A Court Of Horny Immortals @dontgetsalmonella - Tumblr Blog

Embers & Light (Chapter 53)

Notes: Thank you to everyone being so patient in waiting for this chapter. Life has thrown some difficulties my way recently and the work life balance is very much out of whack which means my writing time is just non-existent. Big love to all of you sending lovely anons reassuring me that you'll still be reading even if my chapter updates are infrequent.

Anyway, I hope you love this one! Nesta and Cassian finally chat about what happened beneath the Lake...

Chapter 53 Cassian

The journey to the Eastern Steppes was a rough one. Cassian only had the abilities to winnow once a year, his technique rusty and untried enough that the wind whipped and howled at them, as if protesting at his lack of skill, the wrongness of the movement.

But soon enough the folded fabric of time righted itself. Colour bled back into the world. Birds sang. The soil smelt damp and dewy. The trees sighed in the wind.

Above them, the spring sky remained blue and hopeful.

Inside, Cassian still felt as ravaged and violated as he had the moment he’d sat up reeling in the moss and realised that Death had torn apart the braided rope of he and Nesta’s mating bond. No ruby magic had kissed silver. Their avenue of connection replaced only by a vast emptiness, the two severed ends tied like a makeshift tourniquet around Cassian’s ribcage.

As if remembering the agony of it, the magic inside of Cassian chose that moment to awaken. It gave a deep, shuddering breath, like lungs starved of air. Now they were outside of the Lake’s influence, Cassian’s magic felt as if it had been released from a chokehold. His siphons flickered then pulsed gently in greeting. It felt like the renewed beating of his heart.

Tossing her head, Sala indignantly Sala threw off the lingering ebony of darkness that clung to her fur and their clothing, like shifting shadows. Cassian carried himself instinctively with the movement, shifting his weight atop her as the beast’s wings snapped in and out, as if she was making sure that her body was in one piece after winnowing.

Nesta’s body did the same, the motion fluid, her body more one with the manticore than Cassian would ever be. If Nesta had been disconcerted by his rusty winnowing skills, she didn’t let on. As always, she remained composed and regal, her back straight, her chin lifted despite the weariness Cassian could sense radiating off of her.

She’d mentioned that she’d used every last drop of her healing magic at the Lake. Who knew what else she’d dealt with Below, what she’d learnt. What she’d suffered on top of the bond being wrenched from them.

Cassian suspected that the only reason that Nesta was actually standing was because her fire magic was supercharged. Because whilst the proximity of the Lake and the surrounding forest had been enough to leech Frawley, Lorrian and Cassian’s magic from their veins, Nesta’s main facet of power was death…

Nesta’s healing magic might have suffered just like theirs, but her fire magic was death.

The thought had Cassian banding his arm tighter around Nesta. Underneath the scent of lake and moss, her hair smelt like she always did—jasmine and vanilla—and it brought an overwhelming sense of relief to know that some things remained constant. That she was back with him despite what she’d been through. Especially in the calm before the storm, before everything kicked into action, before whatever terrible fate awaited them had to play out.

Because Cassian knew that there was something waiting for them. There always was.

A soft rumble from Caer drew Cassian’s attention behind him and away from the panic that was trying its best to build to a crescendo.

Lorrian had already dismounted the male manticore and was at the back door with a limp Frawley in his arms. Before Cassian could move to help his friend with the door, Caer had risen on his back legs, his paws pressing against the pine. There was a fizzle of magic, gold sparks outlining Caer’s paw and then there was a click and the wooden door swung open.

Cassian watched Lorrian step into the kitchen with Caer at his heels, but then Nesta shifted in front of him and his attention was pulled back to her, just as it always was.

She was watching Lorrian, too. With her head turned towards him, Cassian could see the profile of her face: her pale cheeks, the natural arch of her brow, the lips jammed tightly together. Wisps of hair were carried by the wind and fluttered beneath her eye and across her nose, but she didn’t seem to notice.

“Is it working?”

For a moment, Cassian didn’t understand what she meant. He was too distracted at the sudden realness of her which kept hitting him like the turn of a wheel as it ran full circle. Every time he processed that she was alive and breathing brought on a new sense of crushing relief, like a tidal wave breaking across the shore.

When the bond had broken, Cassian had suspected the worst. For all he’d known, Nesta had descended Below only to never return.

Then, everything had seemed impossibly dark.

Now, around them, the scenery was soft and light—the cottage, the forest… Even the air, which let his magic breathe and replenish. The contrast felt like a mockery given the journey that they’d been on, as if it was trying to insist that it had never happened at all.

And if Cassian didn’t so vividly remember how he’d fallen like lead in the sky, he might have forgiven the forest for carrying on like usual.

“Your injuries?” Nesta elaborated when Cassian didn’t respond. Her head turned a little farther in his direction, as far as she could manage. “Are they healing?”

