𝒜 𝒞𝑜𝓊𝓇𝓉 𝑜𝒻 𝑅𝑒𝓈𝒾𝓈𝓉𝒶𝓃𝒸𝑒 𝒶𝓃𝒹 𝒮𝒸𝒶𝓇𝓈 | ᴀᴢʀɪᴇʟ

Chapter 49

Chapter 49

You guys are so entertaining in the comments. I love it! I just got the update where you can like them now so yay! but they've shrunk the text size :( Anyways, I think most go through fine eventually but just know that Wattpad is automatically reporting comments with 'offensive language' so just know that it's not me because I don't care about cursing in my comments at all. 

Also small trigger warning: scarring in wrists

Rhysand believed that his life after death would be peaceful. That perhaps he would float in nothingness, and be little more than a formless soul. Or that there would be something. And, if by all technicalities, there was something. The fogged world around him only held two distinguishable features. Amren and the Cauldron.

He wasn't ready for death.

The Cauldron began sealing, burning bright like a thousand cracks were being melded together. They had done it. All of them. He felt his mate's call, the droplets of power and life surging back through him. So he held out a hand to Amren. The female looked at it blankly, then at the Cauldron, then back at him. Rhysand smiled as she slipped her small hand into his.

The tug on him grew and he knew it was time to return, so he turned around to the calling. But a shadow caught his attention—just in the very corner of his eye. Rhysand turned back, his mind filtering through thoughts of those who may have died beside him. Could it be a soldier that had passed close by? 

The shadow grew sharper as he walked towards it, leaving Amren to follow the guide he left to get back. The tug on him was stronger now. He didn't have long.

His heart stopped (a thought that he might laugh at later) at what was before him.

A female stood amongst the mist, dressed in a black, velvet dress. Raven hair tumbled down her back and violet eyes were turned down to examine her hands. Rhysand's lips dried, his stomach tightening so painfully he thought he might lose it. He never believed he'd see those eyes again.

She wasn't looking at him, only down at her hands that she twisted and turned, marvelling, at something he couldn't see.

He uttered her name for the first time since the day she died, low and hoarse. "Arwen?"

Arwen glanced up, her lips softly parted. Grief painted her face. His heart contorted, seeing her look at him for the first time in two hundred and fifty years. Rhysand marched forward. She took a step back, her expression flashing to panic.

He could bring her back. He knew he could. He wouldn't question how or why she was there. "Arwen," he called again, keeping his voice soft just in case she was struggling to recognise him through the fog.

Arwen looked behind her, perhaps to the same thing that had been calling him before his mate's voice muted it.

Rhysand extended his hand, the same as he had offered Amren. "Arwen." A breath. "Take my hand. Please. Take my hand." She only looked at it, curling her own closer to her chest. The pull was becoming too strong. He was going to return by his own will or by force, and he would bring her with him. Even if it was some allusion of his mind, he would try.

At the last second, feeling the force of his life be torn away from the mysterious realm, he launched forward and grabbed the hands she had been marvelling at seconds earlier. And his existence in the fogged world was wiped.

~

Rhysand felt her first, lying on his chest. If he had the control to smile yet, he would. He brushed a hand down Feyre's back. "If we're all here," he groaned, "either things went very, very wrong or very right." The hoarse chuckle of his general met his ears like birdsong. "You lot will be pleased to know... My power remains my own. No thieving here."