Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The House of Wind is too quiet.

Not a comfortable, peaceful, solitary silence, or a golden hush of a morning spent wrapped in warm limbs and softer breath. This silence is jagged. Hollow. A silence that howls around her like gusts of wind through a ruin.

Nesta hasn’t heard the sound of a voice—familiar or otherwise—in five days. Not since Cassian slammed the balcony doors behind him on his way out after a particularly nasty argument, wingbeats like thunder retreating into the clouds. It seems that all she can do these days is anger the ones around her.

She hasn’t left the House of Wind in two weeks. She hasn’t been allowed to. Not since Rhysand told her, voice black with rage, “If it wasn’t for Feyre, if you weren’t my brother’s mate, I would have had you executed for what you did.”

Not since Amren said she belonged in one of the cells beneath the Court of Nightmares, because, “Some monsters don’t stay tamed, no matter how hard you try to civilize them.”

Not since Mor stared at her and said to her cousin, “I don’t know why you’re surprised, Rhys. You’ve always known she’s reckless and useless in equal measure. She never did become one of us.”

Not since Cassian stood in that same room and stayed silent.

His silence cut deeper than any of their words.

He did nothing when Rhys threatened her life. She remembers the High Lord’s face, the static in the air, the power that rolled beneath his skin, the phantom wings that appeared behind his back. How he’d looked at her like she was a rabid thing. A threat. How she’d been convinced he’d act on it. How she’d been bracing for impact, wondering if she’d be nothing but red mist in mere seconds. How Cassian did nothing. Nothing when his family condemned her.

He didn’t meet her eyes. Didn’t speak to her afterward. Just carried her to their once home and left her standing on the balcony while he stormed inside.

During those first days, he didn’t come to bed. Instead, he slept on a couch or in a chair or gods know where. When he did eventually return, there was only more silence and coldness. She tried to withstand it. Tried to be strong, to weather the storm until they found their way back to each other.

It turned out she couldn’t. Not anymore. She wasn’t strong enough.

So instead, she opted to leave as well, and she hasn’t returned to their bed since, staying in that godsforsaken room they put her in when she was just turned. When she cared for Elain, making sure her sister wouldn’t tip over the balcony and plunge to her death.

And again when she was exiled. The room they confined her in when she was full of rage and sorrow, and they couldn’t stand to be around her.

Not much has changed, it seems. Except, now, there’s no more rage. Just a yawning pit filled with sorrow and heartbreak and pain.

Nesta wraps a blanket tighter around her shoulders as she stares out the window on the top floor of the House, the city glowing faintly below, bathed in dusk, lights blinking to life in little clusters. It might as well be a world away. She looks away from the city, towards the mist that curls around the mountain peaks.

Her throat is tight with unsaid words and unshed tears. Her hands are cold. Her stomach aches from lack of food. She doesn’t deserve to eat. She drinks only enough to prevent herself from passing out. To not draw attention. The House tries—it leaves food, lowering the lamps to a gentle glow like it used to when it sensed she was hurting. It hums sometimes, a soft, low vibration beneath the floors. But even that has dulled lately, as if the House is hesitating, unsure how to reach her anymore.

She is a pariah.

Stripped of her place with the Valkyries—a liability, the Inner Circle called her. Banned from the Library—a security risk. Forbidden from leaving the House—a hazard for the city and herself.

Nesta knows what it means.

They’ve locked her away again. Exiled in her own home. Her selfmade safe space, born out of necessity, turned once again into another glorified prison. Same walls, different reason.

Because they don’t know what to do with a woman like her. Or female. One who chooses differently. Who dares to fight for something no one seems to understand. One who has teeth and claws and is defiant where everyone else is compliant.

They never forgave her for the cabin. For putting Feyre in danger. For the way she dealt with her trauma. For the way she treated Cassian. And now they’ll never forgive her for giving away the Mask. Even if it was for the greater good. Even if it worked out in the end, and the Mask has been returned long since, safely warded.

Something had fractured in her chest that day. Cracked like glass under strain. Slowly. Invisibly. Dangerously.

The spiderweb had only grown and spread since then.

Every word that followed was another blow, another crack.

They will never forgive her for choosing instinct over obedience. Never accept her.

Cassian doesn’t even look at her anymore. He can’t even stomach being around her. Her mate. The one who should stand beside her through it all. Who she loves so deeply she can’t bear it. She squandered even this. She can’t even make herself lovable enough, palatable enough for her mate to say those three words to her. A bond, an instinct, a given. Even this, she can’t stop from ruining. The link, the golden thread, has gone dormant—silence where there was once warmth. A few months was all she was given to bask in the feeling of knowing someone so intimately, his feelings could as well have been hers. A few months, until she fucked it up and the connection went dark and silent. Her own fated love, broken and gone.

She curls tighter on the window seat, aching in places no healer can touch.

He hasn’t come home in five days.

He usually carries the scent of pine and snow-kissed wind and leather into their home. The House normally smells of forests and wildflowers, of winter and warmth. Now, it’s clean. Just her jasmine and vanilla. Absent of anything that once made her feel safe. His scent has already faded.

What if she is the reason everything is unraveling?

What if they’re all right?

What if he’s regretting her? What if he’s regretting racing towards her on that battlefield when she cried his name, only to have most of his legion blasted into oblivion? What if he’s regretting the moment he followed her to the King of Hybern only to survive the brink of death and be shackled to someone as wicked as her?

What if he’s regretting accepting the bond? Maybe that’s why he didn’t accept the biscuit immediately when she offered it to him. Postponing his doomed fate.

The thought is a blade to her throat.

It’s the thing she can’t say aloud, even now.

But it’s what she feels, coiled in the hollow of her chest, growing sharper every time she brushes against the thread connecting his heart to hers and he does not answer. Every time she’s blocked by a wall of raging fire.

She doesn’t want to trap him. She doesn’t want to keep him when he wants to be free.

She won’t.

If it’s her fault—if her presence, her magic, her existence is what’s breaking him—then she will be the one to end it.

She will give him the freedom he will never ask for out of obligation. Duty. Not to her, but to his High Lord and High Lady.

Her legs move before her mind can catch up. Down the spiral staircase, barefoot and silent. Her hair hangs loose around her thin frame, tangled curls that she doesn’t bother to brush or braid. She has dark bruises under her eyes, and she’s noticed that her collarbones are starting to poke out again. She looks like a ghost, drifting through the hallways of her personal prison. Past the rooms she once laughed in. Past the hallway where Cassian once kissed her neck just because he couldn’t help it, pressing her up against the wall and touching her until she was breathless.

Down to the private library.

Her sanctuary, once upon a time. The place she escaped into worlds of undying love and fate, of princes and warriors and all-consuming desire. Where she came back alive with her chosen sisters.

It all feels far away now.

The door creaks open when she nears, the House letting her in without protest. She doesn’t go to the familiar section—the dog-eared romance novels that once made her feel less alone.

Instead, she stands in the center of the room, arms loose at her sides, letting the blanket slide from her shoulders.

“Can you bring me books on mating bonds?” she asks quietly, voice hoarse from disuse.

Nothing happens.

She hesitates. Her voice breaks on the next word. “Please.”

The silence is heavy.

She doesn’t say the truth. Doesn’t dare. But the House knows. It always does, tethered as it is to her.

That’s why there’s a hesitation. The very walls seem to tense, the air turning thick, as if the House itself is trying to dissuade her.

Nesta lifts her chin.

“I just need to know. I need to know if…” Her voice falters. “Please, just help me.”

She doesn’t say more, but the words are there, lodged in her throat, searing her lungs.

Because he deserves better.

Because he deserves peace.

Because he didn’t choose this, not really.

Because he didn’t choose me.

Because I don’t want to hurt him anymore.

At last, the House relents. There’s a hollow thud, followed by three more, a pile of books appearing at her feet.

The tomes are old, bound in flaking leather. Some are written in languages she can’t read, but a few are in the common tongue.

She reaches for them with shaking hands. It’s exactly what she needs. Books containing information on how to sever the sacred bond. How to end something that’s been chosen and bestowed by the Mother, and wether he’ll survive the severance.

Her breath catches when she starts reading about madness and mortality. The pages are fragile, but legible. Diagrams. Symbols. Runes. It doesn’t take long to find what she’s looking for.

If a male breaks the bond, the female’s mind may fracture. Some do not survive. Some linger, remaining empty. If a female breaks the bond, and the male is unwilling, he may fall into madness. The outcome of both is unpredictable.

Nesta swallows hard.

Cassian would survive. He’s strong. Stronger than anyone she’s ever known. He’d survive it and finally be free. But just to be safe, she has to make sure that he’s the one to do it. She has to make sure that he’s the one who puts the final nail in her coffin.

And she—

She doesn’t matter. She’s empty already anyway. What does it matter if she dies or if her mind fractures in the process?

It doesn’t, not if it means he’ll stop looking at her like she’s the thing ruining him. Like she’s his eternal damnation.

There’s a ritual to it. An ancient one. Objects she needs to gather, a spell he needs to say.

She reads the list three times.

Blood from both mates. The ribbon with which the mates were bound together. A moonstone, imbued with raw power.

Nesta closes her eyes. They sting, tears threatening to spill over. But determination sets in as well. She doesn’t want this to go on any longer. Not when it costs this much. When it costs her her soul. She doesn’t want to fool herself anymore. She no longer believes that she’s wanted. That she belongs. The only thing she believes she deserves is to be alone. To suffer madness, if the Mother deems it right. She’s prepared to endure it. To suffer it. Or to end it, if that’s what it’ll come to.

She loves Cassian. Gods, she loves him so much it physically hurts, but love doesn’t mean making him stay tethered to someone that brings him shame.

That makes him go silent.

That lets him watch her be threatened, discarded, humiliated—and say nothing.

She’s already lost him. This is just making it official.

She stiffens when she hears a hard thud of someone landing on the balcony.

She hears the balcony doors groan open. The unmistakable tread of boots. The soft rustle of wings.

His scent hits her through the open door of the library. Cassian.

She freezes, panic rising in her throat.

When she hears the footsteps come closer, she scrambles to shove the books beneath the couch tucked in the corner of the library. She covers the couch with her blanket. The dust swirls in protest.

The footsteps pause at the library’s threshold.

She doesn’t look up, but keeps staring at the dust motes making their way down to the floor.

Cassian’s voice is low. “Nesta?”

Her name sounds strange from his lips. It used to sound like her name was made just for him to say. Now it sounds wrong.

She doesn't answer.

He takes a few steps inside. She doesn’t move.

He stands there for a moment. Staring at her, she’s sure. Maybe he’s waiting for her to explode. To scream. To cry.

She does none of those things.

She just stares, watching a dust particle land on the floor, and wishes she were someone else. Someone easier to love. Someone he would’ve fought for. Someone he would protect.

He shifts closer. She can feel him, that bond between them a trembling, fraying thread trying to sputter to life. It’s not strong enough. Not anymore.

“I’ve been looking for you,” he says, softer now.

She wants to scream. Wants to show him how he’s breaking her.

“Have you… Have you been eating?” he asks.

Her fingers curl into her palms, nails biting into skin.

He kneels beside her, slowly. Carefully.

“I just want to know you’re okay.”

