Chapter Text
Cassian didn’t bother to knock when they reached the River House.
As if it was as much like home to him as anywhere else, he walked right in; turned the curved handle with ease and opened the door wide. It didn’t matter that Nesta would have knocked and waited— had knocked and waited, every other time she’d been here on her own. She watched him stride inside like he owned the place— because this was a home to him, she realised. As much as the House of Wind or anywhere in Illyria, and after all, neither Feyre nor Rhys had locked the door.
And even if they had… Nesta had no doubt that Cassian would have been given his own damned key, anyway.
The entire city seemed to open for the General in way that it never had - never would - for Nesta, and silently she watched as her mate stepped with purpose through that front door with it’s lead-paned windows and frosted glass. Like a ghost she followed along, pulled by an invisible string and tethered to reality only by the steady weight of Cassian’s hand in hers; his fingers, the anchor she needed in a world that still felt so damnably foreign.
Things might have been different, she thought, had there still been some little piece of her left that she could recognise.
But it was all gone, now. Replaced by something stronger, something newer.
Something harder to swallow.
Cassian made a straight line for the sitting room, pausing for only a second in the entrance hall to admire the wreaths and the garlands made of holly and tufts of fir and pine, shot through with winter flowers that Nesta presumed Elain had cultivated in the gardens at the back. Pretty, so pretty. And yet she looked at the sharp edges of those holly leaves and thought it was just as likely to sting too, to prick skin and draw blood if she pressed a hand to it. The irony wasn’t lost on her; that whilst everyone else would look at those garlands and see only their beauty, Nesta’s attention lingered on all the parts capable of hurting her. Of causing pain.
A light tug on her hand shook her from her thoughts, and Nesta realised that she had paused too long, sank too deep into contemplation. Cassian looked back over his shoulder as the great hearth from the sitting room cracked so loudly it echoed throughout the hall, the sound scattering across the marble. He raised a brow— silent question in his eyes.
As if remembering how the fire had bothered her once.
Nesta squeezed his hand. She had gotten over that, at least. The fire didn’t bother her as it once had, and even if it did… well, she had made a promise to herself tonight, before they’d left the House of Wind, that no matter what, nothing - nothing at all - would spoil this damned holiday. Not when Cassian’s face had been lighting up for weeks at the mere mention of Solstice. Nesta wasn’t about to ruin it for him; would sooner leave herself in ruin herself than steal that gleam from his eyes.
So instead she let herself be pulled into the sitting room, focusing on the warmth sinking into her as the cold from outside retreated. Forced a smile through the greetings, the joy. As if from a distance she noted all the members of Rhysand’s Inner Circle. Amren, dressed in black and weighed down with diamonds; Varian at her side, his long braids woven through with sea shells. Mor kissed Cassian twice on the cheek, her perfume heady and sweet as she gave Nesta a tight smile, her golden bracelets singing musically against her skin as she waved a hand at the fire and told Cassian to warm himself before dinner. Your hands are freezing, she’d said with a laugh, patting him on the cheek. Nesta smiled through it all, even when Rhysand nodded his head in greeting, straightening the lapels of his black velvet jacket instead of looking her in the eyes for too long.
That almost made her want to smile in earnest.
There was no sign of Elain, and Feyre, in a dress of glittering silver that was so low cut it would have given the men below the wall an aneurysm, looped her arm through Rhys’, clinging to him like she couldn’t bear to be apart for more than a heartbeat. Diamonds hung at her ears, her throat, her wrists— like Rhysand had saw fit to celebrate the longest night of the year by dressing his mate in so many diamonds, she could rival the stars themselves.
“Happy birthday,” Nesta said softly.
Feyre smiled— warm, bright, enough to make the hole in the centre of Nesta’s chest widen, like a void ready to swallow her whole.
“I’m sorry you couldn’t make it earlier,” she said quietly. “We missed you. Nyx, especially.”
Nesta swallowed.
Given how late it was getting, and how much excitement he’d already endured today, her nephew was already sleeping soundly in his cradle upstairs, Feyre said— watched over, she added conspiratorially, by one of Azriel’s shadows, standing sentinel. And what else could Nesta do but smile? What else, but give her sister what she prayed was a placating curve of her lips, even as, mentally, she added terrible aunt to the list of faults she kept track of in her head.
