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Nesta counted Cassian’s heartbeats thrumming under her ear. Just because; just a habit. It was peaceful here, in their bed, with dawn gentling the world around them. It was so easy to lose herself in him, in the sounds of his body, in the scent of him and the space of him.
Cassian dragged his fingers across her hairline, tracing wisps of hair. “It’s almost time, sweetheart,” he murmured.
Nesta hummed, acknowledging. The truth, as it always was, was that she had little desire to leave their bed. Usually, she could stir herself with the same motivation that had driven her for months: never again, and the joy of bearing witness to her own growth - physical and otherwise.
But this morning, training did not await her. Instead, she had plans to meet Azriel on a balcony at the seventh bell.
For what, she didn’t know. Cassian and Azriel had plotted something - or at least, she suspected they had, because it was Cassian who asked her to be ready this morning with no more explanation than “Trust me, Nes.”
Trusting Cassian was easier than breathing, thoughtless and natural, but she’d been burned before. It was with trepidation - and a forlorn sigh - that she pulled herself away from Cassian’s warmth and faced the day.
“Any inkling on what I should wear?” she mused, unraveling her hair from its messy nighttime plait. A few pulls through to ease the worst tangles and she began rebraiding, her coronet taking shape as it did every morning.
Cassian laughed, low and rumbling, from behind her. “Preferably nothing.”
Nesta turned to face him, fingers still working. “You’re the one who told me to get up,” she accused. “Unless we have time for you to follow through, don’t start anything.”
Cassian gave her his sweetest smile - or tried to. It still came out a wild grin, tinged feral with newly risen lust.
“I’ll have to wait then,” he sighed, mimicking greater disappointment than he felt. “Not your leathers, I think. Something more casual.”
Nesta hid her surprise, nodding, and turned towards her wardrobe where her dresses and coats and cloaks were kept. She thumbed through the options, considering.
Where would Azriel want to take her where she didn’t need her leathers? Where she didn’t-
“No Ataraxia then, I take it?” she said, more to herself. Cassian chuckled, still lounging on their bed.
“No Ataraxia. He’s taking you somewhere safe, Nes. I promise.”
In truth, it wasn’t that she wanted her plain-but-not sword to keep her safe. It was an extension of her, a conduit for the kernel of power she kept after bargaining most of it back to the Cauldron. And it really was just a kernel; more manageable and malleable than the all-consuming tidal wave of pure death she’d been drowning in. Ataraxia, and her silver fire, were more closely tied to her image of herself than she’d realized, now faced with leaving it behind.
Nesta pulled a red overdress from the wardrobe. It was an older garment, but comfortable and flattering. The color had faded somewhat from the bright ruby it was when she bought it to a lighter, sundrenched red-orange like the clouds at sundown. It would do. As far as she could tell, anyway.
***
The seventh bell saw Nesta cracking the glass-and-gold balcony door to slip outside. She almost laughed when she saw him.
Azriel, in blue. No leather, no weapons. None visible, anyway - she was sure Truth-Teller was strapped somewhere hidden. It would take her too long to find it, without Azriel smirking and threatening to tell Cassian that his mate had disloyal eyes.
The playful, snarking Azriel had emerged several months after Nesta slew Briallyn and rescued her sister and nephew. In the weeks that followed, Nesta and Azriel spent what felt like unending sleepless nights together - him, atoning for his perceived guilt in the whole matter of Briallyn and Koschei; her, refusing to let her thoughtful friend drown in his own stoicness - and formed something lighter, younger than the deep respect and allyship that already bound them.
It began with dancing. For the first few nights, she’d sipped on a never-emptying cup of tea and read while he worked, or stared, or paced. There were only so many books to read, though, and Azriel seemed to be unable to sit still.
So she brought her Symphonia, and held out her hand, and waited, unyielding, until with a belabored sigh he laid his palm under her outstretched fingers. They spoke little at first, except for gentle, direct corrections from Nesta. But idle chatter flowed soon enough, and Nesta was delighted to find that her friend was gifted with a sharp tongue.
Though she’d never said it, it felt like one way she could repay Azriel for all of the moments that he stood by her as she unraveled. Under the stars, when she was still trying to erase herself with wine; in the training ring, his ruthless calm a bulwark against her own whiplash panic and resolve; his unfailing allyship when she needed it.
Nesta blinked herself back to the present, dismayed to find that despite her intention not to, she’d been staring while lost in thought. And there-
“Get tired of staring at Cassian and decide I’m your next victim, Archeron?” he teased, warmth tempering his stony face. Nesta rolled her eyes.
“Just surprised to see you in something not leather and not black, Shadowsinger. Glad to see I meet the dress code,” she said, looking down at her own colorful dress.
