Okay, the new Doomsday trailer looks so good but also I thought for the briefest moment that the first voice talking was Sue Sylvester and I was like wow they're really taking this crossover seriously
After the death of her father and the disappearance of both her sisters, Elain Archeron resigns herself to a quiet, joyless life bound to a man she doesn’t love. But when her betrothed decides she is worth more to him dead than alive, Elain flees into the night with nothing but the shoes on her feet and the desperate hope that she might survive until morning. A strange voice leads her beyond The Wall to a land she thought only existed in storybooks, where she runs into the male who has lived in her dreams for as long as she can remember.
Elain
Step by step, Elain scaled the side of the cliff, wrapping around as the switchbacks rose higher and higher. She’d slipped away from the medtents unnoticed, as far as she knew. Below, the sounds of war had resumed, clanging swords and screams unignorable in the air.
She moved as swiftly as she could, the wind whipping violent and cold against her dress. She was coming up the opposite side of where Nesta and Cassian had climbed. Though they hadn’t seen her, she’d lost sight of them a while back, their figures disappearing into the craggly cliffs to the east. She was still guarded from the sight line of the battlefield, and hopefully from above, too. The switchbacks she’d chosen were carved deep into an alcoved ridge, protecting her, she hoped, from anyone who might look up.
She slowed as she approached the peak, scaling the last visible switchback and peeking over the edge at what lay above. There were tons of massive rocks here, piled high around a clearing on the clifftop. Behind it, the woods lay in a thick line, covering the rest of the cliff as it veered back down into alpine slopes.
Though she couldn’t see anyone who might resemble a king on the top, the Cauldron was there, sitting centered in the huge clearing like a centerpiece. It was much larger than she’d imagined. She’d been picturing a cooking pot, not a massive, round, cast iron tub large enough that multiple people could stand within it.
She counted four guards standing stoically around it, eyes focused forward on the battlefield below. Each was armed to the teeth, swords and other weapons strapped to their bodies. For the first time, Elain wondered if she hadn’t thought this through. Perhaps there was a way she could distract them—throw a rock into the woods so that they would go investigate the sound.
She was thinking of alternatives when, like predators, Nesta and Cassian descended soundlessly from the treeline. Strangely, she was almost surprised to see them, moving with the darkness of the woods on silent, trained feet. With the Cauldron in front of her, Elain had nearly forgotten that they were the reason she’d come in the first place.
Before the guards had even clocked their approach, two throats had been quietly slit. By the time the other two noticed, it was far too late for them. It was almost too easy the way the four were felled, their bodies slumping to the ground.
Elain was startled to see her sister in this element. Not the violence of it, but how natural she looked—like she’d been born to it. Nesta moved like a ghost, making the violence look almost elegant, like a dance. Elain was just about to emerge when a flash of white in her periphery made her freeze, her feet slamming to a stop and keeping her behind the rocks.
Nesta and Cassian had noticed the presence, too, but before they could move, something in the trees above them triggered. Elain watched as the priestess flicked her wrist, a smug smile painting her face as a wash of blue powder rained down from the branches above, coating Nesta and Cassian entirely.
Elain recognized the toxin that had practically rendered Tamlin imobile during his capture, her breath catching in her throat.
“My, my. A perfect delivery, just where I wanted it,” Ianthe cooed, coming closer to the massive Cauldron.
“You shame the title of priestess,” Nesta spit, knowing exactly who she was on sight. Ianthe smiled, her teeth flashing in the light.
Though Elain had known that Ianthe had turned on Tamlin and fled, that she’d been playing spy for Hybern this whole time before switching sides, seeing her still brought out a rage in Elain that she wasn’t quite sure what to do with. She could feel it in her fingers, the tingling raging down to her toes. Elain’s fingers twitched.
Ianthe had been responsible for the sacking of Spring. For putting her friends' lives in danger and taking Tamlin to abuse him. She’d been responsible for ruining the first place Elain had ever truly felt wanted and at home. Safe.
Ahead of Ianthe, the ground shuddered, likely something from the battle below, but Elain was already moving, positioning herself behind another collection of rocks at the top of the path so she could watch.
“Now, Lady Death—that’s what they call you, isn’t it? Fun little nickname. You will give me the parts of the Dread Trove you have.”
Nesta and Cassian froze just for a moment, but the hesitation was enough. A wicked smile peeled wider across Ianthe’s face.
“Ah, you do have them then. It was just a guess, but it seems to have been a good one.”
“You’ll get nothing from us,” Cassian said, his hand on his sword. Even without the strength of his siphons, Elain knew from what she’d seen of him since coming to Velaris that he’d go down fighting. And he was strong.
“Now, now, I’ve got plenty of friends who can come shred those pretty wings into threads if you want to do this the hard way.”
Something in the way she threatened them so casually was enough for Elain, and she stepped out from behind the outcropping.
“Leave them alone, Ianthe,” Elain said, her voice strong despite the way her body shook in the frigid wind. She felt exposed, but strangely, not afraid. That humming beneath her skin that she’d felt for days was almost a comfort against the cold, and Elain was bolstered by it.
But when Ianthe turned to her, the grin on her face was something horrid, and Elain’s confidence faltered.
“I knew you’d come,” Ianthe nearly purred, and Elain understood there was something bigger happening.
“I doubt you’re happy to see me,” Elain snapped back.
“Oh, but I am.” Ianthe stepped closer, closing the gap between them as her eyes flared wide. “Little human—well, mostly.” Even in the graying light, her teeth were the bright fangs of a predator.
“You know, Elain, I had a feeling when I found you under that willow you weren’t truly human.” For some reason, the knowledge shocked Elain. In the last months, as the picture had become clearer, she had never imagined anyone else figuring out that she wasn’t human. Gods knew it had taken her long enough.
“Why?”
“The root you’d eaten—it’s toxic. I told you that back then. What I didn’t tell you was that the amount you ate was enough to kill even some fae, definitely a human, especially since you did nothing about it. Apothecaries seek it out for…special cases. Those seeking a quick death.”
Those memories were blurry to Elain, faded to almost nothing now. She remembered eating the root she’d thought was edible, sliding in and out of consciousness as she’d slid beneath the willow tree, uncaring if she lived or died.
“Lucky for you that I had an antitoxin on hand. And lucky for me. I wanted to observe you, to see what made you special.” She almost spit the word. “Why they seemed to want you there when I’d been trying for months.”
“They wanted me there because I wasn’t throwing myself at them,” Elain couldn’t help but hiss, remembering the way Ianthe had put her hands on Lucien. In the background, she thought she heard Nesta laugh. “Pathetic. All that power and influence and you still stoop so low.”
Ianthe’s eyes flared in barely-contained rage this time, and she stepped closer.
“Despite your horrid attitude,” she hissed at Elain, “I became more and more convinced that you were something other than human. I was, perhaps, a little less careful the more you annoyed me. It was so easy to get you to take the tea I’d made for you for sleeping.” She laughed to herself. “A drought to entice the drinker into killing themselves.”
That night….when she’d nearly thrown herself from the balcony.
“I figured, worst case scenario, you’d be one less problem. Best case, you’d be a solution. It only proved my suspicions. See, I’d been watching you, Elain, keeping you in Spring so I could figure out what you were. But that proved to me what I needed.”
“How so?” How could Ianthe have figured out what she was when Elain wasn’t even sure?
“I watched that night, from below the balcony. I watched the vines protect you—just like everyone else. Poor, sweet, innocent Elain.” The bitterness was so obvious in her voice now, the jealousy pouring through.
Anger seethed through Elain. “You don’t know the first thing about—”
“Quiet, you strange, little thing. There’s use for you yet.” Elain’s skin prickled at the proclamation, something sinking in her stomach as Ianthe continued. “You weren’t the only ones with a prophecy.”
At that, Elain’s blood ran cold.
“What kind of prophecy?” she risked asking.
“To rebuild the Cauldron, a sacrifice must be made. What better than a human blessed by the Mother?” Her eyes left Elain to settle on Nesta. “Or two, for good measure?” She cast her her eyes back to the battlefield. “Three would be just greedy.”
Elain couldn’t help it, the vision sweeping in and taking her senses, her eyesight. Images flashed in the dark, the sound roaring in her ears like a violent gale.
Nesta, kicking and screaming in the dark as she was dragged across the open cliff toward the Cauldron, her middle finger raised defiantly in the air as she was shoved beneath night-dark liquid. Cassian screaming, injured on the ground so badly he couldn’t save her. In another swath of darkness, Feyre and Rhys were losing the war, holding each other, battered and bruised and kneeling on bloodied ground as the world collapsed around them.
Then, Lucien, flickering in and out, his face contorted in pain so visceral she could feel it in her own chest.
But the images switched then, the darkness stopping, fading into something soft. Lucien was gone. In his place were her sisters and their mates, whole and happy. It didn’t feel like a lost battle anymore—it felt like hope, like a future.
But Elain was not there to see it.
And that voice echoed in her mind, soft, holding her the way a mother would.
It’s falling apart.
She understood how this was to go, she understood what she needed to do. But there was something to take care of first. She came back to herself, lungs rushing full of air. Ianthe seemed to have not noticed what happened, still talking to herself.
“—and if there’s one less Archeron in the world, perhaps I’ll be able to sway a certain copper-haired lordling.”
Elain felt no remorse as she bent to the ground, tapping her ankle three times, the hidden bargain tattoo appearing like a dark swirl of night.
In her periphery, she could see the skies darkening. First, her eyes shot to Nesta and Cassian, their faces full of horror. Cassian was the first to shut his eyes, whispering “look away” to Nesta as she did the same.
Ianthe, however, did not know to look away and was shaking in terror, the look on her face something twisted and gruesome.
Elain knew better than to look behind her, to behold what she’d released in the daylight.
Elain was climbing down endless stairs into the library, descending deeper every second. It grew darker and darker still, but strangely, Elain was not afraid.
The voice seemed to still guide her without speaking, like some entity moving her feet to push her where she was meant to go. She followed it with an odd and all-encompassing sort of calm, one foot in front of the other.
Down and down she went until, finally, she hit the bottom of the steps.
It was cavernous in the darkness, the light from above so far gone that she could barely see it anymore.
Slowly, she pressed forward, one hand on her hammering heart.
Strange human, the darkness around her rumbled.
Elain could feel it in her chest, in her bones.
The ground felt like it was shaking with the presence of whatever spoke, the voice so different from the one she’d heard before. It was so loud in her mind that the tone was warped, though Elain had the strangest inclination that the voice was female, the presence feeling oddly welcoming. Curious.
“Hello,” she whispered, clearing her voice and trying again. “Hello. Did you bring me here?”
There was no immediate response, just the heavy, dark quiet around her, surrounding her softly like a blanket she couldn’t see. It felt heavier than just air, a presence to it that felt neither warm nor cold, neither moving or still.
There is darkness in you, there is light.
The words were a statement, an observation. Though it seemed to speak in riddles, it resonated with Elain.
“There are both, yes.”
She thought about her life before, the darkness she’d been so afraid of, the nothingness that lay ahead and how she hadn’t truly cared one way or another. She’d been ready to die rather than face what came next, rather than fight for herself.
She thought about Spring and all the unexpected joy, the happiness that she’d never known surrounded her life like it had been waiting all along.
She thought about how the two could coexist now—that bad days didn’t mean life wasn’t worth living, that a future could be open and undecided, no set plan in sight, and still be the future she’d dreamed of.
“Life is better when there is both.”
There was a quiet mumble from the darkness, as though it was contemplating her words.
The wind speaks of you. What have you come to seek, flower of the wilds?
“I’d like to make a bargain…”
Ianthe did not have time to scream before the darkness engulfed her, swirling around Elain and blinding her entirely for a moment. When it drew back, moving over the cliff face and out toward the battlefields below, nothing was left of Ianthe except a stain across the grass of the clearing.
Elain remembered what she’d done, what she’d tried to do. How many lives had Ianthe ruined? She couldn’t help but feel pleased to see the mark in the soil—the only one Ianthe would ever be allowed to make again.
There was darkness in her, and Elain gladly rose to meet it. She turned to face the battle still raging below, the massive shadow of Bryaxis tearing across the field.
Elain cupped her hands, screaming out, "REMEMBER OUR BARGAIN!”, and the ground seemed to shake and groan in response.
Lucien
The massive darkening of the sky above might have been the only thing that could have knocked Lucien loose from the grip of battle.
He noticed briefly at first as the sky seemed to darken, but didn’t take his focus off the fighters in front of him. He focused instead on his long sword—swing, strike, parry, repeat. He was running on adrenaline, sure his body was tired, but the thrill of life or death was spurring him on. Forward, forward.
Then, everything went dark as though all the light had been stolen from the sky. He could see Feyre holding her hands up, a light suddenly emanating from them in a way that filtered a sort of bubble of sun across their portion of the field.
It was the light from Day, the power of their High Lord—of his father.
Without thinking, Lucien raised his hands too, trying to dig back to that well of light that he’d been so afraid to touch before. He barrelled into it as his palms reached up into the darkness, and the glow that shot from them came from somewhere entirely untouched inside of him. It didn’t feel out of control this time—it didn’t feel dangerous. It felt like he was meant ti wield it, that, finally, he had accepted it, and the magic was welcoming it home.
His light arced and met Feyre’s, then stretched farther and farther out across the fields, extending to covering the armies of Night.
“Hold it!” Rhys screamed to him and Feyre, his own powers shielding who he could. “Look down! Look away!”
Lucien was focused only on the blood soaked ground beneath his feet and the power rushing through his body and hands as the screaming around him crescendoed, the entire field except for the bubble of Night pitched into night so dark that he could see nothing at all for a moment.
Then, the screaming began to fade in volume, the darkness shifting, moving, as the quiet rang out around him.
Slowly, tentatively, he and Feyre lowered their arms, the light receding back into the dim gray glow of daylight.
There was no moaning of the injured—no screaming. There was simply silence and held breath as Lucien watched the darkness make its way across the field. He was breathless, exhausted and spent, but when he looked at his hands, it felt right. The powers that were his birthright, coexisting with the flame.
He distantly hoped with almost a wry sense of humor that Helion hadn’t seen.
Beside him, he could hear Feyre and Rhys having a conversation about Velaris—questioning how the creature—Bryaxis—had ended up here. It seemed to be targeting Hybern’s forces, the uniforms and flags decimated into open swaths of nothing but tarnished earth.
This would change the tide of the war. This and the addition of Spring’s troops could swing it in their favor.
But Lucien didn’t have time to regroup—couldn’t breathe for a second as a fear that wasn’t his own erupted in his chest. It jerked his eyes upward, the cliff face nearly above them catching his eyes. He wasn’t sure how, but he understood Elain was there. That she was not back at the camp in the med tents as she was supposed to be.
The sinking cold in his chest told him that she was in danger—she was afraid—and his body was already moving toward her before he could change his mind.
“Lucien!” Feyre called.
“Elain’s in trouble,” he responded, moving through what was left of the crowd to the cliff’s base.
Feyre was still speaking behind him, Rhys trying to get some clarity, but Lucien threw himself into a winnow, the dark winds rushing him up to the switchbacks on the side of the mountain without another thought.
Elain
The air had crackled with something that felt horrible beneath her skin as the King of Hybern winnowed into the clearing atop the cliff. Though she’d never seen him before, she knew immediately who he was.
Unfortunately, he seemed to know her, too.
His magic was unquestionable, strong, and ancient. By the time she felt the warning, it was too late. Ianthe hadn’t even attempted to subdue Elain, but it was the first thing he did.
He barely moved his hands at all, a simple twitching of his fingers, and Elain had felt the ground beneath her moving. Before she was able to even make a decision about running, it was too late. Roots erupted from the ground beneath her, spilling out from the dark trees and wrapping around her legs and hips.
She caught sight of Nesta and Cassian, too, the same gnarled roots shooting up from the ground to tether them there. Elain tugged, but the now-motionless roots were unmovable, as though they’d been frozen in place. This time, it wasn’t fear that reared its way up Elain’s throat, but anger.
“A fun trick. Now, tell me, human. How did you get such a monster to bow to you?”
“I did not expect nor ask anyone to bow to me. A bargain is beneficial to both parties,” she spit in response.
The king’s smile was wicked and horrid, spreading across his face as though he knew something that she did not.
“There will be no bargaining here today.”
Without another word, the Cauldron lurched, the light spilling from it so bright that Elain had to turn her head. It shot upwards and out this time, taking a swath of the aerial armies as Cassian screamed.
It went on for what felt like ages, Elain’s eyes watering at the brightness of it all, the light flashing almost like it couldn’t sustain the power. When it finally stopped, the Cauldron was different, the light still glowing out from the cracks and edges—wide and evident now in its surface.
The king saw Elain looking. “We brought it back,” he said, almost musing. “Fixed the missing pieces back to it, but there wasn’t any way to bring it back whole.” He tipped his head as though taking it in.
“We weren’t sure there was any way to fix it—not truly. At least, not until we found the prophecy.”
Elain wondered how different it was from the one they knew, the one of the three sisters, the three-faced goddess. She felt so sure now with Nesta’s insights that she was right—that it was her and Feyre, and Nesta. Their mates, too.
But she couldn’t figure out what that might have meant to someone like Hybern. Prophecies felt like stories—no matter how many people read it, the interpretation might be wildly different. And perhaps they’d had something different altogether. She wasn’t about to ask.
But the king kept on.
“An offering of this world, but also another,
Curious, and new, and steeped deep in wonder.
A sacrifice made, of not one world but two,
To see the fractures be mended anew.”
“And you think I will fix it? That I would willingly make it into your perfect weapon?” she asked, incredulous. The king smiled, the Cauldron turning and firing off again into the battle below at his whim.
