#my brain literally screeched to a halt | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

eudaimonia83 · 4 months

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OMG OMG OMG IM ACTUALLY UPDATING

This is not a drill!!!

I know no one cares anymore, but I’m SO EXCITED bc I literally pulled this out of my brain about eight words at a time, for ten thousand+ words. It was excruciating.

CHAPTER 7 — LUCIEN

The wind was cold, blessedly cold, against his hot face.

Lucien felt as though the past few days had slid by in interrupted bursts of time, everything occurring too quickly before screeching to a halt where felt like he was stuck in honey, or a fish snagged on a hook. Either too much had happened, or not enough. The taut, tense meeting with Rhysand in the River House the morning after Solstice had started it all.

Well, no. His mind prickled, and he rubbed the back of his neck. He knew what had really sent him into a spin. Not court work or spycraft. Not even worrying about what had happened on the docks, which he had been so careful to try to conceal.

He opened his cloak to check that it was still there. The amber pin with its gold clasp and black lacquer etching, sitting pert against his tunic and protected by his coat, that drew his attention at all times of the day or night, wondering…how had she known?

He’d gotten used to the whole Solstice experience of being invited to the party but existing on its fringes, weathering Azriel’s cold glances and Cassian’s overbearing merriment, evading Amren’s keen stares, playing the dapper gentleman to Feyre because it was easy, how they’d first known each other. But she had taken him aside and given him this.

It was beautiful. He knew it as he trained his Fae eyes upon it, knew from his upbringing around treasures and artisans, knew it to be handmade of fine materials and worked with spells from time out of mind, that the jewelers and metallurgists had learned from the gods themselves, if you believed such things.

But how could she have known that this…that the hyraeths…that they were a part of his heart as much as the blood vessels and the beat and the muscle?

Lucien ascended the stairs to his Velaris apartment slowly, trying to let the rhythm of the climb clear his head. His place was the second floor of a majestic stone house that had long since been divided into multiple residences. It had loud hallways and several families with multiple children, all coming and going at all the times of day; which was why he had chosen it. In a secret city, he wanted as anonymous an existence as he could maintain. No one asking or noticing or seeing if he’d come or gone or stayed.

The door creaked as he leaned into it, opening into the narrow entry hall. He’d managed to get some furnishings before he’d been shipped back to Spring and then the human lands, though the floors were still bare and the kitchen still empty. There was a massive oak wardrobe from Dawn, complete with intricate locking mechanisms to keep papers and valuables secure, all warm with inlaid wood in the design of the rising sun; wide couches and ottomans in buttery soft leather from Summer, dyed the rich teal of the ocean; deep gold wool blankets with patterns of scarlet leaves from Autumn, folded neatly on the arm of the sofa. It was there that Lucien sat, facing the windows, still lost in thought. Remembering.

The bright light of a hyraeth glittering just out of reach. Two hands reaching up to scoop it out of the air, to show him as it lit the cocoon of her hands like the flame of a candle. No, brighter. Like a tiny star flickering with exhaustion between her fingers. Setting it on a thread with its fellows, to rest and to feed until they mated in the massive grove. Staring up over his head at a great tent of them with the hemlock trunk at its center, glittering and undulating in the wind, sparkling bravely against the darkness. And how grief had welled up in his chest as they died, falling in golden drips to the ground as their lives came to an end. Her voice, gentle and warm, thrilling him with every word: I’d protect them all until I died. It’s my mission and my purpose. A flash of copper, bright across his vision, peering between the fuzz of pine needles on branches, lit from behind by two brown eyes dusted with flecks of gold…

He jolted back to the present with a sigh. It would do no good. It had never done any good to let his mind wander back to those days, halcyon and gleaming and studded with the fluttering, rippling light of the hyraeths…before everything had gone so terribly, terribly wrong.

He leaned forward, letting his head hang until his braids touched his knees. Those days were gone, and he was here in this cold court, and he had questions to answer.

Questions.

A new voice, echoing soft in his ears, hollow with despair: I have more questions than when I started, Lucien…

Elain. Anxious and mysterious and torn.

He shook his head and got up, pacing down the hall to the kitchen, where a solitary bottle of Velaris whiskey sat half-finished on the counter. Lucien poured it into a glass and took a sip. It was bitter on his tongue, not smooth and sweet like the Autumn whiskey he’d grown up drinking, but it had that hint of smoke that he craved, and the bite of the alcohol pulled him into focus. She was researching — he knew Gwyn and Clotho had allowed her to go to the library. But would she find what she needed if she couldn’t tell them what she was looking for?

She found what would touch my heart, somehow. Even though I didn’t tell her.

Maybe he could do her that favor. Be her research assistant, even from a distance. Answer some of the questions that tore at her heart.

Two brains are better than one, he could almost hear another sarcastic voice teasing.

Yes. Maybe there. Maybe she could point me to the right scholar, the right library, the right court…

He tossed back the contents of the glass, winced at the burn, and wiped his mouth. It wasn’t too far to winnow. And no one would miss him if he was gone for one night, to see an old friend.

Lucien seized a clean tunic and breeches out of the wardrobe and stuffed them into his shoulder bag before strapping on his knife and pulling his cloak around him.

He left the little hyraeth pin snug against his chest. It wouldn’t do to leave it. It was too valuable to sit rotting in this apartment while he was away.

Happy Solstice, Lucien…

He felt the echo of her fingers on his collarbones as the winnow opened and he spun into nothingness, and out again.

——————

As always, the first thing he noticed was the light. The rosy gold glow spilled across his shoulders at a low angle, stretching his shadow to twice his own height. And the plaster of the houses took that light and turned it into a gentle yellow, so soft it almost looked spreadable.

Dawn.

Dawn was one of Lucien’s favorite courts to visit, for as long as he could remember, if only to see the pink clouds scudding across the sky. It was the loveliest sky in Prythian, even eclipsing the magnificent stars of Night, because the sun was always peeking gently around the horizon, as though you might catch it in mischief. And the city of Eós was stirring awake like a cat, stretching languidly in the early light. Bakeries bustled behind closed doors, brimming with the buttery smells of kouign-amann, and the caramel of burnt sugar. The multiple workshops and tinkerers’ houses were rustling to life. And on the hill at the center of the city, the great Sky Mirror, a huge lake ringed with a massive and ornate glass frame, would catch the rising sun and amplify it as it ascended, sending brilliance bursting into each home.