In all truth, Cassian hadn’t thought of his injuries beyond registering that they’d hurt during the flight.

“Cassian?”

Nesta’s voice broke through his thoughts and the way her head remained turned towards him, the way she pressed him, told Cassian that she needed answers. Because if his magic was healing his body, it was logical that Frawley’s power was already replenishing itself.

Gingerly, Cassian lifted his injured wing—testing it—making sure before he reassured her. It still hurt, but the pain was less than before. And as he slowly tapped his attention back into his body, he could feel that his cracked ribs were tingling, itching, as his body slowly started to knit itself back together and his wing felt the same.

“It’s working,” Cassian assured her, trying his best to make his voice even. He dismounted Sala to prove that he was telling the truth, his wings working as they always did to balance him, even as his left wing and ribs yelped in protest. “Not as quickly as usual, probably because my magic is replenishing itself after being drained.”

He held out a hand to Nesta. She was observing him with that razor-sharp focus of hers, those blue-grey eyes scouring over his wings, his ribs, his expression for any sign of discomfort.

He made himself wiggle his fingers entreatingly, hoping she might let out a huff or lift her eyes to the sky—any sense of normalcy to ease the underlying sense of panic that was building inside of him. But Nesta only took his hand without hesitation, her expression serious as she neatly dismounted from Sala, her fingers icy cold from both the flight and the drop in temperature as they’d winnowed.

It was never that cold when Rhys or Mor did it. Cassian would have to ask them how—not that he had the power to winnow more than one day of the year. Nobody knew why Illyrians powers were magnified the day before the Rite. Most Illyrians believed it was a fleeting gift from the Old Gods before one of the most sacred of Illyrian traditions. The Rite was what gave Illyrian males their name—when the stars Arktos, Carynth and Oristes aligned at Ramiel’s peak they could fight for the social standing that would define them for the rest of their lives.

It was their chance to prove themselves under the watchful eyes of the Old Gods and Illyrians believed that they had been blessed with magic to ensure that the Rite was put in place.

But not this year. This year, they had magic but no Rite.

Kallon had insisted that it was to save Illyrian lives, to rebuild war units after losing so many against Hybern. It had won him some solid support for the Rebellion cause, including the favour of Lords and Lordlings across the war camps, all the while the Princeling killed innocent females in a bid to bond him to Enalius’ sword.

A gust of wind dove through the clearing and Nesta did her best to suppress a shiver. But Cassian caught it and his attention pivoted back towards her, like a compass needle swinging towards true north.

Nesta’s leathers were still damp, her hair still wet. Now he could see her entire face, he noticed that the outline of her lips were blue.

Cassian swallowed. “Can you dry yourself with your fire magic, sweetheart?”

The words didn’t have the effect Cassian had intended. Nesta tensed up, her muscles packing up so tightly it was almost as if someone had cast a spell on her and froze her in place. Even her face drained of colour, her skin taking on a ghostly pallor.

Confusion seized control of Cassian’s features, his brows dipping into a frown before he evened them back out again. It hurt that he’d triggered her somehow. Cassian had always prided himself on being able to read Nesta like a book, to know what she needed and how she needed it. But he didn’t know now.

So many questions began to coil on the tip of his tongue, ready to unravel as he spoke them. And Cassian knew he should be pressing Nesta about what had happened, about what she’d learnt Below. He knew they needed to address the bond that had been wrenched from them—the breath-snatching pain of it—but he was a coward and he chose to worry over her wellbeing rather than cutting to the chase. “You’re catching a chill, Nes.”

Cassian brushed a thumb over Nesta’s lips to punctuate his point. She didn’t move away from him. For a moment, it seemed as if she wasn’t so much as breathing. And Cassian was just about to open his mouth to encourage her to speak when he felt her magic—that fire—rush through her body as she called it forth. Felt it ignite, the heat of it relentless, as it licked over her skin.

Cassian didn’t recoil. Didn’t need to. Nesta’s fire magic had never burnt him before and he knew that now would be no exception.

Flames danced in Nesta’s irises, turning them a ferocious metallic. The power of it was so palpable it was like an additional, other-worldly heartbeat. But then Nesta’s magic was snatched back within herself and her eyes fell back into their usual grey-blue—yet guarded in a way that instantly set Cassian on edge.

Together, they hesitated, lingering by the back door, neither of them moving. And Cassian felt something coalesce in the air, all of the unspoken words and truths, until there was a shadow hanging ominously between them, a pregnant thundercloud waiting to split its seam.

Not sure what to do, Cassian raked his fingers gently through Nesta’s hair. Trying to communicate that he was here, that she could speak now if she needed to.

But Nesta didn’t say anything and anticipation had Cassian’s blood quickening, his pulse pushing insistently against his skin.

Eventually, when it felt as if Cassian’s heartbeat was thrashing about on his tongue, Nesta said, “We should go and help tend to Frawley.”

