Chapter Text
*
The city that sprawled out beneath us took my breath away. This was Velaris? It stretched out from the base of flat-topped red mountains in the north, all the way to the edge of a shimmering sea in the west, finishing with a small port. Throughout its sprawl, it wrapped itself around a winding river that meandered lazily all the way to the sea. The water reflected the clear autumn sky above us in a blue, rippling brilliance, broken only periodically by bridges.
How many Fae lived here? It was already bigger than anything I’d ever imagined in the Night. Did everyone know each other? Why couldn’t I hear any screaming? Did everyone have their own building? Surely so given the size of it. I itched to rush in and explore it, find out what noises filled it, what the buildings looked like up close, how the streets felt beneath my street. Were they dirt? Stone? Cobbles?
“How have we never heard of this place?” Daire muttered in disbelief. He let out a long sigh, his chest heaving it out in one long breath. It meant something along the lines of shock.
Something glinted in the side of the far mountain, little squares of light that caught the sun. What was that? Windows? A quartz mine? “Maybe your mother had just never heard of it?” I suggested as I squinted, trying to make out more details.
“With her sister living there?” Daire asked doubtfully. I turned to look at him, and the eyebrow he’d raised in my direction.
“Yeah that’s weird.” I scratched my hairline, turning the next steps we could take over in my head. “Reckon we can just… walk in? It hasn’t even got an outer wall.”
"One way to find out," he replied with a shrug, already taking long, loping steps down the steady slope that would lead us to the city that waited below.
“You sure that’s a good idea?” I asked, hurrying to cross the distance already opening up between us. “What if they’re not the friendly types?”
“You said it yourself, they haven’t even got an outer wall for defences,” he gestured to the city edges, “how unfriendly could they be?”
This had to be the most unthought through approach possible. And yes, the city did look open and welcoming, but some of the prettiest flowers ever documented were also the deadliest. “What if they have a ‘kill all outsiders on sight’ rule!” I argued, “No need for walls then!”
“Then my aunt would already be dead,” he said, giving me an unimpressed side eye, “not informing others of her new location. Stop panicking, Blaze.”
“I’m not,” I answered automatically. But he had a point, so I stopped making a fool of myself and kept my increasing list of ways this could go wrong to myself instead. He gave me a far too knowing look.
For a city in the Night Court, I had expected something much darker, more ominous. Not townhouses and shops, copper roofs interspersed with slate, paved roads and frequent street lighting. Perhaps intimidating, creaking wrought iron fences and dead ivy? Tall gates topped with deadly spikes and decorated with eerie symbols, or decomposing skeletons hanging from city walls (which it didn’t even have) to deter away unwanted visitors? Maybe fighting pits packed with bloodthirsty spectators cheering for the next gruesome event? But there was none of that. Velaris was... beautiful. Almost impossibly so. It radiated a sense of calm busy-ness, more like a long-lived in sanctuary than the dangerous hub of power I had imagined. As we joined a paved, smooth stone road that led inward, fae of all kinds moved about us with ease. Faint music even drifted from somewhere further in on a salty, sea breeze.
There were no dark surprises, despite moving deeper into the city, following the stone road. The most dangerous thing we came across was having to jump out of the way of a fast moving horse-drawn cart, laden with crates of goods. Small gathering spaces centred around fountains or little flower gardens, cobblestone paths veered off to house lined side streets, and larger ones edged by shops and cafes and workshops. There was ivy, but it was living and green and climbing buildings gleefully. I could hardly believe that a place like this existed in Prythian. A city, untouched by wars? Thriving under the rule of Night, of all of the courts? I felt adrift with its existence, so at odds with what I’d expected. We passed one cafe that spilled out onto the streets, bustling with song as someone carefully carried out a cake topped with so many candles I was surprised it hadn’t melted. I poked Daire in the side, gesturing over, but he was already looking at it, naked longing in his eyes.
For a moment, I let myself imagine staying here. Being invited to a birthday party, singing along with a group of people that I might even call friends. Maybe we could go for kahve, or even tea, afterwards. Perhaps walk along the riverfront. Maybe one day I would have a group of friends to celebrate a birthday with, someone would bring out a little cake on for me —
But that dream, like so many others, was snuffed out as quickly as it started. I was not part of this city. The woman who’d birthed me wanted to control people, not nurture them. And no one was ever going to invite me to a gathering for cake, or meet me for a walk - you didn’t do that with strangers. And I was ever the stranger.
