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cowboylament · 1 year ago

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“You’ve got 100 years on me. Where’s your kindness.”

“I saved your life that's pretty kind.” He said standing.

I hummed, “yeah well Eris saved it first so you’ll have to do a bit better than that.”

I might have noted how it felt to make him laugh so many times, might have wondered at the strange world we’d seemed to find ourselves within, as if winnowing had sent us sideways into another universe, rather than through our own. Instead, I felt something else, something not heavy at all, but light and wispy, vanishing from the room. It was nameless, even looking back at the two moments did not reveal the nature of what had left. Instead just an instant before, my left hand seemed to hold something within it. Like a caress but laden with meaning. My fingers flinched around the phantom. Then Lucien’s hand too, the same one, in the same instant, flexed.

Y/N makes a deal with death and Lucien is part of it. Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five, Bonus, Ao3

(Pre-Amarantha)

“The Princess of the Night Court.”

Darkness gave way from the back of my eyes. There had once been an empty room and warmth enveloped me, but where it had gone I was not sure. My head weighed too much, and in trying to lift it, to follow the tether of consciousness made in that voice, it only lolled from side to side. I couldn’t even tell how long I’d been blinking at my dangling feet until suddenly it occurred to me I was.

I lifted my gaze, the weight diminished, and 13 pairs of eyes stared back at me. Whatever ether I was returning from vanished, an imperfect attention to the scene taking shape. There was nothing beneath my feet for me to move on, to back away, and as I tried to cover myself with my arms I found an ache in my shoulders, a burn at my wrist from the rope.

They were watching, those 13 eyes. Glinted in the moonlight, narrowed with mixtures of amusement and disdain. And I knew some of them.

A bony finger pressed at the middle of my spine and began to drag itself down my back. I recoiled, my legs instinctively flinching forward trying to bow my back, to run away. The High Lord, Beron, revealed himself from behind me.

“Aren’t you pretty.” He said and I managed to twist away enough for his hand to fall. His boots crunched under the crisp Autumn of night. Were it any other circumstance I’d have closed my eyes and taken pleasure in the feeling of my bones growing cold. I’d have stood there until I couldn’t stand it any longer, and slept until the morning came, with an Autumn made for summer.

“You denied our offer of marriage.” He continued, looking toward his sons, just two of them waiting on his word. Eris stood with the cruel beauty he’d always had, ruined only by whatever sneer he decided you deserved. Next to him, Lucien. His stony exterior didn’t break, not even now, but I knew it all enough. The pair were amused.

It had been a mistake, coming here alone, and I’d insisted. How foolish you could seem through the lens of mortality. Beron set himself before me, his thin frame so used to towering over me he almost reluctantly looked upward. The action was only made real by the fact it was he who had all the power.

“But you will still be an Autumn Court bride.”

Someone told.

Around us, the males gathered in the clearing stirred. The hum of their intentions sliced through me, cold and unforgiving.

“This is your last chance,” Beron said looking out toward them all, the rabid wild things waiting. Something truly unimaginable had been decided, and I could not stop its occurrence, not really. “You can marry Eris and we can be done with it.”

There was a creeping silence, one that only enhanced the roaring in my ears, as if they’d been filled with air. I wasn’t even sure if I could hear at all. The only thing that told me I could was the sound of my own voice, as cutting and familiar to Beron and his son’s as the cruel tone of his own.

“I won’t make the same mistake as your wife.”

Though he had not been amused whatever spark of joy he got in the terrorizing of females winked out. Like a cloud had passed over the moon the small brightness of his face became shrouded in shadow. Words to kill by, words to harm. Only he couldn’t, if the stories were true. If the legends of primal instincts and the Cauldron weren’t folktale, in this place, before all these people, he couldn’t.

He walked behind me and I steadied my breathing. The moment the High Lord left my field of vision my stomach dropped. If that made a sound then every male before me heard it, along with that frantic heart beneath my chest. Their smiles broadened, white teeth catching the moonly glow to show their feral delight at my helplessness.

Even Eris. Even Lucien.

Gravel stirred directly behind me. I looked out at the crowd like knowing their faces would give me power over them. His voice, too close, spoke the damning words.

“By the Cauldron.” He said and a deep burn wrapped my side, climbing like fire on a dry field. The cold night flooded my throat in the shock of my gasp, before it was ravaged by a scream. He was burning me, Beron, he had to have burned me, but there was no smoke. The scent too, was not of flesh, but of blood. I looked down and saw the stain across my dress, the silver blade bathed in red like it had seen battle.

He cut me.

And the words, his voice rang out into whatever silence had been left behind by the ceremony. The ancient marital ceremony. His sentencing worse than death, spoken in that old tongue.

“We ask the blessing of the Lares.”

Then the taut rope went slack and I tumbled down to the ground, knees screaming, feet numb. I’d been tied a long time. His barbaric deed had been done, archaic, but the old magic of the land remembered and I felt its thrum.

“Make use of your head start,” Beron said, his back to me. He was already walking away. The outcome to him didn’t matter.

I didn’t look to make sure the magic had bound them to their place. The cover of the brush waited, and I needed distance, I needed objects between us. Without a stumble, on legs I could barely feel, I bolted. I was only under the cover of the darkness for mere minutes, when into the silent night, cries made for battle rose to the air. 13 males were competing to find me, and whoever got me first, would make me their wife.

It did not take too long for it to occur to me that Beron had cut me precisely to prevent any great feat. I didn’t dare try to winnow, not when the scrapes of branches that whipped at my arms in the dark could barely manage to heal. Whatever siphon of magic I contained had been clamped.

I wound my way, sacrificing distance for staggered random cuts, in the hopes that the trees and bushes would offer coverage I myself could not provide with my shadows. The bright white cloth only served as a marker, the growing red stain almost helping me though not as much as it hindered.

Another male yelled, closer, but not by much. They taunted me from a distance. The rules of this wretched ceremony had been decided centuries before, but at least they’d put in that, the head start. If I got far enough I could winnow, into a tree or lure them someplace and then winnow myself far away.

There came a clearing, a large one and I bit back a cry of frustration. Losing the distance only to now need it. I’d be a lamb for slaughter, out in the open. Branches snapped and I couldn’t wait. I ran into the tall grass as fast as I could. The further out I got the sharper the clairty, the more dire circumstances revealed. There was a river cutting across it. My hearing, all my senses had to be dampened. I hadn’t heard it. Those men then must be closer than—

Out of the brush, six males descended upon me. Their large frames moved at impossible speeds. I kept going, didn’t hesitate to plunge into the water even as they got closer. No planning could save me, only action. I stumbled where the water got deeper and slowed me down. I still had some time, the head start would not be for nothing. Waist deep and on slippery stones I pushed forward and did not face my fate. I didn’t want to know who was closest.