He was steps away from the house he was heading to. The roads here were yellow slate blocks, pushed vertically into the ground so only a narrow edge showed, and clustered into intricate patterns and geometric mosaics. His bootheels thudded against it. You could never hide your approach in Dawn; even the ground would announce your presence. He noticed a little mechanical owl scuttle up the branches of a small tree. Someone’s alarm system, he had no doubt. In this society filled with tinkerers and engineers, there was always some new gadget out for testing, some new fusion of alchemy with physical science to achieve a new goal. There were fewer libraries here than in Day, but far more workshops and experiments proceeding into the final phases, all with the backing of the High Lord and his councilors.

And as he came around the corner, he ran almost headlong into the woman he’d come to see.

She was tall and slender, angular, even though her shoulders sloped from leaning forward over books, endless mock-ups, and prototypes. Her dark hair escaped in tendrils from the cursory braid she’d thrown it into, and her tunic was covered with an oil-stained apron. She’d been in her workshop then. And on her shoulder, blinking its bright brass eyes, was the little owl. He heard the hiss of a gear as it hopped once and took flight.

She was staring at him, face blank. Her eyes were dark and troubled, her face more lined than when he’d last seen her.

“Nuan.” He stepped closer.

She drew herself up, almost as tall as he was, and brushed stray hair out of her face with a brusqueness indicative of irritation. She was working on something. I interrupted. He gathered himself to apologize, but she cut him off before he even began.

“Lucien,” she said, her voice rich and sorrowful. It was always how she greeted him. Just his name, just an acknowledgement of his presence. It said more than she probably even meant it to. It brought back so many memories, all in a rush: her, tight with anger, fixing a metal tendon on her mechanical arm, growing more and more frustrated as the metal refused to stretch to give her more freedom of movement; her, shrinking away as Tamlin melted back from beast to fae, begging her for help and offering to shield her from Amarantha in return; her, refusing protection, standing straight and gaunt, fully expecting the attor or Rhysand to come steal her away for torture in the darkest spaces Under the Mountain; him, gore crusted on his face, eye searing with pain and bubbling dark blood whenever he talked or moved, croaking out “please…I’ve been so stupid,” when she finally stepped closer and those cold golden fingers reached for his face.

She had forgiven him his foolishness, at once and fully. It was the strangest and most complicated friendship he had in the entire continent. And yet it was also the simplest, in its way. She was the only one who was scarred as he was, the only one for whom she’d agreed to tinker a new body part, despite hundreds writing her asking for her help, despite generals and barons and lords offering her wild sums of money and gifts if she could but rebuild their armies, their warriors, their friends. She had said no to all of it, shut the workshop doors firmly, taken up study in other fields of science and engineering.

Except for once. Except to help him. He had never known how to thank her for that, and she had never given any reason why she’d said yes.

Now, standing before her as the pink rays played on the horizon, he knew he was coming to take advantage of her yet again. And yet he loved her fiercely. It was a truth that welled guilt inside him anytime he thought about it too long — how many people had sacrificed how much to take in his prodigal ass. To care for him. To love him. How would he ever return that favor?

“Hello.” He reached out his hand, hoping she’d take it. “It’s been a…long time.”

“Yes,” she said, sharply. He frowned in confusion, and caught her expression as she looked hard to the side, and gestured to the wall lining the street he’d come down. She pointed silently, and the stones of the wall began to roll in their mortared settings, rumbling apart to reveal a narrow doorway. She pushed him through it with a hand on his head, still saying nothing; they emerged in a little courtyard, where the grass grew a bit too long and the main features were the lopsided shapes of unfinished contraptions, like some sort of half-built sculpture garden. Prototypes, built in wood and brass and leather. Skeletons that would not deteriorate, but would grow into…what exactly? He stared at the wooden outline of a person, arms akimbo. The frame of a wing extended behind it, and thin leather oiled to near-transparency stretched across delicate wooden bones and joints. Tiny brass wires fanned out across the leather from the wooden joints, labeled with little tags that fluttered in the breeze.

He spoke without turning around, knowing she was behind him with her arms crossed, the gleam of her golden wrist bright behind her work gloves. “Are you teaching this little wooden pixie how to fly?”

Her face was closed tight. “Something like that. What are you doing here, Lucien?”

Not going to go the way he had planned, then.

“I came to see you. It’s been too long and I love the Dawn sky.” He smiled disarmingly.

She raised her eyebrow. “Yes, and? You don’t go anywhere without the behest of the High Lord of the Night Court these days, and even then, you never came to see me unless you wanted something.”

He faltered.

She barked a laugh. “Twas ever thus, I suppose. Be honest, lost little prince. What are you looking for? The Faebane antidote wasn’t enough for the King Under the Mountain? Because you can go back and tell him all his jeweled dragon hoard isn’t enough, I won’t be on his payroll.”

“I’m not here because of Rhysand,” he objected. It was a reasonable thing for her to assume, but it still stung, worse here than even in Spring, since it meant that his wretched position in the Night Court’s employ had attached firmly to his reputation. “I really did come to see you.”

“Bullshit.” She squared her shoulders, but her jawline weakened ever so slightly. At least she would listen.

“What is it you’re working on?” he asked, hoping to steer the conversation by asking her about herself. Nuan was private, but she had passions, and her intellect was sharp and expansive enough that with a little prodding, she would overflow with enough detail to spin the heads of anyone but the Scholars’ High Council in the Day Court.

“Don’t con me,” she snapped. “I’m tracing nerves and micro vessels in skin and connective tissues, and trying to mimic their function, if you must know. And does that make any sense to you?”

“No.”

“I wouldn’t think so.” Pride swelled in her voice. “So why did you come? You know that travel safety all over Prythian is worse than it was before Hybern invaded, don’t you?”

“Yes,” he admitted.

