Acotar and Tog [Discontinued, Will be deleted]

Be Seeing You

Morrigan was rapturous. The emotion I felt flood her mind when I sent her the mental message letting her know to expect me shortly was comforting. But I quickly shut off the link between our thoughts so that I could try to send another more important message. I’d deal with my cousin’s scorn at being cut short after fifty years of waiting later.

The midday sun as I waited for her felt glorious and I was the only one just then who knew it. The rest of the Mountain had either fled home the second Amarantha’s blood was spilt or were resting sound asleep below me. Often I’d come here when I wasn’t being kept to Amarantha’s bedside just to find a brief reprieve amid the chaos, a masochistic reminder that though I could not throw myself into the mountains off the balcony and fly, the ability to do so was still possible. It filled me with such hope some nights.

Shuffling sounded behind me startling me from my reverie. Feyre groaned when she stepped onto the balcony, the sunlight forcing her sleepy eyes to form narrow slits, but I only saw the way it made the gold stand out in the waves her hair as they blew on the breeze.

She was enchanting.

“I forgot it’s been a while for you,” I said with a small chuckle.

She opened her eyes wide enough to take in the glorious mountains in the distance, but then her gaze finally captured me and she was quiet. The silence from her stretched on and the longer it went, the more nervous I became. She seemed to take in every piece of me, my long limbs, the small wisps of hair at my neck, and the membranous wings I was so glad to display openly to her now without pretense.

But then she found my eyes and a turbulent sea of hurt and blood she carried calmed within them. “What do you want?” she asked, but her voice was not harsh or combative for once. Instead, she was soft towards me, considerate even, almost as if she maybe cared about me in some small way. It made my heart melt with longing for the missed companionship we could share, all from that one simple question on her lips.

But reality was cruel.

“Just to say good-bye,” I replied. “Before your beloved whisks you away forever.”

“Not forever,” Feyre said, twirling her tattooed hand before me and this time, there was some of that fire I loved in her voice. “Don’t you get a week every month?”

“How could I forget?”

She came closer and again I felt her eyes search me, scanning the contours of my face. I felt a flash of pain and a vision of blood - my blood - whip through her mind, but I locked it out before it could fully unfold. Now that the trials were over, I had pledged not to intrude on her mind anymore. She didn’t need my help anymore to survive some outrageous task or keep her head space clear while she suffered in a prison cell. Her thoughts should be her own, as they always should have been.

But it had definitely been my face her mind had conjured, bloody and beaten and broken by Amarantha and I knew what she wanted from me when she asked me so plainly, “Why?” Why did I do it?

And oh where to begin?

Because I love you, I thought. Because you’re my mate and you’re wonderful and alive and the only person who makes me feel like myself again and I could never have let you die without giving myself up for you first.

Instead I shrugged, offering her a half truth. “Because when the legends get written, I didn’t want to be remembered for standing on the sidelines. I want my future offspring to know that I was there, and that I fought against her at the end, even if I couldn’t do anything useful.”

I would have left it at that, but as I stared at Feyre, my heart fell into her hands and I couldn’t concentrate on what version of myself she was supposed to see anymore. So I gave her the other half of the truth. “Because I didn’t want you to fight alone. Or die alone.”