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whyisaravenlike-awritingdesk · 3 months

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Begged & Borrowed Time (xxvii, ao3)

(Chapter twenty-seven: In the House of Wind, Nesta has a run in with not one, but two members of the Inner Circle.) (Prologue // previous chapter // next chapter)

“Here. I brought these for you.”

Mor’s bracelets clinked, chiming like silver bells as she held out her hands.

A small pile of folded fabric lay balanced evenly in her palms, like some kind of offering, and as she thrust her hands forwards, her voice was bright, a melodic peal through the hushed silence of Elain’s room. Deep reds and bright pinks shone in the sunlight that streamed through the wide windows, sliding over the thin silks and satins that made something deep inside Nesta’s chest begin to crumble.

Mor had brought them clothes.

No matter that it was a gift Nesta did not want, or that it came a day too late to matter.

A smile graced Mor’s lovely face, and if the corners of her crimson mouth faltered - if the sincerity of that smile wavered for just a heartbeat - then she masked it quickly, the gold of her earrings gleaming in the harsh light as her head tilted a fraction— the only indication that the blonde was losing her patience.

But what did Nesta care?

Where had Rhysand’s cousin been yesterday, she wondered, when Nesta had woken alone? Where had she been then, when Nesta had to piece together the small fragments of herself that remained, barely able to stomach rising from bed long enough to find her sister?

Too late— Mor had come too late, and Nesta didn’t have it in her to feign appreciation.

She had barely left Elain’s bedside since waking, and seated at the foot of that bed now, she didn’t have it in her speak or move either. She only eyed that pile of fabric with a kind of disdain she knew flickered plainly across her face.

The silence deepened, interrupted only by the whisper of the wind from beyond the windows, but Nesta still didn’t - couldn’t - bother to break it. The blonde across from her let out a barely discernible huff; a soft exhale sharpened by displeasure.

Didn’t she understand, Nesta thought as she looked once more at that pile of borrowed clothes, how much strength it took to speak? How much energy it would take - energy she did not have - to explain that to wear the dresses Mor offered would be like being thrown in the Cauldron all over again, another thread of her humanity severed?

The satin seemed to shimmer, and Nesta pressed her lips together, feeling ire rising in her chest.

Just clothes— they were just clothes. And yet her throat tightened as she thought of the plunging necklines and slits to the thigh that Mor seemed to be so fond of. Whatever Nesta had left, whatever scraps remained of the life she had dared, once, to call her own… they would shatter with those clothes. With the acknowledgement that this was her place now, resolutely above the wall. She couldn’t escape the feeling that the moment she donned one of those dresses, it would be recognition, on her part, that the Cauldron had broken her apart just to fit her into a Night Court mould.

Slowly, a frown crept into Mor’s brow. The silence grew stilted and awkward, and her brown eyes flickered, like she couldn’t understand why Nesta wasn’t lurching forwards to snatch her proffered gifts. Those eyes turned flat, shoving the pile closer, and when she spoke, her words had an edge as sharp as any blade.

“I thought you might be tired of wearing the old nightgowns the House keeps in the wardrobes,” she said tightly, nodding pointedly to the nightgown Nesta had, indeed, found in the wardrobe.

She hadn’t paused to wonder where the nightwear came from. She had merely opened the doors to the wardrobe in the corner of the room she had awoken in and found it empty, save for a pile of nightgowns on a low shelf. In shades of silver and blue, with long sleeves and a neckline that was flattering but not daring in the least, they were much more palatable to her than the crimson Mor offered now.

Still, Nesta said nothing.

Mor’s smile fell away entirely. Her lips pursed, the bracelets at her wrists clattering as she dropped the pile of clothes onto the foot of Elain’s bed.

Nesta only lifted her head to meet the blonde’s unwavering stare as Mor crossed her arms over her chest.

There had been no gentle greeting from Rhysand’s cousin. No acknowledgement that Nesta’s life had been taken and broken and bent out of shape. No, Mor had swept in and looked at Nesta sitting on the edge of Elain’s bed, and chirped a bright hello, like her joy wasn’t an assault to every one of Nesta’s newfound senses. In what was probably some attempt at lightening the atmosphere, Mor had swept irreverently into the room and held out those clothes, hardly noticing that what she offered was neither gift nor kindness.

