Triumph festival. Some years it snowed just as it did on the day celebrated by the gathering in Ornyth. Other years the kingsflame still bloomed all across the Plain of Theralis. Winter had come early, snow blanketing the Plain from the dense canopy of Oakwald to the Staghorns, broken only by the paths ploughed by delegates and travelers alike. None wanted to miss the festival. After all no one throws a party like the Galythinius’.
The delegates had been streaming in for weeks, the Lords and Ladies of Terrasen the first to arrive, then came King Dorian and his Hand, Lord Chaol Westfall and Lord Westfall’s Wife Yrene Westfall Healer, on High of the Torre Cesme of the north, and their daughter high spirited girl, always kind to those around her. Then the witches follow each year by a day, Crochan and Ironteeth alike on their brooms of redwood and Wyverns, no longer armed for war but festivities. A sight to behold as they crest the horizon, red cloaks flapping in the wind as the greeting of the wyverns rebound across the plain and off the Staghorns. From the Southern continent comes a host of Ruk Riders led by Emperor Sartaq and Empress Nesryn. Six days and nights of festivities, plays and concerts at the recently completed theater are performed at all times of the day, Madam Florine and her company providing the finest entertainment in Erilea. The seventh day, was one of remembrance, offerings brought to the many monuments around Ornyth, for those who fell during the siege and the countless butchered and enslaved by Erawan controlling the King of Ardlan.
Some escape the festivities, the loss they unearth a weight greater than the stone fortifications of Ornyth, others simply do not know the significance, too young to have comprehend or even have lived through the invasion that nearly ended the world. A lone figure, wrapped in a dark cloak against the swirling winds, her only identifier a white braid, a scrap of red cloth intertwined into the end exits the ancient city through its west gate. Passing under the roaring Lion’s Head at the pinnacle of the archway. Each year this same figure had followed this path faithfully, except this year she was not alone. A much smaller figure, wrapped in a bright red cloak, perhaps tall enough to be a child of just 13 or 14 winters. She hurries after the lone figure, trailing behind enough that she thinks she is unnoticed. The figure had scented her from the moment she left her lodging but paid her no heed believing her to have followed her by coincidence.
Upon leaving the west gate the lonely female turns south towards a patch of ground where the snow dare not touch. Farmers had turned up the soil in the summer months all across the plain, yet they too avoided it, diligently leaving this ground bare. From the eyes of a wyvern one could see a perfect circle of scorched earth and at even intervals, statues, twelve in total plus one in the center. The figure enters the circle, pausing the outer rim, as through a great burden suddenly weighed upon her. The small shadow creeps up to the closest statue, hiding behind the masterfully carved wings of a wyvern, it’s rider standing next to it. The female removes her hood as she stands before the Witch carved from stone, quarried from the Staghorns. A crown shimmering atop her head, her braid woven around its crystalline structure. From beneath her cloak she draws a bouquet of kingsflame and lays a single blossom in front of the plaque upon the base of the statue.
The young girl gasps, to her kingsflame was the most sacred of flowers, to be left undisturbed wherever it may bloom. She quickly claps a hand over her mouth, shrinking back as the queen whips around. The little one hunkers down, closing her eyes hoping she would go unnoticed. A warm puff of air wafts across her face and she opens her eyes in confusion. Another scream nearly escapes her, but is swiftly held down by the clutching fear of the scarred muzzle of a wyvern before her. The crunch of boots comes from around the corner. The unearthly beauty of the Witch queen steals the girl’s breath away.
“P-p-please I d-didn’t mean to disturb you! I was getting away from the festivities.” Her voice small, and quiet as a mouse. The queen studies her for a moment, the wyvern shifting to her side. “Do you know where you stand little one?” She inquires her voice commanding and firm, yet not angry but tempered
“No your majesty.” The girl says, “Mother mostly keeps me in the city, I have never ventured out to this place.”
“And you wear the red of a Crochan, yet I do not recognize you, who did you receive this cloak from.” The queen presses, intrigued by this little stalker.
“Mother passed it on to me, saying she had received it while helping during the siege, a good luck charm she called it.” The little one replies.
“Tell me your name fledgeling and we shall walk and I will explain to you what this place is.”
“My name is Nightlark your majesty.” The little girl replies, pulling back her own hood to reveal raven black hair and golden irises. She follows the Matriarch into the circle of stone wyverns and riders, right to the center statue, she reads the plaque, printed in both common and the language of the Fae.
