07 CAGED CONFESSIONS

                     —THE young girl has entered the mountain. A mouse scurrying into the den of vipers, a lamb sneaking into the hungry lion's den. A mere mortal walking into the land of the gods.

  And she is too late.

  Feyre Archeron comes with promises of love, but love is not enough anymore. Love is now just a weakness, a useless sentiment to be used against her. Matters of the heart will no sooner save her than get her killed down here. So when she is encouraged to look upon the remnants of Clare Beddor, mutilated and nailed to the wall after her death, her face betrays nothing even as her heart pounds in remorse.

  "What a pity you missed the grand show," the one they call the Deceiver says as she admires the disfigured body like an expensive painting. "My beast had a wonderful time bringing about her end. I'm sure she'd have just as much fun bringing about yours."

  Her beast, Feyre Archeron breathes. What beast is so atrocious that it would kill and torture innocents for this horrid queen? What beast is so awful that it must be hidden away while this Attor gets to roam free?

  "No need to look so frightened, dear," the Deceiver tuts with mock concern, "I have different plans for you. But maybe some quality time with my beast in the dungeons will do your human arrogance some good?"

  When Feyre Archeron is finally escorted roughly, beaten and bloody, from the throne room, she knows that only worse things await her in the dungeons.

                     —REST is an unaffordable luxury in this unforgiving solitude. Sleep is futile and stillness is impossible. The quiet caters to the unease in Kazi's bones, and the muffled screams concoct terrible visions that haunt her mind. The hunger carves a hollow hole in her stomach, an unceasing pain with no way to curb it. The cold bites into her muscles until every part of her yearns to move around the small space she's been given.

  As so, Kazi's abdomen cries out from many places as she forces herself into another sit up. She remembers being able to work endlessly without feeling the ache of pain, but now it only takes a few minutes before the exertion becomes unbearable. But she forces herself to continue.

  Staying idle is a win for Amarantha. Letting herself dwindle down to nothing means accepting defeat. Losing her will to fight is a battle that she will never secede to. She will not become that tame and complacent beast. She will not be broken.

  A tear slips down her cheek as she forces her back off the floor again. Her body is yelling at her, but the pain she endures now will be the relief she feels when the Deceiver is dead.

  The door at the end of the hall slams open. With so few visitors, it is easy to guess just who the scraping footsteps and growls of displeasure belong to. Kazi wipes the sweat off her brow and slinks into the shadows of her cell to avoid its attention.

  "Stop resisting, you foul vermin," the Attor hisses over the quiet sounds of feminine whimpering. "I'll throw you in with the beast and leave you for dead."

  Still, the sounds of struggle do not cease. In fact, they even increase with the threat.

  "You asked for it," the Attor spits and drags the body closer to Kazi's cell door. "I've got a gift for you, Pet! Come out and greet it."

  Kazi stands to her feet, her mind trying to catch up with what is happening. She steps out of the darkness to see the Attor and the...human girl. The one from Calanmai. And she is beaten almost beyond recognition. It is a wonder how she is even still conscious.

  How she is here, she doesn't know.

  What she does know, is that her presence Under the Mountain is only trouble.

  "For me?" Kazi's dirty fingers encircle the iron bars of her cell door and grins at the sight of the monster and its capture. She becomes the bloodthirsty beast, knowing it is what the Attor wants from her. Knowing that it will deposit the girl and leave if she plays her cards right. "You shouldn't have."

  "It is not to be killed, not like the others," the Attor warns her harshly. The girl convulses and tries to pull away from it again. "If it is killed, you will pay. Her Majesty has plans for it."

  Plans, Kazi blinks, that could mean any number of terrible things.

  "You assume I have that kind of self-restraint?" she asks, jostling the door. "You give me a feast and ask me to only take one bite. How cruel."

  She's laying it on so thick that her empty stomach overturns. When did she become so proficient in this lie, when did this mask become so easy to slip on? And when is it going to be hard to take off?

  The longer you play the beast, the easier it is to become it.