“And traipsing around hither and thither is the best way to run into something, or someone, unsavory?”

“Undoubtedly.”

“And you still came here unannounced.”

“It was important.”

“To whom?”

“To me.” It was out of his mouth before he could think better of it. “Not to anyone else. If Rhysand knew I was here he’d think about it for all of two seconds and then move on to his mate.”

She snorted derisively. “He’s a fanatic about that female.”

“He’s become increasingly short-sighted,” Lucien said, anger welling up in him anew, despite all the dozens of times he’d exhausted himself trying to suppress it. “Nothing matters to him besides Velaris and Feyre, and maybe his son, now. Before he was just a blackguard with too much power. But now, whatever we tell him of uncomfortable truths gets lost before it even reaches his thoughts.” He thought of their meeting, in the great office with the mountains in the background, trying to impress upon the High Lord the suffering of the humans; and how when he hadn’t been distracted, he’d been annoyed just to bring up the subject.

“Through love all is possible,” she intoned solemnly. “So. Perhaps the rest of his court can finally flourish while he focuses his black gaze exclusively on Feyre. They’ve certainly been waiting long enough.”

“I doubt it.”

“Is she properly recovered from her birthing yet?”

How she’d heard of that debacle, he had no idea. “Yes. Thanks to her sister.”

“Which sister?”

He frowned. “Nesta. Why?”

“Because Rhysand’s not the only one obsessed with an Archeron.” She gave him a pointed glance, then turned and stalked into the house, calling back over her shoulder. “Come in. If we must talk politics, at least let’s not do it in the cold.”

He crossed beneath the threshold, and the little brass owl chirped and whirred. His eye spun in response, for all the world as though it were saying hello.

The kitchen was cluttered but warm, lined with terracotta tiles and yellow slate in the exact same hue as the street paving stones. The fire caught all the gold and russet and played with it merrily, casting the whole room with golden light. Nuan crossed to the open hearth and filled a giant teakettle, then dropped in a handful of leaves that smelled of ginger and pear. She added cardamom as the steam began to rise, then placed the lid back and turned around.

“Well. Since you’re not here in an official capacity, then, can I ask you how you are?”

“I’m well,” he responded automatically.

“Of course you are,” she agreed. “Angry at Rhysand, who pays your salary…living in exile with humans and pleading their cause to the mighty to no avail…let’s hope that mate of yours has warmed to you, else you’d understandably be tense as a cat amongst the pixies.”

Lucien smiled. Nuan always did this. Despite her sharp tongue, which she wielded with even more accuracy than Nesta Archeron, she had a way of making anyone feel protected — provided they were under her wing. It was the difference between being in a dragon’s nest, among the eggs, or facing it head-on. “I missed you,” he admitted.

She finally grinned at him, her dark eyes crinkling at the edges. “I’m sure you did. So much you couldn’t even send a letter. Paralyzed by nostalgia for my cluttered workshop and my dusty company.”

He laughed helplessly and shrugged, accepted the tea mug she held out, and then collapsed into a chair, leaning back on two of its wooden legs so that it tilted against the wall. A little circular brass brush buzzed officiously under his feet, cleaning up dust and crumbs. “I started writing many times. I just…never finished.” He took a deep draught of the tea, which was hot but not scalding, and tasted refreshingly sharp from the ginger.

She cocked her eyebrow at him and curled her fingers around her own cup. “I know you’re wanted by everyone in all seven courts and at least two foreign kingdoms, but spare a thought for your old friends occasionally.”

“I think about you all the time,” he protested. “Especially when I’m talking to Vassa.”

“The human queen?”

“She has your tenacity.” Lucien always found describing Vassa to the Fae difficult, but Nuan nodded with a slightly faraway look in her eyes. “She wants to know everything; asks incessant questions, doesn’t relinquish conversation until she’s satisfied I’ve told her everything I know. And even then I’m not certain she believes me. I can imagine her holding out through all the mess that the human lands are going through now. Trying to understand things, to find solutions.”

Tendrils of Nuan’s dark hair slipped over her shoulder as a ribbon of steam rose from the cup. “She could do good things for her people. If the curse can be broken…”

“It seems not.”

She gestured in the air, a weary acknowledgement of the difficulty of the task. “Perhaps broken is the wrong word. Perhaps we’re thinking about it in the wrong way. Advancement in science and engineering and innovation is, after all, most often a shift not in knowledge but in perspective. I hope that’s also true for magic.”

He raised his eyebrows and felt his scar pull as the golden eye, excited by the presence of its creator, whizzed beneath the eyelid. “Exactly why I said she reminds me of you.”

“Stubborn.”

“Smart,” he countered. “And of course unwilling to let anyone else win an argument.”

The whites of her eyes flashed as she rolled them, but the laugh that jumped from her was genuine. “At least you didn’t call me resilient,” she shot back, a note of bitterness in her amusement. “The worst word, I think. When no one sees you except for how you’ve been hurt.” She flexed her golden fingers. “Speaking of wounds, how is yours?”

He pointed to the eye. “This? Unsightly as ever, but no worse.”

She squinted over the rim of her cup. “I meant more invisible ones. You came from Night, didn’t you?” Her nostrils flared as she scented. “You smell of Velaris…all river-water and cold air.”

Damn her. He’d been wondering how to elegantly bring up the questions he came here to ask, but as usual, she’d arrived at the heart of the matter with the precision of a scalpel. “I did.”

He’d tried to keep his tone neutral, but something must have changed in his face. She gazed at him sharply for a moment, then reached out a hand, palm up. “Let me see the eye.”

“Why?”

“I’ll give it a tune-up,” she said briskly. “Check the gears, adjust the spells. While you tell me what you went back to that awful city for.”

Lucien hesitated and then, cringing slightly at the sensation, pulled down his lower eyelid and stuck his finger and thumb into the socket, bracketing the golden eye between his fingers. He hated the sucking pull of removing it…it was remarkably close to how it had felt to have the real eye gouged out, which came rushing back with revulsion whenever he touched it, although with less pain. He swallowed hard and tugged. It came loose after a moment’s resistance and whizzed in his fingers, sounding — though he knew this was idiotic — a bit irritated.

