Chapter Text
∘₊✧──────✧₊∘
The towering Court of the High Lord of Dawn was known across Prythian for its daring feat of height, its towers climbing past the clouds and staring eye to eye with the surrounding mountains. And crowned on top of its magnificent head were the famed gardens of the High Lord, shielded and tended with magic so the flowers blossomed alongside the stars.
The stairwell to the gardens opened before her like a hungry mouth, carved out of and receding into the highest tower. Feyre took one tentative step. Three more would have her engulfed in darkness, until she emerged on top of the world above.
Perhaps it was an apt metaphor, to be swallowed up and spit out to the small bit of heaven among the clouds. The highest tower in Prythian. The gems from the blue Night Court gown caught the sunlight at her shoulders and scattered shifting rays of light to the dark marble stairs in front of her.
She had worn thicker pants that hugged her form, and a jeweled dagger on her belt, well hidden under her cloak. Entirely unnecessary but a habit she couldn’t break. She was going to the woods, after all.
Despite her plans, after their conversation a nurse had whisked into Feyre’s room and insisted she take tea and rest. A soft buzz still hummed in the back of her mind from the potion in her tea. It dulled the shooting pains in her arm, but it also dulled her mind. When they came back to help her dress, she had persuaded one of the younger nurses with a kind face to braid her hair the way she liked, loose around her face and traveling across the back of her head, the rest falling down her neck and over one shoulder.
Feyre felt small, trudging alone up the massive marble stairway to the roof, and she secretly was glad no one charted her slow and halting progress. Legions twenty abreast could have marched up with her, and the cold marble echoed loudly even under her worn leather boots. She hugged the railing at the side, needing its support, and felt as if she were sneaking in instead of being welcomed. The path opened directly to the rooftop, the sunlight slicing back to her in a sharp line against the marble and blinding her as she ascended the last stairs to the open sky.
Two pink marble Peregryn statues loomed over the opening in the ground, their wings outstretched, facing west towards the mountains and the distant ocean. One stood straight and tall in intricately carved armor, a sword extended towards the enemies of Dawn. The other stood in a fine tunic and pants, with a book held close to her chest in one arm and the other extended with a Dawn Court invention Feyre couldn’t name. The figures were Dawn itself, standing strong against enemies, protecting their knowledge.
Feyre ducked her head and hurried under their imposing shadow, stopping only once she was at the line of carved topiaries to turn back and examine them. She felt dwarfed by their grandeur, and nervous now that she was here, as if this fine place was reserved only for High Lords and grand warriors, and she would be asked to leave once they saw her plain garb and clocked her as a lowly soldier of Spring.
Although she savored the air, warm under Thesan’s wards and magic, and the smell of green growing things reminded her of home, she felt unsettled. Being at the top of the world, the sky a dome above her, made her feel exposed. As if the gods or the stars or the sun were looking down on her, a lidless inspecting eye, weighing her soul. And here she was on a mission, once again hunting out answers that perhaps she did not even deserve.
Feyre wandered down the wide, smooth stone pathway that was well appointed with topiaries and rose bushes so delicately maintained the blossoms seemed uniform in size. As was her habit, she assessed the wide grounds before her, stretched out ahead into a manicured lawn so green it glowed in the sunlight and dotted with benches and fine fountains and sculptures. A few gardeners wandered, tending and whistling like the buzzing bees in the flowers.
She had seen gardens like these before at Rosehall and some of the other small royal outposts at Spring, although Tamlin had been too wary of his father and brothers to tarry long at any of his properties. The land had been trimmed and roped and tamed until it let go of its inherent tendencies and bowed to the gardener’s hands. Nature’s forms so regimented they mirrored the finely cut stone of the pathways and plinths of grand manors. Feyre hitched the blue robe further up around her shoulders, and absentmindedly smoothed the frizzy strands of hair that escaped her braid in the gentle wind.
It was unsettling, she thought, to see nature so tamed. She lifted her eyes further towards the sky and her destination, the tops of trees swaying in the wind ahead of her, so many of them growing close together as to resemble a small forest.
Her path was set. Now she only had to wait for her companion.
At that, Feyre laughed gently at herself. It was best not to dwell too long on her strange and unexpected ward-mate. When Lucien had left her here, winnowing quickly to rejoin the hurried meetings in the war tent, she felt the emptiness he left behind like the slamming of a door. On the first night, she fought with the nurses, barely kept down a sickly sweet potion for her pain, and finally sat stunned and alone in her bed in the dark. So much fear and adrenaline and pain, and then…nothing. Alone in a bed, a whole continent away from Tamlin, her family, and the only court she had ever known.
