A Court of Silver Flames

by Sarah J. Maas

  A small intake of breath from the corner of the room revealed Amren sitting there, her pale face drained of color.

  “She’s losing too much blood, and I can feel the babe’s heart in distress,” Madja announced.

  “What do we do?” Mor asked as Cassian and Azriel went to stand behind Rhys, hands on his shoulders.

  “There is nothing we can do,” Madja said. “Cutting the babe out of her will kill her.”

  “Cutting it out?” Nesta demanded, earning a sharp glare from Rhys.

  Madja ignored her tone. “An incision along her abdomen, even one carefully made, is an enormous risk. It’s never been successful. And even with Feyre’s healing abilities, the blood loss has weakened her—”

  “Do it,” Feyre managed to say, the words weighted with pain.

  “Feyre,” Rhys objected.

  “The babe likely won’t survive,” Madja said, voice gentle but no-nonsense. “It’s too small yet. We risk both of you.”

  “All of you,” Cassian breathed, eyes on Rhys.

  “Do it,” Feyre said, and her voice was that of the High Lady. No fear. Only determination for the life of the babe within her. Feyre looked up at Rhys. “We have to.”

  The High Lord nodded slowly, eyes lined with silver.

  A hand slid into Nesta’s, and she found Elain there, shaking and wide-eyed. Nesta squeezed her sister’s fingers. Together, they approached the other side of the bed.

  And when Elain began praying to the Fae’s foreign gods, to their Mother, Nesta bowed her head, too.

  Feyre was dying. The babe was dying.

  And Rhys would die with them.

  But Cassian knew it wasn’t fear of his own death that had his brother trembling. Cassian’s hand tightened on Rhys’s shoulder. Night-flecked power leaked from his High Lord, trying to heal Feyre, just as Madja’s was, but the blood kept pouring out, faster than any power could stifle.

  How had it come to this? A bargain made through love between two mates would now end in three lives lost.

  Cassian’s body drifted somewhere far away as Madja got off the bed, then returned with a set of knives and tools, blankets and towels.

  “Go into her mind to take the pain away,” Madja said to Rhys, who blinked in confirmation, then cursed, as if scolding himself for not thinking of it sooner. Cassian looked across the bed, to where Elain was holding Feyre’s other hand, and Nesta held Elain’s.

  Rhys said to his mate, “Feyre darling—”

  “No good-byes,” Feyre panted. “No good-byes, Rhys.”

  Whatever Rhys did for the pain had her eyes closing. And Cassian’s mind went wholly silent and blank as Madja pulled up Feyre’s shift, her knives flashing.

  There was no sound when the tiny, winged babe emerged. When Mor stood there, blankets in hand, and took the unmoving boy from Madja’s bloody hands.

  But Rhys was crying, and tears began pouring down Mor’s face as she gazed at the silent babe in her arms.

  And then Madja swore, and Rhys—

  Rhys began screaming.

  Cassian knew, as Rhys lunged for Feyre on the bed, what was about to happen.

  Yet no force in the world could stop it.

  The world slowed. Went cold.

  There was the silent, too-small babe in Mor’s arms.

  There was Feyre, sliced open and bleeding out on the bed.

  There was Rhysand screaming, as if his soul were being shredded, but Cassian and Azriel were there, hauling him away from the bed as Madja tried to save Feyre—

  But Death hovered nearby. Nesta felt it, saw it, a shadow thicker and more permanent than any of Azriel’s. Elain sobbed, squeezing Feyre’s hand, pleading with her to hold on, and Nesta stood in the midst of it, Death swirling around her, and there was nothing, nothing, nothing to be done as Feyre’s breathing thinned, as Madja began shouting at her to fight it—

  Feyre.

  Feyre, who had gone into the woods for them. Who had saved them so many times.

  Feyre. Her sister.

  Death lurked near Feyre and her mate, a beast waiting to pounce, to devour them both. Nesta pulled her hand free of Elain’s. Stepped back.

  She closed her eyes, and opened that place in her soul that had torn free on Ramiel.

  Cassian could barely restrain Rhys, even with all seven Siphons blaring along with Azriel’s.