ASTERIN
SECOND TO WING LEADER MANON
Fell honorably in battle with her sisters in the defense of Erelia and her people’s
“This is a monument to the Thirteen.” The Queen begins, as she retrieves the fallen bouquet, to walk the to each of the statues and place a blossom in front of each plaque. The first in the outer ring reads Sorrel. “They were the finest warriors that I had ever trained. Before we knew that I was half Crochan, we were the most lethal of all witch wings. Everyday we would bring back the hearts of Crochans’ to my Grandmother’s pleasure.”
The trio continues on. Vesta then Faline and Fallon. With each statue a new story. Edda, Briar, Thea. The proud queens voice wavers, the girls hand reach out to intertwine with the queen’s. Kaya, Linnea, Ghislaine, and finally Imogen. They now stand once again before Asterin’s statue. “They sacrificed themselves, so that I and the city might survive… no not just survive, she told me to live.”
She trails off, and Abraxos gives a low whine, as if he too now feels the burden of loss, his own gaze fixed upon the wyvern next to the striking witch. Her voice almost broken rises once more “This circle, was what was left of the forces they destroyed in the Yielding, each statue placed where each member fell.”
A faint crunch of snow comes from behind the girl and she turns, the Matriarch now weeping quietly for her lost family. What the little girls sees nearly takes her breath away. Stepping out from behind each statue is a glowing figure. “Your majesty look!” She says tugging at her companions hand and pointing.
“What is it?” Manon turns but sees nothing but swirling eddies of snow outside of the circle.
“I thought I could see them, each going to the blossom you placed upon their statues and smelling them.” She says, beneath her cloak upon her back, a wyrdmark glows.
“There is nothing child,” the queen says softly, “Leave me to grieve in peace.”
The ghosts walk over to their leader and stand before her, Manon now kneeling, lets the tears flow freely. Asterin is the last to join them, she turns to Nightlark. “Dear child would you be able to relay a message for us?”
“What is it you would like me to tell her?” The queen’s head perks up at this. Asterin says “Tell her none of us regret our decision, and that we always will follow her even in death, and most of all we love her and wish her to live not merely exist.”
The girl turns to the kneeling queen. “They do not regret their decision, and they shall follow you always as they did in life and watch over you as you rule and they wish that you will live, and not spend each day mired down thinking about them.” The queen looks to where the thirteen stand almost aware of their presence for the smallest moment of time. “They will love you now and forever.”
The queen‘s hands clench. “How is it that you may communicate with them.”
“A gift, my mother does not know, only that I have a marking upon my back since birth.” She says,And the little girl kneels next to her, arms tentatively wrapping around the witch’s shoulders. They sit for a long while before they notice a difference. “Where has the music gone?” Nightlark asks, “usually it can be heard for miles.”
The duo turn back towards the city, where they see, a crowd, exiting the southern gate, all wrapped in cloaks, some bearing the red of Crochans others merely holding small red banners with a wyvern embossed upon the fabric. The two stand as the crowd approaches and finally they reach the edge of the circle. Then slowly, the Queen of Terrasen herself steps forward, a small polite bow the Manon, She copies Manon’s ritual placing a blossom at each statues base before silently leaving to stand outside the circle. The rest follow her lead, delegates and townsfolk alike, all approach and bow before Manon before proceeding to lay the blossoms at each marker. Hours pass the girl holding onto Manon’s hand, blossoms slowly but surely covering the circle of earth still blackened and scorched more than a decade afterwards.
“I did not deserve their sacrifice.” She says, the little girl looking up to her. “Then become worthy of it, live and rebuild the witch queendom.”
The queen pauses for a long time, gazing into the swirling snow. “Come before you freeze to death little bird.”
The queen deftly swings herself into Abraxos’ saddle, and pulls the little girl up afterwards. The sun sets as the snow calms to a light shower, the silhouette of the wyvern disappearing into the aerie atop the castle.
I may have taken a few liberties on the concept of Sexmaster for this oneshot, and it may have gone in a different direction than I had originally intended (or what you guys had expected), but nevertheless, I hope you enjoy!
The music was much too loud for her taste, the high-pitched music hurting her sensitive Fae ears. How it didn’t bother Feyre or the rest of the Inner Circle, she had no idea. Even worse was the thump-thump of the bass, which seemed to reverberate along every inch of her body, the vibrations refusing to stop even as she made her way to the bathroom, looking for at least a second of peace.
Great, she thought, opening the door to the bathroom, finding every stall, mirror, and sink in use. Fae of all sorts occupied the room, repainting their lips the darkest shades of red or berry she’d ever seen, holding the stalls closed for their friends while they did their business—as Elain liked to say—or just talking with one another about the male on the dance floor that gave her that look that she just couldn’t ignore.
