woodwitch

Rheia counted up to twelve before the heels of her naked feet touched grass again. Rex forced her on her tiptoes again, unbothered by the fact she was fuming.

He wanted to humiliate her, clearly. Winnowing practice, he’d said. Just another word for psychological warfare.

It hadn’t been enough the fact he’d dragged her still asleep, now he was spewing assertions that made her extremely irritated. Worst of all, he wasn’t even wrong.

“Your height has everything to do with your magic. Your center is off.”

He pulled her arms up above her head by the elbows, forcing her to reach upwards to the sky with her hands.

“I feel insulted.”

And also, the centre of attention. Rheia was keenly aware Rex’s sudden idea had roused a small portion of camp, and she was uneased by how much the presence of people she did not know affected her.

Rex, of course, did not care for any of that. He patted her back, shrugging.

“Good. Now shut up and rebalance.”

She did. She rebalanced, did every single ridicolous thing he asked her to do, missing very much the private quality of her training back home. At least there, Elitras didn’t play any stupid games with her, organized her regimens with the utmost respect and never allowed it to become a public issue.

Rex had been right about one thing, though. She was out of shape; most of the muscles she had developed were experiencing disuse, the brief battles the civil war had forced on her had made that clear. She hadn’t kept up like she should have, and she hated it.

She hated feeling her body weaken, she hated having to rely on her magic force and absolutely despised not having her own back. As it had been demonstrated on countless accounts, trusting others with her life was not the way.

So she endured it, and switched to the crane stance —one knee bent, the other straight, and the arms behind to an uncomfortable angle— under his monitoring.

She allowed herself a good look at him, and was pleasantly surprised; his bare skin was devoid of the scars she expected. Some were there, faint, but she’d seen them before, they were old.

Either Eris had overestimated the damage his soldiers had done or Seele had gotten really good all of a sudden.

Rex shedding his shirt had never bothered her much. At first, maybe, it put her off, her prudish upbringing a main factor.

She’d gotten used to it, plus, it wasn’t unpleasant to see. He was never one to deny himself the ogling of pretty ladies.

He pressed his hands to her back again, bringing her body forward as he asked a few more forms.

When she got around to the eagle, he was smirking, “You haven’t forgotten, good.”

Arms outstretched, Rheia snarled, “do you want to get punched?”

Rex rolled his turquoise eyes, crossing his arms.

“Let’s try something else.”

Leading her to water had not meant the spectators dispersed. Quite the contrary.

By then, most were awake and wanted to see what exactly Rex had in mind. Rheia was dreading it, but knowing her friend, after being forced on bedrest against his will, he needed this as much as she did.

Even if he was being more touchy feely than his usual…and she had the vague impression he was doing it on purpose with how his eyes subtly went behind her. Rheia did not turn around.

She knew who was there, she knew Rex disliked Azriel (in general, he despised anyone associated with his home) and she didn’t want anything to do with this weird pissing contest.

Acknowledging it would only encourage Rex, and she was too preoccupied to deal with that right now.

His arm snaked around her with intent, his natural musk suffucating her a little. “He’s so pissed, love. You should see.”

“Why are you like this?” she hissed, and he released her with a little, white smile. Rex motioned to the stream, then the other side of the riverbank. “Winnow over there.”

His smile fell. He was serious about this, she realized.

She wasn’t getting out of that until she winnowed successfully.

It seemed Rex was taking great pleasure in making an enemy out of an ally.

Azriel had to admit, though, that seeing something like this in the first hours of morning was entertaining. Rheia didn't seem like the kind of person who protested much, she relied in short, direct words and had no issue following instructions.

“She can't winnow. I assumed she just didn't want to, but…”

Feyre, angled beside him, pointed out the obvious: it was apparent enough by the stiffness in Rheia's stance as she gathered herself that this was not coming easy to her. She was aware of the fact eyes were on her, and that was likely influencing her somewhat.

Azriel heard steps nearby, a yawn and then Yura gracing the world with his presence, the buttons of his jacket an uncoordinated mess. He looked like he'd slept through a landslide. And some.

He stretched his arms up, cracked his knuckles as he peered at Rex and Rheia, now whispering who knew what to each other, just close of tumbling down the stream.

“Lovely. Did she threaten to drown him yet?” he questioned, taking care to mantain a good arm of distance from Feyre.

Azriel shook his head. “No.”

“He's not going to help her with anything if he keeps goading her. I should intervene.”

But the High Lady was far too interested. She shook her hand in a gesture that demanded patience.

“Later. I want to see what she does first.”

Rex forced Rheia to remain straight backed yet again, squeezing her waist to make a point. Azriel had to focus to breath at a normal rate.

It took a while, but she did, eventually, reach somewhere.

The only downside was that one moment she was dry, the next, she stood suspended above the edge of the water and plunged down before she could stop herself.

Feyre covered her mouth with her hand to stop herself from smiling. Yura rubbed his face, lamenting lowly, “She's going to strangle him.”

But as Rex stared dumbfounded, processing the fact his lesson had somehow accomplished something, Rheia sat in the riverbed, frozen and wet, as little fish traveled around her.

Azriel found a great interest in the crease of her exasperated smile.

She took Rex’s helping hand, not before smearing a hand of mud across his chest and jumping in a sprint, wet hair haloing her head.

Moderately dry, and joined by good company, Rheia had developed a certain hunger when lunch time eventually came around.

She hadn't gotten much far than she expected, but that was inevitable. she wasn’t enthusiastic about having to relearn something from the basics, no matter how useful it turned out to be. Rheia found the journey the best part of traveling, walking was her preferred mean of getting to places. Even if she got reacquainted with winnowing, she didn’t see herself make much use of it.

Seele sat next to her in the small semi-circle they’d formed with Asylle, her sentinels, and Yura. Various dwellers settled nearby, Lucien catering to a firepit that was being employed in heating stew.

Amidst conversation, Rheia felt only a moment after that weight settled that something rolled had magicked its way into her lap, followed by Yura’s insistence on reading that aloud.

She ignored him, rolled out the scrolls and handed him what would be of interest to him and settled on the report most important, from her son.

And she read the same sentence, over and over again. She read it until it sounded incomprehensible in her mind, until the weight of it settled in her heart.

Until she had to grab Yura, and level him with a look.

She shoved the scroll under his nose.

He hurried along the elegant penmanship, stopped abruptly to squeeze her hand, his eyes moving over that same passege over and over.

Seele peeked her head over Rheia's shoulder, mouthing something at Yura he waved off momentarily to will his trembling mouth to move.

“I’m reading that right?" he asked.

Rheia nodded, her own lips shut.

Yura’s smile was slow to bloom, mirrored istantly by Rheia's eyes, pooling with tears.

"Fuck…fucking finally,” he burst, standing up and dragging her with him in an awkward, unsynced hug that alarmed all the people sitting with them.

"We have an advantage. We're winning, Rheia!"

"I'm feeling faint."

He knew she had no mind to celebrate.

Much like him, she never knew how to sit still for too long, and certainly, would not let her mind be addled by hope, as firm as it stood.

A single step forward did not mean war was won.

Detaching from the crowd had been easy. Yura had not done anything to stop him, busy with his own bout of adrenaline.

The tent was open and Azriel could see her, sitting down in front of a spread map of Hybern, several miniature pointers placed down on certain positions.

Rheia turned from her scribbling to find the sudden source of shadow that had blocked the light.

Her eyes, puffy, squinted. The notebook on her lap was open, fresh ink staining the pages and some of her fingertips.

“You alright?” he asked.

The question went unanswered for a while. He didn't count how many seconds went by as she just stared at him, disoriented and dissecting the question into words, the words into letters.

The smile that followed, he yearned to kiss it. “I…I think I am, now.”

She motioned to the space around the map, but he only settled as close he could without it being oppressive to her.

Papers splayed by her, drawings of battle formations and appointed notes on buildings he could find on the map easily.

“You're working.”

She shook her head. “Just strategizing. Elitras asked me to look into some vantage points.”

She showed him the sketch of a turret, various arrows pointing to what were labeled as traps, describing how to avoid them in detail.

“Prince Caden was a fool, but he knew how to get things done right,” she pointed to one of the miniatures, presumably where that turret rose from. “There isn't a single entrance that hasn't some kind of entrapping mechanism if the lock is forced.”

He hummed, looking over the map again, then the inked paper. Gods, she was good.

And clever. He had the sensation she hadn't yet shown him her full potential.

She pointed to a few more pinned places, speaking. “Here is an obelisk, of unknown origin. Here, a tomb…and here is an abandoned village. No seed takes root here.”

She stopped, right before her face fell, and her fingers traced a piece of land longingly.

Azriel did the first thing he thought, spurred on by the glint of the Siphon he'd handed Yura, gracing the edge of a wooden box.

“Did you know Yura is frightened by the dark?” he asked.

Her eyebows furrowed, then went up like gentle curves, along with her lips.

"And by witches, sorcerers, medical equipment…" she went on, removing her hands from the offensive territory that had frozen her.

She brushed dust off a corner, flattening it under her palm as her expressioned turned serious. She rested her hand on her knee, wordlessly shifting into a more relaxed position.

"He traveled alone as a child. I can't picture someone that young out in the world, with no protection, surviving without a good share of fears in his pockets.”

He couldn't, either. Illyrians were a cruel people, but even they understood that children were not bargaining chip. A son guaranteed the line of succession, and one with powers was coveted like the rarest jewel.

To think of a young, impressionable Yura, willfully given away by a mother that wanted him evaulated…it gave him pause.

Shadows went along the low ground, exploring the space and the scattered objects and whatnot with curiosity that he would indulge in later.

“How did you two even meet?” he continued, sensing by the set in her shoulders, lessened, this was somehow helping.

She straightened, sitting criss cross beside him, gathering back all the flying papers while she spoke.

“Uthyr liked keeping an eccentric entourage. When he heard a Sola had traveled all the way to Hybern, he invited him to court and gave him a piece of land. As it stands, Yura's title is one of Viscount, even if he forfeited almost all possessions.”

That made sense. As far as he’d studied about the few resources available, a person without a title couldn’t take the role of advisor, and the few occasions in which such a thing had happened in Hybern had ended up in blood baths.

She rolled the papers as she spoke, tying twine around them, depositing them in an open wooden box.

“I asked him why he didn't want them. His possessions are meager, and he doesn't have much affinity for being responsible of the well-being of a property that large. He’s a creature of change.”

She paused, and he caught the slip up instantly.

“You're worried he'll jump ship?”

Rheia shook her dissent.

“No, no. I'm…concerned. The council is not a thing anymore, and the one I have instated is barely holding things together. I don't doubt him. It's Sylpha I'm not sure of. Persuasion is her gift, and Yura, well…”

There it was. The confirmation from her mouth itself that he’d done a terrible mistake in not making his suspects known when there was still time. Now his guilt rendered him speechless, while she picked at miniatures, and stared again at that infuriatingly persistent piece of land, one he pictured himself plunging in darkness.

She passed a hand across yellowed parchment, meeting his eyes.

“The first thing she will do once war ends is barr herself in her Villa, probably to plan another, much more destructive attack. It'll be Hell to pay.”

She slank back, rolled her injured shoulder, and Azriel connected something he’d been struggling to understand until then. He'd seen that scar only in subtle lighting, the unmistakable, spidernet-like pattern it had left…

“…the scar. It was her.”

His voice felt foreign to his body, his mind reeling with the kind of horrible, sweetly cruel scenarios.

A bitter smile twisted her face. They always said betrayal hurt because it came from familiar faces, but Yura had made it clear it hurt Rheia much more than she had anticipated, since she’d always favored Sylpha over her councilmen. Standing at the other side of her blade —being stabbed physically and metaphorically— everything she had believed until then had crumbled in her hands like moth eaten shoes.

She hugged herself, a glint of bashfulness in the blush on her face.

“I should have known. When Uthyr brought the Cauldron in the Castle, she dragged me there to see it. They were…Gods, they were smiling, Azriel. I felt every layer of my skin form a barrier on my flesh, heard my blood scream from the wrongness of it all and they were smiling like a miracle had occurred. Fucking mental.”

A shudder went past him. He had had enough of stories about that oversized pot for the rest of his life. Just one minute in its presence had proven how dangerous a possession it was, and he wished no one to recall what the Cauldron had represented in those days. It was better off forgotten, hidden away with Myriam and Drakon.

She didn't seem to have much want to spend many more words on that cursed object, but rather let herself speak, lucid even through her hurt.

“I thought there would be more to why she'd been playing me, but in the end it just boils down to her lust for power. Spite for what I represent.”

Envy, Azriel thought, but he didn't say it. She was heartbroken enough without him adding to it.

His shadows leaned closer to the map, touching certain edges of the land in a clear request. More.

Azriel shut them down. Later.

“Sounds like a piece of work,” he commented.

Rheia cracked her knuckles, holding the back of her neck, probably cramping by the look in her face.

“Oh, she is. And this offence won’t be forgotten. I have let too many things pass by without acting, I won’t make that same mistake twice.”

He didn’t know why, but the resolution in her tone was more attractive than he could say. Stupidly, he’d believed her resilience would turn against her, somehow. Enduring everything that came her way, giving out punishment only when it was necessary…But she was not an inane mind; she had learned from the monsters around her, assimilated the venom they carried and processed it until it was purified from what had tainted it. With a life long like hers, in her circumstances, a female could hone skills of any kind if she knew how to conceal them. He was eager to be shown every facet he hadn’t been privy to.

“Arthur has swayed the Demifae to aide us, so we’re not alone now, still…I won’t trust what I read until the Chief himself shakes hand with me.”

“Are they strong?” he quizzed.

Rheia made a puzzled face, an unsure scrunch of her otherwise neutral features.

“Normal. Their true power lays in the military formations. They’re much lucky and their unions guaranteed them strong warriors.”

“You sound like you’re trying to convince yourself,” he pointed out.

Rheia didn’t deny that, even smiled at that assertion.

“Doesn’t everyone? We convince ourselves to rise everyday, that it will be different. If it’s my only chance at sleeping a wink tonight, then I will convince myself: the way is changing, whether I like it or not. I must adapt and learn the flow.”

He hadn’t expected that. Not the sincerity from a ruler. Rhysand was an excellent planner, nothing to take from him, but when things didn’t go the way he had planned, he became a beast of despair. He was the one that set the flow, and anything out of his control was a potential step towards world-shattering catastrophe.

Rheia wasn’t even sure if there would be an Hybern to return to, and yet, with all the fear and uncertainty, she was aiding an operation from oversea, with detailed directions and alternatives.

Azriel was besides himself, couldn’t believe that had managed to arouse him out of all the qualities this female —his— had. How many aces up her sleeve she must have. How many things that could take a life time of knowing her.

He wanted to know them all.

Hunched over, she took a deep breath, hair aflow across her shoulder.

Azriel wanted to taste the very sweat of her brow.

“…is it inappropriate of me to want to kiss you right now?” he blurted out, too fast, but not fast enough that she didn’t understand.

A tilt in her stance, subtle but there, covered the distance between them.

She looked at him, with those eyes the same color of blood freshly spilled, and he was unable to think about anything but the plump of her lower lip.

She sent a look at the open, fluttering entrance. Voices in array, singing and hollering could be heard, a chorus of rejoicing.

“How likely are we to be interrupted?”

She prowled then, and he found there was little space in that cramped excuse of a tent to spread his wings, or do anything besides sprawl at her arrival.

So close, he could smell the sweetness of arousal on her scent, hear the intake of air, the satisfaction in the hiss that followed.

“Very likely,” she cooed.

Well, if someone came in without announcing themselves, maybe they deserved to feel embarassed. He certainly was not going to limit himself for someone intruding.

“Come here.”

And that she did, straddling him until the only thing he could do was adjust horizontally. She hovered above him, stray light playing on her face like it would on stained glass. There was a slight sheen to her eyes, a soft color on her cheeks, shadows swatting delicately until they gathered her hair back.

She looked like a dream, and he wanted to impress that image in his mind. Every little thought spared for strategy was piercing in her gaze.

Azriel let his hands wander, feeling her up, the tension in her thighs apparent even in the thick fabric hiding her away. Hybernian military vestiary did not differ much from his leathers, though the look was definitely slicker, designed to be worn under chainmail and whatnot. He wanted her in Night Court black, but that was a conversation for another day.

At the moment, he would have much rather she got rid of anything that posed an hindrance.

His hands settled above her hips, grabbing her waist to press her against a very prominent evidence of his impatience.

The little, curved movement she pressed against him had him almost forgetting his manners.

“You are a maddening female, talking about military strategies when you look like this,” he muttered, gaze appreciative as it ended on the top of her shirt.

One hand landed on him, then another, and she was in his face, warm breath over his lips, “I can talk a lot of things, if you want.”

Azriel run his hands up, until both palms where prodding her breasts, squeezing faintly as something responded to him. “I’d rather hear you sing, pet.”

He wasn’t sure if she groaned for the touch, or the nickname. Anyhow, she shut him up easily, mouth slotting over his.

Azriel wanted to spend his life with that mouth on his. He wanted to eat every lament and whine to the point they would create a whole different register of sounds.

Nails scratched the scaled texture of his leather so hard he felt the burn on his skin underneath. She rose back with the type of lovely, manic look on her face Azriel would later think about at night, all alone in his bed, grabbed his hands with a firmness that clashed with the small rivulet of spit she was licking away.

Wordlessly, she positioned his hands down, palm up, above his head. Shadows brushed his arms in doubt, he waved them off.

It’s fine.

Lips touched his again, busy all over his face, atop his mouth again, unhurried. She kissed her way down his throat, unbuttoning his stiff collar. His hands twitched, though he was too drunk on the taste of her to struggle, and the direction this was going, well…tickled him so.

Azriel had never been good at giving up power in his relationships, much less during sex, but with her it felt natural, like the typical progression of things.

Which, from a certain standpoint, was not a totally wrong notion.

Tender and assertive hands pawed until the buckles dingled and, then his stomach caved in right at the touch of nimble, curious hands. She rose above him again, dilated pupils hypnotizing, “I can't stop thinking about what I want to do to you.”

“Tell me.”

Rheia stopped moving atop him. For a good moment she just stared at him, bitten lips flat and gleaming eyes, fair face scrunched with the seriousness he had learned was an anchor for her. Calculation between her eyes, she dragged her nails across his chest, down the rippling muscles on him, tracing ink that had long settled, so long that it was merging with his skin, nicked by scars fading.

Her hands stopped at his buckle, and Azriel closed his eyes.

But then her fingers wrapped around his neck and he opened his eyes to a look of absolute focus. His pulse jumped against her skin, and he could not even imagine how utterly exhilarating this one image could be to the outside eye.

How utterly surreal, anachronistic and unbelievable, the picture of a warrior in all the ways that mattered to be caged willingly under a female.

Azriel locked eyes with her, and barely restrained his amazed sigh.

“I wanted,” she whispered, thumbing the heartbeat in his neck, “to get you under me like this, not allowing you to make a sound until you started begging me.”

Azriel’s lower stomach bent with flutters. “More,” he croaked.

Rheia chuckled. “Yes, like that.”

He wanted to touch her so bad it was impressive he hadn’t tore a muscle yet. The shift in his breathing pattern was a dead give away, and spurred her on as she teased the skin of his chest.

“Want to know more?” she murmured.

Azriel tilted his head in the steadiest nod he could muster. She was so beuatiful like this, feral and unleashed, that he would have allowed her everything, from the skin off his flesh to the very fabric of his being.

“I would be the one calling the shots, but you know that, don’t you?” she gave a mean, crude turn of her hips above his aching self, and he swore stars flashed in his periphery.

“Fuck…please, Rheia,” he was spared only a small mercy before she was undoing the laces on his breeches with her one hand alone, the other holding his waist.

She stared at his length in her hand with a staggering stillness, an action in itself that battled heavily with the devious smile that broke in her eyes.

She bent slightly, not moving her fingers in any way that mattered.

“Did you touch yourself, thinking of me? Because I did, many times,” Rheia enunciated, shifting her weight all in the front, the pressure from her hand making him see stars, a cry leaving him.

Rheia soothed him with a caress across his skin, “Shh…you don’t want to make this a spectacle, right, love?”

But how could he not, when she was so close and above him, holding him in every way that mattered, owning every part of him without even trying to.

Black poured all around, yet all he saw was the sun shining off her skin, the lucid sheen of her eyes as she pressed down, her mouth opening above his as her hand moved, finally—

Then she pushed off him so fast he was physically in pain.

He had the grace to pull his pants up before Yura’s head popped in, his eyes finding Rheia first.

“Did you read the— were you guys fucking?!” he hollered, coming to understand what had been going on (what Azriel had desperately wished could go on uninterrupted) with the same look of mild doubt.

Azriel buttoned up his jacket again, standing in the shadows and giving his back to the Storm Summoner, finding very little comfort in the coverage his wings gave him.

Being stark naked would have been better, ironically enough, because seeing Rheia muss herself over, rebuilding that front block after block like nothing had happened left sand in his mouth.

He felt the tepid warmth of his wayward Siphon press in his palm, and walked himself out with an aching soul…and something else.

She had lost control.

