Still in awe of how well the D&D movie mimicked the feeling of D&D without doing anything as tediously literal as a "sitting around the table" framing device. The way some characters have names that sound like names a DM improvised on the spot, the sudden appearance and disappearance of a overpowered DM NPC for a single dungeon, the way they used the fact that characters can plausibly just mess up for no clear reason to escalate action scenes...that was cinema
Also the tragic backstories that clash noticeably with the goofy tone of the actual movie and are related in full at inopportune moments. And the fact that the DMPC is the only one with a backstory even SLIGHTLY connected to the main plot. Plus the fact that every character is a subtle representation of a DND player trope - Edgin is an extensive roleplayer who barely even uses his bard abilities and just talks his way out of every situation he finds, Holga is a wargamer who's just here to kick monster ass and barely talks about her character (to the point that her tragic backstory comes completely out of nowhere as though the DM shoved it in), Simon is a newbie who doesn't really know how the game works and has picked the most complicated class there is to start off with, and Doric is a rule-of-cool action hero who thinks the limitations on wild shape are Dumb and Stupid and the DM begrudgingly indulges her because what she does is in fairness much cooler.
It’s the queer Bridgerton show down, Benedict versus Eloise, who is it going to be, it’s - wait? Whose that? Oh my god it’s Francesca with the steel chair!
Twelve months to the day since she and Elain were thrown in the Cauldron, Nesta finds herself at one of Feyre’s dinner parties, trying to wrestle with an entire year’s worth of grief— until Cassian holds out a hand. (For @nestaarcheronweek day 2)
“I fell out of love again, not with you but with living in general, and I lost a lot of friends, never mind. Cause I’ve been on a losing streak, my heart’s made of stone, and I can’t trust my own damn feet to show me the right way home.” - Nevermind, Deaf Havana
It was the laughter that rankled the most.
That stung as it echoed off the crystal wine glasses and polished silver knives that lay at intervals along the grand mahogany table; glittering peals of it reverberating as bottles were uncorked and priceless wine was poured as liberally as water. Edged in the soft evening light, their joy was bright and bold and loud and warm, but as the dark crimson liquid licked the sides of her glass when someone filled it, Nesta Archeron could do nothing but sit frozen in the chair set out for her in Feyre’s expensive new house, watching the wine settle in her glass, trying not to think of how much it resembled freshly spilled blood.
There was no air in that expansive dining room trimmed with wealth and filled with golden light and laughter, no way to breathe, and as Nesta felt herself slowly suffocate, their laughter cut and pierced her skin like an entire quiver of arrows shot from seven different bows. Each one hit their mark; each one made her bleed.
With a hand she forced steady, she reached for the wine and lifted it to her lips, praying she might find some relief at the bottom regardless of… well, everything.
She wished they’d given her whiskey instead.
Cheap wine and strong liquor— that’s what Nesta had grown used to these past months. What she wantedmore than fine wine and elegant dinners pierced with laughter she couldn’t share. But then— when had it ever really mattered what she wanted anyway? When had it ever made a difference?
This wine certainly wasn’t cheap. It was rich and heady, the taste lingering on her tongue and coating the back of her throat, so thick she couldn’t breathe. It clung to the side of her glass as she lowered her hand, a smear of red staining the crystal that had her stomach churning and her throat threatening to close. Blood— did none of them notice, how much it looked like blood? It had her hearing not laughter but screams— had her tasting iron and recalling the way the blood had pooled between her fingers and collected between her knuckles only a handful of months ago.
Around the stem of her wine glass, her fingers trembled.
So little time had passed since the battle that had made an orphan of her, and yet…
They laughed.
Still, they laughed.
It was why, in the time since they had walked away from that battlefield alive if not entirely intact, Nesta had done everything in her power to distance herself from her sister and her newfound family. She had found an apartment on the other side of the city, as far from Feyre’s new house as she could get, and most nights she tried her hardest to avoid Rhysand and the members of his Inner Circle, seeking solace instead in dive bars— trying to find it in the arms of strangers whose names she never learned and whose faces she wouldn’t remember when the sun came up.
But this night…
This night was different.
The wine soured on her tongue, the sound of their laughter almost making her flinch. It was twelve months to the day since she and Elain had been forced into that Cauldron— twelve months since she had been broken apart so irrevocably that she didn’t think that there was a hope in hell of putting her back together again. It was the only reason - the only reason - why she had accepted Feyre’s weekly invitation to dinner when so many others had gone ignored. Why Nesta had crossed the river and stood in that grand, echoing entrance hall, looking up at portraits of damn near everyone Feyre had ever met, and finding that the only absence was her own.
The familiar hole in her chest had widened, yawned and gaped until it threatened to swallow her, and on this brutal anniversary she had thought that she might want, for once, to be near the only people who might understand the significance of it. Who might remember what day it was too.
She’d realised her mistake as soon as she stepped over the threshold.
Elain had been holding a cake on a silver stand, emerging victorious from the kitchen and smiling as she made her way to the dining room, where the cake now sat proudly in the centre of the table. Elain always makes dessert, Feyre had whispered as Nesta stood motionless in the doorway, trying to catch Elain’s eye and hoping to find—
What?
The same pain, reflected back at her in eyes she knew as well as her own? Some flicker of understanding?
Feyre had patted Nesta on the arm and slipped away to the sitting room, leading her to the space warmed by the glow of the fire and softened by the sound of laughter. But Nesta couldn’t find it in her to make her lips bend into a smile, couldn’t force a spark into her eyes. When Elain returned, and when Rhysand complimented the cake, her sister had blushed and dipped her chin, batting away the kind words with a soft smile and a demure tilt of her head. All the while Nesta sat in her chair, blinking, trying not to feel like a ghost that had stumbled and sat, unseen and unnoticed, at a stranger’s dinner party.
The laughter rose now, filling the dining room until the space was bursting with it, their joy pushing at the seams until it felt like Nesta would break beneath the pressure. As if from a great distance she heard Amren make some dry, cutting comment that she was too far gone to fully comprehend, and Azriel’s retort was a low, dark whisper across the silverware that had Mor’s laughter pealing all over again, like the ringing of a church bell.
Nesta’s hand tightened on her wine glass.
Did they not realise— did they not see? Or was she just screaming into the void, her pain and her anguish swallowed by their laughter?
The grief was a collar around her neck, tightening with every breath and dragging her beneath the surface whenever she was reminded that this place was not her home, this life not one that she had chosen. When she looked in the mirror and glimpsed her reflection, Nesta saw elegantly arched ears and eyes that glinted silver and she mourned every. damned. time. On the rare occasions she managed a smile, her lips felt absurdly weighty, the curvature forced and unwieldy, too unnatural to be believable given that her chest was still so empty and hollow.
And none of them noticed.
It hurt.
Every breath hurt— still. They had told her it would get better with time, that she would learn to heal, but it hadn’t, she hadn’t, and all she had come to realise was that her anger and her sorrow and her pain could not be parcelled away, couldn’t fit neatly into their little box. It had teeth— teeth and claws and a taste for blood, and it was tearing her apart, day by day by fucking day.
But it was invisible to them, because they had ticked off the days, the weeks turning to months, and now that a full year had passed… Nesta had, apparently, sailed right past the point of her pain being acceptable.
She gritted her teeth now, the meaningless and inane babble making her want to take her fork and drive it through Rhysand’s neck. If any of them spoke to her, she didn’t hear it. Didn’t register it. Instead she sat with her back straight, pushing around the food on her plate and ignoring Mor’s disapproving glance when she barely ate a mouthful and chose, instead, to drain her sanguineous wine.
A silent scream began to build in her chest, one that threatened to cleave her in two.
The laughter grew louder, another bottle of wine was opened, and for all the size of the great dining room in Feyre’s new home, the walls seemed to be closing in, the air suddenly thin as ribbons of ice crawled up Nesta’s spine. When the food was cleared away, Nesta saw as if through water when Feyre pushed away from the table, lifting her glass and suggesting that they move to the sitting room for a while before returning later for Elain’s cake.
She didn’t hear the murmurs of agreement or the clink of glasses as her sister’s family got to their feet. She didn’t hear the scrape of the chairs against the hardwood floors - not even her own - and as the rest of them departed for one of the luxurious sitting rooms overlooking the lawns, Nesta curled a hand around the back of her chair as she stood, fingers curling painfully into the carved wood.
“Nesta?”
Feyre’s voice drifted to her as she placed a hand on Nesta’s arm, but Nesta didn’t feel any warmth or kindness in her sister’s touch— felt only the icy kiss of the Cauldron and the hands that had held her captive in that throne room— a bruising grip that had held her down before water closed over her head, before her blood had boiled and her bones had shattered.
The memory slammed into her, made her flinch.
Against the onslaught Nesta took a breath, fixing her eyes on the windows and the night sky beyond, dark and clouded over, without a single star visible in the sky overhead. She looked into the impenetrable black, like a mirror to her soul.
“I’ll join you in a minute,” she managed after a long silence, her voice straining against the words.
Slowly, Feyre nodded.
She drew her hand away and looked once at her eldest sister before turning for the door, and as the sound of Feyre’s retreating footsteps grew distant, Nesta found herself standing alone and motionless before the window, looking at her reflection and mourning the life she had lived twelve months ago.
A life where she had a father still, even if he had been absent.
A life where she woke each morning and recognised her face in the mirror; where there was a path laid before that she knew she could follow. A human, mortal path.
Nesta caught sight of her eyes reflected back at her in the glass, dark and humourless, as cold and as empty as a void. From the sitting room the laughter echoed still, Mor’s voice louder than the rest as she told some ridiculous, raucous story that had Rhysand shouting something in good-natured protest, that had Feyre gasping a laugh as she allowed herself to be regaled by some tale from her husband’s past.
Nesta wondered if she would ever laugh again— ever find a reason to smile.
She had never felt more out of place than she did now, with her arms wrapped tight around herself as she stood alone, listening to the laughter and the joy of a family she would never be a part of.
A mistake— it had been a mistake to come tonight.
She closed her eyes, wondering how much scorn she would receive if she left right now, without saying goodbye. Glasses clinked in the sitting room, and it was almost enough to make her dart for the kitchen and the door that she knew would take her outside, but before she could commit herself to running away, the sound of footsteps approaching made her open her eyes again. Looking at the dining room reflected back at her through the windows, Nesta didn’t bother to turn as the door was opened again, letting in another sharp slice of the mirth beyond.
Cassian hesitated in the doorway.
Through the glass Nesta watched as he stood, lingering and drawing no nearer, even though his eyes had found her in an instant— had snapped to her, like seeking her out was the only thing he was good at. Without pause, without fear, he met her gaze in the window’s reflection, standing a handful of feet behind her as the heart in Nesta’s chest twisted painfully.
“There you are,” he said gently. “I wondered where you’d got to.”
He stood with his hands in his pockets, a stance so casual that Nesta could have forgiven herself for forgetting that he was a warrior born and bred, as ruthless as they come, with hands even more bloodstained than her own. The hair hung to his shoulders in a mass of haphazard curls, and the ruby earring he wore caught in the low light as he canted his head to the side, studying her with eyes that held no humour anymore, no hint of jest.
She wished now that Feyre had left the wine behind.
Cassian’s eyes searched hers in the reflection, taking in the hollows of her cheeks and the skin that she knew was too pale, too wan. His eyebrows inched together, a furrow forming in his brow as he took in the tracery of grief left behind, and when his throat bobbed with a swallow, something like concern alighted across his face. The scar slicing through his eyebrow was thrown into relief as his head tilted, his jaw tight as he looked her over, and something sparked in his eyes that she couldn’t bear, something so ardent and sincere that it made the hollow ache in her chest spread until she could feel it in her toes.
She didn’t know what to do with it. How to handle it.
So Nesta turned sharply on her heel, whirling to face him and taking some small pleasure in the fact that his eyes widened— that she had managed to surprise him.
“You don’t want to join us in the sitting room?” he asked, his voice slow and careful. Like he was sizing up an opponent for battle.
Nesta snorted.
Regret glimmered in his eyes, edged with just the barest hint of sorrow, but it was there and gone in an instant. The hazel darkened, and Nesta felt the anger and pain that simmered beneath her skin extending its claws like a beast stretching languorous before the hunt.
“Why should I?” she asked, poison seeping into her tone— poison as lethal to her as it was to him. Part of her knew she would regret it later, regretted it already, but she couldn’t hold back the tide of her grief alone. It was easier to let it swallow her, to let it drown her— easier to feed the anger than feel the pain, and so she lifted a chin and nodded to the doorway and the sitting room beyond, her lip curling on a sneer that only a small part of her tried and failed to fight. “So I can hear more tales about how wonderful your lives have been?”
Cassian’s eyes didn’t widen this time, like he’d expected every harsh word that had fallen from her lips. But he didn’t draw back— Cassian remained, resolute, with his face blank as Nesta’s arms tightened around her middle, as though her grip was the only thing holding her together. For half a moment she thought she saw his eyes soften— thought she saw him reach the same conclusion.
“So you can sit beside your sisters and remember what it is to be loved by them,” he suggested instead, removing one hand from his pocket and extending it smoothly out towards her. He caught her eye and raised an eyebrow, splaying his fingers like all he wanted was for her to take his hand and let her fingers slip between the gaps he’d left in his.
