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houseofhurricane · 3 years

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ACOTAR Fic: Bloom & Bone (20/28) | Elain x Tamlin, Lucien x Vassa

Summary: Elain lies about a vision and winds up as the Night Court’s emissary to the Spring Court, trying to prevent the Dread Trove from falling into the wrong hands and wrestling with the gifts the Cauldron imparted when she was Made. Lucien, asked to join her, must contend with secrets about his mating bond. Meanwhile, Tamlin struggles to lead the Spring Court in the aftermath of the war with Hybern. And Vassa, the human queen in their midst, wrestles with the enchantment that turns her into a firebird by day, robbing her of the power of speech and human thought. Looming over all of them is uniquet peace in Prythian and the threat of Koschei, the death-god with unimaginable power. With powers both magical and monstrous, the quartet at the Spring Court will have to wrestle with their own natures and the evil that surrounds them. Will the struggle save their world, or doom it?

A/N: The High Lords go to battle against the Autumn Court. You can find all previous chapters here, or read Bloom & Bone on AO3. Thank you for reading! ❤️ If you'd like to get an early preview on the next chapter, follow me on Instagram at @house.of.hurricane.

The army from the Spring Court is small but Tamlin makes sure to greet and thank each warrior lined up in front of his estate, the same enthusiasm for the lower faeries as he gives to the members of the nobility who have arrived from their country estates. Tomorrow, at the Autumn Court, any of them could die. He does not want to forget a single name or face, and he wants them to know he’s seen each of their faces.

He used to shield himself from most of his army as a guard against the inevitable loss. It was easier, his father always said, to craft a winning stratagem when the general thought more about the victory than the ensuing loss of life. But more and more, Tamlin is feeling his father’s perspective unravel inside of his mind. He feels unmoored but also, sometimes, unbound in an entirely new way.

Anyway, he cannot quite believe that anybody answered his summons. Even after the months spent visiting the villages throughout the Spring Court, listening and commiserating and offering solutions, the humbling visits to the estates of his nobility, Tamlin thought they hated him. Although Lucien and Elain and Vassa had all helped him with the wording of his pleading summons, he expected that a request for an army of volunteers would go unanswered, that the lands around his estate would be empty save for the flowers. When warriors, males and females and those who see themselves in other ways, began to arrive at the Spring Court, he could barely manage to keep his composure, to restrain the tears that threatened to spill alongside strangled shouts of relief and joy. All he’d known in his life was leading warriors, and he had fully expected to never have that sense of purpose again, that he would fight alone until some stronger enemy claimed him.

So he has made his plans and preparations in a state of urgency and gratefulness which seems both old and new to him, interrupted only by meals and Elain, pulling him into another world for an hour, food unlike any he’s tasted, languages he’s never heard, and kisses that quench and also leave him wanting her so deeply he practically gasps with need. She is helping Lucien with diplomatic work and with the understanding of Koschei’s magic and spells, but in other worlds, neither of them speaks much of their work. They share little secrets and amusements and compliments. He tells her everything he would want her to know if he were to die in this battle. For so long, Tamlin had never thought about the possibility of death, and when it finally occurred to him, he wanted it to claim him. Now, for the first time in all the long years of his life, he both acknowledges the possibility of death and wants dearly to avoid it.

Throughout the morning, the army completes its drills. First, they go through the physical motions: the basic weaponry and the formations which, thankfully, they have not forgotten since the war with Hybern, some from wars that took place centuries before. Then, there are the drills in magic, determining the gifts of the army and how they might be used.

Finally, as the sun falls toward the horizon, he shows his commanders the formations, and within minutes, he sees a small army lined up neatly behind him, each flank poised and ready, on horse and on foot, their weapons poised to strike.

They all look to him, in the front of their group, and Tamlin tries to meet the gaze of each person, even as he knows that’s impossible with even this small army, the thousand volunteer warriors from across the Spring Court.

Behind him, he hears the doors of the estate open, and even before her sweet scent reaches him, Tamlin knows Elain is watching. He clears his throat, focuses only on what he had planned to say, well before he knew she would hear.

“Tomorrow we will march on the Autumn Court,” he says, magic amplifying his voice to a confident boom, “and I suspect you may wonder why I have summoned you to this battle. You may think that the determination of a ruler in another court will not affect you. But in that, you will be wrong. The males who want to seize rule of the Autumn Court seek to ally with a powerful death-lord on the continent. That creature seeks to seize friends of our own court to fuel his own wicked ends. If captured, he will use them in order to rule this world and every other. Tomorrow, you do not only fight for Eris Vanserra to take the High Lord’s throne in the Autumn Court. You fight for the saving of our world, and I thank you for your courage.”

When he takes a breath, the rapt silence stretches on, and Tamlin realizes that this was when he used to feel most comfortable, leading his war band. When he knew every face and believed that he and all his company would gladly die in order that the others would survive. He’s not sure when he lost that perspective, but now he takes a moment and searches each face, engraving it in his mind.

“My cook and his staff have been working for days to prepare a feast for you, but before you go inside to eat, I want to thank you sincerely for your bravery and courage. For the kindness you are showing to the people of this world. I hope that your bravery will be remembered in legend and in song. As long as I live, I will celebrate you.”

The clapping begins near the doors of his estate, and sweeps across to his warriors, his army, who clap and shout their support until at last Tamlin cannot contain the tears that fall down his cheeks.

As their applause dies down, Elain’s voice sounds in his head, remind them that there is dessert in the gardens!

Tell them at dinner yourself, emissary, he tells her, by magic or pure will, before turning and drinking her in. She’s wearing a dress the color of new grass in the sunshine, fastened at her waist with a slim pink belt, her bare shoulders luminous as the moon in the twilight. When she meets his gaze, her brown eyes are warm and intoxicating as whisky, and the thought of the battle, the possibility of losing her, is enough to crush the air from his lungs.

“How was training?” she asks, as soon as he reaches the doors. Lucien has joined her, his eyes fixed on the horizon for Vassa, but Tamlin knows he’s listening.

“They’re ready,” he tells them both.

“And if Koschei is at the Autumn Court?” The question is familiar, one she’s asked him every day since a battle became inevitable.

“I’m prepared to hold the shield until they can all be winnowed away.”

“I’ll come for you,” Elain says, as she always does.

“You’ll be needed for the saving of this world,” he tells her, the answer that he means more every time he says it. He reaches out for her fingers, clutches them tightly in both his hands, brings them to his lips. “You’ll stay with Lucien and Vassa and ensure there is peace. That there will be some beauty after all this war.”

Her sigh is laced with tears, and beside her Lucien groans.

“Will you two be like this until he leaves? Because if so, I will need to change my seat at dinner.”

“You will be flirting outrageously with Vassa the minute any of the Spring Court commanders so much as looks at her appreciatively,” Elain says as she twines her fingers in Tamlin’s and walks into the estate, he and Lucien following in her footsteps.

No one, now or when she arrives at the feast an hour later, remarks on Vassa’s changed appearance. The Queen of Scythia has always been slender, but she has lost weight since Koschei captured her, and since her return, her golden brown skin has grown pale, deep purple hollows forming under her blue eyes. Lucien has tried to conceal his alarm, but Tamlin knows that these changes drive him to spend every daytime moment negotiating an alliance against Koschei, studying his magic and the makings of the curse that binds Vassa tighter than ever.

Still, she makes herself as merry as anybody, asking the nobles questions about wars known to her only in history and myth, trading stories about the battle with Hybern, explaining that yes, she was a firebird all day today, and no, she does not particularly recommend the experience, although she wishes that everyone could see Elain’s garden through the firebird’s eyes, because there is nothing more beautiful in this world.

When Tamlin looks to Elain, he sees the tears in her eyes, and grips her hand below the table.

“How early are you leaving?” she asks, her finger rising to the edge of his sleeve, dipping beneath the fabric.

“Hours before sunrise,” he says. If he could winnow his warriors, they could leave later, but they will ride hard to the Autumn Court in the hours before the battle, replenishing the horses with magic. “After touring your gardens, this army will sleep.”

“No detours?” Her thumb reaches the inside of his arm, the skin that, despite all his training, has remained relatively soft. He manages to contain the sound of all his wanting.

“When I return safe to you,” he says, “you can take me to whatever world you like.”

He knows there is still shame inside her at the notion of their pairing, which explains why she only kisses him in other worlds, why their exchanges in this one are furtive and laced with double entendres.

“You should talk to your warriors,” she tells him, though she still holds him, their hands hidden by the table linens.

“Come with me, emissary,” he says, knowing the invitation is a test.

Still, though Elain drops his hand, she follows him down the line of the table, repeating the name of each warrior and thanking them for their service, asking about their experience and talents, listening deeply to their answers, to Tamlin’s own questions and stories.

They work their way down the table, and then she circles back to Vassa and Lucien, hovering over the human queen but coaxing a smile to her lips, a laugh from Lucien. After a few seconds, Elain looks up and meets Tamlin’s eye, and he watches her smile widen, her eyes grow bright.

As he leads his army into the garden, to the cakes and sorbets that Cook insisted were perfect for a spring evening, Tamlin thinks about that tableau, the golden circle the three of them made. He’s always found himself outside such circles, separated from his brothers by the power he had to keep hidden, from the Spring Court nobles by his own unease, his people and the other High Lords and practically everyone in Prythian seeming far beyond his grip.

But Elain’s look was an open door into another world, unlike the one he’s always known.

Tamlin spends the next hour talking to the warriors, focusing on the beings of more humble origins. Lucien had made the recommendation, pointing out that Melis was a lesser faerie, the advantage the lowerborn have in numbers alone. As he speaks to the faeries of every height and skintone and magic, he’s surprised by how easily the conversations flow, how eager the other fae are to speak with him, especially when he begins asking questions, listening the way Elain does, nodding and chuckling and meeting dozens of unfamiliar eyes.

He’s just served himself a slice of chocolate cake when he meets a pair of eyes he’d never seen. Not because he does not know this male, but because he would never meet Tamlin’s gaze before.

“I didn’t think you would ever join the army, Ilya,” he says, clapping the village blacksmith on the back.

“There’s never been a volunteer army in this court,” Ilya responds, nodding his head. “At least not for the last thousand years. I want to be able to say I was part of the first that anyone can remember.”

“I’m grateful.”

“You’ve changed, High Lord.” Ilya darts a glance at Elain, who is listening intently to another villager who is explaining the medicinal properties of forest plants. “You’ll pardon my asking, but does it have anything to do with the lady at your side?”

“Elain Archeron is serving as emissary of this court,” he says, and then, because he is so grateful for the ways that this conversation is unlike their first, “and she, just as much as you, deserves for it to be a place where everyone is treated decently. I am sorry I have never provided you with such a home.”

“You’re the first person in my memory who has tried, at any rate.”

Tamlin presses his hand over his own heart and bows. There’s nothing he can say, not against the knot in his throat. Ilya gives him a smile and a nod and goes to join a knot of villagers, and Tamlin walks in the direction of the woods, intending to eat the cake and collect himself.

He’s barely made it to the trees before he detects Elain’s scent.

“You’re not going to prowl the forest all night, are you?” The question is light but somehow the words are not a jest. Though perhaps it is the conversation he just left, the weight of the day to come.

He takes a deep, shuddering breath, inhaling her fragrance of peonies and rose and berries, a perfect morning in the thick of spring.

“Do you believe I’ve changed?” he asks her. He does not look at her, only hears her footsteps against the fallen leaves, the sigh of her skirts.

“I want to believe that you are different now. That you’re better than the person who allied with Hybern and tormented my sister. But part of me wonders if I’m imagining everything because of what I feel towards you.”

As she speaks, the darkness of the evening seems to grow even dimmer. He has felt the world shift inside him, as if he sees everything with the eyes of Vassa’s firebird. And to be seen by her as more or less the same, capable of destroying her, is a blow graver than any he’s suffered in battle.

“You think the mating bond has blinded you.” He cannot bring himself to phrase it as a question.

“I wish I could have chosen you on my own,” she says, and she’s reached out to him, her fingers on his elbow, now on his chest, her skirts swishing against the tips of his boots. “I wish I could have known for certain that this is what I want, not some ancient magic that says our children would be powerful.”

He wants to draw her toward him, flush against his body, at the mention of children, the idea of a future with her, but instead he only presses his hand over hers, holds it against his thumping heart.

“I am so afraid that you will be hurt tomorrow,” she says, stepping closer to him, her body curled up against him, warm and sweet and soft. “I do not want you to think that -- that I feel nothing towards you. It’s only…”

“That I’ve been a monster.”

“And I’ve been a stupid child all my life. I think that you are different now, Tamlin. It’s only that I want you to be good so badly, because then I wouldn’t have to be guilty about my feelings. I could just...”

Once again she doesn’t complete the thought, only twines her fingers in his hair, strokes the back of his neck, and finally he crushes her in his arms so that her feet leave the ground entirely.

“I will come back to you tomorrow,” he says. “You don’t have to decide tonight.”

“I wish--” she starts, and this time he kisses her. Her lips taste like chocolate, and she opens her mouth to his with a little moan that unravels him. But tomorrow he will rise before the dawn and lead his army into battle, so Tamlin forces himself to set Elain on her own two feet, tries to tame the desire on his features to an acceptable facade.

“We’ll have time,” he says, and then, hand in hand, he walks with her, out of the forest and into the Spring Court.

When the sun rises over the Spring Court army, they’ve already ridden for hours in near silence. By midmorning, they are to meet the rest of Prythian’s armies at the Autumn Court, and the group is making better time than Tamlin had expected, riding swiftly enough that, at the borders of his lands, he allows them a short respite, during which he seeks out his most trusted commanders, who fought with him in the war bands, and reviews the battle plan.

He did not tell Elain the truth when she asked him for his strategy. He will not shield his court from the front lines of the battle.

The Summer Court has volunteered to shield the assembled army. Tamlin and Rhys had realized, on their mission against Koschei, that water magic would prevail the longest against the fire of the Autumn Court. Feyre has worked with Tarquin and Varian over the past week, according to the reports from the Night Court, and they have not only developed new shielding techniques but methods for attack, fearsome creatures animated by spellwork and will. The Spring Court commanders who can hold a shield will do so if the Autumn Court breaks through, but meanwhile Tamlin will be inside the keep itself with Helion, rescuing Cybele from the tyranny of her sons, or else fighting her until she yields. Helion has given no sign that he knows the Lady of Autumn’s allegiance, or even, since neither of them can winnow, how they will enter the keep, only winked and assured Tamlin he was on the winning team for once. The gesture made him think of Lucien, the swagger his friend sometimes allows to shine through. But entering the keep is riskier than remaining outside it. They have gathered no intelligence on what has happened at the Autumn Court since the day of Beron’s death, the last time anyone else in Prythian was able to get inside. If Koschei awaits, or High Fae from the continent, Tamlin knows that mere hours could separate him from his death.

Still, he rides onwards through the Autumn Court, the trees the color of earnest flames, and finally, Tamlin lets himself think of Elain, her warm gaze and the mind that whirls behind it, her sweet mouth and the way the words she speaks could form their own perfect world. The magic in her, bright as a new star. He wishes he could have left her being confident of her love, but at least he is certain of what she can create on her own.

As they draw near to the keep, Tamlin lays a thick glamour over the army, shielding them from the eyes and ears of the Vanserra brothers. The hoofs of the horses are muffled even to his own ears.

Nearly there?

The sound of Rhysand’s voice in his mind is like a thousand biting insects, but Tamlin does not push him out. Instead, he allows Rhys access to his vision.

You’ll be there in ten minutes. We’ll be ready. Drop the glamour as soon as you’re in range of the keep.

He waits until all trace of Rhysand is gone to feel, just for a moment, his frustration at being commanded. Then he surrenders himself to the killing calm.

When he reaches the wall of flames, he drops the glamour, and for a moment, the field of battle is empty aside from the Spring Court force.

He is sure, then, that he’s been abandoned by the rest of Prythian, is grateful when he feels the shield form behind him, that his people will be safe enough to begin their retreat. He’s glad that Elain is far, far away.