WELL HERE IT IS. AT 5AM. WHY AM I STILL AWAKE? BECAUSE I JUST HAD TO FINISH.
I present: Clueless. Inspired by this ask from @modernbookfaeprobably like 6 months ago: Nessian: “Don’t touch me!” “I didn’t.”
and suddenly an idea was born…
SFW Word Count: 5.5K
Life was hell with Cassian and Nesta. Azriel had only been at the Steppes for a day and already he wanted to crawl into Bryaxis’ lair. The days were absolutely brutal: training began at the first tendrils of dawn with three laps around the camp. Then the Illyrians would train for hours. Then finally, breakfast, if you could even call it that. Really it was just…gruel. Then another five laps. Then flight training. Then ring matches. Then lunch. And the day continued on as such. To be completely honest, Azriel had blocked it out. He wasn’t there for training, of course, but wanted to shadow his brother to make sure all was well. And Cassian did every exercise. So Az did every exercise. But when the sun rose the next morning…Az might’ve slept a little late so as to miss the running.
It wasn’t so much the exercise that was awful, he was a trained warrior after all, but the ruthlessness of Cassian. He had never known his brother to be such a harsh leader at a camp like this. Yes, at war, to the trained warriors and disgusting Hewn City recruits, but not to these younglings.
And he always thinking of new improvements. He spent the entire day, even during training, hashing out his ideas to Azriel. Az nodded along to what his brother said, but tuned out a bit once hour five of complaints and plans hit. It wasn’t that he didn’t care…just that he couldn’t really do much except nod and say “Sounds good, Commander.”
Azriel also noticed how the trainees were responding to this new, extreme regimen. They were agitated. They were following Cassian, but groaned behind his back. They dragged their feet and could barely stomach the meals they were given. He heard them talking about how much they hated having the commander at the camp with them. But it wasn’t Azriel’s place to rule the armies, so he said nothing to Cassian.
It wasn’t until he saw Elain on his second night that he decided to act.
Every single window in Morrigan’s home was open to the grey sky.
In this old, gracious building, that meant open air from ceiling to deep window seats, gauzy pale curtains pushed aside and billowing in the morning breeze. It had taken Nesta a moment to find her after she’d let herself in. Mor, messy haired and wrapped in silk, sitting in an open window as still and cold as though she’d been there since dawn.
Nesta had to bite down her temper at the sight.
How dare this still be a problem, how dare they have allowed the people who’d hurt her to live so long. Nesta had no intention of making the same mistake.
“Say the word,” she started, coming to Mor’s shoulder, “and I’ll end him today. No one will know but Cassian.” Because Cassian wouldn’t just help her, he’d probably relish the task. Because the pain his best friend had endured had haunted him, had haunted all of them, for centuries.
Her difficult friend, her laughing friend, a creature of light and strength, didn’t move from her vigil. “Azriel knows.”
The sadness in her voice made Nesta want to break things, to set things on fire. Instead she threw herself down by Mor’s feet, hugging a cushion to her body. Morrigan wasn’t actually looking at anything, that much became obvious. She was simply soaking in the light, even the pale winter sun enough to turn her into a riot of gold.
It was so easy to forget that she’d grown up beneath a mountain, that this world had ever not been her home.
“Do you know why the first trade route we set up went straight to Autumn, and then doubled back to the Day Court?” Nesta let the silence hang, didn’t continue until Mor finally sighed a jagged breath and turned toward her.
She raised an eyebrow, clearly humoring Nesta. “Because Helion wanted seed stock and Autumn wants every luxury good imaginable? Isn’t that why Lucien’s wretched brothers keep writing you?”
Nesta let her face go razor sharp with satisfaction. She couldn’t take all the credit, Azriel and her had spent countless nights after the war planning every detail, finding a way to reset the devils bargain their court was in. But this piece had been her idea alone.
“Because if it ran for months, the guards would stop bothering to see what was in the caravan.” Because their court guards were full of paid spies, and Azriel had watched long enough to know most of them were primarily focused on the jobs they’d been bribed to carry out, rather than their task.
Mor’s eyes roamed Nestas face, the thoughts behind them racing. The coastal breeze sent her hair into a bright cloud every few moments, stirred the gauzy curtains around them in the frozen quiet.
“While I’m with Eris today, while his brothers are busy celebrating, Sorcha will cross the border with our trade caravan.”
Nesta had half expected a gasp, but instead found her hands being crushed by a deadly focused Mor. “You got out the Lady of Autumn? Helion knows?”