It felt as if a ball of yarn had knotted itself in Cassian’s throat. It made it hard to swallow down his heartbeat. And like the coward he was, Cassian dropped his hands from her hair. “We should,” he agreed thickly.

But before he could turn to follow Sala’s slinking haunches through the kitchen, Nesta had snatched out to grab his hand.

“Cassian?”

Steadily, Cassian made himself meet Nesta’s eyes. And for the first time Cassian saw the true panic, the urgency, in his partner that she’d been doing her best to conceal, as if she’d lifted a veil to showcase the inner turmoil beneath it.

But Cassian did not balk. Long ago, he’d vowed that he would never shy from anything Nesta threw at him and he wasn’t going to start now.

So, Cassian waited for Nesta to speak, even as that unaddressed shadow passed between them again.

That knowledge of a bond broken, a connection severed.

Nesta’s hand tightened imperatively around his, her gaze deepened. The magnetism in her irises reeled him in, deeper and deeper and Cassian let himself fall willingly.

“After we’ve checked on Frawley,” she said, her voice a grave hush, a terrifying secret that Cassian had known was coming. “I need to speak with you.”

***

Lorrian had taken Frawley up to their bedroom.

It was the master room in the cottage. The walls were white, the wooden beams structuring the room old and uneven—left as nature had formed them rather than cut to precise rectangular lines.

Frawley lay unconscious atop the huge bed. Her eyes were shut, her skin waxen, her lips chapped and parted. Cassian saw the blue and purple veins stark against the witch’s eyelids, like intricate, terrifying spiderwebs. Yet, even out of consciousness and looking as fragile as she did, Frawley still looked other. Like something you wouldn’t dare to wake.

Lorrian wasn’t of the same sentiment. He didn’t speak or tread quietly. He turned to Nesta the moment they walked in.

“Can you dry her? It will be quicker than putting her in new clothes.” Then, he looked to Cassian. “There’s tonic in the Cauldron on the stove downstairs. Can you heat some up?”

By the time Cassian returned with two mugs of steaming tonic in hand, Frawley was tucked beneath the covers. Her white hair was dry but tangled, her face still pale but no longer deathly.

Atop the coverlets, her hands lay half unfurled. And in the heart of her palms… no light. No magic at all. Not even a whisper.

Despite that, some colour had bled back into her face, as if the air of her forest was breathing life back into her magic and herself.

When Cassian handed the mug to Lorrian, Frawley’s eyes began to move beneath her eyelids. As if the wafting steam of the liquid’s magic called to her, trying to reel her back from the realm she’d fallen into.

Yet, it was a while until the witch’s eyelids finally cracked open. And the sight of his wife awake clearly affected Lorrian, whose knuckles tightened so starkly that Cassian thought the bones might pop out of their sockets.

But all Lorrian said in low greeting was, “Witch.”

Both of Frawley’s eyes slid to her chroi and Cassian watched her pupils constrict, spooling inwards. It made the colours in her irises stand out and for the first time, Cassian realised that the hazel eye of Frawley’s mirrored Lorrian’s, down to the exact blend of brown, green and gold.

The witch’s words were a tired and exhausted breath. “Illyrian mongrel.”

Some of the knots in Lorrian’s back loosened, his wings sagging and spreading slightly in relief. His fingers unfurled slightly, the colour seeping back into his knuckles. “Time to drink the potions so you can go back to commanding me around, Xiomara.”

Nesta threw a quizzical look at Cassian at the unfamiliar name, but Cassian just watched as Lorrian lifted Frawley’s head and coaxed her to drink a few sips. As he tenderly swept the witch’s matted hair back from her forehead.

And Cassian knew Frawley was in a bad way because she was too exhausted to even try and assist him. But the more she drank, the stronger she became. Until Lorrian was no longer holding her entire weight, but supporting it.

Eventually, when she’d slowly managed to wrestle down two tonics, the witch’s different coloured eyes slithered over to Nesta. And when they did, the barest flicker of a wry smile twitched at Frawley’s lips. It was the sort of exhausted smile that only came from a shared experience. And there was no anger or resentment on the witch’s face, only relief.

“We made it then,” the witch rasped wryly.

Nesta leant forward from where she was sitting on a wicker chair in the corner of the room, her back ramrod straight as always. Her hands were clasped around the mug of tonic Cassian had insistently handed to her and the remaining steam coalesced into the air, dancing upwards in front of her face. “We made it,” Nesta agreed.

Frawley raised a hand from where it lay on the mattress. It took a few failed tries, but then it was there: a circle of light. Small and unassuming, but full of promise—steady.

One corner of Nesta’s mouth inched upwards and then she held out her own hand in reply where her own bead of healing light sung softly. And the melody was so mournfully beautiful, that Cassian felt his own magic stir, his siphons pulsing gently.

Cassian knew if his seven gems could speak, his magic would be whining the same tune as the Illyrian wind outside the windows. Her name, always. Nesta, Nesta, Nesta.

