A Court of Wind and Fire: Chapter 5
TW: Slight mention of rape and violence at the very end
Diana's POV:
Gods, he looked exactly as I remembered him.
Most would think that immortality was an infallible tonic to age, and it was, guarding against the most obvious signs; drooping of skin, greying of hair, gnarling of bones. But it did not protect against a certain look in someones' eyes, one that revealed every secret, every loss, every piece of pain that burdened them. No true part of nature is designed to be immortal, despite how hard our race tries to disprove it. Every piece of this world is meant to be born together, to grow together and to die together. To watch everything wither away without you is too heavy a burden to not affect you in some way. Thus, we let our bodies stay lithe and beautiful, but are forced to watch as our minds wither away with the rest of the Universe.
I had always worried that this would happen to Rhysand, that if I ever came back by some miracle this look would plague his eyes as it had our father, our mother, every other old Fae whom we knew. Granted, a little over five hundred years was not the oldest I had heard of, but younger had succumbed. And the Gods knew that he had seen enough to speed up the process; even when I was still in Prythian the early whispers of war had already seeped into the Court. Although I was in Iktidar for most of my life, I knew that my homeland was not a peaceful one, that there was bound to be bloodshed, and worse, bloodshed my brother was involved in. But as I sat in that chair, the liquor bottle shattered beneath me and it's contents already starting to take effect, I looked at my brother and recognized him completely.
"I think we should speak."
I kept my gaze on him, and the desperation that seeped from his words only deepened with the look in his eyes.
"We should," I made sure my response was short, my tone curt. "Alone." The word was not so much a reply as it was a command. Each glance at him made every single stagnant emotion within come to a roiling boil, but I couldn't let it show. He may be my brother, but I have lived too long to let the ruse of family fool me. It was yet to be determined if I was truly safe.
Sitting slightly more upright, I tried to examine the room the best I could with the Gods be damned liquor starting to slur the thoughts in my head. I was a fucking fool for underestimating the sheer power of a fine Fae vintage, but even in my intoxicated stupor, I knew that the people that I had vaguely registered behind Rhysand were far too dangerous to sit in on our conversation.
Rhysand shifted with uncertainty on his feet at this, worry clouding the emotions in his face. I smothered the urge to snort at the fact that he was troubled by the prospect of it just being the two of us. He clearly was no longer the fierce warrior I once knew him to be if he was frightened to speak to his half-drunk little sister.
"Oh come on darling, I don't bite." I whispered, edging forward, my incoming laughter beginning to pierce the words. Clearly not finding this funny in the slightest, Rhysand's eyes shifted from mine, meeting those of a female behind him. She had golden-brown hair and freckled skin, her face unfamiliar to me even in the vaguely sober part of my mind. There was something about her, a kind of raw power that thrummed in the air between us. Eyes widening at the gaze of my brother, her grey-blue irises swirled with a feeling that I barely recognized, but could put a name too. Love, but not the one that just anyone could capture. The love of a mating bond. I settled back in my chair, feigning boredom to disguise the fact that the reality of having been away for five hundred years was beginning to set in.
A mate, of course, he had a mate. And annoyingly, an extremely powerful one. For a few moments, they stared at one another, seemingly having a conversation with just their eyes. Finally, the female strode over to Rhysand and took his hand in hers. The scent of their mating bond was overwhelmingly thick, a strength and potency to it that I hadn't known even in our parents. Reaching her lips to his ears, she whispered a few words too quiet for even me to hear and gave him a reassuring smile. That was all it took for my brother to turn back around and nod in agreement.
"Fine then," he said, the reluctance of his tone not entirely washed away from his heart to heart with his mate. "Alone."
At this, the room began to file out, first the healers and then the rest of what I supposed was his Inner Circle. I scanned them, searching for just a single moment of recognizance from my drink addled mind, and yet I couldn't find them. As raw as the emotions were, the names, the lives, the warnings failed to reach me. But as I looked at each one the eyes, barely registering the tears and the sheer grief that poured from their faces, I noticed one had failed to even glance at me. One of the Illyrians, tall and muscular, a preternatural stillness to him that was most likely designed to let him hide in the abnormally dark shadows that shrouded him. But to me, this did the exact opposite. Even faced away from me, all I could sense was danger, the feeling enveloping my body and coursing through my veins. But this danger did not threaten me. Instead, my blood ran icy cold.