Nuan grinned as he handed it to her, and set it down into a soft cloth on the workshop table. “I like how it likes you,” she said, pushing her sleeves up. Her arm gleamed dully as it caught the light. “One of my best creations. Hello, little thing,” she crooned at it, tilting it back and forth, peering acutely at its shimmering surface. There were minuscule etchings on it that fired as she examined it. It rolled over of its own accord and she chuckled. “You’re a proper little rascal. Has Lucien taught you, shown you all manner of things you shouldn’t know? I don’t doubt it.”

Lucien squinted, limited to half his field of vision. “It’s an eye. What shouldn’t it know?”

She gave him a dirty look. “Just trying to acknowledge all the hot spots you’ve gotten into.”

“Most of them weren’t even mine,” he objected. “Except the times I mouthed off.”

“Oh yes, except for those rare instances.” Her sarcasm dripped like nectar, and he rolled his natural eye with a helpless chuff of a laugh.

“I can’t keep quiet. Never have. Likely I never will, at this point.”

But Nuan was no longer listening; she had put on her magnifying spectacles, which cartoonishly enlarged her eyes so she looked remarkably like her little brass owl sentinel, and she was staring at the orb of the eye with a tiny line forming between her brows, shifting into a perplexed expression.

“What is it?” The back of Lucien’s neck prickled.

It took her a moment to answer, holding the eye as though gauging its weight. “It’s odd,” she finally said, tilting her head to the side and elevating the eye so the shop faelight descended from overhead to cover the table in a brilliant cone. “It’s as if — as if it became unbalanced. Like all the charms in it are stuck on one side. Have you noticed any change in the way it functions? The way you see? The things you can see?”

He shook his head, dumbfounded. “It’s been normal, but…”

“But?”

“Well…” He had wanted to talk about this, to ask her opinion, so why did it suddenly feel illicit? Dangerous? “There was an incident. Recently.”

She put the eye down and lifted off her spectacles, watching him with crescent eyebrows.

“I encountered magic I’d never seen before. Never heard of.”

“Where?” A crisp, precise question. The answer was more troublesome.

“It was by the docks in Velaris. A strange place…sort of a squatter’s nest. But made of boats. Anchored to trash and refuse.” He took in a breath to slow his heart, which had begun to race. “I think the people there had odd abilities. Or some of them did. I noticed that my eye was moving oddly, like it was sticky. Or like it was pulled towards this female with the strange powers.”

“What in the name of the Mother and her Cauldron were you doing in a place like that?” Nuan demanded. He bristled; it was the sort of tone his mother might have adopted to berate him for staying out all night.

“I didn’t intend to visit, I just…ended up there. I winnowed in.”

“Blindly?”

He nodded. “I was looking for Elain.”

Surprise bled over her so quickly it altered the entire shape of her face: everything went round, from eyes to mouth.

“Before you ask, I didn’t know why she was there, but…she pulled on the bond. So I went. And she was being chased by this female. A Lesser Fae, I believe, but with deep and strange powers.”

“Of what sort?”

“I don’t know,” Lucien admitted. “She told Elain she was a witch, trained in folk lore and legend.”

“How did you get away?” Nuan demanded. Her fingers were rigid against the work table; if she held it any tighter, it might have permanent imprints of her nails.

He ran a hand over his face — how to tell the rest of that night simply, without sacrificing accuracy? He settled on a half-truth, at least for the moment. “I shot her with a Faebane arrow.”

Nuan brought up the eye again, turning it, and picked up a tiny, narrow screwdriver from the table. She blew on the eye and traced one of its etchings with the tool, painstakingly drawing the pointed edge along the surface. It hummed, then hissed and split open along a near-invisible line. Inside, a multitude of tiny gears whirred and spun — and indeed, all of them were clustered along one side, instead of being evenly spaced in the center. She stared at it, open like an egg cradled in her two hands. “A witch, she said? Elain said she called herself that?”

Lucien shrugged. “I assumed she was being dramatic. For effect.” Everyone knew witches were only creatures of legend. They had vanished from Prythian before even the creation of the Middle, when the Daglan ruled the lands and goblins and strigoi preyed on High and Lesser Fae alike.

When Nuan spoke again, her voice was low and tremulous. “The charms on my tinkering are nearly ironclad, Lucien. On any tinkering, as a condition, a quality control of its manufacture. Only a powerful force — an elemental force, like a current — could affect its material this way. It is built to respond only to you, and your ideas, your brain, your commands. To resist influence by anyone else, so no one can co-opt its use. As its builder, I will always have a small degree of control over it, but it is supposed to function as if it were a part of your own body. To see it like this is —“

“Strange?”

“Concerning.” She picked up the screwdriver and slowly, painstakingly began loosening the gears and moving them in the tiny orb, stationing them back where they were meant to be. “Witches. Hmm.”

“It was nonsense. Just a way to shield herself from telling Elain the truth about her powers, I’m sure. Witches are gone from Prythian,” Lucien said. He was suddenly tired. Half of his vision gone pounded his head into a dull throbbing ache.

“Well,” Nuan said absently, applying a minute drop of amber oil to the gears and nudging them with the point of her stylus, spinning them faster. “That’s very possible. Even after they disappeared their abilities stayed legendary, all over Prythian. To this day. In some tribes it’s almost like invoking a monster to call down the witches. Even to mention them. There’s at least one tribe in the foothills near Under the Mountain who tell a folk tale that Amarantha came to Prythian because someone made the mistake of calling upon the Morgana, the darkest of the witches from their lore.”

“How do you know so much about them?” Lucien asked.