And at some point it had turned into a battle of wills that Nesta did not have the strength for, one that Mor had already resolved to win. Nesta saw it in the way the blonde’s spine stiffened as she stood there, waiting for Nesta to do something, to say something.

She would not leave.

So Nesta relented.

Still holding tight to her silence, her eyes fell to the pile lying on the bed beside her. She flicked her gaze back to Rhysand’s cousin, who gave her a small, terse nod as a menial smile forced its way back onto those painted red lips. She dropped her folded arms and clasped her hands together, rings clinking against one another as she interlinked her fingers.

Lifting the first dress gingerly from the pile, Nesta felt her heart sink, even as not a single lick of surprise coursed through her. The neckline was deep and plunging, an arrow that would cut right down the centre of her chest. The fabric clung to her fingers, and every sense of mortal propriety seemed to shudder as she held that slip of deep red fabric. She might have felt colour rise to her cheeks, if she hadn’t been so entirely hollowed out. Instead, she looked blandly at the dress dangling in her hand.

“Is this Night Court fashion, then?”

Her voice was hoarse, as if it had gone unused for a century, and it was more flat than it had ever been before, like there was simply no emotion, no warmth, left within her.

Mor’s smile faltered. “Yes.”

Nesta blinked— like the blonde’s false happiness was an affront in this room, this place, where Elain still slept and where Nesta was trying hard to mend the cracks in her broken soul.

“I don’t want your handmedowns,” she said curtly, letting the dress fall back into the pile at the foot of her sister’s bed. The fabric pooled there, silken.

Mor only sighed heavily, all pretence falling away as she threw up her hands in exasperation.

“None of us have the time to go shopping for you,” she said flatly. “Do you even understand what happened in that throne room? How much shit we are trying to deal with—“ She cut herself off with a hiss, shaking her head. She took a single steadying breath, and tucked her blonde hair behind one arched ear. “Perhaps you should take what we can spare and be grateful.”

“Grateful,” Nesta echoed.

Mor flinched, as though realising too late how poor her words were. Her eyes dropped to the carpet beneath her feet, some kind of regret flickering swiftly across her face. But if Nesta expected an apology to drop from those painted lips…

Mor only let her face soften before looking to the bed, to Elain lying still in the centre, covered in blankets as she slept.

In all the hours that had passed since Nesta had opened her eyes yesterday, Elain had woken only once, and her gaze had been so flat that icy terror had swept down Nesta’s spine. Her sister had made no move to rise from that bed, only lay there, staring at the ceiling as a single tear slipped slowly down her cheek. Nesta had brushed her shoulder, asked her ten, twenty different questions that went ignored before she began pleading with Elain instead, imploring her to say something, anything.

Elain hadn’t even looked at her, as though she were so divorced from this new reality that sound and light and feeling meant nothing to her.

Mor scanned Elain’s face now, noting the bloodless cheeks. “How is she?”

“Sleeping,” Nesta answered tightly. Her tone added an obviously that went unspoken.

Mor didn’t answer, and in the silence that followed, Nesta watched the blonde bite her tongue so hard it was a wonder she didn’t draw blood. Her eyes drifted to the clock on a low table against the wall, and Nesta knew that she was wondering if she had done enough to justify leaving yet— if she could later say, hand on heart, that she had turned up and tried her best to help.

Never mind that all she’d done was stride into Elain’s bedroom and offer Nesta a pile of dresses she could never wear.

A moment passed, and with it Mor apparently decided that, yes, she had fulfilled enough of whatever duty it was that had brought her here in the first place.

“If you need anything,” she said as she straightened her spine, brushing a hand down her front as she looked towards the door, “ask the House. It will make food for you.”

Nesta made herself nod. She remembered, once, how Cassian had told her the House had magic. How it might bring them breakfast in bed.

The memory hurt, now. Scorched that part of her she was trying and failing to heal.

Cassian.

His name clanged through her, echoing through the hollow space where her heart lay cracked behind her ribs. It bleated, a sharp and insistent pang that had her feeling weak, like if she so much as tried to stand, she would crumble.