Feyre had slept fitfully, taking more of the potions left for her in the night, trying to will her mind to be still. It would not serve her now, to wonder about last words spoken. To linger on the goodbyes she was robbed of. She resolved to make herself small, to force her mind to be quiet, to bury her temper and fear and accept her final days, as she had when she walked over the threshold of the Middle.
All that changed when she burst into the Prince’s room.
The male was arrogant, rude, infuriating. And she truly must be separated from her right mind by entertaining him, entering into a bargain with him, for Cauldron’s sake. Despite his promises, she could only imagine his interest in her had something akin to a cat with a mouse in its paw. A silver-tongued Prince, away from his duties and friends, finding amusem*nt in a new plaything. Her.
Feyre kicked the only odd rock she could find on the clean path. Still, he was a general. He wasn’t quite the coddled prince she desperately wanted to dismiss him as. And the state of his wings…by all accounts the Illyrian legions were fearsome and brave, and the vicious Prince of Night had featured in many of the soldier’s breathless stories around the campfire. She knew he could best any of her fellow soldiers in the small rebel army of Spring.
And even when he teased her, annoyed her, pushed her off her guard, she also knew that he understood. Saw in the haunted look in his eyes that he knew the endless pain of the war and battle, the change in a soldier when they look upon their own death, and the shock of being drawn back from that inevitable edge.
When he finally arrived, his presence inescapable, it was not as she had imagined. When her thoughts turned to Prince Rhysand in this place, she expected the darkness would blot out the flower blossoms, or mute the bright green leaves. But as he ascended from the grand stairwell, the darkness engulfing him did not seem so bleak. He reminded her of a soft spring night. The stars warm overhead, twinkling with mischief. The leaves glowed a dark green, as if soaked by a summer rain and glistening under moonlight, the white flower blossoms shining out of the dark.
He paused only for a moment to scan the grounds, looking for her, his eyes bright as he saw her waiting against the hedges.
As he approached, she frowned to see the hard lines etched in his face and the slight limp in his step. She recognized the expression on his face. The pale, pinched look of pain. Though he walked to her steadily, she could see the tension in his muscles.
“My lady,” he greeted her, panting as he caught his breath.
“My lord.”
With a pang in her chest she wondered if they should both be resting instead. If perhaps he was pushing himself too hard, out of some perceived obligation to their bargain.
“Should we rest a moment?” she asked.
“And admit to being conquered by a set of stairs?” He laughed through his furrowed brow. “Although you’re right, I might make a poor friend, if I collapse beside you and make you carry me on our journey.”
Feyre considered his words. Were they friends, now? The soldier from Spring and the Prince of Night? Against her best efforts, the signs of pain etched in his face moved her heart.
“Let’s gather our strength first, and then neither one will have to carry the other.”
She motioned for him to sit, and made a fist to resist the urge to help him, as he sat slowly, balancing his wings gently. As the Prince settled with his knuckles white on his cane, he clenched his eyes shut and tipped his head towards the sky, breathing deeply from his nose. Feyre sat next to him, letting him compose himself.
When he clenched his jaw and darkness began to swirl around her ankles, she tried to distract him. “Why do the wings heal so slowly? Over five days since I first saw you and still there are wounds that won’t close.”
He nodded at her words and took another deep breath before answering her. “It’s not as much healing as it is growing brand new skin. If the edges are irritated and scar then it hinders the new growth. And one wrong movement can tear everything and set back the healing of days.” Finally he seemed to gather himself, swallowing and opening his eyes to view the fine bright sky above them. These wings, such sensitive targets on such a fine warrior. Perhaps the Illyrians had to be twice as vicious, to protect such vulnerabilities. “But I should be asking you, lady. How does your health fare since your rest?”
She paused at the question. Death had been her aim, before this place, and she saw no reason why the curse wouldn’t take its toll even in this gentle place.
“I’m fine.”
Before he could protest, she then offered her good hand to him as he braced his cane. He looked up at her a moment, almost in surprise, before taking her hand and pulled himself to his feet.
They traveled on through paths changing from fine marble to stone, ebbing away into dirt and pebbles that crunched lightly under their feet. The topiaries and sharp lines had given way to untrimmed rose bushes and trailing purple wisteria, the paths winding now around small hills and meadows.
A gentle cloud of darkness still roiled off of Rhysand like smoke and followed them both now, dancing on her shoulders. Feyre felt as if she were finally hidden from that eye overhead, watching as she found her way. She breathed easily for the first time in hours.
