Amanda

Okay, but seriously? Have you seen prettier faces? I love Eris' pouty lips and snatched jaw line, and I'm obsessed with Alexius' beauty mark and subtle purple eyes shadow. They are the prettiest couple in all of Prythian. She really captured their dynamic perfectly in their expressions, with Eris more severe and intimidating and Alexius leaning towards mischievous and playful.

One of the things that I asked the artist was to incorporate the leather bracelets that they give to each other in PMID. You can see here that Alexius has the red leather strap representing Eris with the moon charm that represents Lunavalles. Eris' tan leather bracelet that represents Alexius is also visible just under his sleeve. Also peep the subtle hand-holding.

The door creaked open. Sanguine footsteps sounded across the carpet. Koivu, who lounged at his place before the fire, lifted his head curiously before going back to dozing.

The scent of yarrow, violets, and oakmoss swelled in the air. 

When Eris finally forced himself to look up, Ensel stood in the threshold of his lounge. Light from the fire danced across the smooth porcelain of his jaw and ignited his auburn hair. The curve of his neck peeked above his slave tunic, where the thick collar sat. Its rubies and topazes looked somehow dark in the firelight, as if the gems knew the true meaning of their beauty.

They stared into each other’s eyes. Tension as thick as a rope stretched between them, seemingly wrapped around Eris’s very lungs given how he suddenly struggled to breath. 

Ensel looked to the fireplace, where Eris’s sword was displayed above the grand mantle. The light from the hearth reflected in the half-human’s dark gaze. “Beron has some hounds heading north to look for the Jvalana who escaped.”

The use of his owner’s name instead of title marked his as one of their trysts instead of a formal message he was required to carry. It was Ensel as the secret companion, conniver, and enemy of the High Lord and his court.

And Jvalana. The name of the faeries was also a direct betrayal. They were to be wiped from history, Beron had ordered: a volatile obliteration, a complete and final burning, a dusting of bones scattered to the wind.

Eris kept his eyes on the fireplace coals and said nothing. His whiskey glass sat cold in his palm, the fire burning his face.

Ensel continued, “Winter is probably their best option, if they can get through the mountains safely.”

Ice clinked against his glass as Eris took a sip of whiskey, grateful for the burning in his throat. “They might if they’re careful,” he finally replied.

Cold, brutal logic. It sat inside him despite the images that came to mind: motherless children climbing over boulders and through crevasses, males who had been too cowardly to stay and fight clinging to their lover’s hands.

Maybe he could help them. Maybe that was what Ensel wanted.

Silence. Unbearable, crackling silence.

­“I sent a letter to them,” Eris heard himself say. “Before Beron moved us into Nivala.”

The silence only continued. 

When he turned, the half-human still gazed into the fire, the light raging in his eyes.

He blamed him. Yet again, he blamed him. Even after seeing that he had done nothing.

—males stood along the treeline.—trees of oak, mahogany, chinar, and—

—swords hissed against their scabbards—

A pang of anger, of desperation. Eris leaned forward, set his whiskey down on the desk, and pushed himself off the armchair. “Those who did not wish to listen to me,” he quietly said, “walked into their deaths on their own fruition.” He prowled to the half-human, who remained standing with his hands tucked behind his back, eyes emotionless, chin tilted up in challenge.

When Eris stopped before him, Ensel’s arms slid from his back to hang at his sides.  “Just like all the others before?” the male asked.

A curl of Eris’s lip. 

Others. Yes, the countless others that Ensel somehow managed to remember every detail of. The faerie who also tried to rebel or simply speak out against Beron, only to be silenced. 

Eris stood for a moment, steeling his frustration. “Why did you come here tonight?” he finally asked. “To turn your displeasure on me yet again? As if this isn’t a cycle that we have both experienced hundreds of times?”

A cycle you can stop.

Ensel’s voice hit the walls of Eris’s mind, but he ignored it. “I do what I can. We both do. And when we can do nothing, we simply stand by, watch, and plan for the next—”

“And every plan goes by and you continue to watch, my lord,” Ensel interrupted. “Or maybe even commit the act yourself.  Just like the ones caught in a golden collar, bleeding in the jaws of your smokehounds, bleeding from your own whip—”

Another surge of anger shot in him. Eris didn’t realize he had lunged forward until he felt the coarse fabric of Ensel’s tunic in his fist. He gripped his tunic, pulling him closer...or maybe he wished to shove him away, or hit him, he did not know. 

—Bodies crumbled and fell—wings and limbs and heads—

—the tip of his boot nudged a grey stone—

A smile, bitter and carnal with temptation, twitched on Ensel’s mouth, but his cruel words gratefully stopped as Eris held him by the shirt. They swayed together, lips close to touching. He swore he could hear the male’s heart pound under his fist, the heat under the tunic pooling against his forearm.

“I don’t wish to discuss this tonight,” Eris said quietly. He did not wish for them to exchange words at all besides the quiet moans and suppressed thoughts that always occurred during their trysts.

Ensel laughed, the deep timbre resounding through Eris’s whole body. “You go from trying to write away your guilt to saying you do not wish to speak of this?”

—the screaming rose higher and higher, above the burning canopy—

—the tip of his boot nudged a grey stone—

I am not guilty of anything.  He wanted to say it. He should scream it in his face. 

Instead, he retorted, “Is this not what we have always done? Snuck around, gone behind Beron’s back to point fingers and discuss plans, only to end with saying nothing at all?” He leaned forward, dragging the last words out like a quiet finger on bare skin. 

A flicker in Ensel’s eyes: lust, then cold.  “Yes,” he answered, his voice quiet. “Always.” 

His hands—his soft, cursed hands—slid around Eris’s waist. Maybe he too, was unable to resist such temptations. A flex of his jaw, and his fingers tightened around Eris’s skin. “But if tonight comes and goes, my hope for discussing this later will fade,” Ensel softly added.

Eris would have asked what he wished to discuss, even though he already knew.  What did you wish to rip apart with your pointless teeth? This rotting flesh we both so often share, the flesh and bone of politics, Beron’s cruelty and rage…why do you constantly point out this fucking stain that is so impossible to avoid? 

But he didn’t even want to give the male the opportunity to make it worse.  “There is nothing to discuss.”

A muscle in Ensel’s jaw twitched with amusement. “I suppose you wish for the silent part of our trysts then?” He chuckled, the sound sending shivers down Eris’s spine. “The fire is still hot and cruel upon our skin, our hair smells of ash and death…and you wish to fuck a half-breed because it’ll make you feel better? It’ll make you forget the cruelty and pain?” 

—ash choked the sky—

—nudged a grey stone—

His half-mortal hands, so cold compared to a High Fae’s fire, slid under his tunic, brushing over his bare skin. Eris’s grip tightened around the fabric of his shirt, his knuckles brushes so close to his gold collar.

Ensel leaned closer, their lips nearly brushing. “You know it won’t,” he murmured. “It’ll only make this stain you wish to avoid fester and grow.”

“Do not get into my head.”

A small smile, so close to Eris’s lips that he could practically feel it. “Your thoughts bleed when you’re desperate. But I’m sure you already know that, given how often I trained you against it.”

He stared into Ensel’s Hel-colored eyes. The smooth greys and browns, the muted greens. 

Yes, he knew how he bled, and he fucking hated it. He did not want the guilt—the useless fucking guilt—to rise back up within him, to spill out like some guttural wound.