It took me precisely half an hour to stop actively trying to convince myself she hated me and open the door. As I stepped out onto the terrace and took in Velaris from the upper balconies of the House, I knew I’d made the right call by coming.

The city glowed under the soft lanterns that had been dimmed to accommodate the coming attractions. Music hummed celestial in every corner and smiles met me at every turn. My chest expanded inhaling it all in.

Home. This was home.

It was every bit as spectacular as I’d remembered, and every bit as painful as I’d expected it would be while I waited Under the Mountain. But it was worth it. Fifty years of hiding came flooding back into my mind and it was an effort not to buckle as the realization of what I’d survived - what I’d earned - fell upon my shoulders watching citizens move out clinking glasses, sharing stories, laughter. There wasn’t a cloud in sight.

This was Starfall and it would be magnificent.

The city that housed every single one of my dreams gleamed at me with life and love and hope as I walked into the throngs of people, things I had almost lost. We all had. But looking around, I could feel the pieces of myself that I’d lost dancing around me, begging me to reach out and grab them. I just couldn’t quite... reach yet. Something was missing. Too much pain blocked the way, told me it was all a lie and that I wouldn’t be allowed any of it.

If Morrigan had heard my thoughts, she would have said I was sabotaging myself again and made good on her word to have Azriel kick my ass back to Hybern. I spotted the Shadowsinger in question across the way, along with Cassian sharing a laugh with a mutual friend, and simply stared, unable to move forward and accept that any of it was real. It was so normal. My friends...

I swallowed. And then I saw her .

A narrow lane parted in the sea of people around me, leading only to Feyre. Her hair, pulled back by two crystal pins, dripped down behind her in a golden caress of her back that moved softly on the breeze. Diamonds and tiny crystalline jewels of faintest blue, a softer shade of my mother’s sapphire ring, adorned the dress that clung to her every curve.

Curves .

She had them now and in abundance. This wasn’t the full bodied seductress I’d taken to court. Feyre looked happy and healthy, and when she turned her head enough for me to see her profile, my stomach dropped out completely at the sight of her, a fallen star ready and waiting for someone to catch her and break her fall. That now familiar rhythm of my soul conducted a melody in time to my heartbeat, one word for each beat that I never wanted to stop hearing.

Feyre wasn’t my friend. Could never be my friend no matter what little pieces of her heart she was willing to let me protect. I might be nothing more than a ghost or a friend in her life, but I knew looking at her there was only one option my heart could make room for if Feyre was to stay, only one way I could picture her.

My-Mate.

My-Mate.

My-Mate.

My heart sped up at each beat of the words.

“If you don’t shut your mouth, you’ll get drool all over the ground and while I know you’ve been gone a long while, we don’t allow behavior like that at Starfall anymore,” Cassian hissed in my ear.

Startled though I was at the sound of his voice pulling me from what had apparently become an outright stare at Feyre, I managed to contain myself to a mere twitch of my head. Cassian barked out an amused laugh knowing exactly where my weaknesses were.

“Go already, you stupid prick,” Cassian said. His hands found my back and shoved until I stumbled forward. I couldn’t even manage a retort, my eyes had not moved off of Feyre.

Each step was a well of anxiety around my feet, but when I reached the threshold where Feyre and Mor stood chatting, every ounce of hesitation slipped away as I was momentarily trapped by the sight of her. From far away, Feyre was a fallen star glimmering on the edge of a cliff. But close up, she was as all consuming as the wildest galaxy.

“I’ve had lovers,” Mor was saying, “but… I get bored. And Cassian has had them, too, so don’t get that unrequited-love, moony-woo-woo look. He just wants what he can’t have, and it’s irritated him for centuries that I walked away and never looked back.”

I stepped forward, a tad surprised at the topic of conversation, and spoke before I had too much time to lose my nerve and turn around. “Oh, it drives him insane,” I said. Feyre jumped about a mile high out of her skin. I caught a wicked knowing grin from Mor before I moved, circling Feyre and drinking in the sight of her openly. I couldn’t help myself when my eyes had finished the length of her and I smirked. “You look like a woman again.”

