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Nesta lingers outside Ember and Randall’s door, a strange series of emotions tearing their way through her chest. To have parents like that…to be so willing to sacrifice everything in order to save them. Her stomach twists uncomfortably. It’s exactly what you weren’t strong enough to do for your father, she thinks, her fists clenching.
She squeezes her eyes shut and leans back against the door, quieting those thoughts in a bath of cool flame. Now is not the time to rehash old battles. Not when she’s just made a decision that has the entire court – her entire family – ready to murder her in cold blood.
She doesn’t regret it. Not at all. Bryce had needed her help. And if Rhysand had taken one second to calm the fuck down and let his anger subside, Nesta knows he would have done the same thing. They all would have. They just needed time to see reason.
Her eyes flicker toward the rooms at the opposite end of the hall, where her own bedroom lies. She and Cassian share one now, although it’s still the same room she has slept in since she was originally turned High Fae last year. The House had seen fit to throw Cassian’s things in amongst hers several weeks ago, having apparently determined that there was no longer any point in the two of them taking up more than one room.
Nesta tries to calm herself with the memory. She and Cassian had burst into Nesta’s room one afternoon, mouths roaming, clothes already halfway torn off. After throwing her on the bed, Cassian had paused midway through kissing his way down her neck, looking at her curiously.
“What?” Nesta had panted, frustrated by the pause in activity.
Cassian pulled a dagger out from under her pillow, its blade glinting in the firelight.
“When did you take my knife?” he laughed.
Nesta squirmed, but Cassian’s hand was clamped firmly on her thigh, holding her in place.
“I didn’t,” she grumbled, attempting to tug his mouth back down to hers. Cassian remained propped up on his elbow, smirking at her as she whimpered in frustration.
He leaned in to skim his nose along her jaw.
“Then why is it here?” he said softly against her ear. The feel of his breath sent a shiver skittering down her spine.
“I don’t know, you big bat,” she huffed. “It’s YOUR knife. Shouldn’t you-” but her eyes widened as she caught a glimpse of the bookshelves situated directly behind them.
Cassian, noticing the change in her expression, had followed her gaze, turning his head to peer over his shoulder. He chuckled, turning back to her with a triumphant, teasing look in his eyes.
“Your smut is getting all over my maps,” he crooned. Indeed, great tomes on battle strategy and Illyrian history were now shoved onto her shelves, stuffed in amongst Nesta’s romance novels.
Nesta rolled her eyes.
“Good,” she said. “Your boring war books needed some spicing up anyway.”
“Boring?” Cassian scoffed, but something devious sparked in his expression. His hand moved farther up her thigh, almost exactly to where she needed his touch the most. “Is that what you’d call me, Nes? Boring?”
Nesta grit her teeth, using every bit of her will to keep from giving him the satisfaction of seeing her eyes roll back in her head at his touch.
“I certainly will, if you keep getting distracted,” she ground out.
Cassian laughed. He leaned down to press a gentle kiss to her lips. It was an intimate movement, so at odds with the absolutely devious things he was currently doing between her thighs.
“I like it,” he said, smiling softly against her lips. “Seeing my stuff. Here.”
It had surprised her, too, to realize how happy it made her to see Cassian’s belongings stuck in amongst hers, even through the haze of desire flooding through her. It was almost as if the room had been missing something all along. As if it was just now truly a home, now that it was a home to both of them.
“Mhm,” Nesta had breathed, tugging him down on top of her. It hadn’t been the time for sentimentality.
But now, the happy memory anchors Nesta. So many happy memories were associated with that room. With that man. Yet tonight, the prospect of entering it is daunting. She hadn’t had a chance to speak to Cassian alone before escorting Randall and Ember to their own room, but it didn’t take a genius to know that he was angry with her. Sure, he’d seemed calm enough while talking a fuming Rhys down, but Nesta had felt the fury emanating off of him, searing down that bond between them. It’s a different kind of anger than the one she is used to, and something steely in her chest withers in its presence. She shakes it off, standing up straight and forcing herself to approach the room and open the door.
Only rumpled sheets and a crackling fire stare back at her. A cup of tea wafts steam from her bedside table, as if the House had known she would need something to calm her nerves. There’s no sign of Cassian. It unsettles her: he isn’t normally one to run from a fight. It has always surprised her, really. How someone so gentle and kind can simultaneously be so lethal in battle.
Worry sparks again in her chest, but she takes another deep breath. I am the rock against which the surf crashes , she thinks, echoing the mantra Gwyn had voiced back when they’d been trudging their way through the Blood Rite. She gets undressed, brushes out her hair. Lies down in their bed. Cassian’s scent wraps around her, and she shuts her eyes, determined to fall asleep.
She only lasts an hour before she goes looking for him.
He’s standing in the library when she finds him, furiously running his eyes over a map. Hands braced on the table, shoulders hunched, he looks every bit the seasoned general, preparing himself for war. Despite her full anticipation of a fight, Nesta feels no hint of anger. In fact, she’s dismayed to find only a small kernel of desperation taking root in her chest. Although the two of them are no strangers to an argument, Nesta has always known that Cassian is on her side. And he has certainly never shut her out. Not that she hadn’t tried to get him to. The prospect of her efforts ever actually working…it’s too horrible for her to consider.
