Chapter Text

Chapter 5

Arwen was training. And she was training hard.

Something had bothered her, Rhysand had noted, almost as soon as she met them on the training grounds of the rooftop that chilled morning. He held the training pads up, letting her beat her fists against them in whatever pattern she liked. Arwen was growing stronger by the day. Physically.

Cassian and Azriel spared a gaze in their direction during the small water break. The former eyed how Rhysand readjusted his footing for a better hold against her. Azriel’s eyes, however, did not so much as turn to Rhysand. His eyes lingered on her body, the way her hips turned to follow the punches. How her tightly braided hair of raven brushed against her spine and the beads of sweat that splattered her forehead.

Arwen wasn’t even seeing her brother. In front of her were only the two black pads that her wrapped fists were pounding against. Again and again and again. Spikes of pain now shot down her wrists as her aim grew sloppy and broke through her threshold of toughness. It was only when her arm literally shook that she stopped.

Rhysand lowered his padded hands slowly, a brow peaking overtop of them. Arwen smiled tightly and stretched out her fingers. “Did I hurt you?” she taunted.

Her brother scoffed heartily. “Hardly.” He grabbed her wrist and held it up between their faces. “You think this little hand is going to hurt me?”

Arwen only smiled again, taking advantage of the loose hold he had, furled her knuckles, and punched him straight into the nose. His head flew back with a shout of pain. Snickering, she let her legs take her in a swaying jaunt across the ring to her own glass of water. Cassian and Azriel were biting down their own laughs. “I’m sorry Brother,” she called over her shoulder, “did my little hand hurt you?”

“No.” Despite that assurance, the High Lord held his nose which had a drizzle of blood flowing from it. “Brat.” His hand covered his grin as Arwen threw one of the other training pads his way, ducking just in time for it to go flying overhead.

Cassian gripped her shoulders from where he stood behind (and tucking his wings close just in case). “Why don’t you and I have a spar? Give both the weaker links a break.” Her energy was nowhere near spent, despite the intense training. He’d be a good run for her money.

“You’re the one that called for a break,” Azriel shot back. Rhysand just turned his face into a bitter frown, figuring that speaking with a bloodied nose from a single punch wouldn’t help his cause.

Cassian bowed back at him. “For your own sake. I’m a gentleman at heart.”

Arwen wiped at her brow. “Two minutes?” she bargained for. Cassian nodded and patted her shoulder. She rubbed her temples and yawned. Despite her bursting character that morning, she’d hardly slept that night. It was spent mostly on the small balcony that extended from her room in the townhouse.

When they got into the ring, Arwen’s attention had drifted. Her brother and Azriel stood next to each other, discussing something lightly but it wasn’t the words that caught her attention. Azriel had begun pulling off his top layer of training gear to counter his growing body heat—something she wished she could do, but that was an entirely different matter. He had broad shoulders. Not quite as broad as the general in front of her, but they were carved from muscle. The indents of the muscle seemed to lead her from his shoulders, down to his forearms then his hands which rested on his hips. From there, she could see the—

“Ow!”

Arwen fell on her arse, heels flying above and nearly over her. Cassian stood over her. “Dead,” he pronounced.

Shaking her head to get rid of the dizziness, she shot back up to her feet, forgetting about her half-undressed mate and giving her entire focus back to her sparring partner. There was no need to wager coin as Cassian easily won each round, but neither could deny that she was getting far better each week.

Rhys chucked her a towel that she rubbed down her face then across her neck. Azriel found himself watching her again, shifting his stance ever so slightly wider.

A simple chair was conjured from nowhere at Rhys’s doing and the female dropped onto it, resting her head in her hands to catch her breath. As Cassian and Rhysand moved on together to debate a round of weapons training, Azriel inched closer to the chair. He could hear her breaths, see the way her back moved with each deep pant. “You were good today.”

Arwen lifted her head with a parted-lip smile. “Thanks. I think I needed it.”

“Particular reason why?” His voice was flat yet deep, as it always had been. It was a strange comfort that never failed to warm parts of her that she wouldn’t even realise were cold in the first place. Even before the mating bond snapped, she took to his company.

Arwen shrugged. She strained to keep her eyes forward, not confident that she would control her gaze if she looked to her right where his hips were level with her head. But the blue flicker of a siphon drew it still. He only wore two that morning, one on each hand, held down by a leather contraption similar to a glove, only it hooked over his two middle fingers.

Without much thought behind the action, she took his hand. Azriel’s eyes snapped downwards, but the shock in him stilled there. Arwen’s thumb pressed over the azure gemstone. He cherished those moments of contact so he did nothing but keep his hand still and in her hold so she could continue whatever investigation she was doing on his siphon.

“Blue has always suited you,” she remarked softly.

Azriel’s heart twisted. The corner of his lips tweaked upwards. “Not that I’m worried about my fashion choices, but that is good to hear.” She looked up at him through her dark lashes and smiled. His own grew. “Ease’s my hundreds of years’ worth of worry that I chose the wrong colour.”

Her snort followed. “You’d also have Cass complaining for the next ten centuries that you were copying him.” Arwen let his hand go, folding hers together and locking them between her thighs. Azriel looked back to the training rings where Cassian and Rhysand were sword fighting. He inched another step closer and placed his hand on the spine of the chair to rest his weight against it. “And for someone that claims to be uncaring of their fashion choices, you always do look impeccable.” He couldn’t help it. He looked back down at her. Arwen swallowed and smiled tightly again. “You and my brother. Cassian looks like dog shit half the time.”

