Chapter Text
They called it Starfall.
That very night, every year, the people of Velaris would gather outside their homes in celebration, drinks in hand, excitement in their eyes and a lightness in their smiles. It was the most important event in the Night Court, Feyre had told her, even though Nesta hadn’t bothered to ask. She’d said:
“It’s not something I can explain. You’ll have to see it and experience it for yourself.”
Nesta had no interest in experiencing much of anything these days, she’d wanted to reply. But she hadn’t bothered to, either. Nor did she bother going out into the streets with them, no matter how much her sisters insisted. Elain had persisted – she didn’t want to leave Nesta all by herself in the House of Wind, not while she was out celebrating with the Inner Circle. But Nesta knew it’d be better off this way – it was better to keep to herself, drown herself in her own self-pity and disgust and let them be. Let them enjoy this celebration of theirs. Let them live, finally live, now that they could, now that they were out of danger, now that they were, at last, healing.
Now that Elain was starting to heal.
Nesta would not, could not, drown them with her. So she’d smiled widely, assuredly at both Elain and Feyre, insisting she needed the sleep anyway – even though she knew they didn’t believe her – and wished them both a good night. And that was that.
She hadn’t dressed up, but she did have a drink in hand. One that had been refilled several times now. She didn’t have that excitement in her eyes or a lightness to her smile – she had dark circles around her eyes and a broken, unfocused gaze.
Leaning against the balcony rail of the House of Wind, Nesta stared and stared at the endless rows of houses perfectly lined, perfectly built. This city had seen war and death, and yet, it was rebuilt from the ashes and made whole, beautiful, once more. Nesta thought that while Velaris was an astonishing fortress, reborn, she was a crumbling building, ruined. She still was.
It was so easy – it had been so easy to shut everyone out, to spit at them and blame them for every miserable thing in her life. It had been so easy, finding the bricks to build a fort around herself and finding many more to throw at the people in her life – at Feyre, at her High Lord, at…her father. And now that he was gone, now that her sisters seemed to have found a path towards the light, towards recovery…it seemed that Nesta was still stuck in the dark. It seemed that whilst they were moving forward, she remained a thousand steps back, trapped in her own gods-forsaken broken bricks.
And she didn’t know how to change that.
She didn’t know how to change. How – where – to begin.
She didn’t know if it was worth it – any of it. And to live an immortal life with all that guilt, all that despair, all that blood in her hands, all that…that power, that wicked, strange power she couldn’t understand nor control…she didn’t know if she could bear it. She didn’t know if she was strong enough to.
The night sky enveloped her and she took in the quietness, the strange peacefulness of this place. Sipped the last drop of her wine. Looked up. Closed her eyes. Her mind showed her the same image every time. Of large wings and dark hair and hazel eyes.
Cassian.
The Illyrian was like a drug. As much as she wanted to get him out of her system, that bastard was always finding his way back in, somehow. She hated the effect he had on her. She hated how complicated things were now that the war was over. Now that he was healed.
She almost wanted to go back to the bickering. If she was being completely honest with herself, a twisted part of her enjoyed it – a lot. And it was easier disliking him, getting under his skin every day. It was so much easier than…caring this much.
And the thing was: she did want love. She craved it with every fibre of her being. But it was so difficult to forget what love had brought down on her, how it had completely, irrevocably destroyed her. Nesta would not rely on the very thing that broke her to put her back together again. Even if she wanted it so much it killed her.
And she wanted it with him.
Nesta hadn’t visited him once while he was healing. Not once. She had wanted to – there had been sleepless nights, her heart worried sick for him, crying for him. Craving to be near him, hold his hand in hers and do something, anything, to make it better. To fix him.
How can you, her mind had whispered to her, cruelly, relentlessly, how can you, a broken thing like yourself, heal him? What good can you do? What good can you bring into his life?
And her mind had won. Every night.
Sometimes there were dreams in which she held him to her, offering the sort of comfort she had never known from her parents. She would stroke his back, his wings, brush back his tangled hair from his face and plaster it with kisses – his forehead, down his nose, his eyelids, his cheeks, his mouth. In some dreams, her hands were delicate and soft, not splashed with blood, and in those dreams she embraced him; her mouth made a path down his temple to his jaw in sweet, short kisses that told him everything he needed to know. She’d whisper to him that she was there for him, that it would be alright. In others, her mouth was elsewhere.
In those, he’d be the one whispering coaxing words into her ear. In those, he held her the way she’d wanted to be held by for so long. In those, she didn’t think of anything else other than his breath on her ear and his mouth leaving soft little playful bites on her sides. In those, it didn’t matter who they were or what they had gone through, what they had witnessed or done. Her mistakes were forgotten and her guilt was dissolved into nothing but sweet blissfulness and pure, unending happiness.
Those were the dreams where her eyes gleamed with excitement, those were the dreams where there was more than a lightness to her a smile. There was truth and contentment and life.
So many words. Nesta had so many words trapped inside of her. And none could describe what she felt for him. What she would do to protect him.
That day, when the King of Hybern had them in the palm of his hand, when Cassian was laying down on the muddy ground, his skin and armour dirty with blood that was not entirely his, Nesta knew – she knew that she would’ve gone down with him gladly. She knew as she covered his body with her own and knew when she kissed him back, in the middle of the chaos, in the middle of all that death and destruction – she knew.
There would not be a day she lived without him.
We will have that time. I promise.
Those words he’d mumbled stuck to her like glue; they were her company during those sleepless nights where the only thing she could feel was the cold and her own loneliness. And she’d go back in time, to teasing, irritating smiles and cocky words, almost smiling to herself in the darkness. His face on her neck, breathing in her scent, his lips on her shoulder, as if marking her for himself.
Come play with me, Nesta, and I’ll teach you far more interesting ways to bring a male to his knees.
Arrogant brute.
And she’d brought him to his knees, indeed. By kneeing him in the groin, but still.
Nesta opened her eyes and it struck her, like a slap in the face, that she had been forming a small smile at the memory. She sighed, shook her head. Looked down at the empty glass in her hand. Hung her head.
Damn him.
Damn him for making her want to be better. Damn him for making her feel so terrible and yet so stupidly delighted despite her own misery.
She felt him before she heard him.
Her heart stumbled in her chest as she turned around.
“Nesta.”
Her name from his lips made her feel like stumbling to her knees. And yet she stood tall, as proud as ever, and faced him fully. As she looked him over, at the now healed wings closing with a little shake behind his back, at the brushed hair, at the impeccable shirt that clung to him like a second skin, unbuttoned at the top, Nesta wondered, in the back of her mind, if this time she would shatter.