He smiled. “Perhaps not willingly, but yes.”
If it demanded a sacrifice, something otherworldly. If Ianthe was right, Elain could be the sacrifice. But would fixing it help or harm those she loved?
That strange feeling under her skin seemed to hum in response, the buzzing of bees alight in her veins. Even without the voice she’d come to know, it seemed to be telling her that it did not like to cause harm—that it was cracking because it wasn’t being used correctly.
Could Elain stop it?
She looked past the near-blinding light to Cassian and Nesta, holding each other despite the faebane, despite the restraints. She didn’t know their full story yet, and the thought that she now might not ever hear it was a sadness so deep she almost wanted to fold double.
The visions had shown her the path Nesta might walk, a beautiful girl with dark braids and wings. Would Elain let that be taken from her?
Elain was one of three, but the truth was, she’d never contributed meaningfully. Feyre was always willing to give herself, and Nesta, always breaking parts of herself away to protect Elain.
And then, Elain, doing nothing.
She’d never had worth—never tried to, never wanted to.
Never, until she’d met Lucien.
As if she’d summoned him, he was there, suddenly on the hill with Nesta and Cassian. She couldn’t even scream his name before he was drawn into the roots too, his eyes locked on her in horror.
The Cauldron shook between them, the power destabilizing it as the light burst forward, shooting haphazard flares onto the battlefield below.
It’s falling apart.
This time, the words were from her own mind. She couldn’t wait any longer—every second, more lives were lost. Soon, it would be the lives of her family.
She focused on the roots around her legs, the earth beneath her, reaching deep and willing them to move the way she’d willed that flower to heal.
Please, please, please. Help me.
Immediately, she felt the grip minutely loosen.
Beneath them, the cliff shook, the power from the Cauldron so strong that it was making Elain sick. It wasn’t going to stop without a sacrifice to heal it.
She closed her eyes this time, going deeper. She imagined a well of power inside her, an endless depth that was dark and fathomless. Deeper and deeper she dived, feeling the buzz around her until it swallowed her whole.
Let me go.
And they did.
When Elain opened her eyes, she could see the destruction, the king focused on the Cauldron and not looking back at her. Around her feet, the roots receded, pulling back into the ground.
Hybern didn’t see Elain slip free, but Lucien did.
She tried to will the roots to release them too, feeling whatever magic lived beneath her skin and pushing it into the ground the same way she pushed feelings through the bond.
Let them go.
She saw in the brief twitch of Cassian’s eyebrows that they’d loosened, and his eyes shot to her. It was clear then that he understood what she was doing, beginning to speak to the king to pull his attention away from her.
Ahead, Lucien’s eyes never left hers. She was walking toward the Cauldron, holding herself together, willing the roots to release her family and looking at Lucien one last time, the horror painted staunchly across his face.
“Elain, don’t.” He mouthed the words, but she’d heard them as if he’d whispered them into her ear.
His beautiful face, scars and all, the wind whipping around them.
She was close now, close enough that she could almost reach out and touch the Cauldron, but she couldn’t take her eyes off Lucien.
“This was the first time in my entire life I’d ever felt alive, and I’m so glad I spent it with you. I’m so sorry there wasn’t more time, but there was never going to be enough, anyway, was there?”
Around her, she felt others winnowing in, the wind picking up so violently that her hair whipped into her eyes.
She turned to the Cauldron, giving a final push of her magic into the earth and feeling it as though she were releasing the roots themselves. Somewhere ahead, Nesta was screaming, but Elain was already moving, her body launching toward the dark water within.
“ELAIN!” someone screamed, but it was too late.
She thought how horribly cold the water was on her skin as something slammed into her, searing hot at the contrast as the water took her entirely under.
After the death of her father and the disappearance of both her sisters, Elain Archeron resigns herself to a quiet, joyless life bound to a man she doesn’t love. But when her betrothed decides she is worth more to him dead than alive, Elain flees into the night with nothing but the shoes on her feet and the desperate hope that she might survive until morning. A strange voice leads her beyond The Wall to a land she thought only existed in storybooks, where she runs into the male who has lived in her dreams for as long as she can remember.
Lucien
Lucien all but crashed through the doors of his tent in the war camps, ready to collapse facedown into the makeshift bed with his boots and armor still on.
It had been two weeks gone now, the war fully involved once they’d found Hybern’s armies at the border of Spring and Autumn. It put Lucien and the Autumn armies at an advantage—they’d learned to train on these sloping fields—but war was war, and it was brutal no matter the landscape.
The first battle had gone overwhelmingly in Prythian’s favor. The second, less so. Unfortunately, as it was, the two armies were evenly matched, leaving everyone involved in a chokehold as to who would emerge victorious.
There had been no sightings of the King of Hybern himself, nor of the Cauldron, and everyone knew that bringing it into play would all but sign the death warrants of those fighting. They wouldn’t sit out forever, and everyone seemed to understand that their days were numbered. Until then, they were simply trying to sway the stakes and stay alive.
“Perhaps he doesn’t have it after all,” Feyre had suggested in the last war council, the High Lords and Generals gathered together.
“Or he doesn’t know how to use it,” Cassian suggested.
Lucien disagreed with both. He had the horrible, sinking feeling that the King of Hybern was biding his time. Waiting on something—though he had no idea what.
But every meeting of the council had been more tense, patience thinning and tempers flaring as the war went nowhere.
He’d been surprised but relieved when Elain had spoken up, reminding them again of their duty to Tamlin.
Spring’s forces were still organizing and had not yet joined the effort of the war past those who were already stationed at the borders. It would likely not be enough to change the tide of war, but having Tamlin back and able to fight in his beast form might give them an advantage.
“We have to get him,” she’d argued. Lucien agreed with her, both as his friend and from a tactical standpoint. Elain had had another vision of him in chains, and her promise to Lindy weighed heavy on her mind, he was sure.
“How are we to go into the middle of an enemy camp?” Nesta had countered.
“He is our ally,” Azriel had added in support, and Lucien reaffirmed how much he liked the Shadowsinger. He had a dedication to duty that rivaled any he’d ever seen, and Lucien had to admire it.
“He’s our friend,” Elain had corrected. Feyre had, at least, had the wherewithal to look guilty and agree, though Lucien felt a pang that Elain had even needed to remind her in the first place after all that they’d gone through together. He understood that things were different now—their lives were different now. But it wasn’t lost on him that Elain had done more to stand with Spring than Feyre ever really had.
Still, the problem had remained unsolved at the end of the meeting, no plan in place to rescue the missing High Lord. Everything was an exhausting, frustrating stalemate, and it was hard to rouse each day and keep fighting when there was truly no inkling of an end in sight.
Lucien suddenly felt the boots being tugged from his feet. The low light flickered in the tent as he looked back, finding Elain gently unlacing his other boot before pulling it off, too.
“You don’t need to do that,” he murmured, his voice sounding as tired as he felt.
“You certainly can’t sleep in boots and armor,” she countered. After she tugged the next one off, he sat up, helping as she removed his armor and dirty clothes, then wiping him down quickly with a warm, wet cloth. She’d clearly taken care of herself before she’d started taking off his boots. Lucien wondered how long he’d been asleep. He hadn’t really remembered drifting off.
Elain had been mostly taking care of the broken and wounded soldiers, using what skills she had to repair minor injuries and otherwise assist the healers in the massive medical tents. Each night, she too fell exhausted into bed. Though the two had been sharing a tent since the start, it was all they could do to collapse in each other’s arms at the day’s end and sleep the few hours they were afforded.
When she finished, it took all the energy he had left to fall back into the pallet, tugging Elain with him so that she fell on his chest.
For a while, he thought she might already be asleep, her breath so soft against his skin. Lucien was drifting too when he heard her voice, barely a whisper in the tent.
“Are you scared, Lucien?”
The question punched a hole in him, and before he answered, he wrapped his arms around her more tightly.
“Of course I’m scared. I don’t know anyone half-sane that walks on a battlefield and isn’t.”
He could feel a small shift of her face against his chest, maybe a smile.
“What do you think happens when we die?” she asked. Lucien hadn’t expected the conversation to turn so grim, but he wasn’t exactly surprised. Elain had never experienced anything like war before, and now, it was all she’d seen for weeks. If he tried hard enough, he could remember all the way back to the first real times he’d experienced death. The details had faded over the years, but the sharp fear of death never really had.
“I think that we don’t really know, nor should we.” His words were measured. “I can’t say whether we’re aware or not once we die, but I think either way, we must be all the better for it.”
She was quiet then, a hush over the tent. He blinked hard to stay awake, just in case she was thinking.
“Lucien?” her voice finally asked again. He brushed his fingers through her hair as he answered.
“Yes?”
“I saw Jes. In one of my visions.” He couldn’t help the way his body froze, the way the blood seemed to screech to a halt in his veins. How could she know about Jes unless she was telling the truth? He had never.
“I was there, in woods that looked like Autumn. I know that now. I thought I was sleeping, dreaming. But she was there. She dropped from a tree, and she recognized me.”
Lucien realized the tears were tracking down his face, hot does his temples and puddling in his ears.
“You—” He cleared his throat. “You talked to her?”
Elain nodded against him. “She knew who I was.”
“What did she say?” The words were a broken whisper, though Lucien tried desperately to steady his voice.
Two centuries. It had been nearly two centuries since he’d heard her voice. Seen her face. Was it selfish of him to want to know? To ask Elain?
But he felt her smile pulling against him again. “She wanted to know if I was going to stay, if I was going to fight for you. I told her I was.”
“When was this?”
“The night with the vines. She told me something was coming. Told me to wake up.”
She had been there. In a way, Jes had been there, as though trying to save Elain too. His first love trying to save his mate.
“She wanted me to tell you that she’s okay. That she’s happy. That she doesn’t blame you, and that she never did.”
The emotion is Lucien was too much, a sob he had been trying too hard to hold shaking his chest as he pulled Elain closer. Jes would have loved Elain, just as he loved Elain. He could picture them sitting together between the same trees, laughing in the pillars of sun from the canopies above.
Of course she’d seen her. Of course she had.
“And she…” He took a deep breath that rattled in his lungs, and Elain twined her fingers with his, holding tight. “She looked happy?”
Elain nodded against him again. “She has the prettiest wings. The brightest smile.”
She had. She did.
“Thank you, Elain. Thank you.” He buried his face in Elain’s curls, cradling her as close to him as he could. What a gift they were. What a gift she was.
“Whatever comes next seems lovely, but I’m not ready for us to go there yet,” Elain whispered, so quiet Lucien almost missed it. Instead, he swiped a wrist over his tears and pulled her up closer, slotting his mouth over hers for a sweet, slow kiss.
“Not for a long time, still. I promise.”
Though he was exhausted, Lucien felt lighter than he had in years. As he settled into the bed, pulling the covers over them both, he sent a silent prayer of thanks to Jes. For watching over him, for still looking out for his interests—for Elain.
She nestled into his side, her body entwined with his, and he felt complete for the first time in as long as he could remember. He felt whole.
She might have been asleep before he was, the vague memory of her breath puffing slow and steady across his chest.
Elain
War was nothing like Elain had imagined it from the books she’d read as a child—not that she’d spent much time reading about war at all.
There were so many things she hadn’t been prepared for. The smells, the screaming, the blood. There was so much blood, all the time. She thought that for as long as she lived, she would remember the smell over all else.
Though she worked from before sunup each day until long into the night, she had yet to see any progress over finding the king or the Cauldron or Tamlin, despite her best efforts. Her visions had not come again, and she’d started to numb herself in the din of the war around her.
Something else Elain hadn’t been expecting about war was how often they felt the need to meet and talk about it. It seemed no plan could hold for more than a single day, the council meeting each evening to talk, talk, talk in circles until they were all frustrated.
Some meetings, Elain skipped, preferring instead to spend it with the injured or dying, but tonight she’d chosen to go. They were arguing about finding the Cauldron again, something that had been evading them since they started out.
“We need to be scrying to find it,” Azriel said, leaning against one of the posts of the great tent that Feyre and Rhys shared. Tonight, Elain was slumped back in a chair, her body nearly giving out with the weight of the day. Lucien sat beside her, his posture failing too as they leaned into each other and listened.
“And who will do it?” Rhys asked. Feyre was using all her strength for glamouring the majority of the army, and it was apparent that it was already draining her. Nesta was the only other option, but she was injured, insisting to be a part each day of the actual fighting, much to everyone’s objections except Cassian, who wanted her by his side. All her energy was currently going toward healing herself, and there would be none left for magic.
“I could do it,” Elain volunteered, her voice soft among the clatter of the others. Still, the tent hushed around her. “I could try.”
She had no idea what scrying entailed, or if it was even possible for a human. But if there was no one else, she could certainly attempt it.
The sisters exchanged a look.
“The visions should qualify me, correct?”
“I suppose,” Rhys conceded, “But do you feel comfortable?”
Did she? She wasn’t really sure what she was doing, but from what she’d heard, it didn’t sound very different from what her visions already entailed.
“I think so,” she admitted, looking to Lucien for confirmation. He offered nothing but a firm squeeze, his hand steadying on her thigh.
“I trust you. If you choose to do it, I won’t leave your side.”
And that was that. Within the hour, she was settled at the massive table in front of the large map, Feyre and Nesta on one side of her and Lucien on the other.
“I think I’ve got it.” She gave Lucien a final look, a thrum of nerves and love humming in her chest.
Amren, the tiny, otherworldly advisor to Rhys that Elain had come to know over the past week, passed her a small, gathered fabric bag. Within it, Elain dumped the contents into her hand. Four bones, and three smooth pebbles. Immediately, she felt that humming across her skin again and closed her eyes. For the briefest moment, it felt like there was a warm wind washing over her.
That was easier than I thought it would be, Elain thought, but then the wind abruptly stopped.
“I guess someone is going to need to tell me what—” But Elain opened her eyes to find nothing there. As if being thrust beneath a wave, Elain’s vision went black. It was familiar—dark waves and darker clouds swirling in the sky. Around her, the tent was gone. Her sisters and Lucien no longer sitting by her side. Instead, there was a vast emptiness, nothing for miles but a dim grayness and cloudy skies.
This is the end. This is the beginning.
That voice….that voice.
Elain, Elain, Elain.
Little fawn.
You are so far from home.
Around her, the scene shifted.
Together, together. It’s falling apart.
A requirement of three.
A sacrifice of two.
A decision of one.
Elain had never heard these words before. This had never been a part of the prophecy.
It falls apart. It falls apart.
A requirement of three.
A sacrifice of two.
A decision of one.
Together, together, it’s falling apart.
The voice stopped, the gray, swirling mist parting to reveal Tamlin in chains. He looked awful—exhausted and haggard, bleeding from his temple and nose, his hair matted and limp.
He seemed to be inside a war tent, too, though he was chained to the ground. She stepped forward as if to go to him, and his eyes shot to hers.
“How are you here?” he asked, eyes wide and frightened. She wasn’t sure how he could see her. He’d seemed to see her in the first one, as well. She tried speaking to him, to use her presence for reassurance.
“We will come for you, Tamlin. I promise.”
He looked around, checking to make sure they were alone before whispering, “They have the Cauldron, Elain. They can’t use it. They don’t know how to use it without hurting themselves. It isn’t stable.”
“I know.” She remembered the dream of it cracking, the light spilling violently from the rifts. They’d guessed as much.
“Is Lindy okay?” he asked, and Elain nearly cried to hear that that’s what he was concerned most with.
“She’s safe. She protected all the staff, hid them in the cellars. She’s watching over Spring.” The pride in his face was enough to nearly make her sway, and all she wanted was to end this, to get back home, to bring Spring back to how it was before.
“Thank you, Elain.”
“We’ll come back for you. I promise,” she said again.
He didn’t have a chance to respond, the vision shifting so violently that Elain felt sick. But the next image was Ianthe, standing beside the king. The nausea took a back seat to the fury Elain felt, the need to put her hands around the priestesses neck overwhelming nearly all else.
Calm, little flower.
The voice startled her this time, her body jerking. Somewhere far away, she felt hands on her shoulders.
Come find me.
I am where the snow eddies the leaves. Come find me.
Elain felt it like something physical the moment that it clicked in her mind. The maternal voice, the one she’d been hearing long since she’d crossed The Wall.
The voice was the Cauldron.
“It’s you,” she said, hoping she could get it to respond. “You’ve been the Cauldron the whole time?
I go by many names.
Even with the soft, maternal voice, Elain could hear something that almost sounded like teasing.
“How can I hear you?”
Elain Archeron, our missing piece. The third face, the voice cooed.
“What does it mean?” she asked.
Instead of answering, she was met with silence, but from the corner of her eye, something caught her attention. In the swirling gray, there was something dark and twisted building. It overwhelmed the space, clouds black as ink rolling in and taking any light with them.
“Come back!” Elain called. “Tell me what to do!”
But the darkness was nearly to her, her body shaking as she realized she couldn’t move.
“Help!” she screamed, and the voice returned for a final demand.
Wake.
Elain snapped back into her body, the violence of it feeling like a punch to the chest. Ahead of her on the map, the stones and bones had circled where Winter and Autumn met, the opposite end of where they’d been fighting.
Where the snow eddies the leaves.
“North. They’re north,” she gasped, and the bones rattled against the parchment.
+++
Once the location had been established, everything moved quickly. A mission was set up under the cover of night, Feyre and Azriel making a run for the hidden camp to bring back Tamlin.
Once it was understood that Prythian’s armies knew where the camp was, the final battle and true war would begin. Rhys had taken over glamouring the entire army, leaving a vision of them back at the border as the rest moved, shielded, northwards.
