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houseofhurricane · 3 years

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ACOTAR Fic: Bloom & Bone (17/28) | 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: Bloom & Bone is back with a chapter in which many things happen... including, FINALLY, some Vassien moments. I hope you enjoy! You can find all previous chapters here, or read Bloom & Bone on AO3. Thank you for reading! ❤️

When Elain takes them back to Prythian, they appear in the Spring Court, and Tamlin has to stop himself from gasping as he takes a deep breath. There is a rot at the center of Koschei’s world that permeates the very air.

Beside him, Lucien’s face reveals no expression.

“You’ll need to tell the High Lords that Beron is dead,” Lucien says, his voice far away. Tamlin feels his heart contract in his chest. He’s heard Lucien speak like this, when he smuggled his friend over the Spring Court border. After Beron killed Jessaminda.

“I would have left him to the monsters if the tethering spell hadn’t worked,” Elain says, reaching for him. He shrugs off her fingers.

“I wanted to kill him,” he says, burying his face in his hands. ”My own father, and I wanted to end his life.”

“He deserved it,” Tamlin says, his hand on Lucien’s shoulder, addressing him the way he would a soldier. He waits until the gold and russet eyes meet his own. “You did this world a favor, Lucien. He would have gladly destroyed us all for a bit more power. He would have killed everyone in that meeting.”

Lucien’s face is still and lost.

So Tamlin thinks of the things he needed to hear after the war with Hybern ended, when he was left all alone. The things that Lucien, who is the best of all of them, perhaps the only truly decent male in Prythian, deserves to hear.

“You will not feel as if you did the right thing now. Maybe you never will. Because there is some part of you that knows it is unnatural to kill. You will wonder if you are becoming a monster, doing what you’ve done. Perhaps feeling what you judge as too little regret. But this is the least monstrous part of you, Lucien Vanserra. You are a good and decent male. I have always known this to be true.”

Lucien’s shoulders heave, and he ducks his head to gasp and sigh into his hands. Tamlin squeezes his shoulder and does not look away.

When Lucien looks up at him, his eye is red and his cheek shines with tears. His golden eye whirls as if it is trying to take in a world it does not recognize.

“My brothers will be at each other’s throats. And my mother -- I am needed at the Autumn Court.”

A second later, he vanishes into nothing.

Before Tamlin can speak, Elain’s hand is on his arm.

“We need to go to the Summer Court,” she says, her voice infuriatingly calm. “Tarquin was about to offer you his army.”

The rage rises in him and for the first time in months, Tamlin cannot claw it back. The sight of Beron grabbing her, his knife against her neck, the monsters circling above, Elain in danger on every side, danger she created, all of these fears overcome him, transfigure into fury.

“You think we will not speak of what you just did?” The words are a roar in his throat, the syllables barely formed.

“You know that Beron would have ripped apart this world for just a little more power,” Elain says, trying to spit his own words back at him, but her voice trembles.

“You threw yourself into danger. You have no idea how powerful a High Lord is. Beron could have killed you with half a thought.” His voice is still rising, filling the hall like thunder.

“He had to deliver me alive to Koschei. He wasn’t going to kill me.” He can see the effort she is making, to keep her face calm, her voice level. He’s seen his courtiers wear this face, and that realization almost stops Tamlin in his tracks. But he cannot stop imagining her in Koschei’s grip, in Beron’s, Elain Archeron with her kind spirit and her wide lovely eyes and that golden power, great enough, he thinks, to create new worlds, but not the kind of magic that will defend her against a death-god.

“Koschei cannot have you under his power.”

“You cannot defeat Koschei either, High Lord.” Something has shuttered in her gaze, though her tone has not lost its courtly veneer. She crosses her arms over her chest, the gesture like the donning of armor. “You cannot lock me in some warded chamber and leave me to rot. You’re needed in the Summer Court, and I need to go to Feyre.”

The breath Tamlin takes is ragged and loud, and Elain’s eyes snag on his, tender for a second before they shutter once again.

“She and Rhysand went to defend the bone in case there was an attack on their court.”

“You can tell them at the meeting. They will return. A week ago, you barely trusted them. Or so you told me.”

“Rhysand just offered you an army.” He notes, in spite of himself, that she does not call him Rhys.

“An army I likely will not need.”

She scoffs at him, her eyes overbright. “You think Beron raised his sons to be any better than he is?”

“I will admit that I hoped Lucien would inherit the Autumn Court in the event of his father’s death. But even a war within their court will require troops.”

