Shadows Whisper | | Azriel

19

It took a full day and a half to get to the Autumn Court. Azriel would have made the trip much quicker if it had been entirely up to him, but Cassian reasoned that they needed to conserve some power so they were able to fight.

Azriel expected the time they took to rest to anger the shadows, but they didn't say a word to him. They seemed unsettled and almost fearful, and they ignored his attempts to communicate with him.

"We should talk about what you did to Rhys," Cassian broke the silence that had stretched out between them. "And why you did it."

"He had it coming," Azriel grumbled, hands balling up into fists. "He knows he had it coming."

"What did he do?" Cassian pressed, unwilling to let this drop. He hated seeing any malice between his brothers.

"He gave a stupid order," Azriel replied, "a stupid order that he had absolutely no right to give in the first place."

"I assume it had something to do with Astryn," Cassian concluded, and Azriel's eyes flashed with anger.

"He wanted me away from her," the shadowsinger said, and there was so much fury in his voice—fury directed at his friend, his High Lord, the one he had proudly called his brother for so long. "I don't even know why. Maybe he just doesn't think a low born bastard is good enough for his sister."

"Az," Cassian spoke softly, sympathy in his voice.

"Don't speak to me like that," Azriel snapped, seeming to close off. "I don't want your pity, Cassian. I don't care what the fucking High Lord thinks. If he sees me as unworthy, that's his problem to deal with. Your brother will just have to accept that he gets no say in this."

Azriel's words echoed in Cassian's head. The way he referred to Rhys—the High Lord, Cassian's brother but not his own anymore.

"Whatever prompted Rhys to give that order, it was not that he thinks you're unworthy," Cassian defended weakly, "you're family to him and he loves you, you know that. We're brothers."

Azriel let out a huff before he spoke coldly, "well, it wouldn't be the first time I've been burned by a brother, would it?"

It was Cassian's turn to be angry then.

"Don't you fucking dare compare him to them," he snapped, entirely unwilling to let Rhys be compared to Azriel's half-brothers, those vile boys who had lit his hands on fire just to see what happened. "He is not like them. He would not harm you the way they did. Ever. He's not like them."

"Isn't he though? Privileged, born into power that he never really had to earn. He can play the part as much as he likes, but he was never like us. He was never starved and left to fend for himself, he was never locked away in the dark for years because his family was ashamed of his existence. He was always clothed and fed and cared for. There was a time for both of us, Cassian, when we had absolutely nothing. And he was born with everything. He didn't even have to be in that fucking camp, he didn't have to train like an Illyrian. He was there because his mother wanted it, but we both know he could have left. He could have gone back to his nice, comfortable home and lived a life of luxury."

"Quit it with the self-pity," Cassian scoffed with a glare, "you know full well that Rhys is not some privileged little prick who thinks he owns the world. I don't know what it was that caused him to order you to stay away from Astryn, but with you behaving like this I really don't blame him for doing it. Get yourself under control. Rhys isn't some monster. He didn't order you away because he didn't think you were worthy. He probably did it because he feared things being too overwhelming for her. She had been free for a fucking day, Azriel, and you were looking at her like she was your missing piece—"

"She's my mate," Azriel growled, and Cassian's eyes widened a fraction.

"I didn't know," he said calmly, "but that doesn't change things. It is understandable that Rhys panicked and gave a stupid, unreasonable order. Especially if he didn't realize yet that she's your mate. She hadn't known anything other than that cave and those chains and the beatings she took. He shouldn't have given you that order and you have every right to be angry about it but don't think for a single second that he gave it because he thought you weren't worthy of Astryn. It's not long compared to many others, but you've been around for over a hundred years and lived so much life. She has been alive for twenty years and spent most of those years chained up in a cave."

Azriel seemed to deflate a bit, his shoulders sagging and his head hanging forward just slightly. Cassian didn't think he had ever seen his brother look so broken.

He hated that Azriel's first assumption was that Rhys ordered him away from Astryn because he thought he was unworthy. He hated what that implied Azriel thought of himself. Azriel never showed much emotion, at least not before Astryn showed up, but Cassian had always known he had some insecurities. There were so many things Azriel hated about himself, but Cassian hadn't realized just how deeply that self-loathing ran, that it was engrained so deeply that he had no trouble coming to the conclusion that Rhys wouldn't want him with Astryn because of what he was. Cassian knew there were things Azriel would never say, but he didn't need to say any of this for him to know it. Azriel hated himself for so many things, so much that he thought Rhys might hate him for those things too.

Cassian knew it wasn't Rhys who thought Azriel wasn't worthy of Astryn. It was Azriel himself who believed that.