Chapter Text

Chapter 73

In the days leading to Winter Solstice, Arwen hardly saw Rhysand or Cassian—even Feyre and Mor became occupied enough that finding an hour to spend with them became a task in itself. Amren appeared twice, the first time with an excuse to search for something in the town house but the entire visit was spent peppering Arwen with questions on herself and the daily doings of her brother. The second time she simply came around to eat—the sight still shocked Arwen who stared as she guzzled down a good portion of meat that Nuala cooked her. Apparently she hadn’t eaten in hours since she had no food in the apartment, the habit of shopping for it still lost.

The rest of her time was spent skilfully avoiding Elain, and in the company of Azriel. Arwen had asked why he had so much free time to occupy in the town house with her. His answer was that he was able to perform his work at night, which he preferred.

His shield covered them now, a shimmering dome that protected the small rooftop terrace from the breeze. The siphons on each gauntlet made pulsating glows. Arwen used her own magic to warm the space, letting them sit comfortably at the iron table, a stack of cards between them.

Arwen eyed her set. “Rhys says you’re speaking to him again.”

Azriel, perched across from her had near perfect posture compared to her lazed slouched, her feet propped on the clawed feet of the table. “Unfortunately, it is part of my duties. Cassian is useless at conveying what I need him to.”

Cassian had taken less time to forgive Rhysand’s meddling, though she would guess it would take him much longer to forget. And that is why she believed that perhaps Cassian purposefully mis-relayed information, forcing Azriel into proximity.

She placed her card down. “I know you’re upset that he went into your mind,” she said—carefully, softly. “But I think he did it for the right reason. Whatever memory he gave you was obviously better than the real thing.”

“It was a lie.” The same thing he said that night.

“A better lie though?” she challenged.

Azriel tipped his head, eyes set on the stacked cards along the table and his own hand. “I could have saved you.” He tossed a card down, ignoring her heavy stare. “If I had come minutes earlier it would have changed everything. He changed that part of my memory. In the one he gave me, you died without warning and there was nothing I could have done. There was no cure but you weren’t in pain. In my real memory we didn’t speak. I barely saw you for a minute when you were alive and you died suffering. In the one he gave me, we had dinner together. We spent the evening talking on one of the balconies alone before Cassian took you home.”

Arwen could barely look at the cards to think of which one to play, so she pulled one without thought and placed it down. “What did we talk about?”

Azriel frowned at her newly placed card. “It doesn’t matter.”

“It matters to me.” She pressed forward against the table. “Rhys gave that memory to you because he thought that is what you would have wanted. I’m here now to listen.”

“You won’t want to hear it now.” Cold. Distant. Spymaster. His shadows swarmed him.

“There is very little you could say to me, Azriel, that would hurt.” Her own cold truth. Arwen couldn’t imagine anything he would say that would change how she felt. How shadowed her world felt. How the dull clouds overhead seemed a perfect metaphor for her life. “Very little that would change anything.”

He played his card, letting his fingers linger around it before he retreated, delaying an answer if he decided to give one at all. “I told you that I loved you. You were upset because you wanted to tell me first and told me I had no patience.” He leant back into his chair, licking his lips and nodding down to the pile in an urge for her to play her next card.

Arwen forgot she was even holding any. That was the memory Rhysand gave him? She tried to imagine how she would have felt to hear it then—how she probably would have been upset that he beat her to the confession, but secretly unable to hold her excitement.

But he hadn’t said it and neither did she. Arwen died and they cursed her name and left no memory of her existence. Now they shared nothing but a broken bond, and she battled the confusion of whether what she felt was a ghost of that connection, or something else. And if she had to guess, she would say that he felt the same—that her sudden reappearance muddled what he thought he knew.

Even if she heard it now—even if he stood and declared his love for her today, Arwen wasn’t sure she could accept it. Because how could she trust it?

~

Cassian had shown up on the doorstep of the town house with the traditional solstice decorations. Feyre, who had yet to celebrate one in the Night Court, wasn’t pleased to have the large pile of pine dough at her feet until she was assured that it was proper and expected. After greeting Feyre, Cassian curved around to Arwen. She grinned as he kissed her cheek, the pressure tipping her off her feet.

“Someone is in a good mood,” she remarked.

“Why would I be anything else?” he asked with a cheek swelling grin. He moved around to her back, large hands massaging her shoulders. “I’m also in the mood for a drink.”

“Hot cocoa or wine?” Feyre inquired.

“When has ‘I’m in the mood for a drink’ ever been answered with something that wasn’t alcohol?” His face appeared next to Arwen’s again. “Red? White? What’s the princess in the mood for?”

She smiled and shook her head. “I might take that hot cocoa.”

The answer wasn’t taken well but ironically at the weakness of her argument, he gave way. Arwen curled herself on the armchair, holding the warm mug with a heavy rug thrown over her lap as Cassian and Feyre drank and decorated the house. It was… Awful. Nothing hung straight and some of it was not in the right place. One wreath even caught fire.

It both annoyed and amused her, but she didn’t have the energy to go around fixing it all like a servant to a clumsy master. Proud of their work, Feyre and Cassian fell into the lounge with the dregs of a second bottle from Rhysand’s cellar.

Azriel shuffled in, still shaking snow of his dark hair and jacket when he paused at the threshold and beheld the new decorations. “What the fuck?” Cassian and Feyre threw their heads back with raucous laughter. He didn’t even shed his jacket before setting on fixing the nearest decorations.

“Eh!” Cassian bellowed, trying to hold a façade of insult that was ruined with another laugh. “I did that.”