“And if the sons agree that an alliance with Koschei is worth the risks?”

“All the more reason to make sure that nobody can snatch you away.”

“I have been taken from this house and from the Summer Court at this meeting of the High Lords,” Elain says, lifting each finger with a frustrated little flick. “You act as if you can guarantee me safety, but that is a lie.”

“And you are waiting for me to give you a real excuse to run.” The rage rises in him again. He feels the claws at the backs of his hands, tearing through his skin. “What will you tell them at the Night Court? That the monster in the Spring Court was just as horrible as they’d expected?”

He stalks toward her, his eyes on hers. He wants to see the moment when her frustration turns to fear. Instead, she reaches out her hand, grabs his wrist.

“You’re going to want to calm yourself before the other High Lords see you,” she says, and then they are in the passageways.

“I am not your puppet,” he manages to say around the fangs in his mouth, the jaws of the beast.

“I have never wanted to rule,” she says, her fingers a brand at his wrist. “But I believed for too long that a man would save me. A good man, a powerful High Fae male. That all I needed to do was play the delicate damsel and I would have happiness and safety. I think my father died to give me that life. I hid in the garden for too long, Tamlin. I am not going to let Koschei force the crown on my head. And I will not let you lock me away, either. I will become a monster, and gladly, before either of those things happens to me.”

His pulse thrums against her grip.

“It is very easy to become a monster,” he says, and he bares his teeth at her.

The silence is laden as she considers him. She could leave him here, amidst the passageways, he thinks, no matter what she promised him. He would have to find another life entirely, if he could not find the door that leads to Prythian.

“Are you angry because you thought Beron could kill me, or because you thought I could kill him?”

Tamlin begins to feel what he felt in that other world, held by the High Lord who’d invaded his lands while he raced towards her, too far away to reach her, save her. And then his vision turns to the female before him, glittering in her golden gown, the light of her own power, amber and diamond and gold and pearls all fading in Elain’s own glow. Sometimes I think I can make whole worlds, she’d told him.

“I thought he would kill you,” he says. He’s answered a different question than the one she asked, and he sees that truth register on her features.

“Men like Beron always think that women like me are only useful as objects.”

He doesn’t correct the human wording. She’s saying something with those words which makes them a revelation, not a mistake.

He takes a breath.

“I am not an object either.”

She only looks at him, her brows furrowed.

“You have grown very used to commanding me,” he says, and when the anger fills him once again, edges his voice, it is a relief. It is better than seeing Beron holding Elain, intent on turning her into a corpse.

“You are too used to going unchallenged.”

“I have done everything you’ve asked of me and still you are waiting until the moment I give you an excuse to run.”

“After what happened to my sister--”

“How long will it take for me to prove to you that I will never treat a female that way again?”

“What if I tell you centuries?”

He takes a breath, forces himself to smirk at her, reminds himself that he is the High Lord of the Spring Court.

“Could you wait centuries, Elain?” She goes wide-eyed but does not speak, so Tamlin continues. “I have followed you into unknown worlds without question. You could leave me here and still I trust you and the power inside you, your command over yourself. I think you like having this power over me. But I am not yours to command, as if you were...”

There are three names he thinks of, all of them offensive and cruel in this moment: Amarantha, of course, but also Feyre, the false innocent she’d been when she’d returned to the Spring Court, driving it to ruin. And Tamlin thinks, without wanting to, of his own father, his vast cruelty like a trap always ready to clutch at anything that could hurt his youngest son.

“I am not whoever you think--” Elain starts to say, then stumbles forward, pressing her fingers into her forehead, her palms against her eyelids. Tamlin reaches for her, leaning her back against him so she can breathe easily. He holds her while her body tenses and shivers, when she groans and gasps over whatever she sees behind her eyelids.

Finally, she drops her hands and leans back against him, her head banging against his armor.

“Vassa and Eris,” she says, each word a gasp. “I saw them -- dead, and Koschei…”

“It was a vision,” he tells her, running his hands down her arms, hoping he’s right. “Do you think you can find them?”

“We need Lucien. And probably Rhys and Feyre, at least. With Eris missing and Beron dead, he could have run with Vassa. That amount of power would probably seem like enough to take on the world. We need to find them quickly and with all the strength we can muster.”

Tamlin realizes, in this moment, that he does not mind Elain telling him what to do. She’s right.

“Do you think you can make it to the Night Court?”

“Feyre will be there.”

“I’ll stay here and wait for you,” he says, shocked to realize that he means what he’s saying. Even if it means an eternity in these passageways.