The water which might have been thin, delicate even, seemed now thick and sluggish. It slowed me, but with the magic those males had, I wasn’t sure it would hold them. Halfway through the bank bottomed out and I submerged myself. The surprise sent a gasp of icy water to my lungs.

Resurfacing to the sound of splashing water, the closeness of Eris's laughter, I half choked and half cried as I righted myself trying to reclaim air. My side howled as I made through the current. Even in the icy water, the wound burned. Some trick at the Autumn hand—a blade that burns.

I didn’t let myself wallow, for what tonight was lost. Eris who had, in all his wretched years, at least laughed with me on occasion. Who that first night in summer court had asked me to dance when no one else was brave enough to do so. Even for all his scheming, for the advantage he got in those moments and the intention of insulting us, he knew me.

I reached for a branch on the other side to pull myself out, my bicep straining with the weight of my body. All the afternoons Cassian offered up his training and all the afternoons I declined. How much and how little I knew if they were to catch me, and even with what I knew, how little of it I could successfully do.

I could barely move but a surge of strength dragged itself through me and I lifted myself out using the branch as leverage. Just as success seemed imminent, however, a sharp tug pulled me back down. I yelled a signal to whoever else was out in those woods precisely where I was, had I not fallen under again.

Move. Move. move. The words were sent everywhere in my body but for a minute I couldn’t. The hand on me lost its grip just as my limbs seemed to register their abilities. I had no more time. Now, even these single moments could decide my fate. My fingers brushing the bottom of the murky water pushed upward. Cough after needed cough left me vulnerable. Someone saw it, they grabbed my arm. I swung, muddy rock in hand, and the cry pelted the air before a splash. I didn’t look back to see who the male was or if he surfaced. Silence followed. When I made it out on solid ground I let my assumptions push me.

They were faster, better equipped, taller, stronger, but I was not in the water. A lacerating pain hit my gut. It slowed me down a fraction and without my fae hearing, I didn’t register the impending heavy footsteps behind me. A boot pushed between my steps and I skidded to the damp floor, disappearing into the tall grass.

The wind was knocked from my chest but before I could replace it a hand pressed over my mouth. A body followed it.

“Listen carefully. Make for the thicker part of the woods diagonal from here.” It was Eris. He had me, I could feel the power in his having me, like the magic wanted him to do something, but he wouldn’t. He gritted his teeth.

“Run. Do not stop running whatever you do.”

He was instructing me, helping me? Or making the game more fun. He didn’t want to marry me. A male close by let out a cry of agony and my eyes widened. I shook my head grasping at the hope he’d find sympathy for me, that it would remind him who I was. Yet where I expected some wickedness, looking at his face, taking in the words he was repeating, he didn’t look the same. His face looked softer than it had in all the years we’d seen each other, far less cruel. I could tell it, even in the darkness of night. His words registered fully once he pressed a blade to my hand.

“You can make it.” He didn’t say where, or what was waiting, but a noise just after the last word came out must have caught his attention. His head whipped before he looked back at me and then I saw it, his mask. It slid so precisely into place. It was familiar, it was him, it reminded me of Rhys.

He was saving me.

I gripped the blade.

“Looks like fate is in my favor,” Eris said.

The two men there looked on, eager that I was caught even if not at their hand. Neither of them was Lucien, if he’d even run with them at all. He’d just wanted to see me suffer, he was worse than Eris, and I never even knew it.

Eris looked back at me with the most subtle of nods as the men approached. The grass hid the blade he’d given me. Did he know? Did he know what I knew to do? Or did he just believe in me, my ability to survive? Two twin shadows blocked out my face from the moon and it was the only signal Eris needed. The future High Lord of Autumn moved with the speed only a cauldron-blessed male could possess.

One swipe and the males were stumbling back. I was up as soon as his body was off me.

“What are you doing!” one yelled toward Eris and I looked for that thicker brush. It was an impenetrable darkness just to my left. I made to shift toward it, but the second male must have come after me instead of waiting behind because a hand was on me. I whirled with my blade and struck. Unluckily, he had a weapon of his own.

“Where'd you get that?” He said almost in awe.

My eyes flicked toward Eris accidentally. The male before me smiled and I knew he understood. I gave Eris away. He could fight these two men on his own, maybe, but it was no guarantee. Before he could think of what the information meant, what he might do with it, I sent a slash and metal met metal. I would not let my mistake prove fatal for the only one who’d helped me.

It was sloppy work, all of us tired, all of us sopping. I could hear Eris fighting, swords striking almost in echo to our own. My opponent managed to slice my arm and I cried out, withdrawing from his reach.

“Ah, the little Illyrian.” the man said and he tapped at his shoulder subtly.

Darkness swooped in, slick and faint. Halfway gone, I felt halfway gone. The cold of the gown was replaced with the warmth of the blood. No, none of this was good.

My breath curled into the night, heaving, as light as smoke. It would be a fight then, there was no other way to go. I used all I had learned from Cassian to disarm him, widening my stance, lunging, and before he could even register the shifting weight of my body a sharp slice through his abdomen gutted him. He fell to his knees with a look of surprise but the last thing he saw was my back disappearing into the thick forest ahead.

I could feel the darkness. It pooled around me with such intensity I was being dragged by it. Foolishly I waited for Rhys to arrive, to just know instinctively something was wrong, but even as I hoped I knew the shadowed world was nothing but the heaviness of an approaching end.

I stumbled, a tree root and fell onto the path. I wanted to lift myself but all I could manage was to crawl into the brush. I leaned against the tree that had at last defeated me. The wetness on my side remained. Whatever shock that had settled under the skin had vanished and the weight of all that had happened pressed down on the wound. My breath was shallow enough, the warmth at my side great enough, that I understood I was about to die. Whatever Eris believed I’d make it to was too far.

I could possibly winnow, but I had waited too long to go any distance greater than the edge of Day Court, if we were even near it. And even then, even if I did that, there was no telling what or who might be around, if anyone at all.

So I would die, and Eris would die, if he hadn’t killed that male first. Maybe in the after worlds, the lives that came later, we could stomach one another. Or else, we would be given another opportunity to prevent this outcome.

Something cracked near by and my mind drew blank. It was right there, the creature. My head nodded to the side momentarily becoming too heavy. The brush moved and moonlight basked my face. I brought down my sword and lunged now face to face with my opponent.

Lucien.

“Stop.” He said instantly. His warm fingers wrapped around my wrist and the knife fell. After everything he’d won.

Behind us, Eris roared Lucien’s name into the night air with so much rage I thought the trees would strip themselves bare of their leaves. Without a word, he hauled me into his arms. I was limp, dead weight, curling around him like ivy and even then his speed didn’t diminish. The noises of the ceremony fell behind us.

Your good blood is wasted, I don’t know anyone who’d have you.

