#Can cassian give up sleep entirely in favor of Nesta oggling? we'll see

[flowerflamestars]

Awakening and Reunion

PART ONE  PART TWO PART THREE  PART FOUR  PART FIVE

It was the most vibrant, beautiful autumn the land along the Wall had ever seen.   Never before had the end of summer fruit stretched so ripely into the colder season. The trees changed as they always did, but what had once been paintbox color now gleamed like jewels over the hills. Brightest of all- the Archeron apple orchard, bursting with sunset colors, bushels of apples that never seemed to grow less crisp, whose white and pink tinged flesh could cure a cold or heal a weary heart, not that anyone but Lucien and the sisters noticed.   Elain had sidestepped the questions of guests in their gardens, was that bonfire smoke? But after the third or so comment about the just slightly otherworldly state of their lands, Elain had smiled.   “We’re blessed to have such a good year for it,” She said, real grin slipping onto her face, “Spring flowers are one thing, but autumn is my favorite season.” The urge to smile back had been overpowering.  “ You’re doing it again,” Nesta said, pulling Lucien from remembrance back to their late night meeting.   Posture perfect despite sitting crosslegged atop her desk, she raised one cool brow at him.   Lucien growled back- a sound he wouldn’t have dared make in their presence months ago- but made himself relax the predatory tilt of his head. “You do it all the time too.”   She did. Despite their many careful plans and schemes: making sure he passed for human, filling their roles perfectly and jumping through a half dozen legal loopholes to keep the trade running- Elain and Nesta both failed often to follow the patterns of the other mortals around him.   Perched sideways in Nesta’s desk chair, Elain laughed.

  She’d come in her night things, a silken slip and robe so gauzy Lucien had been warming the room by degrees the second he’d seen her.   It was only like this- after the house was quiet and still, that they spoke of important things. He’d warded the room against being overheard, but that wouldn’t stop a concerned ladies maid from finding her charges out of bed and talking.   The pale robe slipped down Elain’s arm as she picked up a mug. Lucien absolutely did not count the freckles he could see, even in the faint light. Paler than copper, lighter than his own skin, they glowed on her. “I thought you were going to tell us more about the Courts,” She said to him, grinning over the rim of thick earthenware they used when the maids didn’t do the tea making. “And you,” Elain craned up at Nesta, “Have letters from Hesperia.”   Against one window golden faelight battered, a will-o-whisp attracted, as they seemed unerringly to be, to wherever Nesta was.   All that Autumn on their ancestral land, magic bled straight from Lucien’s veins. It had been a hard conversation- one he’d feared would make this trust and easy company between them now impossible- explaining what he’d done.   That even Lucien himself wasn’t wholly sure what, beyond claiming their lands and bending them toward protection, he had started. Blood magic wasn’t just risky, or difficult, it called on the oldest forces of power- and so often like wild fae places, followed its own rules.   Faeries couldn’t cross the borders without Lucien- and now Nesta, who’d refused to let Elain take any of the burden, who’d slit her own wrists to be bound as a protector- feeling it. It would be impossible, almost completely, to hurt anyone of Acheron blood within their acres.   They’d slowly added wardings, Lucien’s magic, but keyed to the sisters: to avoid detection, for further protection, to the house, to Nesta’s library that became their gathering space, to the orphanage and the village school.   Every protect they could think of, for their precarious position along the Wall Lucien had blazed through like a forest fire. It was impossible not to notice when close- for as fas as Lucien knew, for the first time in six thousand years, the Spring Court border remained broken.   It felt like a warning.   And the warnings had only kept coming.   Nesta scowled at the will-o-whisp, before shrugging an elegant shoulder. “It’s all more of the same; the Great Desert united for the first time in two thousand years, the wyrms will rise with them. And this.” She passed a sky blue paper to Elain, whose own mouth set, glancing over it, before she passed it on to Lucien.   It was a sparse, single sentence, sparkling black on vivid blue. “‘The ships have stopped coming. The High Lord is closing the borders of the Night Court’?” Lucien quoted. How exactly Nesta Archeron, a human who’d never been over the Wall had a direct, if not always helpful line on the Night Court, was not an answer Lucien had ever gotten.   Elain set her robe to rights. “Half the continent rallies for war, and Rhysand closes his borders? Does that mean neutrality, or is it possible all that effort is really to go after one court?”   Lucien was sure of very few things about that High Lord, but one was that he wasn’t a coward. “If the aim is to take Prythian whole, the Night Court would have to be eliminated first. It is possible.” Lucien sat back, trying to carefully phrase the ambiguity of that male they were hoping- praying- was keeping their younger sister safe. “Rhysand is the most powerful High Lord in our history. He’s as much like the other rulers as high fae gentry might be to a normal human.”   “I can’t imagine the other Courts want to ally with him."   