Elain turns to face him, and for a moment something blazes in her expression, fierce and wanting, and she reaches out her hand, her thumb tracing the line of his cheek.

“I promise on my life that I’ll return,” she says, and then she disappears.

When Feyre and Rhys run to her, for a second Elain thinks they are attacking. It’s only when Feyre hugs her close that Elain lets out a breath.

“Beron is dead and I think that Vassa and Eris have escaped Koschei,” she says, as soon as Feyre has let go. “Did anyone come to steal the bone?”

“Everything is safe,” Rhys says, and she realizes he has not answered the question at the same time she sees the tiny drops of blood on the skin of his hands and face, which undoubtedly stain his black clothes as well. She wills her stomach to calm.

“Do you think you can winnow to Vassa and Eris if Lucien can track them?”

They stare at her and Elain realizes she’s torn through her story, barely caught her breath.

“I had a vision,” she says, “I saw Vassa and Eris dead, with Koschei looming over them, looking like he’d killed them. Eris was missing. You heard what Beron said at the meeting, who he’s in league with. If Beron sold him to Koschei and Eris is the High Lord of Autumn, with that power newly in him, he could believe that it’s enough to escape with Vassa.”

Feyre and Rhys exchange a look, and Elain feels her chances slipping away. Maybe she can find Lucien on her own, take them to Vassa afterwards, but against Koschei she can only disappear.

“I know it sounds ridiculous, but if Eris is High Lord, isn’t it worth the trouble?” She does not mention Vassa, doesn’t want to hear her friend dismissed.

“How do you know that Beron is dead?” Feyre asks her, in a voice that is not sisterly but also not unkind.

“He grabbed me and I pulled him into another world. Lucien killed him. He’s figured out a tethering spell that will hold between worlds. That’s not important. But Beron is dead.”

“Where is his body?” Rhys asks.

“Eaten by monsters by now, I think.”

Rhys starts to respond, but Feyre nudges him with her shoulder.

“He tried to bring me to Koschei,” Elain says, crossing her arms. “I don’t care that he was a High Lord. I would have found a way to kill him if Lucien hadn’t.”

Rhys and Feyre exchange another look, but this time their incredulity is less intimidating.

“What is your plan?” Rhysand asks.

“We need to find them and keep Koschei from getting his hands on Eris and Vassa as quickly as possible. I don’t know if he’ll kill them or if he needs them for his own ends. Rhys, you can winnow us. Lucien should be able to help you track them and hone in on a location. And Feyre, your magic is a new thing entirely. Maybe you’ll distract Koschei. Or destroy him.”

At the light in her sister’s eyes, Elain is sure she’s said the right thing. She enjoys it for a second before she says, “Tamlin is waiting for us between worlds. He didn’t -- I mean, I didn’t, think you’d want to see him here.”

“You trust him?” her sister asks, and Elain wants to say we have no time for this conversation, but she cannot summon irritation in the face of the hurt and love in Feyre’s eyes.

She thinks about Tamlin’s anger, about the pain in his eyes. How it would’ve been so easy to fall into her old habits, to apologize and leave him with a little smile that would kindle desire in his eyes. Instead she’d stood firm, and now he waits for her, entirely at her mercy. There are a thousand things they still need to discuss and argue over, but the truth is clear to her, swift and sure as instinct.

“I trust him,” Elain tells Feyre, and then, “and I understand if you don’t. But it’s Koschei and we need all the help we can quickly assemble.”

Elain can’t read her sister’s expression, doesn’t know if this answer is enough or caused pain or has perhaps further convinced the Night Court of her monstrousness. But Feyre reaches out her hand to wind around Elain’s shoulder, turns to Rhysand.

“Take us to Lucien,” she says, calm and sure, the voice that Elain would be glad to follow even into the bloodiest battle.

“He’s at the Autumn Court,” Elain supplies, and Rhysand draws them into the dark.

Lucien finds his brothers first, their raised voices drawing him to the room where Beron receives formal guests. His mind still stutters on the past tense.

“Our father is dead,” he says as he walks inside the room, cutting through Ealars’ growl and Fionn’s shouting.

“How do you know?” Caelan asks, his voice too calm. He is bracing himself to hear that Lucien is the new High Lord, readying himself to attach.

His brothers all know the truth of his parentage, and still they all eye him now, not knowing if the mantle of the next High Lord has landed on their half-brother through some mystery only the Cauldron could explain.

