dug. And dug. Cassian didn't stop again to let himself think about what he was doing.
She is alive, he reasoned. You aren't supposed to have graves for the living, anyway.
But he couldn't help the pang of hurt that shot through him with each inch he unearthed as he destroyed the place he had come to mourn. That he had come to talk and remember.
Yet he kept digging. Because keeping her alive was far more important than a sentimental piece of stone and a patch of earth. If that's all there was. When he dug deep enough, Cassian tossed the shovel inside and dropped down into the shallow pit. He crouched, taking a few more hard breaths, before cupping his hands and slowly scooping the dirt away with a gentler hand.
It didn't take long to find a worn piece of purple fabric. The piece he uncovered was barely a string of fibre now. It was part of the blanket they had wrapped her body in. He slowed even more, brushing his fingers across the dirt. His heart was in his stomach.
Death didn't scare him. He had walked beside it his entire life. But it terrified him who Death could steal from him.
He prayed to whatever deity listened to him that he would find nothing more than more dirt. But he felt that damn pressure of something solid and smooth. Pinching the bridge of his nose with his other hand, Cassian took another breath and blindly swept the area again.
And immediately leapt out of the pit. "Fuck." Swinging his arms out to the side, he rolled and clenched his hands and released them again. Bile crept into his throat. Leaning over and away from the graves, he fought to keep his lunch inside where it belonged.
He had felt her skull.
~
Rhysand watched with a dutiful eye as Azriel and Arwen sat on one of the open balconies, sharing a small flagon of wine surrounded by pillows and a blanket. Winter did not strike the Day Court as hard as it did Night, it seemed.
"It seems that pair have finally come to acknowledge their bond," Helion mused as he arrived with a platter of cheese and fruits. They sat within the chamber the balcony linked to.
"It's actually the opposite," Rhysand replied, plopping a grape between his lips. "They don't have one anymore."
Helion lounged along his chaise, frowning at the scene. "That's... Intriguing."
Rhysand gave a short laugh that was particularly mirthless. "Not the word I'd use. Quite the entanglement actually." And rather irritating having to balance his duty as High Lord and a brother through what has arisen. Between Arwen and Azriel. Cassian and Arwen. Cassian and Nesta. Nesta and Arwen. Arwen and Elain. Azriel and Elain. Azriel and Cassian. "I'd rather not talk about it." For his own damn sanity.
"Well I do like to be entangled," Helion noted. "But there are more pressing matters. Have you gotten word from Cassian?"
Rhysand swirled his near-empty goblet. "Yes." And he received a mouthful when he did. "Her body is still there." He looked back to the balcony, leaning forward with his elbows to his knees in anticipation as Arwen bowed her head into her hands over her lap. Azriel already hovered next to her. "Don't feed me that shit again about it possibly not being her."
"Contrary," Helion sang, "I think that is Arwen right there, in her most raw form. In her life before she was able to control entering a spiritual state but remain in this realm. If her body was left behind and she wasn't able to reclaim it as you were when you pulled her back then she has done what her kind do best. She's controlled her state of being. A spiritual being making themselves a living one. And she's holding herself to this form."
Rhysand stared at her. They knew little of what life after their deaths would be. What would happen to their consciousness and memories? "What does that mean? What does that mean for her?"
"It meansâ" Helion sipped at his wineâ"I have more research to do."
Any guesses on what's happening or gonna happen? I'd love to hear your theories.
Thank you once again for all you're comments, your support is much appreciated.