Chapter three is up! It’s a bit info dumpy, but I am THAT person who wonders how populations recover in the wake of war, if the birth rate is really low…how roads and rivers and weather and crops determine migration patterns and survival…how municipal government functions…so I had to fill a little of it in myself. 😂
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The Gift
CHAPTER THREE: ELAIN
WARNINGS: Mildly NSFW. Includes descriptions of graphic violence.
The House of Wind, for all it was high in the sky and subjected to buffeting gales of the upper atmosphere, felt as stifling to Elain as lying under a blanket. It was safe, she knew, and she was grateful for that, but Mother’s tits — she was frustrated enough to think the curse, even though it made her look around in guilt, as if the goddess could hear her — she just couldn’t get comfortable.
After Lucien left, she paced. For two hours. Hours of feeling wound tighter than a winch, wanting his presence so badly she hadn’t just ached, she physically hadn’t known what to do with herself. Feeling the whisper of his touch on her legs, over and over again, until her whole body was alive with gooseflesh. Thinking to herself he’s just down the hall and then recoiling in horror at what would happen if Nesta could hear her thoughts, or worse, if the House could, and somehow disclosed it to her older sister. She’d lain down and gotten up a dozen times, locked and unlocked the door, washed her face with icy water, tossed back and forth under the sheet, opened the window, shuddered at the cold, closed it again, and laughed bitterly at her own madness.
It finally occurred to her, as she sat on the edge of the bed twisting her fingers and tapping her foot against the floor, that there was one thing she hadn’t tried yet. Cerridwen had alluded to it, in that lyrical way of hers, as “solving her own problem.” When Elain, thinking it a difference of phrase from the wraith language that she hadn’t learned yet, had asked her to clarify, Cerridwen had whispered with a wink, for those times you need a man but one isn’t available to you. Elain had flushed crimson and spilled hot water all over the floor. Cerridwen had laughed and said, as they mopped it up, “maybe you can think of Lord Azriel while you solve your own problem? Most of us do, after all,” and winked.
And she had tried, alone at night, to think of Azriel, his beautiful features and hooded eyes; but it always felt rickety, or rushed, like reading one of Nesta’s dirty books back home while always being afraid that someone would catch her. Unsafe. Elain wondered if maybe something was broken in her, that she didn’t like the thought of risk or danger when it came to sex, when obviously everyone else lusted hard after that, but even though she had imagined kissing him many times — and almost done it once, a moment she tried hard not to think about— she simply couldn’t push her mind to go any further.
But this? This made her feel as though she had some kind of damnable itch.
Eventually, she lay down on the bed and pulled up her borrowed nightdress, breathing slowly. She knew what to do, in a manner of speaking…she’d spoken in whispers with her human friends about it before they’d all dissolved into embarrassed giggles, and she’d been intimate with Graysen, but she’d never actually done this before. She squeezed her eyes shut and slid her fingers up her leg, toward her hip. How would this feel? Would it be different? Could she imagine that her own touch was…someone else’s?
Mismatched gold and russet eyes squinted at her in amusement behind the dark of her own eyelids. She opened her eyes and stared at the ceiling. This would not be an accidental dream, or a vision, or whatever that last encounter had been. This would be her, in her real body, with her mind conjuring him up. To think of him while she brought herself to climax. This would be a decision. Her face burned.
Slowly, ever so slowly, her fingers crept between her legs, starting on the tops of her thighs and sliding up the soft, soft skin between them. She tried to make them as soft as his touch had been against her shins, right below her knees. Ghostly little circles, twining their way up ever so slowly…so gently. She thought it’d feel ridiculous, to pretend like this when she’d felt the real thing, but his face took shape in her mind without any effort at all. The fox-like tilt of his eyes…the lopsided, dimpled grin that revealed his sharp white teeth in a vivid, sudden, heart-pounding flash…the narrow braid that always hung down in front of his ear, tied with a scrap of bright blue leather. She was surprised to find she was wet. Hesitant, she advanced her touch, and her finger slipped between the folds of her flesh so easily, she stiffened and drew back. She tilted her head back and imagined the water running down over his back in soapy rivulets, tracing the jut of his shoulder blade and the bulge of the muscle above it…and the scars. Ghostly and smooth, most of them old enough that they no longer creased his rich bronze skin, just etched faint pathways along the surface. He had healed from so much. Oh, to let her fingers run where the water did…she tightened her hand muscles, wondering how it would feel…
Her finger slid inside her, quicker than she’d intended, all the way to the knuckle. She froze and let out a tiny sigh. It didn’t hurt. It felt…unusual, not natural exactly, but good. Like her body was excited for the touch. Like it had missed something, even though it had never known it before. She shifted, and felt herself clamp, squeezing against her finger. What would it be like to have his hand where hers was now? She eased another finger next to it, slowly, slowly, imagining those long fingers, rough at the pads from archery and swordplay, sliding into her, all the way in…
She gasped, her fingers sinking inside her to the palm. Oh…
Keep going, she pictured him saying, his eyes bright with delight. Don’t stop.
