A Court of Silver Flames - Sarah J. Maas Page 0,261

To feel nothing?

I thought that was what I wanted. Nesta surveyed the people around her. Her sisters. Cassian, who had been willing to plunge a dagger into his heart rather than harm her. But no longer. When the female voice didn’t press her, Nesta went on, I want to feel everything. I want to embrace it with my whole heart.

Even the things that hurt and hunt you? Only curiosity laced the question.

Nesta allowed herself a breath to ponder it, stilling her mind once more. We need those things in order to appreciate the good. Some days might be more difficult than others, but … I want to experience all of it, live through all of it. With them.

That wise, soft voice whispered, So live, Nesta Archeron.

Nesta needed nothing more as she took her sister’s limp hand and knelt upon the floor. Set down the Harp beside her, its silent note still reverberating, holding Time firm in its grasp.

She didn’t know what she could offer, beyond this.

Stroking Feyre’s cold hand, Nesta spoke into the timeless, frozen room, “You loved me when no one else would. You never stopped. Even when I didn’t deserve it, you loved me, and fought for me, and …” Nesta looked at Feyre’s face, Death a breath away from claiming it. She didn’t stop the tears that ran down her cheeks as she squeezed Feyre’s slender hand tighter. “I love you, Feyre.”

She had never said the words aloud. To anyone.

“I love you,” Nesta whispered again. “I love you.”

And when the Harp’s final string wavered, like a whisper of thunder on the air, Nesta covered Feyre’s body with her own. Time would resume soon. She did not have much longer.

She reached inward, toward the power that had made deathless monsters tremble and wicked kings fall to their knees, but … she didn’t know how to use it. Death flowed through her veins, yet she did not have the knowledge to master it.

One wrong move, one mistake, and Feyre would be lost.

So Nesta held her sister tightly, with Time halted around them, and she whispered, “If you show me how to save her, you can have it back.”

The world paused. Worlds beyond their own paused.

Nesta buried her face in the cold sweat of Feyre’s neck. She opened that place within herself, and said to the Mother, to the Cauldron, “I’ll give back what I took from you. Just show me how to save them—her and Rhysand and the baby.” Rhysand—her brother. That’s what he was, wasn’t he? Her brother, who had offered her kindness even when she knew he wanted to throttle her. And she him. And the baby … her nephew. Blood of her blood. She would save him, save them, even if it took everything. “Show me,” she pleaded.

No one answered. The Harp stopped its echoing.

As Time resumed, noise and movement roaring into the room, Nesta whispered to the Cauldron, her promise rising above the din, “I’ll give it all back.”

And a soft, invisible hand brushed her cheek in answer.

Cassian blinked, and Nesta had gone from one side of the room to the bed. Had plucked the Harp, and now lay half-atop Feyre, whispering. No silver fire burned in her eyes. Not a cold ember. No sign of the being who’d peered out through her stare, either.

Rhys lunged against his hold, but Amren stepped to their side and hissed, “Listen.”

Nesta whispered, “I give it all back.” Her shoulders heaved as she wept.

Rhys began shaking his head, his power a palpable, rising wave that could destroy them all, destroy the world if it meant Feyre was no longer in it, even if he only had seconds to live beyond her, but Amren grabbed the nape of his neck. Her red nails dug into his golden skin. “Look at the light.”

Iridescent light began flowing from Nesta’s body. Into Feyre.

Nesta kept holding her sister. “I give it back. I give it back. I give it back.”

Even Rhys stopped fighting. No one moved.

The light glimmered down Feyre’s arms. Her legs. It suffused her ashen face. Began to fill the room.

Cassian’s Siphons guttered, as if sensing a power far beyond his own, beyond any of theirs.

Tendrils of light drifted between the sisters. And one, delicate and loving, floated toward Mor. To the bundle in her arms, setting the silent babe within glowing bright as the sun.

And Nesta kept whispering, “I give it back. I give it all back.”

The iridescence filled her, filled Feyre, filled the bundle in Mor’s arms, lighting his friend’s