And even though Nesta wanted Mor gone - unable to stand the silent judgement in her eyes - as the blonde turned away, her hand closing around the door handle, Nesta rose from the bed so quickly her head spun. Her knees shook, and she gripped the curving iron rail at the foot of the bed, fingers closing tight, because it was the only thing keeping her standing.

She inhaled once— a quick, sharp breath to steady herself for the question she knew she needed to ask, and for the answer she was already dreading.

“Wait,” she said, her voice rough. “Where is he?”

Mor stilled, her hand falling away from the door. Nesta’s brow furrowed, weighed with anguish.

“How is he?”

She didn’t specify who. Didn’t think she’d need to.

A beat passed, strained and heavy, and Nesta’s heart thundered as Mor glanced over her shoulder.

“He lives,” Mor said tightly, though her tone added an unspoken no thanks to you, and Nesta didn’t fail to notice that she’d avoided the first question— as though, for whatever reason, the Morrigan did not like the claim Nesta had on Cassian, nor the claim he had on her.

But she didn’t care, not as relief swarmed in her veins, some weight lifted from her shoulders like a shaft of brilliant sunlight through the darkest of storm clouds. He was alive— at the very least, he was alive. Her heart seemed to skip a beat or two, but before she could ask again where the general - her general - had been taken, Mor had turned away, slipping through the door and closing it firmly behind her.

She was gone, and in her wake, the pile of dresses remained at the foot of Elain’s bed, untouched.

***

A firm hand on her shoulder awoke her the next day.

Nesta jerked awake at the touch, dragged roughly from the uneasy sleep that had plagued her since the sun had set.

Cassian. She had been dreaming of Cassian, and as the dream faded - taking with it the sound of his agonised screams and the feel of his blood slipping through her fingers - Nesta dared to hope, for one foolish moment, that she would open her eyes and find that the fingers curling around her shoulder now were his.

But—

“Nesta.”

She started, heart hammering as those cold fingers drew away.

Cassian’s hands had never been cold.

Never, not even that night in the rain, when they had both of them been soaked through.

The touch retreated, Nesta’s heart sinking to new depths as awareness slowly began to filter back in. She heard a clipped apology, words that were distant and strained. Somehow she had fallen asleep last night kneeling by Elain’s bed, her arms folded on the mattress, her cheek resting on top. Those dresses still lay in a crumpled pile at the foot of the bed, and, turning, Nesta found not Cassian but Rhysand standing above her.

He looked like hell.

She had never seen the High Lord looking even slightly ruffled before, not even in Hybern’s throne room when everything had gone south. No, even then he had radiated some kind of flawless, arrogant grace.

But all of that was gone now.

He looked tired, worn. His eyes were dark, no stars there at all, and his usually immaculate hair looked as though he’d spent too many sleepless nights running his fingers through it. Tension bracketed his mouth, and when he looked at her, he did not smile. He was drawn and pale, like he had been cut off from half of himself.

Do you understand what happened in that throne room, Mor had spat yesterday. How much shit we are trying to deal with.

Whatever it was, it had Rhysand looking like his entire world had ceased to spin, and as Nesta looked at her sister’s mate, she had to wonder what exactly Feyre had done to allow their escape from that castle.

Somehow, she didn’t think Feyre had made it back to the Night Court yet.

But before she could demand answers, Rhysand clicked his fingers, and from thin air another bundle of fabric appeared, one he balanced in one hand.

“Clothes,” he explained as Nesta rose from her spot by the bed and straightened the clean nightgown she had pulled from the wardrobe last night. “Mor said you didn’t like the others.”

His eyes alighted on the dresses in question, still in the exact same place Mor had left them. Elain had lain so still she hadn’t disturbed them, and Nesta had already resolved not to touch them again.

Rhysand held out the replacements, and though every single nerve she had told her to dig in her heels and resist, there was something about him - something that seemed half as broken as she felt - that had her taking the pile he offered. He dipped his chin in a nod as she sank onto the mattress by Elain’s hip, resting the bundle in her lap. There was no silk this time at least. Thin cotton met her instead, and something gauzy and sheer.

Rhysand folded his hands behind his back, eyes flicking to Elain as Nesta silently unfolded the dress that lay at the top of that pile. Except…

It wasn’t a dress.

