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[yazthebookish]

“Mock me all you like. Whatever I imagined then, now it is I who would beg and grovel for a kind word from your lips.” His eyes are black with desire. “By you, I am forever undone.”

Commissioned with my extremely talented friend artoffrostandflame (link here)

[apples-in-snow]

Does anyone have a good Nessian fic rec where Nesta realizes that maybe she deserves better and Cassian realizes that "oh, maybe I need to rethink some things before i lose her from my life" ?

I'd appreciate anything honestly. The more I think of the canon, the more I get sad

[dustjacketmusings]

MY TIME HAS COME

Theteaqueen is great for this because she does the most canon fix it stuff. Although she focuses more on Nesta angst. Cassian does have some good reflect/apologies in these three in particular

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

The best laid plans is also great, it starts with nesta accepting eris' proposal and goes from there. More Nesta focused

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

A bit harder to recommend but this is a collection of oneshots, many of which cover what you're asking for. Some of them tragic, most of them not. I dont know which chapters are best, but bejeweled fits

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

In a similar vein, moments is also a oneshot collection, and chapter 4 is a post hosab argument that might scratch the itch

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Better man is the only modern au on here, but it is Nesta leaving cassian and him following her. Unclear as of yet if they'll figure their shit out, but it's very cassian pining centric

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

These savage storms is a very old one. It is simply a nessian argument (pre acofas) that checks the boxes of cassian going too far in an argument and then having to apologize for it

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Falling slowly is a post acosf fic about cassian trying to woo Nesta. She doesn't exactly say she deserves better, that's emerie, but they're figuring it out

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

The relapse is still very early on. I love this fic and I think it's going to go where you want, but cassian is still in the fuck around stage

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

[yazthebookish]

Extremely thrilled to finally post my big feast for @gwynrielweeksofficial 🖤 enjoy!!

Commissioned with Artcraawl (here)

[xouru]

CRESCENT CITY EXCLUSIVE CHAPTERS

Please note that English is not my first language also I re-writed it from photos so there might be some errors.

HOUSE OF SKY AND BREATH

1. Bryce & Hunt Waterstones

2. Ruhn Books-a-Million

3. Tharion Target

HOUSE OF FLAME AND SHADOW

1. Bryce & Danika Indie

2. Bryce & Hunt Barnes & Noble

3. Bryce, Nesta & Azriel Target

4. Ember & Randall Books-a-Million

5. Ruhn & Linda Walmart

[ladynestaarcheron]

Like Pristine Glass - Chapter Twenty-three

ao3 - ff.net - masterpost

(tagging these cuties: @humanexile @skychild29 @rhysandsdarlingfeyre @candid-confetti @rhysandsrightknee @missing-merlin @azriels-forgotten-shadow @books-and-cocos @sezkins79  @city-of-fae @someonemagical @dusty-lightbulb  @messyhairday-me @rinad307 @superspiritfestival @cass-nes @ireallyshouldsleeprn)

oh my God. here we are. chapter twenty-three.

what is there to say but thank you all so much for reading?

beware, this chapter’s monster sized. around 10k. also…relatively graphic birth scene.

thank you all. so much.

—

August 23 - Year of

In the end, it was not Cassian’s fault she made the decision to leave.

Later, much later, she would wonder if he blamed himself and she almost wished she could tell him otherwise. Because even in those last months they spent together, he was good to her. Better than anyone else had ever been. Sweet and teasing and kind. Such kindness. Who had ever treated her this way? Who smiled like this when she walked into a room? No one had ever been happy to see her. And from the way he looked at her and the things he said, she knew he felt the same way.

So he probably didn’t realize anything was amiss.

Keep reading

[valkyriesupremacy]

Every time I read this fic, it warms my heart. The writing, the characterisation of these characters, the friendships, everything in this fic I adore!! Thank you for sharing your work with us, it’s so beautiful and real and raw.💜

[ladynestaarcheron]

Like Pristine Glass - Chapter Ten

ao3 - ff.net - masterpost

(tagging these cuties: @humanexile @skychild29 @rhysandsdarlingfeyre @candid-confetti ​ @rhysandsrightknee @missing-merlin @azriels-forgotten-shadow @books-and-cocos@sezkins79 @city-of-fae @someonemagical @dusty-lightbulb @messyhairday-me)

hey guys!! i am so very excited to be able to post chapter ten of like pristine glass so early. i wrote nearly all of it today!! 2.5k words!! i really thought that with my school load this was going to take me another two weeks!! guess 2020 is off to a great start for me; hope it is just as wonderful for you the whole way through<3

and thank you to my beautiful beta @thestarwhowishes!!

—

October 30 - 4 years after

Feyre and Elain are silent at the room in the inn while they wait for Cassian to return. But he doesn’t. Not all night.

Feyre’s miserably upset at herself, running the whole thing over in her mind, again and again, wishing she had just not said anything. They were already on thin ice with her, and they knew that Nesta was letting them rush her, and that she’d be looking for any reason to pull herself and her children out of the agreement. And thanks to Feyre, she didn’t have to look very far.

Keep reading

[c-e-d-dreamer]

Who’s Counting: Part Twelve

A/N: I’m so sorry that it took me this long to post, but this is 7k words, so please forgive me. Also forgive me for thinking them winning would just be too cliché. But I hope everyone enjoys! Warning, there is a NSFW part. I can’t believe I went from not really writing smut to writing three parts with smut in this fic. Who is she? 

Chapter Masterlist // Previous Part // Next Part

“Remind me why we’re doing this?” 

“Because you love your boyfriend?” 

“It’s a five hour drive.” 

“Because you love your boyfriend a lot?” 

Nesta rolls her eyes at Emerie’s response, but she throws her weekend bag in with the others, reaching up and closing the trunk. Emerie chuckles lowly at her reaction and moves to squeeze into the back seat of the car. Nesta gives herself another moment to sigh softly, but then she clambers into the driver’s seat, turning the key in the ignition. 

“Do you have the directions?” Nesta turns to ask Feyre who’s perched in the passenger seat. 

Feyre holds up her phone, the screen displaying the map, in answer. With that, Nesta throws the car into drive and they’re off. The directions lead them onto the highway, and then it’s just miles and miles of road ahead of them. Barren trees frame them on either side, the leaves holding on more to the reds and golds of falls the further south they get. Emerie, Gwyn, and Mor chatter away in the back seat, Feyre fiddling with the radio stations until she finds a song she’s satisfied with. 

They stop at a rest stop for lunch then are back on the road. When they get near the stadium, there’s already a line of cars waiting to turn into the parking area. The stadium that looms over them is larger than the one on campus. Banners all around display the logo of the NWSL team that plays in the stadium and photos of the players, but a large banner has been placed across the stadium’s entrance, declaring the NCAA College Cup. 

Keep reading

[c-e-d-dreamer]

Who’s Counting: Part Eight

A/N: I hope everyone enjoys this next angsty part! And just remember, I promise you’ll be happy by the end. Also, yes, this is another chapter with a random POV change, but please, again, roll with it. It’s the last time that will happen. 

Chapter Masterlist // Previous Part // Next Part 

The first thing Cassian notices when he wakes up is his throbbing head. It’s somehow a dull ache everywhere, but there’s a particular pounding at his temples. His dry mouth is the second thing. He tries to get his tongue to cooperate and peel off the roof of his mouth, but it feels like he’s inexplicably swallowed cotton. The third thing Cassian notices is the pins and needles of his left arm and the weight settled there, followed very shortly by the scent of vanilla and jasmine filling his nose. His eyes snap open and he instantly regrets it, the sunlight sinking its claws into his brain, and now, the pounding is really everywhere. He tries to slowly open one eye at a time, and after a few blinks, he can somewhat handle the harsh morning light. 

Once Cassian’s eyes have adjusted, he takes in the person laying in front him, the culprit for his left arm being asleep since he currently has both arms curled around their waist. In an instant, Cassian feels a whiplash of confusion and panic. Luckily, they’re both fully clothed, it seems, so nothing too crazy must have happened last night. What even did happen last night? Cassian tries to wrack his brain, dredge the bottom of his sea of memories, but all he can remember is tequila. Too much tequila. Who let him drink that much tequila? 

Keep reading

[unhealthyfanobsession]

Rising from my fandom grave to say that if the next ACOTAR book has Nesta in any way supporting or fighting for Rice pilaf to be High King I will start burning books with the zeal of a fundamentalist in Texas.

That’s all.

Back to my obscurity.

[whyisaravenlike-awritingdesk]

Begged & Borrowed Time (xviii, ao3)

(Chapter eighteen: Starfall part two. Nesta’s in Velaris, and the stars aren’t the only things falling.) (Prologue // previous chapter // next chapter)

Somebody was in her bedroom.

It was Nesta’s first thought as she opened her eyes in the darkness, able to see nothing but a single shaft of moonlight drifting through a gap in the curtains. Beside her Tomas lay curled on his side, still sleeping deeply even as Nesta lay still, hardly daring to breathe. There was a cool touch on her shoulder, a nudging presence that felt like a brush of cold air, and as almost silent footsteps sounded through the hush, she slid a hand beneath her pillow, curling her fingers around the dagger she’d hidden there.

Cassian’s dagger.

The leather was smooth against her palm, the weight of it a comfort as that wisp of cold air danced across her shoulder. 

It was what had woken her in the first place, the feel of something cold and insubstantial pressing against her cheek, but when Nesta opened her eyes, all she saw was darkness. Still— those slow, steady footsteps sounded, walking from the door and rounding the bed her husband still slept in. There was something familiar there, something about the wisp of air at her cheek that reminded her of something, of someone, but she couldn’t place it, and as the footsteps grew nearer, all she knew with any certainty was that she was not alone in that bedroom, that somebody else was lurking in the shadows.

Ice crawled along her spine, her hand tightening on the dagger, but just as Nesta drew it from beneath her pillow, her heart pounding in her chest—

Azriel stepped into the thin shaft of silver light, familiar eyes glinting through the dark.

The cool touch that had woken her retreated, and as Nesta pushed herself up onto her palms, she saw it for what it was. A shadow, almost invisible in the darkness, slinking back towards its master.

“Azriel?” Nesta hissed, letting her grip slacken around Cassian’s dagger. It fell to the mattress, the blade shining a lethal silver in the moonlight, and the spymaster’s eyes glimmered as he glanced at the knife his brother had given her. Recognition flared in those eyes, along with some kind of approval, as he lifted one dark eyebrow. 

“Were you really planning on stabbing me?” he asked dryly, his voice a whisper.

Nesta ignored the question.

“What are you doing here?” she hissed, pushing the dagger back beneath her pillow— where it had lain every night since Cassian had pressed it into her hands. 

Because she’d decided, in that kitchen after the meeting with the queens, that her husband wasn’t ever going to touch her again. After the way Cassian had kissed her in her father’s study, she’d known she couldn’t endure another moment of Tomas’ touch, another second of his skin pressed against hers. She’d hidden the blade beneath her pillow that night, and after the night in the stable, when Cassian’s touch had ignited a fire in her she didn’t think would ever cool…

Well, then she’d taken steps to make sure Tomas kept his hands to himself.

But the dagger remained. Just in case. 

Azriel watched her flatten the pillow over the leather-bound hilt now, pressing his lips together as if to suppress a smile, before his eyes darted to Tomas’ still-sleeping form. Dark eyebrows drew together as he pressed scarred finger to his lips and nodded to the door, and though Nesta rolled her eyes, she didn’t bother to tell Rhysand’s spymaster that there was no need for concern. Tomas would be out cold until morning.

Instead, she slipped from her bed to follow as he turned and crossed the floor in four even, graceful strides. He didn’t look back, and only when he had slipped into the hallway and the door had closed behind them both did he turn to face her once more. The shadow that had woken her wrapped around his wrist, and beneath the hallway window, under the light of the moon, Nesta could finally see more than just his face. Surprise ran through her as she noticed that he wasn’t wearing leathers or armour, and had only a single blade strapped to his thigh. Instead, he was wearing a loose shirt and tailored pants, a sapphire earring in his ear that matched the single siphon he wore on the back of one hand. 

He tilted his head as Nesta studied him, a small smile curving his lips. “Hello, Nesta.”

“What are you doing here?” she demanded. Fear spiked, a sudden bolt of unease as her eyes widened. “Is something wrong? Is Feyre—”

“Everything’s fine. Cassian sent me,” Azriel cut in lightly, sliding his hands into his pockets. He shrugged, the movement easy and languid, like he hadn’t just pulled her from her bed in the middle of the night. “He wants to see you. Tonight is a…holiday, of sorts, in the Night Court,” he continued. “Cass wants you there.”

Nesta raised an eyebrow, glancing pointedly down at her nightgown. “Don’t you think it’s a little late?”

Azriel shook his head. “The revelry begins at nightfall. There’s still a few hours before it starts to slow down.”

“And why didn’t Cassian come himself?”

“Because I can get you there in the blink of an eye,” he answered with another idle shrug.

Nesta glanced back at the bedroom door, and when Azriel’s eyes followed, a frown creased his brow.

“I can leave a shadow,” he said quietly. “If he wakes, I’ll find you and winnow you back straight away—“

“He won’t wake,” Nesta interrupted. Her voice was steady and certain, and her complete lack of doubt made Azriel blink. Confusion flashed briefly in his eyes, but it was Nesta’s turn to shrug as she straightened her shoulders and turned from that door.

“Poppy,” she explained. 

There was a pause, and then Azriel gave her a smile— one that was true and terrifying. White teeth flashed in the dark as his lips pulled back, and he folded his arms across his chest in a display of perfect ease.

“Good,” he said simply, quietly vicious.

Nesta only nodded, lifting her chin and meeting his eye. Once more, she found approval glimmering in the hazel that was only a shade or two darker than Cassian’s.

It had begun the morning after that night in the stable. Nesta had slipped back inside, her hair still damp and her lips still swollen from Cassian’s kisses, and found Adara already awake, in the kitchen, even though dawn had only just broken. Nesta had made some feeble excuse about how she’d risen early to wash her hair and used the spigot outside, but Adara didn’t say anything, only nodded gently as if she believed her. She had blinked indulgently and poured Nesta some tea, steaming and hot, and told her to sit down. Only then had Nesta noticed what Adara was doing, why she was up so early. She had a mortar and pestle set out on the table, poppy seeds in a bowl. She was crushing the seeds to get the milk, and Nesta’s eyes had widened as Adara’s face had hardened.

We do what we must, she had said. 

Nesta had nodded, watching as her mother-in-law continued her work, and when there were no seeds left, Adara had poured the milk into a small glass bottle. 

The bottle is kept in a box, hidden beneath the potato sacks at the back of the pantry. The box is locked— the key is kept beneath an empty jar on the fourth shelf. One or two drops is enough for one night.

Nesta had swallowed, setting down her tea to pour Adara a fresh cup. Sliding the saucer across the table, she’d asked, is it tasteless?

Adara had nodded.

And so— Nesta knew that Tomas would not wake. It had been easy, so easy, to slip the poppy into Tomas’ tea before bed, and for two nights now he had slept like the grave, asleep before his head hit the pillow. 

Azriel hummed softly now, dipping his chin in a brief nod as his shadows moved around his neck. He looked at her with silent question in his eyes, tilting his head to one side as he dropped his folded arms.

“Well?” he asked. “Are you coming?”

Nesta paused. Looking down at her nightgown, she frowned. “What am I supposed to wear?”

He only shrugged in response.

Nesta let out a disbelieving sigh, a huff as she shook her head. There wasn’t much she owned anymore that was suitable for a celebration, and the best dress she owned was a simple thing, made of pale blue fabric that complemented her eyes. It wasn’t much, but it was pretty enough, and unlike the rest of her clothes, hadn’t needed to be repaired or darned yet. She had a pair of silver earrings too, ones Elain had given her after she married, that she’d kept hidden at the bottom of her drawers to prevent Tomas from selling them.

And even though she had yet to give Azriel an answer, her mind seemed already made up.

“I’ll need twenty minutes to get ready,” she said briskly, wondering what had gone wrong in her life to lead her to this point— to letting herself be spirited away in the middle of the night. She lifted a hand, levelling a finger at the spymaster. “And don’t you even think about rushing me, shadow-man.”

“Shadowsinger,” Azriel corrected.

Nesta glared.

He smirked, but wisely opted to keep his mouth shut. Curtly, Nesta turned on her heel and headed for the bedroom, leaving him in the hall as she prepared to go above the wall. Her heart kicked in her chest, and once more she wondered what had gone wrong in her life— what decisions had brought her here, about to step willingly into a land of beasts and monsters. She thought of Cassian’s smile, and the way Azriel had seemed to soften when he’d said, Cass wants you here. 

And for the first time in a long, long time… Nesta didn’t feel like she was making the wrong decision when she exited the bedroom she shared with her husband, put her hand on Azriel’s forearm, and let him take her to the Night Court.

***

When the shadows retreated and the darkness dissipated, Nesta opened her eyes and found herself standing in a different city, on different ground, beneath a different sky.

A sky that was… burning.

Burning like silver wildfire, streaks of white light illuminating the black as they shot through the heavens. Nesta felt her breath catch, a gasp stuck in her throat as her eyes widened and her hand fell away from Azriel’s arm. They were standing at the base of an almighty mountain, but she hardly noticed, because the sky was aglow with dappled starlight, and the air was thick with stardust, glittering and glistening like a diamond held up to the light. Distantly, she heard cheers and the raucous sound of celebration, but she couldn’t look away from the sky above, the way it seemed to be falling, collapsing.

