Stars eternal without the night

The end

Stay.

Please stay.

I tell Rhys everything I love about him, pour my heart out into the shredded remains of the bond. I stay kneeling over him for seconds, minutes, waiting for him to be revived like I was under the mountain.

We all stay there for a while, waiting. I sob, clinging to the bond harder doing as the Suriel told me. Stay with the High Lord. 

Please, Rhys, come back. Come back to us, to me. Return to Velaris with me, let's go back home together, please.

I start to feel something down the ends of the bond and hope flutters in my chest, but then they start disintegrating. No. no no no no. They each shrivel up and die, taking a piece of me, my soul with each one. Hope extinguishes and despair is all I feel because 

he's dead, my mate is dead.

And I can no longer live.

I scream, voicing out loud how my soul is broken, is dead, without him my mate.

I see the High Lords assembled all lower their heads as they realize the passing of my mate. I hear Mor sob even harder at Rhys death, and Cassian and Azriel as well. My sisters, who I even didn't know where here cry as well. 

And then I feel a rush of power, like an amount I would feel from Rhysand and I truly break then because Rhys's power has been exchanged to me. High Lady of the Night Court, sole ruler of my court.

I don't feel, hear anything as I fall into a dark abyss where I don't have to face my new reality without my mate.