As if the guilt wasn’t heavy enough already.
You wouldn’t have wanted me there anyway, she thought silently, praying Feyre didn’t take this opportunity to peer into her mind. I’d only ruin it, like I ruin everything else.
But Nesta was saved from having to respond aloud by Azriel and his shadows, minus one, slinking up to Cassian and clapping him on the shoulder. The spymaster, dressed in his habitual black broken only by the bright cobalt of the siphon on his hand and the silver of the earrings climbing his rounded ears, offered her a sympathetic smile and a soft good evening Nesta that made Feyre smile broadly before slipping away and finding a way back to the fireside. And it didn’t escape Nesta’s notice that when Azriel nudged his brother with a shoulder and wished him a happy Solstice, he didn’t extend the same season’s greetings to her.
Like he knew, somehow, that it would do more harm than good.
Nesta narrowed her eyes at his shadows, the ones curling around his wrists and wrapping around his forearms like vines. What had they told him— what had they whispered?
Azriel gave her a small nod, as if in confirmation that yes, those shadows had told him plenty.
Nesta suddenly felt a little sick— disoriented, like the ground beneath her feet had tilted. The Shadowsinger shot her a look that seemed designed to comfort her, but even as Elain entered at last from the kitchen, an apron dusted with sugar tied around her waist, Nesta still couldn’t help but feel adrift, lost, with no map to guide her back home. It was like she was standing outside in the snow, watching somebody else’s life through the windows.
Distinctly apart, even standing in the midst of it all.
Cassian hadn’t mentioned the pie or the way she’d reacted earlier. She had taken it to the House kitchen herself, and though she’d expected him to follow her, she had left him standing there, an expression of confusion on his face that had made her heart shatter. It was why she’d back-stepped, why she’d kissed him on the cheek.
Solstice is when I get to have all my favourite people together, he’d told her weeks ago, when it was early in the morning and they were lying in bed, her cheek against his chest, his fingers toying with the ends of her loose hair. It’s the best time of the year.
She had heard the softness of his voice, the warmth in his tone. He’d pulled her closer to him after that, sighing in contentment, and it had been then, at that very moment, that Nesta had known that even if it broke her heart, she’d go along with as much of it as she could bear.
But that pie…
Like Elain’s invitation, it was the stupidest, most fucking inane thing to set her off.
It’s tradition on Solstice Eve, he’d said.
Five words, and she’d felt her chest closing, felt her stomach sinking. An overreaction, she was certain, and yet…
Not once - not once - had even Cassian asked about the traditions they had observed below the wall. From Rhysand and the rest, Nesta might have expected it. But even her mate seemed to have forgotten that Nesta had her own traditions to observe, human ones, that she couldn’t forsake even if she tried.
“Nes?”
Cassian’s hand at the small of her back startled her from her thoughts, and Nesta blinked as the room came back into focus. She hadn’t realised she’d been so consumed by her own head that she’d been staring into the distance, out of the window like she’d rather be anywhere else but here, and as the room around her came back in screaming colour, Cassian offered her a tentative smile and a nod towards the dining room, where already the scent of roasted meat and golden roast potatoes sprinkled with rosemary drifted out to meet them.
“Dinner’s ready.”
***
“How is the studio?” Cassian asked Feyre across the table.
The conversation was as smooth as the wine and just as free flowing, no glass emptied for long and no plate left uncleared. The table had been laden with so much food when they had entered the dining room that Nesta thought it was a wonder the legs didn’t buckle, and even as she sat down at her place - with Cassian on her right and Azriel on her left - she glanced warily towards her sisters, wondering if either of them looked at this much food and felt the same way she did, with the same lingering disbelief lining her stomach.
She had spent so many years in poverty that even now it was difficult to sit there, presented with a veritable banquet. Difficult to remember, sometimes, that she wasn’t one bad winter away from death anymore.
The food had all been eaten now, and in the aftermath they lingered in their seats, watching the candles burn down.
“Good,” a beaming Feyre answered Cassian, leaning back in her chair and cradling a glass of wine the colour of spilled blood. “We have so many students now.”