She swallowed and pressed her hand against herself. Her folds spread from the pressure and suddenly, a jolt rocked through her. An electric pulse. Breathless, she relaxed the pressure, and the sensation faded. She pressed again, and her fingers curled inside her, and all of a sudden there were tingles in her spine, gooseflesh smattering along her stomach…this was wrong, so wrong. Wasn’t it?
Keep going, she could almost hear him whispering. If it’s wrong, I’ll gladly be the reason, Elain…Blossom…
The thought of the nickname he’d bestowed upon her so gently sent another coil of pure sensation through her gut. She’d thought of one for him, too — Blaze, to call to mind the flare of his fire in the dark, lighting up his face, and the clench of her heart that had answered that sight — but she hadn’t been brave enough to say it to him, had gone quiet with her tongue tangled, had spent nearly an hour in the bath thinking of how to sweetly, gently, teasingly tell him that, so they could laugh and the chill between them could thaw. But then Nesta had burst in, and their sisterly acrimony had soiled her moment with…with Lucien…oh fuck…
Sweat dampened the skin on her neck and chest. She felt cold and hot at the same time, her eyes fluttering open to see the sky through the window, midnight blue, flush with high clouds. So cold. She’d need a blaze to keep warm.
And in her mind, he was there, his skin so warm and sleek, bending over her, that bright hair sliding off his shoulders. Her hand contracted and her fingers rubbed faster at the inside of her walls. The heat inside her grew. What if he’d kissed me in the bath? she wondered, picturing him pivoting and pulling her into the water dotted with little clouds of soap, fast enough that she’d have to hold on to his neck to stay upright…and then, the water swirling around them, his lips on hers, his hands sliding around her waist and up her back, leaning her backward. There was heat swelling inside her, her heart threatening to escape from her chest with the force of its beating…a feeling like she was falling from a great height…
“Oh,” she whimpered, her hand become his. Her body, his. Her hips rocked desperately against her hand, her core clamping hard and rhythmic against her fingers, and all the air rushed out of her lungs in a wrenching gasp. Give it to me, Blossom, his voice murmured, silky against her ear. I know you feel it. You’re so close. I want your pleasure, it’s all for me. It’ll be so easy. Just give me what’s mine. She couldn’t stop it now; she arched, her legs pushing hard against the mattress, warmth inside her and around her and billowing through her until she slumped, spent, her wrist aching and her legs quaking as though she’d run as fast as she could up a hundred stairs...
She rolled over, weak and shaking, but oddly, much calmer; and passed out cold from exhaustion in the wake of her release. Only to see a gold eye in her dreams, crinkling at her in a sardonic smile. But it didn’t wake her sweating or screaming, or feel as invasive as the dreams had. It felt like she was quiet in her own mind, and he was lying next to her, awake and close, with a hand on her back to keep away the night terrors.
Sleep, Blossom, she imagined him whispering. And await the dawn.
————————
A few days later, Elain awoke on the morning of the winter Solstice with a faint pounding at her temples that had not quite grown into a headache. The sun hadn’t dared to peek over the horizon yet, not on the shortest day of the year, but the River House was already abuzz with activity. She crept down the huge front stairs, footsteps muffled by the thick navy carpets, and slipped the back way down the servants’ stairs. It was her favorite way to navigate the massive house. Even when it was busy, the stairwells were thickly insulated to prevent guests from hearing the movements of the serving crew. She’d slipped out of countless stuffy gatherings that way, desperate for a breath of fresh air at her own window, or the silk sheets of her own bed. Or a moment of privacy from her sisters’ sharp eyes…Rhysand’s constant sly probing at her thoughts…or Lucien, quiet and elegant and always addling her senses, disturbing her focus.