Her eyes flicked across the horizon, tracing the path of those stars as her jaw grew slack. Azriel remained at her side, and she didn’t have time to wonder, to marvel, at the fact that she’d just crossed the entire length of this land within a breath. She was too focused on the stars.

“I was the same on my first Starfall,” Azriel said with a soft laugh, clapping her gently on the shoulder. “You’ll get used to it.”

But Nesta didn’t think she’d ever get used to it. How could anybody ever get used to the sky falling down? It was the strangest thing she’d ever seen, the most blatant and otherworldly reminder that she no longer stood on mortal ground.

Azriel gave her a small nudge with his elbow, and when Nesta brought her eyes back down, he gave her a small smile before taking a step back. His dark eyes flicked to the base of the mountain, where Nesta found a figure standing in the darkness, leaning against the stone wall with arms folded and one foot up against the rock. With a kind of ease that practically dripped arrogance, the figure didn’t move, only tipped his head forward. Nesta could hardly see his face, but she didn’t need to. She knew immediately who was waiting for her— who had been waiting, watching her look at the sky like he had all the time in the world.

The siphons on his hands were bright, the ruby a stark contrast to the white and blue sparkling above, and he was wearing a black shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. His hair was down tonight, hanging loose to his shoulders instead of half up in a bun like she was used to, and strands were tucked behind his rounded ears to keep it from his face. His usual ruby stud glinted in his ear, and as she took her fill of him, her eyes lingering on the arms lined with muscle still folded across that broad, hard chest, she forgot - for a moment - about the stars tumbling to earth.

She’d never seen him in anything but leather, and…

Good gods, her heart stopped entirely. It seized in her chest as she took a breath, looking at the planes of his face cast in beautiful, bright, relief by the light of the stars. 

“Well,” she quipped dryly as she clawed at composure, “look at that. For once you don’t look like a rogue.”

Cassian smirked, dropping his foot to the floor. Her eyes fell to his lips, to the curve of them that she so longed to feel against her skin.

“Are you disappointed?” he asked, his voice a low murmur as his eyes flashed, his smirk teasing. “I know you like me rough around the edges, princess.”

Nesta felt a breathless laugh bubble in her chest, leaving her in a single huff as she shook her head. “Who says I like you at all?”

“Well,” Cassian said airily. “You weren’t complaining when I kissed you in the rain.”

Nesta felt a shiver crawl through every inch of her as she remembered that damned kiss, the kiss that had somehow redefined everything she thought it meant to be alive. He smirked again, as if he knew what she were thinking— as if he were thinking it, too. 

At her side, Azriel muttered a curse. Stepping around her, he rolled his eyes as shadows curled and drifted along the edges of his wings.

“I’ll come back later to take you home,” he said, and Nesta nodded, but she wasn’t looking at the shadowsinger, not really. Neither was Cassian. Azriel shook his head, murmuring something under his breath that sounded a lot like Mother save me. Shadows gathered at his ankles, growing dense, and then without another word he was gone— folding into the darkness like he’d never been there at all.

At last Cassian pushed off the wall, wings quivering behind him as he stalked slowly forwards. Nesta didn’t move, and as he came to her side, that handsome face softened, grew brighter. The smile he gave her was the most lovely thing she’d ever seen, earnest and effortlessly charming, and as he extended a hand, that smile reached his eyes, the hazel glimmering with something akin to wonder, something like awe.

“Sorry for disturbing your beauty sleep,” he said breezily, wiggling his fingers in a silent request for her hand. “But this only happens once a year, and it didn’t feel right without you.”

He tipped his head back, dark hair brushing his collarbone as he inhaled deeply and gazed at the sky. The starlight reflected in his eyes, turning the hazel molten as Nesta studied the light glancing off his cheekbones. Her heart thumped, and then she looked beyond, up to where the stars still raced across the sky, chasing and skating and falling, in cascades of white and blue and silver dust.

“What is it?” she whispered, finally slipping her hand in his and clinging to his warmth as the unfamiliar ground suddenly began to feel shaky beneath her feet. Magic hung in the air, that faint scent of sparks that made everything feel charged, and it sent a wave of unease rolling through her. She’d felt it before— when Rhysand had magicked that piece of paper away at the breakfast table. It had been strange enough then, but now… it was everywhere, permeating everything, surrounding and suffocating her all at once. 

And still, the stars kept falling. 

Cassian’s fingers tightened, squeezing her hand as if he somehow sensed her apprehension.

“I don’t know,” he answered, his thumb moving in circles across the back of her hand. “Some say they’re spirits, travelling somewhere new. Maybe they are.” He shrugged, turning to her and flashing her another brilliant smile with the stars still reflected in his eyes. “Maybe they’re not. I guess that’s the beauty of it.”

Nesta tilted her head to look at him, and behind her ribs something pulled so damn hard she almost couldn’t breathe. It felt warm, and she could swear there was something there, something that had taken up residence in her chest— something that seemed to spark whenever  she was near him. Cassian’s eyes widened for the barest of seconds, and Nesta wondered briefly if he’d felt it too, whatever it was, but within a blink he was smiling again, perfect neutrality on his face as he lifted their entwined hands to his lips. 

“It’s beautiful,” Nesta breathed, letting her eyes wander once more to the sky above as he held their tangled hands to his mouth, pressing a lingering kiss to the back of her knuckles. It made her want to shiver, made her suddenly feel like every nerve ending was on fire, but she kept her eyes on the stars, on the way they weaved through the darkness and set the sky aglow, luminous and iridescent. 

“Yeah,” he whispered, nodding. But he wasn’t looking at the sky— his attention was fixed on her, barely even blinking, and there was admiration in his eyes when she brought her face back down, a kind of burning affection that made her feel like she was suddenly standing at the edge of a very, very high precipice.

And just like the stars above, Nesta felt herself falling.

“Come,” Cassian said after a moment that seemed to stretch toward forever. “I know where there’s a much better view.”

And Nesta felt him squeeze her hand, his callouses against her skin, and none of it felt real. He pulled her forwards, her feet on solid stone, and yet it didn’t make sense, none of it made sense. She’d woken in her husband’s bed, the darkness absolute, and within a half hour she’d crossed thousands of miles to walk through a city of stars, hand-in-hand with a man who wasn’t the one she’d married, but who looked at her like she was the beginning and the end of everything. It made her dizzy.

“Am I dreaming?” she asked as he lead her down a small stone alleyway. The sky was just barely visible through the narrow gap between buildings, and through the open windows music and laughter spilled out, window-boxes scenting the air with flowers and blooms Nesta had never seen before. She wondered if Elain would recognise them, if she would admire them.

“I don’t know,” Cassian drawled, giving her a sidelong glance and a teasing wink. “Do you dream of me often?”

Nesta scowled, and he laughed again, the sound echoing on the stone, reverberating and resounding, soothing that strain in her chest. She didn’t answer, her silence making him laugh again, and even though she frowned, glaring at his stupidly beautiful face, his laughter eased the tension in her spine and made this world seem a little less foreign.

Even when she recognised nothing else, she knew that— the sound of his laugh.

The alley let out into a great open square, a large fountain in the middle. The sound of running water mingled with the sound of the band set up at one end of the square, and as Cassian pulled her from the alleyway and into the fray, her heart skittered and lurched. White and blue faerie lights were strung across the square, mimicking the stars above, and stalls with turquoise awnings lined one wall, selling steaming cups of what seemed to be mulled wine. There were stalls for food and jewellery too, and intricate wind-chimes made of stars crafted in stained glass. It was late, but Nesta didn’t think they were even close to slowing down. She glanced towards the band, to the music that was loud and lively, and though she noted the flautist and the harpist and the drummer, it was the fae hitting the tambourine with elongated fingers that caught her attention— with skin the colour of an evergreen forest and a long, curling tail.

She blinked. 

As much as she hated to admit it, she had grown used to Cassian’s wings. The sharp, gleaming talon at the tip, the membrane that reminded her so much of a bat— it was all familiar to her now, from the way his wings felt beneath her fingertips, to the way they moved when he was anxious, or angry, or teasing. His wings no longer horrified her the way they once had, and when Azriel had turned up in her husband’s bedroom and asked her to come with him to the Night Court…

Nesta had expected to find more fae like Cassian— like Azriel, like Rhys and Feyre. Fae that looked more or less human, with only the odd feature that said otherwise. But here… Here were all sorts of creatures, exactly the type she’d grown up wary of. The ones with sharp, sharp teeth and blood-red eyes, the ones who towered above her with lithe and stretched-out limbs. The ones who had horns and tails and cloven feet, the ones who made her miss the iron bracelet she used to wear.

Absently, she rubbed at her wrist.

Feyre had told her long ago that iron was useless, but— she’d once found security in wearing it, found safety. And when a fae with horns curling back over a head of ebony hair brushed past her, Nesta swallowed, feeling Cassian’s hand in her own but unable to focus on his warmth. She missed that security, that feeling of safety the iron had afforded her, even if it was false. She glimpsed fae with scaled and webbed fingers, saw yellow eyes studying her through a crowd of nameless faces. She had grown up in crowded ballrooms, but this… this was different in a thousand different ways. She’d been thrown in at the deep end, and it was too much— too much, too fast, too soon—

As her heartbeat spiked, Cassian placed a hand on the small of her back, pulling her more closely to his side. He angled himself between her and the crowd, shielding her as one wing stretched out, extending and blocking half the square from view.

Gratitude bloomed in her throat, and though she said nothing, Cassian’s face softened.

“We’re going somewhere quieter,” he said softly, brushing a loose strand of hair back behind her ear. “It’s just on the other side of this square.”

Silently, she nodded. Bells sounded, and Nesta thought of the Children of the Blessed then, how they hung bells at their ankles and their wrists and made noise as they walked. From behind the shelter of his wing, she looked and found it was just fae dancing, revellers in a circle before the band, but still… her hand went to her wrist.

Cassian tracked the movement.

“My mother always made us wear iron,” she explained quietly. “I don’t think I’ve gotten used to being without it yet.”

I don’t think I’ve gotten used to any of this, she thought wryly, and Cassian seemed to understand, because he took her hand and brushed his thumb over the pulse point at her wrist.

“Sounds like your mother did a lot of things,” he said darkly, eyes snagging on the scar by her thumb. She glanced up, and felt the warmth of his attention even though she was thinking of eyes exactly like hers, cold and distant and never satisfied. Her mother’s eyes. A shudder ran through her, an ache that made her throat feel tight, and then Cassian was twisting his fingers, weaving them with hers once more as he tucked his wings back tight against his spine. 

“You don’t need iron,” he said, turning and pulling her along the edges of the square, towards the line of wooden stalls and blue canopies. He stopped before a stall selling identical bracelets, all of them white string threaded with glass beads in identical shades of blue. Small silver stars hung between the beads, and as Nesta looked, she saw them sitting on the wrists of several of the fae that passed her by. They matched the sky above— the white and the blue and the silver, the glitter of the beads beneath the starlight. Cassian plucked one up without another word, handing over a gold coin as he took Nesta’s wrist in hand.

“And what, exactly, am I supposed to tell my husband?” Nesta asked wryly as he tied the string. 

Cassian shrugged.

“Elain bought it you,” he supplied easily, and though Nesta shook her head, the feel of the bracelet was a comfort— filling the gap the iron had left behind. Cassian brought her wrist to his lips, pressing a kiss right above the knot he’d tied in the string.

“Much prettier than iron,” he said, and Nesta felt her cheeks burn.

She didn’t know why she was blushing, or why she dipped her chin. Whatever effect he had on her was magnified by the atmosphere, by the music and the stars, and for a moment the rest faded to insignificance. She forgot about the anxiety coiling within, about the legion of fae that surrounded her. For a moment, it was just the two of them, her wrist still in his hand.

And he felt it, too. She could tell— his eyes were burning, his fingers curling lightly around her as though he never wanted to let go. She wondered if it was supposed to feel like this— if it was normal, to feel the world fall away every single time he met her eye. 

Her heart skipped, a tightness growing behind her ribs that seemed to pulse, and Cassian cleared his throat.

“It’s this way,” he said, looking back at her before turning his head, nodding to the square at his back. At the other end, Nesta could see an archway of white stone gleaming beneath the lights, and beyond it, the glimmer of water. A river.

Cassian pulled her to his side, untangling his hand in order to slide it, instead, around her waist. He kept it there, his arm at her back, his palm settled on her hip. One wing extended behind her shoulders as they skirted the edge of the square, set back from the throng of revellers celebrating the stars skittering overhead. Even with the bracelet around her wrist, Nesta felt the unknown and the unfamiliar pressing in, and her steps almost stumbled as she tried not to look at the square around her, at the endless stream of fae that instinct told her to fear. Instead, she focused on Cassian’s hand around her, the warmth of his hand sinking through the fabric of her dress. 

He took her beneath the archway and through, turning a corner. The air suddenly felt more open on this side of the square, and it was quieter, too. Music still drifted through the archway, but it was softer, gentler. Iron railings lined the riverside, and there was only a handful of citizens walking along it, looking down at the rushing water below. In the distance Nesta spied a dark bridge, glittering with small lights that looked like flickering candles— as though there were people there, watching the stars above the water, where the light from the city was faintest. 

“Where are we going?” she asked as she looked at that bridge, at the mass of white and silver in the sky above it, a stark and beautiful contrast to the dark water of the river.

Cassian smirked. “Wait and see.”

Nesta rolled her eyes, but said nothing. She was, for the moment, content to tilt her head back and look at the sky, letting him lead. Two stars collided high above, exploding in a stream of glitter, and Nesta blinked as the dust drifted slowly down to the ground, like tiny ice crystals refracting the sunlight on a bright winter morning.

It was beautiful. Strange and incomprehensible and absolutely at odds with everything she’d ever known, but still… beautiful. 

When they reached a set of white stone steps, Cassian stopped.

An old stone staircase led right down to the water, worn so smooth by time that it almost looked like polished marble. At the bottom, there was a wide platform that Nesta supposed was meant for docking small boats, coils of rope and low wooden posts set out at even intervals. But it was empty tonight, and in a city this large and this busy, she wondered how Cassian had managed to find the only place they could be entirely alone.

As he reached the bottom of the steps, he turned and held out a hand to help her down.

“I can walk down a set of stairs,” Nesta said dryly, her hand curling around the groove carved into the wall that served as a bannister. Cassian’s wings shifted as he rolled his eyes, a wry sort of amusement. 

“Always so stubborn,” he muttered, and in the darkness Nesta let herself smile.

“Rhys and Az and I used to come down here,” he explained. “When Rhys’ father was the High Lord, we’d steal a bottle of wine from the cellars and sneak out of the House of Wind at dusk. Not many use this dock now, so we’d hide here for hours, right in the middle of the city where nobody would think to look for us.”

He smiled softly at the memory, and Nesta blinked as her eyes adjusted to the darkness. The light of the city didn’t make it this far, and the only light was that of the stars and Cassian’s siphons, still glimmering atop his hands. As she reached the bottom of the steps, she found herself standing on a wide expanse of pale stone, stretching along the river bank with a rope strung across the edge as a barrier. Cassian’s hand brushed her waist, his arm sliding around her middle, and as he pressed a kiss to the top of her braided hair, he nodded towards the river, to the mouth where it met the sea.

“Look,” he whispered against her, his arm tightening around her.

Nesta did as he bid, turning her attention away from the sky overhead and dropping it to the horizon, where there was no telling the sea from the sky. The boundary between them had blurred, with the stars reflected in the water sinking as silver dust travelled out to sea. Velaris towered above them, rising on a hill, and lights glimmered against the skyline. It was far larger than she’d ever imagined, and her village suddenly felt so small in comparison to the city sprawling on either side of the river, stretching toward the sky.

A breath left her, a soft sigh that must have sounded disbelieving, because Cassian’s lips were at her ear in an instant, both arms wrapping around her waist and pulling her against his chest.

“I felt the same,” he murmured. “My first time here. I felt the same.”

And Nesta knew— because he’d told her, in the kitchens after that meeting with the queens. She didn’t know how he’d known what she was thinking, and she didn’t ask either. She only dropped her hands to rest atop his, folded over her waist. Her bracelet glimmered beneath his siphons, the red light refracting through the blue beads and casting soft light over both of their hands. 

She dropped her head back, letting it rest against his shoulder as she tipped her face to the sky. She hadn’t been lying before, when she said it was beautiful. It was the most wondrous thing she’d ever seen, the most exquisitely inexplicable, even when the rest of this world terrified her.

Cassian pressed a kiss to the skin beneath her ear.

“Dance with me,” he whispered.

Nesta turned her head, letting her eyes wander across his face, along his jaw. White starlight glanced off his cheekbones, turning his golden skin molten, and his eyes held a depth of feeling Nesta didn’t think she’d ever be able to fathom with a mortal lifespan. She blinked, and Cassian nudged her cheek with the tip of his nose.

“You like to dance,” he continued. “Feyre told me.”

“Did she now?”

“Mhm,” he hummed, turning her in his arms. His hands slid to her hips. “Dance with me, Nes.”

The music drifted down from the square, softened by the distance. It was a less lively song playing now, one that was sweeping and joyous and smooth, and Nesta felt the rhythm within her, because gods, yes— she had loved to dance, once upon a time. A long, long time ago now. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d danced, the last time she’d truly felt the music move through her like a current. There hadn’t even been dancing at her wedding, and oh, she’d missed it. 

