A/N: Honestly, I think my fav thing about Vaughan being back is that I get to play my Vaughan and Leta playlist again. Pausing my writing to screech Vance Joy lyrics is probably the high point of 2017 so far, no joke.
Thanks to all the lovely reviewers, and I hope you enjoy the chapter! :P
CHAPTER 20
SYEIRA
Syeira stared at Vaughan.
Holy burning hell.
The last time she had seen Vaughan Zamil, Leta had been standing in front of him, halting a knife plunging directly into his chest. Vaughan had been escorted to the dungeons by a slew of guards, broken and bleeding, head bowed, pride more bruised than even his shattered body.
Now, he wobbled unsteadily in the cesspool of the Pits, outstretching his arms and bellowing for another fight.
He was met with a round of boos and hisses. He'd clearly been dominating the arena for a long while, and other fighters wanted a shot at a brawl—without a guaranteed uppercut to the mouth.
It looked like Vaughan had gotten his fair share of those, too. His teeth were stained red with blood. His, or somebody else's.
Vaughan laughed, toppling over into the side of the arena as a few men shoved him off. The Fae didn't fight; he stumbled down the stairs and almost crashed headfirst into a wall. Steadying himself on the back of a barstool, he made his way over to the bar, holding up a finger for another drink.
Syeira had no idea how he was still standing. Then again, she was judging by her scale of Raiden, who was something of a lightweight. After two drinks, he'd climb on top of the tables and recite bad poetry.
A lump rose in her throat. Syeira's eyes searched the crowd for Kasper.
He wasn't looking for her, or at her. He was stalking across the floor, heading straight for Vaughan.
Syeira paled, scrambling down the stairs, not bothering to mutter apologies to the drunk clientele that she roughly shoved out of her way. If Vaughan and Kasper got into a fight at the Pits…
There wouldn't be a Pits left. Dammit.
The bartender slid a tankard across the tacky surface, and Vaughan caught it, lifting it to his lips and downing most of the cup in a single gulp. Syeira tried to ease her way through the crowd, and a man grabbed at her ass.
She didn't even think. Her hand shot out, twisting the man's wrist in one single, deft flick, and he screeched, bending over. "Bitch!"
"Bastard," she retorted, running for the bar.
She arrived just in time to see Kasper's hand closing around Vaughan's neck.
Kasper slammed Vaughan against the wall hard enough that the stucco at the ceiling cracked. The tankard fell from Vaughan's hand, clattering to the floor and spilling over the piss-stained grime.
Syeira swore.
Vaughan laughed, holding his hands up. "Kasper Galathynius," he drawled. "Fancy meetin' you here."
Kasper reached back and slammed his fist into Vaughan's face with a sickening crunch. Heads whirled to watch, mouths opening.
"You piece of shit," Kasper snarled, hauling off on Vaughan again.
"Kasper!" Syeira shouted. "Kasper, stop!"
Vaughan just laughed again, and the sound was so bitter, so inhuman, that both Kasper and Syeira froze.
He shook his head, grinning through the haze of blood. His nose was crooked, as if someone had broken it during the duration of the night. Maybe that had been the crunch that Syeira had heard earlier.
"Go ahead," Vaughan slurred. "Do your worst, Rowan."
Kasper's fist lowered.
"Kasper," Syeira said, appearing at his side. She reached out to touch his elbow, but he yanked his arm away savagely. Her stomach dropped to her toes.
Syeira swallowed, focusing her attention on Vaughan. "You look like hell," she told him.
Vaughan smirked at her. "Do I, now," he drawled, leaning forward.
Kasper snarled, slamming Vaughan back against the wall in a vicious, feral movement. "Get away from her."
"So pri—pro—proprietary," Vaughan said, laughing hysterically.
"I'm going to beat the everliving shit out of you," Kasper snapped.
Vaughan's eyelids fluttered. His pupils were enormous and hazy, half-lidded.
Gods almighty. He was high.
"You're pretty," Vaughan said to Syeira. "I knew a pretty girl once."
Kasper shot out the heel of his hand and pummeled it into Vaughan's sternum. Vaughan coughed, blood dribbling out of the corner of his mouth, and collapsed against the wall, his knees giving out.
Kasper looked incline to level another punch, but Syeira wasn't about to let him. Every instinct in her body was screaming at her. This isn't right, this isn't Kasper, he wouldn't do this. This isn't Kasper. This isn't my Kasper.
"Kas," Syeira said, grabbing his wrists.
He glared at her, malachite eyes fever-bright.
"Listen to me," she said. "Listen. This is not what your sister would want. Not even close."
Some of the fight left his stance.
"In fact," she continued, "I'm willing to bet that if Leta knew where you were and what you were doing, she'd lose her shit. As much as Leta can lose her shit, anyway."
"Leta can lose her shit plenty," Kasper muttered, wrenching his wrists out of her grasp. "She just doesn't do it in front of an entire court."
Syeira's mouth tightened at the slight. "We need to get him out of here. Now."
"I'm not—"
"Yes, you are," she said. "If not for him, then for your sister. You know it's what she would want."
"You don't know anything about my sister."
