A.N.: I came up with this idea after a really very-very not good awful week teaching. You know when things just keep piling on and the people who should be helping you just add to it? So naturally I thought of Nesta. Never have I empathised with her more!
If House of Flame and Flower is a healing journey for Nesta and Tamlin to find peace, then Shadow and Flame is definitely how Nesta uses her rage and her skills to become the very thing Rhysand and the IC dread.
I was inspired a lot by House of the Dragon, Game of Thrones and Half-Bad: Bastard Son and the Devil Himself on Netflix. Also, Yellowstone's Beth Dutton continues to inspire! I have a feeling Nesta would go absolutely feral over Rip Wheeler.
In this story, I refuse to shy away from exploring all Rhysand's many systematic abuses of Feyre and showing them for exactly what they are, as well as addressing the abuse of Nesta in the name of "helping her". Feyre should have been scarred for life by the nightly degradation she suffered at Rhysand's hands UTM but it's never even discussed again – except to have Rhysand justify and excuse what he did to her "for her own good"…
So if you're fiercely pro-Rhysand, click back now. This story isn't for you.
Trigger warnings: implied SA, physical violence, graphic injury detail – in this chapter but will not feature heavily. There will be some violence (fighting) and injury detail later but absolutely no explicit or further implied SA.
Shadow and Flame
01
Stop
" – get off me."
"Come on, Nes…"
"I said – Cassian – stop – get off!" Frantic, wriggling and kicking against his enormous body, her heart pounding in her ears as terror raced through her veins, Nesta struck out blindly, screaming in pain.
Magic rushed through her veins, the silver fire delicious and comforting, as she sank her fingernails into stubbly skin and tore through it. Relief swept through her, her heart soaring and her fingertips tingling as she thrashed out of Cassian's grip.
Cassian screamed. She had never heard a more agonised sound.
His fist came out of nowhere, landing solidly on the side of her face, sending her flying.
Pain shattered through her head and she dropped like a stone.
Azriel stepped out of the shadows of the trees and assessed the situation dispassionately. His shadows had whispered that something was amiss in the Steppes; Nesta was struggling against Cassian's embrace.
Their sexual escapades were not unknown to him; he endured the sounds of their fucking every night – or rather, every time Cassian felt the inclination to take Nesta over whichever surface was nearest. But this was the first time his shadows had urged him to intervene, tugging him as they rarely did, drawing him toward the source of their agitation. They were intuitive: they had brought him to the Steppes, exactly where he needed to be.
As he emerged from the shadows he had watched Nesta thrash against Cassian's determined hold, wriggling to find enough room to strike out. The blow would have been pitiful – if not for the way her entire hand glowed like flame made flesh, silvery and white, burning so hot it turned blue, sparks of sapphire and onyx jumping from her fingertips as she lashed out blindly and struck Cassian across the face. The slashes her delicate claws left in his skin disappeared in an instant as those embers leapt from her fingertips and ate away at Cassian's flesh.
Cassian bellowed, clawing madly at his own face, and punched Nesta with enough force to fell a young redwood.
Nesta was unconscious before she dropped: she hit the ground with devastating finality, not even stirring.
A second; that was all it had taken. A second for him to appear out of the shadows and watch, utterly horrified, as Nesta was thrown to the ground.
Azriel stopped short at the sight of his brother. Something skittered across his skin; his hands clenched as his breath came in short, sharp bursts, watching Cassian's skin blister and melt, blacken and crack as silver flames lapped almost lovingly at his face, his throat.
He was hurting her, one of his shadows whispered mournfully. She told him to stop.
He watched Cassian grimly as he screamed and writhed, clawing at his own face. As the flames ate through his flesh, revealing the white bone of his jaw, Azriel's heart beat faster.
He had never been ashamed of his brothers until now. Until Nesta.