Frawley’s smile turned into a pained grimace.

“Thank Oya,” she announced weakly.

And then, as if that was all she’d been able to muster, her arm fell back onto the mattress and the healing power at her palm went out.

Within moments, Frawley was out cold.

***

Andraste arrived on a moth-carried wind not long after Frawley had fallen back asleep.

The witch of the Northern Steppes appeared at the doorway to the bedroom, silent and creeping, ready to examine her sister.

If Nesta’s head hadn’t whipped to the door, if the manticores hadn’t launched onto all fours, Cassian wouldn’t have heard the witch at all.

Andraste listened to Nesta relay how the deathly magic in the forest had slowly leeched Frawley of her power. And all the while, Andraste’s moths had fluttered around her sister’s body like eery, unstable companions.

Cassian had never been sure if the moths were real and simply bound by the witch’s magic, or whether they were purely created by Andraste’s magic and imagination. He’d never had it in him to ask. There was a fundamental element to Andraste that had always been put on edge, like the kiss of a well-honed blade, deadly as its lethal edge caught the light.

Eventually, the moths disappeared and the dark-haired witch straightened, rising impossibly tall, as willowy and elegant as the slim trunk of a pine. The wooden beads at the ends of her thick cornrow braids had clinked together at the movement, but when Andraste's dark eyes pinned on Lorrian, they abruptly stopped.

Frawley would sleep for hours, the witch told them in that distant, cold voice of hers, as if she were somewhere else entirely. Moths fluttered briefly around her ears in the same way that Azriel’s shadows did when they were reporting secrets. Rest would help to replenish Frawley’s magic stores, along with more tonic and a few good meals.

When Andraste’s dark eyes jumped to Nesta, Cassian tried to swallow down his instinctive fright. It had always been indisputable that Frawley was not fae, but Andraste was something else entirely. A witch made for the night, but lured out of the shadows against her will, the flutter of her moths wings whispering in her ears. “You were wise to get her out of the forest when you did.”

To Nesta’s credit, she did not balk. Her spine remained straight but her countenance was relaxed, confident in herself and her abilities as she dipped her chin. Cassian got the impression other things were on her mind, her own whisperings pulling at her mind, distracting her from what was going on in the present.

So, he wasn’t surprised that the moment that Andraste disappeared on a moth-carried wind, Nesta was back by his side. She touched his hand with her cold, slim fingers. Encircled them around his wrist, awakening him until his eyes were no longer on the stream of moths flittering out of the window, but her.

“Let’s take a walk,” she murmured and something awakened inside of Cassian. It was that same feeling of foreboding that had overcome him outside.

Lorrian let them go. Silently, he replaced Nesta on the wicker chair. But not before he’d dragged it closer to the bed so he could hold Frawley’s hand whilst she slept.

Nesta led Cassian purposefully out of the cottage and past the paddock, until they were walking amongst the pine trees and the woodruff, the smell of earth and green and the crisp spring air all around them.

With every step they took, the pain in Cassian’s wing and ribs continued to ease. Now they were out of the vicinity of the Lake of Souls, his Fae blood and magic were slowly cranking up to working at full speed again. Cassian was no stranger to pain, but his mending limbs would have felt like a relief if the suspense of what Nesta had to say wasn’t gnawing at his insides.

The silence between them grew tauter and tauter the further they walked. Together, they threaded through tree trunks and stepped over fallen branches. Nesta still led the way, her step purposeful and sure-headed, guided by whatever information she’d learnt from the Seer of the Sage. And Cassian trusted that Nesta would lead them to where they needed to be, so he tucked his wings in tight and navigated through the narrow spots without complaint.

And all the while that silence continued to build between them, like a storm coalescing above them, its sooty clouds flattening the peaks of mountains and the tops of trees.

By the time they reached a break in the canopy overhead, the pain of Cassian’s injuries was only tender—the kind of hurt that came from pressing down insistently on a bruise rather than something sharp—but his heart had begun to beat faster, his blood pulsing through his veins in anticipation, an unyielding, distracting thrum.

Because whilst Nesta seemed in control, there was something highly strung about her. There was an urgency to her movements, as if her body was not only being powered by a higher purpose, but nerves, too. After all, Cassian had learnt to read her long ago. And Nesta’s heart? He could hear the nervous beat of it in his own ears, the tempo entangled with his own.

Before them, a stream trickled unassumingly through the forest, cutting an uneven path through the foliage. A plateau of flat rocks picked their way across the water as if they’d been placed by a higher hand—or perhaps a magical one—but weathered from feet over the decades, enough so that they weren’t obscured by the moss which had tried to carpet everything else.

Cassian hung back by a loose pine tree, watching Nesta as she beelined towards the water. As her stride grew slower and less resolute—identical to the way one might trail off mid-sentence. As if now she had arrived at the place she wished to speak with him, Nesta wasn’t sure where to go next.

