Chapter Text
When she could hide him no longer, she took for him a basket made of bulrushes and daubed it with bitumen and pitch. She put the child in it and placed it among the reeds by the river bank. And his sister stood afar off, to wit what would be done to him.
Exodus 2:3-4
Night after night, Nyx Archeron stands before the portrait at the shadowy end of the hall.
At twenty-four, he doesn’t know a lot of things. What the world looks like beyond the Night Court. What the citizens of the Hewn City did to earn their imprisonment. How to speak more than twelve words to a female.
What his father’s power will feel like in his veins, in the same moment when both his parents leave the world.
Part of this is due to his station. As heir to the Night Court, his education has dominated most of his life. Protection, preservation, has kept him within the borders of their lands. And as for the females, well. He supposes his own bumbling awkwardness is to blame for that particular limitation.
But Nyx does know there’s a reason why this portrait is hidden in the unused wing of his home, when all the others are displayed with grandeur.
He discovered it one night in his insomniac wandering, after another of Mother and Father’s dinner squabbles that carried over behind their bedroom door. They’ve been fighting more recently. He tries not to linger on it.
The couple in the painting is half-familiar to him. Their hands are bound by black ribbon, the only indication it’s a wedding portrait.
The female is dressed all in white, Uncle Cass in some contraption that must be traditional Illyrian garb. It criss-crosses his wings, hung with charms of iron and brass, and he looks down at his bride with a brightness Nyx has never before seen in his face. His hair is shorter, too, braided on the sides. Shiny, so different from the grizzled strands that now reach halfway down his back.
They say Uncle Cass used to laugh all the time. Make jokes. Get them all riled and raucous when they most needed it, a blazing fire even in the darkest night.
Nyx has only even known him snuffed out.
But it’s not just this lost light that brings him back to the deserted corridor, when his mind travels to the pressured murmurs leaking under his parents’ door.
It’s the female.
She looks somewhat like Mother. Sharper cheekbones, darker hair woven into a coronet threaded with white ribbon. Grey-blue eyes that crinkle at the corners from her smile so wide.
She must be the one they whisper about when his uncle excuses himself, when Mother and Father get moony over each other. The one referenced in the dry, knowing looks traded over refilled wine glasses, Auntie Mor sucking her teeth in annoyance.
They never say a name, only ‘she’ or ‘her’ or ‘you know’. Nyx guesses she broke Cassian’s heart in some way. Maybe she died. Maybe she was unfaithful. Whatever it was, it’s clear that for his uncle it was a fulcrum. A scarred line denoting before and after Her.
He tucks his own wings reflexively when shadow falls over the female’s face.
“Nxyie? What are you doing up here?”
His mother’s dressing gown shimmers under the low faelights as she alights on the landing. Her dedication to opulence has always confused him, especially now with no one around to see them.
Perhaps it’s his own charmed life that’s allowed him such indifference—he knows his mother had a hard life before meeting Father. Perhaps he should forgive her a few vices.
“Nothing, Mother,” he says quickly, turning to block the portrait. But then he thinks better of it, stepping aside to lean against the wall in the narrow space. “I was curious about this piece.” He gestures mildly, nonchalance masking the way his heart has started hammering inexplicably. “I’ve never noticed it before. That’s Uncle Cass, right?”
“Is he holding a sword?” his mother responds, rubbing at tired eyes. “If so, it’s definitely him.”
He wonders why she’s awake, though he doesn’t want the answer.
“I’m sure it’s him,” Nyx revises. “But who’s the female?”
“Who—oh.” Mother stops short, recognizing her own work. “It’s… that’s…” A strange expression takes over her face, like a cloud blocking the sun. She chews at her lip the way she does when she wants to tell him no without hurting his feelings.“That’s Nesta. She—well. She’s been gone a long time.”
“Before I was born?” he presses. There may not be another chance to catch her this unguarded, so he has to make this count.
“No,” she says reluctantly. “Just after.”
His mother comes to stand beside him, leaning on his shoulder a bit. It’s still strange to be taller than her, though it’s been years since she’s been able to kiss his cheek without standing on her toes.
“Nesta.” He says the name quietly to himself. Feels the shape of it in his mouth, like a spell from the books he studies with Amren.
Wind rattles the windows at the other end of the hall, thunder rumbling as a storm rolls in from the sea. It’ll be his nameday soon. The storms always portend winter’s breaking.
