Chapter 93
Arwen smiled to herself, reading over Lucien's letter. He was glad to hear of her recovery or at least the road towards it. Of course, he not-so-subtly asked about Elain between his rants of his newfound friends and Azriel's sudden appearance two days ago. Azriel was either unwilling to share such information or Lucien didn't bother asking. Both thoughts made her smile wider.
Using magic to send her letter to her room until she could seal it with wax, Arwen stretched herself out along the smoothed stone bench wall, leaning against a column. The Sidra lapped just paces ahead of her against the rocky ledge, filling her nose with sea salt. Taking hold of the sketchbook she had brought with her, she opened it against her thighs to a blank page.
Her sketch turned into Azriel's face.
Once the rough image was complete, Arwen closed the book, not sure whether she was embarrassed or not at the possibility he might see it. But she had shown him her drawings before. There were only very few that she kept private.
That thought made her smile even wider.
She spent the entire rest of her afternoon wandering Velaris, entering every shop that took her fancy and eating alone at Sven's for dinner. There were many that approached her through those hours and Arwen happily took to the company. Then she went to the city library and huddled down in a lantern-lit corner with a new soppy romance. The librarian had to kick her out come nightfall.
Dotted hues of gold outlined Velaris, the cobblestone path lit by moonlight and gilded rings from the lanterns. Still in early spring, the night was chill and fresh. Arwen let her eyes drift across the inside of the shop windows that lived into the night. One beheld a dance class, bodies behind the glass moving synchronously, like a moving painting, the low hum of the ballroom tune spilling into the street. She could almost dance with it.
She did. Arwen quietly opened the door so as to not disturb them and waited for the song to end. The instructor noticed her arrival and was more than happy to include her in the lesson. Paired with a handsome grey-skinned and black hair fae, she danced into the late hours of the night, laughing and avoiding toe-stepping.
Her feet dragged against the ground as she hobbled her way back into the town house past the stroke of midnight. Wincing at the bright light in the hall, Arwen groused at the chattering from inside, wanting nothing more than the comfort of her bed. Before she could make it to the stairs, her brother emerged from the sitting room.
"Where have you been all day?" he asked flatly.
She frowned at him. "Out," she answered, too tired to give more of an answer and continued forward. But he wasn't alone. Cassian and Feyre came out on either side of him. "Hi," she grumbled.
"You missed dinner," accused Cassian. It wasn't a family night, so she hadn't missed anything at all. They wouldn't have one until Azriel returned from his assignment and Mor wouldn't be home until tomorrow either, visiting Hewn City.
"I ate."
"Enough?"
Her shoulders dropped as she turned to look at them. "Yes, Cassian, I ate plenty."
His hazel eyes thinned on her. "You shouldn't have been out all day."
Arwen threw out her hand. "Was there something here I missed? I wanted to spend the day in the city."
Cassian folded his arms, taking a loose step forward. "Yes, you missed out on the rest you are supposed to be getting. Do you even realise how weak your body had become? How weak it still is?"
Her bones had become as brittle as that of a bird, Helion had said.
"Yes," she breathed, closing her eyes. "Now I'm tired so please let me go to bed to get the rest you so adamantly suggest I get." Before they had to carry her upstairs. It had been a good day until this moment. Now the frustration of rest being so near that the disturbance of their questioning was not just an annoyance, but infuriating.
"What Cassian is not so wisely putting to words," Rhysand drawled with a quick glance to his general, "is that we're worried. Physically you're not out of the woods yet. You need to be gentle on yourself."
Arwen turned back to the stairs. "I don't need to hear this." Ignoring the mute reactions of her family, she gripped the banister and began her ascent. Her muscles ached with just the first step and were near shaking by the second. By the fourth, she had to pause. Sinking to the wood, she silently pled with herself that they weren't still behind her as she rested herself against the thin wooden poles of the banister. Her head pounded. "I'm fine," she croaked.
Yet the creak of footsteps came. Arwen knew by the touch and smell it was her brother. His hand smoothed down her back. The half-hearted grunt of protest was futile as he scooped her up. Her head tipped from the banister to his shoulder and she gave in, her body bobbing with each step he took.
Rhysand laid her on her bed. Pushing herself up, she swung her feet back over the edge and toed off her shoes as he shut her window drapes, the rungs giving a metallic screech. He eyed her bruised feet.
"My dancing partner was new to the art," she mumbled.
"Dancing?" he asked, somewhere between amused and irritated by the information. With a sigh, he sat beside her, the mattress sinking under their combined weight. "What are you doing, Arwen?"
"Trying to get to sleep." Wrinkling her nose, she battled with the clasp of the bracelet on her wristâthe amethyst one Cassian had gifted her.
Rhysand took her wrist and worked the lock. "I mean today. And yesterday. You stayed out all day as well. Left Cassian high and dry." The chain fell free from her arm and he put it on her nightstand. Not where it belonged, but it would do at the moment.
