eris vanserra's no.1 bitch

“Your stitches are crooked again, girl.” The stern voice of Lady Alicent pulls me from introspective though. Her voice is sharp and laced with her usual criticism as her weathered hand tightens on my shoulder. Pain blooms in my fingertip. I let out a small yelp as soft flesh yields to the sharp point of my needle. I watch as blood falls like withering rose petals from the wound onto my embroidery. I’m never going to finish the dress on time now.  

“I can fix them.” I reply tightly as the old woman’s weathered fingers curl around my shoulder, nipping into my skin uncomfortably. She watches me with dark, critical eyes as I begin to diligently unpick the crooked stitches. 

“Yes, I suggest you do” Lady Alicent taunts condescendingly. She watches me still as I begin to re-thread one of the flowers that she had deemed unsightly. 

“No no. Not like that, girl. You must start again.” My tutor chastises loudly, an aged hand reaches forward and I feel the fragile hum of her magic work to erase the flowers I had spent weeks arranging and stitching into the cornflour tulle.

“N-no no! I worked for weeks on those!” The protest that comes out of my mouth is laden with resentment that burns at the back of my throat. It is an all-consuming rage that settles in my veins like fire. Angry tears sting my eyes and I stifle back a frustrated mewl.

I know what I must sound like. What I must look like. A petulant child, some cruel voice in my mind calls to me. But these things do not come naturally to me and seeing my time and labours taken so lightly hurts more than I will ever care to admit to anyone, least of all Lady Alicent. 

“Enough, child.” The old woman waves her hand dismissively. “I am doing this for your own good. You must be better if you’re ever to find a respectable marriage with a good Male.”

“Has it ever occurred to you, my lady, that I am not in want of a husband? I want more from my life than birthing heirs and mending shirts.” I counter. I dip my chin to hide the satisfied smirk on my lips when I see my governess pinch the bridge of her nose in frustration. 

“You have fire and spirit, I will give you that, girl.” Lady Alicent sighs, breathing a steadying breath to ground herself before speaking again. “Some males find pleasure in stoking that flame but there are others who will take pleasure in extinguishing it…you must learn to hold your tongue if you are to find a male of any significance.” 

“I don’t want a male at all. What good is power and wealth and status if I am not free to live as I choose?…to love as I choose?.”

“It may not be your will but it is your duty. Any girl of your good breeding should know that.” Lady Alicent stands in front of me, the picture of a courtly Lady who has always done her duty. In the face of it, I suspect I am supposed to feel moved by her devotion to the life fate had chosen for her, but I’m not moved by it, at all.

It awakens something terrible and savage in me. A hungry dog that will bite at the hand that seeks to tame it. 

 “We all have our parts to play.”

“What role is it that you play then, my lady? I see you have no husband to speak of.” I bite. 

My voice is sharp with contempt and at that moment I’m not sure if my resentment is directed at Lady Alicent herself or the thought that my fate is already written, regardless of my objections. 

I think perhaps it is both.

“It is my duty to prepare you for the realities of the life that awaits you. Though, it is evident to all that you are lacking in many of the virtues expect--.” 

The girlish laughter of my sister and her two handmaids cuts the governess’s tirade short. Their laughter rings like birdsong in my ears as they enter the room; it is a sweet and lilting melody. I hate it. 

“Lady Alicent? Pardon the interruption but my dress is finished.” Ophelia explains animatedly, gesturing to the garment one of her handmaids is holding. My sister’s azure eyes fall on me and her demeanor softens.

“Mother said I was to show it to you before I go and see Master Lyon for my harp lesson. I hope I wasn’t interrupting.” Ophelia’s needlework is exquisite. She stands poised by the fire, a swathe of garnet silk draped across her arm and all along the skirt and bodice she has sewn small rubies and citrines into the fabric, which spark like fireglow in the warm light of the hearth. 

“What beauty it is, Ophelia’s! Such Talent.” Lady Alicent offers her sincere compliments. She reaches out to touch the garment, admiring how the fireglow refacts off of the fine crystal beads. 

“Well…what do you think?” Ophelia asks, almost nervously as she turns towards me. She had been working on this piece for weeks. I know that I should say something nice, but I can't form the words to speak. My silence stretches on too long. I bite at my nails until I draw blood and something like jealousy twists terribly in my chest. 