Her throat burns, tears gathering in the corners of her eyes.

“I know… I know I messed up,” he says. “I know I didn’t protect you.”

Her eyes start to sting.

“I was angry. I was so scared. Scared that you’d risked your life without a thought. That magic—I didn’t understand. I thought you—” He cuts off. “I thought maybe—It doesn’t matter. I’m sorry, Nesta.”

Still, she says nothing.

Cassian shifts again, reaching to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. “You’re scaring me.”

She flinches. He pauses, his hand twitching near her, but he doesn’t touch. Instead, he lets it drop, defeated.

“I’m sorry. I’m here now,” he says. “Please, talk to me.”

Nesta finally turns her face to him.

The look in her eyes silences him. The emptiness of it.

A kind of quiet surrender.

“I’m fine,” she says eventually, voice hoarse.

He doesn’t know what to do with that. He doesn’t know what to do with any of it.

So he sighs, bows his head and leaves.

That night, she walks to their shared bedroom barefoot, her blanket dragging behind her. Now that he’s back, her traitorous body aches to be close to him, even if it hurts.

Cassian is already in bed, his back to the door and to her side of the bed.

She slides in silently, dipping the mattress only slightly. He doesn’t turn.

The bond between them hums with cold static. There’s no warmth. No shared heartbeat.

They lie still for minutes.

“Are you ever going to talk to me again?” he whispers eventually.

She doesn’t answer, because she’s afraid that if she opens her mouth, she’ll tell him the truth.

That she loves him enough to let him go.

Even if it destroys her.

Instead, she gets up, grabs her blanket and walks out of the room.

She drifts back to her old bedroom. She can’t stand the distance between them that feels cavernous. A yawning abyss that’s uncrossable.

She lies still in her own bed, cold and too big, listening to the bond hum like a dying ember.

He doesn’t touch it. Doesn’t send her anything through their shared connection. She doesn’t sleep. She can’t, because the truth she now carries in her chest, fragile and sharp, won’t stop repeating itself in her mind.

If she loves him—really loves him—she’ll let him go.

Even if it breaks her.

Something’s going on with the House.

There’s a different kind of silence today—tense and waiting, like the calm before a storm.

It begins when the House sets the long dining table. Cloth napkins. Flickering candles. Steaming dishes that appear without request. Wine glasses gleaming in the firelight. It’s all done with care, but it feels cold, clinical.

Nesta stares at the table and knows exactly what it means.

Cassian doesn’t tell her. He doesn’t warn her. He doesn’t ask her if she wants this.

He just appears at the door of her bedroom sometime after dusk and says, “They’re coming for dinner.”

That’s all.

No explanation. No apology. No choice.

She doesn’t ask to be excused. She doesn’t argue. Doesn’t scream. That version of her was starved out long ago.

Instead, she sits on the edge of her bed in the grey dress the House had laid out for her, hair braided in her familiar crown, her hands folded tightly in her lap.

Cassian doesn’t wait for her. He doesn’t ask her to join him to the dining room.

So when the sounds of the Inner Circle fill the House with their brightness, their presence, Nesta can’t do anything but rise to greet them.

Feyre smiles too brightly, her voice soft and tentative. “Hi Nesta.”

Nesta nods. Barely.

Azriel gives her a look she can’t name, before smiling softly at her. She doesn’t know how to reciprocate.

Mor ignores her entirely, brushing past like Nesta’s air and nothing more, making a beeline for a glass of wine.

Amren scowls at her.

Nesta averts her eyes and sits down at the far end of the table like a reluctant queen waiting to be tried.

“Nice of you to join us,” Rhysand says as he settles at the opposite end of the table. “We weren’t sure you’d have the appetite, given recent... events.”

The first cut is clean. Almost easy to ignore.

Nesta stares at her plate. Cassian sits beside her but says nothing.

“Feeling better, girl? Or are you still feeling sorry for yourself?” Amren asks lightly, taking her seat at Rhysand’s side.

Cassian’s jaw tenses. Just a little. But still, he says nothing.

Feyre shoots Amren a look. “Let’s just enjoy the meal, please. I just want one easy and quiet meal with my family.”

“Of course, darling,” Rhys says, all smooth and soothing, but Nesta doesn’t miss the glare he shoots her way.

The food is excellent, of course. Perfect even. Rich flavors, steaming dishes. Nesta eats in small bites, only because not eating would give them something to comment on. Would rouse suspicion.

The conversation that follows skirts around her like water around a rock. Velaris politics. Trading routes. Feyre’s art classes. The new painting she’s working on. The night they all went out to Rita’s, a couple of days ago, Cassian included. She hadn’t known. It stings her more than she’d like to admit.

Occasionally, someone glances at her. Every time that happens, she tries to shrink, to retreat further into herself. Until the attention of the room hones in on her once again.

“You’ve been quiet, Nesta.”

Nesta doesn’t look up from her plate. “I don’t have anything to say, really.”

“Oh, I doubt that. I suppose it’s good you’re here anyway,” Mor says to her, swirling her wine. “You can at least look sorry, even if you’re not.”

Nesta doesn’t blink.

“Mor, please,” Feyre murmurs, but Mor ignores her.

“Tell us,” she continues, taking a sip of her wine. “What do you do in a day, Nesta, now that you’re not training with the Valkyries or working in the Library?”

Nesta doesn’t respond.

Cassian cuts his steak, not looking at her.

Amren’s eyes gleam. “She’s probably rotting her brain with those romance novels she reads, wasting her potential with frivolity and recklessness.”

Nesta swallows her water.

Azriel sighs, setting down his cutlery. He closes his eyes, as if dreading where this is headed.

Feyre clears her throat. “I don’t think this is—”

“Oh, come now,” Amren says, resting her chin on her hand. “Are we going to ignore the elephant in the room, only because Nesta’s supposedly unstable? Because she looks gaunt? She handed the Mask over to a foreign realm. We’re lucky she didn’t doom us all. Frankly, I think confinement to the House of Wind is generous.”

“She thought it would help,” Feyre says.

Rhys’ stare is hard. “She didn’t think, darling. She acted. Like she always does.”

Cassian drinks a sip of his wine, still refusing to meet her eyes. His silence is a fist closing around her throat.

Nesta averts her gaze and stares at her plate.

Say something, she thinks, but doesn’t speak it aloud. Please—say something. Just once. For me.

But he doesn’t.

He never does.

“You know, I must say, Rhys,” Amren continues, her voice sweet and low, “it’s remarkable how forgiving you have been. How much you allowed her to test the boundaries until you finally put her in her place.”

Cassian slams his wine glass down. Not hard enough to shatter—but loud enough to make everyone jump.

“Enough,” he says.

The table goes quiet.

Amren lifts a brow, but says nothing more.

He doesn’t apologize to her for letting it go on this long. He doesn’t defend her. He doesn’t demand an apology from the others. He just wants to move on.

The silence after his outburst is brittle. There’s tension in the air now. All because of her.

They finish dinner, Feyre gently steering the conversation to safer waters, but Nesta doesn’t taste a bite or hear a word.

When they all stand to have after dinner drinks in the living room, Nesta remains seated. She can’t stand it any longer. When the room’s empty, she rises quietly, and without saying goodbye, makes her way towards the hallway.

“Nesta.”

She halts at the sound of Azriel’s voice. She turns slowly to find him in the doorway of the dining room. He doesn’t come closer, just lowers his voice. “Are you alright?”

She waits. She doesn’t want to give herself away by bursting into tears. By showing her bleeding heart. But she’s so tired. So achingly hollow.

“I’m fine,” she whispers.

He watches her for a moment longer, looking as if he wants to say more. As if he doesn’t believe her. She can’t stand it.

“You don’t need to check on me. Go enjoy your drinks.”

A flicker of something close to sadness moves through his eyes, but he does as she says and turns back around, leaving her alone.

After what feels like hours, Cassian comes to find her, standing in the middle of the bedroom, unmoving. Her hands are clenched at her sides.

He closes the door behind him.

She doesn’t turn.

“Tonight was a disaster,” he says quietly. “I shouldn’t have proposed to have dinner here.”

She laughs.

It’s a broken, bitter sound. “No, you shouldn’t have. It’s probably better to keep me separate from your family in the future.”

“Nesta—”

“You let them say those things.”

“I didn’t know they’d—”

“Yes, you did.” She whirls around. “You knew. You knew exactly what they’d say. And you let them anyway.”

“I thought maybe… being around people—”

“Don’t lie to me, Cassian. Why did you let them say all those things about me?”

“They’re trying to process what you did—”

“I thought I was doing something good. But it doesn’t matter what I think or do, does it? I’ll always be the threat. The mistake. The one no one trusts.”

“That’s not true.”

“No?” Her voice breaks. “Then why didn’t you stand up for me when it mattered?”

He moves closer. “I’m here now.”

“Yes, it’s always the same, isn’t it? You’re here, behind closed doors. Out in the open, you couldn’t be further away.”

They stand in the dark, neither one yielding.

Nesta swallows. Her voice is low, shaking. “You always choose them.”

His brows furrow.

“You always choose Rhys. And Mor.” Her breath catches. “Your family. Your commander. I will never matter more to you than they do.”

“That’s not fair.”

“Maybe not. But it’s true, though.”

“You think you don’t matter to me? That I don’t care about you?”

“You don’t, Cassian. You only want the version of me who doesn’t make your life harder. You only care to make sure I don’t make you miserable.”

He looks like she’s slapped him.

Nesta presses on, ruthless now. “I will never be your priority. Not over your precious High Lord. Not over your perfect first love.”

Cassian’s voice sharpens, turning into something snarling. “Is that what this is about? Mor? Still?”

“You give her all your good sides, Cassian. She gets your warmth and care, your protection,” Nesta says. “All I get is your anger.”

Cassian steps back. “You’re twisting everything.”

“Am I?” Her voice rises. “Then tell me why you didn’t say a single word when Rhys threatened my life.”

“I was trying to protect you!”

“He would’ve killed me! He wanted to! He only didn’t because I’m your mate, whatever meaning that may hold.”

“I had to be careful—”

“Oh, fuck off, Cassian.” Her voice cracks. “You didn’t do anything for me. You stayed silent so you wouldn’t have to feel bad. So you didn’t have to choose. But you did choose. It just wasn’t me.”

His expression hardens. “That’s not fair, Nes.”

“No, Cassian. What’s not fair is always having to wonder if I’ll ever matter more than everyone else you’ll break your spine for to protect. What’s not fair is always waiting for the other shoe to drop. For the moment you’ve had enough. For the moment everyone has had enough and my miserable life ends.”

“I choose you,” he snaps. “I’ve always chosen you!”

She laughs—broken, bitter. “You chose to sleep on the couch for days. To leave me alone. To give me the cold shoulder, shutting me out and closing off the bond. You chose not to speak when they tore me to shreds. Don’t tell me I matter when you keep proving I don’t.”

Something in his face breaks.

“You want to talk about fair?” Her voice rises as she continues. “Do you think it’s fair that I made a decision that any other member from your precious Inner Circle would’ve been celebrated for, a decision I thought would help the greater good, a decision I thought you would want me to make, and all I’ve gotten since is being condemned and locked away like a threat?”

