Chapter Text
Her sister’s blood was in her mouth.
Nesta didn’t know how it got there. Maybe she had wiped her face or moved her hair out of her eyes, and it had transferred from her hands to her lips.
Feyre’s blood shone in the sun like ripe fruit, like Amren’s rubies, and reached all the way up Nesta’s arms like gloves. Feyre was drenched in it to her neck, her silver armor covered, and the blood pooling beneath her had spread to coat her long braid.
Nesta hadn’t been quick enough to protect Feyre’s head from hitting the hard ground, but she had immediately pressed her shaking hands hard to the awful wound in her sister’s abdomen. Feyre’s blood pulsed out under her fingers as Nesta thought frantically of what to do next, how to prevent Feyre from bleeding out on the hard-won battleground.
Feyre was making an awful choking sound, her mouth floundering, and her chest stuttering, gasping around the pain. Nesta cursed soundly. The blade must have punctured her lung.
Nesta pulled her sister’s hands over her own wound and then covered them, in an attempt to staunch the bleeding, and waited for the natural fae healing to stabilize her a bit.
She caught her sister’s gaze, the spark in the blue eyes starting to dim a bit as Feyre’s lids fluttered while trying to remain conscious.
“Nes…” she said again, a plaintive, simple syllable, breathless out of her mouth.
“Save your strength,” Nesta growled, “Try to heal.”
Seeming to heed her, Feyre’s eyes slid shut, and the hitching of her chest fading a bit. Nesta searched the skies, trying to spot her mate in the mass of Illyrians overhead. Not for the first time, she longed for the telepathic bond her sister had with her mate. She and Cassian could feel each other’s life forces, and strong emotions, but words and coherent thoughts were reserved for daemati.
She needed to get Feyre out of here. She inspected her sister again, lifted her hands experimentally a fraction off of the wound. Instead of the trickle she expected, hoped for, blood poured freely.
Feyre wasn’t healing fast enough, she was losing too much blood. Like the rest of them, Feyre’s magic was depleted after hours of fighting.
Nesta slammed her hands back, prompting her sister to writhe away from the added pain, whimpering. The movement drained her even more, her head falling back and her hands going limp underneath Nesta’s.
“Shit, shit, shit . Hold on for me, Feyre, just hold on. Hold on, Fey. ”
Not here. The High Lady of the Night Court wouldn’t die in this insignificant battle, felled by an insignificant foot soldier.
There was nothing to be done, other than to haul her sister into her arms, easy with her fae strength, and run back to the camp, far off in the distance. Feyre cried out again, and burrowed herself into Nesta’s neck.
“You're alright,'' Nesta panted, making her way as fast as she could through the soldiers, “You’ll be alright, Feyre. The healers will fix you up.”
The Valkyrie began to notice exactly who was making a path through them, and who she was bearing in her arms. They parted quickly, as deftly as they could among the struggle, and Nesta could hear vacant cries,
“The High Lady-”
“They struck her down-”
“Fucking bastards, let’s get them-”
She ignored them and plowed ahead.
“Cassian!” she cried to the skies. If he heard her, found them, he could get Feyre to the healers quicker with his wings than Nesta could on foot. It might have been wrong, foolish even, to call the general of the Night Court’s forces away from his troops, but Nesta didn’t care.
Hang the battle, hang the soldiers, hang the enemy. Feyre was her priority.
“Cassian!”
As she ran, her sister’s lifeblood soaking her leathers, she remembered tearing through the forest that first time Feyre had gone over the wall. She hadn’t meant to run, had planned to conserve her energy, planned to stay mad enough at Feyre to keep an even pace.
But fear and desperation had quickened her step. She remembered tripping over the ragged hem of her skirt, and catching her arms and cheeks on brambles, and thinking how cold it was, and that only a half-wild animal like Feyre could spend any time in that frozen wasteland at all.
Feyre shifted in her arms, her face twisted in pain, a low moan escaping her lips. Nesta only had time to attempt to shush her comfortingly, to feel guilt for everything she had thought and said in the past, and continue her path back through the battlefield, twisting and dodging to avoid fighting soldiers.
Nesta remembered another cold night, when she was young, and the wind had howled, and her mother, drunk, had howled just as loudly. Nesta had hidden under her covers, hoping her mother’s rage wouldn’t turn her way, when her door had creaked open and the sound of small, quick feet filled the room.
Soon, a small, warm body had slipped between her sheets, and burrowed into her side, her skinny arms wrapping around Nesta’s waist. Feyre, four, or maybe five, had come to Nesta for comfort. Not Elain, or their father, but her.
