The battle rages on with the queens—queens that used to be human before Hybern gifted them with magic to continue on his legacy of evil through Prythian in his stead. A group of them fight against my family, and large armies of spelled human forces fight against the other High Lords and their armies. My water wolves drown a small cluster of human soldiers as they go to strike a killing blow to Cresseida, and she nods in thanks to me before beginning to strike more of them down with the help of Varian and some Dawn Court fighters.
I happen to notice one queen break away from their unit. I move back behind Rhys and Cassian and continue to the right, following the sole queen to see what her plan is. She keeps walking, docile and sneaky, towards the borders as I tail her silently. The battle continues around us, and it seems we are on the cusp of victory.
I hear shrill screams from where my family was, and I immediately turn towards the sound, terrified, before realizing it was a queen that Azriel had cut down.
"Feyre!"
Someone screams my name and I turn my head just fast enough to see a striking and blazing whip of light shooting my way as fast as lightning. I barely flinch, having no time to react as a green and gold blur appears in front of me, immediately getting penetrated by it. Metal and armor melt away from the blob as they get slammed through the air and into me like a bowling ball, causing my breath to be knocked out of my lungs. I'm thrown back as well at the force of the hard body hitting mine.
I hit the ground hard but roll away, my training kicking in as I pop back up and come face to face with the queen, a wicked and terrifying smirk on her ashen face, mouth black as coal and dripping with inky saliva from the magic that has eaten its way through her body, rotting it as it went. With her shield down, she opens her cracked mouth to speak and I hit her with all the Autumn Court fire I possess, screaming my grievances as I watch her body ignite, almost immediately turning to a steaming pile of black ash before me.
Panting from the exertion, my mind reminds me that someone had taken the brunt of her magic. I whirl around and come across a sight I never thought I'd witness. My mind and my heart can't make up a decision on how I feel as it burns into my eyes.
The green and gold blur—it was Tamlin. Tamlin, the male I have so much horrid history with, had moved faster than I'd ever seen anyone move, to shield my body from that Queens strong, impenetrable, unstoppable magic of rot. Magic which strikes to kill. I glance over at my friends—my family—continuing to fight the evil queens as my gaze drags back to Tamlin. He lies crippled on the ground from where the magic punched and pierced its way through his body, melting his armor off, cracking his stone heart, and ripping a hole through his chest.
Tamlin, the insufferable brute who I once detested and had taken revenge on—and in a split second he has still given his health and maybe his life, for mine; preserving it for my son and my mate.
He lies there alone, tossed to the side of the battle, his usually shining blonde hair dirtied and bloodied from the pool of crimson beneath him. I glance between the broken and dying male I had once loved years ago, and my current family dealing with the magical warfare happening at present.
I had once told Tamlin that I wouldn't want to die alone. And that dignity was something everyone deserves, human or faerie.
Forcing my feet to move, I find myself quickly striding over to him, a picture-perfect mirror of our positions Under the Mountain when Amarantha was ended; Myself broken and dying on the ground and Tamlin clutching me. I slowly sink to my knees at his side and hesitantly squeeze his hand in mine.
His glazed green eyes stare up at me with the most painstakingly anguished look that I almost break, despite all the fights and the push and pull and the hate and the past love; despite the old friendship and the making of enemies.
"Why?", I force out. "After everything...all these years. Even still, why do you continue to come to my aid when I am not yours; when I have done the opposite to you for revenge?"
Tamlin's voice is still gruff but garbled with blood as it spills from the corner of his mouth. "Because you have a son. And...and he deserves the childhood I never had, and that Lucien had stolen from him. W-with two parents who aren't at odds and who can show him love, how to live happily, and how to rule." He viciously coughs up more blood, struggling for breath. "I know what it's—it's like...to lose a mother. S-So does Rhys."
Tears rim my eyes, threatening to spill down my face for this male I thought I'd never shed one more single tear for in my entire immortal life.
"This magic..."
"C-cannot be undone", he sputters, more blood pouring from the gaping hole in his chest as he coughs.
The rumors of his stone heart, however unbelievable, were true. However, knowing that and seeing it with my own two eyes in front of me were very different things. My eyes can't help but look at it, flesh peeled back from his chest, the offending organ cracked into many pieces, barely held together with fractures of pure golden magic, and glowing in an attempt to heal, but failing.
His gaze falters and his eyes begin to close before he forces them open one last time to look into mine. "Why...?"
I knew with that one simple question precisely what he meant. "Because I told you before that nobody deserves to die alone."
A dazed, reminiscent hint of a smile appears at the dry corner of his mouth as a few tears drip down his cheeks. His grip on my hand attempts to get tighter as if he is fighting a mental battle with a death god.
"Thank you." His voice is a whisper on the wind as he forces it from his lips, his entire body shaking uncontrollably, his blood beginning to crawl from the pool along the ground, soaking the fabric of my pants at the knees.
"Mother hold me...please. Please..." he murmurs almost incoherently, preying to the deity.
With one last look up at me, I see the exact moment she takes him into her arms. His bright, spring-green eyes turning the shade of muddied grass, his glassy gaze fixed and unmoving. His grip on my hand slackens and his body tremors slow to a halt. I can't help the tears as they escape me against my will. I had once—which felt like ages ago now—called Tamlin my Fae Lord, my lover, my protector, and my friend. He had then become my enemy, a keeper I didn't want or need. Someone who made me cold when I was at my worst.