Elain was, of course, correct. “Not after Amarantha,” Lucien agreed, passing back the paper as Nesta reached for it. “Beron will see any conflict as an opportunity to expand his borders. But after the last fifty years, peace is going to the most popular option unless the High Lords hands are forced.”    Calmly, Nesta dropped the missive in a thickly cast bowl he’d hitherto assumed was decorative, and touched a candle to the urge. Pale fire burst forth, incinerating it- not sparkling ink, incendiary ink.   “Where did you say that came from?”   “One of the trading capitals,” She answered with that viper smile, aggression and secrets. How stupid, Lucien reflected for not the first time, human men must be not to feel the danger of both these women. “What I want to know, is why aren’t there any High Ladies?”   Elain raised her eyebrows in silent, echoing query. Different from her determined, furious older sister who researched like she’d use it to fight the world, Elain had been subtly pumping him for every shade and flavor of information about faery life.   Not that he wouldn’t answer any question she had.   But Elain was smart enough, in those early days, to not actually ask. Lucien admired the skill nearly as much as he valued the trust and actual friendship that had followed.   Still, he winced. “Amarantha killed outright the High Lady of Dawn immediately, and spent the next decades steadily culling out potential females heirs to powerful bloodlines. She assumed, correctly, that Prythians wild magic was stronger in female hands.”   It was the same thing Hybern had done during the War. How his mother had lost all three of her sisters- and would have died herself, if not for the intervention of the High Lord of Day. Lucien owned the fact of his existence to Helion Spell-Cleaver, and he’d been raised to know it.   After all, Vanserra always remembers.   Long after the will-o-whisps faded and Nesta retired to bed, Elain and Lucien remained in the golden quiet of the library. It no longer shocked him in quite the same way, her lack of fear, her trust that he knew only appeared to be an easy thing. But they’d gotten so used to each others company- the small touches to continue the public love story, the attentive behavior as instinctive as breathing for Lucien, the honesty, as they lied to everyone else- that it no longer had a hard stop.    It was natural, and Lucien could have cut his teeth on how badly he wanted it be wholly real.   One of the great clocks of the house chimed two in the morning before they grew quiet, curls escaping Elain’s long braid as she played with the end. Three seasons passed, and Lucien still hadn’t satisfied all of her curiosity.   He hoped it never ended.   “Seasonal I understand, there’s a feel to that,” Elain was saying now, “But why times of day?”   Tired and foolishly brave, Lucien moved faery quick to catch the red ribbon holding her braid as it finally gave to slip free. He plucked it from the air so fast that, as he knew now, with these months that made him stronger and madder and more, her beautiful human eyes couldn’t follow.   Elain didn’t even flinch.   What existed at all of his filters for this one human girl- who’d he’d never lied to, would never lie to, this blooming, dangerous woman- disappeared. “I might be one of the only faeries who can tell you that, actually.”   She took the ribbon from his nerveless grasp, fingertips branding like she were the one with incendiary skin. “Will you tell me?”   Smiling wide enough she probably saw his sharp teeth, Lucien stole it back. “Autumn was, is, the oldest court. Still, I only know pieces. The forest and the wild fae came first. Beron was a warlord then, and bound the first territory in his blood. They say he bled out his own brothers to expand the border by each mile- it was under the light of the harvest moon, the dying of the year, and as they bled under the bone trees whose white trunks have long whispers the secrets of our dead, the red of their leaves spread and spread, Autumn, willy and old, arcane and bloody, grew a soul.”   Elain’s head was half-cocked, her lips curved in a smile that he’d learned meant she had a dozen, a hundred questions. “If Beron made Autumn, Autumn, does that mean that when the title passes, the territory could change?”   He was shaking his head before she was done. “The problem is that there’s magic,”  With half a thought, and more than a little smugness at her delighted laugh, Lucien filled the air with tiny butterflies, teardrop wings flickering between gold and blue flame as they flew, “And then there’s the magic of Prythian itself. What started as the whims of powerful, warring gentry took root and grew into something they couldn’t control. It created quirks, anomalies- Night Court has some innate providence over the magic of mind and soul. Day Court possesses immunity, there’s never been an enchantment spoken the Spell Cleaver couldn’t break. Autumn keeps the ways of blood and bone.”   “Blood and bone,” Elain quoted back, taking the ribbon from his intertwined fingers. “In all your stories, you left out a vital lesson.”   He was frozen as she slid a hand over his wrist, so near tenderness he could taste it in the air. “And what’s that?” Lucien rasped   She looped the ribbon once, twice, before looking up to meet his gaze. In the candle light, her eyes were unfathomably dark, pupil less pools like dryads. “High fae,” Elain whispered, tying a perfect bow tight against Lucien’s now racing pulse. “Are all drama queens.”   