I opened my eyes and with some found strength made to push Lucien away. I don’t know who was left in this game, but this was not an outcome I could manage. I would be no consolation prize. I shoved harder. Even if I couldn’t win I would like to die knowing I’d tried, just to say I had, just because it felt like it was what I would do.

Lucien stepped off the path and dropped me, bark biting through the cotton.

“Stop. If you do not listen to me, you will die.” He said sternly. “Eris and I are getting you out, back to Night Court.” His reprimand loud somehow didn’t echo in the near silent woods now. As if he’d willed it.

“That’s treason. You’ll both lose your titles and be dead by morning.”

If Eris wasn’t dead before, he was now. Lucien shook his head and our eyes met. He had a stern cold look about him but with everything, with all of the history, all the baggage I knew what he meant. Pain lanced through me, not from the wound, but from what he had planned.

“Don’t,” I said. “I’m not worth it.”

“It’s too late,” Lucien said simply, like he thought of me as an equal. “Eris has already planted the story of my betrayal. And unless you prefer to die I’d rather not see my mate slaughtered like a lamb.”

I felt my heart in my throat. That yell, that brutal raging yell, its purpose for us, and its origin a lie. How had Eris mustered the strength, the ability, to tell it so seamlessly? Who less than half an hour ago had been smiling at the thought of my demise. Lucien would be killed if he returned, if even I couldn’t find the seam of truth and fact in that voice. His crime was beyond the scope of the Autumn Court’s cruelty. Beron would have found some way to forgive Eis and his violence but this scapegoat, it was too perfect.

They’d kill him and if they didn’t kill him they’d hunt him until they could. Anyone who claimed him would have their own death wish. Lucien, he’s now a prize for slaughter just the same as me. We were equals.

My knees gave out and Lucien moved forward to support me on instinct. We can’t both die. Death backed away a step, as if in answer, in negotiation. I prayed to that male waiting to take me through the veil, to any forgotten God who had nothing else to do, to the Cauldron and its humor. Let me get him safe, it is all I need.

“I don’t want you to,” I said through my teeth as the burn raged in my gut.

The oblivion receded. The darkness at my eyes cleared and life, in its small worships, returned. The thrum of whatever had coveted the soil at the start seemed to pull back within me, just barely. I was clearer of mind. I had something I didn’t have before.

“You don’t have to. We’re going.” Lucien made to pick me up again but I shoved my forearm under his neck and twisted us around. He froze, mouth slightly agape and eyes narrowing. He didn’t fight, even if he would be able to outmaneuver me, overpower me, in this state.

“You don’t get to make commands,” I said, the feelings, the position, the male, it was all too familiar. “Not after what your father did.”

He craned his neck down, nostrils the disgust on his face as plain as ever. Yes, this was familiar.

“I had no part in that. The moment we discovered what they planned we made the decision then to get you out.”

“And if you’re going to succeed you are to do exactly as I say.”

He barely reeled it in. Out of reach still, but closer than before, sounds of males desperate raging screams tore the night in half. Their anger so chilling we both had to look toward it. His focus changed though from what he couldn’t see to what he could. He looked longer, like he was saying goodbye, taking one final look, before in similar fashion as Eris something slid over his face that masked what had been there before. Only instead of it being a false front, to hide his true intentions, its indifference concealed a deep pain. I knew what was there though, and what it mourned. Even though he’d never said it—his mother, he mourned his mother.

The male nodded. We couldn’t waste any more time.

“Take us as far east as you can in the Night Court.”

This plan had to work. Death itself had granted me the power for it. It was a precise kind of weight, and I knew just what it would allow.

Without question, his warm hand enveloped my arm. It was the only warmth left in the world. I didn’t need to know anything for that to feel worse than it did. Death held my coldest hand, but I couldn’t think about it or the new plan. At least there were goodbyes. Lucien looked forward like he could see it, what waited on the other side of his power. His face stony, seemed barely capable of emoting at all. There was a sense of doom on the precipice. The kind in which you realize you’ve just lost everything.

Then a wind tucked around us and pushed us through the seam of the world.

We jumped through space twice and when I opened my eyes I might have laughed. He’d landed us perfectly. Just ahead of me a rock carved with the Night Court insignia lay hidden.

“I can’t get any further.” He said, looking around, eyes catching, constantly flicking back to that invisible wall. “We should go.”

The wards were close, and what a comfort to know they were working. I latched my arm around his, holding it with both my hands. Now now now now

“I know,” I said. “I’m taking us the rest of the way.”

“Us?” He said but before we could move I yanked him through the ward. He felt it, in fact, his eyes narrowed in the places he’d caught before. Backing away from me, he stared at the space behind me, warped ever so slightly to the eye, like it would reveal something. You’d have to know to look for it to see it truly.

“What did you do.” He said, disbelief clouding his face while anger descended upon him.

“You’re staying with me. These wards won’t let you out.” I said, a small lie. Though he might not want to leave anymore, he very well could.

Lucien’s entire face morphed with familiar disgust. “If I’ve saved you just to be killed by the High Lord of the Night Court—”

“You forfeited your life to that wretched place. You’d be lucky to have the swift death at my court’s hand.” It was so easy to be cruel to him. Even if I wouldn’t let him die least of all the way Beron would have done it, I didn’t mind wounding him. How rarely we ever came to blows with such severity and even still I knew just what to say.

“That's my home.” He plowed forward. Easy indeed.

“If you leave…” I said.

The world began to grow fuzzy, a warning, perhaps, that the generosity of fate was a limited thing. My power momentarily flickered in and out. We needed to go and we needed to go now. I leaned into the tall male before me for support. I was sure I was pale, sure that he couldn’t deny me. “They’ll kill you. Please, Lucien.”

Without another hesitation, the anger lost to him, he grabbed me. “Go,” He said. “Now.”

I took the last of my power, wrapped it around us, and again we were gone.

Just as soon as we landed in the living room I collapsed forward. The deal was done. My side burned with such intensity I could barely breathe. Lucien was lifting me toward the table in an instant. He didn’t even look around the room, it was like he knew it. He dodged two chairs, a table. Whatever was on the slab of wood fell to the floor shattering in the otherwise silent house.

The chaos, then, was born.

Footsteps barreled through the hall and Rhys and Morr appeared through the doorway. They pushed through the furniture. It was carnage, everything was tossed over in favor of getting closer.

“What happened?” Morr said

Rhys didn’t care. “Get Madja” and without a thought, our cousin was gone.

“I got her here as soon as I could,” Lucien said as though he’d been here a thousand times. The townhouse, Velaris, the High Lord of Night Court, none of it mattered. The history was erased, he had tried his best, he had helped, it was all he wanted to say. His voice promised too, the desire to do more. If given an order he’d take it.

Rhys focused his gaze, realizing for the first time just who had been holding me, who was standing in his house. He hesitated, just enough, that I saw what he was about to do and pushed myself off the table. Just an instant of his power could be irreversible.

