A Court of Heart and Fealty | Rhysand

Chapter 51: Temper

Chapter 51: Temper

Eyes followed her with every step. They stuck to her like leeches, sucking everything they could from her at the distance they kept only for Cassian's feral snarl that came if they wandered too close. She'd never been more thankful for him. He explained things as they meandered through the camp—the rankings, the jobs, the types of buildings. Everything about it was so...necessary. Everything had a place and a purpose. Everything was a necessity. They couldn't afford to have much else, with a small population constantly battling against other camps, dedicated to survival.

It was harsh and brutal and though Cassian had a wariness on his face, those things didn't seem to bother him. This was him.

That thought ticked her mind in a new direction. Cassian was exactly those things—a warrior through flesh and bone and blood. He was an unrelenting force on the killing fields and grew up in this very camp, training and working as they did. Yet he was still Cassian. He was still the one she trusted with her life. How many others were like him?

Galadriel watched a small patrol of Illyrians dart through the skies above them, black blurs on the wind. "I haven't seen any females fly," she noted.

"Most of them can't," Cassian replied bitterly. "Clipping. When they're young, they clip part of the wing's base so they can't. It's a crude practice that Rhys has tried to outlaw for decades. But Illyrians are as stubborn in their ways as they are fierce. He's their High Lord, but it's a barely recognised title." It was probably only his power that kept them at bay. "Makes my job all that more difficult."

Sickening disgusts coiled through her stomach, but she kept herself from spitting some foul assortment of language for Cassian's sake. He probably heard enough of it from others and didn't deserve that from her. "That's the problem with immortality," she said. "The same minds. The same values. Nothing changes easily."

"And the benefit," he shot back as they passed a large undercover arrangement of tables. A common mess space, he added, for soldiers. "When you have a good leader, with good values, they're worth keeping around."

"When did you know that was Rhys?"

He turned down a wide lane. In the distance, she could make out the familiar movements of fighting. Fast as lightning, striking just as hard. Their bodies twisted and turned the same way she'd watched Cassian and Azriel and Rhys perform with so much ease that it must have been as simple to them as walking.

Cassian blinked at her. "Who said I was talking about him?" Mockingly gaping at him, she knocked her shoulder into his. He laughed and knocked her back with the hard ridge on the edge of his wing. "It didn't take long," he answered, softer. "As soon as his mother took me in, I knew what type of person was raising him. One I knew my own would have been if she could."

Galadriel folded her arms over her chest as a deep gust came right off the mountain, her blood chilling. "You don't speak of your mother often."

His smile was fond but mournful. "She died when I was young. Dumped me right in the middle of the camp and when I went back to find her years later, the camp she'd been working in had killed her. Wouldn't even tell me where they buried her."

"That's awful."

He tightened his lips, a small nod of agreeance. "When Rhys's mother and sister were killed... Mor barely kept me from going down and tearing apart the pieces of the Spring Court that Rhys had left." His eyes slid down to hers. "He told me you were there. About your family."

"Tamlin winnowed me out. Honestly, I think he might have saved me from Rhys's father." A regretful truth. "I heard from others what was left behind. I don't..." She let out a sigh, shaking her head. "I don't blame Rhys, and I've told him that. But I do think that I would probably be dead if I hadn't left. His father killed Tamlin's mother. My mother was caught in it all and died. I was the only young female that was near his daughter's age. Tamlin probably realised that."