Chapter 8 — Cassian / Azriel - A Court of Splintered Harmony

Cassian hated to admit it: The Autumn Court was beautiful. Beyond beautiful. Like straying into a dream. Reds and golds and oranges all around, trees like temple pillars rising toward a crushingly blue sky, each step cushioned by velvet moss, every breath crisp and tasting of pine.

He might have enjoyed it, might have even laid himself in the glade and basked in the buttery warmth of the sun streaming through the oaks and pines, had he not stood before one of his least favorite people in Prythian.

Eris was in more finery than usual, which was saying something. Silver rings encircled his long fingers, and his usually unbound hair had been braided back in an ornate warrior’s plait. Not one thread lay out of place on his silver jacket, the embroidery so delicate it glistened like the babbling brook running through the clearing in which they stood.

“You’re late,” Eris said by way of greeting. “I’ve been waiting for fifteen minutes.”

Cassian shifted his weight, checking his temper. “The winds coming down from Illyria weren’t in my favor.” A severe understatement. They’d been brutal. He was only fifteen minutes late because he’d pushed himself to near exhaustion.

But he wasn’t about to show Eris his trembling arms and legs, the stomach muscles that ached from the effort of supporting his back while he flew. Or the wings that were so tired he could barely keep them from slumping on the mossy, leaf-strewn floor.

Only pure pride held his wings upright. Even if it required almost all his concentration to do so. But Cassian still managed to say, “Do you have somewhere more important to be?”

“Yes. At my father’s hall. Helping him prepare for our most honored and holy celebration of the year.”

“Right—Autumn Equinox,” Cassian said, letting himself sound as glib and brainless as he knew Eris believed him to be. “We’re not invited to the party?”

“I hear you’re having a party of your own that day,” Eris countered coolly. “Are we not invited to that? A Naming Day for a High Lord’s child is usually an event that we all attend.”

Cassian snickered—he knew a high-born asshole like Eris would resent it from a common nobody. “You’re our enemy, remember? Why should we invite you?” He winked, nodding to the empty wilderness around them. “Feeling lonely in the woods these days, Eris?”

Eris toyed with a delicately embossed silver button on his jacket. “Here I was, thinking you saw me as a good male.” His eyes lifted to Cassian. “I thought the High Lady herself was coming to meet with me today.”

“Change of plans.” Cassian had no idea why. Feyre and Rhys had decided to go see Lucien and Jurian—a job that had initially been set aside for Az. But apparently, Az was pulled from the duty, and not only Rhys had filled in for him, but Feyre, too. Leaving Cassian to meet with this unbearable piece of garbage.

Eris asked, bored and annoyed, “What is it you came here to tell me?”

“Shit is happening on the continent,” Cassian said, not wasting more breath than necessary on this prick. “Armies are mobilizing to march south. Koschei’s all tangled up in it somehow, too, and we need solid proof of that to convince everyone else to pressure the territories to back down. Does your father know anything about it?”

“If he does, he has not confided in me.”

Cassian had been in Illyria yesterday when Feyre had sent him the order to come down here—apparently for nothing, if Eris had no more to say than that. Cassian had debated returning to Velaris last night, and flying out this morning, but what was the point? The only reason he would have returned to Velaris was to see Nesta, and these days . . . He couldn’t even think of what to say to his mate these days. So he’d extended his stay in Windhaven. Rhys’s mother’s house felt bigger than it ever had in years past, and he’d flown down here at dawn, glad for the complex brutality of the headwinds to occupy his thoughts.

Until he’d stopped flying—and now every muscle screamed to collapse and never move again.

Eris frowned. “My father stands to gain more from a victory for the continent in this conflict than in joining you, Koschei or no. I don’t need him to tell me that. He’s established a clear enough pattern by now that you should be able to predict how he’ll side.”

“And I don’t suppose you could bother to lift a finger to try to persuade him otherwise.” Cassian crossed his arms, muscles shrieking in protest. “Maybe have him try to convince the continental territories not to march southward. And that allying with Koschei is a dangerous plan.”

“As if that’s even remotely possible.”

Cassian bristled. “Fine. I don’t know why we bothered to ask you anyway. Mor’s headed back to Vallahan one last time to see if she can sway them.” Among other things, but Eris didn’t need to know about the Made item hanging in the balance.

A muscle ticked in Eris’s cheek. “She won’t be successful.”

Cassian might have agreed, but the sneering smugness . . . He bit out, “If Mor sets her mind to do something, she does it.”

“So do they.”

Cassian flashed a grin that was all teeth. “When are you making your move to oust dear old papa?”

“What’s it to you?”

