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jon-snows-man-bun · 26 days ago

Text

By Turns

Chapter Eleven

The closer Eris gets to his goals the harder he has to work to keep all plates spinning. Tensions simmer underneath his new alliances, pulling him into the Hewn City where the impact of Rhysand’s rule shapes the future.

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A/N: Chapter contains misogynistic language and references to rape.

Insane Vanserra family dynamics incoming.

“You smell fascinating, brother,” were Damien’s first words to him in the hallway outside the dining room. “Enjoyable week? We all thought you’ve been at the border with Summer. I wasn’t aware the border camps smelled like roses now.”

“Occasionally I grow bored with the taste of Autumn apples,” Eris forced himself to give Damien a sharp smirk even as his skin crawled. He’d scrubbed himself beyond thoroughly that morning, but it had been two days since Aisling had wrapped her hands around him, and still the whisper of rose and mist followed him. The scent of Aisling’s claim to him would always linger. She was a part of him now; he’d have to manage a way to glamour it before Beron worked out the truth of the matter for himself.

“And you prefer Summer roses?” Damien drawled, falling into step beside him as they wound through the oak and stone halls. They were aboveground on this level; lower, tree roots formed part of the structure, winding into living lattices that crawled over the walls and archways.

“They’re easily plucked,” Eris sneered dismissively, the lie coming easily. The territory he oversaw lay along the border with Summer. If Damien or a servant passed along the conversation to Beron, it would seem believable enough that he’d been bedding Summer females. Beron had an uncanny instinct for being lied to, honed razor-sharp over his 800 years. Eris had spent nearly all of his 500 learning the exact limits of that instinct.

“Do they not smell of fish? They’re a bit of low-hanging fruit for me,” Damien said, as if Eris hadn’t caught him fucking everything in the Forest House from maids and hunt whippers-in to other nobles’ wives.

“Was there a point to this?” Eris snapped, and Damien gave him one of his insolent, honey-slow smiles that had females crawling.

Damien had the same whiskey-brown eyes as their father but favoured their mother otherwise with auburn hair and softer features than Eris and Beron. It gave him a sultry, sleepy look that drove females to madness. Damien took full advantage, of course; a born manipulator, he thrived in the role of spoiled, skirt-chasing spare son.

He was also far more clever than he let everyone believe, but Eris had seen him grow up, had tutored Damien himself. Everyone expected viciousness and cruelty from himself and Cato, but Damien smiled the same whether his hand held a wineglass or a flaying knife.

“The weather is fair for hunting next week. Do you fancy it?” He asked.

Not at all. But Eris knew it meant Damien needed to speak with him, to give him some message; as one of the more functional brothers, they worked as oxen in harness, dragging together towards the same goal. Damien wasn’t much of a threat to him – the true threat had been Lyam, the second-born, now buried in a Spring grove.

Eris had tried to get his body returned to Autumn, the same as Gilles. They deserved to be burned, their right as Vanserras. Tamlin had refused.

Eris nodded mutely, suddenly feeling sullen and miserable. He had a full day of meetings, starting with the largest farmland owner on the border who was panicking about declining soil fertility after Tamlin’s failure to perform the rite at Calanmai a few weeks ago. Eris had gotten Rhysand to fuck off out of Spring, giving Tamlin the privacy to get his act together, then watched to see if he’d be bothered to get his leg over. It hadn’t been a test, but his failure was telling enough for Eris to adjust his plans. He’d been trying to suss out Tamlin’s state – and now he knew.

The rite was an obligation, but still, it was fucking. How much of a chore could it be? Even Aisling had let go of her annoyance about being coerced into bed enough to enjoy herself. Though his cock had helped matters there, of course.

Eris threaded his way back towards his study, mind already getting stuck on him and Aisling bending the bedsprings like dogs. His mate. The word was an illicit thrill, a jolt of pleasure; something he hadn’t had time to get used to. Perhaps the novelty, the glory of it would never wear off - a mate.

He felt like a shit for the way he left things, calming down and mastering his temper as soon as he winnowed away from Night. Aisling was always looking towards the sky; she had called the moongarden the loveliest thing in her home, but she considered its crown jewel to be a skylight. She was hemmed in on every side by Keir, Thanatos, and the hierarchy there that was vicious in its enforcement. He’d seen her covered in blood, crying alone in the dark – wrung out merely for daring to speak to him privately.