Nesta’s heart twisted again, and she thought that maybe - maybe - a part of her might want that, too.
A pity then, she thought dryly, that she couldn’t see beyond the tangled mess of emotions that were churning up her chest like dried earth. That she couldn’t reach beyond the shroud of grief to accept the hand that he offered.
She was silent for a moment, not quite knowing the words to say. His hand hung in the air between them, not quite enough to close the gap, and she was acutely aware that before her was a man who had thrown his life before hers, who had laid his head in her lap and grasped her hand as he lay dying. A man that she had barely seen since, who had started the hours and days after the battle by giving her space, and had never quite managed to stop. The distance between them was so great now that Nesta had no idea how to bridge it.
And then—
“I know what day it is, Nes,” he said quietly.
He made the nickname soft, breathed it like it could somehow belong to someone with a tongue as sharp as hers. His lips parted as his eyes fluttered, his gaze drifting down, and gods, it was as much of a hand extended out to her as the fingers he still had stretching towards her, a bridge offered when she couldn’t find one herself. Nesta had stilled by the windows, immovable as stone, but when her eyes shifted from his outstretched hand to the eyes that he had fixed on hers…
She had never seen his hazel gaze so earnest.
It was almost enough to make her weep, forcing apart the cracks in her chest with enough verocity to leave her in splinters. But Cassian didn’t blink, didn’t shy away from her, and when she said nothing, he only took a single step towards her.
“I know what it is to grieve, you know,” he added softly, in a voice hardly more than a whisper. “I know what it is to mourn.”
The laughter from the sitting room grew louder, and Nesta felt her eyes close against it, like she might protect herself from it if she could only pretend she was somewhere else entirely. She heard the rustle as Cassian’s wings spread a little, and part of her wondered if he’d thought he might extend those wings and shield her, blocking out the entire world. Part of her wished he would.
“Do you?” she managed as she opened her eyes again, tilting her head in a challenge that wasn’t half as sharp as she had intended. His eyes softened. “Do they?”
“Yes,” he answered simply. “But they don’t allow their pain to morph them into something else—“
“How dare you—“
“Nes.” He dared another step, eyes wide, lips parted. A plea shone in his eyes, edged with desperation. “Please.”
Nesta felt her lip curl, falling back on the all-too familiar anger that served as her shield— the defence she flung up to keep them all from looking at her too closely, from seeing just how much she had been torn apart that day twelve months ago. Just how much she’d been raked apart every day since.
“Please what?”
Cassian didn’t back away, and in the face of her barbed words he only took another breath, as if to tell her he understood— and he wasn’t afraid.
“Please let me help you. Let me do something. Anything.”
There it was again— the bridge he offered, the path back to the surface.
“You think after all these years I don’t know what you’re going through? That I don’t see it?” Cassian dropped his hand at last, curling it into a fist and bringing it above his heart. “That I haven’t been standing exactly where you’re standing right now, facing down the same damn thing?”
The beast inside her bared its teeth, claws raking down her spine. It begged to be set loose again, to snap and bite and lash out and even the slightest provocation, but…
Gods, she was tired.
So, so, tired.
“I can’t sit there and pretend,” she said at last, her voice tight in her throat. She nodded to the sitting room, to the laughter still drifting through the walls. “Just because a year has passed doesn’t mean I’ve suddenly made my peace with any of this.”
“I know,” Cassian said smoothly, reaching out his hand once again. He didn’t wait for her to accept him this time, and there was no hesitation or second-guessing as he took her hand in his and closed his fingers tight around her own. His eyes burned, his face lined with the kind of sorrow that Nesta knew would be etched across her own too, and she wanted to sob, wanted to crumble. But for once there was a crack in the darkness, a sliver of light pushing against the black and begging to be let in, and as Nesta’s fingers slid home between his, she let his warmth ground her just enough to pull her back from the edge— enough to let his light filter through the gaps.
“You don’t have to do this alone,” he whispered, and just like that…
Suddenly it felt like the weight she had carried alone for so long was shouldered by him too. Like he took a portion of it, eased the burden with nothing but a squeeze of his hand and a look in his eyes that said that even now, he wouldn’t forsake her.
And it didn’t fix everything - far from it - but she hadn’t realised how powerful it was to have someone there beside her, to take her hand when the darkness got too much, when the ache was too deep and the world too heavy. Somehow the teeth tearing her apart felt a little less sharp, the claws a little more dulled than usual; the beast calmed if not placated. The pain didn’t vanish, but it was easier to bear somehow, and for the first time in twelve months, Nesta could see beyond her grief to the world beyond.
Cassian’s fingers curled around her own, his grip tight, like he was loath to let her go lest she slip away into shadow again.
“Why?” she asked, looking down at their entwined hands. “Why do you remember when they don’t?”
Cassian shook his head. “They remember,” he said softly. “Elain remembers.” He nodded to the cake still sitting on the table, waiting to be cut after dinner. “Why do you think they laugh so loudly, Nes?”
His other hand lifted to her face, his thumb brushing across her cheek, as if to wipe away the tears that had yet to fall. He angled his head to the side, as if to hear the laughter, and when it echoed his eyes snapped back to hers. His grip on her hand tightened.
“They laugh in the face of it,” he said. “They find the joy and cling to it.”
And what do I have to cling to, Nesta thought dryly. Who do I have to lean on?
She thought of the dim bars waiting for her and the nights she had spent in the arms of strangers, and even though she didn’t ask the question out loud, Cassian’s lips lifted at the edges, giving her a gentle, plaintive smile as he squeezed her hand— as if that was the answer.
As if he was the answer.
He tugged on her hand, his smile lifting to something wider, something more mischievous.
“If you don’t want to face the sitting room, how about we just stay here instead?” he suggested. “Or slip away to Rhys’ study? There’s a chess board in there and believe it or not, I was never much good at it.” Slowly, the smile curving his lips grew into one that felt more genuine than any Nesta had to offer, but Cassian didn’t let it drop. His eyes glimmered as he added, “Would thoroughly humiliating me in a game of strategy help turn the night around for you?”
“You’d rather sit and play chess with me than be with your family?”
Cassian rolled his eyes indulgently, tugging on the hand she still had clasped in his palm. “Of course I would.”
Nesta didn’t know how to answer, but when she glanced up and met his eyes, there was a warmth there that she hadn’t expected to find. And maybe it wasn’t enough to chase away the dark entirely, but maybe it was the tether that she needed to a world that wasn’t so completely consumed by sorrow. Cassian’s fingers were so warm around her own, still holding tight to her even after she’d spent so long pushing him away - pushing all of them away - and for the first time in twelve months, she wanted to let herself feel that warmth, to let it sink into her bones.
“Come on,” he said, giving her hand another small tug. His smile turned somewhat conspiratorial, his voice dropping to a whisper. “If we’re quick we can sneak down to the wine cellar. I know where Rhys keeps the good stuff.”
The retort bloomed in Nesta’s throat— a cutting remark waiting on her tongue about how she didn’t want anything from Rhysand, not even his most expensive wine. A scowl threatened to twist her lips, but when Cassian waggled a single eyebrow as if to say, well? What do you say? she felt the words die on her tongue, turning to ash as she pushed the scowl back. For too long, the sharpness had been her only defence, the only armour she could call on. But with Cassian’s hand wrapped around her own and the small smirk at the corner of his lips somehow telling her they were in this together…
Maybe she didn’t need the armour.
Not all the time. Not with him.
After all, he had taken her hand when she was hurting and hadn’t flinched as she spat and cursed. He had let her sharpen her claws, but had been there to bring her back when she needed it, when he realised that those claws were cutting her to ribbons too, and so this time, when Cassian tilted his head in a silent question and squeezed her hand one more time…
Nesta nodded.
Because she didn’t want the next year to be like the last, and she didn’t think she could do it alone, and he was there, holding her hand and throwing a smile over his shoulder as he led her from the dining room and towards the kitchen, headed right for the door leading down to the cellars beneath. And even though the grief inside her continued to snarl and writhe and claw, Nesta felt her steps fall in line with his and thought that as long as she wasn’t alone, as long as he was there, waiting to pick her up when she fell down…
Well, she thought as she squeezed his hand in return, maybe the next twelve months would turn out better than the last.
New Taglist: (If you want to be added or removed, let me know!) @asnowfern , @podemechamardek , @c-e-d-dreamer ,@lady-winter-sunrise , @starryblueskies7, @melphss , @that-little-red-head , @misswonderflower , @fwiggle , @tanishab, @xstarlightsupremex @burningsnowleopard , @hiimheresworld , @wannawriteyouabook , @hereforthenessian @kale-theteaqueen
whats everyones first video game (criteria can be whatever you want but im going for the first game i remember playing as a kid) mine's harvest moon friends of mineral town
Nesta Archeron is a renowned and ruthless fae warrior, but she gets far more than she bargained for when, in the midst of battle, she finds herself up against the most fearsome General. Retelling of the Achilles/Penthesilea myth.
(For @nessianweek day 6! Read with the context of Autumn and Night being at war. Feyre has all her canon gifts but she’s not with Rhys yet. Idk suspend disbelief and don’t look too closely at the details. Title from the Mayday Parade song Without the Bitter the Sweet isn’t as Sweet)
Battle dawned, but Nesta Archeron was no stranger to its song, its call.
It thrummed through her as she donned each and every piece of her armour, the world outside dimming to nothing but a dull roar, chaos quieting as she shut it all out, took a breath, and brushed a finger along the hilt of her sword. She felt the pommel in the palm of her hand, cool and solid against her skin. She was a Valkyrie— a warrior born and bread, and battle flowed through her blood, eager, thirsty for every drop she would spill today.
Across the tent her sister looked back at her.
Feyre had donned similar armour - all smooth, hardened leather - but she was not a Valkyrie. Feyre was different, a soldier all the same, but… different. There was something else lurking beneath her youngest sister’s skin, something darker, like the night itself had marked her as one of its own, and though they had both been born under an Autumn Court sun, neither of them had stayed there. Only Elain had remained behind, but Nesta suspected that had more to do with a particular auburn-haired prince than anything else.
Cauldron blessed, they called them— the three sisters born to their parents in quick succession, when the birth of even one child was a rarity. Chosen, they whispered, when Nesta found herself skilled enough with a blade to earn a place with the Valkyries, when Feyre lifted her hands and found the ability to master the elements sitting waiting in her palm, and when Elain’s eyes turned vacant, glassy with foresight. The Mother’s favoured, they said, in voices weighed heavy with awe and terror in equal measure.
Nesta hadn’t ever cared much for any of it.
“You ready?” Feyre asked now, handing Nesta a small dagger to sheath at her hip.
“Always,” Nesta shrugged. “Are you?”
Feyre nodded, humming a little as she began working her hair into a braid that she would then wrap up in a tight bun. They were used to this— the war had been going so long that each step before battle had become a ritual, something almost ceremonial. Nesta didn’t know what they were fighting for anymore, or why the war had begun in the first place. All she knew that it was a conflict older than her, begun before she was born, against the fae from the most northern stretches of Prythian, as violent and as volatile as any other.
“They say there are some handsome ones out there today,” Feyre commented lightly. “That should make things interesting.”
Nesta scoffed. “Would you spare an enemy because of his pretty eyes?”
Feyre laughed, the sound ricocheting through the tent.
“Perhaps,” her sister said idly, holding out a hand to study her fingers. Feyre would use the powers the Cauldron had blessed her with to fight her way across the battlefield today, to wound and maim every soldier in her path, pretty eyed or not. She could heal with those powers, stitch skin as easily as she could split it, but today…
Today she would not be healing on that battlefield.
Today she would be killing.
Yet her hands remained steady as she readied for battle, for the blood that she was about to spill. It was how they had been raised, and even when the drums began to pound outside the tent, still Feyre was calm. The earth beneath their feet seemed to shake as conflict neared, and the song in Nesta’s blood built and built and built, reaching a crescendo as she tucked one more blade into a sheath at her thigh. It pressed against her leather armour, the weight a solid comfort. She’d done this so many times— it was second-nature now, to scent that tantalising mix of anticipation and fear and bloodlust on the wind and feel nothing but a sense of purpose, of stone-cold determination.
And as the drums grew louder, Nesta took a deep breath and looked at her sister through the dim of her tent.
“Come,” she said after a moment, lifting her head high and offering Feyre a wolfish kind of smile. “Let’s go and find some pretty-eyed enemies to slaughter.”
***
It was standing atop the crest of a gently sloping hill that Nesta Archeron first caught sight of him.
She surveyed the battlefield below, the fighting already underway, and she didn’t know what she was searching for until she found him— until she saw the remains around him of all those who had taken him on and fallen. Spears and swords lay scattered, discarded, in an almost perfect circle, broken bodies like flotsam. He was an Illyrian warrior, tall and dark and imposing, with wings that seemed to block out the sun when they spread, and seven gleaming red siphons that seemed to call to her, like a beacon across the killing field. His dark armour shone, the leather glistening with blood that almost certainly wasn’t his own, and even from across the battlefield, Nesta saw the glint of his sword, the gleam as the sun reflected off the blade as he raised it before bringing it down again. Like a scythe through wheat he cut through his attackers, moving as though he had yet to meet a real challenge, and at the sight Nesta’s heart pounded once, twice, a determined beat behind her ribs.