"Tell me I'm wrong, Kasper. Look me in the eye and tell me that I'm wrong, and we'll leave him here to drown in a pool of his own piss."
They both looked to Vaughan. He had more or less passed out against the wall, and the longer Syeira looked at him, the worse he looked. His skin was waxen and pale, his hair plastered to his forehead with sweat, every bit of him bruised or bleeding.
Kasper grimaced. "It's not like I can take him back to the castle."
"No," she agreed. "Does he have a place here?"
Kasper kicked Vaughan's rib. "Do you have somewhere to stay, asshole?"
He didn't reply. Instead, he reached his hand up, eyes widening, and muttered, "Wings."
"Opium," Syeira said.
"I got that, thanks," Kasper bit off. He paced, thinking, and Syeira wrapped her arms around her shoulders. "What am I supposed to do with him?"
"Didn't your mother have a warehouse in this part of Rifthold? With your father?"
He glanced at her incredulously. "Yeah—eighteen years ago."
"It's probably still there," said Syeira. "You'd be surprised how many buildings survived the war, especially the ones in the slums. Nobody wanted to sack poor people; they had nothing to steal."
"How am I supposed to find that?"
"See if you can scent it," she said. "Isn't that how you found Vaughan?"
Kasper glowered at her. "I resent you right now."
"The feeling is mutual," she shot back.
Kasper glanced at Vaughan, curled his lip, and grabbed the Fae, hiking him up so that one arm was wrapped around his neck. "Go on. I don't want to spend another second in this hellhole."
She maneuvered through the crowd, attempting to duck greedy, searching fingers as best as she could, dissuading them with her flinty expression. Even so, a man's hand managed to swipe along her ass, and her hand shot out, ready to cut off one of his limb, but Kasper was already there.
His knee shot up with brutal efficiency, colliding with the man's groin, and slammed his fist into the man's stomach. The man wheezed and sank to the ground, and Kasper set his jaw.
She stared at him for a minute. He did not look like the charming, court's-favorite Kasper she knew. This Kasper was wilder, unhinged, hair matted, features contorted into something lethal, something that spread and burned like wildfire.
This was the Kasper that lingered beneath his skin, the one he never let anyone see. This was the Kasper that called down lightning from the sky, the Kasper that was the son not of the king and queen of Terrasen, but of the Prince of Doranelle and Aelin of the Wildfire.
This was the Kasper that could set the whole world on fire if he desired.
A shiver traveled down Syeira's spine, but it wasn't revulsion or fear. It was…
Something else. Something infinitely more dangerous.
"Let's go," Kasper said, and she nodded mutely.
The three of them ascended the stairs with some difficulty, shoving their way out of the Pits aided with a few curses. The look on Kasper's face and the rumbling in his throat kept eager hands far from Syeira. There would be no wandering fingers, not now.
Finally, they made their way onto the street, and Syeira inhaled deeply, cleansing her lungs of the dank, polluted air, or trying to.
"Can you get a scent?" she asked Kasper.
"Give me a second. I'm not a bloodhound, Syeira."
She crossed her arms, but didn't comment. Kasper hobbled up the street, Vaughan in tow. Kasper had his nose lifted, and the wind swept down the boulevard, rustling the winter leaves clustered in the gutters.
"I'll be damned," Kasper muttered. He jerked his head down the alley. "This way."
Syeira followed close behind, tucking her hands in her armpits. Kasper's cheeks and nose were already pink—she loved the cold, reveled in it, but he couldn't stand it. He liked warmth, she though; sunshine and fires and things that burned.
Syeira paused, unclasping her cloak from around her neck.
"Syeira," Kasper said, "what are you—"
She didn't even look at him as she hurled it at his chest.
It hit him smack-on, and he caught it reflexively.
"Asshole," she said.
Kasper didn't reply. Instead, he took a left turn down a narrow alleyway that smelled unpleasantly of fish.
"You can't be mad at me forever!" she called, running after him. "I'm sorry for what I did back there—for calling you Raiden. It's just—"
"I'm not mad at you," Kasper said through gritted teeth.
"Really," she said incredulously. "Because it sure seems that way to me."
Kasper stopped, whirling on her. "Syeira, I swear to all the gods that you find holy, not everything is about you. Did you ever stop to think that maybe—maybe—I'm in a foul mood because I found this dickhead high as a kite and three sheets to the wind in some festering boil in this gods-forsaken city?"
Vaughan rose his head blearily, as if to say, Who, me?
She blinked at Kasper. "There's nothing wrong with Rifthold."
Kasper snorted, turning around and continuing to marshal Vaughan down a street.
"Come on," she said, jogging to catch up. Her breath fogged on the air. "At least take the cloak. It's cold out, and you're the one that likes warmth."
He growled, throwing the cloak back at her. "I'm fine."
That stung, but she clasped her cloak back around her neck, tucking her chin into her shirt collar. Fine.
They made their way through the city in silence. Occasionally, Vaughan would attempt to wander off—he mentioned several times, very agitatedly, that he needed to have a conversation with the pigeons nesting on the rooftops—but Kasper decided this was the apt time to grab him by his hair and slam his face against the wall, at which point Syeira saw fit to intervene.