When she reached the water’s edge, she turned to look over her shoulder at him. The tangled strands of her hair lifted from the breath of the wind. Somehow it highlighted her pale face, the weight that lay across her brow.

Nesta’s lips parted. Closed.

By her side, she curled her fingers into fists before loosening them.

As she straightened them, they shook slightly. When she balled her fingers into fists again, she clenched so hard Cassian knew that there would be half-moon prints embedded into her palms.

Still, Cassian waited. But when she didn’t say anything, he moved. Unable to bear it. To see her like this, to find himself succumbing to that taunting in his head that hissed the worst.

Cassian wasn’t stupid. He’d lived long enough to know that something was coming, something that would no doubt put them back danger again—just when they were beginning to piece themselves back together after the war with Hybern.

Because life was cruel like that. It didn’t care about your history, about the trials and tribulations that had shaped you into a darker version of yourself. It chipped away innocence and naivety, carving you into something more severe, more world-weary.

“Nesta.” A few long strides had Cassian’s legs eating up the distance between them. And Nesta didn’t step away, didn’t try to deflect him as he cupped her face.

As always, her head angled up to meet his. And in her eyes, was a pool of emotion that had him wanting to take a step back. It was aching and sad and… apprehensive.

Cassian had no idea what had happened in the forest where death sang its own eerie tune. He didn’t know what had occurred when she’d descended into the Lake Below. And even that was an assumption. Even though he couldn’t think of any other reason why their mating bond had been torn from them than her having travelled beyond the living. Couldn’t think why he’d have fallen from the sky, a frozen, dead weight of agony as his body had crashed through the tops of trees.

And for once Cassian didn’t know how to make it better. So, he just searched her eyes and said, “Just tell me, sweetheart.”

Still Nesta said nothing. She just continued to stare up at him whilst her thoughts stampeded through her mind.

In the end, she simply shook her head. “You’re here.”

Her hands came to rest at his chest. Cassian had the distinct impression that if his armour would have allowed it, she’d be fisting her hands into the scales of his leathers. Her gaze deepened on his, her eyes searching for an answer she couldn’t seem to find. “I’m so happy you’re here.”

Not knowing what to say, Cassian gently rested his forehead against hers. He breathed slowly, a deep inhale, as if breathing her in would convince him that she was actually here before him. And then spoke his truth. “I was worried you wouldn’t be able to come back.”

When Nesta looked back up at him, her grey-blue eyes were lined with tears, her words thick. “From the Lake?”

Cassian nodded. “I didn’t know if you’d just descended Below or if you’d…”

He couldn’t say the last word. Couldn’t voice it in case it ever came true.

A world without Nesta wasn’t one Cassian wanted to be in.

As if Nesta sensed the root of his thought, she lay her hand gently over his ribcage. Her fingers barely spanned the breadth of his heart but it felt as if she was cradling him whole. “Did you know?”

Did you know what would happen to us if I descended into the Lake?

“Not for sure.” Cassian raked a thumb over Nesta’s cheek. Caught a wayward tear. Water and salt soaked into his skin. “I knew there were some dots I hadn’t connected. But the moment you disappeared into the forest, I knew.” He clasped the hand on his heart, drew it down to his stomach. Pressed it into his abdomen. “I felt it in my gut, right here. Like a premonition.”

For a few heartbeats, Nesta just studied him as if she was trying to delve deeper, understand. “You didn’t tell me you had a bad feeling.”

Cassian’s breath wanted to catch but he didn’t let it. She had every right to be mad at him for withholding his fears, but he hadn’t truly known the consequences until it was too late. “I didn’t want to stop you doing something you were destined to do,” he said truthfully.

“I broke it.” Nesta’s words were broken too, raw and exposed—devastated. And only then did Cassian realise that she blamed herself for it.

He kissed her forehead, her cheeks, her nose, instilling all of the love and comfort he could muster.

“I believe in you,” he told her, “and I believed in Elain’s vision. It had to be done, Nesta, for the greater good. And this thing between us, the love I have for you… I knew the lack of a mating bond wouldn’t change that.”

Despite his speech, Cassian could tell from the anguished knit of Nesta’s brow that she couldn’t see past her self-blame. So, he rested his palms on her shoulders until she met his eyes. “Death broke the bond. Our purpose broke it. Don’t think for one second that what happened falls on your shoulders.” His hand came up to wind around her neck, cupping it. “You’re safe and here. It’s all I care about. It’s all I ever care about.”

Nesta leant forward, until her forehead was resting against his chest. She released a slow breath. Then said, her voice small and muffled by his leathers. “You fell.”

“So did you,” he replied softly. He touched her chin with a scarred finger, coaxing her to meet his gaze, to come back to the issue at hand. “Tell me about the Lake, sweetheart.”

Something flickered behind Nesta’s eyes, a shuttering, as if a door had closed and a new one had opened.

