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She knew without knowing that he was her mate.
It wasn’t when she spilled from the Cauldron, soaked and freezing and horrified for herself and her beloved Elain. Too much had changed. Her body. The immortality buzzing under her skin. The magic igniting her blood. Her Gods-damned ears.
It wasn’t even in the aftermath: these powerful fae roaring at Rhysand for letting his High Lady go, Elain clinging to her side and asking who that man had been — her mate — as if Nesta would know.
It wasn’t until dawn the next day. Of course she hadn’t slept. Elain had very nearly passed out on the staircase, exhausted and terrified, and Azriel had carried her up to bed when the moon was still high. The others dispersed. Nesta supposed she could have found a bedroom if she wished. But did she? If she had found a strange room in this strange place, could she have relaxed this strange body against a strange fae’s guest sheets for a night of halfway-decent rest?
She doubted it. Thus, the rooftop.
With Feyre gone, in this tragedy of a body, Nesta thought it ought to have rained. Or, really, the sun simply shouldn’t have risen. It would have made sense. If the sun never broke the horizon, she wouldn’t have been surprised.
But it did, and it was surprising. It was fiery, too, not the weak pink of spring or the pale blue of winter but the full-on bright orange of a light that surged to overwhelm the darkness. A fire in the sky after the darkest of nights. Light triumphant.
She jumped at the voice, though it took her several long seconds to tear her eyes from the blazing break of day to meet his gaze.
“With this,” Cassian supplied, gesturing vaguely to the splash of color behind her. “You look much more powerful here than in a small cabin in dull winter.”
Her lungs tightened defensively. “That’s my home.”
“Were you powerful there?”
“Yes,” she said, firm. She’d hosted queens, after all. She’d created an embassy.
He did not reply, just walked over to join her at the edge of the balcony. His wings were bandaged so heavily that she couldn’t see the black beneath the layers of white gauze.
He looked at the sky, and she remembered suddenly how he’d looked in her house. He and his friends, really, had created the embassy. They had hosted the queens. She’d simply…lived there. Coexisted.
Her fingers brushed against the new point at the top of her ear, and she wondered if she’d really been powerful at all. Perhaps not.
He looked at her and somehow the sky was reflected on his irises. Captivating.
“Does this?” Again, his hand wandered through the air, gesturing vaguely to her.
“The new look?” She snorted. “No. It feels…wrong, though. Uncomfortable.”
“That’s how my wings feel. Rhys has enough magic in me to fell a small town, taking the pain away, but I can still feel the weight of the bandages. Wrong. Uncomfortable.”
His eyes were so, so soft for all the fire they held. The sun was rising, now. He was so much more exquisite in the light of this court than he’d been in the dimness of her home. And maybe it was this light that showed him she was not asking about his wings.
“It will,” he said. “You’ll train. You’ll be able to help Feyre and…and the rest of us. I know it isn’t what you wanted, but it will stop feeling so different after a while.”
“I don’t want to lose myself,” she whispered.
She wasn’t sure if he heard. Leaning on the balcony rail just inches apart, they watched their star finish crossing the horizon and bloom into the vibrant sky.
It wasn’t for another quarter hour at least that he spoke again. “You won’t be lost, Nesta. You’re just different now, but you’ll find yourself again. You’re still in there.”
She looked down at herself almost without thinking. The sun shone against the remaining Cauldron water on her dress.
“You’ll belong,” he said. “I promise.”
And that’s when she knew, somehow.
