Can’t Bring Myself To Hate You — Part 18
Azriel x Third-Oldest-Archeron-Sibling!Reader
a/n: pls trust me that some things will be explained in chapter 19 🙇
word count: 7,003
-Part 17- -Part 19-
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Sharp, amber eyes pierce down into the male, despite having less than an inch’s difference in height.
Lucien keeps his surprise under wraps as he greets his oldest brother, stood before the slightly dilapidated building he and his companions have taken up in, a few boards nailed over one of the upper windows that had broken during a particularly vicious storm. He recalls how Jurian had scavenged some of the plain silverware and they’d drawn spoons to see who would have to climb the roof and patch it up before the autumn chill hit. It’s a fond memory, in spite of his loss.
“Eris,” Lucien greets shortly, holding position in blocking the male from strutting straight into his home as he knows the male would, given the chance. Not the building itself, exactly, but the people hidden away inside it, and he’d rather not subject them to another visit unless absolutely necessary. Neither of them are particularly well-equipped against Eris’ kind of verbal espionage, how he hunts the information he seeks and so effortlessly riles them up. Vassa is particularly prone to bursting into a flaming temper whenever the male pays them an unpleasant visit.
“It’s rude to keep a guest waiting, Lucien,” Eris drawls from overside the threshold. Even after all this time he can’t help the instinctive part of him that cringes at the razor sharp tone used to cut into his name, carve it into something jagged and serrated. Perhaps when he was younger he might have returned with ‘it’s rude to show up without invitation’, but he learned long ago it’s best to avoid any kind of verbal conflict with the male. Ultimately it’s tiring and a waste of energy, so instead Lucien offers a mildly withering glare, and asks, “What are you here for?”
Eris’s features remain sharp but blank, unshifting and drawing a clear line in the sand. Another silent demand he’s more than accustomed to, and wishes he wasn’t. “You can’t just show up without prior notice and expect to be escorted in. There are humans inside and you’ll scare them off.”
“That’s fine by me,” Eris replies, his amber eyes silently simmering with inherent arrogance. “Step aside.”
“Don’t order me around,” Lucien replies evenly, not a note of sharpness to be found, but firm and unyielding. “You’re in their lands. Besides, they’ll be leaving shortly. You can wait a few minutes.”
“It’s time sensitive,” Eris replies smoothly, neither having broken the eye contact.
“You can wait a few minutes,” Lucien repeats.
Silence stretches, Eris’ brows narrowing ever so slightly in a frighteningly scathing glare that would have sent him sprinting to his room a few centuries ago. But he’s a grown male now, so he weathers the simmering look, keeping his feet firmly set on the ground, unfaltering in his stance.
Within the silence, both can pick out the shuffle of human footfalls, the conversation that floats throughout the house, only detectable to fae hearing and each brother picks out as they trail further. It’s not until a latch clicks and a bolt is slid into place on the other side of the slightly wrecked estate that either of them shifts, and to Lucien’s invisible astonishment it’s Eris who looks away first. Even if it is to glance at the approaching Vassa over his shoulder, he notes it.
“What’s he doing here?” Vassa questions, a derisive sneer in her tone as she pins the male darkening their doorstep with a look that could turn steak to coal in seconds. Lucien glances to Eris, wondering the same thing—wondering if he’ll answer now the humans have left and he’ll inevitably be allowed in. Sharp amber eyes slice to his own russet one, cutting and demanding, and Lucien bites back a sigh at his oldest brother’s incessant insistence on being obeyed. Even after all these years he’s just as controlling as he always was, though Lucien shouldn’t be surprised—Eris practically thrives in the cutthroat coliseum of the Autumn Court.
Lucien steps aside in the doorway and Eris enters, bringing with him the harsh bite of the cold that’s sharper than it should be in the human lands. The distinct crispness that passes him as Eris strides past the both of them, removing his surprisingly plain cloak in one swift movement and chucking it over one of the hangers without looking. “I have news,” Eris replies vaguely, before striding further into the heart of the house and disappearing out of sight.
Vassa shoots a fierce glare his direction, a slight scowl between her brows. “Did you know he was on his way?” She asks, already looking about ready to try smacking the male across the jaw. But Lucien shakes his head, already resigned to the evening being ruined, knowing her impatience isn’t directed at him. “I’m sober, aren’t I?” He replies wryly, a twist of a demeaning smile on his mouth to cool her flammable temper.
