𝒜 𝒞𝑜𝓊𝓇𝓉 𝑜𝒻 𝑅𝑒𝓈𝒾𝓈𝓉𝒶𝓃𝒸𝑒 𝒶𝓃𝒹 𝒮𝒸𝒶𝓇𝓈 | ᴀᴢʀɪᴇʟ

Chapter 52

Chapter 52

Arwen hadn't kept her first meal down the next day, or the second at lunch, even with much coaxing and encouragement from Cassian. They had sent Cassian both times, her responding to him meaning that he had suddenly been delegated as her caretaker. But she still couldn't stand the idea of being touched. Not by the heat of someone else's skin. She had grown too used to being without it.

She had built a fortress around her mind permanently. Rhysand's training from her childhood hadn't left her and the only time he would ever see into her mind is when she allowed it. Which, at the moment, was never.

A knock on her door barely roused her. Swathed in her soft throw rug that had come to be her favourite thing to feel, settled in the chair pushed close to the window, Arwen had no intention of leaving it to answer the door. She couldn't smell food. When the door did open, it created a small draft and her brother's scent wafted through her room. He closed it behind him.

Arwen dug her nose into the blanket and pretended to ignore the fact that she could see a shadow creeping its way out from behind the opened curtain, in a spot that a shadow should not be.

There came no greeting from Rhysand, even as he wandered deeper into her small chamber, even as he picked up the chair that remained at the modest table and pulled it next to hers. He angled it to face her rather than the view.

"I knew you would like this room," he murmured. "Your old chambers are empty if you want to move back into them. It's bigger of course, but this one always had a better view."

Arwen's rooms had been cleaned out. There was no point in moving from one room to another just for the space she didn't need. There would be no familiarity in them and the one she currently resided in did perfectly fine.

"I brought you something."

Arwen didn't turn her head, but peeked out the corner of her eye as he held something out to her. In his hand were leatherbound books. Four of them—two that she had read and loved before, two that she had only seen on the shelves in the town house. Reaching out of her sea of blanket, Arwen took them and pulled them into her lap. The leather was soft; easy to touch. She had missed books dearly and had often resorted to reading over the shoulders of others, but it usually only resulted in glimpses mid-story and people never stopped reading where she wanted them to.

Once his hands were empty, Rhysand kept bent forward, forearms braced along the tops of his knees, hands loosely clasped between them. He looked impeccable as always, in his neat assortment of a black tunic and trousers, polished boots rising to his knees. The High Lord he was always destined to be.

What was she destined for? Maybe she wasn't destined for anything and that is why she died before her life meant anything. And then she defied destiny by clinging to this world and now it would torment her for it. Her punishment for tethering herself, was that she was forced to stay. Unless she chose a way out. That was possible now.

"If you want different ones, or something new, let me know. I'll get anything for you."

Her nose flared with an indignant huff. It may have been a long time since they had spoken, but she did not forget the last words he said to her. What a burden she had been. Arwen wasn't stupid enough to put herself in that position again.

Tightening the curl of her legs, she forced herself to ask in something just above a whisper, "What do you want?"

"I want you to talk to me," he breathed, his tone suddenly turning to something more desperate. When she didn't respond, he continued. "Please, Arwen, I've just gotten you back."

Tracing her fingertip over the embossed leather, she said bitterly, "I'm not a lost toy. You don't get to claim my oh-so glorious return as yours."