Chapter 11

It really was like a security blanket for a child. As soon as the mask was on her face, her lungs stopped hurting, her body stopped aching. She didn't need to breathe, she felt no pain, neither physical nor emotional. She didn't even feel fear.

Through the mask, she could see the Kelpie clearly, and now it wasn't scary. That creature of pure hatred and hunger was pathetic, weak, and pitiful. Nesta no longer feared it. She could feel something else around her: the dead.

"We are here for you, our Lady," the bones surrounding her seemed to say. Thousands and thousands of bodies... this entire lake was a vast graveyard, but she felt no fear, because all the dead made her feel at peace. Some were already just bones, others were still preserved in varying stages of decomposition. All dead, all at her disposal. She felt it clearly.

Like a child trying out a new toy, she simply wished for them to tear apart the Kelpie that had tried to kill her, and the dead moved at her will, attacking the creature mercilessly. Some with bare hands, others with weapons and armor, just as they had been buried. The mask felt like a soothing lullaby on her face. Nesta floated, drifting through the dark water in complete peace, oblivious to the carnage with the Kelpie. She even smiled calmly when a large skeleton, armored, a brave warrior in life and now dead, offered her the Kelpie's head. Nesta let out a small laugh under the water, taking it in her hands.

Then she felt how the arms, made of pure bone, lifted her, and she let herself be carried, moving the Kelpie's head between her hands, looking at it with childlike curiosity, without truly noticing the entire army of the dead moving around her as they escorted her upwards, where their Lady, the mistress of the dead, needed to be. Up there, with the living, not down here, with the dead.

-o-o-o-

Pure, unadulterated terror. That was all Cassian could feel when he returned to the clearing and the tree where he had left Nesta, only to find her gone. He saw the bat lying to one side, but there was no sign of Nesta.

"Nesta!" he shouted, rushing into the dark lake without hesitation, because from the position of the bat, covered in green blood, it was obvious where Nesta had been dragged, and she had clearly fought for her life. Azriel tried to stop him.

"We need Rhys," he tried to reason with Cassian, but Cassian wasn't listening. He was blind, focused solely on finding Nesta, and if Nesta was dead, he would die with her. The bog, this cursed place, prevented them from contacting anyone beyond its borders, they couldn't alert anyone, and Cassian couldn't waste time. He needed to get Nesta.

Only Azriel stopped him from diving headfirst into the water. Cassian struggled, caring about nothing but reaching her. Then, spears broke the surface of the water, stopping them both. Like a forest rising from the dark lake, spear after spear, then helmets—some still shining, others rusted—and beneath the helmets, skulls: some pure bone, others rotting, with pieces of flesh hanging from them.

"By the Mother and by the Cauldron!" Azriel gasped, frozen, filled with sheer terror. The dead were rising from the depths of Oorid.

An entire legion of the dead: soldiers, warriors, princes, lords, kings. The armor showed the diversity of the motley legion that emerged.

They stood in perfect unison, with the discipline of any well-trained military unit, and left a pathway, a place of honor as they knelt. Then, the largest skull Cassian had ever seen, covered in the most impressive armor that not even death could diminish, emerged, carrying Nesta in its arms. Nesta, cradled like a child; Nesta, who looked ethereal, like a creature from another world, draped in innocence and lethality in juxtaposition. The way she rested in the skull's arms was like a child being held by a loving father, and the way she toyed absentmindedly with a severed head between her fingers, like a fae child playing with a doll. The obvious innocence clashed starkly with the lethality and grotesqueness of an army of decaying dead. That was not a doll in the hands of a child, it was a cursed severed head, in the hands of a Queen… a Queen of Death.

"Nesta…" Cassian nearly fell to his knees upon seeing her. They were Illyrians, they walked alongside this power every day by nature. It was fascinating, terrifying, and beautiful. Both bowed to the beautiful face of Death. They lifted their heads at the sound of armor moving; the one carrying Nesta approached them. Cassian instinctively extended his arms, as if he already knew what the other party wanted. And that monster laid Nesta in his arms with the same tenderness as a loving father, as a devoted subject. Nesta raised her eyes and looked at him through the mask, even smiled at him, and lifted the Kelpie's head as if showing him her toy.

"I see it, Nesta," it was Azriel who spoke, tense. Nesta smiled at him, then looked back at the skull that had carried her, the one who had given her the head. She extended one of her delicate hands and touched the skeletal remains of what had once been a face, now devoid of skin and eyes.

"Thank you," she said in a cold and beautiful voice, her laugh like wind chimes. And then, the army of the dead sank back into the lake, once their Lady was safe.

"Nesta," Cassian called to her, and Nesta turned her eyes to him.

"Why are you afraid?" she asked, not understanding, her voice so calm, so at peace.

"Would you give me that, Nesta?" Azriel asked, unsure, pointing to the head that rested on Nesta's belly as Cassian carried her princess-style. Nesta smiled and handed it to him confidently.

"Azriel can keep it," Nesta said cheerfully, gifting him the trophy. Azriel took it hesitantly; he wanted to throw it into the lake, but he wasn't sure how Nesta would react.

"Nesta… could you take off the mask?"

"I don't want to… You left me alone, I think I felt scared, I even wet myself," she frowned. "But with it," she touched it with gentle fingers, "I'm not afraid, I don't feel fear, only peace… and I think this is… happiness," she laughed melodiously.

"I'm not going anywhere, Nesta, I promise. I'm here. Azriel and I are both here," Cassian pleaded with her. Nesta seemed to think about it, hesitated for a few moments, but then raised her hand and obediently removed the mask, holding it to her chest, as if she needed the comfort of keeping it close. Once she took off the mask, it was as if a great exhaustion fell upon her. She yawned and snuggled against Cassian, closing her eyes and easily giving in to sleep, right there, in the most horrific place in Prythian, clutching one of the most powerful and dangerous objects in the world to her chest, as if it were merely a doll in the hands of a child.

Azriel dropped the Kelpie's head, which sank into the water the moment he heard Nesta's breathing, indicating that she had fallen asleep.

"Let's get out of here," he whispered, his heart racing, on guard in case the dead rose again... in case they came back for Nesta.