Cassian’s arm was slung around the back of Nesta’s chair, his fingers idling in the braid gathered at the nape of her neck. When he glanced sidelong - trying to catch her eye - he offered her a grin she couldn’t return, and with the candlelight reflected in his hazel eyes, they transformed into twin pools of molten gold. He was bathed in warmth, his loose curls hanging to his shoulders, and any other night Nesta might have been desperate to run her fingers through those curls, get herself all tangled up in him until she forgot everything else.
Tonight, though, she was just trying to make it through without clawing herself - or anybody else - to pieces.
“Perhaps you could finally teach me to paint,” he said lightly to Feyre, even though his eyes were still on Nesta. Hadn’t left her for a second. “I could paint a life-size portrait of Nes and hang it on our wall.”
Feyre snorted into her wine. “Perhaps we should start with something that takes a little less… skill to master.”
Cassian grinned. “I am nothing if not ambitious.”
He tugged lightly on Nesta’s braid, quirking a brow when she turned to look at him. She rolled her eyes, hated that she couldn’t find it in her to laugh alongside them.
“And will we have to bow to it whenever we visit the House?” Rhysand drawled, cutting in as he propped a chin on his fist. His eyes sparked. “Pay deference to Lady Death before we cross the threshold?”
Cassian’s fingers never stopped toying with the hair at the nape of her neck, never faltered. He grinned again, easy and smooth, even as Nesta stiffened at the nickname— but Cassian’s thumb smoothed a path over the back of her neck, a soothing touch, one that encouraged warmth. She didn’t fail to notice the way one of his wings extended a little behind her chair either; a shield against it all.
“Oh, brother. You’re lucky I don’t make you do that already.”
Rhys snorted. “Lucky the House doesn’t.”
Cassian shot Nesta a wink as his smile grew sharp. He leaned close, his lips brushing her ear as his hand fell to her shoulder, his fingertips tracing circles against her skin.
“I’m certainly willing to get on my knees,” he murmured, and Nesta rolled her eyes again, but didn’t speak.
She tried to grasp at it— the flirtation that was so easy between them, the heat she felt licking at her bones whenever he looked at her. She tried— honestly tried, but it didn’t feel right, didn’t feel real, and surrounded in that expansive dining room dripping with the kind of wealth they’d barely even had when their father had been one of the wealthiest merchants in town…
She didn’t think she could do this.
Something must have shown on her face, because Cassian tilted his head, his eyes turning shrewd and sharp as he studied her. Like he sensed something was wrong. He looked like he was about to ask, his lips still close to her ear as a small frown crept into his brow.
Nesta couldn’t bear it.
Didn’t want that smile to dim, or to be the one that brought the edge of caution to his tone. The one that dulled the spark in his eyes.
Sometimes she thought the Cauldron must have chosen wrong— that fate had given her the mating bond as one more punishment, another test for her to fail. Because how could she look at him - wearing his big, beautiful heart on his sleeve - and bear the knowledge that she would be the one to cause that smile to falter tonight? That if anything was to mar this Solstice for him, it was going to be her?
Cassian opened his mouth and dread rose in Nesta like a furious tide and—
Elain was her saviour, entering the dining room with a flourish, holding aloft a silver tray she’d slipped out to grab from the kitchen.
“Cookies and gingerbread,” she announced proudly.
Feyre’s smile was as bright as the moon itself as, balancing the tray in one hand, Elain extended it to Rhysand first, seated at the head of the table.
“Decorated cookies,” he said with a raised brow, his gaze bouncing from Elain to Feyre and back again. For a moment - a halting second that made Nesta want to scream - his eyes travelled over to her, snagging on her briefly before his attention returned back to Feyre. He smiled as he looked at the tray Elain still held before him, violet eyes glimmering as he plucked up one cookie in particular with a laugh that rattled the crystal wineglasses set out on the table. “And which one of you decorated this one?”
His smile was dazzling; the glint in his eyes knowing.
“I thought it was time I gave you a tattoo of your own,” Feyre said smoothly as Rhysand held up his cookie for the rest of them to see, its surface decorated with black swirls reminiscent of the tattoos on Feyre’s hands. Identical to the tattoos on Feyre’s hands. “It’s only fair.”
