A Court of Lichen and Twilight / An ACOTAR Fanfiction

Chapter Twelve: Thunderstruck

The humming of the amethyst in my memory still reverberated in my ears when I woke from the latest coma. Or maybe it was the sound of my racing pulse drumming against my internal monologue. It could really be either but the sound tethered me to reality nonetheless. I awakened with a start and a jolt of foreign energy I hadn't possessed in a very long time. It made me wonder how long Silas had actually been poisoning me to stifle my powers based on the utter restfulness I had just achieved.

I often used to come up from sleep's chokehold in this shocked state right after my father had died when putting the wards up. The guilt and humiliation mixed with the grief and pain I felt usually acted as catalysts during the first few years without him. Frequent bouts of sudden waking plagued me something terrible before the initial pain started to ease.

I brought my hands to my face, rubbing the remaining sleep away. A few crusty pieces of it flaked off from my tear ducts, reminding me of how restful I had been. The sunshine poured into the room, alerting me that at least another twenty four hours had passed since my collapse. Was it the poppy lichen tea or had it been a production of Tamlin's, who was still leery of my impending powers? Something shifted in him yesterday that made me feel deep down that this was the consequences of the lichen and not his dreamy spell work.

No sweat dewed my skin as was typical in my morning rituals here at the Spring Court. My body didn't feel swollen and achy from the lingering fever. No pressing weight felt like it set upon my chest. I took fresh, deep and rejuvenating breaths. No nip of pain came from my chest where the arrow had struck me as the skin stretched on the inhale and pulled where the wound would be taught. Most alarming was the absence of sensation that my stomach was ripping open when I hinged to bend or sit up. I threw back the blanket that was placed around me and lifted up the unfamiliar sleeveless tunic I wore to reveal the flesh. Only a nasty, white scar gnarled below my belly button and dropped slightly into the band of also strange tied waist band pants. It only paled in comparison to the branched one that sprawled across the entirety of my back and shoulders.

I gasped, sitting up and my chest heaving. I couldn't believe it. Nila was a genius - the tea really worked. My Dawn Court paternal blood had finally acted to heal in the absence of the radical poison. I wanted to cry just thinking of my best friend and her incessant quest for more knowledge and research in healthcare. Cauldron, I missed her.

My feet bolted to the mirror of the bathroom. They hit so hard on the soft, ornate rug that I almost lost my footing when skidding across it. The bare ness of them and silliness of the carpet weren't compatible at top speed. My body hit the bathroom door and barged through it in a flash. I lifted up my tunic again to see it for myself once more to ensure it was real. I ran my index finger along the raised white seam of the new sealed scar. Beyond the surface, I hoped the lichen healed internally behind it, too. Tamlin had said grievous things about the extent of the damage to my organs.

I let the shirt drop and combed over the rest of my body. My coloring was back, olive toned and...healthy. Normal to what I was used to. I spun to look at the liveliness that sprang into me and looked myself over a shoulder. The two eyes I bore were once again my strikingly deep blue, standing out amongst the brunette locks of hair that framed my face. My hair looked shiny and full, cascading large curled waves tumbled down my back and landed part ways to my waist. I turned over my other shoulder to admire the length when I realized something major was missing from my back. Body parts.

My wings were gone. As the lichen stifled the poisons colluding my brain, the connection between it and my power must have happened utterly overnight. I presumably rolled onto and pinned a wing in my sleep and my body naturally reacted by getting rid of them. I had wished I could a million times during my slumbers in this bed. I summoned them back with my power, straining as I flexed my back muscles to uphold them. To bring them back was little to no effort. Billowing, kohl black, and feathered, they sprawled out with a whoosh before tucking behind. Only tiny grey scars marked where Silas had pinned them to the earth over a month ago. They were almost unnoticeable. It didn't matter - they were fully healed.