Daire's steps quickened with every street we crossed, his eyes scanning every face, but dusk soon had us seeking out somewhere to sleep. We were short on both coin and food, and ignorant of what the rules were about hunting down our own dinner. I was having an unspoken competition between our two stomachs on which could rumble louder when a bakery closing it’s pretty, pale green painted window shutters caught my eye. I felt in my pocket for the two single copper marks and jogged over to the Fae locking the shutters in place, his deep brown eyes widening in surprise as I smiled sheepishly, stopping out of arms reach.
“I’ve got two copper marks,” I said by way of greeting, nodding to the shop behind them. Hunger stopped any shame I might have felt, although I knew Daire would feel differently. It was why he was probably still walking away, pretending I wasn’t with him. Hopefully not too far though. I started a mental countdown in my head. “Anything that was going to go in the bin that you’d rather sell?”
He raised his eyebrows, frown lines marring his forehead. There was a faint pattern to his brown skin, like worn down tree-bark, that suggested he had urisk heritage somewhere in his family line. I held in a sigh and smiled again, stretched and false but a smile none the less, and started to turn back to the road behind me.
“Wait,” he said, his voice deep but clear. “I was thinking, young one.” It was obviously a censure, but easily the softest one I’d ever received, there wasn’t a hint of anger in his bearing or tone. I bit my lip and turned back to face him, my hand still wrapped tightly around the two copper marks. When he saw he had my attention again he held out a hand in a universal gesture to stay still, “Wait there.”
They finished locking the shutters and disappeared back inside the building, the aroma of bread still escaping the doorway. My stomach rumbled with complaint at the taunt. When was the last time we had something like bread? We’d had some flour after parting ways with Eimear, courtesy of her extended family, and eaten flatbreads until that ran out… but that was weeks ago. Before the leaves started turning. A few minutes later he emerged with a bundle wrapped in string and thin paper and my mouth watered even while I reeled at my luck. There was more than two copper marks worth of bread in a bundle that size.
“We all hit rough times,” he said, handing over the parcel, which was heavier than I expected too. I tucked it into my chest carefully and gave him a real, genuine smile this time that tugged all the way into my cheeks as I held out the money.
“Thank you, here,” I said gratefully, but he pushed my hand back.
“As I said, we all hit rough times, and this would not have kept overnight. You are helping me out really, it was a slow day. Better it went in someones belly than in the bin.”
“I-Are you - I mean…are you sure?” I kept my hand out between us, palm up, but he only shook his head.
“Go catch up with your friend. There is a barn on the outskirts, if you follow this road you won’t be able to miss it. The owner doesn’t mind anyone in need taking shelter in it, so long as you leave at dawn and aren’t noisy.”
I clutched the breads to my chest, my fist tight around the coins I didn’t expect to still have and thanked him repeatedly, even as I backed away and ran to catch up with Daire, where he waited a few buildings further up.
“He just… gave you all this?” Daire asked in shock as we sat in the hay loft of the barn we’d been directed to. Our feast of a few strips of dried meat from our last hunt, full waterskins filled from a public water fountain, two apples I palmed during the walk through the city outskirts on our way in and, the pinnacle: two double-palm sized breads stuffed with spiced potatoes and cheese and onions, a thick flatbread topped with honey and seeds, and an entire loaf. I was practically drooling.
I ripped the potato-stuffed bread in half and tossed it at him. Daire caught it easily, his brow furrowed. “And he just refused the marks?”
I shrugged, breaking off a piece for myself. “Said he was closing up for the night and it was going to go in the bin.”
He took a bite, groaning as he chewed. “This might be the best thing I’ve ever eaten.”
“Less talking, more eating.” I said around a mouthful of food, smirking. I swallowed the ball of food too early and coughed, “Hurry up before we loose all the light, you need to write yourself a message.”
He huffed a quiet laugh but didn’t argue, reaching for another piece. We made quick work of everything except the loaf, saving that for tomorrow. Better slightly stale bread than an empty stomach, and despite my arguments towards a little petty theft to feed ourselves, Daire remained committed to his zero crime rule until we knew more about the punishments. I would have been more offended by the implication that I would do something so amateur as get caught if I’d shared either my years of practice, or my shadow ability, but I’d shared neither so kept my indignation to myself. The final light was a dying thing when he frantically etched whatever coded message he wanted to add to the scant remaining space that remained.