Nesta hadn’t had the heart or the energy to kick her sister out of the bed that night, as she had done plenty of times before. She’d simply curled around her sister’s warm weight and held her until morning.
Feyre had always run warm, a furnace in their shared bed in the cabin.
She was so cold now.
The war camp loomed ahead of them, but still far enough away that all Nesta could make out was the vague shape of their dark tents and the flags flying above.
They were too far, and Feyre had lost so much blood, she was barely conscious in Nesta’s arms. On her waning strength, Nesta might not get them there-
Cassian slammed to the ground in front of them.
Racing for them, he looked to his mate wildly, his face sprayed with blood, though not his own, Nesta knew.
“Are you alright-”
Nesta cut him off swiftly, shoving her sister into Cassian’s arms. Feyre moaned in protest, only seeming to know that she was not in her sister’s safe embrace anymore. Nesta’s voice was brutal and cold.
“Take the High Lady to the healers. You’re faster than I am. Go, now.”
Cassian took Feyre almost dazedly, seeming not to realize who exactly was in his arms right away, looking between Feyre and Nesta’s faces, as if he couldn’t tell which one was his mate and which one was his High Lady.
When he understood, his face grew hard, and his wings flared protectively. He tightened his grip on Feyre, cradling her head in his large, scarred, bloody hand.
Feyre cried out again, weaker still, but she seemed to realize that she was safe in this new pair of arms. Cassian had always been Feyre’s greatest protector, after Rhys. Better than Nesta had been.
He shushed her comfortingly. “It’s me, little sister, hold on.”
He spared Nesta only a firm nod, the communication of soldiers, of partners, before shooting into the air, and making for the camp.
Nesta hovered in place, her feet itching to move in two directions. To jump back into the battle, where her presence was wanted, but not needed. She could tell from only a glance that Feyre’s actions had turned the tide on their front, and the Valkyries were beating the enemy back. Or to follow her mate, who was bearing her sister to a tent full of healers. Very skilled healers, to be sure, but no familiar faces.
Feyre, her bones snapping back into place, without her mate by her side.
Feyre, her wounds being cleaned by an unfamiliar hand.
Feyre, who had never been shown a lick of care until she had traveled beyond the Wall, waking alone, with no one for company but pain.
Nesta allowed herself only a moment, just one, to catch her breath and look at her hands, coated in her sister’s dried blood. She allowed herself one lone sob, before taking off after Cassian and Feyre.
She reached the Inner Circle’s collection of tents later, much later than Cassian had, she knew.
“Let no one in,” Nesta snapped to the guards outside the entrance.
Feyre and Cassian had protested when the idea of a healer’s tent specifically for the family had been suggested. They said that it would do their army good to feel that the High Lord and High Lady, as well as the others, were firmly one of them. Rhys and Nesta, for once, had agreed with each other, and argued that seeing their rulers injured was detrimental to the troops’ morale, and what’s more, they needed their privacy.
Thank the Mother she and Rhys had won out that time, she thought, as she entered their healer’s tent and came to a dead halt. It was one thing to carry Feyre back through the Valkyries, but for all the warriors to see her sister like this?
Small and pale and vulnerable on the cot, her armor discarded and her leathers cut away, Feyre was the bloody center of a microcosm of healers. They were all bustling around, fetching poultices and bandages, the head healer holding her glowing hands to her sister’s abdomen.
Blood, thick and heavy, filled the air.
Cassian detached himself from his post at the head of Feyre’s cot and made his way over to where Nesta stood frozen, like Feyre had turned her, too, into ice like the soldiers on the battlefield.
Her mate’s hand was gentle on her shoulder.
“They think she’ll be alright. She lost a lot of blood and her lung was punctured, and she wasn’t able to heal herself, but we got her here quick enough.”
We. Nesta almost snorted derisively. Cassian had got her there, Nesta had almost gotten her sister killed, had been too slow, hadn’t seen the soldier that dealt the blow. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
“You can go back.” She didn’t want Cassian here, hovering, she wanted to sit here and watch her sister’s every breath.
“Nesta…” She knew he could tell what she was thinking, that she was miserable and punishing herself. She knew he wanted to comfort her, and drive the bad thoughts away, but she just wanted to be angry for a few minutes longer.
“I’m… I’ll be alright,” she forced herself to meet Cassian’s gaze, to show him that she wasn’t going to self-destruct here and now. “You return to the battle and see if you can get word to Rhys. If he can be spared, he should be here.”
Cassian looked at her a moment longer, before pulling her into a sweet, tender kiss that filled her from light from head to toe. He cradled the back of her sweaty head with his hand, their leathers and weapons pressing together. When he drew back, still looking concerned, she smiled slightly at him.