He tasted copper, nausea churning his stomach, as the wind shifted ever so subtly and the stench of Cassian's burning flesh assaulted his nose and he gasped as if wounded, furiously trying to blink away the memories of his half-brothers laughing raucously as they pulled the ropes taut around his wrists, one brother pinning him in place while the other viciously yanked his hands over the burning brazier. He remembered their laughter, the malice in their words as he screamed and wept and shuddered, thrashing to get away, losing control of his bladder as he watched his own skin blister and melt, blackening like molten lava. He vaguely remembered the brutal warriors who barrelled into the room at the sound of his screams, pinning his half-brothers to the wall by their throats as the fastest of them bundled him up in their arms, soaring through the skies to the best healer.
It was the first time he had ever flown.
That day, he had learned many things. That there was unfathomable cruelty in the world – and that there were those willing to defy fear itself to do what was right. He had also learned to fear fire.
He froze, helpless to do anything but watch Cassian writhe in agony, because he still did.
As Cassian collapsed from the pain Azriel remembered all too well, Azriel turned to Nesta. She moaned softly, grimacing; a pitiful, pained sound escaped her lips. The left side of her face was already swollen and starting to bruise. Azriel knelt beside her, resting a hand tenderly on her back as she squirmed.
"Nesta," he breathed, and she stilled. He heard her sharp intake of breath and the sound of her heart skipping a beat. But nothing was worse than the stench of her fear coating his tongue and scorching his nostrils as she went rigid. He remove his hand from her back but did not move away. "Nesta, it is Azriel."
She flinched away from him, curling up in a tight ball. Making herself small – making herself inaccessible.
He sat back and carefully assessed her. Her leather jerkin had been unbuckled and draped over a mossy boulder. She could have removed it herself to cool down or else Cassian had undone the buckles and stripped it from her. But something had escalated between that careful moment and the next, for her top and short stays were ripped clean in half down the front and half hanging off one shoulder, revealing the swell of her high, heavy breasts. She was too frightened, too disoriented to realise her clothing was so dishevelled that she remained exposed. But her leather trousers remained belted and buckled around her waist, untorn. He exhaled shakily and cast a glare at Cassian, unconscious in the dirt.
Her face was flourishing with a bruise, swollen to twice its normal size already: he feared Cassian had broken her cheekbone and jaw and he worried about her teeth.
What the hell had Cassian done to her?
"Nesta…you need a healer," he said tenderly. "Will you let me bring them to you?"
As tenderly as he could, wincing with awareness as she flinched and shook in his arms, Azriel lifted Nesta into his arms.
He had to take her somewhere – somewhere safe. Somewhere she could remain hidden, safe, while he dealt with Cassian, while he figured out exactly what he reported to Rhysand, and how.
From what he had seen, Nesta had fought back against Cassian's unwanted advances.
It was her right to do so. It was her right to defend herself.
But he did not imagine Cassian would ever heal from that silver fire.
And the others would stop at nothing until they had punished Nesta for the wounds she had inflicted.
Pain searing his hands, his blood boiling with rage and purpose, Azriel's heart thumped in his chest and he held Nesta close, disappearing into the shadows of the woods that seemed oddly tranquil – birds sang and insects chirped, the breeze whispered through the evergreens, and it was calm. It was beautiful.
It was a beautiful spot: a stone ledge high above the forest, waterfalls tumbling far below into a winding river that glimmered like a silver ribbon through seas of emerald-green, the sky open, brilliantly blue with pillowy clouds chasing each other across the horizon as the sun blazed lower and lower.
It was a beautiful spot: a place for lovers to lose themselves in each other.
So far from Windhaven, Cassia had surely brought Nesta here for the view. Something a lover would do.
All Azriel knew was that Nesta had said no. Whatever else had happened, that was all that mattered. She had said no.
She had been so frightened that the magic she fought so hard to suppress had surged forth to protect her.
That was all he needed to know.
He disappeared into the shadows with Nesta, itemising things in his head. He had to get a healer to Nesta and to Cassian but there was no way he would bring them under the same roof ever again.
Keeping Nesta safe entailed keeping the truth from Rhysand for as long as possible – until he could control how the information was delivered. And measure the danger to Nesta for himself in the way Rhysand responded.
General feeling among Rhysand's Inner Circle toward Nesta was so vile, so unforgiving – so deplorable – that they would insist that she had burned Cassian on purpose. That she was the villain who deserved punishment for daring to use her magic against Cassian.