“You really know how to compliment females, cousin,” Mor said. And just like that, she left, but not before resting her hand on my shoulder with a firmness in her touch that told me she was glad I’d changed my mind about coming.

And then, just like that, I was alone with her. With Feyre. My Feyre. And all I could do was stare.

But... she was staring too - a good thing, I wondered. Or at least, she tried not to, but I could see her eyes trailing all over me, taking me in from the loose black jacket around my shoulders to the exposed skin at my neck where my tattoos swirled. Already I’d become a mess inside, unglued at the mere sight of her.

It was Feyre who finally pulled us out of the silence.

“Do you plan to ignore me some more?” Her voice was silk - cool, and on guard.

“I’m here now, aren’t I?” I said. “I wouldn’t want you to call me a hateful coward again.” Even with her shields up, I could feel her slip away the instant the words left me. Heat ravaged her skin and as I watched her head turn in search of some other comfort, I slipped back into my old fearful self, desperate not to lose her again. “I wasn’t punishing you,” I said in a rush. “I just… I needed time.”

Feyre tensed, her body taking a deep inhale as she shifted away from me, but at least she didn’t leave.

“Will you please tell me what this… gathering is about?”

The wind danced over her hair, her skin sparkling. Mother above, she was so beautiful. And she had no idea. About herself. About Starfall. Me or them or us or any of it. And I loved her for it, that gorgeous curiosity about the world she knew so little of that made her mind so sharp and inviting. The first thing she’d brought with her and offered me in that palace of the north.

I stepped up behind her, daring myself closer and murmured in her ear with an amused snort, “Look up.”

“No speech for your guests?” she asked, turning her attention to the skies at the same moment the entire city stilled.

“Tonight’s not about me, though my presence is appreciated and noted.” I paused, pointing high above us to the Heavens just as the first star fell. “Tonight’s about that.”

Feyre followed my gesture, and gasped as souls began weaving across the star-strewn sky, thin at first and then more steadily thick, like heavy streaks of paint blurred together beneath a brush. Lights collided in heavy drops of color so rare and unseen in any other part of the world. Blues, and impossibly stark whites took over until the sky was a canvas of sparkling divinity.

I felt Feyre lean against me and quickly pull herself back forward. That momentary lapse between us was enough to set off my craving for her all over again, a reminder that I had missed this very moment, not just with her but the entire city, for the last fifty years.

So I stepped away to give her space to take it all in, but the view that met me only twisted the knife in my gut further: Morrigan. Azriel. Cassian. All of them dancing, twisting around and into one another like the souls above us with vibrant smiles plastered across their faces. They were a wild and living thing, my trio of closest friends and allies, just happy to be alive and in each other’s company.

I’d almost forgotten what it felt like to be just so. The idea that I could have all of that spirit and will again tasted so foreign on my mind’s tongue. And tomorrow it could all be gone again, just like that. The possibility weighed me down considerably.

Feyre noticed. She came to stand next to me with a heavy gaze in her eyes. I swallowed and offered her my hand, needing to be away from here where it was just her, the only one who’d understand the twisting of my thoughts. Who I hoped would still listen.

“Come,” I said, glad when Feyre took my hand. “There’s a better view. Quieter.”

I led her to a balcony high up on the House of Wind where the entire city was lain out before us in a sweeping view and the sky shone at its brightest to see. Feyre seated herself on the balcony, but one look over the edge sent her reeling back off of it by several feet, her face drawn pale.

“If you fell, you know I’d bother to save you before you hit the ground,” I said with a quiet laugh.

“But not until I was close to death?” she asked.

“Maybe.”

“As punishment for what I said to you?”

She said it so quietly. My throat went instantly dry. “I said some horrible things, too,” I admitted. The absolute truth. But Feyre sputtered out a hasty rebuttal that surprised me.

“I didn’t mean it. I meant it more about myself than you. And I’m sorry.”

“You were right, though. I stayed away because you were right,” and indeed, I had. “Though I’m glad to hear my absence felt like a punishment.”

Feyre snorted, my heart melting at that tiny insignificant sound, and a manageable calm settled between us that felt almost normal again.

“Any news with the orb or the queens?”

