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︵ Light, Snow, and Tiny Wings ◌Ⳋ𝅄
꒷꒦︶꒷꒦︶ ๋ ࣭ ⭑꒷꒦
The Winter Solstice in the Night Court used to arrive in absolute silence.
It wasn’t the empty, cold silence of loneliness—but one full of latent promises, of stars suspended in the velvet sky as if holding their breath in reverence to the world below. The wind blew over the Sidra River, carrying the scent of virgin snow and ancient pine, and Velaris slept under a mantle of untouched tranquility. It used to be like that.
Now… now there was a new melody composing the morning symphony.
It started with an indignant grumble, muffled by blankets, followed by an excited babble that rose in pitch. And then, without any warning, a sharp squeal echoed through the bedroom still steeped in the blueish gloom of dawn, shattering the peace of the High Lord and High Lady.
Feyre moaned softly, a sound of pure exhaustion, and buried her face deeper into the down pillow, trying to block out reality.
"It’s still dark… Why is it still dark?" she murmured, her voice raspy and heavy with sleep, dragging the words out.
Beside her, the mattress dipped slightly. Rhysand was already awake. Had been for exactly five minutes, to be precise. He knew this because he had spent every one of those seconds staring at the small being lying on his chest, who seemed absolutely convinced that the rebirth of sunlight required not just an attentive audience, but a standing ovation.
"My son," Rhys whispered solemnly, running his hand down the baby's back. His violet eyes gleamed in the dim light, sparking with contained amusement. "Even I, the most powerful being in the history of the Night Court, respect the sanctity of dawn. You should follow the example."
Nyx, completely ignoring the court hierarchy, responded with a short, victorious laugh. His small membranous wings fluttered uncoordinatedly, flapping against his father's chest as if applauding his own audacity.
Rhys sighed, a long, defeated sound, but laden with adoration.
With meticulous care, using only a delicate thread of his power, he let soft, harmless shadows detach from the corners of the room. They crept through the air like living smoke, rising to the ceiling. There, they danced and stretched, taking on simple shapes to entertain the little tyrant: twinkling stars, crescent moons, and small wings beating in a slow rhythm.
Nyx widened his eyes, mesmerized. Momentary silence reigned as he watched the private spectacle.
"That," Rhys murmured, a surrendered, crooked smile curving his lips as he stroked his son's chubby cheek. "Pay attention, Nyx. The greatest trick of ruling isn't brute power. It's pretending you control absolutely nothing while moving all the pieces."
The chubby little hands immediately reached up, trying to grab the shadows as if they were tangible toys. Every frustrated attempt to capture the magic smoke tore a new laugh from the baby—that pure, light, crystal-clear sound that Rhys never knew his soul needed to hear until the moment this baby existed.
Feyre opened one eye, fighting against the weight of her eyelids.
Then, with Herculean effort, she opened the other.
She watched the scene in silence for a moment, letting the image burn into her memory: Rhys with their son resting on his bare chest, his face relaxed and devoid of the masks of coldness he wore for the world. His eyes were full of a fierce kind of love that no war, torture, or nightmare had managed to rip from him. The shadows danced on the ceiling, reflecting the magic that ran in both their blood. The faint scent of pine and embers coming from the still-warm fireplace completed the picture.
"You are ridiculous," she murmured, but there was a lazy, lovestruck smile in her voice. The mating bond hummed between them, warm and golden.
Rhys looked at her, arching a perfect eyebrow”
"Ridiculously efficient, my darling Feyre. He stopped screaming, didn't he? You gained ten more minutes of sleep. You're welcome."
Nyx, as if perfectly understanding that he was being used as a bargaining chip, let out an excited squeal and kicked his father in the chin.
Feyre closed her eyes again, her smile widening.
Solstice had officially begun at five in the morning.
And strangely… amidst the exhaustion and the messy sheets, it felt exactly right.
The River House was never known for prolonged silence, especially on holidays.
Hours later, the comforting smell of cinnamon, fresh bread, and something definitely suspicious burning in the oven announced the imminent arrival of the Inner Circle. The air vibrated with anticipation, and the morning calm was shattered before the front door even opened.