“You forgot a cloak, though,” he said, eyeing her collarbones and the thin material covering her shoulders. Sighing, Nesta opened the balcony door and held out an open hand. Please, she thought. She let out a noise of triumph when she felt the House drop into her palm the hood of a fur-lined cloak Rhysand had bought her during his gifting spree in the weeks after Nyx’s birth. She pulled it through the door and swung it across her shoulders, raising an eyebrow at Azriel as if to say, did I forget?
“Witch,” Azriel muttered.
Nesta smirked, laughing. “Bat. Where are we going?”
Seriousness came over him. “I really can’t tell you. I’ll explain while we fly.”
Nesta blanched. “We can’t go through shadows? I’m not exactly dressed for flying-” she looked down at herself, second guessing her own approval at her clothing.
“We can, part of the way. But we’ll still have a half hour in the air after that.” Azriel sighed, uncharacteristically telling. “I know it’s a lot to ask, but please trust me. It’s… complicated.”
***
Azriel waited, his hand outstretched, for Nesta to agree. He was asking her to lean very heavily on their relationship and the trust that wound between them. He was well aware of her recent history with being transported to unknown places - but he hoped against hope she would take his scarred hand in hers.
And she did, her guarded eyes meeting his own. He could see the calculation - that Cassian knew this was happening, that Feyre would skin him alive if harm befell her, that even without Ataraxia she could still wield Death and, the Mother forbid, the Trove, if it came to it.
He rewarded Nesta with a rare, unbidden smile, and pulled them through the shadows. The sound of snow crunching under his boots welcomed them to Winter.
Nesta’s gasp was the second thing he heard. He watched fondly as she took in the world around her: an evergreen forest, pines so tall they sharpened to pinpricks in the sky, cold, powdery snow undisturbed around them except for where they stood. Nesta laughed, lightly and joyfully, and Azriel didn’t hide the smile that lit his own face.
She turned to face him, eyes sparkling. “Are we still in Night? I haven’t ever seen snow so pure,” she asked, fingertips pressed to her lips in restrained delight.
“Welcome to Winter, Nesta.” Nesta looked sharply at him, a single, long blink the only sign of her surprise. Azriel debated whether or not to explain yet, whether he could extend her trust just a bit farther, until they were within the wards.
He held out a hand in invitation, extending his wings once, twice to warm the muscles. Without words, understanding flowed, and Nesta let herself be lifted into his arms. He held her closely as he pushed off, wings beating powdery snow around them.
“We’re two minutes from the wards,” he murmured. “I owe you a great deal of explanation, and I promise you you will have it.”
Nesta said nothing else, so he willed his wings to catch the wind, to pull them into his closest guarded secret.
“You know that when I was a boy, I was kept in a cell by my stepmother and my father. And that my exposure to the world around me was limited,” Azriel stopped to breath, reliving his earlier traumas. “My mother was allowed to see me for an hour every week. And though she could not save me from my half-brothers, she was the best mother.”
Azriel could feel Nesta’s horror and anger and sadness for him. His shadows wrapped around him, offering comfort in their way. It was familiar - this pity - but it was uncomfortable, even now, to be the object of such emotion.
“After I was sent to Windhaven, I lost track of her. I did not have the time or resources to seek her out, and my father withheld her location from me. It was only until Rhys’s father enlisted me as his spymaster that I was able to… revisit my history.”
Azriel took a steadying breath. “After we killed my half-brothers, Cassian and I searched for her. It took us a year - I was convinced she had been killed, tormented and left to die by my bastard father or his children,” he snarled. “But Cassian held hope. As he always does.”
Azriel felt Nesta’s fingers clench into his sleeve, in recognition and support and something else. There was a tenseness he hadn’t expected from her - but there was no time to pause and examine that, if he was to get this story out.
“She was in need of healing. Physical, emotional healing. I initially wanted to bring her to the library, but she refused. Said she refused to be locked away, again, no matter how gilded the cage. And-” he sighed irritably. It was too easy to relive the worst parts of this. But the miles between here and their destination were closing quickly, and he was determined to give Nesta at least a few minutes to digest this all. Perhaps she already knew where it was going. Where they were going.
“-and, anyway, Kallias owed me a favor. So I called it in. And my mother has been living in Winter, behind wards even Helion would need time to break, hidden from everyone - even Rhys, in a way - for centuries. Only Kallias, myself, and Cassian know precisely where she is.”
“And now me,” Nesta murmured, something dry underlying her tone. Azriel swallowed uneasily. Had he misjudged her? He hurried to explain.
“After what happened under the Hewn City - after what Bryce Quinlan said - I wanted you to meet her. She is everything that is good in this world, Nesta, resilient despite all the ways this world has tried to kill her,” Azriel took a steadying breath. “If you want to turn back, we can. But I want you to know her - I want her to know you.”
