𝙳𝚊𝚛𝚔 𝙿𝚊𝚛𝚊𝚍𝚒𝚜𝚎(𝙰𝙲𝙾𝚃𝙰𝚁)

𝖈𝖍𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖊𝖗 𝖊𝖎𝖌𝖍𝖙𝖊𝖊𝖓

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

song of the chapter: mirrorball by taylor swift

"watch my shattered edges glisten"

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

I took a risk and went with Rhys and Mor to the Court of Nightmares to return the Veritas. Until we heard word of Velaris being attacked.

"Velaris is secure," Rhys said when we returned. "The wards the Cauldron took out have been remade."

We had not stopped to rest until now. For hours we'd worked, along with the rest of the city, to heal, to patch up, to hunt down answers any way we could. And now we were all again gathered, the clock chiming three in the morning.

I didn't know how Rhys was standing as he leaned against the mantel in the sitting room. Feyre was near-limp on the couch beside Mor, both of them coated in dirt and blood. Like the rest of us.

Sprawled in an armchair built for Illyrian wings, Cassian's face was battered and healing slowly enough that I knew he'd drained his power. But his hazel eyes still glowed with the embers of rage.

Amren was hardly better off. The tiny female's gray clothes hung mostly in strips, her skin beneath pale as snow.

Azriel and Evelina sat together on the couch. Johanna laid with her head in her mother's lap, her legs on her father's.

Amren had spun illusions straight into the soldiers' minds. They believed they had fallen into the Sidra and were drowning; they believed they were flying a thousand feet above and had dived, fast and swift, for the city—only to find the street mere feet away, and the crunch of their skulls. The crueler ones, the wickedest ones, she had unleashed their own nightmares upon them—until they died from terror, their hearts giving out.

Some had fallen into the river, drinking their own spreading blood as they drowned. Some had disappeared wholly.

"Velaris might be secure," Cassian replied, not even bothering to lift his head from where it rested against the back of the chair, "but for how long? Hybern knows about this place, thanks to those wyrm-queens. Who else will they sell the information to? How long until the other courts come sniffing? Or Hybern uses that Cauldron again to take down our defenses?"

"If we all go to Hybern to destroy the Cauldron, who will defend the city?" Feyre questioned.

Silence. Rhys's throat bobbed.

Amren said, "I'll stay." Cassian opened his mouth to object, but Rhys slowly looked at his Second. Amren held his gaze as she added, "If Rhys must go to Hybern, then I am the only one of you who might hold the city until help arrives. Today was a surprise. A bad one. When you leave, we will be better prepared. The new wards we built today will not fall so easily."

"I can help," Johanna spoke up, her voice weak.

"No, baby, you'll stay right here until we get back," Eve declared, stroking her daughter's hair. "So what do we do now?"

Amren simply said, "We sleep. We eat."

And it was Azriel who added, his voice raw with the aftermath of battle-rage, "And then we retaliate."

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

Amren cracked the code the next afternoon. The news was not good.

"To nullify the Cauldrons power," she said by way of greeting as we crowded around the dining table in the town house, having rushed in from the repairs we'd all been making on very little sleep, "you must touch the Cauldron—and speak these words."

"You know this for certain?" Rhys said.

Amren hissed. "I'm trying not to be insulted, Rhysand."

"What happens if we put both halves together?" I wondered.

"Dont put them together," Amren simply said. "With either piece laid out, their voices blended and sang and hissed—evil and good and madness; dark and light and chaos. You put the pieces together, and the blast of power will be felt in every corner and hole in the earth. You wont just attract the King of Hybern. You'll draw enemies far older and more wretched. Things that have long been asleep—and should remain so."

"Then we move in now," Cassian said. His face had healed, but he limped a bit from an injury I couldnt see beneath his fighting leathers. He jerked his chin to Rhys. "Since you cant winnow without being tracked, Mor and Az will winnow us all in, Feyre breaks the Cauldron, and we get out. We'll be there and gone before anyone notices and the King of Hybern will have a new piece of cookware."

"It could be anywhere in his castle," Feyre pointed out.

"We know where it is," Cassian countered.

"We've been able to narrow it down to the lower levels," Azriel told her. "Every inch of the castle and surrounding lands is heavily guarded, but not impossible to get through. We've worked out the timing of it—for a small group of us to get in and out, quick and silent, and be gone before they know whats happening."

     Mor said to him, "But the King of Hybern could notice Rhys's presence the moment he arrives. And if Feyre needs time to nullify the Cauldron, and we dont know how much time, thats a risky variable."

      Cassian said, "We've considered that. So you and Rhys will winnow us in off the coast; we fly in while he stays. As for the spell, its a risk well have to take."

"It's a solid plan," Azriel pushed. "The king doesn't know our scents. We wreck the Cauldron and vanish before he notices. It'll be a graver insult than the bloodier, direct route we'd been considering, Rhys. We beat them yesterday, so when we go into that castle. We'll leave a few reminders that we won the last damn war for a reason."

Cassian nodded grimly. Even Mor smiled a bit.

"Are you asking me," Rhys finally said, far too calmly, "to stay outside while my mate goes into his stronghold?"

"Yes," Azriel said with equal calm, as I shifted myself slightly between them. "If Feyre can't nullify the Cauldron easily or quickly, we steal it—send the pieces back to the bastard when we're done breaking it apart. Either way, Feyre calls you through the bond when were done—you and Mor winnow us out. They wont be able to track you fast enough if you only come to retrieve us."

Rhysand dropped onto the couch beside Feyre, loosing a breath. His eyes slid to her. "If you want to go, then you go, Feyre. You might be my mate, but you remain your own person. You decide your fate—your choices. Not me. You chose yesterday. You choose every day. Forever."

"Lets go to Hybern," Feyre said.