A Court of Fear and Longing

Chapter 37

Feyre sat next to Rhys, getting her leg fixed by a healer. Her overprotective mate hadn't left her side. 

A golden-haired woman ran up to them. Petrah Blueblood, Azriel's mate. He wasn't beside her though. Unless he was hiding in his shadows. 

The witch had salt on her face, from dried tears. 

"A-a," the witch stuttered. "He's gone," was all she got out before falling to her knees. Like the weight of the world was suddenly too much. Maybe it was, with what was at the front of her mind, that she was shouting at them in the only way she could manage. 

Feyre gasped. 

He was gone. The calm, quiet, watchful male she felt no matter where she went, following her not because he was ordered to. Just to watch out for his friend and High Lady. 

It grew harder to breathe. Hadn't enough died already? Not another. Cauldron, not Azriel. 

But the images in the witch's head were clear enough. 

Feyre looked to her mate, to find silver lining his own eyes. But he would not show it here. 

When the healer backed away, Feyre dropped to her knees beside Petrah. They held onto each other. Feyre knew how it felt to lose your mate, and this was forever. 

..............

The Court of Dreams stood in the chamber staring at his body. His wrecked wings were tucked neatly under him, his head set on his neck, to give some illusion that the brave male was simply sleeping. 

They whispered their final words together. 

"Cauldron save you. Mother hold you. Pass through the gates, and smell the immortal lands of milk and honey. Fear no evil. Feel no pain. Go, and enter eternity." 

Feyre squeezed Petrah's hand once and turned to leave with the others. She would grieve first. The tears could come after the battle. If they made it through what was to come. 

.........................

Chaol's back strained, pain lashing down his spine. Whether from wife's healing within the castle walls or from the hours of fighting, he had no idea. 

Didn't care, as he and Dorian galloped through the southern gate into Orynth, the two little more than unmarked riders amid the army racing in. Bracing for the impact of the fresh host marching toward them. 

Night would soon fall. Morath would not wait until dawn. Not with the darkness that hovered above them like some sort of awful cloud. 

What flew and scuttled in that darkness, what waited for them... 

Dorian was nearly slumped in his saddle, shield strapped over his back, Damaris sheathed at his side. 

"You look how I feel," Chaol managed to say. 

Dorian slid his sapphire eyes toward him, a spark of humor lighting the haunted depths. "I know a king shouldn't slouch," he said, rubbing at his blood-and-dirt splattered face. "But I can't bring myself to care."

Chaol smiled grimly. "We have worse to worry about." 

Much worse.

They hurried toward the castle, turning up the hill that would take them to its doors, when a horn cut across the battlefield. 

A warning.

With the view the hill offered, they could clearly see it. What sent the soldiers racing toward them with renewed energy.