After a long moment of pause, she huffs a laugh, low and raspy, some of the tension relieved from her rigid posture, fiery coloured ringlets jostled slightly from the tremble in her full shoulders. “We’d better go after him,” she says, a little more amused than she was previously, though that amusement dims swiftly at the thought of having to deal with more of the male’s unnecessary and underhanded jabs. Lucien nods, sighing once more before steeling himself, knowing he will inevitably end up in the position of mediator as he always does when people lose their calm, following after her.
“And just when the cards were finally about to come out,” she mutters under her breath, and Lucien can practically see the scowl that has already worked itself back between her fiery brows, “I was looking forward to wiping the floor with Jurian.”
The comment has his nostrils flaring delicately as mirth curves his mouth, lips twitching faintly. Between the three of them, Vassa is almost constantly on a losing streak, while Jurian frequently takes them for all they’re worth. He supposes it shouldn’t be as surprising as it is—Jurian’s mortality is debatable at best, an unverifiable grey area at worst.
“Maybe we can fit in a few rounds after,” Lucien suggests as they make their way through the hallways, headed to the sitting room where the meetings most frequently take place. “The mood will probably be in need of some friendly competition.”
“Friendly?” Vassa repeats sardonically, pausing just outside the door to the living room. “Those games are nothing short of bloodthirsty. Treating them so lightheartedly is why you never win.”
Lucien refrains from reminding her that she has yet to go on a single winning streak against either of them.
————
You shift uneasily in your seat, pulling the silk of the scarf a little tighter, making sure no patchy flesh will slip out from beneath the fine covering. Especially not over a meal.
The comment springs to the forefront of your mind, rising like the sediment that’s stirred up upon a stone being dropped into the murky bottom of a lake. You know you’ll never be first choice. You’ll never have someone who’d choose you over everyone else, and if you’re honest with yourself it wouldn’t be that bad. You’ve survived this long without being someone’s first choice, so what’s changed?
What’s changed?
A cold feels skates delicately beneath your speckled flesh at the imposing question, impossibly vast and inconceivably nuanced. So much has changed in the past two years it would be unreasonable to try and tackle it now, without even a paper and pen to aid you in the coherency of your thoughts. But maybe it’s a place to start—some small ideas to help take those opening steps, like how freshly born deer totter around on their delicate hooves, on thin, gangly legs before learning to leap and bound.
So, you ask yourself again: What’s changed?
Had it bothered you before that you weren’t first choice? Had you known you weren’t anyone’s first choice—yes, somewhere, but you hadn’t figured it out yet. Perhaps that’s why the comment stung, that you were robbed of making the discovery yourself, red-painted nails having clawed over the stone, carving scratches into the previously smooth surface, permanently tarnished and disheveled.
No, thinking back, you’ve been first choice before. When you were eight, nine-ish, when you’d run down and about in the garden with Feyre who at that point couldn’t keep up with you yet. When you’d leap over tree stumps and balance on fallen trunks, sticking your arms out unevenly and watching with a strange sense of pride as Feyre doddered behind you, mimicking your stance and holding her own arms out as she made the trek over the mossy trunk.
Then you’d gotten older, and left Feyre to play in the gardens, in the forest, by herself. Then you’d become closer with Elain a bit before your teens, the two of you often joined at the hip at parties, Nesta bearing down on the few who tried to approach, warding off any unwanted company with her fearsome countenance. You think you’d been one another’s choices then, when your mother would dress you up in complimentary fabrics, selecting patterns that would work well with one another, with little regard for the young girls she was dressing up—her own daughters.
You like to think it had been you and Elain sticking together, in those last few years when your mother was around.
That’s what’s changed.
You’re surrounded by people who have found one another.
And now your loneliness is starker than ever, yet you hadn’t even really realised it. How Feyre has Rhys and Nyx, Nesta has found Cassian, and even Elain is finding her way with Lucien. They’re the closest you’ve ever been with other people, and the closest you’ll get to other people. But they’ve all found someone else now, and you’re the odd one out. Of course you’d be the one without a mating bond, or whatever the special connection is that they were all afforded.