  He should let Rhys go to her. If they were both about to die, he should let Rhys go to his mate. Be with her in these last seconds, last breaths—

  Golden light flickered on the other side of the room, and Amren gasped. Cassian’s heart curdled in horror.

  Nesta no longer hovered by the side of the bed. She now stood a few feet away.

  She wore the Mask. She’d placed the Crown atop her head. And she cradled the Harp in her arms.

  No one had ever wielded all three and lived. No one could contain their power, control them—

  Nesta’s eyes blazed with silver fire behind the Mask. And Cassian knew the being that looked out was neither Fae nor human nor anything that walked the lands of this world.

  She began moving toward the bed, and Rhys surged for her.

  Nesta held up a hand, and Rhys went still. As still as Cassian had gone under the Crown’s control.

  Feyre’s chest lifted, a death-rattle whispering from her white lips, and Cassian could do nothing but watch as Nesta’s fingers, still bloody and filthy from the Rite, drifted to the final string of the Harp. The twenty-sixth string.

  And plucked it.

  CHAPTER

  77

  It was Time.

  The twenty-sixth string on the Harp was Time itself, and Nesta stopped it as Feyre took her last breath.

  Lanthys had said as much. That even Death bowed to the final string. That time was of no consequence to the Harp.

  The string made no sound as Nesta plucked it. Only robbed the world of it.

  And the death that Nesta felt around her sister, around Rhysand, around the babe in Mor’s arms—she bade the Mask to halt that, too. Hold it at bay.

  In the beginning

  And in the end

  There was Darkness

  And nothing more

  A soft, familiar voice whispered the words. As they had been whispered to her long ago. As it had warned her in Oorid’s darkness. A lovely, kind female voice, sage and warm, which had been waiting for her all this time.

  The room was a tableau of frozen movement, of shocked and horrified faces twisted toward her, toward Feyre and all that blood. Nesta walked through it. Past Rhys’s screaming, straining body, his face the portrait of despair and terror and pain; past grave-faced Azriel; past Cassian, gritting his teeth as he held Rhys back. Past Amren, whose gray eyes were fixed on where Nesta had been, pure dread and something like awe in her face.

  Past Mor and that too-small bundle in her arms, Elain at her side, frozen in her crying.

  Nesta walked through it all, through Time. To her sister.

  Do you see how it might be? that soft female voice whispered, staring out through her eyes. What you might do?

  I feel nothing, Nesta said silently. Only the sight of Feyre on Death’s threshold kept her from forgetting why she was here, what she needed to do.

  Is that not what you wanted? To feel nothing?

  I thought that was what I wanted. Nesta surveyed the people around her. Her sisters. Cassian, who had been willing to plunge a dagger into his heart rather than harm her. But no longer. When the female voice didn’t press her, Nesta went on, I want to feel everything. I want to embrace it with my whole heart.

  Even the things that hurt and hunt you? Only curiosity laced the question.

  Nesta allowed herself a breath to ponder it, stilling her mind once more. We need those things in order to appreciate the good. Some days might be more difficult than others, but … I want to experience all of it, live through all of it. With them.

  That wise, soft voice whispered, So live, Nesta Archeron.

  Nesta nee
ded nothing more as she took her sister’s limp hand and knelt upon the floor. Set down the Harp beside her, its silent note still reverberating, holding Time firm in its grasp.

  She didn’t know what she could offer, beyond this.

  Stroking Feyre’s cold hand, Nesta spoke into the timeless, frozen room, “You loved me when no one else would. You never stopped. Even when I didn’t deserve it, you loved me, and fought for me, and …” Nesta looked at Feyre’s face, Death a breath away from claiming it. She didn’t stop the tears that ran down her cheeks as she squeezed Feyre’s slender hand tighter. “I love you, Feyre.”

  She had never said the words aloud. To anyone.

  “I love you,” Nesta whispered again. “I love you.”

  And when the Harp’s final string wavered, like a whisper of thunder on the air, Nesta covered Feyre’s body with her own. Time would resume soon. She did not have much longer.

  She reached inward, toward the power that had made deathless monsters tremble and wicked kings fall to their knees, but … she didn’t know how to use it. Death flowed through her veins, yet she did not have the knowledge to master it.

