Chapter 80
The knuckles of two of Azriel's fingers pressed into the low of her back, keeping enough pressure to counter his pull on the laces of her dress just above. He tugged on the thin ribbons until they were taut and then hooked his fingers around the lacing above it, repeating the manoeuvre.
"I'm sorry," Arwen said quietly, staring at his dark head of hair that was bowed to look at her back in the mirror's reflection over the armoire. "I wanted to wear this and didn't think about not having Nuala or Cerridwen around." Her magic was useless when it came to these sorts of intricacies. "Rhysand has no idea how to work these things unless he's taking them off a female."
The dress was a stunning rose pink with sleeves that hung off her shoulders in loose billows before being cinched at her wrists. The scars on her back peaked over but with her hair loose, they would be barely noticeable. With the inbuilt corset, it required to be laced from behind.
Arwen hadn't wanted to call Azriel in here. In fact, she hadn't wanted him to come with them to Dawn at all. Noâthat was a lie. She did want him here. If all he bought was the comfort of his presence and the warmth of his touch. But he didn't; he brought memories as well. He brought uncertainty and despair.
Azriel's head inched up, sending her a small smile over the back of her shoulder. "I know my way around ties." Arwen didn't think much of the remark until a blush hit her cheeks. He certainly had gentle and deft hands for the job. "How are you feeling?"
"Fine," was the automatic answer. She watched as the dress became tighter and fitting up her middle. Azriel's eyes lifted once more as he reached just above the middle of her back. His gaze, much to the cause of the heat pooling in her, was set on her half-exposed chest as he pulled the laces tight as they needed to be, her breasts swelling at the pressure. At least she still had something there, she supposed. Breathing deeply, she didn't shy from the gaze. He tightened them just a little bit further, to the point of pleasurable pain that had her give an inaudible gasp.
Azriel went back to tying off the finishing knot. "Is that comfortable enough?"
"Yes."
"Good. You can find me tonight when you wish to undress." Arwen turned around, pushing her hair back over her shoulder. "This dress is beautiful," he muttered, ghosting his hands up her sides. "So is the one who wears it."
The twitch of a smile was unconscious. "Thank you."
Azriel looked her over again, but not with a gaze of admiration. "Are you sure you're alright to go to breakfast?"
Arwen nodded and went to move around him, but he caught her wrist and veered back in front of her. His other hand rose to her cheek, thumb delicately brushing over it before slowly trailing down the arch of her neck, curving around so the palm of his hand ran ever so lightly over her body before settling on her side. He leant in.
She pulled back. "We're going to be late."
"The guards will knock when it's time," he said. "Do you... You don't want me to kiss you." The hurt that slashed across his face was like lightning against storm clouds.
What could she say? Yes, she did, but no she didn't considering the circumstances. Considering she didn't know if that is wanted to give herself toâto trust. Putting herself at his mercy might just be her ruin. That image with Elain, giving her Truth Teller... It was too much. "I lied," she said. "I'm not feeling my best."
Whether or not he believed her was something she would have to find out later as the guards knocked at that moment, alerting them that they were soon expected in Helion's personal dining chamber.
After breakfast, Arwen did not see Azriel except in passing. She glued herself to Rhysand's side anyway, escaping any conversation that might transpire if they were caught alone. They went to the healer once more, Arwen entertaining herself by making faces at her brother when the healer was otherwise occupied. She planted a tight smile on her face whenever the healer looked back, ignoring Rhys making faces back from behind him, trying to get her to laugh.
It wasn't until dinner, seated before a small feast, that Azriel returned. The shadowsinger nodded at Helionâa silent apology for his tardiness and seated himself on the unoccupied side of the table. They ate in silence for most of the meal, Helion and Rhysand making most of the talk amongst themselves. Arwen managed to down a pastry of some sort with melted butter, though it didn't sit well in her stomach. Nothing ever did.
Helion escorted them to a more secluded sitting room, this one with no balcony or arching windows except for the twin ones that were thin and had their curtains drawn closed. Arwen found a small pillow and situated it against the backing of the lounge, resting on her side to face the High Lord of Day on the opposing end. Azriel took a nearby armchair and Rhysand the space behind her.
"I have my theory, if you wish to hear it."
Rhysand lifted his drink. "Didn't come all this way just to snuff out your wine collection, Helion."
Arwen twisted her neck around, frowning. She hadn't gotten a drink. "Give me," she muttered, grabbing for the glass. He scoffed but forfeited the wine. Wine had a strange way of unsettling her stomach but making her oblivious to it at the same time. After a sip, she handed it back.
Helion smiled at the exchange, but it was clear that his next words did not warrant the same expression. "We're able to confirm, Arwen, that the form you inhabit now is not the one you were born in."
"I could have told you that," she said. Helion parted his lips with a display of mild surprise, then rounded them with a sharp look at her brother. "Nobody asked me," she defended. "I thought it was obvious since I'm not currently a rotted skeleton."
"Forgive me for not knowing the intricacies of how the dead return to the living," Helion crooned at her, crossing his leg over the other with a poised grace. "I didn't wish to alarm you, if you were not informed of the fact."
"Well, I am."