He was the one she wanted.
Whether it was the Mother or the Cauldron or some unknown and unnamed god of war that drew her to him, Nesta didn’t care. She watched him swing his sword and knew, simply, that he was hers— that his blood was hers to draw, to spill. His life hers to claim.
“That one,” she said to Feyre, nodding to where the warrior cut down three men with a single stroke. “I want that one.”
Feyre cast her eyes over the field below, smirking even as her own eyes snagged on another warrior— one in armour so dark it seemed to swallow the light itself. She shrugged, her fingers tracing the hilt of her dagger as she tilted her head, eyes still fixed on that soldier in obsidian armour, wielding darkness like a blade. “But you can’t see if he has pretty eyes from all the way up here.”
Nesta huffed a small laugh, noting the way her warrior moved, so fluid it was like water. She studied it— studied him. He moved like battle was a dance, like he felt the song of it in his bones the way she did, and she had never seen a more worthy opponent in her life. Her fingers twitched towards her blade, something in her chest pulling her forwards, begging her to find out how long he’d last against her.
“I don’t need to,” she shrugged. “He’s mine.”
Feyre hummed lightly. “I bet he has pretty eyes,” she said idly, nodding to the soldier crafted from the night itself.
Nesta rolled her eyes, glancing briefly skyward. A soft breeze caressed her cheeks, and as she surveyed the field below, she found her attention snapping once more to that mighty warrior, felling all in his path with a delighted kind of ease. She didn’t look back to Feyre, but her sister cleared her throat and turned, looking at Nesta’s mark with a renewed vigour.
“I heard some men talking in the camp this morning,” she began mildly. “They mentioned the enemy general— an Illyrian so fierce he makes even his own men tremble.They said he wears seven ruby siphons.”
Nesta smiled as she counted those bright red stones once more. All seven of them.
“So he’s the general?” she asked, watching him dance easily out of reach of another’s blade before lunging for the hilt and taking it in his own hands, turning it on its wielder and thrusting it through their gut. And he hadn’t even started to slow yet, barely seemed to be breaking a sweat.
Feyre raised an eyebrow. “Looks like it.”
Nesta’s lips split into a cruel smile. “Even better.”
***
Smoothly she descended into the chaos of battle, slipping into the fray as easily as breathing. All around her swords clashed, lives were ended and blood watered the earth, and through it all Nesta kept her gaze fixed on that gleaming sword, on the warrior who lifted it. As though the world itself held its breath, a path seemed to open between him and her, leaving the way clear as she edged towards him. No other attacked her, no other dared— as though the entire army recognised her not as their downfall, but his and his alone.
And with each step that brought her closer, she felt something tightening in the air between them, like lightning about to strike. It was magnetised, electric, and though she kept herself out of his line of vision, she wondered if he could sense her yet— if he could feel that pull towards her the way she felt a current dragging her towards him. If he did, he made no sign of it. He continued to cut down all those around him, and silently Nesta approached until she was standing a foot behind him, close enough that if she extended her arm…
If she was quick…
Her sword might just nick his neck, might slip through that gap where his helmet met his armour, severing enough vital arteries that this would be over before it really began.
It was tempting, but—
Not yet.
He was the finest warrior she had ever seen, and she intended to relish every moment of this fight.
Instead, she waited. Waited until the final soldier between them fell, a dagger through his throat, and only then did she unsheathe her own blade, hearing the soft whistle of steel as she pulled it free.
The warrior turned.
“Well,” he crooned, finding the space around him suddenly devoid of soldiers waiting for a chance to end his life. Indeed, all others seemed to have fled the immediate area, leaving the Valkyrie and the General more than enough space to dance around one another, circling like predators who had happened across their prey. He flashed her a smile. “I wasn’t expecting such a pretty opponent,” he drawled, wiping the blood from his blade by dragging the flat edge along his thigh.
With a mild kind of bemusement, Nesta blinked. Men. Always so cocksure, so certain that a woman couldn’t possibly pose any kind of real threat.
She rotated her wrist, her sword finding aim right above his heart, and that steady beat in her veins suddenly began to quicken, anticipation building as she searched in vain for any discernible detail beneath the helmet that concealed most of his face.
“Are you afraid it will be a distraction?” she asked, in a voice so smoothly saccharine it made a play of innocence.
He barked a laugh, and…
Gods, the sound skittered across her skin, like she could feel it in her very centre. She glimpsed dark eyes beneath his helmet, nothing more than a sharp glint as he rounded her, prowling like a wolf about to pounce. She turned in place, keeping her face to him and watching as his thumb stroked the hilt of his sword. His laugh died away, and Nesta could have sworn the entire battlefield had gone quiet, the chaos around them muted. It hadn’t— she knew it hadn’t. She could still hear the ring and clash of armour and blades, screams and shouts, but it had gone distant, quiet. Like the world— or her world, at least - was holding its breath.
“Never,” he answered after a minute, daring to smirk as he dragged his eyes across her. “Though it will be a shame to kill you,” he said, his voice as smooth as honey. “I would have liked to find out just how… distracting you can be.”
A laugh burst from her throat, and Nesta let her other hand drop to a second dagger at her side. He marked it— mirrored her.
Clever bat, she thought as she watched him balance lithely on the balls of his feet. Those wings looked cumbersome, like they ought to be a hindrance, but she’d learned enough from those few minutes she’d spent studying him to know that he was lethally smooth, fast, and those wings wouldn’t hold him back at all, but give him the extra momentum he needed to strike quick, to plunge his blade into her chest. She eyed the membrane now, and his smile turned menacing.
His helmet hid all but his mouth— all she could see was that infuriating smile, that taunting grin that had her pulse hammering.
“Come on then princess,” he murmured, his voice dipping lower, almost husky. “Show me what you’ve got.”
He flipped his sword in hand, the blade honed to a lethal, lethal point. It’s edge gleamed, wickedly sharp, and even if Nesta knew nothing else about him, she knew just from the way he held that sword that he was no stranger to ending life— no stranger to a battlefield.
But then, neither was she.
She tightened her own grip on her shortsword, still pointed at his chest. It was thinner than the great Illyrian blade he wielded, but no less sharp, and lighter too. It was far easier to swing, much more nimble, and Nesta lunged forwards, tilting up and aiming for his godsdamned neck.
He twisted, ducked, and the edge of her sword scraped only the leather armour that covered his shoulder, spearing straight through the gap between his wings and leaving only the barest trace of a scratch behind.
He tsked.
And yet when he looked at her, he did not seem hell-bent on vengeance. Instead he cast an eye appreciatively over her form-fitting armour, over the lack of helmet that left her face exposed. His eyes dropped to her lips, lingered, and as he pulled his bottom lip between his teeth, Nesta let out a huff so forceful it strained her chest. She was here to kill him, and yet he looked at her like he’d much rather find out what else she could do with her hands besides swing a sword. He smirked, and if Nesta wondered briefly what else he could do with that mouth besides rile her, then she quickly buried the thought, gripping her weapon tighter as if to remind herself of her purpose.
But— she raised her blade, and when it clashed with his, she could have sworn sparks flew as steel met steel.
His eyes met hers beneath his helmet, and something like adrenaline was racing through her, making her heart beat harder than it ever had before in battle. This was something else, something new, something that threatened to steal her breath, and as he slid his blade along hers, the gentle hiss of it made her want to shudder. He stepped closer, so close that the only thing between his chest and hers was their crossed blades.
Still, he smirked.
His eyes flicked down, and she caught sight of thick eyelashes framing eyes that weren’t dark at all, rather a shade of hazel that shone as the sun came out from behind the clouds. From this close, she could smell the cinnamon and leather scent of him, warm and soft and entirely at odds with the bloodlust that swam in his face as he pinned her with his stare.
He pushed harder with his blade, trying to force hers to bend, to break, but Nesta held firm, even though the bones in her arm and hands cringed at the effort it took to hold steady against this mountain of a man.
She gritted her teeth, and the warrior smiled.
“Well princess,” he murmured, “You’re a far worthier opponent than I thought.”
He pushed again, but Nesta held steady. Her lip curled. “Sorry to disappoint you.”
He huffed. “Oh, I’m not disappointed at all, sweetheart.”
His eyes turned molten, his tone a languid caress, and… gods, was he flirting with her?
Nesta snarled.
He thought her nothing but a weak and fickle female— one who would lose all sense of self and purpose because a man whispered pretty words in her ear. But if he thought that would get her to drop her guard and let him land a killing blow, then he was sorely mistaken.
He hummed, the sound low in his throat. “Where would be the fun in that?”
“Fun,” Nesta repeated flatly.
The warrior grinned. “You put down that blade and I have half a mind to show you exactly the kind of fun we could have.”
She barked a laugh. “And I suppose you’d like me to bare my throat for your blade too?”
“I’d certainly like you to bare your throat sweetheart, but not necessarily for a blade.”
Nesta blinked. “You’re insufferable.”
And then… he winked at her. “Shame that we find ourselves on different sides of this battle, isn’t it?”
Nesta sighed, pushing harder against his blade, so hard she thought her wrist might break. But his knuckles were white with how tightly he was having to hold her back, and she was tired of this charade, this game. “If you think I’m going to drop at your feet and give you the opening you need—”
“I wouldn’t dare to hope, princess.”
Nesta snarled again and took one swift step back, the edge of his blade singing, reverberating as hers slid along it, drawing away. Smoothly she turned on her heel, spinning out of his range before he could so much as blink. But his eyes followed her, intent shining dark on the parts of his face she could see— the small kick of his lips, the glint in his eyes. Before she could make her move he lunged, his blade once more aimed at her— but at her side this time, Nesta noticed, not at her heart.
For a heartbeat she wondered why he wasn’t levelling a killing blow whilst he had the chance— but it didn’t matter, not when she only narrowly deflected that blow, killing one or not. She knocked his sword aside with her own, the clang of metal echoing through her bones, and he laughed— like the fight was a delight to him, he laughed, and it didn’t matter that he’d just missed or failed to kill her. He was enjoying this, she realised, and she’d never met another who relished a fight as much as she did, who enjoyed the feeling of power that came with holding a sword in hand. He tilted his head, and when he raised his arm to aim his sword once more, she ducked beneath it, dipping low and moving quick, finding an opening, a perfect opportunity—
And he was just a fraction too slow, a heartbeat too distracted.
Nesta’s blade found the weak spot in his armour, just below his arm.
It slid between his ribs easily, cutting through leather and flesh and sinew as smoothly as a hot knife through butter, and the breath he took echoed in her ears as he gasped, a rasp sharp enough to wound all on its own. Surprise flitted across his face for the barest of seconds, his lips twisting as her sword drove deeper into his side, angled up and slicing something vital. She’d nicked his heart, and her own stuttered, missing a beat, and in the place where she’d expected to feel elation and the swell of triumph, she felt nothing— nothing but the hollowest kind of victory.
His blood spilled, slicking the hilt of her blade and flowing over her fingers, pooling in the crevices between her knuckles. She looked up, found his face, and when she saw those eyes beneath that helmet…
Something in her chest snapped.
It was a physical recoil that had her stumbling backwards, pulling her blade free and instantly wishing she’d never stepped foot on that battlefield. Something cleaved, something cracked, a thousand pieces falling into place as his blood stained her skin crimson, and his heartbeat suddenly seemed louder somehow, rebellious in the face of death.
Her sword fell from her hands.
She should have known that the gods wouldn’t let her take a life so smoothly— not his life, anyway. He swayed, staggered, one hand rising to his wound as a fresh torrent of blood rushed from his side, and the other lifted his helmet from his face and cast it aside, letting it fall in the dust.
And oh gods— he was beautiful.
His skin was burnished beneath the sun, a dark gold that brought out the brilliant hazel of his eyes, the green and gold and brown that seemed bright even as his life began to ebb away. His lips pulled into a mockery of a smile, a wry smirk.
You’d spare an enemy because of his pretty eyes, she’d quipped to Feyre that morning, and now… Gods, Nesta was on the brink of doing just that. Of begging him to live just because of the glint in those hazel eyes.
“Gods sweetheart,” he rasped, the blood seeping through his fingers. “As far as first meetings go, I’ve had better.”
His knees shook, threatened to buckle, and in that moment - one that stretched towards forever - Nesta knew with certainty that he really was hers— her mate, the one that fate had bound her to, for better or worse. Warmth swelled in her chest, and as she looked at him without his helm - his dark hair tumbling over his forehead as he tipped his face down, eyes bright despite his pain - she felt her heart ache, felt it break as he stumbled.
Nesta lurched forwards and caught him by the arm, her fingers gripping his leathers, feeling the hardened muscle taut beneath. He groaned as the breath slipped between his lips, pressing a hand harder to his side to staunch the bleeding, but still he canted his face to the side, catching her eye and offering her a smirk that beggared belief.
“Although,” he continued, his voice so liltingly smooth it was almost hard to believe Nesta had just dealt him a fatal blow, “I’ve had worse, too.”
