Ascension - A Feyrhys Fic
For @bodtsfreckles for the @yulemaas exchange (sorry itâs a little bit late I had some issues with it!) Thank you @pterodactylichexameter for betaing this for me!! <3Â
Summary: Feyre/Rhys, first person, mixed POVs. Feyre leaves the Spring Court after being discovered as the Night Court spy. She rushes to meet her mate where heâs waiting for in the Summer Court, just across the border. Post ACOMAF/ACOWAR reunion. Long. (shockingly)Â
Teaser:Â Keep going. I have to keep going. Rhys, Rhys, Rhys.
 As though he hears me, as though he knows, I feel him call me.
Feyre. He whispers to me, the word echoing through my mind, my heart, my very soul.
Feyre. Urging me on, urging me to him, not letting me give up, not yet.
Feyre. I keep going. I keep running. I keep fighting.
Feyre. For him. For him.Â
My heart shudders in my chest. The hammer striking the anvil of my ribs. The battering ram that slams against its cage of bone, seeking freedom. My lungs are too tight, too small and shrinking all the time. Smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller, squeezing the air from me until thereâs nothing left.
I stuff my hands in my pockets to hide the shaking. Hide the fact Iâm dragging my nails over my skin again and again and again in my agitation. Hide my bodyâs betrayal of me. Hide the evidence of my pain, my fear, my panic. Still driven to hide from those who would see only weakness to exploit. Hide though Iâm utterly alone here. Â
Clenching my hands into tight fists to stop the nervous movement I close my eyes, seeking to calm myself. Free. Iâm free. I got out. Iâm free. Words Mor had taught me, the only ones that had helped her after what she had endured. The only ones that help me now. I got out. Iâm free. So is Feyre.
Closing my eyes I breathe deeply, letting the light, fresh air fill me. All I can hear are the sounds of the Summer sea lapping against the beach. Cold water tugs gently at my ankles. My bare feet have sunk into the cool sand from the time Iâve spent standing here. The ocean has long-since claimed the footprints I had left upon the sand as he paced the border line between Summer. Now I wait, still as the stars that have begun to bloom in the sky overhead. Waiting. Waiting.
All I can smell is sea. Not her. Not yet. But soon. Soon. I open the bond wide, searching, reaching for her, whispering her name into the void of pulsing music that forms their bond.
My feet pound over the hard earth beneath them. A frantic rhythm, like the hands that beat upon the drums of Calanmai, the thundering hooves of a deer as she flees the starving wolf. Faster, faster, my body screams in protest, my muscles bark in pain but I push myself on. Â
Sweat drenches my back, chilling my feverish skin when the bite of the chill wind finds it. Running in rivulets down my back, it stings my eyes, making them water, my vision blurring but I donât stop. Canât stop. Canât look back. I can only go on.
My chest is tight, burning, as though Iâm breathing ash into my lungs with every gulp of air I choke down. Dizzy and sick I know I have to keep going. If I stop then I lose everything. Thoughts of Rhys keep me going. My mate, my love, waiting for me. Always waiting. Five hundred years for me to come into this world. Months to watch me die and drag me back into this world only to let me be with another male, to let me love as I would. Weeks to slowly help me put myself back together, help me be strong, help me survive. Hours to have me. Seconds to lose me once more. Waiting again, waiting for me to contact him with information and updates and waiting for me now, waiting for me to come back to him. Â
Soon I tell myself, soon I will see him again. I just have to keep going, keep going, keep going. I had spent most of my power escaping the house and now I find myself pursued. The spy overturned, the huntress hunted through the woods like the deer I had once stalked to feed my family. Tamlinâs wolves are close on my heels. I might be the High Lady of the Night Court, the Made daughter of all seven courts, Iâm exhausted and I know itâs not within my power to overwhelm a dozen of Tamlinâs sentries, gifted, centuries old High Fae each and every one.
I had left the Spring Court manor a day before and had not stopped running since. Not since Tamlin had learned of my treachery. Since he had torn apart the house in his fury and horror at what he had discovered. Since he had realised that the bride of Spring was now the lady of Night and that I belonged to no-one and nothing but the darkness in my soul I had learned to make my home.