It pained him when he remembered her, pressed back against the stone, tears making clean streaks through the blood splashed across her face. Eris wanted to remember her as she was most recently, but the two ran together until he felt he could see her, crying in her bed.

Perhaps she would have fared better in Autumn. Beron might covet the Darkbringers enough that he’d only seek to get a stranglehold on her spirit rather than her body. But Aisling was like smoke – hard to hold, drifting away as soon as you tried. Eris had found that out firsthand, telling her to be patient and she slipped through his hands immediately, furious and remote as distant lightning.

Sitting behind his desk, Eris huffed a sigh, propping his chin in his palm. Across from him, nestled in his basket, Ticru – the eldest of his hounds – lifted his sleek head and heaved out a matching sigh. His brown eyes were deep and unblinking, as if to say Tell me about it.

“I’ve fucked it up,” he told Ticru, since the smokehound had insisted. He wanted her so badly it made him stupid. No, worse than stupid, it made him greedy – it made him want too much, too quickly. He wanted the future he could see in his mind’s eye immediately. And he had told Aisling to be patient, he thought with chagrin.

Eris forced himself to pick up a letter from one of Elias’ governors, unseal it, read it. The future would come. Every day he was a step closer, a little bit more of the male he would need to become, web knit a little more tightly.

That night, still in his study, Eris felt a flash of something on that silvery bridge between them. A pang of wild fear, something desperate and primal, that had his heart racing. Eris was halfway out of his chair and ready to winnow straight to the Night Court, responding entirely to a base instinct that demanded he run to Aisling, find what frightened her, and burn it to ashes.

The feeling was gone as quick as it came and Eris realised what he was doing, how quickly her fear had made him lose his head. Ticru was up and alert, vibrating with tension, responding to his master’s panic; Eris sat down gingerly, dread coiling in his chest. His palms were still sweating, jaw clenched so hard his teeth ached. What the fuck was happening to her?

That wasn’t the last time he felt her in that first week. Little shadows of what she was feeling, brushing against him like moth wings. Eris had savoured it at first, that connection to Aisling more meaningful than he could put words to, but it quickly turned wrenching.

He was feeling her pain.

This surely wasn’t the way it was meant to feel. Surely the Mother was punishing him for going about it backwards, for his inherent betrayal of leaving his mate in danger. Aisling was just so… unhappy. He could feel it in the bond, slick and heavy against his ribs like oil. As he went through his days it was a little storm cloud in his chest, a low grade of fever that he tried to ignore. At night, alone in his bed, it throbbed like a bruise until he pressed a hand to it, shivering.

The need to fix it for her, to protect her, was as imperative to him as feeling hungry or thirsty. It was a command he couldn’t ignore, and yet he had to. It was unbearable.

And yet, he had to bear it. There was no other choice – he had to steel himself and only look forward, towards the light, until he could reach his hand back and pull her out of the dark with him.

If he demanded her release from Rhysand now – he could, a foolish part of his mind told him, he could protect Aisling in Autumn, she was clever enough to survive Beron, and he was not so far from murdering his father, or he could hide her somehow – he put all power in Rhysand’s hands. Surely he would insist this fulfilled his half of their bargain, that he would support Eris’ plans to assassinate Beron; it was what Eris would have done. It was what he had done, sparing Feyre that day on the frozen lake, staring his brother in the eye, cursing him for being stupid enough to step foot in Autumn again. And he spared Feyre a second time, when he kept the knowledge of her stolen magic to himself.

Rhysand had panicked in his haste to protect his mate, promising Eris something vague in exchange for Eris keeping a secret, something that already came as naturally to him as breathing. He intended to extort Rhysand when the hour came.

And yet… and yet… Aisling’s blue eyes, cutting over to him as she said something she knew would make him laugh. The way she had been nervous of him, but still gave herself over to him entirely, relaxing into his hold, allowing him to make her vulnerable. Kill me, those dark eyes had said. Or don’t. Take me either way.

Eris would save her. She was his mate – that was all there was to it. She belonged to him and he certainly belonged to her, the way she’d slipped between his ribs like a blade and wrapped his every thought around herself. He was Beron’s firstborn son and had his same ruthless blood running through his veins. A Vanserra never relinquished what was rightfully theirs.

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All her life Aisling had wanted to see the sun, and now that she had the chance she discovered that the sun was unspeakably brutal.

