Chapter 16

Nesta fully intended to remain in her little room until Feyre said otherwise.

Except… time-telling painting or no, it was next to impossible for her to survive without windows.

Six days after Azriel brought her into the Court of Nightmares to make her report, Nesta sat in a small guest suite and stared out the window at the distant mountains. The guards followed Feyre's orders to the letter- all she'd had to do was open the door and say "I'd like a window." Within the hour she'd been relocated.

The new suite was no fancier than the one she left- same propaganda books to mislead courtiers about the true nature of Night, same gray clothing in the wardrobe, and her guards still brought whatever she wanted from the library… but there was also the same cold, hollow knot in her chest.

The same Nesta.

The same mix of self-disgust and indignation.

She thought she'd turned over a new leaf, but as the urgency faded and as she sat alone day after day those poisonous thoughts began to nip at the edges of her mind.

Could she ever hope for forgiveness?

Did she deserve it?

Would the numb ache in her soul ever fade?

… was there a way to give back what she stole from the Cauldron?

That was the day everything went wrong after all. Ever since then Nesta had been insufferable- even to herself. Maybe it wasn't her fault. Maybe the problem was always that she took what didn't belong to her. Power-that-wasn't-power.

Or was it that she never learned to properly use it?

Nesta tried to think back to the war with Hybern. To the moment when she unleashed herself and annihilated an entire legion of his forces. Did it feel good? Did it warm the cold inside? Rhysand always talked about bleeding his power so that it didn't build up and drive him insane- but Nesta never learned to use hers.

So what if… what if it wasn't some self-produced evil that made her so cruel, but the insanity Rhys was so worried about?

Though, if that was the case what explained the other twenty-four years of her life?

Nesta couldn't read as thoughts flooded her mind, so she just sat on a cushioned window seat and stared out across Night.

A dull scrape came from the hallway and Nesta jumped. Her guards were rotated silently, even food simply appeared on her table (along with the necessary bottles of medicine). There was no sound beyond the cry of birds and the breeze itself. So this was something new.

'Maybe Elain has finally come to see me ,' she thought. Six days- had she really done so much damage to their relationship that it took Elain of all people six days to come check on her?

There was a rattle as a hand fumbled with the doorknob, then-

It looked like Mor… but it couldn't be.

A grandmother perhaps.

The female was as ancient as Madja, older maybe. A gray film covered her eyes and her hair was pure white. She held herself up by twin canes that were strapped to frail arms. She wore a simple tunic- something the elders of Nesta's childhood village wore as well.

"Can I help you?"

"I don't really want to explain," the old female rasped. She pulled herself towards a chair, grimacing with the effort, "Cauldron boil me…"

"I think you have the wrong room. I'm sorry, but I'm not allowed visitors," Nesta moved from the window seat to press herself against the far wall of the room. If Feyre or anyone else walked by, she wanted it to be perfectly clear that whatever the old one thought she was doing, Nesta certainly wasn't part of it.

She glanced out through the still-open hall door- no guards.

The female dropped herself into the chair and closed her eyes for a moment to savor the rest, "Tell me, Nesta- did you feel anything odd around mid-morning yesterday? Any strange sensations?"

Nesta started, "No. Nothing at all. Why? Should I have felt something?"

"Huh… I guess I just assumed you would have…"

A flicker of anger raced through Nesta. The warning sign for her temper. She had six days to read as much of Madja's books as she could focus on. She started the breathing techniques to stave off her impulse to snap.

The old woman listed for a moment before snapping back to attention, "I'm Mor. It's temporary. Don't ask what happened."

Nesta stared at her for a long time before ignoring Mor's words, "What happened ?" another horrible thought occurred to her, "Elain and Feyre-?"

"Elain was in Velaris, she should be fine."

Something twisted in her stomach, "Feyre?"

Mor leaned forward in the chair, her opaque eyes locked on Nesta, "I don't like you. I've never trusted you, and the way you treat your little sister is appalling. It's worse than how my wretched father treats his dogs … but I have some questions to ask you and I need you to swear on whatever you hold holy that you will answer honestly."

