Chapter Text
Nesta wakes to the sound of windchimes and the smell of the ocean. She's whole, content. This is peace. Paradise.
And then she spots the stars on her palm. The deal with Rhysand, everything, crashes over her like the waves on the shore outside.
Ottilie knocks soon after, carrying a breakfast tray. She helps her with her clothes for the day, which involve far more laces than Nesta is accustomed to. Traditional Winter wear, she supposes. She wears pants, but the thick tunic over it goes all the way to her knees and her boots nearly meet the hem. It's an interesting style, but Nesta's too hot to dally over it.
"From the High Lord, Lady," Ottilie says to her, handing her a small chest. "Salts and scrubs from our sea. Very soothing and healthy for the skin."
"Ah," she says, red now not from heat alone. "Well, please give him my thanks."
"Yes, madam."
"And thank you, too, Ottilie."
"You're very welcome, madam."
It makes her feel like Mother, to be called so, and she ducks out of the room as fast as she can. Rhysand is waiting by her door.
"Sleep well?" he asks.
She looks at him accusingly. "Did you tamper with my mind again? Make me wake up calm, like after...that night?"
He only gives her an amused smile. "No. I guess you did have a nice night."
She doesn't believe him, but she doesn't argue either. He proffers an arm. "Ready?"
"A deal's a deal," she replies flatly, and takes it.
He laughs. Summer disappears.
Nesta isn't exactly happy to see him that morning, but Rhys can tell she's doing better. Her shoulders are relaxed, her steps light. Perhaps she likes the seaside. He hopes she'll like the snow, too.
The Winter convoy meets them with less impressive fanfare than the Summer Court had, probably because they don't have any male they want to court Nesta with. Tarquin's a young High Lord, and although Rhys thinks he's proven himself, his people still feel uneasy at the lack of a secure heir. He doubts Nesta had noticed the greeting was overly flaunting, but she had definitely appreciated Tarquin's efforts by the end of the night. He stifles a smile as he remembers her slight blush as she had realized what he was doing as they danced last night.
Still, he is a High Lord, and Nesta something of a terrifying hero, so Winter Court has been called to session to greet them.
"Welcome," Kallias says, raising his arms in greeting. "Rhys, so good to have you back. Lady Nesta, so pleased to have you here at last."
"Why didn't you bring Feyre?" Viviane says, at his side, lacking some of her mate's decorum.
Rhys doesn't mind, smiling. "Another time."
Viviane shrugs. Tossing her white hair over her shoulder, she bounds forward, linking her arm through Nesta's. "So happy to have you. Loved watching you put Beron in his place in Dawn. Never liked him, obviously. Come, let me give you the tour."
Nesta stiffens, giving Rhys a look, but she goes when Viviane tugs her along.
Kallias approaches him, speaking in a low voice so his court cannot hear. "What is this about?"
"Just what I expressed in my letter," he says calmly. "Nesta wants to see Prythian."
"She seems enthralled," he says drily.
"Well, maybe you haven't impressed her yet. Tarquin pulled out all the stops, you know. I'm expecting an offer any time now."
Kallias' white eyebrows rise so high they reach wisps of his hair. "You are?"
"He danced with her all night. He gifted her something from his family's coffers."
Kallias frowns. A High Lord gifting something of his family to a member of a different High family...Tarquin is young, yes, and eager for change, but Kallias perhaps had not realized how much.
"How have your defenses recovered?" Rhys asks.
"Mm. Yes, come see..."
Nesta hadn't known she'd felt more comfortable with Rhys than other faeries she didn't know until he left her with one of them. The female, Viviane--who is not the Winter High Lady, she remembers, Feyre is the only High Lady--is irritating and hard to ignore. She keeps asking Nesta insipid questions. Harmless stuff, she supposes, about her dress and her hair and her tattoo (ugh), but Nesta doesn't want to talk to her anyway.
The Winter Palace is grand, but Nesta finds she tires of the ice theme quickly. She fakes propriety as long as she can bear and then turns stiff.
