Chapter Text
I wept. Tears drenched my face, my shoulders heaving, as Madja, her ancient eyes filled to their depths with sorrow, passed my too silent son to Mor, waiting beside the healer with a blanket in hand. I could see he had my hair, faint wisps of black, his wings so small and perfect and still.
Mor’s golden head bowed and her brown eyes were so full of grief and love as she gazed down at the still babe when her face crumpled and she began to weep into his tiny head.
And then the bond that tethered my very soul to Feyre flickered, a weak flame threatening to extinguish itself. I knew what to expectant, knew as I came hurdling from the sky that this fall would kill me, slowly, painfully. Madja commanded Feyre to fight it, Elain sobbing as she gripped Feyre’s hand and begged her not to go, but the ringing in my ears was deafening and I couldn’t look away from my mate.
A death rattle slipped from her bloodless lips and with that last breath the bond sagged, the presence on the other side no longer there. A howl of agony ripped from my throat, tearing, and I lunged toward the bed where she was so so still, but hands caught and dragged me back.
Once, many centuries ago, I had been knocked from my stead with an enemy steel tipped bludgeon. It had destroyed my armor, knocking the very breath from my lungs as I lay dazed on the ground, my horse screaming in panic as it tossed its great head. I thought my chest had caved in upon impact, thought maybe by the excruciating pain, the bones had split and now the splintered fragments were buried in my lungs and heart.
I would have taken that pain back without hesitation, anything to not feel like this, like I was being torn apart. I strained against my brothers hands, cursing, desperate to reach her.
An animal keening cut through the air, the room shuddering with what I briefly knew to be my surging power but I couldn’t see anything beyond my mates crumpled form, couldn’t see the terror in Amren’s eyes or Cassian suddenly abandoning his fight with me to hurl his body over Nesta and Elain, tumbling to the ground.
Feyre’s chest did not rise again. The bond silent. Gone.
The blue of Azriel’s siphon flared, a final warning with a shout of my name as something vital broke inside me.
And then world around us exploded.
****
There was a high ringing in his ears, shrill enough to antagonize the pounding headache that had taken up residence in his skull. Cassian groaned, struggling to remember where he was and why he was in such pain.
Someone was screaming, but it sounded muffled as though he were hearing it at the bottom of a lake. Beneath his body, someone’s hand was shaking and slapping him. A cumbersome weight smothered him, restricting his movement entirely.
“Cassian!” the voice beneath him screamed.
The general opened his eyes finally, his gaze muddled by the impact of whatever had knocked him unconscious and…oh gods, destroyed not just the room, but the entire manor. The room where Feyre had been giving birth, surrounded by family. His family.
“Cassian, wake up!” the voice pleaded.
Cassian shook his heavy head and with it some of his vision returned, giving shape and identity to the bodies beneath him. Nesta and Elain. Elain, unconscious but seemingly whole and Nesta, her face bloodless with terror but to his relief also unharmed. Because he had shielded them from—
He tried to lift himself, tried to stand but it was near impossible as he realized a heavy beam of oak from the bed frame pinned him and his wings to the ground. Cassian blinked, bleary, struggling to retain his senses but it was so hard to see as the light in the room had been devoured, wholly swallowed by darkness.
But something was moving in that darkness. That much he could see. A great scaled beast with wild burning eyes and wicked talons. Cassian watched with frozen horror as the creature approached the bed—the bed with his high lady.
His heart stumbled, crumpled. Feyre, oh gods. No.
He struggled to lift himself but the weight across his back would not allow it, the weakness in his arms rendering him useless.
“Feyre,” he rasped, helpless. Where the fuck was Azriel? Rhys?
The great beast reached out with a curved talon of onyx and a scream lodged itself in his throat as he could do nothing but watch.
Yet the beast could only drag the talon down Feyre’s too pale face, almost like a caress, the motion too familiar.
“Oh gods, Rhys,” Cassian croaked, recognition and dread striking him. His brother oh gods his brother—
The creature—Rhys—shuddered, his wings folding forward as he bowed over the bed. He moaned a horrible wounded noise as he gathered Feyre’s body in his arms and held her so so gently to his distorted form.
“My mate,” Rhy howled, his grief given form in power that shook what was left of his home. Debris rained down from the collapsed ceiling, but Rhys payed no heed to it as he lifted his monstrous head and stared over Cassian’s trapped body.
Cassian’s eyes darted in the same direction as Rhys’ and noticed Morrigan curled in the corner of the room. Blood ran in runnels down her face, streaking it. Her normally pristine hair was a wreck, her clothes torn to shreds but her body was curled around something. Something precious.
Terror curdled in his stomach, grief a driving knife in his chest. The baby.
Still cradling Feyre’s limp body, Rhys lumbered towards his cousin. His eyes were locked on that little body, so tiny in even Mor’s arms that all Cassian could see was a peek of his black hair, the perfect slope of his brow.
“Give me the boy,” Rhys commanded, his voice distorted. Cassian couldn’t help flinching, as Rhys’ voice was filled with raw violence and despair.
“Rhys, please,” Morrigan sobbed, clutching the baby closer to her chest.
“Give me the boy, Morrigan,” his brother said again. He extended his hand, wings unfurling around him.
Mor buried her weeping face into the top of the baby’s head, her body shaking with her sobs. “What are you going to do with them? Where are you going to go?” she rasped. “I’m afraid, Rhys. I’m afraid if I give you him, we’ll never see you again.”
What little stars remained in Rhys’ eyes were snuffed out.
“Give me the child,” was he all said.
Morrigan trembled. Looking down at the child in her arms, she pressed a trembling kiss on the top of his head. “What could have been had this dream been allowed to carry on without the interference of waking,” she whispered, tears streaming down her cheeks.
Mor unfolded herself and stood, extending the baby out to Rhys who cupped his baby in just one hand.
He stood frozen for a moment, staring at what should have been his lively son. At the toes that had kicked against Feyre’s stomach for months and the delicate wings that would never feel the wind against them.
So gentle, Rhys cradled the baby in the nook of his arm. The boy secure in his grasp, Rhys extended his wings. With a great boom that disturbed the dust and detritus of what remained of the manor, Rhys launched himself through the gaping hole in the ceiling into the dark, carrying with him Feyre and their child.