“Go.” She pushed him lightly towards the tent entrance. He smiled back, teasingly, kissed her again, harder, and made his way back to the battle.
Nesta took up Cassian’s position at Feyre’s cot, keeping her patented fierce stare on the healers as they bustled about, tipping Feyre’s head back to pour tinctures down her throat, stichting up her internal injuries, resetting her bones. The healers kept a respectful distance from the captain, heads down from who they knew to be the least hospitable member of the Inner Circle. It wasn’t that Nesta hadn’t garnered the court’s esteem, the Valkyries were revered in the territory as being fierce warriors - simply that Nesta was known for biting the heads off of an incompetent messenger or two.
Feyre was peacefully unconscious, no doubt drugged that way to keep her still and healing. Her skin was still deathly pale, her freckles standing out on her face like a reverse image of the stars in the sky. Nesta kept watch for what could have been minutes or hours, as water buckets stained red with her sister’s blood were constantly replaced with fresh ones. Despite the healer’s assurances, Nesta breathed no easier, and she wouldn’t until Feyre was awake and talking, and they were fully convinced she was healed.
Some time after Cassian had left, and Nesta’s legs had grown stiff from her sentinel position, there was a commotion at the entrance to the tent - someone trying to pass the guards into the family’s sickbay.
Moving quickly, her hand on her sword, Nesta rounded Feyre’s cot and made her way to where a young male was shoving at the guards, shouting, “Let me in! I have a fucking right-”
Her nephew’s face was livid, but he was restraining his strength and power, not really wanting to hurt the guards. Nesta pushed past them to grab Nyx by his arm and haul him a few feet back in the grass, away from his mother.
“Aunt Nesta, what the hell!”
“ Quiet, ” she hissed, sounding more like Amren than she cared for. “These tents are for healing, stop throwing a tantrum like a child.” Nyx’s face twisted at that - for years now he had been trying to prove himself, trying to convince his parents and the rest of the family that he was up to more dangerous missions, to fight in battles like the rest of them.
He had been permitted to come to the battlefield, but on the strict instruction that he was to wait on the sidelines, with the reserve army. Nesta knew that with the way the battle was coming to a close, Nyx would not see any fighting up close today
“I’m not,” he protested, his blue eyes flashing, his wings flaring. “I just want to see my mother-” he broke off when a healer exited the tent, another bucket of bloody water and rags clutched in her hands. The guards parted to let her through and Nyx surged at the opening.
“Mama!”
“Wait,” Nesta held the youth’s arms firmly, keeping him in place, the top of her head barely reaching his chin. “Wait until the healers are done with her and your father sees her.”
“But-“
“ No. ”
He pulled at her again, bristling with indignation, but Nesta could see under the angry exterior was fear. An innocent, childlike fear at the idea of his mother spread out bleeding, maybe dying in that tent, just out of his reach.
Nesta knew what that felt like. When her mother had gotten ill, she hadn’t believed it until she’d laid eyes on her mother herself. When she’d seen her, pale and sunken in the bed, she’d turned and fled, taking Elain with her. It had torn her in two, to see the woman who’d molded her into the perfect little lady, who dealt out soft kisses and harsh words equally, so reduced. It had chilled something deep in her bones, something that lingered to this day.
Nesta knew why Nyx wanted to see his mother, but it would do him more harm than good to see Feyre laid out, unconscious. What’s more, she knew Feyre wouldn’t want to be seen like that by her son. She, like Nesta, had always had difficulties with vulnerability.
“The battle should be ending soon,” she told him, trying to be comforting, “See if you can find Azriel - maybe he’ll let you attend the surrender. Go in your father’s place when he comes to see your mother.”
Nyx stopped struggling at that, his grimace lessening. He studied his aunt, eyes flicking between her and the canvas entrance of the tent.
“And then you’ll let me see her?”
“As long as your father agrees.”
He nodded solemnly. Their family was built on trust and bargains.
“Alright - you’re staying here, with her?”
Nesta released him, crossing her arms. “You’d have difficulty getting me to leave. Go on, now.”
Nyx left a lingering gaze for the healer’s tent before departing. Nesta wondered if he was trying to reach Feyre with his daemati power, trying to leave a message in her mind.
No sooner had Nyx left, searching for Azriel, and Nesta had made it back to Feyre’s side, Rhysand entered the tent, still clad in his scaled battle armor and covered in enemy blood, his wings, usually concealed with magic, out and covered in grime.
