Freyja's Cat Chariot

“Why are you so obsessed with me and my family?” She was so young, the little sister. Or perhaps the better word for it was unformed. Unmolded clay. Exacerbated by the way she looked so uncertain in her fine dress, her forced air of authority and dignity a poor fit on the female. It was fortunate for Feyre she had endeared herself already to the fae, to the members of her court, because the role of Lady seemed unnatural for her. She made the weight of the title look too heavy. But there was still that something feral about her. She had held onto it, even in her new role, that energy like she was about to jump out of her skin if she didn’t do something a little reckless and spontaneous. It suited her, but it would have driven Rhys mad.

Tam watched every word out of his mate’s mouth like it was his new religion.

Feyre, on the other hand, watched Rhys very carefully, waiting for his answer. He could sense something sparking under the surface Feyre’s skin, a glimmer in her eyes. As someone who had struggled to learn to contain his magic, he had an inkling hers was completely out of the child’s control. He wondered…

“Perhaps I miss your sister,” Rhys threw out with a careless shrug. Telling the truth, even mockingly, was like letting trapped air out of his lungs. “Perhaps I should carry her away to Night to keep her safe.” 

“Stay away from Nesta.” The words came out of the Cursebreaker as a hiss.

“Are you so sure she wants to stay away from me? We became quite close, you know. Perhaps she misses sharing my bed.” Rhys grinned and Cassian chuckled behind him at the snarl Tamlin gave in response.

But then all laughter stopped. Feyre was practically vibrating with her untethered magic. Over her long, freckled arms, small flames had begun to dance, began to shift and move like adders ready to strike. They didn’t seem to be hurting her, she didn’t even notice for a second until they began to hiss and grow. A panic subsumed her. The flames grew taller and fiercer and a terror took over Tamlin’s face. 

“Tam. Tam, what’s happening?” Feyre seemed ready to unravel completely, and the more she did, the more out of control her flames seemed to be. Tamlin moved to hold her, to comfort her, but Feyre shied away.  It was Lucien who eased it, approaching Feyre like one soothing a wild dog. 

“It’s alright, Fey. Calm yourself. You’re fine. Nesta’s fine,” he repeated, his voice soft and melodious, until the words began to penetrate. Once he was close enough, he reached a hand out to Feyre’s burning arm. The flames didn’t burn him, moved over his skin without harm. Lucien slid his arm down to take Feyre by the hand. He held it, his breathing steady, and silently instructed Feyre to do the same. After a few seconds, the Cursebreaker calmed and the flames dissipated, but it was far too obvious to Rhys at least that this wasn’t the first time she'd needed to be talked down. 

Rhys hated seeing her here. No, a lie. He loved seeing Nesta anywhere, any opportunity granted to him. But if he could break the bars of the cage in which she locked herself, he would. She deserved more than devoting herself to raise the pretensions of the father who didn’t care enough for her and the sister too blind and too spoiled to the sacrifices and feelings of her siblings. It was a waste of her talents, her intelligence, that authority she could muster at a blink. He wanted so much to be the one to give her the life she deserved. But Nesta would never allow that, would never allow even the point of view that her life was somehow less than satisfying. 

He lingered, glamoured as he watched from the window as Nesta announced her return. She seemed surprised to find her father at home for once and sitting with a man with straight strawberry blond hair cut bluntly in a way that reminded Rhys of a broom. The male rose with a pleased grin upon her entrance. Rhys managed to stop himself from flying in and ripping off the hand that took Nesta’s in greeting, raising it to his lips for a light kiss, but only just. Nesta had not told him that she was still entertaining suitors. Not a surprise, considering wrenching secrets from her was pulling teeth, but as a mated male who had waited eight months for a single taste of his female, Rhys felt…pressed. Rhys had only just made his affection truly known, he reminded himself. Nesta may want things he could not give her - a marriage in which she could grow old with someone. Children. Once again, he was torn. Rhys wanted Nesta to have everything she desired, truly. He simply also wanted to be the only one to give her those things. 

The Cauldron had been cruel.  

But as the man’s hand drifted injudiciously low on Nesta’s back as he led her to her seat, fate was written. Rhys could put a stop to this right now in a civil manner, or he could find this man and mist him in his sleep. For the sake of human-fae relations, the choice was clear. 

