Chapter Twelve #2
Hunting to keep them fed had taught Feyre that skill set.
Hunting, while Nesta had stayed home, safe and warm, and let Feyre venture into that forest alone.
Those skills Feyre had honed had allowed her to survive against the High Fae and all their terrors, but …
Feyre only had them because of what she’d been forced to do.
Because Nesta hadn’t been the one to do it. To step up.
She found Cassian watching carefully. As if he heard those thoughts, felt their weight on her.
“Feyre taught me how to use a bow.” Only a few lessons, and long ago, but Nesta remembered. It was one of the few times she and Feyre had been allies.
“Not an Illyrian bow.” Cassian gestured to a rack of massive bows and quivers beside the mirror. The bows were nearly as tall as a grown woman. “It took me until I was a mature adult to have the strength to even string one of those.”
Nesta crossed her arms, drumming her fingers on her biceps. “So I’m going to spend an hour out here, wiggling my toes?”
Cassian’s grin bloomed again. “Yes.”
At some point, Nesta began sweating. Her feet ached, her legs turned to jelly.
She’d taken off her boots and gone through a few stances with Cassian, focusing on clenching her toes, finding her balance, and generally looking like a fool.
At least no one was around to see her standing on one leg while hinging at the hip, the other leg rising behind her.
Or using two wooden poles to steady herself while she swung her foot from pole to pole, working her way up each stick.
Or doing a basic squat—that it turned out was all wrong, her weight misplaced and back too arched.
All basic, stupid things. And all things she failed utterly at.
Cassian didn’t seem even remotely impressed as she rose from the squat he’d made her hold while supporting a wooden stick above her head. “Stand straight up, head first.”
Nesta obeyed.
“No.” He motioned for her to sink back down. “Head first. Don’t curl your back or lean forward. Shoot straight up.”
“I’m doing that.”
“You’re hunching. Push your feet into the ground. Grip with your toes as you bring your head right— Yes.” She glared as she stood. Cassian just said, “Do another good one, then our hour’s up.”
She did so, panting hard, knees trembling and thighs bleating in burning pain. When she’d finished, she propped herself up with the pole she’d lifted over her head. “That’s it?”
“Unless you want to bargain with me for a second hour.”
“You really want to owe me two favors?”
“If it’ll keep you here to finish the lesson, sure.”
“I’m not sure I can take any more of these stretches.”
“Then we’ll do some breathing work and then a cooldown.”
“What’s a cooldown?”
“More stretching.” He grinned. When she opened her mouth, he explained, “It’s designed to help bring your body back to a normal pace and limit any soreness you’ll have later.”
His tone held no condescension. So she asked, “And what’s breathing work?”
“Exactly what it sounds like.” He put a hand on his stomach, right on those rippling muscles, and took a big, inhaling breath before slowly releasing it.
“Your power when you fight comes from many places, but your breathing is one of the big ones.” He nodded toward the stick in her hands.
“Thrust it forward like you’re skewering someone with a spear. ”
Brows rising, she did so, the motion awkward and inelegant.
He only nodded. “Now do it again, and as you do, inhale.”
She did, the motion markedly weaker.
“And now do it again, but exhale with the thrust.”
It took her a second or two to orient her breathing, but she obeyed, shoving the stick forward as she blew out a breath. Power rippled down her arms, her body.
Nesta blinked at the stick. “I could feel the difference.”
“It’s all linked. Breath and balance and movement. Bulky muscle like this”—he tapped that absurdly contoured stomach of his—“means shit when you don’t know how to utilize it.”
“So how do you learn to control your breathing?”
He smiled again, hazel eyes bright in the sun. “Like this.”
So began another series of movements, all so damned simple when he demonstrated, but nearly impossible to coordinate in her own body when she went to replicate them. But she focused on her breathing, on the power of it, as if her lungs were the bellows of some great forge.
The sun arced higher, crossing the training space, dragging the shadows with it.
Inhale. Exhale. Breaths accented by a deep lunge, or a squat, or balancing on one leg. All exercises she’d done in the first hour, but now revealed anew with the added layer of breathing.
Breathing in and out, out and in, body and mind flowing, her concentration unwavering.