Wild and wandering were the paths ahead, the only sounds the crunch of leaves and pebbles under their shoes, the birdsong in the trees, and the heaviness of their breathing. Feyre set the pace until she couldn’t, and the two of them would share a bleary glance and fall to the nearest bench, shoulders heaving with their breaths.
Feyre worked hard to ignore the prince as she stopped again to catch her breath and check their direction at another fork. His cheeks were pink from their walk, a bright contrast to the dark and heavy armless cloak that fell from his wide shoulders. She worked even harder to ignore his eyes on her as she angled towards the sun to check their shadows under the growing canopy of green overhead.
An extraordinary amount of trust, she thought, had been placed into this Prince. While she was used to trusting her instincts, here amongst the thickening branches and ringing birdsong she felt how utterly alone they were up here on the edge of everything. But the feelings in her chest when she stopped short on the path and felt his breath on the crown of her head, his hand upon her good shoulder, were not those of distrust.
Rhysand’s eyes were on her again as they slipped through arched vines of jasmine, hanging so low they trailed down her hair. She turned to warn him about a loose stone in front of her and when she saw him, she thought the blossoms that snagged free in his raven hair looked like a crown of stars. Feyre stopped at the sight as he smiled at her and batted away the last vine on his face.
The smell of oils and mineral spirits wafted through her mind as she imagined the swaths of grey and blue and black she would layer on canvas with a knife to capture him. She watched as he raised a hand to her hair, plucking a white blossom gently between two fingers.
“You’ve got flowers all through your braid, darling,” he said with a softness in his eyes that made her stomach jump, made her yield half a step to him.
He regarded her with curiosity. “Have the healers and nurses been able to look at your wound?” he asked quietly.
Her skin burned with cold. Last night it had begun shooting jolts of pain down the muscles of her back. “I’m fine.”
“Are these all the answers I’m to get today?”
“What would you like to know, my lord?”
He sighed. “Everything.”
He released her from his gaze and she finally took a full breath, turned away from him to stalk down the path, the prince still close on her heels.
“Are you so used to that boor in Spring that conversation seems unnatural? I’d fault you but I’ve met the male, and he is admittedly better with a sword than he is with his tongue,” he said behind her.
Feyre bristled at every implication. “Maybe I simply do not speak unless I can improve the silence.”
He grinned. “Good thing I’m such a tolerable conversationalist, then.”
Feyre continued walking, taking her bearings by the sun and paths and hoping she was not leading them astray. Rhysand’s eyes were upon her with an amused twinkle.
“What?” she asked, annoyed. She tried to set a fast pace to keep his breathing too fast for words, but the prince excelled at conversation all the same.
“I’m simply trying to work out your attraction to that horned brute. I can certainly attest you are not the type to be impressed by a title alone.” Feyre snorted at him. “So tell me, how do we compare? You prefer your High Lord’s sons thick in body and in the head? Tamlin is quite dashing, but I must say he’s a bit lacking when it comes to the verbal arts. Or did he turn into that golden beast and win over your wild side?” He smiled as she walked faster, turning her head away from his gaze with a snap. “Oh, no one could blame you. All that muscle and fur - he’s quite a spectacle. Even I’ve cast an eye his way when he’s wrapped in all that natural glory.”
“You forget our bargain yet again, Prince.” she said with steel in her voice. “We aren’t speaking of Lord Tamlin.”
Rhysand clicked his tongue. “I’m speaking of you, darling. Tell me,” he asked, “How did the Prince woo a creature such as you? Somehow I doubt he plied you with jewels and dresses. Did he make flowers spring up wherever your feet fell? Did he recite love poems in your ear? Did Tamlin play that ridiculous fiddle of his and waltz into your heart?”
Maybe it was the bargain she had already accepted, maybe she was angry and tired, but Feyre felt her stubborn quietness waiver as her annoyance grew. He was gallingly good at chipping away at her defenses, but she refused to give him the satisfaction of winning this game, of sulking back to her stifling room and the worrying nurses.
She had dealt with one High Lord’s son. How bad could another one be?
She barely paused as she spoke, throwing her words over her shoulder. “You seem awfully focused on the subject,” she said. “One might be excused for thinking you jealous.”
As the path rounded and they breached more wild hedges, it split again into two diverging trails. Feyre stopped short, assessing the options.