So she reached up and put her hands on Cassian’s shoulders, curling her fingertips into the soft fabric of his shirt. He grinned down at her and took a step forward, and even though she didn’t know what dance they were supposed to be doing, she shook her head. It was some kind of waltz, the kind she’d known inside and out, once. It was familiar, slow and elegant… but he was doing it wrong. She bit back a small, endearing kind of smile. 

“No,” she said when he took another step forwards. “You’re supposed to move backwards.”

Cassian grinned again, and took a step back when she pushed, letting her lead.

“It’s not often I let somebody else take charge, princess,” he murmured in her ear, lifting an arm and letting her spin. A blush fought its way to her cheeks, and Nesta forced it down, knowing that was exactly the reaction he was looking for. He brought her back to his chest, an arm around her waist to wind her closer, and he dropped his lips to her ear once more. “I like it,” he added, his voice a low purr in her ear.

Nesta batted his shoulder. “Beast.”

He hummed, but didn’t bother to contradict her. Instead, he let his head drop to the crook of her neck, and there he held her— or she held him, she wasn’t entirely sure. Perhaps they simply held one another, gently swaying as the music played and the stars continued to fall. 

It felt like they stayed that way for an age, saying little. Neither of them needed words, she supposed. She felt his breath drift across the bare skin of her neck, the warmth of his lips when he pressed a kiss to her collarbone. She felt his hand at her waist, his palm curving around her as her hands pressed against the broad span of his shoulders. His other hand lingered at the small of her back, and when it lifted to pass gently over the nape of neck, Nesta felt the swaying slow, until they were barely moving, only clinging to one another beneath the sky alight with racing stars. 

His eyes dropped to her lips, and he didn’t bother to conceal the hunger in his eyes, the fervour and the desperation. Nesta didn’t bother to, either.

“Kiss me,” she said at last, almost breathless.

He didn’t need to be told twice, and he didn’t waste a moment. 

Cassian’s hand tightened at her neck, sliding into her hair as he tipped her face back. She felt the warmth of his breath dance across her cheeks, her eyes fluttering closed as both of his hands came to cradle her jaw. Her heart stuttered and skipped, staccato in her chest as she felt the air grow thin, a tightness coiling within her as he dragged a thumb over her cheekbone— lazy, languid. 

Slowly, maddeningly slowly, he brought his face down. His brow brushed hers, the tip of his nose nudging her cheek as he held her between his palms. Nesta let out a breath as his lips brushed the corner of her mouth, her fingers gripping the curve of his shoulders so tightly she wondered if her nails would leave marks in his skin. A shiver ran through her at the thought— one that wasn’t in the least unpleasant. She felt him smirk against her as one hand fell away from her face and came to her waist, dragging down to her hip where it curled and bunched the fabric of her dress. 

She was on fire— every part of her was burning, and she forgot about the stars, forgot about being over the wall. Forgot that Azriel would have to take her back to her husband’s bed before the night was over, forgot that she wore a ring on her finger given to her by another man. 

Rising to her tip-toes, Nesta chased Cassian’s lips, desperate for the kiss he was withholding. She felt him smile again, felt his laugh like a whisper across her skin. And then the hand at her hip was gripping her tight through her dress, the hand at her jaw sliding back into her hair, resting at the nape of her neck as he hauled her forwards, bringing her crashing into him as he eradicated that last remaining inch between them, between his mouth and hers.

Nesta felt herself be lost in him as his kiss swept in, claiming every part of her she had to offer. Her hand wound around his neck, her fingertips brushing the edges of his wings, and he groaned into her, the sound a deep rumble that passed from his throat and into hers, sinking into her chest where that tightness built and built, a relentless pressure behind her ribs that had her clinging to him as though her life depended on it. His fingers splayed across her hip, the hand at her neck slipping down and dragging over her neck in a touch that seemed proprietary. His kiss somehow turned even more fervent, even more desperate, and oh, gods— Nesta felt herself breaking, shattering, falling, in the most decadent, delectable way.

Her fingers strayed to his hair, tugging on the loose strands as he deepened the kiss. She couldn’t breathe, felt her lungs starting to burn, but she didn’t want to pull away, couldn’t bear the thought of this being over. Pushing herself further into him, bringing him more firmly against her, Nesta sought to hold on for as long as possible, because even though he’d told her this wasn’t a dream, it still felt like it was.

“Nes,” he whispered against her lips, turning his face a fraction to the side as his voice grew thick with something that felt an awful lot like devotion. As his chest rose and fell, breathing laboured, Cassian rested his cheek against hers.

Nesta slid her hands from her hair, but didn’t go far. She crossed her arms behind his neck, both of his landing on her waist as she tried to calm her heart, to recover from the wildfire of the kiss. It was pointless— she didn’t think there was ever any chance of recovery, any hope of coming back from this. Cassian dropped his head, and as their brows touched he closed his eyes, letting out a soft, contented hum as his hand settled at the small of her back.

But when Nesta looked up at the sky, she saw the stars starting to thin. The thick streams of them that had littered the darkness before had dwindled, and at the edges of the horizon, the darkness had melted from a deep black to an inky purple. 

Soon, daylight would beckon.

Her heart sank with the knowledge that, at any minute, Azriel would be back to take her home, and as if Cassian noticed it too, his grip grew tighter at her waist— as if hoping that if he just held onto her tight enough, he could halt the passage of time and stop the sun from rising. 

Oh, if only he could.

“What now?” she asked softly, as she heard the music from the square in the distance stop, leaving only silence stretching between them. She didn’t need to elaborate; he knew exactly what she meant, what she asked.

Cassian met her eye, his expression unreadable. “We’re going to Windhaven tomorrow,” he answered. “Rhys wants us to await word from the queens there.”

She frowned. “When will I see you?”

He paused.

“I don’t know,” he said at last, lifting his lips to her forehead and placing a gentle kiss there. His voice had grown thick, and Nesta could suddenly feel things changing, shifting too fast for her to keep up. “We’ll be in Windhaven to prepare for a war, princess. It won’t be easy for me to slip away. I don’t—“ He trailed off, sighing heavily as the edges of the horizon began to shift from purple to a dusky blue. “I don’t know,” he said again, hardly more than a melancholy whisper.

Nesta flattened her hand against his cheek, her heart kicking as he turned his face turned into her palm. He pressed a kiss to the heel of her hand, eyes closed, and suddenly Nesta felt like her heart was breaking. She didn’t know exactly when she’d handed it over to him, but there was no doubt in her mind now, as they stood there beneath a lightening sky, both praying for the night to last just a little bit longer.

Cassian had her heart— every broken, aching piece of it.

He shuddered, wings quivering as Nesta pressed the lightest of kisses to his lips. His eyes opened, the brilliant hazel holding her in place as he forced himself to smile.

“I almost forgot,” he said, his voice far brighter than he clearly felt. “I have another book for you. Back at the House, along with a letter from Emerie with strict instructions that you write to her and tell her what you think of it.”

Nesta let out a hoarse laugh. “Of course you do.”

He winked. “The finest smut for my favourite human.”

The pulling in her chest yanked, then. Her breath went along with it, a fist closing around her heart as she looked up at him and swallowed.

“Am I?” she whispered. “Yours?”

Cassian’s face turned earnest, so gentle it was enough to cut her in two. He swallowed, too. 

“Aren’t you?”

Nesta nodded, feeling her breath tremble, because— gods, yes, she was his. Despite the barriers between them, despite the ring on her finger. She was his, and he was hers, no matter how faulty the logic was, how stupid and reckless it was to be so tangled up with one of the fae, that could crush her heart as quickly and as easily as he drew breath. He smiled then, the curving of his lips soft and easy and lovely. His wings spread behind his shoulders as he wrapped her more fully in his arms. 

Pressing another kiss to her forehead, Cassian murmured, “And I am yours.” He dropped another to her cheekbone. “Completely.” Another to the tip of her nose. “Entirely.” Another to the corner of her mouth. “Irrevocably.”

“Irrevocably. Big word for a brainless bat.”

He hummed. “I’ve been flicking through the pages of one of your books, sweetheart.”

“They’re not my books—“

“You read them.”

“You bring me them.”

“So you don’t like them, then?” he countered with a raised eyebrow and a wicked, teasing smirk on his face. “I guess I’ll take this latest one back to Emerie and tell her you’re no longer interested—”

“Don’t you dare,” Nesta interrupted, and the smile he gave her stopped her breath entirely. He laughed, pulling her entirely into his arms, so her cheek lay against his chest and his chin rested on the crown of her head.

And when Nesta glimpsed a shadow skirting the edge of the white stone dock, she sighed in Cassian’s embrace. He saw it too, his eyes shuttering as she looked up, the breath he took one of reluctance as he slowly unwound his arms from her middle, drawing away from her. When he looked down at her, it was with a mixture of bitterness and heartache, undercut by sorrow and yet somehow edged with softness and affection— beautifully bittersweet.

“Azriel’s here,” he whispered.

Taglist: @hiimheresworld @highladyofillyria @wannawriteyouabook @infiremetotakeachonce @melphss @hereforthenessian @c-e-d-dreamer @lady-winter-sunrise @the-lost-changeling @valkyriesupremacy @that-little-red-head

[valkyriesupremacy]

Wow, the writing continues to amaze me. It perfectly captures the beauty of Nesta and Cassian’s love. Thank you for continuing to share.

[c-e-d-dreamer]

Falling For Your Fools Gold: Chapter Masterlist

Main Pairing: Nesta/Cassian

Summary: 

Nesta was excited for the chance to sail on one of her Father’s merchant ships, but after a brutal storm, they’re sitting ducks in the water. When the infamous pirate captain nicknamed the Lord of Bloodshed takes advantage and raids the ship, Nesta finds herself aboard a pirate ship for the foreseeable future. 

Read on AO3

Fanart for this fic // Fanart for this fic

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Epilogue 

[whyisaravenlike-awritingdesk]

Carynthian

For @nessianweek day 7 (but could also be a late day 6). So, ever since hearing about that SJM interview, with the original plan for the Rite in ACOSF, I’ve not been able to stop thinking about Cassian watching Nesta through a mirror. And thus, this fic was born— one where Eris isn’t captured, and one where Nesta climbs the mountain with her sisters and becomes carynthian the way she should have in canon. It’s almost 5k of pure angst but it’s okay, because there will be a part 2 at some point soon, full of nothing but fluff and a soft, fussing Cassian. Yknow, just to make up for all the heartache. (Also on AO3) (*update* - chapter 2 is here)

**********

Cassian had been wounded countless times in his long life. Acquired more scars than he could count, found himself on the wrong side of a keen blade more times than he cared to admit. Yet no injury, no wound, could compare to the pain of landing in Windhaven and finding Nesta gone.

Not just gone— taken. All three of them, his mate and his friends, plundered and left alone, thrust unwillingly into the Blood Rite.

It was a dagger between his ribs, a knife in the heart, and he couldn’t stand in Emerie’s house a second longer. The scent of their fear lingered, sticking to the back of his throat. Bitter and acrid, it was too much to bear, and he couldn’t breathe in there, couldn’t look at the bed that still smelled like Nesta, the blood on the floor that said she’d not gone without a fight. 

He tore through Emerie’s front door but didn’t feel the cold as he sank to his knees. His strength and his restraint departed, and he plunged his hands into the snow, clenching his fists to the point of pain. He was nothing but a maelstrom of blind, molten rage, undercut with a fear so incapacitating he could barely breathe, barely move.

He had to— Needed to— Couldn’t just—

Gasping, Cassian sought the other end of the bond bridging his soul and Nesta’s. He grasped at it, clawed with invisible hands, cast around for the other end of that tether. Desperate, frantic, he tried, but it slipped through his fingers as he fell forwards onto his hands. Cut off, she was cut off from him and he couldn’t reach her and—

A sob cleaved his chest, burning in his throat as he muttered her name over and over and over— Nesta, Nesta, Nesta. A lament, bleeding and raw.

Mother and Gods above, his last words to her had been ones of anger— and now his mate was in the killing fields, and it was enough to make him descend into primal, terrible, panic as his tormented hands tried to find purchase in the snow. Scrambled for something to hold onto.

There was nothing.

He was the most powerful Illyrian in centuries. Enalius reborn. A warrior god, blessed beyond measure with power— but what fucking good was any of that now?

What good were seven siphons and a mighty reputation when he couldn’t reach the woman he loved, couldn’t save her? “You know the laws,” Rhys had said, but fuck the laws. Fuck everything, because—

Because he’d never even had the chance to tell her he loved her. Never found the right moment, and oh, how he regretted it now. She was gone, so far away, and all he could do was pray, beg any deity that would listen as he kneeled broken in the snow.

“Come back to me,” he whispered to the wind. A broken plea, a desperate entreaty. “Come home to me, Nes.”

***

The clock ticked. A metronome of grief, it ticked over, seventy-two hours turning to seventy-three. Three days slipped into four and suddenly, Cassian had gone four entire days without her. He’d counted each minute, each second, and with every single one that passed, the knife twisted deeper, delved further into his heart.

Azriel had found him in the snow. Said something about going home, but that was ridiculous, because home lay to the north, with Nesta, wherever she was. Az had brought them back to the House of Wind, but this wasn’t home. Not without her, not anymore. Without her he was lost. Rudderless and trying to navigate a tempest sea— and all he could do was wait. Wait, and pace, and wait.

Azriel sat in a chair by the fireplace now, watching as shadows darted in and out in their search for information. Cassian wasn’t entirely sure why they even bothered— they couldn’t cross into the forests around the slopes of Ramiel, so all they delivered was news of the camp lords readying to meet those that finished the Rite when the seven days were done.

Not a whisper about Nesta or Emerie or Gwyn, and Cassian had almost broken a window when they’d first brought back news of Devlon instead of the Valkyries. Who gave a fuck what the lords were doing, when it was Nesta and Emerie and Gwyn who mattered now? Who fucking cared what preparations they were making, when Nesta could have lain unbreathing since that very first day?

That thought had him spiralling. Picturing his mate— his beautiful, fierce mate lying lifeless in the snow— A strangled, feral, sound left him, one of anguish, and Cassian slammed a fist onto the nearest table, shattering the silence and splintering the polished surface. It cracked from edge to edge, breaking open and it was fitting, really. Cassian felt himself splitting open with every second that passed, every night he spent sleepless.

“I can’t do this,” he croaked. The most he’d spoken in hours. If Az was surprised by the outburst, then he kept his face carefully blank. “What is she’s—”

Dead, but he couldn’t do it. Couldn’t say it out loud. What if she’s dead.

Azriel shook his head, blue siphons blazing. “You’d know, Cass.” Smoothly, he rose to his feet and crossed the floor in three strides. A scarred hand rested over Cassian’s fractured heart as he said, “You’d feel it.”

“Would I?” Cassian asked hoarsely, voice cracking. The bond was silent, so deathly quiet that it was like screaming into a void every time he tried to tug on it, to find the end that was connected to her. He tried— every few minutes, he tried, but there’d been nothing, not a whisper echoing down that bridge. 

“Yes,” Az nodded, eyes softening, sharing his concern. He hadn’t left him alone for days— had been there as Cassian paced, refusing to sleep or eat. The House was worried too, kept delivering fresh tea and building up the fire. When the sun set, it gave them whiskey. It was fussing— but the pile of books the girls had left abandoned days ago remained untouched. The House refused to move them, and Cassian didn’t touch them either, as if they were both of them hoping that, at any minute, their Valkyries would be back, picking up where they left off.

I miss them too, Cassian wanted to whisper to the lights that flared every now and then in the sconces. The House’s way of asking if there was any news, he supposed. 

He was looking at those books - thinking of the way Nesta’s brow furrowed in concentration when she read, the way she’d bite her lip slightly, blush, when she was reading smut and didn’t want him to know - when one shadow scurried across the floor. Hurried up its master’s arm and made Azriel blink once, twice. Cassian’s heart lurched— What did the shadows say, oh gods above, what had they found—

It could have been no more than ten seconds— no more than that, as Azriel listened to his shadows and Cassian waited, panic rushing through him as his knees almost gave way. No more than ten seconds, but it felt like an eternity— as if time had slowed, halted. Eventually, Azriel dismissed the shadow with a flick of his wrist and offered Cassian a wan smile.

“I know how you can check on her.”

***

A magic mirror. A magic mirror. Kept in the Hewn City along with the Veritas orb and the ouroboros mirror— he’d been a fool not to remember it sooner, but the thing had been hidden in the Court of Nightmares for so long that it had all but passed out of memory. That is, until Azriel’s shadows had remembered, and Az had departed instantly, returning within the hour bearing a velvet-wrapped parcel and a wary expression.

“Ready?” Az asked, throat bobbing as he swallowed. Even the spymaster was nervous, and Cassian's throat went dry, terrified of what awaited them within that mirror.

“No,” he admitted, but nodded regardless as Azriel set the mirror on the low table before the sofa, propped it up against Nesta’s books. 

The world seemed to still, to hold its breath, as Azriel drew the fabric away from the surface of that mirror and first… First Cassian saw only himself. Saw a male gone mad with terror, haunted by words he’d left unspoken. He saw Az too, saw the concern in his own shadowed eyes echoed in the spymaster’s anxious gaze.

And then— He saw Nesta. 

He saw Nesta.