He had to make himself laugh back, heart thudding in his ears at double time. When she finally retired back to bed, the sky bleeding black into blue, Lucien stayed where he was. One by one, the butterflies extinguished, until all he was left with was the scent of honeysuckle and fire, a red ribbon winking from his wrist. There were a thousand shades of red is his long lost home: to call enchantment down, to love, to bind, to hunt, to possess.   A bounty, he could never, ever have.   It didn’t occur to Lucien then, or for such a long time it seemed dreamed, that she’d placed it to match the mark of his teeth that lay silver against her own pulse. Elain Archeron, after all, learned fast and learned well. — It took three more weeks, the harvest brought in and the estate-consuming activity of making cider that Lucien had more fun than he’d admit overseeing to pass, before the day they’d discussed and discussed came. Nesta woke at dawn, jaw set tight when she found him on the rise of the now dormant orchards, looking down over the house grounds and beyond to the freshly plowed land, blanketed in white. “You feel them coming too?”   There’d been incursions in the past- curious Spring fae wandering and returning, others, flying overhead whose providence Lucien could guess. This was something new, the feel of magic, but also that pulse- like the land reaching out to Elain barefoot in her garden, like the wards shuddering when Nesta bled.   It was the first snowfall of the year, and Feyre Archeron was coming home. — He felt it when they arrived, hours later.   Feyre, not as strong of an imprint as her sisters but gleaming with magic. The black, monstrous ocean on the edge of vision that told him Rhysand had accompanied her personally. Two more, not High fae, that Lucien had to guess were members of Rhysand’s court.   Not that he could see anything for sure, since he was halfway up a frozen cypress tree.   That was Lucien’s job in this plan: wait, hide without magic to avoid detection.   Long enough for Elain and Nesta to explain to their sister the life they’d built from the ashes of their fathers idiocy, the precautions and plans in place for their dangerous, tenuous life on Spring’s edge.   They deserved privacy for that long awaited reunion.   And some selfish part of Lucien was glad not to have to see the pain on their faces when they saw Feyre as fae. It was one thing to be fascinated with faery power- as they both were in different ways. Merchants daughters, they’d grown with eyes on the horizon, fed impossible stories.   Another, to have become the three-headed monster they all were together.   But faeries were still the horrors of endless nightmares along the Wall. Even knowing Feyre had been transformed, seeing it could be something very different.   He really wasn’t ease-dropping, ignoring the familiar pitch of female voices as they rose and rose in volume. From a distance, Nesta and Feyre sounded alarmingly alike, yelling.   Idly, he tied and retied the red ribbon twisted at the end of a small braid. The old, wild gentry of the Alder hills named their knots- Lucien wished he’d learned them all. This day was certain to go to hell, but at least Feyre wouldn’t see an ounce of Spring when she looked at him.   Several things happened at once.   From the empty nowhere of the shadows from leaves in this dim interior of branches, a winged warrior appeared, and shoved Lucien from the tree.   Suddenly, Elain’s voice joined the shouting. Feyre yelled right back- but Nesta, the slam of doors and rushing booted feet, Nesta was running.   And then, mid winnow to the safety of the ground- Lucien’s last thought as the shadow of wings shrouded him, fucking Illyrians- the dark reached out and swallowed him whole.   He lost track, he lost time- it was close to drowning, seeing the world from the bottom of an ocean. But Lucien could swim, could see underwater.   Through the haze of shadow- shadows that burned, no familiar fire, but ice so cold Lucien knew he was losing skin- he could hear the crunch of bone and Nesta’s indignant- not really indignant, he knew that, terrified, she was terrified and furious- voice.   Who the hell was so stupid as to grab Nesta? She’d make them pay- Elain would make them pay- he’d make them pay.   But none of it was real, nothing truly penetrated the world of shadow that bound him until Lucien heard that light gait he knew by heart, running. Snow flying from beneath fleet feet, her pounding heart loud in his ears. Barely real, until Elain’s furious voice cut through the dark.     A second, patient voice- a too calm voice- that told Lucien his attacker was exactly who he’d expected, was speaking to her. If Lucien had been wrapped in anything but shadow, it would have combusted instantly. They’d agreed- they’d all agreed, uncomfortable with the verdict in very different ways- that if Rhysand’s people attacked and went for Lucien as would be the only smart move, he wouldn’t hurt anyone badly.   They didn’t know he was here for himself. The honorable Spring Court vassal had died by fire.   This wasn’t a real fight. But he wanted to kill that male for even standing near Elain.   The gods and Lucien didn’t care about his pain- he could get free of burning shadow, vicious darkness. But if the High Lord of the Night Courts pet shadowsinger even breathed wrong in Elain’s direction, this fight would become much more real.   He’s seen the burn scars on his hands, once, from a distance. Lucien would turn him into a pillar of ash, burn him past recognition of even those iron immortal bones. They’d all be ash, if whoever was holding Nesta didn’t back off.   Lucien would kill anyone who touched his family.   