Chapter Text
Part I - Chaos
Night Court
Nesta Archeron was sprawled on her bed, her eyes looking at the ceiling.
She absentmindedly ran her index finger over the length of her thumb and palm. There was a scar there and she kept caressing it softly.
‘Curious,’ she thought.
When she had emerged from the Cauldron her body had changed.
She had a new body, with different flesh and limbs and sharp ears. Her senses were enhanced, energy sparked inside her, every color and sound vibrated and even the blood inside her veins seemed to flow differently.
She had new bones and new skin.
Her skin had turned harder to break and there had been no memory of its contours from its human remembrance. Her new skin carried no marks, no scars, and no old festered wounds. It was a new body and every scar she had as a human had been erased.
All...but one.
She caressed the scar her grandmother had given her when she was a child. It was meant to teach her a lesson.
Curious that the Cauldron would erase all her scars except this one.
This one was kept. This one she had to remember.
Nesta closed her eyes and tried to remember what she had forgotten. She had once been human. Fragile body and unbending heart. A cruel cold heart that pillaged the Cauldron for daring to take her fragile humanity away.
That had been the only fragile thing in her after all for she was all sharp edges long before she turned into Fae.
She had been her mother’s creature but it was her grandmother who had beaten every weakness out of her once. Either with her tongue or the ruler.
“Worthless, clumsy girl. You are a waste of my time. Maybe this will help you remember...”
Her Grandmamma had taught her manners and how to never fail. Perfection was always expected from her and any infraction was punished. Her grandmother had disciplined her and taught her how to never show pain. She had taught her how to be proud and unapologetically harsh for she was a woman and in the world, she had been born into, she had to be able to represent her family with stern pride and unyielding dignity.
Her grandmother had punished her with pain until she learned how to walk properly like a proper lady, how to stand ramrod straight, how to dance until her feet bled, and how to never miss a step.
A misstep had been all that it took for that scar to remain imprinted on her skin.
Nesta caressed her old scar and bit her nails into the old white line. That old line, her grandmamma’s gift. A gift so she would never forget. A gift so she would always remember.
“Remember to pay attention to my orders.”
To never miss a step. To follow orders.
She missed many steps. She lost her balance. She had forgotten her lessons and now there was no more music.
Even her rage dulled and had turned hollow under all that silence that suffocated her and whatever scraps of humanity shimmered beneath were slowly fading away.
A shiver made every nerve ending of her body ache.
A soft fluffy blanket materialized around her legs but Nesta did not move.
She realized that she was cold despite the sweater and the leggings she wore and a frown appeared on her brow. When had she started wearing leggings and sweaters? She preferred nightgowns but Cassian and Feyre had insisted these clothes would make her feel more comfortable and yet she felt her whole body itching. An itch that would not go away.
One more shiver and another blanket magically covered her.
The House had been trying to give her comfort acting concerned for her well-being. It tried to give her fluffy blankets, smutty books, chocolate, and even liquor which was the first thing that made Nesta laugh in a long time. She had declined because she knew that if she dared to consume even one drop of alcohol she would be heavily reprimanded if not punished.
The truth was that she was not craving alcohol but there was a part of her deep down that wanted to retaliate. To break free. To drink if she wanted, to eat sugar if she wanted. To scream and rage and spew vitriol and let it all out but this was not who she was anymore. She knew how to apologize better than insult others despite the bitter aftertaste left in her mouth every single time she had to bite her tongue and draw blood.
So she remained hollow, trying to suppress her feelings in a way she had been doing for months. It even felt normal for her to do so because it meant she was normal. It meant she would be accepted and have a family. It meant they would respect her now that she had no claws and her forked tongue was cut.
Cassian was gone to Illyria but Azriel and Elain stayed at the House to keep her company and ensure she would be okay. More likely to ensure she would not fall back to old habits or give any other powerful weapons away. She could have told them to mind their business but she had not. She had complied.
The House was hers but she did not object. Azriel lived here and she had little say on who was coming and going in her House these days anyway.
She frowned.
Without Cassian there to carry her up and down the House how she would get out? Azriel would have to take his place or she would have to ask others to help her. It would be an inconvenience but she still had to train and work. She could not stay locked in her room forever and she already missed training with Gwyn and Emerie.