Now, all there was to do was wait.
It was much colder here, the trees barren and skeletal instead of covered in the colors of fall. She’d listened to the wind howl all night against the tarp, pressing herself close into Lucien to drown it all out. They’d positioned the camp up on one of the many surrounding cliff faces, a good option to see Hybern’s army below, but horribly exposed to the raging winter winds.
She could feel the anxiety in him rippling into hers. Everything was real now—there was no avoiding what they all knew was coming.
Still, when they’d returned with Tamlin—bloody and bruised—at daybreak, there had been nothing but relief from either of them. The blue powder she’d kept seeing on him was faebane, something used to keep him from accessing his magic. But the second they’d freed him of it, he’d embraced her and Lucien so closely that she’d nearly been unable to breathe.
After that, he’d collapsed, sleeping like the dead in the tent next to theirs until daybreak. And now, he was arguing with everyone who would listen about being allowed into the fray.
“Tamlin, you need to rest. To recover,” Lucien insisted.
“I’ve wasted enough time lying about doing nothing. I need to fight with everyone else. I need to summon the remaining armies of Spring.”
“You need to rest, or you’re as good as dead,” Elain corrected, the sternness in her voice stunning them all into silence. “At least to start. We can reevaluate later, but you cannot fight in your condition.”
He growled at Elain, unhappy with the orders, but acquiesced anyway. Both Rhys and Feyre were staring at her, surprised looks on their faces like they couldn’t believe human Elain had gotten close enough with the beastly High Lord to chide him like a child and have him take it to heart. She shrugged.
“You’ll make sure he’s cared for once we’re gone?” Lucien asked her as everyone else fell away.
“He’s going to crash so hard in a moment he won’t be able to leave the tent. I put a sleeping draught in the tea he had when he woke up.” Lucien grinned.
“Diabolical, Miss Archeron,” he chided teasingly, pressing into her and kissing her temple before pulling back.
“I can’t stop him once he wakes up, though,” she added. “It should at least buy a few hours for him to heal.”
“It’s better than nothing,” Lucien replied, stepping closer and pulling her tight to his chest. His armor was cold against her, but she held him tighter nonetheless. She wanted to pull and stretch this moment into eternity. It had been weeks of fighting, and every day she worried for him. But this was the fight, the battle that would change every outcome.
Something in her chest wouldn’t settle, scratching and rumbling to get out.
“I love you, Elain. I will come back to you,” he murmured into her hair.
“You’d better.” She laughed, but it sounded wet in her chest. “I love you. Please don’t die.”
She watched as he made his way toward formation, eyes trailing him until she couldn’t see him anymore at all. Her chest rattled like the bond was trying to escape it, and the humming beneath her skin became more intense.
The horns blowing were the only alert to the start of the fight, Elain deep into preparations in the med tent. The second alert was the wave of bodies needing care that began to fill in, one after another after another. Each person was bruised and bloodier than the last, males and females stumbling in with their armor half broken and torn from their bodies.
Elain tried to focus only on the injured. She couldn’t put Lucien’s face on them, couldn’t worry about him fighting while she was here. Instead, she threw herself into her work, helping the steady stream of those coming—she bandaged, tightened, gave sleeping draughts, and monitored. She tried to give hope, even when there was none, and brought wet cloths to the bedsides.
Despite her focus, she couldn’t help but overhear talk of those incoming. People were dying—it was a massacre on both sides. Still, no one had seen the king or the Cauldron. Elain knew that wasn’t a good sign.
She couldn’t help herself anymore, drawing out of the tent to survey the battlefields below. She immediately wished she hadn’t. The fields were covered in a wide swath of maroon, the ground no longer visible beneath the blood and bodies. Monsters fought amongst the fae, winged warriors on both sides falling like broken stars from the skies. She couldn’t find Lucien in the fray—she was too far away—but the fast-paced heartbeat in her chest told her that he was somewhere…living, breathing still.
But even so, the odds looked grim. The screams from below were enough of a horror that Elain knew she’d never be free of the echo of them. In the distance, over rolling hills to the south, another horn echoed and a hush seemed to settle over the chaos below.
Elain squinted toward the horizon, toward the far hills. There, atop the southern ridge, another army appeared, and the warriors held their breath. Then, as though a great collective breath had been taken, the banners flew from those leading the battalion to reveal the crest of Spring. At the very front, clad in armor and riding a horse of her own, Elain recognized the mass of dark curls bouncing in the wind.
Lindy had come, and she had brought with her the remaining armies of Spring.
Behind her, she heard a commotion, but there was no stopping Tamlin as he tore out of the tent, armor half on and sprinting toward his armies. Toward Lindy. As he broke over the cliff face, half-transformed, Elain watched as he descended to the battle below, tearing across the fields of broken bodies to her.
Elain smiled despite it all, that, regardless of all else, they had found each other.
The relief was short-lived. On the opposite side of the field, Elain could see the armies of Hybern parting, something clearing a wide path between the soldiers as they fought. Where Prythian stood, she could see the separation of the courts, though they all fought in tandem. But Elain could not keep her eyes from the widening swath of earth between the opposing armies. She stepped closer to the cliff face, watching with furrowed brows and squinting eyes.
The prickle over her skin was sharp and immediate as Elain, and everyone below, realized too late what was happening.
“Get down!” she bellowed from the clifftops, though those below had already begun to scream the same.
“LUCIEN!” she screamed, no idea where he was in the fray of it all. She grasped the bond and ripped, willing him to move, to flee, to do anything to get out of the way of what was coming. The panic was so visceral, so painful, that she worried her chest might explode. It wasn’t just Lucien down there—it was her sisters, their family.
Though she knew what was coming, she still was somehow surprised when the light rippled across the field. It was so bright it blinded her when the sharp flash hit her eyes, and still for a moment after. But when she blinked back into clarity, she understood no amount of screaming could have stopped what the Cauldron had done.
Down on the field, a great scar had been burned deeply into the land, nothing left behind but char, ash, and smoke. Lucien’s heart still beat in her chest, but she knew with certainty that others had not been so lucky. Ahead, people were already moving, screaming orders, mobilizing. But Elain stood still, the shock at the magnitude of the destruction so violent she wasn’t sure when she’d fallen to her knees, or if she could even stand again if she tried.
Still, in her shock, she surveyed the crowd below, the section of Night where everyone would be. She found Lucien first, his copper hair just barely catching her vision. He looked to be helping the injured, his sword tucked neatly back across his side. Feyre and Rhys were nearby, pointing and shouting and far from the damage.
But what caught Elain’s eye was farther back and to the west, closer to where the blast had come from.
There, just beside the cliffs, Nesta and Cassian stood, Elain’s eyes drawn to them like something had pulled her there. Her vision flashed on the hilltop, eyes adjusting rapidly like she was flying. Suddenly, she was there, stood beside them—though not really, since neither of them could see her there.
“I told you, it’s the only choice. We’re losing,” Nesta screamed. Ahead of her, Cassian looked devastated, the expression on his face telling Elain that whatever argument they were having, he was losing that, too.
“Nes, please. Don’t do this. You don’t know what it’s going to do to you!”
“You’d rather us die on this battlefield, or die trying to give people a fighting chance?”
“I’d rather you not die at all!”
Elain noticed then that her sister was crying, her hand reaching out to touch Cassian’s chest.
“Will you stay with me?” she asked, her voice smaller now, as though she wasn’t sure.
Cassian sighed, but the determination broke and his shoulders lowered. He pulled Nesta to him, crushing her in his embrace.
“Always, Nes. No matter what.”
Elain was tossed back into her body, head spinning and stomach sick. Nesta was going to use the harp and the mask. She was going to potentially kill herself to stop this.
They were already moving across the back of the field, skirting the cliffs they’d need to climb to get to the other side. Her heart was beating frantically, and she stole a final look back at Lucien, bloodied but otherwise fine on the field below.
Please keep him safe.
She thought toward whoever was listening—the Cauldron, the Mother, any gods that were left.
Please.
And then she was taking off toward the distant cliffs.
Hi all! Welcome back to ACOTAR Secret Santa 2026! We are SO EXCITED to bring this event back and engage in a little holiday gift giving and/or shenanigans! For anyone interested in participating, check out the timeline, FAQs, and other information (and of course make sure to follow the blog so you don't miss any updates!)
Timeline
Sign ups will open September 7th and close September 20th
Assignments, barring unforeseen circumstances, will be announced by October 5th - you will receive a message with your recipient, as well as what they've requested. This will be done in a staggered manner over the week.
You should reach out to your recipient within 72 hours of receiving your assignment. A mod for the event will reach out to you, so please be looking for a DM- if we do not hear back from you within 72 hours, we will remove you from the exchange and reassign your recipient.
Gifts can start to be given December 15 and must be received by December 21
Participation
Anyone who creates some sort of fan content is welcome, whether than be fanfiction, fanart, edits, or a really good playlist. There is no restriction on characters- EVERYONE is welcome.
Participation includes creating a gift for your assigned recipient, but also spreading the holiday cheer and dropping in their inbox with nice messages, questions, and other friendly interaction! Communication with your Secret Santa (if they send messages), your recipient, and the moderator (me!) is essential.
You will need to have a tumblr to participate (so spread the news far and wide to all of your fandom friends, even if they delete it right after the event!).
This event is open to the entire fandom, no matter what you ship or which characters you like
What's New?
We heard you, we've spent a year planning, and we're officially really excited to announce that we will be opening submissions for x-readers this year! PLEASE read the FAQ for more information regarding the process, but if you are a writer, you will find new checkboxes on the form this year to select your x/reader pairings and preferences!
Check out...
Rules
FAQ
Looking forward to seeing what everyone creates this year!
After the death of her father and the disappearance of both her sisters, Elain Archeron resigns herself to a quiet, joyless life bound to a man she doesn’t love. But when her betrothed decides she is worth more to him dead than alive, Elain flees into the night with nothing but the shoes on her feet and the desperate hope that she might survive until morning. A strange voice leads her beyond The Wall to a land she thought only existed in storybooks, where she runs into the male who has lived in her dreams for as long as she can remember.
Lucien
Lucien wondered if there was anything left to life past war meetings.
For the past week, he’d done absolutely nothing else.
War meetings, war plans, war scheduling, war items, war agenda. War, war, war. War was on the horizon, but Lucien wasn’t sure that they could possibly talk about it anymore before it actually arrived.
To her credit, Elain was holding pace. She sat by his side in the meetings with her sisters and their new family, avidly listening and asking him questions when there was something she didn’t understand. Lucien was happy to oblige, though he’d always hated battle preparations.
When he explained it to her, however, it didn't seem so bleak.
They had temporarily relocated to the palace above the Court of Nightmares, hosting other courts and their representatives to carefully discuss plans. Tamlin had come to the first day, much to both Lucien and Elain’s relief, and informed them the priestesses were located safely in Spring.
However, he also came with news of more attacks on the other temples of Prythian. It was enough to put the pieces together—the King of Hybern had somehow come into possession of the Cauldron itself, putting it back together with stolen relics from the temples where they’d been stored and hidden.
There was nothing else to protect against at this point in terms of the priestesses—the king had gotten all he needed. And Rhys had been right—Ianthe had been long gone by the time Tamlin returned.
Now, it was all a matter of defending Prythian and nullifying the Cauldron itself. Elain and Lucien had spent an entire afternoon in the library with Nesta and her friends finding everything they could about the Cauldron’s power. Apparently, it had been thought to be a myth instead of a tangible, real thing. That’s how the King of Hybern had been able to get his hands on it.
Since then, it had been parsing out information only to those most trusted. Helion had come, and Lucien had steadily avoided his gaze. He wasn’t ready to talk to him—he wasn’t sure that he ever would be.
But Elain had sat at his side regardless, gripping his hand tightly through the entire ordeal. He was glad he’d told her—glad she knew—and he hadn’t had to go through many more details.
She was smart, and gods, so quick. Though she was such a peaceful person, Lucien could feel her enthusiasm and curiosity through the bond. She asked him good questions, easily keeping pace with the conversations though she’d never been exposed to the chaos of war. He hadn’t been sure it was possible, but even this was making him fall more deeply in love with her.
Eris had reiterated upon his arrival that mother was safe in Day, and Lucien was even more grateful then that he hadn’t spoken to Helion. Though he did wonder if he should send his mother a letter, or otherwise visit and somehow manage to avoid Helion altogether when this was all over. For now, that she was safe and, presumably, happier than she’d been in centuries, was enough for Lucien.
The week had dragged on, but the time that Lucien and Elain were getting together, even if most of it was spent in war council, was worth every second.
The group spoke now of the Dread Trove, three items of which they had two already—a mask and a harp that Nesta and Cassian had acquired in the last six months. They were fairly tight-lipped about the items, only bringing them up when it was just the people from Night around the table. Lucien supposed it was a good sign that they included Elain and himself in that trusted circle without question.
From what he’d gathered, there was a third item—a crown—that they’d been able to trace back to a lake below The Wall but unable to acquire.
“These are ancient weapons,” Rhys warned, his eyes wary as he looked at them across the table. “We won’t use them unless it's absolutely dire, Nesta.” Their eyes met across the table. “I won’t risk your life,” he added.
“What if they’re the only option, Rhys?” Nesta argued, the only one without a sense of relief at the words he’d spoken. He leaned over the table, placing his hands over the massive map.
“We don’t even fully understand how they work. You could die.”
“The odds are evenly matched right now. People will die regardless.”
“I would like to gamble with as few members of my court as possible,” Rhys ground out, his patience with Nesta overriding the care in his voice. It was apparent that she was getting agitated too. “Do you want your sisters to lose someone else?”
It was a low blow, and Elain and Feyre’s eyes volleyed between the two of them like they were watching a ball passed back and forth. It was apparent that the two irritated each other, but even more apparent that they both cared deeply enough to risk lives—both others and their own—for each other.
“Fine,” Nesta finally said, giving up first. Elain looked surprised and Feyre looked relieved. “But if things are dire, I won’t hesitate to use them, Rhys.” It was a clear warning that she would make the final choice based on the tide of war.
Rhys nodded once, agreeing to her decision as the rest of the conversation moved on. They discussed movement, glamouring the army to keep the element of surprise, and how each person would function within the ranks of the armies.
“Who would you like to fight with, Lucien?” Feyre asked. He hadn’t considered it. He hadn’t fought with Autumn in centuries, despite Eris being in charge now. Spring was manning the borders at the sea for now, not sending but a few battalions to help fight on the front lines. He certainly wasn’t going to don a toga and raise his sword for Day.
“I will stay with Night, if that’s alright,” he offered. Rhys smirked, and Lucien didn’t miss Cassian slipping a few coins into Nesta’s pocket.
“Elain will stay here,” Feyre added flippantly, as though it were an already-decided fact.
“I most certainly will not,” Elain responded, standing so abruptly that her chair scraped loudly across the floor.
All eyes were on her as she stood, Lucien slowly rising to stand beside her. “I’ll play nurse, help the med tents, but I will not be left behind.”
The room was quiet, everyone holding their breath as they waited for the reaction, but they were looking to Lucien for confirmation.
Lucien looked down at Elain, and finding nothing but determination in her eyes, shrugged. “You heard her.”
Beside him, Elain beamed. He swore he could hear the thank you seeping through the bond and filling his chest with a warmth as bright as sunlight.
“Alright then,” sighed Rhys. “That’s settled. We will stay for two more days, send the missives, then head to the front.”
Everyone nodded, noises of agreement as papers were shuffled and tucked away, the rolling of parchment as they ceased planning for the day. Lucien stood, holding a hand to Elain to help her up as well. Around them, Nesta and Cassian spoke quietly in hushed tones with Azriel. Feyre pressed a kiss to Rhys’s cheek. Nesta approached Elain while Cassian stayed behind to study the map.
“Will you come have some tea with Feyre and I? Take a break from this?”
Beside him, Elain nodded, squeezing his hand tight as if in reassurance, and when Feyre joined them, they left the room.
The map on the table was a mess, though for only a week of planning, it was about as well organized as they could have managed.
“Do you think we have what we need?” he asked. Cassian responded first.
“I think we’re cutting it close without the trove.”
“And we’re having trouble tracking Hybern’s army. They’re using the Cauldron to hide themselves in plain sight,” Azriel added. “It’s going to work against us to go in blind.”
“All we can do is be prepared,” Rhys said resolutely. “Everyone knows their role, and with Spring and Autumn allied and strong with us, we have all of Prythian to protect the main borders.”
“Will you still go to Autumn tonight to make sure Eris has what he needs?” Azriel asked Lucien. He nodded.
“The armies should be at full strength. He culled the dissenters who were loyalists to Beron.” The Shadowsinger nodded, and Lucien admired his efficiency. He knew very little about the court’s spymaster, but he admired how intense he was about his work—how much he cared about his family and court.
“We appreciate the help, Vanserra.” Lucien tipped his chin again, happy to contribute.
He was anxious, but he did feel buoyed by the stronghold of their unity. He couldn’t imagine the trouble this would have been had Beron still been in charge.
“We’re as ready as we can be,” Rhys half-repeated, almost as though he was reassuring himself.
“And so we are,” Lucien added. Rhys clapped him on the shoulder as the others began to head toward the door.
“Never thought I’d call you a brother, Vanserra.” Rhys was grinning widely at him, but Lucien brimmed with joy at the implication. He could hardly come up with a shitty response. Instead, he simply let Rhys lead him out of the room, too, feeling for once like he might be a part of a larger family. Like that dream he’d once felt was impossible was finally within his reach.
Elain
Tomorrow would be the final day in Night, and they were spending it back in Velaris after using the entire week to prepare for war.