“Nothing yet. We’re waiting for them to deign to reply.”

We stilled then simply taking it all in and it dawned at me that the door was open. I could tell her tonight. Mor twirled stories below us, but her words from two days previous rang through my ears loud and clear: You need to tell her. Fix this…

Be honest.

“They’re not - they’re not stars at all,” Feyre said, cutting my dangerous thoughts off. I came to meet her at the railing of the balcony where she studied her heavens, but I couldn’t be bothered to join her. My first Starfall in fifty years and all I wanted to watch was her.

“No. Our ancestors thought they were, but… they’re just spirits, on a yearly migration to somewhere. Why they pick this day to appear here, no one knows.”

Feyre passed a quick glance over me that made my heart shudder. Her every look was fatal tonight, like my life depended upon them. “There must be hundreds of them,” she said softly, a kind of sadness creeping over her.

“Thousands,” I corrected. “They’ll keep coming until dawn. Or, I hope they will. There were less and less of them the last time I witnessed Starfall.”

A weight snapped back in place over my soul. So... back and forth tonight. So inconsistent, my heart felt.

But fifty years. Fifty years . It was a mere blip in the context of my entire life, but it was enough to let me know I’d missed out on something important, something essential to the fiber of my being. This was my court, my home, and the fact that I didn’t recognize even a small, infinitesimal piece of it like the number of souls traversing the skies at Starfall, made me feel as though my own soul were dying.

Like I had failed as their High Lord.

“What’s happening to them?” Feyre asked. I felt her look at me, searching for something more than the explanation of Starfall, but I suddenly couldn’t bear to return her gaze anymore as I folded beneath the force of what I’d done. So I just shrugged.

“I wish I knew. But they keep coming back despite it.”

“Why?”

Such a simple question with such a complicated answer, but I gave her the only one I had. The one that had come to define me since the moment I drank the wine and felt my powers fade away in that wretched throne room.

“Why does anything cling to something?” I asked. “Maybe they love wherever they’re going so much that it’s worth it. Maybe they’ll keep coming back, until there’s only one star left. Maybe that one star will make the trip forever, out of the hope that someday - if it keeps coming back often enough - another star will find it again.”

And I would. I would go back a thousand times over to save this city even if I were the only one left to inhabit its gentle streets. If time froze and my powers were stripped away and my wings were torn, I would have fought Amarantha over and over again just for a chance at returning here and finding Feyre, my radiant, hopeful star.

“That’s… a very sad thought,” Feyre said quietly.

“Indeed,” I said, collapsing inwardly on myself. I rested my forearms against the railing of the balcony as she studied me, trying not to let my grief show through, but I couldn’t do it anymore. I was tired of being miserable and alone, hiding myself from anyone and everyone.

This was Starfall. It should be special even if it was painful and honest. And if anyone deserved to know the truth, it was Feyre.

“Every year that I was Under the Mountain,” I began, trying not to let my voice waver even as I needed desperately to get the words out so someone could understand, “and Starfall came around, Amarantha made sure that I… serviced her. The entire night. ” Feyre went very still beside me. “Starfall is no secret, even to outsiders - even the Court of Nightmares crawls out of the Hewn City to look up at the sky. So she knew… She knew what it meant to me.”

Music disappeared. The sky went dark. The earth fell away at my feet and all Feyre said was a simple, “I’m sorry.” But it wasn’t full of pity. No, it was full of understanding. A promise that what I was telling her was okay. It gave me the courage to press on.

“I got through it by reminding myself that my friends were safe; that Velaris was safe” I explained further, feeling little bits of the night come back to me as the weights of revealing the truth were lifted. “Nothing else mattered, so long as I had that. She could use my body however she wanted. I didn’t care.”

“So why aren’t you down there with them?” Feyre’s head motioned out of the corner of my eye to below - to where my family was living .

I shook my head at the reminder of those temptations of what tonight could be for me if I was only brave enough to reach out and snatch it. Brave like Feyre.

“They don’t know - what she did to me on Starfall. I don’t want it to ruin their night.”

“I don’t think it would,” Feyre said and I could tell she believed it. Wanted me to as well. “They’d be happy if you let them shoulder the burden.”