"I’m telling you this is completely safe! Everything is under control!" Cassian’s booming voice echoed from outside, cutting through the stone walls.
"You said the exact same thing five seconds before toppling half the library at the House of Wind," Azriel replied, his dry, monotone tone cutting through the freezing air.
The front door opened with enough force to make the newly hung holly wreaths sway dangerously. Cassian entered first, a force of nature, arms loaded with a precarious pile of colorful boxes, gift bags, and… a tree. A whole tree, roots and all.
"We brought reinforcements and holiday spirit!" he announced, with a grin that promised trouble.
Mor came right behind him, laughing, wrapped in vibrant red fabrics and radiating an easy, contagious joy. Behind her, Azriel slid inside, silent as a shadow, shaking the snow from his wings with lethal elegance. Nesta entered last, closing the door against the biting wind, observing the scene with a carefully neutral air, though her eyes betrayed an attentive curiosity.
Nyx was in Feyre’s lap, gnawing on a wooden toy, when Cassian spotted him.
"Look at him!" Cassian dropped the tree and boxes onto the floor with a dull thud, ignoring Azriel’s protests, and approached with an exaggerated, dramatic bow. "The future terror of the skies, the nightmare of flight instructors, the Prince of the Night Court!".
Nyx responded by drooling profusely in the Illyrian warrior's direction.
"See that?" Cassian pointed, puffing out his chest with pride. "He loves me. It’s a warrior’s recognition."
"He loves anything that is loud and shiny, Cassian," Feyre said, laughing as she wiped her son's chin. "Which makes you his favorite toy."
The decorating began immediately… and, as expected, quickly turned into organized chaos.
Cassian and Azriel were tasked with the tree—which, it turned out, was too big for the corner of the room.
"You hold the base, I’ll fly up to the top to place the star," Cassian instructed, assessing the giant conifer.
"No," Azriel replied, not even looking at him as he untangled a string of faerie lights.
"Coward."
"Responsible. And I value the integrity of Feyre’s ceiling."
Cassian then smiled in that dangerously excited way, his hazel eyes gleaming with a terrible idea. He turned to where Feyre was sitting”
"How about Nyx helps? He has wings, technically he can fly up there if I give him a little push..."
The silence in the room was immediate and absolute. Even the fire in the hearth seemed to crackle with less force.
Rhys, who was pouring wine for Mor, looked up slowly. The air around him darkened, the temperature dropping a few degrees.
"Finish that sentence very carefully, brother."
Cassian was already taking the baby from Feyre’s arms, with a surprising and contradictory delicacy for someone of his size and lethality.
"Relax, Rhys. I know what I’m doing. I’m a natural."
Azriel crossed his arms, his Spymaster shadows swirling around his shoulders.
"You really don’t. The last time you said that, we ended up trapped in a mountain for three days."
In the end, Cassian (wisely) did not fly with Nyx. But he spent a good twenty minutes trying to convince the baby to "imbue warrior’s luck" by blowing on the crystal star before finally placing it atop the tree.
It was in this moment of relative peace that Amren appeared, stepping out of the shadows of a hallway as if she had materialized there.
She walked to the coffee table and placed an absurd jewel upon it. The stone captured the firelight and refracted it in rainbows across the walls.
"For the heir."
Feyre blinked, stunned, approaching the table.
"Amren… is this by any chance a two-hundred-carat rough diamond?"
"Yes," the tiny Ancient One replied, helping herself to a goblet of lamb’s blood no one saw her bring. "I thought it appropriate. It is resilient."
"He’s going to try to eat this, Amren. He puts everything in his mouth."
Amren looked at Nyx with her silver, unfathomable eyes. Nyx, sensing the challenge, immediately reached out his little arms, trying to grab the glittering diamond.
"Hm." Amren snatched the jewel from the table with the speed of a striking viper. "Right. Perhaps when he has teeth capable of crushing bone. I shall keep it for now."
Cassian’s gift came right after the tree was, miraculously, standing.