“Lord Rhysand Adesius begs a moment of your time, Miss Nesta.” Rhys followed the servant who announced him to the astonished family gathering. He couldn’t help the satisfied smile as the unknown man shifted uncomfortably at the sight of Rhys.  That’s right, fucker, he thought, you haven’t a prayer. 

“Lady Nesta, I apologize for my interruption, but you left your book in my carriage. I did not wish you to do without.” He had hit upon the excuse and conjured something from the shadow realm to give the easy lie credence. He held the book he had magicked blindly - a text on botany too dry for even him - and tried not to laugh when Nesta wrinkled her nose at it. 

“How thoughtful of you,” she answered flatly. “Thank you. I’d invite you to stay but- “

“Nesta, child. You’ve no wish to be unsociable, I’m sure,” her father was on his feet in a moment, heading Rhys’s way. Rhys didn’t miss how her eyes flashed steely grey in anger at the rebuke. “Introduce us to your friend.” 

She dutifully nodded. “Lord Rhys, this is my father, Roland Archeron. And his friend Sir Cole Wynat. Rhys is a neighbor of Aunt Ripleigh’s, father. He has just done me the kindness of escorting me home.” Nesta turned to Rhys then, her smile tight and forbidding. “We shouldn’t keep him.” 

Mr. Archeron brushed right past his daughter, ignoring her. Rhys’s nostrils flared at the man’s blatant disregard for daughter’s wishes, even if it did serve his own purpose. He told himself to keep things amiable as Mr. Archeron reached for his hand. 

“Forgive my daughter, Lord Rhys. She has a shyness that is often mistaken for indifference. You are more than welcome.” 

But Rhys did let himself squeeze the man’s proffered hand just past the point of comfort. Just a subtle warning. 

His guilt was ready to drown him. Cassian roamed the streets of Velaris, bright and colorful as always. Cheery as always. The past few months he’d not left the Townhouse often for this exact reason – he felt mocked by everyone else’s happiness, by the lightness everyone else seemed to carry. By their easy smiles. Didn’t they know the sun was out of his life? How were they so fucking carefree about it?

He walked down a block he knew well, Nesta’s old stomping grounds. He knew more about these residents than he should have, having accidentally spied on them when he would perch on rooftops, watching over Nesta. Knew the older high fae male who always cooked and ate the exact same omelette every night. Knew that the couple in the building next to where Nesta’s had stood always ended the night inviting the male’s best friend for a nightcap. Knew that same best friend was desperately in love with his buddy’s female, but neither half of the couple seemed to realize it. It felt strange to have such intimacy with people Cassian would never know and hadn’t seen in over two years. It had seemed wrong, at the time, for Nesta to be here. To be living in such squalor, to be walking these unsavory streets. But perhaps she had liked it, liked the lack of pretension, liked the familiar scrappiness of it. 

Cassian realized he had never asked. 

This is what bothered him more than anything else, here on the other side of Nesta and him: how little he knew about her. How little he had bothered to ask, how little she had been comfortable sharing. Cassian had felt like he knew Nesta from the moment they had met, knew her down to her bones. But it was such arrogant bullshit on his part. He knew the shadows of stories and allowed himself to draw his own conclusions. He had one moment with her when she was human, and felt her fear of males. Correctly guessed she had been hurt by one. That was enough for Cassian to taste blood in his mouth, for his instincts to drive him to fly out and find the prick, make him suffer for it. But he had never asked about it again. He hadn’t known she had been engaged to the asshole until she mentioned it that night before she left him. 

“Don’t give me your controlling bullshit. Show me.” Cassian crossed his arms. “I’m not leaving here until I see.” 

“Maybe Nesta wouldn’t want you prying into it.”

“Nesta should probably never speak to me again, so there’s little chance she’ll ever know. Show me.” 

Still Rhys hesitated, biting at the inside of his cheek in that way he had had since they were children. Literally biting back the words. The three of them stood in silence for a long awkward moment before Rhys finally spat out, “Remember you asked for this.” 

“I want to see too,” Feyre piped up. 

“Darling, I don’t think that’s a good -”

“I thought we discussed you making decisions for my good, Rhys. If you’re showing Cassian, you can show me too.” 