Elain wasn’t a fighter, she never had been and never would be—but she could still help. She was a human amongst the fae, but she would be safe, and she would be helpful.
Strangely, she didn’t feel as anxious as she might have been. She’d been listening in on the councils, watching the revolving door of the other High Lords, and asking Lucien questions all week. Oddly enough, she felt confident about the war to come, though the odds were close.
This evening, Lucien was in Autumn. He said he’d be back before they went to sleep for the night, but that she shouldn’t wait up if she was tired. She’d just finished a quiet dinner alone in the House of Wind, Nesta and Cassian down in the city training and planning last minute at the River House.
They’d offered to bring her too, to feed her while they trained, but Elain had wanted to be alone.
All afternoon, she’d felt that strange buzzing beneath her skin. Not the warning kind like she got around Ianthe, but something different. A feeling like something was coming, and it wanted her to know she had a part to play. Part of her had been braced all day for a vision coming, wondering if it might snatch her under at any given moment.
Now, Elain lay in bed, though the remaining sun was still streaking pastels across the sky. Her eyes were closed, but she wasn’t trying to sleep, only to focus.
“Show me what I’m missing,” she whispered.
Long ago, when Elain’s dreams had been just dreams, they’d come unbidden. Always sporadically and never with any regularity. But since coming to Prythian, that had changed. She’d experienced visions she could no longer claim to be dreams while waking, a sort of strange magic and intuition that had found her more often than not. After talking with Nesta a little in the meager spare time they had this week, she’d found it had been the same with her—as she drew farther into Prythian, as she’d grown closer with her mate, powers had begun to manifest.
She wanted to honor it, let whatever magic was inside her know that she was aware of it. That she accepted it and it was welcome with her.
And today, with that humming still so strong beneath her skin that her nailbeds were numb, Elain was trying to listen.
Show me, she thought this time.
Around her, the house was silent. No creaking floors, no drafts, just silence.
Tell me what to do.
And in the lull, she felt the response more than heard it.
The library.
She shot up in the bed, looking around for the source though she knew deep down she wouldn’t find it.
Deep into the dark, the voice whispered again, the voice slithering softly over walls of red stone.
Elain didn’t question it as she slid out of the bed and made her way deep into the halls of the House of Wind.
+++
On the final day in Velaris, the wind was warm.
Elain had insisted that they spend time in the city since they’d be spending the foreseeable future in tents and she violently missed the time she’d been spending outdoors in Spring. The sun was bright and warm on her skin as they walked around the cobblestone streets of the place her sisters called home. Each shop was novel, each place recognizing her somehow and refusing to let her pay for anything. She still managed to slip some coins into tip jars as she moved through all the sights.
Toward the end of endless rows of shops and galleries, they stopped for lunch, a small shop near the riverside. Inside, the air smelled like warm bread and slow roasted meats, the display cases filled with pastries both hearty and flowery. Elain inhaled deeply, then nearly choked on her breath when the female behind the counter turned around.
“Fiona?” The name was out before she could stop herself, and the female’s cheeks flushed red, her brows furrowing close as she took in Elain.
“I’m Marla. Fiona is my cousin. Is she someone—how do you know her?”
Elain wasn’t sure what to say as Marla took her in, brushing her hands across her apron. Behind her, Elain could feel Lucien drawing close, unsure of what was happening in front of him but choosing to remain nearby.
“She was—is—my friend. She grew up in my household. I—have you heard from her lately?”
Marla took in Elain’s features and matched them with the story she told, understanding peeling over her face with a smile like the rising sun.
“You’re Elain, aren’t you?” Marla asked, and Elain nodded, her heart pounding. “Come,” she waved them over to a table, coming out from behind the counter. “Come sit.”
Elain was practically shaking as she slid into the seat beside Lucien, her hands clammy as she clasped them on her lap and the woman who looked so startlingly like Fiona sat across from them.
“I never thought I’d have a chance to meet you,” Marla said, shaking her head. “I’m not sure where to start. Perhaps I should just start at the beginning.” She cleared her throat. “If you’re here, I guess I can assume you know some things. Do you know yet about your family line?”
It was a loaded question that Elain wasn’t sure how to answer. She knew about the prophecy, knew about her sisters’ interpretation of it. But that was about it. She shook her head.
“Your line stretches far back, long into the past of this land and another.”
“Another?”
“A different world, a different time. I believe your eldest sister has more of the details than I do.” Marla smiled pointedly, then continued. “They were forced to live in hiding, to conceal themselves amongst humans and leave the world of magic behind to protect themselves.” She sighed. “Unfortunately, they were so successful that the magic died long ago.”
Things were clicking into place for Elain, the prophecy making more and more sense.
“The roots ran deep, though. And so did the loyalty. Though we moved off to watch from a distance, we never abandoned our friends,” she said with a soft smile.
Elain was awash with warmth as she thought of Fiona, of Fiona’s mother—the closeness with which they’d grown together. Fiona hadn’t just been her friend—Fiona had been her protector, watching for her safety, just like her family before her. How long had this gone on?
“Your family was there to keep us safe? And there was nothing in it for you?”
Marla smiled. “Prophecies can be found in many places, Elain Archeron.”
The implications were larger than she could imagine. How many people had been given the prophecy that she knew? How many people had known that it was about her and her sisters?
Even with all this, the memory of Fiona sat in her throat like a stone. She had no idea if Marla knew what had happened, how close she’d been with Fiona. It had been months.
“Fiona…she—”
Marla reached across the table and took Elain’s hands, her face a smile.
“Fiona and I spoke about a week ago,” Marla said, squeezing Elain’s hands. Elain felt the sob wrench in her throat.
Fiona was okay. She’d made it out.
“Her goal was to get you out, to keep you safe, and she did. She got as many people out as she could that night, and then she disappeared. She knew you were capable, so when her job was done, she moved on to a new adventure on The Continent. She is safe, Elain. She’s alive. And she’ll be so tickled that I saw you. Perhaps, when she comes to visit, you will still be here?”
Elain had tears tracking down her face, the relief so palpable that her friend was living, out having adventures that she’d always talked about. All she could do was nod.
“Thank you, Marla. I cannot thank you or her enough.”
“It has been our family’s honor, Elain Archeron.” As Elain recovered, Marla offered to make them lunches to take, claiming it was too lovely a day to be cooped inside eating. She made them sandwiches and treats with them, packaging each neatly before handing them over to Lucien and embracing Elain in her arms.
“I’m so glad you came in here today,” she said. “And I hope you come back soon and often.”
Elain held her close before letting go, a little piece of something that felt like home in her arms so far away. “Of all the places we could have gone, what are the odds we picked yours?”
Marla just smiled. “There are no coincidences, Elain,” she offered, squeezing her arm once more before they departed.
She and Lucien ended up on the green slopes of a communal park beside the Sidra. The water was freezing, the spray of it kicking up and landing on her feet. But on the shore beside Lucien, it was warm. After eating the delicious food, they lay stretched on a blanket. Everything tasted different here, the spices so lovely and deep and unlike anything Elain had ever experienced.
She was fully and warm and happy, glad to be out of council rooms and back beside Lucien. Glad to know her friend and the staff had made it out. Happy to know that, despite the impending war, there were still things worth celebrating. It was so nice to feel the sun again, almost as though she could imagine being back in Spring with Lindy and Tamlin, the court around them and no impending war.
“I miss Spring,” she said, leaning her head against Lucien’s shoulder.
“Yeah?” She could feel him turn his head to look down at her.
“When this is over, I want to go back.”
“You don’t want to stay here with your sisters?”
Is that what he had assumed? That she’d stay here, make him decide? She picked her head up and looked at him.
“Spring is where I want to be, Lucien. But my home is wherever you are.”
There was an open sort of joy on his face that she hadn’t been expecting, the radiance of it rivaling the afternoon sun on her face.
“Then once this is over, back to Spring we’ll go.”
Elain smiled and settled back in, the perfect final day and the perfect plans for the future. She hadn’t had a chance to speak with her sisters more yet about their transformations—about how they’d become fae. But she understood that it hadn’t just been finding their mate that had done it. It seemed both had external help, from witches no less. She couldn’t help but think back and wonder why Vilja had refused to help her.
But there would be time after all this. She could hear their side of things, could see if there was any hope for her, too.
There had been nothing for her in the library books she’d browsed, but that didn’t mean that firsthand accounts couldn’t provide more insight. Vilja had seemed to believe that Elain already possessed some powers, but that didn’t necessarily translate into immortality.
Maybe she didn’t need to be fae to live forever. More than once, she’d wondered if coming through The Wall had already made her immortal. It wasn’t like there was a way to test it.
How would you know without just waiting to see if you aged?
Regardless, she hadn’t brought it up to Lucien again. He seemed content with the time they would have. And as lovely as that was, Elain couldn’t help but want more. She wouldn’t get his hopes up though until she was sure there was a solution.
Beside her, Lucien asked her a question, but the words were blurry.
“What?” she slurred, her voice suddenly slow as syrup.
Her skin grew cold, and she felt like she was falling backwards.
Suddenly, the Sidra stretched wide in front of her, going on for miles and miles before turning into a battlefield. Soldiers clad in black tore through The Wall, shredding the flowers and vines that had spoken so softly to her, leaving it in wreckage behind them.
There was a massive Cauldron—the Cauldron, she assumed—the sides cracking wide and light spilling from the rifts so bright she had to close her eyes. In the background, Nesta screamed.
When she turned, the scream morphed into someone else’s. Tamlin was knelt on the ground, covered in blood and bluish powder that extended down to heavy chains.
“Tamlin?”
His eyes locked on hers, filled with fear.
Run.
He mouthed the word but she heard it, her heart beating so hard she worried it might crack her chest.
RUN.
The gasp of air was so loud in her ears she thought surely it was still part of the dream—of the vision. Above her, Lucien swam into view, copper hair partially obscuring terrified eyes.
“Elain? What did you see?”
“Tamlin,” she croaked. “They came over The Wall from the Human Lands, not the sea. They’re coming for Spring.”
Lucien grabbed Elain and pulled her upright. “We have to warn him.”
They winnowed to the River House, panic overwhelming the unsteadiness that came with hurdling through the black warp of space.
They’d barely touched down when Feyre and Rhys arrived, too.
“What is it?”
“Spring,” Elain gasped out. “They’re coming through Spring. We have to warn them.” Rhys was already moving, summoning the rest of his court through his mind, an ability Elain had only just learned he had and was still adapting to.
She turned to Lucien.
“There’s no time. What if they’re already there?”
Feyre grabbed her hand.
“Come on, the three of us will go and Rhys will follow.”
She didn’t wait for confirmation, ripping the three of them from Night into Spring, the daylight so harsh that it took Elain a moment for her eyes to adjust.
But when they did, it was evident that they’d been too late.
Fires were set and burning across the verdant hills of the court she’d come to call home. As far as the eye could see, the skeletons of the willows were still smoking, ash and embers glowing and blowing in the breeze. There wasn’t a sign of anyone—no one left to tell what had happened.
Elain fell to her knees.
Her home, the first place she’d genuinely felt at home. Gone.
Behind her, Feyre and Lucien were already moving toward the manor. Elain could barely stand to look. The gardens were butchered, the flowers smoking husks and the roses nothing but charred stems. She could feel the tears rolling down her face as she walked back to the manor proper, the marble and stone home tarnished and torn with the stain of war.
She knew before they even told her that there would be no trace of Tamlin—they’d been too late, and he was already gone. In her mind, the vision of him screaming in chains played in her head.
And what of Lindy? Had she been taken, too? Had they taken everyone?
There were no bodies left, no trace of anyone dead or alive. It was silent as a tomb in the manor, no echoes on the lacquered floors. But there was blood.
They slowly made their way through the manor, looking for any signs of life even after the others joined and broke off to secure the outside of the property. The upstairs was mostly untouched, but Elain couldn’t stand to go in the rooms with the rest of the manor in such chaos.
“Do you think they were all killed?” she asked Lucien, too scared to speak above a whisper as they continued roaming the halls.
“I don’t know,” he responded honestly. At least, she didn’t think Tamlin was dead based on the vision, but she wondered if he might have been better off that way considering what she’d seen.
As they finally made their way to the kitchens, the memories played back in Elain’s head. Her time spent here had been good—nearly perfect—every second a new memory, a new building block of her new life and her and Lucien finding each other. And now—now it was all burned to nothing. Ripped away like everything else.
Elain’s grief started to simmer again, transmuting all of the sadness and pain and turning it into something else she was much less familiar with. As Elain took in her home, devastated past the point of recognition, all she felt was rage. Through the broken windows, she caught the vines creeping in, moving almost like fingers to cover the remaining shards. She continued on.
The clank from the cellar was near-silent, but it was enough that all three of them turned to the door.
Feyre held a finger to her mouth, moving silently through the debris on the floor over to the cellar door.
“What’s down there?” she mouthed to Lucien.
“The cellar, wine storage, and, further back, more storage rooms. I don’t think anyone’s used them for decades.” A cold feeling washed over Elain, the worry that, below, she’d find the dead that they hadn’t seen aboveground. But something had definitely moved behind the door, and they needed to figure out what. Feyre called to Rhys in her mind, bringing them all silently to the kitchen before forging ahead. Lucien put Elain behind him, tugging her so that he bracketed her body in case a threat lay ahead.
But when they moved past the cellars and storage, it wasn’t bodies that they found.
“Lindy?”
There, behind a handful of guards including Bron and Hart, was Lindy and most of the manor staff. There was nothing stopping Elain from bursting out from behind Lucien at the sight of her friend, unharmed.
They crashed into each other’s arms, black curls swinging from the collision. Elain had never felt such relief. Behind her, all the staff were huddled into the open area, looking terrified and exhausted, but otherwise unharmed.
“They took him. They took Tamlin. They came from The Wall, and there was no way we could fight them off. They knew where to go and what to look for,” Lindy said, her voice croaking but no tears coming from her wild eyes. She had brought these people down here—she had been strong.
“How did you escape?”
“Tamlin felt the wards breach. He told me to take care of who I could—to hide them.”
“No one who isn’t staff knows about the cellars and the holding cells behind them, do they?” Lucien asked, the pieces coming together. Lindy nodded.
“We heard them leave. Then we heard you arrive. We had no idea who you were, so we didn’t come out.”
“A smart choice,” Rhys added.
“War is coming,” Elain told her, her hands on Lindy’s arms, so thankful that her friend was somehow, against the odds, still alive.
“War is already here,” she responded somberly, squeezing Elain back.
“We will get him back,” Elain swore. “Can you take care of what’s to come here?”
It was a big ask. There was much to handle in Spring, an army to lead, but Elain trusted that Lindy knew enough to know who to talk to. Bron and Hart could rally the guard, who in turn could summon the remaining armies, some to guard the borders and the rest to fight. Lindy knew the nearby villages, her father had fought his entire life. It would be hard, but it would be doable.
Lindy nodded. “If you will do what you can to bring him back to me,” she said, her voice filled with a rage that Elain felt in her bones.
She heard the resolve in her own voice when she spoke. “I swear it.”
Saw someone say they think the person in the foreground of this shot is Steve and if it is it makes the poses and expressions on Sam + Bucky's faces so much funnier.
First, thank you all for the kind comments. They have kept such a big smile on my face!
Second, I wanted to pop in and let you all know that between a vacation and Elucien Week, there's no update this week or next! I'll be back to regular weekly posting on the 29th! Hope you all enjoy the AMAZING things in store for you from the mods of Elucien Week and all the exciting works and art and fun that's going to come from the event!
God if you hadn't said sad I would have 800 answers immediately.
I'm interpreting "sad" loosely, but Graceland Too by Phoebe Bridgers and State Lines by Novo Amor. Obviously, I am also a fan of December by Neck Deep for them 😅
After the death of her father and the disappearance of both her sisters, Elain Archeron resigns herself to a quiet, joyless life bound to a man she doesn’t love. But when her betrothed decides she is worth more to him dead than alive, Elain flees into the night with nothing but the shoes on her feet and the desperate hope that she might survive until morning. A strange voice leads her beyond The Wall to a land she thought only existed in storybooks, where she runs into the male who has lived in her dreams for as long as she can remember.
Elain
The house Elain was in was insane, the measure of detail so overwhelmingly lush yet minimal that it took her breath away. It was as if everything she’d loved about their manor had been put into a house then kissed by the night sky.
There wasn’t much time to take in the detail, they were moving so quickly through the halls following the blonde—Mor—as she bustled through like she knew the house intimately.
Did she know Elain’s sisters? Who was she to them? To this court?
As they passed, Lucien’s hand firmly planted on Elain’s lower back, she tried to calm her breathing. What would her sisters say? What would be their reasoning for leaving her behind? For leaving all her letters unanswered? She felt mildly sick, and Lucien’s grip tightened, a reassurance that Elain desperately needed.
I’m here, I’m here.
She could kiss him, right here, right now, simply for that assurance. He wasn’t going to leave her to deal with this on her own. And something told Elain that, were things to erupt tonight between her and her sisters, Lucien wouldn’t rest until he found somewhere else safe for them far from here.
Hallway after hallway was filled with art, the brushstrokes familiar enough to Elain to know that they belonged to her sister. Even if they hadn’t, she could almost feel Feyre’s presence in them. They turned a final corner, a massive painting of a set of wings catching the sun on the wall ahead. Elain wondered what had inspired the painting, what things Feyre had seen and experienced in Prythian, and if it had shaped her the way Elain was being shaped too.
Ahead, muffled voices began to stir the air. She couldn’t make any out, but they sounded animated. Mor sighed in front of them.
Two massive closed doors in front of them were illuminated at the edges by light, and somehow, Elain knew her sisters were behind it. In the strangest way, she could feel it in her body, sense it in her mind.