I had embraced that darkness as I left him, more fully than I had ever done before. For my world, for my court, for my family, for my mate, I had unleashed every  bit of power I possessed. I had shown him every piece of me, had shown him who I was, had made him see me, see me and understand me. For the first time since the fateful day when he burst through the thin wooden door of the cottage I had lived in with my family he had seen who and what I truly was.
I was a survivor. I was the Cursebreaker, the Defender of the Rainbow, High Lady of the Night Court. I had survived death and the abyss that had followed. I had risen filthy and bloodstained from the ashes of that mortal girl that had died. And I had triumphed. I had been reborn. I had healed. I had conquered. I had made every demon that stalked the dark recesses of my soul go in fear of my name. I was Feyre Archeron and I had taught them all exactly what that meant. Â
When the Spring Court had come down around me, Tamlinâs bellow of fury still sounding in my ears I had run. I had run. Faster than I had ever run in my life. To my mate, my mate, my mate. My heart pounds in time with those words, that mantra, that echoes through my mind like a forgotten prayer. My heart keeps time with those words, those words keep time with my heart and both drive me on. A little more, just a little more, just a little more. Not long now. Not far now. Soon. Soon.
Over. Itâs over now. The realisation shocks me to my core as I realise the true depth of my freedom, of what this will feel like, for the first time in my lifeâŚto be truly free .No longer will I wear the mask of the meek, shattered doll. No longer will I pretend to be Tamlinâs pet, his delicate blushing pride. No longer will I lie and manipulate and cheat and spy. No longer will I be anything but what I am. No longer will I live for anyone but me.
As I tear through the woods my focus narrows, my senses sharpen, as they had when I had stalked game as a starving mortal girl desperate to feed her family. There had been nothing but my prey. Nothing but the life I must take to save my own and my familyâs. Life for life â balancing the scales of fate. If I was to cheat death I must become it, must claim what I needed, must pay what I owed, what I had stolen.
It had all been borrowed time, time taken from the lives I had harvested. Every breath, every beat of my heart had cost. And I had paid. Paid in blood again and again. In those moments I had known only that, that price, as I had walked that thin grey line like a tightrope. Death or life, life or death, it had all contracted down to that second, that heartbeat, that single, blinding, burning light of life that reduced all the world around it to darkness that I had snuffed out with an arrow.
The world blots itself out into nothingness once more as I focus my thoughts, my entire being, upon my mate. The single candle that has burned against the cold, beckoning oblivion that had consumed me in those months after everything had happened. The light that continues to guide me now, and always will, as I run to it, to him.
The trees of the lush Spring woods flash past me. Rich emerald greens peppered with lighter hues, accenting the scene, the deeper, darker notes underlying it all. Browns and blacks provide contrast and make everything seem denser and darker. Here and there flickers and flashes of colour, flowers and animals, burst across my vision like shooting stars.
Beautiful. This court is beautiful on the surface. Misleading. Blinding me to the true nature of its festering black heart. A rose I could have contemplated for years, marvelling at the bold, bright colours, mesmerised by the endless delicate folds of the overlapping petals, splayed like the skirts of a dress mid-dance. It would have kept me enthralled for decades, held in stasis, suspended as though in a trance, never noticing the thorns that tore me to shreds, the roots that would have crept over my body, trapping me in place as they slowly squeezed the life from me.
I feel every rock and root beneath my feet. Hear every ragged breath that falls from my lips. Sense every creature that hides from me, judging me, marking me as too deadly to consider hunting, knowing that they would court death to keep me from my mate. The smooth wood of my bow slides between my hands, the scent of the varnish strong in my nose. The familiar weight of it feels good, makes me feel grounded and in control.
Not long now. Not far. The border draws me ever nearer. Exhaustion sinks deep into my bones, filling them, seeping into the hollows like lead, dragging me down. I want so badly to rest, I want to sleep, I want to collapse to my knees and be consumed by darkness and find some peace at last. I want to drown in dreams and forget. No more fear, no more anticipation, no more lies or pain or war or loss, no more.
Keep going. I have to keep going. Rhys, Rhys, Rhys. Â
As though he hears me, as though he knows, I feel him call me. Feyre. He whispers to me, the word echoing through my mind, my heart, my very soul. Feyre. Urging me on, urging me to him, not letting me give up, not yet. Feyre. I keep going. I keep running. I keep fighting. Feyre. For him. For him.
Rhys I whisper back through the bond.
