Chapter 6: Oriana Fireborn Belmond, Goldsmith, Enchantress, Mate
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"Where's Az?" Cassian asked. They were supposed to have their weekly meeting at the River House. Rhys was there, of course, he was...but Azriel was nowhere to be seen.
"He's not with you?" Rhys asked, brows furrowing.
"No. I thought he was in Winter?" There had been talk about exchanging intelligence with the Winter Court in connection to Spring and whatever Tamlin was up to these days.
"He came home last evening. The whole thing was a bust," Rhys said with a sigh. "He got stuck in a bloody ravine," he recounted with a shake of his head.
Cassian pulled a grimace. That didn't sound particularly great.
"How bad was it?" he asked. "Was he hurt badly?"
"He said he was fine," Rhys waved him off."
"And you believed him?" Cassian asked incredulously. He highly doubted that one could just walk off a freaking ravine. Even with the quick healing of a High Fae.
"He's a grown-up," Rhys said tightly. "Besides, my worry wasn't appreciated."
"Have you tried reaching out?" Cassian wondered. "It's not like him to be late." Azriel was punctual to a fault.
He watched Rhys's expression tighten for a moment in concentration and Cassian waited.
Rhys swallowed.
"Nothing," he finally said quietly. "I get absolutely nothing, Cass. He's not out of my range, but I get nothing."
That...That really wasn't good.
He wasn't dead. That was something though.
"That's not good," he breathed. It was absolutely horrible. Because it meant that Azriel wasn't simply asleep. Even if knocked out, Rhys would probably be able to get something. But to get nothing? Nothing at all?
"No," Rhys agreed.
"I'll go check on his house," Cassian volunteered. "It's as good a place to start as any." Especially when the reason why Azriel couldn't talk to Rhys was far worse than what they imagined. "See if he arrived back home."
"I'll check in with Nuala and Cerridwen," Rys agreed. "Let me know once you know." Rhys hesitated for a moment. "Thank you, Cassian."
"He's my brother too," Cassian gave back quietly. "Let me know if you get anything."
The worry that churned in his gut...that was something else entirely as Cassian took flight towards Azriel's house.
If he was asleep Rhys would have been able to prod him awake, if he was knocked out, Rhys would probably get something. But to get nothing? That wasn't good at all.
He landed in the forest and then he promptly needed 5 minutes, before he realised that the wards that were set around the property had been gently redirecting Cassian away from it, without him even knowing.
He had never experienced something like that.
It pissed him off to no avail, that much was certain though.
They were also definitely not set by Azriel's magic. He knew his brother's magic, knew the taste and feel of it, the way it moved...
Rhys' magic felt like an avalanche. Azriel's magic felt like the eye of a storm, perfectly still until it wasn't, turning into a hurricane in a blink.
And this magic...this magic was different from anything he had ever felt in his fucking life.
It was similar still to Azriel's...but it heated in warning when Cassian pushed back against it.
And then because he was a fucking idiot, Cassian decided that using brute magical strength to force himself through these wards was the way to go.
The magic turned into a fucking inferno in response.
The fact that it burned off half of his fucking hair did not make it any better either.
The magic receded and he tackled the female that was waiting for him into the ground before she could do anything to him.
"Who are you?" He demanded his knife pressing against her throat. He was quite certain as he took her in that he had never seen a Fae that looked like her. And she was a High Fae, her ears gave that away.
Her skin was pitch black, her hair the same colour braided away from her face...lips painted a deep berry colour.
She didn't say a word, didn't need to, not when her eyes, her fucking eyes, gave it all away.
If her magic had seemed like fire, her eyes were the fire. There was hellfire burning in them, faces flickering like they would reach out and burn him at a moment's notice.
"You destroyed my ward!" She hissed at him.
"You burned off my hair!" He snapped right back at her.
"You are holding a knife to my throat!"
Well, he did. Then it grew so hot in his hand that he had no choice but to let it clatter against the floor where it turned into a bloody puddle of metal.
"You melted that!" He realised as he saw the expression on her face. He moved to replace his knife with his bare hands but her skin was so hot against his, that he was sure he was going to have blisters all over his hands if he kept that up.
And then her hand moved far quicker than he had thought she would be able and she had a knife in her own hand. He caught her wrist before she could stab him with it, glaring at her.
"Who are you?" He asked her. What was she?
"Who are you?" She snapped right back at him. "You are the one who destroyed my wards!"
"You are the one who is here at my brother's house!" he snapped.
The last thing he had expected was for her to relax against the ground, no longer fighting against him and looking at him with her eyes still blazing...and then she said three words: "I live here."
"You live here," he repeated unbelievingly. And then as he took a breath, suddenly her scent caught in his nose.