After he helped save Azriel, Elain, and me from Hybern Island and then saved Rhys during the war with Hybern, I had mentally added savior to that list, forgiving him for the moment. A list that I had pushed so far down inside of me that it nearly burned a hole through me for still existing, like the last flickers of a flame where the good inside of him still held my lost human pieces in his grasp, as he had those early days in Spring.
But he had, despite all the qualms I've had of him after Under the Mountain, risked himself then, more than I knew and even when I didn't want to recognize it.
But now—now he had taken one more risk. Nobody is lucky forever. He knew that. He would tell me that often during my time in Spring when I'd nearly get caught by monsters in the woods. Yet today he lurched in front of me and took the entire brunt of the queen's magic straight through his being, the magic made of blinding and raw white light shattering him from the inside out; not only for me but for Nyx. For my son. For everything that never was, that could have been, and for what will be now.
Quiet sobs leave me as I bring my other hand on top of the one still clasped in my other, looking at a dull gray, stone heart with cracks split wide open, falling apart, all of the golden magic lost to it.
He was thanking me for something as simple and as human as not letting him die alone, even when I was the one he died for, and I can't help but suddenly believe that a part of my mortal soul did remain throughout everything. My body seems to act before I can think as I gather his bloodied hair to one side and cross his hands over one another on his stomach, casting one more look at his eyes before reaching forward and closing his lids carefully.
This could have been me. Nyx could have grown up without me, but because of Tamlin, he doesn't have to. Because he made a decision that included sacrificing his life for mine. Probably something he probably believed he owed me still. I sniffle and breathe shakily as I lightly pick up his left hand again, holding it in mine.
There's another thing I said that dreadful night when he buried that Summer Court fae. It was that I'd want someone to hold my hand until the end, and a while after that, too.
So for him, the male who brought me here and began the domino effect of my fate and ultimate happiness with my full family, and who tried to make amends over the course of years, I will keep my word. Because as I'm slowly realizing, in the end, it's not the bad things that you'll remember about them. It's the good. And I'm thinking maybe I should have remembered the good in him long before now. We could have had a civil conversation. I—could've, would've, should've. Ultimately, it is an opportunity lost and one which will forever haunt my days, his broken and terrified stare burned into my memory.
I lower my head in a soft sob and squeeze his hand, grieving all the lovely parts of him and everything he has done for me and my family over the years in his quest to regain my trust. He bid me happiness with Rhys once, and now he proved it. Proved it in the only way he thought he could. I told him back then in a solemn rage that I gave everything for him Under the Mountain, I gave my life when I had loved him. That he never sacrificed as I did, even if he had in smaller ways consistently. And now he's making me choke on those words, giving his life for mine—a life he knew could not be revived as mine had.
Memories flash through my mind like a photo reel as I kneel with his body. Without any warning, he slowly sifts to ash. The fine powder which moment ago used to be his hand, flows through my still fingers in shock, the queen's magic reducing him to dust.
Without warning, a howl of grief rips its way through me, my cries echoing through the plains as I begin to realize there is silence. The war is over, and we were victorious.
All but one of us. Us. Because in the end, Tamlin was one of us, not one of them. An ally, not an enemy.
My head throbs as everything comes rushing into me. Spring Court, High Lords, magic, consequences, burying the other dead, family notifications.
But none of that matters to me now. Not now. Not today. Not when I'm still breathing because of this male.
Today I pray for my fallen— Ex-lover. Friend. Comrade. Protector. Savior.
Maybe nobody will understand this grief. I hardly understand it myself and all the conflicting emotions swirling within me. Not many people liked Tamlin and even fewer knew him or made the effort to know him as well as I had. But I had once upon a time. And in my own heart, I understand that this was also an act of unnecessary redemption. Redemption that I had always hoped for, but desperately wish didn't have to end up like this.
Now I know that it's true what they say; hindsight is 20/20 and people don't really appreciate you until you're gone. I never really took into account everything Tamlin had truly done for me and my family whenever it happened, and it was rarer that I said thank you, that small bout of anger that festered inside of me for his overprotective actions long ago flaring and licking at my stubborn pride.
All I want to do now is say it. I should've said it. Before he died, I should have told him 'thank you'. For all his good, of which I can now admit there was an abundance.
It was Rhys and Elain that pulled me up by my arms as the tears continued to stream down my cheeks. A strong, magical wind blew and drifted Tamlin's ashes into the air, scattering them along the plains toward the Spring Court as I glue my gaze to it.
For each piece that fell, a rose bloomed, glistening with golden auras until there were entire rows full, stretching out and marking out a new barrier between Prythian and the mortal lands; the first since the wall had fallen.
I must have seemed crazy then, because I cried until it turned into laughter.
Hope. Even in death, he was giving me and his entire Court, even all of Prythian, hope for a better future. Prythian without war. Where my son and children all over the continent can live in beautiful Courts untainted by the ravages of war.
Though it's not the ending I ever expected or wished for, it's finally over. Prythian is free and I'm alive to raise my son, and though Rhys—nor Tamlin, when he had thrown himself in front of me—knew, a daughter too. And she will live to have the childhood and the life so many hadn't gotten the chance to have; one stolen by abuse, violence, and war from so many people I cared for. Rhys. Lucien. Tamlin. Now my children will have everything they never did, thanks to Tamlin's sacrifice for me.
I wrench my arms free and stride over to the roses, stroking the soft petals and noticing that they are curiously thorn-free. Swallowing the lump in my throat at its metaphoric meaning, I whisper hoarsely to the wind.
"Thank you, Tamlin."