  Kazi allows a frown to overcome her features. If she is to become that beast, then Amarantha will see just how monstrous she can be.

  "Take it as the first test of your loyalty," the Attor says. "Now, back against the wall."

  Loyalty, Kazi curses to herself, even as she walks backward to lean against the far wall. The only one she will ever be loyal to is her High Lord.

  The Attor unlocks the door with one clawed hand while the other holds the girl's nape tightly. Swinging the bars open just enough for a slim body to fit through, he shoves the human in to her knees and she immediately tries to flee back out with wheezing shouts of alarm. Kazi, not wanting the Attor to change his mind and torture her elsewhere, lunges forward and catches the girl around her waist and drags her back into the darkness with a hand over her bloodied mouth. She withstands the pain of the girl biting down on her palm and forces a dark chuckle through her teeth.

  The Attor looks entirely too pleased with the treatment and locks the door again. He takes another look at Kazi and the flailing girl in her arms, delight all too prevalent.

  "Enjoy." His retreating back begs to have a dagger punctured into it twenty times.

  Oh, how she hates him, Kazi's chest vibrates with a snarl. The deep sound sends the girl into another fearful fit and she bucks around with muted shouts. Kazi holds onto her for just a few more stressful seconds, waiting for the Attor to leave the dungeons completely. He takes his sweet time, probably relishing in the sound of the human girl's fear.

  Finally, the sound of the far-off door clicks shut and she finally relaxes her arms. The girl is none too quick to race across the room and put the cot between them as a barrier. Her eyes shift around for any type of weapon, but obviously, comes up short. Her hands come up with fists balled in a way that will only injure her should they find a solid target.

  Kazi rubs at the indented teeth marks on the skin of her own hand, almost laughing at how absurd this whole situation has become. She doesn't laugh, however, knowing that is the last thing this girl needs. Instead, she allows the human her bubble of space and slides down the wall till she is sitting harmlessly.

  The girl makes no such moves to sit down, but she lowers her hands to her sides. Her swollen, black eyes narrow with confusion as she inspects Kazi in the shadows. "What are you?"

  What are you, she asks, not who.

  What, indeed.

  "Nothing you should be scared of," she answers, tone as delicately soft as she can manage. "I won't hurt you."

  The girl scoffs. "Sorry if that's hard for me to believe. I've met very few who don't want to see me dead."

  "I am locked up; same as you, no?" She gestures around the cell.

  "Because you are dangerous," the girl explains, though her voice is unsure.

  "Well..." Kazi can't exactly deny that. "Yes, but you have my word that I will not hurt you."

  It isn't reassuring enough, but Kazi wasn't expecting it to be. Her word should mean little without trust. All evidence makes her out to be the monster. And the way she acted while the Attor was there, there is not much to dissuade the girl from being wary.

  "They said you killed Clare."

  And many others, her mind adds darkly.

  Kazi has no words to refute that, either. And she does not think telling the girl why she killed Clare Beddor and all the rest will do her any favors. She has killed her people time and time again, simple as that. The how and why means nothing in the grand scheme of things.

  Her guilty silence is answer enough. The girl forces herself into a ball in the corner farthest from Kazi, bruised arms protectively settled around her equally bruised legs. Her nose is crooked unnaturally with a dried stream of blood tracing over her mouth and chin. There must have been an order to rough her up. Whether to scare her, to get answers out of her, or just for entertainment, Kazi doesn't know. Maybe a mixture of all three.

  It isn't a surprise to her when the girl's head begins to droop as if too heavy for her neck and her eyes begin to swim with dizziness. She is blacking out. From head trauma, from blood loss, from exhaustion.

  Whatever it is, there isn't much Kazi can do to fix it, but she moves closer anyway.

  "Hey," she says, slowly approaching, "hey, you shouldn't sleep yet."

  Her nearing presence shakes the girl from her stupor, and she jerks away, eyes cautiously looking her over for danger. "Stay away."

  "Okay, okay," Kazi soothes, her bare hands held up placatingly. "You just shouldn't let yourself fall asleep yet."