His brother's scent was all over her. Azriel's scent.
Mist and cedar...now joined with jasmine and burning wood. There wasn't a single question left.
"You are Azriel's mate," he realised, staring at her. She stared right back, unflinching.
He had spent weeks thinking about who Azriel was seeing and now there she was. Right in front of him. Literally nothing like what he had expected.
But then... Azriel had always chosen the unexpected.
"Wow, you are a genius," she drawled. Her voice was dripping with disdain."What gave it away, the fact that I am in his house or that I smell like him?"
"You...since when..." he stuttered. This wasn't how he had expected this to go down. He had thought that one day, Azriel was going to bring her to dinner and they would all get to meet her. And not that he would tackle her to the floor and she would melt his fucking knife. "How?" He blurted out.
"I think you know how mating works, Oh mighty Lord of Bloodshed." She was talking to him like he was an idiot and he was pretty sure that he deserved it.
"Azriel has never mentioned you," he defended himself.
"Then maybe you should think about why." Her words were piercing. He could just stare at her, as she shifted underneath him.
When Azriel found out about that he was going to kill him. Cassian was certain of that.
"Truce?" He suggested.
"Get off me, you big brute," she muttered as he rolled off her and gained his feet holding out a hand for her. She didn't need it. Not when suddenly a cloud of shadows came to help her, hefting her up like she weighed nothing.
They disappeared again, though they seeingly clung to her hands as she waved them away, one of them wrapping around her throat like it belonged there.
He worked hard to keep the horror of his face. He had seen these shadows do the same thing a number of times under verydifferent circumstances. But with her...with Oriana, they treated her like she was a precious thing. Treated her with all the care they were capable off.
He swallowed. He had not once seen his brother's shadows act like that. But then...he had never once met Azriel's mate.
"My name is Cassian," he finally introduced himself, scratching his neck. He had rarely been that wrongfooted with somebody in his life.
"I know," she gave back, something like amusement blending into her voice.
"May I know your name?" he prodded as she seemed unwilling to give her more.
"Oriana," she told him.
"No surname?" he wondered, she just cocked her head to the side.
"Don't you have one? she gave back, clearly unwilling to let a single thing slide.
"I am a bastard," he gave back. "I don't have one."
"Fireborn or Belmond, it depends on who you're asking," she finally answered.
Fireborn. That seemed more like some kind of honorific, like shadowsinger, and less like a surname.
"I am looking for Azriel," he finally said quietly. "He was supposed to be in a meeting. Rhys can't reach him. He could be in trouble."
He was sure that she would help him, if only because her instincts would tell her to.
What he didn't expect was the laugh she barked out, no amusement in her voice.
"Oh, he is in trouble. With me," she told him, her voice harsh. "He's unconscious. That's why Rhysand can't reach him."
Unconscious. That didn't sound good.
"He's here?" Cassian asked and she just nodded. "Can I see him?" he requested. Oriana was Azriel's mate but Cassian had been his brother longer than that. And he wanted to see him. Make sure that Azriel got everything he needed and that he didn't need to go fetch Madja because Azriel wasn't healing.
"Do you promise me not to destroy our house?" Oriana asked drily. "I'll burn you to a fucking crisp if I need to."
He was taken aback by that outburst.
"You have a dirty mouth, you know," he told her drily. She just held his gaze. He nodded.
Cassian followed along as she turned on her heel to march into the house.
It was still the same house Azriel had shown him, but it was obvious that it had...well. Definitely been lived in by somebody other than just his brother. There was art on the wall, metallic sculptures of sorts, modern furniture, a couch...chairs that easily would be able to accommodate wings...bits and pieces that Azriel would have never bothered with before, but Oriana clearly did.
He swallowed when he spotted a greenish linen tablecloth spread over the kitchen table, where Oriana had clearly been cooking something.
"I don't actually. You just caught me at an ill-time. After I spent a few hours yesterday wondering if my mate is going to die on me," she answered, her voice so sharp that he could have cut himself on it.
"What's wrong with him?" he asked as she led him to what must be their bedroom. She hesitated before she opened the door. He could swear he saw a ward disappear at her touch like she had even warded Azriel before she had left him alone to go meet him outside.
"He's bruised extensively, and I didn't think it was anything but that at first," she said quietly. "He had a headache...we both thought he was just tired...he woke up three hours later vomiting blood and losing consciousness."
Fuck.
"He had inner bleeding in the abdomen. The healer told me all that was wrong with him but after that I just..." she trailed off, opening the door.
Azriel was on his back, wings spread out over the bed, the whole thing surrounded by a dome of a greenish tint of sorts.
Cassian had never seen anything like that.
