Chapter Text
When Nesta Archeron's magic reawakens, it shakes the earth. A terrible quaking, like the dead are all clawing their way back up to the surface.
Feyre knows it's her the moment he does, and she cries out in fear for her sister's life. Rhys doesn't have time to stay and comfort her, and wastes only a second checking her shields before throwing himself out the window and launching himself into the night.
He hears Nesta's screams from outside the House--terror, heart-wrenching terror. The same word, over and over. NO, NO, NO--
His magic erupts into the room with him. Nesta is writhing on the bed, burning alive. The flames are silver, like they were plucked right from her eyes.
His blackness does nothing to stop the fire, but it does contain it. To Nesta.
Her screams turn pained. Cassian, held back by Azriel, bellows at him to stop, stop hurting her, let her go--but he can't. She'll burn the city to the ground. Burn the whole court.
Rhys shouts to her to wake up, that it's a dream, it isn't real, but she doesn't believe him or can't hear through her screaming sobs.
When Cassian approaches, sure in a way he shouldn't be, Nesta quivers, and Rhys lurches. Spots the entry inside her mind, intending only to quell the fire--and then he feels it.
Nesta.
She clings to Cassian's presence; it is enough to calm her, to tie her down. To keep her away from...the pain. To drag her up out of the icy waters of the Cauldron.
He feels it ending. Feels what was.
Total, terrifying darkness. Nothing like the starlit beauty of night. Only a lack of life. And yet, there is life. There is a man, pinning him--her, Nesta, not him--against a wall, there is shame before an elderly woman, there is loss, such profound loss, and fear, and pain, over and over, never ending, without reprieve, without mercy, and with every second, it grows greater, fear and pain and loss and grief and despair and hate, all thrust upon him--no way out, no way out--
He feels Cassian along with her, feels her latch onto him, desperately. She can breathe again. The pain is there but the burning stops.
Distantly, he pulls her along away from the horror. To the hills near the cabin where he and Feyre had consummated their bond. In the springtime--Nesta's birthday is in spring, Feyre said. The hills are thick with anemones, the flowers a soft bed of dark purple in the night. The air is warm around her; she doesn't need a blanket. If she were to look up, she would have an entirely unobstructed view of the Night Court's sky, but she doesn't need to, she can just sleep here. She can rest. She is safe...
Pulling out of her mind entirely, Rhys shudders. Cassian asks if they should bring Feyre--no, no, she can't be here. She can't...he's been stupid, letting Nesta's walk around with power like this, unchecked. That ends now.
It's only a bit of her power, Rhys tells them. But--fuck--it isn't really hers, is it? One's power bows to them, a tool to wield how the faerie sees fit. Not to torture you in the night...all day....
What it took from her. Rhys shudders again.
She looks young like this, young as--well, as young as she is, he supposes. Far too young to have lost that much. To be hollowed out by a-a monster. And left with death in return.
No wonder she drinks.