Rhys grinned, his voice little more than a purr as he said, “Darling, I’ve told you. You can give me as many tattoos as you like.”
Nesta thought she was going to be sick.
The cookies were personalised.
“There’s one for each of you,” Elain said smoothly, making her way around the table. There was a glance towards her, one that Nesta suspected Elain might have intended to say, see? It was fun. We missed you.
“And more in the kitchen,” Feyre added, “but we didn’t ice those. Although Nyx tried.”
Elain’s smile was as bright as the summer sun as her eyes darted to the ceiling, as if she could see their sleeping nephew above. Cassian snorted.
“He hasn’t developed his mother’s artistic talent yet, I take it?”
Elain shook her head. “Not yet, no.”
“There’s still time,” Feyre insisted brightly.
Nesta watched. Silent and still, like a ghost that had trespassed into somebody else’s dining room. She closed her eyes slowly, letting herself breathe. All those damned cookies did was highlight just how poorly Nesta had adjusted after the war. How she couldn’t even help decorate cookies with her nephew, even after all this time. After the war, the Blood Rite, and everything else she had been through…
This was what felled her.
The voices in her head, the doubt that lingered and pulled at the edges of her very soul, unravelling her like a spool of thread.
It was pathetic.
Feyre met her eye across the table, and Nesta tried to curve her lips into a smile, anything that might placate her sisters but… it was difficult.
Rhys swiped a finger across the icing and lifted it to his lips, shooting Feyre a wink as he licked the icing from the tip of his finger.
Elain continued on her rounds, handing out cookies with a smile so benevolent it was like the Solstice celebrations began and ended with her. With the pearls that had been threaded through her hair and the dress shot through with glitter, she was the personification of the moon itself, and nobody would believe, if they stumbled across the scene, that Elain hadn’t been celebrating Solstice her entire life.
Gone was the mortal, like she’d never existed at all.
Nesta wondered if Elain still tossed salt over her shoulder when it spilled, or crossed her fingers when she told a lie.
Amren’s cookie was next to be presented, iced to look like jewels and topped with tiny edible flakes of gold. Varian’s held a tumult of waves crashing against a shore, and Mor’s iced with red and dusted with silver. Azriel’s was iced the cobalt blue of his siphons, topped with the midnight silhouette of Illyrian wings. Cassian’s was the same red as Mor’s - something the blonde pointed out with enough glee to make Nesta want to close her eyes again - with the same outline of wings as Azriel’s. Feyre’s - decorated by Elain - had paintbrushes in icing and different colours swathed across like paint swatches. Elain’s was a tangle of flowers, all different kinds of colours that had clearly been decorated by Feyre.
Had they laughed as they decorated them? In that kitchen? Hiding the designs from each other, preserving the surprise? Tiny Nyx, his hands covered in flour and sugar, his childish joy infectious as the snow fell beyond the windows, a perfect picture of a happy little family? The glee on Feyre’s face as she beheld her cookie said yes, they had, and in that pretty little picture…
Nesta didn’t see a space for herself to fit.
Elain reached her, standing beside her chair with the last cookie remaining on her silver tray. And Nesta didn’t know why, but she hadn’t ever felt more distant than she did in that moment, not wanting to see her own cookie, and gods, what kind of awful person did that make her?
She didn’t want to see what her sisters thought summed her up.
Elain handed her the final cookie, decorated with a pile of books. Names had been iced on the spines— the titles of her favourites. Because her sisters had remembered. Had known.
Nesta smiled weakly, trying hard - so hard - to feel the same warmth, the same kind of contentment that the rest of them did.
But it crumbled in her hands.
***
Something was wrong.
To all outward appearances, everything was perfect. Everything was exactly as it should be, glittering and gleaming and perfect. The candles were warm and golden in the sitting room, casting the whole room in a gentle, flickering glow accented by the softly shining faelights lining the walls in their sconces. The fire was roaring in the hearth, warm and cosy, and the scent of cinnamon hung in the air and tangled with the scent of mulled wine. The River House was warm and bright, like something from a Solstice greetings card, and with the snow falling gently outside and slowly inching ever higher up the window panes…
It was peaceful and joyful and everything Cassian could ever have wanted.
