Chapter Twenty-Four
CHAPTER
Five days later, Cassian sat before the desk of the library’s high priestess and watched her enchanted pen move.
He’d met Clotho a few times over the centuries—found she had a dry, wicked sense of humor and a soothing presence.
He’d made a point not to stare at her hands, or at the face he’d only seen once, when Mor had brought her in so long ago.
It had been so battered and bloody it hadn’t looked like a face at all.
He had no idea how it had healed beneath the hood.
If Madja had been able to save it in a way she hadn’t been able to save Clotho’s hands.
He supposed it didn’t matter what she looked like, not when she had accomplished and built so much with Rhys and Mor within this library.
A sanctuary for females who’d endured such unspeakable horrors that he was always happy to carry out justice on their behalf.
His mother had needed a place like this. But Rhys had established it long after she’d left this world. He wondered if Azriel’s mother had ever considered coming here, or if he’d ever pushed her to.
“Well, Clotho,” he said, leaning back in the chair, surrounded by the sounds of rustling parchment and the robes of the priestesses like fluttering wings, “you asked for an audience?”
Her pen made a flourish as it finished what she’d been writing.
I have asked Nesta twice now not to practice in the library, and she has disregarded my request. For five days, she has blatantly ignored my commands to stop.
Cassian’s brows rose. “She’s practicing down here?”
Again, the pen scraped over the paper. He glanced to the open pit to his left, as if he’d spot Nesta down there. A week had passed since that madness in her bedroom, and they had not spoken of it, done nothing further. He wasn’t entirely sure it would be wise to continue.
In addition to the grueling set of exercises to hone her body, Cassian had walked her through the minutiae of hand-to-hand combat, individual steps and movements that could be assembled in endless combinations.
Learning each of those steps required not just strength but focus—to remember which movement correlated with the numbered step, to let her body start to remember all on its own: a jab, a hook, a high kick …
He’d lost count of how many times he’d caught her muttering at her body to remember so she didn’t need to think so hard.
But he knew she liked the punches. The kicks. A light shone in her face as her body flowed through the motions, a slingshot of strength all narrowing to a point of impact. He’d always felt that way when he did the movements correctly, like his body and mind and soul had lined up and begun singing.
Clotho wrote, Nesta has practiced constantly of late.
“Has she done any damage?”
No. But I asked her to stop, and she has not.
He suppressed his smile. Perhaps the morning lessons weren’t demanding enough. “Is her work suffering for it?”
No. That’s beside the point.
His mouth twisted to the side.
Clotho wrote, I need you to put a stop to this.
“Does it bother the others?”
It distracts them, to see someone kicking and punching at shadows.
Cassian had to duck his head so she wouldn’t read the amusement in his eyes. “I’ll talk to her. Is she down there now?” He nodded to the sloping ramp. “With your permission, of course.”
This was their safe harbor. It didn’t matter if he was a member of Rhys’s court, or that he’d come here before. Every time, he asked permission. He’d only ever failed to do so once: when Hybern’s Ravens had attacked.
Yes. I give you permission to enter. Nesta is on Level Five. Perhaps you shall manage to get through to her.
Taking that as his cue, Cassian rose. “You do know this is Nesta Archeron we’re talking about? She does nothing unless she wishes to. And she’s the least likely to listen to me.”
Clotho huffed a laugh. She has a will of iron.
“Of steel.” He smiled. “Good seeing you, Clotho.”
You as well, Lord Cassian.
“Just Cassian,” he said, as he had said so many times now.
You are a lord in good deeds. It is not a title born, but earned.
He bowed his head as he said thickly, “Thank you.”
It took him until he reached the section where Clotho had said Nesta would be to shake off the high priestess’s words. What they meant to him.
The scuffing steps greeted him first, then the steady, rhythmic breathing he’d come to know so intimately. Cassian made his breathing match it, turned his own steps silent, and peered into the next row of stacks.
Anyone walking along the ramp would only have to look to the right to see Nesta standing there, in a near-perfect fighting stance, throwing punches toward the shelf.
She’d picked five books as targets and worked through each punch toward them as if they were the parts on a body he’d shown her where to strike.
Then she halted, blew out a breath and brushed back a strand of errant hair, and straightened the books before returning to the metal cart behind her.