Eventually, she inserted herself between Kasper and Vaughan, putting her hands up. "Kasper, stop!"
His fist froze.
His chest rose and fell unsteadily.
"Don't," he hissed, "ever do that again."
"Do what?"
"Get in front of me and someone I'm trying to—"
"Oh, please, Kasper—"
"I mean it," he said, taking her shoulders. His skin was hotter than usual, almost burning, but she didn't push his hands away. "Don't. Don't ever do—that." His breathing came raggedly—he was ragged, this Kasper, torn and fraying at the edges.
She wondered if he was always torn and fraying at the edges, maybe even worse than her, and he was just better at hiding it.
Then she wondered if Leta was the same way, and she was the best hider of them all, these adolescents at the helm of nations.
"I won't make any promises," Syeira said, looping Vaughan's arm around her shoulders. Kasper opened his mouth to protest, but she cut him off. "I'm not letting you abuse Vaughan anymore. And I won't let you turn me into collateral damage, Kas. You forget that I'm used to dangerous things."
"Not like me."
She huffed. "You think awfully high of yourself, don't you?"
Kasper folded his arms as Syeira attempted to make her way down the street with Vaughan. "Do you even know where you're going?"
"Not a clue," she told him cheerfully. "So if you could get your useless ass over here and tell me, that would be highly appreciated."
Kasper made a rumbling sound low in his throat as Vaughan tripped over a cobblestone, almost pinning Syeira to the ground. Kasper was there, though, keeping her steady. She didn't know how he'd gotten there so quickly.
He was cursing fluently under his breath, but she couldn't make out what he was saying. Primarily because it sounded like it was in another language.
She'd figure that one out later.
"I've got him," Kasper said, dragging Vaughan down the street.
"Hey," she said. "You know, I am a very strong person—"
He laughed tiredly. "I know, Syeira, but there's a difference between your kind of strength and mine."
She frowned at him, but he didn't react. "How much further?"
Kasper took another left and a quick right before coming to a stop, letting Vaughan slide off him to crumple to the ground. "We're here."
She and Kasper paused, looking up at the building before them. It was a warehouse—plain brick, blending into the other dingy, decrepit edifices lining this particular boulevard of the slums. It didn't look like the kind of place the ostentatious, opulent Aelin Galathynius would make her home—or the nightmarish Celaena Sardothien, for that matter.
"Um," Syeira said. "Are you sure?"
"I'm sure," Kasper said grimly, yanking Vaughan up by his shirt collar and dragging him over to the door. Kasper rattled the door, but it was locked. He swore and raised his foot, presumably to kick it in, but Syeira shoved him out of the way.
"Honestly," she said, shaking her head and kneeling by the door. "Boys."
"Hey—"
She ignored him, withdrawing a pin from her hair and inserting it into the lock. She jiggled it a few times, twisting and turning the lock, and finally heard a snick as the door opened.
"Your parents," she said, smiling smugly at Kasper's astonished face, "were clearly not very concerned with safety."
"I think they knew it was fruitless," Kasper replied, easing Vaughan inside. "And that they were the most dangerous things in Rifthold save for a select few, so it wouldn't matter much in the end anyway."
Syeira stepped inside, blinking at the abrupt darkness. She tripped over a piece of furniture and cursed, groping around blindly in the dark.
Her hand closed around something—no, not something. Someone. A stubbled cheek.
Kasper let loose a slew of profanities, and the shape in front of her took a step back. A moment later, light appeared in the room: Kasper had weaved wildfire through his fingers. His eyes were wide. "What was that for?"
"It wasn't on purpose," she protested, flushing.
Kasper shook his head, shooting her a look, and peered around the warehouse. It seemed to only be the bottom floor; a set of steps in the back led up to what appeared to be a second floor overhead. The bottom floor was largely bare, save for a few crates—one of which Syeira had stumbled over—and a hatstand.
Judging by the crimson stains on the floor, Syeira would also be willing to bet this had been a practice room for fighting.
"Come on," Kasper said, pushing Vaughan toward the stairs. Syeira followed, and the two of them ascended the steps, coming to another door. This one wasn't even locked: arrogance, Syeira thought, must've been a trait that ran in the family.
Kasper turned the knob, easing the door open, and kept one hand lit. Syeira took over Vaughan, though he was enormous. He must've been almost as large as Rowan and Lorcan.
Almost immediately, light filled the room, the candles lighting in unison. Syeira blinked at Kasper, but he didn't even seem to notice, as if it were easy as breathing. Ass.
This looked more like a place where Aelin Galathynius might live. The wallpaper was creamy and golden-striped, the kitchen gleaming. Every surface dripped with luxury and opulence, from the overstuffed lounges in the parlor to the gleaming portraits hanging on the walls. Syeira counted three or four doors leading to various rooms, some of them likely as not for sleeping.
Kasper headed for the largest of the doors, rattling the handle until it eked open. Syeira shuddered. There was something lonely about this place, the thick layer of dust on every surface that had accumulated while its owner had been bled and beaten. It carried the air of forgotten things, empty and echoing.