She closed her eyes. She could not leave the House unaided. She felt the sharp sting on her tongue. She was gritting her teeth and biting her tongue again and she forced the muscles of her jaw to relax.
There was a knock on her door and before she could answer the door opened and Feyre came in.
“Can I come in?” her sister asked as she closed the door behind her.
‘You already did,’ Nesta thought.
“Of course,” Nesta said and sat up on the bed as her sister came and sat next to her. Feyre looked at her with pity that made the muscles of Nesta’s jaw lock again.
“How are you?” her sister asked softly and Nesta simply shrugged, “he will return Nesta,” Feyre reached for her hand and Nesta did not pull it back despite how much she wanted to, “He just needs time...to clear his head and maybe...distance will help both of you.”
“Maybe,” Nesta said simply and Feyre squeezed her hand.
“Nesta you need to understand. You had the best intentions but giving the Mask like that-”
“I understand.” Nesta coldly said and Feyre let go of her hand with a sigh.
“It is done and we have the Mask back.”
We? Nesta thought but once more she did not reveal her thoughts.
“And Gwydion,” Feyre smiled and Nesta nodded.
They had Gwydion. They had the last Starsword and they still punished her for it.
“Is there anything I can do for you?” her sister asked with concern.
“Kiss Nyx for me,” Nesta whispered. It was one of the things she was used to saying to Feyre ever since her nephew was born. The one of the few things that came naturally without forcing herself. She loved that child more than words could express.
Feyre gave her a blinding smile.
“Of course!”
Feyre hugged her and then told her goodnight and left.
Nesta did not miss the way her sister’s eyes searched for Ataraxia before leaving and it was then that she realized that they had managed to keep her in the House again ever since Cassian left. They all said it would be good for her to take some time for herself and she obeyed.
In that way, she guessed Ataraxia was safely guarded in the House along with her.
Nesta lay back on the pillows and she felt her mind cracking piece by piece.
Flashback - Two weeks ago
Nesta watched as Cassian paced back and forth.
The cracking sound of the fire in the fireplace still made her skin crawl. Especially in times when she felt such pressure.
She had joked about Rhysand killing her for giving the Mask to Bryce but deep down she was not sure if it was a joke. How could it be a joke when it was a possibility she thought.
She was sitting on the sofa and looked at her mate walking like a beast inside a cage. The red of his siphons was flashing but Nesta was tired of having the same discussion over and over again.
Bryce had returned, and Randall and Ember had returned back into their world.
She still missed Ember so much but it was comforting to know she was safe back into her world.
A world that had been saved. A world that would have been doomed if she had not given the Mask. HER Mask. Because it was hers. It responded to her and her alone no matter how many wards Rhysand was now trying to create around the Mask and the rest of the objects that belonged to her.
Apparently, she was not allowed to have access to them anymore.
Amren had even tried to get her to give Ataraxia too and that had been the one thing Nesta had refused to give them which in return gained her more ire from the Inner Circle and even her mate.
Her mate who lately liked to remind her over and over again of his duty and that he was first and foremost the General of the Night Court and had to consider the Court he served.
Cassian talked to her as if she was a petulant child.
Their mating ceremony had been postponed twice already and from the looks of it, Cassian was going to postpone it a third time. Maybe for good this time.
Nesta looked at the stale biscuits at the table and found herself smirking sadly.
He would not accept a word from her these days how much more a food offering that would shackle her to him forever.
Cassian’s words from when he shouted at her that she was his mate rang in her ears still.
«I didn’t have a choice being shackled to you, either!»
A shackle, her mind reminded her. Their bond was nothing but a shackle for him.
“You gave weapons of mass destruction away Nesta!”
She remained unmoved by his outburst.
He glared at her, expecting from her to give in to the same conversation again. She knew where it would end. At him asking her to hand over Ataraxia to Rhysand for safekeeping.
“I gave a world a chance.”
“You fucking gambled!”
Nesta shook her head tiredly. Maybe they were right. And yes, she understood their fears and their reasoning but how could she explain to them that she had felt something prompting her to give away the Mask? Something she could not explain. A voice, a whisper, a comforting hand on her shoulder.
“She was so desperate she gave us her parents. Do you think she only did it as an exchange for the Mask? She wanted to save them if she failed to save their world Cassian.”