“I don’t,” she said, matter-of-fact as she extracted a tiny gear from the eye and elevated it into the air, where it rotated idly. She lifted another tool that looked like a tiny golden pin, looping it as though writing, and as she did, more tiny golden marks appeared on the surface of the metal. “But no one ever really did. The only thing that was ever clear about their magic was their ability to take it from others — which of course made people fear them deeply. They were strange, wild creatures, preying where gifts were plentiful. But they had a place in the natural order; a way to keep things in check. To keep a truce between the powerful.” She snorted derisively as she inscribed more golden writing on the tiny gear in marks so small they were almost invisible. “It fits that Dawn would be a place their influence and legend would stay alive. We have always been the interim, the balance between the stronger solar courts, ever since Dusk disappeared into memory. The bright, blessed Day, and the dark, looming Night. Each of whom could roll over in their sleep and crush us without a second thought. Equilibrium is in our interest here. But who knows what price we might have to pay to get it?”

She looked up at him and blinked, her eyes huge behind the spectacles, and after a moment of silence, burst out into peals of laughter. “Oh, Cauldron boil me. Close your mouth, Lucien, you look like you’ve been hit in the back of the head. It’s my privilege to wander in thought a bit.” She flung the cloth at him, hitting him in the face; he scrabbled, tilting backward in his chair as the cloth covered his eyes.

She continued, as he tossed the cloth onto the floor in annoyance. “It was often said by the early masters of magic that balance is as important as power. Like calls to like, yes, but without an opposing force it will bring chaos eventually. So perhaps the witches’ essential balancing function could be preserved somehow, in the greater scheme of things. There was a group of Lesser Fae who they thought might have descended from the witches, in theory. Although that can’t really be proved. Perhaps their powers merely grew to match those of the ancient witches. A sort of convergent evolutionary mechanism.”

Lucien felt cold trickling over his skin. “Which Lesser Fae were these?”

She tilted her head, pensive, fitting the tiny gear back into the eye and sliding it along its axle, only a hairsbreadth in diameter. It glowed, surprisingly bright, and began to rotate. She nodded in satisfaction. “They didn’t have a name, or a tribe. They were united only by magical ability. And of course that made them outcasts from the communities most Lesser Fae hold sacred. Transients, migratory; eking out a living at the borders of societies. They took over sections where magic could be siphoned away from settlements without notice being attracted, and could quickly move on before danger could come to them…which sounds exactly like the place you were just describing.” She gave him a pointed look. “I’ve heard them called many things, mostly derisive. Squatters. Schemers. Mostly they’ve been referred to as skimmers — an interesting word for what they can do.”

Take magic that wasn’t theirs…and wield it? Lucien raced to keep his thoughts logical. “Skimming? As in, taking some off the top…like clotted cream off milk, or fat off bone broth?”

Nuan nodded absently, absorbed in reconnecting the two halves of the magical eye, touching it with her tiny stylus and leaving glowing pinpoints behind, bright and bold as if the metal were molten. “Yes. And making a life from that. It’s really remarkable, you know…” she fastened it back together and gave it a gentle squeeze and a pat, and a final murmur to seal the charm. “…how they’ve managed to survive, if they truly are descendants of the witches. All these centuries, across all the courts.”

“And you think these people might have lived in Velaris? In the court that not even Amarantha could penetrate?”

She shrugged. “Don’t discount the magic of the Lesser Fae. They are not weak. They have the greatest wellspring of abilities in all of Prythian, though it’s not concentrated into individuals the way it is for High Fae. And these people can draw magic towards them; drain it out of those who wield their acquired powers. It’s not well documented, so who knows the full extent of what they could do? But it’s possible, especially in groups, that they could cross the borders of the courts. And if she was trying to frighten your mate, perhaps calling herself a witch would’ve done the trick.”

Lucien wanted to object, that Elain had likely no idea about witches beyond fireside folk tales, but something she had said surfaced, a drifting tangle of flotsam, tugging at his heart, silencing him.

Alive…but not in a way that you are, or I am. Like something that normally wouldn’t be able to talk. And it was angry.

Maybe it was part of the witch’s magic.

Old, and strong, and alive.

What had she spoken to, beneath the waters of the Sidra?

Who had she spoken to in the bobbing boats, before her fear had called him and he had come running in panic?

Nuan was talking to him again, breaking through the flailing of his worried mind.

“What?”

She let out a sigh of impatience. “I was asking if you’d talked to her about it at all. To Elain.” She offered him the eye in an outstretched hand, neatly pinched between finger and thumb. “Here you are, you rake. Good as new.”

He shook his head, and took the eye back, holding the socket open and pulling his scarred lower lid down to fit it inside. It resisted for a moment but then popped back into place, spun as though in indignation, and with a whirr resumed its function. His sight through it was cleaner, more balanced. Perhaps it had been blurred or distorted and he just hadn’t noticed.

“You haven’t?” She looked properly scandalized now, as though he’d admitted to sexual relations with a naga or something.

“It’s been a few days, and I haven’t seen her…”

“A few days since what?”

“Solstice. When she gave me this,” he said, pulling back his jacket so she could see the pin on his lapel.

Her eyes widened. “Does she know? About Jes?”

“Not unless she heard it from someone else. Her sister is a mind-reader, after all.” The words tasted bitter to him. It would be too disappointing, too crushing, to know that Feyre had whispered the contents of his mind to his mate. When he couldn’t even tell her the simplest thing: how much her regard bloomed him like one of her flowers under the noon sun.

Nuan tapped her fingers on the desk. “Perhaps she would prefer hearing it from you, even if the High Lady did tell her something.” She swiped her cloth over the surface, cleaning dust away so the wood gleamed under the bright light. “Maybe that’s her way of telling you that.”

He tried to grin, but it died on his face. “How would you know?”

She chuffed in exasperation. “How would you not know?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean you’ve bedded how many Fae over the past few centuries, and you still know nothing about women.”

“I know some things.” He waggled his eyebrows at her and she smiled, but shook her head.

“You’re an idiot, Lucien. You won’t maintain contact. You won’t let her into your thoughts. You won’t ask her about her own.”

“I was giving her room…”

“Well, that’s nice, isn’t it. Maybe that was fine before. But now she’s speaking to you and giving you gifts. Making overtures. Can’t you at least write her a thank-you note?”

He thought about it for a moment. His words had failed him with Elain, time and again, when normally they flowed as easily as water with the direction of conversation. He’d never had trouble flirting; except with her. The words had faded into silence or been too weak to express what he truly thought.