“You’re still dropping your elbow,” he said, and she whirled, falling back against the cart with enough surprise that he swallowed his laugh. He’d never seen Nesta Archeron so … ruffled.
She lifted her chin as she stalked toward him.
He watched every movement of her legs. She’d stopped throwing her weight onto her right leg so much, and muscles shifted in her thighs, sleek and strong.
Three weeks might not be much time for a human body to pack on muscle, but she was High Fae now.
“I’m not dropping my elbow,” she challenged, emerging from the row of stacks and into the flat area before the slope of the ramp.
“I just saw you do it twice with that right hook.”
She leaned against the end of a long shelf. “I assume Clotho sent you to reprimand me.”
He shrugged. “I didn’t know you were so invested in the training that you kept at it down here.”
Her eyes practically glowed in the dimness. “I’m tired of being weak. Of depending on others to defend me.”
Fair enough. “Before I dispense with the lecture about ignoring Clotho’s requests, let me just say that—”
“Show me.” Nesta stepped away from the shelf and squared off against him. “Show me where I’m dropping my elbow.”
He blinked at the rippling intensity in her face. Then he swallowed.
Swallowed, because there she was: a glimpse of that person he’d known before the war with Hybern had ended. A glimmer of her, like a mirage—like if he looked at it too long, she’d slip away and vanish.
So Cassian said, “Get into your stance.”
Nesta obeyed.
Hoping Clotho wouldn’t come shove him over the railing for disobeying her orders, he said, “All right. Throw the right hook.”
Nesta did so. And dropped her damn elbow.
“Get back into position.” She did, and he asked, “May I?”
Nesta nodded, and kept perfectly still as he made minute adjustments to the angle of her arm. “Punch again. Slowly.”
She heeded him, and his hand wrapped around her elbow as it began to dip.
“See? Keep this up.” He maneuvered her arm back into starting position.
“Don’t forget to flow the weight through your hips.
” He took her arm, keeping a good foot of distance between their bodies, and moved it through the punch. “Like this.”
“All right.” Nesta reset herself, and he took a step away. Without his order, she did the punch again. Perfectly.
Cassian whistled.
“Do that with more force and you’ll shatter a male’s jaw,” he said with a crooked grin. “Give me a combination one-two, then four-five-three, then one-one-two.”
Nesta’s brows bunched as she reset herself. Her feet shifted into position, grounding her weight into the stone floor.
And then she moved, and it was like watching a river, like watching the wind cut through a mountain. Not perfect, but close.
“If you did that against an opponent,” Cassian said, “they’d be on the ground, gasping for air.”
“And then I’d make the kill.”
“Yes, a sword through the heart would finish the job. But if you struck their chest hard enough with that final punch, you might make one of their lungs collapse. On a battlefield, you’d opt for either the killing blow with a sword or just leave them there, unable to move, for someone else to finish off while you face the next opponent. ”
She nodded, as if this all seemed like perfectly normal conversation. Like he was giving her gardening tips.
“All right.” Cassian cleared his throat and tucked back his wings, “so, no more practicing in the library. The next person Clotho asks to scold you probably won’t be someone you feel like talking to.”
Nesta’s eyes darkened as she considered which of her least favorite people it would be, and she nodded again.
His task done, he said, “Give me one more combination.” He rattled off the order.
Her smile was nothing short of feline as she did just that. And her right hook didn’t so much as bob downward.
“Good,” he said, and turned toward the ramp that would lead him out.
He startled at what he beheld: priestesses stopped along the railings on several different levels, staring toward them. Toward Nesta.
At his attention, they instantly began walking or working or shelving books.
But a young priestess with coppery-brown hair—the only one of them with no hood or stone—lingered at the rail the longest. Even from a level below and across the pit, he could see that her large eyes were the color of shallow, warm water.
They were wide for a moment before she, too, quickly vanished.
Cassian looked back to Nesta, who met his stare with near-simmering eyes.
“Your right hook was perfect this morning,” he murmured.
“Yes.”
“But not when I watched you in the stacks.”
“I figured you’d correct me.”
Shock and delight slammed into him. She’d moved out of the stacks before she let him do so. Into plain view. So they would all see him teaching her.
He gaped at her.
“You can tell Clotho I won’t need to practice in the library anymore,” Nesta said mildly, and turned back down the row.