"Terrific. Then we do not have to spend the next half hour processing that." He placed his own drink aside, looking first at the silent Azriel, then at Arwen and Rhysand. Any lingering trace of amusement or merriment fled from Helion, leaving nothing more than the form of a stoic High Lord that Arwen had seen in Rhysand so many times. "This form you've taken isn't meant to survive. A spirit existing as one of the living."
Her cheeks felt tight. "What does that mean?"
Helion pursed his lips, adjusting his seat once more. "There was a balance you had before. A living being able to tap into the spiritual form of yourself. Now it's the opposite. You are a spirit who has forced herself into the form of something living. Have you been able to move back into an intangible form?"
Arwen looked down at the ring on her finger. "I haven't tried."
"Try for me."
She turned the ring on her finger. Go back to that form again? Be unable to touch anything? What if she couldn't return again? What if she became trapped and they couldn't see her? What ifâ
"I'm right here." A masculine hand smoother over hers. Rhysand squeezed it. "Just try it." When she didn't move immediately, he slowly began to pry the ring off her finger.
"Don't force her." Azriel.
"If she can, then we might have a solution," Helion answered evenly to Azriel's bark of command.
Arwen watched Rhysand pull the ring off her finger, a heavy mark of red lining where it had sat for centuries. "If not?" she dared ask. Helion didn't answer. Rhysand hooked a finger under her chin, lifting it to meet his mirror eyes. He said nothing either, but he didn't need to. Giving an almost invisible nod, Arwen let herself feel that connection.
It was thereâbut muted. She was reminded of how Amren trained her, to relax and listen to her mind. Not what she thought, but what it told her. Rhysand continued holding her hand as a test. She would go right through the lounge anyway. Possibly straight through the ground. But she had trained enough before her death to remember how to bring herself back. She might land in somebody's bath, but it wasn't that thought that terrified her.
"I can't," she croaked, looking back to Helion. "I can't reach it." What did that mean?
"What now?" asked Rhysand.
"Now," Helion breathed quietly, "we are down to the two options I think there are left."
Azriel snarled. "No need to be so cryptic, Helion. We are already at our knees here for your help. Or would you like us between yours before you tell us?"
"I am cautious with my words, shadowsinger, because I know you will wish you hadn't heard them."
It was rare to see such graveness in the High Lord of Day and it did nothing to settle the growing sapling of something poisonous inside of her. Azriel turned deathly stillâthe foreboding of Helion's warning catching all their ears. Arwen's head echoed them.
Helion lifted his chiselled chin, the dark plains of his face smooth and even. "Your body is trying to return to its natural state. It cannot sustain holding the form it is currently in, but it can't fluctuate back and forth to release the strain. It would be like holding a sword for hours on endâthe muscle grows weak, breaks down. Eventually, your arm would collapse."
"You're saying," Rhysand whispered near her ear, "that my sister is dying. Again."
"Yes."
Arwen's throat closed, eyes falling to stare at a single spot on the lounge. She didn't know what Azriel did, if anything. There was no sound from his direction. She was dying again. Slowly and painfully. Each day breaking down, bit by bit.
"Fuck." Rhysand lowered his head to his hands, fingers scraping across his scalp. "No. No. I... You said there are two possible solutions. Whatever the other one is, she'll take it. I don't care about the price." Arwen rocked slightly at the jostling of the lounge's cushioning, her hands sitting like lead in water in her lap.
"It's not your price to decide to pay," said Helion. "Arwen, I need to know you're listening to me. That you're going to understand everything I tell you." Arwen could only lift her head. The grimness, the sadness for her... It was almost too much to handle. "You are tethered to another realm of existence." Her scars itched. "I can cut that tether and there is a spell I've come across that I may be able to adapt that will... make your form permanent. Living, for lack of a better word."
"You're saying that it would heal her?" Rhysand asked, the desperation so evident that Arwen's throat became sore. "That she'd be fine?"
"In the most simple answer, yes. Buâ"
"Do it." He took her wrist, clutching it like a lifeline thrown from a ship.
Helion turned his dark gaze on her brother. "I said it is not your price to decide to pay. There is a cost. Arwen, your body that is meant for this realm is gone and I cannot bring that back. What I can possibly do, is manipulate the one you have now. But in doing so, my theory is that I will be destroying your soul. You will not be able to reach that form again."
Rhysand slid his hand into hers. She was grateful that he was taking charge. Thinking and questioning when she could not. "So she won't be a celestian anymore? Won't have access to that part of her?"
"Yes, but that's not what I'm referring to." Helion angled himself more directly toward them. "What I mean is, what happens when she does die again? In a millennium from now? None of us know what happens to our souls after we die, whether we forever dine in a feast hosted by our forefathers, or if we are simply reunited with our loved ones. Maybe there's nothing. Whatever it is, if I destroy that part of Arwen so she can continue to live, she won't be able to reach it again. There will be nothing of her to get through to life after death. There will be no reunion on your own deaths. No eternal life in whatever awaits us. Or she can let the process continue and meet you there one day."
Arwen wasn't sure if it was the world swaying, or her. Death. Alive. Reunion. Eternal. Life. Nothing. Something. Everything.
Rhysand's sharp exhale rippled through the loose hairs near her temple. "So we can keep her alive but in our next life she will not be there?"
Helion nodded. "That is the price."
"There might be an eternity of something greater. Or there might not be anything"
"That is the risk."