“...Those are autumn colours, are they not?” I manage after a few terribly silent moments. The craftsmanship alone is worthy of praise, and Ophelia had spared no expense to see her vision complete. Our father’s coffers would be glad to see it done, at least.

“They are autumn colours. Rather fitting I thought, all things considered.” Ophelia nods lightly. Ophelia’s engagement to The Autumn Prince is set to be announced any day now. The fragile alliance our father and High Lord have brokered with Beron Vanserra rests on this marriage. His magic and power to cure Spring the malady which ails it, in exchange for a bride of Spring. 

“It is perfect and sure to catch the attention of any Vanserra in attendance.” One of the handmaid’s comments, filling the silence. Her voice is soft and airy, like a morning breeze. 

“The Autumn Prince will not be able to take his eyes off of you, I’m sure.” The other handmaid nods fervently in agreement and praises my sister's delicate hand again.

“Your work is exceptional and you will look divine, absolutely divine.” Lady Alicent comments, handing the dress back to my sister. Even in her kindness she is cold and terse but my sister accepts the affection with the grace of a great court lady. 

“If only the same could be said for your poor sister's gown.” Lady Alicent stares down at me with pity in her voice. 

I study my own work again. The pewter tulle had been intended to match the hyacinth blooms that wreaths the ivory facade of our estate. The florals that I had been working on for weeks were going to line the sleeves of the dress, stretching down the bodice and the gown’s skirts, like a Spring meadow in bloom. Though right now it is little more than an ill-fitting shift, adorned with a mess of expensive threads. I stare at it and sigh in resignation. Any future husband of mine will have to mend his own shirts, it seems. 

“It isn’t so bad.” Ophelia offers good naturedly, ”I could help you with it if you’d like?” My sister strides over to me, her hands reaching out to inspect the fabric. 

“I’ll manage just fine on my own. Thank you very much, sister.”

“Are you sure? if we work together I think we’d be able to finish it before tomorrow night.” Ophelia’s clear eyes shine like sapphires in the sun as she steps towards me. Her earnest kindness infuriates me.

“I don’t care about the dress, or the ball for that matter and I don’t need your help.” I feel my magic plant its twisted roots in me and all the lilacs in the vases wither and wilt, their lush purple blooms turning blackened. Ophelia recoils at the bitter tone of my voice. I watch her lovely soft features fall into a mournful frown and the wet look in her blue eyes causes regret to burn at the back of my throat. What is wrong with me?

Sometimes I think that when The Mother made my sister and I, she did not carve us equally. Ophelia had been blessed with every womanly virtue befitting a lady of our noble birth. By the time I came along, there must have been nothing good left to give. Ophelia could dance and sing and sew, she could play the lyre better than any other female I knew, and her needlework was nothing short of inspired. What’s worse is she is beautiful; unearthly even. My sister inherited the soft, delicate features of our father’s sisters and I have been rendered rather plain looking in comparison. The only virtue I have to speak of is my magic, of which Ophelia was granted so very little. But what good is magic without power, and what good is power without something worth fighting for?

“I think that is quite enough, don’t you?” Lady Alicent scolds, her dark eyes pinning me in place. Ophelia steps forward and Lady Alicent's features turn pitiful at the sight of my sister’s woeful face. “It was a thoughtful gesture, Ophelia dear, but I think it’s about time your sister learned the virtues of kindness and humility.” 

Everyone is looking at me. Everyone except Ophelia. The two handmaidens fuss over my sister, treating her as if she is some weak, fragile thing, all the while looking at me with fleeting, wary glances.

My eyes well with tears. I push onto my feet and steal across the plush carpet towards the door before my tears begin to fall. 

“Where do you think you’re going, girl? Get back here at this moment or your mother will hear of this.” I turn back to Lady Alicent, biting my lip until the skin splits and blood pools in my mouth. It tastes of iron and salt. 

It tastes like self sacrifice and sabotage and satisfaction. 

I force myself into a shallow curtsey. “I wish to visit the godswood.” 

“You’ll have time enough for prayers later, girl. Your lesson is not finished.” 

“I wish to pray. Or is piety not a virtue that you care for? Perhaps, if I pray hard enough The Mother will see fit to grant me the other virtues that I am clearly lacking.” I glare at the old woman, leveling her with my stare. I slink out the room before she can string together a coherent admonishment. 