These stares make it clear to Lucien that the power has descended on Eris. Any one of his brothers would have claimed the High Lordship in a heartbeat if they’d had confirmation that it was theirs.

Before he speaks, Lucien readies himself to throw a shield, reveal the hidden dimensions of his magic. And then he says:

“I know that Beron is dead because I killed him myself.”

Ealars lunges for him, and Lucien throws a bolt of fiery lightning close enough to singe his tunic.

When he opens his mouth to speak, Lucien is met by a wall of fire.

Beron tortured and tormented them all, but the treatment warped something inside these three brothers, making them hard and cruel and instilling a deep longing for his approval, even his love. In spite of everything, Lucien is grateful to have escaped it. Can only hope that Eris, at his core, has done the same.

The air is an inferno around him. Sighing, Lucien winnows to his mother’s chambers.

The High Lady of Autumn, crowned by her gilded hair and swathed in deep green velvet, is seated in front of her mirror, holding her gold and topaz necklace aside as she dabs a perfumed salve onto her collarbone, which is purpled and swollen from shoulder to shoulder. She does not look up at the sound of Lucien’s footsteps.

“Who hurt you?” Lucien asks, the words rough in his mouth, the tenderness he feels almost unbearable.

“It’s not important,” she says, concealing the bruise with a twist of her wrist, allowing the necklace to fall into place. Once again, Lucien wishes that her mother had the talent for healing.

He takes a breath to brace himself.

“He’s dead, Mother.”

In the mirror, her eyes go wide and for an instant, there is such hope in them that Lucien feels his heart fracture. Then she schools her features into the appropriate distress, her mouth into the shape of a gasp.

“I didn’t want to kill him. He threatened my friends. All the other High Lords.” As he speaks, he clasps one hand around the other so he does not reach for her, does not put her in a position to betray her feelings, because in spite of everything he knows and all his years of schemes and observations, he’s not sure how she’ll react to the news that he killed Beron. “He would have destroyed this world for more power, Mother.”

He thinks of Tamlin’s hand on his shoulder, a brace.

His mother turns away from the mirror, her eyes lit with tears. She extends her arms.

“Come here,” she says, and he’s not sure if her tone is bland from shock or from years of practice in his father’s court. Even still, not knowing, he ducks his head and embraces her.

For a few seconds, she only holds him close to her, one hand coming to cradle his head the way she has done since he was an infant. He is surrounded by her fragrance of amber and cinnamon, and for the first time, he is not afraid that Beron will appear to tear him out of his mother’s embrace, or punish her for showing such affection. Beron, who was never his father.

Finally, his mother whispers, “Which one of you is High Lord?”

“I think it’s Eris,” Lucien tells her, trying to keep the disappointment out of his tone. His mother was the one who taught him how to scheme, after all, who taught him how to keep the tender parts of himself hidden. So of course she would never say thank you or I’m sorry or any of the other phrases he would most like to hear.

“Have you seen him?” she asks, her arms going stiff around him. She rises from her chair. “I’m worried that Beron--”

“I’ve seen everyone but Eris. They all knew that something had happened, but none of them have felt the power descend on them.”

“And you haven’t, either?”

He feels one side of his mouth rise, the mocking half-smile forming of its own accord.

“As much as I would love to rip this court from its foundations, Mother, you can trust that I would tell you if I were High Lord.”

She simultaneously rolls her eyes and reaches for him, squeezing his hand in both of hers.

“You should go to your father,” she says, her voice so low he has to stoop toward her to hear her clearly. “He will keep you safe.”

“You should go to him. Come with me.”

“It wouldn’t be safe for me,” she says, and Lucien wonders, seeing her too-bright eyes, if she really believes that, or if she’s just gotten used to using that reason for staying in the Autumn Court. Living under Beron’s rule. He’s wondered, sometimes, if the tenderness he feels to his mother was born out of desperation to have at least one loveable being in his life. If, under her sweetness, she isn’t just as calculating as the rest of the Autumn Court. But Lucien never allows himself to indulge these thoughts for very long.

“I’ll escort you,” he says, holding out a hand to winnow her, when the door bursts open, and Feyre and Elain Archeron dart into the room.

His mother’s eyes widen at the intrusion, her hands up to make a shield. At best, to his mother, it’s bad manners, the High Lady of the Night Court bursting into these inner chambers with her sister. At worst, it’s an invasion.

“Elain had a vision,” Feyre bursts out, before his mother can strike, while Elain gasps for breath beside her. “Koschei had Vassa and Eris, and we think they’re in danger. Rhys is across the building, trying to find you.”

