Trigger Warning: This chapter contains depictions that could be considered sexual assualt
Chapter Twelve
Lord Devlon was broad shouldered and tall, standing equally with Cassian's full height. His hazel eyes were narrowed, most permanently on herself and then back to Cassian and Azriel. He stood guarded, arms folded across his chest, legs spread shoulder-width apart.
"You're back already?" He sounded inconvenienced, but not outright angry.
"We've come with new orders." Cassian answered, rustling his large wings.
This was their old home, Naya knew, Windhaven. Azriel had told her on the flight over, shared little stories of his time growing up late in the camp where he had been dumped at the age of eleven and taken in by Rhysand's mother.
"They truly don't clip the females here?" Naya had asked in awe, tucked securely into Azriel's warm arms. She shifted her weight to stare up at his jaw that was now growing a dark shadow.
He shook his head. "Rhysand had forbidden it before Amarantha. Windhaven is one of the very few who didn't fall back into the old ways when she trapped him under the mountain."
She digested the information. "But they still aren't allowed to train?"
"No." he replied sadly.
Lord Devlon didn't look unkind. He had brown hair clipped to his scalp that revealed a pale scar that curved along his skull. She supposed it should be intimidating, a fighter's mark, but something in the way he talked to Cassian made her feel like he wasn't all anger and hate.
"What new orders?" Lord Devlon asked.
"We'll discuss it soon. Gather your females, any that are of age, and bring them to me." Cassian ordered. His tone suggested no room for argument.
The camp lord stepped forwards anyway, leaning in to demand, "What do you wish with the females?"
"Now."
Lord Devlon held his unwavering stare, searching for an answer Cassian didn't feel obligated to give.
"Do not make me repeat myself, Devlon." Cassian warned on a growl.
The camp lord reluctantly turned away, back towards his commanders and barked a demand to dismiss them. They looked between themselves in heated suspicion, but followed their lord's order and divided amongst themselves to seek out the females.
Devlon joined them shortly.
Naya looked to her companions for guidance. The high she had been riding after seeing the camp being built slowly started to fade into anxiety. Having a dream and chasing it were two completely different things. She knew the order would not be met with elation, knew they were shoving an iron nail in the already-tense alliance between the camps and the Night Court, but she did not know if it would turn to violence.
Windhaven was a large camp, much larger than her own, filled, even with so many deaths from the war, with hundreds of fighting-aged males. If things turned sour, she wasn't sure they would be making it out of there unharmed. Could Cassian and Azriel take on so many? Would the respect this camp lord seemed to have for them allow this, to him, sure to be low-blow of an insult?
Azriel's stance was much like Lord Devlon's had been, though he kept his arms comfortably at his sides instead of folded over his chest. Cassian seemed more casual, more at ease than she would have thought possible. He threw his gaze around the camp, soaking in the movements of the people around them.
The females closest were as suspicious as the commanders had been, a tense whisper chorusing through their masses as they followed the lead of a single male to stand before the three of them.
The commander told them to wait before he went on to collect more.
Not one of the females dared to meet the eyes of either Cassian or Azriel. They kept their chins either tucked respectfully into their chests, gazes on their feet or to the other females in their group.
Very few were brave enough to look at even Naya, who stood, she hoped, in a confident and non-threatening manner. She tried to catch the gazes of several, to offer a look of trust and friendship in the moments their stares would lock, but the second they noticed her returning their curious looks, their eyes would flit away and find another target to rest upon.
The space in front of them was filling quickly. Females of all ages above that of mating age became a crowd larger than that of the males who, too, had gathered along the edges in curiosity. A wave of different colored hair stretched far, blacks and blondes and grays. Most wore dresses, a fraction nicer than the others. Dirt and flour and blood stained the fabric of many.
"That is all of them." Lord Devlon returned with his commanders, and he waved out to the masses. "Care to share now?"
The entire camp had stopped their daily duties, and a roar of noise, whispers and annoyed grunts met their ears. Other than in war time, Naya assumed they had rarely ever been all together like this.
Cassian raised a hand into the air, and the silence that washed over the entirety of the camp was almost as deafening as their noise.
"We bring an offer to the females of this camp," he began, and in that silence, his voice carried. "Your leaders have been ordered time and again to allow space for you to train, and time and again they have resisted."
"What is this?" Lord Devlon demanded hotly, but Azriel stepped between him and Cassian, effectively blocking off his question and his view.
"We have suffered great losses in this war. I know not one of you here haven't felt the burden of those losses." His pointed gaze sifted through the crowd, pausing here and there to rest on Illyrians who looked up in shock to meet it.
"Our numbers have been diminished severely. We are weakened by it. Your leaders would breed you rather than train you, wasting your years and your bodies. The High Lady and Lord of Night offer you an alternative."
The crowd was buzzing, the whispers growing louder. Naya couldn't determine which was more prominent, the disbelief or the anger. Males on the outlines were shifting, stepping closer to their separated females.