"Hello, boys," Viviane says, and Nesta blinks, refocusing herself, to see Rhysand and Kallias joining them. Nesta doesn't want to be grateful, but if they're doing something else, she might be.
"Bored Nesta to tears with the tour?" Kallias asks, and Nesta tries to smile but can only grimace.
"Of course not. We had a great time. But we can have some real fun now." Viviane flashes her a smile. Nesta doesn't return it.
She's right not to, as it turns out. For Viviane's idea of fun is not compatible with Nesta's.
"Ever done this before?" Rhys asks her.
She glares at him. "You know I have not."
He grins, shrugging. "Just asking."
Nesta's thick outerwear protects her well enough from the cold, but she doesn't think anything can calm her fear atop this mountain. "What is the point of this?" she demands.
"Our deal?"
" This ."
"Skiing? It's fun. Pretty much as close to flying as you can get without wings."
"I hate flying."
"Maybe you won't always."
Nesta bites her tongue at that. Maybe not, indeed. Maybe at the end of this week, when Nesta Archeron disappears forever, the new person in this body will love flying.
"Anyway, you have to try anyway. That's the deal. But don't look like that; this is the easy version."
Nesta looks down at the slope. "What's easy about this?"
"It won't be so fast. And your skis are charmed. You can't fall."
She doesn't dignify him with a response. He laughs anyway, turning to wave at Kallias and Viviane, who had elected to walk up instead of winnowing, for whatever forsaken reason.
"All right, Nesta," Viviane says cheerfully. "The boys will go first, and we'll watch. Then you and I will go when you're ready."
I'll never be ready for this . "All right."
Kallias talks her through it, showing her how to move her arms and angle her legs. "You can't fall," he reminds her, "so there's nothing to be scared of."
Easy for him to say. But she gives a short nod in goodbye as Viviane waves and Rhysand and Kallias disappear down the mountain--slow, at first, for her benefit, and then frighteningly fast.
"Ready?" Viviane asks brightly.
Best get this over with, then. "Ready."
"All right. So we'll just push off with our arms on three. One...two...three!"
Nesta regrets it immediately. She moves downward, and her stomach remains on the peak, and for a second she thinks it's so bad because she's going slowly, so she speeds up, and-- worse, much worse --so she slows down, and then Viviane yells, "Isn't this fun!"
Nesta can't even manage a reply, too terrified to open her mouth. It isn't particularly windy, but her motions create one, blowing the loose strands of her hair back, and she realizes, if she goes fast enough, it would almost be like soaring above the ground.
And it might not feel so awful, she supposes, if she were different. If she could trust the person holding her because she knew they cared for each other. If she didn't have to be so afraid of everything.
It's odd to think, this body, in just a short while might enjoy it, but she won't be around to know.
When it's over, Viviane says, "Did you have fun?"
"Yes, thank you," she says, to be polite.
"Want to go again?"
"No. Thank you," she adds, but they've already started laughing. Nesta flushes, but they don't seem to pay any mind.
"All right, well, we can go to lunch now, then," Kallias says.
They walk instead of winnowing. It's not that Nesta doesn't think it's beautiful, it's that it's bitterly cold and she wants to sit down. But she bears it, mostly ignoring the conversation the three of them engage in and fifteen minutes later they are being seated at what the maître d' assures them is the finest table in the establishment.
In front of a roaring fire. Nesta should've known.
But before she can decide if she'll come up with a reason to make an escape, or force herself through the meal, Rhys, pulling out her chair, says, "That's so loud, isn't it?" And with a wave of his hand, the noise disappears.
The red creeping up on Nesta's cheeks isn't from the cold, or the sudden warmth.
Largely quiet for the duration of the meal, Nesta orders what Viviane encourages her to and eats enough to be polite, despite her lack of appetite. She drinks the peppermint chocolate they serve after the meal without any objection, though.