Rather than back down, Nesta squeezed her hands in return, that grip as fierce as a promise. “He’ll be waiting for her. He can break any enchantment they’ve placed to safeguard her, to keep her power at their call.” Nesta leaned closer, locking eyes with Mor. “They’ll never be able to hurt her again, and when I’m done with Eris, he’ll know to never touch another female.”
Like shock, like joy, Mor laughed. Nesta did her best to ignore the echo of a sob inside the noise. She might be young, but she could understand the power of old scars. This was a bad day for Morrigan- but not the worst day, not a negation of her glorious survival.
Nesta was so happy for the sound, the sign of life, she grinned. “He’s going to run out of strings to pull, Azriel made sure of that.”
“And you’re going to haunt him,” Mor pointed out. “Like a proper Lady of Bloodshed.”
Somewhere deep in the bond, Nesta could practically hear Cassian’s delighted laugh at that. Their titles smashed together, how very Illyrian Nesta was becoming. “Anahita was known for vengeance,” she said, voice light, “but a monster straight from the Cauldron is even worse.”
The monster that lived in her skin was the worst of all. Bonded to her bones, welcomed right into her soul for strength, Nesta would glad use her horrible power to protect her family. To protect anyone who needed it.
Where death walked, even immortals would die.
“Time for the world to know?” Mor asked, leaning back, finally, finally shaken free of her thoughts completely. Nesta only raised her eyebrows in response, as if to say absolutely. Let her be Amren’s successor, let her be the nightmare in the stories. She’d protect her court to the bitter end. “You know,” Mor went on, satisfaction just starting to color her tone, “the Autumn court mourns in white.”
In all of her research, Nesta had found something fascinating about the Autumn court. The current line of High Lords had earned their throne on the single battle of an ancestor ten generations back. By tricking the honorable and vengeful spirit of Autumn himself and binding him away. It was his power- Cernunnos, horned lord of the dying season- that fed the court.
It was what had allowed a weak line to rule for so long. Unlike Tamlin’s fetid Spring, or Tarquins bright and longing Summer, their seasonal court wasn’t bound to their ruler at all. It was an usurped throne, a secret passed from father to son in the oldest stories. Cernunnos lived, dreaming. And all dreamers were the Night Courts people, in the end.
The Autumn lordlings lived in fear of death walking their land once more.
Nesta straightened smartly, the wind in her face just teased with the scent of fire. “White and just a little red,” For blood, for rowan, for the dread lord. She let her face go half pained, would never admit this was why she’d come to Mor. That this had seemed like the fastest way to distract her happily. “Can you dress me like a nightmare?”
If Mor’s clever eyes knew exactly what Nesta was on about, neither of them was willing to say a thing. “Nes,” Morrigan said, smiling in a way Nesta knew for a fact had sent Feyre running on at least one occasion, “I thought you’d never ask.”
—
Nesta stepped off the threshold of Mor’s building and waited.
In less than a heartbeat, the dull boom of massive wings sounded from above and Cassian landed lightly to her right, curly hair a gorgeous mess in the wind. The very sight of it made Nesta’s hands itch. How she’d ever spent months, much less days, without touching him seemed impossible now.
He grinned that cocky, infuriating grin like he knew exactly what she was thinking, what she was feeling. But Cassian’s dark eyes stayed tight, even as he handed her over a closed earthenware cup. “You left without coffee, sweetheart.”
Nesta hid her returning smile behind the rim as she took a sip, affection trying to throttle her as cinnamon and spice hit her tongue.
“So,” she started, raising her chin sharply. “How much did you hear from the roof?”
Cassian only shook his head in response, dark curls falling in his face. He’d tucked her close to his side and started walking before he answered, clear to Nesta the action as much to get them out of Mor’s potential hearing range as to comfort himself.
She’d scoffed at him once for it, a disciplined, centuries old soldier, who couldn’t sit still. Nesta knew now it was how he found the words, better in motion, better after a fight, even a clenched hand. Cassian’s physicality only whetted the blade of his mind, her favorite too knowing sharpness of all.
“She trusts us with her revenge,” he said, eyes not on her but out toward the ocean, face into the wind. “Did she seem- do you think she’ll be okay with this in the long run?”
Even if Nesta hadn’t raged down to her bones that Mor deserved her revenge, deserved to come out on top in this long, horrible feud, she might have considered tipping the balance for Cassian. For the endless regret that touched something fragile and young and scarred from what had happened between him and Mor centuries ago. She’d do it for Azriel, hurt for so long not by love, but by failed duty and jealous pain.
Nesta would do whatever she needed to end that trauma that had crystalized between all of them into something they couldn’t touch.
She reached across his body to grab his free hand, hard. “She’ll be okay,” Nesta promised and let herself smile, going sharp and vicious, “She’ll be more okay when she learns about the second thing we’re doing today.”