After two days of wondering around, we still had yet to see the dark underbelly that rumour told us should be prevalent here. And where were the fae I’d seen Under the Mountain? All the high ranking members from Night had been High Fae, not a hint of anything else. But here, it was practically a melting pot. Feline shifters walked arm in arm with Urisk, goblins hobnobbed with dwarves… and most people were nice. We ran into a few with less than pleasant dispositions, more than a few who were distrustful of strangers but, nobody with whips, or armed to the teeth hunting us down. I’d toyed with the idea that there was some kind of secret police keeping everyone in line, or that this whole city was the bait of a trap to lure in weary travellers but… nothing.
Two days of fraught searching and filling into the final inches of the tablet late at night, and not getting captured by evil secret police, we finally were directed by a kind stranger to a small shop in one of the clearly more affluent districts. The sign overhead was simple, etched with intricate patterns of silver and gold, but the quality of the craftsmanship spoke volumes, it’s simplicity that of elegance rather than gaudy declarations. Daire stopped at the door, his hand hesitating on the handle.
“She’s never even met me,” he muttered under his breath, tension threading his shoulders taut.
“Blood knows blood,” I said softly, though I wasn’t entirely sure I believed it. Obviously I had a father originally - was he still alive out there somewhere? Was he like Amarantha? Better? Worse? Would he know me if he met me, like in the children’s stories Rhysand used to lend me? Still, Daire needed the encouragement and he was the one seeking out his relatives, not me, so I told the white lie.
Daire took a deep breath, and just when I thought maybe he was going to sigh in defeat and turn around, he pushed the door open instead. A bell above the door chimed softly, and we stepped into a dark space, lit by only a single, soft faelight above a counter filled with elegant earrings and bracelets and necklaces, all gleaming with gemstones, their metals polished to a high sheen that caught the daylight from the windows either side of the door. At the far end of the room, a figure wrapped in shadows sat at a jeweller’s bench, her fingers darting out of the darkness as they worked with the precision of someone who had mastered their craft decades ago. As the shadows shifted and flowed, I had the sense of black hair, and a tall, lean figure.
Daire moved in just enough to let me inside, but not an inch more. I squeezed in, shutting the door behind me as he stared and stared at the figure at the bench. It’s the hope that kills you, really, and I pleaded silently to the Cauldron that Daire wasn’t about to have his smashed into the ground. I watched them both carefully, but the jeweller remained entranced with their work and Daire remained watching them in silence. Finally, when I thought I might have to intervene, he worked his jaw a couple of times, clenched his fists, and said, “Hello?”
Well, it was a greeting, I supposed. Possibly-Neve glanced up, coal-black eyes narrowing slightly as they took us in. Their gaze lingered on Daire, a flicker of confusion crossing her face.
“Hello. Can I help you?” they asked, setting down her tools and rising from her seat.
Daire swallowed, shifting from foot to foot, his usual confidence wavering. “I’m Daire. I think… I think I might be your nephew.” His voice was low and quiet, but I could hear the fear and the hope in it, see it in the gaze he kept on her. He took a small, faltering step closer, as if he had to force his legs to move. “My mother was Niamha.”
For a moment, Possibly-Neve didn’t react. She stood frozen, her sharp eyes searching Daire’s face, taking in every feature and cataloguing it. She stared at his hair, his forehead, his ears. His eyes, his nose, his eyes, the shape of his mouth, his jaw, and I could see the recognition slowly dawning. Her hands flew to her mouth, and she took an unsteady step forward. Just like in the stories.
“By the Cauldron... I thought... I thought I’d never -” she whispered, her voice thick with disbelief.
She reached out, her dark shadows moving with her and Daire closed the distance, stepping straight into her embrace as his shoulders finally fell in relief. It was awkward at first, the two of them clinging to each other like strangers learning how to hold something precious. But then, as the reality of it sank in, I saw Neve’s arms tighten around him, and Daire’s face buried itself in her shoulder, his breath coming in shaky, muted gasps.
“I didn’t even know if she had a child,” Neve whispered, pulling back slightly to cup his face. “I haven’t seen my sister in... so long. I never thought...”
“She’s gone.” Daire’s voice was thick as he spoke, the grief still not willing to lie still and quiet. “She’s been gone for years.”
Neve’s face crumpled, the weight of it all settling on her shoulders. “I should’ve looked for her. I should’ve found a way —”
“You couldn’t have known,” Daire said softly. “But you’re all I have left now.”
