#kallias x viviane | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

divinemare · 10 months

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⊹₊ ⋆ 𝔠𝔬𝔩𝔡 𝔰𝔱𝔞𝔯𝔩𝔦𝔤𝔥𝔱𝔰 ⋆₊ ⊹

┊⁀➷ nyx archeron x oc

┊part nine

☁︎·̩͙✧

“You look…beautiful, dear,” her mother forced a smile while fixing up her hair, but Demetria said nothing.

She knew her mother was doing all this in hopes she would take information out of her, in hopes to understand why was she taking this decision, why, even tho she hadn’t slept in weeks, her eyes looked dull and her skin much paler than normal, she still decided to marry the male responsible for it.

Demetria looked at herself in the mirror. She did not looked beautiful, she looked dead. Emotionless. She didn’t just looked like it, she felt like it as well.

Everything had turned dull with the passing of the days, from the aching pain in her chest at the absence of something she still didn’t understand, to the tiredness that consumed her day and night.

She stared at the flowers in her head and felt a tremendous urge to tear them up and destroy them, to trample them underfoot, to get rid of them and their stupid bright colours. She wanted to take off her clothes, the ones that had been made for her in a combination of Spring and Winter styles, and burn them to ashes. She hated them, hated their colours, their layers and their meaning. Yet Demetria only stood up from her vanity and walked over to where her shoes waited.

Viviane watched her daughter with pain in her eyes, she wished then she could ask Feyre to read her mind, to tell her what was wrong with her sweet girl, but she wouldn’t, she knew Demetria wouldn’t forgive the invasion in her mind. But still, she was a desperate mother, and everyday she saw her daughter crumble a little bit more, she got more and more desperate.

“Demetria, my beautiful snow flake, please, I’m begging you to tell me what’s wrong,” she approached her white haired daughter.

When Demetria raised her head and saw the tears gleaming in her mother’s beautiful eyes, she wanted to scream and hug her. But she had only empty words to respond with.

“Would you trust me when I say that I’m doing this for a reason?”

“And is that reason enough to make you look so sad?”

Now that made her tear up. It was, it really was, but still, she felt so…lonely.

Demetria swallowed her tears up and nodded. Not capable of answering out loud, as she knew she would break down if she did so.

“Oh, my brave girl,” Viviane approached her daughter, and without Demetria expecting it, her mother embraced her in a hug.

Her heart crashed against her aching chest with the force of a thousand unspoken words. She didn’t dare move, afraid she would break down if she did so.

“Just don’t shut us completely down, your father is stressed to death, and your brother…” Viviane pulled away enough to cup her face in her hands, and Demetria had to swallow her tears. “Your brother misses you, he’s your twin, he feels your distress.”

“I don’t want to get him involved, not for now, at least.”

“Then get me involved.” That voice she hadn’t heard in a month made all her hair stand on end and her eyes to shot towards the door, opened with shock and confusion.

“Darling?” Viviane took her daughters chin in her fingers to turn her towards her, looking confused by her sudden change.

“I’m here, and I’m not leaving until I speak with you.”

Her heart pounded in her chest so hard she thought she was having a heart attack.

Her mother furrowed her eyebrows, waiting for a response that Demetria wasn’t able to deliver at the moment.

“Now, Demetria.”

She swallowed hard and looked back at the door. Her mother sighed, and when Demetria turned to look at her, she saw how the female smiled slightly.

“Go, he’s most definitely not leaving without having a word.”

“How…?”

“Please, you really thought Feyre and I didn’t already know? I’m your mother, my beautiful snow flake. Now go, go,” Viviane pushed her daughter towards the door slightly, giving Demetria no chance but to walk out of her room.

She followed the tug of energy that somehow told her exactly where Nyx was. She didn’t knew how, but…she just knew. Knew what path to follow, knew how many steps to take. Just knew how to find him.

The beating of her heart became so irregular as she reached the terrace on the east side of the place she could perfectly hear it in her ears and feel it pounding in her throat as she opened the windows, the night blending with overwhelming perfection with the male standing outside. His wings where spread like two great impotent shadows. Demetria noticed, there, that the stars seemed to shine more brightly in his presence, that his face was hard and molded into an expression of what appeared to be rage and helplessness and relief and...she really had no idea what else, she could never read Nyx's expressions completely. Funny, for someone who could read a person's soul with a look.

“What are you doing here?” Nyx smiled with bittersweet, putting his hands in his pockets.

“Not even a hello? Now that’s rude, sweetheart,” even tho his mocking smirk was on place, it didn’t reach his eyes.

“Cut the bullshit. What. Are. You. Doing. Here,” Demetria approached with her arms folded, she barely could tolerate looking at her family, but looking at him now…she truly felt like a snow mountain a touch away from crumbling.

“I told you, I want to talk to you,” the fake smirk immediately vanished as if it had never been there from Nyx’s face, and only pure, forced calmness to cover up exploding emotions remained.

“I don’t have time for this, Nyx, I need to go,” she turned around, ready to leave her heart in that balcony while her sanity was still intact.

“Where? To your engagement party?” Demetria stoped dead in her tracks.

Obviously he should’ve known by now, but still…something so unpleasant it made her want to throw up twisted in her stomach.

“You’re not seriously planning on marrying him, are you?” The disbelief in his voice made Demetria scoff and finally turn around to face him.

When had he gotten so close?

She swallowed the beats of her own treacherous heart and looked at him with the same disbelief he was looking at her. He paused for a second, finally acknowledging her clothing, and Demetria could only say he looked positively ten times more enraged and even disgusted by the way both Winter and Spring styles didn’t match each other at all. And she hated she felt the exact same way about it.

“Maybe I am, so what.”

“Oh, like fucking hell you are,” she had never, in the whole century she’d been knowing him, seen him so enraged like he was looking right now.

That just made her more angry, that just made her want to explode harder.

“What? Now you’re going to tell me who am I to marry and who am I to not?”

“Yes, exactly.”

Demetria scoffed again, looking at him as if waiting the signal that this was a joke, but it wasn’t, not with the male looking so exasperated as he did.

Now she was fucking pissed too.

“Oh, fuck you Nyx, fuck you!” She tried to get away, but he didn’t allow it as he grabbed her by her arms and made them both turn around so she’ll be trapped between the stone railing and him.