This was the truth of High Fae instincts, hidden beneath court ritual and ageless years. Humans had told tales about it: the love of an immortal heart can never, ever die. It was a romantic story of a faery knight, a quest past the moon and stars to save a mortal love who was doomed to perish with the suns rise.   Humans put too much stock in romance.   What they didn’t understand was that the ties of High Fae were a savage thing, uncontrollable and unyielding. You had to find your brethren. It wasn’t just mate bonds that made the upper echelons of their society dangerous. Faeries like Lucien were made for that fairytale quest- not for a maiden- but to find belonging, the very thing that pumped in his blood with every step across the Acheron lands.   He’d always been alone before.   And Lucien would be damned if he let the Night Court threaten what he’d found.   That deep water voice was still talking- saying that Rhys was coming, that they were safe, that he was a Spring Court spy, that nothing would touch Elain.   And Elain- oh Elain- Lucien could smell her rage. It burned the honeysuckle and sun right out of her scent, until she was awash with fire. He might have been delirious with pain, but how she ravaged him.   It was one thing for humans to underestimate her, Elain usually wanted them to. But that any faery could look at her and fail to see the depth of the cleverness in those eyes, the absolute control and charm: markers of dangerous high fae, was beyond him.   “You will let him go.” Lucien had never heard her voice like that. In response, that burning ice bit harder. Blackness- deeper than shadow, darker than any sky. Light had never lived in these spaces.   Lucien groaned.   And Elain- Elain snarled. “These are Archeron lands. And you will let him go.”   Lucien couldn’t see, couldn’t hear anymore suddenly, couldn’t breathe. Was Azriel trying to suffocate him? He’d expected them to try to kill him- pain wasn’t an issue- but Lucien wasn’t about to lay down and die.   That was when the scent of blood reached him.   And so Lucien clenched his teeth and remembered. His mother’s voice saying, my little star. The Wild Hunt, no high fae among them,  pulling him straight into the sky. Sorcha, teaching him magic far away from the High Lord of Autumn, telling him to remember.  Little star, we are Vanserra, and your fire is like the sun.  Lucien burned, and like the sun’s rise, the dark and cold couldn’t win.   The first thing he saw was red. Elain’s muddy, icy skirts, in front of his face as she stood between him and an Illyrian warrior. Who was in process of drawing a knife whose reputation was nearly as long as that of the male holding it. Winnowing hurt. But Lucien didn’t care. He slammed into the ground on the other side of her. “Don’t touch her.”   Fire so white it put the snow to shame ringed them with the words, but Elain grabbed Lucien’s side anyway. “You’re bleeding,” She hissed, but Lucien was more interested in the blood already on one of her hands.   Staggered upright, he tried not to list too heavily into her. “Only from my pores.”   Elain made a noise that went right past sympathy into fury. She moved her hands higher, clutching tunic and coat in fists like she was going to hold him upright with will alone. It took the smear, her shaking rage, to note that blood was too red, too thick.   Nothing he said now wouldn’t be heard by Azriel but Lucien spied it- the gleam of emerald inlay.  An impossibly small Spring Court dagger, buried in the Illyrian’s shoulder.   He found the hand on his back and covered it for just a moment, squeezing. Outwardly, Elain didn’t react at all, glaring out the fire like she wanted to rip the male in front of them apart. But Lucien knew she knew, felt the very slightest tension drain from her body.   Azriel had gone stone cold, silent. That was all the warning Lucien got the half second before Rhysand winnowed before them, bringing Feyre along.   It hurt- a good hurt, to see how well Feyre looked. Healthy, strong, like remaking hadn’t left her delicate at all. Glowing in Night Court clothes, comfortable armed and wearing a crown. Feyre wasn’t just okay, she was finally thriving.   She looked good, that split second before she spit Luciens name like a curse. “Let my sister go." Rhysand and Azriel were exchanging hard eyed looks. The melted snow around Lucien’s wall of fire began to form ice.   Elain didn’t even flinch. Knowing they were too close, she was smart enough to muffle the words against his coat. “I lost Nesta on the way out. Can you?-“   Lucien whispered back, because frankly, he didn’t give a damn what Rhysand thought was going on. “I can hear her. She found an Illyrian of her own to make bleed.” Over Elain’s shoulder, Lucien bared his teeth at Azriel’s fathomless face.   Feyre paced even closer. “Bleed?”   It was the same tone of voice he’d heard every single time she’d done something impulsive as a human.   She held out one hand, like passing through water, and tried touch the wall. The sizzle was horrible enough- but Feyre’s clenched jaw as she called her own droplet of Autumn power was audible. Fire against fire? No. Trying to spool his back toward herself. Had she really learned that? To turn the drop of each High Lords gift back against their source? But the flames didn’t mix- Lucien bore down on the star in his chest. With a low boom that turned Rhysand’s scowl murderous, Feyre was thrown backward.   Skidding through mud and snow, she flung herself back upright with a noise of complete anger.  “I will kill you if you try to take her to Spring, Lucien. I swear on the Cauldron.”   