The silence between them was heavy, and watching them, I felt a pang for something I hadn’t expected. This was what Daire needed. A family. A place where he could belong, free of the burdens we’d carried with the others. And here I was, intruding on it all, taking things that I wasn’t entitled to. Just like Amarantha. The realisation made me look away from the pair of them, sticking my gaze to my feet as I bit my lip.
He’d dropped his backpack when he went to her. It rested on the floor, leaning heavily against the side table behind the door. Still avoiding their emotional reunion, I moved quietly towards it, letting a few shadows unspool from where they’d lingered, restless and frustrated in my own shadows, content it was dim enough here already they would be noticed. They helped steady the bag, and watch Daire and Neve, as I slipped the stone tablet free, fingers lingering on the cool stone for a moment longer than necessary before I pulled it free. This was why I’d come. To help him find his family. We couldn’t continue like this, him scrawling so much of our lives in tiny coded glyphs, it was madness.
I glanced back at Daire, his face softened in a way I hadn’t seen before, the ticking muscle in his jaw finally lax. He didn’t need me anymore. This was his chance at happiness, at a family and a life in a city that had been so welcoming to two strangers.
Without another word, I turned and backed out of the shop, my shadows muffling the sound of the door’s bell as I quickly faded into the busy streets outside.
*
I spent that night hiding in the eaves of a building not far from Neve’s shop, close enough to see it, to see him through the window, realising the dream that pulled him through this entire trek was real. I wrapped my shadows around myself, round and round like a thick cloak, until I was just a smudge in a corner, unremarkable. Just another dark patch in the night. I’d stay just until I was sure he was safe, that it was real.. that’s what I told myself. Told myself it was desire for his safety that kept me watching, not jealousy, not envy that he was right, there was someone for him here. Someone who loved him just because they were family.
I hugged my knees tighter, the thought to chase away the cold with a flame in my hands as thick and tempting as honey. These autumn nights were colder than the ones I’d spent sleeping out in the open during summer though, and I missed the barns we’d found since our arrival. I fell asleep watching the light in the small apartment above the shop.
The next day greeted me with a crisp blue sky, not a cloud in sight, and my breath fogged in front of me like dragon breath. I spent the day meandering around a section of the city that seemed to be almost entirely devoted to arts, stealing an apple here, a pastry there, with a modicum of guilt, but was quickly quietened by my growling stomach: Daire wasn’t here now to beg me not to, and it wasn’t like anyone would catch me.
I lost count of the art galleries and studios I passed. There were ones dedicated to glassblowing, to music, to pottery… and tiny bookshops, and little art shops, each with their own individual flare. I’d stumbled across no less than three sculpture gardens (one full of well, statues, one of topiary and one of metal) and two sprawling street murals on the sides of buildings, both looking like they were depicting a battle, with a defender that looked very much like Feyre stood in the centre of the main, rainbow coloured square. By late afternoon I was trying to pretend to myself that I wasn’t looping back in the direction of Daire’s aunts jewellery shop, just to check if he was alright, when someone walked past me, towards the street of jewellers, and I thought nothing of it until they stopped and turned around, right in my path.
“Excuse you,” I muttered, already trying to move around them. The familiar scent - jasmine and citrus - made me pause.
“What are you doing here?”
That voice: I knew that voice. I looked up from the mid distance where I’d fixed my gaze, and found Rhysand looking back at me. Looking at me like he knew me.
“It’s Tuesday?” I asked, the shock and disbelief flooding into my voice. What was the High Lord of the Night Court doing down here? I’d not seen any suggestion in the city that this was where the throne of the court sat somewhere. He nodded curtly, seemed to consider something for a second, and then gestured for me to follow him, away from the jewellers. It wasn’t a short walk, wherever we were going, and I’d been up at dawn with Daire for the final trek into the city yesterday, and again today. My legs ached and my feet chafed in the stolen boots I’d purloined a few months ago when the weather was warmer. The falling sun was drawing long shadows on the streets when Rhysand turned into the small front garden on an end townhouse. The walls were low, well kept, red stone and the gravel path crunched under our feet up to the navy blue painted front door, which opened on smooth, oiled hinges.
He led me into a living room off the hallway, still silent. He hadn’t spoken to me at all since questioning my presence, only turning every now and then to make sure I was still there. The house fascinated me: was this where he lived? The floor was a polished, dark toned wood and the walls panelled in a soft, warm tan wood. There was a large fireplace on one wall through a set of double doors, with large, low-backed deep blue sofas surrounding it.