I spread my wings out behind me, trying to shake out the knots. The muscles in them, like all others in my body, are tight. Drawn back like the string of a bow, ready to launch me into the air like an arrow shot among the stars. My instincts roar at me to fly. Fly and fly and fly until I fall. Until the stars find that some darkness is too black for even them to call home and cast me out.
I had never felt trapped within my own skin before I had found myself a prisoner in Amaranthaâs black court for fifty years. Like clothes that are too tight it itches and suffocates until I long to tear myself from it, free myself from the confines of my own mind. The desire plagues me and to fight it, to spite it, to spite her, she who made my body betray me, made me into her own twisted fantasy and my own festering nightmare, I force myself to remain unnaturally still.
I give my wings a sharp snap, trying to rid them of their knots before tucking them in against my body once more. I keep my eyes closed, not wanting to see the evidence of how late she is painted across the sky by a bold, mocking hand as the sun sinks towards the horizon, dying the rich blue sky a fantastic burst of reds and golds. My mind screams that truth at me quite loudly enough as it is.
Late. Late. She should be here. She should be in my arms. She should have been hours ago. Late. Missing. Hurt. Gone- No, no I would know, I would have felt it. Reason and terror make my trembling body into their torn up battlefield as they war over the right to rule my heart and mind. Panic wins out, rising, boiling my blood, obliterating my reason.
I close my eyes and think of my mate, ground myself in memories of her. Feyre is strong, smart, a constant survivor. She has spent her entire life defying the odds, doing things the Mother herself would have deemed impossible. She delights in proving them all wrong, spitting in the face of death herself and refusing to apologise for it. She was my High Lady, my mate, and every shred of logic I possessed told me she would be fine. But it was difficult to hear the cool, composed words of logic over the deafening cacophony of screams my panic has become.
I feel the beast stir beneath my skin. I feel my bones shift, my muscles melt like Feyreâs paints running in the rain. I feel talons pushing against my restraint, threatening to puncture through my paper thin self-control. I feel the roar of untamed fury in my blood, more than ready to unleash itself upon the world that would keep my mate from me. I am straining against my iron will, on the verge of losing everything, giving in to that side of me that I despise but that I canât keep caged much longer, not in the state Iâm presently in. Then a soft summer breeze runs gentle fingers through my hair. The tang of salt, the soft scent of wildflowers, the warmth of this courtâŚAnd carried upon it wood varnish and fresh cut grass.
Her. Her scent. Our scent.
Rhys pulses through me with every shuddering beat of my heart, as though he is a fire that burns in my blood, surging to every part of me, lending me his strength even as my own fails. Close, heâs closer to me now than heâs been in weeks. I can feel him, can feel the bond, can feel him hammering on the other side of it, clawing at it, determined to break through our barriers to get to me. Just as I am with him.
Weâve had to silence it for weeks for my safety, bury it down deep inside ourselves to prevent me being discovered, even though it had killed both of us to do it. It had been torture. Worse than any physical pain I had ever endured. Shutting him out, keeping him away from me, refusing to let him in, refusing to let myself feel him, not communicating unless it was absolutely necessary and only ever in brief bursts, quick words that only left us more miserable, more desperate to be together again.
Now the bond burns and sings with him. Anticipation tights low and hot in my belly. Itâs a sensation Iâve become sickeningly familiar with these past few weeks. Constantly on edge, constantly unsettled, never relaxed, never at ease, always waiting. Waiting, fearing, dreading the moment I would be caught, the things I would have to do for my court, for the friends who had become family, for the male who now meant everything to me.
This is a different kind of animal however. This is a head anticipation, like hot whiskey sliding down my throat, fire burning through my veins, thunder clouds gathering around me, waiting to break. This is the irresistible pull towards something I want more than I can ever fully comprehend. A drive that is deeper than thought, deeper than reason, deeper than want, deeper than need, deeper even than base instinct. This is a call that sings from the very core of his soul. A call that was heard and drawn to by mine before I ever knew it was there. A wish that was whispered on a stolen breath into the safety of silent, peaceful night and answered over and over again by my love.
