Cassian shuffle-hopped to his chair and then dropped into it. “I sparred with Rhys.”
“You look like a tenderized piece of meat.”
“You should see him.” He laughed hoarsely.
“Why did you fight like that?” If it had something to do with her nightmare—
“Rhys needed to get it out of his system.” Cassian sighed at the bowl of roast chicken and rice soup that appeared before him. “Despite that smooth exterior my brother presents to the world, he needs to let loose every now and then.”
“Your idea of letting loose and mine appear to be very different.”
He snorted, sipping a spoonful of soup. “It wasn’t for fun. Just to release some tension.”
“About what?” She knew she had no business inquiring.
But Cassian set down the spoon, his face turning grave. “The baby has wings.”
She needed to blink a few times to process that. “How can they know already?”
“Madja’s magic allows her to glean a general shape of a babe within the womb, to check that all is well. He’s large enough now for her to detect that all the limbs are in order … and that he has wings.”
Utterly incredible, the way their magic could work. To actually be able to see within the womb itself.
Nesta couldn’t stop the small voice in her mind from wondering what her own power might do, if she untethered her leash on it. And couldn’t stop the bolt of panic that answered. As if thinking about it would allow it to roam free.
Nesta made herself ask, “So Rhysand didn’t want the baby to have wings?”
Cassian kept eating. “It’s not that. It will be a joy for him, for me and Az and Feyre, too, I suppose, to teach the baby how to fly, to love the wind and sky as we do. The problem is the birth.”
“I don’t understand.”
“How many half-Illyrians have you met?”
“Only Rhys, I suppose.”
“That’s because they’re extremely uncommon. But Rhys’s mother was Illyrian herself. And Illyrian women hardly ever marry and reproduce outside their communities. Illyrian males do so far more often, or at least fuck around, but you rarely see the offspring.”
“Why?”
“Illyrian females have a pelvis shaped specifically for children with wings to pass through. High Fae females do not. And when a child has wings, they can get stuck during labor.” His face had gone pale beneath the bruises. “Most females die, the babes with them. There’s no way for magic to help, short of fracturing a female’s pelvis to widen it for the birthing. Which might kill the babe anyway.”
“Feyre is going to die?” Her words were a whisper. For a heartbeat, every bit of spite, of anger, of bitterness faded away. Pure, clear panic replaced it.
“A few do survive.” Cassian made to rub his face, then stopped before he could press the bruises. “But the labor is so brutal that many of them either come close to death or are so altered by it that they can’t have another child.”
“Even with a healer to repair them?” Her heart was pounding, so sickeningly fast she had to set down her utensils.
“Honestly, I don’t know. And any attempts in the past to cut the child out of the mother’s womb have been …” He shuddered. “No mother has ever survived.” Nesta’s blood turned to acid. Cassian rolled his shoulders. “So we won’t even try that route. Madja will be there each step of the way, though, doing whatever she can. And we don’t yet know how Feyre’s own magic will impact the birth.”
“Is Feyre distraught?”
“She doesn’t know the full scope of it. But all of us who have grown up here know what it means for a High Fae female to bear a baby with wings.”
Nesta willed herself to settle the fear leaching through her. “And Rhys needed to fight out his fear.”
“Yes. Along with his guilt and pain.”
“Perhaps another court has a healer who knows more than Madja. Maybe one with a winged people. The Dawn Court has the Peregryns—Drakon’s people are Seraphim. Miryam doesn’t have wings and yet she’s given birth to Drakon’s children.”
“Rhys is heading to their island tomorrow. And Mor is making discreet inquiries at the Fae courts on the continent.” He ran a hand through his hair, Siphon catching the light. “If there is a way to save Feyre from a death sentence, Rhys will find it. He will stop at nothing until he figures out a way to spare her.”