My gaze was drawn to the towering bookshelves that lined the wall beside the fireplace. They were crammed with books of every size and colour, the worn spines speaking of years of use. It was a confusion of scents, more than I could pick out. Flowers and cedar and citrus, the sea and leather and wood. He lived here with other people? This place? There was a particular air about the room that felt both ancient and lived-in, like it had seen countless evenings with the sofas filled and conversations had, evenings spent reading books and keeping warm around the fire.
“Would you like a drink?” Rhysand asked, his voice breaking through the silence, and my thoughts.
I shook my head, too wound up from the tense silence to manage more than that. With nothing but silence from him, I had no idea what he was thinking. He sat down with an effortless grace on one of the sofas, his violet eyes watching me with a level of intensity that felt like a weight pressing against my chest. I shifted uneasily.
“You look like a skittish cat,” he observed, his tone dry but not unkind as his swirled the amber liquid in his own glass. I blinked, and realised I still stood in the hallway, one hand braced on the doorframe, leaning into the shadows by the wall, my body half turned towards the front door. I stepped inside with steps that probably looked just like Daire’s yesterday, like I was forcing my legs to move: because I was. The warmth of the living room contrasted sharply with the unusual chill of the wind outside. His gaze followed me, steady but careful, like he was trying to figure me out while not wanting to be seen as actually caring. Or like a predator watching prey. Which Rhysand was this? Was this my teacher? Or was that a facade he only wore while he was trapped under the mountain. When he gestured toward the nearest sofa, I forced my legs to bend, though I kept my movements slow and deliberate.
He leaned back, still watching. “What happened to you after we were all freed from the mountain?”
I spent a lot of time deliberately not thinking about that time. I’d dedicated no small amount of effort to not thinking about it. My voice felt tight in my throat when I answered. “Nothing worth repeating,” I said tightly, “not until one of you took the wards down at Hybern’s castle.”
I saw something flicker across his face at the mention of Hybern, too quick to name. Perhaps it was the mention of the male who’d hurt his friends. “You were at Hybern’s castle?”
“Yes,” I replied, “when you all came, and he put those two mortal females in the Cauldron.”
Rhysand’s expression darkened. His voice turned cold, laced with distrust that stabbed at my chest. So, not my teacher then. “And what were you doing there? When he was putting my High Lady’s sisters in the Cauldron?”
High Lady? I set that aside and let the pain of his doubt gnaw at me, but kept my expression in its well-trained mask. “Trapped,” I said carefully. How best to cover this when he clearly had no memory? Only Tuesdays remained, only Tuesdays survived whatever magic Amarantha had cast. I should be grateful, I reminded myself, that Rhysand remembered that at least, it was one day more than anyone else not on her side ever had. Unfortunately ‘not on her side’ and ‘on my side’ were not the same thing. “with Faebane cuffs,” I continued, “and guards holding me. You saw me, I promise.You just don’t remember, it’s not your fault, or mine,” I added hastily, “I saw you all winnow away, and then realised those were same wards stopped me from escaping, too. I got out not long after that.”
I bit my tongue. That was dangerously close to admitting I had another way to travel, someway other than winnowing.
“That was months ago.” He observed, taking a drink from the glass that smelt of alcohol, whiskey, if I was right. We sat in silence until he sighed, sounding disappointed. “What happened after that? Where did you go?”
“Nothing, and nowhere really,” I said with a shrug. Again, I was skimming. But he wasn’t going to be interested in the lonely nights, the overwhelming sky that I thought might crush me, or let me float away, up and up, until there was no air left. He wasn’t interested in the horizon that was too big and too impossibly far, or how I didn’t know where to go, where to find food, or where to sleep. How to look after myself in a world that wasn’t limited by stone walls and provided for with stolen food. He wanted the headline details, a summary that would reassure him I wasn’t a threat. “I ended up running into some other displaced fae from her reign, and then… helped some of them get back to their family, or what was left of it. I tried to stop them dying on the way —” An image of the devoured remains of Riona and Thom, of my failure, my stupidity, flashed to the front of my mind and I shuddered, “The last one happened to be here.” My smile was thin and tinged with bitterness, “Everyone’s safe and sound now.”