Unfortunately, naps in the Winter Court are not as commonplace as in Summer, and Viviane drags her to a number of activities in the afternoon. They aren't miserable, but certainly nothing Nesta would choose to do herself. A deal is a deal, though, and Nesta does as she's told.
By dinner, the only thing Nesta has experienced that she'd maybe like to do again is the chocolate she's had to drink.
They've changed into nicer clothing, but the hall they're in looks less elaborate than Summer's dinner. She doesn't mind, of course, she doesn't care to spend as much time with Kallias and Viviane as she did Tarquin, but perhaps something bigger would have been more impersonal. As it stands, Viviane keeps talking to her.
"So, what do you do in the Night Court nowadays, Nesta?"
Nesta glances aside. "I spend a lot of time in the library."
Viviane perks up even more at this. "What do you like to read?"
"Anything."
"Romance?" Viviane says.
Kallias laughs. "Don't get her started."
"Too late! Do you read romance, Nesta?"
"Sometimes," she says shortly. Then she admits, "I've only started recently. I like a few authors."
This is enough for Viviane to take and prattle on with, but Nesta doesn't mind so much this time. It's not like talking to Gwyn or Emerie, but at least she's interested enough in the conversation.
Oddly, Nesta feels more relaxed and vindicated after dinner. Summer was clearly an outlier; most of these days with Rhysand will be mediocre at best. She'll get through them, and then her pain will be gone.
He walks her to her room, with Nesta holding a few books Viviane had given her before bidding her good night.
"I know you liked the chocolate," Rhys says. "We can send for some more. You can drink it while you read in the massage tub. Unwind."
"What tub?"
"Winter Court has excellent tubs. I'm going to get one installed for your sister's birthday."
Nesta grimaces. She doesn't need to think about Rhysand and Feyre sharing baths--or indeed, everything Rhys now knows about Nesta's aversion to them.
He knows now, of course, what she is thinking, by the way she looks away. Out of the corner of her eye, she watches his face tug down in sympathy--how she loathes that--and he says, gentle, "Nesta. I saw, but I did not look."
"What the hell does that mean?" she snaps.
But he doesn't rise to her. He says, calm, "It's not as though you don't have privacy from me. Think of it like flipping through pages rather than reading. I have a general idea of what the book is about, but I can hardly tell you exact plot points and page numbers."
That's not as bad as she'd imagined. But she can't help but ask, haltingly, "What do you know?"
"I know you've been through a lot and I know how much you love your sisters."
Nesta looks away again. "You're wrong," she says, not angry, but dejected. She's too hollow inside to be angry. Nesta hasn't felt love in a long time.
"I'm not," he says, firm but soft. "I know how you perceive yourself. But that's not an objective fact. That's influenced by a great number of things out of your control. I'm not coming from a place of deep compassion so much as I am coming from a more distanced view. Anyone would agree with me."
"You're coming from love for Feyre." She can't help but sound bitter.
"That too," he agrees. "We swore vows to each other. We share family now. Like it or not. And I know that you've been through a lot, but it's not anything other people haven't gotten through before. It's not something you can't get through yourself."
"Is that so, Rhysand?" Nesta says, her voice as cold as the ice palace they stand in. "And how many people do you know who have been through the Cauldron."
"I didn't mean that specifically, of course," he says, patient as ever. "I meant violation. I did, you know," he adds. "Amarantha used me how she wanted. For fifty years. It was strategic, on my part, to keep her away from my people. But it's obviously not what I would have chosen had there been any other option."
Nesta blinks. She hadn't known that. Fifty years....
"I'm not saying it's worse because it was longer. I don't think that. I actually think, well, I was older then than you are now. I did not grow up the way you did. I felt more sure of myself, than you do. And afterwards, I had family to fall back on. You feel alone. But you can't heal alone, Nesta. You can only relive your pain.
"I'm not saying it has to be me, of course," he continues. "But it should be someone. It will be."
"You sound confident."
"I am," he says. "We'll finish our week either way, but I think you'll change your mind before it's over."
Nesta hates his smugness. "What magical transformation do you think I've undergone today?"