"We have built a new camp for females who wish to train, one that will be female led. Any female who wishes to join may step forward now."
The roar of hundreds split the day. Males stormed into the crowds of females, gathering them by wrist or arm, tucking them into their possessive embraces as they cried their rumble of outrage. The opportunity for females to decide was ripped away before they even had the chance to think.
"You will not!" Lord Devlon bit out, stepping around Azriel to face off a seemingly unbothered Cassian.
He ever so slowly turned to meet the fury of the camp lord as if he had all the time in the world, ignoring the unrest bubbling to unimaginable heights around them.
Words of hatred were being thrown at them, demands for their Lord to put a stop to this growing increasingly louder. Devlon felt the intensity of their anger, displayed it now to the Commander of the Night Court's armies.
Naya spun on the spot, not knowing where to look or what to listen to. She was being blinded by the flashes of steel being pulled from sheaths, deafened by their screams.
When Azriel took a step back towards her, she met him halfway, allowing for his offered comfort to calm her slightly as he secretly brushed his fingers down her arm.
He was calm. Cassian too. She focused on that. They knew what they were doing. They had both fought in battles and wars that had hardened them to this. Perhaps it was next to nothing to them.
"I've given you chances, Devlon." Cassian spoke, greeting this male with a downward glance. "You've withered them all."
"We've done what you've asked." He ground out. "We've trained females."
"Display it to me. Show me a single female with battle training." Cassian challenged.
Lord Devlon sputtered, giving nothing to prove his words, most likely had nothing he could to do just that. He took another threatening step forward. Cassian did not take one back.
"That's what I thought."
"Our females do not wish to be trained to be warriors. They are happy in their roles here."
Cassian raised a brow at the declaration. "Then there is no problem. If your females don't wish to train as you say, then none will step forward, will they?"
Lord Devlon's glower could melt the snow around them. "If you do this," he warned. "You will lose the loyalty of the Illyrians."
"Unloyal Illyrians have no place in the Night Court." Cassian retorted. "They'll be hunted the same as the ones the High Lord disposed of after Amarantha."
The promise boiled the air between them. Several minutes passed in silence. They faced off in heated glares, neither relenting, until finally something crossed Lord Devlon's expression, a hint of triumph Naya barely caught before he turned to face his males.
"Very well." He shouted, intending for his words to reach those of his soldiers who stopped to listen to his sudden booming voice. "We will give them females."
Before a second round of outrage cut him off, Lord Devlon continued. "They may take any female who steps forward."
The first laugh was harsh and cruel. A few soldiers pushed their women forward, buying into the game their lord was playing, and allowed the ones who could not catch themselves in time to fall to their hands and knees. There, they rested in that position.
"Go ahead." The males seemed to say to them. "Take that step."
It was a fear tactic, one Naya had known would happen. Perhaps not on this magnitude, faced off with so many outraged faces, but she knew, if females were to come forward, now would not be the time they took that risk. Not in front of the males who had control of every aspect of their lives, not when they feared the punishment that would be dealt to any who was brave enough.
Cassian and Azriel seemed to know the same because neither outwardly reacted to not a single soul coming forward. They watched harsh faces meld into taunting smiles, didn't respond to jests and provocative slurs spit their way.
"You see." Lord Devlon turned back to face them, smiling broadly now. "Females are like a good dog. They find comfort in sitting, fetching and fucking when their master tells them to."
Naya took back everything she had previously thought of the lord as his pointed gaze raked over her body perversely, deliberately lingering on areas to make her uncomfortable.
"They need to be trained." He continued. "Just not in the way you think."
OOO
She knew where she would find them before she left the tent behind, left Azriel and Cassian to deal with the aftermath of their announcement, and she was right.
A number of females were gathered around the river that cut through the trees, dipping clothes into the rolling water and scrubbing them along a washing board. Some sat atop a blanket, conversing as they sharpened blades on wet stones. Others chopped wood into a pile or gathered buckets of water to carry back to their homes.
When she entered the clearing, every pair of eyes fell on her striding form and the work they had been doing paused. They didn't look much different than the females of her own camp, a majority of them skinny and shrunken. Some bore aprons to cover their dulling dresses while others didn't even have boots to cover their bluing toes.
Naya noticed several rounded bellies, future Illyrians carried in swollen wombs.
"We don't want you here." An older female barked out. "You'll only cause trouble."
Naya found her on a plaid blanket, sitting amongst five others. Her stringy hair was tied up in a bun atop her wrinkled head. She was missing most, if not all, of her teeth.
Her companions nodded along in agreement.
"I'm not here to cause trouble." Naya stopped once she reached the inline of trees, attempting to keep her tone reassuring.
"You'll cause it all the same."
More nods.
