Nesta and the Mercenary

Chapter 5

Months later, Nesta watched as a servant frantically rushed to find a big, floppy hat for Feyre to protect her skin from the sun.

It was pointless. Feyre had returned home already freckled and tan. If she hadn't been practically glowing from the inside, some residual magic of being loved in Prythian no doubt, she would have reminded Nesta of Mirabelle—so out of place in this high-society estate, for all the sun she'd drank in as she wandered the countryside, fighting faeries and wolves and protecting stone-cold bitches.

Nesta's heart was heavy as she approached Feyre, who was examining the dirt on her hands.

"Even if you washed them, there'd be no hiding it," Nesta said to her sister. "To fit in, you'd have to wear gloves and never take them off. Sit under a parasol and let your freckles fade."

Feyre grabbed her shovel. "Maybe I don't want to fit in with your social circles."

Nesta huffed. As if it was her social circle. "Then why are you here?"

"It's my home, isn't it?"

Nesta reached into her pocket to toss the chunk of painted wood, a bit of table that had been torn off by the faerie beast. "I think your home is somewhere very far away."

Feyre stared at the piece of wood, painted by her own hand with tangled vines and too-blue foxglove.

"Glamours don't work on me. So while I watched Elain and Father dry their tears and forget everything, talking nonsense about some made-up aunt's house, I remembered everything. I thought I'd gone mad—but I looked at that table and his claw marks, and the gouge of your knife in the cabinet, and I knew it wasn't in my head." Nesta reached under her skirts to her calf, where she wore an embossed leather sheath gifted to her by Rab. From it, she brandished Feyre's hunting knife.

Feyre blinked, looking at the knife in disbelief. "Elain said you tried to visit me."

The anger boiled to Nesta's surface, after long weeks of letting it simmer beneath a façade of blank listlessness. She did not bother to hide it anymore—not around Feyre, whose ferocity could rival her own. "He stole you away into the night, and he lied about why, or else you wouldn't be back now. And then everything went on as if it had never happened. It wasn't right."

"You went after me—to Prythian," Feyre said hoarsely.

"I couldn't find a way through the wall. I could see it. Right there on the other side, I could see it. Even when others couldn't. But I couldn't get through the magic."

The shock in Feyre's eyes gutted Nesta like a knife. Like Feyre didn't think anyone would have come after her, even if they knew where she was. "You went four days through the winter woods. Through wolf territory. Through woods where faeries slip through."

Nesta shrugged. She'd lived. "I hired that mercenary-woman who bought your pelts. I figured she owed me as much, if she was going to wear the faerie-skin that got you taken away. And I didn't think anyone else would believe me." Her voice came out soft, unbidden, as she spoke of Rab. She hadn't left the Archeron estate or seen her lover in weeks. Not since the mercenary had taken a job and not yet returned.

"You did that for me?" Feyre said, the words half-strangled with emotion.

"It wasn't right," Nesta repeated, meeting the mirror of Feyre's eyes.

"What happened to Tomas Mandray?"

Pain welled in her chest and tightened her throat, threatening to break open the desperate place where she kept the shame of what Tomas had done to her. Nesta exhaled forcefully through her nose, willing Tomas away.

"I realized he wouldn't have gone with me to save you from Prythian." The words held another meaning, the subtle praises of the one who had gone with Nesta to save Feyre. A tiny gift, to trust Feyre with one thing that no one else knew.

Feyre's eyes widened, and Nesta had the distinct feeling that Feyre was seeing right through Nesta's hard shell of rage and pride. As much as Nesta had willingly bared in the last few moments, knowing that Feyre was seeing that much of her still made her desperately uncomfortable. But there was understanding in Feyre's eyes—understanding that Nesta was near her limit, that Nesta feared sharing any more of her fragile, secret happiness with Rab would somehow lead to it shattering.

"Tomas never deserved you anyway," Feyre said softly.

Nesta had to change the subject—and she was so ready for an end to months of frustration and lies and worry. "Tell me everything."

And hours later, when Feyre finished her long tale of faeries and High Lords and blight and love, Nesta asked Feyre to teach her how to paint.