They looked at each other with such an intense rage and almost snapping gritted teeth that the heat running through her body at the proximity of his was just as ridiculous at the erratic pounding of their hearts. Because Demetria could hear his, too, and she was sure he heard hers as well.

“You can curse me everything you want, sweetheart, but you’re still not going to marry that piece of shit.”

“Why not? Huh? As if you fucking cared!” She trashed against his grip, but he only held her harder and closer.

“I do fucking care! I do! And because maybe you haven’t grasped it yet, or maybe you’re just ignoring it, but this?” He looked between the two of them. “We?”

Demetria’s mouth fell so dry she almost gasped, but she couldn’t allow it, she couldn’t allow him to come any closer, she couldn’t allow this to go any further.

“There’s no we, Nyx.”

“There is a we! There has always been a we! Do not pretend otherwise, for fucking Mother’s sake, Demetria!”

She had no other words left in her to fight, she wasn’t even sure there was any desire left to fight at all, but yet she snarled at him, with all the anger she had been accumulating the last couple of weeks, with all the impotence she had been feeling and all the despair she couldn’t contain anymore.

“I hate you, Nyx Archeron! I fucking hate you!”

“Dem…” He soften his grip enough for her to free herself and start punching his chest, tears finally falling down her cheeks.

“I. Hate. You!” She emphasized every word with a punch in his chest.

But he did not move, he stayed there, allowing her to burst all her emotions in a fist of rage and tears.

“Dem…”

“Fuck you and your ‘let’s do nothing, together’,” one angry, desolated punch. “Fuck you and your ‘sweetheart’ nonsense,” and another. “Fuck you and your ‘that’s my girl’ bullshit,” and another. “Fuck you and your unspoken words,” and another. “And fuck you for leaving me when I needed you!”

“Well then fuck you as well!” He snapped, his night-sky blue eyes full of a fire she knew all too well, the same fire burning in her chest, the same fire making her skin hot, the same fire holding their rage together. “Fuck you and your stupid believe that you have to do everything on your own. Fuck you and your need to control everything around you. Fuck you and that stupid dress you’re wearing because it’s nothing like you, and it makes me so fucking mad to think you’re wearing it for him. Fuck you and the way you make me so incredibly confused I cannot sleep because I cannot stop thinking about you. Fuck you and the way you make my heart feel like a useless little thing when it seems to not be able to contain itself around you,” he got so close to her she had to grip the railing so hard her hands began to hurt with the rough stone. “And fuck you, Demetria, because I cannot believe that in all the people in this Mother damned world, the Cauldron made me fall so stupidly and irrevocably in love with you, only to then break my fucking heart making you my mate too.”

He was so angry yet so…desperately hopeful it made Demetria held her breath. The tears were now falling silently, but she did not react to that word. Mate. She had already known it. Deep down, she had already felt it.

Nyx Archeron, the reckless, stupid, oh-so-charming Night Prince was her mate.

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separatist-apologist · 2 years

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The Wildest Winter

In the cracks of light, I looked for you

Summary: Viviane had not been Under the Mountain. As her childhood friend, Kallias had been protective of her to a fault over the years- had placed the sharp-minded female on border duty to avoid the scheming of his court. He didn't let her near Amarantha, either. Didn't let anyone get a whiff of what he felt for his white-haired friend, who had no clue- not one- that he had loved her his entire life.

Read More: AO3

Some things in life were a given. The Salten Mountains were the tallest peaks in Winter Court, the lake would always be nothing but solid, unblemished ice and Kallias could be counted on to wake Viviane up before even the sun. Kallias was like the snow, as far as she was concerned. It had always been there.

And always would be.

Just like her friend. Every memory she had was tainted by his presence. The son of a lord just as she was, they were far enough removed from the High Lord and his family that they could do as they pleased, but not so far from court that they could run as wild as they wanted.

Viviane had never had to spend a day of her life without Kallias. He’d had to spend two. She liked to tease him about that at times, pulling a scowl from his familiar face. It was his face creeping into her bedroom as the clock struck midnight. Winter Solstice meant a day of celebrations, of feasts and listening to priestesses drone on and on while they all shivered outdoors.

But midnight meant Kallias would slip into her room with a gift, and they’d celebrate just the two of them. She couldn’t remember when or how the tradition had begun. Only that for the last decade and a half, she could count on him to lock her door the minute that last chime rang out.

Viviane sat up, watching the lords son step carefully through the dark. He was dressed in pajamas just as she was, his feet bare against the heated marble floors. Kallias’s white hair shone bright in the flickering firelight, his icy blue eyes bright with delight.

She reached beneath her bed, her own silvery blonde hair creating a curtain around her face as she withdrew the gift she’d hidden from her parents days before. They wanted her and Kallias to stop sneaking around the way they did.

People at court talked. As if Viviane cared. Her and Kallias were friends, and if the others didn’t understand that, she could hardly be blamed. He’d never once touched her and she didn’t think he ever would. What they had was special, but when she tried to explain it to her parents, they merely rolled their eyes with exasperation.

Kallias sat on the edge of her bed, grinning ear to ear as she righted herself. In his lap was a pretty, amethyst wrapped box. “Did I wake you?” he asked, just as he always did.

“Yes,” she lied, letting him admire how much nicer her box was wrapped. “Did you wrap that in the dark?”

“As a matter of fact,” he agreed, his smile undimmed. “Father insists I will not disturb Lady Viviane from her sleep this year.”

“It’s nice to know there are still some gentlemen at court,” she agreed, offering him up her box.

“Oh? Are you too old for gifts at midnight?”

Viviane was seventeen, Kallias nineteen. They stared at the other for a moment. “No,” she admitted. “I think I will be five hundred years old still waiting for you to creep through the door. You’ll have children and a wife—”

Kallias snorted. “I doubt it.”

“And still I will expect to see you.”

“As you should,” he agreed, his eyes focused intently upon her. She chose not to examine why, snatching the gift out of his lap. He chuckled softly, reaching for his own neatly wrapped gift.

His long fingers slid over the silver bow she painstakingly tied, head cocked as he admired it.

“You go to too much trouble each year,” he complained. “You don’t have to wrap it at all.”

“Of course I do,” she replied just a touch too smugly. “How else will I remind you of your many inadequacies?”

“Just open it, Viv,” Kallias ordered. That was the way of things. She went first, he second. His gift would be impossibly thoughtful and she’d feel bad for what she’d given him in return. She pulled at the paper, not bothering to save it like her mother would demand of her in the morning. Viviane never wanted to reuse the paper from last year—and certainly not on Kallias.