“Why?” The question came whispered out of her, incredulous and confused. Azriel smiled sardonically, bracing himself for the very possible backlash his answer would cause.
“Because my mother loves to mother those who need it.”
Azriel let the second half of that logic remain unsaid - that Nesta needed mothering; that she needed to patch over the hurt her own childhood had left her with. That Azriel needed it too; that he would never be able to atone for being born: a living reminder of his mother’s assault.
Azriel waited for her to respond. He was aware of the insult he was levying at her, but trusted in Nesta’s ability to see beyond it. Their relationship had long been built on actions and not words - gifts and favors done in the darkness of night and secret; only ever respect, even in disagreement. He prayed to the Mother that Nesta would see now what this was- a gift of his own trust, and an attempt to show her there was something beyond her mother wound.
Nesta was very still in his arms. He could hear her thinking, working through the reality of his act. It was not a secret he parted with lightly: even now, there was an unfamiliar pit in his stomach; an anxiety that would only be curbed by Nesta’s own promise that she would guard this secret with her life.
“Do you want me to turn back?” he asked, hating the way that anxiety bled into his tone.
But Nesta shifted, at last, and whispered back, “No. No, keep flying.” So he did, leaving Nesta to her thoughts as he fought with his own unease.
***
A thousand questions whipped through her mind, and dread underlined each one. The dread of meeting another woman, a mother who would see - as mothers do - into her, see the rot that had overtaken Nesta’s soul. She was cutting away at it bit by bit, but it was a fierce tangle of briars and there was still progress to be made.
A mother always knows, her mother had said. A mother always knows the worth of a woman. And Nesta knew it was true. She had watched her mother peel away the outer layers of every young woman Nesta met. She had watched her mother appraise her own daughters, reduce them to their worth: cunning; beauty; resilience. She had known that Nesta could start a war with will and wit, that Elain could end it with her beauty, that Feyre could survive it and drag them all along with her.
The trepidation did not leave her. It grew by the minute, and Nesta considered slamming down those great steel walls she’d long ago built. But it was a different Nesta who relied on those walls - one who had needed to protect herself from the world and its unkindness. Instead, she tried to focus on the scenery around her: the pristine snow, the sharp pines like spires reaching up towards her and Azriel. It was peaceful, still, in a way the Illyrian mountains were not, in a way Velaris could never be. She drew that stillness and serenity into herself, trying to quiet her mind and her fear.
A dark spec in the distance slowly grew until it was a cottage. There were lights on, shining golden light out of the windows into the beautiful wild beyond.
“I can smell your fear,” Azriel murmured. “It is not too late to turn back. I…” he trailed off, regret coloring his voice. “It was not my intention to cause you such fear.”
It was his concern that lit the cold fire inside her. Azriel was her friend, and vulnerability was a language they spoke without words. She would not let fear harm that relationship. She would not succumb to it. Never again, she had promised herself.
“Keep going,” was all she said. But it came out strong, and she sucked in deep lungfulls of cold winter air, and she knew Azriel heard her resolve in those words.
Azriel landed not long after, shifting to let Nesta’s feet touch the ground. As she righted herself, his hands lingered along her shoulders, fixing her cloak so it laid flat and right against her collarbone. Nesta held back a smile. If his mother did love to mother, as he said, she could see where Azriel got it from.
Or she would, anyway. Azriel led them to the door, knocking in a distinct pattern she tried to forget. It was the right thing to do, to keep intact some of the security Azriel had gone to great lengths to ensure.
The door clicked open with no one beyond it, but Azriel seemed to find this acceptable and walked inside, holding the door open for her to pass through after him. Only once it closed, blocking out the forest wind and chatter, did Nesta hear hurried footsteps and the leathery rustle of Illyrian wings.
Azriel’s mother was… was perfectly normal. A kind face, without incredible beauty, a lithe body and-
Crooked wings.
Crooked, and scarred, held tightly on one side and drooping on the other. Nesta tried not to focus on them, even as she felt the anger and sadness fight to bleed through as silver fire into her gaze. It was not polite, and Nesta knew - above all - that she was supposed to be polite.
Nesta blinked, alarmed at the antiquated thought. It had been so long since she’d learned those lessons, and even longer since she’d heeded them. It was startling to find herself back in a fourteen year old’s mind, echoes of her mother’s voice dictating every word and action.
Azriel had moved to embrace his mother, letting her smooth back his hair fondly. A gentle smile - one he’d often gave to Elain, before that had ended with a crash - softened his face.
Nesta collected herself in time. Azriel held out a hand in introduction. “Nesta, this is my mother, Lavina. Mother, this is Nesta Archeron.”
Nesta waited for him to continue, to highlight what most fae saw as her worth: the Kingslayer, the Valkyrie, the High Lady’s sister. The wielder of the Trove and the Maker of Made things. But all he said was Nesta - Nesta Archeron, the female.