For the first time in days, he saw her, and he felt hollow— felt like he’d been cut right down to the quick, because he’d not expected seeing her to hurt this much. She was running, Gwyn and Emerie by her side, each of them wearing leathers at least three sizes too big. They were breathing, alive, and running— running for a valley and a rope bridge strung across a gulf. They had found one another, just as he and Az and Rhys had, but any gladness he felt was dwarfed, swallowed entirely as he noted the smear of blood on Nesta’s cheek. Her hands, bruised and cut.

“She’s hurt,” he murmured mournfully. His soul keened as he took her in, alive and breathing yes, but hurt, and it was fucking killing him, as if her injuries pained him too. Every instinct he had screamed at him to get her, find her, wrap her in his arms and hold her so tightly— but she was so far away. Out of his reach, and all he could do was watch, hands outstretched towards the mirage of her.

“She’s alive,” Az reminded him carefully. “They all are.”

More than alive— they were fighting, barrelling towards the bridge, so close to the foot of Ramiel. They’d made it far— in four days they were further along than he and Az had been in their own Rite, and if Cassian hadn’t still been so fucking terrified, he’d have taken a moment to cheer, to kiss the surface of that mirror, because they were racing towards that mountain.

They had almost reached that swinging bridge when Az swore.

“What the fuck is that,” he asked sharply, leaning forward as shadows skittered along the edge of the mirror. Cassian wasn’t listening, didn’t care, watching only Nesta’s feet as she ran, dodging rocks and uneven ground. “Cass,” Az pressed. “At Emerie’s hip. What the fuck is that? It looks like—”

Cassian followed his brother’s gaze and saw— the hilt of a dagger.

The world tilted, and even though Cassian was already sat down, he felt weak, needed to lie down as the breath left his lungs in a violent gasp. Unmistakably, there was a weapon sheathed at Emerie’s hip. At Nesta’s too, and Gwyn’s. Someone had put weapons in the Rite, and whilst he was glad the Valkyries were armed with proper steel, he felt hollow, bottomed out as he realised that full-grown Illyrian warriors weren’t attacking his mate with makeshift weapons— no, they had real blades. Real steel. He jumped to his feet when he saw arrows.

With trembling hands, he tapped his siphons, bringing out his armour. Enough— he’d seen enough. “No more,” he said, voice shaking with barely contained fury. Barely contained dread. “If the Illyrians want to hunt me down and execute me, just let them fucking try. I’m getting them back, if it’s the last thing I do—”

“Cass,” Azriel interjected, rising to his feet too.

“There are fucking weapons in there, and I won’t sit here and wait Az, not when this this is rigged against them—” He swatted at the shadows twined around the door handle like a lock, considering just kicking the whole thing down, because he had to get to her, couldn’t watch one more arrow miss her by a hairsbreadth— 

Wouldn’t just sit there and wait for his mate to die—

“Cass,” Az repeated, sharply this time. Loudly. “Look.”

The bridge was gone. 

Stretching across that chasm was nothing, and on the other side stood all three Valkyries. Blood streamed down Gwyn’s leg, and Cassian’s heart stuttered as they used a stolen shirt to bind Gwyn’s leg, to stop the flow of blood, but— their pursuers were on the other side of the cliff. 

“The lords won’t stop it,” Az muttered darkly. “You know that. Even if it’s been interfered with, they’re too proud to admit it, and too stubborn to pull out now.” He shook his head as Cassian’s stomach sank, as his fingers fell away from the door handle. 

“I can’t do nothing, I can’t just—“

“What’s your plan then, General? Storm in there, pull them out and then— what? You’d have to slaughter every commander, every camp lord. Leave Illyria in ashes.”

Cassian’s siphons burned. “You expect me to sit here and watch them die? Watch Nesta die?”

Az shook his head. “They can do this,” he said quietly, turning his gaze back to the mirror, where the Valkyries had rested for only long enough to bind Gwyn’s leg. Swallowing, Az blinked as they grew closer to the mountain with each step. “They remind me of us.”

“Yeah,” Cassian breathed, barely taking his eyes off Nesta long enough to blink. He drew in a stuttered breath, damn near trembling as he returned to the sofa. He reached out, drifting his fingers over the smooth, glassy surface, longing to feel her skin beneath his hands instead.

As night dawned and darkness deepened, Cassian remained by that mirror. Didn’t sleep, didn’t move. Until the sun came up, Cassian kept his vigil.

***

Nothing in the world could have prepared him for the sight of Nesta at the base of Ramiel. The mountain, all but hallowed ground, and the stars above— the closest thing to relics Illyrians had, the nearest thing to religion. Artkos, Oristes and Carynth glinted overhead, sacred, but as Nesta looked up to the summit, light glancing off her jaw… Relics and religion meant nothing, paling next to her.

Oristian.

They were Oristian by right now, and if Cassian weren’t so overcome with terror, if his eyes weren’t burning from so many hours without sleep, then he’d have wept with pride. It wasn’t that he didn’t believe they could do this— wasn’t that he doubted them, or lacked faith. It was that he knew what awaited them up that mountain, wanted to spare them the pain of climbing its slopes. 

It was that his every breath was dogged with a terrible, gnawing panic that something could go wrong, and now that there were real weapons in the Rite…

How could he be expected to sleep, knowing that?

As he watched, Nesta pointed to a path leading south. Gwyn shook her head, but Emerie pointed to the blood soaking through the shirt they’d used as tourniquet on the priestess’ leg. The path led away from Ramiel— they could take it, wait out the remaining few days and be brought home safe as soon as the Rite was over. Go south, Cassian urged, nodding as Nesta pointed to the path again. Please— 

Please come home to me.

He didn’t need to look at Azriel to know he was thinking of the same thing— remembering their own climb up that mountainside. Their agony, their blood mingling in the snow as exhaustion threatened to consume them. Three paths up, and though only one was known as the Breaking, there was no way of making it up that mountain unscathed. No path that didn’t leave you gasping, aching, bleeding, broken in a hundred different ways.

Don’t. He wished they could hear him, wished his words would reach. Don’t— you’ve done enough. Proven enough. 

But Gwyn was pointing adamantly up at the mountain, tears shining in her teal eyes. She spoke at length, and then Emerie was crying, too. When Nesta’s own tears began to fall, Cassian cursed every inch of distance between them, hating that he could do nothing to ease her pain. His own grief deepened with every tear she shed, and when, as one, they spurned the path to the south and began the ascent as sisters… Cassian bowed his head. In reverence, but in despair, too.

“Carynthian,” Az breathed, and a shiver crawled down Cassian’s spine. Though he was premature giving them the title Carynthian, there was no doubt in the spymaster’s face. No doubt at all. They’d make it to the top, touch that stone.

Carynthian.

His Nes— His Valkyrie, his Carynthian. 

And to think, he’d never told her he loved her. Never, even though it was the most fundamental truth. She always had been his equal and now— Gods, now there was no denying it. Nesta was the other half of him, and if the Illyrians weren’t terrified of her before, then they’d tremble now. They’d fall to their knees as she passed, and if they didn’t, he’d take out their kneecaps and force them to.

“Oh, sweetheart,” he whispered to himself, eyes drifting closed as she began the ascent up the mountain that had damn near killed him, once.

Please, he prayed. Please let her survive this. 

***

It was all he could think for hours. All he could murmur, whisper like a mantra. Please, please, please. As he watched the Valkyries take each step, as they stopped to catch their breath, to let Gwyn rest— please. As the House stopped building up the fire, stopped refilling the teapot as if it, too, was waiting with bated breath— please. 

The summit was so close, just another few hours and they’d make it, they’d be home, and Cassian dared to hope for the first time in days, because it was just there, just a little bit further and—

Nesta stopped. The world came to a halt as she stopped dead, swayed— and fell. Fell right back down to the Pass of Enalius, and Cassian couldn’t breathe, not as he saw each rock that grazed her skin, felt each blow. Even Azriel hissed, a sharp breath sucked in between gritted teeth, and Cassian’s siphons were pulsing, raging, as he watched, helpless, as all those yards gained were yielded, and the summit seemed further than ever.

The nightmare didn’t end, only deepened as Emerie’s lips parted and Cassian read the words he couldn’t hear. They’re coming— as Nesta took up a blade. As the lips he’d kissed swollen just days ago uttered the one word that made his blood run cold. No.

Azriel inhaled sharply as Gwyn protested. As Nesta hit the pressure point Cassian had taught her and the priestess went out cold. Emerie pleaded. Begged. And Nesta gripped her sword tighter.

“No,” Cassian echoed, hands grasping at the mirror, clawing at the surface. The bevelled edges sliced open his finger, and his blood hit the glass as Gwyn’s lingered in the snow. He watched as Nesta used her sword, drew a line— just as Enalius had, all that time ago. The world blurred at the edges, and all he could focus on was her, gripping that shield and clutching her sword. She hadn’t known that Enalius had drawn a line, too. Didn’t know that part of the tale. 

In his bones, Cassian knew that he was watching his mate make her last stand. He’d promised her time— on that battlefield, he’d promised that they’d have time, and they’d been given so fucking little. It wasn’t fair, wasn’t right, that this was the way it ended, that this was how their story finished. 

He might have been screaming— might have been shouting, but his ears were ringing and his vision tunnelled as the first of her attackers rounded the corner and came into view— too many, there were too many of them and she was so vastly outnumbered that the odds were stacked against her. His tears were thick and fast, grief consuming him. Subsuming every facet of his being, a tidal wave of it, too terrible to bear, as he repeated the same word over and over again: Please.

***

The dead were scattered around her, and Cassian’s heart pounded. He didn’t mourn the loss of any of them. Didn’t grieve, because Nesta was still standing, and only one of them remained— but she was exhausted. He could see it in her face, in the set of her shoulders, and gods above, Cassian had been a warrior long enough to know when the fight was almost gone. Knew what it looked like when there was nothing left.

The snow fell heavily, the wind raged, as if even the elements were furious, didn’t want to see her meet her end this way.  Cassian raged too, barely feeling Azriel’s hand gripping his shoulder, not hearing the words the shadowsinger muttered by his ear. 

The nameless warrior lunged, and with one swift hit, knocked Nesta’s shield aside.

Her gaze followed, turning to see where it landed, and Cassian roared, almost upending the table as he shot to his feet. No, no no no— he knew what would happen the moment she turned her head, let her attention drift. The bastard knocked her sword away too, and Cassian could only watch, screaming, as his blade swung for her. She ducked— took a hit to the arm instead, and Cassian couldn’t breathe— couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, couldn’t tear his eyes away.

I love you, he thought, but he might have said it out loud. Might have screamed it as the blade nicked her cheek. I love you, I love you, I love you.

Az swore as Nesta was knocked to her back. Her nose was bleeding. Her mouth, too. Crimson, stark against the snow and the ice. The warrior - who wouldn’t live long even if he survived the Rite - tossed aside his weapons as Nesta struggled to her hands and knees. More blood spilled, but she was a fighter— always had been.

His Nesta— his brave warrior heart, always.

“Can you read his lips?” Cassian asked numbly, a cold, ice cold fury running through his veins as he beheld the face of the Illyrian swinging for his mate. 

Azriel huffed a bitter, vengeful laugh. “He thinks she can’t take him in hand-to-hand combat.”

A vicious, cruel, smirk tugged at Cassian’s lips as, darkly, he answered, “He’s never fucking met her.”

“No,” Az agreed. “I hope she fells him with one good punch. I hope his skull caves in.”

Murderous, Cassian agreed. Nesta opened her mouth, and as Cassian leaned forward, he didn’t need Az to read her lips this time. Cassian could do it himself, as if he could hear her.

My mate taught me.

With trembling hands, Cassian reached out to brush the surface of the mirror again.

My mate taught me.

My mate.

***

“Don’t tuck your thumb,” he’d told her, oh, so long ago now.“You’ll break your fingers if you hit like that.” He watched her now— throwing punches just as he’d taught her.

That’s it, he murmured as she landed a punch that Cassian was certain broke the bastard’s nose. That’s it, just like that. Blood sprayed, but it wasn’t hers, and even though he’d seen battles turn in a blink, seen fortune’s wheel spin too many times to celebrate a victory before it was won— Cassian let himself hope, for one beautiful moment.

Only one— because in the span of a breath, in a single, stuttering, heartbeat, Nesta was on her knees, and this time she wasn’t rising— She crawled through the arch, breaking the line she’d drawn, and she didn’t realise, didn’t see, as the bastard behind her pulled a dagger from his boot, stepped forward, the blade glinting—  Cassian’s breath stuttered, and he didn’t have time to cry out, couldn’t so much as blink, before the Illyrian was lunging, and Nesta hadn't realised, was still on the ground, and— The world was spinning as he descended madly into terror, down and down and down as he saw her eyes, the blue and grey he’d die for— Saw her realise, far too late, saw the flicker of fear as the blade neared her throat and—

His eyes snapped closed, his world crumbling to dust.

A single, solitary tear slid down his cheek. I love you, he thought. I should have told you. Should have spent all these months saying it, proving it, because I love you Nes, and I don’t know how to live without you, how to breathe without you—

“Cass,” Az whispered.

No. He couldn’t— couldn’t see her lying bleeding in the snow. Couldn’t open his eyes.

“Cass,” Az repeated, shaking his arm. “She’s alright, Cass, look.”

Alright?

Slowly, he looked. The dagger the Illyrian had pulled from his boot was buried in his own neck, Nesta panting as she rested against the rocks. He didn’t try to hold back his sobs, then. Cared for nothing as he saw her, breathing, looking up to the top of the mountain, where there had been no flash of light. Emerie and Gwyn hadn’t left, had waited, and now there was nothing between his mate and her sisters.

Nothing to stop them coming home.

***

There would be no welcome party in Windhaven or Ironcrest or any other Illyrian camp for the Valkyries. Instead, Cassian barrelled down the hall towards the library, the House throwing open the doors before him, dizzy with relief and thanking every star in the sky, every deity he could name, that it was over. Done.

After days of agony… He saw them. Saw her, and though he engulfed all three of them in a hug that could have broken bones, it was her scent he was inhaling. Her neck he buried his face in. 

“Nes,” he said against her skin, pulling all three of them more firmly against him. They were filthy and tired, but healed and alive, and even Azriel stepped forward, swallowing thickly as Emerie mumbled something against Cassian’s shoulder, her words muffled. Gwyn huffed a laugh, and— home, home, they’re home. 

The lights flickered, even the House desperate to welcome its favourite residents, and as Gwyn and Emerie freed themselves from his grasp, Cassian was left only with a familiar touch against his cheek, familiar fingers drawing through his hair. 

Nesta.

His fingertips drifted across her jaw, down her neck and across her collarbone, palms skating down the side of her arms as he felt every inch of her. He cradled her face, overwhelmed and awed, breath catching as he felt her skin beneath his at last, and then, he was kneeling—

Falling to his knees before her, head bowed, in awe and pride and supplication. She had so many titles now— Lady Death, Valkyrie… Carynthian. She was everything, his entire world wrapped up in a bundle of sarcasm and sharp words, and when she curled her fingers under his chin, urged him to look at her, Cassian took her hand, weaved their fingers together and gripped it so tightly there wasn’t a force in the world that could pull them apart.

Not again.

“I love you,” he rasped. “I didn’t say it before— I never said it, and I should have—”

Nesta shook her head. Dropped to her knees too, taking his face between her palms, and when she whispered “Cass”, Cassian wrapped his arms around her, hauling her to his chest, so close that every part of her was pressed against every part of him. The blood from her leathers seeped through his shirt, right down to his skin, but her arms were around his neck, clinging to him, and nothing else mattered, nothing. He felt her tears warm on his neck, the sobs that cut her throat, and he held her as she fell to pieces.

He fell to pieces too, shattered entirely as they came apart together on the floor. 

Distantly, Az murmured to Gwyn and Emerie. Something about finding them bedrooms and something to eat. Cassian heard their steps as they walked away, but neither he nor Nesta moved, unable to part, unwilling to let go.

“I love you,” he said again, making up for lost time. Pressing a kiss to the crown of her head, he shuddered as he thought of how close he’d come to losing her. He didn’t have words for anything else. In an hour or so, he was certain he’d be falling over himself to tell her how proud of her he was, how awed and how lucky— but now, as his world began to knit itself back together, all he could manage was I love you, over and over again as she sobbed in his arms.

[whyisaravenlike-awritingdesk]

Begged & Borrowed Time (xvii, ao3)

(Chapter seventeen: Starfall part one. It’s a night Cassian has been looking forward to ever since Rhys came home, but it just doesn’t feel right without Nesta by his side.) (Prologue // previous chapter // next chapter)

Morning dawned, and with a muted thud Cassian’s fist hit the centre of the training dummy. 

The wooden frame rattled, the cotton he’d wrapped around his knuckles slipping as he flexed his fingers. Already, a numbness was beginning to spread, merging with the ache in his wings and his shoulders, mingling with the fatigue left over from a sleepless night.

He’d been at it an hour.

His breathing was ragged, his jaw clenched as tight as his fists, and even though a cool breeze licked across his bare skin, still he felt the strain in every inch of his frame— from his muscles right through to his centre, where suddenly there was a chasm, a void that hadn’t been there before. 

With tension rumbling through him, Cassian curled his arm and prepared to hit again, like an arrow shot from a bow. This time, the dummy shook and almost toppled, trembling as the force of his blow resounded on the rock. 