I was not fast enough, not as fast as I should be. The darkness drew back from the corners of the room. Death watched, waiting to see who he’d take. No— as I approached the two males something about that assessment felt false. I was ashamed even, to have considered it. Something watched me curiously, whatever had given me that power, it gave a kernel more back.

By the time I got close enough to grab Rhys and use it, he had Lucien by the neck.

“I should rip your throat out.”

“Rhys!”

Lucien didn’t look at me, a slight redness taking in features. I pulled my brother's shirt, blood smearing on the sleeve I tugged and tugged but he was too afraid, too focused in his pursuit of revenge. He almost lost the only full-blood family he had left. Nothing mattered besides this fact. I moved between them. Rhys couldn’t look either, he refused to.

I pressed my back into Lucien and wrapped my arms behind me to hold myself tight into him as if my body would force air into it just by being there.

“Let him go,” I said with the practiced sternness of regality. As if I were talking to someone in the Hewn City. I repeated it two, three times, let him go, let him go, let him go. Yet each one fell apart in my mouth, the thread of desperation growing tighter. Its influence forced a wetness from my eyes.

Lucien’s hands which had been on Rhys's wrist reached down and grabbed mine, tightening around it. He did not come all this way to die in the townhouse. My family home was not a place of such violence. It was a brutality I was tired of.

I tried to get into my brother's mind but it was shielded and the pain at my side became too much. He felt it anyway, me at his mind, because once I hit the shield the first time his jaw slackened. He registered, for a second time, the male in the living room.

Lucien gasped a breath.

“Rhysand,” Morr yelled rushing toward us. I hadn’t heard her, hadn’t even seen until she was there. “you're upsetting Y/N.”

All words had gone. Lucien gasped for air, the grip loosening further, but I didn't look. I didn’t want to injure anyone more, find something primal in my need for Rhys to drop him. It was enough.

The rage left his eyes and Lucien fell. Relief, like death, flooded me as my mate leaned into me for support for half a second. The darkness moved toward the edges of the room again. This was it. So I let Lucien lean, even as the pain returned.

“He did this to you?” Rhys asked.

I shook my head, and when I faced my family, their brows furrowed in shock, confusion, moved closer together with worry. Lucien, who still pressed his warmth into my palm, gripped me tighter by the wrist and it was the first sign to me I was falling. He was the only tether left to the real world. Everything else snapped the moment that blade struck. It was all Madja needed.

Morr ordered everyone out, her familiar arms lifting me back to where I’d been. I asked her to go watch the two males. She didn’t argue and left. A piece of the panic in my own heart settled. I hadn’t known that it was reserved for Lucien, hadn’t known that it was not for my own safety, but for his. I knew it was bad from the healer’s face. I waited for the darkness at the corners of the room to envelope the world, but they stayed put.

I hadn’t said goodbye, but that was not part of the deal. Still, they waited, as if idle, again watching. Selfishly I was glad at least it had stopped hurting. The old fae’s hands moved quickly, her eyes scanning, I felt them both probing in and out of me, like she were under the skin. Maybe she was, I hadn’t seen the wound.

“This may be unpleasant.”

I made to open my eyes, to see what she was doing, but just as I did she poured a solution over my skin. The pain that had been coming in its waves, returned at full force, twofold. Closing my eyes only made it worse, I became acutely aware of the deepness with which the solution entered my body, the sensation of the burning, the moving hands, the panic. I cried out, yelled unlike any of the yells I’d had in the Autumn Court. To survive this would be the hardest work, but to speak after was something of a miracle.

“How you made it this long without passing out I don’t know,” she said.

Tears began to wet the side of my face again, and she just watched. It was all she could do while my head shook like even if she could she would take it back. My muscles contracted in directions out of my control. I couldn’t reach for her, couldn’t even beg more than a shake of the head and inaudible cries.

“What did this? Who did it?”

I didn’t answer, turning my head into the cool wood of the table. My teeth gritted so tight I don’t think air made it through, let alone words.

“I need to know.” She said grabbing my face to look at her. I felt the stickiness of blood on my chin. I’d gotten used to the metalic scent. It was all I could smell.

“Beron,” I gasped out pulling from her, squirming away. “With a blade.”

“Was the blade special?”

I clamped my eyes shut and the darkness was too impure for what I wanted. I wanted to find I was no longer seeing, faced with the voice. Each time I tried to escape the pain I found, always, I could get no further from it. The solution she’d poured was still making its way down into the deep of my body, further than I tracked my existence. “What?”

“Did you notice anything about it?”

I shook my head gripping the table. “It burned when he sliced me, I thought it was fire.”

She sighed and inhaled deeply before she nodded, grabbing for her supplies with fervor. The pain was coming in waves offering momentarily relief.

“I have to do it the human way. If I use magic to heal this it will only grow worse.”

“What?” I said

“It hurts like this because your body is trying to heal it with magic which the blade is specifically cursed to prevent. It makes death slow, excruciating for fae, allowing only a little healing before reverting back.”

I let myself wallow as she attempted to thread the needle, but when my shaking proved too difficult to work with she threw a towel over my body and quickly left. For a moment I thought I’d died. I’d died and was trapped inside for just a second to see it all unfold in another layer of agony. Only she returned with someone. A tall, tanned male. His face did not betray him so easily but I knew that he was shaken up. I reached my hand out for him.

“Cassian,” I said but my voice was weak, shaken.

He approached but seemed not to know what to say, instead choosing to grab for my hand. He knelt and I was eye level with the kind familiarity of his face. The first pierce of the needle almost proved too much, with every other pain, and I clamped my eyes shut so hard I saw stars. I squeezed his hand, all that power gone, I didn’t even think about if I could hurt him. I knew I couldn’t.

“My, my, have you gotten stronger? I think my finger is broken.”

When I was younger, regardless of how long we’d been apart, he’d hug me and always say that same line. I laughed a little, as best as I could manage which sounded more like crying.

“Rhys isn’t killing Lucien is he?”

He barely managed more of a laugh than I did but shook his head. “No, but it's taking all his and Morr’s effort.”

“Good.” I said through gritted teeth “He’s not half bad to look at I’d hate to lose the new Velaris eye candy.”

“That's probably the nicest thing I’ve ever heard you say about your mate.”

“If I do die at least I have a good confession. You’ve all wanted to know what I thought of him this long.”

“You can’t die,” Cassian said moving forward with such seriousness I almost went to say I was kidding but he continued. “We have 7 AM training.”

The needle disappeared seemingly. Whatever had been in that solution had begun to diminish, the waves of pain coming more slowly and with less force. It still left me breathless, but even that was a relief compared to what had happened. I would have sworn my rib was broken if the pain didn’t seem to be inflamed and surging at once.

“What you thought a little flesh wound would get you out of it? No, I don’t think so. No special treatment, even for the High Lord’s sister.”