“Prythian united looks a hell of a lot more formidable against the continent than a bunch of scattered courts. If you’re going to murder your father in cold blood, now would be the most beneficial time for the rest of us.”

Eris didn’t take the bait, and instead examined his neatly trimmed nails, the rings adorning his fingers. “I assume Spring is too busy peeing on trees and bushes to bother helping unify Prythian?”

“Something like that,” Cassian said.

Eris’s amber eyes flicked up, pure fire. “And you mean to tell me Thesan has agreed to stand with you? Dawn is much more skittish about these conflicts than even we are.”

“Thesan isn’t opposed to the idea,” Cassian lied. They hadn’t yet broached the subject with the High Lord of Dawn. But they’d need him—and his legion of Peregryns. Thesan had willingly joined the conflict against Hybern, but that had been a threat that imperiled them all with immediate consequences. This one was different. Thesan would need to be approached delicately about it. “But he’s rightly concerned about Koschei’s involvement. Hence the need for tangible proof of that alliance. It would persuade him to our side.”

Eris smiled, like he scented Cassian’s lies as accurately as one of his famed smokehounds. “I’ll spare making you give me the Together we rise, apart we fall speech and tell you the truth,” the male drawled. “Even if every legion of Prythian’s courts came together to face the threat of Koschei, there is not one reality in which we could take on the combined might of Rask, Vallahan, Montesere, and any of the unaffiliated Fae who join them. Death-lord pulling their strings or no.”

“Which is why we need to prove to other territories that Koschei is involved—and get them to pressure Rask, Vallahan, and Montesere to back down.”

“Perhaps,” Eris said mildly. “But is there a possibility that the very territories you’re counting on to stop the invasion might do the opposite? That, when given the opportunity, they might risk the threat Koschei poses and join the march southward to seize human land before it’s all claimed? Many of them are arrogant enough to think they could handle Koschei themselves—after the old lands are returned.”

Cassian shook his head, disgust curdling in his gut. “It’s certainly a possibility.” Hadn’t Az heard as much a few days ago in Montesere’s mountains? That their enemies sought the box that contained Koschei’s death in order to control him? Fools, all of them, for double-dealing with a death-god. Cassian sighed. “But for us to stand aside and let it happen—”

“Would be the wise thing to do. I know wisdom is a foreign concept to you.” Eris held his gaze with a force that hinted at the High Lord he might one day become, if Cassian didn’t kill him first. “You’re fools for letting Morrigan go back into Vallahan when you’re so close to war. And fools for involving yourselves in a conflict that has nothing to do with you or your lands.”

“We’ve heard that before,” Cassian said with a dismissive arrogance calculated to drive Eris up the wall. “But these situations usually shake out in our favor.”

“It won’t this time. Not with Koschei involved.”

Cassian snorted. “Thanks for your support.”

“I’m not telling you this out of cruelty,” Eris said sharply. “I’m telling you this so you don’t all wind up dead. Or worse.”

“I’d think you’d be pleased,” Cassian taunted.

He could have sworn hurt flickered in Eris’s eyes. “You must be truly stupid if, after everything, you actually believe that.”

Cassian schooled his face into neutrality. Eris had just come awfully close to admitting he actually liked them. Cared about their well-being.

To avoid having to really think about whether Eris considered them all to be friends, Cassian turned and spread his wings. Why the fuck had Feyre sent him to do this? Maybe it was busywork, like the type he assigned to the grunts in his armies to keep them too tired to grumble.

A strong, unyielding hand wrapped around his forearm. Cassian blinked at it, one of his own hands already palming the knife at his side.

Eris’s eyes simmered with flame. “Rhysand is clever, I’ll give him that. But he’s revealed himself in recent years to be too kindhearted. Dangerously so. This is a conflict that won’t be resolved by civilized discussions on Storr.”

How did Eris know about that meeting? Cassian shook off Eris’s grip. “Touch me again and I’ll cut your hand off.”

Eris didn’t back down, though he let go, rings flashing again in the dappled sunlight. “The Autumn Equinox is a time of balance: light and dark held in perfect unity for one day.”

“What’s your fucking point?”

“Perhaps think on it—all of you. You cannot have too much of one and not enough of the other. Dark is needed to appreciate the light, and light is needed to appreciate the dark. The scales tipped too far toward one side after the war five hundred years ago. Now they are seeking to rebalance, and perhaps Koschei is the instrument of that. It might not be a bad thing.”

Cassian’s wings flared. “Tell that to the humans about to lose their lives and homes.”

“Tell that to the Fae who lost theirs five hundred years ago.”