You’re reminded of the confession you’d let slip in the midst of your fumbling mouth back in the library all that time ago. How you’d thought maybe…possibly there was a reason you’d felt a click with him. But you suppose you should have known better. You can’t even pretend that he was leading you on, in hindsight. It was obvious he was interested in Elain, and yet you’d thought… How stupid. And to tell him, too. To want something so sacred to them, and to wish it between yourself and him. All from wanting to be first.
It shouldn’t matter to not be first, and yet it’s starkly painful. You can’t help but want that place. Wanted it so desperately you’d fooled yourself into seeing interest when in reality there was, just none for you.
Your eyes traitorously stray from the small details on the rim of your porcelain plate—tiny ink drops of blue, red, and orange dotted about the edge—to the empty seat to your left, at one head of the table.
Why had you ever made the mistake of opening up to him? Hoping for a gentle touch when your body feels like it was hewn from the most unloveable stone. The most unforgiving rock, and the coldest ice. So cold it would peel skin from flesh, so harsh it would be impossible to touch, so utterly unbearable there would be no choice but to remain alone.
“Will you pass the potatoes?”
You’re drawn from your spiralling thoughts by the golden voice, meeting twinkling amber eyes as Mor watches you with a familiar expression. Warm and welcoming despite how you’d last seen one another.
Swallowing, you nod. “Yeah, sure,” you reply as normally as you can, hand clutching the orange silk of your scarf to keep the material from sliding up as you carefully grip the lip of the ceramic bowl, passing it to her open hand. “Thank you,” Mor smiles, and you blink before remembering to retract your hand. She seems as she was before…back to the female you’d known her as. Is this…does it mean she’s accepted your apology? She’d seemed convinced of what she had told you, so you can’t quite trick yourself into believing that. But maybe civility?
Right, you can understand it now. No matter how upset or hurt she might feel, she must not want to make it other people’s problem. Causing a scene over a dinner, one of the rare moments everyone’s together—most of you, anyway—isn’t worth it. No matter how your relationship might have soured, there’s no need to make the people around you miserable, too.
Amber eyes gleam beneath the warm light, and you feel as though you can come to an agreement—one you’re ready to accept. You can both silently agree not to make it an issue for anyone else, a small kernel of warmth daring to flicker to life in your chest, the sense of connection that comes from mutual understanding despite a disagreement. For everyone else’s sake, the two of you can put everything aside. Even if it might only be temporary.
“I like your scarf,” Mor says lightly, scooping the jagged, crispy roast potatoes onto the side of her plate, setting the bowl down in a spare space, “it suits you.”
Again, you blink, caught off guard. You swallow thickly, managing a nod of your head, chest swelling as you eagerly take on the compliment, content to pretend even if it’s only for an hour or two. “Thank you,” you reply, keeping your voice steady, “I love your necklace.” Which is true, though in honesty it wouldn’t be difficult to find something compliment-worthy about her. She’s beautiful.
Mor hums, glancing to another bowl, before settling on the reasonably sized boat of sauce, creating a small pool at the edge of her plate. You’re a little too occupied with watching Mor to notice the wary glance sent her way by Amren, or the warning one delivered from the High Lord himself. The tiny flicker of hope that maybe things could be patched up blocking out the rest of the picture as you gaze longingly at the female diagonal from you.
“I suppose with the autumn chill in the air yours is a little more practical than some flimsy jewellery,” Mor replies lightly, plucking a cut of bread from the wooden board, drawing the butter closer to slather the fluffy and crusty slice. “Where did you find it? I should fetch one for myself.”
“I’m sure you have more than enough scarves, Mor,” Rhys interjects smoothly, the serrated blade of his knife slicing effortlessly through the sinew of meat, slowly dissected into politely bite-sized pieces. “Any more and you’ll struggle to shut your wardrobe properly.”
Mor smiles icily, meeting his gaze with a cold look on her beautiful face. “Just stocking up before we have our eastern visitors.”
Tension crackles across the table, so acute even you realise something strange is happening, watching nervously, and feeling somehow responsible for the perceived fallout. Eastern visitors…? People from the continent? Eastern…eastern…oh. Feyre had mentioned briefly the deal that had been struck between the High Lord and the Lord that reigns over his Court of Nightmares—Mor’s father. The permitted invasion of her safe haven. The slight fissure that had been opened raw between them—one you’d forgotten about, and had assumed had been fixed.
“How is—” You fumble when Mor’s sharp eyes cut into you, caught off guard by the fierceness held within them. “…How is he?” You manage to ask, unsure whether you should even be interfering or whether you’re just putting your foot in it. Your hands shake under the table, heart pounding but you keep from shifting in your seat.