She ought to have known the moment she felt its weight that he’d replace her worn skates. Only Kallias would have noticed she’d practically worn holes into the toes, that the blades were all but useless.

She swallowed, touching the pretty silver and blue nestled in sparkling golden paper. She looked up at him, heart pounding in her chest. “These are…”

“I saw you fall last month,” he admitted. “I thought these might help.”

“Do you want to go?” she asked. Viviane loved nothing more than she loved to ice skate. Of course he knew it—everyone knew it.

He laughed loud enough her parents might have caught them had they still been awake. “Now?”

“Don’t you want to see if they fit?” she asked, scooting just a little closer. His eyes gleamed and for a moment, Viviane remembered just how handsome Kallias was. The other females said he was carved from ice, and with his pale skin and his cut jaw, his high cheekbones and his full mouth, she supposed she understood why they thought that. But Kallias was warm, seemed to burn with inner heat. No one understood that about him.

She saw it all, sitting an inch away from him. His fingers drummed on the package in his lap. “I’ll need to change.”

“Dress quickly, then,” she replied, pleased when he nodded his head.

“What did you get me, Viv?”

She sighed, watching him pull the ribbon with a sinking feeling. She’d never figure out the right thing—the thing Kallias wanted above all else. She’d been trying her whole life. Kallias always got her the exact thing she wanted and needed, and she’d never quite managed the same.

He pulled the curved, steel dagger from inside the box, eyes wide as he beheld it. She’d tried harder this year.

“Where…”

“It’s Illyrian steel,” she whispered. “From the Night Court.”

He ran his finger over the black hilt, encrusted with carefully lain blue stones. “How…”

“I made a friend,” she replied. “One of their court daughters…Morrigan.”

He didn’t look at her for a long moment, a reminder that Kallias was the best fighter in their cohort. Better than the High Lord’s ninety year old son Gunnar—when the male didn’t cheat to win, anyway. She’d hoped this would finally settle whatever disappointment always flickered in his gaze after he considered her gift.

Viviane was wrong. He liked it and it wasn’t what he’d wanted. He looked up at her, unaware of how her heart sank at the sight of his longing. “This is perfect,” he told her. “Nikolai will be so jealous.”

“Do you like it?” she asked, ignoring how he’d said it was perfect. Kallias would have told her a box of used garbage was perfect. She studied him as he sighed.

“Yes, Viv. Perfect. I can’t wait to show the others.”

“Perhaps you could show me,” she replied. A reminder that he’d promised to teach her, too. That she was just as capable as him, and Kallias was the only one who thought so.

He smiled, his expression softening. “Before or after a midnight skate?”

“After,” she said, scrambling out of bed. The disappointment on his face was gone, replaced with only amusement. “Go get dressed.”

He heaved a heavy, mocking sigh. “So demanding—”

Viviane pushed his broad, muscular body towards the door. “Stop talking and just go.”

His soft chuckle echoed through her mind long after he’d left. Viviane scrambled into her fur lined leggings and a heavy purple coat dress. Very quickly, she braided her long hair off her face and tucked the tail into her hood. Just in time for Kallias to return, every inch a lord of winter. He frowned, arms crossed over his chest, when he realized she was jamming wool socks over her feet rather than ready to go.

“I have more hair than you,” she hissed, pleased to see his lips twitching with amusement. His own pair of black and gold skates hung over his shoulder, a reminder that Kallias skated because she loved it. His pair were in far better shape.

“Hurry up. If your dad catches me, he might skin me alive.”

“It can’t be any worse than when he caught Aeden,” she replied, lacing up her boots quickly. Kallias went utterly still.

“Aeden?”

She laughed. “Yeah. With his pants down, of course. I told him not to be so loud, but…” But males loved for everyone to know they were fucking, even if it meant her father could hear, too.

Even if it meant Aeden had narrowly avoided being flayed within an inch of his life.

She grabbed the skates from the box Kallias had given her, surprised to see the deep frown on her friend's face.

“Everything okay?” she asked. He blinked, some cold rage flickering just behind them. It was gone before she could finish taking a breath, replaced with an easy smile.

“Of course.” He offered her his own gloved hand. “Ready?”

Viviane had the distinct feeling she’d done something wrong, though she couldn’t say why. Taking his hand made her feel better, and reaching the frigid air outdoors helped. Kallias slipped on his skates, before the two were gliding against the emptied lake, still holding gloved hands.

“So,” he began, his deep voice half lost in the howling wind. “Aeden, huh?”

“Aimee?” she replied, wondering what he knew that she didn’t. Viviane heard all the rumors of his sexual procilvities and always kept it to herself. He was her best friend, not her husband. She had no right to ask. Kallias’s fingers tightened.

“Was he the first?”

“No,” she replied, exhaling her relief. Crisp air filled her lungs and the slide of her brand new skates against the lake made Viviane feel otherworldly—like some mystical creature never seen before.

“Who?

“Jonas,” Viviane admitted. She didn’t dare tell him Jonas had happened because she’d learned Kallias had woken beside three females he barely knew. And her jealousy had overwhelmed her to the point that any male would do. Viviane didn’t dare tell Kal that she’d always assume they’d navigate those new waters together.

“Ah. Not special, then?”

She snorted. No. “Better to get it over with, right?”

Kallias peered down at her, his eyes practically colorless in the moonlight overhead. “Is that how you felt about it?”

And she wondered, in that moment, what would have happened if she’d just asked him to take her virginity from her. Viviane had just assumed he wouldn’t be interested, that it would cross some irrevocable line between them.

So she shrugged. He was her best friend. “Isn’t that how you felt about it?”

Kallias shrugged, too. “I suppose. I’m not judging, Viv.”

“I don’t want to talk about him,” she said, looking up into Kallias’s moon-bright eyes. She thought he might argue with her—she could see he had more questions.

He swallowed them with a nod of his head, following her lead as Viviane took them further from the palace. This was a familiar dance between them and though it wasn’t like a waltz, Kallias still knew every step. Every place his skates needed to go in order to keep his hand on her waist, anticipating her every movement seconds before she made it so they both didn’t smash into the ice below.

