Chapter Thirty-six
Naya braced herself to walk through the door. Her hands had become clammy at her sides, and for the third time she tugged at her sleeves, making sure they covered the redness from the straps.
Rhysand and Azriel had decided they didn't need to delve back into her mind, to walk them through the last day that had once again brought Velaris close to her knees. They would believe her without having to see, even as she insisted, insisted because now Azriel knew he was her mate and there was nothing else she would ever wish to hide.
But they'd agreed to trust her. Because she'd proven herself. Again and again, that her drive to protect this city and the Illyrians who deserved it, ran as deep as theirs.
They had delivered her to the House of Wind where she was finally able to rest, finally able to mourn. She wanted to help, to be in the streets with them as they collected the bodies and tended to the wounded, but they pressed that she needed sleep, pointed out that she could barely hold her head up any longer.
In the end, her protests were ignored, and Azriel, himself, carried her to her room where he laid her amongst the covers. Before she was fully settled, slumber found her…and so did the nightmares that echoed the cries of the dying. Despite them, she slept for a full night and day.
When she roused, there was only one person she wanted to see.
Her knuckles rapped against the door she stood in front of, and she waited patiently for the footsteps to cross the room inside.
Naya had bathed, scrubbing the dirt from her body as if she could scrub the memories away too.
"Come in." the door swung open, and Naya's heart swelled and filled with so much love and happiness that she lost her breath as she took in the sight before her.
Elain lay in her bed, her golden-brown hair spread out around her crown like a halo. The covers were pulled to her chest, and her delicate hands rested on the flowery fabric at her stomach. Beautiful. Whole. Alive.
Elain offered her a tender smile as she entered, made a move to sit up, which was quickly stopped as Mor returned to her side and gently pushed her back into the sheets.
"I don't think so." She scolded lightly, as she tucked them more tightly around Elain's small body. "The healer said no big movements for a while."
She softened the scorn by taking Elain's hand in her own and giving it a squeeze. Mor was looking down at her with such adoration, such relief, a relief Naya doubted would ever fully leave because she had almost lost her forever. Naya had the urge to look away, to give them this private moment.
"Sitting up is hardly a big movement." Elain retorted, but her voice was teasing. There was a slight strain beneath the sound.
"I think we better play it safe." Mor leaned down, placed a chaste kiss to her lips.
Elain's eyes darted to Naya, quick and awkwardly, judging what she would make of them. Naya smiled reassuringly, didn't make mention that she had already known they were lovers long before this.
She stretched her arm out, offered Naya her free hand. It was colder than it should have been when Naya accepted it.
"I heard the screaming." Elain's voice dropped, took on a graver tone. "After I woke up the first time. And I know," she swallowed back tears. "What you did for me."
Mor glanced away, guilt surfacing. Naya would have to tell her, make it a point to have her understand that all was forgotten, that nothing needed to be forgiven. It had been war, and if Azriel had been taken, and a bargain had to be struck, Naya would have made the same choice.
"Do we know how many died?" Naya whispered, too afraid to speak the question too loudly. It all became so real when it was out in the open like this.
Mor shook her head. "Not yet. A lot."
Her head pounded. "And Keir?"
"Gone." She snapped, and her eyes blackened and smoldered in the hatred and rage she held for her father. "He fled like the coward he is when his forces began to fall. We haven't been able to find him. Yet."
They talked on for hours, leaving the darker stuff behind them sooner rather than later. Elain's cheeks were pinkened and glowing from the laughter they shared by the end. Mor's were close to matching in color, her smiles just as common as any of theirs, her giggles just as joyous.
Because even through the death and pain they had suffered, they were together. Because life would find a way to go on, even when not everyone they loved got to go on with them.
When it was time to leave, Mor walked with Naya into the hallway, silently closing the door behind them, noticing how Elain's eyelids were drooping, fluttering closed for stretching moments of time. When she began to yawn, Naya pulled away from her grasp that had not once faltered in its loving grip and said she needed to go.
Elain had protested only as long as it took for another yawn to shut out her words.
"Come back soon?" She had requested as she snuggled herself deeper into her bed, tunneling herself beneath the covers. Naya promised that she would.
"I want to tell you that I'm sorry. For what I said to you." Mor spoke quietly now, making sure her voice did not carry back to Elain. "For what I accused you of."
Naya was shaking her head before she was even finished. "They did a very good job at achieving what they sought in their lies. I don't blame you for their deceit or for you believing it when you'd lost her."
Mor looked back to the door where Elain lay beyond, and then lowered her head. Her pointed ears split through her blonde locks, pierced with several small and golden hoops. They were still reddened from their laughter, or perhaps from her shame.
"Azriel has needed someone for a very long time." she played with the length of her fingers, twisting and untwisting them around each other. "We've tried. For centuries to break through to him and show him that he is deserving of an unconditional love."
She reached out and rested a hand on Naya's shoulder, waited until she glanced up so that Mor could capture her gaze and express the sincerity in it.
"I'm glad that it gets to be you who can finally make him see. I'm glad that you get to be our family."
Naya was left filled with so much tenderness and warmth that the burdens she carried didn't feel as heavy when she walked away. The hands of her family, she drew a breath in at the word, helped her carry them through.
OOO
Marcius had been buried amongst warriors who had lost their lives in battle, granted a spot of honor alongside leaders who had fallen in previous wars. His grave was covered in flowers, many from Elain's own garden even though she had never met him. It was gift, Naya understood, to honor her family's friend in the only way she knew how.