Worse yet, she had lost control and Yura, as always, was at the crime scene, this little fucker was grinning.

“A word about this and I’ll make you dance on burning coals,” she threatened.

He snickered, undeterred, and pointed at the bottom of the letter, “Sounds fun!”

“You’re a prick,” taking the letter from his extended hand, she sat down, made space for him and tried desperately to tone down the redness in her face, taking a few measuring breaths.

It didn’t work, and she closed her eyes in vain, trying to forget the enticing image that had invaded her mind and didn’t fade.

Yura sat beside her, staring at the crumpled map that had clearly seen better days. And had almost witnessed her lose control.

She wanted to dig herself a hole and hide in it forevermore.

That, though, Yura wouldn’t make possible.

He was now looking at her with a genuinely amused smile, taking out his notebook and fountain pen, his elbow poking her side amicably.

“I’m not judging you, relax! You like him, I like him too. Well, you like him enough to give him a wank where anyone could walk in, at least.”

Rheia blinked. It was a slow one, like that of a drunkard.

Never in her long and painfully prudish existence had she ever wanted something like that, with the kind of intensity and drive that had fire in her loins and her blood boiling. It destabilized her, broke and then repaired her, drove her to madness in the most delicious manner.

Having someone search for her was one thing, but having Azriel under her like that, presented to her like a willing sacrifice had the animal in her roar. She had forgotten everything about her surroundings, about the existence of other people outside the limits of that coop. The world had narrowed just to the two of them and the friction of their bodies, their souls recognizing each other intimately, woven like threads.

She was not daft. She had known many males in bed, never with the same frequence her dead husband used to with females once her wifely duty had been fullfiled, but enough to know what she liked, and what they enjoyed, too. She had not cared then, for it was to scratch a need and it was not going against her wedding contract. The loophole, after all, had been easy to find. She had to give him a plural number of children, but what she did when those duties where respected, was no business of his, and what he did when he didn’t have his thing in her, wasn’t up for her to decide.

This, however…was an entirely different thing. An entirely different male.

Her friend…of sorts? They had an entanglement, though they hadn’t had a true conversation about that.

Her mate, though unknowingly.

And she had…lost control the moment his scent had gotten too close. To hell with her restraint, huh?

On one hand, she probably needed to teach Yura to announce himself before entering somewhere, if he didn’t want to get speared…on the other, maybe she would thank him for stopping her before she went too far.

A handjob with the door open was already too far.

She inhaled, exhaled, and turned to Yura again, her back straight as she pointed at the letter lodged between her trembling fingers.

Rheia huffed, “…just let me read this fucking letter in peace.”

She was not even helfway through the first sentence that her friend muttered,“…it's good, that you are active. Means you're healthy.”

The letter didn’t end on the ground by some miracle.

“…libido is how we measure health, now?” she asked, tired to the point she whined the question.

Yura’s face crinkled with an apologetic smile, but he didn’t look very guilty.

“Sorry. Go on, read it. I'll shut up.”

So she read again, remebering one passage after the other, some about the administration of help and the zones they had reclaimed. What had been lost, too.

There, right after Arthur wrote they had secured support from the Demifae and his people, stood something that made her her skin crawl.

How the deal was drawn up is for me to say. I will be there soon to explain.

Her son was coming to see her.

Forgetting how beautiful a story was and redescovering it when one least expected it was only one of the many wonders of life. Written word was powerful, it could build worlds as easily as it could destroy them.

Words in general had power, they could bind and undo, and they were necessary.

Rheia slapped the book closed, tracing the unmarred leather cover. Her mother had gifted her that fairytale book soon after Rheia had finished her first woven cloth, a little, dainty and overzelous handkerfchief she had given her mother as a birthday present.

Her mother had adored it, and never went anywhere without it.

Rheia, for a while, hadn’t even opened that book for fear she would ruin it. Eventually, realizing it had been a gift meant to be used, she’d forced herself to read it slowly. Savor it, and only when she had finished it, she had spent days rereading every paragraph.

She would discover only later in life it had been a rather rare find, both in terms of stories and selection. Part of a collection that had been auctioned years before Rheia was even born, the pages were home to a variety of folktales from allover the world, stories that dated back from when Prythian hadn’t even formed and there were no Courts to speak of.

Stories of war, love, pain and retribution presented themselves in gorgeous and floreal prose, most of which Rheia knew by heart. Such a comfort, this little thing had been. It had, after all, sparked in her an interest in the world as a whole.

She remembered torturing her children with a few of those tales, too.

Tamlin was the current victim of her reading, as he had been for a few days. When she couldn’t stay still for a moment, she dragged herself over to him, and read a chapter.

She had lost count. It wasn’t a light book by any means, but…sometimes his hand would twitch, or his shoulder, or he would move his face sideways a fraction.

His breathing was regular, Seele drew his blood and it reacted accordingly to every test.

He would wake up. He just needed time. A good story, though it would definitely not wake him, could grant him company.

“You two do share similar tastes, you know?”

Fast— with the book clutched against her chest like a shield— Rheia jumped on her feet, alert at a magic signature that was deliberately coating everything with its stickiness.

Rhysand came into her line of sight out of the shadow, picking speckles of unexistent dust from his lavish jacket. She expected a greeting of sorts, but he didn’t say anything.

Where his eyes fell, she knew perfectly well.

“He’s dreaming,” he offered, with no particular inclination in his voice.

Flat, even a little disappointed.

Rheia looked bemusedly from one High Lord to the other, hugging the volume tighter, a weight she needed more than she realized. If her brother was dreaming, then it meant the counterspell had worked.

The next time she came across Moira she was going to shower her in praise. This was…amazing. Perfect. A fucking miracle, and she wasn’t bawling her eyes out just out of some sense of royal etiquette that hadn’t peeled off her yet.

“That’s…thank you…” she managed.

He nodded at her, and they both went to look back at Tamlin, still in his comatose state.

“His subconcious is active. You don’t have to fear, last I checked, his brain was intact.”

Through some awkward, ridicolously convoluted share of glances, they had ended up sitting across eachother, in utter silence.

How funny it must have looked from the outside, two powerful rulers in a sickroom, presiding over a passed out individual.

If her nerves hadn’t been at an all time high, she might have laughed as well.

“…Why didn’t you just tell me?” she asked, instead.

Rhysand stared at his nails, a small crack reverberating when he rolled his sore neck. The distinct, earthy odour of sex was shifting from him, along with what she deduced was Feyre’s scent. Even just the thought that she’d been the main subject of pillow talk made her skin crawl.

He didn’t look back at her as he replied, “You and I aren’t…compatible as rulers.”

Could he possibly have been more vague? They might not have been on the same wavelength, but incompatible? Surely he didn’t mean what she thought.

Mustering boldness she barely held the reins to, Rheia let go of the book to position it wardingly in front of her, mostly to not hurl it at his face as her nerves mounted.

“What’s so different? My lack of an appendage makes me less trustworthy in your eyes, Rhysand?” she asked, losing the gentleness in her voice as she ground out his name.

He looked at her, considering her in that pitiful state —she knew, for the disdain in what he said next had her curl her fingers inward, place her trembling fists on her thighs.

“Your kingdom is a melting pot of trouble.”

Rheia swallowed, but in truth she wanted to shout to the point her own eardrums would bear the damage. Stupid, hopeful idiot, still a girl at heart who had thought she would have some respect given to her, after everything she’d endured only in the last two weeks.

Uthyr would have taken an offense like that as a death sentence; she took it as only the last of many humiliations.

Had Rhysand been blind? How dare he think he —or anyone at all— could bestow judgment upon her rule when they’d all turned their backs to her brother? From his frilly homes, catering to his own land, he had lied and forged something that, had she been distracted that fateful day, would have marked the end of Spring forever.

It was so ridicolous, so preposterous, that her lips bent into a surrendered grin as he blinked at her.

“Yes, Hybern is bad and full of evil, irredeemable people. And Prythian is a land of flowers and cakes where everyone is a friend to all, how could I ever forget.”

Her nails were biting her palm, but she didn’t care.

She’d laid all her weaknesses in front of him, and he knew, and still he had chosen to use her as another pawn in his games. He was no better than any other conniving bastard that had sat at her council.

“This is how wars start, Rhysand,” she pressed, tried to focus on the little scar that nicked Tamlin’s nose, her eyes blurring.

The High Lord of the Night Court visibly stiffened, the deep blue of his eyes turning sideral as he invaded her line of sight once more.

“You won’t declare war on us. I wouldn’t be talking to you if that were the case.”

Such finality in his words. Not like he was wrong, though he did not know her. He did not know how uncomfortable his sureness made her, or how much she was ashamed to have even thought a bridge was possible between them.

No, they could never share something again. Not as long as the grudge still held through, and not as long as the Spring Court stood on such precarious foundations.

She crossed her arms, held his stare and just…let everything that had accumulated bubble up into the surface, with chilling calm.

“It was naive of me to put my faith in you so blindly. I believe you want to make this world walk into an age of splendor, I carry that ideal myself. But I am not dumb enough to delude myself. This was no misunderstanding. You deceived me,” she said.

He tried to reach out to her, and understood his mistake the moment she put visible distance between them.

He didn’t apologize, but defended himself.

“It was never my intention.”

She didn’t care one bit. No well meaning plan would ever make her forget the fact she’d been duped.

“But it happened. Your intentions do not matter when your actions are deplorable. Why should I trust you again?” she threw at him.

And he threw back at her, not caring anymore to respect her space or the fact they were in a factual sickroom as he pinned her with his eyes.

“Why should I trust you? Tamlin may have been a double agent, but he was shit at it, and his rule was dishonorable, and frankly if he died right in this moment, very few would mourn him.”

“I am my own person,” she growled.

He smiled, venomous and all-knowing.

“You are. And you don’t deserve my brother.”

Rheia’s face went blank, an uncontrollable panic stabbing her chest. How could she be so careless? How could she think he would not catch into it…

A cold sweat broke on her hands, trembling white things. She struggled to close her eyes, feared him more in that moment than she ever did before.

He could have moved just a finger, and her heart would have exploded.

Instead, and maybe exactly because he knew what horrible scenarios she was wrecking her head about, he smiled again. Teeth too white, canines too sharp, and he spoke, absolute.

“I’m going to give you a warning, because contrary to you, I am gracious. If you hurt Azriel, in any way or magnitude, it will not be just nightmares that haunt you, Rheia. Everything in your life as you know it will crumble slowly before your eyes, all those you love will suffer, and there will be no witch trick to undo it. It will only get worse. I will make sure your torment doesn’t cease until you’re on your last breath.”

Gone. It lasted as long as a slap, and was all the more shocking. She couldn’t even move, remained aghast, watched her own body from the sidelines.

Rheia didn’t know when he stood up, when he helped her up as well and took her hand in his to…to feel how out of it she was likely.

She just felt him there.

“Well! This was a nice conversation, wasn’t it?” he said.

Her nod was weak, and when he finally seemed satisfied with the success of his warfare, he left.

Rheia laid next to her brother, hugged her book, and wept silently.

Somewhere far away, a soldier heard the cracking of a fallen branch, the head in his sack no longer the scariest thing in the perimeter.

At the far side of the tower overran by vines, the Lord of Death smiled, the stench of him preceding his advance.

The soldier knew the prize lay down the path of barren earth, and willed himself to move. It was too late now to rethink his choice, and he certainly couldn’t give back the head to the body it had been severed from. Koschei had promised him riches unlike any other, and what was a man’s misfortune over the fortune of another?

He knew it all lead to a worthy reward, and he would not give for granted the fact he had been chosen. Surely Lord Eris would see how things were. Maybe, the soldier thought, he could even choose to ally with him.

A while later, with less of a weight on him and sitting down in what had surely once been a beautiful kitchen, now covered with lichens and mold, the God of Death gouged out the eyes, and then tore the tongue out as one does with a weed.

The splatter of brains over the table did not dull the soldier’s resolve, nor did it disturb Death as bony fingers prodded empty orbits.

He smiled at the soldier, face a web of a million fears and conquests, and said, “I shall make you mine herald.”

"Sometimes I hate it. That you did not find it in yourself to look for help."

He didn't reply. Would he ever? She spoke to him, but was it even helping? Could he hear the desperation, the anguish in her voice?

Her hand curled over his, unmoving.

Rheia wondered how many times she could repeat this humiliating ritual before it was too much to bear.

"I am tired of hating myself, Tamlin. I cannot start despising you as well. Please, if you do hear me...try to fight."

Nothing. No word. Only the faint sound of his breathing, and the irregular beat of his heart.

He was there. He ought to be. For if he wasn’t, why breath? Why illude everyone, himself included, if he wasn’t going to make it?

He was strong…but what, if whoever had done this, was stronger, and knew it?

She would turn them to dust, if that was the case. Whoever they were.

Rheia released his hand at last.

"If you don't wake up, I'll just find whoever did this. Yes. Then they will beg me for a merciful death, because I am not kind and I will not give it over easily."

The night was sweet with its breeze, cruel and unaffected by what was unfolding.

Rheia had not been there, not with her mind. Her body might have been present, and she must have explained through urgent gasps that the spell needed to be performed immediately before day came.

She must have spoken clearly for the Lord of Day to understand, and for a Fireling to join him.

She saw herself speak, provide explanations. But she wasn’t present, not in the way she should have been.

Somehow, the hold on her mind was viscous, slipping out from her easily, but not enough that she was going to crumble in front of strangers.

Never, she would never let herself do that.

It was only when out of sight and away from the noise she allowed herself to take in the extent of the situation, the possibilities that it had all been for nothing.

Failure had been a steady companion recently, she was aware of its ghost with every breath she took.

Maybe she fell, the grass nice under her open palms, the blood rushing to her head, hissing in her ears like a teapot screaming as she crouched down, where her house once stood.

How many times had she heard that sound, from her childhood bedroom, and believed herself she was going mad? How many hours spent with her head down on the floorboards, ear to wood to meddle in business that wasn’t hers, about people she didn’t know and ended up not ever meeting. About what candid care sounded like—

Dear, the scullery maids used to say that word to her like it didn’t sink deep in her soul, as if it was a softness she deserved.

There was nothing to cry over anymore, for the destruction of her ancestral grounds wasn’t even that touching. Houses, she’d seen plenty of them. Home was an illusion, for there was little to call so without fearing it would be taken from her.

A house, she could rebuild. She’d done that before.

The memories, though? Now they had no place to live in but her mind. She could look at the sky, conjure up a room that had been there, an huddle of childish fixations she had made into an altar, dresses and toiletries she now resented for what they had led to, plans and wishes kept caged under her bed until they grew moldy.

All those things were gone, and the little girl they had belonged to once was too grown to try and put pieces back together.

She had never been good with puzzles.

Rhysand was in a better mood than expected.

Then again, he thrived in front of a crowd, loved creating an image of himself, and Rheia’s subjects were used to way less theatrical characters. She wasn’t very impressed, yet the faraway look in her eyes was the more concerning part of that. She was nowhere near captured.

It was admittedly late, the journey had been hurried for obvious reasons, and the lack of sleep was catching up to the three of them. Cassian had passed on dinner in favor of collapsing with his boots still on.

If Azriel focused enough, he could hear snoring.

He’d been too preoccupied to even fathom falling asleep after what had occurred between them.

Cassian had made it extremely difficult for him to be able to steal more than some fleeting touch from Rheia, much less have an actual conversation about what that meant for them going forward.

He couldn’t even force himself to crowd her when the occasion arose, because he’d much rather be comforting her. Adding to the stress wouldn’t do her any favor.

Now, hopefully, Cassian would be comatose for enough time before he cockblocked Azriel again.

Though that didn’t matter much, considering Rheia was openly dissociating amongst that sparse, unlikely gathering of individuals.

Rhys had insisted if they were to stay in Spring, he wanted his family to have every comfort available despite the circumstances. What looked like a modest tent from the outside, was instead a magicked space with enough rooms for privacy, even if the soundproofing was a little wonky.

When Azriel had explained her that upon entering, she'd been surprisingly critical. To her, magic was not a tool to be disturbed for one's pleasure, but rather an instrument that had its limits and boundaries. It could backfire on one if used too liberally.

Sat down on a small couch, with Seele on one side and Feyre on the other, she was barely present. Seele was fighting a losing battle with her tired, fluttering eyes, leaning with every moment closer to the Queen.

Dumas had found himself a card deck and Amren had explained the rules of a game that was designed to be lost.

Rex and Yura, though a little irritated by how pompous Rhysand’s language had gotten, urged him to go on, if not for the story that was truly interesting, for something to fill the silence.

And still, Rheia was not there, undisturbed, transparent in a way that worried Azriel immensely.

'I should be offended. Is my story that flat it has bored her so she'd rather be nowhere in her mind?’ Rhysand's voice invaded the confines of his mind.

‘I’m worried. She hasn't opened her mouth in a while too long.’ Feyre joined in, softer with worry.

Not that she was much a talker normally, though at the very least in the instances he had witnessed she paid attention, and even cracked a smile sometimes. He could only deduce the company wasn't helping, either.

‘I fear I have underestimated how much this is affecting her.’

Feyre scoffed.‘It won’t do like this.’

‘Helion says the spell is to be done by daybreak. I propose we offer her some respite today, and deal with it tomorrow.’

She may consider herself a believable pretender, but she couldn't hide what was so painfully obvious.

It took Seele a moment to snuggle against Rheia's shoulder once she surrendered to sleep, and that alone sobered Rheia to the point her eyes went wide open. What sprung on her face lit envy in Azriel, and relief. Soft, focused eyes inspected the top of Seele’s head, then her resting eyes.

Rheia didn’t shake her awake, rather, she stroked dark hair in gentle brushes, careful in a way that had him wonder how used she was, taking care not to wake someone.

Rhys’ voice in his head dissipated into nothingness, the sound of cards being drawn and glasses tinning blending like distant music.

He watched her, again, like it hadn’t already been made obvious by time how many things he yet had to know. And he was not surprised when she turned, as delicately as possible as to not disturb Seele, to make an hushed request to Feyre.

“You wouldn’t happen to have a spare bed, would you? I’d hate to hear her complain of a sore back in the morning.”

The High Lady blinked, then looked at her husband in question, more than in permission. Or, in actual surprise she had spoken at last.

“We do have a bed that’s been sitting unused,” Rhysand intervened, pausing in his storytelling before he gave a not so subtle look to his spymaster.

“Azriel can walk you there.”

‘You can thank me later.’

Rheia hauled Seele up on her back, and Azriel forgot himself for a moment, busy grappling with the fact she'd lifted up a whole person with an injury still healing.

He didn't say anything, however, and simply stood by the opening of the ‘room’, at the edge of that lifted veil while she sat down, fixing the covers over Seele’s arm.

The mattress dipped with Rheia's weight, now busy fixing Seele's hair from their unruly state to a much rested one.

She traced the bridge of Seele’s nose with her knuckle, then turned.

Azriel was sucked into her presence like in the eye of the storm.

She looked a little less griefstricken, he would dare say, but pensive in a way he had never seen anyone be.

As armored as she appeared, she was tragically beaten.

“I never let anyone carry my children for me,” she stood up, and he had half the sensation he should have stepped back, for the intensity in her eyes was scorching.

She walked in the room, though, looking around at the decor with the most critical eye.

Her gaze stopped on top of a drawer, where a vase of flowers took up center stage.

She fingered the edge of a bulb, then let her hand go slack. She turned to him, blonde hair adrift from her braid, the solemnity blending with her reckoning.

“I guess I was…paranoid. That if I wasn't in their immediate nearness, someone would try to tear them away from me.”

She swallowed, turned fully, hands behind her back. It reminded him the shame of children, caught with their hands in the biscuit tin. She blinked slolwly, moving in place again until there was only the bed between them.

“I am…well, I presume I am a very hard mistress to please. In more ways than one,” she looked to him then, the little assertion hidden between them sharp.

Azriel looked back at her, but her attentions were already elsewhere.

She held a dark, long braided strand of hair, and let it run out of her hand as if it was water. Her smile was genuine, but her voice was thick with worry.

“I wanted Seele to live a good, filling life. I fear by offering an alternative to courtly rites, I've given for granted that she is still a child at heart.”

Azriel stepped in at last, shadows scurrying in the room once they'd been given permission.

The Shadowsinger followed her line of sight, to the impassive, fast asleep companion of the Queen.

“If so, she would have spoken. She is not shy in that regard,” he said.

The fact shook the guilty look off Rheia’s face.

The space wasn’t luminous by any means, and now that his hulking silhouette had blocked the light coming from the other side, the faint glimmer from the faelight overhead only layered shadows of her smile.

“Perhaps you're right…”

He snorted, the sound drawing attention from her.

“What’s so funny, Azriel?” she hissed.

He grew alert when she crossed to the other side of the bed, in front of him.

Nothing was funny, truly.

He could still smell the salt of tears on her, the lingering ash from a deadly fire.

But he didn’t ask about the fire. He didn’t ask about what lay at the bottom of the well, about how the first kill was for her, and he didn’t ask about the almost-death.

By the Mother, he wanted to ask.

He knew what those dreams meant, deep down. He knew, after all, he’d spent most of his sleepless hours praying for something of that weight to present itself.

