Of Light And Dark | acotar

Chapter 8

Very few beings could distinguish night from dark. For most, one was the other, each the same. Both equally unknown, equally dangerous. These were the creatures who would pass their lives cowering in the wake of shadows and longing for the safety of sun or candlelight.

But Rhysand, High Lord of Night, he knew the difference.

Night was natural. A time of cooling, of slowing, of wonder and intrigue. Blooms that flourished only by moonlight, flashing insects that winked their hellos, stars that danced after sunset, souls that sailed across the sky like so many ships heading home. They were gifts that reserved themselves for those who knew that beauty thrived while the world slept, who braved the night to find it.

Music sounded sweeter. The exertion of dancing or fighting became all the more intoxicating with a nighttime breeze brushing over sweat-slicked skin.

Rhys had long ago learned the beautiful touch of the night. It was his fortitude, his treasure. His home.

Darkness, then, was his shield and his blade. For centuries, he'd wielded it with skill and relish. To attack, to protect.

Then his weapon — molded of his own being, forged for his hand — had been knocked from his grip and stolen. Now, the darkness he'd commanded since he could breath, had been turned on him.

Night was a thing of beauty, as natural as the pulse that quickened at the wonder of Starfall. Darkness, though, was the theft of light itself. It was the total absence of light by outside forces. Only those who had never been kept under cover could ever consider night and dark the same. After half a century locked underground, Rhys had concluded that they had been the lucky ones after all.

But tonight...tonight, just for a time, Rhys would ascend from a stale darkness that was not of his own making into glorious, invigorating night. For precious few hours, he would have light.

Not the sun, not the bonfires, not even the stars.

Her. His mate would burn all the brighter before him for the cage of darkness he'd been held in for so long.

Because tonight was Fire Night.

••••••••••••

The fortnight following Feyre's conversation with the Suriel was agony. In the Night Court, even though their efforts had been largely fruitless, she and Nesta had been part of a team. Feyre had taken for granted the relief of sitting around a table at the end of a disappointing day and unloading it onto sympathetic shoulders. Its frustrations, its failures, its distractions, its mundanities. Though her burdens were never fully absolved, she'd stood from supper each night and felt it lightened. Just a little bit.

The High Lord of Spring and his emissary were very poor substitutes for the family she'd left in the north. They avoided the sisters most days, both too busy dealing with the increasing beasts that Amarantha sicced upon their court to partake in research. Evenings weren't a source of much catharsis either. Stilted silences stretched between Lucien's occasional jibes and Tamlin's continuous brooding.

Worse than that, upon leaving Night, Nesta had retreated into herself. She wasn't cold, precisely, or cruel. Only...tired, it seemed. Eyes formerly sharp with cunning or contempt were flat, as was the monotone in which she spoke. And that, rarely.

By their third day back in Spring, worry and guilt had so thoroughly ensnared Feyre that she'd thrust the winnow stone into her sister's hand and begged her return to her mate. Loath as Feyre was to be on her own, she hated the shadows beneath her sister's eyes more. Hated the flatness of her gaze, the exhausted slump of her shoulders that her sister simply could not hide. If one of them could seek solace in a mate's arms, then she should, to Feyre's mind.