  The girl sniffs and winces. "Why?"

  "If you have serious head trauma, it's harder to tell how stable you are if you're unconscious," Kazi says softly. "Just...try to keep awake for a little longer. For your sake and mine, yeah?" At the question in the human's gaze, she explains, "If you die down here, they'll think I did it. And the Attor was clear that I'll be punished for that, so please, let's try and keep you alive. I'll let you know when it's safe to rest."

  It's silly, to ask someone to live not just for themselves but for another. It feels presumptuous. But Kazi knows how it feels to need to live that way every day. It brings purpose when it seems like there is none left. It adds the weight of responsibility. And sometimes, that may feel like the only thing that is worth living for.

  "You idiot," she curses lowly, finally finding the body she'd set out for among the many cots in the healers' tent. Even as she hisses his name with heat, the tears of relief and worry in her eyes are hard to hold back at the sight of him. "Dammit, Rhys, I hope this hurts. How could you be so stupid?"

  Rhysand's dull violet eyes flicker to hers as she kneels at his side. His chapped and pale lips twitch up into a smirk. "Myrah, you always know just what to say to make me feel loved. Remind me to hug you when I'm better."

  "And he will?" she asks the acting healers standing above Rhysand's lower half, even as her eyes do not leave the damage on his leg. "Get better, I mean?"

  "I've been dealt worse," the Prince of the Night Court interjects haughtily before the healers can say anything while they work. "You know that."

  But as Kazi continues her inspections of his wound, she can't say for certain that he really has been hurt this terribly before. His knee, like a gaping maw, has its inner most workings completely exposed. The healer has controlled most of the turbulent bleeding, but pulsing rivulets of blood still stream from the open muscles and skin. The bones, completely shattered, are too visible through the viscera.

  She drags her eyes away from the scene to look into his eyes again. "You liar. You die, and I'll personally go after the king and dismember him."

  Rhysand chokes on a laugh and brings up a clenched hand. He merely rubs a knuckle against her cheekbone. "That's a suicide mission. Who would be the idiot, then?"

  "Still you, because it'll be on your head if I do. So I suggest you live, Rhysand."

  "Ooh, the full name really drives that point home, doesn't it?" he jokes. She does not waver in her stern glare, making him sigh. "Fine. For you, Kazimyrah, I'll live through this. And if the Mother calls upon me, I'll tell her about the formidable enemy she'd be making of you."

  "Good," she sighs, glare finally relenting. "Good."

  He continues to stroke her cheek, finding it to be the distraction away from what is happening on his leg. "How is Cassian?"

  "He...has a renewed vengeance. Tanwyn's death has only made him stronger," Kazi reports. "He attended the burial for the Valkyries, but he's been on the field ever since."

  "That was three days ago," he mutters, concern lancing through his tone for his brother. "He's going to exhaust himself."

  "Azriel's taken leave from his duties to watch over him out there. Your father was angry, but with how much havoc Cas is causing for Hybern's army, he's let it slide." But the worry for Cassian is still in Rhysand's eyes. "Once you're stable, I'll head out to find them and get him to rest. Though, I can't promise he'll listen to me."

  "I don't know," he smiles pointedly, "you are very convincing."

  Kazi nuzzles into his hand. "He's grieving. I'm not sure how much sense I'll be able to knock into his head."

  "Az will have your back," Rhysand tells her.

  "He'd sooner agree with Cas than listen to me."

  Rhysand's eyes glint with something she can't place. "You never know. He can sensible sometimes."

  She huffs. "You're all hardheaded Illyrians. Sensible is not in your vocabulary."

  With another pained smile, he pulls her forehead to rest against his. "How lucky we are to have you as a voice of reason, then, huh?"

  Kazi almost expects the girl to try and fall asleep out of spite, but she just nods and sits up straighter against the wall. Kazi returns to her side of the cell, seeing the effect she still has on the human.

  As she's settling back down, she hears the girl speak quietly, "You never answered my question. Who are you?"

