A Court of Wind and Fire: Chapter 3

Amren POV:

I can smell blood.

While many things left me after I changed, the scent of blood will never leave me. So many years lusting after it, craving the way it slipped down my throat and warmed my belly. It was strange to no longer hunger for it, a feeling that even I could not anticipate. But I still can smell it from a mile away. Or in this case, a couple hundred feet. I lick my lips, already savoring the taste of victory. The scent is heavy and thick, and while I didn't quite know what it came from, the sheer strength of it meant whatever bleeding was big, bigger than any elk or stag the others could find. Maybe Feyre could take down the Middengard Wyrm with some old bones and perhaps Azriel could strike so quietly an animal would be dead before it realized it, but neither had lived centuries knowing blood as well as they knew themselves. Thank the gods, because if I had to participate in this infernal game just to watch Cassian stumble around and still win I would throw myself off of the Illyrian Steppes.

I track swiftly but quietly, turning through trees and dodging branches. As I come closer to the smell it becomes stronger, and yet I still cannot recognize it; This scent was different. Getting closer, I began to realize the strength of it may not come from the size, but the kind. I stop in my tracks, this realization coursing through my brain.

"What is it…" I wonder aloud, my breath frozen in the frigid air. The forest's response to my question is unnerving silence. I stand there for a few moments, disregarding how precious they might be for my hunt, wracking my head for answers. My eyes scan across the forest, and something catches my eye. A circle of scarlet red staining the dove white of snow, trickling across the frost. Almost covering all of the hand that lay inside it. The hand of a female.

I ran, not caring how I stepped on branches or slipped on ice. Each step seemed to take too long, my legs too short to go fast enough. The smell of the blood was overpowering, and as I got closer it seemed it doubled in size and tripled. I could see the female more clearly now, her tan skin, thick dark hair a stark contrast to the white snow. Her body was bruised and cut in every place it could be; clothes tattered and ripped to rags, and face turned away, blood dripping off the side of it. Something screamed at me in my head, an urgency I had felt for few in my years. It was if I knew this person, as I had loved her, and yet I didn't. Suddenly a name came into my head, a name I had thought little of in the past hundreds of years.

Diana.

I pushed it down, incredulous that I had even thought of her. She had been killed, I had seen her severed head in Rhysand's hands. There was no possible way she could be alive, and yet this name persisted in my head. Finally, I reached her, barreling my knees to the blood-soaked snow. I could see no breath clouding the air, nor any movement in her chest. Was she dead? Panic engulfed my body as I grabbed at clothes, shaking her body.

"Wake up, wake up, WAKE UP!" I scream. I taste salt in my mouth as a tear slips down my face, the sensation foreign. I try to hold them back, not allowing others to follow the first. Struggling to grip my bloody hands on the scraps of fabric that covers her chest, I raise her face to mine, and as I do so, her eyelids flutter open, just barely. Shock courses through my body as Rhysand's violet stare back at me, shrouded by dark sensuous lashes that almost covered all of her eye. Suddenly I am transported to memories, locked so deep within me that I could barely remember. Memories of love, of happiness, of a joy that could not be described, only felt. "Diana?" I whisper softly, staring back into the eyes of the only person I've ever mourned in my life.

"Rhys-Rhysand." she croaked, her gaze bearing into my soul. For a moment I feel a connection, a spark of hope burning between us. But as I feel her fall limp into my arms, the only thing I can do is scream her name and let the tears flow freely.

Rhysand POV:

It couldn't be her. I knew it couldn't. I didn't even know what she sounded like as an adult. And yet as I flew as fast as I could towards the wretched sounds of Amren howling, a voice inside me, the one I always trusted to know the truth, told me that it was. But she was dead. She was dead, and buried her, or at least what was left of her, a long time ago. Icy, unending rage tears through me as I remember her, as I remember her head in that bloody box, given to me by an Illyrian soldier whose name I never even bothered to learn as I stared and stared and stared at her eyes. The eyes of a ten-year-old child, the eyes of my clever, talented passionate beautiful sister, eyes that would never look at me with laughter, or sadness or anger again. I had seen her decapitated head, and yet every sense within me screamed that she was alive. Diana called out to me, needed me. And I would not let history repeat itself. For five hundred years, her death tore at my soul, creating holes so deep not even Feyre could mend them. But as Amren wailed Diana's name in a way I had never known her to do so, I knew that something was terribly wrong.

I could feel Feyre's tugging at my mind-no, not tugging, more like flinging her whole soul against my wall of adamant. For once, I feel as if I cannot let her in; I need to be alone, need to be alert. But her concern for me kills me inside, even as I focus on scanning the mountains, eyes tearing through thick trees for any sign of Amren and my sister.

Damn Amren for closing her mind to me, not allowing me to see through her eyes. I scratch and tear at her own wall, and it is unyielding, but I can still sense the terror that pulses within it. The only time I had ever known her to feel like this was when she had seen Diana's head cradled in my arms. When she had thought she was dead. The pain of this memory scratches at my soul and my eyes stray slightly from the ground to the winter sun. Diana was fascinated by it, surrounded by the deep cold that permeated the Night Court. Not in the childish way of most little ones, but in a way so far beyond the curiosity of youth.

Today, the sun was hidden, the sky a sullen gray, but it began to peek out and for a moment I hover there with the slight rays of light, the glint in the sky and I realize why she loved it. The colors, the brightness, the beauty. I take a long breath expecting pure frigid air, but the metallic scent of fresh blood come instead. Eyes widening, I look down and see it. The circle of red surrounding both Amren and an unmoving figure. I barrel down, going so fast tears cannot escape from my eyes, and as soon as I hit the ground I run. I should have winnowed, I think, Cauldron damn me, I can't waste time. My feet pound the ice, my tears stream past me. Finally, I reach her and crumple to the ground. Amren cradles her in her arms, pressing her mouth to her face, only releasing to speak.

"Rhys, I-, I couldn't," the words seem strangled from her mouth. I meet her eyes with my own tearstained ones as I take Diana in my own arms. Her right arm, her legs stick out in unnatural angles, broken shards of bone tearing through sinewy tendons as unclotted blood pools beneath her. Her face is bruised and cut, and yet she is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. Sobs wrack my body, as I pull her close, and whisper her name into her ear like Amren had screamed it through the mountains. But as I do so, I feel something tickle my neck.

Her breath.

Little Note:

Ooh, lucky y'all. You get a long chapter. I know that some people probably were confused with the last one, but here is a little something to wrap it all up in a pretty little bow. Well, a little bow that has a cliff hanger at the end ;). Hope you liked it, and get ready for (possibly) some more tomorrow. Otherwise, a good night to you all!

Love ya lots,

Leila

PS. I've decided to put these "Little Notes" at the bottom now AND insert a special line AND a title header above to make everything a lil more fancy. See, I'm learning!