Maybe writing would be better.

“Maybe I will, if I can find paper and pen,” he said, half to himself.

Nuan snapped her fingers in his face and pointed to a pen lying on the table top within arms’ reach. “Sometimes I fear you’ve lost your marbles, Lucien.” She opened a stone crock on the long counter by the window and pulled out some bread, slathering it with butter and a slice of honeycomb. With a wiggle of her fingers the massive mug filled with tea again and thumped unsteadily next to him. “Well. I have work to do and you have a mate to woo. It’ll be good practice for writing me letters, too.” She winked at him. “Tell her what you thought. What you felt. How you can’t stop thinking about her enough that you went to Dawn to ask your friend how to talk to her, for fuck’s sake.”

He burst out laughing. “Drown me in the Cauldron. I hope one day I can badger you about writing love letters to someone.”

Her face fell abruptly, settling back into lines he hadn’t noticed before. Her shoulders wilted into a slope. She looked like she had just picked up a massive, unyielding piece of stone.

“Nuan…” he extended a hand to her, getting up from the desk. “Nuan, I’m sorry…”

She shook her head firmly, but her voice, so arch and confident moments before, seemed to have dried up. She picked up the mug and took a long sip of the steaming tea, then held it tightly near her nose, breathing in the fragrant vapor, eyes closed. Lucien stood close, watching her, waiting. Helplessness solidifying in his veins. Tears shimmered in the corners of her eyes.

“Can I help?” he asked, heartbroken to see her suddenly in the grip of obvious pain.

She shook her head swiftly, then opened her eyes. “I’m well.”

“But —“

“I want you to know something, though,” she said, and there was a rigidity to her tone, an iron that he’d never heard before. “I love you and I’ll protect you to the bitter end, Lucien. But I want you to know that there was — is — a cost. You might never see it. I hope you never do. But be aware: there were lots of people who sacrificed for you without even knowing you.”

“Who was it?” He would make it up to her. Somehow.

“No. No, you don’t need to know that.” Her face cracked into a broken, small smile. “Just that they loved me. And because they loved me, they loved you. Even through Autumn vengeance, which never was selective enough to fall only on the target of their ire. Lord Beron casts a wide net. And I will not be silent about my own pain or theirs, not while I have breath. We loved you, and we shielded you, and that hurt us.”

His eyes widened. “My father came after you?”

She didn’t answer, just stared at the table. He didn’t know what to make of this. He had left Autumn, fled their cruel court with their murderous customs, would never go back or try to threaten the crown or the succession. Why would his father continue to pursue him across borders, come for his friends?

Maybe Beron didn’t need a reason. Thinking of the blood spreading under vibrant copper curls, dark eyes filming over with death, he knew that to be true. One more thing for the Vanserras to answer for. A dark bubble in his heart.

“Lucien?”

He reached out and took her hand.

“Just promise me that one day, when it matters, you’ll be better than all of them.”

“I…”

“Not just for yourself, but everyone else too.” Her dark eyes locked with his.

There was a lump in his throat. He squeezed her hand, and light glowed around their grip.

“I promise,” he said, gently, not knowing what she really meant, but feeling that this would help, that his word — which, so help him, he’d keep — would balm the hurt of her unspoken loss.

“Thank you.” She swiped roughly at her eyes. “Fuck…this anemometer isn’t going to build itself.” She bustled away, picking up a weight of bright copper and heading to the giant crucible in the back garden. Moments later he heard the crackle of flame stir to life beneath it.

He sat, pulling the paper towards him. Waited a moment, thinking.

Tell her what you thought. What you felt.

He bent over the paper, quill pen whispering.

—————-

He struggled with the letter all day, writing and tearing it up, balling the pieces into clumps and setting them alight with his fire until Nuan told him if he burned her workshop down, she’d never speak to him again. Finally, he had written something he felt was appropriate, although it came off too stilted. Just like when I speak to her, he thought grimly.

Elain, he had begun, simply. He had wondered if Dear Elain would be better, but the familiarity slickened his palms with sweat. What if she wasn’t ready to hear endearments from him?

He told her of the skimmers, and that they might be more powerful than he or she had suspected. I’m visiting the Dawn Court and came across some information I thought might be of interest…

But that wouldn’t do. What if Rhysand decided to open and read it? Or Nuala, or Cerridwen, or even Feyre, who was nosy enough for a whole squadron of spies?

He decided to bury it further in the text.

Elain — I wanted to pass along my thanks…

Fuck, no, that wasn’t right either. He wasn’t a schoolboy writing to a distant cousin.

“Stop sighing,” Nuan called in irritation from the next room, where her dinner sat forgotten as she worked on calculations for the winged harness in the courtyard. “If you can’t tell her in simple words how you feel, it won’t be worth saying at all.”

The hours spun away. Nuan went to bed finally, and he was alone in the kitchen with the faelight, and the little brass owl, whose eyes half-closed as the darkness fell like a shroud. He took the pen and paper over to the bed Nuan had made up on the wide sofa, sitting down on the clean sheets and trying to relax.

Elain — I feel badly that I left without thanking you properly for your gift on Solstice. You must think me very rude.

He breathed deeply, remembering how his stomach had knotted at the sight of the little hyraeth pin. He touched it absently at his lapel while he thought. It gleamed softly in the faelight, the lacquer shimmering along the amber surface.

I didn’t expect to receive a gift at all, and so I was taken aback, but further, I didn’t expect you to remind me so much of my past. It was so kind of you, it overwhelmed me. I knew a girl once who was a Guardian of the groves where the hyraeths live, you see — and our time together ended in tragedy.

Don’t end on the sad note, he thought desperately. Don’t let her think it grieved me…

But the words were finally flowing. He scrawled them as they came, unbound like the waves of dark that came with twilight.

But you made me think of her with less sadness. And you made me feel welcome in a place that has always challenged my ability to adapt. I don’t know if you meant it this way, but…

Tell her how you feel.

…you made me feel at home. Thank you, Blossom, from the bottom of this wicked heart.

I’ve been trying to think of a way to repay your kindness. Perhaps, in lieu of flowers or trinkets, a secret will do?