Then the wall of water springs up a few inches in front of his horse, and the great white bears of the Winter Court appear, and the sky is full of Illyrians, their siphons flashing.

You thought we’d leave you to die? Rhysand is laughing into his mind, and Tamlin cranes his neck, looking for the overgrown bat.

I probably deserve it, he thinks.

Now, now, Rhysand drawls, you still have work to do.

So do you, Tamlin fires back, now looking for Helion, who strides through the lines as if this is merely a training exercise. As soon as he spots Tamlin, the world dissolves and Tamlin stumbles into what looks like the interior passageways of the Autumn Court keep, dark stone hallways lit by torches. Helion is implacable as he was on the battlefield, calmly studying his surroundings, his armlet glinting even in the dim light.

“I didn’t think you could winnow,” Tamlin mutters as he reaches for his sword.

“There are always ways around any limitation if you’re creative enough,” Helion says, flashing a smile that leaves no doubt of his self-estimation. “I believe the lady is being kept in this corridor.”

“How have you been able to track this court?” he asks in his lowest tone as he follows, unable to contain his curiosity. In his beast form, he could scent Lady Cybele, but he and Helion had agreed to remain in their High Fae forms, for any subtler magic and diplomacy required. Yet Helion walks down the dark hallway without a sound, without so much as a sideways glance to confirm that he’s moving in the correct direction. Perhaps all these years later, he is still besotted with Cybele. Perhaps he thinks this will be a romantic rescue.

“They call me Spellcleaver with good reason.”

The door opens before Helion touches it, and at first Tamlin thinks that the High Lord of Day has opened it with his magic, one more flourish, but Helion whips his head toward him, his braids flying with the motion.

Inside the room, the Lady of Autumn sits on a plush armchair surrounded by a hundred threads of fire, caging her so that she cannot make the smallest movement.

“Come to find your lover?”

The voice is a cruel distortion of Lucien’s, and in a flash, Tamlin’s sword is at Ealars’ throat.

“I wish I was surprised to see you make your mother a prisoner in her own court,” he says, debating whether to take off Ealars’ head or merely incapacitate him. Meanwhile, Helion works frantically at the spells that control the cage.

The room fills with heat, diffusing from the flaming chains. The glow illuminates Ealars’ grin.

“I don’t understand why you won’t just give them up,” Ealars says, and then the magic surrounds Tamlin, that spiky potent power that does not belong in this world. Not wholly Autumn Court magic, but Koschei’s, too, multiplying Ealars’ power so that it rivals a High Lord’s.

Tamlin slams his shield in place, covering Helion and Cybele. His sword clangs to the ground, thrown by the force of his own magic. Tamlin reaches for the sword he’d strapped across his back, palms a dagger in his other hand.

“He was trying to bind you,” Helion says, his fingers working around the bindings as if he’s trying to assess their width and tension.

“And here I thought you would need to concentrate on your task.” Tamlin doesn’t want to think about the implications of being bound by Koschei’s magic.

“I’ve reached the level of brilliance which allows for multitasking.” And, perfectly timed with his self-praise, Helion reaches into the strings of fire and bends them. There’s no hint of pain on his face, no arrogance in his gaze that’s focused only on Cybele’s pale face, only a recognition, as if to say finally. Her russet eyes are bright as she looks up at him. Tamlin has always known the Lady of Autumn to be shy and retreating, but there’s no hesitation in her bold look, only certainty, a claiming.

Once the flames have parted enough to allow the movement, Helion rests his thumb on her cheek, studies her face as if he means to memorize each feature. Though the caging spell still partially binds her, neither of them makes the slightest motion apart from the other.

Tamlin is about to clear his throat, remind them that they are in the middle of a battle, when the room goes dark and a new power batters his shield.

“Trust Rhys to make a grand entrance,” Helion says without so much as raising his eyes, only lifting the chains of fire aside like a curtain and holding out his other hand for Cybele to step through.

The High Lord of Night had been tasked with offering the remaining Vanserra brothers the opportunity for retreat, or ending their lives. Apparently he’d made quick work of the rest of Lucien’s family.

Outside the shield, the mixture of fire and Koschei’s magic battle the dark expanse of Rhysand’s power and for once, Rhysand isn’t the clear victor. Koschei’s power seems to eat away at his magic, absorbing it to grow stronger.

“Can you get yourself out of here?” he asks Helion, who has joined in the analysis of the skirmish outside their shield, the Lady of Autumn tucked in to his side. “There’s something wrong with this magic.”

“This isn’t Ealars’ power,'' Cybele says, her voice hoarse from disuse or abuse or some awful combination. “It was the price of his allegiance.”

“Did all of your sons ally with Koschei?” Tamlin asks, watching Helion wince at the oversight but waiting, one eye on Rhys, for Cybele’s response.

“The three in this keep. The day after their father died. Koschei said it was more power than any of the High Lords possesses on their own.”

“Then we will need a stratagem to escape,” Helion says, eyeing Rhysand, whose tan face has gone pale, the darkness of his magic now translucent.

“I’m faster with a sword than Ealars.” Tamlin tries to summon belief in this statement, tries not to think of Vassa, the shell that remains of her every night. “I can hold him at bay until the rest of you escape.”

Because his mother is there, Tamlin does not say, until I kill your son, even though that is his plan. Still, Cybele goes from pale to ghostly as she realizes his unstated implications.

“And how will you get out?” Helion asks, reaching out his hand. Though Tamlin will refuse it, this offer for escape, he is grateful. That, if this is the end for him, it didn’t happen when he was useless and raging, alone in the forests of the Spring Court. That someone would want to rescue him.

He shakes his head, finds himself somehow grinning.

“People tend to run from the beast. Just get her out, Helion.”

Helion nods.

Tamlin drops the shield. Instantly, Cybele and Helion vanish, and Koschei’s power spears toward Tamlin.

He dodges the blow and runs with his sword instead of his magic, throwing up a small shield as he runs toward Ealars. Lately he has found success in a stealthy approach but now he roars out his battle cry, so that, for just a second, the fire mixed with otherworldly magic wanes, and Rhys’ magic rises in the room.

Within seconds, night is a slender cord around Ealars’ neck.

Tamlin vaults toward the gasping male, trying to dodge the bolts of spiky magic that Ealars flings around the room. He is so close, he needs only to take one more step.

He hardly has time to see or hear the magic, let alone react, when his left side explodes with pain, as if his own flesh is consuming itself.

Still, Tamlin digs in deep to all his warrior’s training. He reaches out with his sword, one heaving slash of the blade and then another, until there is a thump and the room descends into a ringing silence.

Strange, that he cannot see Ealars fall. That the head that fell from his body already seems a long-past memory, the blood trailing his neck, his face frozen in an expression of horror, Ealars’ last look at the world. It all goes gray and distant.

There is only the pain in his side, but even that pain has receded now, a scream in the distance.

He opens his eyes and Rhysand stands over him, and even in the haze of ringing gray ache, Tamlin knows that Rhys’ smile is forced.

“Elain is going to kill me if you don’t survive this,” he says, and then, for Tamlin at least, the world goes empty, dark, and roaring.

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acowat · 4 years

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“It’s a Point of Pride”

Disclaimer: I don’t own these characters. They’re owned by Sarah J. Maas.

Kinda NSFW

Though Azriel had been courting, to use the human term, Elain for months, they hadn’t been more physical than a few kisses here or there. He wanted more than that, his Illyrian instincts pushing him to take more, but he knew she wasn’t ready. He’d never push her into anything she wasn’t prepared for fully, and though she’d been Fae for nearly five years, she still clung to her human manners.

He didn’t begrudge her that, could never begrudge her anything that brought her comfort. Watching her transition into a Fae had been challenging for everyone; of course, no one more than her. But it wasn’t easy for those who love her to watch her struggle to adjust to a new body, a new life in a place with foreign customs.

So it was a bit of a surprise when, one night, she set down her glass of wine, having grown comfortable enough to indulge in a glass or two, and asked him, “what is it like, making love?”

Azriel choked on his wine, already aware her inquiry hadn’t been overheard by the other patrons of Velaris’s most exclusive restaurant. He’d paid the maitre d’ handsomely for a table tucked into a secluded corner, shadowed from view.

“What--Why--Where is this coming from?”

“Living with Feyre and Rhysand,” she had enough leftover human modesty to blush as she spoke. “I’ve heard some things. Feyre and Mor like to talk. And it isn’t exactly quiet at the townhouse.”

Azriel tried to think quickly, something he’d almost never had an issue with before, but his brain had just stopped working. He knew, he hoped, he and Elain would eventually talk about sex, maybe engage in a little hands-on learning, but he wasn’t prepared for her to just spring this on him during dinner.

“First of all, we’re moving you out of that townhouse. Tomorrow.”

Elain laughed but nodded, clearly ready to be away from Rhys and Feyre. Nasty little shi--

“I don’t mean to make you uncomfortable, Az. I’ve just been thinking about it lately and--”

“Thinking about it?” Azriel’s brain had finally caught up and then some. Thinking about it? With him...?

Elain blushed deeper but looked up at him from beneath her lashes. She knocked his breath right out of him. To think that this unbelievably beautiful, kind, thoughtful woman had been thinking about sex lately...

Azriel was suddenly very glad he was sitting, across the table from Elain, as he subtly adjusted himself.

“I’m not uncomfortable, El. A little surprised, to be sure, but primarily I just don’t want to make you uncomfortable by telling you too much.”

Elain paused a moment, looking thoughtful.

“Maybe I could ask you some specific questions I’ve been contemplating? Obviously I’ve been hearing things from Mor and Feyre, even Nesta, and I heard some rumors as a human, but I don’t actually know how many of them are true.”

It was only his five centuries of stealth training that kept his surprise, and eagerness, from his face. Azriel wasn’t a deviant by any means, having gone long stretches of time without sex, both out of necessity and choice. Rhys and Cass had always been more of the sex-crazed ones, especially now that they were both mated.

So though he was eager, he wasn’t expecting to even talk about sex with Elain for a while. He was prepared to wait until he proposed, or until they were married, unsure how tightly Elain still clung to that human modesty. And he could’ve waited forever, knowing how thoroughly he loved her, how confident he was that he would ask her to marry him. He wasn’t as confident she’d say yes, still unsure Lucien wouldn’t come back from his extended stay with Vassa and Elain wouldn’t decide she’d rather be with him, her mate.

“Az?”

“Yes, love, sorry. I’ll try my best to answer any of your questions.” Her returning smile told him she perhaps suspected where his thoughts were leaning, though he doubted she knew his thoughts were on marrying her, not--

“How much does it hurt? I know from my sisters that it doesn’t generally hurt, but how long does it take...to not...hurt?”

“It doesn’t have to hurt at all.” The relief on her face nearly broke Azriel’s heart. The thought that she was dreading sex for fear of the pain...He started to wish she had asked him a long time ago.

“The first time can be a little uncomfortable, but if you have a partner who respects you enough to take their time, it shouldn’t hurt. Though Feyre or Nesta would probably be better equipped to tell you how long it takes to, uh, adjust.”

Azriel couldn’t stop his own blush, then. His mastery of his own emotions didn’t seem to extend to Elain, who always seemed to catch him off guard, a feat in itself. When he calmed himself down enough to look at her again, his anticipation of her next question grew sharply, as he considered her face, eyes resting on her hands.

“I...I heard, from some girls in the village, that...making love doesn’t feel...good. But Feyre seems to enjoy it, so I don’t really understand why she would want to keep...doing that if it isn’t pleasant?”

“It’s generally less, uh, enjoyable for women than for Fae females.”

“Why? Are men worse than Fae males?”

Azriel couldn’t stop the smirk on his face.

“It’s not so much a matter of skill as a matter of concern. Mortal men are less concerned about the, uh, satisfaction of their partner than Fae males are.”

Elain seemed to contemplate this answer for a while, keeping quiet as her eyes roamed the restaurant. Azriel’s heart skipped a beat when Elain lifted her eyes to his and said, “What about Illyrians?”

He could feel the crooked smile grace his face, one of Elain’s favorites as she’d told him.

“For all their backward customs, Illyrians are much like Fae males in that regard. Satisfying our partners, it’s a point of pride.”

Elain looked down again and lightly bit her lip. He wasn’t sure if it was in contemplation or in anticipation, but he had to physically restrain himself from leaping across the table and biting her lip for himself. They locked eyes across the table, and he was mesmerized.

Azriel had no idea how long they gazed into each other's eyes, his hand in hers, thumb grazing her knuckles. It felt like hours later when Elain squeezed his hand and leaned forward.

“Are you ready to go?”

Azriel nodded and led Elain out of the restaurant and into the chilled Velaris evening. As they walked along the well-lit street, Azriel noticed again the gown Elain was wearing: light purple with loose straps draped below her shoulders, half of her back exposed. It was gorgeous on her, but she had to be cold now that the sun had fallen.

Azriel took off his jacket and draped it across her shoulders. She smiled up at him, her eyes soft, and he could’ve fallen in love all over again. They walked in comfortable silence for a while, until they reached the turn that led to Feyre and Rhys’s townhouse.

“Out of questions?” Azriel asked, turning toward the townhouse. Instead of following him, she grabbed his hand and pulled him to a stop.

“No, but I was hoping we might go somewhere a little more private,” she said with a smile, a smile Azriel had never seen before. It was almost a smirk, an enticing, sexy ass smirk.

He froze, mind reeling. Was she suggesting--?

“El--”

“It doesn’t have to be a huge deal, Azriel. I want this.”

“You’re right, it doesn’t have to be a big deal but it is a big deal. I don’t expect anything of you, El.”

“You didn’t grow up with the same culture I did. You grew up in a place where women are expected to please men and I--”

“That doesn’t matter to me!” He regretted raising his voice when Elain’s eyes widened, but he couldn’t stop himself.

Forcing himself to calm down, he whispered, “Elain, I love you. I’m happy with you, happier than I have ever been in my 500 years. I don’t need to have sex with you to be happy. That doesn’t mean I don’t want you because, believe me, I do. But I don’t need that. I want you to be comfortable, with me, with yourself, with that decision before we ever even consider it.”

Her brown eyes, glistening in the starlight, stared up at him for a moment before she put her small hand on his neck and drew his lips to hers softly. He grasped her waist, pulling her closer and deepening the kiss. She pulled away, just a centimeter, and whispered against his lips.

“Okay.”

Azriel pulled back further, enough to see her expression. Her face held some leftover frustration but a smile nonetheless.

“Okay?”

“Okay, I’ll think about it more. I want that with you, Az, but I don’t know if I’m quite ready yet.”

Azriel pulled his love closer, placing his lips softly against her forehead for a moment before replying.

“Elain, I’ve waited over 500 years for you. I can wait awhile longer.”

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tntwme · 7 years

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I’m Never Going to Leave You - Part 3

My first ever fanfic attempts. Part one can be found here, Part two here. Enjoy!

********************

“You.” Nesta was startled by a voice at the library doorway. “I knew I liked you.” With a coy grin Amren walked into the library.

“Amren,” Cassian snickered at her, “I thought you were still at Summer. What happened? Get sick of your boy toy alrea-“ He chocked on the rest of his sentence as Varian walked in behind Amren.

Varian raised an eyebrow at Cassian, almost daring him to finish that sentence. Instead, Cassian strode over to him and clasped arms with him. “No harm meant, Varian.”

As the two men continued talking, Amren made her way over to Nesta. “It’s about time you did something about Morrigan and her behavior towards you. Just watch out for whatever she might have in store for you after this.”

“I can take care of myself.” Nesta replied cooly.

“We’ll see about that, girl. You haven’t done a very good job of it for the past month, have you?”

Nesta’s gray-blue eyes sparked and narrowed in anger at Amren. How dare this little female blatantly call her out on her behavior this past month! “I wouldn’t expect you to understand. It’s not like you’ve been around here to help in any way, too busy with your…Varian.” Nesta blushed at almost having called him her boy toy like Cassian had.

Amren chuckled. “It’s good to see you still have that fire in you. You’re going to need it.”

Before Nesta could ask what she meant, Cassian and Varian joined them. “So what brings the two of you back to the Night Court, little monster?”