Embarrassment and anger turned Nesta's cheeks red, not that anything Mor said was news. She knew the female hated her, but to be told with such brute honesty still hurt.

" I need you to swear- "

"I swear."

"Good," Mor nodded. "Do you intend to run away again?"

Nesta held to her oath, "No, but I've been alone." If she were around others and they put too much pressure on her, she could imagine it all becoming too much very quickly.

"What if I told you Feyre's life depends on you not fucking up?"

"Does it?"

"Yes."

Nesta's eyes were wide and her fists were clenched so tightly the knuckles turned white. Her heart was thundering in her ears, "Tell me what happened."

Mor shook her head, "There is a lot I can't tell you. They think we- meaning all of Night- did something we didn't. The Grecians attacked. Feyre is nearly dead and along with Azriel is their prisoner, Rhysand is in our care but apparently he and Feyre linked their life forces, so he is useless to us now. I can put a spy among the Grecian ranks… someone who will watch, report, and take orders. I don't think Elain-"

"I'll do it," Nesta said immediately. She didn't know how she'd prove to the others she was truly dedicated to changing, and now Mor was giving her a chance. Not only that- Feyre was in danger.

"If you change your mind and run away again, Feyre could very well die. I need you to consider this. Whatever you decide, there is no going back."

"I need to do this." For once in her miserable life, Nesta could play the hero.

"Listen to me: No one else in Night will know you are a spy. Not Cassian- not even Amren. They will think you betrayed us. There is every chance this will go wrong, and if it does they will never forgive you. If you do this for us Nesta, you could lose everything."

She didn't mean to say it, but the words just tumbled out on their own, "I already lost everything, and I'll do anything to get him back."

Old age seemed to have stripped Mor of her usual snark, because her only reaction to Nesta's slip of the tongue was to nod and say, "So be it."

"When do I leave?"

Mor looked around the room. She raised a single finger and everything exploded. The books flew about in every direction, the sofa overturned, the glass sitting table shattered and destroyed the rug, and even the glass in the window cracked around a single impact point.

It was destroyed in a second. As if Nesta had thrown a fit.

"You leave now. Someone is waiting to bring you to your contact. They are the only ones you can trust. Don't interfere with the Grecians, don't try to free Feyre or Azriel. Just wait for our signal… and Nesta I have to stress this- if you run you condemn more than just Feyre to death."

"I understand," she stood on shaking legs, already positive she'd bitten off more than she could chew. "Who is taking me to- to wherever I need to go?"

Someone stepped into the doorway.

The male who stood by as Nesta and Elain were drowned.

Who tried to destroy Feyre in front of the assembled High Lords.

Who all but giftwrapped the mortal lands for Hybern's forces.

"You aren't the only one looking for redemption," Tamlin said. He held out his hand, "Shall we try playing heroes this time?"

-0-

-0-

Hades stood over his wife's body and tried not to let the rage, horror, and shame bury him.

She was too pale, and her surgeries were far from over. Isis, Aesculapius, Airmed, and Sekhmet all agreed it was too dangerous to operate further until Persephone had a chance to recover. Without magic to aid them, it took more of their supplies than they expected to even close the wound in her back.

"The blade missed her spinal cord," Aesculapius had said. "A small miracle, at least."

A small miracle.

As if there were miracles in the hell that was Prythian.

For years he gathered his army and tracked down as many hidden gods as he could. For millennia he imagined every variation of how his reunion with Persephone might go.

She'd be released from the cell beside his and jump into his arms as she did at the end of every summer when they were reunited.

He would find her walking through the mists of some battlefield or another, hoping that mortal men's latest display of territorial aggression would draw her God of Death.

Persephone would be ruling the Underworld alone as a mighty and powerful Queen, and he would have to kneel and swear he wasn't returned to usurp her power. In that fantasy they rekindled their love over time- and she would make him work for it.

Yet another had him arriving in the Underworld- or the lands of Prythian- to find her settled down with another man. Madly in love with a brood of children surrounding her and no desire whatsoever to return to her old life.

He thought he'd imagined the worst-case scenario when one dark night he let himself wonder if she was somehow dead and gone beyond his reach forever.