They stayed out too long, and Viv knew it. Kallias, too, though he didn’t say it. Snow had begun to fall over the ice by the time they took their half frozen bodies back to the palace. The argument that had begun brewing between them was gone, forgotten when Kallias smiled. Viviane relaxed, slipping back into the warmth still holding his hand.

“Happy Solstice, Kal,” she murmured when they had to part ways.

Kallias hesitated and then grabbed her wrist, pulling her against his broad chest for a tight hug.

“Happy Solstice, Viv.”

KALLIAS:

“Gunnar is staring,” Kallias told Viviane, snaking his arm around her waist just to rub it in. She wasn’t paying attention, head turned to mouth something unreadable over at Kira. Only Kallias was looking at Gunnar on his icy throne, brown eyes boring into an ignorant Viviane.

She was beautiful and Gunnar wanted her. He waited for the inevitable moment when Gunnar's head turned, looking at him.

Kallias couldn’t help himself. He flashed a feral edged smile, ever possessive when he had no right to be. She was his best friend and best friend only. In fifty years, that was the only constant between them. Kallias didn’t dare try and be anything else, too afraid he’d ruin the best thing he ever had.

“Oh, are we dancing?” Viviane breathed when he swept her up into his arms just at the edge of the open dance floor.

“Just once,” he agreed, taking the first dance for himself. Kallias was greedy when it came to her time.

“Have you seen the emissary?” she asked, trying to look up over his shoulder.

“Briefly, this morning,” he agreed, too busy looking down at Viviane in her deep purple gown to recall what that female had looked like. He knew she was going to ask, her painted lips parting with excitement.

Hybern had sent an emissary. An apology for their role in the war four centuries before. Kallias was uneasy, though he couldn’t put his finger on it. Only that he didn’t want Viviane anywhere near that female until they knew for sure she came only with peaceful intentions.

She’d been making her way down the courts. She’d begun in Night, then Day and Dawn before finally reaching their court just that morning. She had no home, and if her pattern held, she’d remain with them for a chunk of time, getting to know their land, their people.

Kallias had risen in court, had become an influential diplomat, and had enough sway he could ask to move people to the border. He hadn’t told Viviane yet, but he’d gone to the High Lord and asked her to be sent to the fortress in the Salten Mountains just on the border. Far from this emissary, at least for now. They needed a steward, someone to help watch out for the mountainside city.

Who better than Viv? The High Lord imagined this a test for his terrible son, proof that Viviane would make a good Lady of Winter Court. Kallias didn’t deny that, though he thought he might have gone to war if she ever changed her opinion on insipid, stupid Gunnar.

“What is she like?” Viviane asked him, pulling his thoughts back to the present. They were still dancing, he realized. His feet moved automatically, hands tight on her beaded waist. “Is she beautiful?

Kallias laughed. “Hardly.”

“They say she’s the never fading flower. I just assumed it was a testament to her beauty,” Viviane replied. He shook his head.

“I think it’s a testament to her persuasion skills. They say she can charm a High Lord to agree to anything.”

Viviane glanced at their own lord, imperious and solemn despite the festivities raging around him. “Agree to what?”

“Trade,” Kallias murmured, though he caught the note of uncertainty in her own voice. “Shipping. The cost of goods. Anything.”

The music slowed, fading to silence. Kallias pulled her against him, stepping backwards from the ivory colored floor as the arching double doors at the very end of the room opened. Amarantha. That was her name, hardly fitting given she looked less floral and more ice. She ought to have fit right in, and yet there wasn’t an ounce of warmth to her. Even when she smiled, her beetle black eyes and her gleaming, bone white teeth were unsettling.

Unnatural.

“Wasn’t she a general?” Viviane whispered, reaching between them to grasp his hand. Amarantha tucked a ruby piece of hair behind her arched ear, swanning past all of them in a sparkling black dress that showed off entirely too much of her moon pale skin. Kallias took another step backwards, blending into the crowd. He didn’t want Amarantha to look at Viviane at all.

“Yes,” he agreed. He’d forgotten that, but Viviane loved history—she wouldn’t have overlooked such a detail.

All at once, his decision to remove Viviane from court seemed smart. Well thought out, even. Viviane would balk, but perhaps if Kira went, too, she’d see the wisdom in such a move. Amarantha didn’t need to know of Viviane’s existence at all.

“Why not send an actual emissary?” Viviane wondered. Kallias glanced down at her, hating that the High Lord was right about Viviane. She would have made a good Lady of Winter.

He cocked his head, watching the Hybernian general turned diplomat bow before the High Lord and Lady and his son with ease. As if she were born to live on her knees. Nothing about her betrayed some ulterior motive.

Kallias felt no better. Not when she took a place beside their High Lord to speak, her eyes sweeping over the room. Not when Viviane vanished to talk and giggle with Kira. Kallias kept watch at the far end of the throne room, leaned up against a pillar.

Nikolai came to see him, his dark hair pushed off his olive skin. Brown eyes swept the room, lingering on Amarantha. He nodded, lips pressed in a thin line. “What do you make of her?”

“I don’t know,” Kallias admitted. “The other courts speak so highly of her. They say she’s generous and eager to make amends.”

“The solar courts can’t be trusted,” Nikolai murmured, earning a careful nod from Kallias. Night was more shadow than anything—their strange High Lord a mystery. Thesan in Dawn was nice enough, though he rarely spoke. No one knew what to make of Thesan.

And of course, Phobos over in Day—popular and well-liked, Phobos might have been the exception to the statement that the solar courts couldn’t be trusted had he not been so close to Night. And anyone who allied alongside Rhysand as unquestioningly as Phobos did was suspect in the minds of the seasonal courts.

“I guess we’ll see,” Kallias told his friend. His eyes found Viviane again, dancing with another lord's son, a smile on her perfect face. Kallias’s stomach tightened at the sight of her, a feeling he smothered before anyone caught his softness. It was hardly a secret that he and Viv were close and yet he wanted to draw no attention to their connection. Sending her away would put the rumors between them to rest.

Kallias had meant to tell Viviane what she meant to him when they came of age. Had planned to get on both knees and beg her to marry him. Kallias had a ring, he’d had it all planned out.

Hybern had landed that same day. The news of Amarantha swanning into Spring had unsettled them all, Kallias included.

He’d tell her when he knew how things were going to go. When Amarantha proved she only wanted to be friends with Prythian. When marrying Viviane wouldn’t put a target on her back…though, if Kallias was honest, there had been some relief in not having to go through with the proposal.