He takes a step closer. “You should have told us what you were doing—”

“I didn’t know what I was doing!” she shouts. “But I felt it was right! Isn’t that what Feyre does all the time? Trust her instincts and get praised for it?”

“You’re not Feyre!”

There it is. The truth, heavy and final.

Nesta recoils as if he’s struck her.

Cassian’s eyes widen. “I didn’t mean—”

“Yes, you did,” she whispers. “You did.”

He reaches for her. “Nesta—”

She steps back. “Don’t.”

She can’t breathe.

The room is too small. Too full of him and the things he won’t say and the things he’d let slip.

“Get out,” she whispers.

“Sweetheart—” Cassian tries.

“Get out. Get out, get out, get out! Leave me alone!” Her voice tears, the sound breaking in her throat.

Cassian looks at her with so much sadness in his eyes, it breaks her completely. It’s not fair. It’s not right that he gets to look at her like that when she’s the one who’s crumbling.

You’re not Feyre.

“Please, Cassian. I can’t do it anymore. It hurts too much,” she says softly, voice hoarse and cracking.

Cassian bows his head in surrender and turns. He doesn’t slam the door, just walks away and doesn’t look back.

She sinks to the floor, letting herself break completely. Her shoulders shake. Her mouth is open, letting out gasping sobs, deep and violent, tearing out of her as she folds in on herself.

She buries her face against her knees and cries until her throat aches, until her eyes swell, until there’s nothing left inside her but a cold void.

She cries like she is mourning something, even though she never really had it to begin with.

The room is cold. At some point, she moved to the bed. She sits against the side, staring at the wall, eyes burning.

The tears won’t stop coming.

She folds in on herself and cries harder than she has in years. Not just grief. Not just anger.

It’s deeper than that.

The quiet ache of knowing—truly knowing—that she will never be enough for the people she’s supposed to call family.

That even love, when it’s offered, comes with conditions.

You will never be more than tolerated.

You will never be enough.

You will never truly be loved. You’re too wretched.

They’d all be better off if you weren’t here at all.

When her body finally gives out, she lies down on the floor, turns her face to the wall, and surrenders to the dark.

Chapter Text

The next morning comes too soon.

The sky beyond the windows is pale, the kind of washed-out light that feels like it leeches the color from the world. Nesta lies in bed, staring at the ceiling, her body cold and heavy. She feels as if a chill has permanently taken root inside of her.

Her throat is raw, her eyes red and puffy, but there are no tears. She has none left. Only emptiness.

She doesn’t remember falling asleep. She remembers standing in the middle of the room with Cassian’s words cutting through her like a blade.

You’re not Feyre.

Her legs had given out, her body shaking against the cold stone floor. She remembers pressing her hand to her mouth to keep the sobs silent, because the last thing she wanted was for someone to hear.

She remembers her sister’s name spilling from his mouth, in his anger, in his disappointment. His disappointment that she is not her sister. That she’s not palatable, that she’s jarring and unlovable. After that, it had all become a blur.

Now, her body feels hollow. As if she cracked open in the night and all of it—her rage, her grief, her shame—drained out, leaving nothing behind.

She’s drowning in a numbing sort of hurt, flooded by memories from when they brought her here the last time. When she was drunk and spiteful and angry at everything that breathed. When she’d lashed out until her throat bled with it. When she hadn't yet decided if she wanted to live.

And now she’s back. Full circle. Except this time, she’s silent. There’s no fire left in her, no screaming. Just the slow, decaying hum of surrender.

She’s so cold. She thinks she might be shivering. She watches her own fingertips like they’re not hers, and wonders how long it’ll take before she disappears entirely.

The House has left a tray by the bed—tea, fruit, chocolate cake. She drinks and eats none of it. She just lies there for a while, staring at the steam curling faintly from the cup. Watching it vanish.

When she finally forces herself upright, her body feels like it’s moving through water. She dresses, braids her hair with stiff fingers, and walks out into the hall. Not because she wants to, but because she has to. If she hides away, someone will notice and come get her. And she cannot bear the scrutiny that would certainly follow.

Cassian is already at the table when she enters the dining room. A tray of breakfast foods sits in the middle, steam curling from the porridge, fruit glistening in bowls. He looks up the second she appears, his wings shifting, his eyes shadowed.

“Morning,” he says carefully, uncharacteristically soft, as though the word itself might break her.

Nesta lowers herself into the chair as far away from him as possible.

She doesn’t answer. Just pours herself a glass of water and sits, staring out the window.

Cassian shifts in his chair. “Nesta…”

Her throat closes. She sips the water, eyes fixed on the rim of the glass.

He waits. She says nothing.

She takes a piece of bread. Tears it into smaller and smaller fragments without eating a bite.

Cassian clears his throat, his discomfort clear. “How’d you sleep?”

She shrugs. She keeps looking at the breadcrumbs, because she can’t bear to look at him. “Fine.” Her voice is scratchy, hoarse from her tears.

He shifts again, and she sees the way his fingers twitch around his spoon, but he doesn’t push.

The silence stretches. Every sound is too loud to her ears—the clink of a spoon against a bowl, the muffled thump of a mug or a glass being lowered to the table. Nesta’s chest aches with every heartbeat, but she keeps her face passive, her eyes on the bread in her hands.

Cassian tries again, his voice low. “Do you… want to do something today? Just the two of us?”

She blinks and swallows. She doesn’t understand why he would want that. Why he would want that now. She forces her throat to work. “I… No.”

“Why not, sweetheart?”

Her fingers freeze, a crumb dropping to the table. Slowly, she lifts her gaze. His face is open, searching, desperate for something she can’t give.

“Because I’m not allowed to leave.”

“Nes—”

“Because I’m tired, Cassian,” she cuts him off on a whisper.

It’s not an entirely truthful answer, but it’s the only one she can give.

He doesn’t argue. Just looks away, his shoulders folding in, as if bracing against a storm he can’t seem to weather.

The scrape of boots cuts through the unbearable quiet. Azriel steps into the room, shadows curling like smoke around his arms and hands. His eyes sweep the table—Cassian tense, Nesta staring at a heap of crumbs—before he says lightly, “Morning.”

Nesta forces a small nod. “Morning.”

Azriel sits down at the head of the table, pouring himself a cup of tea. “Everything alright?”

Her chest tightens. She knows what he’s really asking.

“We—” Cassian starts, but Nesta cuts him off.

“Everything’s fine,” she says quickly. Too quickly.

He studies her, head tilting slightly. “That seems your standard answer these days.”

“That’s because it’s true,” she repeats, sharper this time.

Azriel sips his tea, his gaze never leaving her. “If you want to talk—”

“I don’t.”

The silence that follows is thick.

Cassian glances between them, jaw tight. He doesn’t speak.

Azriel’s shadows shift like restless birds, but finally he inclines his head and drops it. He changes the subject, murmuring something to Cassian about some reports from Illyria.

Nesta lets the words wash over her, meaningless, her body still as stone.

She stays at the table until she’s certain it wouldn’t look suspicious to leave. Only then does she rise, muttering something about the library, and walk out without looking back.

Up the stairs, down the hall, into the dark hush of the library again.

She sits. Opens a book. Stares.

And feels nothing at all.

The library smells like parchment and candle wax, the air thick with the familiar weight of silence.

Nesta sits in an armchair near the window, a book open in her lap. The pages blur. Words swim together, lines dissolving into nothing. She has been staring at the same paragraph for so long she can trace the ink by memory, and yet she can’t repeat a single line.

The words refuse to sink in. They just hover, black shapes on pale paper, meaningless.

Her hand rests on the page, but she isn’t really there. She isn’t anywhere.

She’s floating somewhere where minutes melt into long stretches of nothing.

The smell of cedar and midnight mist pulls her back, faint but steadying. She doesn’t lift her head until a shadow falls across her book.

Azriel stands across from her, arms loose at his sides, wings tucked in close. His expression is neutral, but his shadows betray him. They’re restless, curling along the floor and skimming her ankles, as if testing her.

“You’ve been here all day,” he says. His voice is quiet, soft.

Nesta blinks at him. Her throat feels dry. “And?”

His brow lifts. “And you haven’t turned a page in an hour.”

She presses her fingers to the edge of the paper, flips it without looking. “Better?”

Something flickers in his eyes. He doesn’t answer.

He lowers himself into the chair across from her, his posture as steady and composed as ever. His shadows slide over the floor towards her chair, nosing toward the book like curious animals.

Nesta resists the urge to slam it shut.

They sit like that for a long moment. She stares down at the words without seeing them. He watches her with that still, unnerving gaze that always makes her feel as though she’s being read through and through.

His shadows keep shifting, low murmurs brushing her ankles, her hands and shoulders like whispers she can’t quite hear.

Finally, Azriel says, “Do you remember when you first came here? How you hated this place?”

Nesta clenches her jaw. “I didn’t hate it.”

“You felt caged,” he says evenly. “Like the walls were closing in.”

She shrugs, eyes still on the book. “I’ve felt worse.”

“But then that feeling changed.”

“I adapted.”

“No.” His voice is steady, unyielding. “You grew. You made friends. You carved a place for yourself.”

Her chest tightens, but she doesn’t look up. “That was before. That was another person.”

“That was you.”

Her fingers curl around the edge of the book.

Azriel leans forward, resting his arms on his knees. His shadows press close, curling like smoke between the pages. “I miss that person. I miss the fierce, sharp, warm-blooded warrior who could best any of us without even trying.”

Nesta swallows hard. “You don’t.”

“I do,” he says quietly. “More than you think.”

She shakes her head, her vision blurring. “You think you do. But you don’t.”

“Nesta—”

“Stop.” Her voice cracks, brittle and sharp. “Please, just, whatever you’re trying to do, Azriel, just stop.”

Azriel studies her, shadows swirling thick and heavy now. He doesn’t look away, doesn’t back down. “You’re my friend.”

She huffs out a hollow laugh. “No, I’m not. Not anymore.”

“Why not, Nes?” he asks simply.

But Nesta is already closing the book, hard enough for the thud to end the conversation. She stands with so much force, her chair scrapes the floor. For a second, she has to breathe through the dizziness from moving too fast.

Azriel rises too, but doesn’t follow when she turns away.

“I know something’s wrong, Nesta. I know you’re up to something. I know you,” he calls after her.

She huffs. “You think you do, but you don’t.”

Azriel’s shadows shift, whispering, unsettled. His eyes narrow. “Then talk to me. Tell me what I’m missing.”

Her vision blurs. Her lip trembles before she bites it hard. She refuses to turn around. “If I tell you, you’ll try to stop me.”

“From doing what?”

The question hangs in the silence, thick and heavy.

She doesn’t answer.

Azriel exhales through his nose. “Whatever it is, Nesta, you don’t have to do it alone. You’re not alone.”

She turns around, her eyes meeting his. For the briefest of moments, she almost believes him. Almost lets it all spill out.

But then the memory rises. You’re not Feyre.

The bond hums faintly in her chest, sharp with ache.

She shakes her head.

“Please, just let it go, Azriel,” she whispers, and the crack in her voice nearly ruins her.

“If you won’t tell me,” he says, voice low, “then tell him.”

“He doesn’t want to hear it.”

