Nesta walked through the snow drifts curling along the stone path, her boots crunching on the bits of icy snow beneath her. Silent, everything was silent. Her breath billowed in the frozen air as she strode through a large array of tents, the occupants inside talking in mere, undiscernible whispers. This place was many things: miserable, backwards, full of ignorance but never was it silent. The sound of her boot clad feat crunching beneath her echoed too loudly.
Most of the females had retreated to their tents, only a few still remaining to finish up chores in the last of the evening's fading rays before rushing home. Rhys had addressed them, called them all out, females and males alike, assuring them that no female would lose their wings under his guard and protection. And that any caught cutting their wings or another's would be captured and tried for treason.
Some attempt at trying to draw them out, Nesta mused, watching the last of the watery light vanish behind the peaks. A pitiful one. How, exactly, did he plan to protect them?
He hadn't exactly done a good job protecting her niece when it had mattered most. Nor had he managed to pin down the simpering fools who'd instigated this revolt time and time again.
No, Nesta felt that her sisters' mate's words fell rather flat.
A hundred years of this, with ebbs and flows of little rebellions that were stomped out before they could grow. None had been this bad since the first and the last, the first immediately after the war. When tensions had been high over the death of warriors, Kallon and his lovely bunch had sought out to overthrow Rhys, calling forth Enalius, the towering, boorish brute who was named after the ancient famed warrior, to lead them.
Too bad he'd found his head spiked upon a wooden pike on Ramiel during the Rite that spring. Unfortunate, really, that he'd sought out Nesta as prey and instead had found himself carrion.
She almost smiled at the memory.
The last had been fifteen years prior when the so-called "king," the fledgling Silbah, youngest brother of Enalius, had challenged Rhysand and had nearly killed him before vanishing in the dead of night, never to be heard from again.
Silence had reigned since then.
Not that it changed anything, not with the cultists rising again and most trails leading to dead ends. At least the shadowsinger had made himself useful, he'd been on the hunt since Celeste's death and not even Elain's warmth had been able to thaw the ice that had encased his heart after her loss.
Any Illyrians he found with connections never walked away, and their bodies were never found. Nesta wasn't certain there was an accurate tally of how many he'd wiped from existence. Not that she minded it.
Cassian had guessed what Azriel was doing, had not entirely condoned it but had not spoken against it either, the pain in her mate's eyes clear each time the memory of that loud, bratty child was mentioned.
She toyed with the small slip of silver ribbon stitched securely on the inside of her pocket.
No, she'd been happy to hunt the traitors in secret at the shadowsinger's side and had felt nothing but satisfaction as she's washed their blood from her blades.
Not that her sisters or her mate knew.
She'd protect the females in this camp herself, by whatever means necessary.
A sliver of a memory of man cornering her flitted at the edge of her memory before she shut it away, a fragmented bit of the past when she'd felt weakness like a wound.
None of these women would feel that helplessness and terror of being unable to protect themselves.
Nesta dutifully ignored the peeking glances of the braver females who watched her walk by on their retreat home, their eyes gleaming with something akin to awe and fear.
Striding up the small incline towards the family house, she noted that an oversized bastard had planted himself firmly in the doorway, his wings tucked tight and arms crossed over his broad chest. He quirked a brow at her but she dismissed it, not in the mood for his pestering.
Her dismissal was ignored.
"I saw you and Valka were having a bit of a discussion, sweetheart," Cassian smirked from his propped position in the doorway to the house, specks of ice blowing through his hair as harsh winds carved their way through the canyon. "Seems she's utterly unfazed by this."
"She is," Nesta replied, keeping her gaze forward, ignoring the burning anger turning in her stomach. She was pissed at the world and didn't care who knew about it.
His nostrils flared.
"Not in the mood to talk?" her mate goaded, leaning down towards her, his lips pulling back in that slashing grin that fueled both her annoyance and attraction.
"I don't see how it's any of your concern." Nesta replied coolly, eyes still focused forward as she made to move around the hulking male into the warm interior. "Move, Cassian."
A hand reached out and caught her arm, gently but firmly. "Nesta," She turned her gaze to meet the hard hazel of Cassian's, his jaw tight as he looked her over, that territorial bullshit bleeding out. "Talk to me."
She stared him down, silver locking with brilliant hazel.