“The same way you rely on others to help with your own troubles?”

I looked at her to find her staring right back at me. I hadn’t realized how close our faces were. A light prickle graced my fingers and I was surprised into utter delight to find her hands reaching for me, carving out a home for themselves in my palm. My hands stilled as she drew a finger over them, a caress that said, It’s alright. I’m here and I know you , just as she’d told me in the Court of Nightmares.

We can rely on each other.

And I realized then how empty I had been. How starved I was for that touch. Not just during these past weeks and months or even years with Amarantha. Centuries had gone by spent wonderfully with my friends, I didn’t discount those years with them for even a second.

But even as we had grown up together, fought together, danced and laughed and lived together, there had always been something missing. My family was taken from me, my cousin treated worse than cattle, and my friends counted as mere swords on the battlefield and nothing more. We were all broken and abused and healing, and then Amarantha came and stole what little faith had been left in my heart away.

And now here was Feyre giving it all back to me and more, promising me the world in that touch on my hand. It stole the breath right out of me to feel her reach for me, like my lungs might collapse or my knees might give out.

I wanted to kiss her. To tell her everything and anything she wanted to hear, whatever she would let me say. I was hers. She could have all of me if she would take me on, let me reach back.

A burst of light and Feyre cried out in shock, staggering back from me with a look of pure horror coming over her. A falling star-soul had collided with her face, the freckles of her nose and cheeks illuminated in a beautiful cascade of color. Feyre stood stunned and looking at me as if the universe had cursed her.

So unaware. So taken aback. So free .

I laughed. I laughed so hard, my soul might have burst. My body unraveled at the seams even as it was simultaneously filled to the brim with a joy I had not felt in years, maybe ever. If I had, it could never have compared to the way that joy felt now in precisely this moment watching the sky paint my mate with the purest form of life my court could offer.

“I could have been blinded!” Feyre shouted, charging at me and shoving me roughly. I laughed again without restraint at her outrage and Feyre’s features softened, betraying her angry bluff. It only made my heart sing more wildly for her. She tried to wipe the dust away, but I grabbed her hands in a frenzy with a bright smile on my face.

“Don’t,” I said staring down at her beautiful, star-strewn face. “It looks like your freckles are glowing.” Even amidst the smear of color, I could still see the red glowing beneath it on her cheeks. Such a brilliant star you are, I thought.

She made another swipe at me, but not without a wicked mischievous look in her eyes. She was - she was playing with me. And it felt fun . I jumped out of the way right as my own sky-bound traveler smacked into my face, like the stars above were trying to drive us together, to match.

“Shit!” I spat, gaping at my hands as I clawed away at the dust from my face. Feyre’s laugh burst out of her with rapture. She strode immediately for me, as though she didn’t realize what she was doing, and took my hand. I froze, my breathe hinging on her touch while her fingers traced the pattern of a star on my palm.

A smile overtook my face, my grip tightening around her hand as she finished painting me. Painting . Feyre was painting again for the first time. And it meant... it meant that I wasn’t Tamlin. I wasn’t the monster in the shadows. Not to her, at least. Not to my mate. I was simply Rhys, stripped of everything except the simple fact that my entire heart sat there between us in the palm of my hand as she molded and gave it life with the brushes of her fingertips.

And when she looked up at me not even aware of what she’d done, she took one look at my dust covered face, her fingers still laced tightly with mine, and smiled .

My soul sighed.

Feyre was smiling. I’d never seen anything more - never dreamed she’d look so -

All at once, the music that had disappeared, the lights that had dimmed from the sky in the darkness of my thoughts - all of it came rushing back. Noise and lights and music and laughter surrounded me, creating a joyous symphony all because of that smile. I had waited what felt like an eternity for this moment. Every single second under that mountain had been worth it... just to see Feyre smile.

Feyre’s lips twitched, returning to her normal composure as her eyes asked me what was going on inside my head.

“Smile again,” I requested humbly, hardly able to get the words out. Feyre looked down at our entwined hands taking in the magic her fingers had drawn out on my palm. She seemed to realize what had passed between us just then, but she didn’t shy away from it. Quite the opposite, actually. And when she looked back up at me, her smile was so bright and beaming - for me, all of it for me, it was mine - I could have cried. “You’re exquisite,” I breathed.

