Sneak preview... The Singer Addresses His Audience, Chapter 3
“I forgot to mention to Rhys that Nesta…,” Cassian finally answered after a deep breath, “That, ah, she can’t handle the sound of logs popping in a fire.”
An extended, pregnant pause followed that revelation.
“What?” Azriel and Mor asked in unison a few moments later, startling one other. Their breaths came out in foggy puffs in the still, frigid air, fine little clouds of ice crystals that lingered for mere fractions of a second before sublimating. The House never got this cold, not even in the dead of winter; Mor shivered, and buried her hands in the folds of her voluminous silk skirts. Azriel seemed unaffected.
The general dragged a clammy hand down his face and expanded on his previous thought: “When a log pops, it startles her and reminds her of—um.” He trailed off again. On second thought, perhaps it was best that that particular secret remain hidden. “Let’s just say she has some very bad associations with that sound and the war. I don't specifically know what.”
Mor narrowed her dark eyes and peered searchingly at him. "That's a lie,” she announced a second later.
Cassian glared at her. Fucking power of Truth. “I’ll rephrase it, then: it's not my business to tell.”
There. At least he’d managed to preserve some of her pride. The answer seemed to mollify Mor too, who glanced at Azriel and gave him the slightest, shallowest nod in confirmation.
“You didn’t think to mention that to the person who planned the ceremony?” the Shadowsinger pressed, once his expression had reset itself back to cold, blank neutrality. Mor’s hadn't; she looked at him now with vague disbelief, pressing her full lips together into a fine line and never quite making eye contact. The show of avoidance rankled at him—she was the other big reason his mating ceremony had failed so spectacularly—but now wasn’t the time. The sooner he could get Mor and Azriel out of here, the sooner the search could begin for his mate.
“Look. I didn’t think Rhys was going to use real fire—”
“Even so, you mention that kind of shit when it has that much of an effect on somebody.” Azriel brought up his thumb and forefinger to rub at the bridge of his nose. "Mother above, Cass, what is wrong with you? How could you be so fucking… shortsighted when your own mate is concerned?"
“We'd—look. Look,” he stammered, growing increasingly defensive with each spoken word. Within his chest, the bond continued to flop uselessly every time Nesta’s name was uttered, thrashing like a fish out of water. What had she done to it? he wondered, panicked. “Nes had gotten better about being near fire and had gone long enough without an incident that it didn’t even occur to me to mention it to Rhys, all right?” Another futile flutter inside his chest. He ignored it and scratched the back of his neck awkwardly instead. "And, gods, you know… he’s been under enough stress as is between the baby, and Feyre recovering from Nyx’s birth—"
“Why do you look like that?” Azriel asked, having picked up on the shift in his expression and bearing.
“Something’s wrong with the bond,” Cassian muttered to himself, taking a gulp of spirits from his filthy glass and setting it down on the table with a little more force than was strictly necessary. “It’s… like, when I think about it, the other half is there but… not? It’s like a rope’s been cut.”
For the briefest of moments, he wondered if she'd rejected him from afar, but that was ridiculous. Wasn’t it? She clearly had wanted the same thing he did, otherwise she wouldn’t have wanted the damn ceremony in the first place. He pushed that train of thought down but unfortunately, a more alarming one popped up in its place: what had her kidnapper done to it? Gods knew a Vanserra was capable of anything—
“That sounds like faebane,” Mor supplied wearily. “Feyre told me once how it felt, and it sounded just like that. You’d know it if she was dead.”
“We need to tell Rhys—”
“Rhys is busy, like I said. He’ll let us know when he’s done with Elain and…” Azriel let the rest of the sentence drop.
Mor cleared her throat softly; the disbelief had soured into something Cassian didn’t recognize. “Before either of you say anything… yes, I’m aware of the irony of what I’m about to ask. But why, Cass, were you thinking about Rhys’ comfort over that of your… mate’s?”
He blinked at her for a second, wide-eyed with genuine surprise, before indignation at her insinuation shot through him. He barked out a bitter peal of laughter. “What, now you’re suddenly on her side?”
Mor rolled her dark eyes. “No. I just think it's weird.”
"Well, some of us try hard to take other peoples’ feelings into account, Mor.”
“Everyone other than their own mate’s, apparently,” Azriel muttered under his breath while Mor scoffed.
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