The beautiful moonstone palace was simply too bright, too open. During the day there was no relief for her burning eyes, nowhere to hide. The white stone felt like an oven, so brilliantly glaring that the first time she tried to walk the halls in the day she had to summon darkness to shroud herself.

Aisling had only ever seen the gloomy half-light of the City; the sun blinded her so badly that her eyes burnt. She took to a nocturnal schedule instead, and still her eyes watered ceaselessly the first two nights. Nuala – the handmaiden who appeared on her first day in the High Lord’s palace, instructed to serve her – had extinguished all fires and faelights at her insistence, which had helped some. Like all from the City, she could see in the dark; the shadows felt like a kiss against her scalded eyes that second night. But even then she found it dazzlingly bright, able to see in stark detail - the snow on the mountainsides that surrounded the moonstone palace reflected enough light that she felt near dazzled at the full moon on her fourth night.

And the moon! It was like nothing Aisling had expected: not a pearl or a diamond as so many books had described, not amorphous white like paintings depicted, nor like a woman’s face or an opal. It was the moon. There was no imitation and no metaphor suitable. She could look the rest of her life and still be hungry to look again.

Now she rose with the sunset and slept after dawn; she found the night sky so dazzling to admire that this did not feel unjust to her. She had only seen little glimpses of the sky from the window high in the moon gardens, and thought the full effect would be like diamonds on black velvet. She was wrong about that, as well – the colours of the sky were so much richer and more varied than black, and the starlight had an ethereal quality that she could only think of as silken.

Azriel, the Illyrian torture-master, had insisted on calling the healer again after the second day of her streaming eyes. She didn’t recall meeting the healer the first time – she had lost time that first night out of the City, merely waking the following midafternoon with her hand and head wrapped in bandages. She had unwound both and found unblemished skin, wondering if she had imagined it all, if it was a figment left to her by the mushroom she took with Niamh.

The healer was talented, Aisling granted her. She still didn’t particularly want to be examined by anyone employed by the High Lord, but Azriel hadn’t offered her an option, merely studying her streaming eyes and steering her to a darkened side room.

“Madja will be here soon,” was all he offered, leaving her alone once more. Aisling only had time to contemplate leaving, slipping back to her bedroom to sulk in peace, before the healer herself bustled in.

Before she knew it, Aisling was pressed back gently against the chaise, twisting a ring around her little finger as the healer directed her to close her eyes and smeared some cool salve over them.

“Do your eyes water constantly, even while you sleep?” She asked while Aisling’s eyes began to prickle uncomfortably beneath the salve, as if itching.

“Yes,” Aisling admitted, thinking of her damp pillow in the morning. She thought perhaps she had been crying, but if she dreamt, she couldn’t remember it.

“Your eyes see the sunlight as an irritant. They aren’t used to it. This will help,” Madja said, somewhere to the side of her. “But with time and exposure your eyes will adapt. Just take it slowly. It shouldn’t be too painful, merely uncomfortable. If your eyes begin watering again, go to a darkened room. Only a few minutes each day, at first.”

Aisling didn’t tell the healer that she had no intention of taking it slowly – she wanted to see it all now, immediately. She wanted to drink all the sights and sounds down like a glutton, cramming them in with both hands until she was sick.

“Your other wounds have healed nicely. Do you still have pain in your head?” Madja asked, picking up her hand and flexing her fingers, touching her palm before putting it back down.

“No,” Aisling replied, as Madja wiped the salve away. Aisling blinked muzzily, eyes still prickling but staying dry, Madja’s grey frizz haloed by the faelight over her. The healer took her chin and gently turned her head this way and that, seemingly pleased by what she found before her eyes flicked down to Aisling’s neck. Instinctively, Aisling pulled the neck of her dress over where Eris had bit her. The mark was faded now but she felt it still, seared into her.

“Azriel, leave the room,” the healer directed. Aisling hadn’t realised he has in the room at all and flushed in embarrassment, but Azriel had let the door shut loudly behind him. His gift for moving silently was enviable – he only made noise when he wanted to be heard, a talent Aisling had started to covet.

“You also had marks on your neck when I examined you,” Madja said, studying Aisling carefully. “From hands and teeth.”

Aisling didn’t say anything. Silence would be her ally here. The subtext of Madja’s words made her face grow hotter.

