Chapter 49
You guys are so entertaining in the comments. I love it! I just got the update where you can like them now so yay! but they've shrunk the text size :( Anyways, I think most go through fine eventually but just know that Wattpad is automatically reporting comments with 'offensive language' so just know that it's not me because I don't care about cursing in my comments at all.
Also small trigger warning: scarring in wrists
Rhysand believed that his life after death would be peaceful. That perhaps he would float in nothingness, and be little more than a formless soul. Or that there would be something. And, if by all technicalities, there was something. The fogged world around him only held two distinguishable features. Amren and the Cauldron.
He wasn't ready for death.
The Cauldron began sealing, burning bright like a thousand cracks were being melded together. They had done it. All of them. He felt his mate's call, the droplets of power and life surging back through him. So he held out a hand to Amren. The female looked at it blankly, then at the Cauldron, then back at him. Rhysand smiled as she slipped her small hand into his.
The tug on him grew and he knew it was time to return, so he turned around to the calling. But a shadow caught his attentionâjust in the very corner of his eye. Rhysand turned back, his mind filtering through thoughts of those who may have died beside him. Could it be a soldier that had passed close by?
The shadow grew sharper as he walked towards it, leaving Amren to follow the guide he left to get back. The tug on him was stronger now. He didn't have long.
His heart stopped (a thought that he might laugh at later) at what was before him.
A female stood amongst the mist, dressed in a black, velvet dress. Raven hair tumbled down her back and violet eyes were turned down to examine her hands. Rhysand's lips dried, his stomach tightening so painfully he thought he might lose it. He never believed he'd see those eyes again.
She wasn't looking at him, only down at her hands that she twisted and turned, marvelling, at something he couldn't see.
He uttered her name for the first time since the day she died, low and hoarse. "Arwen?"
Arwen glanced up, her lips softly parted. Grief painted her face. His heart contorted, seeing her look at him for the first time in two hundred and fifty years. Rhysand marched forward. She took a step back, her expression flashing to panic.
He could bring her back. He knew he could. He wouldn't question how or why she was there. "Arwen," he called again, keeping his voice soft just in case she was struggling to recognise him through the fog.
Arwen looked behind her, perhaps to the same thing that had been calling him before his mate's voice muted it.
Rhysand extended his hand, the same as he had offered Amren. "Arwen." A breath. "Take my hand. Please. Take my hand." She only looked at it, curling her own closer to her chest. The pull was becoming too strong. He was going to return by his own will or by force, and he would bring her with him. Even if it was some allusion of his mind, he would try.
At the last second, feeling the force of his life be torn away from the mysterious realm, he launched forward and grabbed the hands she had been marvelling at seconds earlier. And his existence in the fogged world was wiped.
~
Rhysand felt her first, lying on his chest. If he had the control to smile yet, he would. He brushed a hand down Feyre's back. "If we're all here," he groaned, "either things went very, very wrong or very right." The hoarse chuckle of his general met his ears like birdsong. "You lot will be pleased to know... My power remains my own. No thieving here."
Helion said something in reply, then a more feminine voice snapped back but Rhysand was truly too occupied with the small world around him to pay attention outside of it. He pushed up, lifting Feyre with him as he breathed in the pure sight of herâremembered how her voice called for him.
The smile he managed faded as memories started hitting him like a battering ram. "The Cauldron," he said and made a wave in its direction. "Search the Cauldron."
Mor acted on the order, dashing towards it and delving into its depth with a cry. Azriel moved in to help her, followed by Varian at the sight of who was being pulled from it. Amren, drenched to her bones, flopped out of the Cauldron, vomiting water. Mor thumped her on her back, encouraging it all to flow out.
Rhysand waited, but no one returned to searching within the Cauldron. "Azriel," he called, earning the spymaster's gaze of attention. "Is there anyone else?" He didn't dare say her name aloud. Not yet. Azriel shot him back a look of uncertainty, but drove his arms back into the water and waved them about.
Within seconds, he looked back at Rhysand and shook his head.
"Is there something else?" Feyre asked, a hand placed delicately on his chest. "Someone?"
He couldn't find an answer. He was so sure she was there. Felt her skin on his own.
