𝔸 ℂ𝕠𝕦𝕣𝕥 𝕠𝕗 𝕃𝕠𝕧𝕖 𝕒𝕟𝕕 𝕎𝕣𝕒𝕥𝕙 (Book 2)

Forty-Two

    "I'll do it." I said, "I can't speak for Feyre, but I am willing to try. I can handle Nesta and Elain, they'll agree to our terms."

    "Then it's settled," Rhys said, "Once Danika Darling returns from the Weaver, we'll bring Hybern to its knees."

─── · 。ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

    Rhys and the others were gone that night, no one dained to tell me where. I didn't mind. It gave me an opportunity to do something I'd been dying to do since I came to Velaris. It had been gnawing at me for days.

    When I was certain none of the others were coming back soon, I gathered myself as I left the townhouse and began walking to the walls of Velaris. I could feel the mounds of wards as I approached them. They were radiating in thick waves, they had been piled and strengthened for five thousand years I wondered if walking through them would kill me.

    I also worried I wouldn't be able to get back.

    I'd worry about that later.

    I stopped at the edge of the city. Where the wards were near suffocating.

    I didn't let myself think about the consequences as I stepped through them and began walking through the dark forest beyond.

Starlight shone through the hooded branches of the forest, I lost track of time as I walked. My only aim was to get to a place where no one could hear or see me.

    I walked. And walked. And walked.

    Until I came to a small cove in the forest, small enough that you wouldn't be able to spot it from above, large enough that a large creature could find it from the ground.

    I kneeled down in the middle, placing my palms flat on the grassy terrain.

    I willed the slithering beneath my skin to the surface. I willed the power I'd used so few times to spread through my body and into my hands. I felt the earth beneath me, and heard all its creatures and life as I sent out my power through the land around me. Calling them. Searching for them.

    I pulled my hands from the ground as I waited. I didn't know how long had passed, minutes, hours.

    But then I felt it.

    I stead beat in the ground as something, or many somethings approached.

I fierce sob worked its way through me as the Wyverns emerged from the forest with Azail at the head. I didn't waste time running towards the beast and embracing him in a Wyvern-modified hug.

I was so happy to have something familiar. Azail had been such a comfort, a friend to me. I was meant to be their savior but in a few ways, I thought they might have been mine.

─── · 。ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

    Rhys was still gone when I returned, I didn't stay awake long enough to know when he returned.

    I dreamt of Stijn and Amarantha, of my family and Hybern. The horrors of my life, in the end, it closed in the same way "There's no one left to save you now, Danika." I'd woken up without air, not as horrible as the last time but I'd managed to fall back asleep. A feat I didn't take lightly.

    I woke to the watery sunlight of dawn as it seeped through the various windows of my room.

Barely a minute after I'd woken up—hardly conscious, need I say—Rhys knocked on my door. I had gotten halfway through a mumbled "mhm" when he stalked into the room like wind and chucked a belt chalked full of knives and daggers onto the foot of the bed.