“Apologies, Lady,” Elain offers, into the awkward silence, her breath still ragged as she drops into a curtsey, her heavy skirts shimmering around her. “Our mission is urgent and our time is short. We need Lucien to help us track them.”

At the mention of his name, the latest crisis breaks like a wave over Lucien.

“What happened in your vision, Elain?”

She bites her lips, her mouth a seam.

“What happened?” he asks again, taking a step toward her, not sure if he should be threatening or comforting. If Koschei manages to reclaim Eris, the future of the Autumn Court will be decades of war and bloodshed. If he manages to capture Vassa once again, if he harms her, Lucien is certain now that he will cleave the world in two.

“I had a vision of Koschei over Eris and Vassa’s dead bodies,” she says, the anguish in her voice so thick that he looks to her hands, to make sure she’s fully present in the room. “But even if we can prevent her death, we have to keep Vassa safe and out of his hands. Koschei wants to make her his queen. Give her control of this world.”

“You’ve been having visions again,” he says, surprised at the anger in his voice. He’s seen Elain every day for the past week, and she never thought to mention.

“I thought that it would hurt you more to hear the possibility. You’ve been doing everything you can, Lucien.” She rubs her knuckles at her eyes, her cosmetics smearing down her cheeks. “I will tell you everything when we have them both. As long as you can track them, we can find them.”

“I can’t winnow to Koschei,” he says, even as it occurs to him that Rhys is in the building, and why. If he uses the tethering spell, he can direct Rhys to the place where Eris’s magic has made itself known, stronger now with the High Lord’s mantle on his shoulders. Perhaps he can even detect Vassa, if his magic can be guided by his will. The two of them together a beacon, a tether. In moments, Vassa could be in his arms.

When he meets Elain’s eyes, he realizes that she’d already guessed at the way forward, believed he could do this, and his anger at her evaporates.

“Elain Archeron,” he says, just as Rhysand darts in the room, aiming a bow at the Lady of the Autumn Court, “I have no idea how anybody ever thought you were ornamental.”

She beams at him, says only, “I have to get Tamlin,” and disappears, the ripping sound of her passage between worlds so soft it could be the tearing of parchment.

“There’s no trace of her,” his mother says, turning from Lucien to Rhysand to Feyre with wide eyes.

“She has a particular gift,” Lucien tells her, not offering any more information on Elain’s powers, or the fact that she has, as promised, taken him to a dozen different worlds, though their visits have concentrated on Koschei’s original realm, quick trips which they spend scanning the sky for monsters and trying to learn everything they can about the workings of the death-lord’s magic.

He can tell from the twitching of their lips that Feyre and Rhys have other questions, but before they can ask, Elain reappears, holding Tamlin with one hand and reaching out with the other, as if she’s ready to ward off an attack. Though Lucien imagines that Rhysand is the greatest threat in the room, Elain’s eyes are on her sister, wide and pleading. And though Feyre does not smile, she also does not look away.

“Tether us, Lucien,” Elain says, and as soon as they are all bound, she pulls them away from the Autumn Court and into another world.

Tamlin tries not to fidget while Lucien, Rhysand, and Elain debate the last details of their mission, their voices echoing in the passageway between worlds. His part is simple: hold a shield against Koschei as long as he can. For once, he does not want to argue, and while he lets the killing calm descend on him, he follows the ebb and tide of their strategy as if it is a game among children.

Not wanting to be caught staring at the tiles at their feet or carvings on the doors that surround them, Tamlin looks instead at his companions, which is how he ends up meeting Feyre’s gaze. For a moment, his gut goes cold. And then he feels her in his mind, the dark warmth of her.

You will make sure my sister is unharmed, she says, the authority in that voice at odds with the soft little smile on her face.

Elain can take care of herself, he shoots back, and then, because it’s the truth, but I swear on my life that I will keep her from harm.

Around them, the strategy is decided with hesitant nods, but before they leave these passageways, before she leaves his mind, he tells Feyre, I am so sorry for all the harm I caused you.

Her blue-gray eyes go wide and she gives him the tiniest nod before she turns to Rhysand. His mind is empty of her presence.

There is no time for Tamlin to consider all the implications of what has just occurred, only the fact that he notices the absence of Feyre with no pain or guilt, the lightness in his body. He feels as if he could launch himself into the air from pure relief.

“So I will hold the shield, then?” he says to the group, returning himself to the moment.

