A Court of Death || ACOTAR

102

The wildflowers died first. That wasn't cause for concern. They had been picked and set there. They hadn't grown there. It made sense that they died.

Next was the grass. All the way out behind the edge of the tree line, the grass died. The vegetables in Astryn's garden died. The trees began dying.

All the plant life in a ten mile radius was dead by the time Cassian showed up a week after Rhys had left Astryn and Azriel here. Cassian had been furious at him for it. As far as he was concerned, Rhys had just taken them to die out in the Middle. All the dead plant life further confirmed that to him. Something was happening—something unnatural.

He went inside without bothering to knock. He made his way through the house to the bedroom. Azriel was who he noticed first. He looked healthier, like he had actually been eating and had become more active than he had been over the last few months. He didn't look like he was on the edge of dying.

And Astryn...she was less pale now, some color returned to her. He knew somehow that if he reached out and touched her, she wouldn't be cold. For the first time in months, she wouldn't be cold.

"Is she..." Cassian trailed off, as if he feared saying it out loud would make it untrue.

"Not yet," Azriel said, "she hasn't woken up yet. But she's warm now. She's warm, Cassian."

Cassian blinked a few times and then nodded.

"Everything around this cabin is dead," he blurted out, knowing there was no way Azriel hadn't already noticed that.

"It started happening our second day here. Everything started dying, and she started coming back." He glanced out the window at the dead trees, the brown, dried up grass.

This land that had claimed her as surely as she claimed it, land no one had ever dared to lay claim to before. Home to her and to the monsters she had charmed. A place, it seemed, that loved her as much as she loved it.

"It goes out ten miles in all directions," Cassian murmured, "I checked. There's...it's all just dying."

Azriel nodded, clearly already fully aware of the gravity of what was happening.

"I didn't think it was possible," Cassian finally said after a full minute went by.

"I don't think Rhys fully believed it was going to happen either," Azriel replied, "he was the one who thought of it but I don't think he believed it would work."

"But you did," Cassian pointed out, and Azriel sighed.

"I had to," he said, "I had to believe it."

Cassian knew why. He knew Azriel had to believe this would work, because he didn't see any reason to live if it failed. His mate, gone forever, was not something he could survive. So, he needed to believe this would work.

And, somehow, it was working. All the life around them, handing itself over to her.

For the first time in those long, brutal months, Cassian allowed himself to hope.

"She's going to come back," Azriel said with the brightest smile Cassian had ever seen from him, "she's going to come back."

And Cassian believed him.