When she turned back around she gasped to find the Prince so close to her. In another half a step he stood chest to chest with her, her words about their journey lost on her lips. Her nose filled with his scent, citrus and the sea, and she couldn’t take her eyes off of his face.
“Jealous?” he asked, his voice quiet in the garden. “I told you, Feyre, that you’re finally getting closer to it.”
Feyre felt a flush on her chest that had nothing to do with exertion. “I know what you’re doing,” she said with a whisper.
“Do you? And what is that?”
His look was challenging, amused. “Throwing me off my guard. Disarming me. Probably fishing for information.”
He smiled. “Did you ever consider that perhaps I just enjoy watching you squirm?”
Perhaps the most insulting answer, if she was just a plaything and without any relevant information to pry from her mind. Her anger grew, especially considering the trust she was putting in him this afternoon. “You’re a shameless flirt. Was it your plan to wait until you had me in the middle of the gardens to show your worst side?” The birds sang around them, oblivious to her rising anger.
Rhysand flashed an arrogant grin. “Am I such a villain in your mind? Your sister, obviously wise, insisted on a chaperone. Consider me an applicant for the position.”
Feyre snorted. “On what qualifications?”
“I’m a High Lord’s son, honor and chivalry are woven into my very bones.” Her eyebrows were skyward. “Haven’t I been a complete gentleman, seeing to your needs, joining you on…what is it we’re looking for, again?” Rhysand looked around the gardens.
“I’ll know when I find it.”
∘₊✧──────✧₊∘
A wave of relief washed over Feyre as they rounded a corner and finally a row of trees came into view. Surrounding the forest was an aged and ornate metal fence, an arched gate before them at the end of the path, the doors locked shut with chains.
Feyre slowly approached the gate, as if hoping it might evaporate into the mist. When it didn’t, she wrapped her fingers around the flaking metal.
It felt right, actually. What she had feared all along. The forest, once her home, would be forever closed to her now.
Beside her, Rhysand stepped up to the fence, looking through the gaps to the trees swaying in the breeze, strands of moss dancing in the wind. What could she say to him now, having dragged him all this way? Perhaps it was fitting, she thought, that she swore to tell the Prince nothing, only to have him witness two of her spectacular personal failures within a single day.
With a crack like lightning in the air, the rusted lock in Rhysand’s hand imploded into fine dust and blew away in the breeze. The chains it was holding fell and clanked against the bars that swung open on loud hinges.
Rhysand shrugged under Feyre’s stare. “I don’t think either of us are in any condition to hop the fence.” He pushed open the gate with a creak and smiled as he motioned to her. “After you, my lady.”
The light was golden as Feyre and the Prince walked through the rough paths of the plotted forest. Tendrils of light cast down through the canopy of leaves and dappled the ground. The rest of the gardens had been meticulously maintained, even the wilder plots raked and cleared for walking, but here the leaves had been left to dry on the ground and fallen branches lay discarded and rotting. The smell of rich earth and moss filled Feyre’s senses and she felt herself slip back to an old, familiar part of her, one that existed before wars and the machinations of High Lords and their sons.
“What are we looking for, precisely?”
Feyre had to admit, he had been terminally incurious up until now. Which she was thankful for, given how uncertain she was about their destination.
“You’ve trusted me this far. And perhaps we’re simply on another walk for our health.”
Rhysand lifted a groomed brow as he took in the sights. “I am being awfully trusting as well, you know. Some members of my court would surely warn me against wandering, injured and alone, in a forest with an unknown soldier from another court.”
Feyre turned back to look at him, a small smile on her face in spite of her best efforts. “Do I frighten you? I thought you were my chaperone.”
“That’s exactly a clever trap a would-be assassin would set.” His eyes narrowed at her while the corners of his lips curled.
A warm feeling filled her chest at his cat-like smile, like a string wrapping around her heart and gently squeezing. It startled her so much she turned back towards the path.
“Does it remind you of home?” he asked, as they wandered further into the tended forest and she ran her hand over the leaves of a low branch of a young maple tree.
“Yes.” More than he could know.
“Do you miss it?”
It was a difficult question, with a long answer.
“Of course.”
All was quiet and gentle around them, the deep scent of green growing things filling their senses. Though the trees here were smaller, just captive mirrors of their grand wilder siblings, the stillness that ebbed into her her innermost mind was the same. As birds sang and the leaves hissed and rustled in gentle winds, Feyre felt something deep within her settle.