Another burst of light, and Kasper had lit all the candles inside. It was a bedroom, Syeira realized, stepping in after Kasper and Vaughan. A massive bed that resembled a wedding cake more than a mattress, an open door to an opulent, marble lavatory; the gaping maw of two closets.
"This was my mother's room," Kasper said. There was something unspeakably sad in the set of his mouth, in his eyes. "My father's, too, I think, but his scent is fainter. And…"
"And?"
"There's another scent, too," Kasper said. "Male. Younger."
"Oh," Syeira said.
Kasper swept a hand over his features. "I think this was Sam's room, too."
Sam. Sam Cortland.
"Oh," she repeated quietly.
Kasper shoved Vaughan off, onto the bed. "He can wash himself up in the morning. If he's even sober by then, which I doubt."
"Can we leave him here tonight?"
"Probably not," Kasper admitted. His gaze flicked to hers. "Go back to the castle. I'll wait here."
"Not a chance," she said. "Do you know how much your parents would kill me if I showed back up and you didn't?"
"Syeira—"
"If you're staying, I'm staying," Syeira said. "We'll figure this out together, even if you have suddenly decided to hate me."
"I don't hate you."
"No?"
"No." Kasper pushed past her, ignoring Vaughan's facedown form on the mattress. "There should be another bedroom here—hold on." He left the room, Syeira following, and opened doors until he found one that led to an enclosed bedroom. "Here. You take this one and I'll sleep on the couch."
She balked. "You can't sleep on the couch!"
He cocked an eyebrow. "Why not?"
"Because—it's barbaric!" she burst out.
Kasper rose his eyes heavenward and seemed to silently count to three. "I've had far worse sleeping arrangements, I guarantee you."
She flushed. "I didn't mean—"
"I know you didn't." He reached out to touch her, but then seemed to think better of it, his hand dropping to his side. He exhaled. "Do you need something to sleep in?"
"I don't… I don't think so."
"Are you sure? You want to sleep in that?" he said, eying her corseted dress. "I'm sure some of my mother's clothes are still here."
"Of course I'm not going to sleep in this," she said, exasperated. "But I'll pass on wearing your mother's nightgowns, thanks."
Kasper furrowed his brows. "If you're not going to sleep in that, then what…?"
"Kasper," she said patiently, her lips twitching. "I was rather thinking I just wouldn't sleep in… well, much. At all."
It took him a second.
His cheeks flushed red. "Oh."
She laughed a bit. "I should actually probably keep watch over Vaughan, though. If he's going to be coming down from an opium high, there's—"
"I'll take care of that," Kasper said. "I'll sleep on the couch in my mother's room."
"Do you know how to take care of someone that's coming down from opium?" she said, plopping her hands on her waist.
"Do you?"
"Kasper, I'm a healer." She held up her scarred fingers, waggling them. "I know exactly how. And furthermore, how many times do you think I did the same thing for Raiden?"
"Raiden was an opium addict?"
"No, not an addict," she said, darkening with the memory. "But every once in awhile, he'd get it in his head to do something particularly stupid. I usually talked him down to opium. I had to come with him, of course, but it worked out in the end."
Kasper scowled. "Raiden dragged you to opium dens?"
"I wouldn't say dragged," she said. "Both of us liked to raise hell."
"Do you know how dangerous that is? Syeira, for gods' sakes."
"Of course I know now," she snapped. "But Raiden and I had our own demons to deal with, Kasper. They weren't anything like yours, and they weren't anything like Leta's. But we were both at Morath. I was there. And while you've been struggling with accepting the responsibilities of being a king for what, two years, I've been dealing for sixteen."
Kasper matched her gaze. He was oddly angry—a muscle ticked his jaw, and the skin around his lips was white. Finally, he said, "Help Vaughan if you want."
"Take the bed," she said. "Get some sleep. You look like hell."
"So do you."
"Charming," she said. "Thank you, Kasper. I can see why you're such a favorite at court."
He stormed past her into the room, slamming the door behind him hard enough to rattle the frame.
She glared after him. Asshole, asshole, asshole. She didn't know what had gotten into him.
She went back into what had once been Aelin's room. Vaughan was still lying facedown, and she rolled him back over. His hair was plastered to his skin with sweat.
She sighed, making a stack of pillows and propping him up on them to make sure he wouldn't choke on his own vomit. She retrieved a trash can and went to the bathroom, rummaging around until she found a few bowls and washcloths, and turned on the taps on the bathtub, filling one bowl up with hot water, the other with cold.
Syeira went into the kitchen, grabbing a few other things—herbs, to make a tincture for Vaughan to swallow, a glass of water; a cup of tea.
She winced, pressing a hand to her side, leaning against the kitchen counter. Her corset was digging into her ribs, making her short of breath.
It didn't matter. She'd survive.
Syeira found her way back to the bedroom, unclasping her cloak and throwing it over the arm of the couch. She arranged everything meticulously, pinning her hair up on her head.
