Chapter Text

Chapter 44

Cassian felt the power of all seven siphons surge through him at the sight of Tamlin. The legs of his chair scraped against the polished floor, though he didn’t care for any marks it might leave. His arm shot out to the left as he stood, covering Arwen from the High Lord of Spring, his other dropping down to the blade lodged at his thigh. His wings tightened to his back, prepared to move in any which way he needed.

“I-I c… Can’t.” Cassian finished her words inside his head. I can’t be here.

Tamlin stood before the long table and seemed to be taking in them as they took in him.

Rhysand had stood at the same time as Cassian and power rippled through the chamber. “How dare you bring him here.” Barely a whisper, yet louder than anything else in the War Room.

Thesan stood, his fingers pressing into the stone table. “He’s not supposed to be here until tomorrow, well after you had left.”

“You know what he did to my family,” Rhysand hissed. “You know what he did to my mother. My sister sits right in front of you. Yet you still invite him here. Behind my back, thinking that I would not find out!”

“My personal relationships with other courts is not your business!” Thesan growled in return.

Cassian still hadn’t taken his eyes off the blonde High Lord who had not moved. But those green eyes had fallen down onto Arwen. Cassian took the half-step forward that he could, thighs pressing into the table and blocking her from Tamlin’s view.

“Let’s not forget what you did to my family,” Tamlin’s voice cut through once his stare became broken.

Cassian barely restrained himself from launching forward. Tamlin’s family? It was Rhys’s—it was Cassian’s family that had been betrayed. A mother to him slaughtered and a sister pinned down and tortured.

He looked down at Arwen who remained the only one other than Helion to remain seated. But where Helion was keeping a backseat (even his companions rising at the sense of threat), Arwen sat frozen. She didn’t move. Didn’t blink. Just stared at Tamlin, seized by such a haunted terror that Cassian knew he would be ripping limbs if they didn’t leave soon. Rhysand had a tight grip on the back of her neck, holding her to his side as he stood over her. Ready to move her at a moment's notice, or jump in front of her in less. 

Rhysand raised his other arm, a single finger pointed in threat. “You take one step closer and you’ll see that family again. You can forget the meeting,” Rhysand barked at Thesan. He pulled Arwen from her seat, who stumbled towards him, still staring at nothing. Cassian kept close to their side, constantly smothering his urge to attack in favour of remaining on defence. “And you can forget any talks of military alliance.”

Rhysand tucked Arwen into his side, shooting Cassian a look that silently communicated his order. He gripped his High Lord’s shoulder and they winnowed out of the Dawn Court.

It only took three winnowing leaps until they made it back to Velaris. Cassian let out a vulgar yell as they appeared mid-sky before his wings snapped into action. Rhysand was already feet ahead of him, carrying Arwen who was not holding him back. They flew to the House of Wind. Cassian landed rather harshly as Rhysand settled Arwen on her feet.

“Fuck,” Rhysand hissed. He grasped either side of her head, glaring over the top of it as he kissed her hair before softening his face with a slight crouch to look at her. “Arwen? Sweetheart?”

Arwen didn’t meet his eye. Didn’t even seem to be seeing him. She just stared at his chest with the same look in her eye that Cassian had seen in the War Room. Cassian took a step forward but halted immediately when Rhysand shot his hand out and glared at him. Cassian lifted his hands to show his obedience.

“She’s gone into a mental shock,” Cassian murmured. He’d seen it before. Soldiers that survived the battlefield only to become shells of what they were before. They would break down at the sound of weapons, and start screaming at other times. The Illyrians usually killed them out of mercy. Or shame.

“Arwen, hey, look at me.” Rhysand bent down to her height, constantly searching for her gaze with his own. “Arwen you need to look at me. He’s not here. You’re safe and I have you, you hear me? Arwen, listen to me.”

As Rhysand’s hands repeatedly stroked down either cheek, something finally got to her and Arwen’s head snapped into a series of fervent nods. Rhysand sighed and pressed his forehead to hers and stood to his full height. His wings appeared from their usual void, enveloping them both into a small world that Cassian couldn’t see into.

“Rhys…”

Rhysand peered over the top of his wing at Cassian’s soft call. Half a glare still remained, but beyond that, it was wild uncertainty. Cassian realised that he was still breaking down in his mind what was a threat and what was not. Still just as panicked as Arwen.

“Do you need anything?”

He bowed his head, resting against what Cassian assumed as Arwen’s but couldn’t see below his wings to know for sure. As it rose again, Rhysand shook his head. “Az and Mor are coming back soon,” he told Cassian, voice uncharacteristically raspy. “Tell them to keep their distance for now.”

“Of course.” Cassian wasn’t certain how successful he would be in keeping a male away from his mate, especially when she was in distress, but he’d do as his High Lord asked, nevertheless.

~

It took Arwen some time to register that they had returned to the House of Wind and not just moved to another chamber in the Dawn Palace. At that realisation, she finally began to chip away at the panic seizing through every fibre of her being. She clung to the soft fabric standing in front of her, knowing in its familiarity that it had only brought comfort before. A dark leathery membrane encased her and the fabric.

Tamlin. She had been in the same room as Tamlin.

Pain tore through her back and she could feel it—feel the way the knife dug into her skin. Twisting and cutting. Then the darkness around her became too alike their dark figures standing over her and the panic swallowed her right back down into its depths.

Arwen screamed and tore herself away, wincing as light blinded her in its place. She stumbled backwards, her heel catching on the back of her own dress. His face was so fresh in her mind. Her mother’s screams—

She could hear them.

The ground felt like earth and the voice calling to her told her to run.

Tears streamed down her face like they had that day, hot and stinging. She clambered against the earth—no, the ground. Solid, cold ground.

“Arwen.”

Her palms cut into the edges of small steps that proceeded to dig into the small of her back.

“Arwen, please.”

Get away. Get away. She should be in the forest outside that camp. She should be running, not stuck on the ground. She should hear him—

“Arwen.”

Arwen looked straight ahead. He was different now than he was that day. Then, he had been sprinting towards her, dressed in leathers and less power ebbed from him. Now he had a dark jacket with lapels and silver accents, his hair lay tamer and he was the epicentre of power.

She broke forward, scrambling towards him. Rhysand caught her. “Breathe. Just breathe for me.” That was different too. Back then he had been screaming. He might have told her the same thing, but he was calm today.

“T-Ta-Tamlin,” she wailed, unable to breathe as he told her to. “Mother. H-They killed Mother.”

“I know what he did. Father and I took care of it, alright?”

“My wings…”

A hiss of air passed her ear which was suddenly covered by an arm that brought her to a chest. A safe chest. A safe body. “I know,” her brother said. “I know, I know.”

She couldn’t see through her blurred sight, and even if that dried up, he kept her shielded from everything else. And he stayed with her, sitting along the ground in front of a window that swathed them in gilded light. Arwen bit into the backs of her fingers, their middle knuckles inside her mouth. She kept searching the room, the voice in her head telling her that he could appear at any moment again and strike while they were unaware.