Still, something was different. This forest was too open and young to resemble the Middle, with its ancient and gnarled trees growing so close together the branches and roots grabbed at her body like crooked fingers. There was no oppressive power, no dark shadows and grasping vines threatening danger at every corner. It was just peaceful, with dappled sunlight sparkling through the canopy, fat mushrooms settling in the grass, crocuses and daffodils springing up early through the rich dirt.
Perhaps it was this quiet gentleness that unnerved her the most. The forest was not just gentle - it was powerful, all-encompassing, unnervingly cold in doling out life and death.
The forest was Feyre’s home. Moreso than the ramshackle cabin she had willingly left behind, or the dozens of makeshift war camps set up and taken down without ceremony across the rolling hills of Spring. The forest had held her, taught her, fed her. In desperate times it brought her deer and rabbits, and in war time she hid amongst trees and hills and hunted another prey. The trees with deep roots kept her grounded, the branches reaching to the sky kept her looking upward and outward.
And she had killed the god of the forest. For a petty fae war.
When Feyre had seen the locked gates she had accepted the truth of it, had expected her sins to keep her barred from this place with some magical vengeance. The fact that there was nothing of the sort - no anger, no violence, no power to keep her out - was perhaps the worst of all fates.
The forest god had no power to bar her, because he was gone. Dead and rotting amongst the fallen leaves, or his spirit cast so far and spread so thin he was no more threatening than the spring bulbs, than the spotted mushrooms.
Though there were flattened dirt paths and the younger trees had few roots creeping up from under the earth, Feyre’s footsteps were halting, the tiredness of their journey taking its toll. As she scanned the woods for her destination, she stumbled, caught quickly around the shoulders by the Prince’s broad, warm hands. She nodded to him in thanks as she stood, willing her heart still as he took her hand.
A shallow platter, carved from stone, resting on a flat rock just a little off the soft earth sat before them, dotted in sunlight. No words were etched in stone and no statues with carved faces watched them.
Feyre held tightly to Rhysand’s hand and let herself fall slowly to her knees, settling and adjusting before the platter as best she could with only the use of one of her arms.
Into the smoothly hewn stone she poured milk warm from the kitchens. Piece by piece she built her offering, with a handful of grains and lentils, a freshly carved pheasant, acorns and walnuts, plump summer berries and apricots. Offerings from each seasonal court. A meal for a god no longer with any mouth to eat it.
I’m sorry, she thought. Unable to summon any appropriate words for a true prayer. Knowing there was no one left to receive it.
She folded over herself as her tears broke free, falling into the stone dish. Her final offering.
The Prince settled behind her in silence. It wasn’t until she wiped the tears from her cheeks and sniffled that she turned to him. Though part of her burned from him seeing her so vulnerable, she could not deny he had helped her with the journey, helped take her here without a question. Rhysand’s eyes were soft as he watched her.
“Most would be crowing to the heavens, at having conquered a god. But you mourn him.”
She was so tired. And it felt good, light even, to talk about everything within her. She nodded.
“I did it for Prythian. For Tamlin. But having seen Sylvanus…how the forest dimmed as he died…I had no right. To take such old magic from the world.”
“Did you go to the Middle under Tamlin’s orders? Did he send you to the most dangerous part of Prythian, alone?”
“He ordered me not to go.”
Rhysand’s brow knotted. “But he is your lord and commander. You disobeyed him?”
“He is not High Lord. Yet.”
His lips twitched towards a smile.
She spoke the words she had not said to anyone. It felt safe, here under the canopy of leaves and the shadow of his wings behind them.
“Tamlin was desperate, and impatient. He planned to march north to meet the Peregryn army, combine forces and move to the coast together. He was going to take the whole army through the Middle, and he wouldn’t hear otherwise from any of us. He was convinced that his powers and our army would be enough to face the god.”
She fiddled with the fabric of the night-blue robe.
“I wasn’t going to let him get himself killed, to doom us all. So that night after he had gone to bed, I slipped out and winnowed to the edge of the forest. And I hunted for him.”
Rhysand’s lips were parted, his eyes never leaving her face. “And what did you find?”
Her arm was pulsing. She couldn’t speak of it, not even now. Maybe not ever.
“I killed something that shouldn’t have been killed. And I survived a power no one was supposed to survive. I was told my death was the price for victory. And since I lived, I worry that the price has not yet been fully paid.”
“Who told you the price?”
“The Suriel,” she said.
“You caught a Suriel?”
Feyre nodded, lost in her thoughts.
“Of course you did,” Rhysand muttered under his breath. “The armies passed through, and the ensuing battles were victorious. Magical prophecies aside, victory is on our doorstep.”