“Let’s go to bed, sweet love,” his mother urges gently, reaching up to rub the back of his neck. Redirection has long been her tactic with him. “We’ve got a long day tomorrow. And the delegation from Dawn likes to show up early, fittingly.”
“Alright, Mother.”
She trails back toward the stairs, and he turns to follow despite not wanting to. A nagging instinct wants him to keep staring until he understands, to puzzle out how a person can disappear like that. How hands bound in black ribbon could be cleaved apart, when his own parents won't separate even in death.
Lightning strikes out the far window, throwing the portrait into stark relief.
And despite only catching it in his periphery, he could swear the female’s eyes glow silver for the briefest moment before winking out.
“Who is Nesta?” Nyx asks Amren at their lesson three days later. Her expression immediately darkens, scowl deeper than he’s ever seen it.
“A wretched witch not worth wasting breath on. Now repeat those runes back to me. Watch your diction.”
His terrifying tutor snaps the window shut in her stifling apartment, blocking out the sounds of children on the street, and he says no more.
A few days later, Nyx tries again.
“Auntie Mor, do you know a female named Nesta?” he asks breezily. They’re gliding through the Rainbow with her on his arm, taking in the sun that’s been hidden all winter.
His aunt stiffens at the name, her nails digging into his jacket.
“I don’t,” she grumbles. “And I’m the better for it. We all are. After what she did to Cassian—”
“What did she do?” It must’ve been something terrible, though he can’t help feeling like there’s a shadow moving behind a screen. Like there’s some piece of it no one wants to look at, just like the portrait hidden in the deserted wing.
His aunt huffs, adjusting her white fur stole.
“She ripped his heart from his chest like the harpy she is. Was. Oo, those earrings are lovely.”
She brightens again, pausing at a stall to shine golden light over the shopkeeper. Somehow walks away with the jewels free of charge, while Nyx is left only with more confusion.
The mystery haunts him, night after night, as he finds himself again before the painting. He can’t shake the feeling there’s an answer here, though he’s still not sure the right questions to ask. Why he wants to see the silver flash in her eyes again. Why it gives him comfort, even beneath the shroud of silence.
“Amren and Auntie Mor are keeping secrets from me,” he says at dusk two weeks after learning Nesta’s name. The training ring atop the House is barren save for his instructor, bare dirt strewn only with their boots, jackets, and undertunics.
“They’re both gossips, they’ll confess soon enough,” Uncle Az says sardonically. “Don’t drop your elbow.”
He spins with another kick and Nyx tries to dodge, realizing he’s too late to strike. But instead of going on the offensive when he regains his balance, he straightens, panting.
“I know Uncle Cass was married to someone named Nesta.” It tumbles out all conjoined, before he can stop himself. Probably better to be out and out about it. Azriel has never been one to hedge.
But to Nyx’s surprise, he freezes completely. Shadows thrash around him in a way Nyx has rarely seen before
“I’d advise you to never bring her up again.” Azriel’s voice is low, sharp as the blade strapped to his leg. “Some graves should be left undisturbed.”
“So she’s dead, then?”
“As far as I’ve heard, no. But she’s no longer welcome here,” Azriel says darkly.
“Why not?”
His uncle points to the ground, indicating Nyx to retake the ready position. But Nyx remains where he is. Harsh winds blow his hair into his eyes—he brushes it back with haste, wanting to calculate every minute shift in Az’s expression.
“Don’t ask questions you can’t handle the consequences of. I’m serious,” he growls, and Nyx almost takes a step back from the force of it. “Don’t bring her up again. And don’t mention her to Cassian.”
Nyx stalks away at the end of their training, burning. How is he supposed to know the consequences if no one will let him ask? How is he to know the impact if he doesn’t know the weight of what he’s dropping?
There’s only one way to find out.
“Uncle Cass?”
The workshop behind the house is full of half-finished traps and other out-of-doors equipment, fishing nets in various states of repair. A bit ramshackle, if he’s being charitable. His uncle stretches from where he’s been bent over his whetstone, sharpening an Illyrian hunting spear.
“Hello,” he calls out, smiling, though it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “It’s been too long.”
Cassian is neither surly nor taciturn. He speaks more than his other uncle, mostly about his hunting expeditions, the changing of seasons from the country just outside Velaris. In moments he’ll briefly brighten, telling a story of older days, usually of Father doing something stupid.