Elain’s grip tightened until the fabric tried to give. The only reason she wasn’t yelling back, Lucien was sure, was that Nesta wasn’t safe with them in the circle.   But her shouting had become audible to everyone.   “PUT ME DOWN- YOU WORTHLESS- REVOLTING SAVAGE- PUT ME DOWN NOW”-   The most feared General in Prythian’s history had a broken nose. Blood tricked steadily from the off center feature, unflinching as Nesta kicked and screamed. He was using that superior strength to carry her away from his body- arms out. Gods and immortal honey.   In a kind, calm voice that belied his wince as one of Nesta’s feet managed to connect, The Lord of Bloodshed spoke. “Here, see. I’m not going to hurt you. I just wanted to stop you from running into the fight- it’s okay.” He repeated it over and over those last few steps to join them, like a low chant. “It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay.”   Nesta was terrified.   Feyre swore. “Nesta, this is Cassian. He’s my friend. We’re going to get Elain out and-“   Nesta slammed her head back into Cassian’s face again, and this time he dropped her. Like they’d all practiced, Nesta ducked around Feyre to dive right into the fire and land at Elain’s other side, chest heaving.   Everyone stopped.   In the growing mud puddle made by the heat, Elain slid half in front of Lucien before taking Nesta’s hand. Together again, they stood tall. Lucien wanted nothing more than to hide them both behind his body. To burn Azriel to nothing for scaring Elain, to rip the wings from Cassian for thinking he could touch Nesta.   But they wanted to make Feyre understand, and he wouldn’t interrupt that.   Already breathing more normally, Nesta tilted her face to completely ignore the tableau of dangerous fae before them. “Whose idea was the hideout plan Vanserra? There’s blood in my hair.”   She was really asking if either of them had gotten hurt, and he heard it.   Like he didn’t have a care in the damn world, Lucien bared his teeth in a red-tinged smile. “I’ll show you what magic to get up to with it.”   Still glaring forward, Elain blindly held her free hand up to his face. It was an effort not to catch her waving fingertips and hold on. “I got some too.”   “You know each other.” Feyre was vibrating with tension. “How do you even know each other?!”   “Perhaps,” Elain said in that utterly steady, silk voice no one should want to be on the wrong side of, “You should have asked that before you attacked.”   The most powerful High Lord in Prythian turned huge, otherwordly eyes on her. Lucien could feel the power in the air, that tinge of darkness, electric and consuming,- and fought back the urge to get between Elain and Rhysand’s deadly focus. Feyre opened her mouth, to protest, judging by that stubborn face, but he stopped her with hand brushed over her shoulder. “I think we’re all missing some details. We should talk. Peacefully.”   “Yes,” Nesta ground out, “Let’s talk about how you left assassins in our garden."   Rhysand raised his hand in an utterly false surrender, tattoos flashing from both wrists. Had he really marked himself to match Feyre? A crown on her head and a living vow between them. She didn’t smell like him yet, but Rhysand wasn’t just branding her as his. He was placing her as a ruler.   With a crack of resetting cartilage and bone, the fellest Illyrian warlord their tribes had ever produced stopped in step next to Feyre. “I’m not an assassin.” He wasn’t looking at anyone but Nesta. “We’re here to keep Feyre safe from human discovery, to make sure nothing happens to you or your sisters because of this visit.”   Nesta’s only reply was to toss her hair from her face.   Marking the moment as much as he was, Elain leaned a little harder against his side. “Let’s talk then.”   And there was the catch, on Rhysand’s smug face. Bastard. “Of course we will not hold peace talks of any kind with a member of the Spring Court.”   Lucien had the words, but Elain beat him to it.   “Luckily,” She purred, “You’ll find no such being here.” She gestured with one graceful hand, Illyrian blood drying a purple red on her palm. “If you’re looking for Spring proceed a few miles that way. There’s a hole big enough in the Wall for a small army, and the boundary wards are down.”   Rhysand didn’t even twitch, but Feyre stopped cold. “You left Tamlin?”   There was no room for what Lucien was feeling. “The same night you did.” The look that passed between them was understanding- more understanding than Lucien had been able to hope for. Feyre was his friend, and he’d failed her.     Feyre marked him as a survivor, and there was no blame there.   But the last thing in the world Lucien wanted was sympathy from gods damned Rhysand, so he kept going. “I don’t make a habit of keeping vows to madmen.”   Elain’s cheek brushed his chest for half a second, the bloody fabric trying to stick. The tightness in his ribs uncoiled, his wounds healed. Faery grace- did she know she had it? At least where he was concerned? Elain refilled his lungs without even trying.   In the pause while Rhysand stared at Lucien, and Lucien stared back- fucking prick, he thought Lucien could be leveled by a gaze? Rolled by that superior power? Lucien was oak, Vanserra. He’d grown up under the hateful eyes of the oldest High Lord, the first and only ruler of Autumn- Azriel pulled the knife from his shoulder and cleaned it, stone-faced.   The aggression in the air was a blades edge.   Elain, brave Elain, pulled on the hilt. “If that’s settled, we’ll adjourn to the house for a real meeting.”   