The wolfhounds are waiting for me in the foyer at the base of the great stairs when I arrive. I laugh wetly when Sterling, my father’s oldest and most beloved hound, rubs his greying snout against my hip. He urges me to pet him. He’s a spoiled old boy, my father says. Our constant stream of affection had seen to that. Sterling is little more than an over-sized lap dog these days. I kneel to his height, scratching his neck and behind his ears and he whines in delight. Behind me, Willow and Iris nip eagerly at my hands and skirts. The younger bitches are much more eager than Sterling to follow me as I walk the house in search of some semblance of comfort.

When I enter through the open door of my father’s study, with Iris and Willow chasing my skirts, I find it vacant.

The dark mahogany desk is littered with parchment, words written in dark ink that spill forth from letters with cracked wax seals bearing the sigils for every noble house from here to the furthest reaches of WInter. The hearth light flickers and my eye is drawn to the blood-red wax bearing the crest of Beron Vanserra. 

When I was a girl my father had made me memorise the crest and words of every noble house in the land. I used to stare at these tomes and scrolls for hours. I had hated him for it, though I am thankful for it now. 

The parchment feels light in my hand but the words are heavy. 

Old friend, I received your son in my home and court and listened to his tales of woe over many dinners. He is a fine young male and a very convincing emissary. In the parchment you sent, you spoke of rot and plague through your lands and a High Lord too weak to keep it from spreading. I offer an alliance. I vow to help secure Tamlin’s power and use my own magic to cure the blight that plagues Spring. In exchange I ask for a simple offering; one of your daughters as a bride for my son and heir, Eris. 

I hear from your own heir that both daughters are attractive prospects with their own limitations. One wilder and wilful and more powerful; the other, dutiful and accomplished but without much magic to her name. I know the more logical choice and yet, I am not a wholly logical male. I will come to your estate and see for myself which daughter I will take as tribute for my son. The other I suggest would be put to good use in Spring, as an assurance of the lasting bonds between our two courts. 

The penmanship is frantic, arching on erratic but the words have a certain absolute quality to them that causes a solemn sense of foreboding to settle in my stomach. 

Both daughters are attractive prospects with their own limitations. So my father had not secured the match between Ophelia and the Autumn Prince as he had promised and he planned to carve us both up and serve us like holy offerings to Beron Vanserra. 

The bitter fruits of his labours to be bought and sold as he sees fit. 

I will bleed before I resign myself to my fate.

And I will make the men bleed too.

______________________________________________________________

“I thought I might find you here.” I look up from the parchment I had stolen from my father’s desk at the severe cadence of my mother. She is standing at the edge of the grove, her regal face set in a solemn expression that I can’t quite place. Her pale garnet eyes are reminiscent of pomegranate jewels in the pallid emerald light that pierces the haze of gossamer mist. It veils the clearing of the godswood in its gloomy shroud and falls through the boughs of flowering dogwoods and ancient oaks spreading dappled, jade shadows, across the moist earth.

I don’t know how long I’ve been sat here, staring at that piece of paper in my hand. It feels like seconds. It feels like days. 

She looks unearthly wreathed in the misty morning light. The grey-green hue that saturates the godswood pales in comparison to the crystalline ruby of her eyes and the lengths of her crimson hair which she wears long, with intricate braids that form a red corona around her. My mother hailed from the far reaches of the Autumn Court, raised on the red hills of Auren. Her family was an old one and their ties to the land were honoured in blood. 

“I was praying.” I say sharply, a little disgruntled at being caught off guard. I should be more vigilant. I discreetly set the correspondence I had been reading down on the mossy, stone bench, so that it is hidden beneath the folds of my sage green cloak. 

“This is the one place that Lady Alicent will not follow me.” I say, wrinkling my nose at the thought of the old crone who seems to devote her remaining days to my misery. I’d sooner spend my days hunting with my brothers and their wolfhounds, or brokering alliances on some Lords council that rearing children and embroidering at the hearth as she wishes me too.

“I don’t know why you insist on fighting her still, Kit.” My mother says, the admonishment in her voice weak and unserious. “You’re not a child anymore, you know what’s expected of you.”

“What if I don’t want that?” I ask, looking at my mother intently. I watch the way her face softens and a sad smile pulls at her lips.

“Then what do you want, love?” My mother asks softly. 

I want love and I want to be loved.

I want it to be tender and hungry. I want to be wanted. Down to the very marrow of me. I want it to ache. I want love to tear me open like a wound and I want love to spill from me like blood. 