He had no idea if Viviane loved him as anything more than a brother. She’d never once given him any indication she felt even an inkling of the same love he did. Kallias had been in love with Viviane his whole life. Would have done anything for her.

And she…she was currently in the arms of another lord.

“Kira is leaving with Viv. Did you tell her?”

Kallias’s eyes slid back to the floor. “No.”

“You should. Don’t let it be Gunnar who tells her. It ought to come from you.”

“Kira hasn’t said?”

Some dark emotion flashed through Nikolai’s eyes and Kallias wondered if he wasn’t the only one pining after a female wholly unaware of his affection. “She doesn’t know Viv is going, too. Only that she’s being removed from court for a mountain city.”

Right. Wegen was their most rural reaching city in the mountains. Defensively, there was nowhere better–the Salten Mountains were unforgiving and brutal, especially to those unused to the cold.��

“They can hold their own court,” Kallias said dismissively. Nikolai only snorted, rolling his eyes at how dismissive Kallias was. He took one step towards Viv, halting when Gunnar stepped off his throne. Eyes only on Viviane, Kallias could do nothing but watch the older male pull Viv into a dance. Only Kallias noticed the way her shoulders stiffened, how her vibrant blue eyes became chips of ice against her otherwise flushed face.

Gunnar was a century older than the two of them and had been after her since she was a girl. Viviane hadn’t forgotten it.

Neither had Kallias. Kallias took a step back. Waiting. Gunnar wouldn’t be able to resist reminding her that she was being sent away—that the High Lord meant for her to rule. Her head snapped to the side, the words Gunnar murmured lost to the music and the laughing, talking crowd. Strands of her silvery blonde hair caught against her sticky lips, half hiding the betrayal when she finally found him standing at the edge of the crowd.

“Rough luck,” Nikolai murmured, watching Gunnar announce that should Viviane do well, he’d be asking her to marry him under the assumption of course she’d say yes. The High Lord would sanction this union and her parents would, too. Who didn’t want to see their daughter married to a future High Lord, after all? Gunnar had all the markers of it.

Kallias turned, ignoring the accusation on Viviane’s face. She could hate him all she liked so long as she was far, far away from Hybern. Kallias made it as far as the end of the hall before he heard heels on the marble.

“Kal!”

He stiffened, but didn’t stop.

“Kal!”

Only Viviane’s hand on his biceps stopped him completely. “You…” she breathed, her chest rising and falling rapidly. “You asked to put me at the border?”

Viviane wasn’t really a soldier, though she’d trained as one, just as most of them had. Defending this decision without falling at her feet and telling her everything would be a near impossible task.

“Would you prefer the barracks?” he asked. “You’ll oversee the city itself. I thought you’d prefer that sort of assignment.”

“Since when?” she snapped, shoving him hard in the chest. Kallias didn’t budge, though it wounded him all the same. “When have I ever expressed interest in ruling?”

Her fury threatened to cut him to ribbons. “What are you interested in, then Viv—”

“Politics, and you know it,” she hissed. “And don’t pretend for one minute you didn’t do this to get me away from Hybern’s emissary.”

He remained still, which only seemed to make her angrier. Viviane shoved him again, her cheeks flushed with color. “Gunnar seems to think the end of this assignment will be marriage.”

“You’d make a good Lady of Winter,” Kallias conceded. Viviane’s hand flew upwards, striking him against the cheek before he could stop her.

“What…” she swallowed, eyes wide as if she just realized what she’d done “How could you say that to me?”

“I…” he blinked, the sting of her anger burning his skin. “I’m afraid.”

Taking her wrist in his hand, Kallis flipped her hand palm side up and pressed it against the same cheek she’d just struck. “I know you love politics, Viv. But I’m afraid…” he couldn’t finish that thought. Couldn’t admit that if the Hybern emissary realized that Gunnar was fascinated by Viviane, Amarantha wouldn’t one day use her as some sort of pawn to keep the High Lord’s family in check. Viviane let him press his lips to her skin, let him inhale the soft, feminine scent of her skin.

“You should have told me,” she said, stepping closer into the shadows. “We’re supposed to be friends. I would have…” she took a deep breath, eyes holding his gaze. “You know I’d do anything you asked.”

He let go of her hand, nodding. “It’s not forever. Just…for now.”

“And you? You’ll stay here?” she questioned. Trust. She’d swallow her anger and hurt because she trusted him. Relief flooded through him.

“If I could leave, I would,” he admitted. “Kira will take my place.”

“It seems you thought of everything, Kal,” she whispered, unable to hide the entirety of her hurt. A heartbeat of silence passed between them before Viviane stepped away entirely. Shaking her long head of beautiful hair, she turned back for the throne room and the celebration happening just beyond.

And it wasn’t until later that Kallias considered that Viviane had been waiting for him to say something.

Anything.

And he’d said nothing at all.

VIVIANE:

Saying goodbye to court had been a toned down affair.Viviane had ignored her mothers whispered you will be Lady of Winter Court one day, with a roll of her eyes. Over her bleeding, dead body would she ever sit beside Gunnar, would she ever rule at all. The whispering, the excitement only irked her. She wasn’t going to prove she could be some thoughtful equal to the one-day High Lord.

She was going because Kallias was an overbearing asshole. It had been his smug face in the crowd, arms crossed over his chest as she made her way out, Kira at her side. Viviane made her way to him, letting him pull her into a hug while her father clicked his teeth with exasperation in the background.

“I think one day you will regret putting so much distance between us,” she murmured, taking a deep inhale of his jacket one last time. He smelled of ice covered pine and midnight snow. Masculine and crisp and comforting. Kallias put his chin atop her head, sighing heavily.

“One of us has to be careful, Viv.”

“You’ll write?”

“Everyday.”

“And you’ll visit?”

“When I can,” he agreed. “We’ll still be friends.”

And she knew it. Viviane knew her and Kallias would be friends until the stars winked out—that there was nothing that would keep him from honoring that whispered promise. It made being angry with him difficult. Kallias was cautious—a planner. It was what made him an adept politician, why the High Lord valued his input and insight. Kallias considered everything and everyone. She’d always known that about him. Despite looking as if he’d been carved of the ice and wind, Kallias burned like the fire beneath their land that heated the water.