“Who?” Mor asks blandly, ignoring the sharp glare Amren’s pinning her with. Disregarding the hard look on Rhys’ face, slight disappointment. Possibly wholly unaware of the grip Feyre has on her cutlery, head cast downward, brows pulled together. Your throat rolls, not wanting to say his name.
It would be wrong.
“Who else?” Nesta asks from across the table, her voice singing with the clean cut of steel as it slices through a silk ribbon, a whisper of anger hissing beneath her tone. Sharp amber eyes clash with cool silver, glinting like mercury and ice in spite of the oranges and yellows filling the room to give the allusion of warmth and familiarity. Tension simmers just below the surface, crackling like a metal weather vane struck by lightening, sizzling with barely restrained power.
“Azriel,” you say quietly, hurrying through his name in less than a breath, feeling it brand your tongue, tingling at the roof of your mouth. Dispersing some of the charge. “How is he?”
Amber and silver eyes remain locked for a little while longer, a pause stretching across the table and even to fae hearing there’s hardly a sound being made save for the strain of metal as knuckles strangle and warp the handles of fine cutlery.
At last Mor looks away, dragging her gaze back to your own, the fire dimmed and smothered.
“Well enough to be drinking again,” she answers, and that seems to be the end of the conversation.
————
It’s a little difficult to dry the plates off with the scarf tied at your front, hiding your arms, but you manage.
A cluster of small, iridescent bubbles float past your nose, wafting by, and Elain laughs as you step back suddenly in surprise, having been zoned out.
There’s no need to be washing up anymore, not with the aids of magic, and if you’re honest you aren’t entirely sure how the two of you had ended up coming to the same wordless agreement, but here you are. Elain’s at the sink, bubbles frothy and foamy as she scrubs at the crockery and cutlery before depositing them on the side for you to dry with a towel. You don’t think the soapiness would agree with your skin.
The quiet settles between you, comfortable and without strain, two people sharing a space, and the apprehension you’d had before the dinner begins to slowly mellow, ice thawing out over a chilly night.
Despite the slightly rough start, the night had progressed surprisingly smoothly, with you content to sit quietly while the others discussed various matters: Amren’s recreational studying of the Old Language; Nesta’s progression with swordplay, having begun wielding ataraxia during training; a discussion lead by Rhysand about wards that you’d partially tuned out, thinking of the crater you’d blasted through the House of Wind—at least it sounds like something that can be fixed. They aren’t permanently broken, just temporarily disabled.
“Feyre’s birthday is coming up,” Elain says, seemingly out of nowhere, and you glance at her questioningly, humming in acknowledgement. “What are you thinking of getting her?” You ask, curiously content to follow along this path and see where she takes it. Elain sighs faintly, “I was thinking of making some herbal teas, actually…not many, but a few different ones to see if any help with stress, or sleeping, or the like. Generic benefits.”
You nod your head slightly—it’s a thoughtful gift, bespoke and personal, too. She’s always good with presents.
“You?” Elain asks, glancing at you lightly, speaking only loud enough to top the gentle babbling of water and splashing of suds. You glance down at the stack of dried plates, reaching for the wet cutlery to start on. “I haven’t thought of anything yet,” you answer honestly, considering, “it’s still a couple of months away, so I guess I hadn’t started thinking about it yet.”
Elain’s quiet for a bit, and you get the sense she has something to say but is unsure how to bring it up. You wait patiently, preoccupying yourself with the cutlery, careful not to accidentally carve a chunk of flesh from the heel of your palm.
“I think…Feyre would like to do something with all of us,” she says quietly, a little absently. “Perhaps not on the actual day, but sometime nearby.”
“She would?” You ask, slightly surprised. Elain doesn’t meet your gaze this time, continuing to focus on washing up, giving her hands something to do, and you copy her after a moment, carrying on with the drying up. “She hasn’t said anything explicitly, but it’s the impression I’ve gotten,” Elain says faintly, then pauses again. “I think…I think it would be nice, too.”
There’s a tremor in her fingertips, but she pushes them below the warm water, out of sight as if reaching for a fork or spoon beneath the frothy surface.