The sun hadn’t even begun to colour the horizon when he’d given up on sleep that morning and left for Illyria, staining the skyline only as he’d made his way back home. He’d collected Emerie’s letter and Nesta’s book - with Emerie giving him a glare that could level armies as she asked him tightly if he realised what time it was - before flying back to Velaris over snow-capped mountains and plains only just kissed by spring— beautiful, tranquil, serene. He had hoped with every beat of his tired wings that the clear air would ease his mind, would soothe the roiling, twisting currents inside his head that had kept him all night from sleep. 

But that’s the thing about hope, Cassian thought wryly, punching the leather-wrapped dummy again with enough force to shatter bones. It springs eternal, even when it’s foolish. 

Now, as he drew an uneven breath and looked at the shirt he’d discarded and tossed to the corner of the House roof, his mind wandered to Nesta— the way it always did, like she was the natural conclusion at the end of every thought that ever crossed his mind. He thought of that night in that fucking stable, where she’d tossed his shirt into a corner too. He thought of the distance between them, the bond straining in his chest and pulling, the way it had all fucking night, and this time he punched the dummy so hard he almost knocked it over, because—

Starfall.

It was Starfall.

And he hadn’t expected it to hurt this much, to ache this much.

For now there was only endless blue above - the horizon melting, seamless, into the sea in the distance - but soon it would be littered with stars, showers of them cascading from the heavens and drifting through the darkness. Tonight, he would watch them race and fall until there were none left, and for the the first time in fifty years, he’d get to do it with both of his brothers by his side.

So why, he thought as he adjusted the cotton at his knuckles, wasn’t that enough? 

A gentle snarl slipped from between his lips, frustrated, as he clenched his fists tighter, nails digging into the skin of palms. 

For the last half century, he’d spent this night looking up at the sky and wondering where Rhys was, feeling his heart break in his chest, racked by guilt and grief as the realm beyond their borders burned. There had been no parties at the House then, only nights spent cradling hard liquor, waiting for the curse to break. So it wasn’t something he was about to take for granted— wasn’t something he’d forgotten to be grateful for. 

It was just… 

When Rhys had returned from Under the Mountain, like a godsdamned fool Cassian had thought it might be different this year— thought Starfall would roll around and he’d be here, celebrating properly for the first time in an age, without the absence of someone he loved ripping a hole in his chest.

Oh, yes— he’d been a fool.

Wrapping the cotton tighter around his fists, feeling his knuckles bark beneath the pressure, he knew this year would be no fucking different, no different at all. It just wasn’t Rhys he was missing now. No— it was someone entirely different, someone who could stop him in his tracks with just the barest curving of her lips, and as Cassian snarled again, he knew he’d give anything - anything - to have just one Starfall spent with all those he loved.

Loved.

That single fucking word barrelled through him, echoed in his skull as he slammed his fist into the dummy. His knuckles kissed the leather, his breath faltered, and with a dry, sardonic huff Cassian skimmed right over that thought before it could settle. He didn’t have the strength to examine that yet— not today, not when there was such a distance between him and her, when she didn’t even know about the bond that tied them together.

No, instead Cassian shook his head, letting the spring breeze drift across his cheeks. He focused on the burning in his hands, the warmth radiating down his arm with every swing. Rotating his wrists, Cassian felt the strain like an old friend— a familiar companion.

He willed himself to lose himself in it, to find salvation in the blood thrumming through his veins, the uneven rising of his chest. He wouldn’t think about Starfall, about Rhys, about Mor and the argument he’d had with her in the Hewn City. He wouldn’t think about Nesta, about how the rest didn’t seem to matter as much as his lack of her did, or about how he’d spent fifty years desperate to celebrate Starfall with Rhys back home and now he finally had the chance, he could hardly care less.

So it was a blessing, he thought, when footsteps sounded against the stone of the House roof, offering distraction before he could bruise his knuckles with another brutal punch. 

He didn’t need to turn to know it was Rhys.

He recognised the tread, the cadence of his steps, and felt the familiar thrum of power coursing through the air as his brother stepped onto the roof and into the sunlight. Still, Cassian did not turn.

The High Lord had taken up residence at the House after the visit to the Hewn City, after he had winnowed back alone with Feyre. Cassian had returned from Illyria last night and found Rhys sitting in the library with his face drawn, practically ashen, nursing a glass of whiskey like his life depended on it. Something had splintered between the Lord and his thief, and he hadn’t been back to the town house since.

But like Cassian, it was clear that Rhys found the stretching distance between himself and his mate… grating.

Turning, Cassian found Rhys stalking across the House training ground now, circles beneath his eyes that said he hadn’t slept. He was wearing leathers, boots, and there was a tension in his shoulders and his neck that gathered with every step he took, as if each weighed on him. His violet eyes flicked to Cassian’s hazel, and lurking beneath his cool exterior was a tumult of unease that Cassian could practically taste. 

He didn’t need to ask what Rhys needed— he had needed the same, this morning, when he sought solace in mindless exertion. Rhys needed to punch something until he couldn’t feel his fingers, until the thrumming in his blood drowned out the thoughts inside his head.

So Cassian took a single step forwards, a question and an offer balanced on his tongue.

“You want blades?” he asked simply.

“No.” Rhys shook his head, a sharp movement as a muscle ticked in his jaw. His voice was pressed flat by the strain. “No blades. Just fists.”

Cassian nodded, rolling his shoulders as the breeze shifted the loose strands of hair that had slipped free from the rough bun he’d tied at the nape of his neck. No blades— just bare hands, the way it had been when they were boys. He nodded again, taking another step forward as Rhys flexed his hands, curling his fingers.

He hadn’t said a word about what had happened after the Court of Nightmares— about what Feyre had said to make him draw away after so many months of hanging on her every word. Cassian was burning with curiosity, and perhaps Rhys could sense it because before Cassian could say a word, Rhys fixed him with a glare. 

“I don’t want to talk about it,” he said firmly. “Feyre and I had an argument, and I don’t want to talk about it.”

Cassian handed over the roll of cotton wadding, a silent acknowledgment that - for a moment, at least - he would let Rhys have his secrets. His brother gave him a single sharp nod, taking the cotton with nimble fingers and winding it around his knuckles as Cassian watched, studying like Rhys was an opponent he was trying to best. The High Lord merely rolled his shoulders, clenched his fists. His frame was rigid, lined with apprehension, and Cassian noted it, widening his stance and holding up a hand, a target for his brother to hit. He waited until Rhys drew his arm back before opening his mouth, the moment he’d given him over.

“Argued about what?” he asked as Rhys’ fist connected with the centre of his palm— a solid punch, fuelled by angst and anger both, yet not enough to make Cassian’s bones rattle. He was rusty.

Rhys snarled. “What part of I don’t want to talk about it did you miss?”

Cassian barked a laugh, acerbic and dry as Rhys swung another punch. Cassian twisted his hand easily, catching Rhys’s fist and closing his fingers around it. He turned, pivoted, and twisted Rhys’ arm until Cassian had him pinned against his chest, caught and trapped as Cassian’s grip tightened. 

“All of it,” he drawled in answer. 

Rhys growled, and Cassian felt his own anticipation beginning to build, his mind sharpening like a blade as pure and unadulterated focus replaced the frustration and bitterness that had taken root inside him. His lips split into a smirk, dark and promising as stone-cold purpose settled like a veil. 

Rhys broke from his hold, lurching forwards before whirling to face his general, his brother. He raised his fists, set his feet apart— but it was uneven, and all of his weight was braced on his heels instead of the balls of his feet. 

“Your balance is off,” Cassian pointed out casually, watching as Rhys’ eyes darkened, narrowed, the stars there all but winking out entirely. Nevertheless, he shifted his weight forward, lithe and smooth.

“You want to do this properly?” he challenged, bending his fingers to beckon Cassian forwards. His voice was less empty than it had been before, and as the breeze tossed his dark hair over his forehead, there was colour in the Lord’s cheeks again. Already the fight had done him some good. “Let’s go then.” 

Cassian grinned wickedly, cracking his knuckles.

“I’ll go easy on you,” he said easily. “Wouldn’t want to ruin your pretty face before the party later.”

Rhys snarled once more, his lip curling as the darkness in his eyes deepened. The tension in Rhys’ shoulders suddenly gathered, intensified, and Cassian knew then that he had touched a nerve. With a furrow in his brow, he wondered if perhaps what Rhys and Feyre had had was more than a little argument. 

After all, he’d always argued with Nesta, and it had never driven him to the brink. 

In those early days, those first few meetings, the air between them had been so charged that it really was a wonder she’d only ever sliced his skin with a blade once— and even then it had been by accident. They had spat at one another with a kind of venom that had infected him, had him addicted to her from that very first day, but as Rhys let out a stuttering breath…

He knew this was different.

“Hey,” he said, his voice turning somber as Rhys curled his hand into a fist once more. “What happened?”

Rhys shook his head, raven hair shining almost blue in the sunlight, falling over his forehead as he dipped his chin. 

“Cass,” he said warily, exhaling deeply. “I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t even want to think about it.”

And gods, didn’t Cassian know what that was like? So when Rhys set his feet, when he raised his fists and challenge shone once again in those violet eyes…

Cassian punched his brother in the ribs.

Hard.

And later, when they were done, with bruises mottling Cassian’s chest from the three good blows Rhys had managed to land, he unwrapped the cotton from his hands and clapped Rhys on the shoulder.

But Rhys was quiet, the angles of his face shadowed, troubled. Drifting to the balcony wall, he looked across the city with pensive eyes, his lips pressed into a hard line as he let his own strip of cotton flutter to the floor.

“How do you do it Cass?” he asked, his eyes fixed on the other side of the river— in the general direction of the town house, indistinguishable from such a high vantage point and lost in the swell of the city. “Be apart from her all the time.”

Cassian rested his forearms on the wall, a bitter laugh slipping from his lips that was so pained it could barely be called a laugh at all. “I don’t have a choice, do I?”

“No,” Rhys answered slowly. “No, I suppose you don’t.”

He looked back over the city, the breeze moving gently through his tangled hair, and for all the world Cassian thought he glimpsed heartache in his eyes— as though he’d give it all up if it meant things with Feyre were easier, and even though Cassian’s own heart was nothing but a bruised and patched-up organ held together solely by the memory of Nesta’s smile, he nudged Rhys with his shoulder.

“See what happens tonight,” he said, forcing a lightness and optimism into his tone that he didn’t truly feel. He tipped his head back, looking at the sun shining clear and bright, the swathe of blue unmarred. “All kinds of wounds might just be healed by the time the sun rises. Starfall is a magic all of its own.”

Rhys looked back over the city, back towards the townhouse. Silence stretched until, at last, he looked Cassian in the eye. He’d known Rhys for five centuries, but even he couldn’t read the look that passed across Rhys’ face then. It was soft, contemplative, and yet somehow cunning, like the High Lord was up to something.

“Yeah,” he said slowly, his eyes narrowed slightly as if he’d just thought of something. He turned, looking over Cassian’s shoulder to the south. “Yeah, it is.”

***

“Are you ever going to tell me what happened the other night?”

Leaning against Cassian’s doorframe, shadows swirling at his ankles, Azriel watched as Cassian buttoned up his shirt before the mirror in his room, his tone exasperated, almost bored— yet curiosity gleamed in his eyes, shining in the hazel just a shade darker than Cassian’s own.

Az was dressed smart, no leather in sight. A shirt of deep navy hung loose across his chest, revealing the tattoos that curled around his collarbone, and the two siphons he wore above his hands glimmered, polished and shining. Cassian straightened his shirt in the mirror— a rich, deep black that made the rubies on his own hands shine even brighter, startling crimson in the evening light.

Cassian snorted as he slipped the last few buttons through. “Were you always this nosy?”

“Spymaster,” Azriel answered with a wry shrug. “Did you sleep with her?”

Cassian’s gaze flicked up, meeting Azriel’s through the mirror. His fingers paused on his buttons. “Not exactly,” he answered casually. There was a pause— one where a grin split his lips, a slash of teeth in the darkening room. “But I did sleep beside her, and we did do other things besides sleep.”

Az let out a dry huff of a laugh, rolling his eyes and lifting a leg to rest one booted foot against the doorframe. He folded his arms, his expression growing more serious as he canted his head to the side and asked, “Did you tell her about the bond?”

“No,” Cassian answered quickly, finishing with the last button. “And I don’t plan to. Not yet.”

Silence followed, and with it the sight of Nesta in that stable flashed in his mind, of her pulling away as the moonlight drifted across old scars. His siphons pulsed, and it was brutal but Cassian rather thought it was a good thing Nesta’s mother was already dead. He had looked at those scars and felt a deadly kind of rage slicing clean through his soul, the quiet and lethal kind that meant he wouldn’t hesitate to bloody his hands.

The kind he hadn’t felt since the day he’d slaughtered those that killed his mother.

He shivered, a chill crawling down his spine as the memory of that day in the mountains coalesced with the memory of that stable, of the silver light bringing the scar on Nesta’s thumb into stark relief. He almost grimaced, almost snarled, and everything he’d been trying to work off that morning in the training ring suddenly resurfaced, like it had never been away at all.

Through the mirror, Cassian caught Azriel’s dark eyes assessing his reflection, his brows furrowed as he watched crimson siphons pulse with unease.

Suddenly needing to change the subject, Cassian turned to face Azriel with a questioning look of his own.

“You didn’t tell Mor where I was,” he said briskly, forcing his siphons to calm as he tried to forget about the scars on his mate’s skin, the anguish in her eyes. “Why?”

Azriel shrugged. “Maybe I didn’t like the way she asked.”

Cassian stilled, a frown wrinkling his brow. 

It was hardly a secret that the shadowsinger had been in love with Mor for centuries, and yet he met Cassian’s eye now, face as stoic as ever. Something had altered, some dynamic forever shifted, as if seeing Rhys with Feyre and Cassian with Nesta had changed something for Azriel, broken some thread that had long been fraying. Curiosity rose within Cassian like a wave, but the silence grew thick and heavy, a thousand words lingering, unsaid, in the air between them. At length, Cassian cleared his throat, steering them back to safer waters.

“We argued about it,” he said blandly. “At the Court of Nightmares.”

“Ah,” Azriel nodded, tilting back to rest the crown of his head against the doorframe too. His eyes flicked down, arms dropping as his hand rested idly on the hilt of Truth-teller at his thigh. Even a party wasn’t enough to separate Azriel from that blade. “So that’s what was up with you two.”

“Was it that obvious?” Cassian asked dryly. 

Azriel snorted.

Before he could say another word, Rhys was sweeping smoothly past Azriel and striding into Cassian’s bedroom like he owned it. He did, of course, but Cassian still raised an eyebrow, shaking his head as he watched the High Lord straightening his cuffs as he walked, coming to a halt in the centre of the room. Dressed in immaculate black, there wasn’t a thread out of place, and yet Rhys’ fingers were idling at his sleeves, plucking and shifting and finding something to busy themselves with.

He was nervous.

The most powerful High Lord ever known… and he was nervous.

“And good evening to you too,” Cassian drawled as Rhys continued to fuss at his sleeves, his brows drawn together and his lips pressed thin. His brother only waved a heavy-ringed hand in lieu of a proper greeting, the silver bands around his fingers catching in the low light and winking. 

“I need you to pick Feyre up,” he said briskly. He sounded like he needed a drink— sounded like he needed several.

But then, so did Cassian.

He raised an eyebrow. “Can’t you?”

Rhys’ eyes grew flat. “No,” he answered, looking back down at his cuffs even though there was nothing left for him to fix. He took a deep breath, then looked up, training his features into neutrality. “Who else will greet the guests if not the host?”

It was the flimsiest of excuses, about as stable as dam made of straw, and each of them knew it. Azriel pushed off the doorframe, stepping more fully into the room, something like sympathy shining briefly in the spymaster’s eyes, but it was gone as the High Lord turned. Rhys fixed him with a glare, as if daring Azriel to comment, before turning to Cassian once more. The smile he forced on his lips was tight, almost brittle.

“It’s my first Starfall in decades,” he said. “I want to enjoy it. No maudlin thoughts— not tonight.”

Darkness lurked in his eyes, and it had Cassian swallowing, had all that morning’s guilt rearing its head once more as Azriel clapped Rhys on the shoulder. Rhys deserved this— deserved to have one night of celebration. Cassian softened, felt something tugging somewhere in his chest as he rolled his eyes indulgently.

“Alright,” he said. “I’ll get Feyre.”

Rhys nodded. 

“Thank you,” he said, a touch too gently. Then, he brightened once more, the dazzling smile back in all of its feigned glory. “And who knows?” he said, inclining his head to the side as a jewelled hand alighted on Cassian’s shoulder. His eyes winked in the dim. “The Mother might throw all of us a bone tonight. After all…”

Rhys paused, looking up and meeting Cassian’s eye once more.

“…Starfall is a magic all of its own.”

***

Lovesick.

Emerie had called him lovesick, and even though Cassian had denied it, he couldn’t help but think she’d been right after all as he lingered on the edges of the party, watching from the sidelines. Watching, as the crowd danced and the band played, as the the sky overhead turned silver and blue and green, falling stars leaving trails of glitter in their wake. He had taken root by the trestle table laden with glass wine flutes, sparkling liquid shimmering golden beneath string lights, and even as he tasted the wine on his tongue and sensed the celebration in the air… It eluded him. 

He couldn’t feel it, couldn’t feel anything, because no matter how much wine he drank, how much he tried to remember how lucky they were to even be here at all… There was something missing.