He knew how Rhysand thought. How he reacted to things. Rhysand had only ever been reactive: he allowed his decisions to be dictated by his emotions, by how severely his ego had been bruised. He would convince himself that Nesta had gone out of her way to hurt Cassian, intending to do far worse but was stopped by Cassian's strength and awesome power, that Cassian knocking Nesta out was self-preservation – and, worse, that demanding she yield to him was Cassian's right.
He would convince the others that Nesta was a threat to their safety and that they would be justified in ending her life.
Rhysand had been looking for excuses to execute Nesta for months, ever since Amren had made a remark about Nesta being the most powerful creature she had interacted with in her entire existence. She had the most potential, Amren had said.
Rhysand fixated only on what Nesta's potential meant as a threat to him.
It was Rhysand's paranoia, his rage and his envy that had led to that horrifying ambush at the River House. Azriel still burned with shame at the memory of it. He believed Feyre was truly concerned about her sister, or rather, that she was concerned how Nesta's messy adjustment reflected on her as High Lady and the image of the family she wanted to create for herself.
The splendid Nesta was not part of that image.
Feyre was battling her own ignorance and naïveté as well as her already imperfect relationship with her eldest sister. They did not have a strong bond to begin with; all they had endured – and how Feyre allowed her friends to treat Nesta after – had fractured that bond irrevocably. More worrying still was Feyre's whole-hearted belief that Rhysand and the others not only knew best but were acting in Nesta's best interests as they dictated her life, imprisoning her in the House of Wind with a dominant Illyrian male who had been given orders to neutralise Nesta as a threat.
Those had been Rhysand's words to them, stood before his large desk in the study of the River House. "Neutralise her, Cassian – by any means necessary. She must be broken, as any wilful female is."
"She is your sister by bond," Azriel murmured, frowning.
"She is a threat," Rhysand hissed. "A threat to all of us – she is an insult to our way of life!"
Azriel had glanced at Cassian, who carefully schooled his features, not revealing his alarm. Rhysand's Estoc upbringing was never more apparent than when he was confronted with the reality of a defiant female whose magic outmatched his. The things he used to say of Amarantha. It wasn't that she had bested everyone; it was that she, a female, had dared use her magic to enslave males and use them as her playthings. That females could be powerful and independent – and sexually liberated – went against everything the Estoc clans believed. The very idea of Nesta was enough to make Rhysand vibrate with self-righteous fury at the insult to his beliefs. Cassian had been exposed to so many different ways of life that his earliest conditioning in the Estoc camps had faded: truly, Cassian's only mental tie to the Estoc clan was the fact that he had to dominate every other male around him, one way or another. But Rhysand was a different monster altogether.
No matter what they were exposed to throughout the course of their lives, Rhysand still had his mother whispering in his ear, just as surely as Azriel had his shadows.
"If not for her, we would have no lives," Cassian had muttered mournfully, still haunted by the deaths of legions of Illyrians in the war. Nesta's scream across the battlefield had saved him; thousands more had perished in the blink of an eye. Cassian should have been one among them.
"Does that indebt us to her for all eternity?" Rhysand seethed, and even Cassian frowned at him, bewildered by his attitude. To be beholden to a female for their lives – that she had done what none of them had been able… That was intolerable to Rhysand, whether or not he could admit it. Azriel knew he never would.
It was the insult to his masculinity, his ego, that Rhysand punished Nesta for most of all. The remembered humiliation of defeat in Hybern coupled with Nesta's continued defiance – refusing to fawn over him – and the fact that she had prised the King of Hybern's head from his shoulders with her bare hands…
Rhysand feared her.
Azriel knew it. Cassian blinded himself to the truth, too afraid of losing Rhysand to see him as he truly was.
But Azriel saw. And he dreaded what it meant for Nesta. What it meant for all of them.
He brought her to the only place he knew of where she would be utterly safe. The house was small but pristine and he strode through it, careful of his wings, to a guest bedroom that had never been used. The dying sunlight filtered softly through cotton lace curtains, making the linen pillowcases on the twin bed glow invitingly. Tenderly, he lay Nesta down on the hand-woven wool coverlet.