“Particularly, after…” Her throat closes up, and you hesitantly reach out, gloves temporarily discarded while drying, bare fingers grazing the soft skin of her forearms, unable to feel the gentle tickle of tiny hairs anymore. “I’m sorry…” you murmur uselessly, watching helplessly as a droplet falls from her eye, splashing through into the dishwater below. But Elain shakes her head, hands raising from the water to continue moving, absently washing the last plate from the dinner.
“I’d like to see more of you, too,” Elain says, swallowing thickly as she scrubs at the gleaming porcelain, clearing her throat. “So would Nesta. I think we’ve all been a bit distant lately, with one another I mean, and with Feyre having Nyx, and Nesta off in Day… We should spend more time together, and see each other more often, and speak more, just in general. And then there’s also Starfall, and we can see each other then, and celebrate, and—”
“Elain, Starfall’s months away,” you say gently, fingers shifting so they’re lightly gripping her wrist, pausing her motions, pulling her eyes to lock with your own. Wider than they should be.
You look at one another, watching silently, and you can feel the flutter of her pulse beneath your fingertips, erratic enough for even your own damaged hands to pick up on.
“You’ll be there, won’t you?” She whispers, eyes hot and wet.
You blink, grasping the heaviness of the question, then nod, unable to make your throat work, lower lip trembling a bit. “I’ll be there,” you manage to get out, feeling the familiar pressure behind your eyes.
She nods back, before finally handing over that last plate that has been clean for a while, but between the soapiness of the dishwater, and the trembling of both your hands, the plate slips, and smashes on the floor. The pale fragments split and shatter, spraying across the cold tiles, and both of you jump at the startling noise, before looking at each other again, and laughing. Gasping, ragged breaths that have both of you leaning for support, tears welling in eyes as each of you are split between crying from desperate, manic humour, and dreadful, fearsome sadness.
Neither of you can find it in yourselves to care about the shattered porcelain, the jagged fragments with blue, red, and orange ink drops dotted around the utterly broken rim of the plate.
“I…I need to find something…to clean that up,” you gasp through laughter, wiping away the tears. Elain just nods, still heaving ragged breath into her lungs, eyes squeezed shut, ringlets of hair jostling with each shudder of mirth as she grips the edge of the sink, expression torn between sobbing laughter and wrecking grief, and you don’t think you can stand to be in the same room for much longer, subject to the violent turbulence.
The light from the kitchen dims but your eyes adjust swiftly as you walk unevenly out into the dark hallway, rounding the corner to go look for a brush, or duster of some kind, even a cloth or a rag would do—
Both of you freeze as you round the corner to see one another, Mor’s figure losing its rigidity much more swiftly compared to your own that will remain locked up for the following few minutes.
You swallow thickly, eyes wide as you take her in: the dimmed gold of her lustrous hair; the bare expanse of her elegant neck; the tray held in her red-tipped hands, those long, slightly rounded nails gleaming a deep rouge. “Mor,” you greet, a touch quieter than usual, “I didn’t see you there.”
“Nor I, you,” she replies, watching you. A beat passes, and you swallow again, eyes flicking down to the tray in her hands. “Azriel’s?” You ask through the tightness in your throat, gently probing to see if she’s open to a conversation. You’ll leave, if she’s unresponsive—you know now what it’s like to be on either end of this strange dynamic. Mor nods her head once, still watching you silently, and you look elsewhere. Then nod your own head. “Nice seeing you,” you say quietly, then move to walk around her.
“Wait,” Mor whispers at the last second, holding the tray in one hand and gripping your wrist with the other. You recoil sharply when her fingers squeeze your arm, and her hold lightens significantly, but she doesn’t immediately let go, digits stuttering away a second later. “Sorry,” she murmurs, stepping back by half a pace. “It’s okay,” you reply hastily, looking away as you pull your hand back to your body, “you didn’t know.”
The words hang between you, and silence stretches in the relative darkness of the corridor.
When you manage to raise your gaze to glance at her, you nearly regret the choice—she’s making no effort to conceal the fierce defence in her sharp amber eyes. You’re about to turn to try and leave again though, when she speaks, and the tremor in her voice is pronounced enough to root you to the spot.
“Tell me why you went to Eris.”