He used to command the armies, apparently. His size is the only thing belying that, the rest of him slow and heavy like a bear just out of hibernation. Always relearning how to use his limbs, though the lesson never seems to stick.
Nyx sucks in a deep breath and leans against the skeleton of a long-abandoned fishing boat, trying not to fidget.
“I want to ask you something I’m not supposed to,” he starts carefully.
“My favorite kind of question. Do your worst.” Uncle Cass rubs his hands together, likely anticipating another inquiry about females or ways to annoy Auntie Mor. Nyx almost feels bad as he takes another shaky breath, though to shore up his courage or give his uncle one last moment of peace, he’s not sure.
“Who’s Nesta?”
He waits for the preternatural stillness, the ice cold rage, the warning not to ask again.
But Cassian doesn’t freeze like the others. Instead he leans back on his stool, stretching his legs long on the scrubbed wood floor, and says nothing.
“No one will tell me,” Nyx presses. Each word is a roll of dice. “I’ve seen her portrait at home, with you. With—I know she left. That she was important. If she was part of our family, I think I deserve to know, I’m old enough to—”
“Nesta,” Cass repeats quietly at last, the name almost like a prayer. His eyes flicker around the room as if he’s watching phantoms dance all around them.
“Who was she?” Nyx asks again, his mother’s stubbornness rising in him like a fever.
He expects his uncle to shut him down. To shoo him off like all the rest.
But Cassian heaves a deep sigh and looks him straight in the eye.
“Your aunt. Your mother’s sister. And my mate.”
“I—oh.”
The truth splatters between them like the mud pies he used to make in the yard just outside. Nyx opens and closes his mouth a few times, not even sure how words go in the right order at this moment.
His uncle’s mate? His… his aunt?
He has another aunt. Nyx’s mind reels, whizzing through all the dinner table benedictions from Father about the importance of family. About protecting their own, improving their court—the whole of Prythian—so they could be together in peace.
She was one of them… but now she’s gone?
“She left not long after you were born,” Cassian explains, mercifully sensing his confusion. “There was a…” He shakes his head, as if casting an image away. “It became impossible for her to stay.”
Something smolders behind his uncle’s eyes, an ember in the darkness. In the low lights of the workshop it’s hard to tell, but it looks like he’s close to crying. Nyx understands now why the others warned him off, but it’s Cassian’s story to tell if anyone’s.
So he’ll let him decide.
“Why?”
“Because I was a coward.”
The pieces want to connect, but Nyx’s thoughts can’t build the bridges. He’s never known his uncle to be a coward. In fact, he’s the one who usually steps in for the jobs no one wants.
“Amren said she was wretched. A witch.”
The laugh Cassian gives is humorless, a release of stale, bitter air long trapped inside.
“Nesta might say she was both. I’d say neither. But that’s…well.” He strokes at his beard, grown scragglier of late. “Not for me to decide anymore.”
His uncle looks so sad then that Nyx can’t bear to ask any more questions.
“Mother and Father have been arguing again,” he blurts out. Embarrassment flushes hot in his cheeks, but Cass gives him a small smile, which makes it almost feel worth it.
“Would you like to stay here tonight? I’ve still got eight more tips to sharpen, and could use those steady hands of yours.”
It’s a lie—Nyx has never had steady hands. They always quake with uncertainty, as if he’s always one move from messing things up.
“Yes,” he says, gratitude blooming in his chest nonetheless. “Thank you.”
“And Nyxie, can you do me a favor?” his uncle asks as he bends to pick up the next spear tip from the crate. Nyx straightens, tensing all over again, but Cassian beckons him closer. “Don’t ask about her any more tonight,” he says quietly. The shick of metal against the whetstone plays a ragged rhythm, like the beating of a broken heart. “I’ll tell you but—not tonight.”
After Nyx retires to the spare bedroom that night thrumming with something he can’t quite name. A buzzing as he rubs the edge of the worn quilt between thumb and forefinger, a growing sense that whatever answers he needs lie on the path to Her.
The silver-eyed female.
His exiled aunt.
Nesta.
“Get up. We’re going to see the sunrise.”
Cracking a bleary eye open, Nyx sees his uncle looming above him. It’s so early the birds aren’t even chirping.
“You’re insane.”
“And yet you came to me for advice. Up.”