“It’s just us,” Cassian prompted. His fingers grazed the underline of Nesta’s jaw, the callouses a tender scrape. “You can tell me.”

To his surprise, Nesta nodded. Her chest rose as she took in a slow, quiet breath and lifted a palm to Cassian’s cheek.

Cassian’s wings had been held high behind him, but her touch stirred them awake. They shifted the air around them, stirring the pine needles underfoot, creating their own wind as they wrapped around her, pressing her closer.

Cassian leant into Nesta’s palm but didn’t break the lock of their gaze. He just waited, patient and beseeching.

“I wanted to tell you first,” Nesta started, but then paused. Searched his eyes again. Took another deep breath. “I didn’t meet the Seer of the Sage, Cassian.”

Cassian straightened. Blinked. “You didn’t?”

This time it was Nesta’s fingers tracing his jaw, stroking across his brow. And Cassian knew his eyes were unspooling, the guard behind them lifting to show his confusion, his apprehension. But he didn’t stop it, because it was Nesta, and he wouldn’t hide from her.

“No,” Nesta said softly. “I met your mother, Cassian.”

***

Stunned, Cassian couldn’t do anything but stare ahead of him.

“I know it seems unbelievable,” Nesta said in wake of his silence. The sounds of the forest were a distant noise in Cassian’s ears, a buzzing, because his mind was reeling from what Nesta had just told him.

His mother.

The female who had birthed and nurtured him. The female who had raised him in poverty but who had sung to him in front of a meagre fire every night, her soft voice gentle and lilting. The stars overhead. Her dry, cracked hands cradling him tight against her chest.

Cassian had barely remembered her, had been unable to recall what she looked like, but he knew she’d been warm. That she’d loved him.

“My mother,” he croaked finally, when he realised he had to say something. “You met my mother.”

Nesta touched his face again. Her fingers were cold yet somehow they felt like a balm.

“I did,” she confirmed softly. “I thought of her before I descended beneath the Lake. It was a fleeting thought, but I think my magic called to her. And when I got Below, she was there, waiting for me.”

Caught off guard didn’t even begin to describe how Cassian felt. A rising hope surged in him at the same time disbelief crested. The two emotions warred, clashed, fought.

In the end, Cassian could only repeat himself, “You met my mother.”

“I did,” Nesta said again, her voice tentative and unsure but also tempered down to soothe. Her hands coaxed his face to meet hers and the love shining on her expression was like a beacon, a calling. His blood howled. “She’s the most wonderful, brave female I’ve ever met. And she loved you so much, more than anything. Can I tell you about her?”

It all crashed into him then, the gravity of what Nesta was telling him. The emotion hit him like a punch in the gut and a breath sucked out of him, his eyes burned. “Please,” he begged.

So, Nesta told him and Cassian let her.

He sat with his back against one of the slim pine trunks, surrounded by the scent of earth and resin. The cold from the forest floor seeped through his leathers, but he didn’t care.

Neither did Nesta, she sunk to the floor at his side, her legs folded beneath her. But as she began to speak, she rose onto her knees, her hands falling to his shoulders. Her eyes were the most open he’d ever seen them. They glittered as she spoke, the light in her eyes both animated and mournful.

When Nesta finished, the only sounds were the birds in the trees, the stirring rustle of the needles in the wind. The only sensation grounding him were the palms now resting lovingly against his cheeks.

In years to come, Cassian would distinctly remember the way Nesta studied his expression. The way she looked, so hopeful yet full of apprehension. The exact way the strands of her honey brown hair fell over pale face.

“Cassian.” Nesta’s voice floated into his head and stayed there, echoing around the empty cavern inside of his head. His thoughts had been all over the place, but now it was if his body had slammed down a guillotine and cut them off, protecting him from the inevitable overload.

But like it always did, Nesta’s voice reached him, stirring his attention. Pulling him towards her.

“I know it’s a lot to process,” Nesta said. “I know—“

“What was she like?” he said. He swallowed and his throat felt thick and syrupy. “The true Maya.”

Cassian hadn’t meant to cut Nesta off, but the words punctured out of him of their own accord. There was so much he should say, so many things they needed to address, but in the end it was the most basic of questions that he yearned the answer to.

Nesta’s hands moved from the nape of his neck to tangle in the knotty strands of his hair. She leant towards him as if she was imparting a secret.

“Fierce and loyal and brave,” Nesta whispered, her smile soft and trembling. “But her heart was so full, Cassian. She wanted the best for her race. That’s why she left, why she risked everything and hid you away. And she wanted you to know that she doesn’t regret a moment of it. That you were the best thing to ever happen to her and that she would do it all over again if she had the chance. Because she loved you and your father and she wanted a better world.”

Cassian didn’t know what to say to that, didn’t know how to address the star-born prophecy. Suddenly, he had the overwhelming urge to cry, enough so that he was forced to remain quiet. Instead, he reached blindly for Nesta’s hand and squeezed.