"What the fuck is that?" Cassian's croaking drawl drew their attention to the space he stared at.
In the midst of them all, a crack appeared. Quite simply, and literally, a crack. It hovered in the air, the silvery cut like a broken mirror. It cracked more, turning air into solid shards. Then, like it was the surface of water, it rippled, each shard moving like a wave as something pushed from the other side.
A form fell through it, breaking the seal. Limp. Pale. But right there in front of him. She lay on the ground, hair splayed out and on her side. The cracks in the realm forged back together, sealing once more.
"Mother above," Helion whispered. "Is thatâ"
Rhysand scrambled to his feet, his eyes set on her but he was beaten to it. Azriel dropped at her side, his faceâpanic, fear, wonder, all of it there, but none so much more than desperation. Cassian stared at them, not daring to speak nor move, nor did Mor or Amren. Feyre rejoined Rhysand's side, clinging to his arm and he was grateful for the anchor. To know that this moment was true.
Azriel gently moved his hand under her head, lifting it from the ground and then her shoulders until her weight lay in his arms. Arwen's head hung lifelessly, eyes closed. Through the stillness, Rhysand strained his ears to hear something from her. Anythingâa heartbeat or breath. Dread had a grip on his heart, squeezing tighter with each second that passed.
Azriel's lips trembled apart. "Arwen?" he whispered. Nothing. He brushed the hair away from her face with more delicacy than Rhysand had ever seen him with.
Rhysand didn't take another step. He knew if there wasn't anything, no sign of life, he would crumple in front of them all. He couldn't let himself be any closer while she lay as lifeless as the day she died, each step toward her a beat of hope he couldn't handle to carry only to be crushed to dust.
He saw that in Azriel as he called her name a third--a fourth time and nothing came of it. Rhys had the distinct realisation then, that he might lose his brother today. The death of his mate had gouged a wound so deep in Azriel that Rhysand still felt the rawness each time he ventured into his spymaster's mind; a place he had come to avoid whenever possible.
Seeing her body again would send that wound bleeding and there would be no bandaging it.
"Azriel--"
Azriel snarled with the viciousness of a feral animal at Helion's approach. Helion backed away, sending an unmet look in Rhysand's direction. Azriel flared his wings around them, shuffling as though his body was urging him to escape.
Suddenly, he unwrapped one arm from her, raising it overhead. Blue energy curled around his hand, drawn and concentrated from his siphon.
He struck his down on her chest.
Rhysand felt the strike as if his own ribs had been pummeled.
Arwen eyes opened.
Rhysand's knees buckled.
Her chest arched high, mouth wide open. Azriel clenched his eyes shut with a shudder and bowed his head, but like everyone else, he couldn't look away for long. She gasped for air, each breath loud and uneven as though she had forgotten how to breathe. Her bare feet kicked at the ground, heels making small trenches as she seemed to fight to keep herself alive.
Azriel whispered to her, so softly that Rhysand couldn't hear the words. He moved with her struggles, not once restraining her movement. Then, she slowed and her eyes fluttered. Rhysand shot forward as her small clutch on consciousness crumbled, but Azriel only held her tighter.
By the time Rhysand stood before them, she lay limp once more, but the steady rise and fall of her chest and the bleeding pink at her cheeks were enough to keep him at ease.
"To repeat," Cassian murmured with an audible gulp, "what the fuck?"
Rhysand dropped to his tattooed knees, in front of family, friends, allies, and foes, and knelt for his sister.
~
Rhysand bore his duty as a High Lord with pride. There was a very short list of things he would ever sacrifice it for. But it pained him that dayâto see to everything he needed to before he could do what he wanted. Cassian and had been hauled off to the healer by Mor which alleviated some of his worry and a constant connection to Azriel's mind kept him going until he could visit her tent.
Arwen's tent was erected next to his and Feyre's, rightfully so as his closest family and a high-ranked member of his court. She did not lose that honour upon her death. Tire darkened his eyes as he pushed open the canvas flap and marched inside. Azriel sat on the chair pulled up next to the cot, chin rested on his folded hands, elbows making pits in his thighs.
