The Shadows Have No Face || 𝐀𝐂𝐎𝐓𝐀𝐑

Never Forgotten. Never Forgiven

All I needed was the sudden silence to tell me I was free. I lived enough war to know when it was over. My marathon had ended, and all I wanted now was to move on.

I didn't want to remember, didn't want to be remembered. The idea of people knowing I did that—I went through that. The horrors of the Cauldron were to stay with me. They would die with me.

My death...

I died.

My heart stopped beating, my lungs stopped breathing. I was gone—and I didn't even know for how long. It could've been minutes or hours. It felt like months and years stretched into oblivion.

I had died, and no one could do anything to stop it, and it was by pure luck that I got out of there. Luck and love, things I've comically had a lack of. If I didn't have a mate... I don't think I would've gotten out of there.

I looked up from my raw fingers bit and scratched to near-bleeding. People were talking, but it was hard to focus on their words. All I wanted was to rest... to go home. And it was devastating to know I had no place to call home.

I smiled when Cassian made a joke, though I didn't hear it fully. I nodded absentmindedly when Rhysand explained the aftermath of the Cauldron. How the destructive power wouldn't let itself move past a certain point. I tried to focus on Feyre's plan to help rebuild Cretea and begged myself to listen so I could be sure the damage wasn't severe.

It was so hard to move on from the fact that I died. I never felt so afraid for my life before, never realized how afraid others were—my friends. It didn't feel like a lie anymore, not a question I was hesitant to ask. These people were my friends, maybe even the closest to family I've ever had.

So... did that make this place my home, then? What qualified as a home? Did I even want one? I had that subconscious need to return home, but did I want to work to make one?

I pulled myself from my thoughts when everyone stood to leave the room, and I quickly moved to not look out of place. Cassian brought glasses of wine and bottles, saying something about getting drunk beyond belief.

I excused myself before they could drag me onto the couch to get drunk. The last thing I wanted was to get so foggy that I broke down in front of everyone. I tried to play it cool about wanting to clean off the grime of the day, which was partially true.

The sound of laughter echoed down the hallway, disappearing when I closed my bedroom door behind me. It was dark and quiet, still as I had left it. In this room, the events of the past days were nonexistent. In this room, it was just me and a past I knew all too well.

I walked over to my bed and sat down on the hard, cold floor. The bits of dust flew away from my body and found new places to rest in the dark corners. I didn't want to... but I reached under the bed and pulled out that small box that had remained untouched since I arrived in Velaris. The runes bore jagged cuts from a hand that never whittled, stained with smears of old blood familiar to my touch.

What brought me to this point was obvious, but I didn't want it to be. I wanted to be oblivious, to question my own actions. Yet, I didn't. I knew exactly why I was here, why I did this—all of this.

I tried not to notice when someone opened my bedroom door, but it was hard not to when every bone in my body ached at the scent that filled the room. I never had the chance to experience the normal of having a mate. It wasn't strange or uncomfortable. Instead, I realized how impossible it was to feel alone anymore. That word grew so foreign in my mind, yet it was once the only word I knew. How quickly the times can change, it seems.