“And transform into the beast if Koschei gets through,” Elain says, grave as a general despite her glimmering gown. He wishes she were wearing armor, that she was safe behind a thousand wards in some secret part of Prythian. But he knows that Elain would never agree to this, not when Vassa’s safety was on the line, when her abilities could help.

He reaches out and squeezes her fingers in his, hoping the gesture conveys what there is no time to say.

Lucien works his spell and they all gather around Elain. First there is a tear as they enter Prythian, and then darkness as Rhysand winnows them at Lucien’s direction.

They appear in a forest and at first Tamlin does not think they’re in the right world. The air is hot and the light is nearly red.

Then he realizes the trees around them are aflame.

“Do you see them?” Lucien mutters, barely audible over the crackle of the fire.

“Can you sense them?” Feyre asks, water blossoming between her hands, expanding until it is a bubble around them. “There has to be an end to this fire.”

“This is Eris’ magic. I can try and winnow us to its end,” Lucien says, and the world goes dark and roaring.

For a second, Tamlin glimpses an enormous lake, a mansion at its edge, sees Elain go pale and wide-eyed, whispers frantically to Lucien, and then they are in the darkness again, once again at the edge of the flames.

“Koschei spotted us,” Lucien mutters, and then, as if summoned by the words alone, the sorcerer is before them, grinning. Far from the lake where he should be bound.

“Thank you for--” he begins, but before he can start another one of his mocking speeches, before they’re transfixed and then caught, Tamlin slams his shield in place, forcing Koschei against the flames as Rhysand’s depthless night strengthens the blockade against the death-lord.

“I brought him,” Elain says, anguish in her voice, and despite the urgency of the moment, still Tamlin reaches for her, circles his wrist with his fingers, runs his thumb against the dip at the base of her palm.

“You are saving your friend,” he says, low so only she can hear it. “Go find Vassa.”

He hears her footsteps behind him, following Lucien into the trees, and it occurs to Tamlin that if Koschei breaks the shield and kills him, it will be all right. He will die saving his mate, helping her save her friend. He thinks Elain has always seen the possibility of a better world, a more beautiful one, and maybe now he is giving that world to her.

At that thought, he delves deep into his power and lets it move through him, green and golden, a thousand thunderstorms and a million leaves unfurling. The power of something new and dangerous, all possibility.

There is a sigh like rain and Feyre’s shield of water moves around them, another barrier against Koschei and Eris’ fire.

“How long do you think we can hold out against him?” Rhys asks, and Tamlin isn’t sure whether his drawl is a good or bad sign. He himself cannot feel even a flicker of Koschei’s power beyond their shield. But this does not comfort him.

“Koschei chooses his attacks precisely,” Tamlin says, and he is thinking of Elain, what will happen to her if Koschei breaks through. “He will wait until he thinks we’re flagging.”

“They’ve found Eris and Vassa,” Feyre says. Her voice is a little dazed. “But Elain’s mind is flickering. As if she has disappeared.”

As if she is trying to go to another world, but cannot.

I was the conduit, Melis had said. Elain was the key.

The knowledge washes over him in a wave of words that blare in his mind, echoing and damning. Koschei had chosen his retaliation with care. The death-lord had anticipated the possibility of a rescue mission, knew he could be outnumbered, overpowered. So he turned the rescued themselves into weapons.

He is just about to roar out his realization, insist that they go to Elain, who’s stuck in this world or worse, when everything goes black and roaring around him.

When Elain sees Vassa, she runs toward her, hands extended. Her friend does not look behind her, only sprints through the trees, trailing Eris, but despite the danger and desperation, Elain grins as she runs. Her friend is here. In the space of a few hurried steps, her friend will be safe.

She does not think about the clutch of Koschei’s magic, the way it clung to her when they winnowed from the lake. Tamlin’s magic had blasted her free. All she needs is a few more moments to put the plan in place. She’s seen what Tamlin’s magic can do to the monsters of Koschei’s world. With Rhys and Feyre, he’ll be all right, so long as she focuses on the plan, takes the necessary steps to save Vassa.

Rhys and Lucien had finally agreed to let her pull Vassa into the passageway between worlds, into a world at peace, and then back to Prythian. It was likelier that they’d lose Koschei this way. At a minimum it would be harder for him to guess each point on their journey. She has tried not to think of the marketplace she visited with Tamlin, the taste of those pastries and the sound of his breathing in the room at the inn, or how it would be to experience that world with Vassa. She does not want to give Koschei the opportunity to see the destination in her mind, this place where they’ll be safe.