He’s tempted to argue further, but Cassian is already rummaging in the dresser, tossing trousers and a shirt and a thick, warm wing wrapping over one shoulder. Nyx catches them as best he can, though they end up tangled about his arms. It earns a sneaky smirk from Cass, who loves to remind him that even the heir to the Night Court is fallible.
As if Nyx has trouble remembering that.
Darkness clings to the world when they begin the journey up the winding path, to the cliffs above the House that overlook the city.
They used to do this often, back when his wings were awkward and cumbersome as he scaled the ridge. He feels a surge of pride to have grown into them at last, flexing for balance against the wind that rushes up behind them. Though he’s still no stranger to an accidental corkscrew or nosedive when a rogue gust catches him by surprise.
Velaris is gorgeous spread out beneath them, its roofs of patinated copper deep green now before the dawn’s breaking. But it’s the sea that’s always captured Nyx’s awe. The vastness of it. How it stretches on into infinity, ships on the horizon like the toys that used to float in his baths.
Blue-grey water, blue-grey sky.
He wonders if it reminds his uncle of her eyes.
The sun peeks between the trees at last, and Cassian coughs, breaking the silence.
“I’ll tell you the story once. It’s all…” he pauses, scratching at his beard. “That’s all I can bear. So listen closely, you little bastard,” he adds, jabbing a friendly elbow into Nyx’s ribs.
It’s about to happen, Nyx thinks. Whatever he’s about to hear, there will be no un-hearing it. Wind rushes behind them, smelling of salt and citrus, pushing them closer to the sea. He nods.
“Just after you were born,” Cass begins in a low voice, “a female from another world fell into ours. Nesta had a weapon, a very powerful one, that answered to her alone. The female’s world was facing threats, and your dad worried they could find ours through her.”
He pauses, gaze drifting out across the water, as if the memory lives beyond the rosy horizon.
“Nesta made the choice to give this girl—Bryce Quinlan—her weapon. She gave it back, but the sin was already done. Rhys was furious. He—I can’t tell you this.”
Uncle Cass scrubs a hand down his face, rough palm rasping against his skin. But Nyx can’t help grabbing his shoulder, fingers gripping the worn leather, as if he can shake the story out of him.
“You can. You have to.”
Cassian’s jaw tightens. The gulls begin to cry below, wheeling through the updrafts from the cliffs.
“He threatened to execute her,” his uncle says bitterly.
Stunned, Nyx can only gape at him. Father has a temper is no secret—the foundations of their house have rumbled more than a few times during arguments—but this? Death? To execute his mate’s sister?
“He didn’t of course,” Cassian continues, staring down at his hands. “But it wasn’t even the first time. That’s the worst part.”
Something inside Nyx crashes, the world tilting violently.
As if sensing he needs more solid ground, Uncle Cass plods over to a log lowers himself with a heavy sigh, patting the seat beside him.
“W-why?” Nyx manages to stammer, sitting with much less grace. His wings tangle awkwardly behind him. “How? When?”
“When your mother was pregnant with you. There were, ah, complications. I know you’ve heard the story,” Cassian says, waving a tired hand.
“And the diatribes about contraception.”
A ghost of a smile flickers on his uncle’s face.
“Yes. That’s still important. But what you haven’t heard is that… that your father hid the risks from your mother. Nesta was the one who finally told her, in a moment of anger after discovering something had been concealed from herself, too. And for that, Rhys said he was going to kill her.”
The acid truth surges in his stomach.
Waves crash below the cliff, pounding against the rocks like the pounding in his head. He suddenly has the overwhelming urge to run—to freefall off the cliff until his wings catch him at the last second. Anything to block out the words he can’t comprehend.
Dry branches rattle behind them, a hawk crying out overhead.
“And you let him?” is the only question he can think to ask.
Cassian exhales slowly.
“I did. I—at the time, I agreed with his anger. I thought Nesta had endangered your life, your mom’s. That she was acting out of spite. I gave her hell for it.” His voice drops, laden with something thicker than grief. “Now I know it was concern. She was right, and I couldn’t see it. Or I wouldn’t. I don’t know that there’s much difference in the end.”
“But she stayed, even after that.”
“Yes.” Cassian toes at the dirt with his boot, drawing a circle before scraping it away. “We were mated. She loved me, more than she probably should’ve. I took it for granted. So when Rhys threatened her again after everything with the Mask, I thought we’d figure it out again. That every problem had a solution.”