————
The expression that was on the commander’s face had been enough to set the two of them on edge, Jurian offering Eris one of those slow but rare, slightly insane half-smiles he can make, that often has the spiralling effect distinctive to falling down through a nightmare on whoever’s unlucky enough to have it turned on them. It doesn’t come out often, but that it’s made an appearance this evening is a dark sign, and Lucien silently prays he will not be forced into a position where he will have to default to Eris’s defence in attempts to calm the potential ire that could catch in either of his human comrades.
The day has proven to be tricky enough on its own—none of them need this added abrasion.
Vassa strides across the room, taking up in the seat closest to the crackling hearth, the flame making her hair blaze brighter than natural, her already sharp eyes glinting in the firelight.
It seems he’s the only one actively trying to avoid the conflict that’s brewing in the air, the other two appearing ready and more than content to fight fire with fire. He knows there’s no use explaining the redundancy of wielding that tactic against the male across from the human queen, with fire burning in his very blood.
“You said you had news,” Vassa demands, charging straight to the point before Lucien’s even had a chance to seat himself on the other end of the sofa, opposite from Jurian. Between his chosen family and his blood-given one. But Eris won’t be rushed, and instead turns his attention to his youngest brother, the fire doing nothing to thaw the cool ice in his amber eyes. “How is your mate, Lucien?”
Lucien allows himself the space of a blink to recompose himself, vaguely trying to hide his suspicion. It’s never good when he can’t see the end Eris is pursuing, but he’s used to being left in the dark when it comes to the male’s schemes—he just can’t help the instinctive aggression that prickles up the back of his neck at Elain being brought into this.
“You aren’t one for idle chatter,” Lucien replies, calming the flame that had begun sizzling in his blood, “why don’t we skip ahead and get straight to the point, as this is such a time sensitive matter?” A sinister gleam appears in his oldest brother’s eyes, and he braces himself for whatever whip is about to lash into his skin. “Very well,” Eris says instead, leaning back into his chair, practically sprawling across it, dominating the space he takes up in his typically uncaring, arrogant fashion. But then the air shifts, his expression becoming serious. “How well-informed is your mate of Night Court affairs?”
“Enough with this evasive subterfuge. What news do you bring?” Vassa demands harshly, Jurian seemingly agreeing with her anticipation to have the male rid of as soon as possible, a disagreeable look simmering in his rough features. But Lucien levels his brother with an evaluating glance, mechanical eye whirring faintly against the dim heat of the fire. “We each have our distances,” Lucien replies evenly, yielding a vague answer. He’s getting the distinct feeling something large has happened, or is about to. Maybe even happening as they speak—slabs of rock knocking into one another, having already been pushed into motion.
Does this have anything to do with Elain’s visit being postponed? She had been supposed to arrive two days ago, but had had to change their meeting to a later date as she’d had a family matter to oversee. Lucien hadn’t tried to pry.
“But you’re aware that Nesta Archeron and the General took a vacation to the Day Court?” Eris questions, and again Lucien has the distinct sense he’s missing a piece of the puzzle. A very big, very crucial piece of the puzzle.
He nods, and braces himself.
Though even foresight wouldn’t have been enough to prepare him for the news Eris had brought.
A warning that shook him to his fae bones.
————
You swallow thickly, frozen stiff as her truthful eyes bore into you.
You open your mouth, lips ajar, but your throat is much too tight to release any sort of sound.
Mor doesn’t shift, holding your gaze with a steadiness and conviction you can’t look away from, bound to her by an invisible tether that’s keeping you from hiding or running how you’d like to. “Surely you know…” she whispers, taking in a shallow breath, her lashes fluttering with an almost imperceptible shudder. “Surely you know what he did to me.”
You give a faint nod of your head.
Her amber eyes sharpen, and your stomach clenches beneath the look. “So explain yourself,” she utters lowly. “Don’t leave it up to me to pry the answers from you.”
A seed of fear plants itself in your throat, something cool and slimy rinsing gently down your spine and you’re worried sweat is dripping down your ribs, rolling in salty droplets down the soft inside of your arms where the skin hasn’t yet grown dehydrated and flaky. Fingers tighten absently on the silk of the orange scarf banding around your upper body, tugging at the folds to try and hide the tremor of adrenaline that’s filtered into your bloodstream.
You swallow thickly, but your throat won’t clear, and you realise that’s because there’s nothing there—no matter how much it feels the opposite.
“I didn’t…” you clear your throat again. Rip your gaze away. “I didn’t want to disappoint any of you,” you force yourself to answer, voice catching at the pitiful excuse.