"I need to retrieve Cassian," he told her quietly, opening the stiff window to allow the warm, perfumed breeze into the room. She stiffened. "I will not bring him here. I will return with a healer. Nesta… I need you to turn your face to me, so I can see. The healer will need to know how to help you."
With great reluctance, Nesta shuddered and angled her face to him. She was swollen – so swollen she could not see through her left eye. He heard the most piteous squeak of pain as she shook and shuddered on the soft coverlet. Confusion – that was what he saw on her face as she tried to open her mouth to speak. Her right eye flared wider and her fingers twitched, clenching.
He had seen worse injuries. But this… It was rare that was he so genuinely shocked. And yet he was.
He was shocked that Cassian had done this to her.
But she was so afraid, in so much pain, and his suspicions, he feared, were right; she had a broken jaw. She could not speak to ask what was happening. He couldn't make it worse by showing her how horrified he was, even if he wanted to burst into tears at the sight of her in this state. Cassian had done this to her.
He gave her the only thing he could; a gentle smile. "Rest," he said softly. "I will return with a healer. There is no-one else here; no-one will disturb you."
And, loathe to leave her alone when the stench of her terror gripped him so tightly, he disappeared.
He reached out of the shadows, grabbed Cassian roughly and flung him down on a low cot. "Do what you can," he said sharply to a waiting healer. "No need to make it pretty."
"What burned him?" a gruff male asked from across the room, rising from a sturdy table lined with scales, jars and bottles.
"A female."
"Good for her," the weather-beaten warrior grunted.
"I need Victaria," Azriel said, and the warrior frowned.
"Can't have her; there's a breech birth," he sighed heavily.
"I need a female healer, Eamon," he muttered urgently.
"That's the way of it, is it?" the ancient warrior-healer sighed heavily. He glanced over his shoulder at Cassian. He saw the accusation in his gaze, the question that went unasked, because they both knew the answer – Isn't that your brother? "What happened?"
"He hit her. I saw her drop. I believe she has a broken jaw and cheekbone, perhaps a fractured eye-socket."
"Swelling?"
"Awful. I didn't touch her, lest I do more harm than good," Azriel said.
"You said she dropped. How did she fall?"
"She may have hit her head," Azriel said. "But she is awake – aware. Too aware."
"I've my kit – don't dawdle," Eamon grumbled, clapping a hand on Azriel's shoulder and squeezing tight. Azriel drifted through the shadows with him, emerging on the worn front step of his home. A tiny noise made his ears twitch and he glanced up sharply at the open window above, the window of the guest-room. Eamon said something; Azriel did not hear it. They tore through the house, taking the stairs three at a time, and burst into the guest bedroom. Azriel skidded through a puddle of vomit on the painted floorboards, grimacing.
"You said she hit her head?" Eamon growled low, already in motion, focused entirely on Nesta.
"I said I thought she might have," Azriel said, horror stealing through him and settling heavily everywhere it touched.
He could not stop staring at Nesta as a violent seizure gripped her.
He should never have left her.
"Stop berating yourself and help me," Eamon grunted. Azriel hadn't said a word but Eamon knew him too well.
Gradually, the seizure subsided, loosening its grip on Nesta. Eamon examined her eyes, shooting him a scathing look for ignoring the signs – her right pupil was enlarged, the black consuming the grey-blue.
"What's happening, Eamon?" he asked quietly.
"You said she hit her head," Eamon sighed.
"Twice – Cassian punched her and I believe she hit her head when she fell to the ground," Azriel said breathlessly.
"Carry her to the kitchen-table," Eamon commanded. Azriel did as he was told, gathering Nesta up in his arms and praying another seizure did not grip her as he carried her downstairs. Eamon told him to gather towels and belts – anything he had to strap her down.
"Anything you have that'll stop her moving," Eamon said heavily, and Azriel went still as Eamon withdrew his drills from his kit.