But something was wrong.
He wasn’t sure what, and couldn’t quite place a finger on it yet, but something was… off.
Scanning the room revealed nothing— but had he really expected it to? There was no hidden threat lurking in the corner; no real danger posed to any of them at all. And yet, there it was, tugging at his edges as they moved into the sitting room after dinner to exchange gifts… tension bracketing his chest, pressing just hard enough to make it impossible to relax.
Still, he smiled as he immediately claimed the window seat. Grinned, because he knew it was Nesta’s favourite spot— away from the heat of the fire, tucked away in the corner with just enough room for two. Despite that feeling making him want to curl his fingers into loose fists, he smiled as Nesta joined him on the cushioned seat, bracing a palm on his thigh as she sat, and just that - that small, casual touch - set his soul on fire so thoroughly he might have been forgiven for forgetting it was even Solstice in the first place.
It was real, the smile that burst onto his face then. Honest and unrestrained as he looked up at her, his palm rounding her waist and wrapping around her middle as she lowered herself onto the seat beside him. She brushed her palm over the backs of his fingers, and as he looked at her with something akin to wonder on his face, he pulled her closer, as if the only thing that he needed to make this night perfect was the elimination of that last inch of distance between his body and hers.
Fucking hells, he was so in love with her it hurt.
She was everything— the slanting moonlight that cut through the dark, something to put the stars to shame when she smiled at him in return. And yet, that smile didn’t quite reach her eyes, and the corner of her lips curved in a way that Cassian had long since learned wasn’t genuine. He could feel it, a lingering unhappiness, something bitter and sharp. A pain that wasn’t his own, but one that echoed through his chest anyway.
He frowned, looking down at his mate with concern gathering in his chest as his fingers pulled her that little bit closer. He wanted to ask, wanted to know, but as Mor clapped her hands brightly and sat cross-legged in the centre of the embroidered rug before the hearth, announcing present time! with glee, Nesta shot him a single small smile.
Not now, that smile seemed to say. Not now.
He didn’t know why that smile reminded him of a gathering storm on the horizon, just waiting to break. But Nesta folded her hands across her lap in a perfect display of ease, and so, even despite the roiling in his gut, Cassian slung an arm around her shoulders and watched as Mor began pulling gifts towards her out of the velvet sack Rhys had magicked from thin air.
Just another tradition of theirs, like the cherry pie. All gifts were handed over to Rhys for safekeeping before they were pulled out with great ceremony after darkness fell.
But this year, Cassian had held back most of the gifts he’d bought, and in that great sack that Mor was elbow-deep in now, there was only one gift for Nesta. Just one. A small box containing a pretty pair of shining silver studs with a ruby stone - because he’d be a fool if he didn’t admit that he didn’t like it when Nesta wore his colours - leaving the rest up at the House still, to be given to her later when they were alone.
The earrings were dwarfed by the rest of the parcels he’d asked the House to hide, and he couldn’t wait to give them to her, watching her unwrap each and every parcel he’d wrapped in secret, with the messy edges and off-kilter ribbons he’d never quite got the hang of tying up right.
It didn’t matter anyway. He could have paid someone else to wrap her gifts for her. Could have presented her with perfectly aligned wrapping paper and crisp ribbons so perfectly formed they looked like something straight out of a Solstice tale told to children. He could have. But he hadn’t wanted to.
He had wanted to do every part of it himself, labouring over it because he wanted to.
Because it was for her.
“Rhys,” Mor declared, reading the name tag of the first gift to be pulled from the sack. In her hands was a small bundle expertly wrapped in tissue— one Cassian had paid somebody to wrap. “This is from Cassian.”
He grinned as Mor tossed the gift into the High Lord’s waiting hands. “Hope you like it,” he said slyly.
Rhys’ eyes narrowed. “I’m going to hate it, aren’t I?”
Cassian sighed dramatically. “What do you get the High Lord who has everything?”
Rhys took a breath before tearing open the paper.
“Socks?” he asked with a raised brow, pulling out a pair of thick woollen socks as his mouth curved into a smile. “You got me socks?”