Mor’s silent.
Silent for long enough you nervously look at her.
You flinch internally at the expression of horror on her features, shoulders bunching with shame as your brows curve, silently begging for a reply, and not this awful quiet that’s slowly gutting you.
“You chose…” she swallows past a lump in her throat, and her scent has shifted but you can’t understand what it means, the minute changes that occur within fae bodies. “You willingly went to him? He didn’t even have to try and persuade you?”
“Mor it wasn’t like that,” you try to clarify hurriedly. “I just—…I just thought it would be—”
“Easier?”
“No! I just thought it would— I don’t know… It would’t cause trouble! I just wanted to do it by myself so I wouldn’t have to bother any of you!”
“Wouldn’t cause trouble?” Mor repeats incredulously, a look of disbelief on her features, like she can’t grasp what you’re saying. “We were ready to help,” Mor bites back sharply, “all you had to do was ask for it. You could have spoken to Feyre, or any of your sisters about your magic. Any of us. You could have come to me, even—but you went to Eris.” Her voice is taut, rife with anger and hurt, but even in the dim light there’s a faint shine in her eyes, belying their wetness. “What made you think that we weren’t enough?”
“I didn’t want to bother you!” You say back, matching her volume.
“We’re your family! You’re supposed to bother us!”
You take a small step back, fighting the humiliating wobble of your lip before you shake your head, fingertips tingling. “No. You’re— You’re Feyre’s family.”
“Feyre’s your sister,” Mor emphasises, knuckles pushing up from beneath the smooth softness of her skin, pronounced from her bone-white grip on the tray that’s beginning to splinter. “Or is she no longer part of your family either? It seems the only person you even bother to speak to is Elain nowadays. Her and Azriel, anyway.”
“And what does that matter?” You bite back, hands itching. “What does it matter if I only speak to Elain? Would you prefer I start speaking to you, Mor?”
“Why not?” She nearly spits, energy being drawn out from the cave where she’d tried to smother it over dinner. “Why not?” You repeat, neither of you completely aware of how your voices are beginning to rise incrementally, ignoring or oblivious to the faint, sickly green light that definitely isn’t coming from the kitchen. “You’d like me to speak with you when this is the kind of conversation we’re having? You want me to be emotional, or vulnerable with you, or ask you for help when you shut me out the moment I do something wrong? When I fail?”
“I might have shut you out but you didn’t even open up. Didn’t even give us a chance in the first place, don’t pretend otherwise,” Mor spits back. “If you can’t understand the pain you caused me, fine. I can’t help it if you won’t allow yourself to think of us as family. But what about your actual family? What about them?”
“Don’t you dare try and talk to me about my own family Mor,” you grit out, nails digging into the flaky skin of your palms, heart pounding in your chest. “Haven’t you pried enough?”
“Did you even think to consider how it would make them feel?” Mor jabs, barrelling ahead. “Can you grasp how hurt Feyre was that you didn’t go to her? Three sisters, and you decided that none of them were good enough? Just because you aren’t their first choice doesn’t mean they can’t be—”
“Mor.”
Utter silence falls throughout the hallway at the barely restrained interruption.
Both of you freeze at the sound of the third voice, filled with hissing winds and rasping shadow. Managing to stay calm despite the tempest in her blue-grey eyes.
Before you, Mor blinks, and you’re unsure if you imagine the way colour drains from her features, still watching you. Further unsure if the faint green light was smothered of its own accord or the dark shadows that seem to be heavier now Feyre has appeared. Now the Cursebreaker has entered.
Mor turns on her heel, shifting to meet Feyre’s eyes, but quiet stretches between them, and you get the impression a conversation is being had, though not through daemati powers. A single lock of golden hair shifts over Mor’s shoulder, falling out of place, though you can no longer see her expression. And then she nods. Just once, hardly perceptible, even to fae eyes, and you watch with a still pounding heart as the tray vanishes from her hands a second later, heels clicking softly across the floorboards as she wordlessly takes her exit, leaving you and…Feyre, alone in the hallway.
You shift anxiously on your feet, swallowing thickly.
“How much of that did you hear?” You ask quietly, looking away again, all the fight drained from you after the brief altercation. You’re entirely unaccustomed with those open arguments, haven’t had one since—well, since that last one with Feyre, that had the sound ward placed on your room.