Sensing my eyes on him, the Illyrian began to stir, turning ever so slightly to meet me. I dropped my eyes, letting the coolness of my hair calm the panic beginning to bloom on my face. Looking down, I could barely see the dark hair and tanned skin, but I could still feel the coolness of shadows whisper and twirl around me like dancers, the familiar, unmistakable sensation of Azriel.
A name.
Azriel.
SLAM!
I nearly jumped as the door thudded shut, the heavy oak resounding against the frame. I looked up, still reeling from what had just happened. Swallowing the lump in my throat, I sized my brother up, waiting for him to speak first. Partly because I was far too arrogant to be the eager one in this situation, and also because I wasn't sure my voice wouldn't come out a petrified croak. Almost a full minute passed between us. He seemed to not be able to tear his eyes away from my face, a terrifying vulnerability to his expression the polar opposite of the trained indifference I plastered on my own. We had had many moments like this in the last few months I spent in Velaris, only I was the one with the tearful gaze and him with the cool grin and uncrackable eyes. How different we had become. It almost made me sad.
I narrowed my eyes again, suddenly aware of the softening of my cheeks. Almost.
"Where were you?"
His words were a cry, begging for a similar response.
"Perhaps I should ask you that."
It was time he learned I did not cry.
Rhysand's eyebrows jumped, the sincerity of the shock on his face disgusting me. "What do you-" I didn't let him finish, rising from the armchair with a slight wobble from the drink.
"You know exactly what I mean," I seethed, controlling all the emotions in my voice except the untameable rage. "Where the bloody hell were you as half of your family was butchered at the Spring Court's expense?" Rhysand took a step forward, mirroring my step back.
"Diana, I didn't know," He let his palms, once outstretched in what I supposed was an effort to touch me, fall to his sides, defeated. "I promise you, had I had the slightest idea you were in trouble, I would have…" the words trailed off, my brother unable to finish them. "Please Diana," his lip began to tremble, the words breaking, "Please." I turned away from him. I might have been all cool humor and apathy when this conversation began, but now I was boiling, fists shaking from pure anger.
"Please what Rhysand? Please forgive me, please forget how the last five hundred years have not been so much a life as a living fucking hell?" I looked up at the window in front of me, the panes enveloping the winter sun that was beginning to fall to the mercy of the moon. Something I would have given every piece of soul to watch once more when I was in Iktidar. I span around, the power within me threatening to explode into pure darknight if I stood one moment more at that window.
"Believe me, Diana, I have felt as much pain as you have, hurt in my heart exactly as you do now," Rhysand whispered, unabashed tears rolling down the planes of his face, "Fate has been the cruelest master to us, but let this be a new beginning. Let us live the life that we dreamed of." How could he speak of dreams, of hope, of new beginnings? By the Gods, I hated him. I hated the way he looked at me like he used to look at our mother, the way he spoke my name like a prayer when each word from his lips sounded like a curse. He knew nothing of my pain, of the hurt in my heart. He knew nothing at all and deserved as much.
I strode right up to him, our noses almost touching, his falling tears a stark contrast to the snarl on my face.
"Fate?" I whispered, my eyes piercing his, "You say that our mother being repeatedly raped, tortured and decapitated while still screaming for her children is fucking fate?" I spat out the word, let the venom flow from my tongue to his mind. "That a ten-year-old forced to forsake her home, her family, everything she had ever known in this world to spare her life, is fate?" I laughed, a humorless choke pushed from my lungs, "And you expect me to agree? To kiss your ring of ignorance and pretend that you are not the sole reason for everything I have ever lost in my life? Then you are worse than our sadist of a father, worse than those soldiers that dragged me from the camp, worse than the rabid hounds that tore our mother's corpse apart."
I grabbed his shirt dragging his ear to my lips, finding little resistance, letting the tears spill on my shoulder and the sobs ring in my mind.
"You are no part of my dreams, Rhysand."