Glancing at the closet door, she bit her lip. Her corset really was killing her, and if she was going to spend the night on the couch…
She went over to the closet, walking in cautiously. It was full of elegant, luxurious dresses, and Syeira's eyes widened. They were out-of-fashion by a decade and a half or so, but still beautiful, dripping with brocade and jewels.
Rows upon rows of shoes. Jackets, tunics, leggings; skirts and chemises. Syeira needed to have a talk with Aelin about fashion one of these days.
She pulled open the top drawer of the dresser and froze.
Oh. Oh.
Lacy, sheer scraps of lace that Syeira supposed were nightgowns.
Well. Rowan had been… entertained, it appeared.
For half a second, Syeira thought about knocking on Kas's doors clad in nothing but a nightgown, but she immediately discarded the thought. Maybe one day.
No, not one day. She would not be doing that anytime soon, thank you very much.
She shook her head, sifting through the nightgowns until she found something that landed near her knees. Still sleeveless, still embroidered with lace, still corsetless, but she could throw a sweater over it and call it even without shocking Vaughan when he woke up. She slipped out of her dress, silk pooling around her feet, and tugged the nightgown on over her head, reaching on the shelf and shucking a woolen sweater on over her head.
She padded back out to the room, grabbing her clothes and tossing them into a forgotten hamper in the corner of the room. She folded her arms, looking down at Vaughan with disdain.
"Alright," she said. "It's just you and me tonight. Let the vomiting and sweats begin."
—
Vaughan was bad, but she'd conditioned worse.
It took a few hours for him to start coming off his high. The fever dreams, in Syeira's experience, were always the worst: delusions of silver-winged creatures batting about temples and twirling strands of hair round their clawed fingertips; dead lovers brought back to life only through the haze of a killing drug.
She didn't understand what he was saying half the time; they were aimless rambles. She'd placed cold cloths on his forehead for the hot sweats and warm linens for the cool ones, providing a wastebasket when he needed to throw up.
But sometimes she earned snippets. He'd beg for forgiveness from the men that he'd been commanded to kill—a list of names dizzying and horrifying, one that made Syeira reconsider her judgment of Lorcan, Rowan, and Gavriel.
And he talked about someone else. Someone named Minya.
"I'm sorry," Vaughan whispered through blood-flecked lips, tears streaking down his cheeks. "Minya, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Please don't go." A loose, trembling sob escaped his mouth. "I'm not strong enough to do this own my own, Minya. You know I'm not. You always said so."
That was the worst part of taking someone's hand and leading them down the other side of the mountain. The vomit faded into the background, the blood evaporated into the air, but the deathbed confessions always remained, remembered only by the healer.
There were two names that Vaughan whispered, again and again and again.
Minya, Minya, Minya, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, forgive me, forgive me, forgive me.
And… Leta.
He said Leta's name. Rather a lot.
"Do you still look at the stars?" he'd murmured as Syeira had changed his cloths. She'd frozen, thinking for a moment that he was talking to her, which would have been good—he would've been lucid, at least—but a moment later, he said, "Leta."
But he did not say it like one would say a name. He whispered it like one would make a vow.
He never talked about her for long; even his feverish brain seemed to want to skirt around the edges of her. But every so often, he'd say something that would give Syeira pause.
Tell me something you've never told anyone else.
You shouldn't be afraid of the water.
You got yourself out of that forest. I had nothing to do with it.
I think I'm… but it doesn't matter, does it? It doesn't matter if I love you.
This last one had made Syeira drop her bowl of water, liquid soaking into the carpet.
"I think I'm… but it doesn't matter, does it? It doesn't matter if I love you." Vaughan laughed hazily. "But that's alright. It's always been alright. I wrecked it anyway."
Syeira wasn't going to be able to look Leta in the eye next time she saw her. Gods almighty.
Finally—finally—his fever broke, the rest of the opium leaving his system in one last retch, and he fell asleep.
She gritted her teeth, walking around until she found a pile of linens. She'd moved Vaughan onto the floor, changing the bedding and drying him off as best as he could. She'd tried to find some new clothes, too—new trousers, at least—but all she'd been able to find was a dresser full of boys' clothes, made for someone built, but nowhere close to where Vaughan was.
She supposed the other bedroom might have something—it was where Aedion had probably stayed, after all—but that would mean interacting with Kasper and his foul mood.
Gods damn it.
Syeira left the room in the nightgown and sweater, walking through the halls. Dawn had begun to filter in through the windows, landing in dappled rays over the floorboards in shades of pink camellia and lemon-yellow freesias.
She found Kasper sitting at the kitchen table, nursing a cup of tea.
He was barefoot, with a horrible case of bedhead, tendrils of his hair sticking up in every direction. His eyes were bleary, circles lurking in indigo smudges, and stubble coated his chin.
He was also shirtless.
She stopped in her tracks and stared.
She'd seen him shirtless before, but that had been two years ago, when he'd still been slightly skeletal. Now…
Now the scars were faded with time, white stripes instead of red welts. He'd filled out a bit, his shoulders broadened, his…
Gods. Gods. She couldn't stop staring at the hard planes of his chest.