“What if I told you I used your disarming technique.”

Cassian’s eyebrows rose, “did you? Tell me about it.”

“Gutted him.”

Madjas work faded even more as I told him what I remembered, the tips he’d taught me. The choice to grab Cassian of all people, was perhaps her best and greatest prescription.

“That’s what I like to hear.”

It was getting darker now. My throat strained on it and my eyes began to close as if I were falling into a deep sleep. The only thing that kept me awake was the sudden intensity with which Cassian squeezed my hand.

“Keep talking to me. You gotta keep talking.”

I tried to swallow, but nothing was there to swallow, and my throat began to burn in a different way. I felt the flare of my nostrils as I tried to hold it in, the pain on top of the pain, but I knew it was obvious. Knew now that my eyes glittered and clouded with unshed emotion, waiting to come out.

“Promise me you’ll be nice to Lucien.” Cassian hesitated and I gave him the only glare I could manage. “Please.”

“I will. For you, I will.”

I shook my head, I didn’t want him to do it for me. The violence all these years, what we’d fed each other and allowed, was what brought this. It was one thing, what Lucien and I did, but it was harmless just the same. He could call me names, fight with me, mock me, but nothing would ever make me desire harm against him. This was a well-bred hatred, that had born such violence. We were all part of it, in our own malicious way.

“You don’t understand. None of you do. You won’t even look, really look, at someone.”

I didn’t know if something like that could be undone, but at least we might say we tried. I dropped his hand and began to wipe at my face. Who knows what would happen, how I’d heal. If my mate would be stranded in Velaris or away from me. An instant protectiveness of him became me in a way it never had.

Cassian sighed, “it will take time.”

“I know, but you just have to try.”

“Okay, I’ll try. No more tears, not over this,” Cassian said, taking my hand back. The male seemed lost in thought for a moment before he brightened and added. “I’ll take him to Rita’s.”

I really laughed at that and it sent the rest of my tears out of my eyes to make room for new emotions to sit there. Cassian looked less scared, softer now. Whatever was going on behind me must have been a major improvement. In fact, I felt as if my color had returned a little. “He’d be a hit there I have to say.”

“Do you have a crush on him?” I scoffed but Cassian's amusement was hard to miss. The smile on his face got broader. “I’ve always suspected that there was a little something there c'mon you can tell your cool older brother.”

“You won’t tell?”

“Not a soul.”

I closed my eyes, reluctant. I’d made such deals before, but I opened my mouth to keep talking as the sound of the scissors cutting the thread sliced through the room like a surrender, a victory. “He's certainly not a bad male to be mated to. He keeps me very entertained.”

Cassian smiled “Well isn’t it convenient that 50 years later he’s now in Velaris.”

Madja stood and the moment was broken, Cassian met her eye and nodded to whatever the healer had gestured. I did not have time to be embarrassed for what had been shared between us. Most of them had teased me about Lucien and our dislike for one another. Rhys was the worst about it, though Morr and Cassian were tied for second. All of them secretly believed we’d been together, been in love. Only Morr had reason to believe such a thing.

Cassian moved around the table and they spoke in hushed tones.

“He’s her mate?” The healer said before I could sense that I was alone. As they left, so too did a darkness from around the room, like a thin cloud had, at last, passed over the sun. Perhaps I had never been that close to death at all, or maybe the shadows were proof, really, of how close I was regardless of if they were real or not.

It was hard to say how much time passed, but after a moment footsteps entered into the dining room again.

“Cassian?” I said keeping my eyes closed.

“Calling your mate by another male’s name is not exactly polite.”

I turned my head so slowly, it seemed to take every bit of available energy. He was stock straight, standing in the entryway and I didn’t speak, didn’t move. I really beheld him then. Despite his face, he was warth made real. His throat bobbed, and the first step he took walked toward the edge of the table was lethargic, tentative. By the time he reached the edge though, he was more confident, kneeling just as Cassian had. His doing it seemed tender, almost sincere. Unlike Cassian however he didn’t hold my hand, he instead reached to brush away the hair on the side of my face that had become glued down by my tears.

“How are you feeling?”

“Tired.” My voice cracked. I let my head fall to the side, let him hold its weight before righting myself.

“Do you need anything?”

He offered it as if he knew where to go, if I asked for water, for food, he’d walk through my house like it were his own. Or else, there was a kind of bravery in his willingness to face my court and say I wanted it. In his position, I’d have been useless. I shook my head, my eyes falling to the red ring around his throat. Something in me wanted to lash out, a whip in my chest.

His hand brushed more hair away drawing my focus back. “You did good.”

I don’t know if that was ever a word he’d described me as. Good. It sat in my mouth like marbles. I almost made to look to see where we were, if this were Prythain and not some other universe close by. Yet even my voice had taken on that tone that had no name. The kind that spoke like we were laying in bed together, like there was a long-time intimacy between us. Perhaps hatred, just as much, could make one known to another, could make a language for which only you two understood.

Lucien’s eyes caught sight of something above my head and he reached for it. “She said that I need to check the bond.” Warmth pooled along my cheek. He had a rag, a fresh one, and he began to wipe the blood from my face.

“Why?”

“A mate has…certain capabilities, sight, that can be helpful with injuries like this.”

I nodded, his fingers delicate and different than I remembered or imagined. I turned my head almost knowing where to go intuitively and he dragged the warm rag over me before dropping it back in the bowl. A small act of care.

While he began to focus on our bond I studied his face. I could feel it instantly, that growing tension, as if he were pulling on something in me. If it weren’t so hard to move I’d think I was sliding off the table into him. My chest becoming his chest, his eyes mine, fingers. I scanned his features, he’d not lost the granite look he had in Autumn. He was different now though. If not on his own then simply in the way he appeared to me. He should be, loss does that, and he’d just lost his family, his mother. Something in me ached and just as the pain in my heart pierced me Lucien’s eyes flicked to mine.

“You’re very handsome.” I couldn’t even commit to the idea I hadn’t been thinking those words. That I was saying so only to avoid the pain of my sympathy for him. It would be foolish to pretend it was not true, I’d always known it. I’d said it just because, because I guess I was trying to discover what was in this new difference, what we could do with it.

The tension inside me stopped and Lucien’s brows rose in the shock before he began to smile just a tad.“Took you 50 years to figure that out?”

“Didn’t want to boost your ego.”

He laughed a little and I felt the pull begin again. I closed my eyes. He must have noticed after a while because he started talking again, even though it felt as though the worst of it was over. I didn’t think I was in danger anymore.

“My ego is no bother to you now?”

I shrugged my shoulders. “Being chased through the woods has a way of putting things into perspective.”

“Maybe I should tell Madja something’s wrong with you.”

I smiled as faintly as he had. This was I think the most civil we’d ever been in all our lives and even now it held an air of rudeness. It was laughable. Who knows where we’d be in 50 more years.