“You’re an idiot,” she muttered, fingers tightening around his arm. She didn’t know why she held on— why she lingered. She should have cut him down and moved on. She’d have been half way across the battlefield by now.
He knew it, too. He was just as trained in strategy as she was, just as adept at killing.
“I’m not the one wasting time on an enemy soldier, princess.”
Enemy.
The word clanged through her, jolting her out of all good sense. She studied his face— that beautiful, rugged face that her heart already seemed to know as intimately as her own. Stubble graced a sharp jaw, generous lips curved up even though they ought to have been curling in pain, and even though his breathing was laboured, rasping, his voice felt familiar to her somehow, like she’d heard it before, somewhere in a dream. He was her mate— not her enemy. Never her enemy, even if they’d found themselves through poor luck on opposite sides of this war.
She wondered if he’d felt it too, if he’d noticed the bond clicking into place as her sword slipped between his ribs.
He faltered.
His blood still refused to slow, the wound too great for his fae blood to heal. Nesta cursed, and the warrior hissed as he sank to his knees, no longer able to stand. She felt her own knees threaten to give way too, a trembling unease racking her as he pitched forwards onto his hands, resting one palm on the ground as the other still pressed hard at his wound. Wrong, it was wrong, wrong, wrong, and she didn’t care that a war still waged around them, didn’t care that the clash of battle still echoed through her ears.
Desperately, she looked out across the battlefield.
Feyre— where was Feyre?
Her sister could heal him, could stitch that torn skin back together and keep him here, mend him and stop his life from slipping through his fingers. Nesta just needed to find her, to get a message to her and—
His arm shook, couldn’t hold his weight.
“Maybe when this is all over, I can take you out for a drink princess,” the warrior said, his voice cracking only a little as he spoke, showing barely a hint of the pain that must have been roaring through him.
Grief surged in her gut, and Nesta fell to her knees too. Her hand joined his, fingers slipping between the gaps in his knuckles as she put extra pressure on that wound and prayed that the bleeding would stop.
It didn’t.
“When all this is over you’ll probably be dead,” she said sharply, but the moment the words left her she regretted them. Regretted that her blade had ever pierced his flesh at all.
He hummed, and somehow he found the strength to lift one bloodied hand to her face, tracing the curve of her jaw with a finger. His touch was light, but it seared her right down to her bones and the bond in her chest thrummed, sang.
“True,” he said, shrugging. The movement pulled at his wound, sent a fresh cascade of blood spilling between his fingers and over hers. “Perhaps I’ll find you in the next life then, and we can have a drink there instead.”
His eyelids fluttered, and oh gods— Nesta couldn’t bear to see this man die. Something inside her revolted at the thought, like it would be the worst thing in the world to have him leave it without her, and a broken sound escaped her as she lifted her head up again, searching for her sister through the fray. Had she found the warrior with the night-black armour? Did she have a blade at his neck even now, and would Feyre regret it later, if she pierced his throat the way Nesta had pierced the General’s side?
Panic built in her chest, something that felt almost like a scream, and she cast her mind wide, praying Feyre would hear her.
Please, she begged. Please help me. Save him.
“No,” she said to the warrior who could no longer hold himself up on his knees. He tilted to the side, and Nesta eased him to the floor, mindful of his wings, taking him in her arms until his head lay in her lap, her arms around his shoulders. “I won’t allow you to die. I won’t.”
One hazel eye cracked open. “Should’ve thought of that before you stabbed me then, sweetheart.”
“I didn’t…” Nesta began, but cut herself off as her chest heaved. “I didn’t know you were…”
“What?” he asked, but his voice was slurring. Nesta only shook her head, patting his cheek to keep him conscious until Feyre could reach them.
Just a little longer, Nesta thought desperately. Hold on just a little longer.
“What’s your name?” she asked in a bid to keep his eyes open.
“Cassian.”
Cassian. It thrummed through her, her chest tightening. She shouldn’t have learned his name as he lay dying in her arms, shouldn’t have felt that bond snap the moment she cut his life short. But the gods were cruel— crueller than she’d ever imagined, and as she held her dying mate in her arms, Nesta nodded, feeling his name echo through her.
He groaned, and Nesta pushed back the hair from his face, her fingers lingering at his temple.
I’m coming, Feyre said into Nesta’s mind, and Nesta’s hands fell to his shoulders, gripping him tightly as though she could hold the shattered pieces of his life together, keep his thread from snapping. Hold on.
“And yours?” Cassian coughed, the little breath he had left rattling in his throat. “Don’t let me die without knowing your name.”
“You’re not going to die,” Nesta countered.
He tried to shrug again, but didn’t have the strength.
“Tell me your name,” he whispered. “Please.”
A solitary tear rolled down Nesta’s cheek.
“Nesta,” she answered.
A small hum left him, and Feyre was closing in now, only feet away, but he was fading, slipping, his breaths stumbling in his throat—
“Nesta,” he repeated as his eyes fluttered closed again, and this time…
This time they did not reopen.
***
When the dust had settled and the blood had dried, Nesta Archeron waited in her tent.
The sound of battle had long since quieted, and outside the sun was setting, making shadows of the fallen that still littered the battlefield. Her heart was cut to ribbons, her nerves too, and she had spent so long around bloodshed and violence that she hadn’t thought anything could faze her until today— until she found her mate, right as her blade cut through his flesh.
Her sword leaned against a chest in her tent now, still coated with his blood.
It made her feel sick.
And then—
A breath, rattling and gasping, cleaved the silence. In the dimness of her tent his eyes cracked open, and as Cassian lay propped up against the pillows, he lifted his head. He let out a soft groan, one that was softened at the edges, as though he were still dazed. Nesta’s heart thumped, her own breath catching as he cast his eyes down to the bandages that Feyre had wrapped tight across his chest after healing the wound to his side.
He had been an inch from death. Another second and he would have been too far gone, but Feyre had sank to her knees beside him the moment he closed his eyes, had grabbed hold of his life before it could slip away entirely. She had taken one look at Nesta’s face and healed him, and they didn’t need to speak, didn’t need to discuss it.
She had healed him, and helped Nesta carry him back to her tent afterwards.
“Nesta,” Cassian rasped now, spying her seated on the edge of the bed. Her bed. “You stabbed me.”
Breathless, Nesta nodded. Her eyes wandered down to his ribs, as if she could still see the blood that had left him, the wound she had dealt. She waited for his anger— his vengeance, retribution. But the General before her only let out a dry laugh as he pushed up onto his forearms.
“How incredibly attractive of you,” he muttered.
Nesta blinked. “…What?”
He grinned— the same kind of grin that had driven her half to madness out there on the battlefield.
“What can I say?” he shrugged, lifting a hand and feeling tentatively across his ribs. “Women with blades turn me on.”
“You can’t be serious.”
He grinned again. “And you can’t hate me half as much as you pretend you do.” He looked at his surroundings, eyes lingering on the armour she’d taken off and discarded in the corner. “After all, you had me brought to your tent.”
“How do you know this is my tent?”
He winked. “Call me observant.”
Nesta couldn’t help but snort. “You were hardly observant when my blade went through your ribs.”
“No, I wasn’t, was I?” His eyebrows drew together, a parody of a frown. “Hasn’t anybody ever told you that your beauty is a rather lethal distraction, sweetheart?”
“Hasn’t anybody ever told you to hold your tongue before somebody cuts it out?”
A glint entered his eyes then, entirely wicked as his lips kicked up into a devious smirk. “Oh, I’ve heard plenty about my tongue.”
“You’re a beast.”
He lifted one shoulder in an idle shrug, his hands wandering to the bandages again. He dipped his head, dark hair falling over his face as he did, and gods— Nesta wanted to brush it back, wanted to feel it slip through her fingers. Lightly, he prodded the bandage Feyre had wrapped him in.
“Who did this?” he asked softly.
“My sister,” Nesta answered. “She was… born blessed with a handful of powers. Healing happens to be one of them.”
Cassian blinked. “And you had her use such a power on an enemy soldier?”
I had her race across a battlefield dodging blades to use it on an enemy soldier, and then I had her help carry that soldier back to my own tent where she could heal him some more to make sure she hadn’t missed anything the first time.
“Yes,” Nesta said blandly.
“Why?”
Because you’re my mate— because I felt the bond snap the moment my blade pierced your flesh. Because I am yours and you are mine, and you’re not my enemy— never were.
“Because,” she shrugged. “I’d witnessed enough death already.”
Cassian snorted. “How flattering. And here I thought you saved me because you liked my pretty face.”
“Oh, I never said I didn’t.”
“Knew it.”
A small smile touched Nesta’s lips, and she lowered her gaze to his chest. Reaching out, she traced her fingers over his bandages, over the same path he’d just explored with his own hands.
“It doesn’t hurt?” she whispered.
“No, sweetheart,” he said gently. “Your sister did a good job.”
Gods— she was trying to ignore how close she was to his lips, how warm he felt beneath her hand. She swallowed, fighting the urge to lay her palm flat over his heart and measure its beat, and even though she wanted nothing more than to delve deep inside her and find that bond that stretched between her soul and his, to dance along it and feel it thrum beneath her…
She resisted.
Cassian swallowed, all hint of mirth falling from his face as he curled a finger beneath her jaw and lifted her gaze to his.
“Why?” he breathed. “Tell me really— why did you save me?”
Mute, Nesta shook her head.
She couldn’t form words, couldn’t think or speak or breathe. She could only look into those hazel eyes and wonder how she’d survived so long without them. His face softened, and as he blinked slowly he lifted his finger from beneath her chin and brushed it along her cheek.
“I don’t think I’ve ever been that close to death before,” he said idly, his eyes turning molten as he scanned her face. She didn’t know what he was searching for, but when he gave her a small smile, she wondered if he’d found it. There was some kind of wonder in his eyes, some kind of fascination that had the hazel sparkling. “I don’t know whether I should applaud you or kiss you.”
She raised an eyebrow. “You don’t think you should try and exact some revenge? Kill me the way I almost killed you?”
He huffed a laugh, and the sound was warm and soft and gentle, the kind that Nesta wanted to wrap herself in forever. “I told you before. Where would be the fun in that?”
Nesta rolled her eyes. The Cauldron had tied her to this man— this ridiculous man, and yet her chest warmed inexplicably at the sight of his smile. Suddenly a path stretched before her, one where he wasn’t her enemy. One where she woke with him each morning and heard that laugh as the dawn stretched its fingers through the sky, one where she felt his kiss as each night fell, his arms around her as they slept. Her heart swelled, and she dipped her face to hide a smile.
“Don’t,” he whispered, palming her cheek and lifting her chin back up. The edges of her smile faded, and he dragged his thumb across the corner of her lips. “I love that smile.”
“Need I remind you that I tried to kill you?”
“Not at all, princess. I love that, too.”
She wondered if he felt it yet— if he could tell that the twinge in his chest wasn’t just his wounds healing, but something of an entirely different nature. Had he realised yet, that the crack behind his ribs before hadn’t been her blade skimming the edge of his heart, but a bond settling into place?
Nesta didn’t think so, and now wasn’t the time to break it to him. Instead, she slowly pulled away and got to her feet, heading straight for the chest in the corner of her tent. He watched as she opened it, rifling through piles of clothes and fresh armour, and even with her back turned she felt the keen edge of his attention, sharper than any blade.
It made her feel slightly dizzy.
At last her fingers closed around the neck of a bottle— one she’d stolen months ago and stashed away, a fine vintage she’d been saving for a rainy day. She pulled it from the chest with a flourish now.
There were no glasses. They’d have to drink straight from the bottle, but it didn’t matter. She lifted it, and the man she’d almost killed look back at her across the tent with a fire in his eyes.
And Nesta looked at her mate, lying on her bed and wrapped in bandages and said,
spoiler-free review of Barbie (2023): I want to compress this movie into a stake and drive it through Joss Whedon’s heart and watch the life leave his eyes before comprehension can dawn in them.
All I know is this could either break my heart or bring it back to life
for @elucienweekofficial
Summary: Princess Elain Archeron wants nothing more than to be reunited with her missing youngest sister and to see her father finally emerge from the fog of grief he's been living under since her mother died. When her step mother arranges for her older sister to fetch her youngest to celebrate Elain's impending engagement to a neighboring prince, it seems like she'll get her wish.
That is, until her father's fearsome huntsman steps in and wrecks it all. Now she's on the run, hiding in the forest to keep herself- and her heart- intact.
In her quest to understand why someone would want her heart carved from her chest, Elain will have to reconcile what it means to truly be the fairest of them all
Read on AO3
Prologue:
Mirror, mirror, on the wall. Who is the fairest of them all?
Elain was nine years old when her mother died. She hadn’t known she was sick until the bells began ringing. Nesta scooped up little Feyre, only six at the time, eyes wide with surprise. Elain trotted after her, hands fisting her skirt. Stepping into the warm spring air, the three of them looked upward at the black spires of the palace they lived in, stretching like spider fingers toward the cloudless sky.
Their father’s cry of anguish told them the truth. Eleven year old Nesta had hurried them inside. Shoulders squared, spine straight, she told them what would happen next.
“We need to stay out of everyone’s way,” she began, her severe gaze wholly on Feyre. Feyre wiggled from the little bench at the piano in Nesta’s room, already bored. “Everyone will be wondering what father means to do with us. If we are very good, he will let us stay.”