“Then make him.”

She turns back around and starts walking. His shadows brush her wrist, fleeting as breath, before retreating back to him.

She walks until the silence swallows her again.

The training yard is empty, moonlight silvering the stones. Cassian stands at the center, sweat slicking his chest, breath coming hard from the endless drills he’s been hammering out since dinner. Dinner without Nesta.

His fists ache. His body aches. It doesn’t matter. The ache inside him is worse.

The sound of wings makes him pause, head snapping up. Azriel lands a few paces away, silent as the night. His face is unreadable, but his shadows are restless, curling low and fast around his boots and shoulders.

Cassian walks over to the water station, busying himself with pouring a glass. “What do you want, Az?”

Azriel doesn’t answer right away. He studies Cassian like he’s weighing the worth of wasting his breath on him. Then, flatly, he speaks up. “What did you do to her?”

Cassian stiffens. “What?”

“Don’t play dumb.” Azriel takes a step closer. His voice doesn’t rise, but it cuts all the same. “Nesta. She’s unraveling right in front of us, and she won’t say a word. But I know you did something. Most probably said something. So tell me—what did you do?”

Cassian’s jaw locks. “That’s between me and my mate.”

Azriel’s shadows lash out once, agitated like their master. “You say that as if it means something. Yet, despite the fact that she’s your mate, you’re breaking her.”

The words slam into him, but Cassian growls, defensive. “I’m not—”

“Yes, you are.” Azriel’s eyes are burning now, no longer cool. “You just have to use your fucking eyes, Cassian. She’s catatonic, half-gone, walking around like her soul’s already been ripped out. Do you even look at her anymore? Do you even notice what’s happening right under your nose?”

Cassian’s fists clench. “You think I don’t see it? That I don’t care? You think I’m not worrying myself sick?”

“Then why aren’t you doing anything?”

“Because I don’t know how!” The shout rips out of him, raw, jagged. His chest heaves.

Azriel doesn’t flinch. He just steps closer, steady, unrelenting. “I should break your fucking nose.” His voice is a low snarl now. “I should put my fist through your gut for how blind you’ve been. I should punch some fucking sense into that thick head of yours.”

Cassian bristles, wings flaring wide. “You want to hit me? Fine. Do it.”

Azriel doesn’t move. He just glares at him, shadows obscuring the lower part of his face.

Cassian’s stomach twists. He’s never seen his brother’s ire directed at him like this.

Azriel’s voice is a low growl. “You’re her mate. That’s supposed to mean something sacred. It’s supposed to mean protection, trust, love that’s unconditional. You’ve given her none of it. You’re squandering something that’s supposed to be a blessing.”

Cassian staggers back, like the words are a physical blow. “I love her.”

“Well, you’re obviously great at showing her when she doesn’t know it.”

Cassian’s throat burns. He tries to speak, but nothing comes.

Azriel’s voice lowers, sharper than steel. “You’re treating her like a nuisance to endure instead of the gift you were given. And if you don’t wake the hell up, Cassian, you’re going to lose her. Most likely to herself.”

Cassian feels as if his stomach drops down to his feet. His heart hammers, panic clawing at his throat. “She wouldn’t—”

“She would,” Azriel snaps. His shadows writhe, sharp and frantic. “She’s in a bad place. Worse than I’ve ever seen her. And you’re standing there with your hands in your pockets, looking the other way.”

Cassian’s breath shudders. He presses both hands to his face, dragging them down roughly. His voice breaks when he speaks again. “I don’t know what to do.”

Azriel studies him, merciless and unmoving. “Then I suggest you figure it out. Fast. Before there’s nothing left of her to save.”

The silence after is suffocating.

Cassian drops onto the stone steps, burying his face in his hands. His shoulders shake, his chest tight with something he can’t hold back anymore.

Cassian is gone, to Illyria, probably.

Someone called, and he answered. Like he always does.

Except when she did through their sacred connection, when Rhys barked that she should be executed. Or when Mor told her, smiling sweetly, that maybe they should've just let her go feral.

Those times, he didn’t answer.

Those times, no one—not even her mate—stepped forward for her.

And still, the bond holds.

She can feel it. Threaded between them like sinew. Like shackles. Like punishment.

She doesn’t want to be his prison.

So she decides. Quietly. With no one around to argue.

“House,” she whispers, voice cracking like a frozen lake. “I need... something.”

She’s answered with a long pause.

Until she feels a familiar warmth in the air. Hesitant. Gentle.

A soft breeze caresses her cheek.

The kindness of it almost shatters her.

She presses her knuckles to her mouth, closing her eyes. She swallows around the ache. “Can you bring me a moonstone?”

The silence that follows is long.

Wary.

The House has always known her intentions without needing explanations.

It refuses at first. The warmth recoils.

“Please,” she says. Then adds, softly, “I can’t go on like this anymore.”

The air pulses with sadness. Like even the House knows how far she’s fallen.

But then a soft flutter of wind brushes her cheek again, and when she opens her eyes, a pale, milky stone lies on the ground in front of her.

Nesta doesn’t touch it right away.

She just stares.

Then her fingers close around it, and something inside her—something old and quiet—sighs.

She waits until the shadows stretch long across the room. Until her heart has settled into a steady thrum of resignation.

The books—moved from the library and hidden beneath the bed—sit stacked beside her.

She’s read them twice. Marked the pages with shaking hands. Not all the answers are there. But it’s enough.

Enough to know it will cost her.

Enough to know she could never do it. That if she severs the bond, madness will rot his mind, and she can’t be responsible for that.

So she resigns herself to a fate of going mad instead.

As long as he will simply be free.

And in a way, she will be free too. Free to fade. To vanish. To let the tether go and disappear into silence. To end the pain.

Cassian doesn’t want her anymore. That much has become a fact.

He used to say she was fire and fury and all things awe-inspiring.

Now she feels like smoke.

She closes her eyes. She places the moonstone against her sternum, and she reaches.

Down.

Into the core of herself. Past the hurt. Past the memories. Past the version of herself who begged to be better, who climbed the mountain and dared to believe she could be loved.

Down to the well of power that she hasn’t touched since she pulled Feyre back from death’s clutches.

It’s still there.

A well.

Dormant.

It calls her name.

It opens like a maw.

Power floods her bones. Silver and cold. Burning and bitter. It pours into the moonstone, siphoned in silence. She feels nothing but her grief, her decision, her determination to see this through.

The stone glows softly, then dims.

It feels weirdly anticlimactic.

She sits back, panting. Her nape is damp with sweat. Her vision is blurred from tears she didn’t know were falling.

She doesn’t have time to compose herself before a knock sounds.

She scrambles to shove the stone and the books beneath her bed just as the door opens.

Cassian stands on the threshold, shadows from the hall cutting across his face. He’s still in his leathers, hair tangled by dust and wind, his broad shoulders rising and falling fast as if he’d climbed the stairs in a rush.

“Nes…” His voice is rough. Unsteady. “You’re awake.”

He steps in on quiet feet, sensing something, searching.

His eyes scan her, the room, the sweat on her brow, the tears in her eyes.

“You didn’t answer when I knocked the first time,” he says. “I… I was worried.”

Nesta stays seated against the bed, her body still humming from the effort.

He steps inside slowly, shutting the door behind him.

Silence stretches between them. The kind that used to be filled with fire—with words they couldn’t keep back, with tension that scorched the air. Now it’s only heavy. Brittle.

He crosses the room. Each step measured, careful, like he’s approaching a wounded animal that might bolt. He stops just short of her bed, hands hanging loose at his sides.

“I shouldn’t have said it,” he says finally. His voice cracks a little, low and quiet, like confession. “About Feyre. About you not being her. That was… Cauldron, Nesta, that was wrong of me.”

She doesn’t answer. Her gaze stays fixed on the wall, on the flicker of light crawling across stone.

“I was angry,” he tries again. “Angry at myself. At everything. And I took it out on you. I shouldn’t have. I know how much that hurt you. I knew the second I said it.” He swallows hard. “I’ve hated myself every minute since.”

Still, she says nothing. She can’t.

His throat bobs as he searches for something, anything. “You’re not Feyre,” he whispers, softer now. “You’re you. You’re my Nesta. And that’s who I…” His voice falters. “That’s who I love. More than anything. It’s the only thing I know for certain, Nes.”

Her eyes sting, hot and sudden. She blinks hard, refusing to let the tears fall. Her fingers tighten into fists so tight she feels her nails digging into her palms.

“I’ve been a coward,” he says, quieter now. “I should’ve stood by you. I should’ve told them to shut their godsdamned mouths when they spoke about you. I should’ve slept in our bed every single night. I should’ve…” His breath shudders. “I should’ve done a thousand things differently. And I didn’t. And I’m sorry.”

Her vision blurs. She blinks again, but the tears slip free, tracing hot paths down her cheeks. She doesn’t move to wipe them away.

Cassian notices. His whole body goes taut, and then he’s reaching—hesitant, shaking. His fingers hover near her, then withdraw before touching. He rakes a hand through his hair instead, groaning softly.

“Sweetheart,” he murmurs, voice trembling. “Please. Don’t shut me out. Don’t let me lose you this way. Yell at me. Curse me out. Tell me I’m a bastard. Tell me I’ve failed you. Just… don’t be quiet.”

Nesta’s lips part, but nothing comes. Only a broken exhale.

Cassian looks at her like the silence is killing him. He shifts suddenly, dropping to his knees on the floor in front of her, leveling his gaze with hers. His broad hands rest on her thighs, warm and trembling.

“I don’t know how to fix this,” he admits. “But I’ll spend every day of my life trying. I’ll beg. I’ll crawl. I’ll bleed for you again and again if that’s what it takes. Just give me something to fight for, Nes. Please.”

She stares at him. Tears slide down her cheeks unchecked.

He waits for her. Breath held. Hope breaking across his face in a thousand tiny cracks.

And she—

She can’t.

Her gaze drops to her lap. Her shoulders curl inward. She lets the tears fall soundlessly, lets them soak into the fabric of her dress, into her hair. She doesn’t move. Doesn’t answer.

Cassian’s hands tighten on her legs, as if to keep himself tethered. “Please,” he whispers again, hoarse. “Don’t give up on me.”

But Nesta already has.

She stares through him, silent, while the man who swore her forever kneels at her feet, begging for scraps she cannot give.

And the room fills with the sound of her quiet tears and his unraveling breath, until even the House seems to go still, waiting for something that never comes.

Nesta doesn't move for hours.

She sits with her arms around her knees, back pressed to the bed. She breathes in the scent of dust and wind.

And waits.

For courage.

For something inside her to change.

But nothing does.

She’s already gone.

The House is quiet when she finally leaves her old room, three days later.

She’s thirsty. It’s been two days since she’s drunk anything more than a sip from the glass of water the House slipped onto her nightstand. Her head aches, her chest feels hollow, but she drifts down the staircase anyway, barefoot, one hand on the railing.

And then she hears it.

The sound of a knife against a cutting board. The low crackle of a skillet. A scent she hasn’t smelled in months—garlic and onions sautéing, the sharp tang of herbs.

She stops in the doorway to the kitchen.