Loose pants unfolded before her - she’d never worn pants in her life - with cuffed ankles, and a low waist that made her shudder. Her mouth turned dry, a sigh leaving her as she plucked up a cropped top with sheer sleeves that would leave the skin at her midriff entirely bare.

Gods, this was even worse than the dresses.

She let the top flutter to her lap, half of her bucking against it, half of her wanting to weep.

She didn’t want this. Didn’t want any of this.

Wordless, broken, she let the remainder of the clothes Rhysand had brought them lie before her, untouched.

And at her lack of thanks, her lack of gratitude, Rhysand’s face tightened further still.

No, Nesta would not wear these clothes either.

She’d sooner stay in nightgowns. There were, at least, a generous pile of those folded in the wardrobe in the other room, a pile that seemed to constantly replenish itself. Like the House itself knew better than to give her any of the Night Court fashion it surely kept on hand.

Rhysand’s disapproval radiated from him in waves, his hand tightening into a fist.

She wanted to laugh— might have, had she not felt so empty.

He was unimpressed with her.

Never mind that she had no idea what had happened in the days since Hybern—what had happened to Cassian, or Feyre, or Azriel. Never mind that she and Elain had just been left up here, not knowing where they were or how they’d gotten there. Nesta had been left to figure it out herself in those first few hours after waking, and still he had the nerve to look at her like that?

Heat built in her veins, a pressure that made her fingers twitch.

Rhysand’s eyes widened as he tilted his head and looked at her, a spark in the violet at last. She sensed something— some skittering across her skin, like she could feel his magic searching, assessing her.

“What happened?” he breathed, leaning forwards. “That night— what happened.”

It wasn’t a question exactly— wasn’t voiced with any sort of gentleness. His voice was quiet, but it carried with it a dominance that said he expected to be answered. Nesta bristled.

Apathy warred with rage; stunning numbness competing with an anger so strong it began to burn.

“They took us,” she answered bluntly.

“Yes, but…” He trailed off, sighing as Nesta scowled, folding her arms over her chest. “What was it like in there? Inside the Cauldron?”

She didn’t answer.

Nothing in the world could make her answer that question to satisfy his curiosity.

Nothing in the whole. fucking. world.

There were flashes in her memory— the cold and crushing dark, a whisper through the void as her bones were shattered and remade. The Cauldron was a crucible that had forged her into something else, something other, and as something in her chest began to pound, that new ache flared once more in her fingertips. Something cold swept through her, a shadow of the burning the Cauldron had forced through her. Whatever it was, Rhysand sensed it.

His eyes widened a little with something that might have been concern, but she wasn't fool enough to think it was for her. No, it seemed unnervingly like concern for what she might do.

What had he glimpsed in her that had him studying her so intently now?

She had felt the fire burning under her skin; what had it etched across her face?

She thought of the silver in her eyes she’d glimpsed in the mirror. Was that what the High Lord saw now?

“Really, Nesta. What happened in there?” His eyes scanned her again, wary. “What were you given?”

Nesta clenched her fists, praying it might bank the heat in her veins. “I don’t know what you mean.”

He studied her again for another long minute before he drew back, eyes sliding over her as he took a step away, shaking his head and letting his raven hair brush his forehead almost haphazardly. The shadows beneath his eyes seemed to deepen.

But Nesta was done answering questions— done being the one left in the dark. As the heat at her fingers began to fade, the fire in her chest dimming, she took a step closer and met his dark-eyed gaze.

“Feyre,” she said firmly, watching as her sister’s name spoken aloud made the High Lord close his eyes. Like he didn’t have the strength to bear it. “Where is she?”

Rhysand swallowed. Nesta tracked the movement of his throat, watched him slowly open those violet eyes, an ocean of anguish there in place of the usual stars.

“Spring,” he said, his voice detached. “She went to Spring. To give us the chance we needed to get out.” He paused, swallowed once more, like the words were shards of glass, tearing his throat. “She’ll come home once she’s learned everything she needs to about Hybern’s plans.”

Stone faced, Nesta looked at the man her sister had bound herself to.

“She left Tamlin— because of what he did to her, and now you’re happy to leave her there? Alone?”

“Happy?” Rhysand sneered, lip curling back over his teeth. “Do I look happy to you?”

No. No, he didn’t.