“Why would he send us away?” Elain demanded. Their father loved them. He said so every night when he came to her room to read her a story and give her a kiss.
But Nesta was older and smarter and if she was worried, Elain thought maybe she was right to be. Elain reached for Feyre’s little hand, pulling her closer. “We can be good.”
Nesta’s smile told Elain she didn’t think that was true.
They tried, though. For three years oh how the little princesses tried. Nesta took to harassing their father into managing the small kingdom they occupied while Elain began learning all the duties her mother had once done. All Feyre was responsible for was her education, a thing made impossible when the tutors stopped coming.
Too unmanageable.
Unladylike.
A little monster.
Their father didn’t care. He didn’t care his youngest daughter wasn’t getting an education or that their kingdom was on the verge of bankruptcy. War had broken out on the border and by the time Elain was twelve, there were talks of marrying off Nesta to solve their problems.
No one wanted a poor princess as a wife. Many, many offers were made for her—but none of them in good faith. Elain learned, right then, that the only way they were going to survive would be to stick together.
To take care of each other.
Stick together, Nesta would say before grabbing both their hands and marching them to see their father. They only needed each other. And that was never truer than when their father announced he would remarry for the sake of the kingdom. It wouldn’t be love—his only love, his true love, had been buried years before.
This was for security. To give his daughters a future, he picked an incredibly beautiful women from the northern reaches of their world. Elain had been mesmerized the first time she’d seen her. Her hair was like ruby silk, her eyes the most stunning shade of brown, her skin unmarred alabaster. She’d walked to the three of them, pausing when she saw Elain.
“Aren’t you a pretty little thing?” she’d cooed before moving on with her train of ladies.
“I like her,” Elain had whispered, squeezing Nesta’s hand. Nesta hadn’t responded. Feyre did, though.
“Well, I don’t,” she’d whispered. Nesta’s answering sigh had said enough.
And in the end, Feyre and Nesta had been right.
Present day:
Elain moved through the empty palace halls, skirts gathered in her hands. She missed the courtiers who had once crowded around, gossiping and sharing news of the kingdom. Elain missed the servants, too—nearly all of them had been dismissed. For the life of her, Elain could not figure out why. Only that her step-mother deemed it unnecessary and her father was too lost in the past to argue.
A lot of things had changed in the twelve years since her mother had died. Feyre was gone—and neither Elain nor Nesta could figure out where, exactly, she’d been sent. Only that ten years ago, when Feyre was nine, their step mother had informed them all Feyre could not read. That was news to Elain, though in retrospect why was she surprised? Their father had forgotten Feyre’s education and the tutors had left long before their step-mother ever arrived.
They’d spent ten years trying to track Feyre down. The only clue they had was Feyre was somewhere out by the wall, a mysterious place far, far beyond the borders of their own home. The wall separated the Illyrian Mountains and the Velarian woods from the rest of civilization. Monsters were said to roam, and if that was true, Elain couldn’t understand why a princess would ever be sent out there.
Their father didn’t care. He wasn’t at the breakfast table when Elain arrived, though both Nesta and their step-mother were. They both looked at her when she entered though Elain kept her eyes on her slippered feet.
“Mother,” she said, ignoring the hiss of air that escaped Nesta. “Sister.”
“Did you sleep well?”
Elain sat politely, sliding her skirts beneath her legs. “Thank you for asking. I did.”
Elain dared a look at Nesta, straight-backed as ever. Something Elain didn’t recognize flashed over Nesta’s pretty features, smoothed into placid nothing when their step mother began speaking again.
“I have two pieces of good news. Which would you like to hear first?”
“How could we possibly differentiate between them?” Nesta snapped. Elain said nothing at all, didn’t dare react. This was a familiar showdown between her sister and her faux mother. Their step-mother narrowed those cerulean eyes, brushing a piece of blonde hair from her face. She was still impossibly beautiful. Elain had always admired her. Time had begun to show, lining the severe frown of her perfect lips and creasing just beneath her lids. Elain had heard her screaming in front of a mirror months earlier over several silver strands of hair. She was dedicated to her looks and sometimes Elain wondered if she didn’t feel that way because of how little attention their father paid her.
“Your sister, Feyre, can receive one visitor–”
“I’m going,” Nesta said before Elain could volunteer. Elain spread jam over a burned piece of toast, thinking she never would have been allowed, anyway. Their step mother offered a rare smile.
“Yes, I thought you might say that. Of course, if you do go, you’ll miss Elain’s engagement.”
“Engagement?” Elain interrupted. That was news to her. “To who?”
“Prince Graysen of Lyonesse. Your father signed the treaty just last night. Did he not tell you?”
A cheshire’s smile told Elain she knew damn well their father had said nothing. “What is he like?”
“I’m told he’s exceptionally handsome,” she began, gritting out the words as though it pained her. Elain’s beauty had become contentious of the years. No longer did she coo that Elain was a pretty little girl. Now she looked at Elain like competition. Like Elain had stolen something from her. And no matter how often Elain wished she was less, nothing changed. Every year she became prettier and every year her step-mother became angrier.
Elain supposed she ought to be grateful for this arranged marriage. She wouldn’t have to watch her father mope through the rest of his life. Sometimes Elain wished he’d died, too. That he could have followed their mother and Nesta had been made regent.
“Is he kind?” Elain asked. That was all that mattered to her. She wanted love like her parents had before her mother died.
Nesta exhaled softly as their step-mother shrugged. “How would I know that? You should be grateful, Elain. Prince Graysen is far younger than all the other suitors your father considered.”
More news that Elain had been unaware of.
“When is the wedding?” Nesta interrupted, clearly trying to work out just how long she could be away.
“Six months from now,” their step-mother replied. “In the spring.”
There was time to get to know him, then. Time to figure the whole thing out, to make the best of it. Elain had been afraid it would happen in the next week and she’d be completely alone. Nesta, too, seemed to relax at the news. She’d get Feyre and bring her back and Elain would stay and try and wake their father from his endless melancholy. She didn’t need to speak to Nesta to know that’s what Nesta’s plan was.
Elain offered their step-mother a smile. “Thank you for this. I hope it wasn’t any trouble.”
Her answering sneer made Elain wilt. “No trouble at all,” she replied, her tone very much implying it had been immensely troubling. The meal became unbearably silent, the three of them eating until their step-mother made a comment about Nesta’s weight that sent both sisters scurrying from the table.
“Even if the weather is rough,” Nesta began the mere second they were out of ear shot, “I won’t be gone longer than three months. That’s enough time to hold on, right?”
“What do you imagine is going to happen?”
“I don’t know,” Nesta admitted. “I’ve heard of Prince Graysen. People say he’s very nice.”
“And handsome?” Elain teased, bumping Nesta in the shoulder.
“If you care about that,” Nesta replied, unwilling to take the bait. Of course Elain cared—Nesta did, too, though she’d never admit it. “I wonder why you…”
Why not me?
Elain offered Nesta a strained smile. “I’m sure she’s working something out for you as well.”
And that was the problem, because Nesta ought to have been first. The grimace on her older sister's face told Elain she wouldn’t accept an arranged marriage, regardless of how perfect that man might be for her. It could have been true love and Nesta would have rejected the entire thing on principle. Elain was the safer option.
“Do you think this is about money again?” Elain dared to ask, following Nesta up a winding set of dark marble stairs. Nesta was going to the library again, leaving Elain to amuse herself once they reached those carved, oak doors.
“I think she just wants us out of her way. She’ll marry you, and then myself and Feyre and she’ll have this miserable palace all to herself.”
“Just promise you’ll be careful,” Elain urged, reaching for Nesta’s arm at the top of the stairs. “And you’ll bring Feyre home.”
Nesta rolled her eyes just like she always did in moments when
Elain’s worries were vocalized. “Of course I will.”
Elain remained at the top of the stairs, framed in a shaft of gray sunlight as her sister strode away. Imperious and self-assured as ever. Elain wished she had even an ounce of Nesta’s self-assurance. She didn’t, though. And Elain was afraid of what would happen when her sister was gone and she was left all alone with nothing but the ghost of her father.
Elain wandered toward the garden, well-aware no amount of digging and de-weeding would save it from the ravages of winter. Autumn was upon them, bringing jewel bright leaves from the forest just beyond the garden. Elain was forbidden from going outside the gates of the palace—she’d never even seen the village at the very bottom of the hill. Sometimes Elain imagined strolling through the wrought iron just to see if there were truly as many wolves as her father had once claimed.
A bluebird trilled from a nearby branch, drawing a smile from her. Lifting a finger, Elain waited until the creature fluttered from the branch it had been hiding on before perching on her finger. Elain whistled softly, a little tune her father had once hummed to her when she’d been a child. Cocking its blue feathered head, the bird chirped right back. She might have sang to the creature all day had someone not cleared their throat. The sound caused her to jump, startling the bird back into the treetops overhead.
Turning, Elain found her fathers huntsman—Lucien. He stood just outside a dying trellis of winding pink and purple lilies, his back facing her. He worked for her father technically, though the last time she’d seen him, he’d been reporting to her step-mother. He was a huntsman, or so they said. What he truly did with that sword hanging at the heavy brown belt slung over his hips, or with the knife strapped against his powerful thigh, Elain didn’t think she wanted to know.
The wind caught his tied off auburn hair, blowing strands over a broad shoulder. She stepped closer, uncomfortable with his proximity. It was the way he never smiled, she supposed…or that trio of scars raking over one of his admittedly pretty russet brown eyes. He glanced over as Elain slipped past, murmuring, “Princess,” with a respectful bow of his head. Elain didn’t acknowledge him at all. And when she turned back to see if he was still watching, Lucien had vanished seemingly into thin air. She ought to have relaxed.
But Elain swore she could feel eyes on her.
Watching her every move.
–
Nesta set off the next morning. Their father managed to rouse himself from whatever stupor he’d been in to see her off. Standing hunched beside his beautiful wife, Elain thought time was being particularly cruel to him. He seemed twice as old as he was, his hair more gray than brown. Dull eyes stared at Nesta in her riding clothes as the remaining servants helped her load up her things and get into the saddle.
“I’ll be home by solstice,” she promised, not bothering to look or speak to anyone but Elain. “I’ll send word when I arrive.”
“We’ll miss you terribly, sweet Nesta,” their step-mother crooned. “Do hurry back.”
Elain wondered if their father ever looked at Nesta and saw his late wife. Of the three of them, Nesta favored her the most. She might have been alive in Nesta’s silvery blue gaze or the way she pressed her lips together. Nesta bit her tongue, swallowing whatever it was she wanted to say.
Elain knew it would be a week of hard traveling if Nesta wanted to reach the wall. A rolled up map, tucked beneath Nesta’s arm, was the only proof Feyre existed at all.
“Be safe,” Elain said impulsively, stepping from the stone to grab Nesta’s slim calf. She stopped herself at the last minute, only because she’d been about to beg her older sister not to leave her. It would have been a humiliation too great for either of them to bear.
Nesta nodded her head and then she was off, riding down the long, smooth drive on that coal colored horse. Elain wished she was leaving, too. Her eyes found the forest in the distance, with treetops so dense they seemed to form a blanket of orange, yellow, red and greens. Nesta would have to pass through that forest in order to find Feyre.
Nesta was brave enough to risk it. But Elain was not, and so she allowed her step-mother to loop her arm through her own.
“Are you terribly excited for the prince's arrival?”
No. “Yes,” she said, smiling brightly. Her father barely reacted at all to her presence, though he fell into step beside her. Elain wanted to shake him. Wake up! We still need you!
She’d read stories of kings who fell under spells, who needed nothing more than a kiss from their true love to come back to life. Elain had tried once, kissing her father as he sat in his chair. Gently, on the cheek, as she wished for him to be the man he’d once been. But his true love was dead and his spell was merely grief. There was no bringing him back.
“I have everything planned out,” her step-mother pulled Elain from her thoughts. “You don’t have to worry about a thing.”
“You’re so kind,” Elain told her, making a point to look her in the eyes. “I’m so grateful for this.”
There, just behind her painted black lashes, was that look of hatred Elain swore she saw from time to time. The nicer Elain tried to be, the more often she saw that look.
“Anything for you,” her step-mother replied, a forced smile on her beautiful face. Elain left her then, hand on her fathers back as she led him further into the palace. Elain wondered if it bothered her, not having an heir. She’d only ever be consort—not even queen. That title was reserved for Nesta, passed down and promised by her mother when they’d been children.
Her father could have made his new wife his queen, which would have disinherited his three older daughters. And in the preceding months after his marriage, all three of them had expected that.
He never had. For all his faults and failings, he’d ensured that Nesta would one day ascend, her husband a mere king's consort. Maybe that was why their step-mother was so reluctant to marry Nesta off. Their father was likely to abdicate in favor of Nesta, who was more than capable, especially if a continuation of their line was assured.
For all her beauty, for all her vivacious smiles and too-tight dresses, Elain’s stepmother had never once given their father the one thing he needed in order to secure her future—a child. And Elain knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that when Feyre and Nesta returned, it would be to bury her for good.