“If you’re going to be here I might as well give you a chance to be bearable. I know you’re narcissistic.”

“How mature you’ve become.”

“I always have been. You’re just too old to remember. What are you 400? 500?” the mating bond in place seemed to strain with emotion. Not one that I could decipher but it was like I’d been let in somewhere or a flood gate had been opened and all of it and its complexity came spiraling out. It ended shortly after.

“300.”

“You’ve got 100 years on me. Where’s your kindness.”

“I saved your life that's pretty kind.” He said standing.

I hummed, “yeah well Eris saved it first so you’ll have to do a bit better than that.”

I might have noted how it felt to make him laugh so many times, might have wondered at the strange world we’d seemed to find ourselves within, as if winnowing had sent us sideways into another universe, rather than through our own. Instead, I felt something else, something not heavy at all, but light and wispy, vanishing from the room. It was nameless, even looking back at the two moments did not reveal the nature of what had left. Instead just an instant before, my left hand seemed to hold something within it. Like a caress but laden with meaning. My fingers flinched around the phantom. Then Lucien��s hand too, the same one, in the same instant, flexed.

“Y/N.” Rhys said from the hall. My mate drew back, seamlessly capable of diminishing his presence at will. He made himself less visible all altogether, I could not forget though. “Using magic is off limits while that wound heals. You’ll have to remain in bed.”

I smiled, if only to tell Rhys I was alive and exhausted, “your early morning training threats will be postponed then.”

He could barely laugh, but he tried. He turned to Lucien, similarly incapable of forgetting him now that he was here, in this house. “I’ll show you to your room. Cassian and Morr are taking you Y/N.”

The Lord of Bloodshed appeared behind my brother and I let my head fall to the side, everything slowed down. I felt like a wounded prey. Even my blinks came at a crawl.

Cassian though didn’t look toward me first, he watched Lucien. His gaze trained on my mate, as if studying him. I saw something there between them which had no category, no definitive emotion, but it was like the context of my confession was a haze with which Cassian was trying to see this Lucien. Not the Lucien he knew of his own construction, but the one there, who’d traveled all that way, who’d tried for his life to get me home.

Lucien must have noticed the pause and the two ever so slightly nodded. Maybe what had left was that bitterness between us all, or else, the intensity for which it blinded us. Reluctance and yet the threads of trust passed between them. I understood only that what had happened wouldn’t be forgotten but the possibility that they could know each other differently was there just the same.

Then Cassian looked at me and smiled. His hands reached under me and as gently as ever he pulled me off the table. He waited for any tension or wincing, speaking only once we were sage and upright. “You know how many females would kill for this?”

Rhys chimed in behind us. “None from what I remember.”

“You’re just mad because you’ve been sorely lacking on our trips to Rita’s.”

“Keep it to yourself,” Morr said. “Y/N’s already queasy.”

***

Morr managed to clean me up. Though magic had been off limits for me, I was glad at least that its use by others didn’t burn. From the bureau, she’d managed to pull a shirt and pants. Each delicate movement sent a searing burn into my side. With every small victory, I took a breath: a hand through the armhole, my head pulled out of the neck.

“How do humans do it?” I said wincing when she’d had me lift my leg.

“They’re almost resilient if you think about it.”

After tying the pants shut, however, my cousin looked at me with a cocked brow. The clothes were clearly a male’s. The shirt had too deep a neckline for females, it pooled open when we bent to reveal the bandages. The pants had to be pulled beyond their means to be tied to fit.

“Rhy’s was gone.”

“Oh that's not my question, I wanna know what your guests walked out of here with?”

I kept as much grace and delicacy as I could manage, sitting in my bed. Exhaustion was at last closing in with a welcome it had not had before. My cousin tossed the blankets over me, but I knew better than to lie down. Rhys would be here at any moment.

I could tell Morr wanted to ask. She sat in the chair as if waiting for a solstice gift, the kind of expectant look children get, but I think she wanted to be respectful. I knew though, she wanted to ask. What happened out there, between you both? What could change things so drastically? I opened my mouth as if I words existed to tell her, and she sat forward too like she knew what was coming.

“Whose clothes are those?” Rhys said. If there had been words to say he’d have interrupted them, but as it happened I didn’t know what could change us both in such a way. I wasn’t even sure I knew where I was.

“Cassian let me borrow them.”

I was quick, but it was useless. The male himself walked in behind him and seemed confused upon hearing his name. Rhys, however, did not even consider my lie because the clothes were far too small to be his. There weren’t even holes for the wings. We had a kind of agreement, to say as little as we could about such things.

The gravity of our situation settled when Rhys pulled up the chair near my bed. The tightness of his movements, the precise arc of his brow. He always had a different look when he considered me, my words, as my High Lord. I could tell the difference of who I was speaking to. I was so tired I thought I might cry again, at the thought of having to hash out details now. If I did he wouldn’t be cruel, he wouldn’t push.

“I won’t ask any questions tonight, but I do need to know if he hurt you.” Rhys began to say. He didn’t say his name, just acknowledging Lucien strained on his vocal cords like the words were too big to leave his throat. Whether he’d heard me downstairs, if he’d felt that need for the Autumn male to remain unscathed, he wanted me to say it aloud, he wanted reasons.

“He got me out. He and Eris, they had a plan.”

“Eris?” Cassian chimed in. “He was there too?”

I felt a heat burn into my lower back, not that of the one by the blade, but more familiar. They’d made no promises to me, my court, only death had. If I wasn’t careful they could kill him for his family’s crimes, they could be unforgiving. My hands balled the comforter and I looked between the three warriors watching me. I felt so like them and yet so unlike them just the same. A warrior of a different kind, not meant to fight. Not meant maybe for their world, yet I was a part of it and I felt its influence gladly, with warmth. The strains though were showing. Something had changed in those woods, that much was true.

“I behaved badly,” Rhysand said, knowing what I was thinking without stepping inside my mind. “I’m committed to hearing out all sides before I make any decisions.”

I met his calculated stare. “They asked for the blessing of the Lares.”

The whole room dropped in temperature as if all the heat had been snuffed out by shadow. It was indeed ancient magic, from fae across the sea, not so much done here, where the chosen bride was taken against her will. The male intended for her was set in pursuit, and the Lares donated some of their magic to him. That was what Eris had been fighting against, the urge to release the magic, only capable when I let out a cry of pain. Beron would pick up whatever backwater ceremonies he could that allowed violence, warping them, making them worse.

“I could barely winnow. He was the one who got us to the Night Court. I just got us into the townhouse.”

I shifted with the weight of my brother's pity. Rhys had never really asked me about my mating bond. Even the teasing historically had been more about tolerating Lucien than the thought we’d ever truly acknowledge what we were. No, not once had he asked me of Lucien and Velaris or what it was like, to have that tether, and if there was anything we wished to do with it.

