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He stood on the small balcony overlooking the vast expanse of Prythian’s Middle. For fifty years, he had been trapped here. For fifty years he had played his part well, taking on every role he needed to keep his people, his family, and Velaris safe. Rhys took a deep, shuddering breath, quieting his mind for now. There’d be time to process the past five decades when he was home.
Home. That was a thought he hadn’t let himself have in a very long time. He was looking forward to it, but his return to the Night Court meant he had to say one last goodbye, and the thought of it alone filled him with despair the likes he’d never felt before.
The first hours after Amarantha’s defeat had been chaotic. The Attor was missing, and Jurian’s eye and bone were gone, too. Everyone else had returned to their respective courts, everyone except for him, Feyre, and Tamlin. Rhys knew this wasn’t over, that this was the beginning of something more, something worse than the last fifty years.
He looked down to see his hands shaking. He’d been shaking for hours now thanks to Feyre unwittingly blasting him with thoughts of Tamlin and everything he had done to her in the privacy of their own room.
Rhys had thrown up the entire time.
Logically, he knew he should let her sleep, let her recover from the hellish three months she had just survived. But he couldn’t stay another minute here, each passing second adding to his anxiety. He felt like he couldn’t breathe, like the walls were closing in around him, like he would never get out, like he would never—
He reached deep inside him, gently tugging at the thread at his middle, not wanting to alarm her, and waited, taking deep breaths as he counted to ten.
I’m going home, he kept repeating like a prayer, a mantra to help him keep his sanity for a few more minutes, to keep him from breaking down completely.
At the sound of approaching steps he put his unaffected mask back on. Turning around, he came face to face with the sight of Feyre hissing at the brightness, a hand shielding her eyes.
That drew a chuckle out of him. She sounded like an angry cat. “I forgot that it’s been a while for you.”
Feyre silently took in the view, observing the snow capped mountains first, then the foot of the mountain, barren and brown and lifeless. She looked… tired. Spent. Empty. He didn’t understand how Tamlin hadn’t whisked her back to the Spring Court. Feyre didn’t belong here, and after what she’d had to do, what she’d gone through, what she needed was to be as far away from this place as possible.
She was looking at him, taking in his wings. Through the gates of her mind, blown wide open as they were, he knew she was taking note of his hands and feet, expecting talons and finding none.
“What do you want?” she said, and he suspected she hadn’t meant to say it as softly as she had. Flashes of him fighting Amarantha and trying to save her crossed her mind.
I’d fight everyone to keep you safe, he thought. He kept hearing the cracking sound her neck had made as Amarantha had snapped it, and tried his best not to let his mind linger. He’d known then, what she was, who she was to him. He’d seen and felt it all. The enormity of the situation was one he would analyze in the privacy of his own room.
“Just to say good-bye. Before your beloved whisks you away forever.”
She wiggled her fingers in front of him. “Not forever,” she said, her voice frostier than the Illyrian camps. “Don’t you get a week every month?”
He forced a smile, gently rustling his wings. “How could I forget?”
She stared at him, analyzed him, then asked “Why?”
Rhys shrugged. “Because when legends get written, I didn’t want to be remembered for standing on the sidelines. I want my future offspring to know that I was there, and that I fought against her at the end, even if I couldn’t do anything useful. Because,” he said, looking at her beautiful eyes, “I didn’t want you to fight alone. Or die alone.”
A memory flashed, a memory of a faerie bleeding in the foyer. “Thank you.” was all she said.
He grinned at her. “I doubt you’ll be saying that when I take you to the Night Court.”
She didn’t say anything, opting to turn away from him and take in the view again. Her face remained impassive, empty. Void of any of the emotions she always wore on display. “Are you going to fly home?” she asked.
Rhys shook his head, laughing softly. How he wished he could fly home. “Unfortunately it would take longer than I can afford.” he said. “Another day, I’ll taste the skies again.”
She glanced at him, at the wings he kept tightly tucked into his body. “You never told me that you loved the wings—or the flying.”
He shrugged. “Everything I love has always had a tendency to be taken from me. I tell very few of the wings. Or the flying.”
He let the silence settle between them, and then curiosity took over. “How does it feel to be a High Fae?”
She looked out toward the mountains again. “I’m an immortal—who has been mortal. This body…” she looked down at her hands, and he felt the wave of self-loathing and disgust so strongly that it rattled him to his core. He wanted to touch her, hug her, tell her that he understood, he knew what it was to feel both of those things, that it wasn’t her fault, that there hadn’t been another way. She’d been thrust into a situation worse than any of her darkest nightmares, and she’d come out of it alive.
But at what cost?
“This body is different,” she continued “but this, this is still human.” She said, hand on her chest. “Maybe it always will be. But it would have been easier to live with it…” she swallowed, trying to compose herself. “Easier to live with what I did if my heart had changed, too. Maybe I wouldn’t care so much; maybe I could convince myself their deaths weren’t in vain. Maybe immortality will take that away. I can’t tell whether I want it to.”
He looked at her for a long while, at the girl with the human heart, the pointed ears, the elongated limbs, the ethereal beauty that had been there before and had been amplified so much it took his breath away. He wished he could hold her, if only for a minute, tell her he was sorry for everything she had gone through these past several months. He had tried to keep her alive, but the ordeal had taken a toll on her soul.
“Be glad of your human heart, Feyre. Pity those who don’t feel anything at all.”
She thought about it for a bit, looked like she wanted to say more, but thought against it and simply nodded.
Time to go. “Well, good-bye for now.” he said, rolling his neck, already feeling the beginnings of a tension headache. He bowed at his waist, and began to winnow, when he felt it.
The thread tying him to her went taut, then glowed. He felt his entire being shatter then reform, his heart beating to the sound of hers, his cells, his nerves, his entire DNA screaming her name, screaming that she was his, only his, his to love and cherish—
He felt the mating bond snap into place with a force that could have rattled the mountain, the stars. Felt the force of it sucker punch him so hard he stumbled, stopped breathing altogether. He knew then, he knew he had to get out of here, winnow away, go home, put space between them before he did something stupid.
He took a step back, his limbs protesting, wanting to stay put, wanting to stay with her, be next to her, his hands a second away from pulling her to him, wrapping her in an embrace, protecting her from everything she had endured.
She looked at him in confusion and he wanted to laugh, scream, and cry at the same time.
“What is—”
He didn’t wait for her to finish that sentence as he winnowed away, reappearing in front of the town house. He numbly grabbed the handle and lowered it, opening the door and stepping inside his home for the first time in fifty years. Mor was immediately there, pulling him in an embrace, sobbing as he shook from shock and a million other feelings he was not in the right state of mind to address.
“Rhys?” Mor asked him cautiously.
“She’s my mate.” he said, the dam breaking, tears streaking down his face. “She’s my mate, she’s my mate, she’s my mate, and she’s not mine .”