"Has she woken again?"
Azriel shook his head, not moving his eyes away from the cot. Rhysand took a long breath, a hard one, and walked closer.
A blanket had been pulled across her body, stopping at her navel. The sight of the beautiful velvet of her dress seemed so unfitting against the remnants of war that surrounded them, but he preferred it, he decided. To see her so untouched by what had happened. Arwen looked to be sleeping, and he supposed that she was. Recovering. Thesan had already seen to her, even if it had taken Rhysand a minute to be convinced to allow it.
He and Thesan had grown to be on neutral terms again, but he had trusted in the safety of the Dawn Court for his sister, and it failed him once before already. The High Lord of Dawn said there was nothing to do for her except wait.
Rhysand hadn't brought himself to lay a hand on her yet. His touch had brought her backâwhat if it sent her away again? It was a fear-driven thought, he knew, but one he struggled to press down. Questions floated around in his head, but he forced them away, knowing there might be answers to them he did not like.
"How is this possible?" Azriel asked, voice scratching. He had been stoic since the moment she fell out of the cracks. "She died, Rhys. I felt it inside of me."
Rhysand tipped his head as he lowered to his knees beside her cot. "I saw her," he answered distantly. "She was there like Amren so I pulled her out."
"She didn't come out of the Cauldron like Amren," he pointed out stiffly, as if he too was battling to grasp it all. "I don't know where she came from."
His questions pushed onto the territory of thoughts Rhysand refused to deal with at that moment, so he didn't reply. Rhysand looked down at the hand resting atop of the navy blanket. Her nails were perfectly kept; clear and unchipped. Seizing some scrap of courage left in him, he reached for it. Something inside of him shuddered as he took her hand, feeling the warmth come from it.
He held it in different ways, seeing what felt most comfortable, most secure when his fingers ran over the thin bands of something on her skin. His brows moved together as he rolled her hand around to peer at her wrist. Small lines, white scars, wrapped around like a thin, coiled rope.
"What is it?"
Rhysand lifted her hand higher, not letting go, but enough for Azriel to see what he did. There hadn't been scars like that on her when she died. He knew because he memorised her. Over the years, he tried to forget but he never could. Azriel gently pried her hand from him so he reached across her body and took her other. The same markings appeared on both.
The canvas flap rippled behind them.
"I told him he needs rest," Feyre groused as Rhysand looked over his shoulder, laying her hand back down.
Cassian, gripping his side, limped forward, ignoring Feyre. Rhysand sighed and beckoned his mate forward, knowing that it would be useless to scold his general now. Feyre sent a final half-hearted glare at Cassian's back before making her way to Rhysand's side.
Cassian stood at the end of the cot, panting either from the journey over or what laid before him, and stared. Examined every part of her to see.
Rhysand took Feyre under his arm. He hadn't explained anything to her yet, mostly because he hadn't thought of it. She hadn't asked questions, but he knew that she understood who lay on the cot in front of them both. Their resemblance was uncanny.
"Why is she still sleeping?" demanded Cassian.
Azriel's cold-cutting eyes sliced toward him. "She's resting."
"As you should be," Rhysand added despite knowing he would not be listened to.
Cassian snarled through a huff. "Amren's awake."
"Amren wasn't dead for two hundred and fifty years," he shot back, patience growing weary as his head pounded. Feyre observed him, tucking hair behind his ear with a soothing whisper of his name. He forced down that surge of frustration and laid his hand over hers. "Feyre, I'd like you to meet my sister. Arwen."
Feyre looked upon the cot with a wonderment that was refreshing for Rhysand to see. Everybody else had looked at her with panic. With uncertainty. Including himself. Feyre cocked her head with a smile. "I think she's prettier than you."
The remark came so out of nowhere that Rhysand couldn't help but laughâthe first one he had given in so long. It felt beautiful as it rose through his chest and sounded throughout the tent. Cassian went to laugh with him but groaned and hissed.
It was Azriel that smiled and said, "She certainly is."
Rhysand settled on one knee beside her cot, ignoring the aches in his bones and the nagging list of responsibilities. He watched for her every breath, listened for every heartbeat, and waited.