Cassian’s gaze snapped to hers. Even now-curious and sad, worried, there was an undertow of awed affection when he looked at her that made Nesta feel precious. Glorious.
Nesta tilted her head, scenting the wanting and worry, the pride that lived in the air between them. “Only Azriel knows this part. But the ties that bind the Wild Hunt have been growing weak for the last twenty years.”
She didn’t need to spell in out for him, it sparked in his eyes, in the savage grin that cut across his face. Cassian used the arm around her waist to pull her close, until their chests just barely touched. “So,” he said, face tilted right to hers, “After Sorcha escapes, after you promise Eris his time limit and we make a big show of leaving, we’re going to let loose Autumn’s monster?”
“Autumns true lord,” Nesta corrected, voice smug. “Do you know he was said to love vows and warriors?”
Cassian’s laugh set her on fire. “Well, Lady of Bloodshed, I think we’ll be fast friends.” She’d known he’d heard that, knew he’d be saying it proudly for the next century at least. Nesta rolled her eyes.
“Ready to be wicked?”
Cassian’s answer was a searing kiss.
—
Cassian had hated Eris for centuries, but watching him stare at Nesta had turned his rage into an even more deadly thing.
He stood next to her chair, nothing but a mindless guard to the insipid Autumn courtiers who answered her. Who gathered around her like moths to flame while she coldly commanded the room, turned down and twisted, and refused their terrible deals.
There was one rule that governed all faeries- high fae and Illyrians, and every shade and shape of magic in between. Power called to them like a siren. It was how Cassian commanded sprawling armies, more than half of whom thought he was as worthless as the dirt under their feet for his birth.
But his mate- his mate- Nesta registered as a threat to even the dullest senses.
And Eris’s old eyes hadn’t left her once. Cassian could have pummeled him for looking at any female like that, the cold possession a horror. But that it was his mate, his Nesta, sent him spiraling into a killing rage he could barely contain.
Behind the coldness, her impassive face, Cassian could feel her temper rising with dizzying speed. The temperature in the room had been falling steadily for more than a hour, the power crawling beneath her skin eager to be out, ready to burn and rage.
Finally, finally, Eris called the meeting to a close. Nesta didn’t bother to move, remaining an icy pillar while ministers filed out of the room, while the door was sealed and warded. When Eris returned to the table he bowed with a courtiers flourish and set a full wineglass before Nesta, voice a loathsome thing, “For the lady.”
Nesta looked at it as though she’d been offered a dead animal. She didn’t move.
This was her game, her idea. Cassian wouldn’t do her the dishonor of moving before Eris had played his hand, but cauldron damn him, he wanted to kill the bastard. Quick and dirty, it wouldn’t matter how he did, so long as Nesta never had to bare his gaze again.
“Come now,” Eris purred, “I thought we might relax, and discuss the relationship between out two courts.”
Only the further, infinitesimal stiffing of her spine told of Nesta’s discomfort, but Cassian could feel the revulsion and rage, deep in the rushing river of the bond.
“Your father is dead,” said Nesta, flatly. “Our debt is paid.”
Eris leaned back, a panthers grace contained in the motion. “But we would like to renew it. You see, my brother, you remember my brother Oberon?”
Cassian found himself gripping the back of her chair in a bruising grip as she answered. “Yes, it is hard to forget a male stupider than he is tall.” It was a dry drawl, but her heart was spiking in his ears.
Eris waved his own glass in a sort of agreement before continuing. “He’d like to offer to your High Lord a formal bid for your hand. However, I have a better offer.”
Cassian actually closed his eyes and counted. He could barely breathe, not from his own rage, but the world ending anger that was emanating from Nesta. How dare they, how dare they act like Nesta was chattel to buy, how dare anyone think his mate, his mate was some chess piece to be traded.
Nesta had gone as still as death, as a predator about to pounce. Eris just kept going, too stupid to scent the power rising around him. “You’re clever, and powerful,” he told her, as though this were a great concession, “become my lady. Stand by my side while I rule my court. You’re wasted on the North, and if you wanted to keep a pet, a beast perhaps,” his eyes lingered on Cassian until he was seeing red, “You may do so, so long as it isn’t too public. Marry me.” It was a command, not a question.
Eris made his first mistake. In Nesta’s enraged silence, he reached for her arm, hands tangling in ribbons of her sleeves to grasp seemingly fragile bones with bruising force. “Marry me,” he repeated.
Faster than Cassian could see, faster than the rage pulsing in his chest, Nesta shook off that hand and stabbed it straight through to the table with an Illyrian dagger, steal bright as a star.