Because that didn’t include me, but there was no one to care if I was safe, no one to check that I was alright. Come tomorrow, he wouldn’t even remember this conversation. I hesitated, unsure how, or even if, to ask about what I wanted. I wanted to know if everything I’d heard in Hybern’s throne room was true. If he’d really tricked Feyre into loving him, stolen her from High Lord Tamlin, forged a bond to keep her close. Or if the rumours I’d heard here were true, and they were really in love. Was she the High Lady he referred to? Was she the female in the murals in the art district? My chest tightened. And when had she become Fae? So much of what I’d seen in Hybern’s castle didn’t make sense, didn’t tally with the rumours I’d heard since I got here. I liked certainties, and information. Knowledge kept me safe. Everything about this situation felt too much of the opposite. “I have lots of questions,” I said instead, my voice trailing off. Rhysand’s eyes narrowed, as though he was piecing something together. “I would have sensed you in the throne room if you were there.” “No, you wouldn’t have,” I replied calmly, as if this were completely normal. Because it was. For me. “It wasn’t Tuesday.” “You keep mentioning the day of the week.” His face remained impassive but I heard the undercurrent of frustration, the slight change in pace and pitch of his voice. One of his fingers tightened on the glass imperceptibly.
This was not the first time I had gone over this with him. “You only recognise me, even remember me, on Tuesdays, Rhysand. And only if you see me. The rest of the time I just… slip away. It’s been this way as long as I can remember. Nobody else even remembers me at all.”
He shook his head, disbelief etched into every line of his face. “No, that’s not possible.”
”Well it’s been possible for at least thirteen years, so I’d say you’re wrong.” It came out sharper than it should have, but I was so tired of having this conversation, of this issue always being the issue. For his part, he looked completely unfazed by my tone. In truth, he had rarely cared if I showed him deference or the respect due of a High Lord Under the Mountain either. Instead, his eyes searched mine, looking for deceit, or answers, I wasn’t sure, but it made my head itch, and while he looked at me, I looked back and I still couldn’t see anger. Not yet. Frustration, yes. And that was only a short step away from its more dangerous cousin. ”Why didn’t the curse break with her death?”
“It’s not tied to her, it’s tied to me.” I said, and I felt the weight of years of being forgotten pressing down on me, pressing the air from my lungs. Amarantha had cursed me to be forgotten, to slip away from people’s minds like a wisp of smoke. She hadn’t even bothered to give me a name. The warmth of the fire grew distant as the reminder of my permanent loneliness settled into my bones afresh. I’d been able to forget for awhile, thanks to Daire and his tablet. I forced myself to fill my lungs again. “Were they alright? The females that got Made? You took them with you.” I asked, abruptly changing the subject.
His eyes narrowed at the shift, but I didn’t care. It wasn’t a topic I wanted to linger on.
“It has been… difficult,” he said.
”I’m getting the impression I’m not supposed to ask.”
”Correct.”
I tsked the way Daire liked to when he disapproved, but my opinion held little sway anywhere, let alone here with a male who could probably squish me like a bug. “Can I ask if Feyre is alright?” I tried instead, “Last time I saw her before that was before the third trial, and she was mortal then. But at the castle she was Fae.”
Rhysand’s brow furrowed, lines carving their marring lines into his forehead. ”When did you see Feyre in the mountain?”
”Well, her room was right next to mine,” I said with a shrug, “I wanted to know who was in there and why they were getting visitors - other than the guards.”
”Her room?’ He shook his head slowly from side to side, his mouth pressing into a thin line, then he continued slowly, as if explaining something to a child, “She had her kept in a cell in the dungeons. Your room was on the tenth floor.”
“That was my Tuesday room,” I said, just as slowly back. “I was only allowed in it on Tuesdays.”
He stared at me for a long moment, the silence growing heavy between us. He took a longer drink from his glass, swallowed it deliberately, and only then did he finally speak. I wondered what thoughts that revelation had kicked off. “You lived in the dungeon.”
I nodded, and after another long pause, he said, “And I will forget you after today. Until next week. If I see you.”
“Yes,” I said, more warily this time, but he only stared pensively at his drink, his gaze not quite on the drink, but somehow distant. “So… Feyre?” I prompted, “What happened?”