“Watch it, Cassian, or you’ll be missing your favorite dangling parts before you can put them to good use.” Although she was considerably shorter than he was, Amren still smirked down her nose at Cassian, who foolishly wasn’t backing down an inch.

Thankfully, Varian answered his question. “Amren brought me here so I could ask a favor of you. I’d like the opportunity for me and my men to train with you and the Illyrian army.”

By the look on his face, Cassian was clearly surprised by this request. Nesta was confused. “What do you mean, train? The war is over.”

“THIS war is over, but there is always another war, girl.” Ignoring Nesta’s bristling stare, Amren moved over to the couch and sat down. “It may be soon or it may be centuries in the future, but there is always someone fighting somewhere and inevitably we will have to get involved. It’s best to be prepared. Besides, what else are those men going to do with all that time on their hands every day?” Snorting, Amren waved her hand and a tray of fruit appeared on the end table. She picked up a strawberry while Varian plucked up a pair and sat down next to her.

Cassian nodded in agreement. “It’s best to keep training every day, no matter that it’s a time of peace now. Think of how much worse it would have been against Hybern if we hadn’t had trained warriors to fight him.” Nesta flinched at the reminder that her lack of training with her powers had nearly cost Cassian his life, and did cost thousands of warriors their lives. It had also killed her father. Her guilt resurfaced with a vengeance, and she wrapped her arms around herself tightly.

Turning to Varian, Cassian explained to him, “I’ll have to get permission from my High Lord and Lady. I’m assuming you have Tarquin’s approval to make this request?” At Varian’s nod, Cassian continued, “Then I’ll ask them when I see them in the morning.” Cassian picked up a bunch of grapes and began popping them into his mouth, chewing silently, already strategizing for the training that would take place.

Nesta’s heart was beginning to race. Another war? Would there be one again soon? Who would it be this time? Perhaps the human queens were even now gathering forces, forming plans for the destruction of Prythian. Vassa had said her fellow queens posed a threat. The Wall was gone, the Treaty was voided and there was still a lot of unknowns in the future between Prythian and the humans. Peace was still a fleeting hope, nothing solid. And who knew what other monsters lurked in these lands, or across the seas?

Nesta shivered and tightened her hold on her arms, gulping in air in quick little gasps as her mind spiraled into the darkness she’d been fighting off earlier, fighting off forever it now seemed. She couldn’t do this. She couldn’t survive another war, she couldn’t watch as thousands fought and died and everyone she knew risked their lives again. They would depend on her for something and she would fail them, again, and this time someone else would die, maybe this time it would be someone she couldn’t live without, someone like-

Cassian’s grip on her shoulders tightened, he was standing right in front of her, she hadn’t even seem him move closer to her. “Nesta, it’s ok. Nothing is happening. We are still here, still in the library. I’m right here. I’m with you.” His soothing voice and calming words broke through her panic and he watched as her breathing slowed and evened out. Slowly her gray-blue eyes regained their focus and she locked her gaze onto his hazel eyes until she could breathe easily again. Embarrassed, she glanced over to the couch and found it empty.

“I told them we’d catch up with them at breakfast. They didn’t notice anything. At least, Varian didn’t. Who knows what Amren sees?” With a little smirk Cassian dropped his hands from her shoulders and the absence of their warmth made her shiver. “How about we go up to the roof and relax for a while before bed?” Only the lack of any innuendo in his voice convinced her to go along, so she nodded her head and followed him to the roof.

He held the door open for her as she followed him onto the rooftop. Making their way to the lounge chairs, Cassian sat on a swinging bench designed to accommodate his wings. Nesta sat next to him, and he rhythmically swung them back and forth, using one foot to push them to and fro. They remained silent as they listened to the sounds of Valaris, the quiet murmur of adult voices and the laughter of children on the evening air. Settling himself more comfortably in the swing he spread an arm across the back of the bench behind Nesta and closed his eyes, careful not to crowd her.

Looking up at his profile, Nesta studied the shape of his forehead, the curl of his hair around his jawline, the outline of his lips. She remembered being surprised at their softness when he kissed her on the battlefield. She wouldn’t have thought those lips could be so gentle. And warm. She remembered the blaze of heat she felt as his lips touched hers, so briefly. Too briefly. She shivered, and Cassian, feeling her tremble, opened his eyes and put his arm around her shoulders, pulling her close to him. “There’s a bit of a chill up here tonight, isn’t there?”

Humming something noncommittal, Nesta snuggled in closer to Cassian’s warmth, feeling a thrill along her spine as his arm wrapped more tightly around her, holding her closer to his body. Tentatively, she laid her head on his shoulder as he started to rock them back and forth once more. Soon, his warmth and the gentle sway of the swing had her eyes drooping, and as she nestled in deeper against Cassian she thought she heard him murmur right before she fell asleep, “Sleep, Nesta. I’m not going to leave you.”

#acowar #nessian #cassian #nesta #amren and varian #amren #varian #acomaf #acotar #nicsfics

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so-about-that-dragon · 7 years

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Chapter 5

[Author’s note] Okay, so I’m down with a migraine today and thus this chapter might be a little less... well, it’ll be a little less. I’m honestly just forcing myself to write SOMETHING so I stay on track, so you’re getting weird fluff today. Sorry.

Three days into their journey, it started to rain like the spirits themselves were also opposed to their quest. With no villages nearby and no sign of the weather letting up, their only options were to keep going or to camp out until the weather passed. They tried to power through as best they could, but the amount of sound from the rain was making it difficult for Skye to navigate without assistance and, after the third river that was so bloated with rain water that they could not safely cross, Devero admitted defeat and found a high ledge to set up a tent on that would hopefully be free of any potential floods or mud slides.

Unfortunately, after a day and a half of being cooped up inside their tent and still no end to the rain in sight, everyone was tired of living on top of each other and more than ready to get back on the road. Grey and Devero had tried and failed to pass the time by sparring in the rain, but after the third time one of them nearly cracked their heads open slipping on the rain slicked rocks, Skye was forced to put an end to it. Skye himself was far less functional than usual, the heightened sense of hearing that normally allowed him to navigate his environment turning into a never-ending headache from the constant sound of rain pounding down on their tent. Lokai was trying to cope with his cabin fever by reading, but even that was only getting him so far.

Grey was only resisting the urge to whine petulantly about being bored by reminding himself that Skye was capable of making his life absolutely miserable if he irritated him too much.

“We may as well get moving,” Devero finally suggested, “it’s only another day to the ruins and I’m bored out of my skull.”

Lokai, who was draped haphazardly across Grey’s lap in an effort to find a new, more comfortable position to read, looked up, “In this? It’s miserable outside.”

“It’s miserable in here,” Grey grumbled. “I’ll take riding through the rain over being stuck here another day.” He pushed at Lokai’s leg, “Your hips are digging in to my leg.”

“Sorry,” Lokai muttered, shifting to the side so that his hips were no longer on Grey’s leg but his body was now pressed against the crown prince’s stomach. “That better?”

Grey shifted the leg under the lower part of Lokai’s ribs so it was supporting his chest better. Lokai gave him a grateful smile and went back to reading.

“Oh, if your father could see this,” Devero chuckled, “a lowly commoner using the crown prince of Vassa as his personal pillow. There’d be riots.”

“Yeah, well, you move too much,” Lokai said without looking up, “and Skye would probably eviscerate me if I dared try to lay on him, so Grey’s the only option. As long as his highness doesn’t mind, of course.”

“His highness is going to kick your ass if you call him that again,” Grey muttered.

Skye poked Lokai’s cheek, “When have I ever tried to eviscerate anyone?”

Lokai swatted at his hand, “Fine, incinerate. Whatever. You’re scary and don’t like to be touched.”

One of Skye’s eyebrows rose, “Scary? In what way?”

“You mean other than the whole ‘no facial expression so we don’t know if you’re plotting to murder us or not’ thing?” Lokai asked.

“Or your uncanny ability to know what all of us are thinking at any given time and generally being three steps ahead of everyone,” Devero added.

“Or the bit where you can control fire,” Grey suggested, “that’s pretty damn alarming.”

A small, satisfied smile crept across Skye’s face, “Well, at least you have a healthy respect for your situation.”

Grey shared and exasperated look with Devero. He leaned over Lokai and intentionally put his face uncomfortably close to Skye’s, “Whenever you’re done letting us stroke your ego, care to tell us if we’re getting back on the road or not?”

Skye put his hand over Grey’s face and shoved him away, “Just for that, yes, and you get to pack up the tent, your highness.”

Lokai took pity on Grey and helped him pack the tent while Devero and Skye got the horses saddled and ready. Both younger men were far more interested in teasing each other than actually packing and subsequently took twice as long to do their job, but Devero and Skye made no effort to stop them. They were all soaked through within minutes despite their heavy cloaks, but no one particularly minded. Soaked was still better than stuck in the tent.

“They’re never going to grow up, are they?” Skye asked quietly and Grey shoved Lokai hard enough for him to go sliding across the wet rock.

Devero chuckled and put a massive, scarred arm around Skye’s shoulders, “As if you actually want them to.” He pressed a kiss to Skye’s temple, “You love them both just the way they are.”

Skye leaned against Devero’s side and simply listened to them for a few minutes. Grey was laughing and Lokai was trying, and failing, to grab the much faster prince for some vaguely defined punishment. He could feel the quiet laughter in Devero’s chest as he watched them, the subtle way the Shield’s hand twitched every time Grey or Lokai came a little too close to the ledge or lost his footing. Combined with the sound of shouting and footsteps splashing across stone and canvas in the rain, Skye could easily picture the scene before him and smiled despite himself.

For just a moment, he could feel Grey’s eyes on him, on them, but the prince made no comment and went on as though nothing had happened, as though he hadn’t just seen the first blatant affection Devero and Skye had ever dared show in front of him. Devero’s heartbeat had shifted, just slightly, just enough to betray the single moment’s anxiety the prince’s gaze had brought about. Devero’s weight shifted a little as he used his free arm to catch something one of the boys threw at him, probably the rolled tent.

“Alright love birds,” Lokai called, “let’s get this show on the road.”

“Watch it, pipsqueak,” Devero growled. He helped Skye onto his horse before mounting his own. Skye’s horse was trained to keep step with Devero’s, so they did not need to worry about it wandering off if Skye’s senses were too heavily dampened by the rain, but Devero kept close to Skye just the same. Grey and Lokai were riding closer to them than normal as well.

It was the way their little group had evolved since Skye had lost his sight, always close enough to help, to watch over him, but never so close that they became suffocating. Unlike the family that had taken to treating him like glass or the nobles who ignored him, Grey, Devero, and Lokai still treated him as they always had, protective, loyal, and willing to adapt for him.

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areyoudreaminof · 4 months

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WIP Wednesday

Just a little WIP before the holidays. I hope your holiday and new year is peaceful and stress free. ❤️

The loud knocks and sobs from behind the door wretched Lucien from a deep sleep.

He awoke with a start, momentarily forgetting where he was as the knocking continued. The stirring next to him reminded him where he was.

He was in his bed in the manor, Elain sleeping next to him, sitting up in confusion, with the sheet covering her bare body. “What’s going on?” she asked groggily as they both shot out of bed, throwing on whatever clothing they could find. Lucien slept naked, and he had gotten Elain into the habit. While it was usually the best thing that had ever happened to Lucien, he regretted it slightly as he hopped into a pair of breeches.

Lucien flung the door open, positioning his body in front of Elain’s, but it was only Vassa standing in the hallway. The queen's red hair looked frazzled and her cheeks were streaked with tears. “You have to come downstairs,” she stammered, “it’s terrible.”

Lucien grabbed a dagger off of the dresser, while Elain wrapped her arms around Vassa. Flying down the stairs, they were met with a rather empty looking parlor, Jurian standing away from them, hands behind his back. He looked over his shoulder, “Sofa’s broken.” He grunted, stepping aside.

The bright pink sofa was teetering to one side, a thick wooden foot clearly cracked, and the bottom frame teetering out of the linen underside. Whipping his head back, Lucien caught Vassa’s eye.

“You woke us up for the sofa.” He stated, trying to string the words together. “No one is hurt, we’re not under attack-“

“The sofa is broken, Lucien!” Vassa snapped, gesturing wildly towards the hot pink piece of furniture. “I want to know who did this! Sofas don’t break just like that!” Elain met Lucien’s eye with a wide eyed look, sending pure confusion down the bond.

Jurian sighed as he stomped over, “Vassa, we don’t know how old the sofa was. We sit on it at all hours, we nap on it-“

“No, sitting and napping do not destroy a sofa like that!” Vassa growled. She rounded onto Lucien pointing a finger in his face, “Someone jumped on it! Confess your crimes!” Lucien crossed his eyes as she waved a hand in his face.

“I haven’t done anything, bird brain!” Lucien exclaimed, pushing her hand away. “You’re jumping to conclusions for no-“

“Someone broke the sofa and it certainly wasn’t me-“

“Vassa! That’s enough!”

Lucien, still reeling with shock and utter confusion, turned to Elain, whose voice silenced the squawking bird queen. Tightening the robe around her, Elain sighed deeply as she pulled Lucien back.

“Vassa, Jurian is right. It’s an old style sofa and we’re always on it because it’s the most comfortable. Tomorrow, the boys will try and fix it,” she eyed Lucien and Jurian sternly, “and you and I will look for one in the catalogs and send an order if they can’t. Now, we have had a long few days with all of the negotiating with humans and Spring Court interpersonal drama we can hear all the way down here, so can we please get some rest?”

Lucien threw his arms around Elain and pressed a kiss to her wild curls, if only to get himself to stop laughing. Jurian had the same problem, his eyes wide as he sucked his cheeks in to keep from bursting.

Only Vassa had the composure to reply with a hissing, “Fine.” as the merry band retreated to their rooms.

Lucien and Elain and stripped the moment the door shut behind them, flopping back into bed. Glancing at the clock, Lucien calculated he could try and get a few more hours of sleep and negotiate a mid morning start to the sofa, when he suddenly remembered-

“That sofa is not old at all, is it?”

Elain shrugged as she nestled deeper into the sheets, hitching her leg over his. “Probably a few years old. Sitting parlors usually get newer furniture. It’s the most comfortable one in the house. So of course it wore out.” Lucien snorted with laughter as his hand crept down her spine, ever so slowly. “Oh, of course. We certainly didn’t have anything to do with it, did we?” His hand reached her plump ass as he gave it a squeeze. They’d made love earlier in the evening and in the afternoon, but they were awake again, Lucien thought to himself.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Lucien.” Elain said with indifference, though she flipped over to straddle him, having gotten the same notion he had. “The two of us couldn’t have possibly broken that couch.” Before he could answer her, Elain caught Lucien’s bottom lip with her teeth. “This is much more fun on the sofa.” Elain gasped as she kissed Lucien again, hyper aware of their housemates down the hall.

#elucien #band of exiles #wip

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houseofhurricane · 3 years

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ACOTAR Fic: Bloom & Bone (18/28) | Elain x Tamlin, Lucien x Vassa

A/N: Everyone is back at the Spring Court, but nothing is as Elain imagined. I hope you enjoy! You can find all previous chapters here, or read Bloom & Bone on AO3. Thank you for reading! ❤️ There will be no new chapter next week because I will be on vacation with limited wifi, but after that, it's full steam ahead until the end.

Once Lucien takes Vassa to their room, Rhys and Tamlin agree to survey the wards on the estate, and Elain waits with Feyre and Eris for any sign of Koschei. She does not know what use she’ll be, but though her dress is torn and there are leaves tangled in her hair, Elain is not willing to leave the great hall.

“Will you go to the Autumn Court and claim your title?” Feyre asks Eris, her voice carefully neutral.

“I think that even with your limited years in Prythian, you will understand that such a thing is not a simple matter of appearing on the throne,” Eris responds in that silken tone which is seemingly not affected by torture or pain.

He shoots a look at Elain that indicates her presence is unwelcome. She crosses her arms.

Then Feyre turns to her.

“Can you give us a moment?” her sister asks, in that too-gentle voice that knows that Elain could not do what was needed in the moment of crisis, that she will always need rescuing.