He just didn’t believe he had finally been deemed worthy of it.

Azriel’s mouth was pasty, his shadows were talking in different languages and moving around him like ungoverned beasts, and all he could think was that he wanted to take her somewhere quiet where it would just be the two of them until he learned every sound she was capable of emitting.

When she crashed into him, it took him a few seconds to register she’d pushed him in the corner, with his wings uncomfortably slotted between one of the poles that held together the tent.

Her face was hidden, the perfect line of her neck fine under his fingers.

He held her close by the nape, and whispered against her forehead.

The only thing Rheia disliked more than a dirty horse, was a dirty horse who didn’t like being scrubbed.

Back home, Edith had never gotten this dirty, and she’d always just required a brush off, the occasional bath only when it was necessary.

Then again, Rheia had paid the horseboys a monthly salary for a reason, and this was mostly it. Edith was a big mare, she didn’t enjoy water the way the other steads in the stables did, even less when it took more than one person to get the job done.

Adhara had almost lamented cramps from laughing when Rheia was subtly shoved down the stream when she tried brushing her back. Even when she had helped her friend up, the grin on her face had not lessened.

Rheia was sorry to miss on such amusement, when the mount fidgeted continously…

It had taken a considerable amount of time to soap her up decently, and by then Rheia was shaking from the cold, drenched but victorious.

Adhara brushed the tangles out, but stood close to Edith, sending a subtle glance past Rheia.

“Don’t turn around yet, but there’s a visitor,” she informed her, the edge of her smile waking goosebumps upon Rheia’s spine…or maybe it was the shirt clinging coldly to her skin.

“A visitor?” she repeated, even if she was perfectly aware who was approaching, if there were no steps to be heard.

Adhara nodded, her smile spreading in a curve of sharp teeth.

“Handsome one,” she sang, and Rheia hated how fast her cheeks warmed.

It did not matter how old she was or how hard she tried she ignore it, there was this awkardness in those matters that would remain evergreen. Mostly because Adhara knew where to poke and prod.

She brushed Edith’s side again, though she was aware once Adhara had pointed out the presence, she couldn’t fly over it like she usually would.

Adhara tilted her chin, giving her a knowing look while her scaled hands pacified the mare.

“You go. I’ll dry her for you.”

Rheia sighed, but nodded nonetheless. she patted Edith gently, a silent admonishment, and turned to walk backwards to the bank of the river, where her boots and jacket were spread out in the grass. She squeezed her hair in the process, the rolled legs of her pants allowing the taller grass to prickle her calves.

It was a decently lit day, the breeze gentle and chilly. It was still evening, and a storm of birds was taking flight above her head.

He was waiting for her by the trees, arms crossed.

No leathergear. Rheia squinted, moving her hand to cover her face from the sun while she slipped on one boot, then the other.

She didn’t put the jacket on, tried to squeeze some water out of her linen top to no avail.

The transaprent appearence water had given it, though…one could easily make out her underclothes, and something else she didn’t even bother cover.

He’d seen her topless, there was nothing to hide anymore.

She tied the jacket with a knot around her waist, and made her way up.

Shadows were already making a fuss around her when she made it halfway. He reached out for her with both hands, holding her by the elbows.

“You’re freezing cold, Rheia,” he blurted, rubbing her wet sleeves to try and create some warmth.

She stopped him for a moment, cold hands enveloping his wrists. “I’m fine. Is something the matter?” asked she.

Azriel craned his head to look at her squarely in the eyes, his mouth gaping open when his eyes fell lower. Rheia was positive she was going mad.

She released his wrists, and did something that surprised herself and him both.

She rose up, and presse a peck on his open mouth, stepping down once more to gauge his reaction. He blinked, looked at her like she’d grown a third eye, and slapped a hand over his mouth.

“I don’t kiss that bad, do I?” she stammered, shooing away a dark tendril that was poking her wet sleeve.

That did it. It broke the tension, and Azriel heaved what she imagined was his how version of a laugh. “You caught me off guard, is all. Your lips are cold.”

Rheia huffed, hugging herself. “I admit I am a little chilly.”

Something poked her, and she was soon enveloped in a cocoon with him, a shield of membrane and leather. She was almost tempted to ask him how large his wings spanned, though she found it was a little difficult when he locked arms around her.

“Better?” asked Azriel, his hold loosening just a speck.

She nodded, daring to move her arms up, resting her hands on his chest.

“Yeah. Though you haven’t given me an answer.”

He tilted his head, blinking.

“You’re not a bad kisser,” he stated.

Rheia shook her head, amused more than annoyed.

“I mean my first question, I know I’m not that bad of a kisser.”

“…so you’ve kissed enough people to know. I’ll keep that in mind.”

She shoved him, composing herself when he caught that hand in his easily. He drew her close to him again, enough that she didn’t detected the ground under her anymore.

“Enough about my salivary exchanges. What’s so important you’ve had to come get me?”

“Cas and your scouts found something of importance in the meadows near the mountain. A thourough search is needed.”

She rested her head against his chest, sighing.

“At long last. I was losing my hopes there.”

Gracious as ever, the Heir to Autumn made no refusal to host this meeting in his temporary home. He was set to leave in a few days anyway, as he’d received news of the utmost urgency from his Lady Mother that required his return on the morrow.

Having him share his wine and break bread with his allies before his duty sucked him back was as much of a pleasure as it was an ace within his cards. And frankly, Eris played host pretty well.

He stood off by the side, and closed the curtain tight with a spell once all the interested parties had arrived.

Rheia had never had mulled wine this rich before, and stopped herself short of emptying the glass in one go out of nervousness. Liquid courage would not make much of a difference, and she needed to have a clear head.

The map spread on the table was held in place by a few pins, a more indepth look at the zone that surrounded the mountain, the east meadows circled in red ink. Once, that had been a preferred spot for duels; hidden by the forest and shadowed by the mountains, it had seen many fall and rise.

Most of all, it had been a place famous for its stillness.

No creature had ever been seen there, no critter dared jump across to reach the other side, not even when it could save their life from predators.

It got to a point that the very High Lord had deemed it a place that one should not seek out, for all the blood that had seeped in the ground had made it a soundless place where only poisonous plants grew.

Curiosly, the fact had been accepted at face value; nobody was willing to go and risk his wrath, no matter how much intrigue it caused.

By the time Rheia had become a child it had already been deemed a legend, a blank point of mystery in a map that she was scared into not mentioning around her father…or around anyone, really.

Spring folks were incredibly superstitious. It was no surprise that none of them had taken that warning lightly.

However…leaving a place of that kind untouched out of fear for divine retribution might have backfired.

Asylle, straight-backed and steel-dressed, stood flanked by her comrades scouts with absolute attention, waiting patiently on orders.

The team they’d taken along was a rather new development; Yura had rallied some of the females from the lower ranks, soldiers that had an ample knowledge of hideouts and magic traces, that had for one reason or another decided (or, more like, had been forced by circumstances) to dedicate their efforts to war.

Rheia hadn’t predicted they’d be this useful, in fact she had formed the scouting team firstly as a mean to have the upper hand when the loyalists decided to strike.

She was retaining a bit of her favor, at last.

The interest of the entire table was taken as much as Rheia’s was. In fact, the rectangular, large table was feeling a little bit crowded.

High Lords peered curiosly at the arcadian armors between conversations, appraising the steel the same way Rheia had done an inconspicous number of times. Hell, even when she had worn the armor herself, the luster had left her dumbfounded at her own reflection.

Rex nudged her side, and she turned to him with a questioning look before he tilted his chin towards Asylle again: poor girl was becoming a little red on the face from the undesired attention, and caught Rheia’s eyes with a pleading expression…as pleading as a soldier could be.

Rheia cleared her voice with a cough, and another for good measure.

The attention then moved directly to her in the worst way.

Still, she moved her hand up in an inviting gesture.

“Please, expose your findings.”

Asylle was immediate in her explanation. Since Yura had given them no true indication on what to find, they had set out on all sorts of trials.

She explained there were magic trials that could be detected only under special conditions, according to the laws of the land and the time that had passed since certain practices were performed.

Some were effimerate and unstable, thus, not powerful enough to be retraced to a certain person or spell-word.

The old one, though…sometimes it hid until someone poked it out of its hiding spot. In this instance, the meadows had proven crucial, as all traces had inevitably led there.

The development was fairly recent, moreover, they’d discovered one curious detail with Cassian’s help: something not visible directly, was instead plain as day from up high.

They’d discovered stone stairs.

Hearing from Helion’s mouth the spell had been carried to completion did not have the calming effect it should have had. Lucien had needed someone to help keep him upright, for the ritual had sucked most of his energy out.

Rheia was ridden with guilt, though they were the ones who apologized profusely…well, Lucien, at least. Helion sounded optimistic it had been a success.

“Tamlin has thick skin and an even thicker skull. He’ll prevail. Have faith.”

She desperately wished she could share that same sentiment, that her brother was truly strong as she knew he was.

Because, Holy Mother help her, if her brother was taken from her before she could speak to him one last time, she was going to set fire to the sea.

The briefing in Eris’ quarters had ended with a simple resolution: on the coming days Rheia and a selected party of people were to take a trek down these supposed stairs and find out whether it was just a creepy hole, or if there was something more to it.

A few guesses had been thrown out, but they lacked credibility. It couldn’t have been a place of worship, for Spring people had always believed worshiping was to be done in plain view, to honor the Gods just the way they deserved.

An underground temple would have implied a different kind of divination Rheia had no intention to speculate on.

Whatever lay under there, it would be its own thing.

Eris had left camp early that morning with his contingent and a handkerchief Rheia had gifted him for easier communication. He’d guaranteed he’d keep in touch, and she’d sent him and his dogs off with good wishes.

Rheia had a bad feeling in her gut when he disappeared in the blink of an eye.

She hoped whatever had stirred in Autumn would be resolved swiftly, both for his sake and hers.

Thick with incenses and the smell of salts, the air in the healing tent forced Rheia to use her elbow to shield her face.

Now, she understood why Lucien had looked about to keel over. The scent was charged with pure, unprecedented tension.

When she reached Tamlin’s bedside, it just…puffed off, somehow.

She removed her cloak, the dark fabric pooling around her.

He didn’t look any different from what she had seen prior to the counterspell, as he didn’t really move save from the gentle rise of his chest under the tunic.

Lucien and Helion had done a nice thing, changing him out of that old linen garment. Even if he didn’t wake up, at least he was properly dressed.

She busied herself with the usual, though this time, she didn’t feel like speaking to him. If she did speak, it wasn’t like he would reply.

Tangles were soon brushed out of his hair, braided so in the eventuality they wouldn’t become an hindrance, seeing how long they’d gotten. She filed his nails back to the normal length a lord would keep and passed a wet towel over his face, uselessly trying to make up for months of dehydration.

When she sat back to watch, the prickling in her eyes was not due to any fumes.

She buried her face in her hands, took her time breathing in and out until the smell of magic faded…and was replaced by something sweet and roasted?

The flap of the healing tent was open, and Feyre stood there like she was unsure whether entrance was even an option.

She entered at last, waving her hand down when Rheia began to rise.

The source of sweetness was a plate the High Lady was carrying, laden with caramelized meats. Rheia’s stomach closed around nothing, a low gurgling noise rising in the silence.

Feyre didn’t comment on that (to save some embarassment, certainly). She sat beside Rheia, placed the plate between them.

“You haven’t eaten much at supper.”

She hadn’t eaten, at all.

Rheia shook her head, bowing in apology. “I find a lack of appetite as of late, forgive me. I mean no disrespect to your generosity.”

Eating at someone’s expense had always left her with a sour mouth. She couldn’t really explain it, but food she had not earned…it felt like something stolen, not meant for her even if it was offered.

Which made her look rude. She had picked something from Feyre’s table, had drank a little wine, still…

She tore a piece of meat, brought it to her lips, and had to stop herself from sighing.

She took another, and then another piece until the plate was clean.

Then, when she deemed she had wallowed in her uneasiness sufficiently, she turned only to find Feyre was occupied watching the limp presence in front of her.

“I’ve never seen him so still before,” she said.

Rheia leaned back on her elbows, nodding. “Imagine what will happen once he rises again, then.”

There was no telling as to why she was so sure he’d wake. For all she knew, the counterspell could have been useless. Maybe Moira had written gibberish on paper just to fulfill the gap the offering had left on her part.

Hope wasn’t something she was comfortable holding onto. The chances of failure to dispel the effects of a spell with another were notably slim, and relied heavily on the caster’s mettle. She didn’t dare doubt the power Helion and Lucien had spent, nor wanted to think their time a waste.

The possibility, though, was to be considered.

“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry,” Feyre offered, as to which Rheia’s mind stopped its reeling.

They stared at each other for an instant, before Rheia scoffed, crossing her arms.

“Don’t apologize to me,” she interjected. “He hurt you, and you don’t need to stay here with me. This is not my first time holding vigil.”

Circumstances had made it so a long slice of Rheia’s time serving with Elitras had been spent seeing to her injured brothers-in-arms. If she used an objective lens, then this was a direct consequence of his arrogance. Tamlin was proud and didn’t back down, while that wasn’t a bad thing in itself, she had learned it could be someone’s demise.

His pains did not cancel out the damage he had done to others.

She gulped, moved to fix the pillow under his head, fluffing it up.

“He has done dishonorable things. High Lords have been killed for less.”

Feyre took in everything with a small dip of her head.“I imagine they have. That doesn’t mean he needs to meet that same fate. I don’t want him to die.”

She didn’t want her brother to die, either. She had buried enough soldiers in her long life, and she didn’t want to think about the possibility of losing the only person who still remembered. There would be no comfort in the end of his suffering, knowing it was someone’s final goal.

She settled back, the knowledge the wish for him to make it through was shared dulling something sharp inside her.

“I hope he wakes up soon, so I can shove some good sense into him.”

Feyre’s grin was contagious, it showed off one subtle dimple.

“Don’t blame yourself.”

What a blunt way to pierce the bull’s eye. She had formidable aim even in conversation, it seemed.

Rheia did blame herself, to an extent. It wasn’t a far assumption. If she hadn’t been so fearful of her father, and if she had shown some teeth from the get go, this wouldn’t have happened. Blaming herself for not knowing something good would come out of that family, feeling shame that she had not been there to protect that bud and watch it blossom like it was supposed to was unproductive, but inevitable.

She touched her chest, felt the flutter of life through her skin. In the back of her mind, she heard the cadence of another heartbeat, far, persistent.

She offered Feyre her open palm, which she took graciously. Her fingers were cold.

“Families like mine rarely accept alternatives. He grew up believing there was an anomaly, that he needed to get rid of goodness. I am glad he didn’t…but I am mad, Feyre, that I was not there enough. I am furious that he believed succession was more important than his welfare.”

Feyre squeezed her hand, searched her eyes for something.

They stayed there for a while, linked in silence, sharing a moment Rheia perceived an important step forward, even more so when Feyre stood up, smoothing her attire.

“I hope you’ll reconsider our deal.”

Rheia found herself smiling, although only out of habit. “I will think it over. Thank you.”

The morning presented itself with new volunteers Rheia had never seen before, two sentinels that her brother had stationed by the confines.

Bron and Hart, they called themselves, greeted her with impressively low curtsies. They’d heard wind she was set on to the meadows, and offered their services for the occasion.

To her surprise, they didn’t linger to receive orders and busied themselves elsewhere while Rheia catered to her own preparations.

Preparations that started with an headbutt argument with Yura.

“You went behind my back,” she’d shouted.

“Someone had to!”

He’d thrown his hands up, sidestepping again so they wouldn’t hit each other due to the mess on the floor. Yura hadn’t thought to pack necessities all in the same place for safety reasons, so she had been rummaging every chest and pack like a burglar in order to find her supplies. At some point, she’d lost her wits about it and simply scattered everything everywhere, not caring one bit as to what ended up where.

The tent fluttered with phantom wind, and Rheia pointed an accusatory finger towards Yura, circling around the cluttered ground like an expert dodger.

“You respond to me, Yura. You’re my advisor!”

He sprung up like a coiled snake, looking taller than he'd ever done in comparison to her.

“Then let me do my job properly. Lay off me!”

After that outburst, he'd turned his back and started scurrying the room.

Rheia joined in on her side, pulling spell-journals and parchment wrapped packets from under clothes and trinkets.

For a while, within space that pulsed with tense silence, they gathered what had filled a small chest hidden under the floorboards of her study, beneath the carpet. All objects of worship and protection, chalk to draw runes and blank slips of blessed paper.

Rheia didn’t care anymore that she was supposed to stand her ground. Where others would have thought pettiness would lead them, she wasn’t even half interested to reach.

Fine, Yura had gone behind her back. Because he was scared she’d get hurt…her own damn fault for getting hurt on several instances where she didn’t ask for backup.

He’d just excercised his learned worry.

She could not fault him for that- she was the one in the wrong if it had come to this.

They stood at opposites points of the room now; the space was ordered, now the ground was seen easily. Rheia had bagged everything they needed for the meadows in a canvas satchel, hanging on from her shoulder. It was a decently comfortable weight, considering she’d crammed everything that had the potential to be useful in such a singular circumstance.

Rheia wasn’t unaccustomed to unsettling caves (having lived in a castle that was most certainly haunted, she had learned a few tricks) though the problem here was that nobody knew what dwelled under there. Or, if someone had knew, they hadn’t survived it long enough to tell the tale.

In her humble opinion, it was always better to be safe than sorry.

Yura was reading something off his notebook, crossing over with his charcoal, undeterred by her blatant staring.

“…are you joining me and Dumas?” she asked, her joined hands flexing in a faint crack of bones.

He looked up from the little handbook briefly, perplexed. As if she was asking him if the sky was blue.

“Of course I am. Why wouldn’t I?”

Rheia balked.

“…because we were shouting at each other just ten minutes ago?”

Yura, in all his unpredictability, showed the beginning of a smile.

“And? My job is to be with you. You think I’d just let you go into pure danger, alone?”

“Right.” She paced the tent until she was almost out.

“Then I’ll ready our horses.”

To no one’s surprise, Azriel had pulled the short end of the stick. If he was candid, he didn’t think it a stroke of bad luck. Feyre had not meant to be coddling, but the idea of letting anyone of them enter in a zone of potential danger had sparked a very justified bout of anxiety.

What might have been better sorted out with logic ended up being put in the hands of fate. Amren had called herself out this once, muttering something about not wanting to be the sacrificial lamb, and when he and Mor pulled the shorter sticks, she had patted their backs and gone back to her business.

The rendevzous point had been agreed upon previously, so all they had to do was prepare, while Rhysand talked their ears off to remind them how to reach him…if they could even reach him. They didn’t know how magic was affected in that place, much less daemati telepathy.

Azriel was willing to bet it would be difficult to even winnow, if he had well understood the supposed stillness of the meadows.

He was harnessing himself in the back of the tent when Cassian, grinning from ear to ear, closed the gossamer curtain behind himself.

Azriel tied the harness at the front of his armour with a questioning look.

Cassian leapt into it.

“The next time you fuck someone in the same room I’m sleeping in, I’m telling everyone and their mother,” he didn’t jest.

Azriel flicked a shadow in his direction, straightening the leg of his pants as he replied nonchalantly,“we didn’t fuck.”

Cassian tried to swat away the little slick black from his face, only for it to wrap around his bicep in retaliation.

“Sure smelled like ya did. Alas…”

He crossed his arms, staring Azriel up and down as he pulled up his gloves.

“What?” he said.

The Lord of Bloodshed smiled like he’d just discovered something entirely unprecedented. Which, considering Azriel had not exactly told anyone much of his stay in Hybern, was a fair assumption. Who could tell what story of make-believe his brain had produced?

“I knew you liked her. I didn’t think she’d be into that, though.” He moved to examine the blades spread out on the table, only a repertoire of what Azriel possessed. The Shadowsinger had selected a few, for he knew not what he would be up against…weapons had their weird, comforting factor to them, and, anyway, who would go into an unexplored juncture of the world unarmed?

Cassian picked at a long dagger, swooshed away a moment later by a glittering shadow. Azriel turned with a silent movement, walking to inspect his precious sharp treasures himself.

“You suck at this being subtle thing,” he commented.

“I don’t want to assume anything.”

Azriel shook his head, tilting his chin.

“You always make assumptions. Go on.”

Cassian leaned carefully on the side, hands disturbing the loose edge of his pockets.

He looked from the blades to Azriel, suddenly somber.

“She may not be as invested as you are.”

“That’s my call to make.”

Azriel didn't mean it to come so fast to his mouth, but it was instinctual. What the hell had his brother imagined? That he'd let himself be played like a fool? Never in a milion years, and certainly not with his heart on the line. He was not a gullible boy, and he'd never been.

The Lord of Bloodshed gulped, recovering tumultuously with another, much less charming sentence.

“I sense I’ve fucked up. What I mean…she has a strange vibe about her.”

Oh, Gods, Stars and Everything Sacred.

He wasn't in the mood to joke around, much less about what Rheia was to him.

“Maybe that’s what I like?”