  One wrong move, one mistake, and Feyre would be lost.

  So Nesta held her sister tightly, with Time halted around them, and she whispered, “If you show me how to save her, you can have it back.”

  The world paused. Worlds beyond their own paused.

  Nesta buried her face in the cold sweat of Feyre’s neck. She opened that place within herself, and said to the Mother, to the Cauldron, “I’ll give back what I took from you. Just show me how to save them—her and Rhysand and the baby.” Rhysand—her brother. That’s what he was, wasn’t he? Her brother, who had offered her kindness even when she knew he wanted to throttle her. And she him. And the baby … her nephew. Blood of her blood. She would save him, save them, even if it took everything. “Show me,” she pleaded.

  No one answered. The Harp stopped its echoing.

  As Time resumed, noise and movement roaring into the room, Nesta whispered to the Cauldron, her promise rising above the din, “I’ll give it all back.”

  And a soft, invisible hand brushed her cheek in answer.

  Cassian blinked, and Nesta had gone from one side of the room to the bed. Had plucked the Harp, and now lay half-atop Feyre, whispering. No silver fire burned in her eyes. Not a cold ember. No sign of the being who’d peered out through her stare, either.

  Rhys lunged against his hold, but Amren stepped to their side and hissed, “Listen.”

  Nesta whispered, “I give it all back.” Her shoulders heaved as she wept.

  Rhys began shaking his head, his power a palpable, rising wave that could destroy them all, destroy the world if it meant Feyre was no longer in it, even if he only had seconds to live beyond her, but Amren grabbed the nape of his neck. Her red nails dug into his golden skin. “Look at the light.”

  Iridescent light began flowing from Nesta’s body. Into Feyre.

  Nesta kept holding her sister. “I give it back. I give it back. I give it back.”

  Even Rhys stopped fighting. No one moved.

  The light glimmered down Feyre’s arms. Her legs. It suffused her ashen face. Began to fill the room.

  Cassian’s Siphons guttered, as if sensing a power far beyond his own, beyond any of theirs.

  Tendrils of light drifted between the sisters. And one, delicate and loving, floated toward Mor. To the bundle in her arms, setting the silent babe within glowing bright as the sun.

  And Nesta kept whispering, “I give it back. I give it all back.”

  The iridescence filled her, filled Feyre, filled the bundle in Mor’s arms, lighting his friend’s face so the shock on it was etched in stark relief.

  “I give it back,” Nesta said, one more time, and Mask and Crown tumbled from her head. The light exploded, blinding and warm, a wind sweeping past them, as if gathering every shard of itself out of the room.

  And as it faded, dark ink splashed upon Nesta’s back, visible through her half-shredded shirt, as if it were a wave crashing upon the shore.

  A bargain. With the Cauldron itself.

  Yet Cassian could have sworn a luminescent, gentle hand prevented the light from leaving her body altogether.

  Cassian didn’t fight Rhys this time as he raced to the bed. To where Feyre lay, flush with color. No more blood spilling between her legs. Feyre opened her eyes.

  She blinked at Rhys, and then turned to Nesta.

  “I love you, too,” Feyre whispered to her sister, and smiled. Nesta didn’t stop her sob as she launched herself onto Feyre and embraced her.

  But the gesture was short-lived, hardly the length of a blink before a healthy wail went up from the other side of the room, and—

  Mor stammered, weeping, and the babe she brought to the bed was not the small, still thing she’d been holding, but a full-term winged boy. His thick cap of dark hair lay plastered to his head as he mewled for his mother.

  Feyre began sobbing then, too, taking her son from Mor, hardly noticing Madja suddenly leaning between her legs, inspecting what was there—the healing. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you’d developed an Illyrian’s anatomy,” the healer muttered, but no one was listening.

  Not as Rhys put his arm around Feyre and together they peered at the boy—their son. Together, they wept, and laughed, and when Madja said, “Let him feed,” Feyre obeyed, wonder in her eyes as she brought him to her breast, now swollen with milk.

  But Rhys watched in awe for all of a moment before he whirled to Nesta, who had slid off the bed and now stood beside the Mask. Behind her, the Crown and the Harp lay strewn on the floor. Cassian held his breath as the two of them surveyed each other.