“I…” I can’t say any of that. So I don’t say anything at all.

“You know, this isn’t what I had in mind for my life either.” Mama’s voice is so light that I might mistake it for the breeze. She has never spoken to me in this way before.

“It’s not?” I raise my head so that I am looking into those crimson eyes. I see the truth long buried. “Then what did you want?” 

“I wanted to see the world…” She starts with a hollow laugh.  “Swim in the summer sea and see the misty shores of Illyria and…” She cuts herself off with another shallow chuckle.

“The point is, in this world we women so rarely get what we want. So when you do work out what it is you want…I want you to promise me you’ll hold onto it. Leave your claw marks in it if you have to. Even if it's only to show that you held the thing you wanted, just for a moment, before it was ripped from you.” 

My mother’s words weigh heavily on me and silence falls over us both in those seconds that stretch into moments. 

“I promise, Mother.” She nods and her frown deepens again. So at odds with her usual poised countenance. 

“And if you can't, I want you to know that it's okay to let go of the things you thought you wanted…to make room for something else.” The words echo around the forest and I wonder if this isn’t the speech given to her by my grandmother. She and I are made up of the same parts. 

“I didn't love your father when we married, I was still a girl myself. Younger than you, and your father -- he was older and his traditions and customs different than my own -- we grew to love each other, he and I. Then the mother blessed us with four wonderful children. I’d never have had those things if I had my way.”

“Would you change it if you could?” I dare to ask, my tone light and careful as I watch her shake her head with a certainty I know well. She has always been stubborn and steadfast and unyieldingly honest. 

“No. There is nothing in all the world that would have brought me as much joy as you have, kit.” When she looks at me I know she means it. That she has built a life here worth wanting.

I don’t know how to sit with it; if I can bring myself to want it in the way that is expected of me.

I adjust my position on the mossy stone bench as I look at the parchment in my hand, at the vows and promises stained onto its fragile pages. I must have read it a hundred times over but something in it speaks to me. 

I don’t know why. 

“My! Now that looks like a most peculiar prayer.” My mother remarks, tipping her chin towards the letter in my hand. She takes a step further into the clearing, shuddering as the frigid Spring air tempers the fire in her blood. Her crimson eyes examine the stone altar at the heart of the clearing with wariness. The marble is discoloured from centuries of weathering and climbing ivy shrouds the prayer inscribed on its flat surface. Offerings litter the marble plinth; dying violets and rotting figs, their innards spayed across the ground. 

I feel the eyes of the forest upon us.

“I have heard of the prayers your ilk say on fire nights.” I retort, turning my gaze towards my mother in taunt. “And of the savage Gods you pray too.”

The acolytes of Autumn kept a different sort of altar. Theirs was a primal, baser ritual all together. On fire nights, braziers cast their ashes to the bitter wind, the air was spicy with the acrid scent of wood and burning incense; sage, juniper and patchouli rise in plumes of smoke that veils the world in its heady perfume. All through the forests and marshlands fae take to the wilds to fuck and fight until their blood and sweat soaks the sacred earth beneath their bare feet. When the fires have burned out and the Gods are sated, only then would the savage beat of the drums cease.

“You are of my blood, kit.” She says fondly, sinking down into the wet earth, running her fingers tenderly through the unbound lengths of my hair. Fire dances in her eyes and she looks at me with sure pride that it hurts if I sit and think about it too long. “You and I are made from the same fire…and  someday you will see that they are your Gods too.”

The day Eris is born is the bloodiest day in Autumn's history. He comes into the world screaming; a mirror of all she has had to endure.

When the healer places that tiny, fragile bundle into her arms his piercing screams settle into pitiful little cries. For a long time she just stares at him, asleep in her arms and cradled to her breast like it settles something in him. It settles something in her too, she realises.

All the resentment and all the hatred she felt is replaced with something aching and tender. Something like love.

That night she vows to always love him. To nurture all the good in him, all the parts of him that are her. Because the most beautiful flowers can still bloom in fields of ash.

Years later when she finds out she is with child again she names him Jasper, it means joy. Then Dorian comes along, a gift she thinks; and Leander, her brave boy. It's not until many years later that Silas is born, long prayed for and much loved. He was followed by Rowan who looked so much like her brother when he was a boy, with messy red curls she used to play with as he slept.

Of course there was little Lucien too, her light. A child of hers born of love, at long last.