𝒜 𝒞𝑜𝓊𝓇𝓉 𝑜𝒻 𝑅𝑒𝓈𝒾𝓈𝓉𝒶𝓃𝒸𝑒 𝒶𝓃𝒹 𝒮𝒸𝒶𝓇𝓈 | ᴀᴢʀɪᴇʟ

Chapter 13

Chapter 13

"I think I know something."

Rhysand, sitting in an ornate chair in the generous sitting room, nearly spilt his morning tea over his lap. He recovered the tilt of the cup, managing only a few droplets to spill over as Amren circled around the chair, a hefty book in hand. "People have forgotten how to say good morning in this city," he muttered, eyes flashing around for sign of anybody else. The town house had been remarkably quiet that fine morning, with Arwen still sleeping away and the others at the House of Wind. He had least of all expected Amren to show up at the hour of dawn without prompt. "What do you have there?"

"An answer," she answered. Amren donned her usual grey assortment of a cropped blouse and loose trousers. It was un-uniquely plain until one looked at the jewels adorning her neck of a blood-coloured ruby necklace. Rhysand sat straighter against his chair as Amren dropped the book on the lowered table in front of the lounge and flicked through the pages to the one he could see marked. "It's been stuck in my head ever since you told me what happened, and I couldn't figure out why."

"But you have," he filled in, placing his tea aside. "You know what is happening to Arwen?" He glanced up along the staircase he could just see through the main hall, wondering if he should awaken her. No, he needed to know first if it was something worth informing her of. Mother knew she was better off sleeping in any case.

"I've never met one before, but there was one alive that had been recorded sometime when I was in the prison." Rhysand crouched next to his Second, eyes scanning the words of the page. He recognised the label before it was given—one. One of something. Amren murmured to herself before an elegant finger landed on the right page, mid-way through a passage. "There. 'A being that could move into a plane beyond our existence'."

His mouth parted wide with a slow blink. "I don't even know what that means."

"It means a spiritual plane, Rhys," Amren stated flatly. Her finger moved down to a single, italicised word. "A celestian." He stared at the word for a pregnant length of silence until she grew tired of patience. "You are tied to your bodies just like I am tied to this form. But my existence is tied to something else, just as yours also are."

"I still don't understand."

"How you are a High Lord, I will never understand," she crooned. Rhysand spared her a quick smile, choosing to take the jest from the insult. "There is a reason, Rhys, that you call the yearly migration of spirits, Starfall."

It was too early in the morning, he reasoned against his slow comprehension. But his mind finally started working. "They move through a celestial plane," he said, the words echoing softly. "We move into it once we die. But Arwen is alive. I think I'd know if she wasn't."

Amren failed in smothering the roll of her eyes. "Cauldron Rhysand, I know she's not dead. But like me, she's in a form that's not completely natural to her."

Rhysand splayed out his fingers in front of him, forearms pressed into the edge of the table. "But she's my sister. I was there when my mother gave birth to her. She's Fae and Illyrian."

"And your spymaster is full Illyrian, yet we call him a shadowsinger. You have powers too." He fell silent again, placing pieces of both said and unsaid information together. Amren waved her hand across the page. "This is the only written source I could find. It's not enough to tell us whether it was inherited or just chance, but it is the only thing that makes sense."

He buried his face into his hands, stretching the skin until he deigned to look back up. "I still don't understand what she is. What does it mean for her?"

"I'd like to know too."

His gut twisted, both physically and metaphorically as he snapped his upper body towards the large arched entrance into the sitting room. Arwen stood in her nightgown, her lips thinned into a single line.