Rhysand’s expression grew darker. He shifted on the sofa, the air around him suddenly felt more charged that before, more dangerous. The set of his jaw moved to something tense, angry. “Feyre passed the third trial,” he said shortly, “but the bargain for the Spring Court’s freedom was deliberately vague on the timeframe. Her only chance to break the curse immediately was to solve an additional riddle. And Amarantha took her anger out on Feyre, as you can imagine. ”
He wasn’t really here in the room with me. I could almost see whatever memory he was reliving playing behind his violet eyes, and the power in the room seemed to hum with tension. I adjusted my position on the sofa, closer to the edge, readying myself to move, and fast.
“She solved it,” he said, voice low and quiet, “moments before Amarantha killed her.”
I frowned. Killed her? I was certain that was what he’d just said, but it was also impossible. “She was very much not dead when I saw her.” I said aloud.
“Each of the High Lords gave her a drop of magic, to bring her back, to Make her,” he continued, “as recompense for breaking the curse.”
The missing piece of the puzzle slotted into place and I nodded, moving the parts back around. That made sense, actually. There was no other way I’d heard of bringing someone back from the dead, unless you were in a very old story. The mystery of Feyre’s transformation finally had an answer, and I filed it away. It still didn’t explain how she ended up with him instead of Tamlin.
Rhysand’s voice broke through my musings as I speculated on possible reasons why and how. “Have I tried to break the curse on you before?”
No, he’d never tried to break it before. But before, what would have happened if suddenly everyone else remembered me all the time? What would she have done? What if she just cursed me all over again, removing him from the equation? So I’d never asked. “There’s never been a chance,” I waved him off with a shrug, “and you always forget. It’s fine.”
“It’s not fine.” He said it like it was a fact, a certainty. It made me want to smile, made me think that someone might care, if only for a day. But that was dangerous: to let something like that in. To hope. It was the hope that would kill me, one day, I was sure of it. The weight of the dashed ones, the lost hopes, the broken promises and unspoken severed bonds of friendship that never had a chance to form.
“It has to be fine, Rhysand, it’s not like there’s any other option.” I said, shaking my head. “I’ve got a theory I want to try, and I saw a port here. I’m going to buy passage on a ship - maybe if I go far enough, I’ll find the edges of the curse.”
He studied me, tapping his fingers on the edge of his near-empty glass. He looked at me thoughtfully. Did he know I’d just made up the idea today? Had been toying with it whilst I debated if it was safe to leave Daire to his new life? “You said your friend lives here now, with his aunt. You aren’t tempted to stay?”
“I haven’t seen him since yesterday.” The laugh that bubbled up was bitter and dry, nothing of hope about it. “He’ll have already forgotten me: it’s the same for everyone, even you. I thought maybe it was just people under the mountain that were affected, but it’s everyone. I just… fade. It’s like you forget while you sleep, or even once I’m out of sight.”
Before he could respond, the front door opened, and a male voice filled the house, announcing how the wind was unusually cold tonight and that he needed a drink.
“In here, Cassian,” said Rhysand.
I stood, my heart sinking. “That’s my cue.”
I turned toward the door, my heartbeat quickening as the male I’d last seen with shredded wings in Hybern’s castle walked into the room. The cold from outside still clung to him, the sharpness of it cutting through the warmth of the fire. He was taller than I remembered, broader too, and undoubtedly better looking that my memory. His wings, the ones I thought had been beyond saving, now stretched wide and whole behind him, the membranous skin lit up in golds and reds by the sun casting through it before he tucked them in to his back. I felt an odd rush of relief seeing him, healed and strong again: skin golden brown, not pallid, a smile on his lips instead of a drawn, pained frown. The memory of him broken, his wings hanging in tatters, had been etched into my mind like a scar.
But now… he was alive, his wings intact, as if it had never happened. A memory of my last match in the Pits threatened to reach out of the depths I’d forced it into, a flash of a wing, the bite of a talon across my thigh, vacant brown eyes. I turned away quickly, squeezing my eyes shut to force the memory back. When I turned back, the male was looking between me and Rhysand with a raised brow, before nodding in greeting at Rhysand, effectively dismissing me in the same breath. He had no idea who I was, of course. I was just a passing face, one he would forget the moment in short order. A quiet sadness settled in my chest as I slipped out of the warm and welcoming townhouse, closing the door softly behind me. The cool night air hit my face like a splash of cold water, and I pulled my jumper tighter around myself, glancing back at the glowing windows regretfully, pushing the longing down. I wouldn’t be returning. Not now, not ever.
I made my way down the cobbled streets of Velaris, my steps light and deliberate, like I was already slipping away from their memories. By tomorrow, none of them would remember I’d ever been there.