I feel the hum and taste the sharp tang of magic on my tongue as I reach the border between the Spring and Summer courts. Where freedom waits. Behind me lies Tamlin, still rattling love gilded shackles that he seeks to bind me with. Behind me lies my prison, my cage. Beautiful and comfortable and so safe but a cage all the same. Behind me lies the toxic love that would have killed us both. Behind me lies the past, black and bruised and broken as I had been. Behind me lies the shattered chains that I will never wear again; the cracked porcelain and fraying strings of the broken doll I will never be again; the hollowed eyes that may yet haunt my dreams but that I will never look into when I face a mirror again.
Before me is my mate. My family. My court. My life. My future. My own.
I close my eyes and press my palm to the crackling shield which is all that stands between me and my salvation. I think of summer, of lapping waves and glittering pearls and the feeling of sand trapped between my toes. Claimed by none and Made by all, creature of seven courts, I become Summer itself and slip forever from the mantle of Spring. Â
I open my eyes and find a beach before me, bathed in the rich, warm glow of the sun that allows itself to be swallowed once more by the ever ravenous edges of the endless sea. The scent of it fills my nostrils but thenâŚThen my lungs are full of not only the sea but of citrus too. I exhale in wonder only to greedily suck down another breath, needing to know, needing to be sure, that it is, that it  isâŚHim.
My wings billow like sails as they burst from my body, storm clouds darkening a clear, peaceful horizon. Driving them down I launch myself into the air in a single, powerful thrust upwards. My eyes scan the beach that unfolds beneath me, the border line at the edges of my vision, this the closest I could get to it, for my first sight of her.
Itâs been weeks. Weeks without seeing her, without holding her, without touching her. Torture. Worse by far than anything I had felt in those months when we had escaped from Amarantha and she had been stuck in that court, wasting away a little more each day. Then the bond had been new and so fragile compared to the raging torrent that now bridges us. It had been quiet, meek, gentle tugs against my soul, urging me patiently to go to her, to help her, to seek her out. At the time it had been a torment, an agony I had drowned with work and my joy at being reunited with the family I had never expected to see again until we all entered the void and found one another again on the other side.
Now that the bond has been sealed between us it feels like a hurricane bursting from my bones and shredding my vulnerable being to shreds with its fury at our separation and my meek acceptance of it. My respect and love for Feyre canât simply nullify hundreds of years worth of instincts and itâs been a near constant battle against them, one Iâm increasingly beginning to lose as my nerves begin to fray dangerously close to the core of my fears.
My wings cleave at the open sky again to keep me aloft and my eyes rake continually over the landscape before me. When she rounds the bend and tears onto the beach as though being chased with death herself snapping at her heels the breath leaves my lungs. But I know that she and I are quite alone here, that she is being pursued by nothing but her own desperate need to see me again, as strong as my need for her. Â
As she looks up at me I allow my wings to stop beating even as my heart does. I free-fall to the soft sand below. I see her stop opposite me, chest heaving, sweat clinging to her in a thin sheen, heightening her scent to a near maddening pitch. And her eyesâŚThose beautiful, startling blue-grey eyes, stubborn and fierce and unyielding as the Illyrian mountains, are fixed right on me.
For a moment we simply stop and compel the world to do the same. Eternity balances on a knifeâs edge; the impossible weight of the future is taken from our shoulders and suspended by a thread as fine as silk above us. The space between us remains taut and frozen, like wings flared and drawn, poised to pulse, to move, to pitch the world into motion again.
But now we wait. Simply staring at each other. Every moment that has passed before us and every moment that will condenses itself into the pocket of space that is all that now separates us. Neither of us moves. Neither of us speaks. Neither of us dares breathe. Afraid to break something, afraid to break the thread, afraid to seize the one thing we want above all else where it waits before us lest it be snatched away at the last moment. As everything in our lives so often is.
Disbelief. Weeks Iâve waited for this moment. Hours Iâve stood alone in this beach, knowing she was coming to me. Yet all I feel now is disbelief. Because sheâs here. Here. After so long, so much fear, so much pain, so much loss and uncertainty and risk. The potential to lose everything- again- had loomed over me like a death shroud every day she had been gone. But sheâs here. Here. Whole. Unharmed. Free. Mine.
The knife slips. The thread snaps. The moment shatters. My heart dares another beat. And we move, surging for each other, at precisely the same moment. Â
My feet slip over the loose sand, slick as silk, and I falter for a moment as I attempt to adjust to it. Itâs so different from the steady, rugged forest floor of the Spring court. But I adapt after that first stumble and fall into a new, swift rhythm that has me flying over the beach towards him.