So Nesta merely huffed, clenching her jaw as she shut it tight.

She did not remember much from those last moments in that throne room. She had been on her knees, staring across the space at Cassian and the blood that had pooled around him. She had been gripping Elain’s hand so hard that, had they not just been thrown into the Cauldron and robbed of their humanity, she might have broken bones. Words and sound and speech had been lost to her. She hadn’t paid attention to anything as the wards had shattered.

“And Cassian?” she demanded next, forcing her voice to steady as she lifted her chin. Still, it trembled. “Where is he?”

Rhysand was silent a moment, as though, like Mor, he too would rather leave her question unanswered.

That cold heat threatened to gather once more in her palms, but Nesta ignored it, forced it down as she looked, unblinking, at the High Lord. He made no move to speak, instead looked her up and down with those starless, violet eyes. But when his gaze reached her chest…

Something there pulled sharply, so hard it almost stole her breath. Rhysand might have looked like hell, but he wasn’t the only one. Nesta felt it too, every part of her begging to seek out the only one who had ever really bothered to see her for who she was.

Cassian.

Her heartbeat stuttered, that tugging making its beat uneven, and she thought Rhysand might have heard it because he lowered his gaze and nodded once, like he knew what it was, too, to feel that insistent beat.

“He’s healing,” he answered at last.

“Where.”

He sighed. “Here.” He waved to the ceiling. “His room is a floor above.”

Nesta nodded curtly, but unlike the day before, there was no flood of relief waiting to engulf her. Something about the darkness in Rhysand’s eyes, the concern there he couldn’t mask as he said Cassian was still healing…

All this time, he had been just a floor above her, and yet he had not come to find her. In her heart she knew that if Cassian were able, he would have been at her bedside already. Would have stopped her from waking alone. That he hadn’t was enough to have dread raking its icy fingers down her spine, clawing at the composure she fought so hard to keep intact.

“He’s been sleeping for a few days,” Rhysand added carefully.

“Is that normal?”

“When the body needs to heal wounds as severe as his, yes.”

Severe. How severe?

Nesta thought she might have stopped breathing altogether. Her chest felt tight, like the air was too thin and her lungs wouldn’t work— but Rhysand’s eyes softened a fraction, like he understood, at last, how it felt to feel so utterly at sea. His gaze didn’t turn warm - far from it - but there was something like begrudging respect there, an unwilling admission that Nesta really did mean something to the warrior sleeping above.

And as Rhysand turned to leave, halting just before he reached the door, he turned his head and murmured,

“Third door on the left.”

***

It was hours before she had the strength to leave that room.

To walk that hallway, climb those stairs.

After all - some small voice whispered, one that sounded disconcertingly like her mother - what if he didn’t even want her there, at his side as he slept? After all, it was in defence of her and Elain that Cassian had surely lost the soldiers he had sent to guard their father’s manor. It was in defence of her that he had spat at the king of Hybern and been injured so greatly he still hadn’t woken. What if his wings were so permanently damaged he would never fly again? How could he bear to face her?

Nesta had done her best to ignore it, to shove that voice down as far as it would go, but as she stood before that third door, innocuous and plain, it surged again, and it took Nesta more than a moment to find the will to turn the handle.

Because it was more than just Cassian— more than whether or not he could stand to see her.

She was different now, too, that voice whispered.

So entirely different from who she had been before. Mama had always said that nobody liked her sharp edges, that no man could ever withstand them, and though Nesta had never once dulled herself around Cassian… the Cauldron had made those edges even sharper, and somehow she wasn’t so sure now that Cassian could endure it.

Endure her.

She wasn’t even sure she could.

Beside her, set into the wall to light the dim hallway, a little orb of light glowed in a glass bowl, flaring slightly in a soft pulse that seemed to be encouraging, somehow. As if the House itself sensed her hesitation and urged her forwards.

She paused, shaking her head and bracing a palm flat against the wood of the door.

The little light flared once more, brighter now.

The message was clear enough— so before she could think twice about it, Nesta turned that handle and opened that door.

She was met instantly by the cloying smell of aniseed and healing liniment, and straight ahead on a small table beneath the window lay myriad jars and containers that she assumed contained ointments and antiseptics, all sorts of healing potions. Beside them was a roll of crisp white bandages.