Cassian stands at the counter, sleeves rolled up, wings tucked close to keep from brushing the cabinets. He’s chopping carrots with a kind of focused precision, jaw tight, shoulders tense. The pan hisses as he scrapes the carrots into it. He hasn’t noticed her yet.

For a moment, she just watches.

It feels like a dream—this quiet domesticity, this impossible normalcy. Him cooking. Possibly for the both of them. For her. Like there’s still something worth salvaging between them.

He glances over his shoulder and startles faintly when he sees her, as though he hadn’t expected her to come out of her room. His mouth opens, closes. Then he clears his throat and turns fully toward her.

“Dinner,” he says softly. “For us.”

She swallows, unsure what to do with her hands. “Why?”

He flinches like the question struck him. “Because I wanted to do something nice for you,” he says quietly.

She looks away. Her arms cross over her chest.

Their eyes meet, and guilt flashes across his face. He looks worn. Troubled.

His mouth tightens when she doesn’t respond. He goes back to the cutting board, chopping potatoes with a bit more force than before.

The knife slips.

A sharp hiss of breath leaves him as blood wells across his thumb, bright and sudden. The tang of iron fills her nostrils. The blade clatters onto the counter, and he grips his hand with a curse under his breath.

“Cassian—” Nesta moves before she thinks it through. She grabs a cloth from the counter and presses it firmly over his thumb. He winces but lets her.

The silence that falls is thick. Their faces are close. Her fingers are steady against his, even though her heart is hammering.

“Keep pressure on it,” she mutters.

He studies her, silent, while she works. She can feel it—his gaze heavy, willing her to look at him.

“You need to be more careful,” she says quietly.

His gaze searches her face. “I’m not the only one.”

The words sting. She presses harder on the cut. “Hold still.”

Cassian doesn’t move his hand. His wings shift, restless, but he lets her dab the wound, the white cloth staining quickly with crimson. She puts it down on the counter and uses a clean cloth to bind the cut.

For a moment, it’s how it used to be—her tending, him being her willing subject. The bond hums faintly between them, warm despite everything. His shoulders slump, his head bowing slightly. For a moment, it seems he might rest his forehead against her arm, but he stops himself.

She dares a glance up. His face is closer than it’s been in weeks, his eyes locked on hers. She could drown in the green and gold if she’d let herself. There’s no anger in them now. Only something that looks unbearably like longing, maybe even hope.

Then he whispers, “I don’t want to lose you.”

Nesta freezes.

For a moment, her hands still. She can’t breathe. Can’t think.

Because part of her—some tiny, trembling piece of her—wants to believe him. Wants to throw herself against his chest and tell him she’s already lost, but maybe he could find her again.

But the rest of her knows better.

Knows his love for her isn’t enough to outweigh that for his family. Knows it’s not enough to outweigh his loyalty to her sister. Knows he’ll always choose them first. Knows that whatever this bond is, it has become a chain, not a lifeline.

She knows she’s wrong. That she’s not Feyre.

She ties the bandage with a final knot, the blood seeping through. Her hands fall back.

“Goodnight, Cassian,” she says softly.

She steps away, leaving him staring at her like he doesn’t know how it has gotten to this. Like he doesn’t recognize the female walking away from him.

Later, when the kitchen is dark and silent, Nesta returns.

The cloth lies crumpled on the counter where she left it, stiff with dried blood.

Cassian’s blood.

She picks it up, slow and reverent, as if it might burn her. Her fingers tremble when she tucks it carefully into her pocket.

The weight of the implication settles heavy in her chest.

She closes her eyes, pushing her fist against her heart.

One more piece gathered.

One step closer to breaking his shackle.

One step closer to setting him free.

When night comes, she lies back in her old bed, eyes fixed on the ceiling, body aching with exhaustion that doesn’t bring sleep.

The House is asleep.

Or at least it feels that way. It’s dark and quiet, like a giant holding its breath. The shadows in her room shift with every cloud that drifts in front of the moon, obscuring the flicker of moonlight through the window.

The sheets smell faintly of vanilla and lavender soap. The same scent as when she first came here, angry and frightened and too proud to admit it. This room had been her refuge and her prison both.

She turns onto her side. Then her back. Her hands clench and unclench against the coverlet. She is restless, her thoughts circling like vultures.

Something hard digs against her shoulder as she rolls again. She frowns, reaching under her pillow.

Her fingers close around worn leather.

She draws it out slowly.

The dagger glints in the dim light—a slim blade of Illyrian steel, plain but no less lethal. She remembers it now. Cassian had pressed it into her hands on one of her first nights here, when she couldn’t sleep, when her hands wouldn’t stop trembling and she couldn’t stop jumping at every creak of the House.

“Here, take this,” he’d told her, not joking for once. “Keep it near. It’ll make you feel safer.”

She had shoved it under her pillow and forgotten about it, burying it with all the other things she refused to think about.

But it’s still here, waiting for her.

Still sharp. Still lethal. Still his.

Nesta’s throat tightens. She runs her thumb along the flat of the blade, feeling the faint pulse of memory it recalls. The last tether to who she was when she came here—scared, furious, broken, but still fighting.

She turns onto her stomach to peer under her bed. She pulls out the folded cloth. Cassian’s blood, dried dark into its fibers, has saturated the white linnen.

She unfolds it fully on her lap. The dark blotch stares up at her like an accusation.

With slow, deliberate movements, she turns the dagger in her hand. She presses the point to her palm.

For a heartbeat she hesitates, watching the metal glint against her skin. Then she drags it across, shallow but sure.

A thin red line blossoms instantly. She hisses softly, biting back the sound, and watches the red bloom across her skin.

It feels too easy.

Her blood wells faster, bright and hot, sliding down her wrist to drip onto the cloth. She lets it soak in beside Cassian’s, mingling old and new, red and brown.

Her hand shakes. She clenches it into a fist harder, making sure the stain is deep enough, permanent enough.

She studies the dagger, a gift meant to make her feel safe. A gift she’s now turned toward her own undoing.

She sits there for a long moment, breathing hard. Her chest aches with something she cannot name.

She knows what she’s about to do.

She slides the dagger back under the pillow. It’s cool against her fingers, a silent promise waiting in the dark.

Cassian can’t sleep.

He has been lying in their bed for what feels like hours, staring at the ceiling as shadows shift across it, the sheets beside him untouched and cold.

Nesta didn’t come back.

Again.

He tries not to think about the last time he saw her in the kitchen, or the brittle quiet after she walked away from him. Or the night he told her she wasn’t Feyre. The way she’d gone so still. The way something in her eyes had just… gone dark and quiet and gone. He hasn’t been able to forget that look since. He doesn’t even know where those words came from. He didn’t mean it, but she won’t hear it. It gnaws at him.

He rolls onto his side, facing the empty space where she’s supposed to be.

The bond thrums faintly in his chest. Not bright. Not warm. Just… there. Thin as a single thread. Too thin.

He presses a hand over his heart. He wishes she’d come back to bed. Back to him.

He brushes the bond.

There’s no answer.

After a while, he gives up pretending sleep is possible and sits up. He scrubs both hands over his face, dragging them down to his jaw, exhaling hard.

For a moment, he thinks about going to get her. About knocking on that old bedroom door and telling her he’s sorry. Telling her she doesn’t have to stay in that room. That he’ll sleep on the floor if it makes her feel safer. He thinks about going to his knees and begging her to just come back.

He doesn’t move.

He tells himself it’s because she needs space. Because he doesn’t want to pressure her. Because she deserves the choice.

But the truth is uglier. He’s terrified she doesn’t want to come back at all.

A dull, aching pulse along the bond makes him freeze. It feels like a sting, sharp with something akin to grief.

Cassian turns toward the door, heart hammering. He’s one breath away from getting up. From going to her.

But the pulse fades.

He sits there for minutes that feel like hours. He tries to convince himself that she’s fine. That nothing’s wrong. Except everything is.

He lies back down, though he doesn’t close his eyes.

It’s only much later—a few hours before dawn—that exhaustion finally drags him under. His last thought is a quiet, desperate promise that tomorrow, he’ll fix this.

She doesn’t remember opening the door.

One moment she’s in the hallway, bare feet chilled by the stone. The next—she’s staring at him.

In their room. The room she left behind.

In their bed. The bed she left behind.

She’s staring at the male she is about to leave behind.

Her palm still throbs beneath the makeshift bandage, each heartbeat a muted pulse of guilt and resolve.

Cassian lies half-curled atop the covers, as though he passed out from exhaustion rather than surrendered to sleep. He’s in soft cotton pants, boots kicked haphazardly to the floor. One wing drapes off the mattress, the other’s tucked close. His arm is stretched toward her side of the bed, fingers curled into the blanket that might or might not still hold the ghost of her scent.

The sight nearly drives her to her knees.

She swallows down the ache rising in her throat and steps inside, each breath feeling too loud in the silence.

She doesn’t mean to look at him again.

She does anyway.

For a moment—just one—she stands there drinking him in as though she needs to memorize him. The rise and fall of his chest. The mess of hair partly shadowing his face. The faint crease between his brows that only ever goes away when he’s laughing.

Her throat burns.

He looks younger in sleep. Unarmored. Not the Commander. Not the Lord of Bloodshed. Not the male who stood silent as others cut her down. Just the one who used to make her laugh without meaning to. The one who once whispered praise against the skin of her throat like vows meant only for her.

Her chest cracks.

In another life, she thinks, they would have been happy.

She forces herself to move, to cross to the vanity. Her knees nearly give when the floor creaks—too loud in the stillness. She freezes, heart slamming against her ribcage.

Cassian shifts.

His brows twitch, a muscle jumping in his jaw. His hand tightens in the blanket, fingers digging into the empty space where her body should be. The bond gives a faint, flickering tug.

Nesta stops breathing.

If he opens his eyes now—if he sees her—she’s not sure what she’ll do.

Seconds stretch into something unbearable.

Then his body goes still again, breath evening out. The bond dulls. He sinks back into sleep.

Nesta lets out a breath so slow it barely counts as sound.

She turns back to the vanity and eases open the top drawer, fingers careful, silent.

It’s there.

The ribbon.

The one the priestess wound around their joined hands the day they bound their souls before friends and family and the gods. Silver-gray, soft and crisp as first frost, streaked with hidden threads of midnight.

She remembers the feel of his palm over hers, the way the silk felt against their joined wrists. The way Cassian’s eyes had shone when the bond flooded bright between them.

His thumb had brushed it once, reverent, after the ceremony, and she’d felt through the bond how his heart stuttered.

The fabric slides between her fingers like memory when she lifts it. It still smells faintly of him—pine, frost-kissed wind, and something that has always, always felt like home. She presses it briefly to her lips before she can stop herself.

The pain that flares in her chest is savage. As if something pulls and tears.

She steps back toward the door, ribbon wrapped tight around her fist, and steals one last look at him.

He murmurs in his sleep.

Her name—soft, fractured—like a word halfway between prayer and apology.

She grips the ribbon so hard it bites into her palm.

He shifts again, wings twitching as if sensing her through dreams. For an instant, his eyelids flutter.

Nesta bolts. Every part of her screams. Every step hurts. Her heartbeat drowns out the world.

She slips through the door with a silent, shaking breath and closes it behind her with a whisper-soft click.

