𝒜 𝒞𝑜𝓊𝓇𝓉 𝑜𝒻 𝑅𝑒𝓈𝒾𝓈𝓉𝒶𝓃𝒸𝑒 𝒶𝓃𝒹 𝒮𝒸𝒶𝓇𝓈 | ᴀᴢʀɪᴇʟ

Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Cassian sought out his revenge the very next morning. Arwen awoke with a grumble forming in her throat. The sun barely slitted through her window even on the mountain's height overlooking the horizon. Not that she would have seen it anyway, as a great shadow loomed over her. He shook her when she clenched her eyes shut. Knowing that she had little choice, Arwen kicked her bedsheets away to free her legs, then nudged him away until she had room to rise.

"Out."

"And miss the show?"

She paused her digging through a drawer where she searched for her training clothes. "The show will be your broken nose when I tell Rhys that you didn't leave." A true enough threat as one ever was, but not the most effective that was in her arsenal. But threatening with Azriel felt like hypocrisy that she did not want to play into.

Cassian, with the memory of how his friend and High Lord reacted to his overnight activity with Mor many years ago, backed away with his hands open to the world. "Be up there in ten minutes," he warned her, even shutting the door behind him. Arwen smiled to herself, wiping the tire away from her eyes. Oh, Rhys had dislocated her shoulder alright, but he'd do far worse to anybody that violated his family.

The smile simmered. She hadn't gone that day with her father and brother to the Spring Court. She was glad for it, but he'd returned covered in blood as she still was, the deaths of Tamlin's brothers on his hands and a new power embodying him. He returned without their father and but with a new title. A mirror of how she found him, without her mother and with no wings.

For weeks after, she had struggled to walk, learning with her new balance as the centre of her gravity shifted, no longer compensating for wings. She had become lost during those days, spent the nights sobbing, cradled in her brother's arms as he cried silently over her.

That is why she now trained.
Because she was given a fighting chance that disaster-stricken day and she had barely made it. Barely crawled her way into the camp where Rhysand trained a new legion, blood spewing down her back, her mother's blood splayed across her cheek. She vowed never that she would ever feel that useless again. Arwen vowed that she would be strong enough to have saved the both of them.

Shutting the drawer, Arwen peeked a glance at the mirror hanging above her vanity. Tired, but she didn't look it. Dressing in fitted black trousers and a loose shirt, she left and headed to the rooftop training rings, wrapping her hands with a cloth as she went.

Waiting for her, or rather just there for training as well, were all three Illyrians. "Morning weaklings," she called, ready to rile them up and entertain herself.

"You won't be saying that after we're done today," Rhysand taunted, pointing a wooden staff at her. She only perked a brow at him in challenge, leaving him to consider what it meant in favour of warming her muscles.

Azriel and Cassian spared lightly to the side, Rhysand returning to practising manoeuvres with the staff to the air. He swung with lethal precision and air-whistling speed. Arwen knelt against the ground and prepped her arms into a push-up position, testing how her shoulder took the weight. Tense, but nothing she couldn't handle.

Even with only a month of rest she had fallen behind by a few repetitions from her usual goal but gave herself that space to have the strength return. Once her muscles felt warmed and her heart beating enough to get blood pumping, Arwen picked up another wooden staff and faced her brother.

"You're barely swatting flies away with that technique," she mocked, twisting her staff to block his downward blow. Rhysand grinned at her and struck again. Not moving out of the way in time, the wooden staff whacked her calf, leaving a sting and red line forming. Her lips rounded, a silent show of pain.