And if he was sending her from court, he was scared. He’d said so and still, to see it when she pulled from his embrace was another. There was no kiss this time, perhaps because her father would disapprove of making such a show when the heir to the throne of winter was so fixated. Or, perhaps Kallias merely didn’t care to do it twice. He was her friend, not her lover after all.

She sighed.

“Who will remind you to have fun?” she whispered, her heart aching in her chest. His mouth pulled deeper, a frown threatening to etch itself permanently onto his face. He placed one of his steady, broad hands against his chest just above his heart.

“You, of course,” he murmured with obvious affection. “As if I could ever remove the sound of your voice from my head urging me to work less.”

Viviane nodded. It wouldn’t be the same and it would have been petulant to say so. She could feel her fathers eyes on her. Questioning why she needed so long to tell one male goodbye. How often had she assured them Kallias was just like any other friend? Her whole life. Fifty years. It was nothing, a drop in the endless, immortal bucket she expected to live and yet…fifty years of Viviane and Kallias was coming to an end.

She wondered if he felt her anguish, her hurt. Kallias took a careful step forward, his ice blue eyes flickering up over her head before falling back on her face. “You’ll be back before you know it, Viv. Nothing else will change. I swear it.”

Viviane didn’t know why she couldn’t promise him the same. She caught his disappointment just before she turned her back. Viviane had a million things she might have said to him, speeches she’d rehearsed in her mind before coming down. Begging Kallias to use his influence to call this whole thing off, threats that she would marry Gunnar, as if Kallias cared who she chose to marry at all. And her fury for not even bothering to tell her. For keeping this secret until Gunnar blurted it out with excitement.

Oh, but her anger threatened to drown her. She’d never been so angry with Kallias with her life. Viviane swallowed it, because telling him so might fracture something between them. And if Viviane had to live with either her anger or not having her best friend, well, she’d choose the anger every time. She knew, besides, that Kallias was well aware one day this was all going to come out.

That he’d have to atone for this caution.

Not that day, though. He merely remained in court, the last thing she saw before she and Kira winnowed away. She thought that was fitting—after all, hre very first memory was of him, too. Some strange part of her assumed his eyes would be the last thing she saw when she died, too—because some too careful decision caused her innate need to rebel, taking her life.

The image of his disappointment was banished the minute she and Kira reached Wegen.

“Oh…oh Gods,” Kira whispered, clutching Viviane’s wrist. To say the Salten Mountain city was rural was an understatement. Their things were set at their feet not on a road, but a mud path beaten into the ground by the hooves of animals. Livestock roamed between old, rotting buildings in desperate need of repair.

Built into the mountains was a gleaming, white palace she’d been told the locals affectionately called the Salt Palace. It was where her and Kira were to stay. Viviane didn’t move, the cold, dry air whipping around her until she was certain it had burned her cheeks. Kira, too, remained still.

“Lady Viviane?”

Both her and Kira turned their heads to the male making his way towards them. He might have been her fathers age, or the wind had merely weathered him prematurely. It was impossible to say—only that his olive skin and his warm, blue eyes had been touched by this place and the result wasn’t unpleasant. Unlike the males back home, who fussed endlessly over their appearance, he just was.

He took the hat from his head, betraying wintry blonde hair not unlike her own fathers. “Forgive me, Lady…”

“Kira,” Kira murmured, glancing towards Viviane with wide, confused eyes.

“We were told only one steward—”

“Just me,” Viviane breathed, catching how tense and tight Kira’s shoulders were. “Kira is here to help with defense and secure the border between Autumn and Winter.”

He exhaled, clearly relieved he had not missed some vital communication from the High Lord. He offered them both a bow that made Kira burst into stifled giggles. Viviane kept her face polite, waiting for him to straighten.

“We haven’t had a lord…ah….forgive me, a lady…in our town in a near century,” he said. Viviane could see that. She wondered if Kallias had known how rough this place was when he’d suggested it. Viviane looked around again. Necessary businesses built like upside down pyramids, she assumed to help protect those on the streets shopping. Viviane could imagine rows upon rows of them lining a neat, well-paved cobblestone street where people could bring their sleds pulled by massive winter deer and dogs. Where the livestock wasn’t just roaming. They’d need to fence them off higher up, and create trails for grazing in order to keep the streets from being smeared in shit.

They’d need gold.

“Do you need anything?” Viviane asked. What had the former lord of this place done? “What is your name?”

He ducked his head. “Agnar, lady.”

“Agnar was one of our great warriors, was he not?” she asked, recalling the legend with perfect clarity. A hero of winter and their first High Lord.

Agnar’s cheeks flushed. “I am a simple farmer, lady.”

“And Wegner? Does it need anything?”

Besides the obvious, though she didn’t dare say that. Agnar’s cheeks were practically a flame.

“A school,” he managed.

Kira’s steps stumbled over a large rock in their path.

“What did the former lord of this place do when he was here?” she asked, wondering who it had been. Kallias would know. She vowed to ask when she wrote, if only to put that male on Kallias’s radar.

“He built the palace, lady.”

At the expense of the people living in Wegner. He ruled from the edge of the mountains in what she assumed had once been a beautiful fortress. It, like everything else, had seen better days. Just another expensive project, one she’d have to beg the High Lord to fix.

Viviane was a courtier, just barely a politician. She wasn’t a ruler and had assumed she’d be coming to a place already well run to merely keep their books balanced and throw little parties. Beside her, Kira would create a patrol of sentries, would maybe teach some people more advanced fighting techniques.

And instead—

“There was also sickness last brutal season,” Agnar practically whispered. “We lost three of our younglings.”

Losing even one child was unacceptable. To lose three? She could see his grief, could feel it in the pit of her stomach. Viviane didn’t know what to say as she nodded.

“I…we will fix our mistakes.”

He would assume she was sent with gold and influence. Had a male come, he might have been right. Instead, Viviane was here to prove she would be a good wife.

Viviane would make a terrible wife. She was far too rebellious, too headstrong, too spontaneous. Too troublesome, even. The High Lord would learn that evening, she decided with squared shoulders. She would have roads, she would have lumber, and she would see no more children uneducated or dying because of shit in the streets. Not in her territory.

Agnar offered his gratitude and promised to help her staff the palace before leaving her and Kira to stare down the Salt Palace with disbelief.

“How much do you think the High Lord paid for this monstrosity?”