She can hear Lucien behind her, the way he says Vassa’s name with such hope and desperation, and speeds her pace, willing herself to close the gap.

Then Vassa is only a few steps ahead of her, and Elain is close enough to call her name.

The Queen of Scythia stops and turns, and Vassa’s blue eyes are bright as sapphires. Behind her, the sound of Eris’ steps goes silent.

“He said nobody would come for me,” she says, looking first at Elain and then over her shoulder, at Lucien. Her voice is small and hesitant and lonely, the voice of a lost child, and hearing it makes something crack in Elain’s chest.

“I spent every minute trying to rescue you,” Lucien says, closing the gap between them, taking her hand gently in his. “I am sorry that it took us this long.”

There is something wrong, Elain thinks, with the tears on Vassa’s face. They do not look quite joyful. It is an expression she’d seen on the faces of women in ballrooms when a man they did not love made a proposal: a pain held back as much as their strength would allow.

Before she can say anything, Eris strides toward them.

“No pretty declaration for me, brother?” he drawls.

Power rises from him like heat from a forge, great waves of magic that clearly mark his presence.

As much as she would like to explain everything to Vassa, ask Eris a hundred questions, Eris’ power alone makes them easy targets for Koschei.

“We need to get them out of here,” she says to Lucien. He does not look away from Vassa, but he nods.

“Where are you taking us?” Eris asks, finally in arm’s reach, close enough for Elain to pull him into another world. She will hold them and Lucien will use the tether and in seconds they will all be safe.

“It’s safer if you don’t know,” Elain says, all confidence.

Except that when she touches Vassa, the queen begins to scream. And though Eris is silent, the set of his jaw betrays the fact that he’s in pain that can hardly be borne.

“Are you sure this will work?” she asks Lucien, but he nods, completes the tether, and so Elain reaches out with her power and concentrates on the passageway, the place between worlds.

The trees around them do not become the carved doors.

Vassa’s screams grow louder.

Behind them, there’s the sound of fire in the trees.

Elain tries again. She thinks about the marketplace, the pastry and all the spices she cannot name, the sound of the lilting unknown language, the desert sand sticking to her skin.

They do not move from this world.

She tries again, frantic now, trying to calm her mind, drown out Vassa’s screams, tries not to think about the fact that they sound so similar to the way she sounded when Koschei held her, took her captive once again. She will save her friend. She will keep the Autumn Court from falling into civil war. She will take them out of this world. She will take them into a world at peace. And Vassa will stop screaming, and maybe there will be time for pastries before they return to Prythian, to the rest of their long and boring and pleasant lives.

There is a voice in her mind.

We’re coming, Feyre says, and Elain cannot make herself understand what it means, that her sister is abandoning the shield against Koschei. She cannot believe that they will not succeed. She had always imagined that, with all she’s learned, she would be able to save Vassa.

But Vassa’s screams have turned into thick sobs, and the human queen pulls against Elain’s grip, away from Lucien’s arm. As if she cannot bear their touch.

Something is badly wrong.

There’s the sound of roaring and Rhys, Feyre, and Tamlin appear in the clearing.

“Take them out of here,” Lucien says, handing Vassa and Eris to Rhys. Their faces visibly relax, and then Rhys reaches for the rest of them, and they disappear into the darkness.

Since Vassa started running into the trees, the world around her has been a dreamlike blur of pain and fear and fury. Her feet began to hurt so quickly, her lungs burning with exertion and ashes, and Vassa knows, even as she follows behind Eris, that she is going to die today.

This thought should make her fall to the ground, wailing. But Vassa was born to rule over Scythia, and the mere thought that she will not have a chance to return to the people she loves absolutely infuriates her, fills her lungs with a rage so potent that it seems to give her wings.

It’s the thought that she will die without seeing Lucien that makes Vassa want to crumple to her knees, and so she forces him out of her mind, trains her eyes on his brother and her mind on fury.

Eventually, Eris runs out of fire, but he barely slows his pace. He does not speak to her, and Vassa wonders if he’s regretting bringing her along.

It’s at this point that the harness of Koschei’s spell begins to pull at her shoulders.

“He knows we’ve run,” Vassa calls out, her hands scrabbling to the places where the spell pulls, even though she knows it isn’t any use.

“He knew from the moment we started running,” Eris says, reaching out his arm and hauling her forward, his strength incredible. She always forgets what faeries are capable of, always assumes she’s just as strong as they are. “You need to stop talking.”

