Azriel
We sat in new places, accentuating all of our unease. Cassian managed a quick look at me before taking his first bites of the roasted chicken matched with potatoes and greens. A simple meal, generally likable and comfortable for everyone. I sat across from Rhysand, an arrangement that would be easy for us both. I didn't want to think about whether having us all finally get together was difficult for him. I didn't know the extent of what he'd bore Under the Mountain, but no matter how long it took him - even if he never recovered - I knew we would all still be here with him, eating dinner together at this very table.
"It's good to see you, Feyre," Mor said to our High Lord's mate who sat beside him dressed in a fine winter sweater, something I knew to be a favorite of hers from my time watching her over the wall. She'd chosen something comforting just as the rest of us had; Mor had dressed in one of her usual gowns, as if everywhere she went was awaiting her treasured arrival, something I found to be both arrogant and deserving. Amren wore some shade of grey, a typical choice for the beast within her. I'd always suspected it was the color of her true flesh that she was instinctively drawn to. Cassian and I had worn our typical battle leathers, the common clothes we both wore daily. It took quite a lot to defer us from them. And then Rhysand, High Lord of the Night Court, dressed surprisingly in his Court of Nightmares attire. My hope was that he was clinging to the strength of the flashy garb, not the mask behind it.
"You have no idea," Feyre laughed with a jostle, startling us all at her silliness, including herself it seemed. "I'm sorry," she offered quietly as she settled down while all of us watched her. All of us but Rhysand, who chewed on some vegetables quietly. "I guess I'm just a little stir crazy from being, well, shut off for so long."
I could nearly feel the whispers of power constantly spilling from the enchanted gem I knew now resided within her skin. I begged them to speak, sent out gentle waves of my shadows to entice, to tempt the stone to tell me all its secrets. But this magic did not speak my language.
"Well, you didn't miss much," Cassian replied, nonchalant. I gauged the reactions around the table, searching for a single disagreement to his statement. The only reaction seemed to be the same empty sorrow that had haunted us all since the return of our High Lord and his mate.
"Oh really?" Feyre asked, finishing a bite of chicken she'd swiftly sliced with much less force than I knew she'd once needed - back when she was mortal. I didn't know what she'd become at this point, but her scent was now far from human. I sympathized with her. While I was fae, I was also something else and yet sometimes I was nothing at all. "Nothing exciting happened while I was sleeping?"
"Well you did miss Mor having a little too much to drink more than once at Rita's," Cassian said with a wry smile.
"Don't even bother mentioning all the times you drank so much I had to come walk your ass home," I countered, knowing Cassian needed to be shot down from time to time to keep up his extreme level of spunk.
"Oh, whatever, I was fine."
Amren laid down her fork she was using to push her food around her plate, still unsure about showing Feyre her true colors. "If fine means singing so loudly to the dance music that I could hear you from my apartment, then sure, you were fine."
We all laughed at that, especially Cassian, and we were all rewarded with a genuine smile from Rhys.
He hadn't been handling his return from Under the Mountain well.
But that was none of my business.
"I'm sorry," Feyre said again, drawing my attention from my plate. Rhysand's too, apparently as we were the only ones who ceased our eating to look at her this time. "I feel as though I know you each a bit already, and honestly, I'm not very good at having friends so I'm not quite sure how I should be acting right now," she punctuated her confession with a large bite of potato, filling her lush cheeks.
I'd noticed the difference in her when she'd come downstairs whilst Cassian and I had been guarding the two of them. Between the group we hadn't been able to leave the presence of either our High Lord or his mate, refusing to leave them undefended in their current states. Nevermind that Rhysand was the most powerful High Lord in the history of Prythian. He was also our friend.
And that was exactly why, while I had noticed Feyre's differing appearance to the one I'd met her with, I said nothing. And I never would.
Even Cassian was smart enough to keep those observations to himself.
"You don't have to be anything for us," Mor replied softly.
Cassian and I glanced her way simultaneously.