He glanced up at her, raising his mug to his lips, but the cup halted abruptly an inch from his mouth as he absorbed her appearance, water sloshing over the rim. He cursed fluently as his tea scalded his wrist, setting the cup down and shaking his hand furiously.
Syeira hurried over to the cabinet, taking out a bowl and filling it with cold water. She set it down on the table before him, putting his wrist in the water.
"Here," she said. "This'll help."
He swallowed audibly. "Thank you."
She sat down beside him, pressing her fore and middle fingers to her temple. "Is that tea caffeinated?"
Wordlessly, he passed it to her. She lifted it to her lips, downing a sizeable amount. It burned her tongue and throat going down, but she welcomed it; relished it.
"Vaughan's fever broke," she said.
"I know."
She sent him an inquisitive glance, and he tapped his ears. Fae senses—he'd probably heard every word that Vaughan said.
"How long have you been up?" she asked.
"All night. Couldn't sleep." He hesitated. "Syeira, I'm sorry. For… last night."
"I don't blame you," she said, reaching out her hand and squeezing his fingers. "If anyone knows hissy fits, it's me."
He cracked an exhausted smile. "You smell like herbs."
"I can't decide whether to take that as a compliment or insult."
"The former," he said immediately. "You smell like thyme and sage."
"I had to make do with what was left in your mother's kitchen," she joked, but her cheeks pinked. She cleared her throat. "You smell like rosemary and pepper, so long as we're playing the scents game."
He dimpled. "Really."
She laughed tiredly. "Yes, really."
"You sound exhausted."
"You should look in a mirror," she said. "But yes, I wouldn't pass up the opportunity to sleep. I came to see if there were any of Aedion's clothes left in his old room."
"Maybe," he said. "Why?"
"I need to get Vaughan out of his old ones." She gulped down more tea. "Someone needs to go back to the castle. I'm sure we're worrying them."
Kasper groaned and slammed his head against the table. "I can't deal with my parents right now."
"Mine either."
"There is," Kasper said firmly, "no facing my mother or my father on less than six hours of sleeps. It simply isn't done."
She giggled. "If you want, you can take my mother. Her claws come out when she gets angry."
He winced. "Gods."
"Or," she said, "you can have Dad's disapproving frown, which is almost worse."
"How high up do you think we are?" Kasper said, appraising the window speculatively.
"Enough."
He chuckled, pressing his cheek against the table. "The two of us are horrible."
"The worst," she agreed, putting her head down beside his. Their eyes were only inches from each other, and she saw his breath catch in his throat.
Kasper had nice eyelashes.
"I'm sorry, too," she said. "For calling you Raiden. And being kind of… irritating."
"You don't have to be sorry for that," he said. "I had a short fuse last night, and you were on the receiving end. I'm sorry."
"This is a fun game," she said dryly.
"I think so too."
Kasper's eyelids fluttered shut. "I have to tell Leta, don't I?"
"That's up to you," Syeira said. "But… yes. Yes, you do."
"Fuck."
She paused. "Do you want to help me change Vaughan's clothes?"
"Not even a little."
She smiled, standing up. "It'll work out, Kasper. It always does."
—
VAUGHAN
Everything hurt.
Fuck, everything hurt.
He groaned, rolling over on his side. He retched, but nothing came up, as if he'd already hurled. It felt like he had; his throat was torn and shredded.
He let out a muffled curse, putting a hand to his head. What had happened? Where was he?
He didn't remember anything from last night, except for the opium den—the cloud of smoke, the smoldering ashes in the bowl…
He didn't do it often. That had only ever been the third time he'd tried it in his century of existence or so, and he was never doing it again.
He was lying in an opulent, canopied bed, windows on either side of him spilling in fresh daylight. The carpet was thick, the wallpaper patterned with gilded roses, and he could see a shining lavatory and an expansive closet through doors in the walls. There was something familiar about the scent of this room.
Whitethorn. Ashryver. And… Galathynius.
Not just Aelin and Aedion and Rowan. Her son, too. And another scent, one that Vaughan didn't know as well, but laced with noble lineage all the same.
"Shit," Vaughan wheezed. "Shit."
Someone rustled in the couch at the foot of his bed—a girl. She couldn't have been more than sixteen, and appallingly beautiful, with dark curls and golden eyes, tanned skin and chapped, raw hands.
"Oh," she said. "You're up."
It took a moment for him to place her, but then he did. Syeira Crochan-Havilliard.
"Where am I?" Vaughan whispered.
She sat up. She was wearing a ridiculous ensemble; a sweater thrown over a cotton nightgown.
Briefly, Vaughan remembered another night—an inn in the Cambrians, another cotton nightgown, antimony hair…
Fuck.
"Here," Syeira said, pouring him a glass of water from a pitcher on the nightstand. "Drink this."
He accepted it, downing the glass in a single swallow. She rose a brow but refilled it. "You're in Rifthold," she said. "In Adarlan."
"That much I got, darling," Vaughan said, grimacing at a sudden pain in his side. "Why does the left side of my face feel like it got caved in by a brick?"
"That would be me," a voice said from the doorway.
Vaughan smiled grimly. "Kasper Galathynius. My, aren't you grown up."