“It’s bigger than the Ice Palace,” Viviane murmured, her boots creeping towards a wooden drawbridge that separated the sloping castle from the city built in the valley. She could see the use of such a thing—if there were invaders from the north, they could pull it upwards after evacuating, though she doubted the lord had done it for any other reason than to keep the lesser fae off the drive.

It would do little to keep the marauders from Autumn out—and that was the problem with the Salten Mountains. Autumn paid a pittance to their lesser fae, forcing them to grind out a miserable living. Some joined roving bands that risked the treacherous path between the two courts in favor of looting, burning, and pillaging whatever they could steal from Winter.

How many made it to Wegen was a question for another day. Viviane possessed enough ice magic to make the roads into their city a miserable journey and both she and Kira were talented enough with a blade to make any former peasant turned warrior think twice when encountering a Winter Court soldier.

Those were different problems. The High Lord would pay salaries for staff, for warriors, for weapons that kept Autumn from making their way into Winter. Would he pay for medicine, too? And the materials for schools, for markets, for roads?

Viviane pushed those thoughts aside as well as she stepped into the palace.

“Well,” Kira began, “there truly is no accounting for taste.”

The ivory colored marble was the only decent thing about the palace. It was clear no female had advised the male in charge, who had been giving free reign to just…spend money without consequence.

“Why we let males rule is a mystery,” Viviane agreed breathlessly. Everything was slate gray. The walls, the curtains, the furniture. Huge coats of arms stood motionless and at attention, lining the halls one either side. Unlit sconces on the walls told Viviane she’d have to have faelights installed if she didn’t want to always smell like an open bonfire.

“If you agreed to marry Gunnar, he’d let you come home,” Kira murmured. Viviane looked to her friend.

“I’d rather stay.”

Kira’s pretty face warmed with a smile. “I was hoping you’d say that. You’ll never catch me bowing to Viviane, Lady of Winter Court.”

Viviane burst out laughing. “Can you imagine?”

“I could,” Kira admitted, looping her arm through Viviane’s. Their things were left at the front door in favor of exploration. “If the lord's son was less awful.”

“I can’t,” Viviane declared. “The Lady of Winter is so…so…”

“Boring?”

“Yes, exactly,” Viviane agreed. “And I simply cannot be bothered to stop having fun.”

Kira elbowed her gently. “Maybe that’s what Gunnar likes.”

“Gunnar likes my long hair and my pretty face,” she replied without ego. “He thinks our children will be powerful and lovely and that I will be perfectly content to lay beneath him while he ruts into me mindlessly.”

“Every females dream,” Kira agreed with amusement.

“He’ll move on,” Viviane added with certainty. “When I’m not around all day, he’ll move on to someone more accessible.”

“And you’ll remain here?”

She halted at the sweeping steps, her mind returning to Kallias and his disappointment. He’d sent her here to keep her from the Hybern general turned emissary. She didn’t dare wonder if he’d also wanted to banish her from the court scheming. If he didn’t know that refusing the High Lord’s son would ruin her at court.

“Until the work is done,” Viviane agreed.

That would keep her busy, at least.

And Viviane loved a project.

KALLIAS:

Kallias sat in bed, staring at the large envelope in his hand. He knew that elegant, flowing script like he knew the sight of his own face.

Kallias

Two decades without Viviane was wearing on him. And he knew why she’d written—it wasn’t to beg to come home. In fact, Viviane had never asked him that. Other females might have bided their time, might have done exactly what was required of them. Not his Viv.

He slid his finger along the lip of the envelope, pulling it out with nervous fingers. He hadn’t seen her in months, and it would be at least another before he could excuse himself long enough to go.

I miss you.

His chest nearly caved. He had to stand, to pace his bedroom as he reread those words. Kallias felt pulled, just as he always had, always would. His Viv was at the border, safe and most importantly, a ghost to the likes of Hybern and Amarantha. Amarantha, who’d lived at their court for eleven years, knew everyone. Had attended every wedding, had met each new baby born. Knew all the females by name and had bedded many of the males. She didn’t know of Viviane. Couldn’t place her face, had never looked into Viviane’s pretty eyes, had never scented her sugar sweet scent.

Kallias didn’t regret sending Viviane away. She was his heart, and so long as she was safe, Kallias could continue.

Pacing, he returned to the letter.

We have begun clearing the Salten Pass towards Autumn, and as you can imagine, it’s tedious. I’ve built an ice bridge and I can’t wait for you to see it. My finest creation yet—it’s load bearing, before you ask. Yes, I did try it myself. You would have died, it’s a straight drop into a ravine. I could hear you begging me to get off it the entire time. Did I mention I miss you?

Gods, but Kallias could imagine it. Could picture her jumping with glee over a thousand foot drop, fully prepared to plunge to her death just so no one else would take on that risk. Had he been there, he would have done it for her. But he wasn’t. He was here, and she was at the border, playing her games. Making friends.

Living her life without him.

We caught three marauders halfway to Wegen. Kira is holding them, but we aren’t sure what we should do. They look hungry and are very poor. I know we aren’t supposed to let thieves have amnesty but one of them couldn’t be older than fifteen, Kal. Will you talk to the High Lord about it?

And there it was. Viviane had learned the High Lord did not care about the Salten Pass, or Wegen, or even the plague that ripped through a decade before. Viviane cared so much she’d refused to come home when Gunnar had all but gotten on his knees and begged her. Gunnar was moving on, had realized that Wegen was not Viviane’s project.

And Kallias was the only person she trusted to ask for help. He marked it down on a little sheet of paper—vowing to write her back either way and tell her to send them back if the High Lord told her no. Viviane wouldn’t execute someone for being hungry, at any rate.

I requested gold or supplies for the roads five years ago. The High Lord wrote me back, by the way. He told me it couldn’t be spared. I’m frustrated—how am I supposed to keep illness out if we can’t have functioning sewers like everywhere else in Winter. I’m tired of looking into the faces of mothers and telling them I’m doing my best. I feel like I do nothing except say no because of costs and through my hands in the air. Last brutal season we buried a six week old baby and I’ve been having nightmares.

Will you talk to him? For me? Just…break it down for me so I might explain. No one cares about his overhead, not when he throws a Winter Solstice celebration so lavish we are taxed to fund it. People feel abandoned. I do, too. As if I am only useful so long as I am breedable to his son. And Kal—I have considered it. I can admit that to only you, but I have considered it more than once. Promising to be his wife, if only to secure their patronage.