"No." She shook out of his hold and stepped around him, barely hearing the growl that rumbled free from his throat as she made her way inside.
"Nesta," he repeated, his footsteps lumbering behind her as she made her way toward the stairs, the fire casting the room in rich hues of orange and gold, "we're not playing this game. You can't just shut everyone out again-"
She had already hit the last step on the landing and turned towards the nearest door, prying its ancient hinges open with a creak before shutting it sharply in the face of the male at her heels.
His brazen presence would bring her no comfort tonight, not as the coldness of death lanced through her veins with every breath she took.
She heard him curse beyond the door, the sound of the wood groaning beneath his grip on the knob, debating whether he'd come in.
Nesta already knew his decision when she heard the long sigh muffled on the other side of the door. She had already begun stripping from her leathers, pulling her jacket free as his footsteps retreated.
Cassian's warmth would not melt the hoarfrost that wrapped around her soul until they were all dead.
That woman was his undoing, his salvation, and the main source of his deep frustration Cassian noted none too pleasantly as he slammed another log down and spliced through it, splinters flying in all directions.
She crawled under his skin when she got like this, so angry that she spoke to no one, becoming that pillar of unbendable steel.
He'd known from the second her eyes had landed on those wings that it'd be an absolute shit show. Had fully expected her to finally throw Devlon off a cliff just to satiate her annoyance and to potentially level a few tents for good measure.
He hadn't expecting to be on the receiving end of it.
Cassian slammed the axe into another piece of wood, his teeth gritted as he swung the blade again and again. His anger fed his focus so much that he didn't notice the rippling of shadows or his brother stepping from them beside him. Didn't notice as Azriel walked up and stopped before him, watching him work.
"Firewood?" the shadowsinger inquired in that voice like midnight, startling Cassian. The general nearly jumped before narrowing his eyes in annoyance.
"You could just announce yourself like a normal person, you know," he hissed at Azriel, dropping the axe down to his side, panting from exertion. "You're going to scare me half to death one of these days."
Azriel said nothing but glanced upwards towards the dark windows of the second level of the house, his brows furrowing, the shadows dancing around his face dark and dense.
"She's pissed, in case you were wondering," Cassian replied with sarcastic sweetness, gathering up the copious amount of wood he'd chopped in the hours since Nesta's dismissal. "Don't think I'll be sleeping anywhere but the couch tonight."
"There were more wings along the outer eastern edge," Azriel murmured, his eyes near glowing in the faint light trickling from the house as he stared off into the distance. "The final count was exactly eleven hundred and twelve."
Cassian swore as he dumped the wood onto the pile outside the door, brushing stray bits of bark from his hands. The cold air bit painfully into his exposed neck from where his hair pulled away from his face.
"The same number as the first list of casualties that was sent during the war with Hybern." Azriel continued, glancing down at his gloved fingers, cobalt siphons flashing with the promise of death. Cassian gritted his teeth in aggravation, were they were still holding onto that shit a century later-
"So it's a counting game now?" He shook his head, snarling, forcing the down the swell of the killing power beginning to pool beneath his siphons. "Would they like us to remind them of how many men from other courts fell? It wasn't just our people."
"Your people." Azriel said quietly but not gently, his face set with cold death. He'd entirely sworn off his Illyrian heritage when they'd killed Celeste. Cassian hadn't tried to sway him back, had known it'd be useless. Hell, he had almost thrown his own ties away.
He ran a hand through his hair. It hadn't been until Silbah had tried to kill Rhys that his loyalties began to run thin. Until they taken the sweet-faced girl who had heckled him from the time she'd come out of her mother's womb and broken her just to spite his brother.
But somehow he found he couldn't quit fighting for them, for what blood ran through his veins. Couldn't stop fighting for the ones who were worth saving.
Even if their actions made him want to obliterate the camp, to level the mountain, to be rid of the bastards who kept tearing into the Court of Dreams.
He settled for a change of subject.
"Where's Rhys?" he inquired, lifting another large block of wood and settling it on the old stump before lifting the axe once more.
"The Hewn City," Azriel replied. Cassian nearly missed the log with his strike, shock reverberating through him. He wedged the axe into the stump and stared at the other male.
"Why?"
Azriel's face revealed nothing. "He wanted to be alone."