“Exactly Nesta! Fucking exactly! Do you hear yourself?” he yelled at her.
“I do,” she nodded grimly, “There was a whole world hanging on the balance and you wanted me to do what? Step back and let it burn?”
“What would have happened if she had failed? They would have come here!”
“What makes our world more important than any other?”
“Because this is OUR world! One we defended at the cost of so many lives if you remember!” he shouted at her as if she could ever forget, “ One where your nephew lives in, one we are sworn to!”
She wanted to scoff at that. She had taken no vows apart from those she had given to her Valkyries. Somehow her family always seemed to forget that or better yet ignore it.
“I am not sworn to the Night Court,” she quietly said, “You are.”
“That’s bullshit and you know it!”
“What do you want me to do now? The girl returned the Mask, Truth-Teller, and more. What more do you want me to do?”
“I want...I need you to understand that I am still the Commander of the Night Court Nesta,” Cassian sighed, “I need to evaluate danger. And for every action, there has to be a repercussion. It is unthinkable that it was my mate that did this!”
She still remembered how in one of their fights he had told her that if she was not part of the Night Court and his mate she would not have been pardoned for her actions. She could have very well found herself in the Prison and she had to be grateful that she was not treated as just anyone else.
“You do not trust me,” Nesta whispered tiredly.
“Neither do you. You didn’t come to me.”
“Say I had the time to do that which I didn’t,” she pressed, “What would you have done if I had?”
Cassian gritted his teeth and Nesta’s lips pursued.
She knew what he would have done. He would have run to his High Lord. He would have taken her choice away.
“You are an idealist but also a fool,” Cassian finally said, eerily echoing Amren’s words and Nesta felt the anger and disappointment vibrating from the end of his bond, “this is not a game. You are not capable of making such decisions. You are too young to do so.”
Nesta found herself laughing at that. A bitter laugh.
“You obey my sister blindly, General,” she reminded him, “she is younger than me.”
“She has proven herself,” Cassian simply said.
“And I have not?”
“Not when you give away items of the fucking Trove like they are toys, Nesta!”
Nesta closed her eyes. She was so fucking tired.
“What do you want me to do?”
“I don’t know...I wish I knew. I want to...I know a world owes you so much but you put this world in danger to do so. You didn’t even think about the consequences.”
“I did.”
“And you gave the Mask anyway.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“For every child in Bryce’s world that had no one to protect them.”
Cassian pressed the bridge of his nose with his fingers.
“And who would protect our children, Nyx,” he intoned,” if your leap of faith had failed?”
“Us. We would fight for this world and for every other world that had fallen. For every other world that is in danger. You ask me what would have happened if Bryce had failed. She would have if I had not given her the Mask and then? Do you think they wouldn’t have come here eventually? It would be inevitable and if anything she won the war for us too.”
Cassian shook his head and let out an incredulous laugh.
“She is a child! You are a child yourself,” he mumbled.
“A child you have no problem fucking!” she exploded unable to keep her vitriol leashed inside her anymore.
“Say that again,” Cassian challenged her, murder in his eyes.
She got up.
“You heard me. I am too young to make decisions apparently but not too young for you to fuck every night!”
If anything she still smelled like him and sex. They had been fucking not that long ago. This is what they would do these days. Fuck and fight, rinse and repeat.
“Tread carefully Nes.”
“Or what?”
A growl escaped Cassian’s lips and he turned around and punched the wall making Nesta jump in shock as the House shook around him.
Cassian’s shoulders slumped just as Azriel emerged from the shadows. Alarm in his eyes.
The spymaster looked at them both and he must have communicated mentally with his High Lord because Rhysand flew in seconds later.
Both Illyrians watched them carefully. They seemed to be ready to intervene.
Cassian turned around and his eyes, dark like night, found her.
“Brother take a step back,” Rhysand started saying but Nesta interrupted him.
“He won’t hurt me.” She said but everything screamed inside her.
‘I am lying,’ she realized. He had already hurt her. He was hurting her. For a long time now.
Cassian’s eyes widened and Nesta realized he must have felt what she felt through their bond.
“We can’t keep doing this,” Cassian whispered and Nesta’s throat bobbed.