Elain would continue with her engagement. In this war, there was no place for her. She was simply too soft-hearted to endure the constant fighting. Elain was equally unwilling to watch her father slowly march toward the grave. She wanted an escape. If Graysen was offering her a new home in a place filled with real people rather than memories, Elain would take it.
Anything was better than the constant silence.
—
Prince Graysen arrived three days after Nesta left. Elain had been going a little stir crazy by then. Her stepmother had brought staff back into the palace with almost gleeful abandon. It was nice to not have to worry about drawing her own bath or restarting her own fireplace in the evenings—and Elain couldn’t pretend she didn’t appreciate the help dressing that morning. Elain was put in a gown of rich, cobalt blue—the colors of her soon-to-be fiance's crest. Her hair was woven around pretty white flowers and curled carefully under the watchful eye of her stepmother's new servants.
“Is there anything I should know?” Elain asked one of the silent women. No one spoke to her, though she thought their eyes were filled with pity. With no one to guide her and no one she could lean on for support, Elain made her way toward the grand dining hall they’d once used to host her mothers lavish parties. It was strange to see the tables made up again, draped in shimmering white. The windows had been thrown open, allowing golden, autumn sunlight to stream against the immaculate ivory.
Elain paused just outside the doors, ignoring the sound of her stepmother's delighted laughter in favor of looking at a family portrait still hanging just outside the door. She’d been so beautiful. So happy, too, if the soft smile on her face was an indicator. Elain didn’t linger, though she wanted to. Her stepmother’s raucous giggling drew her curiosity. Was the prince truly so funny? That was a good sign, she decided. If he had a sense of humor it was possible he was also a good conversationalist. And perhaps all that meant he was kind, too.
Inside, she found her stepmother seated in her fathers usual chair, holding court with the retinue Graysen had brought with him. Graysen, she realized, was just at her stepmother's right. And he was handsome. Oh, but he was lovely with warm, brown eyes and hair that glinted gold in the sunlight. His skin was tanned and when he saw her come into the room, he stood, betraying him as tall and muscular.
“Princess,” he breathed, a smile gracing his face. One cheek dimpled quite sweetly, causing her heart to race. “I’d heard tales of your beauty, but to see it in person is quite different.”
Elain didn’t know what to say to that.
Elain didn’t know what drew her eyes to her stepmother. Far from smiling, she looked furious. Her rage was out in full force for reasons Elain couldn’t discern. Had something happened? Was she merely placating the prince until they were alone and could explain why he was a bad match? Elain was stiff when the prince approached, falling to one knee in front of her. With reverence, he took her hand and pressed a soft kiss along the back.
“How lovely to finally meet you, future wife.”
Elain curtseyed, eyes drifting toward her angry stepmother watching the scene. Elain had a flash of memory—of her father’s very public marriage to her stepmother…and how he’d forgotten her name up at the altar. The crushing disappointment that etched itself over her lovely face, smoothed out as she reminded him her name was, in fact, Amarantha.
Elain looked back at Graysen, heart thudding for an entirely different reason. Anxiety flooded through her chest, threatening to drown her as she realized it wasn’t that Graysen was a bad choice—but merely her stepmother’s jealousy that Elain was getting what she did not.
“Please stand,” Elain urged him, giving the prince her full attention. “You don’t have to kneel.”
Graysen did, his expression earnest. He didn’t drop her hand, though. Not until one of his courtiers began giggling softly in the background.
“How lovely that the prince is so taken,” someone commented, pulling the two of them apart.
“Who knew the princess would be so beautiful,” came another whispered voice.
“Yes,” her stepmother said, rising from her chair. “Our Elain is quite pretty, isn’t she?”
Somehow, when her stepmother said those words, it sounded like an insult. Elain suddenly missed Nesta, who was still tracking down Feyre at whatever school she’d been sent to. Nesta would know how to handle this, what to say to stop the whole thing.
Elain didn’t, though. So she smiled, pretending her stepmother paid her nothing but compliments.
“It must run in the family,” Graysen began, though he didn’t take his eyes off Elain.
“She’s only my stepmother,” Elain blurted out. The room went silent under the implication of Elain’s words. Elain didn’t dare turn. Didn’t dare move, even when her stepmother's blood red nails gripped her shoulder.
“Come,” her stepmother murmured, squeezing so tight Elain whimpered. Graysen didn’t notice which was a small mercy. Elain wondered if she’d be punished for what she said once everyone was gone. “Let me show you Elain’s garden.”
Elain dared to take a breath when Graysen laced his fingers through her own. “Well, my lady. Lead the way.”
LUCIEN:
Being summoned by the would-be queen was the bane of Lucien Vanserra’s existence. He worked for the king, not his obnoxious, meddling wife. In the years since the queen had died, Amarantha had taken over most of his affairs. And that included Lucien. In exchange for safety within King Archeron’s realm, Lucien was bound to his every whim. He’d been young when his mothers infidelity had been revealed—little more than a boy when he’d fled to avoid being killed.
No longer a prince, but a huntsman who kept the forest cleared of poachers. Lately, though, he’d been summoned for more personal jobs. Threats to the regime, to the queen herself. Lucien hated her—hated her vanity, how she couldn’t take her eyes off her own reflection. Her obsession with her appearance, with being young. She couldn’t go five minutes without requiring some amount of self-assurance.
“There you are,” she said when Lucien stepped into her private chambers. “Tell me, what do you think of this shade of purple?”
Ugly, he wanted to say. She was a beautiful woman, he supposed, made ugly by how vain and self-obsessed she was. There was no use in being truthful. Not when his life hung in the balance. So he smiled, swept into an easy bow, and replied, “Stunning as always, my lady.”
She didn’t look at him as she reached for her hairbrush, pulling at the strands of her ruby colored hair.
“You swore once that you would do anything required of you to keep this kingdom safe.”
“Yes.” That was true.
“I need you to take Princess Elain out into the forest,” she began, her eyes glittering. “I want you to bring me back her heart.”
Lucien paused. “Her heart, my lady?”
Amarantha turned, her smile twisting her face into something truly wretched. “Yes, huntsman. Her heart. I require it—”
“For what?” Lucien demanded. He barely knew the princess but she seemed harmless enough. Engaged, if the rumors were true. Amarantha would have had a hand in that given how distracted her father was. She’d be gone in a matter of months—Lucien had heard that the prince was quite taken with his soon-to-be wife.
“Since when does the kings favored huntsman ask questions when given a command?”
Lucien didn’t bother to mention she’d never asked him to carve out someone's heart before, either.
“Fine,” he said. What did it matter, in the long run? The princess was nothing to him, but disobeying risked being sent back to Beron where he’d be executed. The princess was nothing to him. If the queen wanted her heart—and Lucien suspected she wanted it for something perverse—that was no business of his.
“Good man,” Amarantha purred, turning back to her reflection. “Take her out close to sunset. I’ll tell her betrothed she ran away.”
“And how am I supposed to convince the princess to follow me into the woods?” Lucien demanded through gritted teeth.
“You’re resourceful. Figure it out.”
Great. With a final bow, Lucien extricated himself from her bedroom and the cloying, perfumed smell she wore. Lucien made his way toward the palace gates, encountering more servants than he’d seen since before the queen had died. He supposed that was in response to the foreign prince. Couldn’t let him know just how poor they were. Lucien knew the marriage between the king and his new wife had been somewhat fraudulent. She didn’t have as much money as her family had promised.
If they’d been smart, they would have married off Nesta the minute she turned eighteen. Smarter, to let Elain go through with her marriage to a prince so smitten he’d overlook what Lucien imagined was a very small dowry. Amarantha wasn’t smart, though, and the king was still lost to grief, the likes of which he was never going to recover from.
Which left Lucien to stalk through the garden like a wolf, looking for the trembling fawn that would be his prey. Elain sat on a crumbling marble bench, eyes glassy as she stared out into the distance. All he needed was a lie to lure her out.
“Princess,” he began, bowing at the waist. What had she done, he wondered? What horrific offense had been committed? She turned to look at him, stalling the very breath in his chest. He’d never truly looked at her, but here, framed by the golden light of late afternoon, he was certain Elain was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. The memory of her voice whistling to a bird in the garden floated through his memory. Lucien was quick to banish it.
“Lord Lucien,” she murmured, averting wide, brown eyes quickly.
Ignoring the way his gut tightened, Lucien took a breath. She must be awful, he told himself. Why else would the queen want her heart? It was too personal, the sort of trophy one took from a hated enemy.
“Lucien is perfectly fine,” he said, shifting from one foot to the other. “I…”
Elain turned again, a loose curl falling over her shoulder. She was lovely in that amethyst dress. His chest restricted a second time—not because she’d called him lord, but because it seemed criminal to defile her in any way. For a moment, Lucien felt revenant, an acolyte meeting a god for the very first time. Touching her would be holy—and forbidden.
“It’s your sister,” he lied, scrambling to think of what he knew about Elain. She and her sisters had been close—he’d often seen them together talking quietly, heads pressed together. “She is injured in the woods. I can’t convince her to return home with me but perhaps you…”
“Nesta?” Elain asked, rising quickly to her feet. It was horrific how easy it was to lure her out of the palace.
“Yes,” he lied, fingers brushing the knife strapped against his thigh. “Will you come with me? She’s not far from here. Thrown, I think, from a horse.”
“Oh, gods,” Elain breathed. Lucien kept waiting for the mask to slip—for some hint of the evil that lay behind her beautiful face. Why else would the queen want her to die? The princess was to be married, and would leave in five short months.
No, it must be treason, he told himself. Something so heinously unforgivable that this was the only path forward. And Lucien did as he was told, regardless of his personal feelings. If the queen wanted the princesses heart, Lucien would deliver it to her.
“It’s easier and faster to set out on foot,” he lied. It would have been faster to set out with a horse, especially if there was an injured woman involved. Elain didn’t know any better.
“Can you carry her?” Elain questioned, looking him over. Lucien scoffed.
“Of course I can.”
She raised her palms defensively. “I wasn’t…I just…if it's a far walk, I just thought…”
Her cheeks bloomed pink from her embarrassment while Lucien felt guilty. Where was the monster? He wanted to see some hint of whatever had offended Amarantha so unreasonably that she’d order the king's favorite daughter executed.
“I can manage it.”
“Nesta can be…difficult, especially if she’s scared,” Elain tried to explain earnestly, bouncing on the balls of her feet to keep up with him. Lucien took a breath of crisp air, trying to steady himself. She was trusting, which would make everything easier. Lucien led her through the garden, curious now.
“Difficult?”
Elain nodded, tucking hair behind her ears. “She means well. She just…doesn’t trust easily.”
“And you do?”
Red crawled up her neck. “I…”
Lucien forced himself to smile. “Relax, princess. I’m only giving you trouble.”
Elain’s shoulders relaxed, though some of the bounciness in her step faded. Lucien pulled open the gate at the far end of the dying garden, revealing the stone path that would fade to dirt once they reached the edge of the forest. Elain hesitated.
“I’ve never been allowed to leave before,” she admitted, biting her bottom lip.
He felt like a miserable bastard as he said, “Consider it practice for your new husband.”
Elain swallowed and then followed him out, letting the gate swing closed behind her. She smiled, unaware of how the sight eroded a little more of his confidence. He could figure it out, he told himself desperately. He could untease it simply by asking careful questions.
“So,” he began, hands fisted at his sides, “are you excited to leave?”
“Um,” she began, toying with the strands of her hair. “I suppose I am. I’m looking forward to having someone to talk to again.”
“What about your sisters?”
Lucien knew very little about the royal family, mainly by choice. He didn’t want to be involved in their lives nor did he want to draw attention to the fact that he was, technically, still a prince of a neighboring kingdom. Beron likely thought him dead—and Lucien very much wanted to keep it that way.
“Feyre had been gone for so long…and Nesta is…” she bit her bottom lip again. “They just prefer solitude. I miss having friends.”
She was strangely pathetic. Another surge of pity speared in his gut as Lucien realized they shared this in common. He missed having friends, too. Missed his home and just feeling like he belonged somewhere.
“Well, that’ll change soon, right?”
Elain sighed softly. “I suppose. The prince is kind, he just—” She cut herself off, looking up at him as if she’d just remembered who he was. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t—”
“No, please. He just, what?”
“He just thinks I’m beautiful,” she mumbled, her whole face the shade of a tomato. It was at that moment they passed into the forest, leaving the palace in the distance. His knife against his thigh was heavy, weighing him down like rocks tied to his ankles.
“You disagree with him?”
Lucien didn’t. Elain was beautiful—you’d have to be blind not to see it.
Her eyes cast toward the leaf strewn ground, kicking them up like confetti. “No, I guess not. I just…hoped…for more than that.”
“What else is there?” he asked stupidly. Shadows covered her face, leaving only her eyes visible in the remaining shafts of light peeking from the treetops.
“Friendship,” she said quickly, her words heavy. “Love.”
Lucien didn’t know what to say to that. Silent, he let her continue.
“My parents had that before my mother died. I guess I was hoping…”
Overhead, far in the distance, thunder rumbled. It was as if the very gods themselves were watching things play out between them and warning him to stay his hand. Lucien didn’t understand and he knew, without a doubt, that if she returned home the queen would merely find someone else to carry out this task. There were plenty of people who wouldn’t be moved by Elain’s beautiful face.