“Feyre.” The word sound ripped from him, his vocal cords raw from battle cries. The head healer approached the High Lord tentatively, and Nesta could hear her explaining Feyre’s injuries to him, and how she was resting now, and would be back to full health in the next couple days.
Rhys nodded along almost absently, his eyes on his mate. When the healer finished, he thanked her sincerely and asked for privacy. The healer nodded, curtseyed, and ushered the other fae out with her, leaving Rhys and Nesta alone with a sleeping Feyre.
They’d worked hard to build their relationship, she and Rhys, if for no other reason than for Cassian and Feyre’s sakes, but it wasn’t perfect. Feyre always said they were too similar - proud and secretive and self-critical and able to hold a grudge and fiercely protective. They butted heads constantly, but over the years, she and her brother-in-law had developed a fond respect and strong partnership. They pushed each other in ways that Feyre and Cassian couldn’t push them, and were pillars of strength and rationality that the family depended on.
But Rhys needed Nesta to be the pillar now.
He was standing stock-still in the middle of the room, except for his hands which, covered in blood like the rest of them, were shaking. His face was ashen and drawn, not able to tear his gaze from Feyre, but not able to move towards her prone form.
Nesta approached him carefully, like one would a spooked animal, raising her hand toward him.
“Rhysand?”
With a sharp intake of air, he looked at her, his star-flecked violet gaze dark and terrified. It had been a while since one of them had been this hurt, and though they never forgot what it was like, it was always a shock.
“I didn’t-” Rhysand was gasping for air, his usually immaculate countenance cracking to bits, his chest heaving, stuttering like Feyre’s had on the battlefield. “My shields were up so thick and so were hers, and suddenly I couldn’t breathe , but I thought-”
Nesta firmly, but not unkindly, gripped Rhys by the shoulders and maneuvered him into the seat by Feyre’s bed.
“Breathe,” she told him, passing him a canteen of water. Had he even stopped to catch his breath before coming here? His wings were still out and his face was covered in sweat, the battle surge not having left his body yet. “She’ll be alright, you heard the healers.”
He nodded again, more present than before, but still far, far away. “She… yes.”
He curled forward suddenly, his hands going to cover his face, his entire body shaking with silent, restrained sobs. Tears made Nesta uncomfortable, it was true, but heart broke for her brother at that moment. If it was Cassian on that cot, she knew she’d be taking it just as poorly.
She crouched next to Rhys, one hand on his shoulder, the other on his knee, holding on firmly.
“She’s alright, Rhys. We’re all alright. Don’t worry, it’s over now.”
He nodded into his hands. They stayed like that for a moment, Nesta remaining strong so Rhys could be vulnerable. After a while, he dropped his hands from his face and clutched Nesta’s own hands.
“She’s alright.” He repeated, his tears finished, the marks of them cutting through the blood and dirt on his face. Nesta nodded this time, her face and heart constricting with the fear that had coursed through her body like a poison for the past couple hours.
Feyre was alive, and healing. Everything was going to be alright.
Rhys held Nesta’s hands tighter. “Thank the Mother you were there.”
She bit her lip, and looked away, her eyes catching on Feyre. Someone had washed the blood from her sister’s face and hair, and she was breathing soundly, her color steadily returning. Unexpected tears filled her eyes then, blurring her vision.
What if she hadn’t gotten Feyre there in time? What if she’d bled to death out there, with Nesta’s incompetence the only thing to blame, having failed her sister once again?
“Nesta,” Rhysand pulled her back from the dark recesses of her mind, the parts that created images of Feyre’s last breath, of Rhys’ and Nyx’s faces, of the devastation that would blow through the family like a hurricane. “Nesta, you did it. You got her here. She’s ok, she’s safe.”
Nesta closed her eyes, and banished the false images, replacing them with real ones - her sister awake and happy, holding baby Nyx, kissing Rhys joyously, she and Nesta reading peacefully together on the terrace. Together, how they always were supposed to be.
Nesta blew out a shaky breath, stable once more, and opened her eyes to meet Rhys’ equally comforted expression. Squeezing his hands once more before releasing them, she stood.
“I’ll give you two some space, shall I?”
Rhys smiled and thanked her, turning back to Feyre on the bed, scooping up her limp hand with both of his.
Nesta backed silently out of the tent, where the sun started to set. The battle was truly over now, the surrendering army being dealt with by Gwyn, Azriel and, yes, Nyx was there too. The dying sunlight passed over Nesta like a beacon, finally warming her chilled limbs.
Her sister was safe, and being cared for. Nesta hadn’t failed her.
The thought warmed her even more as she caught the figure of a winged male, flying right for her.
Nesta let out a sigh of relief and content, blood no longer tainting her mouth.