eclipsed nova (UTM Feysand)

26: Rhysand's POV

The door to the kitchen hung open, the lights inside flickering like they'd witnessed catastrophe. My breath caught in my throat as I reached out a hand, pushing the door open with an eerie creak.

All I saw was red.

Blood, still wet and fresh, coated the walls in haphazard spraying patterns. Puddles covered the floor. It dripped from surfaces. It crawled down the walls. Blood was all I could focus on. My vision was blurry with the overwhelm of the massacre I was faced with.

Crumpled bodies of kitchen fae littered the room, discarded like broken dolls. One fae was nailed to the walls, the thick long nails piercing through his throat and into the wall behind him, holding him upright like the living dead. I was choking, gagging. My throat felt swollen closed. I blinked and blinked, but the blur wouldn't fade.

I needed to see them. I needed to see their faces, memorize them and memorialize them. None of them had deserved to be butchered, but I'd led Amarantha here on a leash to cover my own ass. I felt sick. Sick in a way I never had before.

A titanium wave of self-loathing doused me like gasoline, and I was ready to light the match. I needed to end this. There was nothing after this. There was no coming back, no redemption. Redemption no longer existed for me. This, this was my fault. I might as well have slaughtered them all myself. My hands would permanently be stained with their blood. A skinny, sleight fae male was slumped against the wall. He couldn't have been older than 14. He still had a training apron on. His face was cold and pale, empty of life. He looked back at me accusatorily, like even in death he'd known who was to blame.

I pulled his clammy hands into mine, his blood transferring and sticking to my skin. I held the side of his face, a tear trailing down my cheek and onto my neck. I had never wanted to cease to exist the way I did in that moment.

A sob cracked my chest as I let out a pathetic cry, crawling on my hands and knees deeper into the kitchen. An old, wrinkled woman with kind eyes lay with her throat cut, eyes frozen on the ceiling. I pleaded with whatever force there was to undo this. To take it back. To give this punishment to me, instead.

The woman's name was Miriam and she had been a small solace on some of my darkest days. She'd discovered in the earlier years that the occasional sweet treat would make me perk right up, and I would always find hidden desserts left for me on especially bad days. I wasn't sure how she knew when I'd need them, but she always did. 

Now she was dead in my arms.

I pulled her body into my lap, hugging her to my chest as I broke over and over again. My clothes stained with blood and my skin stuck to theirs, but I couldn't leave. I couldn't leave them here alone to grow cold and rot. Amarantha'd left this mess intentionally. She wanted everyone to see what had happened. It was yet another warning to not fuck with her.

The thing she didn't realize, though, was that she'd just autographed her own death warrant. She'd finally made me snap. I had enough and I would end this, even if she took me down with her. The vile bitch didn't get to win. She should be the lifeless corpse left to die alone and rot out in the open as a warning.

"Rhys," a sweet, small, broken voice cried.

I looked up, my eyes tired and bloodshot.

Feyre stood in the doorway; her face just as gaunt as Kallias's had been. Something in the innocence of her upturned nose and pink pout shattered me all over again. I bowed my head, tears falling so quickly that they once again stole my vision.

Feyre crossed the room instantly, her hand petting the back of my head soothingly. She tugged me back into her arms on the floor and I collapsed against her. I held her as tightly as I could as I cried 50 years' worth of tears into her frail shoulder. She was so small, so breakable. Amarantha could hurt her so easily.

If that ever happened- if I ever lost her- I wouldn't survive it. It would be the thing to finally kill me after all of this loss and gore. I felt her tears falling against my skin, but she kept silent. Neither of us spoke, we just held one another as we cried. Eventually the sobs faded to jaded eyes and hollow chests.

Feyre eventually helped peel my zombified form from the floor. She held my hand delicately as she helped me back down the hallway and to our room. She walked me to the bathroom we shared and helped remove my blood-soaked clothes. She helped me sit down in the shower. I stared at the floor soullessly as she washed the blood from my skin. I didn't even feel alive, and I certainly didn't deserve her compassion. Once she knew the truth, she'd likely never be able to look at me again.

Feyre hummed sweetly as she worked, her focus entirely on me, ignoring the blood on my own skin. I wished more than anything that I had the energy or strength to take care of her too, but there was nothing left inside me. She'd snuffed out my last flame. I wasn't sure even Feyre could relight it now.

She helped me out of the bath, gently patting a towel against my skin to dry me. She walked me to the bed and pulled back the blankets, helping me crawl in first. She walked back to the bathroom, and I heard the faucet crank once more. I stared at the wall until my eyes stung like they were ablaze.

She would never forgive me for this.

I would never forgive me for this.