He flipped the page over and told her what he had learned of the skimmers, adding at the end, perhaps this could guide your research going forward, as you investigate your abilities and the promise you made that night. Although may I suggest avoiding consorting with witches? Or at the very least, staying away from the docks in future? I don’t know if MY nerves could handle it, although I’m sure yours could. You’re made of sterner stuff, after all. You have that Archeron iron.

He sat for a moment, eyes growing heavy. The faelight, hovering near his head, dimmed thoughtfully. He struggled to keep his eyes open, to write one more line…

I would like to come see you once I get back…

But sleep was weighing him down, dragging at his limbs…

…and hear what you make of all this…if you’d like to see me…

…Elain…

…Blossom…

But it was no good fighting it any longer.

Lucien was enveloped and swimming in darkness, struggling against the weight of it. It was formless. Depthless. He knew it well; and yet it frightened him. He’d been here before, so many times. Sleeping endlessly after his eye had been torn out, as his face slowly knit back together around the golden orb that replaced his natural eye. The pain of it ebbing and flowing, screaming into him when his face scrunched as he wept, receding to a dull throb as he sank again into despondency. Surfacing to see Tam sitting on the floor by his bed, fast asleep…but always, always pulling back down into darkness. Hearing the echoes of screams…his own…Jesminda’s…his mother’s…they all faded into the cottony silence of nothingness. Perhaps his own heartbeat would fade, eventually. He had hoped for that sometimes.

But now, the darkness wasn’t truly endless. It was forming into something. At first it was just a feeling, like the walls of a room enclosing a discrete space, and then it was actual sensation. The shift of the pile of a rug under his feet. The stiffness, slight creak of his leather boots against his shins and feet. The hum and chatter of voices in an adjacent room, broken by laughter. And then there was light. Golden, pooling light from a lamp, flooding the room with a gentle glow.

The River House.

He recognized the high ceilings, the open beams, the oak paneled walls. The playful spin of faelights from the recesses of the ceiling, giving a low glow to even darkened rooms.

And then a sweet voice. Melodious, if slightly tremulous. Nervous. Reaching as if across a long distance. But instead of just hearing babble, like the voices from the room close by, it formed into actual words.

“It made me think that you might someday find a place for your heart to rest.” A pause. “Unfathomable as that may be now.”

It was her. Dressed in shimmering lilac, with that little plum fur-lined jacket accentuating her waist, her long neck, her slender arms. Winter roses at her breast, where he had tried — and failed, spectacularly — not to look, at the pink edges against the swell of her flushed skin. She looked like an early summer day given a Fae form, here in the tightest grip of winter and dark. And in his hand, a tiny, glowing pin of bright amber, fashioned into wings that caught and refracted the light. His vision blurred with tears.

“How did you know?” he asked, the question that had bruised his heart for days.

She shifted, twisting her hands. “Know what?”

“This…” he gestured with it. “That I missed this. That I needed it.”

Her eyebrows creased into a worried expression. “I didn’t. But I read about the hyraeths, and it…it caught my mind. Reminded me of you.”

“I…” he swallowed. “It reminds me of my past. Good and…and bad things. My last day in Autumn, many years ago.” He thought about what he had written to her in that stumbling letter. What he had seen, that last day. The great hemlocks, blasted by fire. The Guardians, scorched and burned to dry husks. The hyraeths, dead in golden droplets on the ground, their wings stilled and dulled with death. And the darkness of her blood soaking the moss, congealing on the roots of the trees, which embraced her crumpled body like the hands of a mother…

“Yes,” she said, eagerly. “I wondered if perhaps you might want something to remind you of home.”

Yes. I did…but those memories are caught in pain, like blackberries grown with thorns, and you didn’t know that part. But oh, how sweet and tender it was that you tried. He stepped forward, closing the distance between them. “I don’t have a home anymore,” he said, his voice catching on the words.

“Perhaps you will, one day,” she said, and he saw her throat squeeze. “And then you can put down some of the weight you carry.”

He faltered, but continued, hoping to show her how much it meant that she had thought of him this way. “I think you understood me, Blossom. Better than you realized, perhaps. Thank you.”

He could feel the warmth radiating from her, this close. Closer than she’d ever been before…

She reached out and pointed at the pin. “May I?”

He handed it to her immediately. “By all means. Please.”

She fixed it to his lapel and fastened the clasp, then straightened it slightly, like a flower in a buttonhole. Both of her hands rested against his chest, the warmth bleeding through the fabric of his shirt. He knew it would end, the sweet drug of her touch…but she left her hands there, then flattened them so her palms faced down. He could feel the outline of every finger.

Her brown eyes stared into his. He had the sense that there were worlds behind them. For a moment, they were utterly silent.

“This is a dream,” he whispered.

She nodded, her gaze traveling down his neck to where the collar met the lapel of his jacket. The place where his collarbone dipped. He wasn’t sure what she was looking at, but then he heard a gentle hiss of breath, and realized she was scenting him. This former human girl, proper and shy, using her Fae senses to listen to him with not just those soft, pointed ears, but with her body. A dream indeed. So if she was indulging her Faeness, perhaps he could, too? It would be a bold step…if he was reckless enough to take it…

“Then…” — he couldn’t believe he might actually say it, might actually do this mad, presumptuous thing — “then can I…kiss you?”

Her eyes swept up to meet his again, the lashes surrounding them dark and fuzzy — almost as if her face was out of focus, except for her eyes. They were clear, and deep enough to drown in. “Did you want to? Is that why we’re back here? In the parlor, with the party next door?”

“Yes,” he whispered. “…so, so much.”

Her fingers tightened against the lapel of his jacket. Even closer than before. “It is only a dream, isn’t it?” she said, softly, half to herself.

“Yes…”

The tiniest of smiles, the barest twitch of those beautiful lips. “I wish you would.”

And their lips met, so gently, that even as they shared breath he wondered how this could be real, and at the same time how it couldn’t be real. Her lips were so soft and warm beneath his, the whisper of a touch — and the tightness in his chest grew to nigh-unbearable tension as the bond behind his ribs squeezed, trying its hardest to pull them together. He was breathless.