“You owe me two thoughts,” she said through that radiance. “Back from when I first came here. Tell me what you’re thinking.”

I huffed out a laugh, my breath tickling her cheeks, and rubbed my neck with my remaining free hand. “You want to know why I didn’t speak or see you?” I asked, the words springing immediately to my lips. Somehow the truth didn’t feel so awkward anymore. “Because I was so convinced you’d throw me out on my ass. I just…. I figured hiding was a better alternative.”

“Who would have thought the High Lord of the Night Court could be afraid of an illiterate human?” Her voice purred at me, begging me to come play. Another of the night’s many temptations. “That’s one. Tell me another thought.”

I gave her the only other thing on my mind as my eyes danced wickedly to her lips. “I’m wishing I could take back that kiss Under the Mountain.”

Feyre’s brow furrowed in surprise. “Why?”

“Because I didn’t make it pleasant for you, and I was jealous and pissed off, and I knew you hated me.”

And because I wish I could relive that kiss properly, right here, right now in the way that you deserve.

An intense electricity buzzed between us. Our eyes flitted from our still grasped hands to our shared gaze and back, never sparing a thought for the non-existent space between us. We had one solitary touch connecting us at our fingertips and somehow it felt miles deeper and more intimate than what had passed at the Court of Nightmares, than anything I’d felt down the bond itself from her.

When I looked up at Feyre for the final time, I let the desire for her - mind, body, and soul - flow freely across my face. The finger that ran along my wrist in response sent adrenaline through my system, rooting me to the spot.

“Do you,” she started say, nearly tripping over the words. “Do you want to dance with me?” Her voice was so soft, barely a whisper. It wasn’t until she looked back up at me that I realized I’d forgotten to answer.

“You want to dance?” I asked in a rasping voice; she’d taken even that away from me.

Her smile brightened, teasing - knowing. “Down there - with them,” Feyre replied, pointing to where Mor and my brothers were gathered. All of the many temptations the night had to offer coalesced in front of me and with my hand curling ever more tightly around Feyre’s, I was finally ready to chase at them. If Feyre could heal, enough to want to paint again and smile for me, then I could do it too.

“Of course I’ll dance with you,” I said. “All night, if you wish.”

“Even if I step on your toes?”

“Even then.”

Feyre gave a little smile I couldn’t resist. It was as though now that she had started, she could no longer stop, it felt too joyous to deny her lips the pleasure. Closing the small gap left between us, I leaned down and brushed my lips against her cheek. A small gift for the both of us. “I am… very glad I met you, Feyre,” I said when I pulled back. Her eyes were rimmed with redness, but she did not look unhappy. Far from it, in fact.

“Come on,” she said with a tug of my hands. “Let’s go join the dance.”

And dance we did. All of us together as a family, just the way it should have always been and should always be. Feyre freed me well and truly that night. My entire soul sang at her every touch, turned over on itself with every look. And despite how much I enjoyed spending the evening with all of my friends - sharing drinks and jabs with my brothers and jubilant dances so full of merriment with my infectious cousin - it was Feyre I kept coming back to indulge in, dance after dance after dance.

I let our movements do all the talking. Each sweep of her out of and into my arms begged her to wake up, told her how much I cherished her, how much I never thought I would look up out of that pit below where I’d found myself and see her staring back at me ready to pull me up. The power she held over my being threatened to burn right through me.

And when the music had swelled its finest and Feyre’s smile glowed enough to encompass the city and make them forget the souls above, the darkness reached out of me and swept Feyre up into the air until we danced on clouds of smoke and our own inky pool of starlight.

The darkness of lovers. The darkness that binds.

She laughed at the rush, smoke curling around the folds of her dress where it swayed around her ankles and floated us off the ground in time to the music. I pulled her wrist until she swam back into me, her own darkness leaking out to mate with mine.

My world felt complete.

Feyre watched the shadows glow and the darkness surround her as she twirled in the starlight. A laugh - the first of many that evening - burst across her face. My own would soon follow.