"Thank you," Feyre replied, her voice low. When I looked her way I thought I saw some other emotion beneath that reply - a reply she'd offered to Mor, but faced Rhys for. He met her gaze and their faces softened together.
I kept my opinion to myself.
A silence ensued as we all ate, our plates beginning to empty and I placed a nonsensical bet in my mind at whether Cassian or Mor would be the one to break it.
Most likely Cassian.
"So what do you plan on doing now that you're awake? You've gotta see Velaris. And then we could all go to Rita's tonight, if we aren't off on a mission of some sort, of course."
Yep, it was Cassian.
"Well, actually, I guess I was hoping to jump into whatever you guys were up to, so exploring and going out for dinner sounds like fun." Her voice gave the tiniest quiver and I wondered what about the idea of wandering the streets of the best kept secret on our continent and dinner at a restaurant would make her nervous. Then she gave a brief glance towards Rhys, who had yet to speak even when Amren had and I realized she must be worried for him too.
Even though we were all well aware that they were mates, something about her suddenly entering our group, our family... I didn't trust it just yet. But maybe if she was as in tuned with Rhysand as she seemed, knowing when his behavior was unusual, maybe I wasn't giving the mating bond enough credit. Maybe I wasn't giving her enough credit.
So I decided to test her.
"We might be busy," I said, cooly.
Cassian raised a blase, unbelieving eyebrow. "Oh?"
"King Hybern is trying to resurrect Jurian," I said, laying it all out there, hoping I wasn't chipping away at the long built trust between my High Lord and I.
"Bullshit," Cassian spat. "There's no way to do that."
Amren had gone still, and I observed each of her breaths like they'd tell me more than she ever would.
"Jurian?" Feyre asked.
"Do you remember Amarantha's ring? The eye?" Rhysand asked her, avoiding looking at any of us in particular.
Feyre cringed when he said her name and we all pretended not to notice. She nodded.
"Jurian fought in the last war. Amarantha imprisoned his soul within that ring for killing her sister."
Mor groaned, easing a bit of the tension from Rhysand's voice. "Why would the king want to resurrect Jurian? He was so odious. All he liked to do was talk about himself."
"That's what I want to find out," Rhysand said, his tone lightening into the leader's voice we all knew well. "And how the king plans to do it."
Amren at last said, "Word will have reached him about Feyre. He knows it's possible for the dead to be spared, brought back to life."
Feyre shifted uncomfortably in her seat.
"That was under freak circumstances," Mor countered. "There's not a chance it could happen again. He'd have to take another route." Her eyes narrowed to slits as she faced Rhys. "All the slaughtering - the massacres at temples. You think he's tied to this?"
I could see the shock on Feyre's face despite her attempts to hide it, but she, wisely, stayed quiet choosing to listen further.
"I know it's tied to this. I didn't want to tell you until I knew for certain. But Azriel confirmed that they'd raided the memorial in Sangravah three days ago. They're looking for something - or found it." I nodded, nevermind the devastation that was left behind in the small, holy city. But repairs had already began and I would check on their progress and offer aid within another few days. Mor shot me a look, but the only explanation I could serve her was a soft shrug.
Rhysand looked to Amren. "How does one take an eye and a finger bone and make it into a man again? And how do we stop it?"
Amren frowned at her untouched wine. "You already know how to find the answer. Go to the prison. Talk to the Bone Carver."
"Shit," Mor and Cassian both said.
Rhys said calmly, "Perhaps you would be more effective, Amren."
Amren hissed, and Feyre shuddered. "I will not set foot in the Prison, Rhysand, and you know it. So go yourself, or send one of these dogs to do it for you."
Cassian grinned, showing his white, straight teeth - perfect for biting. Amren snapped hers once in return.
I shook my head at their nonsense. "I'll go. The Prison sentries know me - what I am."
"No," Feyre opposed, continuing to surprise me. It was unsettling. "I'll go."