Mor pushed the doors open without hesitation, the three stepping through, and once her eyes adjusted to the light, Elain’s gaze fixed upon the largest set of wings she’d ever seen, just like the picture from the hall.
They were attached to a man about Lucien’s height but broader, and his complexion was darker, long hair hung in waves around his shoulders. But the wings were all Elain could see—they were like nothing she’d ever seen before.
The male’s mouth moved as she stared. “Lucien?” he asked.
But Elain’s attention had shifted to the person moving out from behind the massive wings, a flash of silver, of dark blonde hair that she would know anywhere. It was nearly the only familiarity.
“Elain?” Nesta’s voice cracked in disbelief as she said her name.
But Nesta didn’t look anything like the sister Elain had grown up with as she took her in with wide eyes, no longer rimmed with that clear sky blue, but roaring with flames of silver. She was herself, but not—a portrait painted by someone who didn’t know her well enough. She had always been beautiful, but now, it was almost painful to behold.
“What are you?” The words came from Elain’s left, a small woman with sharp, short black hair closer than she’d anticipated. She stared up at Elain like she was a puzzle, her eyes taking her in as though she was eating her whole. Elain stepped back into Lucien.
“She’s our sister.” At that, Elain whipped around, Feyre’s voice unmissable even after all this time.
She was sitting on the corner of the main desk in the room, flanked by a male who looked wreathed in darkness, despite the small smile on his face. Elain knew without asking that this was the High Lord of Night, Rhysand. She’d read about him in Tamlin’s library, finding out all she could about Feyre. About what she’d become.
But there was no preparing her for seeing her sisters up close like this. Unglamoured in their true forms now.
Feyre was breathtaking—no longer the little sister who stomped through the muddy woods or painted the undersides of all the furniture. She wasn’t the feral child of skinned knees who drove Nesta to near madness and the nurses and tutors to quit.
She wasn’t the baby who Elain remembered holding, her eyes pulling in the whole world.
Feyre was the High Lady of Night, and she looked the part.
“You’re fae.” The words rose out of Elain—the only ones she could summon—but a warm push of reassurance thumped down the bond. Feyre slid off the desk, and both she and Nesta came closer. In this light, they seemed ethereal, so much the otherworldly beings they now were. The glimpses Elain had seen beneath The Wall were nothing in comparison to this. It felt like staring into the sun.
“You’re alive.” The relief in the statement hit Elain square in the chest just before Feyre’s body did, her weight slamming into Elain with Nesta’s right behind it as they embraced her. Behind her, she could feel Lucien let go, though dissatisfaction and something like a flare of worry burst in her chest as she wrapped her arms around her sisters.
“We thought you were dead, Elain,” Nesta’s voice whispered into her hair, more vulnerable than she’d maybe ever heard it.
“Was that before or after you abandoned me?” Elain asked, her face still tucked toward her sisters, but the bitterness seeping through nonetheless. The grip on her slackened, and her sisters backed up.
Nesta was the first to speak.
“We came back for you.”
“To plan how we might fake your death, take you from the manor and bring you here,” Feyre added.
“We worried that you would be miserable, which is why we waited. We were trying to figure out how to explain this all to you.”
“Nesta insisted, though, after we saw how broken up you were about the wedding.”
Elain tensed at the mention, then further recoiled to think of Lucien hearing it. She didn’t want him to know more about how she’d lived before. Didn’t want him to have any more information about her time with Graysen than what she’d willingly given him.
She didn’t want her mate to know that a human man had cast her aside—used her and deemed her unworthy of his time and space.
Her chest flickered.
“When we came back, you were gone.”
“The manor had been burned hollow, and there were no traces of you or anyone else.”
Elain’s heart skipped a step. “Did the staff…” Feyre had the decency to look sad.
“No one was there when we arrived. We don’t know if they escaped, or…” The alternative was too much to finish the sentence. Elain sent up a prayer to whatever gods might be listening that they’d found ways to get away, or otherwise that it had been quick and painless.
She thought of Fiona—the mischief in her smile, the way she’d always had a plan to get Elain and her sisters out if they needed it. The way her mother had too…
“We worried that Graysen had taken you, but we had our Shadowsinger, Azriel, monitor the Nolan manor, and we never saw a trace of you.” She made a mental note to ask Lucien what a Shadowsinger was.
“After a few weeks of nothing, we assumed you’d either died or gotten away—” Feyre offered.
“But we never stopped looking,” Nesta added. “We’ve been looking for you for months.”
For months. Had they really been searching for her the whole time? Since the night she’d fled?
And gods, the manor. Every bit of her life before this was gone—burned to ash. Though it saddened her, there was something freeing in it too.
“I'm sure Graysen is thrilled,” she couldn’t help but add, the thought of him being free of her and likely robbing the place blind turned stomach acid into roiling fury inside her.
But around her, the room was quiet. Her chest tugged.
“Graysen was killed, along with his father,” Feyre said, the shock of the statement making Elain feel oddly tingly. “A few weeks after the attack on the manor. We were checking in periodically to make sure you didn’t end up back there—that we didn’t somehow miss you in passing. When Azriel arrived one day, their bodies were laid out and the staff had disappeared. Apparently a group of travelling mercenaries picked a fight with the guards after dark, late at night. Something was said, and it was enough for them to enact revenge on the family.”
Strangely, the only thing Elain felt as she pictured their slaughter was peace. She remembered how he’d spoken to her, how he’d treated her. She thought of the life that had waited for her had she stayed—had he not just outright killed her and made it look like an accident.
She thought of her fleeing into the woods, the manor burning in the background, the glow of the fire reflecting off his banners. Perhaps he wouldn’t have even bothered to do that. She felt a deep sense of satisfaction at his death, and a bit of shock at the passing thought that she hoped it had been violent.
Behind her, Lucien’s hand snaked quietly onto her back again, grounding her until that tingling feeling of shock receded. She sunk into it—into him—feeling something soothing ebbing between them like a buoy on rough seas.
There Lucien was, a shining beacon in the chaos.
“Why didn’t you answer any of my letters?” Elain asked her sisters, trying to focus, though her eyes were still pulled by their beauty as they stood in front of her, immortal.
When all was settled, she would have more questions. How did you end up this way? What must I do to become the same? Can I become the same?
“Your letters?” Nesta asked, the puzzlement on her face seeming genuine. Elain looked to Feyre, assuming it had been her other sister’s doing, then, and perhaps Nesta hadn’t known. But Feyre looked just as confused, a deep furrow between her brows.
“I’ve been writing to you every week since I arrived. Since you told me to stay where I was because you were too busy for me?”
Feyre’s head shot to Lucien, as though she’d just remembered he was there, too. “She’s been in Spring this whole time?”
At the tone, Elain bristled. “The letters, then,” she interjected instead of baring her teeth the way some deep instinct demanded. “Where were they going?”
“Who were you giving them to?” Rhysand asked, the first he’d spoken as he came to stand closer to Feyre. He was tall, imposing, but Elain didn’t feel any sense of a threat from him. The way he rested his hand on her sister’s shoulder was gentle, shrouded in love.
As soon as he asked, something in Elain’s head clicked. She turned to Lucien.
“All the letters I sent went through Ianthe.”
“Ianthe?” Nesta said, just as Feyre asked, “The Priestess?” Lucien stiffened beside her, and an awful feeling began to come over Elain.
“You cannot trust her,” Rhys said. “Ianthe is a snake.” Beside her, Lucien snorted in agreement.
Had all the letters gone unanswered because they’d gone unsent? Ianthe was slimy and horrid, but what reason did she have to keep Elain in Spring?
“She was there that day we came to Spring to look for you,” Nesta said, suddenly. “The blonde priestess with the empty eyes.”
“You came to Spring? To find me?”
“We did,” Feyre nodded. “We checked all the courts just in case you’d managed to make it through The Wall somehow. When we arrived, she was the only one there to greet us. She told us no one was there, that Lucien and Tamlin were both on patrols, but that she’d be happy to help us.”
“She said no humans had come through Spring.”
Nesta turned to Elain. “She kept us from coming inside. She was hiding your smell.”
Elains stomach flipped into something that felt white hot. Her sisters had been looking for her, actively, for months while she simmered in her resentment. She remembered the day, after the starlight pool, that she’d been sure she smelled Feyre. She’d been there, right there.
“What reason does Ianthe have for hiding Elain?” the male with the wings behind Nesta asked, his voice booming and surprising Elain in its volume.
He and Rhys exchanged a glance. Rhys spoke first. “It seems, perhaps, that Azriel’s sources were correct.”
“Would someone care to fill us in?” Lucien asked.
“Azriel’s shadows have been tracking activity on the western side of Spring for months, spies sent from across the ocean. Months ago, they were sent to attack me, and found Nesta and Cassian instead,” Rhys said. Elain shuddered to think of Nesta having to fight her way out against trained fighters, but Nesta seemed almost pleased with herself at the memory.
Rhys continued. “We heard buzzing that Hybern was creating an army and that he had people on the inside feeding him information to help him infiltrate Prythian. We just didn’t think the timeline would be this quick.”
Elain addressed Rhys and Cassian directly. “You think Ianthe is a spy?” Lucien asked.
She wouldn’t doubt it. The female had set off alarms within Elain’s common sense from the moment they’d met. That ugly humming began softly beneath her skin at the thought, and Elain was sure.
“More now than before, but it still doesn’t explain what she wanted with Elain.”
Rhys shrugged, though it didn’t feel lighthearted. “The High Lady’s sister would have made a good bargaining piece when the time was right.” Elain’s skin crawled at the thought.
“Regardless,” Rhys said. “Elain is safe here now, and with the attack on Sangravah, war is coming. Sooner than we’d like.”
“It’s always sooner than we’d like,” Cassian muttered.
“There’s something else.” All eyes were on Elain as she recalled the slip of paper beneath her mattress, the words she now knew by heart. “A prophecy.”
“What kind of prophecy?”
“I don’t know much about them, but I was given one by a witch in the woods.” Around her, everyone seemed to tense. “Back in Spring. I wasn’t in any danger—she was kind. But I had a vision, and the prophecy was part of it. I think it has something to do with all this.”
Nesta leaned in, eyes assessing. “Your dreams. They were never just dreams, were they?” Leave it to Nesta to remember, to understand.
“I don’t think so,” Elain answered, holding her head up but wringing her hands.
“Can you recall it?” Rhys asked.
Elain nodded, opening her mouth to recite the words that had become locked in her mind. Beside her, Lucien’s hand found hers, his grip tight.
The three-faced goddess, three gifts bestow
With bloodline certain, but not yet known
Each with a gift from times of auld
One life, one death, one rebirth told
The wheel of fates begun to spin,
A binding of souls, the veil is thinned
All hinged upon the thread of worth,
Each choice will mark the role’s true birth
No stars shall shine without the Night,
No Day shall break without the sight.
No Bloodshed clears without the flame,
A cleansing fire to purge the claim
So heed the call, the fearsome tales,
Or else the dark fates should prevail
The Cauldron spurn, the fire will burn,
And from the dust, all things return
Elain was surprised at the lack of shock in the room when she finished.
“I’ve heard it before,” Feyre murmured, eyes far away.
“And us, too,” Nesta added, Cassian resting his hands on her shoulders behind her as though confirming and assuring her all in one.
“What does it mean?” Elain asked, looking around at everyone else.
“I think it’s about us,” Nesta added, tilting her head back to look at Cassian. “The three of us,” she gestured between Feyre, herself, and Elain.
Elain parsed the words in her head, line by line, as she had for weeks. “What do you mean it’s about us?”
Nesta and Feyre shared a look, then Nesta spoke again. “The three-faced goddess. We’re what they’re talking about.”
With bloodline certain, but not yet known
Each with a gift from times of auld
One life, one death, one rebirth told.
A picture was forming in Elain’s mind, the pieces falling into place. If it was the three sisters, then which represented each?
As if she could see Elain figuring it out, Feyre stepped forward. “The line about rebirth, it’s me. I died for Rhys, and he brought me back. We’re the line about stars shining without the night.”
Nesta stepped closer, something soft and unfamiliar on her face. “I represent death. It’s a very long, complicated story, but the bloodshed and the flame,” she looked back to Cassian and gestured. “That’s us.”
Things were adding up, lines being crossed off. Beside her Lucien, shifted.
“One life…”
“No Day shall break without the sight.”
The sight.
Did they mean her visions? And what of Day—
Elain abruptly remembered where Lucien had come from the night he’d found out about his true parentage…
“So it’s us and…” Feyre began, then stopped, her eyes tracking to Nesta. “It’s us and our partners,” she corrected. Elain understood then—they thought she didn’t know Lucien was her mate.
“It’s us and our mates. I understand.”
The relief on everyone else’s faces was palpable.
“You know?” Rhys asked.
“Yes, we’ve both known since we met,” Elain answered.
“How did you even know what a mate was?” Nesta asked. Elain shrugged.
“Some of us read books outside the tutors’ curriculum, Nesta.” She said it with humor—she remembered the dreams of the sort of books Nesta liked. Even beneath all that ethereal beauty, Nesta flushed.
“So it’s us. The three of us are meant to do something. Have you figured out what that is?” Her sisters shook their heads.
Something clattered in Elain’s mind. “Is that why you’re both immortal? Because you found them?” Her voice nearly cracked at the hope flying up her throat, but their faces doused the flame of hope quicker than it had flared.
“Not exactly,” Nesta offered. Elain was so immediately crushed that she didn’t think she could even bear to have them elaborate further right now. She changed the subject.
“So what now?” She ignored the blatant pity on her sisters’ faces.
“Exactly, what do we do about it?” Feyre asked.
“Nothing tonight,” Rhys answered. “Tonight, we rest. The rest can wait until daybreak.” There were nods all around, and Elain finally felt the full weight of exhaustion pressing into her bones.
Feyre was quiet for a moment, though her eyes were moving, as were Rhys’s—almost as though the two were communicating without words.
“Lucien, you can stay in the townhouse. Elain, you’re welcome to stay at the House of Wind with Nesta. It’s much safer for you up there where no one can access it.”
Elain tightened her grip on Lucien. “The two of us will stay together.”
She relished just a moment at the surprise in her sisters’ gazes and the amusement in the males’—her brothers in law, she supposed—faces.
“Together then,” Rhys grinned, his smile wide.
+++
The trip to the House of Wind had been harrowing, to say the least. Elain’s knees still felt shaky as she stood on the rooftop with Nesta, waiting for Cassian to arrive back with Lucien on the next trip.
She felt suddenly strange being here, alone, with her sister in the dark silence under witness of no one but the twinkling stars. They had never been what you’d call close, but she’d also never struggled to find words to make conversation before.
Beside her, Nesta seemed to be struggling with the same—her hands wrapped around her upper arms against the slight chill in the air. Though the shock of her appearance had worn slightly off, it was still strange to behold. But here, under nothing but the stars and the moon and the low glow from within the massive windows of the house, Nesta looked like the same sister that Elain had always known.
“You look happier,” she mused, speaking before she could catch herself. The words seemed to take Nesta by surprise, her whole body turning to face Elain. “Feyre, too. You both look happy.”
Nesta took a step toward her. “Elain, I promise we were coming back for you. We wouldn’t have left you there to rot.”
For the first time, Elain believed her. She’d spent so much of the last months wallowing in the bitterness that came with feeling like the only two people she’d ever trusted had left her. But she knew Nesta, and Nesta was not a liar.
“I know,” Elain answered. And when Nesta took another step, holding her hand out then hesitating, Elain didn’t waste a moment grabbing her sister’s hand in her own.
“I’m okay. It’s been a strange few months, but I’m okay.” And as she said the words, she knew she meant them. Nesta’s strange eyes glittered in front of her, looking for all the world like they might be welling with tears. But Elain was seeing something else, just flickers and fragments. A little girl with dark braids and wings, her sister smiling so wide it nearly cracked Elain’s heart open.
When she blinked, she was back on the roof, Lucien and Cassian touching back down.
“Rhys said he could tailor the wards this week so you can winnow. Maybe he could call Helion to help,” Cassian offered.
“I might prefer the stairs,” Lucien responded, brushing himself off before walking to Elain, the two following Nesta and Cassian into the massive home carved into the red rock of the cliff overlooking the city.
They were deposited in their room, a cavernous place that Elain balked at, the ceilings high and angled, the windows beautiful and looking out over the shining city.
“Thank you both, truly,” she turned to speak to them in the doorway.
“It’s nothing, Elain. The kitchen is right near where we came in from the balcony, and our rooms are just past that if you need anything. The further into the mountain you go, there’s a library that priestesses run, if you’d like anything.”
“Just not the lower levels,” Cassian joked, elbowing Nesta who shot him a look.
“What’s in the lower levels?” Lucien asked.
“Cassian’s childhood nightmare,” Nesta responded to Cassian’s offended hey! before turning back to embrace Elain. “The priestesses can help you find whatever you need. They’re nothing like Ianthe. You’re safe here.”
Elain believed her.
Though all she wanted to do was crawl into the massive bed and sleep, there was something she needed to know first. The door and lock clicked in succession, and she turned to find Lucien sitting on the bed, his face as exhausted as she felt. But he was staring at her as though her knew.
“Ask me,” he said, voice calm and steady, expecting it.
“You killed Graysen.” It wasn’t a question, but he nodded all the same. “When?”
“That night in Spring, after you told me about what he’d done to you. Tamlin and I went beneath The Wall.” He spared no details, allowing Elain the whole truth.
She thought that she might should feel something more, but that same relief from earlier was all she could muster. Plus, a thread of something else.