Cassian was going to rip out his rutting throat. He didn’t give a damn if he held a Court, if they had a greater plan. Their debt was paid, and he was going to loose that hand he’d put on Nesta. And then his arms, and then his legs, and then his gods damned immortal life.
Cassian was going to break those iron clad high fae bones for daring to touch his mate.
“Bitch,” He snarled, wrenching his hand free. That was all Cassian needed, the vicious rage Nesta was letting loose. In two steps he’d gone around the table and bodily thrown the lord of Autumn at the stone wall. It shuddered, but no sound would escape this room, thanks to Eris’s own warding.
Before Eris could react, recover, Cassian had him pinned to the wall by his throat, was snarling straight in his face. He’d slammed him back again, hard enough to break even high fae bones, before Nesta came to his side.
The nightmare shroud of her dress hissed over the stone floor as she walked, unhurried, unbothered by the blood on her hand. For the first time Eris seemed to take in the trailing white, the rowan and bone that bound her hair. Cassian saw the moment it dawned in those dark, enraged eyes, how badly this lord had miscalculated. How deeply he’d underestimated Nesta.
The room grew colder still.
“Don’t crush his windpipe,” said Nesta, silken and battle ready. “Eris and I have some technicalities to discuss.”
From the redness of Eris’s face, the bewilderment and wild panic is his muscles, Cassian would guess he was trying and failing to call his magic. To use the strength Nesta had been bleeding from him since the very moment they’d entered the meeting.
“What did you do to me?” He hissed, unable overcome Cassian for even a moment.
“Looking for this?” Nesta asked. The slim hand she held out was engulfed in fire in an instant. It was her power, not Eris’s, but he wouldn’t know the difference. “I’ve taken it for safekeeping.”
The Autumn lord went red, mottled with rage.
Cassian couldn’t bite back his proud grin at her, clever and vicious and brilliant. He reached out with his free hand to wind one long, silken strand of Nestas hair between his fingers. “Love, he’s probably only heard about monsters like you in stories.” Cassian felt for her in the bond, restated, just for her, a goddess.
She turned her attention back to the Lord at her feet, to his vicious face, and sniffed. “A complete re-education then.” Cassian didn’t need to look to see that her eyes had gone liquid, that silver blue of something from another world. In that white dress, the fire framing every madly perfect, sharp line of her, she was a nightmare made flesh, as beautiful as a dream. “Now, little Eris,” she breathed, “I’m going to tell you what is actually going to happen.”
“Did you think we’d forget that you left Morrigan to die? That you chased my youngest sister through your territory like a dog? That’s you’d caused the death of Lucien’s lover and then been too much a coward to watch it happen?”
Eris began to thrash like a rat in a trap. With a sigh of regret, Cassian made himself let go of Nesta’s hair, to that anchor to sanity outside the burning rage of bond. Only to grind Eris into the wall, to choke more air from his vicious throat.
“Such weakness,” Nesta crooned, getting close as a lover to Eris’s enraged face. “Do you know what they whisper about you in the dark, Eris? About your torture of the folk you call lesser faeries, about the atrocities you committed under your father. Eris, who had to murder for a title. Eris, who will grind the folk of his court under his heel until none survive.”
“Eris,” Cassian took up the litany, “who is so powerless he had to imprison his own mother to hold onto power. Eris who served as his fathers personal executioner.”
Cassian ground bones back into the wall, the protest of Eris’s body audible to their immortal ears. And then he simply dropped him, stepped back. While the lord gasped for air and blundered in his impotent fury, Cassian offered Nesta his arm.
She took it with a razor edged smile, inclined her head like a human at a ball. They shared a long look, Cassian held fast by the beauty, the power in those stormcloud eyes. It was a long, still moment before Nesta returned her gaze to faery on the stone floor, to the way he was gazing at hands that wouldn’t spark magic.
“You have two decades,” she announced. “As you have no heir, our claim on your life will wait. You have twenty years to find an heir to your mothers bloodline, someone to hold the throne. And you’ll rule well Eris- you’ll feed your people and pay them, and if you ever touch another innocent in violence, I’ll know, and our deal will be void.”
The hatred of Eris’s eyes could have burned down a world, but Nesta continued, smiling, uncowed. Cassian’s fingers brushed slowly down her forearm, allowed himself a single lingering caress as she spoke. “Twenty years, or until such time another takes your place. I’ll be back to check, of course.”
Without a word, she turned, pride and love and rage burning in Cassian as he escorted her to the door. Nesta paused on the threshold, her grip on his arm fierce as she called over her shoulder, “Don’t worry Eris, you’ll see me again. Death comes for us all.”
