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It showed her Cassian, aloof and distant. Loathing her very existence, finally aware that she wasn’t worth it.
She shut her eyes against that one, but she was facing that already, too, wasn’t she? She’d faced all of it and survived. Had faced every nightmare, seen every broken and miserable part of herself and accepted it.
Like hell would she allow this creature to bring her to her knees again.
Grunting, panting through her teeth, Nesta got to her feet.
Pure darkness lay around them—
No. That was a lie. She’d experienced real darkness, in the heart of the Cauldron. She’d survived it.
She’d survive this, too.
She closed her eyes, breathing in for three beats, then out. Again. Again. On the third release, the Mind-Stilling settling through her, she opened her eyes. Light streamed in.
Her friends, her family, were all scattered throughout the temple, on their knees or cowering, sobbing, screaming at whatever invisible horror they beheld.
Cassian was curled into a ball, wings wrapped tightly around himself like a shield, their delicate networks of veins and muscles illuminated by the flickering ruby glow of his Siphons.
Her head hollowed out. They were all lost in their worst fears, their unfiltered nightmares.
She’d seen it happen before. Bryaxis had been on that final battlefield against Hybern. Nesta had witnessed that dark cloud descending upon their enemies, leaving only shrieking madness and ugly death in its wake.
Nyx was screaming. He was still held between Feyre and Rhys, cradled close, all three bound by Clotho’s ribbon—but both parents were lost to their own minds, their own terrors. And it was the sound of Nyx’s terrified screams, that babe who was still too young to know what true fear was, that had Nesta’s vision distilling to something lethally clear.
“You want to terrorize a baby?” she asked the darkness hoarsely. “Come pick on someone your own size.”
A low, hissing laugh sounded from the arched ceiling. There, coiled in a corner like some great dragon made of shadow and smoke, lurked Bryaxis.
“You’re dead,” Nesta seethed, fingers curling at her sides. “Dead.”
A long, sinuous tail thrashed like a cat’s before a voice like wind through dry grass asked, “Am I? Come prove it to me, then.”
Nesta dared a glance toward Rhys, her deadliest ally in this situation. But he was still bound to his son and his mate, a puddle of vomit to one side of him, tears running down his ash-white face as he beheld something on the ground, something beyond his worst imaginings. He didn’t see the son or the mate in his arms—didn’t feel them. He’d be of no use to her, not until he could work his way free of Bryaxis’s net.
Nesta bared her teeth at the creature crouched by the ceiling. “Why are you here?”
Again, that long tail thrashed, brushing over the mosaic of stars and the moon on the domed ceiling. “Why do you stand before me while the others cannot?” Bryaxis demanded, voice sharpening into claws on stone.
Nyx wailed again. It took every ounce of restraint Nesta had not to run to that baby, slice through that ribbon binding him to his parents, and take him in her arms. But to do that would leave her nephew dangerously exposed—and leave her fighting one-handed.
Not that she had any weapon to fight with. And in this dress, all these stays and skirts . . . how could she even move? Even if Rhys got free, how—
Something clattered nearby, and she dared take her eyes off Bryaxis once again.
Ataraxia lay on the ground in front of Rhys. He was shaking, vomit and spittle at the edges of his mouth, so unhinged that he looked half-wild, but—“Kill it,” the High Lord snarled before convulsing in on himself again, a shattered scream breaking from his lips.
She’d bought him time to work his way out of Bryaxis’s snare—but only for a heartbeat.
That heartbeat was all Nesta needed. She stretched out a hand, and Ataraxia obeyed. Its hilt met her palm as Bryaxis pounced.
Long, snapping jaws, a spiked tail, talons designed for shredding, all crafted of smoke and night—
Nesta blindly swung Ataraxia up.
Light ruptured, and the creature roared. Debris rained from the ceiling, flowers and petals with it. Bryaxis leaped away, landing atop the pews, as nimble as a shadow.
Nesta had all of a second to angle Ataraxia as the creature lashed its tail, aiming right for her head. Nesta ducked low, trying to roll—