It was a large box, poorly wrapped. Inside was a mini set of Illyrian leathers, complete with toy siphons, perfectly fitted for a baby.
"It’s for when he leads my armies," Cassian said, beaming with pride, holding the tiny garment against Nyx’s sturdy body.
"Cassian, he can barely hold his own head up," Feyre murmured, touching the soft leather affectionately. "He’s going to look like a potato dressed for war."
Cassian ignored the comment and knelt before Nyx, getting on eye level with the baby.
"Come on, kid. Show me your warrior face. Give them the look of death."
Nyx responded by drooling on the new tunic’s collar… and, in a swift movement, grabbed a handful of Cassian’s long hair and yanked with surprising strength.
"Ow! Damn it!" Cassian laughed, trying to untangle the strands from the chubby fingers without hurting the baby. "He’s strong! Did you see that? He already has the killer instinct!"
Mor already had an instant camera in hand, laughing as the flash went off.
"This is going straight to the front page of the album 'Cassian Being Humiliated by Children'."
When the snow began to fall harder outside, blanketing the world in white, everyone migrated to the wide covered balcony.
Velaris glowed below them like a sea of spilled jewels, the lights of the houses reflecting in the flakes that descended slowly in hypnotic spirals. The Sidra River was a dark ribbon cutting through the illuminated city.
Nyx was silent for the first time in hours.
His large dark eyes tracked every point of light, every snowflake. The small wings on his back shuddered, agitated by the instinct to feel the wind.
Rhys wrapped Feyre and their son in his own cloak, warming them with his heat and power. His scent—rain and citrus—was Feyre’s home.
They said nothing for a long time.
They didn’t need to.
There was a deep peace there, tangible between them. There was the memory of everything they had lost, every scar they carried, and everything they had survived to reach this exact moment on the balcony. The family they chose, gathered against the cold.
The official gift exchange turned into a small paper war.
Wrapping paper was torn without mercy. Boxes tipped over. Ribbons flew.
Nyx, sitting in the middle of a pile of expensive enchanted toys, ignored all of them to attack, with fierce determination, a piece of noisy, crumpled wrapping paper.
"I am the High Lord of the Night Court, the most powerful male in Prythian," Rhys said, with a theatrical tone of disgust, "and my heir prefers garbage to imported gifts. Where did I go wrong in his education?"
It was then that Nesta approached. The room went a little quieter.
She knelt on the plush rug, her movements fluid, and handed over her gift in silence. It wasn’t a large box, nor anything shiny.
It was a small, plush wolf, gray and soft. The seams were visible, imperfect, hand-sewn. There was care in every crooked stitch.
Feyre held her breath. She knew how much that meant coming from her sister. Nyx dropped the crumpled paper. He looked at the wolf. Then, he reached out and grabbed Nesta’s index finger.
She froze. All the steel coldness of the Valkyrie seemed to melt for a second. She looked at the little hand holding hers. Then… she smiled. It wasn’t one of those sharp smiles she used as a weapon. It was small. Rare. True. A glimpse of the sister she was relearning to be.
"Happy Solstice, Nyx," she whispered.
By the end of the night, exhaustion won over euphoria.
The Inner Circle was scattered across the living room in various states of unconsciousness. Cassian was snoring softly in an armchair, a gift ribbon stuck to his forehead. Azriel watched the flames in the hearth, lost in thought, a glass of wine dangling from his hand. Mor and Amren spoke in whispers in the corner.
The fire crackled, casting orange shadows across the walls.
Nyx was finally asleep, a warm, comforting weight on Rhys’s chest.
Feyre watched it all, feeling her heart overflow with gratitude so intense it ached. She rested her head on her mate's shoulder, intertwining her fingers with his.
The house had finally fallen silent. The last dishes were cleared, the wrapping paper vanished, and the embers in the fireplace were now just a soft, pulsating glow of orange and red.
Feyre found them in the nursery.
Rhys was standing by the large bay window that overlooked the Sidra, his silhouette framed by the silver light of the moon. He wasn’t rocking Nyx to sleep; he was simply holding him, standing perfectly still, as if he were a statue carved from night and devotion.