How could he though? When it had snapped into place Lucien and I were at each other's necks in the Day Court visiting as guests. We’d snuck into an alcove of the great library to try and resolve an argument but at its peak, Lucien’s eyes burned with hatred and realization. I knew what it meant. I didn’t have to ask why he’d looked so disgusted. It was a rare moment of unity, not so much civil as we’d been downstairs, but neutral. We agreed that it was unfounded, that we might ever be mated truly.

We’d run into each other as we moved through courts and seasons alike, dancing with whoever, kissing whoever, flirting with whoever. No one was off limits besides each other. Occasionally when our manners overpowered the anger we’d agree to meet somewhere and have it out. We were so cautious it took 25 years for Rhys to find out. It slipped when I was drunk and he was so livid after I explained our arrangement I spent three months waking at dawn to train with Cassian.

“He was ready to die tonight for me. He forfeited his title to save me.” I said my voice hushed.

Everyone straightened, this was news, terrible news, only adding to the complexity. It meant he didn’t simply have a member of the Autumn Court, but it’s unclaimed exile. If Beron discovered before we told him that we’d had him there’d be reason for a blood duel, for a war.

“He what?” Morr said, her voice barely a whisper.

“I forced him through the Velaris wards. He told me Eris and he planned to plant a story of treason. If he leaves this court, if he remains unclaimed, he’ll be slaughtered. I couldn’t let them do that.”

To him, I couldn’t let them do that, to him I nearly said. A careful mask, one that I felt guilty about. It made me look better than I was, to take anyone's life so seriously, but the truth was I cared only for his. I’d done it for him and him alone. I’d probably have left Eris, trusted him to figure it out, just as I had in that clearing after the river.

A heat of embarrassment struck and whatever color I had regained grew more intense. What I did want them to know though, was that it mattered to me. That if I had a say I did not want Lucien dead. He never intended to make it out tonight. He wasn’t just forfeiting a title, He was giving up his life for me. If we were equals, I intended to do the same.

“I’m incredibly serious when I say this. I want you all to be good to him. He lost everything tonight.”

For all his friends I wasn’t sure any could claim him. I had little power over this outcome, but if there were any I’d use it. We were his best shot. It was no small ask, the fallout of claiming someone who’d committed treason could start wars. I knew though, knew that to reveal my hopes and his sacrifice changed enough.

Across from me, the softness of an older brother returned once more. Rhysand bowed his head in acknowledgment while Morr and Cassian followed suit.

“Not everything.” Rhys smiled and before I could ask what he meant he added, “it is clear we are indebted to him. I don’t know how we’ll move forward from here, but I can at least offer him refuge.”

I let out a breath, relaxing further in the place where I had unknowingly reserved such worries for Lucien. My brother stood and the pity of the group was relinquished to the night.

“Rest, we can talk more on it all later. You’re both safe and that's what matters.”

The group made to leave, flicking out the lights. What might the rest of the court make of all this, having spent 50 years on the outskirts with too much to say about it. Cassian had already gotten something less scathing from me. Tomorrow, in the days to come, would we revert to our old selves and let tonight be nothing? Later, as Rhys said. The lights dimmed but from the hall, the shadowy figure of Cassian peered back into the room.

“I can’t promise I won’t wield my words if provoked.”

“You’re barely coherent now.”

I heard his laugh from behind the door.

***

Sleep came quickly at first, but it began to flicker in and out. The deepness of it grew more shallow and I, unable to toss and turn, felt restless near dawn. It seemed this new feeling, this new world, would not go away. Much like falling asleep for the first time in a new room, despite being surrounded by my belongings and friends, I couldn’t get comfortable within it. So I watched the window, waiting for the new day, where. As the sky lightened to that purple dusk, the door to my room creaked open and I knew precisely who was there.

Lucien, similarly in borrowed clothes, wore a knit sweater of Azriel’s and some pants. I wanted to smile, would have smiled but I was too tired to tell myself to do it. He didn’t say anything, didn’t move, we just stared at each other. Not the same Lucien really, nor I the same female. This new Lucien was keen on not speaking, and when I realized that I broke the silence.

“Why are you awake?”

“I can feel your restlessness down the bond.”

I made to sit up, biting a groan, but Lucien put his hand out to stop me. It's not as if I was particularly polite and regal with him before.

“Sorry, I can’t even shield.”

“The healer mentioned.”

He pulled the chair Rhys had been in closer to the edge of my bed. It groaned with his weight, the ease with which he leaned back, relaxed, like he hadn’t discovered this long-held secret. He was as casual as ever but that was familiar to me. I could make him angry or nothing, rarely anything else. I could navigate this easily, I knew the body of his relaxed posture, every flinch, every raising of his brow. What I didn’t know was what I wanted him to feel when I didn’t want him mad. The quality of the light grew more pure through the window. Not quite dawn yet not really day. In the beam of it, he looked beautiful. It was almost becoming of him, to see him in Velaris. I almost liked him.

He smiled, the smile he gave when he knew something about me that I didn’t want him to know. I moved my mind to other thoughts but that only garnered greater amusement.

“So guarded even still.” He said, his keen observations never unspoken.

“I have to be or you’d use it against me.”

He shrugged his shoulders in agreement, he could only acknowledge the merit of my argument without words. I could call him handsome but it would sooner kill him to say I was right. His eyes fell out over the room and I watched his assessment, felt it, like they were Madja’s working hands. He lingered on the bookshelf.

“I’ll drop my shield too.”

“You don’t have to do that. I’m sure it's annoying, feeling what I feel.”

He shook his head.

“When did it start?” I asked. How much had I revealed of myself? When could he begin to know precisely how much I was feeling?

“The moment he cut into you your shields dropped.”

In the river, I’d had that surge of power, like it had come from somewhere else. If he’d been with Eris he might have seen it, might have… I don’t know how this worked between us. If he could even do such a thing. But stranger things had happened, mates were always surprising.

“Here,” Lucien said. He didn’t wait for me to give a definitive answer. At once there was a second weight of feeling in the place where the thread belonged. He watched me register it, those feelings of guilt and grief, before the core of it warmed significantly to something kinder.

“Now we’ll both be vulnerable and we can see what the other will do with it.”

I said nothing. I knew what he meant, to see what we’d do with it. Would we wield it against each other, in argument, in our real lives if they ever came back which I suspected they would. We’d revert back to ourselves in some ways with this information, vying to have power over each other like always. To know each other like we did, that could be leveraged.

This was power of a different kind, to hold that vulnerability in my chest, to know he held my own. This was not a separate giving and taking, it was a power we had together.

“Alright. So long as you don’t brood too often.”