Like it was automatic, showing for perhaps the first time how much younger than the others she was, Feyre crossed her arms, scowling. “I still don’t understand”-   Nesta’s hand tightened visibly in Elain’s. Lucien thought he was the only one to see that silent signal, but the Illyrian general’s wings flared. Had he looked away from her, even once?   There was no response for Elain to make- already, her hands had drifted to clutch Lucien’s waist in a death-grip that was leagues away from how she’d usually take his hand in this moment. Because of the danger, he reminded himself, because you were hurt.   She smiled at her younger sister. “We’ll tell you everything, but let’s get out of the snow, Fey.”   Goodbye enough, Lucien winnowed them away. — The High Lord of the Night Court was not having a good day.   In the deafening silence after Lucien Vanserra disappeared with Feyre’s older sisters, Azriel’s voice, more rueful than his icy face, tapped at the back of Rhysand’s mind. Rhys let him in, and the memory played back in color: Elain Archeron, more fleet of feet in that highborn ladies dress than anyone would have guessed, running through the snow.   The ridiculous jeweled knife in Azriel’s arm, because there was no world under the sky or stars he’d fight back against a tiny human woman in distress.   Vanserra, going off like a supernova, and escaping shadows that should have dragged him from this world to the next. It wasn’t fire, Az rumbled, but it burned. Rhys didn’t let it show on his face. He himself could have escaped those shadows whose scope and providence couldn’t be fully learned- but not without hurting Azriel in the process. And not by consuming them.   It was leagues from a traditional Autumn gift. Stay high, Rhysand requested, but check the border. I want to know if Vanserra really broke the boundary.. With a nod, Az shot into the sky.   Rhys didn’t know Lucien personally. Only in Feyre’s stories: a friend, an ass, a comrade, whose fate in Spring had left her with a sick worry. He could be glad the male was alive just for that, but the facts beyond it were slim.   Born after the war, but no one knew when. The obvious and only heir to his fathers court, despite the mess of brothers and carrying his mother’s name in constant defiance. It was common knowledge Beron hated his youngest, seventh son. For power, maybe- but it wouldn’t have taken much to outstrip the brutes born before him.   But Lucien’s bright fire had been driven out of Autumn centuries ago.   As Tamlin’s emissary he had a good reputation in other courts, close ties to both Dawn and Winter. Charming, clever- he’d been the fox in the Spring Court menagerie the night Amarantha took the land.   Raw, unchecked power had never been part of the picture.   Power beholden to no one; Lucien Vanserra was a time bomb. No High Lord to answer to, diplomatic ties to nearly every Court, and a long enough troubled past to bear grudges.   And Hybern’s soldiers were coming for them all. — The blood on her hands wasn’t all drying red.   Elain hadn’t thought to compare it before, the ruby of Luciens and near purple of the winged warriors smeared on her palm was tangibly inhuman. In the pale austerity of the sitting room they’d decided to ward in preparation for this very day, it was all so impossible she found herself smiling.   This was their home and they would defend it. Lucien, so close their sides brushed, returned the expression savagely. She’d made herself let go the second they landed, but by some mutual agreement neither had moved as Nesta stomped to the velvet-hung window.   Friendship, comfort. Elain wouldn’t let herself think it was more- think about the way he’d looked, covered in blood and burning like a star, barely able to stand and still protecting her.   “Those weren’t just guards,” She said, shaking back damp hair.   With a flick on his fingers, her hair and dress both dried, mud and blood vanishing. Elain didn’t have to look to know he’d extended the same courtesy to Nesta as well. “Member’s of Rhysands inner Court. The Shadowsinger and the High Command of the Illyrian legions.”   Elain nodded, only to be cut off by Nesta dropping the hangings with a huff. “Those are the Illyrians?”   Through the scathing voice, Elain knew what Nesta was probably thinking. Those are the creatures of our childhood faerytales? Warriors of impossible skill, impossible courage. As beautiful as they were deadly, who defined their lives by solemn honor. Once upon a time, the guardians of royal children; a single, forsworn Illyrian was worth more than an army.   Nesta had always loved stories of the fierce at heart.   A faint tremor echoed through the walls, silken wallpaper of almond blossoms shimmering. Lucien could winnow in and out- but no one else. At least not while a drop of Archeron blood remained under their roof.   Softly, fingertips even now in the dead of winter darker than gold ghosted a caress over the back of Elain’s hand. “Are you ready?” It was a whisper, just for her.   Elain let her smile twist, let the happiness and triumph and real anxiety show in her face. “Let’s find out what they really want.” They’d seen the truth of them already, Elain didn’t imagine she could gain back the ground of being the sweet sister it was safe to talk to after stabbing someone.   At the warning of the wards as someone- Rhysand, Elain would guess- trying to winnow directly to where they were, Nesta had crossed the room. Shaking herself from the savage light in Lucien’s golden eyes, Elain followed to sink down on a plush lavender couch.   Casually, Lucien followed, to lean in that elegant slump against a pillar between them and the door.   