A Court of Secrets and Moonlight

66: Rupture

Feyre

I wanted to fall into Rhys's arms and sob, wanted to cry for all I had lost- everything that had happened today.

But I was standing in this tent, looking down at Leur as the wound in her stomach slowly pieced itself back together. I hadn't been here when she charged into battle to spare Cassian from this same fate, when she wiped out the entire army we were facing in one blow. Revealing not only that she was alive to the other courts, but that she possessed an other worldly power.

Then again, nobody had dared to bother us about it.

Helion claimed that he would speak with Tarquin and the others, handle the repercussions while we focused on her. Rhys seemed as if he had no mind for such things, as if his only focus could remain on Leur.

Are you okay? I asked him hesitantly. Looking over at him from where we stood with our backs against the tent walls.

His only answer was a short, clipped, No. Not at all.

The healers had informed us that the sword had done severe internal damage, any higher and it could have nicked her heart and killed her within moments. That was why it was so severe- the whole time she had continued to fight in the battle, her lungs had been filling with blood. By the time she made that final move, she was choking on it.

Cassian had shown me what Nesta had done, how she had commanded death itself to release its grip on her. I didn't entirely believe it at first, none of us had, but the healers had said it was a miracle she was still alive when they got to her. By all accounts, with the amount of damage that had been done and the amount of blood she lost- Leur should have been dead.

So maybe, Nesta truly had held death at bay.

Nobody was speaking, the room utterly silent as I watched a healer carefully sew her skin back together. On her stomach was a beautifully detailed rendition of the Night Court crest, Ramiel towering high and the three stars above it. The center star was different from how it was usually drawn though, a large eight-pointed star sitting just below her breasts.

But the worst part was all of the scars.

I hadn't realized just how many there were, the glamor she kept on herself all the time. Why she hid them, why they were a secret- I did not know. Out of them all, the only ones she had never hidden were her hands, the burn scars. But her knee was a mangled mess of scars, the delicate perfect tattooed skin having faded away. A stab scar on her thigh, another in her shoulder. A long, healed scar running down her eye, cutting through her thin black brows. On the top of her arm, the Hybern crest cut through her other tattoos in inky grey. Not a normal tattoo, I suspected, and certainly not something she obtained willingly.

Azriel was stone faced at her side. As if he was a statue, unmoving, unblinking. The only sign of life from him was the soft circles he traced over her hand with his thumb, around and around. Cassian was his utter opposite, barely able to sit still at his spot by her head. His face was streaked with tears, his knee bouncing as he whispered in her ear. Desperate apologies leaving his lips over and over again.

And to my shock, it was Nesta who sat at her other side. It was Nesta who held her other hand, who had refused to leave for even a moment until the healers finished working. It was Nesta who watched every move the female healer made, as if she would snap if one wrong move was made.

Not one of them had bothered to change or bathe. The rain had long since dried from their clothes, but the blood remained. Cassian was covered in it, Nesta's hands stained red all the way up to her elbows, Azriel still with the remnants of battle. I knew I would paint this image one day, knew that I would need to get it out of my head and onto the paper. I knew the colors I would use, the dark desperation I would beg the canvas to emulate.