“I asked Emerie for a pair of her sturdiest,” Cassian answered grandly. With a grin he added, “And her ugliest.”
His brother threw back his head and laughed, running the material through his fingers. Mor rolled her eyes as Rhys’ laughter echoed, and Cassian felt the sound sink into his bones, treasuring each octave of it before it quieted. How long had Cassian dreamed of this— of the perfect Solstice? All those years Rhys had been stuck Under the Mountain, each Solstice they’d spent quiet and grief-stricken…
This was what he’d dreamed of, wasn’t it?
“They’re perfect,” Rhys said smoothly.
But Nesta was a quiet presence at Cassian’s side, and it wasn’t a steady, calm kind of quiet. It was the unsettling kind of quiet, the kind that twisted Cassian’s guts into a knot even though he couldn’t explain why. In her hands she held a notebook she’d just opened from Feyre - so you can write your own Valkyrie story, she’d declared - and slowly she ran her thumb along its edges, up and down, up and down. Like she was hoping the movement might soothe her somehow.
Cassian swallowed again, all but forgetting about Mor and the sack of gifts. He couldn’t focus, not really, only barely following the stream of presents that were pulled from the velvet sack and handed around each corner of the room. A sapphire the size of a duck’s egg went to Amren from Feyre; a pair of pearl-handled garden secateurs from Rhys to Elain; books from Elain to Nesta; and… a dress, from Mor to Nesta.
That made Cassian’s attention sharpen.
His instincts were suddenly on alert, assessing the situation like he was about to step foot on a battlefield. And he didn’t know why, but as Nesta unwrapped the parcel, there was something about the silk that pooled in her lap that had his chest feeling empty, like a cavity nothing could fill. The dress was a bright, fiery orange. A stunning colour, but not one that Nesta would ever - ever - have chosen for herself, and when it was followed by a pair of chunky gold bracelets from Amren, more to her taste than Nesta’s own…
Cassian frowned again, because why the fuck did it feel like they were trying to impress themselves upon her? Like she was clay to be moulded and shaped in their image?
He gritted his teeth.
It made him… angry.
Made the siphon on the back of his hand flicker. And he felt an echo of that anger along the bond, so faintly he knew it had been smothered and suppressed, and yet he recognised it anyway. Nesta was trying so damn hard to smile through it all, but each small slight was a cut he felt as keenly as a a gut wound, and all that joy and happiness he’d felt before dried up like a Summer Court desert, because how the fuck was he supposed to sit by and smile while his mate bit her tongue beside him? How was he supposed to lean into the joy of it all, when it meant nothing whilst there was a furrow in her brow?
Had it been this bad last year?
And the year before, when she had sat so quietly in the corner before leaving?
The siphon at his hand pulsed as he put an arm around Nesta’s shoulder, the soft crimson glow dancing along her skin as he pulled her closer. He wished she’d lean into him, place a hand on his thigh, anything. But Nesta didn’t move. There was a distance between them somehow - a fucking gulf he felt stretching him to breaking point, to complete and utter destruction - even though she was right there next to him, sitting by his side. Her spine was ramrod straight, and he didn’t know how to close that distance, that yawning space between his soul and hers as, with downcast eyes, she thanked Mor for the dress before folding it back up in the brown wrapping paper it had been presented in.
Nesta Archeron was never fucking downcast.
“Okay?” he murmured, leaning in to whisper.
She nodded.
Liar.
And suddenly, he couldn’t care less about the rest of it all. The wine, the gifts, the laughter. It meant nothing. All of it— nothing. All he knew was that there was some instinct - primal and primordial, something deeper than the mating bond - that made his heart hurt to see Nesta all but shrinking in the firelight, and he didn’t know how but…
He needed to fix it.
He could feel the tension in her. Knew every line of her body better than his own, and knew she was wound far too tightly. It wasn’t the fire, he’d deduced that much. Every time it cracked, there was no flinch or sign that it bothered her. It was something else, something that ran deeper. Something she had buried much further—
“Cauldron fucking boil me,” Rhys said loudly, his voice cutting through Cassian’s thoughts in a conversation that Cassian had been too far gone to even notice was taking place. He hadn’t heard what went before, and time itself seemed to be moving like syrup, but—
Nesta stiffened again.
