Chapter 15

My toes poked just over the very edge of the balcony, the railing pushing against my ankle. Rhysand reached toward me, pinching at the coat and straightening the part that curved around my arm.

"Don't feel like being alone, today?"

I took in the breeze of the mountain wind. It was fresh and eased down my throat, satisfying every branch of my lung. "No," I whispered. For the first time in many years, being alone was lonely. Being by myself didn't mean that I was safer, it didn't mean anything other than being alone. "When is Cassian supposed to return?"

"A couple of days," he answered. "A week at most. Don't tell me that you miss him already."

"He has a big presence. When you go home for the night, there's only me and Azriel now." I smiled up at him through my lashes. "I'm not sure if you've noticed, but he's not a conversationalist." Quietness grew after the High Lord's note of agreement. I turned back to the city. Some part of me wanted to just right there on the balcony forever, the other part wondered if even staying within Velaris forever would be possible.

Fondness battled with memories.

"You said you had a sister." I couldn't stop myself. I had fallen asleep thinking about it. I had dreamt of my own brother and when I awoke alone, the pain stabbed between my ribs knowing that my dream was real. Watching him die wasn't some terrible nightmare that I could spend hours pondering on how to prevent. I couldn't share that woe and be soothed with assurances. I couldn't crawl into his room and snuggle into his side, knowing that he was simply sleeping. My nightmare was true. It was a memory and one that I don't think would ever disappear.

Rhysand's lips twitched. His chin tilted, as though he meant to look at me, but his eyes wouldn't drag away from his city. "Yes." I watched his chest move against the black fabric of his shirt. "She was quite the opposite of you. Carefree most days, careless others. She had a mix of Amren's bite by Mor's kindness."

"Sounds like my brother," I admitted, hoping that by him remembering that I knew what he felt, it wouldn't be so hard for him to speak. "Maybe he was more careful than I was, but we would sneak out at night. Sometimes to other camps, other times we flew until sunrise came and our mother would have our hinds for being out all night. That was before we knew what I was."

"I understand what that means." Rhysand bent further forward, bracing his entire forearms against the railing. "Being somebody that… has something that is valuable to others. It isn't just about protecting yourself. It's about protecting everybody around you because they will know who your weaknesses are."

The words weighed heavily upon my shoulders. Rhysand was utterly right, only he had known that long before I did. I wanted to ask if he had lost his sister the way I lost my brother. By doing something stupid and costing them their lives. I wanted it, for both our sakes, to be from something else. Learning from mistakes hurt. But it was the most effective way to learn quickly.

"For thirty years-" my voice cracked- "I thought I no longer had anything to lose but my wings and my life. I grew comfortable with that fact. Coming here… I didn't want to know any of you well enough to call you a friend. At first, it was because I wasn't sure whether to trust you or not, but of course I do and now I feel like I might have something to lose." My brows burrowed deeply, pulling the skin taut from the front of my ears. "I don't know how to not lose you. I don't know how to keep this."

His hand came to rest on the side of my shoulder. "I can't tell you not to worry," he said. "But I can tell you that there's no need to. This is my court, and my responsibility. I do everything I can to keep the people safe. There haven't been any threats to our home in many years." I chewed at my cheeks. Unable to meet his eye. He leant closer to me. "Unless there's a threat to you that I don't know of."

I shook my head. "I'm fine."

"When we found you in the camp, you were running from something. You never told us who. Or what."

"It's not anything that should cause trouble anymore." A lie if there ever was one. It was causing trouble right now, and Cassian was seeing to it. It wasn't that I feared losing them. I knew that Rhysand and his circle could handle almost anything thrown at them. They were a collection of some of the most powerful Fae and Illyrians alike. But I didn't want to be torn away. I didn't want to lose everything around me because I didn't know how strong to hold it.

Rhysand turned me away from the balcony, a hand now softly taking each of my upper arms. He searched my face; my eyes, my mouth. Anything that he could read. I threw the thoughts of Yalhalla away so if he decided to pry away at my mind, they would not be there to fight. "You would tell me, wouldn't you?"

Planting a smile, I nodded. "Of course."

I was completely, utterly, and inexcusably exposed for him. And the blood circulating my veins did not care. They did not care a single thread that at any moment they could fall apart in front of him. They wanted it. They wanted to tell him everything.