“I am pleased to meet you, Nesta Archeron,” she said, tilting her head lightly. “You seem tense, dear.”
Nesta blinked, again, though she caught Azriel lifting his eyes to the ceiling and muttering what was almost certainly a prayer to the Mother under his breath.
“Forgive me,” Nesta murmured. “I… it is a long story, and I was unprepared for our meeting today. But I am glad to meet you, too,” she bit her lip, abandoning all pretense of hiding from this female who seemed to do away with both formality and unease. “Azriel speaks very highly of you.”
Lavine huffed. “Bah. He barely speaks of me at all out there, I am afraid. But we need not rehash all of that,” she said. She nodded in towards the hallway. “I’ll pop the kettle on and we can have tea and see to whatever is ailing you.”
And Lavina tottered off, wings whispering behind her.
***
Their visit did not last too long. A few hours, perhaps. Nesta admittedly lost all track of time, having struggled to wade through the bone-deep memories of her childhood to remain present in these moments.
It was worth it, though. Azriel had been right. Lavina was nothing short of miraculous. To Nesta, being around her was like wrapping her hands around a warm mug on a cool night, letting heat seep into her fingers and through her veins until all of her felt sufficiently warm.
And Lavina had no use for formality, fixing Nesta with a mother’s stare and saying without hesitation, I can see someone got their barbs in you, dear. Tell me about it.
At first, Nesta balked. But in the warmth of the cottage, there was that other sense that warped around her like a blanket and whispered, Breathe, my Nesta. So she did, and on the exhale came the story of her childhood. The harsh hands and harsher words; the expectations and realities she’d been shackled to. The loss, the way her mother's voice haunted her like a specter well into adulthood. Her failure to offer any semblance of warmth or guidance to her youngest sister in the moments Feyre had needed her most.
Lavina was quiet through it all, sipping slowly at her tea. Azriel’s face was stony, eyes flickering between the two females as Nesta laid herself bare. She wondered if he was surprised - or if, perhaps, he knew, or hoped, that Lavina would strike true and unravel the hurt inside Nesta.
When she finished, Nesta’s face was burning, eyes blurry with tears she refused to let fall. But Lavina hummed, reached out a gentle hand, asking for Nesta’s, and squeezed her fingers tight.
Your mother would not be proud of you, I think. But perhaps that is the greatest victory of this all. I am so sorry.
Her words were like a hand turning a key that had long been jammed in a lock. Nesta knew her mother would be rolling in her grave for all the ways Nesta disappointed her. And to be told that was a victory, as if she should take pleasure in insulting the woman who reared her, had never sat right, until it was intertwined with the truth of it all:
The sadness. The loss, the longing. The wonder of how it all could have been different. If Nesta might have been less wolf, more woman if her cage hadn’t been so small, her leash hadn’t been so taught.
Grief. Nesta wasn’t sure if it was the Mother’s voice that supplied that word, or Lavina’s, or her own, but it rang true. Had she ever grieved the relationship with her mother - the one that was, and the one that was not?
The word was still rattling around in Nesta’s head when they took their leave. Lavina had pressed them both to take home trinkets - some of the tea they’d enjoyed, a new scarf she had been working on for Cassian. Nesta tucked them tightly against her chest as Azriel lifted off into the air, the great whoosh of his wings drowning out her own thoughts for a brief moment.
Nesta did not know what to say to him. She was grateful, but left raw after her conversation with Lavina. And he had sat there all the while, refilling their tea and watching with those all-seeing eyes. The shadows had been scarce, she realized, and wondered what that meant.
Nesta sighed into the air of Winter. They’d been flying for almost twenty minutes, and would be touching down soon again outside of the wards that hid Lavina from the world. And then she’d be back at the House, with her mate, and his overwhelming, all consuming love. It would be too much.
“Azriel,” she murmured. He hummed in response, eyes flicking to her for a moment before he looked back to the expanse of winter forest before them. “Can you bring me to the library instead of the House?”
“I can’t winnow into the library. But I can get us close.” She felt him tense. “Are you okay?”
She was. She just wasn’t ready to face Cassian, to unravel all over again. Perhaps tomorrow.
“Yes,” she said. And there was quiet for a while longer, until Azriel reached the edge of the wards, and still flying, let them be encased in shadows. When the darkness cleared, they were aloft outside the wards of the House of Wind, near a lower balcony than the one they had departed from.
As Azriel touched down and gently set her feet down on the red stone, she turned to face him, placing one hand on his forearm. Searching, she looked at him, hoping he would understand what she couldn’t say behind all she could.
“Thank you,” Nesta whispered, and with a heavy mind and lighter heart, she left him on the balcony, finding a quiet corner thrumming with ancient magic to steady the whirling emotions inside her.