Rhys resisted, but finally nodded. A second later, Cassian was back in that fucking room, though this time he wasn’t trying to ignore the excruciating pain at his back. He was sick with terror and rage, bound and gagged as he watched Elain carried into the Cauldron. He felt the fear Nesta felt as she looked around, seeing only a crowd of fae that she couldn’t trust would do a single thing to help her, that for all she knew would delight in her and Elain’s tortures. The terror she felt not knowing if Elain would survive. The horror at her changed form, the loss of the sister she knew her whole life. He saw himself, prone on the floor, felt the sense of betrayal that this was happening to her - had her sister or her friends even bothered to try to protect them? Had Cassian even remembered his promise? These soldiers stole them from their beds with little effort. But overpowering this anger was a deep concern as she noticed Cassian struggling to move. The wave of relief that Elain survived cut short by yet another treacherous faerie coming too close, coming to claim her sister seconds after she was forever changed. 

And then the sheer paralyzing horror as the soldiers grabbed Nesta. The certainty that she would die. The way she fought with such desperation, clinging to her life as best she could while knowing she wouldn’t succeed. Cassian glanced briefly at Feyre, who had tears running down her face even before the pain of the Cauldron started. 

Cassian gasped at the agony of it. The way its cold waters burned, pouring itself into her blood. Twisting and tearing at her angrily as she tried to fight back. It was a whole, consuming torture - no single part of Nesta had been left alone, every piece of her had been broken and reshaped to the Cauldron’s wishes. She watched as the swirling waters came for her in revenge, something ominous in their movement, in the power they wielded. She tried screaming for help, she tried screaming Cassian’s name, and the Cauldron’s water simply used the opportunity to reach down her mouth like a vicious claw and rip her apart from the inside. He had remembered those screams well, had been haunted by them more than once, but feeling them, feeling the desperation behind them….Cassian felt ill. It had been less than a minute in the Cauldron, but he had remembered Nesta saying it had felt like more. She hadn’t told him it felt like an eternity of agony. Death itself holding her by the throat, burrowing into her flesh and bone and mind.

Grief. Profound, immovable grief. That’s how it ended. That’s what lied beneath the pain. Cassian had expected rage. That was what Nesta had expressed after all - a death promise for that horrible king. A glorious and terrible goddess fueled by vengeance and cloaked in a fury she carried with her for the entirety of the war. But no. It was grief  for the body that was no longer her own. Grief for the life she would never get to live. Grief at being ripped from everything she knew, and being thrown into a world that terrified her instead. They had had little patience, Cassian and his family, afterwards. They hadn’t said it outright, but they had all thought it - the sisters had been given gifts they didn’t deserve. Immortality. Eternal fae beauty. Inconceivable power. How dare they be so tortured by it? 

Rhys pulled out of his and Feyre’s minds gently as he could, and Cassian came back to himself, standing in his brother’s elegant office space inside his stately home, a sense of familiarity and coziness returning to him slowly. 

They stood in uncomfortable silence, Rhys and Nesta, each waiting the other out to break the quiet. 

“She’s very beautiful,” Nesta tried to say offhand, nodding at the High Lord of Summer’s cousin, who was preoccupied with some of what Nesta guessed were the High Lord’s vassals. 

“Cresseida?” Rhys glanced behind him at the princess. “Yes, she is.” 

“Politically advantageous too,” Nesta continued. “His Lordship Tarquin seems rather...cool towards you. An alliance by marriage would be beneficial.” 

She could practically see Rhys biting his tongue, his jaw feathering with his irritation. “An astute observation as well, Nesta. May I ask the point of this?” 

Nesta did her best to make her shrug look offhand. “Just considering. She’s a fine prospect. And she actually seems to find you charming.” 

“A sign of poor taste then.” Nesta could feel his irritation mounting, a sort of coiled energy emanating off of Rhys, even as he forced himself to stand perfectly still, continuing to lean against the railing, arms crossed in front of his chest. He took a slow inhale, then exhale. He repeated this twice. Reining himself in “Is this your way of having the conversation you’ve been avoiding, Nesta?” 

Nesta said nothing. 

Rhys let out a petulant little scoff. “Very well, then. Have it your way.” He shoved himself off the railing they were leaning against and strode purposefully towards Cresseida.