Tense silence. Shadows stiffly flanking their master, as if awaiting directions.

Cassian gritted his teeth, inhaled nervously, like he'd just taken a knife to the foot.

Maybe he should stop the conversation before Azriel actually stabbed his boot.

“…okay, I stepped on shit again, didn’t I?”

Tying the last strap around his wrist, Azriel picked up his handguards, siphons blaring in warning.

He cracked his knuckles, arms extending to their most outstretched. Wings, too, though not in teasing.

In finality.

His words came out clipped.

“If it’s my allegiance you’re concerned with, you don’t have to be. There’s only one person I’d consider defying Rhys for.”

Worst thing was, he knew his brother would never suspect that person existed. Afterall, wasn't it the reason Cassian pitied him so much these days? Wasn't it the reason Rhysand had told him to find a pleasure hall, instead of pursuing something not meant for him?

They did not believe he would have that someone, let alone find it. He had not let himself believe it possible.

A thousand times over, he could ask his mate if she wanted him to betray everything he was loyal to, and a thousand times Rheia would discourage him from doing so.

She had fought him on his offer of support, she had insisted on his return home, and she would do much, much more for his sake. He was sure of it. He felt it in his bones, this deepset firmness. As if it was his own, too.

But his brother did not know. Cassian was used to see him jump beds, used to not question the nights he was away. Azriel had made sure no one knew, and his long list of lovers had only mattered to Rhysand when they could be of use.

He did not like his loyalty questioned, much less when he knew how much he had sacrificed.

Cassian was not an idiot, and exactly for that reason the insinuation stung more.

His brother leaned with the heel of his hand across the table, now almost devoid of objects, not even a glint of metal where it had once rested.

“I’m worried she’ll get you wrapped up in something bigger than yourself. I can’t have you in the grasp of someone like that.”

Azriel smoothed his jacket.

The moment lengthened painfully as he checked himself over to make sure he had forgotten nothing.

“That's all?” he asked.

Cassian stood off to the side, all air around him tense.

“Yep, that's it.”

He smiled on his way out, but it held no spark to it.

Incense burned his nose. Rheia waved the little log around, her own eyes watering from the intensity of the scent when she circled it around herself.

Yura coughed once before opting to cover his mouth and nose with his hand.

Then came the runes, this time with the help of Helion. Charcoal symbols drawn on their palms, above their attires over their hearts, behind their ears and napes and on their eyelids. To ward from any and all supernatural influence.

When Mor had passed a hand over the protections, they hadn’t budged, and she’d turned to Azriel with a staggering look.

Bron and Hart had followed after them to the meeting spot, with horses and provisions for every need.

Azriel hadn’t paid much attention to the conversation that had taken place, mainly in favor of taking in his surroundings.

There was really nothing here. No sound that wasn’t theirs. No animal roaming the high foliage. The horses themselves stood unnervingly in a far corner, the closest route to escape. Scarily still.

The hole in the ground had been cleared all around, showing stairs that descended into darkness.

Once everyone had been instructed and had received a slip of rolled paper and a snub of charcoal did the motive of this excursion turn back to their minds.

They were not a small group by any means: Rheia was flanked by Yura and Dumas, followed yet by two of her sentinels; Helion and Lucien had reached the meadows together, conversing lightly over which of them was to advance first. And of course, he and Mor, fidgeting beside him.

“Are you nervous?” he murmured. That seemed to set her off even more.

“You aren’t?” she whispered back, crossing her arms over new leather. Azriel always suspected she wore the armor more out of pleasure than the freedom of movement. A very deadly fashion statement.

He shrugged. He could see why it the situation could unsettle, given how little information they had. Usually, steps descending in the middle of unhabited land was nothing good.

Still, they’d gone through much worse things. This was nothing out of the ordinary, if not for the company, which most likely symphatized with Mor’s worries.

He moved his hand to pat her head, wanting to take advantage of the height he had on her, but she intercepted his wrist fast and steady. “Don’t you even dare!”

Waiting for Lucien to remerge with the all clear caused a brief moment of panic. What if whatever was there didn’t take kindly to visitors? What if she had unknowingly pushed a meal in the mouth of a monster?

The flash of burning red hair coming back into view was a merciful vision.

He grinned like it had been a leisure stroll. “It’s just bones. You should come check it out.”

As it turned out, there was little need for torches; light was emitting from high, white-burning fire when she descended, aided only by the thought there was no living thing in the vicinity.

And maybe, the animal remains scattered among the floor should have alarmed her, for they were extremely difficult to avoid stepping on, some clean and some still stinking of death. They covered majority of the walking space, skittering melodiously when she nudged them away.

The thing that was most captivating, though, were not the bones, not the rotting carcasses, rather the statues carved in that very same dark stone that seemed to carry the weight of the high ceiling. A very, very high ceiling.

Beautiful, expertly carved female bodies, mouths opening in a war cry as they pushed against the sky.

They were difficult to miss in their massive size, even more when one stood at the center, its eyes glinting in greeting, flashing white for one stark moment. An intermittent light that went still in the blink of an eye.

The room was circular, and the arched entryways slotted between the other six statues were tall and arched, intended for someone who wasn’t standard-sized.

Rheia excluded the moment her hands dragged on the wall that place was for any kind of worship.

Soon, her party was conjoined again, standing in unified unsettlement. Still, she offered Morrigan a palm, and another one to Helion, on either side of her. Soon, they were all holding hands, a slight tremble to the circle they’d naturally composed. Lucien and Azriel looked particularly uncomfortable, forced to hold hands, and when the shadowsinger inevitably met her gaze, there was some urgency to his expression.

Yura, on his side, was the first to break that chain formation.

Rheia cleared her throat, stepping back. Everyone did, too.

She breathed in, out. “I want to thank you all for joining me. Whether you did out of your volition or not, I do not need to know, but it is important to me you have decided to make a descent of this kind with me.”

Yura crossed his arms, cocking his head. She had half a mind to kick him for that alone, but refrained from doing anything other than squeeze her eyes in warning.

“I have explained everything to guard your safety. Dumas will be staying here, to ensure we get help in case anyone is hurt. In which case, do not move from where you are.”

The aforementioned Shield stood on attention, bowing his head solemnly.

Helion nodded at her side, “The runes are protective, not defensive. There is a difference.”

Rheia murmured her thanks, let her eyes roam her unlikely squadron until they landed on Asylle. She bowed her head, her companion beside her mirroring the movement.

She allowed herself just one last lookover, lingering on someone more than the others…then she clapped her hands, the sound echoing faintly up the walls.

“I’ll go first, if you don’t mind.”

But Yura did mind. While some scattered, he moved forward to stop her, cracking some animal’s skulls to get there. “You’re not going alone.”

“You’re right, she isn’t. I’m going with her,” Morrigan slid in easily, grabbing onto Rheia’s forearm with the delicacy of a predator scenting prey.

Seeing herself caught between two fires, and wanting none of the scorching, she searched somewhere for help, gritting her teeth in a silent request for aid that came in the size of an hulking Illyrian. Azriel came to her rescue with some satisfaction in the fact she had sought him out, then again…

She hadn’t hoped in anyone else, frankly.

It was a strange sight, seeing Yura so jarred by a pretty lady. A pretty, stubborn, dressed for battle, lethal lady. Even with shadows nudging him backwards, he was stuck in no subtle irritation.

Rheia excused it on the fact he’d likely wanted to join her to explain himself to her —something she did not need to expirience right now— and seeing someone leap to Rheia at the first opportunity, when he was the one in that position most of the time ticked him off.

Azriel did not hide the little smile lifting his lips, tinged with some annoyance.

“Come on. Don’t be difficult.”

Yura, notably, was difficult on main. Rheia’s skin already felt prickly; of course he wanted to be stubborn in a moment like this.

“I am Queen, and you are my advisor, you know my will. That’s enough of a reason to want to split,” she explained, the flash of horror on his face making her regret her choice of words. Azriel, towering behind him, looked momentarily taken aback.

Rheia had forgotten the female holding her until she spoke next, in a reassuring and serious voice.

“Don’t worry. I’ve got claws, too. I’ll protect her.”

Whether that was intended for someone in particular, Rheia did not know.

“Stop it with the long face. You really thought she wanted to be alone with you underground after the stunt you pulled?”

Yura huffed, avoiding the wall at his side as much as possible.

The tunnel was way too narrow for his liking.

“I pulled no stunt. I made a calculated mistake,” he went again, crossing his arms in what Azriel had catalogued as a defensive stance.

“Are beheadings a thing in Hybern? You could use one.”

“Haha, very clever. And no, they aren’t. They haven’t been in approximately three centuries.”

To think this was the person that helped Rheia through most of her political (and not) endeavors, was a little appalling. Azriel almost wanted to apologize to Rhysand. Did he come across like this to people he didn’t know professionally?

Then again, this was not an idiot, and was clearly unused to the underground. Azriel didn’t blame him.

He was, however, starting to get an headache.

It seemed Yura couldn’t shut up for a moment about how much he disliked every single little thing about the situation they were in.

Because Azriel liked it so much, of course, the humidity that was making his scarred hands ache, and the leather of his armor sticky on his skin.

“This place smells like sulfur, and there is something sticky under my soles.”

“You stepped on a skull,”Azriel reminded him.

The shriek of disgust it earned him was the cherry on top.

“So it’s brain matter. Charming. I hate this place already.”

Abated, by disgust and mutual restlessness, the walk became quiet, much to Azriel’s gain.

He took advantage of that to inform himself how the ladies were faring, since much of his current position had been taken to ensure Rheia had a better time.

By the sounds of it, they were. Mor and Rheia were discussing the supposed length of the way, wondering whether they should rest in the eventuality of the tunnel spanning longer than they calculated.

That set off a weird feeling in his gut.

Was there a way out, at all?

The crack of stone moving was faint, but it was there and when it came, Rheia struggled to keep her balance. Morrigan, only a few paces forward, stared behind her in horror.

The way back had been blocked by a slab of dark stone.

Rheia rose back almost instantly, joining by Morrigan’s left. “That didn’t sound accidental,” she said.

Rheia nodded, the pulse jumping in her throat. “We should be careful. If I know anything about places like this, then that was only the beginning.”

The alteration in their pace was mild, but not exhausting. Rheia had concluded if the isolation had been an automated mechanism, most likely triggered by a stone in the pavement. It didn’t give her much reassurance, and certainly didn’t make the pathway any less daunting.

Morrigan had offered her hand at some point, and Rheia hadn’t refused that. If possible, the only positive thing about this horrid situation was the company it had landed her with.

Morrigan’s copper eyes found hers, the soft line of a smile etched atop reddish lips distracting, her braid resisting all that running.

This was an impressive lady. Someone Rheia found herself envying.

“I’m sorry I got you tangled into this,” she confessed, earning a tighter squeeze around her fingers.

“Don’t be. There are worse things than this,” she assured, something in her voice convincing Rheia she might be in the right. She felt even curious, despite the circumstances.

“Worse than being trapped underground, Morrigan?”

The blonde muttered something about her old fuck of a father, rolling her eyes.

“Mor will suffice. And we aren’t trapped, we’ll find a way out.”

Rheia wasn’t sure there was a way out at all, yet avoided speaking that into existence. She dearly hoped Mor was right in that.

The tunnel had to meet an end, sooner or later. It couldn’t span on for eternity, no creature was this patient to weave a spell and no god this cruel. Playing with unsuspecting fools got boring very fast.

“This place looks very odd.”

Rheia followed Mor’s eyes to the highest point of the dark stone, converging together in jagged rock splinters.

“It’s the walls. They’re too high. It’s disorienting.”

Mor’s silence stretched for a nerve inducing second too long. Red met with copper again in a stare of pure bewilderment.

“Are they too high, or is this place not intended for normal-sized Fae?” Mor asked, even a little amused.

“Do you want to find out?” Rheia bit back, earning a grin. “No, not really. Let’s go.”

Saying that, she pulled Rheia along with her, in steady rhythm.

Too much time. Too much anticipation that they’d find another archway, and utter disappointment when they didn’t. To make matters worse, the lights had gradually dimmed, like whoever was manouvering this little path of darkness wanted to make it worse on her eyes.

There had to be something, anything that could help!

Calica. Yes, what would Calica have done? She wouldn’t panic. She would think rationally, recall all the elements to her because she was one with them and they were one with her.

A painfully totalistic view of the world, of the serpent eating its own tail and moving on and on.

Gods, how she wished there were something to grab into! Something, anything to guide her besides the little hope she had, crumbling in her mind.

‘Do you want to get out of there, dear?’ a voice beckoned in her mind, sweet like ripe fruit.

‘Yes! I’m tired. The walls are closing in on me and I can’t go on.’

A depthful, dark chuckle.

‘Of course, dear.’

Mor disappeared in front of her eyes like a dream unsought.

The light went off at the worst time possible.

Azriel did not notice it immediately, did so only when the shadows tucked around a trembling Yura.

“…You’re scared of the dark?” Azriel could see the tension in that frame even in the total darkness.

A nervous chuckle riverberated.

“I’m scared of a manner of things, the dark amongst them, yes.”

“You live in Hybern,” he deadpanned.

“I don’t see how the two things can relate to one another. Hybern has plenty of light sources.”

That was debatable, but he wasn’t going to argue on that. It was dark, and cold and eerie. He could concede that.

Azriel thought about it for a moment before he tore the Siphon at his right shoulder, willing light over the seven crystals. A very ironic happening, that he would be providing light, he who had mastered the shadow.

Darkness that was trembling along Yura’s frame, for another reason altogether.

He pressed the glowing siphon to Yura, just as a slither reached his ear.

‘Master. She’s gone.’

‘What do you mean gone,’ he hissed inwardly, following Yura as he set the pace again, grinding his teeth. He was not about to involve him in that conversation.

Dread pooled in his gut; he crushed his fingers in a fist, focusing in the black far ahead.

‘Gone. Ours. Gonegonegone. Taken,’ they wailed, curling in anxious spirals around his arm, relishing in the rage boiling in his veins.

A trap.

It had all been a trap, and they’d stepped in the mouth of a lion.

Alone. Gods, hadn’t she been alone enough?

She was so tired…her legs were sore. Cold, tremendously cold stone.

Breathe in. Out. Once, twice.

Something spicy on her nose, the scent of aged wine, of firwood ash.

Drip, drip, drip…

Sitting up in wet ground was disorienting. A migraine pressed annoyingly on her cranium.

Opening her eyes, she was not reassured in recognizing the stone walls, and the torches lining the perimeters.

Getting up to her feet took sometime. Her teeth chattered, she motioned to hug herself, but it produced no warmth. How far under was she?

“Took you a while,” a voice echoed, provoking ripples in a puddle nearby. Rheia fumbled the front of her jacket, touching the handle of her dagger.

“Who’s there!?” she demanded, gritting her teeth.

Holding her palm out, the runes blinked as she turned slowly on all sides, trying to find the spot where the stranger was hiding.

Expect there were no hiding spots, and there were no doors either.

The presence snickered.

“Your silly witchcraft doesn’t hold any power here,” its voice traveled up Rheia’s spine in a shiver, she lowered her hand, but not her guard. The rune broke out against her skin, in smushed coal.

A movement in the wind made her recoil; water lapped at her boots, rising to her shins.

“Why don’t you advance? I’ve been expecting you.”

Rheia didn’t like the sound of that one bit. She flexed her hands at her sides, shaking her head.

“Tell me who you are first,” she requested.

“My name is Prya. Can you come closer, darling?”

Closer where? She was alone! There was no one visible with her!

It dawned on Rheia embarassingly fast: the creature didn’t know she couldn’t see it. What kind of magic being capable of constructing such an intricate plane could not control their appearance?

“…I can’t see you.”

The creature chuckled, awkwardly, “oh. Right.”

Magic exploded, blinding Rheia momentarily as the body of her captor materialized, took up space, with the sound of a thousand bones cracking.

She’d never taken her gun out so fast.

Gods, what in the loving hells was that? Straw hair. White, sinewy skin that hid nothing of the dark veins underneath. Sexless, flat-chested.

The head, torn apart by what appeared to be its teeth-sharp mouth, closed in by two rows of eyes on either side.

A tall, skinny thing that had lured her in…

Rheia’s gun trembled in her hand.

Well, the whole of her trembled. She’d been so stupid— had she not experienced enough monsters in her life to recognize a trap when it was set up in front of her eyes? Had it not been clear the moment the stone slabs erased the chance to return at the start?

Prya bent down on their stiff legs, pushed the barrel of gun aside with one of their three long fingers.

“Someone’s trigger-happy, huh?”

Rheia swore her heart was going to give out. She couldn’t even pull the trigger, her whole body locked up like she was a rabbit.

Countless eyes squinted at her, and she had half a mind to kick that vertical grin off that blanche face.

She lowered her gun, willed her heart to function normally, but didn’t tear her eyes from the thing in front of her.

“What did you do to my companions?” she asked.

The thing shrilled way too happily. “I ate them!”

There was a moment in which Rheia debated reaching into her deepest well of power and launching herself against the creature in front of her.

They moved their flailing limbs, dismissing her previous claim.

“I’m joking! I’m joking! I don’t eat people anymore,” they assured, splashing some water towards Rheia in a little sprout.

Rheia shook her head, rubbing her face in exhasperation.“You used to?”

“Old stories, darling.”

Gods, Stars and Altars, what in the name of the Mother had she made contact with?

“…Why am I here?” she gritted out, weary.

Prya got up from their crouch, gaining a good three heads on Rheia.

Their countless eyes glittered with recognition.

“I wanted to get you alone. This is a matter between you and I…and your ma.”

“What?” Her mother had been here? When? Why?

“There is something you must see.”

When it came to luck, theirs was precariously thinning.

Until, for better or for worse, they did find an exit…along with an extremely alert Dumas pacing what looked like a treasury, with the amount of jewels and riches it housed.

He had set a defensive stance since hearing steps, his rapier held high above his head.

Yura watched recognition soften Dumas’ face until only a little unease rested on his lips.

He sheathed the rapier again, walked towards them with a rattle in his breath.

“You’re a refreshing sight.”

“How long you been here?” Yura asked, not able to keep the smile at seeing a familiar face, in decent lightning.

Dumas might have noticed the little twitch in Yura’s stance, for he gave him a good old slap on the arm, successfully waking him up.

He explained in a few words that, the moment all the entrances had closed, the space had changed shape and dragged him here. He gave a little dip of his chin, motioning for them to move. “Come.”

The last time Azriel had seen such an obnoxious amount of gold and precious objects, it was Rhysand handing him a crown to use as bait during a mission, and it had felt much like bragging on his part.

This, however…the diversity of the quality (and age) of the glimmering ornaments and jewels scattered in piles implied many had been lured in. He even spied a few open chests, rusted at the edges.

Dumas led the way through puddles of greenish water, until they eventually reached the other side of this golden cave.

A painting, propped under a mountain of colored gems, of a female of undoubtedly noble birth, if not recognizable by the proud look in her eyes, by the richness of her dress, visible even through years of the canvas sitting in such a humid, sunless pit.

Azriel felt a weird familiarity at the sight. Like he knew the wearer of that smile through some distant connection.

Dumas was quick to help him connect the dots.

“That’s Queenie’s mother, right?”

It was Lady Damaris. He wasn’t sure he would have recognized her if he didn’t have the reminder. He’d seen her only once, during one of the late High Lord’s assignments. He was young, then, a freshly promoted agent that knew little of what discretion was.

And she had been definitely too careless as a Lady, without even an escort.

Drinking her tea, she had not been subtle in following the movements just moving the trees.

Azriel had a faint memory of the smell of peach, and the taste of butter scones.

He left them to ruminate on that painted smile, pacing the place as he focused on the sound of faraway footsteps.

Another entrance was opening, and to his pleasant surprise it spat out Lucien and Helion, both looking like they had retched only recently.

One had to lean on the other; Lucien looked flabbergasted at the amount of useless riches laying around, just in time to stop himself as another wave of nausea hit him.

“I’m never stepping back underground. Ever,” he muttered, earning a weak laugh from the Lord of Day.

They reconvened, weary, and just waited.

And waiting did carry its fruits.

Even if they were very unripe, bitter ones. Mor had came back alone, running and positively scaring the shit out of Yura when they’d crashed one against the other, because of course they had.

Tearing them apart when Yura realized there was no sign of his friend and Queen was immediate. Dumas had warned him off, in a very fatherly manner.

Azriel was left to deal with a very shaken Mor, a sight he struggled to not be worried about.

She kept shaking her head, muttering “she was just behind me. I was holding her hand and she just vanished.”

Great. Cool. He was going to lose all that carefully knit composure over one disappearing female, in what looked like the refuge of a thief, or worse yet, a tomb dessecrator.

So he just helped Mor calm down, and waited until she was the one to speak again, in hushed tones.

“…I like her.” A small confession, like the thought of actually not hating someone she didn’t know was a first experience.

“Huh?”

Mor nodded solemnly “You have my approval.”

“Excuse me?”

Hours had gone by. Hours, or mere minutes, he could not really care.

Still no sign of Rheia. Her sentinels had made it back safely, unscraped and pissed off they hadn’t found anything.