"Don't touch it, please," Oriana requested, her voice quiet. "It's a healing trance. We use it in the mountain...I have it on a very good account that he'll be fine. He was bleeding out from within. Which would have been caught if he had gone to a healer after his mission and didn't come home to me immediately, because I quote I missed you." There was anger in these words, but also sadness and not a small amount of love. It was all there, able to be heard by anybody who heard her speak about his brother.
He swallowed, taking in the violent bruises on Azriel's face, the swelling of one eye...the steady rise and fall of his chest, the bandages...the blanket that was pulled up over him...the ugliest thing that Cassian had ever seen consisting out of mismatched squares of knitting, no two the same.
"Are you a healer?" he wondered. Who had put Azriel into a healing trance?
"Do I look like a healer to you? My bedside manner would be more than questionable," Oriana said with a snort.
It would have been amusing in any other situation.
"What are you then?" Cassian asked curiously. What did she do? What was she what she spend her time with? There was no question that Oriana was a magical powerhouse of sorts.
"Does it matter?" Oriana wondered, leaning against the door. "By Trade? An Enchantress. By Creed? A goldsmith. By heritage? Half High Fae from the Autumn Court, half Tartera Faerie living in the mountain. By Love? His mate. And that will always come first."
The truth was clear in her words.
Still, he swallowed. An Enchantress. That was rare. It explained a lot though.
"Emotionally? Completely pissed off at Azriel, right now," she added, her voice breaking. "And at your precious High Lord when we are already at it."
"Rhys?" Cassian wondered aloud. "What has he done?"
"Send Azriel on his merry way," Oriana said quietly. "He wouldn't have even been there if it wasn't for him. Azriel thought the whole thing was a bad idea, but Rhysand insisted."
Damnit.
"He wouldn't have done that if he thought that something was wrong," Cassian said carefully.
Oriana snorted.
"You don't believe me," he said drily and she shrugged.
"Let's just say that I have a list of problems with him, and this is just the last one I added to it," she admitted her voice even.
"With Rhys?" Cassian said, brows rising. "What had he done to you?"
"To me personally? Nothing. To Azriel? I have a list," Oriana said, sticking out her chin, and crossing her arms.
Ouch. Rhys was in it for it.
And Cassian didn't think for one moment that some singed-off hair and a melted knife was the worst thing that Oriana Fireborn could dish out if she put her mind to it.
"Does he know about you?" Cassian wondered. Had Rhys known about her? About Azriel and her.
"Rhysand knows off me. There is a difference," Oriana said carefully. "If you ever want to annoy him you should ask him about his last trip to talk to Custodian of the Mountain...oh about 200 years ago? And what happened to his favourite jacket."
"There is a story there, isn't there?" Cassian said with some amusement and she just shrugged.
He was very curious about what exactly had gone down then. But that wasn't the most pressing thing.
"He'll be fine?" he asked once again. Oriana just nodded.
"He'll be perfectly fine. A healer will check on him in an hour or so," she said quietly.
Clearly, she took care of what was hers.
"Thank you," he said softly, watching Azriel's still form.
"He's my mate," she spat out. "I did it for him, not for you."
"I know that," Cassian said softly, meeting her eyes, the flames flickering. There was a unique kind of beauty in there, the way the flames were alive in her eyes. "Thank you for loving my brother."
Something inside her eased. "He's very easy to love," Oriana said quietly.
"Will you let me know when he's awake?" he asked and she nodded.
"I'll have the shadows sent a note," she agreed quietly. "The healer said another day or so."
"Thank you," Casisna thanked her again, turning his back to his brother and she led him out of the house.
She was quiet, sunken in thought and as he turned to tell her goodbye, suddenly it burst out of her.
"Were you the one who told him that he would need to pay for sex because he's so disgusting that that is the only way he could get somebody to pretend to care for him?" She spat out.
It was the last thing Cassian had expected.
"What?"
"I am paraphrasing. I imagine the real sentence was more along the lines that if he wanted sex he should go to a pleasure hall and better pay for it," Oriana corrected herself. "I just ask, because he took it to mean something very different."
Cassian swallowed. That...It was... He didn't even have words for it. He couldn't...He couldn't even think of a moment where anybody would have...why would...
"Were you the one?" Oriana demanded and he just shook his head.
"He's my brother," Cassian said fiercely. "I would never say something like that to him." She met his eyes, her own burning with an intensity that terrified him.
"Somebody did," she said very carefully. "I am putting you on notice, I don't fucking care who it was, but if I find out, I am going to put them on fire."
He didn't doubt that for one moment.
"I'll help," he muttered darkly. "I'll hold them down for you."
She gave him a smile that reminded him of Nesta in some way, sharp and biting.
"Then we have an accord."