But this is not some private room in which she can tell Feyre what is the matter. She is standing before the High Lady of the Night Court and the High Lord of the Autumn Court, and she’s been dismissed.

She forces her lips into the approximation of a smile and leaves the room, pushes her way out of the great wooden doors, and walks into the garden.

Elain has imagined this moment, her return to the gardens of the Spring Court, so many times. She would be walking with Vassa, healed and happy, and Elain would share her plans for the new garden, new hybrids developed on the continent or a more pleasing arrangement of plants, and Vassa would tell her a story about Scythia, which would make her laugh and also contain a thinly-veiled lesson on what it would mean to rule. There would be an affectionate joke about Lucien, perhaps a reference to Tamlin that would have Elain blushing, but mostly she would savor the nighttime walk in the garden with her friend, who would trust that Elain was capable of nearly anything.

Now Vassa screams at her touch.

Elain makes it as far as the edge of her field of tulips before she falls to her knees, ready for the sobs to overtake her. Instead, there is a great roaring emptiness inside of her. She’s surprised to realize that this feeling is not unfamiliar, something akin to what she felt in the Night Court months and months ago, convinced she’d turn into a monster. The feeling that she’d once had a purpose, only to find it had abandoned her.

She does not want to go back to the Spring Court, or to the Night Court, or even to all of Helion’s libraries. Instead, Elain thinks about wandering the forest, letting the low-hanging branches tear at her until she is dirty and empty and snarling.

Still, when she hears the sound of footsteps behind her, Elain does not fight. She freezes. She feels the hand on her and then she does the only thing she knows: she disappears.

Elain had worried that she’d lost this ability because of Koschei’s magic, that she’d be bound to her own world forever, but she leaves Prythian behind as easily as a leaf falls to the earth, the Spring Court gardens giving way to the familiar passageways.

Tamlin is beside her.

Watching the play of emotions on his face, Elain is sure he’s going to rage at her, point out every stupid decision she’s made, every risk and every failure, but instead one of his hands goes to her shoulder, the other to her chin, gently lifting her face until their eyes meet.

What she sees in his eyes makes everything else dissolve into mist around her. His green eyes do not waver in their gaze on her, as if he can behold every piece of her. She could never have imagined a look that tender, that hopeful, that concerned, that kind. The fairytales never went into such specifics.

“Are you all right?” he asks, the words so gentle and raw that Elain begins to cry. Not the screaming sobs she imagined. Instead, her tears leak out from her eyes, silent as they fall to her cheeks.

“I couldn’t save her,” she says. Her voice goes high and plaintive, a child’s wail. “I couldn’t take her to a place where she’d be safe. And she was there for so long. And the way she screamed when I touched her. I thought I was helping but all I did was cause her pain.”

The thought brings on the sobbing, her shoulders heaving with the recollection of Vassa’s screaming, the fact that even in the face of her friend’s suffering, Elain did not let her go. The fact that in the end, all she’s learned, all her abilities, were of no use.

Tamlin does not tell her to stop crying, does not tell her it is all right, doesn’t even remind her that everyone is waiting at the Spring Court, that there is every chance they’ll be retaliated against by Koschei or some unknown ally. Instead he draws her against him, her cheek against his chest, his hands on her back, up and down her spine, over and over, until her sobs calm.

“Without you, we wouldn’t have known that Vassa and Eris were in danger in the first place. You were the one who drew us together, who made the strategy.”

“Koschei will just claim her again.”

“We won’t allow that to happen,” he says, his hands cupping her shoulders, warm even through the heavy beading on her gown. But some perverse part of Elain is tired of being comforted.

“You think the High Lords will be willing to sacrifice themselves for the safety of a human queen?”

“I’m not talking about the High Lords. I mean you and Lucien. And me.” The last part comes after a hesitation, phrased almost as a question.

Her mind shifts them, to his appearance in the clearing.

“What happened to the shield against Koschei?”

“Feyre realized you were in trouble. She or Rhysand winnowed me to you. Koschei built a trap into the spell he has on Vassa. Likely it’s on Eris as well.”

She knows this will have political implications for Eris, but she cannot think about those now. Not when she’s dismissed from the rooms where such matters are discussed.

“I should have thought that Koschei wouldn’t make rescue so easy. Not when everyone was telling me to wait.”

He pulls away from her, meets her eyes, and does not look away.

“There is always a point where courage seems like stupidity.”

She shakes her head, tries for a smile. Of course Tamlin would know this.

“You’re being too nice to me,” she says. She was trained all her life to read the desires of men on their faces, and she knows when there’s something they’re not saying.

He sighs, looks away from her.

“You tried to do everything on your own. If you were anyone else, I would have started by saying that you should have let go of Vassa the moment she started screaming. Lucien could have winnowed her, or Feyre or Rhysand. You didn’t know what magic Koschei was working. And when I thought you were in danger, I… I was willing to sacrifice myself for you, Elain. To buy you the time to save Vassa, or run to safety. I would gladly make the same decision again. But you did not show the same amount of trust.”

She looks at him for a long moment. His muscles are tensed against her, as if he is waiting for her to rage at him, or else to disappear and leave him stranded between worlds. It occurs to her, then, that he is completely at her mercy.

In the space of that realization, all her angry thoughts toward Feyre evaporate. All she can think about is that if he braces for rejection in the face of such a gentle critique, he must have faced it from everyone he ever cared for. That she is now one of those people. Elain isn’t sure if it’s the mating bond, but this idea is a heady one, thrumming through her body.

There are a thousand reasons she should distrust Tamlin, even now, but she pushes each one firmly aside.

“I think you’re right,” she says, her voice a thread, swallowed up by the expanse around them.

When she sees the slight widening of his eyes, the surprise at her acceptance, she wants to fling herself at him, press her mouth to his. But they need to return. There is work to do, still, and she cannot lose herself to this desire, she cannot be the person who winds up trapped by the idea of romance.

And though Elain wants to trust Tamlin, believe that he has changed, that his past is behind him, she’s still comforted by the fact that in this place, she is the one with the power. That despite all his training, the arms that heft a broadsword without hesitation, the thighs that strain at his pants, she could trap him with a thought. In another world, he cannot harm her.

So instead of kissing him, she steps out of the circle of his arms, says, “We should go back to the Spring Court.”

“I need you to go to the Summer Court.” He looks down at her but she doesn’t feel him looming, only the earnestness of his gaze. Still, she steels herself.

“In case Koschei comes for Vassa and Eris?”

“Because I’d like you to tell the High Lords of Prythian everything that has happened while I ensure my court is secure. I’m asking you to be my emissary.”

“Why me?”

“You see what nobody else does, Elain, and beneath your lovely face is a mind that never stops. I think only a fool would underestimate you, but it seems this world is full of fools.”

His little speech is pure poetry, everything she’s ever dreamed a man or male could say to her, more than she ever expected. Still Elain remains out of the circle of his arms. She was part of the deliberations between Tamlin and Lucien over the meeting of the High Lords, the bickering that turned thunderous. As much as she wants to believe them, she knows firsthand how words can be manipulated, how a story of disaster can be turned into an epic tale of bravery and vulnerability and redemption. And while she believes both halves of this story when it comes to the Spring Court, tonight her heart feels too bruised and tired to take the risk on Tamlin.

“You’re sure Lucien won’t mind losing his post?”

“Lucien has been revealed as the heir to the Day Court and will likely be the consort of the Queen of Scythia. Even if he’d like to reclaim the position in the future, I don’t think he’ll object to your mission tonight.”

“Then I’ll accept,” she says. “As long as you’ll agree to consider the fact that you’ll still need an army to deal with the Autumn Court and fend off Koschei.”

His mouth thins while he considers.

“What did you see when you were there?”

“I don’t think the Vanserra brothers are ready to hand over the throne to Eris. We can try a diplomatic option but they’re unlikely to be receptive. They threatened Feyre and me with fire when they found us in the Autumn Court.”

His fists are clenched.

“How did you escape?”

“Feyre made a shield of water and we ran as fast as we could.”

“You could have--”

“I know I could have brought you from the passageways,” she says, “but this is going to be a political nightmare already, and we barely have the other courts as our allies.”

She hadn’t realized she’d looked away from him until his hand interrupts her view of the tiled flooring of the passageways. She reaches for him and their fingers intertwine, effortless.

“We will require an army,” he says, and Elain could swear that the air fills with the scent of springtime, green and sunlit and full of promise.

The High Lords have remained in the same room of the Summer Court, and at first Elain wonders why their expressions are rapt from the moment she appears. Then she realizes that Feyre is speaking, that Vassa is at her side.

“That is the chaos in the Autumn Court,” Feyre says, without acknowledging Elain’s appearance, “but I think that the larger threat to all of us is Koschei.”

“The sorcerer is bound to the lake.” Kallias’ voice sounds certain, but he looks around at the other High Lords as if requesting reassurance.

“He spoke to me of other worlds.” Vassa speaks into the silence, which grows more profound as her words resonate in the room. “He means to conquer them.”

“By what means?” Helion tries for arrogance but Elain can hear the concern, the curiosity in his tone. She has heard those qualities in his speech too many times to miss them.

And it occurs to Elain that she knows the answer to this question, that she’s held it inside of her since that vision long ago. The world shifted around her to make sense of it, and still her thinking mind shielded her a bit longer, as if knowing she was not ready.

Before Feyre can answer, she steps forward to where the rulers of Prythian cannot help but see her, her tired face and the leaves in her hair and the sparkling dress that’s smeared with blood and dirt.

“I think he means to get the Crown on me,” she tells them.

“I heard you were a seer.” Tarquin’s voice is calm, the sea on a sunny day, but Elain wonders what’s lurking below, how his mind moves.

This is the moment when Elain must choose how much of her gifts to reveal. For a second she hesitates, nearly looks to Feyre or Helion for guidance. Instead, she turns to meet Vassa’s eyes.

Though her friend’s face is pale and haunted, her blue eyes blaze bright. The gaze of a queen.

Slowly, because a queen is never hurried, much less by a commoner, Vassa nods at Elain, her lips ever so slightly uptilted.

“I am still learning about my powers,” Elain says, turning back to Tarquin, then letting her gaze rest on each of the High Lords in turn: Kallias, Thesan, and Helion. “But what I thought was the power of foresight seems to be more complicated. I can see the inflection points, where one world becomes another. These worlds are forged by our choices. In one, for example, Koschei captures me and forces the Crown on my head. In another, we defeat him.”

“And why are you the central figure in his plan?” Thesan’s voice is pleasant, almost musical, and yet she sees the tension in his body, nearly hidden. Elain thinks that, should she survive what’s to come, she would like to know him better, learn the way he balances his strength and kindness, the way it is not weakness.

But there is work to do, so she breathes deep and explains to them about the way that she can walk through worlds. She tells the High Lords about the passageways, the way she’s guided by desire, so that she can find the worlds that answer her needs in half a heartbeat. She speaks of the world of Koschei’s origin, the tethering spell, the spell that keeps Vassa in this world.

“There’s one other thing I encountered on my travels,” she says, trying not to sound too excited, too naive. “I found a world where the fae and humans live together, a world at peace. I did not speak the language and looked unlike the humans of that world, but they gave me food and shelter and kindness. When this is over, if we can defeat Koschei, that is the kind of world I want to live in. Where visitors from other realms would like to stay because they know they will be safe.”

“First we will need an army.” Vassa steps in before any of the High Lords can speak, stepping towards Elain but far enough away that their bodies cannot accidentally touch. “First we will need Eris to rule over the Autumn Court. His brothers will be easy targets for Koschei.”

“I thought you would say that we must protect Elain,” Helion says, more steel in his voice than Elain would’ve expected, until she remembers once again that Helion is now Lucien’s acknowledged father, observing his lover for the first time.

“I will not be safe if any court in Prythian falls to Koschei,” she says, shooting a glance at Vassa, makes it as warm and encouraging as she can. “The Spring Court will raise the largest army it can cobble together to support Eris’ claim.”

“The Night Court will back Eris with an army.” Feyre’s voice is as sure and savage as any of the High Lord’s, and this is the moment when Elain has most delighted in her sister, at the swell of her power in the room, her refusal to yield.

“The Illyrians?” Helion asks, crossing his ankle over his knee.

“The Illyrians support Eris.” Feyre crosses her arms over her chest.

“If it cannot be Lucien,” Thesan sighs, “Eris is the best of the lot. The Dawn Court will offer its army.”

Kallias gives a nod, and then the room goes quiet.

“This is what your son would want,” Vassa says, her face aimed at Helion.

“Then why does he not ask me himself?” The words are too hard to be entirely false.

“He is strengthening the wards on the Spring Court against Koschei.” Vassa crosses her arms. “He’d like it clear that he wants to make no claim on the Autumn Court.”

“I see why he likes you, Queen of Scythia,” Helion says, his smile brilliant. “I’ll offer my army.”

“Then we’ll return tomorrow night to discuss our strategy.” Feyre’s gaze sweeps across the room but does not rest on Elain.

“We need to rule our courts,” Kallias says, with a shake of his head. “Give us another night, and bring the firebird queen.”

The other High Lords murmur their agreement, and when Elain steals a glance at Vassa, she could swear her friend is barely concealing a victorious smile. One battle, at least, has been won.

But when they’re in the Spring Court again, Feyre tugs on Elain’s arm, pulls her into an alcove off the great hall.

“Which vision was the lie?” Feyre’s voice is sharp, her fingers pressing into the soft part of Elain’s upper arm, so that she thinks of claws.

“I meant to tell you--”

“I gave you everything you needed, and the High Lords came to your meeting, they left their territories vulnerable against Koschei and the Autumn Court, and you lied. Was there even a true vision? Because I have been looking over my shoulder and wondering how he’d use you, how he’d break you, all the misery that would happen when your vision came true. And all that time you were here, and silent, and I thought you were in danger from him. Are you really such a monster that you needed to hurt me? Or are you in league with him, trying to have us all tearing at each other’s throats until you truly do wear a crown?”

At first Feyre’s words had been ragged and filled with hurt and rage, but gradually the emotion had disappeared, leaving only a flat despair.

Elain had never stopped to consider the impact of her lie on Feyre. She’d been so focused on her escape, the life she’d made in fits and starts in the Spring Court, her power. Just as she’s always been, she realizes, focused on her gowns or the men she might marry, her dreams of flowers when they’d lived in the cabin.

“I lied to you,” she says, trying to keep her voice steady. “I am sorry, Feyre. I felt… when I saw that vision, I felt like the monstrous thing inside of me was going to turn me into something completely different. A person I couldn’t recognize. Except I already felt that way. Angry and useless and vile. And I thought, I couldn’t bear it if you and Nesta saw me turn into a monster. But I should have thought of you, what it would mean if I went to Tamlin. That you were in the vision.”

She expects Feyre’s voice to soften at her words, the honesty in them. Instead her eyes are downcast, her face hard and focused.

“I want to forgive you,” her little sister says. “But I don’t know if I believe you. Because I believed you when you lied to me. And you didn’t even think…”

Elain wants to insist that she’s sorry, kneel in front of her sister and weep until she’s so wretched that Feyre has no choice but to forgive her. Somehow she forces her spine to stay straight, her head to nod.

“I understand,” she says, unable to keep her voice from wavering.

“Of course this will not affect relations between our courts.” Feyre adjusts the sleeves of her gown, the same one she’d worn to the High Lords’ meeting, black and almost severe but for its close fit against her body. Her sister, who went off into the woods every day in search of food, who learned how to be a queen.

“I wasn’t aware that those relations were particularly friendly.” Elain tries to smile and feels it twist into a grimace.

“I will never let this court fall if you are there.”

“I -- thank you, Feyre.”

She had planned to say that she did not need this special protection, but she thinks of what Feyre said. Of what Tamlin said. The feeling when she was stuck in this world and Koschei seemed imminent.

Instead of arguing, she holds out her hand to her sister, and when Feyre takes it, she squeezes it tight until Feyre steps away, leaves the alcove, her skirts sighing against the marble floors.

Elain sinks to the ground, curls herself into a ball, and stares at the tiles until she hears the footsteps approaching her, Tamlin’s scent.