“Was what I did so unforgivable that you think me undeserving even of a fight?” she says, her voice cool. But she cringes at the pleading tone she has failed to hide under her biting words. Stand up , she sends down the bond. Look at me .
But Cassian doesn’t.
“I needed to calm down first,” he grumbles, eyes still trained on the map.
“And are you? Calm?” she bites back.
His hands clench into fists on the table.
“No.”
Nesta doesn’t move from the doorway, terrified at the prospect of approaching him and being turned away. Try as she might, and no matter what sort of progress she had made in the past year, a part of her still doesn’t quite believe in his unconditional love. In anyone’s. She crosses her arms over her chest, warding her heart behind a wall of steel.
“Then yell at me. Tell me I had no right to give up the mask. That I risked the lives of everyone here by giving away such a valuable weapon to a potential enemy.”
Cassian’s jaw clenches, but he still says nothing.
“What do I need to say to you to get you to burst?” she huffs. “Do I need to call you a low-born brute again? Threaten to marry Eris?”
Cassian still doesn’t respond, and Nesta’s voice turns pleading at his continued silence.
“You told me not to shut you out,” she says quietly, tears threatening at the edges of her vision. “Do I not deserve the same courtesy?”
Cassian’s eyes finally flicker up to hers, and Nesta cringes at the fury buried in his expression.
“The mask is property of the Night Court,” he says finally. Slowly. “It should not be used without Rhy’s permission.”
To Nesta’s relief, anger floods through her at this response.
“That mask is not his,” she seethes, her chin held high. “Even he can’t wield it without consequences. It answers to me and me only. And I can do with it what I see fit.”
“It is not YOURS,” Cassian says. He isn’t yet yelling, but Nesta can feel his anger threatening to break through his cool calm. His fists clench, siphons flaring.
“So you think I’m unworthy to yield it, then,” Nesta spits. “Too reckless and unfeeling?”
She knows it isn't true. In fact, it's the sort of accusation she would have flung at him a year ago, just to get under his skin. But the words hit their mark anyway. Cassian’s eyes widen. For a moment, she thinks he might move toward her. Cradle her face in his calloused hands. A part of her hungers for it, begs for it. His throat bobs, but he remains standing at the table. They are what they have always been: two worthy opponents facing off from opposite ends of a battlefield.
“I think,” Cassian says, running a frustrated hand through his hair. “That you told me yourself you wished you didn’t have access to the mask. That it was too tempting, too dangerous.”
“And running off to deal with angry warlords every week isn’t?” Nesta spits out. Cassian stills at her question, and Nesta pauses. She isn’t sure where that accusation came from, but she knows as soon as the words have left her mouth that she needed them to be said.
“What?” Cassian says, blinking at her.
Nesta clears her throat, standing up straight.
“What do you think I do while you go off to Illyria every week?” she says, biting back the emotion creeping into her voice. “Sit here and knit?”
Cassian just continues to stare at her.
“I TRUST you, Cassian. That’s what I do. Even when every part of me wants to beg Rhysand himself to winnow me out there just to keep an eye on you. Even when I want to seep into your skin when you finally return in one piece. But I don’t. Because you are a warrior, and I trust that you know what you’re doing.”
Cassian’s brows furrow, and Nesta can’t stand the look of pain and uncertainty in his eyes. But she forces herself to stare him down, asking plainly, softly: “Can you not do the same for me?”
Cassian’s jaw clamps shut, and he finally takes his hands off the table. He walks toward her, each step sending a pounding jolt through Nesta’s soul, his eyes trained on her the entire way across the room. When he finally reaches her, a warm palm cups her cheek.
“I do trust you,” he says carefully.
“Then act like it,” Nesta huffs. By now, there are fully-formed tears in her eyes, but she refuses to acknowledge them. Cassian wipes one away with his thumb, but his jaw remains clenched, as if warring with himself.
“You can’t speak to Rhys like that,” he says finally.
Nesta rolls her eyes and laughs derisively.
“Someone has to keep his ego in check.”
“He’s the High Lord, Nesta,” Cassian responds. “And my brother. Our brother. How do you expect us to get anything done if you’re constantly at war with him?”
“I’m not the one who started the fight,” Nesta says.
Cassian just looks at her sadly. As if he knows that no matter how much respect Nesta and Rhys feel for each other, there will always be this between them. This struggle of power and animosity. As if the kindness in his soul balks at the prospect of managing what will potentially be a centuries long rivalry between the woman he loves and his best friend.
Nesta hates the look at his eyes. Would give anything to make Cassian happy. Anything except sacrifice her pride and integrity.
“I’m sorry I gave them the mask,” she says finally. “But I do not regret it.”
Cassian nods, his hand still on her face.
“I’ll sleep in here tonight,” he says quietly. “We’ll leave at 9 tomorrow for the river house.”
“Fine,” Nesta says, but there’s no bite to her response. And as she gently removes his hand from her face and turns back for the door, she does nothing to stop the tears from falling.