But Nesta’s attention glanced off of that table; slid away from it like water sliding from a roof.

It went, instead, to him.

Like a moth to a flame, her eyes found him. In the almighty bed sitting directly across from the windows - like when he had arranged this room, he had wanted the sky to be the first thing he saw each morning - he lay there, motionless, one hand resting on his chest and wings spread wide on either side of him, wrapped in bandages and held together with splints.

And whatever was left of her broken heart…

It cracked all over again as a splintered gasp escaped her, one borne of horror and grief and desolation.

It was worse than she had imagined— so much worse.

The bottom half of his wings were encased entirely by bandages, and though somebody had cleaned the blood from his hands, his face, Nesta saw the ghost of it still, saw his fingers slipping in puddles of it as he dragged himself along that stone floor. Her heart thundered behind her ribs, rioting as though the sight of him like this wounded her as deeply as the Cauldron itself.

She swallowed past the lump in her throat, and as she lingered there, too afraid to step any closer, those wings twitched— as if he sensed her there, somehow. The talons crowning the tips glinted, the bandages whispering against the sheets, and a soft, pained groan slipped between his lips, like even that small movement had cost him dearly.

“Fool,” she whispered, drifting to his side. His wings settled, ceasing their quivering.

But he didn’t wake. No matter how much Nesta longed to see those hazel eyes, to hear his voice, he didn’t wake.

Night had fallen completely by now, and in the soft glow of the light on his bedside table, every scar he had was thrown into terrible, stark relief. His bare chest rose and fell evenly, but there was a hitch to his breath and a rasp in his throat, and the light didn’t just fall on that golden-brown skin scattered with old scars. It illuminated the pile of painkillers and sleeping aids that lay on his bedside too.

The king had done this.

Had broken her and had broken Cassian too, and one day, Nesta swore quietly in the silence and seclusion of Cassian’s sickroom, she would make him regret everything that happened in that damned throne room.

Cassian shifted again, as if he really could sense her there despite his unconsciousness. On the back of his hand, his siphon began to glow.

Instinctively, Nesta reached out and swept back the hair that had fallen across his brow, letting her fingers brush across his forehead. The crease there smoothed beneath her touch, his breathing growing deeper, smoother. She tucked an errant curl behind one of his rounded ears— the ear he had once said was exactly like her own.

The memory stung, like salt in an open wound.

My ears are almost identical to yours, he’d whispered in the darkness of her father’s study, his teeth catching her earlobe after she’d dared to suggest he had bat ears.

They weren’t identical, not anymore.

She was different now, and as she watched him sleep she began to mourn all over again, because even though she’d let him in before, she wasn’t sure she could stand to let him in again— to let him see just how twisted she had become inside that Cauldron, how warped she was with anger and grief and rage.

She didn’t think he’d laugh and tease her now, either. How could he? She wasn’t the same girl that had gone into the Cauldron.

Nesta Archeron had died.

Her heart had stopped - she had felt it - and whoever she was now, it was a world away from the girl who had walked that road shrouded in fog and felt her heart swell when the warrior before her pressed a kiss to her knuckles.

But he was alive.

Despite it all, Cassian was alive, his heartbeat steady, and Nesta clung to that and that alone, letting it ground her in a way that nothing else could.

His fingers twitched— just once, just barely, but it seemed like he might try to reach for her, to hold her hand in the dark. Blindly Nesta slipped her fingers between his, wishing she could close her eyes and go back to the way things were before.

She didn’t know how long she stayed there, like that. Hours must have passed, but she didn’t sleep— instead she only watched him breathe, feeling the warmth of his hand against hers, cherishing each and every thud of his still-beating heart. Only when the sky began to lighten did she pull away, and as she slipped from that bedroom, unable to bear much more, she only looked back once to the warrior sleeping soundly now in his bed, the hair at his forehead smoothed back by her touch.

She didn’t whisper a goodbye as she went, only let the door close silently behind her.

***

It was her own room that Nesta made her way back to.

Not Elain’s— not this time.

After so long spent at Cassian’s side, she simply didn’t think she could stand to see her sister lying there, unwilling or unable to wake. Didn’t think she had it in her to stand vigil over someone else she cared for, like the only living soul in a house filled with ghosts.