It’s just before dawn when she leaves her old bedroom, slippered feet soundless against stone. The halls are hushed, the air thick, as though the walls themselves know what she’s about to do.

Nesta moves quietly, clutching a satchel to her chest. The moonstone, the cloth, the ribbon—all of it presses against her ribs with every heartbeat, heavy as iron.

She slips into the dining room.

The long table gleams faintly in the moonlight streaming through the windows. She sets everything down carefully, reverently—the moonstone, faintly glowing from the power she imbued it with, the bloodied cloth, folded neatly, one half stained red with him, the other with her, the ribbon that tied them together, ready to tear them apart.

Her hands shake as she smooths the parchment across the wood.

She’s already written the words. Scrawled them again and again until her hands cramped, until the ink blurred through tears. The spell, fragmented as it is, sits at the top. Her own shaky handwriting spills beneath it.

Just a single line.

Now you can be free.

Her throat burns. She almost rips it up. Almost tears the paper into a thousand pieces and pretends none of this is happening.

But then the echo of Rhys’s voice drags her back. The words of the Inner Circle, taking pieces of her until there’s nothing left. Cassian’s voice.

You’re not Feyre.

Nesta swallows and folds the parchment once, leaving it tucked beneath the moonstone.

She leaves the satchel on one of the chairs, patting her skirt to make sure the dagger is still secured in her pocket.

Her body feels both too heavy and too light, like she might collapse or float away at any moment.

At the door, she stops.

Her hand brushes the wall, the wood warm beneath her palm.

“Goodbye,” she whispers. Her voice cracks.

The House does not answer.

It only exhales faintly, a breeze brushing her cheek, like a final touch.

And then she’s moving.

Chapter Text

The stairwell gapes like a mouth, swallowing her whole.

Ten thousand steps. She’s done it before. She tells herself that. Over and over.

She’s never done it like this, though. Never hollowed out, starved of food and drink, with only Cassian’s dagger pressing against her thigh like a reminder. The last time she did this, she was running on rage and indignation. This time, she’s fueled by grief and grief alone.

The first thousand steps are mechanical. Her body remembers the rhythm—down, down, down. Her hand trails the wall for balance.

By the second thousand, sweat beads at her temples. Her braid sticks to her damp neck. Her legs burn. Her stomach growls in protest, hollow and sharp, but there’s nothing to feed it.

She forces herself onward.

By the third thousand her vision blurs. The edges of the stairs smear. She drags herself down, pushing more firmly against the wall to keep upright. Her knees wobble with every descent.

By the fourth thousand her head swims. She sways, knees nearly giving, and has to press her whole body to the wall just to prevent tumbling to her death. A knee-jerk instinct.

Keep moving, she tells herself. One more step. One more.

Her foot slips on a damp patch of stone around the fifth thousand step. She slams into the wall shoulder-first, pain jolting through her body.

Her breath tears out in a ragged gasp. For a moment she can’t see, the stairwell spinning into black.

She falls back, pain ricocheting up her spine. The stone is cold under her palms. Her chest heaves, no air filling it right, both from exhaustion and some misplaced form of panic.

No one is coming for her.

There’s only her.

Nesta closes her eyes, laying her head down on the step. Her pulse hammers in her ears.

Just stop here, something whispers. Just stop.

But she doesn’t.

She claws herself back to her feet, her nails scraping stone. Her legs tremble like she’s standing on reeds.

One more landing. One more.

By the seventh thousand she’s crying. She doesn’t realize it at first—only that her cheeks are wet, the salt stinging her chapped lips.

The tears don’t ease anything. They burn.

Her throat tastes like iron.

She thinks of Cassian, the way his eyes used to light when he looked at her, how his laugh once broke open whole rooms when she said something snarky and he loved her for it, how his hands once cupped her face like she was something worth holding.

And she remembers his silence, his voice, rough and sharp, when he told her she’s not Feyre.

She stumbles. Almost falls forward. Keeps going.

By the ninth thousand, her body gives out.

She crashes to her knees. The dagger slips free from her pocket and clatters across stone with a metallic hiss.

Her hands burn where they slammed into the steps. Her whole body shakes.

Nesta presses her forehead to the stone. The coolness is a relief, a balm. It would be so easy to stay here. To melt into the mountain. To let go right here. But she’s still to close. To Azriel. To him.

Her mouth opens, but no sound comes.

Her hand reaches, fumbling for the dagger. Fingers curl around the hilt. She shoves it back into her pocket with clumsy, trembling motions.

She drags herself upright again. Her knees scream. Her spine feels like it will crack in two. But she moves.

One more step. One more.

By the time she reaches the bottom, she’s in ruins.

Sweat drenches her, her braid half undone, strands sticking to her face. Her lips are split, her breaths rasping like torn fabric. Her legs are jelly beneath her, every step a gamble.

But she stands. Somehow, she stands.

The night air hits her, cold and damp, smelling of river water and wet stone. She sways in the doorway, blinking against the black spots in her vision, the Sidra whispering beyond.

Nesta steps out.

The city is hushed, moonlight silvering the rooftops. The river runs black beside her, endless.

She follows it. Her slippers drag on cobblestone, then on dirt, then on grass. The houses fall away. Trees rise instead.

Still, she keeps walking.

Until there is only night.

Only water.

Only the sound of her ragged breath in the dark.

Until she finds a place where she can wait for Cassian to finally break the bond entirely and be done with it.

The House is never this loud.

Cassian wakes with his chest tight, wings twitching, heart racing before he even knows why. The lights flicker, shadows long and strange across the walls.

Something’s wrong.

He sits up, scanning the room. The room hums, tense and thick, like the air before a storm. Then he hears the faint slam of a door somewhere far below, echoing up through the mountain.

The House is unsettled. He can feel it.

And then Azriel’s shadows are spilling under the crack of his door, hissing and frantic.

His door bangs open a heartbeat later and Azriel barges into his room, shadows snapping around him, eyes sharp as blades.

“She’s gone.”

Cassian blinks, still half tangled in his sheets. “What—”

“Nesta.” Azriel’s voice is sharp, deadly. “She left. The House is empty, her bedroom is empty. My shadows can’t find her.”

The words don’t make sense. They can’t.

Cassian stumbles out of bed, heart thundering. “No. She wouldn’t—”

But he’s already moving. Storming down the hall, wings half-spread, calling her name loud enough to shake the walls.

“Nesta!”

Her room is empty.

The library, empty.

The training ring, empty.

The House seems to recoil at each door he throws open, stone cold beneath his hands, air sharp in his lungs.

And then he reaches the dining room.

He stops dead.

The table looks like some sort of altar. A moonstone, faintly glowing. A cloth, stained with blood. And then he sees their ribbon, folded with a care that breaks his heart in two.

He walks over and searches for any clues as to what this all means. That’s when he finds the folded parchment. He opens it to find her writing, jagged and smeared.

Now you can be free.

Cassian’s knees almost give. He grips the edge of the table, fingers digging into the wood, staring at the words until his vision swims.

“No,” he chokes. “No, no, no—”

He doesn’t know when Azriel arrived at his side, but he takes in each individual item, his face carved from stone, shadows restless and low. He doesn’t have to say it. Cassian knows.

It’s a ritual. Ancient. Final.

To sever the bond.

Cassian looks up, wild. “Where is she?”

Azriel doesn’t answer right away. He keeps staring at the table—the blood, the ribbon, the stone—his jaw tight, his eyes blazing.

Then his gaze cuts to Cassian. “This is your fault.”

Cassian reels. “What—”

“You heard me.” Azriel steps closer, shadows curling around him like smoke. “Nesta didn’t come to this on her own. You drove her here. With your silence. With your cowardice.”

“I’m not—”

“Yes, you are.” Azriel’s voice doesn’t rise, but it cuts. “You sat there while Rhys threatened her life. You let Amren call for her imprisonment. You let Mor sneer at her like she was dirt under her boot. And you—her mate—said nothing.”

Cassian’s throat works. “I was trying to keep the peace—”

“You kept their peace,” Azriel snaps, eyes burning. “Not hers. Never hers.”

Cassian staggers back, parchment trembling in his hands. His wings twitch, useless. “You think I wanted this? You think I wanted her to—”

“She thinks you don’t want her at all,” Azriel cuts in, merciless. “And why wouldn’t she? You left her bed for weeks. You ignored her pain. You let her rot in this House, alone, while you told yourself you were doing the right thing by giving her space.”

Cassian’s chest caves. “I thought—I thought if I pressed, I’d make it worse—”

“You made it worse by doing nothing.”

The words slam into him, harder than any fist.

Azriel doesn’t relent. His voice is low, deadly. “Do you even love her, Cassian?”

The question cracks something in him. His mouth opens, shuts, opens again. His voice is broken when it comes. “Of course I love her.”

Azriel leans forward, shadows spilling over the table like blood. “Then why doesn’t she know it? Why is she out there right now, alone, after bleeding herself into a ritual to break the bond, convinced it’s the only mercy left to give you?”

Cassian nearly goes to his knees. He grips the table harder, wood groaning, parchment crumpling in his fist. His vision blurs.

“I thought—” His voice shreds. “I thought I was protecting her. That if I took Rhys’s side, if I let them speak, it would… it would pass. That she’d weather it like she always does.”

“And you broke her.” Azriel’s words are knives, relentless. “You let them take pieces until there was nothing left. And now you’re shocked she wants to be free of you? Or even worse, she thinks she’s doing you a favor by taking herself out of the equation?”

Cassian makes a raw, animalistic sound. He looks at the items on the table. The ribbon—their ribbon. The blood, hers and his. His heart feels like it’s collapsing under the weight of it.

He can’t breathe. “She can’t—she wouldn’t—”

“She would, though.” Azriel’s voice is grim, steady. “She’s went down the stairs.”

Cassian turns on him, desperate, wild. “We can find her, right? We can stop this—”

“Unless we’re too late to…” Azriel doesn’t finish. He doesn’t need to.

Cassian’s chest cracks open, his breath tearing out in ragged sobs he can’t swallow. “I can’t—Azriel, I can’t lose her.”

Azriel studies him for a long, cold moment. Shadows writhe like restless serpents at his back. “If you lose her, Cassian, that is on you,” he says quietly, without mercy.

The words crush his already bleeding heart.

And Cassian realizes that Azriel’s right.

This is his fault.

All of it.

He runs back to his room for his siphons and taps them, armor clicking into place. He throws himself toward the balcony doors, wings snapping wide.

Nesta is out there. Broken and alone.

And if she thinks she’s freeing him—if she thinks he wants to be free—then he’s already failed her in the worst way.

He finds her at last by the Sidra, beneath an old birch tree whose roots twist into the riverbank like bones.

Moonlight glints off her hair, off the dagger turning slowly between her fingers.

His dagger.

Its edge catches the light, glinting like a promise.

Cassian lands a few steps away, chest heaving, lungs raw from flying and shouting. “Nesta,” he breathes—like a prayer, like a man tasting his own death.

She doesn't look up. Doesn’t even flinch. Just keeps stroking the blade with her thumb, steady, mechanical.

She’s sitting with her back to the tree, her knees drawn up. Her eyes are hollow, fixed somewhere far beyond the river’s edge.