She understood just as she always did. Wrapped her arms around his head and pulled him into her chest.

And it felt so good to be comforted, so good to be back with Nesta, encircled in her scent, his home, that he wrapped his fully healed wings around her body.

They stayed like that for a long while, the rise and fall of their chests their only rhythm. And it felt so good to ignore everything else that he’d learnt for a moment and just simply exist, safe with Nesta, just the two of them in their very own world.

And with every joint breath, the yawning emptiness in his mind receded and thoughts poured in, like shadows falling over sunlight.

“Lyanne and Maya are near identical,” Nesta said into his hair before she leant away from him. She searched his eyes, grazed the left corner of his mouth with her thumb as a smile of her own tugged at her lips. “I could see you in her,” she confessed softly. “She has your smile.”

It took everything in Cassian to make his mouth kick upwards.

Nesta caught it with her thumb, as if she hoped by touching it that she might freeze it in place. “This one,” she told him. “Your sad, half smile. And her eyes express themselves in exactly the same way as you. They even have the exact shards of gold.”

“I’m glad I have pieces of her,” Cassian confessed, because that’s what he’d always been terrified of. That he only carried traces of an unknown father who Cassian had wrongly suspected had abused his mother.

But it turned out that wasn’t true at all. His father, wherever he was, had been his mother’s mate and Cassian had been born out of love.

“I’m so sorry you couldn’t meet her,” Nesta murmured. “She was looking for you. She thought you might be with me, Above, at the shoreline of the Lake. She kept scanning the ceiling and it took me too long to understand why.”

The thought of his mother casting her eyes Above had that knot tightening in Cassian’s throat. She had looked for him. Had wanted to see him and he’d been somewhere else entirely.

After the mating bond breaking, Cassian hadn’t thought his heart could fracture any further, but it did. Another crack, another reminder of something painful.

Nesta had met his mother, had held her hands and cried with her. And she had learnt the story Cassian had always wanted to know. His history was all laid out before him and the truths that came with that? It made his mind spin.

“If it was going to be anyone else but me,” he said, meant every word that rasped out of his mouth, “I would have always chosen you.”

Nesta blew out a breath as if she was relieved. And it was only then that Cassian realised that she had been nervous, anxious of his reaction.

“In the forest, my fire magic was unlike anything I’ve ever experienced before,” Nesta confessed. “Death was in the ground and it made me so strong. At first I was scared of it. It kept trying to get out like before—when I was untrained and denying who I was. But when I said goodbye to your mother, I realised that I could use it for something good.”

“I burned your mother’s soul,” Nesta continued when Cassian only continued to look at her, not quite understanding what she was trying to say. “She wanted to be complete and I wanted to give that to her—to you.”

Cassian’s lungs sucked in a breath he didn’t ask for and it shook, like the ground rumbling beneath their feet in an earthquake. He was almost too scared to ask what he did next, but in the end he had to know. “Did it work?”

“Yes,” Nesta breathed. “At least I think so. I think my magic finally did something wholly good. Not just protecting someone from harm but granting someone the opportunity for peace.” Nesta found Cassian’s hand and held on tight. “I told Maya that we’d meet her at Kharon. That you’d be there and that you’d set her soul down the River Styx.”

It was too much. A sob wrenched out of him. And Cassian couldn’t stop it, couldn’t stop the wracking sound splitting open his ribs. Because his heart was no longer fissured but entirely cracked in two by the love he had for the female before him.

In that moment, never had Cassian been so sure he wanted to ask her to be his wife—the bond might have been broken, but their lives could still be entangled in every way possible.

“I’m sorry,” Nesta chanted over and over, as if she thought he was upset with her—because she’d got this opportunity over him. And the tears were flowing so freely, the air trapped in his chest winding him with every sob that he couldn’t speak. So, he just pulled Nesta into his lap and buried his face in her hair.

“Oh Cassian,” Nesta breathed when he eventually quieted. His tears had ran into her hair but she didn’t seem to mind. “I’m sorry that you weren’t able to meet her.”

Cassian pushed his palms into his damp eyes. The pressure alleviated the flow of tears.

“It’s not that,” Cassian managed to say thickly. He rested his chin atop the crown of Nesta’s head, gathered her closer to her chest as he tried to convey how he felt. “It’s just…” He reached out a hand into the darkness in his mind, trying to grasp the right words. “What you did for my mother? Putting her to rest? I can never thank you enough for that. I can never make it up to you.”

Nesta tilted her head up to look at him and Cassian let her, unfolding his body from hers, leaning back so their eyes could connect. She’d been crying too, Cassian realised. This wonderful, fiery female had shed tears for him, his mother, his history.

Her cheeks were streaked with salt tracks, her irises shone with a challenge that was set in its determination. “Why should you?”