Rhys shrugs, but his eyes don't change. He thinks he knows something she doesn't. "Perhaps you'll enjoy yourself more when we head back to the Solar Courts tomorrow."
"What about Autumn Court?"
He raises an eyebrow. "Who said anything about Autumn Court?"
Everything out of his mouth makes her want to roll her eyes. "Are we not touring everywhere except Spring?"
"No," he says. "I mean, we're not going to Spring. But we're also not going to Autumn."
"Where are we going?"
"Tomorrow we're going to Dawn."
"And after that?"
He shrugs. "You'll see." He grins. "Good night, Nesta."
Feyre talks to him when he's alone. Nesta hates the cold, you know .
I had noticed.
What are you doing?
You're so nosy. Mind your own business.
It is my business. She's my sister.
What's yours is mine.
He can hear feel Feyre's smile at that. In a more concerned voice, she asks, Is she all right?
She's fine , Rhys assures her. It's not strictly true, but she certainly isn't in any danger. And she will be fine, he knows. Despite her snippy mood because of the cold, Rhys can tell she's already doing better. Nesta's curiosity is always stronger than her fear. She wants to see what this is about. And deep inside, he knows, she wants this to work. She doesn't want to lose the people she loves.
Her imagination is also helping him. With only the barest hints from him, he watches as Nesta sees herself living all this with her friends or Cassian or her sisters by her side. Human women always fall to desire, and Nesta hasn't lost that instinct. When she stops perceiving herself as dead, she'll stop at nothing to get what she wants.
When are you coming home? I miss you.
Secure in the knowledge that he's done his part with Nesta for the day, Rhys eagerly turns all thoughts to Feyre. Have I been neglecting you, my High Lady?
Nesta's bath bubbles of its own accord, like a brook. It isn't shaped like a regular tub; there's a sort of seat inside.
Ignoring the tightness in her throat she always feels when first settling into a tub, Nesta strips and lowers herself inside. She sighs, the hot water welcome on the slight soreness that's begun to settle into her skin after the skiing. Closing her eyes as she sinks down to her neck, Nesta briefly wonders if she'll just lounge here and read, or if she'll finish faster so she can go to bed--and then jumps as the tub beneath her moves, splashing water onto the floor.
She lets out a nervous breath when the movement doesn't stop and she recalls Rhysand telling her these were massage tubs. Settling once more, Nesta tries to relax as she contemplates if she likes the movement. When the tub pushes into a knot under her left shoulder, she decides that yes, she does.
In slow, rolling motions, the seat pushes into her, pressing hard against the aches along her body, soothing out the stress. Nesta realizes it's not only from today, and that she could have done with a bath like this a long time ago.
The rolling waves of the bath press into her thigh, tensing her instead of relaxing. After a glance towards the doorway to ensure that she did indeed lock it, Nesta closes her eyes and brings her hand between her legs.
This body has never been Nesta's. Sex with males was never about enjoying herself. Quite the contrary. But that--that doesn't matter. She doesn't have to think about that. Nor does she have to think about what it might be like to have a bath like this at the House, after a long day of training...and someone to share it with. Nor of his hands upon her thighs, massaging her along with the tub. Or how he might kiss along her neck, whisper something in her ear as he slides his fingers into her, teasing her slowly--as she is doing to herself now. Or how he might lift her...if Nesta raise her hips herself she can almost imagine--he might lift her so he could lower his mouth to her, not raising his head until she is begging--begging--and then he might move up along her, look right into her eyes as he pushes into her, filling her, holding her in his strong arms as he pants in her ear, gasping along with her as they give each other exactly what they need, as only they both know how--and how he'd say her name--desperate, a prayer, a plea--eyes locked as they both come--
Nesta opens her eyes when her heart rate returns to normal. She picks her hand up out of the tub to wipe it on the towel by her side.
There is much she could think of, but after this long in the hot water, the massage, and that, she is content to pick up one of the romance novels waiting for her and not to. After all, why shouldn't her last nights be as pleasant as they can?