“You did that for me?” she asked, his eyes turning up to look at her from where he still sat on the edge of the bed as she moved closer.
“Yes,” he replied, unflinchingly.
“Why?”
“He hurt you. He tried to kill my mate. And I would do anything for you, Elain. I would have since the moment I met you.”
At that, she smiled, recalling those first few moments. “I thought you didn’t want me.”
“It was never about want. I’ve wanted you from then on more than I’ve ever wanted anything before. But everything I touch breaks. Everyone I love is taken from me. I needed to know—” He stopped, inhaling sharply like he was trying to shove something back down.
“I could never forgive myself if something happened to you because of me, Elain. I wouldn’t survive it, and even so, it wouldn’t be a life worth living without you.”
Her fingers lifted to trace his jaw, the scars splitting his beautiful face. He looked up, leaning into her hand and turning so that his lips met the palm of her hand. A shiver went down her spine at the contact.
“What changed your mind?” she whispered, quiet in the massive room.
“A life without you didn’t feel worth living anymore, either,” he whispered back, and their lips were on each other’s again. It had only been since that morning, but Elain felt half-starved with the need for him.
In a twist of their bodies so fast Elain barely registered it, her back was on the mattress, Lucien above her swimming within a background of stars from the massive window frames.
“I want to see you,” he said, voice a low thrumming that vibrated through her chest and straight between her legs. “All of you.”
She wanted that, too, the world narrowing only to the massive bed, the smooth silk of the sheets beneath her, and the hot contrast of his body on hers. She understood—the need riding her to tear his clothes from his body and feel his skin on hers, too.
He tugged at the collar of her dress, pulling at it just barely between his fingers as though asking. She nodded enthusiastically, wanting nothing more than to be bare in front of him. To press herself into every angle of him.
He pulled lightly at her shoulders, and she lifted herself from the bed, his hands going to the fastenings at the back of her gown. He dealt with them quickly, long, deft fingers moving efficiently until she felt the fabric go slack. She shimmied out of the top as he tugged the rest down her body, exposing her chest to the cool air of the room. For a moment he drew back, just looking at her in the light from the moon and stars.
Her pulse was pounding in her ears as he lay her dress beside them, lowering himself back down to her. The first touch of his lips again was gentle, but only for a moment. It was so sweet that it made her chest ache with need, and as though he’d heard her thoughts, he angled his head deeper, tongue tracing the seam of her lips.
Around them, the world fell away. There was only the hot slide of his tongue against hers, the pressing of his body between her legs. Urgency built as their mouths danced, breaths mingling together and a coil of something tightening low in her belly. Her hips pressed forward of their own accord, seeking friction against the hard lines of his body.
Lucien broke the kiss, his forehead resting against hers and both of them breathing in ragged unison.
Her fingers scrabbled at his shoulders, pulling at the fabric separating them. Lucien took the hint, pulling back and divesting himself of his clothing with simple, thoughtless grace. His body was perfect, even in this low light. He leaned back over the bed, looping a finger in the side of her underwear and pulling them down Elain’s legs with a wild grin on his face.
She could feel the cool air in stark contrast to the arousal between her legs, and she crossed her ankles by reflex.
“Oh, no, I don’t think so,” Lucien murmured as he crawled forward, grabbing her ankles and pushing them apart so she was bared to him again. Her eyes widened as she took him in kneeling there, and a fresh wave of sharp desire washed through her, echoing his back between her ribs.
His thumb brushed over her and it was enough to make her back arch at the contact, a sharp exhale on her lips. She didn’t want to wait, didn’t want anything else interrupting them this time.
“I want you now, Lucien. No more toying around. Please,” she gasped as he spun little circles against her with his thumb, driving her nearly mad.
“That badly, my lady?” The words made her all but delirious, the echoes of them ringing back from her dreams before she’d even met him. She tried to visualize the bond, tried to see it in her chest as a living breathing thing, and when she could, she pulled on it with all her might.
Lucien tipped forward, his body covering hers as he made a noise of surprise.
“Did you do that?” he asked, his voice breathless with surprise.
“I told you I wanted you,” she said through a shy smile. Against her, the hard length of him pressed against her entrance, soaking wet and ready for him. “Please Lucien, don’t make me wait anymore.”
It was the begging that did it, his body moving immediately to steady himself against her. “I couldn’t deny you anything, Elain,” he whispered. “Look at me.”
She did, her eyes meeting russet and gold, and he pushed inside.
It was a slow, measured push, so different from what she’d known before. Though he was much, much larger than what she’d experienced with Graysen, her body welcomed Lucien inside, fitting him perfectly, as though they’d been made for each other. He stretched and filled her in a way that stole her breath, but didn’t hurt or cause tears to well in her eyes.
It was nothing like before, but she didn’t want to think about that right now. She didn’t want to think about anything but Lucien.
When he had finally pressed all the way in, he stilled, allowing her to adjust. She felt so full she might burst, her legs moving to wrap around him, to hold him deeper still, closer.
“All right?” he asked, his voice soft but strained with the effort of holding back.
“Perfect,” Elain got out, her face buried between his neck and shoulder. She’d never felt anything quite so perfect, so right. Like it had been meant to be this way all along.
Lucien began to move, slow at first, steady strokes and rolling thrusts that made Elain see stars. He set a pace that was deep and measured, each stroke hitting a spot inside her that made her toes curl. It was exquisite friction, that heat building up just like it had before, bringing her higher and higher and higher. She met his rhythm in response, her hips rising to meet him.
It was loud in the massive room, their bodies moving together, their ragged breaths, and her soft, broken whimpers as he brought her closer. He bent his head, capturing her lips in another kiss that she swore she could feel in her soul, swallowing her moans as he moved harder, faster.
She could feel the tension rising in his body too, the desperation of pleasure both in her own body and from his. It was like nothing she’d ever felt before, the pleasure of it a cresting wave, towering over her, ready to swallow her whole and take Lucien with her.
His hand slid between sweat-slicked bodies, his fingers finding her clit again. The added pressure was the final spark. The wave broke over her, and she fell, whispering his name hoarsely into his neck as her body convulsed around his. And with a groan of his own so deep she could feel it vibrate the bed, he drove into her a final time, spilling as he held her closer.
For a long moment, there was only the sound of their breathing between them as he nuzzled into her tangled curls. Then, he rolled to the side, grasping her closely so that she rolled with him and repositioning her on his chest. She blinked her eyes open to see the moonlight pouring over them, tangled silver over their bodies and the rumpled sheets.
Her heartbeat slowed as she lay on his chest, the thump of his right at home beside her own, her eyes closed until she saw a glow from behind her lids. When she opened her eyes, she was surprised to find Lucien’s skin glowing, a light like the rising sun emanating from his skin beneath her.
“Lucien,” she whispered, and he opened his eyes too, the sight clearly taking him by surprise too.
“It’s never done that before,” he answered, lifting a hand and staring.
“Your father,” she started. “He’s from Day?” Lucien had never said explicitly, but from what he’d said about his father and where he’d been that day, she’d guessed. He nodded.
“It’s Helion. He’s the High Lord. My mother’s mate.” The words were choked, and Elain wouldn’t pry. Instead, she lifted her own hand, fingers brushing against his. From the tips, a little light, almost a spark of daylight, erupted from a single fingertip. It was no bigger than a thimble, and it danced around Elain’s fingers and Lucien’s. She smiled.
“It’s never done this before, either,” Lucien whispered, turning his wrist and moving his fingers as the light drop danced between their hands, small and controlled as his glow began to ebb.
Lucien had the powers of a High Lord’s blood line, Elain realized. One day, he himself would inherit the title. And Elain…she would be human. She would be gone. She lay her head back on his chest, suddenly so tired that she felt it in her bones.
“I don’t want to know what life feels like without you, either, Lucien. But if we choose this—if we stay together—you might have to.”
It was the sword that she knew would be hanging over their heads for all of time. Lucien was immortal, and Elain was—well, they weren’t sure what she was. But certainly, she would not live forever.
“I want to be with you, Elain. Come what may, I don’t want anything else if I’m not by your side.”
“Even if I’m human?” she asked, the nerves a little too close to the surface as she lay curled against his chest.
“For whatever time we have,” he confirmed, his arm drawing her even closer yet. He leaned in to kiss her, his lips dragging against wild curls as she closed her eyes and breathed him in. “It will be worth it.”
She agreed, though through her exhaustion, she worried what life might be like—her frail and haggard, and Lucien still looking as he did now. Still smelling like apple tarts and a warm hearth and joy. The light had faded entirely now, leaving them in the soft darkness together.
She pressed her face into his shoulder, inhaling deep and slow, and she felt him relax against her once more.
After the death of her father and the disappearance of both her sisters, Elain Archeron resigns herself to a quiet, joyless life bound to a man she doesn’t love. But when her betrothed decides she is worth more to him dead than alive, Elain flees into the night with nothing but the shoes on her feet and the desperate hope that she might survive until morning. A strange voice leads her beyond The Wall to a land she thought only existed in storybooks, where she runs into the male who has lived in her dreams for as long as she can remember.
Elain
It took Elain a few moments to realize that she was not in her own bed. First, the room was still mostly dark, the light shining from around heavy curtains just a neat outline. Second, the sheets were different, the texture of them almost like pressed linen against her skin. But third, and most importantly, was the massive arm tucked over her waist that led to the hand spanning her chest. That most certainly wasn’t something she regularly found in her own bed.
It took her only a moment to remember the events of the previous night. At some point, Lucien must have tugged the curtains over the bedframe closed, because judging from the light pouring in from the edges, it was already well past noon. She hadn’t even met him in the hall until well after midnight, and everything afterwards had taken them into the early hours of morning. Still, Elain hadn’t dreamed. In fact, she’d slept better than she could remember having slept in ages.
She and Lucien hadn’t done any more after laying down last night, but the bond still buzzed happily in her chest. It felt satisfied—joyful, almost—and as Lucien exhaled a soft snore into her hair, she swore she felt the bond give a tiny pulse.
They’d acknowledged it last night, both of them admitting they’d been hiding it from the other with the best intentions. Elain could nearly laugh at the ridiculousness of it all. Two strangers, both from families that hadn’t shown them the love they needed. Now, damaged adults, trying to do their best without accepting any help.
Certainly, the Cauldron had a sense of humor.
Around her, though, she wasn’t sure if it was the bond of something deeper that had her feeling how absolutely right this was to wake up next to Lucien. And though they hadn’t had sex, she could—strangely enough—smell his scent mixed with hers. It was an odd sort of euphoria that Elain hadn’t experienced before. She sniffed again. She’d never given much attention to the way things smelled, but something about Lucien’s sweet cinnamon tangled around the smell of her own hair was intoxxicating—like the two were meant to be tangled.
A thought occurred to her suddenly, and her hand flew up to her ears, a disappointed feeling gathering in the stomach to find they were still round and human. The two of them acknowledging the mating bond hadn’t made her magically fae. She tried not to let it depress her, but she’d still been holding onto some hope. Nesta and Feyre had managed it….but how?
Perhaps they needed to accept the bond first. Or perhaps nothing would change at all.
Perhaps she would age and he would not, and she would be ashes in the wind long before he looked any older than he did now.
She turned slowly in his arms so she wouldn’t wake him, taking in his face in the low light. He was so impossibly handsome, the sharp angles of his cheeks unreal. In her dreams, the face she’d seen so often had seemed impossible in its beauty. But now, here in front of her, he looked almost boyish in sleep. There was a peace over his features that was never quite present during the day, and it somehow endeared her to him all the more.
Without thinking, she brushed a lock of copper hair behind a pointed ear, letting her fingers linger. Lucien’s eyelids fluttered before opening, a soft smile spreading across his face as he took in Elain and his arms tightened around her.
“Well, I certainly could get used to waking up this way,” he murmured, stretching his back as he continued to hold her close. Elain snuggled her face into his arm, hiding the nearly-uncontrollable smile that was stretching across her own face.
“Good morning, beautiful,” he said anyway, tipping her chin up and pressing his lips to hers. It was a chaste kiss, but it lit Elain up inside like sparks.
“Good morning, Lucien.”
“Sorry the view isn’t better,” he quipped, lifting his arm to gesture to his face wryly, though his smile didn’t change. A shock of sadness pulsed through Elain’s chest at the way he so readily self-depricated, when she’d just gotten done thinking about how lovely he was.
Her fingers grazed over the scars that lined his eye, strange and unique and beautiful. Though they were filled with pain, she didn’t want him to hate himself for them.
“Stop that. You’re the most handsome male I’ve ever seen.”
He scoffed, trying to look away, but Elain pushed against his jaw and forced him back.
“You don't have to lie to me, Elain. I know what I look like.”
She hated how it made her feel to hear him talk this way about himself. “You feel the bond, don’t you?” That got his attention, his russet eye focused on hers and the gold one whirring beside it. He nodded.
“Do you feel any insincerity when I tell you how attractive I find you?” she asked. He paused, as though searching, and Elain sighed.
“Lucien, I think you might be the most attractive male that exists,” she laughed. She pushed every feeling of attraction and adoration at him that she could, though she wasn’t sure that it was working until she saw his eyes widen.
“You’ve been doing that on purpose the whole time?” he asked, incredulous.
“You can feel it?” she asked, equally surprised. “I’ve tried to send good feelings along, thinking you couldn’t really feel them or the bond, but guessing it was worth a try.” There was an emotion in his eyes she couldn’t quite place, so she pushed on. “Do you feel anything when I say that other than the truth?”
He shook his head.
“I dreamed about you before I came through The Wall. I didn’t know who you were, but I knew your face,” she confessed, her hand cradling his jaw. “Even then, even not knowing you were real, I couldn’t believe how unique and lovely you looked.”
She leaned up, pressing a kiss to the underside of his jaw, then another. “I don’t care if you have scars, I care that you got them standing up for what was right.” She kissed him again. “I think you’re beautiful, but it’s not the way you look that makes me care for you, Lucien.”
The words seemed to dislodge something inside him, and Elain almost wished she’d been watching his face. Instead, she was suddenly beneath him, his body pressing down into her hips and his mouth on hers. She returned the kiss eagerly, happy again to just be kissing him—to be reminded that this was all real.
Somehow, even through everything last night, they’d managed to keep on their clothes other than the underwear she’d been wearing that had been discarded somewhere on the floor of Lucien’s room. Elain wanted to remedy that, smoothing her hands up under his loose linen top and pushing it up his torso. He obliged, reaching back over his head and tugging it the rest of the way off.
Elain had snuck plenty of gazes at Lucien’s bared torso over the months she’d been here, but there was nothing quite like being pinned just inches beneath it for admiring. He was broad and bronze, his muscles so pronounced beneath his skin that it seemed outlandish. She ran her fingers over everything she could reach while he watched, taking it in.
When she was pleased with that, her hands returned to his pants, the tie she’d become familiar with last night pulling easily loose and undone. Beneath the covers, Lucien tugged them the rest of the way down and off, nothing but the thin, sheer lace of her nightgown and his undershorts separating them now.
His fingers pulled up along her hips, dragging the silken fabric with them as it gathered higher and higher up her waist, then over her breasts. She lifted her arms as he pulled it the rest of the way off, tossing the gown on the pillows above them.
His lips were on hers again, his chest hot against the now-bared skin of her chest. She arched into him, needing his touch like a lifeline. She could feel her own arousal between her legs, messy and cooling on her skin as they moved together, their mouths talking without words. And when Elain’s hands moved to push the remaining barrier of clothing down his hips, he let her.
“I didn’t want to ask last night and be presumptuous, but have you done this before?” Lucien asked as he kicked off his trousers, his voice ragged, but Elain could hear something like nervousness in his tone.
“What? Sex? Yes, Lucien. I have had sex before.”
Above her, he stilled, his face still buried in her neck. It was like his whole body had stalled out.
“Are you alright?” But she could feel the flare in her chest, hot and crawling. “You’re not—Lucien, you’re not jealous, are you?”
He laughed into her hair, the exhale sharp as he tried to pull it back and inhale deeply. “I’m working through it.”
“Oh my gods,” she exclaimed, pushing at his shoulders until he raised up then pulling her back to kiss her deeply.
“Don’t be,” she said as they broke apart. “It was awful.”
Lucien’s laughter in her ear sounded more relieved than anything else. “It’s hard with the bond.”
“Oh, I know,” she huffed. “The night I saw you with Ianthe I nearly ripped that door off the hinges,” she teased, tucking a lock of hair behind his year, the wave of it mesmerizing as she traced her fingers down it.
Lucien placed a hand on her chest. “I know. I could feel you.” He leaned down and kissed her again, deeply and thoroughly—claiming. “I don’t want to talk about Ianthe right now,” he whispered against her lips.
The kiss evolved, hands moving and twisting, bodies pressed together. His hand was between her legs, a groan in his throat as he felt how wet she was for him. She nodded as if he asked a question, and he listened to her, pushing forward and giving her what she wanted, their mouths never leaving each other.
“Please, Lucien,” Elain begged, her breath coming in pants. “I want you. Please.”
She couldn’t wait anymore, that bond writhing and winding up inside her chest like a spring. She thought she might die if she didn’t feel him inside her, her hands scrambling at his shoulders. Then, he was notched at her entrance, the tip of him sliding easily through her arousal. Just as he was about to press in, both their bodies tensing with anticipation, Elain fell under.
The vision was abrupt like nothing she’d ever experienced. This wasn’t a dream, but she recognized the sensation of it. Her body hummed, her mind still aware of it somewhere far away.
There was fire—miles and miles of fire over rolling hills, the forests in the distance alive with sparks like autumn leaves burning and flying to the sky. It wasn’t like Calanmai—Elain could tell that this war destruction. This was war.