Cassian’s lip curled. “I didn’t come to debate the ethics of this invasion. And if you have nothing of value to tell me, then we’re done here. Enjoy your perfectly balanced holiday of bullshit.”

Eris snarled. “I’d mind the insults you levy toward the Mother and her sacred days. Especially after what she’s granted you, of all people.”

“What the fuck does that mean?”

Eris shrugged, his fine jacket shimmering. “The Mother granted you a gift when she gave you your mate. Not only your court, but you. If I were you, I’d be on my knees every day thanking the Mother for it.”

Before Bryce Quinlan’s arrival, Cassian had been on his knees every day, not just thanking the Mother for Nesta, but showing his mate exactly how much he appreciated her.

But Cassian didn’t miss the sharpness in Eris’s eyes. And couldn’t resist as he goaded, relishing Eris’s misery, “Jealous?”

“I offered for her,” Eris said bluntly, sliding his hands into his pockets. The Made dagger at his side shifted—its ordinary hilt glinting in the sun.

Had the lordling drawn it yet? Learned the secrets of its powers—whatever Nesta had imbued in it? Did he even dare wear it in his father’s presence, for fear of the questions it would raise? They’d given it back to him months ago, after that whole business with Briallyn. But surely Eris wouldn’t be stupid enough to wear a Made dagger in front of Beron. Or anyone at the Autumn Court. Perhaps that was why he’d agreed to come today—simply to have the chance to wear the blade and gloat over it. Cassian wouldn’t have put it past the male.

Eris shrugged again. “When Nesta gets tired of you, mate or no, my offer still stands.”

White-hot rage boiled up through Cassian, setting his Siphons crackling with power. “That’s not going to happen.”

Eris smirked. “Then where is she? I haven’t seen her at one of our little chats in a while. I wonder why.”

Cassian didn’t bother answering. It didn’t matter what Eris said or did or became. They’d never be friends—not in any true sense. The lordling could go to hell.

Eris went on, squinting at the blue sky above the vibrant forest canopy, “A word of warning: if you provoke the continent into war, if you bring that conflict to Prythian’s doorstep . . .” His stare lowered to Cassian’s, full of fire and steel. “Then even your mate’s power won’t be enough to save you.”

With that, the bastard winnowed, leaving only swirling red and gold leaves behind.

Intruder. Visitor. Stranger.

Azriel had been in the town house, reading the daily reports from Nuala and Cerridwen—nothing of note in Rask or Montesere so far—when his shadows had begun roiling around him, shouting.

Intruder. Visitor. Stranger.

He was out the front door and launching skyward before he could think it through.

The day was bright, the city humming and peaceful, not a tinge of discontent in the air—

Stranger. River. Fear.

A pivot of his wings had him angling down, the wind shrieking in his ears as he soared for the Sidra. The turquoise water was clear, undisturbed; the boats meandered along, the bridges full of pedestrians all unbothered. He swooped low enough to scan the water, so crystalline he could see the river bottom thirty feet below with perfect clarity.

Even after he’d finally learned to fly as a child, it had taken decades for it to become instinct. To read winds and clouds and light, to trust his own body to do what it had been created to do.

Fear. Shadows. Hiding—

An image formed in his mind, courtesy of his shadows. Something, someone concealed in the dimness beside one of the docked merchant vessels, crouched between the wall of the quay and the hull itself. Clinging to the stones with long, clawed fingers.

Az’s shadows locked in, showing him the distinctive carved prow with its rearing fish-tailed horse, and he searched the riverside for it—there. His Siphons glowed as he rallied his power, readying for attack.

Mor was in the city—somewhere. And Nesta was up at the House of Wind. Everyone else was gone, but between the three of them, if his shadows could notify them somehow, perhaps they could face whatever this creature was. Before it posed a threat to Nyx. And the people of this city.

Curious sailors and merchants peered up at him as he shot past. A brisk wind off the river had him tilting, wings straining to keep steady. The ship he sought rose before him, a wood-and-canvas behemoth, and his senses narrowed toward where the hull met the river, the shade inches beyond it—

There; there, his own shadows urged. Fear. Alive and not. Dead and not.

He reached a hand over a shoulder for his Illyrian blade. Drew it in a silent slide. He didn’t bother to reach for Truth-Teller. The blade could turn to rust in its sheath for all he cared.

He banked in a whisper-quiet flap, assessing the boat, the river, before veiling himself in shadows. Nothing better than a wisp of darkness, a stain on the light. He slipped into the gloom along the quay. A skill that had been beaten and brutalized into him by Devlon from almost the very first day he’d arrived at Windhaven.