More pissed off once they discovered there was no information on their Lady Queen’s whereabaouts.

Now they were barred in there, eating beef jerky and rationing bread and hoping they wouldn’t be left with the only option to dig their way out.

Truth-Teller was not ready for that kind of carving.

At the third hour (or the third half-hour, he wasn’t sure) something happened.

Water rose. Slowly, until it covered their feet. The stone slabs retreated once again, drawing the water in.

It took a moment for Azriel to unleash his shadows, but it took him less than a second to be sure she was there, on the other side.

Smug. Utterly satisfied.

He wanted to taste that on his tongue.

When they arrived —crammed, tired, wailing in joy at the idea of touching grass again— she was there, fairy tale book carefully held to her hip, a lightness she didn’t know herself capable of possessing invading her.

The sun was just setting, and for once she didn’t fear what lay ahead.

If there was one thing Dumas had picked up as a champion, it was unpredictability. She’d witnessed him best bigger, dangerous foes in small spaces, with weapons of fortune and only his fragmented psyche to rely on.

There was one thing, though, that he had not shaken from those days, that he likely would never shake. He was a big male, and he moved like a big male did, with steps sometimes too large for his intentions.

All in all, using that to her advantage was possible, even if it did require more thinking than usual.

They pushed each other back, Rheia landing with her boots deep in the dirt. Dumas nodded at her, and she sprinted to him like an animal in front of dangling meat.

But then he moved, and she ended up crashing against a tree trunk without a chance to jump in the other direction.

Rheia got up with a groan, wobbling. Dumas was swiftly charging against her, though this time she did swerve to his right, running over the mark they'd made in the dirt.

She counted ten seconds before leaping, intercepting his shoulder with her heel before she lucked out with a branch close by. She climbed up, the bark of the tree scratching her palms just so.

Dumas had not expected that; satisfaction bloomed in her chest, though she dimmed down that spark.

It was no use declaring victory when she was momentarily stuck aboveground.

Not her brightest idea, but it would have to do for now.

Jumping from one tree to the other, she made a small addition in her mind: if she was able to surprise him from up, she needed to do so when he wasn't looking.

The space came in her mind like a map when she closed her eyes, her palm firm on a slash in the bark drowned with resin.

Everything was made of small, golden like vines. She watched Dumas silhouette of vines until it turned its back to her.

Then, with the lightest movement of leaves, she dove down and brought him to the ground without as much as a word.

Poor bastard made a lament, cursing at the surprise more than the impact.

"Fine, you're well equipped for mischief. Get off me now, please, Your Majesty," he pleaded, wiggling under her.

Rheia rolled off him with a grunt when a sharp sizzle went up her side, the shoulder wound acting up too much for her liking.

She met his eyes when he moved his head to the side, half fogged eye crinkled. His hair had grown a little over the last few weeks, stressed into a row of spikes that reminded Rheia of hedgehogs and bit into his scorched skin.

She pressed her hand down on her chest, the beat rapidly lowering in its intensity.

"Sorry. About…the gun."

He pulled himself up on his elbows, observing her sprawl.

"I wasn't going to do it, you know. I follow your orders, and if you say you want to go somewhere, it doesn't scare me. Though if I may play Devil's advocate…"

He always played the Devil's advocate, but Rheia didn't mention that because she knew it wasn't in her place to judge. Dumas' perspective on this was certainly more levelheaded than hers coule ever be. If there was someone worth taking advice from, it was him.

"Yura tries to make sure you stay alive. Like always."

Rheia stared up at the converging branches, the sun shining enough to make her

"I can do that perfectly on my own. I've lived without him for long enough."

Dumas bit the corner of his mouth, cracking his knuckles as he sat himself on his knees.

"But he hasn't. He doesn't have the best track record in understanding

boundaries and this situation is being a trial for everyone of us."

Rheia closed her eyes, letting that sit with her for a moment. It appeared Dumas was in fact more levelheaded than her, patient in a way she'd taught him to be for his sake, encouraged to speak not for anyone's pleasure but his own.

Rising with a movement that challenged every stupid injury she'd fallen victim to in recent times, Rheia surrendered to the fact she was, for the first time in a considerable while, acting less like a Queen, and more like an hurt animal.

She was no animal, though. She was a Lady, a Queen on top of that, at war and she needed to get her mind in order if she wanted to make it out of Prythian alive.

Brushing hair out of her face, she nodded.

"I know," she admitted. "I'll talk it out with him later."

Dumas smiled, then let that warm display fall flat, stitching to protocol like he hand't been kicking her ass just some moment earlier. He stood up, offering her a hand.

"Let me help you up."

She shook her head, crossing her legs, waving her hands in a gesture of dismissal.

"No, no. I'd like to stay a little while. There's a stream somewhere I wanted to check out."

The Shield shared just a look with her before he understood he could not convince her to join him. She wasn't eager to explain to Rex (who, poor soul, had only heard them shout from the other tent) what had happened, and even less to see Yura. She'd slept on a separate cot the night prior, for what little she'd slept.

Dumas bowed his respects.

"Leave you to it," he retreated to where they had come from, and she called after him in departure.

"Bye," she whispered.

She let herself fall back in the darkened grass only when he was out of sights, her hands both feeling the earth under, drawing magic to her fingertips.

A few steps were heard before Rheia knew she was not alone anymore, though she wasn't alarmed. She'd come to expect no privacy lately, and this meeting had been anticipated.

A humid snout poked her cheek, followed by another. She opened her eyes to witness the long faces of several grey hounds blinking at her, amber, burning eyes alight with vitality.

Rheia rose on her knees again, this time to pet the heads of dogs that were very taken by her.

Standing a few feet back, sorrounded by other canines, Eris Vanserra presided in all his glory, hands joined in front of him.

"That was impressive. Ever thought of giving up the Crown? You'd make a dashing assassin," he regarded her with a respect and seriousness she hadn't expected.

She took his helping hand gingerly, the army of smokehounds circling around her, sniffleing in search for something.

"I see you've brought company," she pointed out, just as one particular hound tried to jump into Eris' arms, whinining when its master decided to not give into indulgence.

Rheia hadn't expected he'd be fond of animals, much less dogs, but as he produced treats from his pockets to sate his jumpy crowd, she had to admit it suit him in a weirdly sweet way.

In Hybern, hounds and dogs were broadly popular with farmers, while the nobility preferred the smaller breeds, creatures that would sit atop their laps while they flaunted riches and eccentricity. Rheia had never enjoyed the thought of a small animal born for the sole purpose of staying still and being sitting room entertainment, and had made it so no one could gift her another living thing.

Eris had noticed her watchful gaze, and coughed casually, giving the pack an order that made them prowl around them like guards.

"They'll make sure we aren't disturbed," he clarified.

Rheia stared at the arm he was offering in consideration before she complied. They walked out of the trees, and the sound of running water relieved her. She hadn't completely forgotten the space she'd learned to walk in, even if it had certainly forgotten her.

What a bitter consolation.

Eris had worn a very thick coat for the day, fire-red satin lined with golden firesilk and embroidered leaf patterns. The texture was rich under her fingertips.

They walked in amiable silence for a while, until he deemed they were far enough from any tended ear.

"You should keep your underlings better tamed," he scolded her, gaze trained onwards.

Rheia halted in her steps, rubbing behind the ears of one astray smokehound that had brushed into her by accident.

"Mhm?" she squeezed Eris' forearm, giving him indication to speak, as to which he didn't mince his words.

"That 'summoner of yours has been seen entering and then leaving a rather important briefing."

Yeah, well, Yura was her advisor; when she was indisposed he did her bidding. Even if they were pissed at eachother and she would much rather sit her ass on a thorn bush than sit in the same place as him…at least for the foreseeable future.

Now, she just focused on the fact Eris hadn't been there to see it.

"A briefing you weren't invited to," she prodded.

He blinked, forcing a venomous smile she knew the origin of better than anyone else.

"Sadly, my Lord father is very much alive. I don't have that kind of privilege yet," but maybe he would get the privilege of seeing him dead. It seemed a reoccurring theme with Rheia's acquantances.

She resumed her steps, to which he was very happy to follow along.

"Speaking of which…where is he now? You didn't tell me."

Letting her eyes linger on a fish swimming upstream, his warm voice filled the space pleasantly.

"Off to the Continent with my brothers, offending every lord and lady in Rask. He's gotten this idea he will get rid of them if he ties them down."

Rheia turned her attention on him, forgetting for a moment she'd met another fireling he knew for sure.

"Political barter with his sons? And he left you in charge?" she asked.

Eris was amused to the point of exasperation.

"You're not really tuned in with what goes on in here, are you?" he asked in return. She shook her head.

"I know your father is a temperamental bastard." And some.

The last time she'd seen the High Lord of Autumn, she’d entered into the web of intricacies and horrors that was Court life, and her father, well…he was notably liked by few, hated by many, and it just so happened Beron was amongst the latter. It was very likely Evander had proposed an alliance and had felt slighted when his neighboring High Lord refused it, out of superiority he felt.

To Beron, Spring was a den of savages. Old grudges like that didn’t change, they amplified until they were set in stone.

Until they justified wars.

They strolled in quiet, swaying like they weren’t an unlikely pair roaming a place that wasn’t theirs.

Rheia yawned, pinching Eris through that evening jacket.

He didn’t make a peep, gravitating towards her with the might of someone very used to being poked at — figuratively, and literally.

"Can you get me a net and a rope before nightfall?" she asked.

"For what?" he shot back, a note of amusement in his voice.

If Rheia had identified him properly, then he would find what she was about to propose a nice change of pace.

She waved him off, freeing him from that formal hold to hook her arm around his shoulder, amused when he stiffened more in confusion than actual discomfort.

He was learning. Good.

"Get them to me and I'll explain. I'll even let you join me."

"Join you in…?”

"Finding a flesh tribute, of course."

There were so many reasons why following her around was wrong. For one, it was an invasion of privacy that entered dangerous territory when paired with the fact he was, in more ways than one, exercising his role as Spymaster.

And involving Cassian, who was the least patient person he knew and the most annoying when it came to pressing for answers to questions he shouldn’t even have posed, had not been a well thought plan.

They balanced on two separate branches of the same massive oak, at enough distance that they could hide in the foliage, but not enough that they couldn’t hear each other.

Cassian had been blessed by the mercy of allergy medicine kindly provided by an anonymous source, just left outside their tent. Azriel knew it wasn’t as anonymous as they believed, but he didn’t say anything. He knew better.

“Do we really have to stay here and just watch?” Cassian called from ghe higher branch, perched on the edge.

“I wouldn’t trust Eris alone with a stick.”

He followed the retreating silhouettes with mild irritation; the damn dogs hadn’t let up, and although his shadows had sunk in the earth as a retreat, they couldn’t get too close without one of them alerting Eris of his presence.

Cassian chuckled, not really bothering with the task at hand.

“That’s a little extreme. You sure you don’t want to kill him?”

The thought had passed through his mind once or twice, but it ended there. Eris might have been a thorn on his side, but they needed him alive. At least a little longer. Then when he was done being useful she could fall down some well and drown.

“No, we’re just here to make sure he doesn’t try anything funny with her—”

Azriel regretted that sentence the second Cassian wheezed from his spot above.

“Ah, I get it now. You’re jealous.”

He crossed his arms, leaning smugly against the bark of the tree.

Azriel tried to ignore the blood rushing to his face.

“I am not. She’s…my friend. I want to keep an eye on her.”

Cassian quietened down, not totally convinced. He observed a single smokehound as it stood on the edge of the trees, staring as if it could see them through the thick spell they’d inlaid. A precaution, Rhys had insisted.

“I would be more worried about her compromising him than the other way around,” Cassian muttered, making a face that was more directed at the canine standing on guard than the situation itself.

“What?” Azriel demanded, chin tipped up.

Cassian murmured something like a curse, before he resigned and spoke again.

“People are whispering.”

People always whispered. Too much, about too many useless things, and Azriel could not keep up with camp flutter when his attention was elsewhere.

“About?” he asked.

Cassian rubbed his neck, closing his eyes as he caught a sore spot with his fingers.

“Her Shield. They think she did that to him. His scar.”

Azriel lost track of the damn dog the moment he registered what he meant.

“She wouldn’t.” Whoever said that, he’d make sure they didn’t have a tongue to spread anymore senseless bullshit. To think someone would spread lies for the fun of it, to slander her…that alone made his blood hot with rage.

Cassian, who’d been on the receiving hand of that white anger too many times in his life, made it clear he was just the messanger, “I’m not saying she would. I’m saying she looks like she would do that.”

Azriel scoffed. If his brother had seen what he’d witnessed, he wouldn’t be joking.

“You don’t know how she is when she’s truly angry,” he warned, and the threat hidden in there was enough for Cassian to almost leap off.

“I don’t want to know! She’s terrifying as she is.”

The dog ran.

Azriel and Cassian locked eyes, one grin eliciting the other.

They leaped at the same moment into infinite greenery.

How much did it take Tamlin to understand something was wrong? To her, the distortion in the Song of the Winds had been apparent since she'd stepped foot into the grass.

Something had been stolen from the very essence of the Spring Court, something that couldn't be restored by her alone.

The underlying question was, who to blame?

He'd written to her of prowling creatures once, and it had heen no surprise. There had been an abundance of long legged, white ghouls that left a trail behind them once, and their resurface once Spring had become a desolate woodland was predictable, if not a little boring. No civilians meant less occupied space to stay away from and more food available for the local fauna, and by extension, for the more sinister wayfarers that jumped from glen to glen.

Tamlin’s slumber had come little by little, presenting first in gradual weaking, then in dizzy spells. It had snuck on him subtly, like poison, simple and concerningly undetected.

He’d had contact with others before he succumbed to sleep; had no one truly felt something was wrong? Her brother might not have been as burly as she remembered him to be, but his weakness was apparent even to the untrained eye.

Sighing, she tucked the papers in a corner of her bending table, fixing thread around it before she got to the other objects on the surface.

Nothing would come in trying to decypher Tamlin’s words, his recounts were painfully blunt and Rheia knew some revelations would come on their own, no matter how much she forced them.

The Xidar, unchained, had an imposing presence in that empty tent, still and yet trembling with magic older than her, older than Hybern itself.

Her perusal lasted just enough to determine she had no intention of looking at that twisted binding longer than necessary.

The circlet, rusty and sharp with past-death, felt a little safer to handle.

She lifted it with both hands, placed it atop her head delicately. In another world —one that allowed her true power— she would have worn that as a right. Now she wore it as a reminder. Little weight, not so little disappointment.

She expected to feel something, but it was hollow. Wearing the crown of a dead king did nothing but further cement how little she’d accomplished.

Three years. Three years, and all she had done was tear a kingdom in half, without truly changing anything.

“Are thinking of restoring it?” a light voice came from the open flap of the tent.

Rheia removed the circlet in no hurry, standing just as Feyre closed the curtain behind her.

Rheia shook her head, placing that old waste of metal down. “I have no use for tacky headwear.”

She could melt it. Make it into something that honored the blades that had been desecrated. The holders that hadn’t received a proper final salute.

The Cursebreaker made herself comfortable atop an unmade cot, blue eyes stelliferous as they roamed the tent with contained interest. “You didn’t put up wards.”

Rheia circled over the desk, stride casual.“Take it as an act of trust.”

Feyre crossed one leg over the other, leather making an obnoxious sound. “Do you mind if we talk, lady to lady?”

Rheia picked a bottle and two glasses from the trunk under the table, balancing them in one hand as she filled one half-way.

“Seeing as you are already talking, do I have a choice?” she asked, the question losing its intended aim when she outstretched her arm.

There was a moment of electrified tension when their fingers brushed. Feyre brought the glass to her lips first, tasting sugary liquor. Rheia didn’t break eye contact when the heady taste prickled her throat, subtle pressure in the form of a feminine, brutal lash smacking her mind.

Lowering her glass, she tilted her head.

A slow caress, a sensous laugh, then the pressure extinguished like it had never been there.

Rheia wasn’t unsettled, and Feyre liked it. The Cursebreaker moved her glass with a circular motion of her hand, her freckled face squishing when she smiled, much like a rabbit.

“You have very strong mental walls. Like a well-guarded tower, wrapped in thorns. I noticed the first time we met.”

Rheia, understanding she was not getting out of this one easily, lowered herself on the ground in front of her guest, sitting down.

“You don’t survive Hybern as long as I did with a poorly guarded mind. Mind-diggers are everywhere,” she intoned, fingers tapping once and twice against the glass. Feyre braced on the edge of the cot, curiosity clear in the lilt in her voice.

“Mind-diggers? Is that how you call them?”

Rheia nodded in a way she open was received as uninvolved.

“Our Daemati are a little different. More…brutal. Purposefully disarraying. And never sorry for what they stumble upon.”

Her nonchalance did not work on her fellow lady. And Rheia was too tired to take her words back.

“You speak from experience.”

They locked eyes. Rheia held her glass tighter, the aftertaste bleeding into her voice in a shade of resignation.

“Live as long as I have and you experience many things.”

Like an embarrassing conversation such as this one she was having, with a female that had done more in her recently found immortality than Rheia had ever done in almost eight hundred years she’d been alive. Feyre Cursebreaker, a liberator of the people.

And still, despite that, she looked so unburdened. Life didn’t feel like a weight that slowed her down, but rather a wheel that helped her move onward, the reason the chariot kept going despite the bumps along the way.

It was humiliating to envy someone because they’d fought and had succeeded, such an ugly sentiment didn’t belong with her and had always weakened her.

It had been with her a long time since, and she needed to smother it before it ruined her.

Feyre’s pointed gaze was unnerving. Having been under scrutiny her whole life, Rheia had learned to ignore her discomfort no matter how deep it settled in her.

These eyes, though, were hard to ignore. Cold and warm at the same time, somehow aged and new. Secret and revelation.

“You’re looking for a witch,” she offered in that same mellifluous tone her mate always spoke with.

Rheia emptied the glass to drown what bitter sense of betrayal was starting to rise, “So Yura tattled, of course…”

Feyre placed her own empty glass down in front of her, her hands braced on her knees.

“Don’t blame him. He worries, and I too.”

Rheia strongly doubted the extent to which such good sentiments went. Yura she believed, even if she didn’t believe he really would go behind her back…he’d done some very deplorable things to keep her alive, but never to the point of revealing her plans and fundamentally destroying them. And maybe she should have known he’d never keep that to himself, as he never did with anything that would potentially cause her harm. The fact he had a personal gripe with witches as a whole was a conversation to be had another day.

This young, formidably cunning lady, though…it was not that Rheia couldn’t fathom how someone with her heritage could care for her. Giving allies the emotional power over her had not ended anywhere good before, and wouldn’t now. She wouldn’t let herself make that mistake again.

“Azriel cares for you,” the words lodged between her ribs like an arrow.

“He has a weird way of showing it,” she muttered.

Feyre shrugged.

“He does, though.”

Yeah, no. This was not a topic of discussion she wanted to have right now. Or ever, if she could do anything about it.

“I don’t understand where this conversation is meant to go,” Rheia clarified, firm in her intent to take back the reins.

Feyre was ticked only for a moment, the brief shock of not being able to turn the conversation where she wanted reminding Rheia this was still a young, nosy girl she was dealing with.

The High Lady regained herself in the space of a blink.

“We’ll send you to the Middle. But Az has to come with…and Cassian, too.”

Rheia shook her head. “I don’t need watchers.”

“I’d like you to come back safe.”

Did this girl think she was speaking to a fresh cadet?

“You underestimate my abilities.”

Patience was thinning on both sides. Feyre’s diplomatic smile fell under, replaced with the kind of flat scowl of someone who was standing on their cause, hard.

“Don’t be difficult. I know you’re injured. When do you want to go?”

Rheia rubbed subtly at a spot on her shirt.

“…tomorrow. Before dawn, no flying.”

That humored Feyre immensely. She stood up, holding a hand out to Rheia.

Victory etched on every line of her smooth face.

Some rabbit she was.

“Thank you for being reasonable. Come find me then,” she inched away as if she’d never been there, and Rheia wondered whether the rabbit was her.

The hours before departure were always filled with anticipation, preparation both mental and physical.

He’d been awake long before the contended hour, checking a list that had formed once, a long time ago.

Truth-Teller at his hip. The other hidden blades well placed on his person, where his shadows could reach without struggle. Leather-gear enveloping him like second skin…

Most of it was perfectly ready. And what wasn’t would have to be ignored.

Cassian joined him outside a few hours later, with a pat on his shoulders that wanted to be presumably comforting.

He didn’t feel any comfort.

“C’mon. We’ll be in and out of there.”

“I’d rather not think about it.”

Feyre came out in a fluttering robe, looking like she’d just wrestled a tiger.

She wrapped whispering fabric around her frame, hiding what was conceivable.

It didn’t matter much, though. The state of her was enough for them to deduce Rhysand had been very satisfied with what his clever mate had been able to rope Rheia into.

By the way her pupils ate at her blue eyes, Azriel presumed the reward had been generous.

Under their attention, she smoothed the rumpled fabric, skin glowing in the near darkness.

“Sorry. He latched a little more than I was expecting,” she explained, flattening the side of her hair like it wasn’t a charming mess.