I couldn't give my body everything that it desired, but I gave it something. The fingers that had adamantly been cinching the short blanket around my arms released. My arms shot free of the material before it fell in a puddle around my feet. My chest collided with his, arms folding around him. Citrus and jasmine drowned my nose. The silk-like material of his shirt wrinkled easily under the growing tightness of my fingers, the fabric shifting against my palms.

For the first time in over thirty years, I embraced someone. And it was warm and it was kind and soft yet so hard that it felt like a shield standing over me. I wasn't terrified of what would happen to me; I didn't see flashes of another face; there was no hand gripping at my heart.

It was Rhysand that stiffened. It was his hands that hung in the air, unsure of where to go. Then, gradually, not all at once like I moved, gradually, his arms encircled around me. They tightened and snaked, one taking to my back, the other curving up to the back of my head. I felt him from every side of me. There was no escape from him—no weakness in his hold. And I knew that I was perfectly safe. The soft pad of his cheek rested against the crown of my head, his thumb making minute strokes behind the shell of my ear.

It took some time for me to pull away, but when I did, his arms fell, their stony rigidness no more. There were no words I could say, nothing important enough except for, "Thank you, Rhys."

His tipped his head with an even smile that showed more through his eyes than his lips. "I didn't feel like being alone today either. I'm glad you were around." He looked back to the city, lips widening. "I used to jump from these balconies. Sometimes my mother would catch me but she would join every time. I'd fly over the Night Court until dawn."

"I'd do the same with my brother," I said. "In the mountains."

"Why don't we be that again." Rhys's hands trailed down the side of my arms, taking my hands and leant back. Behind him, his wings appeared, flared and ready for flight. "Children. Stay up all night flying."

The idea sparked something within me. I glanced over my shoulder towards the House. "Should… Should we tell Azriel where we're going? Or at least the twins?"

He laughed to the wind. "What's the point of sneaking out then?" I pursed my lips to hide the ever-growing grin. He tugged at my hands, pulling me closer to the far edge. He knew I agreed because his face brightened. He hoisted himself over the barrier, one hand still holding mine as though he thought I might back away, the other holding himself to the railing.

"You're acting as though a fall might kill you."

"You trick your mind into thinking it," he said. "That way, when you fall, you feel everything running through you." I stood in front of him, the railing the only thing between us. "Don't forget to fly though."

He let go of everything, his head tipping back as he fell towards the city below. I leant over the railing, watching his body push through the air. Just before he reached the ground, with a single twist of his form, he was soaring through the night. I could almost hear his bellowing laughter, beckoning me to join. In a haze of nothing but bliss, is spread my wings and allowed myself to tip over the edge.

Unlike him, I was flying far before I threatened hitting the ground. I caught up to his side and matched his speed. There was something different about flying at night. Flying where nobody but the stars could see you. The lights of the city grew dimmer each minute that our wings rippled through the wind, flying over trees and between mountains. I didn't bother trying to figure out which way we were going, my entire faith placed in him.

We rolled through the sky, banking close to the stone and earth and atop of the tree canopies. At one point, he disappeared from my sight. I searched around and below me but could not see his dark form in the night. Just as I was about to slow and truly begin searching, something latched onto my waist and swerved my form around.

The wind carried my laughter as he directed me from above like a mother teaching their child to fly. I hadn't flown like this in years. I hadn't flown without a destination in mind. With someone else by my side like a shadow watching over me.

We took a hard turn left, a bit too close to a tree for my liking. The bone of my hip ground into his palm. He muttered an apology, but I only laughed again. Eventually, I was flying on my own again, a pure, beautiful silence between us as the canopy of woodland passed just under our stomachs.

Until I wasn't.

Screams pounded against my ear. Fire flashed in front of me. The unmistakable sound of swords clashing, then driving through flesh. I had no body, but I was there. I was seeing something. My Sight flickered around, trying to make sense of what I was seeing. Illyrians. Two, maybe three different camps.

There was a distant call of my name.

I saw him between the blur of bodies. Dark as the night behind him, seven red siphons grew brightly against his leathers. He was fighting. The pearls of his teeth were bared, glints of moonlight reflecting off his Illyrian steel sword. What was happening? Why was he fighting?

I never figured it out.

The battlefield washed away. The world mixed in a palette of brown and green. A piercing pain erupted from my wing but that was barely the start of it. My body collided with the trees, bark scraping at my skin, snagging at my hair, clothes, and wings. I had no control over my fall. I flung against a large branch, something short but jagged penetrating into my side. The small stick broke off as I tumbled over the branch and collided against the earth below, blackness taking me without warning.