There was no doubt she could do it. No hesitation in those soul eating eyes. Only Cassian, in the bloodlust haze of the bond, could feel her satisfaction. Morrigan would be avenged, no more harm would come to an innocent if Nesta could stop it. And she would.
Cassian missed the horror on his face, but he could smell the devastation, heard the bellow of rage as Nesta winnowed them away.
Cassian knew for a fact Eris had seen death. Killed and murdered and hunted, caused it with his scheming a hundred times over. But never death like her. Death and her willing scythe, her bloody and beloved right hand. And they’d come for him.
When the priestesses preached of the crone, Nesta was her face in the dark.
—
Awareness prickled the back of Cassian’s neck from the moment they’d winnowed to this deep forest. He’d snapped his wings back from where they’d encircled Nesta and felt it, like hidden eyes, like dread made weighty and real.
The trees here were just as jewel bright and crisp as the rest of the Court they’d seen, but wilder. Their trunks were gnarled with age, branches wider and heavier twisting together into a canopy so thick that all the light that fell on them was gold and red. Here the ferns were as tall as Nesta, the berry bushes a furious tangle.
“Which way?” He asked, because she wasn’t moving. Her head was tilted to the right, the motion so like an Illyrian hearing the wind it twisted something in is his chest. Cassian was already feeling the adrenaline, the race of the madness of this plan.
“Here,” Nesta pointed through the trees, dead west. “I can feel him.” Her voice was quiet, thoughtful, but Cassian didn’t need to look to know her eyes had gone molten with power.
His deadly, brilliant mate, stalking down legends. How wildly he loved being at her side to do it.
Cassian captured her hand in his and drew a wicked knife with the other, just to be safe. Hopefully Rhys wouldn’t learn about this part for a damn long time. He’d toast them both if it worked, but cauldron knew he’d be furious beyond measure first for the sheer recklessness. Outside those books Nesta had collected, the priestess archives she’d gained access to, no one had spoke of Cernunnos in centuries.
There was no question of being in the right place as they crossed the buzzing power of old, dead wards, as they came upon a prison of oak trees. Three ancient trees, their branches twisted together in the sky, their roots pulled free into a dense cage. Cassian could see armor through the bark, gleaming skin that looked like it had been bonded to tree itself.
Worse of all, they could hear him breathing.
Nesta’s eyes had gone wide, but she shook her hair back from her face and pulled them both forward. “We only have to wake him, those idiots never renewed the magic.” Her scorn, bright condemnation was like a lifeline, Cassian found himself snorting in response.
Carefully, dropping his hand, Nesta pulled the circlet of rowan from her hair first. Then an Illyrian comb of bone, placing both against the trunk of that horrible tree. Even before Nesta took the knife from his hand, every instinct in Cassian was screaming to move, to fly, to get his mate away from that fell prison.
He couldn’t take it. Cassian stopped her hand, those grey eyes fierce with understanding as he cut his own palm deeply, smearing blood down the rough tree bark in a circle. She let him, but caught his arm and pulled him down to her. Every bit of the air here smelled like fear, like some primal death and decay.
But Nesta smiled at him anyway, sharper than any blade. Cassian had to kiss her, just once more, before it all went to hell. But he didn’t have the chance as his wickedly grinning mate tugged in his hair, wrung a groan from his lips as she kissed him and kissed him and kissed him.
He was still frozen like a blushing virgin, caged by tempered longing when Nesta spun away out of his arms, eyes the brightest thing in the world, as she began the invocation.
“Blood of one whose killed, bone of a death brought honorably, rowan as a welcome gate.” Somehow, impossibly, the forest grew even quieter, the watchful horror spooling in the air. “Cernunnos, wake. Cernunnos, Lord of Autumn, Death of the Year, rise.”
For a long, long moment, the only sound Cassian could hear was his heart thudding in his own chest. Nesta had just begun to scowl, worried, when a roar sounded.
All animal in a way only fae could be, the clearing practically rocked with it. Cassian didn’t have time to wonder as he threw himself in front of Nesta, pulling her to the ground and shielding her as the tree exploded, as the oaks fell.
When light raced in to touch the forest floor, there before them was a man. A faery male as tall and broad as Cassian, made taller and more fearful still with the antlers than crowned him, dripping moss and foxglove.
Unyielding as steel, Nesta rose smoothly, facing the Autumn Lord.
“Cernunnos,” she said, the cool, perfect voice Cassian loved caressing the syllables.