Azriel didn’t find it in himself to humor her, and Cassian was too set on to inform her they’d heard whatever sound they had clumsily tried to mask.

Before Azriel could ruminate on his belief his High Lord was a raging exhibitionist, his gaze lifted.

He saw her, or rather, them.

Rheia, geared up to her teeth, a voluminous pack hanging off her shoulder, and not short of a few paces, Eris Vanserra, holding the leash to…a fawn?

Shadows danced between the youngling’s front legs, provoking a squeaky, unnerved bleat from the creature. Rheia brushed the top of its head in reassurance.

Azriel only barely held back his shadows from exploding around her.

He focused his attentions on her, instead. Her strong yet unassuming silhouette looked lethal, corded and wrapped up for battle. Twin daggers moved faintly with every small step, each one strapped at her thigh.

Truth-Teller’s cold weight presse on his, a reminder.

While Rheia succesfully comforted the baby deer to silence, he had to talk himself out of doing something very stupid.

His hands curled at his sides, the urge to touch muting down when she acknoledged him with a nod. “Spymaster.”

“My Lady,” he greeted.

“Shouldn’t we kill it?” Cassian pointed at that blur of white fur like he was going to do that himself. Feyre looked at Rheia with an interrogative glare.

Eris pulled the animal closer with a small tug of the rope, “With the time it took us to catch it? You really are a simple-minded brute.”

Rheia sighed as soon as the two started growling at each other from the distance.

“Giving a Witch a carcass is offensive and dangerous. A tribute is not necesarrily dead.”

Cassian nodded slowly, while Feyre moved to pet the small animal, “it’s almost cruel, offering a life like that.”

Rheia looked down, the fawn lifting its head to look at her in question.

“Life is notably cruel, and hardly fair to the defenseless,” she said, sliding down the bag she was carrying. Cassian grabbed it for her before it could hit the ground, marveling at the weight.

“What’s in here?” he asked.

“Provisions. And other useful things. I estimate we’ll make it a short journey, but we will have to camp, and a fire could alert creatures of our presence.”

Cassian prodded a little on the top, one nicked eyebrow rising.

She’d really thought of everything.

“There’s blankets in here?” he asked once more.

Rheia gave another wordless nod, leaving him to investigate all the lumps his hands pressed into. She recovered the leash from Eris, the single brush of their hands forcing Azriel to plant himself on the spot until that curious bout of unjustified rage subdued.

He watched her lean towards the Heir of Autumn casually, like they’d eased into each other’s presence as old friends did.

“Make sure no one dies while I’m away.”

The fool grinned; sharp canines set Azriel on a dangerous edge.

“I’m moved. You think I have any power over that.”

He left not long after a curtsy to all the presents, with particular attention and warmth to the hand he’d brushed a moment later.

The journey began with few words and more movements.

By the time the sun had risen, they were out of Spring, and into the crossroads.

Azriel wanted to say it was a nice kind of silence; the kind that he’d long for in missions in court, where he’d have to acclimate to loud, sycophantic nobles with no respect for anyone but themselves.

This quiet, he liked. The reason for it, he didn’t.

But he couldn’t say anything, could only stare at the back of her head like he had been doing for hours now as they trudged the border.

A black ribbon held together the braid behind her head, curled like a resting snake, coiled in itself.

The fawn had shown no interest in either him or his brother, and stuck to her side like she’d been the one to birth it, and hadn’t stripped such a little thing from its piece of grass.

She’d been subtly feeding the little deer with something from her pocket, steering it as forward as the leash allowed. The creature bleated under tepid sun.

They decided to rest when dusk was at its cusp; the plan was getting each little hours of sleep in while they could, because once they entered the Middle, they weren’t going to find many resting spots.

Or any that wouldn’t become a grave if given thought.

She’d offered them to keep guard on first shift, the suggestion well taken; Cassian had been carrying the pack all day, and generally speaking they were both too used to flying to not want some respite after that trek.

Cassian hadn’t taken much more than half an hour after their scant meal to curl on his side and start snoring.

Their camp was…something. Blankets weren’t exactly Illyrian sized, essicated meat and fruit could only be so nutrious, they’d have to hunt and forage and find some stream to refill the water skins before they entered the Middle. Hunting, once they stepped that sacred threshold, was out of the question. Trying to gather water or berries was as close as a suicide plan.

The fawn laid comfortably beside Rheia, sleeping as she cleaned her cutting knife. Azriel couldn’t sleep.

Unsurpisingly, considering he was unable to tear his eyes away from her.

In his time with her, he’d noticed many things about her that he’d only understood later: the acceptance of disrespect that other rulers would have punished, how she put her duty above her desires to the point of suffering her own neglect…

Fuck, he’d understood why she’d insisted he and Elain returned; he hadn’t liked the idea of fleeing battle one bit, but to Rheia they’d not been just guests and the fear for them wasn’t out of diplomacy.

It was affection, in one of many ways he’d witnessed her show it.

And he admired that, admired her. Even now, when she should have been worried about this suicide plan she was set on seeing through, wrapped up in military garb, deadly and beautiful in Hybern’s colors, with a blade in her hand and the knit expression of someone who knew they were being sized up.

“You should be sleeping,” she admonished, pocketing the blade once she’d deemed it clean enough.

They locked eyes in that moonlit moment.

“I’ll sleep when you do,” he asserted, noting how she adjusted in her sprawled sitting position, mumbling something.

“…stop staring.”

“I…can’t.” He didn’t want to, in reality.

“You’re…distracting,” he pointed out, regretting it when she blinked at him.

“Are you delirious?” she hissed, genuine concern lacing her voice.

Azriel swallowed. He should have reminded himself his attempts at lightening up situations backfired most of the time, and this was no time for flirting. And yet…if he didn’t tell her now, would he ever?

Fuck it, what did he have to lose now?

He cleared his voice, half sitting,“I meant to say, you’re beautiful.”

For a moment, he wondered if she’d even heard, but then she turned her head, and he caught her scent, deepened sweetily.

“…shut up,” she murmured.

The image of her hiding her blushing face from him was a perfect one to fall asleep to.

Children in Spring grew up with a fear for crossing borders Rheia had never fully understood.

To her, those had been nothing more than stories created to instill terror of the unknown, and make small children malleable to their parent’s wishes for control and obedience.

Clearly, she had underestimated how truly horrifying reality was.

None of the stories she’d been told in her childhood (and later on, during her marriage) matched the eerieness of what panned in front of her.

The air was ripe with old magic, the ground under her boots hardened by time, new death and old life purring at her in greeting.

She almost missed the Marsh, now. At least that swamp had the courage of being what it was: an infested, monster-prowling hole.

The Middle was too many things all at once to settle on something, thus the unsettling feeling of suffucation she felt. The fawn, skittish creature, trembled at her side to the point she saw herself forced to pick it up and hold it in comfort.

The Illyrians behind her didn’t show much enthusiasm, either.

Azriel stared onward, at the ominous Sacred Mountain, a desecrated monument that housed disgrace not too long ago.

Rheia held the small creature a little tighter, just as Cassian grumbled, “You do know where to find your Witch, I hope?”

Rheia shot him a glare, but nodded. “My blades are Witch-touched. Even if we don’t find her, she’ll hear the Call.”

She motioned to the handles peeking out of their place at either leg, and the General cast a quick glance before nodding.

“You’re a little too casual about this,” he commented, moving on beside her. In the past six days, she’d gotten used to him being a practical, frantic fresh breath of air. He hadn’t looked forward to this, but he made himself useful anyway because he was just like that. He was easy to get along with.

Azriel advanced in front of them, a dark cloud lifting off the ground around him, stray tendrils dancing around her feet.

Rheia adjusted the fawn against her, earning a displeased bleat.

She brushed her palm in a gesture of comfort, and the creature quietened down.

Rheia tucked it protectively against her, perusing their surroundings.

“I can assure you whoever dwells in this place is less scary than what you expect,” she said, tracking a silhouette that sprinted in the far distance.

For all his worry, the Warlord didn’t take out his blade, but rather leaned a little closer, whispering.

“The fact they live in the Middle is not unsettling to you?” he asked.

She shrugged.

“No, not really. There are worse places to live in, anyway. It’s very peaceful here.”

“Because it’s teeming with fiend!”

“Then walk.”

They were walking in circles. Cassian was the first to notice it, yet had waited until Rheia stopped at the carcass of an animal they’d seen a minimum of three times to make it known.

Azriel was not sure what animal it was, only that the bones were starting to show and its eyes were gouged out.

And, despite the fact they were probably stuck in some childish loop home to a dangerous wild being, Rheia let the fawn leap around, like it hadn’t been trembling in her arms for the last two hours.

Azriel had to refrain from asking her what the hell she was doing when she took the pack from Cassian and started rummaging through it for something.

She produced small vials, and just told them to jug down a few mouthfuls.

Not without doing it first herself, of course.

They waited, and waited in silence until something shifted. Until the wind was salty with change and whistling in mockery.

The Witch appeared from all places and none, a shape that formed clearly only once the refraction of the setting sun through the leaves kissed her skin.

Hair ashen dark billowing all around, face pale and violet, bony hands outstretched towards the fawn.

The creature stepped into that withered embrace, and a frail voice spoke from grey lips: “I have always been fond of the tender-hearted.”

The Offering had been accepted.

Her name was Moira, and she lived in a homey cottage that had never been there. Or maybe it had been, and no one ever noticed. Afterall, it was forbidden to map the Middle, but no one had ever said anything about inhabiting it. Witches found home in many dreadful places and one that allowed this kind of anonimity was a strike of luck.

Whater smell of rain had welcomed then in was followed by a sudden thunderstorm the moment the Witch closed the door behind her.

Now, Rheia sat stiffly on a straw chair, looking down at her reflection in the surface of steaming dark tea. Moira sat in front of her, lips blowing over her own cup.

The fire popped with the sounds of a dry chuck of wood burning, the little fawn (a female the Witch had affectionately called Petal,) curled down on the worn out carpet, the leash gone, replaced by a red string.

Various objects were laid in arithmetic chaos, drawing a curve around Rheia.

When she bent her head to take a sip of tea, Azriel slid off the wall imperceptibly, for the Witch started speaking.

Picking up a lock of Tamlin’s hair, she said: “An interesting set of Sisters you carry.”

Rheia’s breath itched for a moment, enough for him to notice before she locked eyes with Moira. She patted one of the blades, and Azriel grew hungry for knowledge. “They were given to me as a reward.”

The witch narrowed her already small eyes, opening the piece of paper in front of her. “Rewards. Challenges. Stolen blades don’t have a Master.”

Rheia revealed no more interest in tea, her body leaning closer with interest when Moira smeared the blood from the tin to her palm.

“Are they really stolen, if the former owner is so easily tricked?” she questioned aloud.

Cassian, who’d been observing them in unnerved quiet, slid Azriel a look that was not subtle in the slightest.

“…they have taught you well. Did Skade tell you the Sisters are War and Revenge?”

Who was Skade, and why did Rheia look so taken aback by the revelation? Surely, if another witch had given up such important daggers to her, she must have told her what blades they were.

“Like the Goddesses,” she whispered. Thunder rolled outside, lightning flashing that gloomy display like it was a sculpture in stone.

Moira warmed the blood, rubbing her hands together as a low hiss rose from the floorboards. Rheia was unphased, attention focused on the skeletal hands projective a white, feeble light.

Moira smiled, a thing of dark beauty. “That would be correct,” she confirmed, “recall how they were ended.”

Rheia couldn’t stand still anymore. She stood up, scratched her palm to the point it was pink from irritation.

“They speared each other, with the same lance. Moral punishment,” she counted, holding her hands palm down, patting helplessly at the hilts of the Sisters.

Moira’s hands opened to free a fire-red mist, dried blood falling down in little grains,“a deception from Death.”

Whatever tension had broken in that moment, it had somehow bent the last of Cassian’s patience. He stepped close, heavy boots making ominous creaks.

“Very lovely story, ladies, but we don’t have any time for that. What’s going on with the Springling?” he pressed, assertive enough that the Witch blinked at him.

She stoo up as well, greyish fabric falling in wisps all around her. She looked like a sprite of old, haunting the space with every step.

She reached one hand out to brush Rheia’s raw palm, a caress of cold tenderness.

“Your brother has fallen victim to a very old cast. I can’t tell you who is the author of this garbled mess, but…it can be undone only by the hand that moved to put it in place.”

Or their death.

Rheia’s face fell in despair, her voice fraying when she spoke.

“He won’t wake up? There is really nothing you can do?”

Moira stopped moving. Her stillness did not meet her eyes; something was brewing behind deep irises.

Rheia braced for anything, and that was enough for the Witch’s cryptic resolve to crumble.

“Oh, Goddess…there is a counter-spell, but…it will take me a night to write it down properly. Are you in a hurry?”

They were, actually.

“We shouldn’t overstay-” Azriel started, quickly stopped by Rheia’s frantic hand.

“Do you have any manners?” she hissed at him, “Please excuse him. We’ll stay, if you’re offering. It is raining, after all.”

On cue, something slammed against the nearest window. Cassian closed in to the center of the room like it would provide protection from primordial foes…which, considering the Witch looked mostly unharmed, was probably true.

Moira looked well at Rheia, then at him, then at Cassian again, sizing them up like she was measuring the length of something.

“Let me.”

With a clap, there was an allarming distension in space and time. Azriel allowed his shadows to let loose around, dragging Rheia close enough that she crashed against him with her back, his hand cupping her elbow as the room materialized around them, morphing and moving. The buzz ended when the room formed fully, sturdy.

Rheia appeared cathatonic, pressed onto him like it was second nature.

He nudged her, and she leapt from him, shadows lingering around her in stubborn twirls.

“Oh. Th…thank you. Sorry,” she whispered, detatching to look around the enlarged space. Carpets and cushions covered the floor of a large reading room, a small lamp projecting a warm light as it coiled from the ceiling like a vine.

Rheia blinked when the fawn (who, frankly, they’d mostly forgotten about) rubbed against her leg before she trotted to her new friend.

The Witch lingered by the door with little weariness to her poise. She curtsied at her guests.

“I will see you morning come. Good night.”

Cassian occluted snoring was becoming a constant Rheia was finding comfort in.

With how momentous the journey had been she was not surprised him simply ‘resting his eyes' led him straight in the arms of mother dream, and frankly she envied that.

When she was exhausted, resting was rarely an option. Powering through everything was now an engraving in her habits.

She wouldn't find much rest tonight, or in any night that followed where she was sick with worry.

The reading room was large even by her standards, enough that two grown Illyrians could rest comfortably without crowding the space.

Rheia only wished Azriel had joined his brother in his slumber.

Of course, he hadn't. Instead, he'd shed his jacket, and Rheia had to busy herself with something else because the room wasn't big enough to contain the amount of dirty thoughts his naked arms had planted in her head.

And those hands, Gods Old and Merciful, the things she imagined his hands would do if they were in her, ravenous and warm.

His scent was so potent in that moment she almost forgot she was supposed to be pissed at him.

Almost.

And now she was pissed off, and aroused. Great combination.

When she turned, he was already looking at her, but more specifically, at her blades.

The Sisters gleamed with Witch-magic, whispering in a language that attuned well with Truth-Teller, sheathed, whose sapphired handle lit up in answer.

He wanted to see them, closer, and Rheia wanted to run and hide under the nearest rock.

His shadows eagerly advanced like she was game and they were hunters.

“You’ve held my dagger,” he said, and she didn't hide how her head immediately want to the other meaning of the word.

If he read that in her eyes, he didn't comment.

“They're very…temperamental."

Her hands flew to the hilts, passing by her pistol with a small sound only she was aware of.

“Aren't all ladies?” he asked, a teasing tilt in her voice.

“Hey.”

The shy press of a smile softened his face and she realized she'd give him anything. Her blades, her heart, she would slit her throat and pour blood in a cup for him if he only just thought about it.

But he didn't ask that, he would never ask that.

The curve of his lips (a smile a little cruel on default) mellowed when she stepped in his shadows. She analysed the space for a cushion to succumb into.

“I'm joking. Sit.”

The situation felt weirdly intimate.

That she'd held Truth-Teller, it was a fact. That first day, the blade that had intended to kill her hadn’t even made a scrape. He had fainted with it held tight to his shaking fist, with her looming over him in observation. It had slipped out of his sweating palm easily, murmuring a promise of death with every moment it lay on her work desk.

She thought he'd forgotten it.

But he never forgot anything, did he?

Nobody had asked her that before. She didn't allow anyone to even come close to the Sisters when they were strapped to the wall of the crypt.

Yura wasn't allowed within a mile, even if he'd always shown interest and a morbid attraction.

When she'd carried them the first time, Uthyr had looked so unsettled. That she'd gone to a Witch-infested corner of Hybern and had been deemed worthy.

If he couldn't determine her value, then what kind of husband was he? What kind of owner?

But he let her keep them, when he could have demanded she surrendered her weapons to him. He didn't.

In fact, he couldn't ask that of her, because holding the Sisters in possession did nothing to change the intensity of her rage.

She'd killed with bare hands, she didn't have use for weapons. They were just a commodity to her, nothing more to it.

He got to keep his murderous bride, and she her weapons.

She sat crisscross in front of Azriel, close enough that shadow ghosted the movements of her open palms, the sheathed blades passed in offering.

A piece of her, surrendered to him. But it wasn't really surrender, was it? Not to Azriel. This was sharing. Sharing with him a piece of her she tended to hide to most.

And the thought...didn’t seem scary anymore. What should have been frightening, was chillingly comforting.

War and Revenge slid out of their leather encasing carefully, the song of old metal greeting him.

She flinched a little when he teased the sharp edge, full lips parting.

“And you got this from a Witch?"

He sounded weirdly impressed about it. Was it to unimaginable, that she’d willingly meddled with Witches and had survived it? Getting people to warm up to her was hard with her kind, much more with such a marginalized category.

She tracked the curl of his fingers around the hilt, covering runic carvings.

She swallowed a plea.

Instead, she leaned a little back in the cushions.

“Skade was…difficult to befriend.”

Tracing the side of the blade again, he hummed. Warm overlight made the metal glint.

“Witches are notoriously so.”

He didn’t fumble much longer with her weaponry; their hands brushed when he scooted closer. She looked subtly behind him, to the sleeping mass that was the General.

He caught her eyes, she fumbled with the sheaths before placing the Sisters aside, a nervous tinge to her voice.

“These come from a treasury that was recovered by her Coven.”

The story was a little longer, and lot more complicated, but Rheia wasn’t about to drone on all night. She hoped, in her heart of hearts, he’d just drop the sunject at once. Being in his presence had been taxing enough, and without Cassian to use as a conversation shield, all his attentions had inevitably fallen on her.

He was so close she could count every little scar that nicked his beautfiul face, that the swirling patterns inked in his skin hypnotized her.

He looked at her with those warm, unfairly beautiful eyes of his, and she heard her heart stammer, heard the blood rushing to her ears.

“You're being very inquisitive about this,” she pointed out.

He shrugged, like it was nothing.

“There are a lot of things about you I don't know.”

Maybe it was better he didn’t know anymore about her before his image of her was forever distorted beyond repair. Better let him believe she was a stock up noble with too many undoable ideals.

Even if she wanted to open her heart to him, Rheia understood this was not the right timing, nor the proper situation. Even if he was so perfect it made her heart and mind unravel.

She stood up with her heart weeping inside her ribs, “Sleep, Azriel.”

He caught her wrist so fast she didn’t even have the time to think.

He stood up to his full height, nostrils flared and an unreadable glimmer in his eyes. “Do you even understand the level of self-control I am excercising right now, when you smell like this?”

He ground his teeth on that last word, darkness spanning around him. He looked like a vision of death, fatally beautiful.

“I’ve had to witness you cling to that cursed lordling, unable to do anything beside imagine if what we shared was anything to you—”

Her voice was a ragged burst. “It was!”

Fuck it. Fuck it all to hell and back. Letting him believe she felt nothing was insulting to his heart and her torment.

“Then don’t tell me to sleep. Let me in, Rheia. Let me in before I make a fool of myself.”

His grip softened, his hand encasing hers.

So close, he was so close she caught every single note of his scent, everything that she’d unknowingly leaned onto until this moment.

Her hand quivered in his, a breath was shared in the space between them.

“I don’t know how,” she whined.

Rheia had never wanted anything like this, never in a manner that made her heart clench at the thought it might elude her.

Now she had it in front of her, present and tangible, and she was terrified she’d ruin it.

He tugged her closer, warm palm pressing againg her cheek.

His hand was present, solid…she went slack for a moment, catching herself when she remembered they weren’t alone in the room.

He chuckled at her horrified expression, wings flaring behind him as he pushed her towards a table just crammed between two bookcases.

He shook his head, like he could shook her worries, “Cas is a heavy sleeper. Just be quiet for me, yeah? Can you manage?”

She kissed the pad of his thumb whe he passed it over her lips, red eyes trained on him. “I…I can.”

With a satisfied grunt, he helped her up that table.

They stared at each other in contemplative silence, not quite sure what to do or say but stare at each other like they’d never done before then.