The walls pushed in, the silence complete and suffocating.

She barely managed to close the door of her room before her knees gave out. Sinking to the floor, back against the wall, she let her head drop.

All her fault.

All of this was her fault, in one way or another.

She should have insisted she and Elain go to Velaris when Rhysand first offered, should have stopped Elain from ever being thrown into that Cauldron. She shouldn’t have ever let Cassian in, let herself feel something for him, because he hadn’t thought twice about throwing himself into that blast, had stepped forward to help her when the king had brought them into that throne room.

She shook her head, tears threatening to spill.

Her eyes caught the scar by her thumb, the one that, somehow, the Cauldron had left behind. Suddenly Nesta’s chest was cleaved apart by sobs, that scar just another reminder of all she had failed in.

She had never been good enough for her mother or her grandmother— had failed them both by marrying so low, by letting Tomas put that ring on her finger. And they were just the first in the long list of people she had failed, every barbed retort and every venomous word they had ever slung her way repeating now as she let the darkness swallow her. They were right— her mother, her grandmother, her unfortunate husband. All of them were right. There was nothing she could do that could set right all of her mistakes.

With that thought, fire rose within her. Ice snaked through her blood just as it had done before, when Rhysand had looked at her with trepidation in his eyes. It burned, and with the cold came a surging terror, her hands beginning to shake as she tried to force it down. Heat kissed her palms as she shut her eyes tight against the onslaught.

No— no, no, no.

She pushed it away, forced it back down.

It went— oh, it went, but it burned, clawing to remain, fighting her every step of the way until her bones hurt. With gritted teeth Nesta doused that fire, smothered the hoarfrost in her chest. At last it retreated, faded, and in the grey light Nesta took a shuddering breath, one hand lifting to her chest as if hoping it might calm her racing heart.

It didn’t.

Her breaths were shallow, her head spinning.

And yet, as she began to fall apart, a candle suddenly flared to life across the room. Not one of those magic orbs of light that decorated the hallways and the walls, but a real candle, one that she didn’t think had been there before. She hadn’t asked, hadn’t said a word, and yet somehow the House had known that she needed the darkness to break, needed something solid and real.

Her tears halted, even as she struggled to wrap her head around how casual the magic of the House was. She hadn’t thought it would be like this, but it was comforting somehow, a touch familiar, like there was something about it that was kin and kith to her.

A box of tissues appeared beside her.

Curling her knees to her chest, Nesta lifted her eyes to the ceiling, whispering a soft, “Thank you.”

A new low, she mused bitterly. Talking to a house.

A tap began running in the bathroom, but Nesta shook her head once, sharp and definitive.

“No bath,” she said, trying her best to ignore the way her chest tightened, the fear that crept in at the sound of the water. The great porcelain bath was a world away from the inside of the Cauldron, and yet… “I can’t.”

Immediately the tap stopped.

A blanket appeared next to her instead, large and soft and scented with lavender. A book came next, materialising out of thin air as Nesta blinked, her tears banished by surprise.

The House was trying to… comfort her, she realised.

She blinked once more, as if expecting this to be some illusion, a trick her mind played on her. But the blanket remained there, the book beside it, and with the wall at her back, Nesta didn’t bother to rise but instead pulled the blanket towards her and covered her legs. It was the only thing that had felt soft against her sensitive skin, the only thing that had brought her a kernel of warmth that didn’t seem to burn, and with a trembling hand Nesta reached for the book.

For the first time since the Cauldron, she almost wanted to smile when she saw the title. It was a sad smile, small and tentative, but the corner of her lips just barely lifted, and she sniffed as she pulled the book into her lap.

It was a romance, as though the House already knew what she liked.

“Thank you,” she said again

The candle flame flared— a silent you’re welcome.

Taglist: @hiimheresworld @highladyofillyria @wannawriteyouabook @infiremetotakeachonce @melphss @hereforthenessian @c-e-d-dreamer @lady-winter-sunrise @the-lost-changeling @valkyriesupremacy @that-little-red-head @sv0430

#briefly breaking my tumblr hiatus to post this chapter #ill be back to hiding in my cc3-spoiler-free cave soon dont worry #nessian #nessian fic #begged & borrowed time

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