Feyre watches you, the previous storm quietened, but her eyes aren’t sparkling as usual. Instead she looks drained. Drained, and tired, and a little wary. “Enough,” she answers.
You shift again, a little begrudging she saw fit to interrupt, like you needed her to intervene. “It was fine, you know…”
Feyre’s quiet, and you’re unsure if she’s angry. Angry at you for speaking to Mor that way. Angry at you for speaking so loudly when Nyx is probably asleep. Angry at you for not speaking to her first. Angry at you for the long, long list of reasons she should have by now.
“It did hurt,” she says quietly, and you raise your gaze to meet her own, “that you thought you couldn’t come to us. To me.”
Your lips purse, and you look away.
“I was upset with your choice. Disappointed a little. Confused,” she continues in that quiet whisper that could carry with ease across a cavernous hall. “But what Mor said wasn’t true. Not in the way she phrased it.”
“Feyre, it’s fine,” you say softly. “You don’t need to—”
“Mor knows that’s not true either.”
Your lips purse again, that quiet stretching between you.
You want to disintegrate on the spot.
Fabric rustles slightly, and it’s the only clue you have to Feyre shifting. Then, “it’s late,” she says, moving away from the open wound of a topic. “We should talk more about this in the morning. When Madja comes round too.” She nods her head toward the corridor, but you look at her a little apologetically. “I was supposed to find Elain a brush,” you say, feeling embarrassed, “we broke a plate.”
“The kitchen will clear it up,” Feyre replies, leaving no room for you to skate back to your older sister.
So you end up walking with her back to your room.
It’s dark out, and you can’t help but look forward to settling into bed, even if it hurts sometimes to roll over beneath the covers. That it hurts sometimes to lie on your sides, when your arms press into the sheets, with your weight resting atop them. At least you’re beginning to get used to it, the pain much more tolerable now, despite it having not decreased.
You’ve both reached the top of the stairs, turning down the hallway that will lead to your bedroom, walking close enough together to make up for the fact your arms aren’t linked—Feyre guessing correctly it would probably hurt—when Feyre speaks. “Are Eris and Azriel the only other people who’ve felt your magic before?” She asks tentatively into the darkness of the house, seemingly having cooled off now you’re further from the spot of altercation.
“Yes, I think so,” you answer in an equally soft voice.
“Have either of them every commented on what it feels like?” She asks, and you’re aware how she’s keeping her gaze ahead. You move your eyes to look in the same direction, spotting your bedroom door on the right not far ahead. “Not that I can think of,” you reply, before adding, “though it’s never been…going, for as long as that.”
Feyre’s silent, and you glance at her through the shadows, wondering what she’s thinking. You can’t read her expression, so resume your looking ahead.
“When I was in autumn, though,” you begin hesitantly, hardly louder than a whisper, worrying who might overhear the unpleasant reference, “my magic almost…I don’t know…burst? It came through me very suddenly, and forcefully.” You recall the frighteningly large creature that had charged at you while in the woods, how your magic had melted the skin from its flesh. “We were both sick afterwards.”
“Azriel was sick a lot when he first woke up,” Feyre says faintly, and your stomach clenches with guilt.
You try to swallow past it, but it seems to remain lodged in your throat, unpleasantly settling in your stomach heavily enough you’re thankful when you reach your door, the evening nearly over with.
“Why did you ask, by the way?” You question before slipping away into your room, paused over the threshold.
Feyre glances at you, turned to leave but stopping. “Your magic…I could feel it in the hallway,” she answers, a wary note creeping into her voice.
She seems disinclined to give anything else, so you again shift awkwardly in the doorway, before gathering the gut to ask, “how did it feel?”
Something passes behind her blue-grey eyes, shuttering briefly as they close, before reopening. “Like I was dying again,” she answers quietly.
You stare at her silently, the threshold of your room between you, the silence heavier than it was before. You don’t even know what to say to that.
She doesn’t give you the time to think of a reply, however, as she releases a sigh. Her throat rolls as she meets your eyes. “Sleep well,” she says, and you catch as her attention dips to your hands, like she wants to take them, to hold them.
But she doesn’t, instead looking back at you again, throat rolling for the second time.
“I love you,” she says hoarsely, speaking those words that are so sparsely exchanged between the four of you.
You stiffen, emotion of a different kind tightening your throat, and you nod faintly.
“I love you, too. Sleep well.”
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