𝔸 ℂ𝕠𝕦𝕣𝕥 𝕠𝕗 𝕃𝕠𝕧𝕖 𝕒𝕟𝕕 𝕎𝕣𝕒𝕥𝕙 (Book 2)

Thirty-two

Cassian shook his head, "The pretty half-breed son of the High Lord—how fancy you were in your new training clothes."

"Cassian," Azriel spoke up in his voice like darkness given sound. "resorted to getting new clothes over the years by challenging other boys to fights, with the prize being the clothes off their backs." There was no pride in his words. No condonement of his people's brutality. I didn't blame him, I felt the same about the Flame.

I grew up with them. It was all I knew. Yes, I hated them more than anything in the worlds, but they were also my people. My kindred souls. The people there had gone through the same as I had. We all shared the pain that had been bestowed. We were bonded together in that aspect. The Flame's cruelty was un-feeling and dark, and yet it had brought so many of us together.

But it had also cost us.

I formed those bonds. Had found solace with Astrid, Flynn, and Kai. And they had been taken from me. Each of their deaths my fault.

I analyzed Cassian. I'd never met anyone else who had starved like my family had. Desperate for scraps like us. I wondered if he knew what it was like.

Cassian looked between my sister and me, the way he looked at us shifted—more assessing. Sincere. I could have sworn words crossed his eyes; You know what it is like. You know the mark it leaves.

"I'd beaten everybody in our age group twice over already," he went on, "But then Rhys arrived, in his clean clothes, and he smelled...different. Like a true opponent. So I attacked. We both got three lashings apiece for the fight."

I raised a brow, "Only?" If I pulled something like that I'd have gotten at least ten.

Three large scars marred my back from one of those exact punishments—though I'd received many more than that.

It was those three—the three that had cut so deep had made me bleed so harshly that even the High Fae healers that worked for the Flame hadn't been able to get rid of them. Stijn used to say that all of me was near perfection aside from that. I'd been hurt many times when I worked for the Flame. I'd been healed by magic in each and every one of them, it was when I'd completed my training that I started accumulating scars.

The three were concealed with a glamour just like the others. Though, they were the ones I despised the most. Them and the memories they bore.

"Only?" Rhys repeated as he looked at me with a tilted head. I wondered if that had come across as rude. It had been blurted before I thought it through. I played it off by waving my hand in the air, blatantly dismissing what I'd just said.

Thankfully the conversation moved quickly, "They do worse, girl," Amren cut in as she looked at Feyre. Her face was one of disgust at the punishment. "In those camps. Three lashings are practically encouragement to fight again. When they do something truly bad, bones are broken. Repeatedly. Over weeks."

"Your mother sent you into that?" Feyre questioned.

I cringed. I really wasn't in any place to judge.

"My mother didn't want me to rely on my power," he replied, "She knew from the moment she conceived me that I'd be hunted my entire life. Where one strength failed, she wanted others to save me.

"My education was another weapon—which was why she went with me; to tutor me after lessons were done for the day. And when she took me home that first night to our new house at the edge of the camp, she made me read by the window. It was there I saw Cassian trudging through the mud—toward the few ramshackle tents outside of the camp. I asked her where he was going, and she told me that bastards are given nothing; they find their own shelter, own food. If they survive and get picked to be in a war band, they'll be bottom-ranking forever, but receive their own tents and supplies. But until then, he'd stay in the cold."

"Those mountains," Azriel added, his face hard as ice. "Offer some of the harshest conditions you can imagine."

I'd spent enough time freezing to understand that.

"After my lessons," Rhys went on, "my mother cleaned my lashings, and as she did, I realized for the first time what it was to be warm, and safe, and cared for. And it didn't sit well."

"Apparently not," Cassian said, "because, in the dead of night, that little prick woke me up in my piss-poor tent and told me to keep my mouth shut and come with him. And maybe the cold made me stupid, but I did. His mother was livid. But I'll never forget the look on her beautiful face when she saw me and said, 'There's a bathtub with hot running water. Get in or you can go back into the cold.' Being a smart lad, I obeyed. When I got out, she had clean nightclothes and ordered me into bed. I'd spent my life sleeping on the ground—and when I balked, she said she understood because she had felt the same once and that it would feel like I was being swallowed up, but the bed was mine for as long as I wanted it."

"And you were friends after that?" Feyre questioned.

"No—Cauldron no," Rhysand said, "We hated each other, and only behaved because if one of us got into trouble or provoked the other, then neither of us ate that night. My mother started tutoring Cassian, but it wasn't until Azriel arrived a year later that we decided to be allies."

Cassian's grin grew as he reached around Amren to pat his brother on the shoulder. Azriel sighed—the sound of long-suffering. And possibly the warmest expression I'd seen him make. "A new bastard in the camp—and an untrained shadowsinger to boot. Not to mention he couldn't even fly, thanks to—"

Mor cleared her throat as she cut in, 'Stay on track, Cassian."

The warmth I'd seen seconds ago had vanished from Azriel's face. Cassian shrugged again.

"Rhys and I made his life a living hell, shadowsinger or no. But Rhys' mother had known Az's mother and took him in. As we grew older, and the other males around us did, too, we realized everyone else hated us enough that we had better odds of survival sticking together."

"Do you have any gifts?" Feyre asked Cassian, "Like—them?" she jerked her chin towards the other two Illyrians.

"A volatile temper doesn't count," Mor said as Cassian opened his mouth.

He gave her a sly grin that made me raise my brows, "No. I don't—not beyond a heaping pile of killing power. Bastard-born nobody, through and through." Rhys leaned forward like he might object but Cassian cut him off, "Even so, the other males knew that we were different. And not because we were two bastards and a half-breed. We were stronger, faster—like the Cauldron knew we'd been set apart and wanted us to find each other. Rhys' mother saw it, too. Especially as we reached the age of maturity, and all we wanted to do was fuck and fight."

"Males are horrible creatures, aren't they?" Amren said.

"Repulsive," Mor replied.

─── · 。ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

A/N: their backstory makes me so happpyyy