“Are you all right?” he asks.

“Are the wards secure?” she shoots back, looking at him, dirty and disheveled but still so handsome he’s practically glowing.

“They recognize Koschei’s magic and should repel him from appearing. And Rhysand is taking Melis to the Night Court. Apparently Nesta and her Valkyrie friends will be guarding her in the library.”

“I thought Melis would stay here.”

“We still don’t know what she can do if she touches you. As talented a designer as she is, and as beautiful as this gown is, I would rather know that you’re safe from her.”

“It’s not -- I don’t care about the dresses,” she says, holding up her hand so that he cannot get close enough to drown out her voice. “But we didn’t torture Melis. And in the Night Court, Azriel might.”

“That is why I made Rhysand swear that Melis would not be tortured as long as she behaved herself.” Tamlin crouches down, and even then, she has to tilt her head back to meet his gaze. “I made sure that Melis was aware of the arrangement.”

“So Vassa and Eris are safe?”

“As safe as anyone is in this world.”

The day and night have been endless but still Elain reaches for Tamlin. The world around her wavers, half-dissolving, before she resolves herself. That this must be here and now.

Before he can speak, she presses her mouth to his, hot and searching.

There is only time for a kiss in this world. Elain is battered and bruised and exhausted, and Tamlin is needed for a thousand things, and anybody could see them, but for this moment there is only his mouth opening to hers, his arms pulling her body tight against his, Elain is only a person who wants, and wants, and wants.

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houseofhurricane · 3 years

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ACOTAR Fic: Bloom & Bone (15/32) | Elain x Tamlin, Lucien x Vassa

A/N: Elain is really feeling herself in this chapter, even when she starts training and scheming in earnest. You can find all previous chapters here, or read Bloom & Bone on AO3. If you'd like to get an early peek at chapter 11 and all future chapters, follow me on Instagram at @house.of.hurricane. Thank you for reading! ❤️

“You should call a meeting of the High Lords,” Elain says, for the third time in as many days, her wooden practice sword aimed at Tamlin’s neck.

He blocks her easily, his eyes remote, as bleak as she’s ever seen them.

“You should tell your family that you’re here,” he says after disarming her, the sword falling to the floor with a thud.

“Feyre knows I’m in this world.” Within hours of returning to Prythian, she’d heard her sister’s voice in her mind, answered only I’m safe, then went silent, her shields as thick as she could make them. She hadn’t mentioned anything to Tamlin. “She sounded relieved I was alive.”

“Then you have a perfect time to tell her you weren’t conspiring against the Night Court.”

“Or I could tell her at the High Lords’ meeting.” She crosses her arms over her chest and flashes a grin at him.

“Or you could allow someone from your court to fetch you.”

“I doubt they’ll let me return,” she says, trying to sound more casual about this than she feels as she crouches to pick up her sword. In the mornings, she visits the passageways and tracks Koschei as best she can, and in the afternoons, Tamlin has agreed to help her train for a few hours, teaching her the basic fighting movements and, at her insistence today, the fundamentals of swordplay, though she’s realizing he was right when he said she wasn’t yet ready. Still, the idea of herself, pretty little Elain Archeron, hefting a sword, was too compelling for reason, and she wore Tamlin down, going against all the ingrained lessons on gaining a husband. She never imagined she’d be bound to someone for eternity without having to beguile him first.

In the evenings, she visits Melis, gossips a little with the servants before dinner, and then at night, Elain listens to Tamlin’s breathing and tries to sleep. He has gone so far as to find himself a cot, but when she appeared in his room the first night, he was too upset by the revelation of the Autumn Court to insist on her leaving. She’d rubbed her hands down his back until she felt his muscles relax, the strain in him ease, and she’d slept the whole night curled against him, her mind alight with plans and possibilities, the kind of stratagems she wishes Vassa or Lucien could unpick. She did not allow herself to think about the way her heart galloped at Tamlin’s proximity, how every time he’d moved in his sleep, she’d curled closer toward him, how when she’d finally fallen asleep, she’d woken up practically on top of him, her cheek on his chest, his arm around her shoulders.

In other worlds, the situation is simple between them: they are simply two people drawn to each other by destiny or chance. But as soon as they returned to Prythian, the weight of the mating bond and Feyre’s experience, Tamlin’s history and all the court politics pull them apart, insist on being delved into and resolved, too important to ignore.

Now, for example, she does not reach for Tamlin, though ever fiber of her self is attuned to his movements. Instead, she rises, sword in hand, points it at him as if she is full of a bravado she’s never possessed.

“If I go to the Night Court, will you call a meeting of the High Lords?”

“You cannot imagine what it would be to announce my failure for all of them to hear. When they already think the worst of me.”

Though she feels his power rise in the room like a sudden thunderstorm, she keeps her sword aimed at his heart.

“I know exactly what it is to pretend you are nothing until everyone in the world believes it, too. If you let Beron seize the human lands, your territory will be next. And then what will you say to the High Lords?”

“That I never wanted to rule this court in the first place.” His palms are raised toward her. Even Elain, with her conspicuous lack of training, knows that he’s conceding defeat. “Beron has marched ten thousand men through my territory in the last three days. They’ve barely bothered to conceal themselves.”

“Perhaps he wants to provoke you.”

“He wants me to see how weak I’ve become.”

“Then go to the High Lords and raise an army. Lucien will help you. I will go to him and explain.”

Tamlin’s fists are clenched, his rage thick in the room. At this point, Elain has always done what her schoolmasters and governess and family required: spoken a few pleasant words to dissolve every hint of tension.

But now Elain can pull herself out of this world. The furious male is her mate. And it would be easier if he would rage at her, show her the High Lord of the Spring Court who watched her sister fall apart and only made her hurt worse. Let him show her that he hasn’t changed, so she can break the mating bond without regret.

So she tells him, forcing her voice level: “This defeat will be much more painful than a single meeting. You know the Night Court will ally with you.”

“I will not go on my knees before Rhysand.”

“You have wasted years on your self-pity and your people are endangered for it. The human realms of Prythian are in danger. Do you think Beron will show them mercy?” She has not mentioned the humans until now. She does not want to watch him scoff.

His eyes blaze like green fire, a knot in his jaw forming, and Elain can tell that he is barely holding himself under control. Still, she does not look away. She sets her chin against all the comforting words that unfurl inside her, all the things she would say to him if they were people in another world.

“Go to the Night Court,” he grinds out.

“Only if you will call a meeting of the High Lords.”

“And if I will not?”

She takes a step closer, steels herself against the heat that rises in her at his proximity, all the things she wants to do with her hands.

“Then I will stay here and argue with you until you see reason.”

He barks out a laugh, surprise in his eyes, and she starts making her plan.

Elain goes to Lucien first, to Helion’s private library. It’s the only part of the Day Court she recognizes, and though the room is empty when she arrives, Lucien and Helion enter within minutes, Lucien looking a little sheepish at the attire of the Day Court, loose pants cuffed at his ankles and a vest that reveals most of his chest and arms, the corded muscles and bronze skin.

“I was worried about you,” Lucien says, just as she is forming her own remark about how well this fashion suits him. He squeezes her hand tight in hers.

“And I said that you were an Archeron sister, who will bring this world to its knees with no help from any of us.” Helion flashes a smile and Elain offers her cheek to be kissed in greeting, grinning in spite of herself.

Though she wanted to tell them everything, Tamlin had asked her to speak only of what she’s learned about Koschei and the other worlds, the meeting of the High Lords, and request that Lucien visit the Spring Court.

She starts with what she’s learned about the passageways, how she’s learned to navigate by her desire. In addition to the world where Koschei originated, she’s found worlds he’s visited. Though she has not opened the doors to those worlds, she can tell from the carvings on their doors that they are quite unlike each other, that in that ancient time when Koschei punched his way through various universes, he did not seem to have access to these passageways.

“He could have been running from something. He might have encountered your passageways and lacked confidence that a nearby world would be a safe haven,” Helion muses, lifting his eyes from his notes.

“The creature we found in the world of his origin did seem much stronger,” Elain says, catches a flash in Lucien’s russet eye at the word we. It’s all she can do to keep from sticking her tongue out at him, though of course she’s here on official business. “Have you made progress on the tether?”

“You went into this world with someone, did you not?” Helion asks.

“There is another bond between us.” Elain does not quite meet his eyes. She’s not sure what he knows. “He was able to use it to follow me into the passageway the first time I went, without touching me. He wasn’t fully in his body but I could recognize certain attributes.”

“All while you were holding the bone, wasn’t it?” Lucien asks, smirking.

Helion tries to turn his laughter into a cough, and Elain rolls her eyes at both of them.

“You were going to tell me about your progress with the tethering spell?”

“And you were working very hard to conceal the identity of your mate from us,” Helion says, winking at her. “Though I’ll admit I’m glad you’ve spared us the rhapsodies the rest of your court loves to provide on the glories of the mating bond. At any rate, we’ve made progress on the tethering spell.”

“He’s still afraid to winnow with it,” Lucien says.

“I’d like to be sure of the magic before I fling myself into some abyss,” Helion shoots back, turning back to Elain. “And since Lucien is so sure of this spell, he’s free to try it with you any time you’d like.”

She sees the window of opportunity, grasps it like a flower in need of transplanting.

“Then will you come to the Spring Court tomorrow, Lucien, so we can try?”

Helion’s eyebrows raise for just a second. By the time Lucien agrees to visit in the morning, the High Lord’s face is the picture of courtly neutrality. Elain expected she would feel ashamed of this revelation but instead she feels a rush of power inside herself that comes from the strength of her observations, her certainty in the next move. Knowing he’s wondering whether she and the High Lord of Spring are mates, she says:

“Helion, as it happens I come with a message for you as well. Tamlin has called for a meeting of the High Lords.”

“How quickly?”

“Soon,” she says, trying to conceal her relief. Tamlin had been sure Helion would ask about the topic of the meeting, had not wanted her to provide a true answer. Now she’s sure he thinks it’s regarding the mating bond, romantic drama writ large as Prythian itself. “He prefers the meeting take place within the week.”

“The Day Court will be happy to host, of course.”

“Every High Lord will make the same offer,” Lucien says, shaking his head, his voice so much that of an exasperated child that Elain’s heart clenches in her chest. “Will you tell Elain which other sites you find acceptable?”

“The Summer Court. Dawn, if we must, though Thesan will begin to think that we rely on him for meetings of importance. Winter is also a possibility, though I have no idea how anyone is to survive that kind of cold. And the Night Court, but naturally Tamlin would object.”

She nods, trying to maintain the serenity of her features. He’s named every one of the neutral courts. Tamlin had been hoping for the Day Court, given Helion’s presumed allegiance to Lucien, though Elain worries about their ties to the Night Court. Then again, every court seems more tightly bound to Rhys and Feyre than to Tamlin, despite these last-minute machinations she’s making now, sitting in Helion’s library and offering him the barest slivers of intrigue.

“I’ll make sure your preferences are known,” she says, rising from her chair. “You should receive a formal invitation tomorrow. Would it be all right if I took a few moments to speak to Lucien alone?”

Helion exits with a graceful half-bow, and as soon as the door closes behind him, Lucien immediately quirks an eyebrow.

“You know he’s listening at the door,” he tells her. She can tell he’s trying to keep his face impassive, as if Helion can also survey him from any angle.

“I’m sure there’s a spell to keep him from having to press his ear to the wood. Cauldron forfend he strain himself” she shoots back, grins at his answering laugh. “I am planning to go to the Night Court next and I wanted to know if you’d spoken to anyone there.”

“Rhysand has definitely made his displeasure known, but the alliance with Helion is too important to risk over me. I don’t think I’ll be asked to provide a report anytime soon. But they were worried about you,” he adds, reading the shift in her expression, “your sisters especially. They thought you’d followed me here.”

“They didn’t think I’d use my own powers.”

“Their confidence in you is going to be limited, especially once they scent Tamlin on you.”

She blushes in spite of the fact that she’d anticipated this question, had taken her bath in the evening, before she’d curled up in Tamlin’s sheets, spent the night listening for the sound of his breath.

“I thought they’d be less likely to kill me on sight if they thought it would cause war between the courts.”

“You’ve picked a poor ally. Likely they’ll think he’s bewitched you.”

“Sometimes that feels accurate,” she says, the feeling of his lips on hers flashing her mind, as it has a thousand times since she’d kissed him in the passageway, fallen asleep in his arms. When she hadn’t thought about their histories or politics, just the barely contained wildness of him, the way he would allow her an extra few minutes to gain the knowledge she needed even if it killed him, that fact that he never seemed to think Vassa could be a tactical sacrifice. There are other moments, too: when he’d told her she could break the mating bond without ever telling her that it might harm him, when he’d followed her into the passageways and other worlds without a question, as if she were not little Elain Archeron, pleasant ballroom ornament, but the force that Vassa had helped her begin to imagine she could be. Over and over she’s wished for no mating bond, for another history, in which these moments could be cherished proof that she was chosen from the beginning, beloved by someone who saw her clearly and cherished that view. Over and over, Elain steels herself, retells Feyre’s stories as incantations, watches for any alarming sign from Tamlin, a reason to pull on the fabric of this world and disappear somewhere safer.

“I can tell you’re mostly careful, but--”

She holds up her hand to Lucien, the way she might to a brother, to one of her sisters if their circumstances had been less dire or if they themselves had been different, more inclined to banter or affectionate exasperation. “I’m trying, Lucien. But there are only so many places I can go in this world.”

“You could have come here.”

“I thought I would endanger you.”

“Then you could have taken me with you.” He’s trying to be arch, but Elain hears the plaintive note in his voice, the one he can’t quite smother. In all the stories she’s heard, all the tableaux she’s witnessed, it’s always Lucien who is left behind.

“Tomorrow, I’ll take you to a dozen different worlds before lunch. Tamlin’s only seen two.”

“I’m glad you’ve figured out how to take me to peaceful worlds, then. I’m not as handy with a sword as your mate.”

She rolls her eyes at him, the term grating in her ears, turning each sweet tentative moment with Tamlin into a proclamation of fate. Especially when she still has yet to face Feyre.

“He needs help with this meeting, Lucien,” she says, forcing herself to remain in the present moment, the task at hand. “Will you talk to him tomorrow?”

“Are either of you going to tell me what this meeting is about? I noticed you chose a very opportune moment to mention it to Helion.”

“Isn’t he listening at the door? If Tamlin doesn’t tell you tomorrow, I will.”

He gives her an appraising glance. “Is it being in all these strange new worlds that’s made you so defiant?”

“He can’t harm me, according to all the stories about mates.”

“There are destructions that don’t hurt one bit, Elain,” he says, and for just a second, Lucien’s russet eye looks haunted. She decides to change the subject, already knowing that he won’t tell her what experience he’s remembering.

“Tell me what to say at the Night Court.”

“Tell them the truth. Remind them that your power is your own. Appeal to Feyre, not Rhysand. She knew you before you were brought to the Night Court.”

“That was my plan,” she says, her shoulders relaxing with relief, that her own ideas are not so far off from this schemer’s.

“I noticed you flinch once, when Rhys called you his family.” Lucien’s voice is too careful, and maybe it is stupid to trust him, but this secret is too old to cause anyone much harm.

“Before -- with Azriel, he was the one who stopped it. Because of you, I think, and the politics involved. And Azriel just followed those orders. I’m family to him only when it suits.” There’s a darkness in him, she wants to say, Feyre believes he’s good but I’m not sure. She tries not to act on her observations unless she’s certain, and Elain has always been taught to trust in the men around her for her own good. So she swallows the words.

“That sounds like my family on a good day,” Lucien says, gentle, watching her like he knows there’s more that she’s not saying. “And Rhysand has been High Lord for centuries. Perhaps it’s easy to forget, what a family is without politicking.”

“You didn’t. You learned better.”

“I told the world you were my mate to stave off a war.”

She lets the quiet build for a moment, breathes in the old frustration, that he would entrap her as he did, turn her life into a ruin. But when she exhales, looks into those unmatched eyes that see so much, Elain knows that he saved her from this hard truth until she could bear it on her shoulders.

