Females were very rare in the night court's ruling family as it was, all either die young or end up forgotten in the abyss of history.
Rhysand ever thought he'd have to father one of these, in fact, he did't believe he even deserve to be a father, u...
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CHAPTER ONE
did some force take you because I didn't pray?
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Dark was the night in the streets of Velaris, the City of Starlight. Stars blinked through the inky dark sky, a gentle solace to the straying faes strolling down the streets by the Sidra River, for Maliah, it was just another way the Cauldron mustered to tear her apart further.
A childish whimper broke through the silence, and the babe cradled in the Illyrian female's arms stirred lightly, making her mother's eyes focus on her rather than the long windy road "Hush, my darling." Elira whispered, her fingers brushing down her little girl's nose soothingly "We are almost there..."
It would've been easier, if she weren't about to rip her own heart in half, if she weren't going to give up on her most precious treasure, her most valued feeling. She had once thought that the loss of her wings was the hardest she's ever lived through, the way her freedom was taken away from her for the only reason of being a female in Illyria, only there to marry and breed, not to fly and fight and live.
And then, motherhood happened. Brutal and surprising, she couldn't believe how a relationship that was doomed from the beginning created the small bundle of joy resting in her arms, and despite all the challenges and expectations, Ellie ended up loving the child so dearly that it could be mistaken for a part of her soul.
She couldn't, however, see a future for either of them in Illyria. Neither the mother nor the child. Not when fate waited like a hungered beast to sink its claws in their lives. Her heart clenched at the thought that her little girl could've ended up like that, with clipped wings, dim eyes and stolen dreams. Of her being beaten and starved then eventually being taken away like many others before her.
She couldn't let that happen...
So she stepped on her own heart, staring at the beautiful house right in front of her, the place where she has come over and over again across the years, a place she hadn't been in for a little more than a year. She took a deep breath, her hands shaking as she held her little Elayla closer.