Cassian tilted his head. There was something there, something left to unpack that none of them had ever considered—
With ease Mor unfurled to her feet, already brandishing a bottle of wine in one hand. Her bracelets clinked on her wrists as she held the bottle up with a celebratory grin spreading across her face, her curls sliding over her shoulder as she practically bounced on the balls of her feet. Making her way around the room, filling up each cup she came across to the brim, her cheeks were flush with wine and laughter both, and when she reached the window seat where Nesta still sat stiff as board, Cassian pulled his mate in closer, his hand tracing circles across her shoulder in a touch that he prayed might bring her comfort.
Silently, inside his mind, the strategist - the general - in him was screaming.
“I’m so glad we don’t have to hide the wine around you anymore,” Mor said cheerily as she poured from the bottle, the burgundy wine splashing into the crystal glass Nesta held balanced between her fingers. “It was getting so awfully dreary.”
The tight smile Cassian had been fighting to keep on his face slipped away entirely as the siphon atop his hand flared a bright, brilliant crimson. Nesta was biting her tongue so hard Cassian could feel it, and gods, he hated it. Hated the box she had been forced into, the claws she was keeping sheathed, and the sneaking suspicion that it was for his sake alone that she was keeping her mouth shut.
“Mor,” he said quietly, but not at all softly. His tone was one of warning, low and dark. The siphon on his hand continued to glow, Mor’s brown eyes sliding towards it before rising back to his face.
Her smile faltered. “What?”
Nesta shook her head. “Leave it, Cassian.”
He turned to face her, incredulity lining his throat and stealing his words as his jaw dropped open. Leave it? Leave it?
The memory of that first Solstice, the one where he had sat back and done nothing even as she sat there and suffered rose in him, clawing its way to the front of his mind. He couldn’t bear to think of it happening again, like nothing had changed at all, and yet here they were, with that same path stretching before them again. Cassian’s brow darkened, his heart thudding painfully in his chest.
Since he was seventeen, he’d kept track of each and every one of his failures. Each mistake that had lost lives during battle, each misstep that had cost him dear… He remembered them all, recounted them, to make sure they never happened again. And the biggest mistake of all, the one that haunted him more potently and more frequently than any other…
The way he had failed his mate so stunningly, so crushingly, that first Solstice.
He wouldn’t let it happen again. Ever.
At his side, Nesta shook her head again. Under her breath she hissed another command - another plea - to leave it, and she sounded so defeated, her voice distant and quiet, and fucking hell…
What had they done to her?
What had he done to her? To make her think that this was the only way for her to be around his family? Around her own?
Mor stood, blinking, waiting to pour the wine, but Nesta only shook her head firmly and disentangled herself from Cassian’s hold. Before he could catch her hand and pull her back she slipped out from under his arm, leaving his fingers to trail pointlessly along her collarbone as she pulled away. He could do nothing, only sit there momentarily stunned as a thousand different emotions warred inside his chest.
Smoothly Nesta rose to her feet, murmuring something about needing some fresh air, and as she left the room with that even gait and steady grace he’d come to recognise as innately as the back of his own hand, none but Elain made any indication that they’d even heard her speak. Elain’s wide eyes followed her as Nesta slipped through the double doors leading to the marble hallway, but despite the concern on her face, even she didn’t follow, casting her gaze back down to the gifts in her lap as Cassian let out a huff so sharp it almost scratched his throat on the way out.
He waited only long enough to get a handle on his fucking temper before rising to his feet.
Distantly he was aware of the laughter halting, the conversation stalling. Disquiet hung in the air, but Cassian didn’t bother to explain - decided he would never explain again - as he took a deep, steadying breath and flexed out the fingers he’d curled tight towards his palm.
A choice— there was a choice here, he knew.
He had a choice.
To stay with his family in that bubble of warmth and contentment, or follow wherever Nesta had lead, to wherever she’d gone. It was a choice he’d been presented with before, so many times, and a choice he’d so frequently, monumentally, fucked.
But not again.
Not this time.
Without looking back, Cassian set his shoulders and went in search of his mate.