Cassian’s commands were firm, but gentle, encouraging without being irksome. Hold it, hold it, hold it—and release. Good. Again. Again. Again.
There wasn’t a part of her body that wasn’t sliding with sweat, wasn’t one part that wasn’t shaking as he bade her lie down on a black mat at the far end of the ring. “Cooldown,” he said, kneeling and patting the mat.
She was too tired to object, practically flinging herself onto it and staring at the sky.
The blue bowl arched into forever, the sun stinging against the sweat on her face. Wisps of clouds drifted through the dazzling blue, unconcerned with her entirely.
Her mind had become as clear as that sky, the fog and pressing shadows gone. “Do you like flying?” She didn’t know where the question came from.
He peered down at her. “I love it.” The truth rang out in those words. “It’s freedom and joy and challenge.”
“I met a female shop owner at Windhaven who’d had her wings clipped.” She turned her head from the sky to look over at him. His face had tightened. “Why do Illyrians do that?”
“To control their women,” Cassian said with quiet anger.
“It’s an old tradition. Rhys and I tried to stamp it out by making it illegal, but change takes a while amongst the High Fae.
For stubborn asses like the Illyrians, it takes even longer.
Emerie—I’m assuming that’s who you met, since she’s the only female shop owner—was one who slipped through the cracks.
It was during Amarantha’s reign, and … a lot of shit slipped through the cracks. ”
His eyes turned haunted, not only from what had been done to Emerie by her father, Nesta could tell, but at the memories of those fifty years. The guilt.
And perhaps it was to save him from reliving those memories, to banish that unwarranted guilt in his eyes, that she nestled against the mat and said, “Cooldown.”
“You sound eager.”
She met his stare. “I …” She swallowed. Hated herself for balking, and forced herself to say, “The breathing makes my head stop being so …” Horrible. Awful. Miserable. “Loud.”
“Ah.” Understanding washed over his face. “Mine too.”
For a moment, she held his gaze, watched the wind tug at the strands of his shoulder-length hair. The instinct to touch the sable locks had her pressing her palms to the mat, as if physically restraining herself.
“Right.” Cassian cleared his throat. “Cooldown.”
She’d done well. Really damn well.
Nesta finished the cooldown and sprawled on the black mat, as if needing to piece herself together. Rally her strength.
Cassian let her, rising to his feet and walking to the water station to the right of the archway. “You need to drink as much water as you can,” he said, taking two glasses and filling them from the ewer on the small table. He returned to her side, sipping from his own.
Nesta remained prone, limbs loose, eyes closed, the sunlight making her hair, her sweaty skin, shine. He couldn’t stop the image from rising: of her lying in his bed like this, sated, her body limp with pleasure.
He swallowed hard. She cracked open an eye, sitting up slowly, and took the water he extended. Chugged it, realized how thirsty she was, and eased to her feet. He watched as she aimed for the ewer, filling her glass and draining it twice more before she finally set it down.
“You never told me what you wanted for the second hour of training,” he said eventually.
She looked over a shoulder. Her skin was rosy in a way he hadn’t seen for a long, long time, her eyes bright. The breathing, she’d said, had helped her. Settled her. Looking at the slight change on her face, he believed it.
What would happen when the high wore off remained to be seen. Small steps, he assured himself. Small, small steps.
Nesta said, “The second hour was on the house.”
She didn’t smile, didn’t so much as wink, but Cassian grinned. “Generous of you.”
She rolled her eyes, but without her usual venom. “I have to change before I go to the library.”
As Nesta entered the archway, the gloom of the stairwell beyond it, Cassian blurted, “I didn’t mean what I said last night—about everyone hating you.”
She halted, her blue-gray eyes frosting. “It’s true.”
“It’s not.” He dared one step closer. “You’re here because we don’t hate you.” He cleared his throat, running a hand through his hair. “I wanted you to know that. That we don’t—that I don’t hate you.”
She weighed whatever the hell lay in his stare. Likely more than was wise to let her see. But she said quietly, “And I have never hated you, Cassian.”
With that, she walked through the doorway into the House, as if she hadn’t hit him right in the gut, first with the words, then by using his name.
It wasn’t until she’d vanished down the stairs that he released the breath he’d been holding.