“I saw how you looked when everyone found out about Tamlin. You wanted to save us. Feyre, even me. And you’d never even met me.”

He reaches across the table and squeezes her hands between his fingers, old ink smearing onto her palm.

“If you talk to your old Inner Circle just like that, Elain, they’re going to accept you back with open arms.”

This isn’t her plan, exactly, but Elain just grins back at him, savors the moment.

In the Night Court, she is not blasted to bits when she appears. Instead, Nuala and Cerridwen lead Elain into the formal meeting of the Night Court, where Feyre and Rhys sit across the room. They’re not enthroned, exactly, on their velvet chairs, but they are regal, powerful, certain they hold her life in the balance.

But as soon as Elain sees the dark circles under Feyre’s eyes, she regrets disappearing, the three days she spent in this world with hardly a word. Then Rhysand begins to speak.

“I generally prefer if the members of this court are aligned in their aims,” he says, in that silky, dangerous voice, and she wants to snap at him to stop treating her like the enemy, before she realizes that she may, in point of fact, actually be the enemy to this court, at least in their eyes. His fingers are twined with Feyre’s, and her sister does not look alarmed at his tone. Instead, she studies Elain so intently that Elain checks and rechecks her mental shields, makes sure the shining gates are walled and barricaded, impossible to breach.

“I have been trying to save Vassa in the best way I know how.”

“We have offered you every resource, and you go sneaking off with Lucien. Telling other courts about your powers.”

Elain feels her eyes widening, the apology forming inside her. Because she can see the error in her actions, viewed from his perspective. If she’d pushed, he would have invited Helion to the Night Court, opened the library to the High Lord of the Day Court if the priestesses granted permission. But all of this would have taken time, involved deliberations and politicking and jockeying for power that are forgotten whenever she thinks of Vassa’s screams, the haunted look in Lucien’s eyes.

“I did not think that my powers were the property of the Night Court,” she says, balling her fingers into fists, her defiance rising. “Helion was the one who trained me. He listened to me and adapted his suggestions. With Amren, I was always pretending.”

The words detonate inside her mind: I was always pretending.

The truth of them, expanding far beyond this room. She healed in this court, and she will always be grateful for that time she was given, the care and attention, the gardens and soft words, but, like everywhere else Elain had ever been before, she was never expected to be anything more than lovely.

“Elain,” Feyre says, her voice gentle and her eyes still searching, and Elain braces herself, “you speak of Helion but you arrive with Tamlin’s scent on you.”

This had been her plan all along, but guilt thuds in her chest at the look in Feyre’s eyes, the confusion and concern. Her own hurt is hidden, because Feyre has always cared for her sisters as if she bore them herself.

“In that moment of panic, I reached out with my magic to a place where I would be safe,” Elain says. “I knew he couldn’t harm me.”

Feyre’s fingers are white against the arms of her chair, and Elain realizes she’s misspoken.

“I just meant,” she says, before she can be interrupted, “that I didn’t know what would happen here, and I thought the chances were low that Tamlin would run me through with a sword.”

“Even with everything I’ve told you? Everything he’s been?” She’s rarely heard this harsh tone in Feyre’s voice, even when they had nothing, could feel their bones rising up through their skin. What Elain really wants in this moment is to sweep her sister into a hug, beg forgiveness for her disappearance, and promise she will retire to her old room and only come out for meals until the world is saved. But she no longer believes the best thing is to stand by and let herself be saved. So instead she steels herself, continues with the words she’d planned out in the night, laid out like a star in the middle of Tamlin’s bed.

“I don’t want to hurt you. And I don’t know if he’s changed. I don’t know if I will reject the mating bond between us.” Elain draws a breath deep in her lungs. “But I do know that he saved your life and Rhys’s, even as your enemy. I think there is hope for him, still. And I think he’s trying.”

“How do you know that?” Rhys asks, pulling Feyre’s hand to rest on his thigh.

“He canceled the Tithe. He goes to the villages of the Spring Court to speak with his citizens now, every day. And when we were in danger, he trusted me to save us, even when he could have been killed.”

“When were you in such danger?” Her sister’s eyes are wide and concerned, Tamlin already forgotten.

“I went to another world.”

“That’s why we couldn’t find you.”

“I found the place Koschei came from.” She had debated offering this information but she wants to believe that they will help her.

“How are you so certain?” Rhys asks.

“Why would I lie?”

“It seems to have become a habit with you,” he says, and she feels his power rumble in the room, a reminder that he isn’t just a person who calls her family.

“My power belongs to me,” she says, a claiming on her own self as much as a warning to them, even as she knows that her power was never meant for attacking, only knowing, seeing, that she could only harm them as much as they might be hurt by her disappearance.

Feyre raises a hand and the room stills, Rhys shooting his gaze her way. But the High Lady only looks at Elain.

“Your power is not our weapon. But I wonder what you want to accomplish with it, alone and wandering off wherever you like.”

“What I want is a world at peace and Vassa free.”

“I spoke with her, when you were gone,” Feyre says, and once again her voice is too gentle. “She says that Koschei is treating her too kindly.”

Elain can feel the blood draining out of her face. There are so many ways a woman can become an object, and most of them are not nearly as pleasant-seeming as her own experience, ballrooms and gowns and men who promised her a gilded future. Vassa is so strong, but she’s still a human, and Koschei’s magic is a force unto itself.

But she has found Koschei’s world, is beginning to understand the feel of his magic. The tether will be ready soon, and then Lucien and Helion will be able to break down the spell on Vassa, set her free. She will go to that lake herself, alone, if it will save her friend.

“I can guess what you are thinking,” Feyre says, her voice moving from gentle to too gentle, ready to offer something unwelcome like a gift, “but you cannot go to Koschei. If he captures you...”

“I’ll disappear.”

“You cannot know what magic he has at his disposal,” Rhys says, silencing the room with his icy stare. “If you become his weapon, he’ll fling the door to every world wide open.”

“And so I should stay here until the war is over?”

“Can Tamlin protect you?”

Elain wants to tell him that she would be welcomed at other courts, not just Spring, but this would be a disaster, especially when the most delicate part of the conversation has presented itself amidst all this turmoil, the magic that throbs in the room.

“He is calling a meeting of the High Lords to discuss this, as quickly as it can be arranged. Will you hear what he has to say?”

There is a pause, in which Rhys looks at Feyre and Elain thinks look at me, wishes she’d asked her sister to speak in private, so that she could tell her about Tamlin gently, the two of them crying and bewildered together for a few hours until they were ready for the other topics. And a part of her, the monstrous part, wishes she’d spoken to Feyre because she knows her sister would be easier to convince alone.

“You insist on this?” her sister asks, not in the concerned tones she’s used since Elain arrived, but in her High Lady voice, steeled and elegant and unmoving. It’s a dismissal that Elain is sure she deserves.

But she thinks of Tamlin, agreeing to share the fact that Beron’s army has crossed through his court, is on its way into the human lands. They began to discuss what he’d say at dinner last night. It was the first time she’d ever heard him stammer, swallow his words mid-phrase.

“I insist,” she says, and then, into the silence: “You will receive a formal invitation tomorrow, but if you would tell me your preferred location, that would help the meeting come sooner.”

Rhys drawls his answer, as if he’s already bored. “Day, Summer, and Winter.”

Elain only nods, prepares to leave the Night Court, tells herself to be grateful that Feyre and Rhys listened, did not blast her to bits. Later, she will try to see things through their eyes, if only to predict what they’ll do at the meeting. She extends her hand, prepares to part the fabric of this world until it takes her back to the Spring Court.

When light blooms behind she eyes, she assumes it’s a shifting in her powers. But instead she is near a lake, and Koschei’s voice is in her ears, booming behind her.

“I will leave you this world, my darling,” he is saying as Elain turns toward the voice, too slowly because she does not want to believe what is happening. If Koschei captures you… When Feyre had said this, Elain had been so sure the fear was an overreaction, Feyre’s habitual incredulity about her capabilities.

But Koschei is not speaking to her. His eyes are on Vassa, who is seated on a throne next to him, dressed in a gown adorned with the feathers of the firebird. One of her hands is held tight by Koschei’s fingers, the other resting on a swollen belly. Her eyes are vacant, nothing like the blue fire that has always burned in them.

“Thank you,” Vassa says, in a voice that is absent, hardly recognizable.

Elain balls her hands, wants to scream run!, to grab her friend’s hand and pull her into a different world, a better world, anything but this destruction, but her legs are fixed, her hands still at her side.

For a second, she’s sure Koschei sees her, meets her eye, but the depthless gaze slides over her, towards the horizon. And in that moment of relief, Elain realizes that she’s seen these thrones before. That a version of herself has sat on them, in some gloomy ruined possibility of the Spring Court, the Crown on her head and Tamlin bound as Vassa seems to be.

I will leave you this world, Koschei said. As if the world were a trifling thing. As if he had access to others.

It is foolish to close her eyes, make herself weak, but she cannot bear this sight, these revelations. She makes no sound but feels the tears on her cheeks, soaking the bodice of her dress as they fall, rage and fear and regret and sadness all knotted together.

Then she is falling, the ground hard beneath her. She doesn’t remember completing the initial tear that would allow her to go to the Spring Court, so she supposes these are the marble tiles of the river estate in the Night Court, that Feyre and Rhys have watched her in the throes of her vision, have allowed her to fall to the floor. She realizes that she does not want to see them, not when she’s this vulnerable, an old vague feeling crystallizing inside her with ferocity, the only fixed point in this whirling world, the sight of which is too great for her to bear.

When she feels hands on her, calloused fingertips, she flinches so hard that whoever she hits gives a little grunt of pain. Then she registers his voice, her own ability to move, the fragrance of the flowers she herself had planted, the lilac and gardenia and rose so heady and sweet that she hopes that it is real, no vision or fabrication.

“Where am I?” she asks, shielding her face, which is just as foolish as it was when she stood before Koschei, but her mind is still reeling, her vision itself overcome.

“The great hall of the Spring Court,” Tamlin says, his voice warm and concerned, his arm wending around her shoulders, holding her upright. “Are you all right?”

“I think… I hope I had a vision.” Every future has always felt the same to Elain, indistinguishable, as possible as anything that has happened in her past. Every future has been horrific, and still somehow this sight was the worst. The violation of her friend.

“What happened?”

“Ask me about your allies first. Ask me about Lucien.” She’s begging, near tears, and all the while the world spins around her, the world she knows and the world she hopes she never does, all the worlds which for now only she can access.

“You’re delirious. Are you in pain?” She feels his hand on her, gentle, looking for the source of hurt, and she wishes, just for a second, that he could wipe her mind of the vision.

“I saw Koschei with Vassa.”

“You didn’t--”

“I didn’t go to the lake. I had a vision. I hope I had a vision.” She presses the heels of her hands against her face, allows him to draw her toward him, the way they’d been in the passageways, her curled-up body against his chest, her head cradled by his shoulder. “What if we don’t win, Tamlin? What if we can’t rescue her?”

“We’ll try again until she’s free,” he tells her, and while the world settles into place, its furious whirling finally slowing, Elain tries to concentrate on the sound of his heartbeat, to believe him.

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houseofhurricane · 3 years

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ACOTAR Fic: Bloom & Bone (12/32) | Elain x Tamlin, Lucien x Vassa

A/N: Elain learns how to use her powers, with a little clandestine assistance from the High Lord of the Day Court. You can find all previous chapters here, or read Bloom & Bone on AO3. If you'd like to get an early peek at chapter 11 and all future chapters, follow me on Instagram at @house.of.hurricane. Thank you for reading! ❤️

“Think of how it felt when you held the bone,” Amren says, and Elain tries not to sigh. She’s been training with Amren every morning for the past week, and so far, in these sessions, she hasn’t been able to vanish, let alone visit another world, unless she touches the bone. But Amren has insisted that she learn to walk between realms on her own, and so has Helion, and so Elain grits her teeth and tries to do as Amren says.

Lessons with Helion, late as they are, have been more productive. Once she got over her shyness in the presence of an unfamiliar High Lord, and Helion had stopped trying to flirt with her, he’d asked her a series of questions that made her realize he was trying to enter into her thought process. With her permission, he’d passed his magic over her, the inspection reminding her of the human doctor who’d attended her when she was a small girl with a cough that entrenched itself inside her body for weeks on end, bringing fever and fear even to their mansion. But when the doctor stood over her, the close air in the room seemed to clear, and, small as she was, Elain still remembers the feeling of hope inside her as the doctor considered her, the expanse of her illness and how it mapped onto her body. Helion considers her in the same way, and this is the point at which Elain decides she trusts him, probably more than is wise.

Still, when he asked her if she would try and go to her father and Elain felt the library dissolve around her, she wasn't afraid. Once the world was solid around her and her eyes adjusted to her gloomy surroundings, she saw her father clearly, the way he’d looked when she’d last seen him, leaving on that last voyage to the continent. Now, as then, she could see the sadness on his face, even as he smiled at her.

She’d run to him, thrown her arms around his shoulders, and pulled her toward him as she never had when he was alive. Then, she’d always been tentative, ladylike, waiting for him to come to her, pull her into an embrace that lifted her feet from the ground.

In the realm where the dead go, she found she could barely duck her head under his chin.

“You shouldn’t be here,” he’d said when she’d stepped back. “I thought I’d stopped the war. I meant to protect you for as long as I could. I thought that seeing you before was a hallucination.”

“You did save me. I’m still alive,” she said, reaching out for his hand. “I was given certain powers and I’m learning how to use them. And everyone is happy. Feyre and Nesta would want you to know that.”

He smiled at her, his lips disappearing and his eyes lighting even in the dimness, and it was all she could do not to launch herself at him again, wrap her arms around him and feel his heart beating in his chest. Her father, restored to her.

“You shouldn’t come here,” he said. “This place will sink its fangs into you.”

“Is it so bad here?”

“Only different. But I can tell you don’t belong here, Elain. Your skin is gray, and your hair. You look like a statue made in the form of my daughter.”

“So the world does not look gray to you?”

“This world looks like any other,” he said, not realizing that she might know differently. “Still, I think you should remain where you are as long as possible.”

“And if I miss you?” It’s not until the words came out, clotted in her throat and thick with tears, that she realized how deep the question goes. How missing him had become part of her habitual state of being, as much as the beating of her heart or the sigh of her lungs.

“Missing is part of being grown in the world. I made you live for me once before, Elain. You and your sisters were still children and I put our lives on your shoulders.” He grabbed her hands and squeezed them, so tight she could feel his muscles working, the bones beneath his skin. “Your life is your own now, my sweet girl.”

And then Elain was in Helion’s private library, so lightheaded she immediately collapsed into a chair and then burst into tears, Lucien and Helion watching her with widened eyes, their expressions so similar that she’d wondered how their relation isn’t a topic of more gossip in Prythian.

It had taken hours for her to calm herself and recount the experience, the feeling of her father’s fingers, the gray and eerie nature of the world. She hated that she couldn’t tell if he was telling the truth, or lying to spare her from dread of her own death. But she had managed to wring out every detail of the encounter, the feeling of disappearance, her own disorientation, her father’s recognition. All the while, Lucien and Helion had nodded over their notepaper, which gradually became covered with scribblings and ideas. Part of her wished that one of them would reach out to her, offer her comfort beyond the offer of tea or wine, but mostly she was glad they kept their distance, let the experience spill out of her until she felt, finally, spent.

“I am sorry to have brought you this pain,” Helion said when she’d finally gone silent, the sodden handkerchief twisted between her fingers.

“I was able to see my father again,” she’d said, and somehow there were more tears in her eyes. “How many people would give all they have for the same experience?”

“Do you wish to return?”

“He did not want me to stay.” The words caught in her throat, the fact that even her own father does not want her, even upon a miraculous return.

“He must have been frightened,” Lucien said, and his voice was more gentle than Elain had ever heard it. “He would have thought you’d died, or wanted to. He wanted so much for you, after what he’d taken.”

She’d forgotten those months that Lucien had spent with her father, bargaining Vassa away from Koschei and raising an army. That both he and Vassa had spoken warmly of him, seemed in some ways to know him better than Elain ever had.