They run in silence for a time that feels long but is probably too short. Eventually even Eris’ strength gives way, his hand falling out of her grip. Her lungs crumple like paper inside her, her feet and shoulders screaming with the effort required to keep running.

There are footsteps behind them. Vassa tries to surge forward.

Then she hears the voices calling her name.

She knows those voices.

Lucien.

Elain.

But Eris keeps running, and doesn’t Koschei have the power to read minds? She does not want to turn around, to look, but her body is tired and rage has turned into a dangerous hope.

Vassa stops her feet. She turns around.

In the clearing behind her is Lucien, golden as a perfect sunset, his face radiant when he sees her.

I never stopped trying to rescue you, he tells her. The words engrave themselves on her mind.

And then he touches her, and the world erupts into flame, burning Vassa’s skin, her throat, scalding her from inside. Still she can feel the pressure of those long fingers on her wrist, the way you hold a person you cannot bear to lose. Exactly the way she will hold him when the fire passes.

So Vassa does not cry out, tries to hold onto her smile, the joy of her rescue, until Elain places her hands on Vassa, and the pain becomes unbearable, worse than any of Koschei’s torment. She feels like she is being split into pieces, and yet Elain’s eyes are so gentle, so concerned, and Vassa reminds herself that in spite of her glittering raiment, this is the girl who spent her days in the gardens of the Spring Court so that no flower would suffer the injustice of an insufficient bloom. She reminds herself that Elain would never harm her. That Lucien would never let her experience pain unless it was absolutely necessary.

Vassa can stop herself from running from them, but she cannot stop her throat from screaming, not when the pain escalates in jagged throbs that split her body like parchment torn roughly from its bindings. On her shoulders, around her heart, Koschei’s spell cleaves her like a sword, bone and sinew coming undone.

She does not know how much longer she can bear this pain.

But then there are other hands on her, a High Fae lord who smells of jasmine but whose name Vassa can no longer summon, and as the world goes black, all Vassa can think is that wherever she is going, at least the pain itself has been scared away.

When she arrives in the Spring Court, she hears the urgent whispers, the politicking and strategizing, but Vassa only looks at the marble under her feet, smells the fragrance on the air. Elain used to talk about the way that a gardener must consider the scent of the garden, in order to give visitors the most pleasant experience. She thinks that if these are her last moments, before Koschei captures her, or she has to run for her life, or that tormenting pain returns, at least there was a moment of beauty. This cool, smooth marble whose texture is so evident even in the dim candlelight, the scent of a garden at night, the flowers distilled by dew.

Lucien steps away from the group. His fingertips are on her shoulder, his arm across her back. Each touch is at once a band of fire and intoxicating, so that Vassa can hardly help herself from pressing her body against his, letting the fire consume her utterly.

Instead she follows where he leads her, up the stairs from the great hall, through the hallways, into the room she occupied when she resided at the Spring Court. She does not move from the circle of his arm, not even when tears fall down her cheeks from the onslaught of pain. Instead, she fits her fingers around the doorknob and lets him lead her inside.

The bed where they slept together is neatly made again, and if Vassa breathes deeply she can almost convince herself that she can detect his scent, the sandalwood and lemon and his sunwarmed skin. In this room, the only ghosts are pleasant ones, all those stolen nighttime hours together.

Lucien leads her slowly to the bed, pulls back the quilts. She falls onto the mattress, her body overwhelmed by its softness and the relief of his no longer touching her.

He dips down as if to kiss her and Vassa braces herself even as she angles her chin towards him to give him better access to her lips.

“It hurts you when we touch, doesn’t it?” His murmur is softer than a whisper.

“Not just you,” Vassa says, unable to say a simple yes. She wishes badly that she had enough strength in her to lie. “When Elain touched me, I felt as if I were being pulled to pieces.”

“I wish you would have told me,” he says, and she thinks that all her life, whether it is hours or decades that remain to her, she will never forget the fact that in this moment he did not blame her, did not complain about her silence, that he even made his eyes gentle so that Vassa would remember that she was finally safe. “I think that Koschei made changes to your binding spell. But I’ve learned about his magic. I swear to you that you will not have to live with this pain.”

Her shoulders ache, but Vassa lifts herself from the bed anyway. She cannot bear Lucien looming over her prone form, as if she is already a corpse.

“I believe you,” she says, and reaches her hand toward him. “Now please kiss me, before we have to speak of all the things that are wrong with this world and--”

His lips on hers, soft and full, her fingers tangling in the length of his hair, make Vassa forget about the pain that rumbles through her. All she can think is finally and Lucien and home.

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