It makes me feel ill to admit even to the gods, let alone to confess to you. I do not think you would judge me for it. The only thing that stops me from making such an offer is the knowledge I would be dragged back, when I am starting to love this place.

Only Viviane could see filth, squalor, and suffering and find something to love. It made his body tight, imagining her out there doing exactly as the High Lord had hoped she would. His insipid, shallow son was too brainless to see what Viviane was—what she could be. Kallias was grateful for it. If Gunnar ever realized what a true gem Viviane was and how the people might love her enough to forgive their lavish spending and callous, capricious nature, he would have demanded her with a fervor that even Kallias couldn’t have stopped.

He took a breath.

Say you’ll come visit soon. I have forgotten what you look like. When I close my eyes I see not a male (who may or may not be handsome), but a wild, slobbering jotnar. Is that what you are, Kallias? Because you once came monthly, and now I only see you on Solstice and my birthday. Who do I lobby a complain with over this terrible neglect?Should you continue your distance, I will be forced to make new friends. If that is what you want, than by all means. Continue as you are. But I should remind you that I am actually quite charming and many people find my company pleasing. You are not the only one who is entranced by my sparkling personality.

I miss you. Did I tell you that? Well, just in case.

I miss you.

Viviane.

Kallias didn’t know whether to laugh or snarl, pacing as he was. The thought of another male making his Viv laugh was enough to practically drag him to his dresser. He halted, fingers grazing the wood. She would have wanted that. Would have worded her letter hoping he’d make a rash, impulsive decision. No one else could compel him to act without thinking.

He’d visit after he finished his work in Summer. And after he asked the High Lord why she couldn’t have gold for the streets. Kallias did reread her letter, just to hear her admit she missed him.

Kallias found the High Lord in his office, frowning over a long expense report. Kallias didn’t have to ask what this was about. His son spent money like they’d have it forever, not bothering to consider it had to come from somewhere.

Blue eyes met his own. “Kallias,” the High Lord murmured, gesturing for him to take a seat opposite his crystal desk. Kallias obliged, looking out the open windows towards the icy lake. He could see others skating atop its surface in the warm summer sun and was reminded of how often that had been him, once.

“The work you’ve done in Summer…” the High Lord trailed off. Kallias crossed his ankle over his knee, reclining in the leather chair. He knew, though he didn’t dare brag. “What do you need?”

“Gold, for Wegen.”

There was nothing but still silence between them. The High Lord assessed him cooly, frosty in his displeasure. Every request Kallias ever made was on Viviane’s behalf.

“I’ve told her no. It can’t be spared.”

“She’s losing younglings to cold and illness. Cold,” he added pointedly. As if they were the masters of it.

“It’s a tragedy. They were certainly not the only ones who felt it.

“We didn’t,” Kallias reminded the High Lord.

“I wonder,” the High Lord began, steepling long, pale fingers against his lips, “when you might come asking a different question on behalf of Lady Viviane.”

Kallias didn’t back down.

“She is unmarried,” the High Lord continued. “She could use a patron.”

“She has a patron,” Kallies replied with that same coolness. “She doesn’t need a husband to secure my loyalty and I have no interest in being that for her. I’m asking to build a road that leads from the Salten path into Winter.”

“My answer is unchanged. I wish I could say yes, but there are circumstances even you cannot change.”

Kallias didn’t dare react—didn’t dare say what he thought. That he’d never have a son so spoiled it threatened to bankrupt their territory. That he’d never put his own comfort above the suffering of younglings.

That he’d never tell Viviane no.

“She’s not going to marry Gunnar, is she?” The High Lord’s question stopped Kallias at the door. He had to swallow the urge to snarl, to leap onto the desk and throttle the male for daring to ask.

“I don’t know why you’d ask me that,” Kallias lied.

The High Lord chuckled. “I’m certain you don’t. Give my regards to Summer…and Lady Viviane, when you visit. I’d like to see what progress she’s made with Wegen one of these days.”

All on her own. No help from the High Lord who wanted to make her his daughter. She was merely decoration.

Kallias ripped open the door with more force than was necessary. If the High Lord wouldn’t give her the fucking roads, then Kallias would. What was the point of being separated, of working as long and often as he did, if he couldn’t empty his accounts?

“You look…you look pissed,” Nikolai commented when Kallias came to find him.

“Just Gunnar, fucking everything up as he so often does. What else is new?” Kallias hissed, shoving a heavy pouch of gold into Nikolai’s hands.

“A gift?”

“For Viviane. I need you to take it to her, along with whatever else she needs to build roads in Wegen. Actual, stone laid roads.”

“Is this–”

“I have to go to Summer,” Kallias continued, his chest rising and falling rapidly. He felt as if he were unraveling. Like he needed to winnow directly to her, bury his face in her lap, and confess everything. Gods, but Kallias wanted the High Lord to be right. He wanted to waltz into his office and declare he’d married Viviane, that she was in love with him too, and then maybe put his middle finger right into the male’s face.

But Viviane had never given any indication she loved Kallias like he loved her. And what she wanted—what she needed—was someone who believed in her vision.

“Should I tell her who sent this?” Nikolai questioned, weighing the sack of gold in his hand without surprise.

“Tell her it's from the High Lord. That’s not a lie—he pays my salary.”

“It would mean more to her knowing you sent it.”

“And then she’d know he had wholly abandoned her,” Kallias retorted hotly. “And she might think she’d be better turning to Gunnar for help. You’ll do this for me?”

“Of course,” Nikolai agreed.

Relief flooded his otherwise taut body. He nodded, the only gratitude he could force out. Kallias left his friend confused, turning abruptly for his bedroom, if only to get himself together. Only behind the closed door could he run his fingers through his hair, tugging at the strands as he paced again.

I miss you.

He growled into the air, into the silence. He’d sent her away—he didn’t regret the decision. If he hadn’t, she’d be betrothed to Gunnar or worse. Amarantha would have known her face, and though the emissary had done nothing untrustworthy to deserve Kallias’s dislike, he couldn’t risk it all the same.

Couldn’t risk her.

Wouldn’t.

He swallowed, turning back to her letter laying sweetly on his desk. Kallias dropped into his chair and reached for a pen.

Viv,

I miss you.

#daddy winter #kallias #viviane #kallias x viviane #never say im do nothing for this fandom #look at me #look at us

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