"Welcome," was all Azriel said, his voice low, almost flat, as he extended a brutally scarred hand to you. The shape of it was normal-but the skin.. It looked like it had been swirled and smudged and rippled. Burns.

The leather plates of his light armor flowed over most of it, held by a loop around his middle finger. Not to conceal, you realised as his hand breached the chill night air between you.

No, it was to hold in place the large, depthless cobalt stone that graced the back of the gauntlet. A matching one lay atop his left hand; and twin red stones adorned Cassian's gauntlets, their colour like the slumbering heart of a flame.

You took Azriel's hand, and his rough fingers squeezed yours. His skin was as cold as his face.

But the word Cassian had used a moment ago snagged your attention a released his hand and tried not to look too eager to step back to Rhys' side. "You're brothers?" The Illyrians looked similar, but only in the way that people who had come from the same place did.

Rhysand clarified, "Brothers in the sense that all bastards are brothers of a sort."

You’d never thought of it that way. "And—you?" You asked Cassian.

Cassian shrugged, wings tucking in tighter. "I command Rhys's armies."

As if such a position were something that one shrugged off. And— armies. Rhys had armies. You shifted on your feet. Cassian's hazel eyes tracked the movement, his mouth twitching to the side, and you honestly thought he was about to give you his professional opinion on how doing so would make you unsteady against an opponent when Azriel clarified,

"Cassian also excels at pissing everyone off. Especially amongst our friends. So, as a friend of Rhysand... good luck."