A Court of Death || ACOTAR

100

Feyre stepped into Astryn's and Azriel's room hesitantly. She had knocked and been ignored, but she couldn't not go in.

Azriel didn't bother to look up.

"Rhys wanted to...he was thinking about doing something for Astryn's birthday next week. To..." Feyre trailed off, having a hard time finding the right words. "A dinner. He was thinking of having a dinner."

"It's not even really her birthday," Azriel mumbled, "she didn't...she didn't know when her birthday actually was. She told Cassian and I one night so we just...we picked a day."

"Just a random day?" Feyre asked hesitantly.

"I don't know," he confessed with a shrug, "Cassian was the one who came up with it. Maybe he knows."

"I haven't seen him in a while. He's been at the Illyrian camps. He hasn't been around much since Solstice," Feyre informed him.

"He thinks she's dead."

Feyre didn't know how to respond to that.

"Will you join us?" she asked after a long stretch of silence.

"No," he answered, "and tell Rhys it's a stupid idea. It won't matter to her."

Feyre opened her mouth and then closed it again. Azriel finally looked at her, and she almost flinched. He hardly even seemed alive.

"This isn't what she would want. She wouldn't want you to be miserable," she told him, and he scoffed.

"And I didn't want her to sacrifice herself." He motioned around the room. "I guess we don't always get the things we want."

"Az," she said softly, and that dead stare did not waver. Feyre wasn't one to back down easily, but something about Azriel's lifeless gaze pushed her out the door.

Hours later, Rhys came in. Azriel was in bed with Astryn now, asleep with a wing draped protectively over her. And they both looked dead. It looked like they had curled up in that bed and died together as one.

Rhys stared at them, and he wondered if there was any coming back from this. If Astryn didn't wake up, Azriel wouldn't survive either. They'd both be gone. It would rip a hole through their family.

He watched as Azriel's wing twitched up to shield Astryn from Rhys's few completely, as if he could sense the stare even in his sleep.

After a few long minutes, Rhys left the room. Left the house completely. He went to where Cassian was—up in the Illyrian mountains overseeing training. Cassian passed the lead of the session over to someone else when Rhys arrived.

"Is she dead?" he asked without wasting time on pleasantries. "Is he dead?"

"No," Rhys answered, "not yet, at least. I need you to come home."

"There's nothing I can do for him," Cassian replied, his exhaustion evident, "or for her. If she doesn't wake up, he'll die. That's it. There's no other way this plays out. If she doesn't wake up, he's dead."

"She'll wake up."

Cassian let out a long breath and shrugged as he said, "yeah, Rhys, she'll wake up."

"I hate that you gave up on her," Rhys snapped, "I hate it."

Cassian's jaw clenched and he spent a few seconds considering his next words.

"I couldn't do anything. The King...he had her. He was holding her and then he winnowed away with her, and I thought I'd never see her again. And then she appeared again, and she killed them all. She killed herself. She knew exactly what she was doing. She didn't expect to come back from it. She chose to die that day. I remember...her body was so cold. It had only been a few seconds but her skin felt like ice. Like she was frozen from the inside out. And I wondered if it hurt, if she had felt that cold and been in pain or if...if it was over so fast she didn't feel any of it. And then Death was there. Said he could bring her back if he was fast enough. He wasn't fucking fast enough, Rhys. There was barely anything left of her by the time he brought her back."

"But there was still something. There was still something left of her. That means there's a chance."

"I can't survive being disappointed," Cassian admitted, "I can't survive hoping and being wrong. I can't...it'll kill me. I need to just...it's easier this way. I can accept that she's never waking up and then if she does it's just...it's a good thing to be wrong about. But I can't hope and then be wrong about that. I won't survive it. And you won't be okay if you lose her and Az and me. There has to be one of us left. And Az is her mate. If she goes, so does she. There's no way around that. One of us still needs to be here. We can't both quit on you, and that's what'll happen if I let myself hope and she doesn't come back."

Rhys opened his mouth and then closed it again. Somehow, Cassian had again ended up as their backbone.