Feyre leaned against the doorframe for a moment, letting the sight settle into her bones. The bond between them—that bridge of soul and magic—hummmed with a melody she rarely felt from him: a profound, overwhelming peace, tinged with a terrifying vulnerability.
She walked in, her bare feet silent on the rug.
Rhys didn’t turn, but his wing brushed against her arm as she reached him—a silent greeting.
"He’s fighting sleep," Rhys whispered, his voice a low rumble that vibrated in his chest.
Feyre looked down. Nyx was wide awake, his large, violet eyes—so like his father’s—staring up at the stars beyond the glass. He was swaddled in a soft blanket, but one of his small, membraneous wings had escaped, twitching slightly as if trying to catch the moonlight.
"He doesn't want to miss anything," Feyre said softly, resting her head on Rhys’s shoulder, her hand coming up to stroke the downy softness of Nyx’s hair.
"I was telling him about the stars," Rhys said, shifting Nyx slightly so he could look at Feyre. "About how they are not just balls of gas burning in the void. They are witnesses."
Rhys looked down at his son, and the expression on the High Lord’s face broke Feyre’s heart and mended it all at once. It was an expression of absolute surrender.
"Nyx," Rhys murmured, bringing his face close to the baby’s.
Nyx blinked, his gaze locking onto his father’s.
"Do you see the city down there?" Rhys asked, pointing a long, tattooed finger toward the glittering lights of Velaris. "It is beautiful, and it is old, and it has survived monsters and darkness."
Nyx made a small cooing sound, reaching for Rhys’s finger and wrapping his tiny hand around it.
"But you," Rhys continued, his voice thickening with emotion, "you are brighter than any starlight that has ever touched this court."
Feyre reached out, tracing the curve of Nyx’s round cheek. The baby leaned into her touch, his warmth radiating through her skin.
"We waited for you," Feyre whispered to her son, feeling tears prick her eyes. "Through wars, through despair, through moments where we didn't know if there would be a tomorrow. We waited for you."
Nyx kicked his legs beneath the blanket, his eyes shifting between his parents.
Rhys leaned his forehead against Feyre’s temple, sandwiching their son between them. The magic of the High Lord and High Lady swirled around the infant—not to stifle, but to caress. A mix of night and starlight, shielding him.
"Listen to me, Nyx," Rhys said, and the command in his tone was soft, but it carried the weight of a mountain. "You will hear many things about who you are. About your power. About your title."
Rhys kissed the baby’s forehead, right between his eyes.
"But the only thing you ever need to know—the only truth that matters—is that you are wanted. You were wished for on every falling star."
Feyre took Nyx’s small hand, kissing his knuckles. "You are loved," she promised him, her voice fierce. "When you are happy, and when you are angry. When you succeed, and when you fail. There is nothing you could ever do, nowhere you could ever go, that would change that."
"You are our heart," Rhys added, his thumb stroking the back of Nyx’s wing. "Walking outside of our bodies."
Nyx seemed to settle then, as if the weight of their words had wrapped around him like a second blanket. His eyelids drooped. The fight against sleep was finally lost to the comfort of his parents' presence.
Rhys began to sway slowly, a gentle rhythm.
"I love you," Rhys whispered into the quiet room, a secret shared between the shadows. "My son. My joy."
"Always," Feyre echoed, pressing a kiss to the top of his head. "Forever."
"To the stars who listen—and the dreams that are answered..." she whispered, completing the ancient toast that had defined their lives.
Rhys kissed the top of Nyx’s head with infinite tenderness, then brushed his lips against Feyre’s forehead.
"And to the little one who is now our universe," he finished. "Happy Solstice, Feyre."
And, as the snow continued to fall over the city of dreams, the Night Court slept in peace. And there, in the quiet dark of the longest night of the year, surrounded by the power of the Night Court, Nyx drifted off to sleep—safe, warm, and knowing, deep in his dreaming soul, that he was the most loved thing in the entire world.