"You might want to start thanking us," Kasper added, striding into the room with a lethal prowl. He'd gotten taller and more muscled since Vaughan had seen him last, and he collapsed in a chair with a muscle ticking in his jaw.
"Didn't he say he gave me this lovely present?" Vaughan asked Syeira, gesturing to his face.
"Don't worry," she said. "You deserved it."
"I found you dancing on opium, picking fights and getting drunk in the Pits," Kasper said. "All I was trying to do was take a walk through Rifthold, mind you."
Vaughan flexed his fingers. "Not one of my better moments, I'll admit."
"We got you back here," Syeira said. "It's an old warehouse of Aelin's. And I cleaned you up."
Vaughan nodded. "Thank you, darling. I highly appreciate it. I'm sure my thanks would be prettier were my head not filled with tiny jigging Fair Folk."
"My sister doesn't know you're here," Kasper said bluntly.
Vaughan had to count to five.
"No," he said, pleased when his voice didn't shake. "I imagine she does not."
"I need to know whether or not to tell her."
"And what—you think I'm the one that should make that call?" Vaughan said bitterly. "Last I checked, she was the one that sent me away, not the other way around."
Kasper and Syeira exchanged looks.
"I didn't know that," Syeira said.
"I didn't, either," said Kasper suspiciously.
"Night of Aelin's coronation ball," Vaughan said. "She snuck down, gave me a cloak, and told me to get the hell out. So I did."
"I thought you escaped," Kasper muttered. "We all did. Why didn't she say anything?"
Because she picks and chooses which parts of her heart to show.
Once she showed me a great deal.
Once she might have showed the world a great deal.
Now she is careful, and quiet.
"I don't know," Vaughan said. "By the by, do either of your parents know you're here?"
Neither of them answered.
"I'd be more concerned about that if I were you," said Vaughan. "Last I checked, Kasper dear, your father has a rather wicked temper. And he's nothing compared to your mother."
Kasper glared at Vaughan. "Do you want me to tell Leta or not?"
It was the first time any of them had said her name, and it hit Vaughan like a stone to the chest.
Stars, secrets, and silver fire. These were the things he remembered, lingering on the surface, when he let himself get close enough to the flame to burn.
His chest hitched.
"Why are you here, Kasper?" Vaughan said instead, voice shaking marginally. "Don't you have somewhere else to be? Your own country, perhaps?"
Kasper folded his arms. "My father got a letter from Syeira's father a few weeks ago. The king of Eyllwe wrote to King Dorian not too long ago—forces have been sighted in the south, near the Bogdano."
Vaughan sat up, biting back the bile that rose in his throat. "Erawan's?"
"We think so," Syeira said.
"So you're here, what, to confer?" Vaughan said. "Shouldn't you be moving south instead?"
"We only arrived yesterday," Kasper snapped.
Vaughan put his hand to his forehead. "Please, for the love of all the gods, do not raise your voice."
"Maybe I shouldn't tell my sister after all," Kasper said, sounding disgusted. "Clean yourself up, Zamil."
Vaughan growled. "If I weren't bedridden, prince, I would have—"
"Last I heard," Kasper said, eyes glittering like tourmaline stones, "you couldn't get my father to kneel before you, let alone me."
"Alright," Syeira interrupted, putting her hands up. "Unless you want me to fetch a table and a measuring stick for a dick-measuring contest, I think we're done."
Kasper choked.
"Kasper," Syeira said, "you need to go back to the castle. Get your sister."
"I'm not going back," he said. "Why can't you?"
"Because," she said patiently, "your parents hate me. In fact, everyone at the castle right now hates me. Don't even try to argue, you know I'm right."
"You're not," he said.
"I am," she said. Vaughan blinked; Syeira had grown up some in the two years since he'd last seen her. "But that's fine. Everyone there loves you; if you get caught, Aelin will only take out a wing of the castle. If I show up, she'll take out all of it."
"She has a point," Vaughan commented.
"Shut up." Kasper grabbed a fistful of his hair. "I don't want to do this. I really, really don't."
"I know," Syeira said.
He glared at her, but there was something softer in his gaze than when he directed that stare towards Vaughan.
Kasper liked Syeira, Vaughan realized. And the feeling was mutual.
Interesting.
"What's your animal form, anyway?" Syeira asked. "I don't suppose you could just… fly?"
"It's not anything with wings," Kasper said curtly.
"So then what is it? Some kind of bear?"
"It is not a bear."
"That would be fascinating though, wouldn't it?" said Vaughan.
"I'll go," Kasper said, heading toward the door. "I'll run there—I'll be back in a half an hour, tops." He scrutinized Vaughan. "In the meantime, dickhead, you should probably take a bath."
Vaughan's heart had begun to thunder in his chest. "Wait. You're not actually going to get—"
"Leta? Yes, I am." Kasper grinned, but it was more a baring of teeth than a smile. "Last I checked, she was the only one who knew how to successfully deal with your problematic disaster of an existence."
Under her breath, Syeira whistled. "Harsh, Kas."