“I can fucking hear you!” came the cry of said Illyrian in the midst of raining down on her brother. “Just because—” he ducked to avoid Rhys’s swing— “I don’t spend an hour pruning myself every morning. Got better things to do.”

Arwen grinned to herself, bringing her heel up to the chair, locking her arms around her ankle. Gods, she remembered a time when she thought that Cassian’s dishevelled look was the most handsome thing in the universe. It still was handsome, but not in the way that made her heart flutter. That was back when she was younger, and she looked up to him as her protector. If Rhysand wasn’t around, he’d be the one to walk with her through the camps and ward off the snarling looks that came because of her half-breed nature. That love for him morphed back to something brotherly over time. And thank the Mother for it. She gave her well-wishes for whoever he decided to settle down with.

Her head tipped back in rest, lightly hitting the spymaster’s forearm. Today she was too exhausted, too caught up in other thoughts, to care about what he might be thinking of it. What she was thinking of it. He was her friend—one of her closest companions. Arwen had no desire to lose that.

After training, her first task had been a bath. Using her chamber in the House of Wind, Arwen scrubbed the dirt and sweat from her skin, emerging and feeling more High Fae than Illyrian. Leaving her hair loose, she slipped into a dress and joined the others for a casual early lunch. Rather sick of the male bickering, she spent the hour talking with Mor instead, even putting her finger to her brother’s lips when he tried to pull her into his conversation.

But by the end of lunch, her thoughts grew dreary again. Arwen found herself wandering along the open pavilion and finally sitting down on the very edge, feet hanging down over the slope of the mountain below.

“You’re making me nervous,” a voice called. Arwen glanced over her shoulder as Cassian meandered towards her. He too had dressed down after training, hair pulled into a half-bun. “Sitting that close to the edge.”

An amused huff escaped her. “The fear of heights didn’t suddenly come for me after losing my wings,” she said as he sat down next to her. Illyrians weren’t born with that fear, and it was highly unusual for any of them to develop it. If they did, it was beaten out of them. Any fear that came with flying came with the knowledge that a swift change in the weather could be disastrous if they did not learn to control it. High winds, storms, and thick clouds—they were the enemy.

“Can’t say you’re not afraid of hitting the bottom though,” he pointed out, leaning to her with a raised brow. Cassian would be lying if he said that he didn’t worry over her tendencies to still enjoy the open air. The risks she took sometimes, though he was often laughing and right there to catch her, also made him swallow something down. What if they weren’t there? The idea that one day, she may just risk a little too much.

“That is why I’m sitting on the ledge and not hanging by my fingers,” she countered. “But now that you’re here.” Arwen shifted forward by an inch, and it was all that she needed to before his large hand planted on her stomach and pushed her back. He was shaking his head, looking forward but with a loose smile. “You’d catch me.”

“Always will,” he promised, ignoring his previous thought. “But I don’t particularly feel like making a dive for you right now. Az got a good blow on me and I’m still sore.” It was half-true. His side had an already fading bruise, but the other half of him wanted her to talk. He too had noticed her demeanour that morning and he came to her now to try and pry it out. “Did you have a good sleep?” is where he decided to start.

Arwen looked at him oddly, and he could admit the question was a bit strange for the middle of the day. “It was alright,” she answered. “Sleep was good, but I didn’t get much of it.”

His chin tipped upwards partially in interest. “No?” he prodded.

She shook her head, eyes narrowing into slits against the sunlight. Arwen decided that Cassian was a fine choice to talk to on the matter. He understood being the outcast. “I feel… Human,” she decided to say. A short chuckle followed. “I don’t mean for that to be an insult to them, but I feel like one when I shouldn’t be.”

Cassian rested his hands on his knees, boots digging into the stone beneath. He was careful with his words around the subject. “Wings aren’t what make us who we are.”

“It’s not just the wings,” she muttered, now frowning. “I’m half-breed. Illyrian and High Fae. Wings were the only thing that made me feel Illyrian, and now they’re gone. But High Fae are supposed to have magic. My brother is the most powerful High Lord and he’s only been doing it for ten years. Even some Illyrians have magic and I know it’s rare but… I don’t have magic or wings. In the mountains they see my ears, with the High Fae, they see me without magic and the stronger Illyrian blood. I don’t fit into either of them.”

Then she realised that she may have made a mistake. Cassian knew what it was like to be on the outskirts, but not because he didn’t fit in with the other Illyrians. He was as Illyrian as they came. He was the perfect soldier, and it was only because they didn’t like the way he was born he was pushed to the edge. He always knew he had something but was refused it. Arwen didn’t have anything to claim on.

“You don’t need to.” He waited for her gaze to slip to him before smiling. “Why would you want to fit in with war-mongering bastards, or the snobbish pointy ears?” He laughed and Arwen cracked a smile.

“I have pointed ears,” she noted with a weak glare.

“But you’re not snobbish,” he countered. “You don’t turn your nose up at me so you’re better than all of them in my book.”

“Yes,” she sang. “Your death book. Dear diary, Keir looked at me funny today, now he’s destined to die by my sword.”

His lips pursed. “Can’t deny that.” They both fell into a comfortable laugh and he threw an arm around her shoulder that hung loose down her front, followed by the extension of his wing. “Though you did say I look like dog-shit.”

Arwen smothered her grin. “Only half the time.” Cassian made a noise of mock understanding and acceptance, Arwen tipping her head onto his shoulder.