For Love, For Spring
Celebrating @tamlinweek with another commissioned piece from Kannamora where Tamlin is happy and in love 💖
This fanart is based on a scene from my fanfic "A Court of Brittle Thorns" chapter 20.
You can read the excerpt below:
That night, Tamlin said nothing—just took her hand and led her through the heart of the Spring Court. Past fields beginning to green again, through glens and wildflower hollows, into the thickest part of the forest where the trunks grew wide as towers and the light filtered down like falling petals.
There, untouched by war or weather, shimmered a silver pool.
It wasn’t water. Not quite. Amawyn had been here before—once, perhaps a century and a half ago, when the world was still young and Andras had dared her to race him through the woods—but now, it was as though she were seeing it for the first time.
The pool glittered under the open sky, not reflecting starlight but seeming to become it—each ripple catching colors that weren’t present in the world around them. Blue, pink, and glimmering silver danced like constellations being born anew.
She stepped forward without waiting, shedding her clothes in slow, deliberate movements until her bare skin was kissed by the chill of the spring air. Her jet-black hair spilled around her like a silk gown as she moved, waist-deep into the shimmering surface.
Tamlin didn’t follow her—not yet. He only watched, letting her rediscover the lake, letting her move like something sacred.
“My father always said this spring was connected to the magic of the Spring Court,” Amawyn murmured, her voice soft with memory. “The consistency does feel similar to the underground water of the Calanmai caves… but this,” she said, her eyes sweeping over the luminous surface, “this reflects more. It breathes more.”
The lake seemed to stir beneath her feet.
The water—if it could be called that—seemed to rise to meet her, brushing along her skin with a touch like silk and velvet, warm despite the night, ancient despite its light. It welcomed her when she went deeper. It called to her.
She leaned back, letting herself float, her body relaxed and open, hair fanning around her like a dark halo, the peaks of her breasts catching the moonlight. And then—without warning—the pool shifted.
The silver gave way to gold.
The change was slow, reverent. As if the pool had recognized her not just as a guest, but as something kin. The magic of the Spring Court enfolded her, accepted her. Claimed her.
Tamlin watched, still as stone. Watched the water change, watched her shine, watched the soft light wrap around every inch of her body. It was not lust that struck him in that moment, but something closer to worship. As if the land had reached up to bless her, and he was witnessing a coronation spoken in light.
And then—something stirred. Not within them, but within the pool. It brushed against him slowly, like the curl of ivy around stone, like the first threads of spring moss waking beneath snowmelt. Magic old and immense and quiet, winding through the clearing like a breath being drawn. It recognized her, and it recognized him.
The power that lived beneath the forest floor, that slept in roots and rivers and hollow hills, had begun to rise—not as an alarm, not as a warning, but as a welcome. Tamlin felt it in the soles of his feet, in the low hum of power that tugged at the base of his spine. The same magic that kissed Amawyn’s skin now reached for him as well—tentative at first, then bolder, like a memory remembered at last.
And he understood.
This place did not belong to him alone, not anymore. Not just to the bloodline of Spring’s High Lords, not just to the thrones or the crowns or the ancient rites. It belonged to them, together. To the court, yes—but also to the bond. To the two of them, whose magic twined like vines in bloom. To the love that had not asked for power, but had earned it anyway.
So Tamlin stepped forward, the surface of the pool lapping at his ankles, warm as sunlight and thick with that strange, silken weight that was not water. With each step he took, the glow beneath the surface deepened. What had begun as gold now shimmered with green, with amber, with soft-hued pink and the palest violet—Spring’s full palette awakening in color and light around their joined presence.
By the time he reached her, the pool pulsed gently around them both, as if the lake itself were breathing in rhythm with them.
Amawyn floated just ahead of him, her hair spread like ink across the golden water, her body half-submerged, half-bathed in light. He didn’t touch her. Not yet. He let the magic settle. Let her feel it fully—what the land had offered her, what it had always held in wait. He watched the way her eyes softened, her mouth parted slightly in wonder, and felt her power curl toward his, not with urgency but with recognition.
He did not speak, words felt too heavy for a moment like this. Only when she turned her head and whispered, “Come closer,” did he reach for her. Their hands found each other beneath the water, their fingers lacing like roots tangling beneath the soil, and Amawyn smiled.
“This doesn’t feel borrowed,” she said.
Tamlin’s brow furrowed. “What do you mean?”
She floated toward him, face tilted toward the stars. “This peace. It doesn’t feel like it’s waiting to be taken away.”
Tamlin looked at her, really looked. The light, the lake, the ease. The first flicker of joy without weight. He lifted her hand and pressed it to his lips.
“It’s not borrowed,” he said. “It’s ours.”
He came to her slowly, carefully, as if afraid she might dissolve into the light. She didn’t speak when his arms slid around her waist, and she let her head fall back against his shoulder. No words passed between them—just breath and skin and starlight, the kind of quiet that only exists when nothing else is needed.
Lovely dividers by @olenvasynyt