He takes a step closer, wings flared, heart pounding in his throat. “Sweetheart. Look at me. Put the dagger down.”

Nothing changes. Just her thumb stroking along the steel. The point catching the moonlight.

He swallows hard and keeps moving, each step slow, careful, doing everything he can not to startle her. “I found your note. I found everything. This isn’t the way. We can fix it. We can fix us.”

Her voice is a whisper, soft and defeated. “Is it done?”

“No,” he says, fierce and hoarse. “It’s not done. I’m not giving up on us, Nesta. Not while you’re still here with me.”

Finally, slowly, she lifts her gaze to his. Her eyes are distant, the bond between them thin and fraying. “But you’ll be free.”

He nearly chokes on it. “I don’t want freedom.” He’s just out of reach, wings twitching behind him. “I want you. Only you. Always you.”

His breath hitches on the last word. “There is no freedom without you. There is no me without you.”

Her eyes flicker, distant. “You’ll thank me one day.”

“I would never thank you for that,” he chokes, edging forward. “I would never thank you for tearing out my soul.”

Still, she doesn’t look at him.

He’s close enough now to drop to his knees before her. The earth is damp beneath him, his palms pressing into the grass. He speaks softly, desperately, like he’s trying not to scare a dying bird.

“I know I failed you. I know I broke things I swore to protect. I didn’t stand up for you. I let them—” His voice breaks. “I let myself become someone you couldn’t trust.”

Her grip tightens on the dagger.

Cassian keeps going, faster now, words stumbling out as tears blur his sight.

“But Cauldron damn me, I love you. I love you more than air, more than the sky that holds my wings. I love you with every breath and every stupid beat of my heart.” He presses a shaking hand to his chest. “I’m nothing if I’m not yours. You hear me? Nothing.”

For a heartbeat, she stops breathing.

“Nes, please, look at me,” Cassian begs, drawing closer inch by inch. “Please, just look at me.”

Slowly, she does.

Her eyes are hollow. Glazed. Wet.

It ruins him.

“Whatever you think you’ve broken, I’ll mend it. Whatever you’ve lost, I’ll help you find it. Whatever you fear, I’ll face it with you. Just don’t leave me. Don’t leave us.”

Her tears fall silently.

“Sweetheart,” he says again, softer, pleading. “I love you. I’ve always loved you. I should have said it every day. I should have stood up for you. I should have protected you from all of it, from them, from myself.” His voice cracks. “I’m sorry, Nesta. I’m so sorry.”

But her hand shifts, angling the dagger up toward her chest.

Cassian lunges, palms up, his voice breaking. “Don’t. Nes, Nesta, sweetheart please, don’t.”

She presses the cold point against her sternum, just above her heart. Her fingers tremble. Her eyes drift past him to the river, to the trees.

He holds in front of her, both hands hovering near but not touching. “Stay with me,” he whispers. “Please. Just keep looking at me.”

Her gaze flickers back to his. For an instant, there’s a glimmer—a flicker of the female he first fell in love with, the one who burned so bright.

He reaches, slowly, and wraps his hand around hers, enclosing her smaller fingers and the hilt of the dagger all at once. His calluses are rough against her skin. “I’ve got you,” he murmurs, tears spilling freely now. “I’m here. Stay with me. We’ll find a way. We’ll make it right. Just stay. There is no me without you.”

She doesn’t move. Doesn’t speak. Her breathing is shallow, her body exhausted except for her steady hand on the blade.

“Please,” Cassian says again, forehead pressing to hers, voice cracking completely. “I can’t lose you. Not like this. Please, sweetheart. Stay. Fight. Fight me.”

For a heartbeat, it feels like she might. Like she’s listening.

“I’ll spend the rest of my life making up for the hurt I caused. I’ll crawl, I’ll bleed, I’ll beg on my hands and knees before you, before anyone you want if it means you stay. Just give me the chance. I swear to the Mother, I’ll earn you back. I’ll—”

Her lips part. She leans forward, slow as a dream, and presses her mouth to his.

It’s soft. Salty. Trembling. A kiss like a secret. Barely there.

His heart stops.

He leans into it like a starving man. A whimper breaks loose from his throat. His hands loosen—the smallest fraction—shaking with relief, with disbelief.

He doesn’t realize until too late that it isn’t a kiss of surrender.

It’s goodbye.

Her hand twists under his. Her fingers tighten on the hilt. With the last of her strength, she shoves the dagger inward.

Pain blooms under his ribs as if she’s shoved the dagger into his chest instead of her own. He wishes she had.

Cassian’s roar rips through the night, a raw, animal sound. He clamps both hands over hers, but the blade is already in. Blood wells hot and dark between their fingers.

“No!” His voice breaks, hoarse and frantic. “No, no, no—Nesta, stop!”

Her head lolls against his shoulder, her tears wetting his neck. “It’s done,” she whispers. “You’re free now.”

Cassian’s whole body shakes. He holds his hands around the dagger, doing everything he can to keep it steady, to not pull it free—knowing it will make her bleed out faster. His wings curve around them like a cocoon.

“What did you do?” he sobs into her hair. “Nesta, what did you do?”

She doesn’t answer. Her eyes are distant again, unfocused, as if she’s already drifting.

Cassian keeps whispering her name, his voice shredded, pressing his forehead to hers, holding her steady. “Stay. Please stay. Come back to me. Please, sweetheart, please—”

But she’s already gone somewhere he can’t reach.

And he feels, with perfect clarity, the first real tear in the bond—like sinew ripping from bone.

And he howls for her, for the gods, for mercy, with blood on his hands and the woman he loves bleeding out in his arms.

He doesn’t know what’s happening.

One moment she’s breathing, whispering that terrible lie about freeing him, and the next he’s on the ground with her in his arms, the cold bite of steel lodged in her chest, his hands clamped around hers, blood soaking through his fingers.

“Stay with me—stay with me—Cauldron, please, stay—”

Her head lolls against his collarbone, breath rattling faintly. Her skin is already cooling, clammy.

The bond is thinning—thinning—thinning.
It flickers like the last cough of a candle, a dying thread inside his ribs. He tries to hold on with everything he has.

His vision goes red.

He presses his forehead to hers, nose brushing her cheek as he fights to breathe. “I love you. I love you. Do you hear me? Nesta, please—please—”

Her lips part on a breath, but no words come. Her eyes don’t focus. She’s gone somewhere he can’t reach.

He screams for the gods again. He begs. He sobs. He holds her like he can anchor her by force.

His hand stays locked over hers on the dagger’s hilt, squeezing so hard his knuckles ache. If he pulls it out, she'll bleed out in seconds. If he leaves it, the bond will finish tearing.

There is no right move. No right world.

“Mother—take anything, take me instead—just don’t take her. Not her. Not her.”

His voice breaks, fracturing into something primal and hoarse.

His entire body shakes. The metallic stench of blood fills his lungs. He can’t stop whispering her name.

Nesta.

Nesta.

Nesta.

Around them, the Sidra keeps whispering. The world keeps turning. It feels obscene.

He presses her tighter against his chest, as if he can absorb the wound into himself. He keeps praying, pleading, demanding that this is not how it ends.

Her hand twitches faintly under his.
Or maybe that’s just his own shaking.

The bond pulses again—faint, agonized—then flickers so weakly he can barely feel it.

He lets out a broken, choking sob at the unbearable sensation of it thinning, of her slipping.

“No—no, no—Nesta, please—don’t do this—don’t you dare leave me. You don’t get to do that. You don’t get to steal yourself away—”

His forehead bows to hers again. He clings to her fingers around the dagger, holding them both still.

“If you go,” he whispers, voice gone small and ruined, “I’ll follow you. Do you understand? I’ll follow you right into the dark. I don’t care if the Mother spits in my face for it. I’m not living in a world you’re not in. So don’t—don’t make me do that. Please, sweetheart.”

Something in the air shifts.

The hurried crunch of boots through grass sounds somewhere behind him.

Cassian doesn’t hear it at first—not over the ringing in his ears.

Not over Nesta’s uneven breathing—too shallow, too wet—and the pounding of his own heart as the bond sputters, fraying like a thread scraping over a blade.

“Cassian.”

Azriel’s voice is low, steady, cutting through the night like a drawn knife.

Cassian doesn’t look up.

He’s crouched over Nesta, his whole body curved around hers. His forehead rests against her temple, breath shaking as if he’s trying to breathe for both of them.

“Cassian,” Azriel says again, closer now.

Cassian snarls without lifting his head. “No, no, no. Don’t. Don’t take her from me.”

There’s a beat of silence.

Azriel stops just within reach, his shadows skittering outward, assessing the scene with uncanny precision.

He sees everything.

The blood.

The way Nesta’s body slumps.

The angle of the dagger.

Cassian’s hands refusing to release it.

Azriel’s jaw locks. “She’s still breathing.”

Barely.

Cassian’s voice is shredded. “If I move it—if I pull it out—she’ll bleed out before we can blink.”

“I know.” Azriel’s tone stays level. “You did the only thing you could’ve.”

Cassian finally lifts his head.

His face is streaked with dirt and tears, his eyes bloodshot and blazing. “She thinks she’s setting me free.” His voice breaks on the word.

A muscle in Azriel’s jaw jumps, but he doesn’t interrupt.

“I begged her,” Cassian chokes out, tears rolling down his face. “I told her I’d follow her into death. I told her I love her. I told her I—” His voice disappears into a ragged breath. “She kissed me. And then she—she—” He can’t get the rest out.

Azriel doesn’t ask. He knows.

He kneels beside them slowly, hands raised where Cassian can see them. “We need to move her.”

Cassian’s head snaps up, wild-eyed. “No.”

“Cassian—”

“No one is taking her from me.” His fingers clamp harder around Nesta’s blood-slicked hand, his wings flaring around her like a shield. “I swear to all the gods, Azriel, anyone who tries to pull her away—I will kill them.”

Azriel’s shadows tense at that.

His voice doesn’t soften, but it lowers. “I won’t take her. I’ll only winnow you both to Madja. She needs a healer.”

Cassian stares at him, breath trembling.

“She’s dying,” Azriel says, each word clear and unflinching. “If we stay here, you’ll lose her. I am not asking you to hand her over. But you need to let me move you.”

Cassian hesitates. The bond flickers faintly—a gasp of light in a collapsing tunnel.

He looks down at Nesta’s face—too pale, lips parted, skin cooling. Tracks on her cheeks where tears have dried. Her blood staining his hands.

Slowly, his breathing stutters. His wings lower. His shoulders shake.

“I can’t—” His voice collapses. “Az, I can’t lose her. If she dies—”

Azriel’s shadows still, listening.

Cassian’s throat works. “If she dies, I won’t survive it.”

Azriel’s gaze softens—almost imperceptibly. “Then don’t let her die here.”

A tremor runs through Cassian.

Very carefully, as if she were glass, he gathers Nesta against his chest, never lifting his hand from the dagger’s hilt. He holds her like she’s the only thing anchoring him to existence.

Azriel’s shadows coil around them like smoke and wind and night.

The moment the shadows release them, the world erupts.

They land hard in the center of the Night Court’s healers quarters—Cassian on his knees, Nesta clutched to his chest, blood smeared across both of them.