And when he’d surpassed Devlon’s knowledge of how to train shadowsingers, the other tutors who had been brought in had made Az long for the days when the petty Illyrian lord had overseen his education.

Hidden, Az examined the gap between the stone wall and the hull.

A white face stared up at him.

It was all that training that now kept Az utterly still, preventing him from doing what every instinct screamed: recoil, run, get airborne. And in his stillness, he remained a mere shadow. Nothing at all.

The over-large, fishlike eyes on that white face moved past him, scouring the sky, the ship. As if knowing Az approached but not that he was already there, inches away.

It was vaguely male and vaguely Fae-like, this creature. White as bleached bones, gangly, with webbed, claw-tipped fingers. Its lips, full to the point of seeming like they’d burst, opened and closed. A fish on dry land.

Its claws dug into the barnacle-crusted hull, keeping it half in the water, half out, and the part of its body that was still in the river—

A fish on dry land indeed. A scaled tail thrashed where legs should have been, as ghastly white as the rest of the creature. Like it had crawled from some lightless hole at the bottom of the sea. Perhaps it had, Az mused as the creature skulked in the shade, squinting at the sky, the ship, the quay.

Alive and not. Dead and not.

He couldn’t make sense of his shadows as they sought to puzzle out what the creature was. It looked around, tail thrashing beneath the water to keep it afloat. His shadows had been right about the fear. The thing in front of him was rippling with it. And yet . . . he did not have the sense that it was lost.

It came here; it was sent, his shadows confirmed. Which meant it was time for questions.

Half a thought had Azriel’s Siphons sending out a bolt of blue light. His power clamped like a manacle around one of the creature’s wrists, binding it to the hull.

The creature flailed, tail whacking the ship, the quay, the water so hard that someone was bound to notice—

“Calm yourself,” Azriel ordered, stepping from the shadows at last. The creature clawed at the blue manacle on its wrist, so hard it drew blood. Its tail, too, was bleeding in spots where its scales had been knocked off.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” Az said, though not at all gently. And not at all truthfully, he supposed. He wouldn’t hurt this thing—yet. Honor was a luxury he didn’t often indulge in.

The creature thrashed again, its too-thin body slamming into the side of the ship just once, then going limp. Slowly, it turned its face toward him. Its saucerlike eyes blinked.

“Tell me what you’re doing here,” Azriel commanded.

The thing’s puffy mouth opened, shut. Fear still pervaded its scent. But it said in a hoarse voice, as if it bubbled up from far, far below its throat, “I come bearing a message to the High Lord and Lady of the Night Court.”

Az kept his face neutral.

Truth, his shadows confirmed.

Wiping any trace of curiosity or surprise from his tone, Az said, “You picked an odd spot to deliver it.”

Again, that strange voice spoke. “Too many people; too much noise; too much everything.” And so it had scuttled into the shade here to hide.

“Who sent you?” Once, he might have already taken this thing to the nearest dungeon and started his usual type of questioning. But now . . . he owed it to Feyre, after seeing her flinch while he interrogated their enemies, to try another way. At least once.

The creature opened and closed its mouth again, like it was struggling to breathe. “Hybern.”

It took a considerable amount of self-control to avoid reeling back in shock. To avoid lifting the sword still in his hand and slicing down, ending this creature’s miserable life with one stroke. Az made himself instead say impassively, “What business does Hybern have sending a message to the Night Court?”

The thing gurgled, spittle bubbling at the corners of its rounded lips. “They wish . . . to meet.”

“That’s not happening.” Az didn’t have the authority to decide that, but he could damn well guess that was what Rhys and Feyre would say.

The thing flapped its tail once, twice. Tried and failed to free itself from the manacle again. It stilled after a moment. “Hybern . . . wishes . . .”—each word was a push of air—“to form . . . an alliance.”

“An alliance—”

But before he could finish, before he could master his own astonishment, the creature shuddered and went limp. With a final sigh, eyes closing almost in relief, its white skin frothed and bubbled. Melted away into the water. And where there had been a creature half dangling from a blue manacle moments before, now only sea-foam remained.

Alive and not. Dead and not, his shadows had whispered. Like this thing had existed between the two states, and now, its purpose fulfilled, it had entirely ceased to exist.

His shadows swept over the foam, the water. Gone, they reported. Returned from whence it came. Salt to salt, water to water.

Some sort of magical construct, then. Az rubbed the back of his neck. It was complicated magic, to make something that could think and endure on its own . . . but ultimately served only one reason for being, and would vanish when it was fulfilled. Soulless, yet driven by need.

Az stared at the sea-foam until the bubbles thinned and spread, until the Sidra was turquoise and unblemished once more. Until only his stunned reflection stared back at him.