"Are you going to lock me in my room?"
A hard look. "You know I would never do that. But don't give me the temptation of the thought." He sat at her side. "You're going to wear your body out before it's even had a chance to recover." She couldn't keep her eyes on his face, turning to look away. "Arwen?" She didn't move. "Arwen? Do you regret it?"
"The dancing? A little."
"Not the dancing," he said softly.
Slowly, her eyes found their way back to him, settling on his legs rather than his face. "No," she answered quietly. "If you're asking what I think you are, then no. I don't regret it."
"Then whyâ" he hooked a raven strand behind her ear before pinching her chin and forcing it to liftâ "are you putting yourself in a position where you can't even get up the stairs?"
She gave a tired laugh. "I just wanted to spend the day in the city. Why is that so hard to believe? I overdid myself. It's not like I was dancing for hours on end. I was sitting down for most of the day. I went to the library and sat by the Sidra. I had dinner. I don't get what the problem you have is."
Rhysand dropped his head an inch. "Are you not hearing me? Your body is stillâ"
"I'm fine!" Arwen pushed his hand away from her face, sagging her shoulders. "I'm alive. Not dying. I'm perfectly fine so stop worrying." The sudden quietness after the rising of her voice left a ringing throughout the room. A harsh sigh passed through her flared nostrils as her brother remained still. "Please, I just want to sleep now."
"Of course," he whispered, as if they hadn't just been arguing. Standing from the mattress, he waited until she had pulled the blanket over her shoulders. Straightening the ends of the thick material, he said, "I'll have Nuala and Cerridwen bring you breakfast in the morning, but I'll make sure no one else bothers you. Sleep as long as you need."
~
Arwen did sleep for as long as she needed, and then some more. Her claves burned when she tried to stand, quickly sitting back on the bed. It wasn't a broken ache though. It was the ache that would come with training too hard. An ache that came with the process of a rebuilding body rather than the ache of one disintegrating. As promised, Nuala brought her a plate of strawberries and a bowl of heated oats. She ate it all.
When Arwen gathered enough strength, she headed downstairs and into her brother's office. He wasn't home, and she didn't know where he had gone, but as usual, the room was a mess so she spent the better half of the morning organising it in the way she always had. Once that had been completed, she pulled out the most recent letters and skimmed through them, drafting up a response on spare parchment that she could later return to once he had read and confirmed. There was an off-chance that he would be annoyed she had gone through his letters, but that would only tell her there was something he was expecting that he didn't want her to read. And that only made her far more curious.
Remaining in the office once she was finished, content in the leather chair and her feet on the lip of the old oak desk, Arwen rested there for some time, her eyelids fluttering closed. There was no sense of time passing when they opened again, slowly, calmly.
The sound of footsteps was light, as if purposefully trying not to make noise. Her interest piqued when they neared the office and the door creaked open. Rather than Feyre or Rhys, it was Cassian.
He looked just as surprised to see her as she did him.
"Why are you sleuthing around?" Arwen inquired.
He nodded at her. "Could ask you the same thing."
Giving a small smile, she gestured to the desk. "Just cleaning up for him. Do you need something?" He told her he needed the papers Rhysand had been drafting in concern with Hewn City. She shuffled through his things, remembering she had read something of the likes. As she hunted, Cassian pulled up a chair to the other side of the desk and braced his forearms along the wood. "I think this is it," she said, sliding over a small stack of parchment.
He thumbed the corner and checked. "That's it." Cassian hesitated to leave. He stared at the desk, then dragged his eyes back to her. "Are you angry at me?"
She blinked. "No," she answered after a moment.
Shifting in his seat, he leaned back against its spine. "I'm worried that you're hurting yourself because you want to... Get back at me or something." With an empty laugh, he rubbed his mouth with his palm. "It makes me feel like a prick, but I won't take it back. You should have told us."
Arwen chewed on her inner lip, now looking down at the table. "I know you mean well. Truly I'm not upset at you for it. If there was something bothering you I would hope you would share it with me as well."
Reaching across the table, he took her hand. "Are we alright then, sweetheart?"
"Yeah, Cass." She smiled broadly. "We're always alright."
His lips spread to match hers. Rising from the chair he swerved around the desk and widened his arms. Arwen laughed and moved to her feet, wringing her arms around his neck. His hold on her was gentle and she squeezed him in desire for something tighter. He obliged, her heels lifting from the floor. The scent of him mixed with his leathers calmed her; reminded her of a long-since passed childhood.
"Promise me that you'll rest," he said into her ear then leaned back. His hands went to the back of her head, prying her hair into two splits and pulling them over each of her shoulders, adjusting how they lay until he saw fit.
Arwen sighed. "You don't need to worry about me."