Someone missing.

Lovesick, just as Emerie had said.

From his spot at the edge of the roof, Cassian watched as Rhys and Feyre slipped back outside, hand in hand. They had disappeared up the stairs earlier, and now they returned, with Rhys’ smile bright enough to rival the stars falling from the sky. He was practically fucking beaming, whatever wounds he had been trying to salve that morning entirely healed now, gone without a trace. Feyre’s lipstick lingered at the edges of his mouth, stardust on his cheeks, his hair mussed. The High Lord had been drawn and pale, agonised, only that very morning on this very roof— but he was transformed now, made whole again with Feyre’s hand in his.

Cassian’s fingers tightened around his wine glass. 

Stars streaked the sky above, racing iridescent across the black and turning the night to glitter. The music was loud, the harp and piano and a host of instruments Cassian couldn’t even name harmonising against the backdrop of bottles popping, of wine flowing into clinking glasses, of laughter echoing on the stone of the mountains and resounding. Below, down in the city, there were cheers. 

And yet something like envy worked its way like oil through his veins, slicking every inch of him until it was all he could think of, coiling within him as he watched Rhys’ fingers brush Feyre’s, as he asked her to dance and led her to the floor set out on the House roof, beneath the open sky.

How do you do it Cass? Be apart from her all the time?

Fucking hell— he wanted Nesta to see these stars. Wanted to see the light glancing off her face, reflected in her eyes, wanted to be the one dancing there, with his mate in his arms, as the world fell down. He drained his wine, traded his empty glass for a full one, and drifted by the edge of the dance floor, his head tilted back to watch the heavens.

The music grew even louder, grew more ecstatic, and when he turned his face back down to the crowd gathered on the House roof, he found Feyre drifting from Rhys’ side, her arm trailing behind her as Rhys kept their fingers interlinked for as long as he could. At last he let go, and Feyre’s arm lingered outstretched, reaching back, as if she hadn't really wanted to let go at all.

And yet— she made her way for Cassian, and Rhys turned and took Mor’s hand instead, dancing with his cousin as Feyre slipped one hand in Cassian’s own, the other plucking up his wine and setting it aside.

“Dance with me,” she said, and with the glitter of a fallen star still lingering on her skin, blue eyes alight with joy, Cassian found it hard to refuse her. It was her first Starfall, and there was wonder in her eyes that was contagious, that made him think of how breathless he had been the first time he’d watched the stars race across the sky. He only wished he was watching that wonder spread in her sister’s eyes, watching the stars dance in eyes of silver instead.

But still, he let Feyre drag him to the dance floor— the space where earlier he’d punched a training dummy so hard he’d almost knocked it over. She weaved through the crowd gathered on the roof, and Cassian forced himself smile, to remember all of the things he was grateful for as she pulled him into the fray, towards the music, and began to dance.

It was erratic and free, the kind of dancing with no real steps, only rhythm and sound and feeling. The stars skimmed the sky above, the music swelled, and as Feyre’s feet stumbled over Cassian’s own, her laughter rose above it all, melodic. 

“I always was terrible at this,” she said, her voice light and almost breathless as she nodded to her feet. “It was Nesta’s thing, not mine.”

“She’s a dancer?” Cassian asked, and if Feyre noticed that his voice was hoarse, he hoped she’d blame it on the wine, on the way he had to shout above the music. She only nodded, smiling gently as if remembering days long since passed, and Cassian said nothing, feeling warmth spread in his chest.

He knew she’d be a dancer— had known it since the moment he first saw her, when she’d stood in her father’s dining room and saw straight through his glamour like it was nothing.

He swallowed, his throat bobbing as his hand slipped from Feyre’s, as he took a step back. The music continued to rise, and for a moment Feyre’s brow furrowed, but Rhys was there to replace him a heartbeat later, taking his mate in his arms and pulling her into him, the jewels of her dress glittering, reflecting the stars above. Her arms wound around Rhys’ neck as though it were easy, second-nature, and as Cassian took another step back, freeing himself from the crowd as he searched for another glass of wine, Rhys caught his eye.

Midnight talons brushed softly against the barriers of Cassian’s mind, and when he lowered them, he heard Rhys’ voice inside his head like a whisper.

Go and get her.

Cassian stilled. His gaze snapped to Rhys, but his brother only gave him a withering look from across the dance floor, rolling those violet eyes as the party continued around them.

Get Az to winnow her here. Just for the night. Nobody will notice if you slip away.

All thoughts of wine were abandoned, all thoughts of everything. Cassian was still frozen by the edge of that dance floor, running a hand through his hair as he tried to work out whether he’d heard Rhys right. He was too far gone to pretend that it wasn’t the only thing in the world he wanted, but he forced himself to hesitate, to grasp the elation bubbling in his gut and hold onto it before it could spread unfettered. 

Only a few days ago you were telling me to stay away from her, he remarked dryly. What— Feyre kisses you and you turn soft?

Rhys shook his head. Maybe I was wrong, he answered easily. And then— How do you know she kissed me?

Cassian snorted.

You have her lipstick on your mouth.

Across the roof, Rhys tipped his head back and laughed. It echoed, and it sounded so carefree, so unburdened, that Cassian almost fucking wept. War still loomed on the horizon, but it was Starfall, and Rhys was back, and now maybe he could have Nesta here too, and there was absolutely nothing else in the world that mattered— nothing. Rhys’ eyes glittered, and as Feyre looked up at him curiously in the wake of his fading laughter, he leaned down and whispered something in her ear— some clever ruse, no doubt, some excuse that would allow Cassian to leave the party without questions.

When he next looked up, Rhys’ eyes had turned soft.

Go and get her, Cass, he said, a gentle urge to his voice. Cassian didn’t miss how his arm tightened around Feyre, holding her close like he was afraid of losing her. We all deserve a bit of happiness tonight.

Cassian’s mouth went dry, but before he could answer Rhys was turning and nodding to Azriel. Already the spymaster was cutting through the crowd, slipping through as easily as water between rocks. Cassian looked to Rhys, but the Lord had already turned back to Feyre, like a moth to a flame.

“Well?” Az asked as he came to stand beside him. His shadows were pressed close against his skin, almost invisible in the darkness, and as Azriel raised an eyebrow, Cassian knew that Rhys had already asked him— had already told him to go beneath the wall.

And after a single minute, one where Cassian glanced up at the falling stars and tried to collect himself…

He grinned, and nodded.

Taglist: @hiimheresworld @highladyofillyria @wannawriteyouabook @infiremetotakeachonce @melphss @hereforthenessian @c-e-d-dreamer @lady-winter-sunrise @the-lost-changeling @valkyriesupremacy

[headcanonheadcase-deactivated20]

Velaris U - ACOTAR College Hockey AU

The Bargain - Gwynriel - Rated E - Completed 17 February 2023

Cover Art by @lemonade_doodles and commissioned by me

Fan Art by @mikki_art.books and commissioned by @trashforazriel

The Hit - Nessian - Rated E - First Chapter posted 17 April 2023

Cover Art by @lemonade_doodles and commissioned by me

The Shot - Elucien - Rated E - Drafting starts 1 April 2023

The Choice - Feysand - Rated E - Outline in progress

Untitled Jassa Novella - TBD

Art in the header was commissioned by me from @lemonade_doodles

[yazthebookish]

Nessian 🔥 by @madschofield

(Link to post here)

[jmoonjones]

Stunning 😍

[thequeenofnightmares]

Rhys: Feyre hit me with a shoe.

Cassian: Nesta kneed me in the balls.

Rhys and Cassian: *waiting*

Azriel: . . . . . . . . . . . .

Azriel: Gwyn stabbed me.

Rhys and Cassian: *nodding their heads appreciatively*

[whyisaravenlike-awritingdesk]

Begged & Borrowed Time (xv, ao3)

(Chapter fifteen: Cassian’s determined to get his girl, whilst the past catches up to Nesta. TW: mentions of past abuse) (Prologue // previous chapter // next chapter)

He didn’t have a plan. 

Not really.

Finding himself caught in the jaws of an almighty storm, Cassian had parted ways with Azriel just a hairsbreadth from the gap in the wall, the rain hammering against his skin, numbing his cheeks, his fingers, and— he didn’t have a plan. He didn’t have anything— couldn’t even find the will to shield himself from the weather, being entirely too far gone to care about the chill that seeped through his leathers, the rain that slipped down the back of his neck. 

All he had was the ache inside, the pull that drew him, evermore, towards her.

Nesta.

The storm raged, and the rumbling sky found an echo inside Cassian’s chest, a twin in his labouring heart. He had to find her, had to see her, and no tempest great or small could stop him now, could make him change his mind. As Azriel winnowed away - with a dry good luck tossed over his shoulder, almost swallowed by the wind - Cassian took a deep breath, tasted the petrichor in the air, and let the rain sweep across his cheeks, washing away everything else but that deep-rooted need, that one singular purpose that had belied his every thought, every move, every breath for weeks now.

He had to see her.

So he had flown the rest of the way alone, through the punishing, bruising rain, with every heartbeat stuttering out in the shape of her name. It was a steady rhythm carrying him through the darkness, undercut by a swell of desperation, a longing so intense he could barely breathe. It grew teeth the closer he came to her, the miles between them falling away as he crossed the distance, and when he landed roughly at last, shaking the rain from his eyes… for the first time in a long, long time Cassian felt brittle.

His siphons shone weakly in the dim, the raindrops that scattered across the faceted surface turning to broken rubies as he found himself standing in the courtyard before Nesta’s house, looking up at the roof she shared with her husband. The wind ravaged his cheeks and tore at his skin, and as the storm hammered against the thin window panes, it was all Cassian could do to weave a hasty glamour and try and figure out what the hell came next. 

It wasn’t like he could knock on the front door.

And he’d always worn his heart on his sleeve but fucking hell… this was something else. He’d crossed the length of this entire land in one night just to see her— how could he play that off, play it down? He couldn’t— he was a commander without command, a strategist with no strategy. He was just a man, standing in the downpour, searching for home and trying to find it looking up at her window.

He just… had to see her.

It was the only thing he knew with any real certainty, some kind of instinct that had him standing there in the deepest part of the night, doing nothing to shield himself from the weather. With the driving rain dripping from his leathers, slinking down the back of his neck, Cassian thought he might just have understood then, in that moment, what the bards wrote songs about. That insistent, urgent feeling inside his chest— it was what they wrote ballads about. 

And it had him not just throwing caution to the wind but launching it, abandoning any semblance of prudent thought entirely as, at last, the fragments of a plan started to form, drawing together in his tired, rain-addled mind. 

Because there was only one person in this entire world that could see him— would see him every time. Not in this world or the next was there another that could see through his glamour as easily as she could his bullshit, cocksure posturing. There was only one— only her.

So he let his siphons flare.

Channeling every ounce of power he could into those stones, he willed them brighter, brighter, brighter. It was like dragging a heavy weight through thick mud, like trying to shift the earth with his bare hands as he pushed and pushed and pushed against the magic of the wall— the magic that left his senses, his powers, muffled and dampened. He gritted his teeth, fists clenched and eyes closed tight against the strain, pushing and pushing and pushing— until those stones ignited, a ruby beacon cutting through the falling rain, illuminating the darkness. 

Like one of the knights from her books, he was all but throwing rocks at her window. Because only Nesta would see the light refracted through the rain, the crimson that sliced through the black, up towards the swollen sky. 

Suddenly, he felt the bond between them pulling hard, like being so close to her was making it tremble. It tugged sharply, making his breath stutter, and he wondered if she could feel it too. If it would wake her and urge her to look to the window. Lightning flashed and he hoped it did, hoped she would hear it— the sound of his heart reaching for hers, like a call and an answer. 

And maybe she did— maybe she could, because as he watched, a soft golden light flickered to life in an upstairs window, the gentle glow of a candle shining behind aged glass. 

He didn’t breathe.

The minutes stretched like hours, like days, and Cassian felt each one leave a mark, a scar, as he waited. Thunder rolled across the sky above, a distant tremble, but one that masked the creaking of the hinges when, at last, that window was pushed open. The old wooden frame strained and creaked, but Cassian didn’t care, couldn’t care, not when the sight of his mate opening it just enough to peer around its edges made a feral kind of ecstasy take up residence in his bones, in his veins. 

His heart stumbled as he looked up at her, blinking away the rain from his eyes and cursing each drop that marred his view of her, of the unbound hair that flowed past her shoulders and the surprised, slight, parting of her lips. 

Confusion flitted across her face, a crease forming between her brows as she leaned further over the window sill, one hand holding her candle, the other gripping the chipped wooden frame as she opened her mouth again, as though trying to speak yet unable to find the words. Cassian let his siphons stop shining, pulling his power back into himself as he felt a smile curve his lips. 

“Are you— are you insane?” she hissed, her voice a whisper almost swallowed by the sound of the rain.

Cassian shook out his wings, moving until he was right beneath her window. He let out a low laugh, shaking his head ruefully as water dripped from his hair and down his forehead, rivulets falling across his cheeks.

“Evidently.”

He heard the breath that left her, one of surprise as her fingers tightened around the sill. Her candle flame wavered, threatening to gutter in the wind, and yet he didn’t care. Didn’t care for the storm, for the wind, for the darkness. He cared only that she was there, and he was here, looking up at her like he really was a knight from one of her stories. 

She only blinked, shaking her head and muttering something under her breath about stupid, ridiculous bats. Cassian felt his grin spread, growing wild as, with a single determined breath, she blew out her candle. She dipped back inside, and Cassian could swear he could hear her heartbeat, could swear it was racing as loudly as his own. When she appeared again, it was to close the window, her fingers curling around the iron latch as the rain lashed against the glass more forcefully than ever before.

“Wait for me,” she whispered.

Cassian nodded. 

After all, he’d been waiting for her all along, hadn’t he?

And then, before he could so much as catch his breath, the front door was opening. Old wood groaned, creaked, but Nesta was there, with nothing but a shawl wrapped around her shoulders to guard against the weather. She ran towards him across broken paving in bare feet already soaked, and Cassian was running too, lurching forwards, hands reaching for her, grasping, like his desperation had suddenly spilled, boiled over. 

Before she could speak, before she could ask him what he was doing or chide him for coming so late…

Cassian kissed her.

Crushing her to his chest, wrapping his arms around her and using his wings to stretch around them both, giving them some kind of shelter… he claimed her lips with his own, urgent and demanding and insistent, a kiss borne of absolute need, of longing so visceral it had all but torn him apart. He kissed her as though he’d never get another chance, as though this were their first, all over again. 

And cauldron boil him alive— there was nothing in the world worth more than this, nothing that could have made him leave her. 

Her skin was slick with rain when his palms bushed her cheeks, and yet it didn’t seem to matter. Didn’t matter, either, that they were in the courtyard of her husband’s home, holding tight to one another as the storm waged war on the sky above. She melted into him, and he into her, and every inch of his desperation was matched, paired— every ounce of yearning echoed as her hands slipped into his hair, grasping and tugging at his skin, as though close weren’t quite close enough, as though the air between them was too much.

Her breath stuttered, heaved, her heart pounding like a drum and gods, Cassian thought it was a drum he’d been marching to all along, he just hadn’t known it.

Because he knew Nesta, down to his bones. 

Down to the cavern within himself where, even now, her name was whispered like the answer to some long-asked question, like a secret that only the two of them understood. He knew her, like she was a piece of his soul he’d been missing. He felt it— felt every part and piece of himself settling when his lips met hers, like he had found home at last after centuries of drifting. 

He pulled back, tracking her face as the rain dripped from her eyelashes. He catalogued it all— the curve of her jaw, the dip above the centre of her lips, the tip of her nose. Nesta— his Nesta.

“What are you doing here?” she whispered as he framed her face with his hands, dragging his thumb over her cheekbones with something like wonder as he watched the storm swallow those eyes of silver-blue.

He shook the rain from his face, feeling it drip from his jaw, from the ends of his hair. 

“I had to see you,” he said, his voice rough and gravelly, eyes still scanning her face— searching, finding. “I had to tell you.”

“Tell me what?” she asked, her hands slipping over his leathers until her chilled fingers laced together at the nape of his neck, holding him in the circle of her arms as he kept her face cradled between his palms like something precious. 

“I’m tired of pretending, Nes,” he answered, feeling the weight of the words in his chest, in his throat. “I’m done acting like you’re anything other than my entire world. I don’t want to live without you— I can’t live without you.”

He wouldn’t tell her about the bond. Not that much— not yet, but as he pulled back an inch, letting his hands drop from her cheeks as one hand fisted over his heart, he felt the bond aching between them, reverberating through his entire frame as he looked at her through sheets of rain, falling so thick it was almost impossible to see through. Still, he kept one wing stretched to cover her hair, her shoulders, to keep the rain from soaking her entirely. Cassian let himself breathe a laugh, let the rain drown him, coat him, as he felt himself grow tremulous and tender when her eyes met his.

“And here I was expecting something cocky and sarcastic,” Nesta answered. Her voice was as raw as his own, and gods save him, he let out a laugh that clawed its way up his throat as he shook his head, too far gone to even pretend at flirtation.

“I’m past cocky right now, sweetheart,” he said in a rasping whisper, his words a plea— some desperate kind of entreaty. Nevertheless, he felt his lips quirk up into a small smile, one that was there and gone, falling away as his hand tightened over his heart. “Give me five minutes and I might be able to muster something, some filthy innuendo, but… Gods, you have no idea, do you? What you do to me?”