“Little Death,” He called back, voice a joyful bellow, “What are you called in this life, old friend?” His eyes, now that Cassian could see them, were a stark contrast. One the crushing green of full summer leaves, the other a punishing true gold. He was still armed as hunter, despite his long imprisonment. An ivory horn at his side, knives at his wrists, and a mighty bow on his back.
“I am Nesta Acheron,” she replied, “and this is”-
“Warrior heart!” Cernunnos yelled again, “You smell of the blood of vanquished enemies, of promises kept. You are a good mate to Little Death, I can tell.”
Nesta looked like she was trying not to laugh, her jaw going tight with the effort. Could one laugh with the dread lord of the dying season? Cassian didn’t even try not to. “I’m called Cassian,” he said, laughter in every word.
Nesta raised a sharp, amused eyebrow at him, but Cernunnos was nodding, running his hands along the weapons that still adorned his body after all these endless years. “I owe you a great debt for my freedom. What did they say of me after they put me asleep?”
She didn’t shy from the bitter truth, met those horrible eyes. “Lord Connall took the throne once you slept, claimed it was his power. They called you lesser fae, carved your name from their stories until I could only find record of you in other courts.” Nesta’s voice had gone dangerously soft on the word lesser, vicious enough that the Lord before her inclined his head. “Lesser,” It was a growl from his ancient throat. “Tell me,” he addressed Cassian, “does the brother of your heart, the Lord of Night, not wear his wings with pride?”
Cassian could only nod. A bloody, horrifying grin split Cernunnos’ face at the motion. “The beasts and animals still heard me beneath the soil, loyal friends that they are, came to tell me of the passing of time while I dreamt. Your nightmare Lord is good and true, but the slime Connalls blood begat, who sit in my Forest House, are not.”
Nesta stepped forward, the ribbons of her gown snagging on broken branches. “The Night Court supports your claim. You will find an ally in us for all your days, but there is boon we must ask you.”
Cernunnos sized her up. So slight a stature, so steely a spine. Power that made the air sing, caged and bound in a beautiful, unyielding body. Cassian knew exactly what he was seeing, feeling. Nesta Acheron was a wonder, a force. Pride threatened to choke him.
“Little Death,” he rumbled, “I know of your deep honor, the old things speak of it on the wind. You are golden with it, and I will toast to you and your mating in my halls one a day soon. Do not ask me things, I would gladly grant you and your Warrior Heart a favor,” He moved like shadows, like wind, to clap Cassian on the back like thunder. “After all, we are friends now!”
Cassian hid his wince in a huffed laugh, taking over while Nesta’s smile sparked and grew, a bonfire in this terrible place. “The current autumn lordling killed his father and imprisoned his mother for power, with all but his youngest half brothers support. We’d ask that no matter how you hunt, how you choose to take your vengeance, we might carry out his death, for a great wrong he caused one of our family.” He had to swallow hard saying it, the words so insufficient for the wealth of pain triggered in Mor by the very sight of Eris.
“Eris,” Cernunnos sighed, voice deeper than mountains. “How many brothers again?”
“Six,” Nesta answered smartly, coming to Cassian’s side on silent feet.
Cernunnos nodded once more, before bringing his hands together in a clap so sharp it rang in Cassian’s ears. Foxes emerged from the trees, deer stalked the shadows, ravens beginning to call in the trees. “Plenty a number for us all to hunt!” He declared, “And a court to clear up too!”
He turned away, back to them, and raised that legendary horn to his lips. It’s echoing call clanged in Cassian’s head, rose and fell like a fearful heartbeat. The howl of wolves rose in the air, answering their true Lord.
Cernunnos turned with that horror of a grin and placed a hand on each of their shoulders. “I will take my time restoring the balance. When it is done I will call you, and we will end that serpents bloodline together! You and yours be ever welcome in my lands.”
Before Nesta could reply with courtesy, before the raging bloodlust in the air could capture either of them, The High Lord of the Dying Season had winnowed away, leaving behind only smoke and dead leaves in the wind, animals racing past their legs to join him.
Cassian buried his face in Nesta’s hair, adrenaline singing in his veins. “Holy rutting gods.” Against his armored chest Nesta was laughing, witheringly, perfectly. He could feel the heat of her through it, feel her triumph lighting them both up inside.
The sound was brighter than anything in this jewel toned land, truer than the rage of violence heady and thick in the air. The vengeance they’d let lose, the lines Nesta would cross, hand in his.
Summary: Lysandra and Aedion enjoy a peace and freedom they never knew before Erawan and Maeve’s defeat. Still- something isn’t quite right. Aedion is keeping one of his desires secret, and Lysandra is determined to figure out what it is.
foxboylucien 