Shadows Whisper | | Azriel

7

Rhys waited until Astryn was sleeping to go to Cassian. He almost didn't even want to go to him. He could go to the Autumn Court alone and slaughter Beron and all of his sons, maybe burn the entire court to the ground. Asking Cassian to come with him would help stop him from going entirely off the rails in retaliation for what had been done to Astryn—to the sister he didn't even know he had until today.

"Cassian," Rhys spoke tensely as he came into the dining room where Cassian and Mor were having dinner, "I need to speak with you. In private."

Mor cleared her throat and raised an eyebrow at her cousin.

"Don't give me that look," Rhysand scoffed, his patience running very thin. "I need you to stay here with my sister. Amren isn't exactly known for her sensitivities and I don't know how wise it would be to have Azriel anywhere near her, if he was even recovered enough to be any help."

"Last time I got anywhere near her, you were not too happy about it," she pointed out, watching a brief look of guilt flash over his face.

He hadn't meant to lash out, but every part of him was screaming at him to protect his sister, to do what he had failed to do for his other sister and his mother. He knew that Mor was no threat, but he could hardly think. He was so focused the the terrified, frail girl who had his eyes and looked far too much like him that logic had escaped him. He didn't want anyone other than Madja near them.

"I'm sorry," Rhys apologized sincerely, "it was...I'm sorry. Just, please, make sure she's okay while we're gone."

"Where, exactly, are we going?" Cassian finally spoke up, eyes darting between the cousins before settling on Rhys.

"The Autumn Court," Rhys answered, the stiff tension back in his voice now, "Beron and his sons die tonight. All of them."

"You'll start a war," Mor pointed out, a little shocked at Rhys's declaration.

"If the Autumn Court tried to go to war with me, I'll kill them all," Rhys said it like it was the obvious answer. "Beron and one of his pathetic sons were involved in my sister being locked up in that wretched cave for years and were going to force her into a marriage and into having children. They're all dead. And anyone in Autumn who fights for them will die too."

"If you slaughter the entire Autumn Court, do you really think the other courts will sit idly by and not retaliate?" Mor challenged, knowing Rhys needed a reality check here. She understood why he was ready to go in for the kill, but the consequences would be unimaginable. "You'd have every court out for your blood. And probably hers too. Or they'd just take her and force her into exactly what Beron planned to and you'd be too dead to do anything about it."

"Then I won't slaughter the whole court," Rhys snapped, "I'll tell Beron that if he hands over whichever one of his sons was involved in this, I'll spare him and the rest of his court and only kill his son."

"Beron has little care for his sons but he's too prideful to ever agree to that," Cassian chimes in again, "and killing Beron's son doesn't solve the problem that at least one person in the Hewn City was involved in this too. They kept her prisoner there for a reason. They had someone helping to hide her existence."

"How do you suppose we find whoever helped them then? I'd suggest we simply torture the answer out of Beron's son. Or Beron himself," Rhys seethed, "I don't imagine whoever it was will just step forward freely."

"We think it might be useful to see if we can figure out if her mother is alive," Mor said, already anticipating a bad reaction from this, "if her mother is alive, she was probably involved in some way. We could use the spell that we used to find her to find her mother—"

"Absolutely not," Rhys snapped, just as Mor anticipated, "that spell requires blood. No one is drawing blood from her. Either find another spell or forget the idea at all."

"It's not your choice to make," Mor argued, "this is about her, and it's her mother. Ask her what she wants."

Rhys couldn't disagree with that, but it felt wrong to put her in the position to be making that choice when she had only been free for a few hours after years locked up in chains.

"Let her sleep tonight," he replied after a moment, "I'll speak to her about it tomorrow."

"And you won't do anything impulsive in the Autumn Court?" Mor pressed, watching Rhys's face once again go stony.

"Fine," he bit out angrily, "but I can't promise that I won't go kill Beron and his son once we get more answers."

"Be prepared for war if you do that," Mor said simply as Rhys turned and stormed out.

"She's my sister and they kept her locked away for her entire life," Rhys stopped in the doorway to say, not bothering to turn back around, "if they want a war with me, they have it."

He left after that, stopping short when he found Azriel lingering outside of the room Astryn was sleeping in.

"What are you doing?" Rhys asked, eyes narrowed.

"I don't know," Azriel answered honestly, and it took Rhys a moment to realize that he wasn't as shrouded in shadows as he normally was. "The shadows wanted to check on her."

"Is she like you?" Rhys questioned after a moment of tense silence. It had been a long time since more than one shadowsinger existed at once.

"I've never met another shadowsinger," Azriel pointed out what they both already knew, "I don't know what she is. I can't sense anything from her other than her relation to you. That's the only thing her scent really reveals."

"It must be the faebane," Rhys said with a tired sigh, "I can't get much from her either. She was kept in faebane chains and I believe they were putting it in her food and water too. It might take some time to fully get through her system."

"They thought she was capable of killing you," Azriel brought up hesitantly, "and it took faebane chains and ingesting it to keep her down—and even then she was able to reach the shadows. I don't know what we'll find when the faebane is out of her system. If she's truly a shadowsinger and has any power like yours..."

"She'll have no idea how to control any of it," Rhys concluded, eyebrows furrowed, "it's not easy to learn to manage that much power after having it suppressed."

"She'll have time to learn," Azriel muttered, his shadows swirling around him. He cleared his throat awkwardly and blinked a few times, some fog seeming to clear from his eyes. "I have to go."

He was gone before Rhys could say a word.