“I’m sorry you lost him,” she said to Lucien, swiping her eyes with the back of her hand one final time. “He would have liked you very much. My father appreciated a clever mind.”

She did not miss the small smile that formed on Lucien’s lips as he ducked his head to consider his notes and shield the expression from her and Helion.

“What happened,” she’d asked, when both their eyes were on her again, “when I was in that other world?”

“You vanished and there was no trace of you,” Helion said. “Not even a whiff of your scent or trace of magic. It was as if you’d never existed.”

“But you remembered me?”

“Of course,” Lucien cut in, whisking his papers into a neat stack. “We were counting the minutes until your return.”

“How long was I gone?”

“Twenty minutes and thirty-seven seconds.” Helion darted an eye to the timepiece on the table, but Elain could tell he knew the time by memory, that perhaps everything that had happened in that timespan was not only carefully documented but recorded in his memory.

“So time passes the same in that world and this one. But how do I go to other worlds without the bone?”

Helion did not regard her as if she were a pretty girl, or a sweet aristo in a ballroom, but rather as if she’d asked a scholarly question of some merit.

“You traveled easily when I asked you to go and see your father. My theory is that your movements are fueled by desire, the same as any magic.”

“But I’ve never seen these other worlds, or know anybody in them.” Her voice was small and high in her ears, close to whining.

“My hope is that you can learn how to navigate worlds the way I navigate my libraries. In nature, we see a system of organization. Why should it not be so for all the worlds which exist?”

“You’re asking Elain to learn and categorize a potentially infinite system in days or weeks, without knowing the first thing about it,” Lucien cut in, his voice harsh. “That’s like asking a child without sight or hearing to determine the scope and categorization of your libraries within one turn of your hourglass.”

“In this court, the children who would be scholars and librarians first learn the libraries through exploration. The libraries become their homes.” Helion aimed the words at Lucien, but Lucien kept on looking at Elain. “Anyway, what we need to find quickly is the world from which Koschei originated. And perhaps a world in which he existed but did not leave, to see how his powers developed.”

“Koschei could exist in two worlds at once?”

“There are many theories,” Helion said, his voice growing more mellifluous as he launched into this explanation, “which you stand to be able to prove. But the one which seems likeliest, based on your experience holding the bone, is that every time a choice of some significance is made, a new world is formed.”

There is a world in which Azriel kissed me, she’d thought, and maybe a world in which I have a different mate. Or where there are no mates. A world in which Cassian--and my father--and Feyre--

“Then you think my visions could be...” She didn’t quite have the words to express the roiling of her thoughts.

“It is certainly possible that you are seeing the future. But it is also possible that you are able to see the inflection points at which new worlds are created. Or that you can visit worlds where time moves faster.”

“And we won’t know until I learn how to travel there?”

Helion answers only with a rueful smile, asks: “How are your lessons with Amren going?”

“She looks at me as if she’d like to step inside my skin. I haven’t moved from the room.”

“You don’t have to listen to what she’s saying. Concentrate on your desires, what you want to see and know. When you return, pretend whatever she said was the key. Or tell her what helped you, if you think she will hear you.”

She’d only nodded, her exhaustion overtaking her suddenly, pressing in on her like a living thing. Lucien had caught on and helped her back to the Night Court, where she’d collapsed into bed, a headache throbbing at her temples.

The next day she’d been too tired to attempt Helion’s advice, had left the lesson early, pleading a bad headache without needing to lie.

Now, though, with a day in bed, Elain is ready. So when Amren tells her to think of the bone and how it felt in her hands, Elain thinks instead of Helion’s libraries, what it would be to have access to all the knowledge in the world, in every world that ever was.

She appears in the passageway, the carved doors before her, and she can barely contain her shout of triumph.

There are no whispers, no voices calling to her, no power but her own, thrumming in her veins, practically simmering inside her, fizzing and golden like champagne. She’s never felt this kind of sensation, even when she was first made fae, even the first time she came here, surrounded by golden light. Now, she’s filled with the awareness of what’s beneath her skin, the realization that something new and powerful has come to life. And somehow Elain does not feel monstrous, but mighty.

Beyond her body, she can detect the power that’s inherent to this place, a low hum in her ears. Whoever formed this place or guards it must be ancient and formidable.

It occurs to Elain that in this place between all the worlds in existence, she is completely alone. She’s not sure why this realization doesn’t terrify her. Instead, she takes a few minutes to study the arrangement of the tiles on the floors, black and white in geometric patterns that look like the charts that document the movements of the stars and moon. When she looks up at the doors, she sees they’re carved with plants and animals, that on the nearest door, she can see roses and tulips and horses and humans and the High Fae with their arched ears. When she looks closer, she sees an Illyrian male with his membranous wings, a Peregryn female with wings outstretched and covered in feathers. She could spend hours looking and see all the familiar details of her old life and the new one, hours more making new discoveries.

But one observation is most important: Elain has found the doorway that leads to her own world.

She thinks of Helion and grins. It’s as if she has blindly reached out and found her beloved book of fairytales on the shelf of an unfamiliar library, with no knowledge of how it arrived there or what books rest on either side.

Still, now she knows that the doors can give her information.

When she walks to the next door, the world looks almost identical to her own, so she continues down the hallway, the doors passing slowly under her careful gaze, until she finds one that’s reminiscent of her home, with its fae and humans, animals and plants, but there are no winged peoples, and there are women with pointed teeth and long nails that come to cruel tips, women their own weapons. She wants to open this door, ask these women a thousand questions.

Before she reaches out her hand, she hears Vassa’s voice in her ear. A queen does not always have to be courageous, she’d said one night in the moonlit gardens, the light turning her hair into the last remnants of fire. Sometimes it is more important to be cunning.

Instead of resting her hand on the knob and twisting, Elain reaches out with her power. She’s never done this before but she feels the power responding to her will, in a way that it never has in Prythian. She wills it into tiny bubbles that are small enough to pass through the wood of the door, and though she cannot see this world, she can sense that it’s at peace, that she would not be in danger if she opened the door.

So Elain takes the doorknob between her fingers and pushes the door open and looks out at a chain of mountains as far as her eye can see. This world smells of pine and snow, the cold sharp against her skin. Nobody watches her, at least not anyone she can see or sense with her magic.

She turns around and steps back inside the passageway. A question rises up inside her mind: Why did I have to end up someplace cold?

She’s all alone and nobody can see her do something stupid, so Elain presses her hands against the door and thinks the question, shooting it through her body, where the magic rushes out of her, as if it’s ready to seek an answer.

Eventually, the magic calms beneath her skin, and Elain reaches for the door.

This time, she hears the noise of the city a few seconds before the heat hits her skin. The door opens from a building off a market, and around Elain sounds a language she has never heard before, though of course she’s rarely traveled, even when faced with her eternal life. There are too many people around to notice her, their skin copper like Vassa’s, and Elain thinks about walking through the door and investigating, before she realizes that she does not know what would happen if the door closed behind her.

Still, with her hand propping the door open behind her, Elain takes a step, her first into a world that seems populated by the living. She does not sink into the ground, so she takes another step, and then another, until she can only feel the wooden door with the very tips of her fingers.

A few feet away, a child waves to her, calling out a greeting she does not understand. She flashes him an apologetic smile. Then, not taking her eyes off the boy, smiling so as not to alarm him, she summons Koschei’s image to her mind and asks the question: is he here or has he ever been?

Quickly, the answer returns, a hollow no.

There are a hundred reasons to distrust that answer -- the fact of Koschei’s immense power, her own which is so new and unknown to her, the real possibility that Elain is only speaking to herself, her mind supplying her the responses she’d most like to hear -- but something inside her body feels sure and sated.

When she turns back and walks through the door with a final wave and smile to the boy, she wonders if on her next visit she should bring toys or chocolates, little treats for friendly citizens. Though of course the right answer, what her sisters and Amren and the rest of the Court of Dreams will tell her when she returns, would be to bring weapons. And Elain can concede that she is tired of being treated as valuable bait.

She shuts the door behind her and the sound of the marketplace disappears behind her, leaving behind a ringing silence. Part of her wants to continue this exploration, but she already feels a heaviness inside her, a fog that overlays the bubbling magic in her veins, and she’s worried that she’ll exhaust the magic inside her and end up stranded in some other world with no way to return to her own. Besides which, this is the farthest she’s ever gotten. Her mind is already turning over the implications of everything she’s discovered, churning against an encroaching exhaustion. She was so excited, encountering all these doors, that she hadn’t stopped to calculate the effort required to fling them open.

There are probably two ways home and she decides to try the riskier option. Standing in the passageway, Elain thinks about exactly where she’d like to return: not the room where she supposes Amren waits, but a particular corner of the garden at Feyre and Rhysand’s estate. Near the water, there’s a corner which she’s planted with anemones and asters, which she knows will be beautiful in the day she’d left behind in her world, summer giving way to autumn, the warm sun fighting off the chill breeze off the Sidra. She focuses on the scene until it’s alive inside her mind, and then she asks her flagging magic a question: can you take me there?

Moments pass before Elain realizes that the sunlight on her face isn’t her imagination. She has appeared in the corner she envisioned, standing before her favorite bench, the breeze cool but fragrant with the apple tarts Nuala and Cerridwen had planned to prepare for tonight’s dinner.

She should go up into the house and report everything to Amren, but first Elain takes another breath, enjoying the scent of apples and cinnamon, the feel of the sun on her face.

For the first time in this world, she realizes she can feel her power inside of herself, an effervescence. She calls to it and asks another question: can you send a message to Tamlin?

Something deeper than her magic says yes, but still she gathers her magic and sends her message. I am safe and learning to use my powers. I hope you are going into the village and keeping your people safe. I think of you more than I probably should.

The last thought is the riskiest of all, the feeling she probably should not express, but there hardly seems to be a waking hour when she does not think about the feeling of his hands on her body, her wrists and shoulders practically glowing with a remembered touch.

She’s walking back to the estate when the message returns, in that low voice which is almost a growl, I am going into the village every day. I have canceled the next tithe. I wish I could see you.

She smiles at first, and then she wonders if this could all be a manipulation, a grand readjustment of his court in order to woo her, to disappear the moment she’s accepted their mating bond.

The voice speaks in her head again: Sometimes I think I detect your scent in the garden.

Elain is alone, so she does not have to suppress the shiver that washes over her, terrifying and delicious.

Imagine me there and take good care of the flowers, she tells him, and it would be lying to suggest that it’s her magic that makes her heart pound or the thought sound practically breathless inside her own mind. She’s imagining what it would be like, to take him to one of the secluded spots she so carefully planned, the benches surrounded by heavy and fragrant blossoms, press a kiss to his neck or his wrist, the sensitive spots that look so ordinary until they are touched. The way his calloused fingertips would feel, if they worked their way across her skin.

It occurs to her that she doesn’t know her magic well enough to know if these thoughts or even her arousal can be transmitted directly to Tamlin. She makes her mind blank, focuses on the flowers swaying in the breeze, realizes the day is too cool for this particular gown.

When she finally makes her way to the room where she left Amren, a shawl draped over her shoulders, Amren’s face relaxes in such a way that Elain realizes she was very worried.

“I came back near the river,” she says by way of explanation, and when Amren begins to mutter threats, Elain has to bite back a smile.

Over the next hour, she tells Amren nearly everything that happened: the passageway and the carved doors, the feeling of her magic waking inside her, the way she’d reached out to the first world. She does not mention walking through the door, or the way she was able to use her magic in this world.

Instead, at dinner, she asks Nesta and Feyre if they can train her.

“After all,” she says, loading up her spoon with apple tart, as delicious as it had smelled, the best welcome into this world, “at some point I’m going to have to open a door, and who knows what will be on the other side of it? Since it’s likely I won’t understand the language being spoken. They’re going to have to be at least a little afraid of me.”

“I’m sure that Nesta and Cassian can arrange for your training, but from now on, you’re going to have to take somebody with you when you go into these other worlds,” Feyre says, looking at Elain so calmly and intently that Elain realizes she’s already discussed the matter with Rhys at least.

She tries to catch Lucien’s gaze, but he’s staring at the apple tart as if he could determine the recipe based on its appearance alone. She knows this is likely in the service of keeping their meetings with Helion a secret, but it annoys her all the same, the way that everyone in this room is supposedly her ally until she wants to make a decision they do not agree with.

“No one else has my power,” she says, her voice level as she can make it.

“Koschei and Melis needed to touch you in order to get to and from the lake,” Rhysand says, his tone an echo of Feyre’s, infuriatingly gentle and considered.

“Melis said that Koschei made her the conduit. That sounds like complicated spell-work.” She leaves and you cannot figure out Koschei’s other spell-work unsaid, but watches Rhysand’s mouth narrow into a line and knows he heard it.

“At any rate, we’d like you to try,” Feyre says.

“I’ll try,” Elain says, making her voice calm and sweet, though internally she’s practicing the monologue she will unleash on Lucien as soon as they’re in the Day Court tonight.

Sure enough, as soon as Elain arrives in his room, Lucien is already grinning.

“I wouldn’t smile if I were you, traitor,” she mutters as she reaches for him and his bedroom becomes Helion’s library.

Maybe Lucien has sent a message to Helion asking him to stay away, because the library remains empty as she whirls on Lucien, her skirts sighing on the rug.

“You were supposed to volunteer to join my training!” She raises her hands, balled into fists, and further annoys her by not so much as flinching.

“What, and raise even more suspicion? Rhysand thinks that we were all conspiring at the Spring Court for some nefarious purpose.”

“You haven’t let him into your mind to see all you did was bed Vassa and try to convince Tamlin to be a better ruler?”

“I don’t see you being so free with your mind,” he says, trying for a smirk and failing to the tune of a grimace. “Once you’ve trained with weapons, they’ll let you go on your own. And why are you so quick to want to be alone, anyway?”

“I am tired of being an ornament,” she says, and waits until the full weight of what she’s saying washes over him and settles inside her, this aspect of herself finding its home. “I stood in a completely different world today, Lucien, a place where nobody I know has ever been. I heard a language never spoken in our world. I waved to a boy who has never met a High Fae female from Prythian. And I wanted to see all of it without anybody telling me that I was exploring incorrectly, that I wasn’t ladylike enough or strong enough or cunning enough.”

“Weren’t you afraid to go through the door before?”

From his tone, she can tell he understands the full extent of what she’s saying, and so Elain continues: “I felt my power for the first time in that passageway. I sent it through the door through that world and it came back to me, saying the world was at peace.”

“Is your safety the only thing you can detect?” There’s such hope shining in his eyes, and she thinks, how was it that anyone ever thought he loved her? Only Vassa can bring out this side of him, this earnest optimism. Just witnessing it has the anger seeping out of her.

“Once I went through, I tried to detect if Koschei was or had ever been in the world. He hadn’t been.”

“So you could find the places he’s been.” Lucien’s words are barely a breath.

“I could find the world he came from. Maybe there’s a world with a version of him that never left.” Nevermind the fact that there are likely an infinite number of worlds, that she has no idea how they are categorized, how many passageways she’ll have to cover. She’s caught up in Lucien’s enthusiasm.

“You want to take Koschei to a world where he can fight himself?”

“Only if I can watch the battle,” she says, her words half-obscured by the laugh that bubbles in her throat.

“Only if I can watch with you.” Lucien can barely get the words out, and she realizes it’s the first time she’s heard him laugh since Vassa disappeared.

“You and Vassa and I will all be there with wine and cake,” she declares, reaching for his hand and giving it a squeeze. “I really think we’re going to be able to rescue her, Lucien. I think we’re really close.”

Lucien’s eyes widen slightly and she realizes that Helion has snuck up on them.

“I take it there have been some developments?”

Lucien shoots her a look and Elain says, “I made it back to the passageway between worlds today without the bone.”