There’s a split second of stunned, breathless silence as the healers register what they’re seeing—

Nesta Archeron, limp and bleeding.

Cassian covered in her blood.

A dagger buried in her chest.

Then everything happens at once.

“Mother above—get supplies! Now!”

“Clear a room!”

“Someone bring bindings—she’ll bleed out if—”

“Don’t touch the blade—”

Cassian doesn’t hear a word.

He doesn’t let her go.

Not when the floor hits his knees, not when healers shout, not when hands reach for her.

He’s cradling her like she’s already dead. Forehead pressed to her hair. One broad hand still wrapped around hers on the dagger’s hilt, the other locking her against him as if that’s the only thing keeping her soul anchored.

Azriel has seen the carnage of battlefields. He’s seen Illyrian camps after the Blood Rite, mortal wars, the Hewn City during executions—but nothing, nothing, compares to the sound Cassian makes when a healer tries to pry Nesta from his hold.

A feral, broken snarl tears out of him, wings snapping wide. Blood drips from his fingers onto the marble. His eyes are red-rimmed, pupils blown, and Azriel knows—if anyone tries to separate them by force, someone will die.

He steps in.

“Stand down,” he warns the healers. “No one touches him.”

“She’ll bleed out if we don’t—” one healer starts.

Azriel’s shadows flare once, violent. “I said—stand down.”

They falter, but only barely. Sweat beads down one fae’s temples as he dares another look at the blood bubbling faintly around the dagger’s hilt.

Cassian rocks slightly where he sits.

“Stay… open your eyes, Nes, please… please don’t go… please don’t leave me…”

Each phrase feels like broken glass underfoot.

Azriel turns to Madja, who’s come running to the commotion, voice steady even as his shadows churn. “You’ll have to work around him. Prepare a room. Get ready. We move them together.”

“Azriel, we can’t—“ Madja starts.

“You can,” he cuts in quietly, “or you can watch her bleed out because he’ll rip your throat out before he lets go. Choose.”

Something in his tone makes them move.

Cassian rocks forward, clutching her tighter as Nesta gives a small exhale—barely there.

A low, pained sound tears from Cassian’s throat. His entire body curls over Nesta, as if trying to hide her from death itself. “She’s slipping,” he gasps.

Azriel kneels beside him, not touching, not crowding, just close enough for his brother to hear him. “You have to let her go.”

Cassian’s eyes snap to him, wild and lost. “If she dies—”

Azriel holds his gaze. “If you don’t let the healers work, she will.”

“If she dies…” Cassian whispers.

“Then we’ll drag her back ourselves,” Azriel answers.

A lie. A promise. A vow. He doesn’t care.

Cassian nods.

He rises and signals to the healers. “Make the room ready. Now.”

They scramble.

Azriel watches Cassian—watches the shaking shoulders, the trembling hands, the raw terror in every breath.

He has never seen his brother like this.

Not when his wings were shredded.

Not when Nesta nearly died fighting in the war.

Not when he thought her lost to the darkness months ago.

This is different.

This is him breaking open, violently.

Nesta stirs—or maybe just twitches from pain—her head rolling slightly against Cassian’s collarbone. A whimper escapes her lips.

He shatters.

“It’s alright,” Cassian chokes out, brushing bloody hair from her face with shaking fingers. “I’ve got you. I swear it, sweetheart. Just stay.”

Azriel looks away, not out of indifference, but because for the first time in centuries, it hurts too much to witness.

And Cauldron damn him…

He’s afraid. Terrified.

The world is… far away.

Not gone — not completely — but blurry, muffled, like she’s slipped beneath the surface of a river and let the current drag her under.

There is sound, somewhere above her. Loud, broken sound. Begging and breathless. Someone is saying her name over and over like a prayer and a curse and a plea.

Cassian.

The name is a flicker in her mind. Too bright to hold onto. Too painful. The bond hums faintly, like a harp string being plucked from a distance. The sound is thinning. Fading.

Good, she thinks faintly. It’s almost done.

She feels movement, or the idea of movement—arms around her, warmth, the press of something solid beneath her cheek. The world shakes, or maybe she is shaking. Or maybe it’s him.

His voice cracks through the darkness again.

His words tremble. His breath shudders. She can feel the rumble of it in his chest. Her cheek is pressed there, she realizes dimly—against his heartbeat, against the place she used to fall asleep.

Her lips part.

It hurts.

She tries to speak, but her lungs feel tight, wet. Her tongue heavy. Her chest burns around the dagger still inside it. She can’t tell if it’s pain or memory.

Why is he still holding me? she wonders distantly. Doesn’t he understand this is what I chose?

Something sharp presses into her palm, then warm fingers wrap over it. His hands. Around hers. Holding too tightly. Trying to stop the blood. Trying to hold her in place like he can keep her tethered if he just squeezes hard enough.

She wants to tell him to stop. To let go. To let her free him.

Her vision—if she even has one here—pulses and dims like candlelight in wind.

Other voices cut through, urgent, distant.

“Get bindings—”

“She’s crashing—”

“Her pulse is unstable—”

Her lips try to form the word don’t. She isn’t sure if she means don’t take her, or don’t save her, or don’t stop him.

It doesn’t matter. No sound comes out.

Something cold brushes her cheeks, or maybe his hands are just trembling. Something warm drips onto her collarbone — his tears or her blood or both.

The bond flickers again. Thinner than before. She can feel the tear, like silk being pulled apart strand by strand.

A strange relief settles in her bones.

She’s so tired.

You’ll thank me, she wants to say. You’ll live. You’ll be free of me. You’ll stop hurting because of me.

The darkness pulls gently, like hands under the water.

She lets herself drift a little further.

Cassian’s voice follows her, ragged and hoarse.

“I love you. I love you. I love you. Please stay—please stay—”

She doesn’t understand why he sounds like that.

He shouldn’t still be holding on.

She kissed him goodbye.

Why won't he let go?

Everything is soft. Numb.

His voice follows her into the dark.

She wishes it wouldn’t.

It makes it harder to go.

Something tugs behind her breastbone.

The bond.

It flickers again, thin as a breath. Faint. Wavering.

It would be easier if it snapped clean.

Why won’t it?

Why won’t he let go?

Something warm brushes her forehead.

Cassian.

She thinks she hears him crying. He never cries.

The darkness tugs again. Softer this time. Almost like… like rest.

Yes.

That’s all she’s wanted.

Just rest.

Her lips part on a faint exhale.

His voice breaks around her name.

She doesn’t answer.

He refuses to step away.

The healers don’t argue anymore. Azriel must have made it clear. If they try to separate him from her, there will be bloodshed.

So they work around him.

Cassian is half-kneeling at the head of the narrow healer’s cot, his hands framing her face, his thumb gliding over her cheekbone again and again, smearing tears and blood across her skin. He presses his lips to her forehead, her hairline, the corner of her temple with the softest, most desperate reverence.

She’s so cold.

He’s trying to warm her with touch alone.

His voice shakes as he whispers into her hair.

“You still owe me a dance in the snow at Solstice,” he murmurs, breath catching. “And you said you’d pick the next place we fly to—said you’d let me carry you the whole way because you’re lazy and I’m warm. You’re supposed to boss me around. You’re supposed to be here and let me love you for it.”

No response. Just a faint, barely there exhale.

His nose brushes her brow. He kisses the bridge of her nose.

“You told me I had to show you the Dawn Court properly one day. And the Rainbow again. And the Sidra when the lanterns float on the water.” His voice cracks. “I promised you we had time. We have time. You hear me?” He presses their foreheads together, his hand cradling her head, his fingers snaking into her hair. “You don’t get to leave. Not when I only just started telling you everything I should’ve said much sooner.”

A tremor runs through his body. He clutches her closer.

Azriel stands just behind them, silent, shadows pulled tight like they’re afraid to move.

One of the healers crouches beside them, voice low. “General… we have to remove the blade.”

Cassian doesn’t move his forehead from Nesta’s. His breath shakes against her skin. “Do it.”

But he never stops touching her. His thumb strokes her jaw. His lips brush her temple.

He keeps whispering to her, voice breaking with each vow.

“Do you remember the first time you let me hold you after a nightmare?” His thumb brushes her battered lower lip. “You didn’t speak. You just… breathed against my neck. I thought my heart would stop from how you trusted me.”

Cassian’s fingers trail down Nesta’s hairline to her jaw. His tears fall freely now, dropping onto her skin with soft pats. He rubs them away with shaking thumbs.

“I haven’t danced with you on the rooftop yet. And I never showed you the Illyrian cliffs in winter. You hate the cold, but you said you’d go if I carried you,” he whispers, voice fraying thin

He kisses her softly.

“I’m not done loving you. I’ve barely started. And you—you’re supposed to laugh at me for losing another sparring match to Emerie. You promised you would.” A wet laugh shakes from him. “You said you’d mock me for centuries. Centuries, Nesta—do you hear me? You promised me forever.”

The healers are ready.

Azriel sees it. He kneels low, murmuring, “Cass.” Quiet, warning.

Cassian doesn’t take his eyes off Nesta.

“On three,” one healer says gently. “Hold her steady.”

Cassian cups her face in both hands now, thumbs against her cheeks, his forehead to hers. “Come back to me,” he whispers. A tear slips from his lashes onto her lips. “Please, sweetheart. Come back. I don’t care how angry you are. Just come back.”

“One.”

He breathes her in.

“Two.”

He presses a kiss to her mouth. Soft. Trembling. Final.

“Three.”

They pull the dagger free.

The bond doesn't scream. It doesn't flare.

It tears.

Silently.

Clean.

Cassian jerks like he’s been gutted. His breath leaves him in a strangled, broken sound as the thread inside him snaps.

Something in him goes feral.

He lunges forward with a roar that could split mountains, trying to seize the blade—trying to pull her back to him—trying to hold the bond together with all his might.

Azriel is the only thing fast enough to stop him.

He grabs Cassian around the chest, pinning his arms back as he thrashes and snarls and screams her name. Shadows coil around Cassian’s legs to keep him from knocking the cot over.

“No—No—NO—Nesta—NESTA!—DON’T YOU—NESTA!”

Azriel’s voice is rough, cracking despite his control. “Cassian—Cassian, stop—if you don’t calm down, she’ll die—”

Cassian fights him with everything he has. Wings flaring, muscles straining, tears streaking his face. He doesn’t care that the healers are shouting. He doesn’t care that blood is pouring from her chest. All he knows is that the bond is shredding.

“Let me go—LET ME GO—She’s slipping—She’s gone—”

Azriel drags him back, arms locked, his own voice tight with horror. “She’s not gone—Cassian, listen to me, look—”

But Cassian can’t. His vision is drowned in red, his ears ringing with silence. His heart claws at the emptiness where the bond should be.

He doesn’t notice his knees give out. Doesn’t hear his own sobs, broken and gasping.

Azriel lowers with him, still holding him back from destroying everything in reach. The Shadowsinger’s jaw works, eyes glassy as he watches Nesta’s still chest and the rush of healers working with frantic hands.

Cassian’s voice shatters on a whisper. “Please. Please. Please. Please…”

And all the while, Nesta doesn’t move.

And the bond does not answer.