Naya was able to stand over the mound of dirt, to say her last goodbyes with the three Illyrian males beside her. They had known him longer, had loved him deeper, but all four of their tears watered the petals of his roses.
The camp had been destroyed, the buildings broken down to their foundations, the tents ripped and burned, food scattered and ruined. Azriel had explained that several of the females had escaped, disappearing into the woods that would hide them long enough as Marcius held off the hoard alone until Azriel could get there.
The ones who had not been so lucky, nineteen in total, nearly half of their numbers, had already been buried by the time Azriel flew Naya to see the destruction.
There had been several limbs that had been severed from bodies, scattered and buried in the snow, with no possible way to find their original owners. They talked for a long time about what to do with them in a way that was respectful. In the end, they cremated them in the center of camp so the remaining twenty-one could mourn their loses.
"What do we do now?" Naya stared out over the clearing.
The ring she had found comfort in so many times was nothing but splintering wood now. If she hadn't known its location, hadn't become familiar with it, she may not have even been able to tell what it was.
Azriel tucked her into his side, wrapped a wing around her body and gave her a tight squeeze.
His own eyes scanned the area, watched as wagons were filled with whatever supplies they could salvage, surveyed the females who wore travelling bags on their backs and waited for the convoy to move. They had already found a new location to take them. A new camp was already being erected for those who wished to stay.
"The only thing we can do." He said simply because they both knew they would never give up, never let fear and intimation stop the progress of their new world. "We restart."
Naya looked up at her mate, saw the stars that shined in his eyes, the blackness of the sky too, that held all the darkness of his pain. She reached up and placed a soft kiss to his cheek. His eyes glanced down to look at her, held her in that starry gaze.
"We're ready." The female leader of the rebellion camp stopped before them.
She had managed to lead nine of the twenty-one fleeing females to safety as Marcius had fought, hid them in a nearby cave to wait out the bloody battle and had kept them alive.
On Naya's return with Azriel, she had learned the female's name was Stormy.
It seemed fitting.
Azriel nodded down to Stormy and then stretched his gaze back over the camp they would leave behind, not letting go of his hold on Naya as he did so.
"Then it's time."
OOO
The years that passed brought with them their own trials for all of them. Even though Azriel had accepted Naya as his mate, had worshipped her in ways she could have never imagined after, he'd still needed to heal from the years of abuse and find forgiveness in himself for the darkness he had spread.
Naya fought with him, as she'd promised, through each stage of the grief and self-hatred, no matter how hard it got, no matter how many times he tried to shut her out and push her away when it got too tough.
Every success brought her closer to lightening his heart. Every failure did the same because it proved she would love him through it all.
Naya glanced behind her at the green sofa in their home now. She'd just finished making a blanket, soft pink and yellow. Elain had helped her through most of it, correcting the stitches that were too uneven, helping recut squares that were too small or too big.
In the end, it turned out decent enough, and she found she was proud of her work even if it wasn't perfect.
Azriel would be returning anytime, from one of the three now fully established female camps. He'd had to stay away for nearly a week, and though she had wished she could go with him, she'd had to stay home.
Each day she missed him desperately. Each night she longed for the warmth of his body spread out over hers, stroking, caressing a heat that never went out.
"What are you thinking about?" His voice graced her ears, and she slid her gaze over to him as he strode through the front door.
His beauty never ceased to take her breath away, especially when he was smiling at her the way he was now, genuine and full of love.
"You." She admitted, and returned that smile, crossing the room to embrace him, avoiding, as she always did, her reflection in the full-length mirror propped up against the wall.
He noticed it, never failed to through the years, but his arms snaked around her when she reached him and he kissed her, crushing his mouth to hers in a show of how much he'd missed her too.
"All is well?" she asked against his mouth, her lips moving over his, not wanting to stop touching him just yet.
He kissed her chin, drew up and kissed her nose. She wiggled it under the soft touch, smiled from the happiness it brought her.
"All is well." He promised.
She buried her head against the familiar chest she never wished to part from again, and purred. "I'm happy you're home."
His siphon glowed against her cheek, pulsing stronger than it had been moments before. Cobalt mist streamed from it, lifted to surround her body. She pulled away, gave him a confused look that he smiled softly at.
His fingers caressed a path down her cheek that had her leaning into his palm to soak up more of the warmth.
"Trust me." He said, and his hands grabbed at her shoulders, spun her around slowly.
Her eyes snapped shut before he'd fully turned her, knew what they would be facing if she didn't. She couldn't look. She couldn't see.
"My love," his words tickled at her ear, breezed over the lobe as he rested his chin on her shoulder. "Open your eyes."
Because he'd given her so much, because he'd trusted her when she'd asked him to even though every instinct in him fought against it, she did as he said.
And gasped.
She was standing in front of the mirror, auburn hair loosed to her waist in a wave of soft curls. Her bright eyes were wide, lips parted in shock. Azriel stood behind her, a hand splayed across the swollen belly that carried their child.
And she had wings.
They spread out in a display of cobalt blue, matched to her mate's siphons, granted by his powers. She reached up to touch one, to feel, but the fog of them danced away from her touch, unsolid and dreamy to form again when she dropped her hand away.
The tears poured over her cheeks, grateful and silent sobs gasping from her throat. She was whole again, she cried out in her head, with Azriel as her mate, their child growing inside of her, and this gift that he had given her no matter how short of a time it lasted.
She was a mate.
She was a mother.
She was, again, an Illyrian.