Helion reaches for his pen and paper, and when Elain tells him the story, even the details she didn’t provide Amren, even the message to Tamlin, though she refers to him as the High Lord of the Spring Court instead of her mate, she talks the way she can use her power in this world. Recounting her experience, she feels happy and proud and hopeful. She feels the way she did in the passageway, a combination of powerful and effervescent. She knows that Helion could turn against the Night Court, that perhaps she shouldn’t trust him, but he is one of the few people who has truly listened to her, has taken the time to shape his advice to the contours of her experience, has helped her reach for her powers. Maybe Helion is more talented at deception than anyone she’s ever met, but Elain now knows how to disappear to a place nobody can reach. For the first time in her life, she can defend herself.

When she gets to the dinner conversation, the key and the conduit and the spellwork she thinks is required, Helion holds up his hand to stop her.

“Your talents are unique, but I do not think this spell must be as complicated as you assume. If you’ll give me a few days to research, and if Lucien is willing to assist, I think I can devise a tethering system.”

“You’d like to study Koschei’s magic firsthand,” she says, wanting to smirk but not knowing how Helion will react to even this gentle teasing.

“I could fill a library with all the things I’d like to see in these worlds,” Helion tells her. “If there were a way to transfer your power--”

“You’d have to get in line behind Amren,” Lucien says, stepping in front of Elain. He’s registered the hungry look in Helion’s eyes. “Anyway, the Cauldron gave Elain her powers. I don’t think you could part them from her without unbinding this world from its tether.”

“It’s always easy to want what we don’t have. And it makes sense that Helion Spellcleaver would want to add to his vast stores of knowledge.” Elain has to stand on her tiptoes to see over his shoulder and ensure that Helion catches her expression.

She’s rewarded with his laughter, deep and resonant.

“Forget your power,” he says, still chuckling, “I should have begged the Cauldron to make me your mate.”

“You would eat her alive,” Lucien says, half-growling. Elain’s not sure what he’s told Helion, but he’s doing a fair impression of a mated male.

“That’s what she wants you to think,” Helion says, shooting a wink in Elain’s direction, but she thinks she can hear some sincerity in his tone, and wonders if that’s true. Knows she wants it to be the truth.

They speak of the implications of Elain’s journey for the rest of the night, the hours slipping by as Helion and Lucien bicker over how Elain’s power might manifest in each world, in this one, what it means that it came alive in the passageway, how the bone is tied to all of this. When Elain offers her perspective, timidly at first, she’s gratified by their real consideration, their trust in her theories. She proposes her next exercise, trying to take somebody with her without the bone, and then testing whether she can summon a door, or else use her magic to guide herself in the passageways. Lucien and Helion, quick to disagree, both give their approval and make the assignment more intricate, sharing the latest theories on all the other worlds and dimensions, and though her head begins to spin a bit, every bit of her is thrumming with excitement. Their voices rise and fall and pause as they think, and though the library is enormous, it feels filled with everything their considering, the ancient mysteries that they’ve somehow begun to unravel.

By the time Elain feels exhaustion pressing in, she realizes it’s far past midnight, and that in fact it’s nearly morning. Lucien smothers a yawn with his palm as he offers his arm, which is quickly echoed by Helion. She’s wearing a sleepy smile as they appear in Lucien’s room.

When Elain sees Feyre, at first she thinks there’s nothing wrong. Then she sees Rhys, remembers that they’re all standing in Lucien’s room, that she’d pleaded a headache and gone to her room hours and hours ago.

“Where were you?” Feyre asks, not using the gentle voice she associates with her sister. Her words are harsh, ready to rend the world. “You have no reason to be sneaking off with Lucien.”

Behind Feyre and Rhys, Elain sees Azriel leaning on the doorframe, Cassian looming behind him. There’s no trace of a smile on his face, making his features look haunted.

Beside her, Lucien has gone pale, is already reaching for the dagger on his belt. Lucien always resorts first to diplomacy and then to a well-tuned insult, rarely violence, particularly among nominal allies. This is serious. And he’s the natural target of their suspicions. Of course she is the pretty girl with nothing in her head, easy to lead astray. Which means she can protect him.

“We went--” she begins, stepping in front of Lucien, the male who bound her with a lie that, all this time, was for her own good, who would let Rhysand slit his throat before he betrayed her trust. Her friend.

Rhysand bats his hand toward her, calm where Feyre is not, and deadlier.

“I find I like the two of you teaming up to betray this court even less than I enjoyed your individual lies,” he says. “Do not try and cover for him, Elain.”

“We did not go to the Spring Court,” she says, not budging. Feyre’s face softens in relief but she barely spares a glance for her sister. Her lies are about to begin and Feyre knows her too well. Visions are one thing, but the politics of this world are almost impossible to feign. “All we are trying to do is free Vassa.”

This is the wrong thing to say. Azriel goes pale, and Cassian lays a hand on his shoulder, as if to hold him back. She can feel Feyre’s expression shift, the relief and hope vanishing from her face, and cannot look.

“When did you begin selling our secrets, Elain?” Azriel asks, his voice as soft as a creeping shadow.

“I am not some prop for your politics,” she says, neither confirming nor denying, just stalling for time, trying to find the incantation that will return her to the way she’d felt in Helion’s library, heard and answered.

“To whom did you betray us?” Rhys asks, but his eyes aren’t on her. He’s studying Lucien, the way a wolf studies a deer, waiting for the perfect moment to pounce.

It occurs to Elain in an instant, watching that glance which is not a look but rather its own weapon, a precursor to violence and death, that this encounter will not end with an easy explanation, laughter over breakfast after a night of little sleep. The High Lord and Lady have invited their torturer to the occasion. She feels slow and stupid that it took her so long to realize what was at stake, that the cozy nights she’d spent in Helion’s library would be seen as a betrayal in this court. In truth, she hadn’t wanted to realize.

When she turns to her sister, Feyre looks at her as if she has indeed become a monster.

And maybe she is a monster, maybe she has betrayed this court, maybe she is a foolish female and a traitor and any other insult that can be leveled at her.

But Elain Archeron is no longer a pretty ornament, best suited to gilding rooms and offering sweet little smiles to handsome males who might one day wed her. Though the look on Feyre’s face is like a shattering inside her, Elain finds that she can bear the pain.

Before she vanishes, she gives Lucien a quick little nod and hopes, with his eyes that see more than she ever will, that he will guess her intention and use the spell that will bring him to Helion. Then she makes a rip in the fabric of this world, and steps out into another.

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so-about-that-dragon · 7 years

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Chapter 4

Grey could vaguely remember visiting the village they arrived at just before nightfall a few times before, but not well enough to be comfortably acquainted with the owner of the local tavern like he was in some places. More than a few people recognized them, though, not that this really surprised anyone anymore. Grey and Lokai, despite Lokai being substantially fairer skinned than the locals, could blend in well enough, but Devero was a head taller and a great deal more frightening looking than most men and some mountain cats and Skye’s scarred eyes and casual elegance, particularly in contrast with each other, never failed to draw attention. Most people gave them a wide berth, though the bartender greeted them warmly enough.

Grey left the information gathering to Lokai and Skye, who were far better at getting people to talk and making use of the information, and turned his attention instead to people watching. Devero took a seat next to him, though he was clearly paying more attention to their companions. It was not the appropriate behavior for a Shield, but it was appropriate for a man looking after the wellbeing of his two most vulnerable friends. He trusted Grey to look after them and Grey privately wondered when that had started. It had been so subtle a change that he might not have noticed at all if he himself had not caught Devero off guard a few times. There had been a time once when every moment in the open was one his Shield spent watching the people around them in nothing short of paranoia, hand ready to go for his sword the moment someone stepped too close.

Now, he was more relaxed, more casual, more comfortable in letting Grey monitor his own safety. It was a nice change.

A pretty young woman sidled over to sit between Grey and Devero. Grey noticed Devero’s hand go to the knife on his belt even as his own did the same, but the woman seemed only interested in flirting. It happened a lot, much to Grey’s discomfort and his companion’s intense amusement. While it was somewhat gratifying to be treated the same way his companions were now and then instead of held at arm’s length like he was at he castle, he could never quite figure out how to deal with the men and women who took this much interest in him. He either ended up being taken as rude and standoffish or accidentally flirting with them while trying to be polite.

Grey tried at being polite, which only served to cause random snickering from Devero, while the woman continued to giggle and flirt. Eventually, Lokai arrived with the drinks and, with an expertise Grey greatly envied, stuck himself firmly between Grey and the woman and managed to turn her attention completely to him. Thank the spirits for pretty boys with dark hair and bright eyes who knew how to use them.

“That was pathetic,” Devero chuckled as Grey made his escape and hide on the Shield’s other side.

“Fuck you,” Grey muttered into his mead.

A small amused noise behind them made Grey jump. Skye had managed to sneak up behind them, again, and the Sword took the seat next to Grey with only the tiniest of smiles on his lips. “I’m afraid that’s my job, your majesty,” he said, voice just barely audible.

Grey choked on his mead, which received a concerned look from Lokai and Devero, who had clearly not heard Skye. Grey waved them off and kicked his Sword’s foot under the table. “You are a horrible person,” he muttered.

“I believe Lokai’s been taking notes from you, Devero,” Skye mused after a few minutes of listening to Lokai and the young woman. She was all but sitting in his lap now and Lokai was happily playing with her curly hair. “He’s certainly gotten more adept at flirting in the last few years.”

Devero shrugged, though he was definitely watching Lokai closely, “Now if only our young prince would be such a quick learner.” Grey shot him a withering glare, but Devero only smiled.

Skye nudged his foot under the table, a simple, quiet warning to behave. For a moment Grey wondered if Skye actually thought he was going to rise to Devero’s bait, but then he saw a small group of men in armor entering the bar. They wore the crests of Grieval, a nation on the southern border that did not have the best relationship with Vassa or the Altasi family. The crown prince of Grieval was at the center of their group, easily recognizable by his ornate and clearly not much used armor.

“We should go,” Devero whispered, his gaze following Grey’s.

Skye nodded his agreement and Lokai, after a few moments hesitation, gave a defeated sigh. “I’m sorry, my lady,” he whispered to his companion, still toying with her hair, “we need to get back on the road.”

She gave him a truly spectacular pout, but Lokai just smiled and kissed her cheek, “Maybe I’ll come see you on the way back, y’know, if the dragon doesn’t eat me.”

“If it does,” Grey teased, “you’ll probably just turn it’s stomach and get vomited out again.”

Lokai stuck his tongue out at him, making the woman genuinely laugh. She gave Lokai a quick kiss, then leaned across the table to kiss Grey’s cheek as well, before sauntering off in the direction of the Grievalian prince. Devero snickered at the blank look that had crossed Grey’s face.

“I think she’s distracting them for us,” Lokai said suddenly, drawing Grey and Devero’s attention to the Grieval party again. Indeed, the young woman was being far more flirtatious and forceful with them than she’d been with Grey and Lokai. Her blouse seemed to have lost several buttons and her skirt had gotten a bit shorter as well and, when the prince’s back was turned, the young woman caught his eye for a brief moment and jerked her head towards the door.

“Smart lady,” Devero muttered as they headed for the door. Enthralled as they were with the young woman accosting their prince, no one from Grieval spared them so much as a sideways glance.

“Dumb soldiers,” Grey muttered as they mounted their horses.

“How’d you know they were from Grieval, anyway?” Lokai asked Skye as they set off again.

“I didn’t, but I did recognize the sound of armor and the number of people. It doesn’t take a genius to guess that they’re from a rival country trying to capture the princess for themselves.” His smile was thin lipped and cold, “There are still nations who believe that the one who saves the princess will gain her hand and rule over her kingdom and I wouldn’t put it past King Aserian to agree to it.”

Devero navigated them up the mountain roads, then a decent ways off the main road to make camp, just to be safe. Skye had not heard anyone following them, but there was no point in taking chances.

Soon enough they were all settled comfortably around one of Skye’s bright green fires and eating another meal of dried fruit and meats. Grey considered asking Devero to spar for a while, but he could not find the motivation to move away from the warmth of the fire or the heart to disturb Devero, who was comfortably lounging against a rock and reading over Lokai’s shoulder. The sight made Grey smile. He had always had difficulties with reading and could never bring himself to do it for fun, but Lokai and Devero did and he loved to see how engrossed they could both become in their books. It was how they had become friends, back in the days when Lokai had been “that annoying kid” that Grey kept smuggling into the castle, much to Skye and Devero’s annoyance.

They had never told him the whole story, but from what Grey had gathered Lokai had been breaking into the royal library, an offense punishable by imprisonment, on a pretty regular basis to read the books at night and had one night walked straight into Devero, who had finished a book during a fit of insomnia and desperately needed to get his hands on the sequel, which Lokai happened to be reading at the time. They had been bonding, and fighting, over books ever since.

“So what’s the plan for tomorrow?” Grey asked, settling himself next to Skye so they could talk without disturbing the others.

Skye chewed thoughtfully on his jerky. “According to rumor, the dragon’s keep is actually in the ruins of the old Altasi castle on the border. People have seen smoke coming out of it recently and cattle in the nearby villages have been going missing with a certain amount of regularity. It would be in our best interest to head that way.”

“Alright,” Grey snatched some of Skye’s blueberries, “and when we get there?”

“We try not to get ourselves killed,” Skye deadpanned. “No one has seen a dragon in the last eighty years. There isn’t a soul left alive who has ever fought one and books can only teach us so much. We’re going to be playing this one by ear.”

Grey caught the frown touching at Skye’s face. “How bad could this be, realistically?” he asked.

The fire popped and crackled, momentarily turning the green flames blue. Skye’s milky eyes stared right through Grey as he spoke, “There’s a good chance we’re all going to die if we slip up. In theory, we know what to do to slay a dragon. We’ve grown up with the stories and we have a great deal of experience in hunting and fighting monsters. I know I can trust the three of you to keep your heads and do as I tell you. That does not change the fact that we’re facing a beast the size of a house that can fly and breathe fire.”

Personally, Grey thought Skye had a lot more faith in him than Grey had in himself. He did not feel like he was in any way prepared to face a dragon. He did not feel like he was in any way prepared for a lot of the things that would come after the dragon, either, but at least the dragon was familiar territory. Marrying someone, even a childhood friend, was so far out of his range of experience or comfort he could barely figure out how to express his worries.

This life, this world of fighting monsters and sleeping under the stars and having adventures with the three men sharing his campfire, was the only life he had ever been comfortable with. His father had been right to be hesitant about letting Grey go out on warrior’s quests with Devero, but his reasons had been far off the mark. He had feared his only child’s injury or death, not the possibility that a son of nobility would be more comfortable as a warrior than as a prince. Grey wondered if his father had noticed it yet, how much harder it was for Grey to keep coming back to stone walls and formal clothes when all he wanted was open air.

Finally, he took a deep breath and said, “Is it bad that I don’t want to continue this quest because I don’t want to marry Aseria when it’s over?”

Skye was quiet for far longer than Grey was entirely comfortable with. Skye had a quick tongue and quicker mind. It was not like him to have to think about his responses. “Do you want me to answer you as your Sword,” he asked quietly, “or as your friend?”

Grey hated when he said things like that. “Which do you think is more important?” he finally answered.

There was that little smile again, a ghost of sadness and affection hiding within kindness. It was the smile Skye always had when he was torn between his duties as the prince’s adviser and his loyalty to his friend, when he was forced to acknowledge the fact that he was not always capable of being honest and impartial with the two roles. There was a certain amount of self-depreciation in his voice when he said, “Your happiness matters more to me than anything else in this world. In my mind, my advice as your friend will always be more important, which is why I have to advise you as your Sword first. It is your duty to carry on your family’s line. To do anything else would risk being seen as a sign of weakness to both our enemies and allies as well as potentially causing a war between Vassa and Crimisa that will have far too many casualties.” He paused, considered his next words carefully, “As your friend, the very idea of you getting married is upsetting, least of all because I know the emotional toll it will take on you. I’m afraid I would halt this quest and happily take whatever punishment the king chooses to give me for it if you asked me to,” he gestured to Devero and Lokai, who were still engrossed in their book, “as would they.”

“I was afraid you’d say that,” Grey sighed, smiling, “life was a lot less complicated when you resented me, wasn’t it?”

“Indeed,” Skye replied, “but not nearly as enjoyable.”

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