"What's that for?" he asked hollowly. Of course he knew what it was for. But the implication…
"It's a cranial drill, Azriel," Eamon said, his voice not unkind. A strange weightlessness drifted through his body as Azriel watched. "Azriel. She needs your help. Strap her down. I need to relieve the pressure on her brain."
"Why?"
"She has an epidural hematoma, Azriel," Eamon said gently. Azriel strapped Nesta down, taking care to immobilise her head.
Her eye flickered open, shining with tears, exhausted but alert, drenched with pain.
"Azriel," Eamon hissed, as Nesta squeaked and tried to thrash against her bonds.
Azriel reached out, calmly, and pressed a hand over her nose and mouth. He held her only long enough for her to fall unconscious then removed his hand.
Eamon hissed softly, shaking his head. He stared at Azriel. "You're a cold bastard, boy."
Azriel squeezed his shaking fingers into a fist and exhaled slowly, knowing instinctively that he would never in his life be able to do that to Nesta a second time.
Eamon set to work. He never dallied: not when lives were at risk. In five centuries, that had never changed. He had flown Azriel to the best healer and demanded they drop everything to help the tiny fledgling Azriel: it had been his first introduction to healing. Ever since, Eamon had devoted himself to the art.
As Eamon worked, Azriel tried to distract himself.
There was a reason why Eamon never allowed loved ones in the room while he worked; interfering, overly emotional, irrational.
But then, Azriel was not a loved one.
"There's the bugger," Eamon muttered to himself, nodding.
"You found the bleeder?" Azriel gulped, aware how strained his voice sounded. Eamon grunted vaguely, his siphon glowing as he channelled his magic into healing.
"Skull fragment nicked an artery," Eamon murmured, his tone almost curious. Azriel went still. He knew the danger of depriving the brain of things – of oxygen, of blood. It had a devastating effect on the brain itself.
"How will she be affected?"
"No way to know until she wakes," Eamon said grimly. In no time at all, he was wrapping soft white bandages around Nesta's head – a cruel imitation of the braided coronet she used to favour. He put his tools away and sighed, finally gazing down at Nesta. He had set her jaw and repaired the damage of her fractured eye-socket but Nesta was swollen and bruised and would be for weeks. This much sustained damage would take even a High Fae time to heal from. Gazing down at Nesta, Eamon asked, "Who is she to you?"
No-one… No, that wasn't right. This was Nesta. Who was she to him? Who was she to them?
"She is the Kingslayer."
"This slip of a girl?" Eamon grunted, surprised. He blinked down at her. "What I hear tell, the Kingslayer's a turned human. How old is she?"
"I believe she is twenty-five," Azriel said hollowly.
Eamon stared at him. "Why is your brother anywhere near this child?"
Azriel stared down at her. She was not a child – not by human standards. She was a young woman, thrust into a world she did not understand and had never desired to be part of. She had done everything they had ever asked of her and more. And this was how they had repaid her – with brutality.
The only answer he could give Eamon was, "She's dangerous."
"According to who?" Eamon frowned. Azriel raised his eyes and slowly met Eamon's gaze. The older Illyrian's face was still weather-beaten from centuries of brutal training out in the elements; but at the corners of his eyes, pale lines fanned out, remnant of a young life spent laughing. Eamon was only grim when he was working, when people depended him.
"According to the High Lord."
Eamon's lip curled with blatant disdain. He glanced down at Nesta, renewed anguish in his gaze. He tenderly touched his calloused hand to her brow.
"That's why your brother's been beating her," Eamon glowered. And Azriel winced because he too had seen the fading bruises all over Nesta. They couldn't all be from training – but then he remembered how roughly he'd heard Cassian claiming her in the House of Wind. Cassian had never liked violence in the bedroom but there was a very fine line – and Nesta was so young. So weak.
"I do not believe Cassian would ever strike her out of malice," Azriel said quietly. "But yes. He has been tasked to break her in the Estoc tradition." Eamon snarled.
"Pestilence," he hissed, his siphon glimmering like the eye of a waking dragon.
"Eamon…how do I care for her when she wakes?"