She only blinked, the raindrops on her lashes the most wondrous thing, the most beautiful thing Cassian had ever fucking seen.

“You’re all I think about,” he continued, his voice fraught and frantic as his heart kicked hard behind his ribs. “All the fucking time. And after today, after everything with the queens, I needed you to know. I just...”

Lost for words, he stopped. 

He was as fragile as spun glass, barely a heartbeat from snapping. Weak— his bones felt weak, and yet… strengthened, when Nesta rested a hand atop the fist he still had closed over his chest. Cassian glanced up, saw the rain lingering on her skin like sheets of silver, and felt his heart stop. Felt it start again, in time with hers. 

“I needed you to know,” he finished slowly.

She looked over her shoulder, spared the darkened house behind her a single glance. Cassian didn’t breathe, couldn’t. How could he, when all of a sudden she was moving, reaching for him and weaving their fingers together, turning on her heel and all but running away from that house, yanking him forwards. Across the courtyard, over the paving stones thick with water, her bare feet splashing in the puddles— Nesta pulled him through the rain towards that tiny little stable block, where once she’d bandaged his bleeding hand.

Oh how far they had come since then.

And once they were inside, once Nesta had closed the door tight and drawn an iron bolt across, she whirled to face him, her nightgown clinging to her skin, soaked. Cassian took her in, noting every curve the fabric hugged, and even in the darkness, lit only by the light of his siphons and the meagre light of the moon struggling through the rain, her beauty stunned him. He wanted to drown in her, to spend the rest of his life memorising the tracks the rain left as the water dripped down her neck, wanted to trace them with his fingers until there was no part of her that he didn’t know as well as the back of his own hand. 

“Cassian,” Nesta whispered, her voice making his eyes track back up, to find her face. There was something in the way she said his name— something damn near holy that made him want to fall to his knees.

Still, he could barely speak, barely think. He could only shake his head, shifting the water from his wings and hair, letting the droplets land on the flagged stone floor. 

“Cass.”

Broken— he was broken, shattered by hearing his name - his nickname - on her lips. His chest cracked, the bond between them feeling tighter than ever, and gods— how did she not feel it? 

It had him closing that small distance between them and taking her face in his hands, lowering his mouth to hers and letting her claim him all over again with another kiss that marked him, broke him, healed him. It was like some kind of restraint had been snapped in the rain, and as her hands gripped his shoulders, her nails digging into his leathers so hard he could feel it even beneath the thickness of the material, he felt himself be undone, riven in two only to be made whole again by her kiss. 

“Nes,” he murmured against her lips, just because he could. Just because he liked the sound of it, the feel of it on his tongue. 

And as she pushed herself further against him, as her hands pulled at his rain-soaked hair, Cassian felt himself speak her name over and over and over again— a prayer, something sacred and sanctified, sacrosanct. 

Nes, Nes, Nes— over and over again, until he knew nothing else but the sound of it, nothing but the shape of it, the weight of it, the warmth of it. So much more than precious, and so, so much more than holy. 

***

It was an… unleashing.

Nesta had no other word for it, no other way of describing it except as a desperate, frantic… unleashing. Like magic between their souls, there was some kind of alchemy in the way he kissed her, a kind of sorcery in every touch. 

Cassian kissed her as the rain hammered on the tin roof. Kissed her as lightning flashed, forking across the sky outside. Thunder rumbled, shook the earth, and still he kissed her. By the light of his siphons, Cassian kissed her, and though it was several different kinds of reckless, a hundred shades of dangerous… Nesta kissed him too. Felt his hands running along her spine and relished his warmth, the thin fabric of her nightgown no barrier at all between them, the heat of him sinking into her skin, chasing away the chill. 

Her shawl slipped, fell to the floor, but neither of them seemed to notice. Cassian’s hands replaced it, curling around the curve of her shoulders, his palms skating a path down her arms, and still his lips had yet to leave hers. His kiss was wild, like he’d gone too long without her and this was the breaking of a dam, the sundering of all his defences. Like the meeting with the queens earlier today had brought some kind of realisation, some kind of epiphany. 

I don’t want to live without you.

Well, Nesta thought as her hands delved into his hair, her nails along his scalp, down, down until they reached his neck… she didn’t want to live without him either. She was grasping at him, her desperation matching every inch of his, and then his palms were on her waist, the contour of her fitting so perfectly in his hand, as though it were meant to be, as though they were always supposed to touch. She arced into him, on her tip-toes, feeling her head grow dizzy, the air grow thin.

Was his world crumbling at the edges too?

Did this kiss change everything for him the way it did her?

They’d kissed before but this— oh, this was different. Maybe it was because of the meeting with the queens, or maybe it was because of what he’d said outside in the rain, but Nesta could feel it somehow, something else that made her feel like the ground was shifting beneath her feet and the only solid thing in the world was the man before her, the hands that held her steady.

His hands still on her waist, Cassian herded her towards the wall— and Nesta let him, every step he gained one she acceded with grace, gave over to him entirely as she let him steer her, them, this. Her back hit stone— cold, rough stone, and then he was groaning against her lips, deepening the kiss - impossibly deeper, like a chasm with no end, a well with no bottom - until she couldn’t think of anything but his hands, his lips, the breath he let out that fluttered against her skin. Up— he lifted her up, setting her down on the small stone window ledge, cold beneath her, but as her legs wrapped around his waist, she swore nothing had ever felt so right as him standing in the cradle of her thighs, his hands braced on the stone either side of her.

Lightning shot through the sky outside, turning the stable briefly silver, silhouetting his wings.

But the thunder was nothing against the beating of her heart, the pounding behind her ribs as it threatened to crack. His lips moved to her ear now, and she could do nothing but tilt her head back, the expanse of skin at her neck bared to him entirely— his to devour. Her breath ached, trembled, and when his eyes flicked up to find hers, she found his gaze darkened with a desire so depthless there was never any hope of measuring it, of containing it.

“Gods, Nes,” he murmured, his voice a rasping breath against her skin as her hands found the hem of his rain-soaked jacket, dared to slipped beneath.

He found her lips again, groaning as her fingers grazed the leather, and then his hands were on top of hers, deftly slipping the buttons free, shoving his jacket roughly from his shoulders. He threw it in a corner without tearing his lips away, too focused on kissing her to care, to notice, to bother.

“You’re going to be the death of me,” he murmured as her hands traced the hem and the seams of his shirt, all the way to the collar, damp from the rain that had slid beneath his leathers. His eyes closed, thick eyelashes fluttering as her fingers brushed his neck.

Falling, she was falling, tipping right off the edge of the earth as her fingers curled in the fabric of that shirt, tightening until her nails hurt, until her knuckles strained. Too much space— he was kissing her like his life depended on it, but there was too much space, at least an inch between his chest and hers, and as Nesta continued to plummet, to drive down and down and down to depths she hadn’t even known existed until tonight… She used the grip she had on his shirt to bring him crashing into her, like an almighty wave against the shore. His hips hit hers, and the lightning that flared outside was mirrored in her blood, in her very centre.

Oh, they were so different in so many ways but in this they were the same. 

He was as undone by her as she was by him, and she wanted to keep unravelling, to let him take her apart piece by piece.

His shirt went the same way as his jacket, his nimble fingers joining hers until his skin was bare, his shirt tossed into the corner, cast aside. Even in the darkness, lit only by the fragmentary moonlight and the siphons on his hands, Nesta could see the tattoos that snaked down his arms and over his chest. Sweeping, cursive patterns had been inked into his skin— beautiful and intricate as she traced them with her fingers, her touch light as she followed those wayward, wandering lines. Over his shoulder, across his collarbone, down his chest… Cassian tipped his head back, letting her explore him with her fingertips, as though he were a map and she nothing but a weary traveller looking for a way home.

Her world had narrowed, contained within the spaces between those curving patterns spanning his chest, circling over his heart, and she wanted to fall, wanted to drown, wanted to lose herself in him entirely. Like a landslide, she could feel herself slipping, sliding— 

Cassian’s hands went to her calves, rounding her knee, palms skating over her thighs—

And she didn’t know when her nightgown had ridden up so high, but a jolt coursed through her as his fingers teased higher, as a sharp, aching want bloomed deep inside, blazed. He smirked, the fingers of his other hand rising up to trail a path down one of her arms, light and maddening and delectable as his touch ghosted across her forearm—

Another jolt ran through her, but different this time— almost pained. Because— 

Because there was a scar there, quicksilver in the moonlight. 

Cassian’s hand drifted across it, unknowing. Yet somewhere deep within her, a chamber unlocked that she’d bolted shut, unearthing a whole host of things she’d tried her hardest to bury— to forget. Suddenly, Nesta jerked, pulling back an inch as her mouth went dry.

It was barely an inch long, but Nesta remembered how the blood had dripped down to her wrist, remembered the burn of tears behind her eyes. Years had passed since the wooden rod had come down so hard on her skin, but Nesta swore she felt its impact anew as Cassian’s fingers alighted across that scar. 

I won’t have to marry him though, will I Mama?

A case of miniature portraits lying on the low table by the fire—

A picture of a man thirteen years her senior, almost old enough to be her father—

Her blood, mingling with spilled tears, falling to the carpet and staining it, blooming through the fibres as her mother’s voice echoed—

No man wants a wife that doesn’t know her place, Nesta.

With her breath sawing in her throat, she pressed a palm to Cassian’s chest— not pushing him away, but halting those fingers, stalling those kisses.

You’ll learn, one way or another. The only place for a woman in this world is as a dutiful wife— a jewel in her husband’s crown. 

Nesta had forgotten.

Oh, she’d forgotten.

Every time he’d kissed her, every time he’d touched her— she’d forgotten, had been lost and found and caught up in the delectable taste of him, the dizzying feeling of wanting and being wanted in return. And she’d forgotten, letting her walls come down— for Cassian, only for Cassian, but the way he brushed that scar had her remembering, now, why she’d built those walls so high in the first place. Why she needed them, what she’d been trying to hide from. 

“Hey,” he whispered now, pulling her back from the edge. An old kind of terror still slicked through her veins, settling heavy in her stomach as she felt the blood her mother had drawn spill afresh. His hand rested atop hers, flat against his chest, his palm against her knuckles as he let his touch linger lightly, just enough for her to know that he’d pull away if she wanted— he’d leave altogether if she asked. “What is it?”

“I can’t,” she breathed, grasping for breath, feeling it thin in her lungs. “I know it’s ridiculous, but I—”

I can’t cross that line, she longed to say. Even though that line is contradictory and hypocritical, even though I could kiss you until the sun comes up… 

She kept her eyes on the rise and fall of Cassian’s chest, on the tattoos that seemed to swallow the moonlight. She didn’t look to his face— couldn’t. And there, on her thumb, peeking out from beneath Cassian’s fingers, another scar shone like molten silver. Grandmama’s lesson— bestowed with a ruler. A broken sound cleaved her chest, caught somewhere between a sob and a strangled, laboured breath.

“I can’t,” she whispered again, realising now, for the first time, just how deep those scars really ran. She’d never let herself be vulnerable enough, she supposed, to feel the weight before and now— gods, now it was crushing her.

“I know, sweetheart,” he answered lightly, a small shrug lifting his shoulders, his eyes burning with a kind of tenderness she almost couldn’t bear. “I didn’t come here to bed you.”

Nesta looked wryly at his state of undress. At hers. His lips kicked up into a laconic smile that made her want to weep, but it didn’t reach his eyes. Something lurked in the hazel, something that flickered and glimmered and made her shiver, something that had him dipping his head and looking again at the scar on her thumb, at the one on her forearm.

Cassian’s eyes followed hers, finding the scar that wrapped around the base of her thumb and reached towards the heel of her hand. She’d told him once that her education had left her with scars— and as she watched, she saw him piece it together, realise that she hadn’t meant it figuratively but very, very literally. He frowned, lifting her palm from his chest and taking her hand more fully in his own, twisting it in the silvered light. He smoothed over that scar with the pad of his thumb, and Nesta felt her heart lurch, felt the ruler cut through her skin as though it had happened only yesterday.

“Tell me,” he said, his voice like sandpaper. “Tell me how you got these.”

She closed her eyes, pulling away even though the distance between his skin and hers made her want to keen.

“You don’t have to,” Cassian added a moment later. “But you should know that if he gave you a single one of these…” His gaze wandered to the window, as if he could see the house in the darkness beyond. “He won’t see another sunrise. I’ll slit his throat tonight—”

“It wasn’t Tomas,” Nesta cut in, waving her free hand as though it were nothing. Cassian caught it, held it, both of his hands now warm around her own. “It was— my mother’s way of making sure I remembered her lessons.”

“Her lessons.” 

A predatory, preternatural stillness had come over him, a darkness in his eyes and a tension in his shoulders. He still held her hands, but the siphon he wore had stopped glowing and was… pulsating, now. A muscle ticked in his jaw, his lips pressed thin as he tilted his head and in that moment… In that moment Nesta understood why others were afraid of him, this creature with the strength to end lives with his bare hands. She understood— but didn’t feel so much as a flicker of fear herself. Instead, her heart stuttered, tripped over itself.

She cast her eyes down as she nodded. “I told you once before. She taught me well that my worth lies only in what I can offer a man.”

He snarled. “And I told you that’s bullshit.”

“And one word from you is supposed to unravel everything, is it?” she asked with a raised eyebrow, pulling her hands free. She regretted it the moment his fingers were untangled from hers, missed his steady warmth. “To make me forget everything I was raised to be— to believe?”

“No,” he answered, softer this time. “No, I suppose it’s not.”

Nesta shook her head with a heavy exhale, the air feeling like lead in her lungs. His finger curled beneath her chin, urging her to meet his eye and when she did, she found the moonlight dappled across his face, the sincerity in his features enough to steal her breath entirely.

“I spent my entire life being told I wasn’t good enough,” he murmured. “I suppose that makes you and I the same.”

His finger remained against her chin, keeping her there, not allowing her to look away or hide from him, from his words. With his other hand, he brushed the hair back from her face, tucking it behind her ear as Nesta shook her head, letting her eyes slide closed.

“She wanted more for me,” she said, her voice cracking. “More than what she wanted for Feyre or Elain. She was harder on me than she was on them, because I was the one that was supposed to—”

She broke off, the words like knives in her throat.

“I was the one that was supposed to marry a prince. To make some great match.” She let out a sardonic, bitter laugh. “She’d turn in her grave if she could see me now. How far I’ve fallen— how much I failed her.” 

Cassian hissed, his face darkening as his hand twisted in her unbound hair, strands of golden brown tangling around his fingers. 

“Don’t you dare,” he said sharply. “Don’t think like that.”

Nesta frowned. “It’s true, isn’t it? She made sure I could speak three languages. Taught me to run an estate the size of a small country, to navigate politics and royal courts like it was second nature. She made sure I could dance and play the piano and host great balls and banquets and what was any of it for?”

Once more, she waved a hand dismissively, and once more Cassian caught it. With the hand not wrapped in her hair, he brought her fingers to his mouth and kissed her skin once, twice, as if trying to heal her scars with the press of his lips. 

“And is that what you want?” he challenged, his voice rough and coarse, like the words were sharp on his tongue. “If things were different. If everything had gone exactly as she had planned…” He paused, searching her face as the moonlight picked out the gold in his hazel eyes. “Would you have been happy?”

Silence— there was only silence in reply, because Nesta didn’t know what to say, how to speak. The answer lurked at the edges of her mind, tangled up with the memory of piano lessons she’d never wanted to attend, all those questions she’d ever asked that had ended with tears.

Will he be nice, the man I marry? she’d asked once, achingly naive. Will he be young? Kind?

Mama had laughed— and laughed and laughed, and then grown quiet, flat. Does it matter? she’d asked in answer.

Cassian brushed his lips over her hand again, still twined with his own, and Nesta took a breath, one that came slightly easier than before— like he was a crutch to her somehow, the strength she needed when hers wavered. 

“No,” she said at last, and damn her— it still felt like a confession.

“So it doesn’t matter what she wanted,” he said with finality as Nesta let herself lean a little bit further into his warmth. He inhaled softly as his other hand brushed her hair back, his palm skating down to rest at the nape of her neck. He looked down at her thighs, still resting on either side of his hips. A wry smile pulled at his mouth. “I know that you’re married, and I know that should give me pause, but fuck me— it doesn’t. I don’t care about him. I care that you’re happy, that you’re safe, so I’ll take whatever you want to give me and treasure it.”

“Even if I can’t give you more than this?” she asked quietly. “Not yet. Not until—”

“The ring is on Elain’s finger,” he finished, shrugged. “I know.”

And just like that, with that one idle shrug, Nesta felt the sorrow begin to recede, like waves pulling away from shore— washed away by the rain that still hammered against the stone outside. She didn’t know how, didn’t know why, but his warmth soothed her right down to her bones, ensconcing her and wrapping her in an embrace so solid she felt nothing could ever penetrate it and… Safe— she felt safe with him.

Safe enough that, standing in her father’s study, she’d entertained the idea of running away with him. Of letting him take her away— far, far away. She closed her eyes, letting his touch ground her as his hands strayed to her face again, as if he couldn’t go more than a moment without holding her cheeks in his palms, and as his thumb stroked her cheekbone, the heel of his hand brushed the corner of her lips.