But this…

' Killing her would have been kinder .'

He was a piece of shit for even thinking it, but Hades' heart ached as he stared down at the shell that was once his beautiful, shining wife. They'd broken her in ways no god or even human should be broken.

There was a very real possibility that the boy Azriel had somehow reached into her mind and ripped out everything Persephone was.

' She can come back from this. We have a chance now to help bring her back, no matter how hard it is. '

Hades was ready to fight for Persephone. He couldn't be dissuaded from that mission but- but a part of him still looked at the damage to her body, heard Aesculapius' quiet report and saw the horror on the faces of the other healer-gods and thought…

' Killing her would have been kinder. '

He reached out with a finger to stroke the back of Persephone's hand. Once upon a time he could hear her soul as clearly as his own, no matter how far apart they were. Her voice was never far from his heart or mind.

For the first time in over four thousand years he was close enough to touch his Queen, and her soul was silent.

Locked away behind a collar even angels could not break.

"Hades? Can we speak?" Hades would never know how long Aesculapius stood behind him in the tent.

"What now?" If it was more bad news, it could very well destroy him.

The healer sounded nervous as he came to stand on Persephone's other side, "We might be able to help her… but it crosses some very serious ethical lines."

Hades looked up- beside Aesculapius was his grand aunt. Mnemosyne, the titaness of memory.

"Whatever you hope to achieve, the collar won't allow it."

"According to the angels, the collar works by adapting to whatever power is pushed through it in some kind of coded sequence. Like a lock in need of a key. Or rather an unknown number of keys working in concert. Still, when they tried to overwhelm it the collar was momentarily distracted."

"Then we can veil-walk her away from it?" Hades asked. His question wasn't sincere- if that were the case then the Zahariel and his ilk would have dealt with it already.

"There isn't enough time for anything big. A fraction of a second at best. But something small might be possible," Aesculapius nodded to Mnemosyne.

She pulled something out of her pocket- a vial containing a rice-sized piece of blue glass that pulsed with light. "I have poured both power and will into this. If we can place it inside Persephone before the collar notices, we can make her forget."

"Forget what?"

Mnemosyne didn't smile as she said, "Everything after Gomorrah. Everything she experienced in this world."

"Then do it," Hades said immediately. "How is that an ethical question?"

"Because she has a right to know what happened to her body. This isn't an easy solution. She will still feel things without understanding them. Fear, anger, hatred- she just won't know why. Without that knowledge, it could drive her mad without any hope of saving her again."

"Then why suggest it?" He looked to Aesculapius for an answer. "If this will just kill her some other way, why do it?"

His friend- ever the thoughtful one- considered his answer for a long time, "Because it could undo whatever hold the monsters in Night placed on her mind. If they broke her soul there's nothing we can do anyways, but if they simply altered her memory or placed behavioral triggers- this will undo that. You should also know- Mnemosyne and I are not in agreement about the long-term effects of this solution. If you are honest with Persephone- if you tell her what was done- then maybe we can deal with the fallout."

"Hearing a story and living an event are not the same thing," Mnemosyne said quickly. "She will have the lingering emotions of one but the understanding of another. It is that duality that I'm afraid will-"

"Do it," Hades said. "What happens if the shard is removed? If the worst seems likely and we decide to take it out?"

"With the collar on? Complete insanity. If we find a way to take it off?" Mnemosyne considered that for a long time. There was little to no chance of such a thing happening in Prythian, and the odds were equally terrible that they'd bring Persephone back to their world as long as she had it on. "If we manage to take it off here, her own power might help mitigate the damage… but even that has its risks."

He looked down at his wife, wishing they could speak soul-to-soul.

' Killing her would have been kinder… '

The thought came to him again. It wasn't much different, was it? Let her continue to live on as a mind-slave to the denizens of Night, or kill the person she is- and risk the person she was.

' Tell me what to do… Tell me what you'd want… '

"Do it. Bring my wife back to me."

The two gods nodded and left the tent to begin preparations.

The Persephone who fell in Vele Luk would die.

And when the wingless boy woke in his cage, he would wake an orphan.