Lucien’s face softened and it was hard to get used to, the feelings that seemed to exist outside and yet within. A twinge of amusement had come from his chest to mine. Then suddenly admiration, then grief which settled itself more readily, like it had been there so long it knew where to go. It was like getting used to a second heartbeat in echo with your own.

“Sorry.” He said knowingly. I wondered if my face showed the pain of it, or his chest. “If things get too somber I'll shield.”

“Don’t.”

Even if we never mated, there was a chance now to come to terms with what was between us in a way I had never considered to want. I was asking my court to change, and so too it was only fair that I did, if only in the smallest of ways. I don’t know what would become of us, what that looked like, but regardless in order to change there had to be newness, I had to see Lucien in a way different from how we’d been.

“I’m sorry about my brother,” I said.

“I can more readily sympathize with him having seen the state of you. I don’t know what I’d do if I were him. I don’t think I’d have hesitated.”

He detached himself the longer he spoke. The image I didn’t doubt took shape in his mind, informing his sympathy, deepening it.

“You’re not your father.”

His grief was overwhelming, but I tried not to show it, tucking away the sincerest version of him I’d ever known. The chandelier overhead swayed like the weight of those words had moved it. The wind howled at the window, a draft then, the shadows deepening but not how they had when I was on the table downstairs.

“Do you feel different?” I dared to ask.

“In what way?”

“I don’t know. When you went into the bond was there anything strange?”

Lucien thought for a moment, his eyes on the ceiling where mine had just been. The bond quieted to a contemplative hum. The thoughts were not so readily available, not at least, how they’d been when we wielded them to wound.

“Nothing was out of place. Does something feel wrong? Should I wake the healer?”

I shook my head. “It’s not like that. I thought maybe you’d feel it too.” Disappointment came and went as I remembered that Lucien would feel it, only after his anxiety stitched itself in my own chest. He stood just a bit and pulled the chair closer to the bed.

“I want to understand.”

“I don’t feel real,” I said my own words hushed. My voice knew I was embarrassed before I did. “It would have never occurred to me to do half of what I’ve done tonight. I don’t even think I would have imagined it, imagined you and me…but it’s happening right?”

“It is.”

“I thought so.”

A wave of fear powerful enough for Lucien to feel moved through me. He shifted with it in his seat, leaning forward his elbows on his knees. “What are you afraid of?”

I blinked a few times. There was no amusement, no teasing. Just a genuine question between us, rare and new. I wasn’t sure I wanted to say the answer. I hadn’t been well versed in being honest with him, it went against my instincts.

“It’s stupid.”

“You’re never stupid about anything.”

For the first time all night, I hoped he felt the gratitude that wove itself within me. “Something changed between us out there. I’m afraid to find out what it is.”

On the nightstand was a glass of water. Lucien reached for it and passed it over to me, our fingers brushing. I hadn’t realized how dry my throat was, how crackling my voice had become, like a fireplace, like the embers. I drank it but a softness in my throat remained, words seemed less solid than ever before. My only true weapon.

He took the glass and set it down before saying, “do you remember in the Day Court when the bond snapped?”

I nodded.

“At dinner, we’d been sat next to each other and we started going at it. Who knows what it was about. You were wearing a rather racy dress, might I add. Golden, like sunlight—starlight, and it exposed your whole back which you’d had facing me the whole time until our fight forced us to excuse ourselves. In the library after a good 15 minutes, you said to me, if you should find a female dim enough to bed you we can only hope the offspring don’t inherit their parent's lack of intelligence.”

His face didn’t change, but he looked different when he began to speak. I felt nothing down the bond, perhaps only greater emotions managed their way through, but the more he spoke the warmer he got even though I couldn’t say what feature of his had shifted to reveal it.

“It snapped after you said that, like you’d dared the Cauldron somehow. And all that we quarreled over, the reason we’d left to begin with vanished from our minds and clearly since has not returned. Something new had happened, things had changed.”

The moral of the story had been delivered in its unassuming way. The old goes, we forget about what happened, we move on to other things. It was of enough comfort to me that I began to grow tired.

“We’ll figure things out just as we always have.” He said and I recalled that flex of his hand, the warmth of him around my wrist when he’d gasped for air. I’d supported his weight just a fraction, but it had been so warm. My breath began to pick up, just a little, and I shifted in the bed closer to the edge he occupied. I extended my hand.

“You can hold it,” I said so quietly as if we were teenagers at the mercy of chaperones and fae hearing. I said he could hold it, but really I was asking him to. I felt his watching me, so keenly. It wouldn’t have taken the bond for him to know what I meant, he always managed to before.

Lucien hesitated in a way he had not earlier when he’d tucked my hair behind my ear. It's any wonder what sort of instinctual behavior came with his mating bond, how he’d felt so comfortable to be tender whereas now the confidence had evaporated. Regardless, it was a short hesitation. He slipped his fingers delicately underneath my palm and I found the new warmth of him engulfing me was already familiar.

My eyes felt heavy then. I nearly suspected a sleeping drought in the water. “And will things be different tomorrow? Back to normal?”

“I should think so, yes.” He hesitated as if waiting for my reaction but it didn't bother me. Not at least now.

“I was scared of that but I no longer am.”

He spoke softly like a breeze, his words ghostly, scarcely there. “It doesn’t have to be the same forever.”

“No. I don’t want things to be.” I said unsure of what that meant, of the future we spoke of and how it looked. I could scarcely imagine much else between us, even as the once wretched male managed to be comforting, sincere. Down the thread between us, I felt something close to endearment, but it was new, tentative. Then it shifted, it became lukewarm.

“I had wanted to get to you first,” Lucien said his stare once again taking on that greater distance, somewhere out of my reach. A heavy grief set itself between us. “That was the plan, but I didn’t get there.”

I squeezed his hand. I hoped it would be an anchor like he was to the real world just a few hours ago downstairs. I wanted to bring him back here, to bring him back to the dawn, to this story where we now sat together in a sincerity of our making.

“With matters like this,” I said as his eyes found their way back to mine. “The last male left is usually the better.”

I don’t know if he was convinced, but his shoulders sagged a fraction, and it appeared that was enough. He squeezed my hand back.

“Sleep, I’ll stay here as long as I’m able.”

I nodded and he did not leave, not even when I closed my eyes or when I opened them again a few hours later and he told me to sleep again. Even though the light was brighter and morning seemed in full and silent swing. When I woke for the day, however, he was nowhere to be seen. The chair was back against the wall, like nothing had changed at all.

#This is meant to be 4-5 parts #I don't remember much of the intricacies of the ACOTAR universe with mating bonds #or the politics #I just like the characters and that lay of the land and am in the process of rereading #I wrote a lot of day dreams with Lucien so I thought it would be fun to share while I figured out how to write fiction #lucien vanserra #self insert #acotar #lucien acotar #lucien fanfic #lucien x reader #lucien x you #sjm books #night court #that is all #acotar fanfiction #acotar fandom

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