"What?" Mor demanded, palms flat on the table. Rhysand stared intently into and beyond his meal before him.
But Amren nodded. "He won't talk to Rhys or to Azriel. Or any of us. We've got nothing to offer him. But an immortal with a mortal soul..." She stared into Feyre's heart - or what used to be her heart. "The Bone Carver might be willing to talk to her."
"You think I'm immortal?" Feyre asked gently, and I cursed the hope in her voice. Eternity could be a long and cruel acquaintance.
"The Bone Carver would know," Amren offered.
"Your choice, Feyre," Rhysand finally said, casually. But I could see the desperation in his eyes. He wanted her safe at home. I let myself glance towards Mor, someone who needed no one to protect her, and couldn't help but understand.
"I want to help. And I want to learn more about this stone and whatever I am now." She paused, weighing her next words carefully, a slow blush burnished the skin of her face a deep color, unnaturally so. "I want to know if I'll be immortal or not."
So they could spend both of their lifetimes together instead of the blip that would be her mortal life. I thought then of Rhysand, my friend. The boy I'd met before he became my High Lord as well. I thought of his pain and his heart. I thought of the day he'd lost his mother and sister...
He deserved eternity with his mate.
"I'll go with you," he answered, before turning to make eye contact with each of us. "I have to apologize."
Before he could continue Mor already piqued in, "No, Rhysand, you have nothing to apologize for. We don't need to know anything. We just..." She looked around the room. "We just care about you. You can heal in whatever way you need to."
We all noticed the way Feyre looked at him with knowing eyes. She knew what he'd faced, what he'd done throughout those years. She knew him Under the Mountain. We did not.
"I want to do this," Rhys replied. "It might take me a while to admit to everything," he murmured, as if he'd committed some great atrocity. I wished Amarantha was still alive. I wished I could find her and teach her what it felt like to hurt someone in our Inner Circle. To show her what we do to those that threaten our own. "I needed her to trust me," he started after a slow breath. "I needed to play her game, to distract her..." His eyes moved to Feyre's and they held each other's gaze without shame. "I slept with her," he finally spilled out the words and we were all deathly still. "I slept with her for forty nine years so she wouldn't know about you - and about Velaris. She gave me my powers back slowly over time, giving me more and more freedom... The same freedom that led me to Feyre, who freed us all."
He finished with his eyes still on his mate's.
Tears spilled from Feyre's fast blinks and it was all I could do to keep from lashing out some piece of my power in some way. The rage that consumed me, the brokenness... The loneliness that I knew well. It had been a master of mine for most of my life, even when I'd opened myself to Cassian and Rhysand as friends and brothers. Yet here I was, still hundreds of years laters, still allowing that loneliness to rule me when my High Lord had it forced upon him.
It was forced upon him for forty nine years.
Amren was still as death while I watched Cassian continuously tense and relax his jaw over and over, dealing with the waves of rage and emotion I felt similarly in myself.
Mor was shaking.
"You are your own master," Feyre said, her voice stronger, more determined, like I'd heard it when she'd told me she knew who I was - when she'd told me I was taking her to her mate, taking her to save her mate. She'd known then. She'd already known what he was going through Under the Mountain. A new respect pooled within me and I knew this female might very well earn my undying trust apart from what I gave her for her mate. "This does not change that," she finished, and though we all knew we were missing some piece of this conversation between them, we cherished taking part in it.
This is what a mating bond looked like.
Rhysand lifted a hand to cup Feyre's face in his palm, the tender moment exposed for us all to witness. "Feyre," he whispered. "You saved me."
My skin prickled watching the vulnerability between them.
My High Lord spoke again, "We leave for the Prison tomorrow. Today we tour Velaris," he looked around the table to us all, "together." I tried not to notice the amount of misty eyes in the room. "And tonight..." he dropped off with a genuine smile, that pulled at some lost part of me.
"Rita's!" Cassian declared, rubbing away the single tear that had escaped down his tanned cheek.