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The morning sun had not yet kissed the skyline when Rhys rose from bed. Feyre still slept soundly beside him, Nyx lovingly nuzzled in the space between them. Careful enough not to wake them, he left a kiss for each of the two who owned his heart so entirely. Ordinarily he might have made his way to the kitchen, prepared a tea to leave at Feyre’s bedside that she could sip while she breastfed their son upon waking.
But today was not an ordinary day.
Rhys did not go to the kitchen, he hardly paid the time to slide into his leathers before he slipped out the window, beating his wings against the still air, quiet as so much was in those hours before the world opened its eyes. He preferred it that way; this was a moment between him and the sky, no one else.
There was only one stop on the way, to a garden trellis spilling over with white jasmine blossoms. He clipped away as many as he could to make a generous bouquet, and then Rhysand was coasting the open air once more, gliding to the largest peak in the Velaris Mountainside.
On a nook overlooking the Eastern Coast, Rhysand took a moment to admire the view of the city he’d given so much of his life to protect. It was almost as much as a piece of him as the wife and child he’d left in bed that morning, if not through his devotion then purely through the blood spilt in pursuit of defending it. The loyalty he felt to Velaris was not simply one he inherited as its ruler. Rhys knew that as well as his father had, who made it no secret that he disapproved of his son’s sentimental attachment.
Rhysand retrieved the bouquet of jasmine, wondering absently what male he might have become if not for the interference of his mother. If not for everything else that made her incredible, he owed her thanks for that much. Her tender hand was responsible for so much of his redeemability—likely all of it.
With a reverence usually saved for holding Nyx through a bout of wailing, Rhys placed the bouquet upon the carved slab of rock, clambering to the ground beside it so that he might lean against its cool surface. If he shut his eyes, he could almost imagine the times he’d come here as a boy. He could pretend that the stone he leaned against was his mother’s shoulder, and that they were watching the morning sun come up as she imparted her wisdom to him, soothing over whatever aches on his soul were present that day.
It seemed that she always knew the right thing to say. Those that called him silver-tongued would be reluctant to do so if they’d ever had the fortune of meeting his mother. It was not a trait he picked up from his cruel, less-than-charming father. It was not a politician’s skill, though many expected it to be. It was the cleverness of a kind and quick-witted seamstress, who would have been capable of so much more if the world had been as kind to her as she was to it.
The sun was just peaking over the ocean horizon now, lighting the sky with the lilac of dawn. Her favorite color, he remembered wistfully.
Words escaped him, but Rhys felt as though he should say something.
“Good morning, mother,” he whispered, slanting his eyes over to the gravestone he rested beside. “Another year has passed, can you believe it?”
He certainly couldn’t. A year was a speck of dust in the lifetime of the fae, yet so much had changed in the space of just one.
“I’m a father now,” he said, half in bewilderment. “I’m a mated male with a son. You always talked as if it were an inevitability, but I never believed it. I suppose I should have known better than to doubt you.”
His lower lip trembled, though he tried to stiffen it. Centuries after her death, tears were useless things, though he knew his mother would have fussed over him if she’d been there to see them. Just as she would have fussed over Nyx, if she were there to meet her grandson, who she would have loved to no end he was certain.
“I wish you could meet him,” he croaked, imagining that she might have smiled the first time she’d glimpsed his bright blue eyes. “All that’s in me that I wish to pass to him, it all came from you. It’s only fair that you could have met him.”
With a small, mirthless laugh he withdrew a project he’d been working on, a half knit pair of booties. “A disappointing product from a seamstress’s son,” he murmured, thumbing at the hole at the foot. He’d been too embarrassed to show Feyre the hobby he’d taken up to still his shaking hands in the nighttime. “I have no idea what I’m doing—in regards to most things, actually, but especially when it comes to making clothing. I just thought that if you were here, you’d have made all of his baby clothes for him, and that he at least deserved something made with a loving hand.”
Eventually no amount of fighting could contain the tears that swelled his vision. “There’s so much I would ask you,” he choked. “I wish I’d paid closer attention. There was so little you did poorly, but of the things you were best at, being a mother was among them. And I know you would be so proud of Feyre, she is a wonder. But me? I haven’t a clue how to be a good father, I have no example to go by.”
A soft breeze swept his hair back, carrying the smell of sea salt. He shut his eyes against the sensation, deciding to pretend it was a loving touch sent by his mother, to console and reassure. Though a breeze was most likely just a breeze.
“I was too young to ask you the important questions,” he whispered, fixing his gaze back on the horizon, watching the sky turn from purple to a swirl of pink and orange. “But I suppose even you couldn’t offer a perfect answer, because there isn’t one, right? You’d probably just tell me to focus on creating love, or something along those lines.” He flexed his hands where they rested over his bent knees, tracing the scars that graced his knuckles, wondering if one day his son’s hands would look like this, too. If Nyx would need to be a warrior like his father. “I’ve been trying to make a better world for him to live in, but I’m terrified it won’t be enough.”
Rhys huffed a deep breath. “I’ve never been so scared in my life,” he admitted. “He’s so beautiful and innocent—what if I mess this up? What if something happens to him, or to Feyre? I can’t… Mom , I’m barely holding it together as it is. I’ve already lost them once, and I can’t lose them again.”
He buried his face into those hands, trying to reign in the pieces of his soul that were threatening to shatter right then and there, so that he might join his mother at her eternal resting place. Then, he felt the softest brush against his consciousness, filled with love and light. His love and light, the stars that lit his night sky, provided meaning to this endless darkness that clung to his tired and weary soul. Feyre, his mate, the song of his heart, was waking in their home by the Sidra, their son undoubtedly bundled in her arms.
A gasping breath took him as though he’d been submerged in water and had only just been let up for air. His hope and joy called him home, consoled his fear, told him there were things worth bearing the risk of losing. Love was so fleeting, but the warmth of it was worth the bitter chill that accompanied grief.
What was cold, but an absence of heat? And what was grief, but an absence of love? A void, where there was once life, that he still poured his heart into. There was no return on this kind of love, it was as one-sided as the conversation he shared with the unfeeling stone at his mother’s grave. But he gave it still, because it’s what she deserved, and because there was nowhere else for this love to go. His mind might know that she was gone, but that didn’t mean his heart had ceased to include her.
Rhysand stood, noting the sun which now shone with no blanket of mountain or ocean. It claimed its own rightful place in the sky, brightening the land whether it wished for the light or not. The sun always came, whether he wished it or not. Even in those moments where he’d thought he couldn’t bear another day to arrive, it came. As relentless and impenetrable as the seconds that ticked, marking another year passed. Sometimes he felt as though he were left with no choice but to scramble to keep up with their endless ticking and rising. Sometimes all he longed for was it all to freeze, so that he could finally have a moment to breathe.
A tug on the bond reminded him that sometimes he found those moments of breath in the crook of his mate’s neck, in the gentle babble of his son’s laughter. The seconds and the sun rises were not always unbearable. Each day they seemed to fill him with less dread and more joy, but there was a long way yet until he would let dawn come unsuspectingly.
“Happy birthday, mother,” he murmured, placing a flat hand upon the rock that was slowly warming under the morning sun. A farewell, a prayer, a wish that wherever she was, there was happiness. “Until we meet again, at this rock or elsewhere.”