  Then Rhys fell to his knees and took Nesta’s hands in his, pressing his mouth to her fingers. “Thank you,” he wept, head bowed. Cassian knew it wasn’t in gratitude for Rhys’s own life that he knelt upon the sacred tattoos inked upon his knees.

  Nesta dropped to the carpet. Lifted Rhys’s face in her hands, studied what lay in it. Then she threw her arms around the High Lord of the Night Court and held him tightly.

  CHAPTER

  78

  Gwyn and Emerie were waiting in one of the parlors overlooking the river, healed but still in their torn, bloody clothes. Steam curled off the cups set on the low table before them.

  Emerie said thickly as Nesta stopped before their couch, “Two wraiths brought us some tea—”

  But Gwyn cut her off, face blazing as she hissed at Nesta, “I should never forgive you.”

  Nesta just leaped onto the couch, hugging Gwyn tightly. She reached out an arm for Emerie, who joined their embrace. “We can talk forgiveness another day,” Nesta said through her tears, settling between them. “You won the entire damn thing.”

  “Thanks to you,” Emerie said.

  “I got a crown of my own, don’t worry,” Nesta said, even as she knew Mor was now winnowing all three objects of the Trove back to the place Nesta had taken them from. She’d summoned them, working around Helion’s spells. No spell could ever keep them from her—Briallyn had spoken true about that.

  “Who healed you?” Nesta pulled back to survey them. “How are you even here?”

  “The stone,” Emerie explained, features soft with wonder. “It healed every wound on us the moment it brought us out of the Rite. We arrived here, of all places.”

  “I think it knew where we were needed most,” Gwyn said quietly, and Nesta smiled.

  Her smile faded, however, as she asked Emerie, “Will your family punish you for what happened to Bellius?” If they so much as thought about doing so, Nesta would pay them a little visit. With the Mask, the Harp, and the Crown.

  Which was why the Trove should be kept far away from her.

  Emerie shrugged a shoulder. “Deaths happen in the Rite. He fell in combat when one of his fellow warriors turned on him during the hike up Ramiel’s slopes. That’s as much as they need to know.” Her eyes twinkled.

/>   Nesta had a feeling that the truth of what had occurred on that mountain would remain only with them—and the innermost circle of Feyre’s court. Cassian had clearly been brought into the Rite against his will. Hopefully no one would ever challenge that fact.

  Gwyn laughed hoarsely. “The Illyrians are going to be furious about our winning, you know. Especially because I have no intention of being called Carynthian. I’m content with being a Valkyrie.”

  “Oh, they’ll be in hysterics for decades,” Emerie agreed, grinning.

  Nesta grinned back, slinging her arms around her friends again and sinking into the deep cushions of the couch. “I can’t wait to see it.”

  And for the first time, with these two friends beside her, with her mate waiting for her … it was true.

  Nesta couldn’t wait to see the future that unfolded. All of it.

  The baby, whom Rhys and Feyre named Nyx, was as beautiful as anyone could ever dream a baby to be. Dark hair, with blue eyes that already glowed with his father’s and mother’s starlight, offsetting the light tan of his skin.

  And then there were the tiny wings, which Cassian had never realized were so delicate, so perfect, until he touched their velvet softness. The claws atop them would grow in much later, along with the ability to use the wings themselves, but … He stared at the bundle in his arms, his heart full to bursting, and said to where Feyre and Rhys sat on the bed, neatly remade with clean linens, “You have no idea how much trouble this one is going to get into.”

  Feyre chuckled. “Those pretty eyes will be to blame, I’m sure.”

  Rhys, still rattled and pale, just smiled.

  The door opened, and then Nesta was there, still in her torn, bloody, stolen clothes. She’d held the babe already, and Cassian’s chest had swelled, aching, to see her smiling down at Nyx.

  But now Nesta’s eyes drifted to Cassian, and he saw the quiet request in them.

  He silently handed Nyx to Azriel, who winced at the transfer of this most delicate little creature to his scarred hands, and followed Nesta out the door, into the hall, and down the stairs. They didn’t speak until they stood on the back lawn of the house, overlooking the river once again awakening in the spring sunshine.