  Who are you, she asks this time. It's astonishing, what an insignificant change it is, but Kazi can feel a piece of her soul repairing itself.

  "I am one of the guardians," she replies vaguely. She knows the girl has met Rhysand, perhaps on more than that one occasion on Fire Night, and she does not want to test the waters to see how he treated her.

  "Like Linden," the girl connects.

  "Yes, like Linden." Kazi nods.

  "Are you all...like him?" she asks then.

  "I'm not sure I know what you mean."

  The girl shrugs tensely. "He can turn into a hawk and a wolf. Do you all have shifting abilities?"

  Ah, a roundabout way of asking whether Kazi can turn into something, and whether that something is the beast.

  "Um, no, that is uniquely a Spring Court ability. Every court has their own sort of shtick."

  Kazi can tell the girl wants to inquire further about these abilities. Her hands are fidgeting against her knees and her eyes are avoiding Kazi's.

  "What are all of your powers?" she finally continues.

  "Well, you know Linden's for the most part: shifting and tracking. Serana of the Day Court has similar abilities to her High Lord. She can create and destroy small wards, and she can bend light and heat. Tsavani of the Dawn Court is a healer, one of the best." She smiles fondly. "Alistair of the Winter Court has some control over the elements and the wind, though he is most proficient with his swords. Anahera of the Summer Court also prefers her spear to anything magical, but she has an affinity for water. Nazir of the Autumn Court..."

  Kazi trails off, knowing just how powerful her friend is and wanting to boast his amazing abilities, but also knowing it is a sensitive topic for him.

  "Nazir is very skilled with fire and smithing. He can make some of the best weapons I've ever seen, but dislikes using them himself."

  Before Kazi can even speak on her own powers, the girl has managed to narrow down just which court she hails from. "You're from the Night Court."

  "This is true," Kazi concedes honestly. The girl had smartly asked a very telling question. "You've met my High Lord."

  "Yes," the girl breathes, "though I can't say I'd ever like to again."

  "That's...understandable."

  I cannot explain it, but I felt it. There was something in her, something about her that I—it frightens me.

  Kazi tries to feel it, whatever it is that Rhysand felt that scared him so. But her absence of magic prevents her from proper investigations.

  "Your powers?" the girl asks, getting back to the topic of conversation. Her voice is stiffer, now, even more wary now knowing her home court is one that is enemies with Spring.

  "I have a call over the darkness, the shadows, and I can winnow," she says. "That is...the head of it."

  "Nothing more?"

  "All of us have more, but those are uniquely our own."

  "I see." The girl is silent for a while. "So why do they call you a beast? If you don't look like one?"

  Kazi tries not to flinch. It's different, hearing the word aloud.

  "The body doesn't make the monster," she says softly. "I've done some awful things, monstrous things. Things I'm not proud of, like killing Clare Beddor. But if I hadn't done them, it would have fallen on someone else's head, and that was an alternative that would have killed me. So I don't regret those things that I've done, I only regret that it had to be done. And maybe that makes me the beast."

  The girl is silent, taking her words in.

  "I may be that beast, but it is not by choice."

  The confession needs no comment.

  Lucien Vanserra is coming. The familiar voice of her High Lord floats through her mind easily, so unguarded.

  Kazi takes this information and squeezes herself further into the shadows so as not to attract the emissary's attention. Any hostility he directs her way will only send up new alarms for the girl, and the last thing they need is more tension after all she's confessed.

  She smells the spice, nature, and heat before his figure steps into view. "Feyre?"

  Feyre, Kazi thinks, a strange name for a human. But a very regal one for the Faeries.

  Feyre's eyes widen as she tries to move closer to the door. "Lucien?"

  He drops to the ground before her, soiling the knees of his trousers without thought. "By the Cauldron, are you alright?"

  "My face—"

  He summons a faelight to linger over his shoulder so he can see the damage. He takes in her wounds and his whole body tenses with unbridled anger. "Have you lost your mind? What are you doing here?"