Above her, the clouds were pitch black, billowing like smoke where she struggled to see the setting sun. The singed air was pierced with a scream—a roar—and something flew low, the smoke separating around it, scales of black sliding just above her head.
Then, Elain was gasping for air, Lucien above her shaking her arms.
“Elain!”
The fear in his eyes held no handle to the rushing back of the emotions through the bond in her chest.
“A vision—I saw—”
Suddenly, Lucien lurched upright, too, as though he’d heard something. Then, he was sitting up, cursing. He turned back to her quickly, a hand on her cheek.
“Are you alright?”
She nodded, still catching her breath. “It’s never felt so abrupt like that before. Never so vivid.”
He leaned in and kissed her forehead, bringing her close. “I’m so sorry, but we’ll have to finish this later. My brother is here.”
+++
Lucien
Lucien had winnowed Elain and himself to her room after dressing, not willing to risk anyone seeing her in her nightdress.
His nerves were raw, shot into nothing even before her vision and the telltale shifting of the wards that told him Eris had come. He could almost hear downstairs the voices of Eris and Tamlin, but he would give Elain the time to properly dress—he knew how she still valued her modesty, and nothing Eris could possibly have to say was more important than keeping her comfortable.
Inside her room, he waited as she dressed, pleasantly surprised that she didn’t hide her body from him after the abrupt departure from their situation earlier. She dropped the silken gown to the floor, letting Lucien appreciate her naked body in the glow of the sun while she put on a gown for the day. It was simple, a pretty green with minimal details, but she shone in it.
Though Lucien was convinced she could wear anything and still be the most beautiful woman in the room.
“Are you ready to go?” she asked, walking over to where he sat on her bed. He nodded.
Was he ready for her to meet his idiot pig of an older brother? Never. Was he ready to have whatever Eris wanted over with so he could get Elain right back into his bed and pick up where they left off? Absolutely.
But when they emerged into the study, Lucien understood this was not a visit under normal circumstances. Stood by the window and in deep discussion with Tamlin was his eldest brother, but for the first time in his life, Lucien was seeing Eris with a fiery crown of thorns around his head.
Eris noticed him right as he walked in, his eyes flashing to Elain quickly, but not so quickly that Lucien did not notice.
“Hello, little brother,” he greeted, an oddly hollow but still smug smirk on his face. “Beron is dead.”
Lucien felt a million emotions in his chest at the admission, all warring for dominance. But it was the smallest flicker of concern from Elain that stood out the most. Beside him, she took his hand in hers. The comfort that small gesture gave flooded his system, and for a moment, he didn’t even care that Eris knew.
Lucien would be tempted to tell the entire world that Elain was his mate if given the opportunity right now. But her safety was more important than anything else. For now, holding her hand in his was gift enough.
“What happened?”
Among everything else, Lucien felt relief. Eris was temperamental and obnoxious, but he would also make for a good High Lord. Not that Lucien would ever tell him that. Still, Lucien was glad to see his father—see Beron—gone. A nightmare of centuries for many, but absolutely for his family, coming to a close.
“There was an attack at Sangravah. At the temples. Beron was there, and he was killed.” Eris looked down at his nails as though the conversation was beneath him, but Lucien didn’t miss the smile on his face. “An errant spear from a commoner took him out in all the chaos. Poetic, don’t you think?”
Lucien did not think for one moment that the spear that had killed his father had come from anyone but Eris. Perhaps not directly from his hand, but absolutely on his orders.
Still, the relief won above all else. Lucien had no love for Beron in his heart. He couldn’t even drum up any empathy for the man he’d called father.
But that thought presented another problem, now at the forefront of his mind.
“Where is mother?” Lucien could see that Eris wanted to tease him, to fall back into that easy yet merciless taunting of his childhood, calling him a fatted calf who never left his mother’s side. But Lucien could see in Eris’s eyes that even he understood their mother was not a laughing matter.
“Mother is safe.”
Relieved, too. Lucien could read the subtext of it on Eris’s face, but he knew it to be true in his own mind too. She was free.
Would she return to Day?
Lucien shoved the thought away.
“War is coming,” Eris warned, and Lucien was suddenly aware again of Tamlin’s presence in the room, of Elain’s hand squeezing his.
“War?” Tamlin repeated. “Who instigated the attack on the temple?”
Eris swallowed, and Lucien tracked the movement. His brother was good at wearing a mask, but there were some tells that even a childhood in Beron’s house could not break you of. He was afraid.
“Hybern’s forces, coming in from the southern sea.” Lucien’s blood ran cold as he watched Tamlin flinch back, body going rigid.
Hybern.
Amarantha’s forces.
Lucien wondered if he might be sick. If he might send all the very few remaining contents of his stomach heaving into the potted plant beside the door.
“How did they breach the lines of Autumn?” Tamlin asked, astonished. Lucien was shocked, too. For all his complaints of Autumn, their military was the top of the land.
Eris suddenly looked ages older. “Father let them in. I found the communications in his study upon returning to the Forest House.”
It didn’t surprise him that their father had granted passage. He liked to be on the winning side, no matter how horrid, and if the King of Hybern was coming here…
“Why the temple?” Elain’s voice startled Lucien out of his musings, the sound of it so delicate in the room. Eris seemed startled the same, as though they’d forgotten she was there. Now, his eyes appraised her, not missing her hand in Lucien’s, but moving on just the same as though he’d simply noted the detail.
“They took something. A relic.”
Eris and Tamlin exchanged a look that Lucien couldn’t decipher. “Have you alerted the other courts?” Tamlin asked, and it occurred to Lucien that the other temples might also be at risk. What had they taken?
Eris nodded, and Lucien knew his guess was correct. “Where are Hybern’s forces now?” he asked, the worry in his voice there whether he wanted it to be or not.
“They’ve disappeared. A massive swath of them, just vanished. We’ve culled those in Autumn who were not loyal, and the army is rebuilding. We’re keeping watch on the borders, but I came to warn you to do the same.” He turned and looked pointedly at Elain. “Perhaps this is not the safest place for your woman.”
Lucien fought the primal urge to snarl at the idea of Elain in danger. But he knew Lucien was right.
“Take her to Night. The wards will allow you in. We’ll write to Feyre and Rhys.”
Elain spoke up. “They still haven’t responded to any letters—”
“They wouldn’t turn you away if you’re in danger here,” Tamlin said to Elain, his voice soft, and Lucien warmed to know how much his longest friend cared for Elain. He reassured her.
“I’ll stay with you the whole time, but he’s right.” He hated ever admitting Eris was right. “If it isn’t safe here, I won’t risk you staying. Not until they’ve located the army.”
Elain nodded like she understood. “I’ll go pack a bag.”
Within thirty minutes, they were ready to go, a bag packed for them both which, despite the circumstances, sparked something in Lucien to see their things packed together. When they came back downstairs, Eris and Tamlin seemed ready to go, too.
Tamlin was talking to Alis, pieces of the conversation alerting Lucien that he was telling her to alert the staff. Bron and Hart were already stationed in the hall, more guardsmen gathering on the front lawn as everyone prepared. Tamlin came back over.
“Have you told Lindy what’s happening?” she asked.
He nodded, a blush spreading across his cheeks unbidden. “She was here when Eris arrived. She’s warning the people in the village to be on alert and to post the guardsmen." There was a sort of pride in his voice as he spoke, and Lucien didn’t miss Elain’s smile.
“Will you tell her I’ll be back soon?”
“We’ll come with you to Velaris, then speak with Rhys about the armies. I’ll make sure to let her know as soon as we’re back. I promise I won’t let her out of my sight.” Lucien understood the impulse, taking Elain’s hand again and shifting their bag over his shoulder.
“Hold on tight, okay?” It was a big difference between winnowing between rooms and winnowing between courts, and he wanted to keep her close. For as fast as everything was happening, Elain had on a brave face. He could feel the flickers of concern in the bond, but he pushed back as much reassurance as he could, her shoulders relaxing noticeably as he did. “It will be okay.”
Then, they were winnowing, the air warping and whipping around them as he held Elain close. More than fear, he felt wonder coming from her. It was easy to understand how easily he’d fallen for her, mating bond or no.
When they landed in the woods outside Velaris, Lucien realized how underdressed Elain was. He hadn’t quite thought things through in their rush, but he quickly moved to put his coat over her shoulders. From where they stood, it looked like endless woods on every side, snow still covering the ground. Though the sun had still been shining in Spring, it looked almost like late afternoon here, the white of the snow turning a pastel purple in the light.
“We have to walk through the wards—no winnowing. They’ll be alerted that we’re here,” Tamlin offered, starting down the gentle slope into the town’s outskirts. After just a few steps, Lucien felt the familiar pull of the wards as they tugged around him, keeping a steady hold on Elain as she did the same. Then, she came to a full stop.
“It’s beautiful,” she whispered, the stars out and twinkling low even in the dusky afternoon sky. In the distance, the snow capped mountains shone. Ahead of them now, the hidden dome of Velaris had lifted, and before them lay the entirety of the beautiful, sprawling city. Spring may have been Lucien’s home, but he never turned down a trip to Velaris when it was offered.
Tamlin had been right—it had only taken moments for Mor to find them, her sparkling, signature red nowhere to be seen on the cobblestone as she winnowed in front of them. She was wearing battle leathers.
“Not surprised to see you, but surprised it took so long.”
“We had to prepare,” Tamlin responded at the same time Eris rolled his eyes and quipped, “We couldn’t start with a hello?”
“Perhaps I’d start with a hello if you—-Elain?”
Lucien could feel Elain tense up beside him as Mor said her name, her whole body going rigid. It occurred to him then that the two had never met.
“How do you know my name?” she asked, but Mor was already stepping forward.
“You’re Elain? Elain Archeron?”
Elain looked up at Lucien, who nodded. “I am.”
“Oh, thank the bloody Cauldron. I know some people who are going to be very relieved to see you.”
“My sisters? Are they here?” The hope in Elain’s voice left Lucien with a strange feeling inside his chest.
“They’re in Sangravah, at the temple. They were still evacuating people out when you tripped the wards and I was sent here to investigate. But yes, they live here.”
“They’re still sorting out the temple?” Tamlin asked, sounding concerned.
Mor nodded, looking away from Elain momentarily. Lucien gathered a deep breath. “Yes, we had some…issues with organizing.”
“What kind of issues?” Lucien found himself asking.
“Azriel may have taken one of the priestesses?” She said the words like a question.
“That massive bat,” Eris sighed “Once a brute, always a brute.”.
“What happened?” Tamlin asked. Elain looked confused, and Lucien made a mental note to explain who everyone was as soon as they got a moment.
“We don’t know. Everything was fine one moment, and the next he was abandoning his post, flying off into the night carrying a redheaded priestess.”
Something shifted so palpably that Lucien felt it even before Eris grit out, “What redhead?”
“What do you mean, what redhead? I don’t know. They’re priestesses in Autumn. I’ve never met any of them.”
“Was she with anyone?” Eris asked, and Lucien was immediately on alert over the croaking of his voice.
At that, Mor’s expression sobered. “Everyone she was with is dead.” At that, Eris cursed, walking back toward the wards.
“Eris!” Lucien called, but the second he’d stepped outside the city streets, he’d winnowed away.
“I can take you to Feyre’s home,” Mor was offering. “The River House is just up the street, and they should be back soon, if they aren't already.” Beside him, Elain nodded, but her grip on his hand tightened. He wished, just for a second, he could know what she was thinking past the emotions through the bond.
Tamlin stepped forward. “Please bring them there. I will go to Sangravah and see if the remaining priestesses need sanctuary in northern Spring. The villages will be safe that far from the coast. I need to talk to Rhys.”
Mor nodded, and Tamlin left the wards too, winnowing away while Mor gestured for them to follow.
After the death of her father and the disappearance of both her sisters, Elain Archeron resigns herself to a quiet, joyless life bound to a man she doesn’t love. But when her betrothed decides she is worth more to him dead than alive, Elain flees into the night with nothing but the shoes on her feet and the desperate hope that she might survive until morning. A strange voice leads her beyond The Wall to a land she thought only existed in storybooks, where she runs into the male who has lived in her dreams for as long as she can remember.
Elain
Elain stomped through the gardens, brambles catching at her skirts. She halted, tugging the gauzy fabric free and continuing on.
The sun was already settling low beneath the treeline over the hedges, turning the sky a deep purple ribboned with orange. She’d taken the way of the garden because she knew the paths well, but also because she knew she wasn’t likely to be followed.
Ianthe had been sending her on what Elain was starting to suspect was a trail of wild goose chases all day. She needed something from the staff setting up by the fires, the ceremonial paint had been delivered to the wrong place, there were people arriving who weren’t able to find the lot of land they’d been assigned to stay.
When Elain had offered her services, she hadn’t imagined that she’d spend the day being ordered around by her least favorite person in the Spring Court. She’d snuck out before Ianthe could find her again, slipping from her room after she’d locked herself inside to wash the sweat from her body and change. Lindy and Elain had parted ways earlier in the day, with Lindy opting to stay inside the manor.
“I know how Calanmai works. I don’t need to see it in action.” There was something almost sad and bitter in her tone, and after reading about the ceremony and what it entailed, Elain understood why.
“Are you sure you don’t want to stay in my rooms?” she’d offered for the thousandth time.
Lindy had squeezed her shoulder. “Thank you, again, but I’ll just stay in the staff quarters tonight. They’re going to be celebrating on their own, and I’d rather be amongst a crowd.”
Elain understood the urge. She thought she might tear someone’s head off if Lucien were in the same position as Tamlin.
Now, as she slithered out through the gardens, she released a breath when it seemed no one had followed her. She wanted to be alone, and she wanted to enjoy the night—a distraction of her own. She navigated farther and farther away from the manor and closer to the edge of the rolling hills of bonfires ahead. Already, she could hear the music, the pounding of drums, and the smell of the burning timber was heady in her nose.
She tread a little more carefully, avoiding another hedge filled with brambles and pulling her skirt up past her ankles to be safe. It was fire night, and she wasn’t going to let anything else keep her down—or away from it.
It had been a long two weeks since the ball. A long two weeks since the morning after her nightmare where she’d woken up to find Lucien gone. Apparently, he’d been called away urgently for business in Dawn, and Tamlin made apologies on his behalf. She’d tried not to be offended, but they’d never had a chance to speak about the kiss in the hall or her nightmare or the fact that he’d stayed in her bed. He might have fled before sunrise, but the place beneath his pillow had still been warm. He’d stayed with her the whole night.
Since then, she’d been trying to keep busy, making sure her mind and hands were occupied whenever possible. Tamlin had asked for a bit of help with for Calanmai as it approached, and otherwise she’d been keeping busy in the gardens with Lindy, listening to all the details of whatever tentative thing was forming between her and the High Lord.
But Lucien had gotten back earlier today. She had felt him the moment he’d winnowed back onto Spring property, his heart thundering in her chest more loudly than normal, as though it had missed beating in time so close to hers.
She’d been trying to find him all day, her tasks pulling and tugging her away at every available opportunity. It had become so ridiculously pointed that she wondered if Ianthe was doing it on purpose. Elain rolled her eyes just thinking about it. She wasn’t sure she’d ever disliked anyone the way she disliked the priestess. She kept meaning to ask Tamlin why he kept Ianthe around, but every time, she remembered that she, too, was a guest here. She always backed out, feeling it wasn’t her place.
Tonight, though, there was nothing Ianthe could do to stop Elain’s mission to find Lucien in the already huge crowds. The orange streaks in the sky had faded to a violet as deep as a bruise when Elain left the garden walls and stepped through the gates.
It was a warm night, the air heavy but nice on her skin. The dress she’d picked was more revealing than she was used to, but Alis had said it was a little more fit for Calanmai. Right before she’d told Elain to not go out without an escort from one of the guards. Exactly what Tamlin had also told her as he blushed and stammered through a very vague reasoning for why he wouldn’t be able to keep an eye on her. She’d been too embarrassed to ask anyone about the details of Calanmai after the ball, choosing instead to blush wildly while she looked them up herself in a chair in the dark back corner of the library.
She’d hoped she’d run into Lucien before then—maybe even see if he’d go with her so they could talk once she’d felt him return within the wards of Spring.
But in the end, Lucien hadn’t come to see her. She was hurt he hadn’t said a word, hadn’t sent a letter. She wanted to talk to him—needed to talk to him. At the very least, perhaps, he might show her mercy. He could put her out of her misery, tell her the kiss was a big mistake, and she could begin to pick up the broken pieces of her heart with her tail between her legs and move on.
Her heart throbbed at the thought, the bond chafing so raw in her chest she thought for a moment she might be sick.
“Hush,” she admonished it, then nearly laughed at herself for talking to it. What was she even supposed to do with an unclaimed bond? When he rejected her, would the bond understand that? Or would it just stretch out forever, endlessly looking for the other half that didn’t want her, until she died?
Perhaps she would need to leave Spring. It hadn’t felt quite so overwhelming when he’d been gone. Maybe she could find some peace elsewhere—another court, even, if her sisters ever remembered she existed.
“What’s a pretty little thing like you doing so far from The Wall?” The voice leered beside her in the dark. She was far into the crowd now, and though many members of the nearby Spring Court knew who she was, she didn’t recognize these fae.
They were tall and lithe, almost spindly in their build. Their teeth looked nearly as sharp as their eyes, and something about the way they looked at her made her want to recoil.
“I’m a guest of the High Lord,” she responded, holding her chin up and trying to remain calm. The people she’d met so far were mostly curious, but something here felt more nefarious than that.
“The High Lord would let such a precious gem out of his sight?” The one in front stepped closer, and Elain stepped back. “Seems irresponsible.”