Cassian loosed a sigh. “Really, Nes. I came here because after that meeting with the queens today, I couldn’t let you go another day without knowing how much I…” His words trailed off as he shook his head, blinked slowly, and started again. “How much you have consumed me since the moment I saw you standing in your father’s dining room, looking at me like you were a breath away from stabbing me in the throat.”

“So you’ll be going now then?” she asked dryly, pressing her lips together to mask the easy smile that took her entirely by surprise, creeping up on her in the same way he had— slipping in between her jagged edges as easily as a puzzle piece. “Now you’ve said what you needed to?”

He huffed a laugh, dropping his head until they were brow to brow once more. “Do you want me to?”

“No.”

A shiver racked his body, his wings shuddering as she breathed him in like he was the only air she needed. He took a deep breath of his own, nudging his nose against hers as his hands went to her waist, encircled her and brought her closer.

“Lie with me, Nes,” he whispered. “Nothing more. Just let me lie here with you in my arms— let me pretend, just for tonight, that you’re all mine and I am all yours.”

Nesta frowned, looking behind him to the old pallet on the floor. Beside the set of shelves where she kept the healing supplies that had once bandaged his bleeding palm, an old wooden pallet was set out. She wrinkled her nose at it. It was covered with a pile of folded horse blankets, thick and clean but nevertheless smelling of hay and stone. 

“Where, precisely, would you like to lie?” she asked with a tersely raised eyebrow. “On the pallet that will barely take your weight, or in the hay with the horse?”

“I’ve slept in worse,” he shrugged. “And so have you.”

The cottage in the woods flared in her memory. Not exactly a stable, and not exactly a pallet but… She wanted to pretend too. Just once, just for tonight. She wanted to forget her scars, those old wounds that had yet to heal, and drown in the safety, the stability of his arms. Just until daybreak.

So she nodded, let him pull her away from that window, pull her down, sinking onto the pallet as he dragged her right back into his embrace. Against the pile of rough woollen blankets, he lay on his side. His wings stretched behind him, brushing the flagged stone floor, and Nesta found herself curling into him, one of his arms beneath her cheek as the other draped across her waist.

She’d never been held before.

And yet Cassian held her, one hand tracing lazy circles at her middle whilst the other buried itself in her hair. A touch that was soft and entirely foreign, Cassian held her just like he’d promised to— as if she were something to treasure. 

She shivered, thinking of all the things she’d long since buried— brought to the surface now, like Cassian reached every small part of her, saw it all and brought all of it to light, dragging her out of the darkness she’d been living in for so long. And oh, she felt herself relaxing into him now, safe in the knowledge that if she fell he would catch her, no matter the height. 

Lightning flashed once more, and as Cassian’s fingers wound around her loose hair she noticed the scars that marked him too, scattered across his chest. His own pain— his own suffering, evidenced on his skin just like hers. 

Her eyes fixed on a line above his heart and, reaching up, she traced that line of silvered flesh. It cut up, stretched diagonally towards his collarbone. Remembering how she had sliced his hand with an axe, had his blood flowing like a river in that very stable, she wondered how deep the blade had gone to leave such a reminder on his chest. His hand was smooth now where she’d cut him, and yet— 

Other wounds had gone deeper, left their mark.

How close to death had he been? How many times?

And why did that question make her feel nauseous? Make her want to find whoever had given him those scars and extract her own kind of vengeance? 

In the silence, Nesta counted six other scars on his chest alone. She traced each of them, learning their shape and feel until there was only one question she could ask, only one thing she needed to know.

“How?” she breathed, drifting to a mark that rounded his side, following the curve of his ribs— a jagged line left behind from a blow that had gone too deep. “How did you get these?”

Cassian’s arm tightened under her cheek, his hand sliding free of her hair and reaching round to cup the curve of her shoulder, drawing her closer. 

“Monsters, sweetheart,” he said mildly, glancing briefly at the scar near his collarbone. “Ones with very, very sharp teeth.”

Nesta shivered. “All of them?”

“Most,” he shrugged. His palm coasted down the side of her arm and she felt her skin erupt in gooseflesh, a chill crawling down her spine as she thought of what exactly had teeth sharp enough to scar a fae. Her fingers had yet to stray far from the one that followed the curve of his side, and her focus returned to it now as she felt his breath catch, felt the muscles beneath her hand tense.

“But that one… that one I got during the Blood Rite,” he said quietly.

“Blood Rite?”

Cassian hummed. “I told you once before. You and I are more alike than you realise. My education left me with scars, too.” He paused, looked up to the wooden rafters that formed the ceiling and shrugged again.

“All Illyrian boys take part in the Blood Rite when they finish their training. Once a year they dump the novices in a mountain range with no powers, no weapons, and wings bound. The goal is to stay alive long enough to climb our most sacred mountain - Ramiel - and touch the stone at the top.”

He paused again, but it was accompanied by a wry smile this time, something bittersweet.

“Only six have ever made it all the way. In all the centuries the Rite’s been held— only six.”

Nesta blinked. “Did you?” she asked, even though the way his lips curved made her wonder whether she needed to bother. “Make it all the way?”

He smirked, raising a single dark eyebrow. “Do you need to ask?”

Nesta rolled her eyes, but felt her chest ease at the arrogance, at the cocky glint in his eyes that somehow lifted some of the weight from his words. She batted at his chest with her hand, a gentle admonishment as he laughed beneath her, his smirk growing wider— like it didn’t matter that he was speaking of pain and trauma because she was here, and she was listening. 

“Az and Rhys made it too,” he continued as his hand moved up and down her arm, a soothing pattern. “Even though they separated us at first, tried to keep us apart. We found one another, killed our way across the foot of Ramiel and scaled it together.”

“With no weapons?” Nesta asked, raising an eyebrow. 

He shrugged.

“The Rite forces you to get… creative.”

Nesta suppressed a shudder, and suddenly Cassian’s hands caged hers against his chest as her fingers flattened over the swirls of ink.

“I got that scar the first day. They knock you out and dump you in one of three starting points on different sides of the mountain. When you start to wake… there’s a surge of violence, of killing. There’s old scores to settle, old rivalries to be put to bed, and Az and Rhys and I… We had more rivals than most. Az is a bastard and Rhys is a half-breed. They despised us.”

He took a breath, and Nesta tilted her head up, looking at the moonlight dappling his skin, refracted through the raindrops sliding down the windowpane. 

“I woke that first day, surrounded. Alone. There were six of them. One of them had found a rock with a sharp edge, broken it to make it even sharper. It was a lucky swipe, but he caught me right there as I fought the others off. Without our powers, we heal just as slowly as humans do. Just as prone to infection. It wasn’t a deep cut, but after a while it festered.”

“You could’ve died,” Nesta whispered. Cassian shrugged.

“Az was clever enough to remember that pine sap is an antiseptic. I found him on the second day— I probably wouldn’t have made it otherwise.”

“And then?”

“Then we found Rhys. Made it to the mountain, climbed to the top and touched the monolith that crowns it. We became Carynthian that day, just like the three others before us. No one else has made it since.”

She didn’t know what to say.

It was a past as brutal as her own, as strained and scattered with hurt, and he was right— they were the same, in oh so many ways, like he was a mirror to her. He recognised all the parts of her that Nesta didn’t even understand herself, soothing every edge in her that ached, and behind her ribs now, something pulled tight, making her heartbeat stutter.

And she still didn’t know what to say, so as the silence stretched, Nesta shook her head and sighed.

“Well, I’m glad you didn’t die.”

Cassian’s lips split into an easy grin. “Gods, Nes. That might be the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

She hit his chest again, and a laugh rumbled through him, deep and warm. He pressed a kiss to the top of her hair, and she could feel him smiling against her. Smiling, even as he spoke of death and horror and brutality— like she was a balm to all of it. Her eyes dropped to her thumb, and she understood. He was a balm to her, too.

She let her hands wander again, her fingers following the curve of his tattoos, over the dips and valleys of his chest. Up— over his collarbone, following the lines as they descended over his shoulders and down, right down to his wrists. She’d seen tattoos before— a travelling carnival had visited the village once, and with them had been a man so tattooed that even his face had been subsumed, the ink taking over his skin like ivy growing over a ruin. But Cassian’s… Cassian’s were different. 

Labyrinthine and ornate, twining and twisting and stretching over hardened muscle— They were beautiful, and she wondered how long they had been inked on his skin. How many centuries they’d been curving over those muscles, how many battles they’d seen.

Centuries.

He’d been alive for centuries, and the thought had a dry, ironic sort of laugh building in her throat. 

Will he be young?

Once, she’d been terrified of being given away to a man old enough to be her father. It had earned her that scar, caused her blood to spill, and yet now— here she was, lying in the arms of a creature so old her mind could barely comprehend it. The girl who had been taught to value her husband above all— scorning her place in his bed for a pallet in a stable.

And gods help her— Nesta couldn’t help the laugh that slipped from between her lips, breathless with the weight of so much fucking irony.

Cassian dipped his chin to look down at her, eyebrows raised. “What’s so funny?”

“I was insistent, once, that I didn’t want to marry an old man. Mama was furious. I spent my entire childhood living in fear that one day, she was going to sell me off to some rich widower fifty years older than me.” She looked up. “I couldn’t imagine anything worse at the time. And yet… Here I am.”

He grinned in answer, all teeth in the dark. “Here you are.”

Nesta poked him in the chest, surprised at how… easy it was between them. How effortlessly they slipped from baring their souls to light teasing, almost playful. It was easier than anything she’d ever known, like slipping out of one coat and into another, and it was something that only he could ever bring out in her, a part of herself she was only just starting to uncover.

“I bet you’re as old as the sun itself,” she added, still prodding at the centre of his chest with her finger. 

Cassian scoffed. “Now, now princess. Don’t get too cocky.”

Nesta smiled wickedly, feeling her blood heat again and her heart race as his hands made a path to her waist once more. Lower, resting on her hip.

“What about your old bones?” she asked. “Do your knees ache?”

Cassian barked a laugh, and before she could blink, he was rolling them over until he hovered over her, his lips at her ear. He kept his arm between her back, keeping her from being pressed uncomfortably into the pallet, and his teeth grazed her earlobe, a sharp nip that made her ache.

“The only time I’ll have aching knees is when I’m kneeling at your feet, sweetheart.” His voice dropped lower, husky. “But that won’t be the only thing aching.”

Nesta felt her cheeks heat. Cassian laughed against her, his breath warm on her neck as his weight pressed into her. He tilted his head, the expression on his face wicked and devilish and entirely sinful.

“I love it when you blush,” he said, mirth dancing in his eyes even as something deeper, something richer, lurked beneath. He drew his bottom lip between his teeth, a hum vibrating in his throat as his mouth ghosted across her cheek, across the skin that blazed. “It might just be my favourite thing in the world.” 

Breathless, Nesta dug her fingertips into his shoulders. “You need to get out more, then.”

He chuckled against her. “Do I?” 

Nesta nodded, dazed. A weak hum began in her throat, but she couldn’t see it through, could barely breathe as Cassian’s weight bore down on her, his arm behind her keeping her caged against his chest. He was warm, so warm, encompassing her entirely, engulfing… 

And he knew.

He knew what he was doing. His eyes glinted in the darkness, his lips pulling into a smirk as the way he looked at her had her feeling dizzy.

“There it is,” he murmured, his smirk growing as her blush deepened. 

And she wished he couldn’t see so well in the dark, wished the falling rain could somehow wash away the heat that flooded her cheeks, to stop him being so bloody cocky.

“I hate you.”

“No, you really don’t.” 

Words. Nesta needed words but—

He dragged a hand down her side, leaving her skin tingling in his wake. His wings stretched above him, blocking out the weak light of the moon, before coming down to cage them both in. His head dropped, resting at the crook of her neck, his lips whispering against her collarbone. She brushed the curls that fell haphazard over his forehead, dragging her fingers through the strands that reached his shoulders. It was his turn to shiver, his hand tightening at her hip as her fingers carded through his hair. 

And, emboldened, Nesta reached up, lifting her hand with her knuckles curled. Cassian stilled, but he didn’t stop her as she reached out, tentatively stretching for those wings. He only lifted his head, and turned his face to brush the underside of her wrist with his lips as the back of her hand came to rest lightly against the thick membrane of one wing.

His eyes were wide— wider than she’d ever seen before, the hazel swimming with something she couldn’t quite read, as if this moment were bigger than she knew, more important than she could imagine. She let her hand flatten, her fingers splayed across the smooth surface, and Cassian closed his eyes tight, scrunched together as his breathing grew heavy.

“Gods,” he muttered as she dragged a finger along the outer edge. His hands tightened further at her hips, gripping her like he was trying desperately to hold on, fighting for control. Her fingers stuttered, suddenly unsure. 

“What’s wrong?” she asked, letting her hand fall away from his wing to tuck a strand of hair behind his ear, tracing the rounded curve.

He opened his eyes, swallowed. “Wrong?”

She watched as that look in his eyes softened, as he let loose a breath that seemed to tremble.

“Nothing’s wrong,” he continued. “It’s just— Illyrians don’t let just anybody touch their wings.”

“Oh,” Nesta breathed, her cheeks burning now, but not with desire— with something else, something like regret as she glanced up at the membrane stretching over her. “I’m sorry.”

Cassian laughed. “No, that’s not what I meant.” He pressed a kiss to her cheek. “It speaks to trust and devotion. I’ve never let anyone get close to my wings before, never let anybody touch them.”

“Oh,” Nesta said again.

“Oh,” he echoed, a grin on his face.

Silence settled, one that was comfortable, and after a stretch of time that could have been seconds or moments or minutes, Nesta let herself reach upwards again, reaching out for him, for the wings that she was the first to ever graze. His eyes closed, something like a purr resounding in his chest as she touched him once more, and that feeling in her chest grew stronger, swelled. 

“You really are a bat, she murmured as she tracked the ridges and the tendons that branched across the membrane. It was smooth beneath her, as soft as the most expensive, buttery kind of leather, and a kind of wonder ran through her, a tremor of curiosity entirely at odds with everything her mother had ever told her. She waited for the agony to come again, the fear and the apprehension… but with Cassian hovering above her, his hands on either side of her as if shielding her from the world beyond… It never came.

He rolled his eyes, nudging her cheek with his nose. 

And when she shivered in response, Cassian rolled to the side, pulling her into his chest with an arm around her shoulders. Using one wing, he covered them both, and Nesta might have thought up some remark - something witty about using him as a blanket - but she was tired, and he was warm, and calming, and the only sound that broke the silence was their easy breathing and the patter of the rain.

She closed her eyes, felt sleep pulling at her edges.

“In an ideal world,” Cassian began idly, in a voice that was slow and lazy, exhaustion beginning to claim him too. “We’d be in a bed in Velaris. With silk sheets and feather pillows.”

She hummed, drifting into that soft space right before dreaming, his voice at her ear. 

“We could stay there until the sun rose and fell again. Locked away in the House of Wind, high above the city where no one can reach us. Let the House bar the doors, let it bring us breakfast in bed.”

Nesta hummed again, and then— 

“How could a house bring us breakfast?” she asked, her eyes snapping open. 

She looked up, but found Cassian’s eyes still closed. He cracked one eye open, a lazy smile on his face as he pressed her head back against his chest.

“The House is spelled to provide.”

“You live in a magic house,” she said dryly. 

“I suppose I do,” he shrugged with a boyish grin, one that was innocent and cheeky, almost sweet. Nesta felt her heart pound once, twice, and then settle again. The wing that was draped across her shifted, shuddered, and then settled too.

Nesta hummed again, her mind wandering, straying to that city above the wall, that magic house. Oh, how much she wanted to see it. To be there— with him, exactly as he’d said. Mama’s lessons about duty and loyalty threatened to surge, ice rising in her blood, but Nesta pushed it down, forced it away. 

“And if war does come,” she began idly, letting her fingertips trace a pattern over his chest. “I suppose it would be easy for a person to go missing in the midst of it.”

Cassian tilted his head, a curious slant to his lips as he bit back a small smile. “It would,” he answered.

“So after Elain is married…”

“Velaris, Windhaven. Wherever— We’ll go wherever,” Cassian promised, and Nesta curled more tightly against his chest, her knees resting against his powerful thighs. 

“And what will we tell them?” she asked, flattening a palm over his chest. “Feyre. Rhysand.”

Cassian shrugged. “Oh, we could craft some elaborate tale about how wicked I am. How I ensnared you with my irresistible charms and spirited you away.”

Nesta snorted. “Then they’d know it was a lie.”

“Witch,” he murmured, dropping another kiss to her hair. 

“Brute,” she shot back, closing her eyes as his hand cradled her head. 

His chest shook beneath her as he laughed, and the sound had something inside her tightening, pulling. It hurt, her heart hurt, when she looked up at him and found him grinning deviously down at her, found him looking at her like having her in his arms was all he could ever want. It felt swollen in her chest, cutting short her breath. And as he inhaled deeply, letting his eyes slide closed again, Nesta felt… peace.

For the first time in her life, she felt peace.

“Go to sleep, Nes,” Cassian whispered.

She frowned. “Don’t tell me what to do.”

His siphons glowed, burning in the dark as he let loose a low groan. “You know, I love it when you argue with me.”

Nesta smiled but didn’t answer. Instead, she turned her face into his chest, relishing the feel of his arms around her, of his wing draped over her, protecting her from the chill. And even though her mother may well have killed her for this - for lying in his arms - Nesta felt it again, that soft, warm feeling as she drifted off to sleep.

Peace.

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