Vaughan straightened, pushing aside the pounding in his temples. "I've seen things you've never dreamed of, you pathetic—"
"That's right," Kasper snarled, suddenly, surprisingly feral. Judging by the look on Syeira's face, she was just as shocked. "You're old, aren't you? Old and worldly and gods know what else. And you decided that it was fine—that it was alright—to take advantage of my sister in the mountains, to fuck her—"
Vaughan didn't know how or when he did it. All he knew was that one moment he was lying in bed in strange clothes that smelled faintly of Aedion Ashryver, and the next he had Kasper Galathynius pinned against the wall, a knife Vaughan had slid from Kasper's boot connecting Kasper's shirt to the plaster.
Syeira shrieked.
"I did nothing," Vaughan said, chest rising and falling unsteadily, "of the sort. I did not take advantage of her."
"Really," Kasper drawled.
"Yes, really," Vaughan spat. "Is that what she says?"
"Of course it's not," Kasper said. "You know she wouldn't do that."
He was right. Vaughan did know.
"You have no fucking idea," Vaughan said vehemently, "no fucking idea, of what I feel for her or what she feels for me, and no idea what we went through together in those mountains. Do you."
Kasper had the decency to avert his eyes.
"So before," Vaughan hissed, "you go on making assumptions on subjects about which you are woefully uninformed, you might want to take a step back and reconsider what facts you do have, and go from there, Kasper Galathynius."
A muscle ticked in Kasper's jaw. "I'm sorry."
Vaughan's hand fell away. "As you should be."
"But for the record," Kasper said, "I will never, ever forgive the wrong you dealt my sister."
"You're not the one I want forgiveness from," Vaughan replied, stalking back to the bathroom and slamming the door in the prince of Terrasen's face.
—
LETA
Leta sprawled out over her bed in the Rifthold castle, flipping through the pages of a book.
It was poetry—a slim, leather-bound volume she'd read a hundred times before. Her copy had been battered almost without recognition, pages dog-eared and marked with ink, notes scrawled in the margins.
Leta always thought that had she not been a princess, she would have liked to be a librarian.
But her eyes skimmed over the verses—and in the sea i / still cannot see your / face floating in the waves / as you have promised / me—and passed them by.
Kasper and Syeira were missing.
Not officially. Leta highly suspected that they were not missing in the sense of danger—at least not the immediately life-threatening kind. But she wasn't about to mention this to her parents, who were on a homicidal rampage.
Last she'd seen, Dorian and Aelin were hollering at each other in the middle of the throne room, and Manon and Rowan were facing off with their respectively terrifying snarls.
Leta had decided that her presence probably wasn't required.
There came a soft rap on her door, and Leta lifted her head, sniffing, and launched out of her bed. She hauled open the door, and sure enough, Kasper stood on the other side, hands tucked into his pockets, a despondent expression on his face.
Quickly, she tugged him into the room. "Kasper Galathynius," she said. "Where have you been?"
"What," Kasper muttered, "is with the first name, last name?"
Leta paused, catching a whiff of something…
Something…
Mountains. Air that smelled of pine, of snow—a leather coat that smelled of smoke and cloves. An arm wrapped around her sleeping body, pulling her close, whispering in her ear. A sense of rightness in her chest.
The blood drained from her face.
"I was taking a walk with Syeira," Kasper began, but she knew. She knew from the scent and from the look on Kasper's face.
"Where is he?" she said quietly.
Kasper didn't answer.
"Where is he?" she asked again, panicked now. "Is he alright? Is he safe? He's not hurt, is he?"
"Not… technically."
"Take me to him," she said.
"Leta—"
His face.
She had never been able to forget his face, or his laugh, or the way his lips moved when he called her love.
She had never been able to forget what it had felt like, flying with him—weightless and free, back when she had been a nobody, a nothing, unloved and uncherished by everything but the stars.
I love you.
That was what he had said. I love you.
She'd never said it back.
She pressed a hand to her mouth, stepping away from Kasper.
"Take me to him," she whispered.
But when she said take me to him, she meant take me home.
A/N: This chapter was supposed to accomplish so many more things, but it ended up being so many pages of nothing. (Which, coincidentally, is what I'm going to title my autobiography.)
REVIEW THANK-YOU LIST TIME!
Diana Black 12
Guest (YES. Elide and Lorcan will be making a reappearance soon, along with more Evangeline and Gavriel.)
kittysniper9
Nerdgirl2389
Bianca di' Angelo1
BookBabbles (My Hamilton reference was unintentional... I haven't actually gotten around to listening to the soundtrack yet. *lowers head in shame* My sister keeps on trying to get me to do it. I promise, I'll listen to it soon! :P)
pomxxx
Guest (AGH! Yes, Kasper DOES have Whitethorn eyes, thanks for pointing that out! Will go back to fix that ASAP. So sorry. :/)
Guest
Guest (For the poor soul on International Baccalaureate: I have friends that go through the same struggle, and I'm both honored and so, so sorry.)
1697084
isabelas
pjo-hp-tog-mi
jmdaily13 (x3 AHHH)
Dacowluva
Mintcat Moo
THANK YOU GUYS ALL SO MUCH! You guys are the best, seriously. :D