“Well, he correctly assumed the Cursebreaker’s sister could take care of herself,” Elain replied, injecting as much confidence into her voice as possible. As though being doused with cold water, the fire in the fae’s eyes died.
“The Cursebreaker’s—”
“Sister, yes. Elain Archeron.” She held out her hand mockingly, and the fae jerked back.
“Our apologies. We didn’t know.”
At least her sisters were worth something here, Elain thought as the fae scrambled off, talking in animated whispers amongst themselves with their heads bowed low, shooting a single glance back before disappearing into the dark woods. Elain scoffed.
The crowds were buzzing as she approached, the refreshments doled out freely and the fires blazing high. The drums were so loud now that she could feel them in her bones, a beautiful buzzing that filled her body with a strange sense of joy and wonder.
Around her, people danced, talked, and sang. A band played in the distance, their instruments doubling down the fun and frenetic energy of the drums. Elain wanted to dance, as though her feet were pushing her to do it without her consent.
She didn’t see Lucien as she looked around, his shock of bright red hair nowhere to be seen. Inside, she felt that bubble of hope sink even lower into her stomach, the way it had been for days now. Still, his heart thrummed next to hers, the beautiful beat telling her that he wasn’t far.
Beside her, people were speaking.
“—just took off toward the manor—”
“—came out from the cave and simply bolted away—”
She took in only parts of the conversation, but stood next to a young couple and asked what was happening.
“The High Lord.” The male nodded toward the massive cave in the distance, the small light glowing and flickering as the drums pounded away. “He came out once the ceremony began, but didn’t choose anyone. Just took off back toward the manor.”
“I’ve never seen it happen before!” the female next to him replied, all flushed cheeks and gossip. Elain grinned.
“Right back to the manor, you say?”
I’ll be damned.
He’d gone after Lindy after all.
Around her, the crowd was already rustling, whispers and quiet jubilation spreading as a figure made its way back over the hill. It was too dark to see anything—too swift to make out any shapes—but in the silence, Elain could make out a peal of quiet, familiar laughter and just barely see the bobbing of dark curls as the figures descended into the cave.
A year ago, she might have thought this barbaric. Actually, she was sure she would have. It likely would have changed how she’d seen both Tamlin and Lindy. But Elain was an entirely different person now, and just about everything had changed. The only thing she felt, other than the slight tinge of a blush on her cheeks, was elation for her friends.
The two were enamored with each other, and Lindy had made Tamlin work for it. He’d gladly risen to the occasion. Elain’s grin spanned ear to ear as the drums heightened, the crowd resuming their celebrations. Around her, people danced and sang and ate and drank, the feeling so euphoric that it pulsed like blood in her veins.
She grabbed a glass of mulled wine herself, sipping as she swung along with the crowd, the music beautiful. It was like her feet wanted to move on their own, twist and twirl her along the throngs of people who were happy to be here, to celebrate the land and the life it gave.
Elain found herself nearly overwhelmed with the gratitude of those around her—a whole celebration based on second chances and rebirth. The lore of it all had touched something inside her when she’d read about it, but now, in it, she felt it take her over completely.
Elain was alive. She had never felt alive like this. She’d lived her whole life muted, gray painted over swaths of hidden color like a sodden canvas. But now, Elain had been living as herself in a land she’d thought existed only in fairytales.
As she spun with a group of females—hands sweating and firm, supportive and gentle—she felt the tears rolling down her face as she danced and swayed. The fae around her smiled, twirling her out and back when her turn came, and trusting her to do the same for them.
Elain had such sudden clarity that this was where she belonged. This—this land of magic and friends and family like she’d never known—was the closest she’d ever felt to living.
She danced for what felt like hours, her heart pounding and full, feeling safe and cared for and included. She spun until her feet hurt, until the colors of the fires and sparks blurred around her. Finally, when her throat was dry and her head starting to thump, she bade her goodbyes and headed back toward the manor. Toward her home.
The drums beat softly through the walls as she moved through quiet, lacquered halls, her bare feet near-silent on the marble. She could still hear them as she removed her pretty dress, washed her body in the tub, and crawled into bed. She could hear them as she faded in and out of sleep, the residual sparkle of the wine she’d had swimming prettily through her mind, shifting the stars and the shadows from the faraway fires into delightful scenes on her ceiling.
Elain could still hear the drums as she tossed and turned, the steady beating of them shifting into something more familiar, more lovely. It beat right next to her heart, closer and closer until her eyes shot open in the bed.
She knew, somehow, that Lucien was right outside of her door, her body moving before she could tell it otherwise. Feet padded across the floor, the satin of her nightgown swishing around her thighs as she opened the massive, wooden doors to the hall.
She’d been right—he was there—surprised to see her, his brows high and eyes wild like he could feel the drums too as he stood between their two doors. Almost like he’d been waiting. Almost as though he’d been talking himself out of something.
Elain wasn’t sure if it was the wine, or the drums, or the magic of the night that possessed her. Perhaps it was everything, and the time they’d spent apart. But her body was moving through the door, stepping toward him where he stood closer to his.
“Elain.” Her name was a shaky whisper, his eyes flashing to her chest and back to her face. She didn’t feel embarrassed; she felt bold.
“You left.”
The words were simple, perhaps less accusation in them than hurt, but the whisper filled the empty hallway nonetheless. The words struck, though—she could see each as it landed, something like guilt in Lucien’s eyes. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know what it meant.
“Will you let me explain?” he asked.
She found she wanted that more than anything else. She nodded.
“I left on business, but I stayed in Dawn. I was looking for answers. About the vines.” He stepped closer, and Elain inhaled on impulse, filling her lungs with the smell of him. “About you.”
He’d gone searching for answers. He’d left to find something that would help her.
“And what did you find?” she asked, fighting every urge to bridge the small space between them and put her hands on him. The drumbeats shook the walls, shook her bones.
A flicker of disappointment crossed his face. “Nothing yet, but I have leads. I wanted to see if there was a way to help. Wanted to see if perhaps, especially with what happened to your sisters, there was something about you that wasn’t as human as you’d thought.”
The words he said shifted in Elain’s head, forming a picture of something new. Lucien had gone to find answers, to find if Elain might not be entirely human after all. Lucien had gone to look because the possibility might change things…because Lucien might—
“You kissed me,” were the words that found their way out of her. He nodded.
“I did.” This time, it was Lucien who stepped closer, the heady rush of the space between them making Elain woozy. He hadn’t been trying to leave her. He had been trying to find answers for her, something that might allow them to be together for more than just right now.
She opened her eyes, looking up at him and finding him so close that she couldn’t help but reach out her hand. Just over his collar, she stopped, hesitating, and Lucien closed his own eyes.
“I can’t stay away from you anymore, Elain,” he said, the words so quiet she could barely hear them.
She let her fingers fall, brushing over his collarbone and taking note of the sharp exhale of breath from his lips.
“Do you want to?” she asked, feeling the heat of his skin sear into her like a brand on her soul. The drums beat into a crescendo so loudly that she was no longer sure what came from outdoors and what was the beating of their hearts.
“No.” The word was firm, but it was almost lost in the collision of their bodies, chests and arms and lips crashing together all at once. It wasn’t like the kiss in the hallway of the ball, no trepidation or hesitation. They were immediately locked into each other, limbs twining and mouths moving and a door opening behind her as the air rushed through. She could just barely tell from the scent that they were in his room as the door clicked shut behind them, the darkness swallowing them again until her eyes adjusted.
His mouth was on her jaw, her neck, and she was seeing stars behind her eyes. Where his body pressed against hers, her silk nightdress pushed up, exposing her thighs to the air and how wet she was between them. At each point where he sucked into her skin with those perfect lips of his, her body arched forward, wanting more—more touch, more contact, more, more, more.
“Lucien,” she sighed the name into his neck like a prayer, suddenly aware of her back against the wall of his room. She’d been in here before, back when she first arrived, that smell enticing her before she’d even known who he was, what he was to her.
A sound hummed low in his throat, almost a growl as it rumbled between clenched teeth. “Can I please touch you?” She could hear the restraint in his voice, feel it in the rigid hold of his frame. But when she nodded against him, everything was a sudden flurry of movement. His hands were beneath her thighs, her body lifting, skin moving against the gilded wallpaper. A gasp left her lips as her feet left the ground, but Lucien was kneeling, holding her up with one of her thighs over his shoulder and the other resting on his arm.
“I cannot tell you how long I’ve waited to do this,” he murmured into her thigh, the sensation of it causing Elain to rock forward and close her eyes. He was lifting her like it was nothing—like he could do this all day, and the proximity with which his lips moved to where she’d let no one but Graysen touch her before was making her heart rocket around in her chest. He moved closer, dragging his skin against hers until she was vibrating with anticipation. Her chest was exploding with the sensation, the need, the longing finally coming to a head.
She heard where he inhaled, heard something that sounded like a sigh as she felt his breath skirt over her most sensitive skin. She’d have begged had he not immediately closed his mouth over her, his hot tongue moving across her so intentionally that all Elain could do was close her lips tightly to pull back the scream that wanted to escape from her throat.
Lucien pulled back and Elain almost cried at the emptiness. “Exactly as perfect as I’d imagined you’d taste,” he said, words barely discernible as he dove back in. Elain had never felt anything like this—never known she could feel anything like this. Graysen had barely touched her, had thrust against her for a while before spitting into his own hand and readily chasing his pleasure with no regard for hers.
But Lucien—gods, Lucien.
Lucien was devouring her like a final meal. Like he’d been a man starving and she was what he’d chosen to slake his hunger. Behind her, his hands grabbed at her ass, sinking into flesh that had never been touched so possessively with such need. She could feel the pulsing of him within her ribs, the arousal so potent that it was nearly a tangible thing as she bucked against his face.
“Oh, gods,” she whimpered, somehow noticing in the sweltering heat of the pleasure ripping her down that she’d switched to addressing the plural gods of Prythian in the time she’d been here. He took it as a sign, doubling down and she almost swore she could feel him smiling against her. She was babbling, begging, though she knew she wasn’t making any sense. She couldn’t care—nothing mattered except his mouth on her and the iron grip of pleasure coiling tight and hot around her spine. When he moved slightly, adjusting his fingers just enough to include them in his ministrations, Elain detonated, an orgasm harder than anything she’d ever felt rocking through her with the force of a storm.
She wasn’t sure when she’d had her feet lowered to the floor, wasn’t sure when her consciousness had floated back into her body as Lucien loosely held her, pressing kisses softly into her neck and along her collarbone. She came back into herself, feeling his hands brush up and down her arms, over her waist and hips, and she felt treasured. It was nothing she’d ever experienced before—nothing she ever thought she would. But as she cleared the haze, she could feel Lucien against her, still hard and considerably larger than she’d been expecting.
She tried not to balk as her hands began to explore beneath his shirt, fingertips tracing and moving along his searing skin. His trousers were held by a tie, and Elain swiftly undid it, loosening the leather and tugging down the waist of them. Her fingers explored lower and lower, and Lucien let his forehead fall against her shoulder, his arms practically shaking against her as her fingertips finally made contact.
“Elain…” It was a plea if she’d ever heard one, soft and beautiful against her chest where he’d leaned in when she touched him. And as her fingers closed around him, barely touching, he exhaled so hard that she’d worried at first she’d hurt him.
“Is this okay?” She’d never done this with Graysen, though he’d tried to get her to put her mouth on him once and she’d blatantly refused. The thought of doing that with Lucien, however, piqued her interest in a way she hadn’t expected.
“Cauldron, yes, Elain. It’s more than okay.” She smiled against his hair, her hand tightening just enough to hold a little pressure as she moved up and down the length of him. He muffled a curse as he bucked forward, and her grin widened. It was fun to elicit this reaction from him. She’d been so passive with Graysen, but something about Lucien, about the way she could feel how he wanted her in her own veins, pushed her to do more. To play. She stopped, pulling her hand back, and Lucien sprung up.
“I’m so sorry, Elain. I was carried away, I—” But his mouth closed so fast his teeth clacked as she slipped down the wall, settling on her knees. Even in the dark, the light from the outside sent shadows across the angles of his face above her, illuminating him just enough for her to see the wide-eyed awe on his face and the breath on his parted lips.
“You don’t have to—”
“I want to,” she responded before he had a chance to stop her. And she did. Since the thought had passed through her mind moments ago, it had consumed her. She wanted to taste him—to know what the weight of him felt like on her tongue. Perhaps she wouldn’t be good at it, perhaps it would be messy. Still, the thought made the place between her legs throb all over again, the goosebumps blanketing her arms as she placed her hands back on his thighs.
Though it was hard to see in the dark, she leaned in, resting just the tip of him on her tongue. The length of him was heavy and soft, smooth in her mouth as she closed it over him. Above her, Lucien made a strangled sort of sound that only motivated her. She raised her hand to the base of him, holding him firm and steady while she let her mouth and tongue explore. She based her movements on the way he held himself, shaking and pitching forward, his hips moving out of time even though she could tell he was desperately trying to hold himself back.
Before, she might have been embarrassed by the saliva, by the obscene sounds her mouth and hand made as they moved over him. But she was inspired by the way he leaned forward and gripped the wall for dear life above her. The way one hand came down to cradle her jaw, soft and possessive and gentle and just barely held back from losing control all at once. Elain experimented with touch and movement, with pressure and rhythm, until she could feel the tightness in her own chest, until she knew he was close.
“Elain,” he gasped. She continued. “Elain, if you don’t stop, I’m not going to be able to.” She nodded once, bobbing her head on him and hoping he understood. She wanted to taste him, wanted to do this for him and know forever how it felt. He shuddered against her, his fingers twining in her hair as his body lurched forward.
He tasted as good as he smelled, something spiced and salty and almost sweet. Elain slowed as she swallowed, pulling herself gently off of him as he sagged and sighed above her. She tried to stand on her own, but he barely let her move before he was lifting her again, pulling her body up and to him so that her arms wrapped around his neck and her legs around his waist. He was kissing her, mouth moving against hers as he carried them across the room and set her gently on the bed. This close to the windows with the curtains pulled back, she could see every detail of his beautiful face in the glow from outside. He looked like she felt.
“This time, I get to ask you to stay.”
Elain simply nodded, settling back against the pillows as he crawled in beside her and tugged up the sheets. This time, there was no space between them as she shimmied down beneath the covers, his broad hand coming around her stomach and pulling her tight against him. She was exhausted, her body finding the safety that it had craved for so long in his arms and immediately letting her relax so intensely that she could barely keep her eyes open. It felt like sunshine and fire in her chest, something tight and expanding and wild as the bond wrapped around them.
His heart beat next to hers, that ribbon stronger and more physical than it had ever felt between them.
Elain yawned, but the words whispered out too. “I can feel you, Lucien. I can feel your heart beating with mine.”
It was the closest she’d come to saying it, the closest she’d come to telling him about the bond. Behind her, he tensed slightly, his body curving around hers as though it wanted to protect her from something. The feelings of comfort and concern warred inside her.
Had she gone too far?
“Elain, I have to tell you something,” Lucien spoke so close that she could feel his lips brushing the skin of her shoulder.
Her breath froze in her lungs, realization dawning on her. He couldn’t possibly know, could he?
“I should have told you sooner, and I’m so sorry I kept this from you. I just didn’t know how to explain what was happening.”
He did know. He thought she didn’t know.
All this time…
She spun around in his arms, turning to face him close in the dark, and that tugging in her chest flared into something wild, acknowledged.
“Mates.” The words were out of her in a breath, and for a moment, neither of them breathed.
Then, Lucien was up on his elbow staring at Elain with a sort of incredulity that she’d never seen. He looked almost like he was on the verge of tears.
“You knew?” He spoke the words like he didn’t dare to believe them. Elain’s heart nearly exploded. Had he known the whole time, too?
“Since the first night I saw you,” she whispered back, reaching a hand up to touch his face, to make sure he was real.
“And you know what it means?”
“I’ve been doing some reading.” She smiled, and his laugh was wet. “I thought it was something from storybooks before I came here. Before I met you.”
Something like a sob tore from Lucien’s throat, and his arms were around Elain in a heartbeat.
Had he known the whole time? Had he been afraid of what she’d think?
Almost as if he’d heard her thoughts, he spoke into her hair. “I thought it wouldn’t be fair to tell you all this—to put it on you when you were all but exiled here. I thought you’d hate me.” She barely heard the last part of his admission, his words covered in such pain.
“I ruin everything I touch, Elain. I was so scared that I would ruin you, too.” Her heart was breaking for him, the emotion in his voice so painful that it hurt her down to her bones. She held him closer.
“And then, you told me about the magic, and I thought there might be hope. There might be something to the idea of the Cauldron matching us. That you might survive…me.”
“Oh, Lucien.” She was crying now too, the tears soaking his hair as it pressed against her face. He pulled back, the strands sticking to her face as he did. But his face was more open and earnest than she’d ever seen, something so vulnerable that Elain felt like breaking herself open just to let him search for whatever he needed.
“Do you want this?” he asked. “Do you want me?”
It wasn’t the first time either of them had asked, or the first time they needed to know, but Elain could feel how important this was—not just for Lucien, but for her, too.
All her life, Elain had done what was expected of her, trying to fit in inside of her upbringing, trying to find a home that was hers. Elain had never asked for what she wanted, always going with the expectations and standards and demands of everyone else.
Now, here, it was time for Elain to finally ask for what she wanted.
She cupped his face in both her hands, using her thumbs to wipe the moisture off his cheekbones. His eyes never once left hers, but she knew he could feel her answer in his chest before she said it.
“The chance to be happy? To be with you? I would give anything.”
This time, when he kissed her, she didn’t hold anything back.
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