“Your father has that with your stepmother, does he not?”
She scoffed, kicking more leaves into the air. “No. He chose her out of duty, not love, and I feel so badly for her. She must be lonely, too.”
Lucien opened his mouth only to close it again.
“I’m sure once things get settled and he becomes accustomed to me, I’ll learn more about him,” Elain continued, blithely unaware of what was happening. Lucien needed to figure something out and get her far, far from the palace. While Elain continued speaking, he began scanning the forest for anything that might help.
Deer, he decided, noting telltale marks on the trees. He’d carve out a deer heart and present it to Amarantha. She wouldn’t know the difference. Elain would have to give up her engagement and her home, but at least she’d still have her life.
Lucien had a sinking, sick suspicion why Amarantha wanted her dead. Not because Elain was a monster…but because Elain was beautiful. He couldn’t prove it, of course, but nothing else made sense to him. That was nothing to die over. Especially when it was clear she valued her own looks so little in comparison to things like friendship and kindness.
All he had to do was scare her a little.
“Where did you say my sister was?” Elain asked when the silenced stretched too thin between them. Lucien reached for the knife strapped to his thigh, twirling it aimlessly in his hand.
“Will you answer me something, first?”
Elain was looking only at that blade, dull in the rapidly falling dark of the forest. The scent of rain wafted through the trees. A storm would hide her tracks. Lucien could say he left her body in the river knowing anything would be washed out to sea.
“Lucien–”
“Why does the queen want you dead?”
Elain froze. “What?”
“What did you do, princess? Why did she ask me to cut out your heart?”
Elain scrambled away from him but Lucien was quicker. Grabbing her by the arm, he shoved her against a tree. “Tell me,” he demanded. He just needed to know the truth—needed to know if he was right.
“I don’t know,” Elain whispered, blinking rapidly as tears began to slide down her face. “Please, I—”
“I think she’s jealous of you, princess. I think you’re about to get the life she wanted and she can’t stand to see you happy.”
“Lucien, please,” she whispered, fighting against his arm pressed just beneath her collarbone. “Please—”
“You’re going to run,” he said, lowering his mouth so only she could hear him. “And you’re never coming back. Do you understand me?”
She looked up at him, eyes wide. “I—”
“If I find you, I’ll kill you,” he lied. If she returned, Lucien knew it would be he who died. He could no sooner bring that blade down on her than he could do it to himself. Elain swallowed, nodding her head. Tears clung to her long lashes, glittering before those wide, gold flecked eyes. He wanted to kiss them away.
Lucien stepped far from her, still holding that knife.
“Go,” he ordered.
And to her credit, princess Elain turned her back and fled.
Summary: A month after her sister mysteriously went missing, Feyre receives a letter instructing she leave the village immediately. And the letter's messenger? A curious black cat.
A sequel to They Are the Hunters, We Are the Foxes. While I recommend reading it first, it is not necessary. I guess this can technically be my contribution to @unofficialfeysandmonth2022 Day 29: Domestic Couple
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“You must have an extraordinary tale to tell.”
Feyre couldn’t help her laugh, stangled as it was against her dry throat. It was just… it was such an Elain thing to say to someone covered in bandages, only just dragged back from the brink of death. Then Feyre was blinking back tears as she recalled a time she had believed she would never be able to indulge her sister’s optimism ever again.
All that time, worrying after Elain and now she was right in front of Ferye. And she was practically glowing. Full cheeks, big smile, fine winter gown. All things that she hadn’t seen on Elain since they were both little girls.
“It’s you who I believe has an extraordinary tale,” Feyre said behind a shaky voice, eying Elain’s stomach. There wasn’t yet a noticeable bump beneath her gown, but the way Elain’s freehand fell to her stomach was a telltale enough sign.
Elain’s answering grin was nothing short of radiant. It struck Feyre that she was happy about the baby—more than.
“I do,” Elain said brightly. “A tale so extraordinary I didn’t think you or Nesta would ever believe it. But… I’m inclined to think you’ll believe it now.” She turned her head, calling towards the door, “Lucien. Come meet my sister.”
The door cracked open, and in stepped a tall, finely dressed red-haired man. Handsome, even with the brutal scar that cut across half of his face. His eyes—one russet and one gold—swept over the room, looking first to Elain. From the affection that lit his entire face, and the way Elain immediately returned that look, Feyre knew who Lucien was without any further explanation.
Still, Elain said, “Feyre, this is my husband. Lucien.”
He bowed at the waist. “It’s a pleasure, Feyre.”
They both seemed to hesitate for a moment. Elain took a deep breath. “Lucien is also my—”
“Mate,” Feyre said. She glanced between them, noting the pointed ears Lucien didn’t even attempt to hide. Elain’s mysterious disappearance began to make much better sense. “Did you kill Lord Graysen?”
Lucien’s lips twitched into a sardonic grin. “You don’t believe your sister is capable of being a ruthless killer?”
“No,” Feyre answered plainly, thinking of the way Elain’s face would curl in disgust whenever she brought home game from the forest. Elain had always needed to leave the room before any of the butchering started, and Feyre certainly couldn’t imagine her sister ever wielding a knife to cause someone harm.
Lucien chuckled to himself, sliding behind Elain so he could curl an arm around her waist. His hand fell over hers where it laid against her stomach, until their fingers intertwined. “Then you don’t know Elain like I do. I don’t recommend being on the wrong side of her knife.”
“You better behave,” Elain said lightly to him. “Or you will be.”
It was lovely—so, so lovely—to see Elain happy when Feyre had expected misery. But seeing them together, staring so adoringly at one another, made her chest cave in. The hollow space rang not quite with envy, but… something close. Something that made her ache not just in her bruised body, but in her soul.
“Elain, did, uh…” She tried to sit up, despite how her bones groaned in protest. “How did I get here, exactly?”
“Rhysand’s in the next room over. We know that’s what you really wanted to ask,” Lucien answered, laughing under his breath when Elain elbowed him.
“He’s in rough shape—both of you were, when Azriel brought you in. But he’s okay.” Elain smiled gently. “Would you like to see him?”
He’s okay. He was alive.
“I don’t know,” Feyre said, mostly because she couldn’t believe she could. Her body felt brittle, like it would shatter to pieces if she put too much weight on it. Lucien would likely carry her, if she asked, but… she was still reeling at the knowledge that Prick had been Rhysand all along. Lying to her, from the very moment they’d met.
“That’s fine,” Lucien said. “The bastard’s been begging us to let him in your room. I’d be delighted to—”
“Just let us know if you change your mind,” Elain interrupted. “We’ll only let him come in once you’re ready.”
Feyre blinked. They’d said he was in rough shape. “Is he… is he even in good enough health to walk?”
“No,” they both answered flatly.
Lucien was laughing again, shaking his head. “Believe me, Feyre. He’d crawl his broken body over hot coals to make sure you were alright. And no amount of reassurance on our part is sufficient. Apparently.”
“Okay,” Feyre said weakly. What was the use in denying that she longed to see him, just to confirm that he really was okay? She’d be punishing herself just as much as she’d be punishing Rhys. “You can let him in.”
Elain and Lucien glanced at each other, some silent communication passing between them. Elain nodded and her husband promptly left the room with little more than a nod goodbye to Feyre.
“We’ll give you two some space,” Elain said. “We’ll have a servant outside your door. If you need anything—anything at all—just ask.”
A servant. Feyre watched Elain leave, elegant skirts swishing with each step. Feyre had once never believed any of them would be able to casually throw around that word. And yet, somehow, it was last on the list of unbelievable things that had happened to the Archeron sisters.
It didn’t take long, after Elain left, for someone to bang on the door. Thunderous and impatient. Feyre stayed in her bed, twisting the sheets between her fists. “Come in.”
Warm light flooded in from the hallway as the door creaked open, illuminating a shock of blue-black hair. Ruffled, like he’d been running his hands through it.
Feyre stared at Rhys.
He stared at her, wavering on the threshold.
She knew that one word, and he’d go back to his room. Even if what Lucien said was true—that he’d been desperate to see her—he would leave, and wouldn’t push it.
Her eyes drank him in, registering every injury. He was shirtless, covered in bandages that spanned diagonally across his chest, over his stomach, around his neck and shoulders. He held a crutch—she didn’t know the fae needed such things, but he was propping himself against the doorframe like he couldn’t stand on his own.
Mate. Her… mate.
Holding his gaze, Feyre scooched over on the bed, patting the space beside her. “You have… a lot to explain to me.”
He swallowed thickly. “I know.”
She watched him limp towards the bed, resisting the urge to help him. It was deserved, she told herself, even as she cringed with every step. Eventually, the bed dipped beneath his weight, and she was again embraced by the scent of citrus and the sea. She could have sworn some of the ache of her physical body eased.
“Elain’s father-in-law is a good friend of mine,” Rhys said. He kept his distance, keeping himself confined to the edge of the bed, legs strewn over the side. “When she fled to Velaris, he asked me to deliver a note to her sisters.”
He turned his head, violet eyes meeting hers. “That was all it was going to be. But I took one look at you, and I knew immediately who you were. My mate. And you offered me food, so I… accepted it.”
Feyre shut her eyes. “Tell me what it means.”
“It means that you’re my equal—my perfect match. That I am yours, and that there isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for you. And when you offered me food, it meant you accepted the mating bond.”
That stupid piece of chicken. She could almost hear Nesta’s smug laughter in the back of her mind, saying I told you so when she had warned that if Feyre fed the cat, it would never leave her alone.
“It’s like marriage.”
“It’s more than that,” he said. “Our souls our bound together. Can you feel it?”
The golden cord in her chest. Feyre could feel it tugging, testing if the line between them was still taut. She looked down towards her hands, unable to face the hope and the fear in his expression. “What if I… don’t want a mate?”
“Then I’ll go,” he whispered, brokenly. “And I’ll never disturb you again.”
“You made me promise I would be your wife,” she said. She lifted her eyes to his forearm, tracing the tattoo that disappeared beneath his bandages. “Was that real? Those dreams?”
“Yes,” he said. No ounce of shame, even now. “It was all real. And I can release you from the bargain, if you’ve changed your mind.”
“And…” Feyre hesitated, knowing she was venturing down a path she couldn’t turn back from. But perhaps she had long been venturing down that path, from the very first night that she followed the mysterious traveler into the woods. She hadn’t been willing to admit it to herself, but maybe there was already no turning back—there hadn’t been for a long while. And maybe she didn’t want to. “And If I haven’t changed my mind?”
The bed shifted as Rhysand moved closer, lifting his legs so that he lay beside her, and could reach across to the arm she had injured when she’d fallen off her horse. It had been newly rebandaged while she was asleep, but now Rhys was delicately unraveling the fabric, until the wooden splints came free and she could see her bare arm. The skin was pale and had begun flaking beneath the bandages, which made the dark, swirling tattoo stand out all the more sharply. A perfect mirror to the one on his forearm.
“Then you would be my wife,” Rhys said, tenderly running his fingers along that tattoo, from wrist to elbow. “And my mate. And I will love you until the stars turn to dust.”
She stared at the tattoo, memorizing each of the intricate whorls. To think it had been hidden beneath her bandages, all this time…
“And we can stay here?” She asked. “You’ll let me be Elain’s midwife?”
“I won’t let you do anything,” he said, sounding mildly offended. “You are free to do as you please, Feyre. We can stay here, or we can stay in my manor, but regardless you’ll be free to come and go as you wish. After what happened to dear old Tamlin, I’ve learned my lesson on trying to influence your decisions. Azriel told me you nearly stabbed me to death, too.”
Feyre reached over to flick him on the forehead. “Oh, and you would have deserved it, you—you…”
Rhysand took advantage of her proximity to lean forward, until his smirking lips were a breath’s distance away. “Go on, Feyre darling,” he purred. “What am I?”
“A liar,” she spat. “An arrogant, manipulative scoundrel.”
Rhys was staring at her mouth. “Such a sweet talker, my wife.”
“I should have left you on that forest floor,” she said, without any of the venom she had wanted. It was hard to mean it, when the site of him bloodied and struggling for breath was still fresh in her memory.
“But you came back for me,” he said. There was a hint of awe creeping into his voice. “The beautiful, courageous Feyre slew the beast and saved her wicked mate. Cauldron knows I didn’t deserve it. I’ll forever be your doting husband—on that debt alone.”
“No more secrets.” She met his eyes levelly. “Swear to me there will be no more secrets—ever again. Only in exchange for that, will I remain your wife.”
“Done,” he said quickly. No sign of reluctance in the delight that swept over his expression. A sharp tang twisted in the air, followed by a tingling sensation in her fingers as the tattoo on her forearm moved, crawling up towards her wrist, until it wound around her ring finger like a permanent wedding band. The sight was soon eclipsed by Rhysand’s own, much larger hand, gently taking hold of her fingers. “Anything I have is yours now, Feyre. Including everything I know.”
“Why did Tamlin hate you so much?” She asked quietly.
He loosed a long breath.“Our families have been in a blood feud for… centuries.” Centuries. “Tamlin saw that my mate was human, and nonethewiser, and took his chances. I’m sorry you got caught in the crossfire.”