I donât know what strings my mate had to pull, what promises he might have had to make, what threats or bribes or tricks were involved in making this possible, allowing us to meet here in Summer after our banishment, those blood rubies. I donât care.
The exhaustion that had threatened to overwhelm me in the Spring Court is gone. Blown away by the soft gusts of ocean air that carry my mateâs scent to me. Stronger with every bounding step I take it fills my mouth, my throat, my lungs, until Iâm drowning in nothing but him. My aching muscles quiet, my desperate flight through the Spring Court, pursued by Tamlinâs dogs, might never have happened, already distant as a half-forgotten memory. There is only him, only Rhys. The bond swelling between us all the time, blossoming like a new sky in the dark heavens, pulling me to him.
I hurtle around a bend and the full expanse of the small golden beach, bathed in the last rays of the dying sun, unfolds before me, pristine and perfect. And there he is. Hovering above it all. Rhys. My Rhys. A midnight silhouette against the glowing sky behind him.
The sun blazes at his back, burning through those magnificent translucent wings, spread to their fullest extent, dominating the scene before me. Hot red veins, like liquid fire pulsing through black rock, stand out against the rich velvet canvas of the thin membrane. My mind begins cataloguing every colour, every shade, wondering how I might capture each and every one of them, how I might preserve this moment with paint and brush. I want to store it all in some vault in my mind I can draw upon later. The rich crushed blackberry violet of his illuminated wings. The roaring fiery reds, oranges and yellows that flare around him. The deep, uncut sapphire blue of the ocean at his back. The moonlight white of the sand at my feet that sparkles at my feet like a diamond hoard.
I want to capture this moment forever in my mind, place it onto canvas the same way itâs imprinted itself upon my heart. My mate seems to erupt as though a sun has exploded behind me, bursting forth in tendrils of pure, bright light, consuming me . I feel as though Iâm watching the rebirth of a god, binding himself into a body of flesh and blood and bone as he descends to earth. A shooting star that falls at my feet. For me. All for me.
My mate. Beautiful. Terrible. Crafted from power and cunning and compassionate grace. Perfect. Flawed. Strong. Vulnerable. Infinite. Mine.
He folds his wings and lets himself crash to the ground, body bowing as he absorbs the impact of the fall. Straightening to his full height his eyes meet mine at once and a jolt of pure, raw emotion snaps through me. His eyes a rich, violet sky, that burst with the starlight returned to them again in my presence.
I barely dare to breathe as I look at him. This moment feels so achingly, so dangerously fragile. Like a baby bird cradled in my hands Iâm afraid if I hold it too tightly, if I seize onto it the way I want to, to press it to my chest and keep it against my heart Iâll crush it even as I aim to preserve it. But my chest is heaving with exertion and emotion that tightens to a hard lump in my throat. Swallowing I try to push my heart back down where it belongs beneath my ribs but it refuses to move.
All I can do is look, just look, at my mate and the space between us. Like a painting upon the wall all I can do is stare at it, frozen and immobile, its subjects cursed to remain in that one snapshot of time for eternity. I would spend a hundred eternities in thisâŚIf only I could hold him.
Then something, something in both of us, buried deep beneath my understanding, snaps at the same time. One moment weâre both standing at either end of the beach, staring at one another, trying to convince ourselves that we, that this, is real. Then weâre moving, moving at exactly the same time, launching ourselves towards each other.
The bond explodes between us and for a heartbeat I slip from my body, from my self, and see through Rhysâs eyes.
Iâm dimly aware of him experiencing the same thing in reverse, seeing himself as I see him. But my focus, as Rhysâs is, quickly becomes consumed by me. Dressed in worn, dark flying leathers, covered in blood and sweat and filth, my hair dragged back in a now loose and fraying braidâŚSomehow, in over five and a half centuries in this world, of all the things heâs witnessed, all the things heâs experienced, the sight of me, ragged and exhausted and half-dead on my feet, is the most beautiful thing heâs ever seen. The most beautiful thing he thinks heâll ever see. Â
A second before our bodies crash together with all the raw, untamed energy of a wild, unchecked thunderstorm, I come back to myself to feel his arms wrap tightly around me.