“The price still needs to be paid. I thought it was, back in the forest.”
“And you found yourself opening your eyes, when you thought you had closed them for good?” he asked.
She nodded. Her voice was almost a whisper. “I would have preferred to perish there, with him. Or at least fall upon a battlefield, taking every inch of ground against Hybern. Now I can only decline here, until the god’s wrath takes me.”
Rhysand’s eyes were hard upon her. “But you are here, in the best healing halls in all of Prythian. Surely -“
“You understand a bargain, Prince,” she interrupted. “I knew the cost of my victory when I first set foot in that forest.”
He shook his head in frustration. “Can’t the healers even try, Feyre?” Something hard was in his eyes, as he gripped his cane tightly. “What if Prythian still needs you? Not to bleed, not to sacrifice, but to grow and heal? To help build back that which has been destroyed?”
Before she could respond, his eyes went wide, his head co*cking to the side as if he were listening. Feyre was instantly on alert, listening for a threat amongst the singing birds and reaching for her knife.
“What is it?” she asked.
“The ships are approaching Hybern now,” Rhysand almost whispered. Their eyes met, nervous energy simmering between them. “My powers are too weak to cast that far to any single person, but all of those minds together…I can feel them.”
Feyre swallowed, wishing she had magic to let her eyes and senses pierce beyond their quiet convalescence.
“If they fail,” she said softly, “Prythian is defenseless. The Courts will send all their armies for this. Hybern would retaliate quickly, if the armies fall.”
“Yes, my lady, the battle might come to you yet,” Rhysand said, his eyes glazed, as though the picture was in his mind. “Even in this quiet place we might yet meet a final end worthy of songs. If anyone is left to sing them.”
Feyre shuddered at his words. Though she sought her end, to meet it overrun by Hybern’s invading forces, a last stand of the sick and peaceful wardens left in this place, was not what she would wish for any of them. Whatever fate was in store for Prythian, it was coming towards them like a wave, steady and irreversible. Their fates were sealed already and unknown only to them.
She let herself move towards the Prince. It felt, so far from the armies and the fate of them all, that they were the only two left in Prythian, keeping vigil in the woods. She felt the heat of his body against her cold and withering skin under cloak and bandage. Softly, he rested his hand on the small of her back, as if anchoring her in front of him. Gentle wisps of night enveloped them and she tried to breathe.
“Can you sense what's happening? What they’re all feeling?” She asked. She had never met a daemati before.
Rhysand sighed heavily. “Yes. Terror and bloodlust and numbness. And -“ his fingers grazed hers, steadying himself. “Hope.”
“Can you show me?” She whispered.
He raised a brow. “You’d trust me enough to enter your mind?”
“I want to know what’s happening. It’s torture being so far away.”
He regarded her for a few moments, and then nodded.
“You’ll feel me, on the edge of your mind. Think of it like…a door. And you can open to let me in. I’ll stay at the entryway and nothing more.”
Feyre felt the sensation of sharp talons caressing her skull. Her spine tingled at the sensation, but she closed her eyes and imagined a door opening, light spilling out. There was a rush in her mind, and she felt his dark presence cascading in with the rustle of leathery wings. An essence of him, flashes of cunning and amusem*nt and bitterness and longing.
But it was soon drowned out by the feeling of all those minds, of thoughts and people behind them slowly creeping into her consciousness, like they had flown into the battlefield on the wind. Louder and louder, the minds grew as they approached, until it was a roar in her mind.
As the clash of emotions raged around them, she marveled at how he was able to stay so whole. Daemati. She couldn’t imagine voices echoing endlessly through her skull. Could barely handle her own, and the sharp one of Nesta that sometimes cut in.
The violence and fear and desperation threatened to overwhelm her, and she felt herself tuck into his mind, like a blanket of dark night. Gentle talons keeping the edges of her mind together.
Feyre knew in her body the great build and burst of armies clashing. Only the gods themselves could understand the screaming chaos. But then it broke - that moment where the lines begin to fall and one army overtakes another like a rising tide.
Her mind was with the soldiers at the front lines, arms swinging swords, magic sizzling against shields, the clap of it like thunder overhead. Hybern was no longer impenetrable stone walls, but tearing like paper.
The spark of hope in Feyre’s chest was almost painful, like the warming of her arm after so many frozen days. She felt the same frantic, cautious joy reverberate through her mind and into Rhysand’s: mirrored, bright, and kept from spilling out of them with dark talons and wings.