She watched as Cassian’s eyes glazed over and she almost burst out laughing when she realized that he was talking about this with Rhysand and not her. Whatever he would decide for them he would discuss it with his brothers and not her.
“I am going to Illyria,” Cassian said and left the room, leaving her with Azriel and Rhysand.
Nesta didn’t want to see the pity in their eyes. Instead, she focused on the wall barely listening to how Rhysand and Azriel were asking her to stay in the House and give Cassian time.
Nesta’s attention however remained on the wall Cassian had punched and she wanted to tell the House she was sorry and apologize for her mate for causing her friend pain but it would be ridiculous to say this out loud in front of the Spymaster and the High Lord of the Night Court.
Instead, she walked back into her room with Cassian which still smelled like sex.
She did not last long. She had found herself vomiting moments later.
The next day Feyre would come to tell her that Cassian had decided to stay in Illyria for the foreseeable future and it would be best if they postponed their mating ceremony indefinitely.
Nesta jumped out of bed as if it was burning her.
The memories felt like the touch of a blade against her flesh and someone was pouring salt on her bleeding wound.
She was bleeding.
Why was no one seeing that?
Why was no one seeing her?
Her hands wrapped around her throat and clawed. She felt as if she was suffocating. The walls were closing in and she could not breathe.
Her eyes burned and everything blurred. The lights in her bedchamber flickered, the House, her only friend was worried but she could not...she could not breathe. She let out a muted choked sound and her legs stumbled.
Something old and something new was rising instead of her. It was cracking, cracking, cracking.
Breaking.
She was breaking and falling.
Her legs locked as her knees hit the floor. The carpet swallowed the sound of her fall but Nesta found herself crawling.
She needed to get out.
She needed to get some air.
She found herself crawling towards the door. She was tasting salt and somewhere in the back of her mind, somewhere where her sanity was still struggling to sustain her brain despite her pain, she realized that it was not salt. She was tasting her tears. This was why everything had blurred. She was crying. Soundlessly she was crying.
She needed to get out and she reached for the doorknob but as her fingers wrapped around her she realized that it made no difference.
She heaved.
She had no way out.
Ten thousand steps to freedom. No way out except flying and winnowing beyond the wards and she could do neither.
“Mother, help me,” she cried and fell back.
She tried to breathe and something old and something new ruptured inside.
Something old she had taken from the Cauldron and the ink on her back burned.
Something new the Mother had granted her and it was erupting inside her.
White would not let the shadows of the Shadowsinger see her.
Silver would not let the doors and walls close her in.
Silver and white. Something old and something new. Something only hers.
It was building inside her. Untamed, unyielding. Unbroken, unbending. It was rising higher like music, bursting through the hollow silence.
She had to rise. She had to get up. She had to get out.
Nesta lifted her hand and through her tears, she saw the old scar she had. It was a white line near her left thumb.
A white line turned silver as a small flame started licking her skin. A small ember, a small flame, rising, burning, melting the frost, being the frost. Life and Death dancing at her fingertips.
She fell back. She writhed on the floor, trying to stay conscious but pain, madness and chaos were now rushing in her veins and they were not negotiating, they would not conform, they would not be contained.
Flames covered her body. They started from the scar and swallowed her whole just as a guttural scream escaped her lips.
Out. Out.
She had to get out.
Something shuttered, the world quaked, and she screamed.
She had screamed like that before.
A scream coming deep from her core, where the deepest roots of who she truly was were planted. Roots running deep, made from steel and flame, roots like depthless rivers running without beginning and end.
She had screamed like that before making the oceans part and the winds scream. She had screamed like that laughing at death, screaming when she was drowning in the endless night, when she was diving into the dark waters of the Cauldron and clawed and bit and scratched her way out. She had screamed and pillaged, fought and conquered and the Cauldron spat her out.
What came in was not what came out.
Out. She had to get out!
The ink on her back was burning.
Silver erupted, bright like Starfire.
Nesta was burning and there was no holding her back anymore.
She burned into cold flame and the world turned to silver.
She became the flame. Transformed into Silver. The falling star, the ashes who spread into the universe, the winds who carried her name. The winds carried her.
Her power exploded and the world shook and with it every ward broke, every chain melted and she was free.
She was out.