  Feyre takes in a shaky breath, and Kazi wonders how she's kept in her tears. A strong-willed woman, indeed. "I went back to the manor...Alis told me...told me about the curse, and I couldn't let Amarantha—"

  "You shouldn't have come, Feyre," he cuts her off again sharply. "You weren't meant to be here. Don't you understand what he sacrificed in getting you out? How could you be so foolish?"

  At Feyre's quivering lip, Kazi can no longer listen to him reprimand the girl for something she doesn't completely understand. Especially not when she is already reaping the consequences. "You're not helping anything, Vanserra."

  He whips his head around to scowl further into the cell where she sits, his metal eye whirring as he catches her form in the shadows. His face seems to twist up even more, seeing her in the same cell as his friend. "Oh, you want to talk about helping? This is your fault. I should have known when you came on Calanmai; you weren't just trying to retrieve Tamlin."

  Feyre is watching her apprehensively now, her bloodshot eyes shining with more hesitance.

  "I wasn't the one to send her home," Kazi defends herself.

  "No, but it was your High Lord who threatened her life. We had no choice but to send her away," he spits. "She could have easily been Clare Beddor tacked to that wall." Kazi resists a flinch. "If it weren't for your meddling, this all might have gone differently. So don't even talk about helping."

  Kazi takes a deep breath, keeping her gaze away from Feyre's fearful one. But she cannot argue with him, not when he was right.

  "Let's clean you up a bit."

  Feyre is silent for a moment before answering. "I think my nose is broken. But nothing else."

  That is a lie, Kazi thinks; her wrist is clearly sprained and there's a high chance of a concussion. But she says nothing.

  Lucien looks over his shoulder down the corridor. "The guards are drunk, but their replacements will be here soon." He studies the girl's face as he gently touches the swollen bridge of her nose.

  Before he moves any further, Kazi speaks up again. "Don't heal everything. Leave some bruises, so it looks like I did my job down here."

  Lucien growls as he faces her again. "What? So you don't get beat up, as well?"

  "There is that," she admits, "but if she's fully healed, they'll know someone helped her and take it out on her."

  He sighs and doesn't so much as look at her or argue as he changes his position and takes Feyre's nose in between his palms. She nods shakily for him to continue, and she closes her eyes in preparation. There is a swift crack and pop as he jerks his hands straight together. There is a gasp and a cough before Lucien is having to gently lower the girl to the ground after fainting from a sudden spell of pain.

  Kazi watches as he takes this time to use faint healing magic to fix the deeper pains, all while leaving those surface bruises and cuts. She speaks up now, knowing Feyre will not say anything about it. "She has a sprained wrist, and she must have gotten hit pretty hard on her head; I'm almost certain she has a concussion."

  He stills for a moment before nodding. He picks up the girl's hand and fixes the ailment before touching around her head again. Feyre begins to stir and Lucien kneels over her, frowning. He glances over to Kazi once.

  "The bruises are there, along with a hideous black eye, but...all the swelling is gone."

  "And my nose?" she asks quietly, hand coming up to brush her face.

  "Fixed—as pert and pretty as before."

  "I thought she'd taken most of your power," she says.

  He shrugs and nods to the light he has shining over his shoulder. "She gave me back a fraction—to entice Tamlin to accept her offer. But he still refuses her." He inspects her face once again. "I knew some good would come of being down here."

  "So...you're trapped Under the Mountain, too?"

  Lucien nods grimly, taking a glance back at Kazi who has yet to look back to them. "She's summoned all the High Lords to her now—and even those who swore obedience are now forbidden to leave until...until your trials are over."

  Thirty years ago, Amarantha allowed Tarquin, Beron, and Thesan passage to their courts. All they had to do was bow and swear fealty to her during her reign. With no other choice, they gave their vow and were gone the next morning. The others had remained behind, refusing to bend a knee.

  Feyre stares at his metal eye for a moment. "That ring," she starts. "Is it—is it actually Jurian's eye?"