His laugh is soft and hollow.
“She agreed, but not on what that solution was.”
“She left.”
“Yeah.”
The sun has cleared the treetops now, spilling over the world. But all Nyx can see is a gilded lie, the tarnished fleck of gold in his uncle’s faraway stare.
“I think she knew I couldn’t let go. And I couldn’t choose between her and your dad, the rest of them. Or I guess that I’d already chosen.”
“Why didn’t you go after her?”
Cassian rubs his hands down his thighs before clasping them loosely before him, the portrait of defeat.
“I didn’t deserve to. I failed her. I let another male threaten my mate. Twice. How do you beg someone for forgiveness after that?”
“Did Father ever apologize?”
“No. He still thinks it’s her fault. They all do.”
“Because she rejected the bond.”
His uncle turns sharply at that.
“No. No—not at all. I mean, I don’t know what they think, but that’s not why I am the way I am. This guilt is mine to bear. I’ve tried to become a better male.” His gaze drifts back to the endless water. “I don’t know how hopeless that is, but I owe it to her to try, whether she ever knows of it or not.”
“Do you know where she is?”
“Definitely not in Prythian,” Cassian huffs out on a tired breath. “My guess would be somewhere on the continent. But I don’t know.”
The telling seems to have taken whatever vigor he yet possesses. Nyx studies his uncle’s profile in the growing light, the deep lines carved by the years, the tired slump of his shoulders.
“I hope you don’t think too lowly of me, but I understand if you do.”
Nyx doesn’t know how to answer that. The male beside him suddenly feels both enormous and terribly small.
“Would you want to find her? If you knew where she was?”
His uncle doesn’t speak for a long time. The tide begins to pull away from the rocks below.
“I don’t think that’s for me to decide.”
Cassian pushes to his feet at last, brushing pine needles from his trousers like he can shed the regret along with them.
“Let’s go check the crab traps before the sea wolves get to them,” he says, leaving Nyx with the wind still roaring in his ears. The sun is blinding when he finally turns for the path downward.
For the next month, he plans.
Goes to his lessons still, the requisite council meetings he’s supposed to take notes on but mostly ends up doodling in his ledger. Trains enough that Uncle Az stops griping about his lazy footwork for once.
And in the night, he pores over maps. Reads stacks of decades-old reports from the continent that the confused (and quite pretty) priestess pulled for him. Fitting for an heir of his court, he thinks in idle moments, to plot like this between the shadows and the stars.
Nyx rehearsed the speech dozens of times before presenting it to his parents.
He wishes to observe diplomacy firsthand. Queen Vassa is having great success with her new reforms on the continent. He’s met her before, through his Uncle Lucien, so there will be no awkwardness of introductions. Azriel will accompany him.
Mother is thrilled. She’s always pushed him, believing experience the best teacher. Father has unleashed a deluge of advice, everything from how long to kiss a lady’s hand to methods to detect if his food has been poisoned.
They’re proud of him, they say. Honored to have him finally step into his role. Every embrace feels like a lie.
“Look at you! So handsome,” his mother exclaims as he descends the stairs to the foyer in his ridiculous regalia. “So official. I can’t believe you’re off all on your own.”
His father pulls her closer to his side, kissing her temple before leveling Nyx with a stern look.
“Are you sure you’re ready?”
“Yes, Father.”
For as long as Nyx can remember, he’s wanted to please his father. Now it takes all the effort he has not to sneer.
“Rhys, calm down,” Mother chides. “He’s ready. He’s been training his whole life for this. And Azriel will be with him.”
“That’s what worries me,” Father says, smirking. Uncle Az rolls his eyes, and Nyx swallows the guilty laugh that wants to rise in his throat.
“Can you have some faith, Rhys? He’s just about to leave.” His mother swoops up to kiss him, though she only reaches his jaw. “We’ll see you in a month, lovey. Don’t forget to write.”
“I won’t.” It’s not a lie, he tells himself. He won’t forget to. He’ll just choose not to.
Nyx grips Azriel’s hand, feeling the tug of shadows drawing them downward. Summoning one last grin for his mother, he catches his father’s eye at the last moment. Sees the suspicion already growing there, a ripple in the cloak of night streaming from his shoulders.
Nyx holds his breath for the moment the parlor begins to fade, when his parents turn away.
Then he drops his uncle’s hand, twisting in the opposite direction, and winnows farther than he ever has before.