Cassian opened his mouth to speak, to explain that putting his mother to rest would close that door he’d never been able to jam shut. He’d always wondered about his mother—how she’d died, what she’d suffered. He’d always blamed himself for her death. If he’d not been born, if he’d not been this burden this byproduct of what he’d been certain was rape, his mother could have escaped the poverty and travelled somewhere else, away from the cruelty.

And to know now that he’d been a choice? That his mother had died fighting for a better world, a world that Cassian himself had also been fighting for since he was tossed into the mud at Windhaven? He’d been bonded to her all this time without knowing it, this shared ideal, this critical mission tying them together and now her soul could stop wandering. Next year at Kharon, Cassian could put her soul to rest and she could finally sleep knowing that he was continuing her legacy.

But Nesta cut him off. “You saved my life,” she admitted softly. “I would have died if it wasn’t for you. I would have drunk myself to death. And I hated you for helping me, for thinking that I was worthy, but even when I told you otherwise, you were always my light in the dark. You never gave up on me, never stopped having faith that I would grow into my full potential.

“I will never stop being thankful that you fought for me. That you gave me the means to fight for this life and make something of it. If it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t have been able to control my power the way I did beneath the Lake. I wouldn’t have been able to burn your mother’s soul, to give her a proper burial.”

We did this together, Nesta’s eyes said as she stared up at him.

Gently, Cassian leaned down to press his lips to hers. She tasted like tears but also hope, despite everything looming on the horizon.

“I just wanted you to be happy,” Cassian murmured against her mouth, his breath whispering between them.

“And I am,” Nesta told him, and Cassian heard the truth of it in her voice, the conviction. “Of course I am, Cassian. I have you.”

***

There was so much to discuss, so much to say, but Cassian and Nesta remained in the forest a while longer, wrapped in silence, Nesta curled in his lap, his arms holding her close.

They didn’t discuss the fact that Cassian’s heritage traced back to Ironcrest. Or the fact that his mother had been the twin to fulfil the prophecy predicted by the Seer of the Sage, which had stated that the first twin to fall pregnant would bear a star-born child.

But eventually, the silence had to end.

It was Nesta who broke it but Cassian couldn’t begrudge her of it. In the quiet, Cassian had been trying to process the information she’d given him—the blessings and the hard truths.

But they couldn’t ignore the reason she’d gone below the Lake in the first place.

“Cassian,” Nesta pressed eventually. Her voice was soft and tentative, but there was an urgency to it, a seriousness that Cassian knew they could no longer ignore. “I asked your mother if she knew whether Kallon’s sacrificial ritual would work in bonding the blade to him. She said he didn’t know, but that if Kallon was attempting to use such dark magic, it would be best to use it when his magic was strongest…”

She trailed off but Cassian had already connected the dots.

Had already stiffened, his mind sharpening. He’d partitioned off his emotions with a mental movement akin to the slashing of a sword and stepped into the role of General.

“The Rite,” Cassian said grimly, kicking himself that he hadn’t seen this coming. He was the General of the Night Court Armies, he had years of experience when it came to strategy and war, but he hadn’t been able to predict Kallon’s next move. His next step in battle.

But now it was as clear as the water in the River Styx. Kallon hadn’t just wanted to garner support by cancelling the Blood Rite, he’d wanted an empty arena.

Nesta turned in his lap so she was facing him. “I think Kallon is going to use the increased strength of his magic to try and bend the sword to his will. He’s going to sacrifice the final three females believing that will solidify his star-born status—”

“He’ll do it on Ramiel,” Cassian cut off grimly. “He’ll try to complete the ritual there on sacred ground. The mountain is only accessible on the day of the Rite, magic prevents Illyrians from even stepping in the vicinity of it at any other time in the year.”

“Yes,” Nesta breathed. “I thought the same. It makes sense that he would try to do it in a place where there’s a strong connection to Enalius.”

Because Oya and Enalius had defeated Vanth at the top of Ramiel on the thirty-third day of battle, ultimately uniting the Illyrian clans over a common cause. Every year, the Blood Rite marked the anniversary of that day. When Oya had sacrificed a bone of her ribcage to create the sword that Enalius had ultimately used to slay Vanth.

“Kallon has a limited window.” Cassian stood, trying to ignore the voice inside his head that reminded him that the male they were talking about shared blood with him. Kallon was his cousin. His cousin. And Ailie and Samra were, too. “We need to get back to Windhaven—“

“We do,” Nesta agreed, but she was looking carefully at him. He knew what she was thinking, what she wanted to discuss.

The star-born prophecy. The potential that it had never been Kallon destined for the sword, but him.

Even now, Cassian could remember how the sword had called to him when he’d seen it in Ironcrest. His magic had turned over inside of him and it had leapt, pushing against his skin, trying to escape. His siphons had thrummed, lighting up like a beacon, the star ruby beating like its own heart.

As if it had awakened.

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