“I don’t know the circumstances of your arrival here or your life in the Hewn City, but it is my duty as a healer to ask. Do I need to examine you elsewhere?” Madja asked, folding her hands primly.

“No,” Aisling repeated, shortly. They thought Eris vile and cruel here, as everywhere; she had heard how Azriel and the High Lord spoke of him. She’s as arrogant as Vanserra. What sort of male would leave his mate here? The thought of this elderly fae prying her apart and checking between her legs, looking for evidence to confirm their suspicions, made her want to smash something. Had the High Lord instructed the healer to do this?

As if Eris were some sort of monster. Her stomach twisted as she imagined being unclothed before this healer, being examined like a carcass, then the whispers to Azriel in the hall - who would in turn whisper it to the High Lord. As if what happened to her body, what happened between her and Eris, ought to be public knowledge; as if everyone were entitled to know her every intimate secret.

“Fae males can be possessive,” Madja was saying, unaware that Aisling was considering trapping her in a nightmare in which it was her cunt made the Court’s business, spread open for the High Lord to judge her every choice. “Sometimes this becomes violence. Even if there is love. It is not a judgement on you.”

“You can make whatever judgements you like,” Aisling said, growing flustered in her anger, heat prickling at her. She wanted to scream, to bare her teeth and protest that Eris had been good to her, but knew nothing she could say would sway them. They thought him a snake, just as they thought her lower than rubbish just for being born in the Hewn City; saying otherwise would only be a waste of her breath. Madja just watched her, rheumy eyes unblinking.

“I don’t make judgements,” Madja said. “I simply heal.”

“Then your work is done,” Aisling snapped, sitting up abruptly. She suddenly felt sick, went hot and dizzy with fury. “No further examinations are necessary.”

“As you say,” Madja said, rising delicately to follow her. Aisling ignored Azriel as she swept past him lingering outside the room, doubtless awaiting Madja’s damnation of Eris, and stalked straight for her chamber. Nuala took one look at her in the hall and wisely melted back into the shadows.

Aisling had liked the edge of pain. It had made the pleasure he wrung out of her that much sweeter. Nothing in life was without its sharp edges; she took the rough with the smooth and found satisfaction in both – fucking, it turned out, was no different.

The sting of his bite, soothed by the hot swipe of his tongue. His hand around her neck, pinning her down before him, before gently stroking her hair while he held her against him. Eris had known what she wanted without her even thinking it, before even she knew it; he had been led by some animal instinct of his body. Eris had sought to please her, again and again.

Even from their first meeting, Aisling reflected as she flung herself onto her bed, firmly in a full-blown sulk. She had escaped the City only to land directly on top of it, in a palace mostly built of windows. The symbolism was so heavy-handed that she had stared at Azriel as he explained, expecting him to be in on the joke. But he wasn’t – apparently, the joke was on her and her alone.

Looking out of the windows made her a bit dizzy, sometimes. She knew she was on solid ground, but still – the knowledge of where she was gave her vertigo. She woke up struggling to breathe some nights, wrenching at her blankets, feeling like a rat caught in the light. Stunned.

On the seventh evening Aisling forced herself to rise early, into the cool light of what Nuala had called the blue hour. Pink was melting just behind the distant mountaintops, a shade so sweet and pure it broke her heart for never having seen it before. Absently, she laid one hand over her ribs, over the twisting silver thing in her chest.

She was out. She was free. But she wasn’t at all, really. She was so tired of trying to be patient. Her appetites were growing monstrous – she didn’t want little glimpses of the sun, she didn’t want to wait for Eris to seize power, she didn’t want to leave everyone she’d ever known locked in the dark.

Nuala slipped into her room, merely coalescing from the shadows. She had smiled when she explained that both Azriel and herself preferred the dark, and that having the moonstone palace kept in a blackout at all hours was pleasant. She’d been a diligent handmaiden, really, for all that Aisling was certain she was also spying on her. Two creatures made of shadows orbiting her was suspicious, to say the least.

“Are you hungry, lady?” Nuala asked, already moving through the chamber to draw a bath.

“Ravenous,” Aisling agreed.

#eris vanserra #eris x oc #eris vanserra x oc #eris vanserra fanfic #acotar fanfiction #acotar x oc #hewn city #my writing #by turns #Eris: she is so sad and heartbroken…. I must save her…..#Aisling: (busy psychically torturing madja)

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