A Court of Magnolias and Ash

Twenty Two

Nesta:

He didn't wake up. He was still—a pristine sculpture of death. Tears stained my swollen cheeks, I could barely register the movements and sounds crowding around us.

A gentle hand squeezed my shoulder. 

"No," I whispered while fighting their strengthening grip. "No!" I shook off their touch, "he, he'll wake up. He has to wake up." My entire body shook with the aftermath of rage—of the loss of him.

I hated it—the shaking. All I do is tremble with either fury or fear. Venomous bile raced up the back of my throat. I turned to the side, expelling my guts in the war-torn field.

"Nesta?" Her honeyed voice raised above the rest, penetrating my cloud of despair.

I looked upwards, peering over my shoulder at the beauty of spring and all things sweet. Elain's bloody hand rested on my back, her golden eyes flashed to Cassian's limp body.

There was a deeper sadness, a knowing despair that only she could have foreseen. Part of me wanted to scream at her, to attack her for knowing and not telling me. We could have stopped this. I could have just stayed put in Velaris, it would have saved him. If I had known—I would have stayed—risking the liv...

My mind rambled with different scenarios, but he would have ended up dead either way, I realized.

By my flames or Beron's.

That's what she saw. A breaking of a cold heart; fallen ashes that once made wings. Yet what was worse? What she saw, when she saw it? Or blindly going into battle, not realizing it would be your last?

No, it was finding love and leaving it out of fear. It was the moment I finally had him back, when he came back for me. When I watched him sacrifice his life, when I watched him die.

Elain pulled me away with great effort—I couldn't let him go. "It's time," Elain whispered softly. Her voice curled around me, smothering me with unbearable sweetness.

"Time? Time? Ti...we can't go back. I, I can't go forward. The burning, fire incarnate. The...What does it matter now? Wh, what future..." I was beginning to sound like Elain had in the past. In the time before we knew she was a seer. Only my words were disrupted by emotions I had never released before.

I stared at him until I could no longer see. Amber tears blurred the bodies I barely recognized as his family. They crowded beside him. All crying, all unable to comfort one another as they mourned the loss of a brother.

"Ronan."

Her words pulled me out of my trance. "Ronan?" I repeated, my voice sounded hollow—broken. I was in that head space, the one where time is merely a word instead of a countdown to your death sentence.

Nothing seemed real but I felt it. A rough tug on my consciousness; slowly piecing together what she meant.

Elain nodded, her hand tightening around mine, "it's time to make a bargain, sister." Her lips were moving too fast; the ringing in my ears making it more difficult to understand her. "Do you hear me, Nesta? Do you understand what we must do?"

I squinted, thinking it would somehow improve my hearing. "Ronan?" I asked again, nearly coming to a stop as we moved closer to the cauldron.

"Yes," she replied, swiftly moving through the crowd of soldiers and embers.

"A bargain?" I glanced at the cauldron. The earth felt like it was shaking beneath me...but it wasn't. Instead my trembling legs were going to fail me. The paralyzing anxiety and fear grew. Why must I always quiver? What purpose did it serve me—weak. I'm too weak.