Meeting for the first time again, in a place and time just for them to know.

When he kissed her, it was clumsy, awkward and sweet. So different from the last time.

Fingers tapped her waist, palms firm against her. Her mouth opened to his, and Rheia tasted intense want, warmth passing through her like lightning.

She wanted to call out to him, through that transparent line that linked them, settled for grabbing his face and kissing him properly.

She could have spent a lifetime just like that, with him hunched above her, wanting and warm and all-consuming.

She pulled back, staggering, and he attached his lips pretty much on every available corner of her skin, lingering to nibble at the skin of her jaw, biting down on her earlobe.

Rheia bit down on a whine, even when he outright licked the high point of her ear.

“Let me see you?” he murmured. Rheia caught shadows already nudging the hook that held her jacket tight on her.

Her hand stilled. “We…can’t do anything too taxing. I’m still injured.”

Gods, when he cupped her waist like that she wanted to die a little. He pulled back to press a swift kiss on her cheek, warm breath provoking a rise of gooseflesh.

“Haven’t we established you come good enough rubbing on me?”

Now, she wanted to hit him a little, because he was right. They were both pent-up, there wouldn’t be a moment to process it that they’d probably be too hazed out to comprehend what happened.

And, if Rheia’s intuition was right (which, in these matters, it usually was), she was never going to be ready for him properly, not with another person sleeping in the room and the stubborn wish she had to show him how truly rabid she could be in a bed.

He deserved a bed, a soft mattress, sweet smelling sheets, lavander under his pillow so he would sleep peacefully…

He stopped her train of thought when the jacket fell open, then his shadows did his work for him and unwrapped her like she was a present he was eager to put to use.

He kissed her again, a couple of pecks full of fire before his mouth followed a path to her shoulder, licking down to that wicked, stinging cut. She hissed, and he pressed his lips to that dreadful cut again, delicate. “Lay down,” he demanded.

Rheia gulped. “Won’t it break?”

“I don’t think you really care about that, do you?”

“…No.”

“Good.”

The hardwood table made only a faint creek when she laid down. Her chest softened at the cusp, soft breasts falling on each side.

Rheia watched him remove his sleeveless shirt hastily, throwing it somewhere behind him. He was on her a moment later, holding her down as he kissed her, easing himself between her open legs.

His hand squeezed her covered thigh once, the fabric separating them a hindrance, but one they needed.

Rheia didn’t think she’d control herself if she’d feel his hands so near.

Did rebel children feel like this? Like theirs was a secret unlike any other, a charm that could not be set upon the world lest they wanted to plunge it in chaos?

With his lips pressing the arch of her neck, the shape of his impatience there in waiting, Rheia was sure they were somewhat like that.

She raised her hand subtly, among curious shadows busy undoing her hair from their bounds. Her fingers ended on his belt, and then it was no longer a ghost, his presence.

It was a press of warmth first, then electrifying all at once. He bucked once, hooking her leg behind with a yank.

His face was an inch from hers when he started moving.

Words lodged between her heart and her throat.

Gods, what did she do to deserve this? What cruel fate made her this coward, that she could not utter a sentence that would end her agony and his?

Among the sacrality of that moment, among every drag of his hips against hers, in pleasure that mounted every time the shape of him pressed down on her wet center, all she could think about were the lies and the truths she was weaving together in a deceptive tapestry.

Then he kissed her again, just as that spark between then reached a beautiful, unified finish.

With their heartbeats bending to a beautiful chant, the Queen made a decision.

The morning came in with its inevitable revelations.

Rheia left Azriel’s embrace with heartache; alas, she’d worn him out past what she believed they both could handle for a night like that.

Moira invited her for breakfast, Petal hot on her heels.

The spell was ready, a set of three pages written front to back with neat, clear instructions in hand writing that must have belonged to an aristocrat once.

Rheia looked at the Witch, and thought to herself that she beheld a grace not found in many noble ladies she had known.

Once, she would have feared a female like that, now…it was shockingly easy to return the smile that sat on such a colorless face.

She had replenished the waterskins for them, and had laid a spread of foods Rheia had some trouble choosing from.

She ate this and that sparsely, but her thoughts never released the focus on the twine around the papers, or the feeling this matter was anything but done with.

There were no thanks or appreciations exchanged.

Moira let her make use of the other commodities of the house (it seemed she had really sweat herself off in the night, who knows why?) but didn’t comment on what she might have heard, or how every spiral of blonde hair looked wind-touched.

When she was done with her business, her travelling companions had entered the kitchen with fortright steps.

Rheia met Azriel’s gaze briefly, and was very aware he’d had a fright when he’d woken up to her absence.

She tried a soft, reassuring smile, but it fell when Cassian got in front of his brother.

Rheia wanted to tear her hair from the roots.

They’d rubbed hard enough on each other the smell not staining everything had been a miracle. It was obvious he would notice upon waking.

Moira, if she noticed the tension, didn’t wish to intervene.

She sat, happily knitting in a corner of the room while Azriel picked at the buffet before him, just enough that it would not be deemed impolite.

Cassian ate a good amount, enough that Moira was happy to pack them the rest of the food for the journey.

When Rheia tried to take the pack to carry it, the General was quick to snatch it from her. Too quick, in fact, that he slapped her hand away.

There was an awkward tension between them, one that only lessened when Moira saw them to the door.

She smiled at them, not the haunting smile witches were known for, but a smile of good fortune. Her eyes landed on Rheia, and her voice was gentle, “I hope your brother awakens. A path has opened for safe passage; I bid you three farewell, and many blessings.”

Rheia bowed her head, Illyrians joining them in reciprocating respects. “Song and Glory to you, Moira.”

The journey revealed itself easy, but tense.

There was no longer the easy floe of conversation: Cassian had switched spots with his brother, and now led in the front, while Azriel walked beside her.

He was not subtle. Despite the embarassment another person would probably feel that festered above them, he was not deterred.

Rheia figured he was simply used to the other’s moods, which, with all the goodwill in the world, she couldn’t understand. Sure, they probably needed to take into account the scent of horny fae was not a pleasant thing to wake up to in any circumstance.

Still, Azriel was an adult, a little too grown for his brother to act like she’d stolen something from him. She might have been stubborn and plotting, but it ended in the council room.

In intimate circumstances she just adapted. And she didn’t have the time to bewitch people into blindly giving her what she wanted.

Shadows lingered around her in ecstatic floating, happy their master was allowing them free reign. Rheia detected a subtle warning in that, too, a vow of intention. He wasn’t going to let her get away from him again.

That would be trouble, for both of them.

Damage control had always been her forte.

The thing is, it is very difficult to imagine, satisfying all parties involved.

Her bunch had noticed she'd been absent; her attempt to sneak back in the covers failed from the get go when Yura and Rex waited up for her, arms crossed outside the tent.

The reprimand didn't come in words, it came in the presence of Dumas at breakfast, while she consumed a small serving of gruel in a wooden bowl, sitting down while he mirrored her, busy cutting a crisp red apple with a blade of fortune.

He'd never been too much of a talker, but the silence was unnerving. It appeared even the comfort of unsaid words would not work in these circumstances.

Rheia sipped from her spoon, focusing on the oats and cereal floating in diluted milk. She moved the bowl to her lap, and wrapped the small blanket over her shoulders.

It was still rather early in the morning; Rex was getting treated in the other tent, likely being forced to rest by a scowling Seele. Yura had organized the scouts to scour the perimeters, find any trail that may have been hidden. He'd said he'd be the one to visit the shed again, and he didn’t want her to strain herself furthermore.

Rheia hadn't found it in herself to deny him. Lack of sleep rendered her too tired to talk back, and she knew better than to butt heads with him that early in the day.

As they sat there, Rheia contemplated it had been a long while since she and Dumas had a heart to heart conversation. A true conversation, that is. One that wasn’t an exchange of orders, anyway.

It was hard being emotionally emboldened when they were both so closed in, and that made conversation with him more touching.

Like when he'd revealed what had happened to his face and why, and when she’d confessed why she'd gone to the trouble of finding the Marquis and paid off the indenture that had made Dumas his champion.

He offered her the first cut slice with the stance of someone who knew he was being watched.

“Here. You look like you need it,” he said in his gruff but amicable tone, the rasp of his voice familiar.

Rheia nodded, taking that generous slice without protesting.

“How'd you sleep?” she asked.

“Decently. Seele didn't kick much tonight.”

Rheia wanted to argue Seele probably did kick him relentlessly in her sleep and he didn't feel it because he was asleep as a rock and exhausted from their travels, but the respect Dumas showed in not airing out their friend’s troubled sleep habits was sweet and Rheia ate any word up.

She bit onto the apple with a little half smile, placing the bowl somewhere beside her. The tent was not small by any means, however it was crowded with belongings they still needed to sort out and she wasn't going to get up and burn energy just for a mere bowl.

“I'm glad.”

He slashed another piece, bringing it to his mouth, the crunch of his munching the only sound for a while, before he spoke again.

“...you don't like being here. The Court, I mean.”

An understatement. Rheia didn't hate it there, it was just unrecognizable to her, changed just as tragically as she had been.

“I guess. I haven't been home in…forever.”

It was foolish of her to dwell on it. Spring had ceased being a comfort way before her marriage, now it was nothing if not a reminder of her moral failings. A memento that wanting to protect something and actually protecting it were very distinct things.

Dumas’ expression tensed; the red skin of the apple pooled in his lap, his elbows came to rest on his thighs as he locked eyes with her.

He cocked his head.

For a moment he looked stuck between a rock and a hard place; his eyebrows furrowed in his search for the right words.

“The arena, when we…when you made sure it was destroyed…I couldn't stand even the thought of being in its vicinity. We wouldn't blame you if you wanted to go back for the same reason.”

Rheia thought she was in a delirium from lack of sleep.

He was suggesting a retreat. After the trouble she went through to retrieve a vessel.

“My brother is here,” she articulated, her voice clear in the hush of the tent.

“He may never wake up.”

Gods, she hated that sentence. She knew everyone was giving him for dead, each with their own reasoning.

Dumas was, in his own way, trying to console her. Just like Yura had been doing a week prior, when the explosion of the vial had made her fear the possibility of having lost Rex.

Knowing her brother was dancing within the limit of oblivion, knowing deep down even her friends were hoping she made peace with the big chance he wouldn't walk again, Rheia refused to give into that thought no matter how much truth it held.

“You don't know that,” she barked, hating how weak she sounded.

Somewhere in that room, hidden in-between blankets and her linens, under the Xidar, Tamlin’s diary was waiting for her to decipher its ink.

She would not give up on her brother where everyone else had, not because of blood or spite, but because this was bigger than it looked. She knew it was and she knew there was a way to undo whatever sorcery was at play.

If anyone could find out, it was her.

She shook her head when he offered another slice of the fruit, motioning to the open flap of the tent.

“Go feed Edith. And prepare my saddle, please,” she commanded, standing up to stretch.

Dumas masked his reprehension. He nodded, and left her to prepare her pack for the day.

She had underestimated how scary her association to Hybern made her.

In her mind, the connection had been severed a long time ago, well before he deemed her as nothing more but an unnecessary object he didn't want to play with anymore.

To be feared the way he'd been, was an insult she'd have to resolve another day.

For now, Rheia decided to take a leisure walk, getting Edith used to the soil. The caparison had been changed along with the saddle, making it a little easier for the mare to move freely.

All in all, maybe being kept at a distance was not that much of an issue. It granted her a proper amount of privacy and made it easy to disappear in the foliage, away from all these people who stared and whispered.

The Xidar was tucked securely in her slingbag, along with a few trinkets and basic necessities, just in case she needed them. Twinblades were delicately tucked on either side of her hips, pistol in its holster…all hidden in plain sight, like they should be.

The limits of the encampment were precise and jagged, extending until they were interrupted by trees.

Rheia pulled Edith into a small patch of green, dismounting without too much of a show.

She started leading her under the shade of large oaks, looking around in inspection.

Sounds were somewhat muffled, small whimpers detectable only by her fine hearing.

Only an idiot would have missed the glowing eyes of nymphs, hidden in plain sight. Dryads shaking the trees with no mind to bother hiding, curious as someone the same and Other prowled the green like she belonged there.

Eris had mentioned that the intrusion had not been taken well. Although fully aware the Lord of The Land was not in a fit condition to rule, they'd picked a few fights trying to get his body back. The image her mind had conjured had been as jarred as it was moving.

Still, if the issue had been only recent, how long ago had the High Lords set up camp? Nymphs were not known to be very happy with the High Lord about how things were going lately and for them to even consider coming to his rescue…

Then she had to thank them properly.

By daylight, the spoils of the old manor appeared no less haunting. The hollow that absence had left was even more imposing than the former structure had ever been, though he couldn't say. Azriel had never stepped foot in there before, the spies hidden in there reported an opulence that warranted questions.

Those questions had died, buried in ruins forever.

From his spot on that tall tree, Azriel observed Yura's back as he scribbled on his handbook, then paused to move from one corner to the other with meticulous precision. He did so a little over an hour before he even realized someone was watching him.

Azriel greeted him with a vague hand gesture, and watched his lips move to the tune of a disgruntled “for fuck’s sake,” before he leapt off the tree with a stretch of wings.

Darkness floated like a cloud around him, sticking close to his wings when he landed. Yura didn’t give much of a greeting, rather focused on his study. Better yet, Azriel would wager he was trying to avoid any conversation with anyone.

He was a nervous wreck; the tension in his body was apparent even more when he forced himself still.

His complexion had grown rather pink from discomfort.

“What are you doing?” Azriel probed, wings tucked in as he moved some steps forth.

The Storm Summoner, to his credit, didn’t flinch, nor did he stop what he was doing.

“Rheia asked me to take note of the planimetry,” he spoke, no more and no less. Azriel only caught a glimpse of ink on paper when Yura tucked that handbook in his cape, spinning on his heels as he crossed the flattened ground like he hadn’t been analysing it just a moment earlier.

Azriel was hot on his heels.

“Why?” he questioned mid strut, trailing after him with purpose.

Yura shrugged, gathering a hefty bag from the edge of a boulder. He placed his pack back on his shoulder, taking a breath.

“Not my business, and not yours, either.”

Stubborn to a fault, or stubbornly loyal to Rheia, Azriel couldn’t tell. He could tell however Yura was setting his pace a little faster than normal, uncomfortable with the topic at hand.

Azriel didn’t outright stop him; his shadows stuck to the Storm Summoner in persistence to block him on the spot, enough that he stilled completely by himself.

Frustration pinched his features when he turned, the shadow of a stubble against his dull skin.

Azriel perceived this was a conversation Yura wasn’t looking forward to.

“I can’t help you if you don’t tell me what she’s doing,” the Shadowsinger pressed, as to which Yura, no meek creature he was, promptly replied: “Then ask her yourself.”

Azriel would have laughed if he wasn’t on the cusp of a stress meltdown.

“I would, if she wanted to speak to me,” he responded then, the firm hold of his powers lessening on Yura. The advisor didn’t move, busied himself with brushing an impudent wisp of shadow that was trying to subtly reach the underside of his cape, curious as to what was the little bump on his waist.

Azriel watched him run his hand through dry, dust speckled locks, and realized just in that moment how little he’d been paying attention.

Yura smoothed crinkles away, turning to Azriel with tired, dark eyes.

“If you have problems with Rheia, you will not find solutions crowding me, Azriel.”

Among the few things he was aware of, that was maybe the most obvious. It would have been nice if just one word from Yura could change Rheia’s perspective, and it was also unrealistic and a little disrespectful.

She had a right to her feelings and if she felt hurt then it was not within his rights to police that.

That didn’t mean he wanted to be in the darkness as to what she was going through. She could keep that frown as much as she wanted, Azriel could and would find a way to lessen the load where he was able to.

Yura understood that better than anyone.

The Shadowsinger called back all his shadows from their place around Yura, the gesture so plain it made the Storm Summoner smile, if a bit strained.

He turned again, lost in a perusal of something between the trees.

“Can we at least talk?” Azriel asked.

Yura’s eyes widened so harshly he thought they were going to disappear.

“Like…friends?” he chuckled, incredulous.

“Yeah. We are friends, I hope?”

He didn’t try to keep his voice stable, and that seemed to help. Yura looked from one side of green to the other, making sure there were no suspicious movements before he motioned for Azriel to follow.

“...I’m going to get in so much trouble for this. Come.”

Azriel had never seen a person produce a flask so fast in his life.

“Want a taste?” Yura proposed. Azriel supposed, if he was asking, it was probably better he did loosen himself up somehow.

He took the uncapped recipient without thinking too much about how strong it could be, the smell sweet.

Yura balanced himself against a half-burnt tree, giving Azriel a heads up.

“Careful. It's pure alcohol.”

Had he never said that. All that sweet aroma was a coverup for the sharpest thing Azriel had ever ingested in his life: it burned the back of his throat with a deliciously spicy after taste.

He let the viscosity cradle under his tongue before sputtering.

“Fucking Hell, and you drink this stuff straight?”

Yura took the flask back from him with a nonchalant smile, latching it back to his belt.

“It's been some momentous weeks. Got to have something to fall back into,” he explained, earning a concerned look.

If the situation was so dire it needed to be handled with this strong of a spirit…

“This could kill a horse, Yura.” With the right dosage.

Azriel crossed his arms. Yura let the pack down, unphased by the sentence, or what Azriel was catching in between the lines.

The silence fell heavy, extinguishing the brief levity they'd shared.

Yura made himself comfortable on a trunk fallen by.

“I'm going to tell you this because I trust you. This conversation has to stay between us.”

Azriel nodded.

“I won’t tell a single soul.”

At the reassurance, Yura didn’t waste himself with preambles.

“We never had a chance to win fair and square. Someone in our close vicinity fed information to the Loyalists. The Residence was struck with cannons, and well over half the North Garden was destroyed along with the adjacent living quarters.”

Azriel nodded.

He had a sensation he knew who’d been guilty of playing both sides. Still, he let Yura go on.

“We have kept the defensive up for most of it. True trouble came when we set up headquarters in the field. They predicted that, too.”

The male took a breath, licking his lips. His face was clenching in a manner that told Azriel the subject at hand had struck him deep, too.

“There’s no easy way to say this. Sylpha was an agent on the Council’s behalf. She fed intel and the ones that opposed were sent to jail. We’re trying to get to them, I’ll let you imagine the rest.”

Then and there, Azriel wished he’d been wrong. He wished he had taken that threat more seriously.

He hadn’t wanted to overstep and keeping that suspicion to himself had proven fatal.

“Wait…when Sylpha came, then…”, he swallowed, sitting down on the edge of that very same trunk as Yura nodded bitterly, confirming what was now obvious to both of them.

“It was to ascertain the weak points of our defenses, yes.”

“Wait…when Sylpha came, then…”, he swallowed, sitting down on the edge of that very same trunk as Yura nodded bitterly, confirming what was now obvious to both of them.

“It was to ascertain the weak points of our defenses, yes.”

Azriel was left to stare at him, all his thoughts converging on the vulnerability that had inevitably transpired. Sylpha had taken advantage of the fealty Rheia held in her regards, just to hit her where it hurt the most. To weaken her and make an example out of that slip-up.

Yura’s hand played with the flask, uncapped again as he took a much-needed swing.

“Rheia believes this to be her fault alone, but she couldn't have known. Sylpha did provide a portion of her soldiers, and those soldiers had no idea of her allegiance either.”

Disingenuous until the end– Azriel saw, now, that he’d been so stupid in dismissing Lunessa’s obvious plea for attention. She wanted to warn Rheia, and he should have helped her do that.

Yura capped the flask again, looking paradoxically sobered up. He stared somewhere behind Azriel’s head, his expression losing edge, a smile curving his lips subtly.

“The kids are holding forth, we've regained some footing. Not all is lost, though this is no small matter. We're relying more on wits than numbers.”

And now that their Queen was off on such a matter, they had even less numbers. The more things Azriel knew, the more he realized just how much damage had been done, even indirectly.

He sat in silence with Yura, the weight of the conversion hanging there between them.

Yura started again, his tone confidential.

“Rheia has always had a very high opinion of Sylpha. She doesn’t know how to process this kind of blow in a way that is healthy, and this mess with your Court is hitting the nail on the head.”

He'd been too focused on trying to find fault with Rheia to realize it was on him to know what his High Lord had been dealing with, and instead he'd given for granted Rhys would find proper solutions, if problems arose.

He didn't, and now they had a bigger mess to clean after.

“I’m mortified. You must believe I had no part in this charade.”

Yura’s reassurance was not as comforting as he wished it could be.

“I do believe that. Rheia does, too. She’s just as close to exploding as the sun is warm, so…I don’t think it matters much.”

No, he supposed if something like that had happened to him, he'd have gone insane before he could even think it over.

“What can I do for her?” he asked, receiving a soft shake of Yura's head.

“If only I knew. She isn’t much better with me or the others, she doesn’t want to talk about it. If you want an opinion, just treat her normally.”

Darkness purred around him, a murmur he knew meant ‘told you so.’

“I should apologize about yesterday, too.”

Yura leaned on his hands at that, the gesture a far call from the previous discomfort, his expression knowing.