It was Elain who leaned forward, and increased their contact as she tilted her head up, pressing more firmly against him. The kiss broke briefly as they adjusted their stance; she slipped closer, her feet between his, standing on tiptoes, and gripped his lapels in her hands, drawing his face down to hers, where their lips could meet and caress, sliding over one another to fit together. He hesitantly put his hands underneath her jawbone, so delicate, and pulled her into him; she lost her balance a bit and tipped forward, and he caught her around her waist. They stared into each other’s eyes, and something ignited in the depths. He fancied he could see it, like the flare of a match or the flicker of a candle, and he plunged after it, chased it down, down, into another kiss and then another, growing clumsy as he became more ardent. Her mouth opened, her tongue shy against his, one arm winding around his neck as her other hand stroked his cheek and gentled him, bringing their mouths together with a tenderness that ached in his lungs, in every breath he drew.

They broke apart, breaths serrated and hands shaking; but she held on to him tightly, pulling herself into his embrace. He didn’t want to lose any of the warmth between them, or the urgent flare of her scent, the intoxicating sweetness of summer flowers.

“They might see us,” she whispered. He felt a possessiveness flare in his gut; he would strike, stab, fight to keep this moment sacrosanct, just between the two of them.

“Who?” he strained. But as soon as he asked, he knew what she meant, and immediately felt the darkness starting to gather, talons gleaming, like it might contain a million interested eyes and ears.

“Let’s go somewhere else,” she murmured, her nose gliding against his. “Somewhere we can really be alone.”

She stepped back and seized his hand, drawing him on toward the sweeping staircase; but it seemed more open than before, the ceiling receding upwards until it was almost gone into a great vault. The bannister became rougher and more knobby under his hand, like the trunk of a tree, and he felt like if he looked back, nothing of the River House would be there anymore.

She stopped in front of a door, wound about with vines that stirred in an invisible breeze, and ducked inside, pulling him with her.

“Where are we?” he breathed, conscious of the vines, heavy with glossy leaves and flowers — and wicked, long thorns — crowding into the space left by the door.

“My place,” she answered, and walked to the window. “My secret.” She pulled the curtain back, and the room filled with bright light. When his eyes adjusted, he saw the air filled with flowers and birds and butterflies, drifting lazily around pillars of knotted vines and trunks. Fields of billowing grasses, bright-green against the sun. White cliffs, in the distance. Riotous flowering plants everywhere he looked.

“It’s safe here. Sunny. Bright. I made it myself. I wanted a place that no one could see but me. I would come here when everything seemed dark and I thought I would never feel happy again.” She took a breath. “I liked resting here.” She seemed a little fluttery herself, a little shaky, just like the tremulous wings of the butterflies. “If you don’t like it we can go somewhere else…”

“I love it,” he interrupted, heart swelling painfully inside him. “You gave yourself a garden to grow in.”

She smiled, and a ray of sun touched her face, and he stepped forward and kissed those warm lips, hands sliding into her hair; they stood, swaying in the breeze, light with a heady buzz of joy. He wrapped his arms around her waist, lifting her up, and turned around, looking for an open spot to set her down, to kiss her and touch her, to find out if her skin was as silken and sweet against his lips as he had imagined so many times. She held him tight, her face snug against his neck. He plunked her down onto a little sward of long grass that bent into a plush mattress, and he swore he heard a distant silvery giggle. Vines swam around them, growing to shield them, forming a loose lattice that the light could peek through. It laced over her flushed face. He slid his hand from her ankle to her knee, pushing her skirt up so he could grip her leg, bringing it up into a cradle that circled him with heat beating out of her skin. She cradled his face, staring at him, and he pressed against her, her legs locking around him to keep him close. He stroked her curls back from her neck, dragged his fingers over her throat as her eyes fluttered closed.

“Do you know what I can’t stop thinking of?” he murmured against her pulse, which raced as he spoke. “Not that you’re beautiful…” Her eyes snapped open, almost indignantly, and he felt a smile lift his lips. “You are, of course. Stunning. But you’re also…delicious.” He inhaled slowly, feeling her scent flood his nose and mouth. “I crave your…sweetness. It’s in my blood, my brain, my body…” he ground against her, relishing the little gasp she let out. “…and I want that taste, of you, in my mouth so badly, I almost go fucking mad.” He pulled the roses from her bodice and cast them aside, the soft swells of her breasts heaving as he slid his fingers under the hem of the little jacket. He was desperate to touch and also to extend, so that it would never end…

But what was that bite of cold that chilled the back of his neck?

Her fingers tightened, nails digging into his skin. “What’s happening?” She sounded so sad. It wrenched his heart, which wrenched at the bond in turn. “It’s never cold in here.”

He could feel cool fabric — sheets — under his hands, and fought the sensation. No, no. He wanted her skin, that warm softness…to stay here until everything else was forgotten, to drown in her and awake with hope renewed…

“I think I’m…waking up,” he gasped.

“No.” It came out as a sob. “No, Lucien. Don’t go.”

“Fuck,” he croaked, but he could sense himself slipping away, a sensation as acute and unstoppable as if he were physically sliding down a steep incline.

“Wait…”

“I’ll come back,” he promised, leaning against her for one more kiss, one more taste of her sweet breath. “I swear it, Blossom, if you’ll let me in, I’ll meet you here. Call me from your dreams, and I’ll come.” He could hear his voice echoing. Was he saying it aloud?

He didn’t hear if she said anything in response; he was awake, sitting upright in sweat-cooled sheets in Nuan’s house, darkness enveloping the entire room.

The tears that came were searing and salty, flooding through him so fast and fully that they could have been the Sidra cresting to catch him under the mad wave that had chased him onto its banks that night that he and Elain had saved each other. They felt like heart’s blood, benediction and loss. Falling into a void like the great encircling river of the creation myth.

He wept enough to fill it with a sea of sorrow.

#elucien #acotar #fanfic #lucien vanserra #elain archeron #elucienweek2023 #pro elucien #pro lucien vanserra #nuan acotar #dawn court

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