"So he opted to go to that shithole." Cassian rubbed at his eyes, his forehead wrinkling. "Because of course he did. Anything else completely irrational you'd like to tell me about?" He sighed, raising his head. "He told the others, didn't he? Told Feyre."
"Yes."
Cassian looked up at the stars, bright above his head, twinkling in the same way they had his entire life. His mind shifted to Cenric, to his nephew who looked so much like his father and would soon be facing the Rite in the thick of this mess.
As if reading his mind Azriel muttered, "Cenric shouldn't be taking the Rite this year."
Cassian tossed the log off the stump and sat down, clasping his hands before him. "No, he shouldn't, but is it right of us to deny it to him? We weren't exactly popular then." Not that they really were now, either.
"We had each other," Azriel reminded him, pulling his wings close as the wind picked up, slicing painfully into the sensitive membrane. "He has no one."
Cassian had no retort for this.
For Cenric had made no allies within the Illyrians, none aside from the doe-eyed girls who watched him with fluttering lashes and barely contained sighs over his "razor sharp cheekbones" as Cassian heard them whisper as they trotted past.
They wouldn't save him in the games of war.
Cassian cleared his throat. "We could retake it, you, Rhys and I." He thought back on the memories of that bloody assault on Ramiel, on the close calls they had faced together, the dangers that his nephew would be forced to face alone, his soul nearly as soft as Elain's. "We could protect Cenric and put some of these pricks in their place."
"He will not accept that," Azriel said knowingly but half-focused, his attention having flitted to the edge of camp, watching. "And he will likely die for it."
"Az," Cassian ground out, fear tightening in his chest at his brother's words, "give the kid some credit, he is training under us, you know."
"Doesn't matter," the shadowsinger shook his head, bits of ice beginning to accumulate on his lashes as the night's true darkness settled in. "They will hunt him without rest. Will kill him only to spite us. He should not go." Cassian heard the unspoken words: Now or ever.
"He's as stubborn as his parents when it comes to what he wants," Cassian snorted. "We can't prevent what drives him in his blood, we can only prepare him for what is to come. He wants revenge."
"He's not the only one," Azriel fixed his hard gaze on Cassian, the darkness in his eyes weighing heavily on the general. "Let him hunt them outside the Rite, fuck tradition."
Cassian tried not to think on the missing Illyrians who had disappeared in droves over the last decade, over the absent bodies and empty hearths that no longer burned. Azriel had been thorough.
"We could postpone the Rite," he offered, considering. "With everything going on we could force it, make them see reason. Then Cenric would have no need to participate."
The skepticism in Azriel's face spoke enough of what he knew suggesting that would do.
"Let's at least discuss it with Rhys, with Feyre, get their input." The cold was beginning to wear even on Cassian, his hands stiff and teeth near chattering. "We're not going to let Cenric die, Az."
Azriel's shadows flickered and his attention once again shot to edge of the wood, his eyes narrowing.
"Go inside."
"Az-"
The shadowsinger vanished, the spot where he stood empty and wisps of snow curling in his absence.
Cassian only let out a heavy sigh, weariness wearing on him.
Valka was freezing her ass off as she stood at the edge of the forest, watching the general and shadowsinger exchange quiet words, agitation tightening the former's motions.
Nesta was nowhere in sight, not that she had expected her to be. Her Captain had been itching for hell when she'd found her earlier and Valka knew full well she'd likely locked herself in some remote location to cope with that monstrous temper of hers.
Too bad she wasn't expending it wiping the dipshitted males off the mountain. A couple well-placed blows and Valka would never have to hear their monotonous bragging every again.
"Cenric should not be taking the Rite this year."
She perked up at the mention of the Lord's son, the dapper blue-eyed mixed blood with those broad shoulders. The one she'd been tasked with watching.
Even she knew that the male would refuse to not participate, his thick-headedness nearly as bad as the rest of his mismatched clan. She continued to listen, straining to hear the exchange but knowing inching closer would reveal herself.
And she was, under no circumstances, to be caught. She pushed down the fear of what would happen if she were caught—no, fear would only kill her. Attention and thorough, crafty thinking would keep her safe.
Just as she'd been trained in for years, dancing that delicate line between treason and loyalty.