  Kazi thinks about the ring and necklace that adorns Amarantha every day. They are statement pieces worn simply for her own pleasure. They are trophies of her most favorite kills.

  "Indeed." Lucien cringes. "So you really know everything, then?"

  The girl shakes her head. "Alis didn't say what happened after Jurian and Amarantha faced each other."

  Kazi cannot stop her flinch then. Flashes pass through her mind as Lucien relays the events of the following weeks. The carnage of the battlefield, the soldiers lying dead on both sides, the screaming as the Deceiver tore Jurian limb from limb. Amarantha's choice to pursue Jurian instead of aid Hybern had been the only thing that stopped them from winning the war, but it was still an awful loss.

  Feyre shudders as Lucien finishes telling the tale of Jurian's gruesome end. "Is Tamlin—"

  "He's—" But the sound of scuffling boots on the opposite side of the dungeon doors sends him standing. "The guards are about to change rotations and are headed this way. Try not to die, will you? I already have a long list of faeries to kill—" he sends a fleeting glare over his shoulder to Kazi's bored expression, "—I don't need to add more to it, if only for Tamlin's sake."

  And then he vanishes in a swirl of his faelight.

  The new rotation of guards makes their rounds and check on Kazi and Feyre. Satisfied that they haven't managed to cause any trouble or escape, they wander off to keep watch beyond the door.

  Kazi waits for Feyre to say something. She waits for five minutes.

  "He said it was your fault." The human's vice isn't soft with fragility. It is soft with tempered anger. "How could it be your fault?"

  "Like I said," she sighed, "I've done some terrible things."

  "So you keep saying," Feyre huffs. Her eyes, now a little lighter than they had been, look her up and down. She must come to a hard-fought decision, and she moves to lie on the singular cot in the room. "Am I okay to sleep now?"

  Kazi wants to chuckle at the shortness. "Be my guest."

  Feyre is silent for a while, and Kazi thinks she must be sleeping, but then she speaks once more, her voice so quiet it's almost a whisper. "You keep saying you've done all these awful things, that you might be a monster, but then you go out of your way to help me."

  Though Kazi tries to stop it, the mask slips into place all too easily. "You're finding free kindness where there is none, Feyre. My motivations are my own. I may not be that beast on my own, but I am still on a leash."

NOTES ;

WE'VE GOT FEYRE!
I HOPE I SORT OF DEPICTED HER
CORRECTLY. OBVIOUSLY SHE'S GOING
TO BE A LITTLE SCARED TO GO
HEAD TO HEAD WITH A SUPPOSED
"BEAST" WITHOUT A WEAPON SO SHE
WAS SCARED. BUT I THINK SHE
HANDLED HERSELF WELL. AND SHE
SEES THERE IS SOMETHING MORE TO
KAZI EVEN AS SHE TRIES TO DENY IT
AT THE END THERE.

AND THE FLASHBACK WITH RHYS.
FIRST TIME AROUND, THAT FLASHBACK
WENT A BIT DIFFERENTLY, BUT IT
WAS BECAUSE I WAS UNDER THE
IMPRESSION THAT RHYS WAS ALREADY
HIGH LORD DURING THE WAR WHICH
WOULD MAKE KAZI GUARDIAN. AS SUCH,
HIS INJURY WAS A LOT MORE SERIOUS
TO HER THE FIRST GO AROUND. BUT
HERE, SHE IS JUST CONCERNED FOR
A BROTHER.

AND THAT WHOLE KNEE THING IS
CANON SO YAY ME FOR INCLUDING IT.
YOU KNOW WHAT'S ALSO CANON?
THE VALKYRIES SACRIFICING THEM-SELVES
:((( POOR CASSIAN.

ANYWAYS! I POSTED A CASSIAN FIC AND
MY LUCIEN FIC! SO GO CHECK THOSE
OUT. AND THERE MIGHT BE A MORRIGAN
FIC IN THE WORKS ALONG WITH A
THRONE OF GLASS ONE, SO ALSO
STAY TUNED FOR THAT!