Naya didn't know how her message would be met, didn't know if this group was hiding in fear or in belief of a tradition that had been their way, her way, for all the time the Illyrians had soared the land. They may, indeed, be just as adamant in their place as the males had been.
"I'm here to tell you the Night Lady and Lord's offer still stands to any who wish for it."
The old female tossed aside her wet stone and glowered. It tumbled over the blanket and came to a rest in the snow. "We do not wish for it. Especially from an outsider who does not know our way of life."
Naya could only look down at her sadly, feeling the already losing battle growing weaker.
"I am not an outsider." she pushed. "I am Illyrian, punished for no more than longing for a life different from the shit one the males forced me into."
The old female curled her lips over her gums, pink and hardened on the bottom.
A younger, prettier female stood, and argued. "I do not believe you Illyrian."
Naya ripped the green sweater from her body, ripped it clean off and tossed it into the snow. She quickly unwound the bandages secured around her chest. Her nipples peaked in the cold. Gooseflesh coated her belly and arms. She discarded the bloody linen to the ground and spun for them to see.
The gasps she expected. The hisses of anger were a surprise because she did not know who they were directed towards, herself or the bastards who had done this to her.
Taking the wings of an Illyrian was considered the worst kind of injustice imaginable. Warriors had given up friends and family in war to save their wings. Intel had been lost to protect them. She knew the females would much rather believe her not Illyrian than to believe what she was telling them.
"They sawed them off because I wished to train in the ring with the males." Naya growled out, angered herself. "A right I was granted by our High Lord, but because their sexism, their belief that we are lesser than, they took something that was never their right to take."
She snatched her sweater up and threw it back over her head to pull down to her hips. She spun to face them again. She couldn't bring herself to be pleased by the mix of horror and anger and disbelief she met.
"This camp…" the pretty female began but her words faltered, unable to finish the question.
A hope heated Naya's body. "Is safe." She promised. "Its location will not be known by anyone other than the High Lord, his commanders and the inhabitants of the camp itself. He's provided food and clothes and a chance to train and rebuild as something stronger than what the males see us as."
Several females were sitting straighter, their attention rapt on her speech. A few stood to get a better look.
"Enough!" the older female yelled, pulling the younger to the blanket again. She collapsed on her rear, but did not oppose her elder and sat silent again.
"If your wings were taken as you say," she bit out harshly. "You ask only for us to risk the same. Our males allow us to fly, thrown away the old ways of clipping and granting us that gift."
"The gift to be beaten when you disobey?" Naya snapped back, and she purposely glared down at the others so they would hear the intensity of her words. "The gift of never being more than the lesser sex?"
"It is our way!"
"It's a barbaric way."
The older female glared up at Naya, wings flaring. "You come to our camp. You tell us what our ways should be. You threaten our livelihoods. You risk punishment for us all and you call it freedom when there are no real promises for a better life."
"I call it a chance."
"You show up with two males at your side. Tell us more about female liberation. Have you ever even fought in a war, little girl? Do you even know how to fight?"
Her tongue dried up. It parched in her mouth and felt two sizes too big. She could not answer.
The older female only shook her head.
"I know things need to change." Naya whispered. "I know we deserve better."
Attentions were falling, eyes lowering again to work. Females in the river turned away and resumed their laundry.
The old female shook her head again.
"Go." She ordered. "We will hear no more tonight."
Naya looked over the group of females, a pull in her heart to say more, to encourage them, to rally them to just listen, but she knew she had lost them.
"If anyone decides to take that chance." She called anyways. "We will wait for you in the morning at sunrise. Be at the commander's tent, and we will take you somewhere safe."
Nobody acknowledged her words, no one even glanced up, so she gathered her bandages and started back towards her tent, shame and anger warming her.
She hadn't even made it out of the tree line before rough hands were gripping and pulling her. One gathered a knot of hair at the base of her skull to shove her head downwards towards the snow.
"Nice tits." A boisterous voice laughed.
"Wouldn't mind fucking them." Another agreed.
Naya fought against their hold, blinded by her panic, kicking out her feet, trying to loosen their grasp on her arms.
She opened her mouth to scream but all that came out was a muffled noise as fingers splayed over it and she was flipped to her back.
Two Illyrians stood above her, blocking out the sky above with their bodies and wings. They looked absolutely delighted to have found her. Evil smiles curved their lips as they pressed her firmly into the ground.
"Now you listen here, you bitch." The larger of the two leaned down to separate their faces by less than an inch. His hot breath washed over her wide-eyed face. "You will leave this camp, take your boys with you, and never set foot in it again."
The second squeezed her arm painfully, twisting harshly to bring out a cry.
"If you don't, we'll find you again, we'll have our fill of you, and then we'll kill you."
He reeled back his fist to slam into her stomach and she coughed against the pain. Her body curled upwards in reaction, attempting to close in on itself. They released their grip to step over her, smiling cruelly and walking away, leaving her laying, tear-streaked and gasping, in the mush.