Amidst the soldiers and the blood and adrenaline: a flicker of light. The bodies and the armies and even the very stone of the castle were crumbling under their feet. She knew, as they did, the tentative fear in trusting that feeling of victory after so many years of defeat.
But the soldiers on that field were not alone. And neither was she. Feyre’s hand trembled as she reached out, her eyes still closed. Rhysand’s hand met hers and held tightly, trembling against her.
The gate to Hybern’s inner sanctum crumbled under magic and pointed battering rams. The Autumn faction ran through the doors with a great cry, only to meet Summer soldiers on the other side.
Not an enemy remained between them.
The two alone on the forest floor were awash in it, in the great mental roar of victory and joy and piercing sorrow that erupted from that place, as Prythian and the Continent toppled the kingdom of Hybern. Feyre felt it in her bones, as a shimmering light in her chest, so rattling and strong she felt as if she was shaken out of her own mind, filled up with the joy and sorrow of all Prythian.
When she came back into her body it could have been minutes or even hours later. A breeze cooled the tears on her cheeks, and she felt more that were not her own fall on her hair. Strong arms were around her, and her face was buried against a soft jacket, smelling of salt and citrus. She breathed in deeply, letting her right hand grasp the lapel tighter, not caring that her tears were staining the fine fabric.
Prince Rhysand held her against him, his own cries quietly shuddering through him. Feyre knew she was being vulnerable, knew she should pull away. But the war was over and she felt the great deciding fate pass over and through them like a gentle wave. Everything was different and she did not wish to be alone, even if her only companion was the mercurial prince.
When she felt his warm hand on her shoulder cooling from her frozen skin, even through the winter cloak, she released his jacket and pushed herself back. The cold winter air rushed in to fill the space between them. Feyre tried to pull back but his hand remained on her good arm, the other brushing the tears from her cheek, though he would not meet her eyes.
“It’s over,” he whispered to the air.
She nodded, the finality of it all settling into her bones.
The truth was here: Prythian was free, but there would be no final battles for her to fall in, to seek the mercy of the sword. All that was left was the slow freeze and decay of her body, to let the final magic of the forest god run its course through her. Still partially in the Prince’s mind, she saw flashes of his thoughts turning towards the future, of snowy mountains and two figures on a training ring and a smile and embrace so warm, it could only be from his mother.
But her mind was blank when she tried to summon her next days, even her next moments. War was over, and she was dying. She searched inside herself numbly for the feelings before, the triumph of the soldiers and the warmth of Rhysand here in front of her. She had made her bargain with death and the gods to save others, and she would not ruin their joy with her own end. She would ensure it would be quiet. Away from the celebration and plans for the future.
Perhaps Rhysand had heard her thoughts, because she felt his eyes on her at last. Tears were still falling on both of their faces, and his eyes had a soft look them she hadn’t yet seen.
“Thesan will be back soon,” he said, breaking the silence, his voice a soft plea. “Or I could take you to him. The war is over now, Feyre. If you could heal -”
She cupped his hand that was still on her cheek, pulling him away gently. She felt raw and numb at the same time. “There will be much to do now that we’re at the end. We should go back, and rest,” she said, cutting off his interjection.
∘₊✧──────✧₊∘
Feyre curled into her mind, dragged down by her thoughts, and had little memory of walking back through the forest, the gardens, or down the great stairwell of the Dawn Palace. It was only his eyes, burning on her skin the entire journey to her door, that kept pulling her from the spiraling tempest inside.
A cold draft escaped her room and froze around her ankles as she leaned against her door. The wood was hard beneath her back and though the Prince stood a respectful distance away, she felt pinned under his gaze.
For a moment she didn’t know which filled her with more dread: the cold emptiness waiting in her room or the burning in his eyes.
“Will you be all right,” he asked, his voice like gravel, “alone?”
Habit had her nodding, refusing to consider any other option.
“Good night, my Lord. Thank you for accompanying me today.” She reached for the door handle before her eyes wasted another moment on his profile, sharp in the shadows of the hall.
But before she could slip through her door, his hand was on hers, calluses skimming her knuckles where he grazed his thumb back and forth. “I’ll come tomorrow after breakfast, to collect you for our bargain?”
Numbly, she nodded, urging her body through a slip in the door and shutting it quickly, the coldness of her fireless room rushing to greet her skin.
In here she was safe. Shut away from his fire that threatened to interrupt the quiet coldness she would sink into inside. His footsteps echoed further and further away in the hall as the chill seeped under her robe and claimed her skin.