Just in time for Feyre to crash through it. “Nice wards,” She snapped in a tone that made Nesta freeze tighter and Elain wince. Not Rhysand bouncing off the boundaries, then.   Lucien smiled that grin that showed fang. “You learned to winnow then? Good for you, little Fey.”   Knowing they’d had a friendship and seeing it were too very different things as Feyre clicked her teeth back, but smiled. “Could take you now in a fight, Lucien.”   Beyond the threshold, Rhysand and the bigger of the two warriors appeared from whisps of darkness. “Let’s see if we can agree to not fight more today,” He said mildly, tucking both hands in pockets.   With a familiarity that made Nesta’s brows go sharp, Feyre rolled her eyes, and danced though the doorway to seize them both. Tucking on arm through Rhysand’s amenably crooked elbow and grabbing the other male by the wrist, both let themselves be tugged into the room before Nesta and Elain.   Feyre had said she’d found friends, that she’d found a home. Velvet sliding over silk in the silent tension, Elain rose to her feet and held out a hand. A heartbeat later, Nesta joined her. A grateful smile flickered over Feyre’s face, not noticing neither of them had bothered to curtsey.   Elain was not bowing to the second man who’d spirited away her baby sister, no matter how damned powerful he was.   “These are my older sisters, Nesta and Elain Archeron,” Feyre said, “Meet Cassian, and Rhysand, the High Lord of the Night Court.”   Cassian took Elain’s hand with a gentleness that bordered on ridiculous, and Rhysand bowed over his own grip, “Please, call me Rhys.”   Nesta sat before Rhysand could offer her his hand, leaving Elain with so deep a desire to catch Lucien’s eyes and smirk and that she had to sit herself and focus on Feyre to hide it.   Before the youngest Archeron could open her mouth, the sitting room door swung open, silent, to reveal a ladies maid carrying a silver tray. Followed, Elain knew, by the footman who would have come up with her from the ground floor to open the door.   Smiling briskly, looking only at Elain and Nesta, she neatly set the tray on the low table before them. “Shall I pour, m’lady?”   The extra cups sat neatly grouped, the easy excuse that they were trying new extra varieties of tea from their father’s shipments manifest in the multiple small copper pots. More of an indulgence than either of them would have ordered normally- for all that their cook downstairs had harrumphed in her usually grouchy cheer and grumbled it was damn time those girls did something for themselves.   Nesta nodded, returned a small smile. She was pointedly not looking directly forward at their sister’s furrowed brow, or Rhysand, who’d dropped down in his own chair to lean back next to Feyre and watch.   “No, I can do it. Thank you, Eileen.”   She bobbed a half curtsey, none of them had been able to get her to stop carrying out, and looked over Elain’s shoulder. “My Lord, I didn’t see you there. If I may, while you’re all together, I’d like to thank you again for letting my Jaime help with the horses so young.”   “Nonsense,” Lucien said in his human voice- a little less deep, a little more jovial than his normal tone. It made Elain miss the sharp edges. “He’s a good lad. It’s no hardship for us to get the next generations farrier and him a horse to get down to school.”   “He’s very clever,” Nesta cut in, before Eileen could thank them again. “Please don’t hesitate to ask if he has need of anything else.”   Eileen’s second curtsey was deeper- she knew what Elain did, that in spare time she somehow found between secretly running the family business and handling any legal matters of the estate, not a single child on their lands had failed to benefit from Nesta’s generosity in some way.   She expected the warm hand on her shoulder, but it was an effort not to lean into. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught Feyre stiffening. “You’ll find,” Lucien promised, thumb stroking over Elain’s velvet covered shoulder in visible affection, “That so long as you continue to take care of my Lady so well, you may ask whatever you want of me and this house.”   The second the door snicked shut, Feyre was back on her feet. “We’re not glamoured, what the hell was that?”   Nesta, already pouring cups of tea, held one out. “A curse,” She said flatly, “Sugar?”   Rhysand spoke over the noise of disbelief Feyre made, voice blank. “Your household servants are under a spell?” He took the cup she’d held out to Feyre.   With an equal level of dangerous impassiveness that tightened Luciens hand, still on Elain’s shoulder, Nesta stared back. “We keep all the people on our lands safe from faery intervention.”   Feyre didn’t let the staring contest go on long. “And you,” She rounded her attention on Lucien, standing behind Elain. That familiar anger on her face, even in those utterly fae lines, was exactly the same as it had always been. “You set yourself up as a Lord, Lucien? Get your Cauldron damned hands off my sister.”   Unhelpfully, Lucien laughed.   Unable to stop herself any longer, Elain exchanged a glance with Nesta, found her stony sister rolling her eyes in amusement. She bit into her own smile and tried to explain. “You know titled women can’t live alone, Fey. We needed a head of house.”   That Nesta, protective to the bone wasn’t saying anything was probably the only reason Feyre sat down, based on her scowl. “Father is head of house, Flaith Archeron. Where is he? I know ships in our name began sailing again.”   Nesta slammed down her cup. “That was me, actually.”   And she was doing a better job that their father or grandfather ever had, but that wasn’t what mattered to Feyre. “I don’t understand. Where is father?”   “Damned if we know,” Elain muttered, bitter enough that Lucien vaulted over the couch to land beside her, the sort of behavior that usually made her laugh. She didn’t miss that the High Lord tracked the motion. “Feyre, the second Tamlin delivered your payment-   “Blood money,” Nesta interrupted.   “Father left. He took enough gold to get to the continent, but no one has seen or heard from him since. We had to forge this decades re-swearing of vows to the crown, it wasn’t easy.” A small lie- her and Nesta both had been able to forge their fathers signature since they were children. They’d been reasonably sure that as the oldest of the next generation, Nesta’s blood would adhere to the seals just as well.   It was the same reason their main export and import business managed to continue. Acheron trade contracts were bound to the name, passing from father to son, twelve generations down. Faeries didn’t give a damn if Nesta was too female to inherit. Their father’s debts were paid, business could continue.   “We had word of a Lord Archeron, here,” Rhysand cut in smoothly.   Nesta rolled her eyes again, and pointed to Lucien beside her, “Lord Lysander Archeron.”   That her older sister had not- and would not- refer to it as a ruse was a boon that Elain hadn’t expected. Then again, Nesta was and had always been, her best friend. She wouldn’t admit the romantic line between Elain and Lucien was a lie, not while it was something Elain wished were true.   No matter how insane it was.   Feyre’s mouth was stuck in the shape of Archeron, disbelieving.   Rather than follow that string all the way down into Feyre’s disbelief that Elain could make any choice for herself, she turned her best hostess smile on the Illyrian warrior standing against the window. “Tea, Sir?”   His face was already healed. No apparent sign of pain or bruising, which made Elain wonder what exactly, had made that scar that draped a half moon through one brow.   Cassian sat, wings askew in a way that couldn’t have been comfortable, in the remaining chair. “Thank you, the oolong smells amazing.” The cup she passed him with a small smile was absurdly delicate in his hands. “Sir?”   “High ranking human soldiers are Sirs or Lords,” Elain told him, ignoring Nesta’s roiling frustration and the way Feyre was reacting to Lucien’s sharp edged grin.   To her utter surprise, Cassian laughed, the sound like honey. “Oh, I don’t have a title. Just Cassian is fine.” General doesn’t count as title? Elain thought. The head of Rhysand’s armies, it seemed, wasn’t high born.   Meanwhile, Rhysand had evidently had enough of the silent combativeness that could only exist between sisters. “It might be helpful if we started at the beginning.” He leaned forward, elbows on his knees in a gesture of human relaxation that looked unnatural in his faery body. Was he faking it? Or was Lucien so keenly comfortable being other that Elain expected it of all fae? “Vanserra, you really think Tamlin has gone mad?”   From Feyre’s non-reaction, this was a possibility that had already been discussed.   Lucien made a low noise. “There’d been a touch of it since the War, but killing Amarantha destroyed him.”   Personally, Elain didn’t care about madness- she wanted the High Lord dead in the ground for nearly killing Lucien, for hurting Feyre.   Rhysand raised an eyebrow. “Since the War? Tamlin was a child then, he didn’t fight.”   But Lucien was already shaking his head. “He was grown when it ended, had met Amarantha in the days before Clythia was killed.”  The hand on her shoulder had slipped away, but Elain felt the weight of his gaze on her face. He’d told her this story before.   Elain looked up to find Feyre watching her. “Amarantha- she cursed him. Of course he wanted her dead.”   It was obviously hard for them even to speak her name: Amarantha. Elain only knew it from a story book, the tales of a faraway kingdom. Amarantha, the ever blooming flower. Red in the rainbow of her sisters. Sometimes, ever was translated instead as madly.   Not for the first time, she wondered if they could be one in the same.   Lucien’s full mouth- Elain chided herself from even looking at his lips- had twisted at Feyre’s words. “I hate Tamlin even more than you do, but he shouldn’t have been the one to kill her.”    Such acts were unfathomable to Lucien, and Elain knew it. Not killing, not fighting, but what Tamlin had done was a different atrocity altogether.   Rhysand frowned. “I wanted to rip out her spine myself, but stopping her was what mattered.”   Feyre didn’t know, Elain realized suddenly, watching the confused tension racket up. If Feyre didn’t know, there was no way Rhysand did.  She had no way to tell Lucien, rigid and closer to her than he’d been a second before. “I wouldn’t ask such a a thing of my worst enemy, but I can't say I’m surprised you would Rhysand.”   The falsely human repose evaporated as the High Lord sat up.   “What exactly are you accusing me of?” Like the stories whispered about him across the ocean, calling him the Nightmare Lord, Rhysand’s voice became soft before it was dangerous.   And just like that, Lucien's disgust melted into a rueful horror. Elain's hands ached. “You really don’t know. Not at all.” He looked at Feyre, something like an apology on his face.   “Tamlin and Amarantha were mates.” @breath-of-sindragosa @flxwer-petals @ladyvanserra @illyrianinterrasen @missanniewhimsy@tntwme@ourbooksuniverse @pitterpatterpot @thestarwhowishes @abillionlittlepieces @my-fan-side @the-eightofswords  @wonderland--memories @ourbooksuniverse @cohen-theeleven @