Azriel was taken aback. He thought he'd been subtle, if not stealthy.

It seemed he’d overestimated himself, or underestimated Yura had to know everything concerning Rheia, whether he liked it or not.

“Try speaking to him. I doubt he’ll reply, but perhaps…it might help.”

Rheia figured anything was better than that awful, thundering silence. She watched Seele draw blood from Tamlin’s thumb, prickling the skin with the needle enough to gather a sample in a teacup.

They sat on either side of Tamlin, the hand in Seele’s grasp with the sleeve pulled up, showcasing blueish veins. He’d never been that pale before, and his skin had never felt that cold.

He shouldn’t have been that cold.

His hand was slack in her hold, heavy. Not dead, though, and she had to hold onto that somehow. She took Seele’s suggestion in stride, and just spoke.

Spending decades entertaining people from all kinds of places and backgrounds had made putting together stories a necessity; sometimes, a good story saved her the pain of uncomfortable meetings and overall made her feel less like fancy furniture.

She told him of what had started growing in Hybern, that for the first time in centuries they had fruit all-over the valleys. She remembered an old saying that had made her smile with how tongue-twisty it was; that she would burn the Throne of Bones once things settled, and hopefully that could be enough to relinquish the last memories of Uthyr to oblivion.

She didn’t tell him the damage she’d witnessed, words stuck so far down her throat she didn’t think she’d ever voice unless she vomited them.

By the time Rheia was onto the system of taxation she wanted to implement, Seele was done with her ministries. She rubbed her palm on her sweat-slicked forehead, gently rolling down the sleeve again, his hand bandaged. They’d cut the blunt end of his claws to avoid abrupt cuts, were he to move.

In the back of her mind, Rheia imagined waking up would be a very stressful deal if the first thing he had to cater to were his nails, of all things.

Seele gave her a satisfied smile, placing her vials away as she listed everything out.

“His vitals are steady, blood is clean. Organs intact, which was our main worry…”

They both stopped to stare at Tamlin’s motionless face, Rheia tucking the set of blankets under his arms, like it could null the coolness of his skin.

“There’s a but somewhere in there,” she pointed out.

Seele sent a sidelong glance at the huddled fae in colored robes just a few steps of distance, busy with pastes Rheia didn’t understand the need for. Rheia may not have thought them suspicious, but given the recent events, she’d made it clear they needed to keep it on the low when the other healers were in close proximity.

Seele understood that clearly, and her voice lowered to a sybil Rheia leaned close to understand.

“It’s nothing physiological per se, but…he’s cold as an icicle. It’s weird. A fever would make sense, but this is the opposite. It’s absurd.”

It truly was. Rheia had never heard of a fallen soldier experiencing sudden coldness unless it was in the form of shivering, and when one was as cold as her brother was, they were usually next to burial.

Letting go of his hand, hers curled into fists on her lap.

“This state is supposed to prevent injuries from worsening. It’s not triggered randomly,” Rheia explained, rattling her brain for something. A clue, anything.

Had he eaten those damn roots that grew on the mountain? There was a flower with weird foliage that caused catatonic episodes that could last weeks if one was unlucky. Or maybe some creature had bitten him…an insect, or perhaps a word spelled wrong in an enchantment…

Everything and nothing.

“There may be other forces at play,” Seele suggested, and Rheia surrendered to ominous chills.

“Darker ones, you mean?” she murmured.

Seele nodded, hiding a little in her shoulders.“...it’s a possibility.”

“You wouldn’t mean…”

“Somebody hexed your brother…or did worse than a simple hex.”

Now, that would mean two things. If the hex theory was true…then it meant Tamlin had stepped on the wrong foot, maybe even without meaning to.

But Rheia had seen hexes. She had witnessed her dead husband cast upon people maladies that left suicide the only viable way out.

No, hexes were sadistic means of entertainment.

Her brother was in no apparent pain, he was just…stuck.

It wasn’t a hex. It wasn’t a curse or a petty spell.

The simplest realization was also the most bone-chilling.

“Blood magic.”

The gathering in that tent looked less like a meeting, and more like a mess.

Yura didn't like her idea. Granted, it was frantically put together and sounded more like a fool’s errand than a plan.

When she mentioned they needed to find a witch, it hadn’t seemed like a bad idea. But then she mentioned the Middle, the Bog of Oorid and Yura had this look of horror as soon as he recalled Amarantha.

“Have you lost your mind?!” he bellowed, his voice splintering silence.

Rheia held her head high; she circled the makeshift table within a moment, walking in front of Yura until she was all up in his face, shouting just as loud as he had, “I have never been more sound!”

If Rheia had been pissed before, now she was furious. That tent was too small to hold in that confrontation. Seele and Dumas flanked the sides of the flap, and they looked just as in discomfort as Rheia felt in having that conversation.

“You are not taking a step out of this camp until you have come back to yourself!”

Yura made a gesture at Dumas, motioning to Rheia.

“Seize her.”

No sooner did he say that, she had her gun drawn, Dumas his hands up in a calming gesture.

Her snarl made Seele’s skin look paler than moonlight.

“Don’t even think about restraining me,” she warned.

The next five minutes that followed, were ones she used to repose the gun, fingers trembling with the knowledge she’d almost done something she couldn’t take back.

Seele, for all her might, had eyes reddened with tears unshed and Dumas was fighting on the spot to not pat her face dry himself.

Yura sensed the bubble had yet to burst, swallowing down any indiscretion when he noticed she was refusing to meet anyone’s gaze, the shame and frustration thick enough to cut.

He cleared his throat, rubbed his hands together.

“I know you’re worried, but we’re not talking about a walk amongst lilies here, Rheia.”

She shook her head.

“I’ve never been hurt by witches before,” she countered, uselessly.

Yura closed his eyes, gathering patience he didn’t have in spare.

“Yet. You haven’t been hurt by witches yet,” he corrected. “I don’t want you to go there until we’ve exhausted all options.”

Seele closed her lithe hand over her mouth to muffle a sound of disbelief, Dumas’ shoulders tensed up. Rare had been instances in which Yura dared to order her Queen around, that she didn’t believe she’d ever witness one in her lifetime.

The atmosphere in that enclosed corner of the world became cold as death before it started thawing under fire-hot iron.

Rheia was unreadable.

If they’d ever seen her angry, then they needed to rethink what the word angry meant entirely letter by letter and make up a new one for the fury marring her face.

Her fists were so tight one could taste the blood her nails were drawing out. Her whole body looked taut as a bowstring, and when she spoke the tingle of magic rattled the earth under them.

“We already have! My brother could have woken up if this was any normal illness, but it isn’t!”

Yura waited until the ground was stable again to speak, his head bowed, although he did maintain a stable voice.

“The Middle is dangerous, uncharted land. You could die,” he said it like a fact, not a worry he had, although it went unsaid.

“He will if I don’t go.”

“Please, Rheia. I’m not asking you this as your advisor, but as someone who cares about you, as your friend. Think about this. There’s no need to go to such extremes.”

No one stopped her when she walked towards the open flap, all lucidity lost.

“I need to get the fuck out of here,” the curse rolled off her tongue like a plea, so unusual in her refined voice.

Nobody dared stop her, though someone did speak to make her still.

“Where are you going?” Seele asked, but Rheia could not find the courage to look her in the eyes.

Her balled fists shook again, her voice feeble and tried:“Not far…just…I need to have a moment. Alone.”

The weight of her absence was bonebreaking in the uncomfortable quiet it triggered.

“We should kill her.”

The briefing, until Amren had spoken, had been a hot mess of nothing useful.

That proposal had sobered up all the people lounging in Helion’s tent. Some lost all interest in the glass they were nursing, turning their attention to the silver-eyed fae.

Amren didn’t continue. To her, the matter didn’t need an explanation, and it had to be done without the pain of weaving useless theatrics.

Someone laughed nervously. Helion sat a little straighter, the gold rimmed glass abandoned in front of him. He hadn’t expected his fellow High Lords –and Ladies– would flock when he suggested his headquarters for the briefing, seeing as they were more warded against intrusion.

His attendants, for all their surprise, had been delightful, and Helion hoped his hosting could quell some bloodthirst, or inebriate them enough to make them forget it.

Clearly, it wasn’t working.

They needed more wine.

“Alright. Does anyone have a better plan? Possibly one that doesn't end in murder. No offence, of course.”

Amren took none.

She cared little for the reaction she had elicited, so much so it had grated on Thesan’s patience to the point of worry.

“You’ve been here less than three hours and you’ve already suggested we go with the unlawful option,” he called.

“It’s effective,” she replied.

Nobody argued that point. The issue was that killing a ruler in plain sight, when they were painfully outnumbered and didn’t pose any real threat, would reflect poorly on their diplomatic handlings. Worse yet, tensions with the Continent were at an all-time high, and a mistake of that kind would be seen as a declaration of intent. A premiere of their fates if they didn’t comply.

Kallias was already convinced when he backed that idea. “She has a point. We should uproot the problem before it grows too big.”

Viviane’s eyes were as wide as saucers as she tracked her mate’s profile in worry.

Tarquin’s appetizer had been untouched in front of him, the wine gone warm since they’d sat down to speak.

Out of all the people in there, he was the only one Tamlin had a somewhat stable relationship with, their neighbouring courts the reason for it. Tamlin had been very regretful of the structural damage Adriata had fallen victim to because of him; although Varian and Cresseida snarled at him, they’d had to surrender to the fact Tarquin had welcomed and accepted that apology. Tamlin had been awful, but he was trying, and refusing him, diminishing how much he’d abandoned his pride to offer Tarquin consult on how the infrastructure could be strengthened was doing him a disservice.

He sported a frown as he took the word, “Great, fantastic. We kill Rheia, then what? Suppose we need to kill her retinue as well.”

Helion considered it as well. What a fucking bloodbath that would be, and what horrible mess to explain to their allies. He was dreading even the strategic organization the operation would need.

“No. We are not killing anyone, and that is final,” he challenged everyone with a sweep of his eyes around the table.

Kallia surprised him again, bitterly.

“I say we put this to vote,” he proposed.

“What?” squeaked from his side, along with a few colorful words flying from all directions.

Helion suddenly remembered why he had stopped inviting these people to celebrations, they were loud and the influence of alcohol wasn’t helping them regulate their tone.

While everyone animatedly discussed why they were in on the killing or they weren’t, advisors and seconds trying to avoid getting elbowed in the eyes, Helion lay back in his chair, exchanging an exasperated look with his attendant, standing stiffly beside him.

“Rhysand, say something!”

Viviane’s demand was enough to make the space quieten. Helion was impressed by the steadiness in her eyes. Kallias stilled by her side, his eyes held down in awkward acknowledgement he hadn’t been really dignified.

Rhysand had let Amren rally her cause, yet had stood off to the side for most of it. It wasn’t out of character for him to watch before he made his own ideas known. He and Feyre had kept to the other side of the tent, without Morrigan; somehow, that had worried Helion. Her diplomatic ways were much more appreciated in the face of Rhysand’s pragmatism, they had avoided many problems her absence wouldn’t them from now.

The High Lord of Night basked in that silence; to him all that attention, all that anticipation for his opinion was an ego boost he had trouble not reveling in.

“Hybern has a vendetta against us,” he stressed with a look around the room that served to shut down any protest. “If we do kill Rheia, we’re doing them a favor.”

“What do you suggest, then?” Thesan asked, hands joined where they rested in front of him.

Rhysand was confident in his stride, helping himself to a forgotten glass of wine. Feyre looked uneasy in a way Helion hadn’t seen before, walking beside him in a tense silence.

Rhysand pulled her gently to one lone chair, standing behind her as he pleaded his case.

“We wait this out. Tamlin is going to wake up, she’ll see there is no need to dwell, and we’ll go back to our lives.”

“And if he doesn’t wake up?” Thesan’s eyebrow shot up, the challenge in his tone hitting the marker perfectly.

Rhysand’s smile ceased to be amicable, and became a thing of darkness and persuasion. His hand curled around the wood of the chair in a menacing creak.

“Have my predictions ever been unreliable?” he crooned. Helion really, really hoped he wasn’t about to cause a diplomatic incident in his tent of all places.

And yes, his predictions had been unreliable, more than once, because he wasn’t infallible and nobody blamed him for this. They had, however, every right to hold him accountable. These mistakes, although not made on purpose, had cost lives.

Helion had never been more glad his attendants barged in.

With a guest with them, no less!

The Storm Summoner, slotted between golden armored guards, with an expression that predicted a storm was coming.

Muscle memory was a funny thing.

In her haze, Rheia had not set a precise point of arrival. She hadn’t taken Edith. She hadn’t even equipped her weapons or taken anything of importance with her, her pistol heavy at her waist.

She needed to feel the burn in her legs, and walking did the job better than a saddle less run would.

The world blurred around the edges, but it wasn’t difficult to perceive the staring she was subjected to when she was forced to thread the encampment. If they wanted to stop her, they didn’t have the courage to, or maybe the absence in her eyes was telling of the fact she wouldn’t take a disturbance lightly.

There was no one when she scoured the woods, birds flew away at her first step, and whatever predator had been munching on little mice left the remnants of its supper for Rheia to ignore.

Her legs gave out at the riverbank, but there was no pain, only the resignation typical of disillusionment.

This place, at the very least, had remained the same.

Beautiful, simple and nostalgic, unlike the devastation most of the landmarks had been turned into.

The earth was a little damp when she crawled closer to the edge of the water, her face reflecting in front of her.

But Rheia wasn’t bothering with how her face was unrecognizable even to herself, because something pretty was shining on the bottom of the river, and she was so caught with it, the hand attached to it didn’t make sense until the surface of the water broke, the elegant curve of the naiad that had been resting there catching Rheia out of guard.

Rheia stared into milky eyes until the knowledge was shared between them, until wonder and nostalgia reconciled at the cusp of dusk.

Adhara wrapped her arms around Rheia so firm and sure, she was left speechless.

Cold hands held her, wetting the fabric of her armor-wear with no regard.

“Thank the Mother you’re safe,” sweet, cold breath washed against her hair, her breath itched.

Had anyone ever hugged her like that? Like they couldn’t bear the thought of her physical absence? Rheia reserved this kind of affection for specific occasions, rarely let herself melt in someone’s arms before it felt like suicidal thinking.

Her eyes stung, her throat closing on a whimper of her friend’s nickname.

“Adhì–”

Thin skin flexed; she pulled back slightly, not letting go as she stared Rheia in the eyes.

“Your voice is hoarse,” she sounded enraged about that, her touch turning protective to the point Rheia tried to pry it loose.

“Adhì,” she scolded, no longer hiding the teary sound of her voice.

Her friend, stubborn and still set in her ways despite the ceturies that had passed between them, only tightened her hold.

“Shut up and let me hold you, dammit,” she herself had the rim of her eyes overflowing with salty streaks, her cold hand turning Rheia’s face for inspection.

“You’re so pale. Did you get shorter? Why do you smell like cinders? Your hair’s all gritty. Do you want me to put some clay on it for you?” She lowered her nose to Rheia’s hair, and took a wheeze that painted Rheia’s face red. She didn’t even want to think about how filthy she felt and was.

She pushed her back, succeeding only in making her more curious as to what was going on with her old friend.

“Enough with the questions…and the touching…and stop rubbing your nose on me, Adhara.”

Adhara scoffed, the start of a frown pulling at her dark lips, her depthless eyes peering Rheia like an affronted child.

“Stop? You disappeared for centuries! I should slap you into the next millennium to get back at you.”

Rheia sighed, her own hands wading through Adhara’s drenched, textured hair, she lowered her head until her cheek touched the naked skin and she could press her ear to her sternum.

“I’d rather you didn’t, thank you.”

Adhara lost all animosity; she gave into that embrace herself, long limbs pulling Rheia close and closer until she wondered if her friend was trying to merge her within herself, to make sure she didn’t disappear again.

Adhara patted her all-over, ensuring she was all in one piece–and likely trying to get a sense of what weird clothing she was wearing– until she felt something within a pocket, and Rheia stiffened.

Adhara slid her hand in without expecting much, a laugh ebbing from her throat.

“Oh, Mother help me. What’s this?”

Rheia hoped the ground would open and swallow her alive to suffer the darkest pits of hell. Of course of all pockets available Adhara had to find the one she kept the wooden statuette in.

Rheia swallowed, her eyes closing as she licked her lips, self-conscious.

“A…gift.”

“It’s you. A pocket you! Who made this? I gotta hand it to the artist, the resemblance is there.”

Rheia chuckled, her eyes cracking open to squint at Adhara.

“I forgot how much you enjoy making a fool out of me.”

An ephemeral moment of silence passed between them.

“...why do you have this in your pocket?”

Rheia dreaded that question, but most of all she dreaded the fact that she was about to spill all the revelations that had come to her in the past year to the last person who’d let her off the hook.

Alas, if she kept this to herself any longer, she was going to wallow in desperation more than was adequate for someone of her standing.

“You’re going to want to throttle me, when I tell you.”

Adhara’s sharp smile was more worrying than any frown from her would be.

“How sweet. You think I don’t want to throttle you now?”

Rheia didn’t deserve half of the friends she had, or better yet, they didn’t deserve to have someone as awful as her as a friend.

Adhara had become powerful in a way she hadn’t predicted, and what a fine surprise it was. She’d grown into a nymph of great power and prowess, with little to envy her sisters.

She told Rheia what had occurred in her absence (avoiding, of course, any royal murder she already knew of) and some. She didn’t spare details, something Rheia was very grateful for.

It turned out her brother had fallen in his slumber in his more bestial form, the last spurts of his raw power creating a protective dome of green that had lost its structure only when Rhysand had used his Daemati power to nudge his mind. It had been enough for that, but not enough to wake him.

A week later, a representative from each court had put their dainty feet down, and set up a tent. From then on, Adhara had tried to locate Tamlin to no avail, only able to send her sisters to mess with the occupants.

In true Adhara fashion, she’d made it clear they wanted them out.

There had been an attempt from the High Lords to find a middle ground, but the offence of planting stakes in ground that did not belong to them, without even paying respect to the land or letting any of them see to their High Lord was too narrow a road to be deemed acceptable.

What truly stopped them was Eris’s intervention. He assured there would be no more disturbances, and if there were, they could take his word for it that he would deal with it.

First and foremost, he made it so Adhara was able to witness the state of the High Lord, and that alone quietened down most of the protests. Tributes were left at the edge of the trees, along with tokens of appreciation Adhara didn’t spend much words for.

This was most surprising…if in a good or bad way, Rheia wasn’t sure. Eris was trying to rally good sentiment in his favor, and by the satisfied look on Adhara's face, he’d succeeded in part.

She was not that fickle to find him disingenuous, however…his reputation did precede him, and Rheia had learned not so long ago to not believe the mere appearance of things.

Some animals were as beautiful as they were deadly.

She wouldn’t purposefully show her distrust, given he’d proven himself to be useful and Rheia needed his insight on more than a few matters.

That hardly meant she would lower her guard.

Night had washed over them fast, the conversation cut abruptly when Adhara handed her sun-dried fish and shooed her away, muttering something about novices and full moons.

She snacked on it on her way back to the encampment, taking note of how tense the air was.

It was a little weird, now that she thought of it, no one had come to find her. Yura and Seele had this habit they couldn’t shake of always wanting to know where she was, with who. It wasn’t anything malicious, just a fixation that Dumas often assured them on.

Then again, it had been a first, pulling the gun on Dumas, a little too much on her part, but the thought of being overpowered in a situation she knew was bigger than any of them understood, the audacity of her advisor acting rather like an exasperated parental figure…

Rheia hadn’t even thought. She’d perceived the threat and had acted on it.

Whether she was right or wrong in doing so was not for her to bother with. She would apologize to Seele, because she had appeared frightened, and to Dumas for the happening. Yura would come around eventually, as he always did.

The healers were not in the tent when Rheia entered the ward, but someone else was.

The red hair was not the first thing she noticed, nor the carafe of rich wine, or the two glasses idly by.

It was the mechanical eye that moved erratically, whirring the same moment his right one widened, that lit her curiosity. He got up from his sprawl beside Tamlin’s poor excuse of a bed so fast he almost lost balance, and it was not lost on Rheia.

Her mouth parted, but he was already with his arms up, like a thief caught in the act.

“I swear it’s not what it looks like!”

Rheia did not know where to look to; she blinked and watched the red haired stranger rake a hand through his locks, muttering profanities.

Then he looked at her again, and his frustrated face turned apologetic.

“Fuck– shit– sorry. Please, don’t get the wrong idea.”

She didn’t know what overcame her. It started as a small smile, a thing so subtle it couldn’t harm anyone.

But then the absurdity of this encounter dawned on her, and she couldn’t help the laughter that came from her.

What did he think she saw? That he was having a drink in Tamlin’s face?

This was stupidly amusing, and she had been so on edge she needed the break from all that tension.

At some point she realized she’d even started crying.

His face fell in horror. He lowered his hands, as confused as her own tried and failed at getting rid of tears that just kept on coming.

When he wordlessly handed her not a glass, but the whole damn carafe, Rheia sat down, defeated by the day.