She stared blankly at their hands, which had not long ago been covered in blood. Tamlin’s, Rhysand’s, her own, all mixed together. “I killed him.”
“You saved me,” Rhys said, snaking an arm around her hip, tugging her into his bandaged chest. “You were protecting me. It’s what anyone would have done for their mate.” She nodded numbly, trying to push away the memory of her bloodlust.
Rhysand caught her chin between his fingers. When his face came into vision, she knew she would do it all again, if it meant saving him. “My stunning, fearsome wife ,” he murmured, closing the distance between them. “I am in awe of you.”
“I think I liked you better as the cat,” she said, raising her face to meet him halfway. “You talked less.”
“You’ll find there are more effective ways of shutting me up,” Rhys whispered as his lips found hers. Certainly, he wasn’t able to do this as the cat.
She sighed into his mouth, finally surrendering to the piece of herself that had been his all along. There was no denying it now. He was her friend, her companion that had kept by her side through every danger, keeping her safe, keeping her alive. She loved him as the cat and as the man and as the most irritating creature she had ever encountered. Her husband. Her mate.
She could have wept, thinking that it was all, finally, over.
Despite every odd, they had made it to Velaris. Together.
-
The first snowfall of the year had always been a terrible omen.
Every year, as it laid siege to their poorly insulated cottage, Nesta’s family would wonder if they would live to see the snow melt in the spring.
This year, Nesta had known before the first snow arrived that their father would not survive the winter. His health had been deteriorating for a long time and the news of Elain’s disappearance had devastated him, accelerating his decline until he could do little more than sleep beside the fire. She was a wretch for thinking it, but Nesta had long decided the day he didn’t wake up would be a relief. It was one less mouth to feed, especially when that mouth was hardly capable of swallowing for itself.
The firewood was dwindling—they had used up so much of the excess in the days Nesta had refused to leave the house, expecting the authorities would be waiting just beyond the front door, ready to carry Nesta and her father away to certain death.
But the authorities never came. And Feyre never returned.
Nesta hadn’t yet decided if that meant her youngest sister had escaped their pursuit. Surely, if Feyre had been caught, they would have come for the remainder of the Archerons? Nesta hadn’t yet braved the village to confirm, which meant that they were on the brink of starvation, too.
Given that Nesta’s own constitution was rapidly weakening with the cold, It was no surprise at all that when the first snowfall visited in the night, it took their Father with it. She didn’t feel relief when he didn’t open his eyes the next morning. She felt… numb.
Like her face, when she opened the cottage door to a blast of frozen air. Like her fingers, as she gripped the splintering shovel. Like her palms, rubbed raw from the repetitive motion of digging the metal into the cold, solid earth, then depositing it into a pile at her side.
Nesta had never had a good relationship with her father. She had always assumed that when he died, Elain would be there to express whatever sweet sentiment she felt he was owed at his burial. Unlike Elain, Nesta buried him in silence—just as he had been on the day Elain set down on a path to be married to a Lord’s son.
Elain had never blamed him. Had always insisted it was out of his hands, just like their mother’s death. Just like their family’s fall from fortune when they were children. Elain was quick to forgive, always focused on what lay ahead. But Elain had never looked at their father’s ledger. Nesta had.
Not that any of it mattered now. Their Father was dead, and Nesta likely wouldn’t be too far behind. At least there had been someone to bury him in the ground, which was more than she could say for herself.
That night, she drank a cup of boiled water and fell asleep curled up beneath a thin blanket in front of the hearth. The fire crackled, close enough to coat her face and hair in soot as the snow continued mercilessly falling outside. Nesta knew that if she didn’t go to the village in the morning to find something to eat, soon she would be too weak to make the trip. And she would die.
By the time she fell asleep, she hadn’t made up her mind which she would prefer.
She woke to sunlight filtering through the frosted window pane, and the sound of scratching at her door. Nesta stilled, reaching for the fireplace poker as she wondered if this was it. Someone from the village had finally come for her. The authorities? Or just someone taking advantage of a lone, defenseless woman?
A creature sniffed at the small gap between the rickety door and the cold cottage floor. Gods, had someone brought their dog to chase her down? Nesta held her breath, watching the shadow pass in front of her door. Once, twice, three times, like it was moving in slow circles. And then it laid down, effectively barricading her in. She listened carefully for any sound of someone commanding the creature. There was only howling wind.
Fine, Nesta thought, creeping carefully into the room she had once shared with her sisters. The bed felt so empty without them—so much colder than sleeping in front of the fire. The room had a single window, just big enough for her to crawl through to make her escape. As quietly as she could, she pushed the latch open and pulled herself through the gap.
Her landing was not overly graceful, but quiet enough she thought she wouldn’t be heard over the wind. Yet, when she turned to make her break, there it was. A dog, so large she could have mistaken it for a bear. It had come around the house to watch her sneak out the window, and now it sat directly in her path.
It cocked its head, hazel eyes curious. If she didn’t know better—and she did—Nesta would have thought it looked amused with her stunt. Keeping him in her periphery, Nesta turned her head to assess if its owner was nearby, but there was nobody around.
He didn’t look vicious. But he also didn’t look like a stray. He looked too well fed, and his coat was cleaned. Well-groomed.
“Go home,” she said, making a small, shooing motion. “I don’t have any food to give myself, let alone some overgrown mutt.”
He was blocking the only way to the village. Ang grinning like he knew it. Cautiously, Nesta took a small step forward, then another, weighing the animal’s reaction. His posture remained friendly enough that she kept moving, still giving him a wide berth once she was on the main path.
The dog swiveled to face her as she stepped around him. And when she started down the path towards the village, he followed. The entire, shivering trudge there, Nesta tried to convince him to leave. She’d have enough trouble convincing someone to sell her bread on her own, let alone with a gigantic dog following at her heels.
Feyre’s cat had been the exact same way, and Nesta wondered why animals seemed to adopt such strange fixations on their family.
“Go,” she tried, one last, miserable time on the outskirts of the village. When he still refused, she stomped the rest of the way to the baker’s shop, determined to pretend the stupid thing wasn’t there at all.
It was harder to do so when she saw the baker’s face. “Nesta,” he said warily. His attention flickered to the dog at her feet, then back to her face. She didn’t miss the way his nose curled with distaste. “Hello.”
Nevermind all the hours she had spent tutoring his daughter, then. Years spent fostering goodwill with his family in exchange for a stale loaf of bread, dismissed on rumor that Elain might have murdered her husband. The village acted like the Archeron’s had the plague, and even if Elain had murdered Graysen, the reaction was certainly overblown. As far as Nesta was concerned, the Nolan men had been insufferable, and Elain had done the village a favor.
“Hi.” She pressed three copper pieces to the counter. “I just need one loaf.”
He stared at the copper pieces, not moving to collect them.
“What’s wrong?” She asked hotly. “My family’s coin was perfectly fine a month ago.”
“I’ve increased the price,” he said stiffly, pushing the coin back with his arm. Like touching the same coin would someone mark him as the next Archeron victim. “This is not enough.”
“You used to charge me a copper,” she seethed.
He gestured towards the window. “Winter has fallen. Times are growing harder.”
“And if I asked Claire Beddor how much you charged her family this morning, what would she say?”
The baker shrugged, calling her bluff. “Why don’t you ask her?”
Claire Beddor wouldn’t speak to her. No one would. Not since Tomas, and certainly not since Lord Graysen’s murder.
Gritting her teeth, Nesta pushed a copper onto the table. The baker stared blankly at her, until she slammed down another. He shook his head.
“This is all we have,” Nesta said desperately, even though it wasn’t true. Feyre had stolen enough from the passing traveler to feed them for months—or it would have been, if the villagers weren’t raising their prices out of contempt.
The baker opened his mouth, and Nesta truly believed he was going to send her onto the street to starve, when the dog at her side began growling. The baker took one look at the creature’s bared teeth and turned pale. He quickly grabbed the extortionate amount of money from the counter and tossed a loaf at Nesta with a strained, “Get out of my shop.”
She’d take it, even if her blood was boiling. The loaf would be enough to last her a week, at least. It would buy her time to figure out how to deal with the villagers. What to do with the remaining coin. If she could just find someone who was willing to sell her passage to Velaris, it would be enough to get to Elain. But no one from this village would be willing to help.
“Here,” Nesta said, pausing outside her cottage door. The dog stopped with her, watching curiously as she tore a piece from the loaf of bread and held it aloft. “You take this, and we’ll be even, okay? You’ll leave me alone. Deal?”
The dog nodded, though she was certain that had more to do with the way she bobbed the piece of bread in the air.
“Ready?” She said, raising the piece over her head. He shuffled back, keeping his eyes on the piece of bread. “Go get it!”
Then Nesta launched it as far as she could towards the treeline, watching as the dog launched itself after it, disappearing in the shadow. She used the opportunity to quickly slip back inside the cottage, hoping that when he returned to see the door was closed, and that she wasn’t going to let him in, he would move on to harass someone else.
Nessian assassin AU. Unedited rough draft & preview. Wrote this super quickly on my phone, but just wanted to at least get a preview of it out before I try writing more
Present
It’s been 457 days since they last saw her. The last time there was a confirmed sighting left 49 dead, 123 injured, and the person that they were detailed to protect spewing blood all over the carpet. The amount of money spent by whoever bought such a massacre made bile rise up Cassian’s throat. Even worse was remembering how easily she had slipped out of his fingers.
Lady Death
The Hellcat
For a while he and the team believed that they were separate people, apparently she answered to both names easily. He had punched a wall so hard it left a dent coming back from that disaster of a peace summit that almost started a second war between the two polarized countries,. He was so close. And yet she would always be just out of his reach.
Three Years Ago
The base of nightclub’s song reverberated in his ears even as he breathed in the cold air as he stood outside the building. His head was already somewhere else when Cassian first entered the club, now it was still nowhere to be found but with a migraine too. The deep breaths had lingered in the chill in front of him. Of all the times he had actually stuck to his resolution to quit smoking. He was supposed to be clearing his head tonight, blowing off steam from another failure. His failure. None of his friends would ever say that to him, but it was the truth. It was his lead. He lost the targets. They got away.
The anger had him clenching his jaw so hard, it worsened the already skull splitting ache in his temples. He needed a better distraction. He needed to be alone from the people he loved, but honestly couldn’t help him in this moment at all. Cassian did enjoy going out dancing with friends, his family, but tonight wasn’t working. It had been the five year anniversary of when Feyre’s sister had went off the radar, Cassian knew that they had a fraught relationship to begin with, but Feyre and Elain had taken it hard when the eldest Archeron just slipped out when night and never came back home. Apparently it’s what she was good at, disappearing without leaving a trace. Rhys did everything money could buy to find her, even though he cared more about a snail than the sister who caused Feyre’s sadness, he would find her for Feyre. Nothing ever came up. Not even Azriel could find a hint of a trail that could lead up to her. She was just gone. A ghost was all that was left of Nesta Archeron.
Tensions were fraught tonight. The main two reasons being the reminder of a missing sister and a failed operation. It seemed like going out and carrying on how they usually did was the bandaid that was supposed to ease everyone. Cassian just didn’t have it in him to pretend to be jovial. He was frustrated and angry at himself, faking a smile in strobe lights was the last thing he wanted to do. He pulled out his phone and sent a quick message to Az asking to rely the message not to wait up for him, he knew out of everyone Az would understand that he needed to find peace of mind on his own tonight, without being talked out of it. Pocketing his phone back into his jeans and hands inside the worn leather jacket that kept even the dampest colds out, he made his way down the street.
The dive bar where he was currently occupying a bar stool was not the most welcoming place to be. It was also not a huge deterrent either. A perfect in between nice enough and seedy to be comfortable in. The seats didn’t have some unknown sticky residue, but it wasn’t nearly nice enough for it to be a date night spot. There was a decent enough amount of people here. He felt like goldy locks, a bar that was just right. He was nursing a simple liquor drink, he doubt this place would even honor the request a mixed cocktail no matter how much you wanted a margarita, when he saw a flash of brilliant and cold blue.
If part of him was being honest, a large he wanted to ignore, Cassian in part couldn’t stop thinking about this morning because of how beautiful those cold eyes were. It coated his stomach in an oily feeling, but it was bare truth. The girl’s eyes were stunning. She had taken off the outer mask she normally wore, leaving a solid black half mask that covered just over her nose and conceal the rest of her face. The black mask just enhanced the brilliance of her eyes, making it difficult to look away. It was also one of the only identifiers he had of the assassin that was part the group that royally kicked their asses. He had seen her in various scuffles before, but never fully close enough for him. He wanted to take her down. Lady Death. The Hellcat. Two hours before the first bomb went off at the museum, Az was able to finally prove that Lady Death and The Hellcat were one and the same. An assassin and a thief. Whatever paid the exuberant bills he supposed. She wore a uniform at every sighting, kept virtually every noticeable feature of hers hidden, even layered masks for fucks sake. Her new nickname should have something involving ghost in it, since there was nothing tangible about her. No DNA traces, no finer details to describe her; all they had to reference her was her build, her signature masks, the hood that covered her hair, and her damn eyes. Those eyes were looking at him from across the other side of the bar now.
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