"I've left draughts to nullify her pain and others she must take to prevent clotting as she heals," Eamon warned, his expression stern, pointing to a box of tiny vials on the counter. "Twice a day. A clot can lead to a stroke or heart-attack – she'll die instantly."
Azriel's breath gusted from him.
"She'll be confused when she wakes – and in a lot of pain. Make sure she is comfortable and reassure her," Eamon advised. "Initially, she will likely have trouble with eye movement, her speech and her reflexes. Her brain needs to heal; the rest will come. Do not leave her alone."
"She'll have something to say about that," Azriel muttered, already anticipating the sharp words from Nesta. She craved privacy, a safe space to retreat to.
Why had he let Cassian deny her that?
Why hadn't he put himself between them, ensured Cassian never got near her?
Why…
He knew why they were in this situation: Rhysand considered Nesta a threat that needed to be eradicated.
And Cassian believed he owed Rhysand.
He would ignore whatever moral qualms he might have had if the order came from Rhysand. How often had he done so in the past? For Cassian, there was no higher authority than Rhysand – and no greater honour than repaying the debt he felt needed to be repaid.
Eamon frowned at him. "Can you do this, Azriel?"
"I will look after her."
"I've no doubt about that but that's not what I meant," Eamon said quietly. "Protecting her means openly defying the High Lord."
"Your point?"
Eamon frowned shrewdly at him. Whatever he saw in Azriel's expression made him nod. He gathered his things, impressed on him again the importance of the twice-daily doses of anti-clotting draughts and departed, soaring into the air.
The house became quiet, still. The sun had long set; the birdsong had ended a long while ago. Though faelight illuminated the house, it did nothing to chase away the chill of the evening. He remembered the vomit he had slid through upstairs and grimaced. Blood he could handle. Vomit was another thing entirely. But he went to the kitchen cupboard and pulled out a wooden bucket, sponge, rags and a bottle of soap and got to work. As soon as the floor was clean, he loosened the sheets and carried Nesta upstairs.
Laying her down on the bed presented him with a moral dilemma. Her leathers were mud-caked and stank of sweat. They were also now speckled with blood and the Mother knew what else. The idea of tucking Nesta into fresh linen sheets dressed in filthy clothing – some of which was already torn – made him shudder. But the idea of stripping her of her clothing while she was utterly vulnerable brought a sour taste to his mouth.
The possibility that her dirty clothes might lead to an infection made Azriel's mind up for him: carefully, methodically, refusing to look or touch any more than he absolutely had to, he stripped her of her filthy, torn clothing and tenderly tucked her under the crisp linen sheets, carefully propping her head on a pillow. He found extra blankets in the airing cupboard and tucked her in, concerned she would be cold and that her shivering might cause irritation to her wound, preventing it from healing. He worried.
He closed her window, leaving it open only a few millimetres to bring in cool, fresh air and turned to the neat little fireplace, lighting the fire. It was the height of summer here but no matter how hot it got during the day, it was always cold at night. That was a part of the appeal: there was always a reprieve.
Azriel changed out of his leathers, batted away a few shadows that wished to whisper in his ear, and settled into the bentwood rocking-chair in the corner of the room, wrapped up in his own blankets. He had long ago learned to sleep wherever he could find rest; the rocking-chair was more comfortable than most places he'd been forced to sleep in out of necessity.
But he knew he would get no rest: he watched Nesta.
He watched and he hoped she would wake.
He hoped she was not broken when she did.
A.N.: So in my head, Cassian is a decent person who had no intention of actually hurting or breaking Nesta. But he is very much wrapped up in his unconditional loyalty to Rhysand and blinds himself to the worst of Rhysand's nature. He also has no understanding whatsoever of Nesta herself – he's sexually attracted to her, he is grateful to her for saving his life, but he has no idea who she really is.
Azriel, though – my darling Azriel – is the rebel. Think about it; he's a spymaster. He's tasked with gathering information, with learning as much as he can about different people and understanding the nuances of different cultures, of political aspirations and all of that. Ignorant is the last thing Azriel is. He sees everything. He sees the IC as they truly are.
He loves his family. But does he like them? Are they any better than the monsters he escaped from as a boy?