"We could retake it." At that, Valka stepped forward. The prospect of those three on the mountain all at once . . . it'd be a blood bath, but if she could get close enough to them, to get them alone with no watching eyes . . .
She felt the attention of the shadows shift and cursed herself, pressing her back into the tree and gritting her teeth.
She had no desire to be bled dry by the shadowsinger and she didn't doubt his intentions for a second. She suspected he'd gut a cat for hissing at him with the front he carried like a stone of vengeance.
Valka quite liked her guts where they were.
So she began to coo at the shadows, digging to that place where he had taught her to dive to, to placate the darkness so that it did not seek. She felt the attention ease, their conversation still flowing easily.
". . . postpone the Rite . . ." No, she thought violently, they couldn't do that, she couldn't afford for them to— she nearly hissed.
". . . We're not going to let Cenric die."
She felt it then, the rumbling of the darkness, the shadows searching, finding, targeting. She wasted no breath as she shot off into the dark, fleeing with a curse.
An amateur mistake.
Valka sat in a high tree, still out of breath after the long hours of barely evading the shadowsinger hunting her like a starved wolf in the night.
Her escape was only successful thanks to her knowledge of the land's layout, an intricate understanding that only one born and raised in these wind-swept steppes could attain. An understanding that was greater than even the shadowsingers. She'd masked her trail and planted false ones, but still had struggled to shake him. Had it not been for whatever called him off she was certain she would have been caught.
He'd finally flitted off an hour earlier, as the first thin rays of the light bled through the trees.
This shit wasn't worth risking her life for.
Once she was certain the shadowsinger was gone she slipped down from the tree, intent to head back to camp miles away when she landed before an ethereally beautiful dark-haired woman, her large eyes soft as she took in Valka.
The hair on her arms rose.
How had she found her out in the middle of the wilderness, miles and miles from camp, when the even the shadowsinger hadn't been able to pin her?
"Mother-" she began, the muscles in her wings bunching as she took in the female's lithe small frame, her clipped wings rising delicately above the cloak of tan cloth draped about her delicate shoulders. The faint remnants of the scent of bread clung to the fabric. "What are you doing out this early?"
The female adjusted the basket in her arms, full of dark red berries, ripe and leaking.
"Picking winter berries for the pre-Rite feast; I want to prepare them," she replied in that soft voice, her green eyes full of concern, such nauseating concern, as she offered out the basket to Valka. "I was wondering where you wandered off to last night."
"I went to check on my Captain," she offered casually, making no move to take the basket as she stepped back from her mother. "Seems she's angered about all of this business with the cults."
Such carefully phrased words, such dangerous territory.
"Valka," the woman chided softly, titling her head, "you know it's unwise to speak of such ill omens."
"Well, it seems like no one's pinned anyone down yet." She watched a stray berry fall from her mother's basket, its pink juices staining the snow. "It's as though they've all vanished into thin air."
"Really?" the woman hummed, contemplating. "Well, may the Mother bless their hunting." She offered out a soft, smooth hand, the hand of a female who spent her days sewing. A lady. "Let us go home."
Valka carefully avoided the outstretched hand, covered in splotches of berry juice, and began walking alongside the small female, her back stiff, warning words echoing in her mind.
She tried not to turn and look as she heard the scuttling of little feet, likely a squirrel whose reserves were running low after the winter. Tried to ignore the telltale faint chewing noises of a hungry animal before the gasping began. The horrendous screeching and retching as whatever had foolishly eaten the berry died.
"The moth berries are strongest in the last throes of winter," her mother remarked calmly, her face the perfect picture of serenity. "If they are not cooked correctly the toxin within them will kill even the hardiest of warriors. They must be prepared wisely, but when precision and caution is used, the poison burns away and the sweetest jam in Prythian is made."
Valka's throat had gone dry, the smell of death from the small creature curling at her nostrils. "Of course, Mother."
"Did you hear what happened to Serys?" Her mother clicked her tongue in distaste. "How foolish of her to challenge our High Lord like that." She shook her dark tresses and sighed, gazing skyward. "It is such a shame what happened to that poor child Celeste. May her soul rest in the warm arms of the Mother." The female smiled, looking down and catching Valka's stony gaze with deep emerald. "I love you, my sweet Valka. Forever."
Valka heard the promise in that tone, the conviction, and only stared off into the snow, the cold wind around her somehow sharper.