∘₊✧──────✧₊∘
The forest smelled different at night, silver under the moonlight, as Rhys stepped gently over a large knobbled root. Cold, he thought, as his breath came out in misty plumes. Clean earth, frozen and shimmering lightly in the frost. Clumps of frost dislodged from fat leaves and dripped down his fine black tunic as he brushed past, leaving cold wet patches in their wake.
This was not the forest of Dawn’s storied gardens.
All around him the air was thick with pulsing magic. He felt it crackle on his skin and invade his nostrils. This forest was dark, old…hungry. With trees scarred and gnarled, moss and vines dripping off their branches like ragged cloaks. He chose his footing carefully, roots arching from the ground as though reaching for his ankles. The smell of earth and green was pervasive, the cold ice now dripping down the crown of his head, coating him as the moss licked his hair.
He wondered, if he walked long enough, if the trees would close in and the moss tangle in his limbs until he was pulled under the soil by those roots to sleep forever.
Where he was going, he didn’t know, only that his feet knew the proper way, step by step. If the forest was listening, watching, then he would do the same. Rhysand prowled through the forest like a hunter. Heard the deep call of the owls, the groaning creaks of aged branches in the breeze.
The trees were wound so close together that when the Prince finally came to a clearing, open to the sky, his ears popped. And then his heart was in his throat.
Rhysand stumbled and fell to his knees scrambling towards Feyre’s body in front of him. Looming above them was a monstrous oak, its grey bark twisted and scarred. The land dipped before it, hollowed out by its massive roots the size of Rhysand’s entire body. Feyre lay cold on moss and fallen leaves, so still that frost clung to her golden-brown hair. He reached for her foot only for her to be pulled away. Wrapped around her neck, her torso, were tree roots, blackened by dark soil.
“Feyre,” he rasped out, wet cold soaking through to his knees as he scrambled on the dirt to get a firmer grasp upon her. Feyre’s eyes were closed, her breathing a slow, wet rasp.
Panic gripped him and the blood in his veins went as cold as his clammy skin. Wings aching and bleeding, he clawed through the soft earth and detritus of the forest to lay beside Feyre, gasping as his hand brushed her frozen arm.
This time he got up on his knees, wrapping his arms around her waist and leaning back to pull her free.
Her arms seized, pushing against him as the roots tightened with a creak. A choking noise escaped her throat as she was pulled back, deeper into the earth and out of his grip.
She was half submerged now, dirt and mud seeping up her hair and staining her thin tunic. He reached inside of him, but his magic felt so muted in this place, like it was buried under the freezing earth. He needed help, a knife, a sword…he needed Feyre to wake up and help him fight.
He reached out with his mind then, casting through her dazed slumber and searching. She was quiet, so quiet inside. As if her mind were sleeping behind a wall of ice, and he could only glimpse the outline of her shimmering form through it.
-Feyre. Wake up.
He felt it then - not her mind but something else there, a string, a rope, a tether, a snagging pull of warm light he grasped beneath his fingers and found following back to him. He pulled and her eyes snapped open - grey and blue like the ocean, and her mouth parted as she gasped for air.
Rhysand watched in horror as her eyes slid to him, filled with fear, as the tether between them pulled taut as the roots wrapped tightly around her body like grasping fingers.
“Feyre!” his scream was drowned out by the churning of dirt and stone as the earth claimed her, the cord between them inside his body now, wrenching like it would tear his ribs apart. It pulled tight and with a final gasp from Feyre, he felt it sever as her grasping hand was pulled underground.
Rhysand woke with a startled scream, first from the dream and then from when his back muscles wrenched against the harnesses of his wings. They stayed fast, but his body pulled hard against them and he felt tearing in his back.
The Prince did not know if it was mere minutes or longer before his breathing slowed, before the scent of frozen earth left his nose, before he cast his mind out across the halls and rooms to find her mind, still there, still sleeping. Still alive, he whispered to himself.
Inside his chest, his heart thudded on, oblivious to the heavy feeling of dread, so visceral it was like a muscle pulled. A bead of sweat dripped down his spine under his shirt, pulling him back into his body. He groaned, feeling all the new muscles he had pulled, the soft skin of his wings that was strained. And though he was now awake, he winced as he felt the glowing burn in his chest, like the tether in his dream had burned until it seared him. It lay coiled inside him, a shimmering, burning thing. And as his breathing slowed and his eyes drifted shut again, he felt the weight of it tether him to the earth.
He prayed it would be another rope to pull him away from despair.
∘₊✧──────✧₊∘