Azriel didn’t answer with anything but a look of disbelief. Arwen smiled over the lip of her mug, watching him meticulously fix everything. It was such an Azriel thing to do. Noticing her slackening grip on the mug, she gathered the energy to place it on the ground next to the armchair and tugged the rug underneath her chin as another bout of drowsiness took her. She didn’t lose all sense of alertness, instead, it was like bobbing on the surface of water.

When she came to it, Mor had planted herself on Arwen’s armrest, her arm thrown across the back of the chair. Arwen frowned at the sight of something white and fluffy before her, just making out Amren’s scowling face that was like a pebble on top of a snowball.

The scowl turned on her. “What are you looking at, girl?”

Arwen could only smile and shake her head in denial of any thought. “Nothing.” Her answer seemed to strike amusement around the room, the skin around Cassian’s eyes wrinkling with another round of laughter and even Azriel, quiet in his corner, smiled to the ground.

~

Arwen baulked at the sight of Elain moving from the kitchen into the dining room, a hot plate of steaming potatoes in her hand. She hadn’t been aware Elain was helping Nuala and Cerridwen cook. Arwen stammered right in the middle of the hall, Mor knocking into her shoulder before careening around to get to the food being placed. Azriel, who she could see was already inside helping arrange the dishes to fit, smiled at Elain. He took the plate from her. Arwen’s stomach twisted at the sight.

Even though she knew it wasn’t what was happening, the only thing she could see was the sight of him accepting food from a female. The moment of a bond’s acceptance that Arwen would never get to experience.  

Her hand blindly sought out the body she sensed coming up behind her. Rhysand stopped at her side when she took his wrist. “I… I don’t think I can eat tonight.”

He twisted his wrist out of her hand, taking her own in his instead. “Just sit with us then. Try a little.” Arwen didn’t want to admit it outright, so she looked up to him and pled with her eyes. Don’t make me sit with her. Don’t make me watch them. Rhysand glimpsed beyond her to the room where their family congregated. “This is a family night, and it wouldn’t be complete if you weren’t here. It’s been too long.”

“I—”

“Sit between Feyre and Cass. Or I will be moping all evening on account of your disappearance.”

Arwen cocked her head. “Do not blackmail me with your moping.”

“Do not blackmail me with yours,” he shot back. “Nobody will mind if you’re quiet. It’s just nice to have you here.”

Arwen kept her mouth tightly sealed because the only thought she had was, I have been here. Every single year. There had not been a single Winter Solstice she had spent away from his side. Since she couldn’t formulate any other argument than that, Rhysand took it as a victory and dragged her in by the hand. He moved Cassian a seat over and only released her hand once she sat, then found his own seat on Feyre’s other side.

Cassian, still half-drunk and out of current events, gave her a look of innocent curiosity. “You can have my serving,” she told him with a small smile.

His lips stretched into a grin at first, fierce hazel eyes darting back to the food but the realisation trickled back in and he looked over her again. His hand took hers under the table. Arwen looked over the food, tricking herself to point her focus on the large chunk of ham but truly her focus turned to Azriel in the far corner of her eye. He sat next to Mor at the end, Elain on Mor’s other side.

Even when she felt his eyes on her, she did not look up. Cassian dug into his meal and Arwen traded his hand for his thigh, gripping the muscle through the cotton fabric of his pants that surprisingly weren’t leather. Her plate remained empty, but she planned to at least touch desert.

“What are you getting me for Solstice?”

She shot him an amused look. “You used to ask me every year so I will give you the same answer—”

“It will be socks if you ask me again,” he recited with her, downing another portion of his wine. “Do you actually have socks ready to give me?”

“I do. They’re white with little flowers sewn on.” She had to buy new ones, but with the inside joke having run so long between them, it felt wrong not to have them at the ready—just so he knew that her taunt wasn’t just a taunt. “The shopkeeper was very… interested when I told her what size I needed them in. She’s only made them for children before.”

He nudged her side with his elbow. “You know what Feyre told me? Apparently in the human lands, feet are comparable to wingspans.” And other things, she filled in, half-shocked at his decency to watch his words at the dinner table. He frowned at her. “How the hell do you know my foot size?”

Arwen shrugged. “Mor talks.” Feyre, on her other side, snorted into her drink. Arwen shared a grin with the High Lady who covered her chuckles behind her hand. In truth she had borrowed one of his unused boots for the day and taken it down. The seamstress seemed quite displeased with the dirty shoe being placed on her clean counter.

“I must have made a lasting impression then,” Cassian proclaimed, winking across the table at Mor who only perked at the sound of her name.

“Yet she never came running back,” Arwen couldn’t help but sing under her breath, knowing full well that he could hear her. Her voice travelled further than she thought as Rhysand and Amren coughed before giving up on stifling anything and laughed freely.

She might have left the conversation there, venturing into territory she wasn’t sure was safe to be held in such company, but with a quick glance around the table, she found Azriel looking down at his plate. Pretending she didn’t exist.

Arwen smirked at the frowning warrior. “You may have size, but your performance is in question.”

Forearms braced against the table, he leant in close to her ear. “Move your hand three inches higher and you’ll see the performance I can give you.”

Rhysand saved her from responding. He closed his eyes and shook his head, singing a horrid tune over top of the other voices. Cassian pressed his lips to the high point of her jaw, just next to her ear and chuckled deeply to himself, leaning back into his seat and drew into conversation with Feyre, leaving her to stew in the comment.

Arwen’s attention fell back to Azriel. It was like he had heard nothing. She wasn’t sure what she was looking for, but something was better than nothing.