The fire in the kitchen was banked, but warmth still beat from the coals. She set the kettle to boil and stretched her hands toward the great dragon of a stove, its giant potbelly shimmering with heat and all of its oven doors opened to feed the seething coals. She’d barely gotten her rose petal tea mixed and brewed before Nuala slid in, mumbling in her own language, carrying a huge load of table linens that had been freshly laundered. She didn’t even see Elain until she threw them down on the stone counter with a low curse.
“Good morning,” Elain murmured, and Nuala turned in that slow pivot of hers that indicated surprise.
“Elain,” she said, and her low voice was rich and full. “Why are you awake so early, cariad?” She used the term of endearment from her own language, that she usually only spoke with Cerridwen. She raised her head, catching the scent of the rose petals in the cup Elain carried. “Headache?”
Elain nodded and took a careful sip from the mug, breathing deeply as the steam curled up. The heady floral of the rose was balanced by the smoky black tea and the sharp acid of hibiscus. It felt familiar somehow; reminding her of something. She added a pinch of sugar crystals. Always a little sweetness in the morning, to begin your day with beauty. One of Cerridwen’s aphorisms. She was sometimes overly whimsical but she had a point. Beauty was dismissed as trivial, but it had a function like everything else: to enrich what surrounded it.
Nuala was still talking, her rich voice rolling gently around her vowels. “Go back to sleep, young one. We will need your eye for the flowers later.”
“That won’t be for hours,” mumbled Elain, taking another long sip.
“The High Lady’s party lunch will need a few centerpieces,” Nuala said, with a smile. “And then the gift exchange later…”
“What’s later?” Cerridwen asked, entering through the door to the greenhouse, her hands full of herbs, the smell of sage and rosemary suddenly thick in the air. Elain concentrated hard on the scent of the tea, so the dueling scents wouldn’t overpower her senses and send her running with acute nausea. She had almost gotten to the point where she could select which smells to attend to. After finding her sobbing and sick on the floor her first week in the house, Cerridwen had held her in her slender arms and rocked her like a helpless babe, murmured gentle, wordless sounds of comfort, then given her a sachet of honeysuckle to focus her newly-sensitive nose. Nuala had taught her songs and told her stories to distract her from the vivid flashbacks that occurred without warning, and taught her to keep her hands busy. Even her sisters hadn’t known what to do, Elain remembered thinking, but the wraiths had; and she would forever be grateful for their kindness.
“The High Lady’s party,” Nuala smiled. “But our sweet Elain has a headache so I suggested she go back to sleep til then.”
Elain’s fondness disappeared in a rush; she couldn’t believe they were counseling her to go back to bed like a naughty little girl. A burst of indignation sent warm fingers down her neck; she edged closer to Nuala and murmured, “I went to the place you told me about. To find Bronwyn.”
The wraith’s skin was too dusky to see if she’d paled, but her eyes went round with surprise. With shock.
Elain continued. “She tried to attack me. What is she? What manner of magic does she have?”
Nuala clasped her hand and her dark eyes pooled with tears. “I’m so sorry, cariad,” she murmured. “I did not…”
“You didn’t know?” Elain said, voice brimming with emotion. “Or you didn’t think?”
“I didn’t think she’d hurt you,” Nuala said, clutching her fingers tightly. “I thought she might tell you about dreamscapes, or counsel you on vision interpretation. She knows many signs and symbols that appear in dreams, and many stories that can shed light on them. I’ve asked her many times about remedies, or medicines, and even once about your nightmares, though I told her they were my own. I didn’t know…”
“You didn’t know she’d try to suck away my strength and imprison me in that rickety little houseboat?”
Nuala’s jaw dropped, horror all over her face. “Elain…no, love. No!”
“But you knew she could do such a thing, and didn’t think to warn me?”
Cerridwen, who had watched in stunned silence from near the doorway, tossed the herbs onto the counter and approached the two of them, folding her arms in front of her. She looked anxious but also furious, a combination of emotions Elain had never seen from her; she was used to the wraith being merry or mischievous, not mysterious and depthless like Nuala, who seemed to harbor endless secrets. “I told you it wasn’t wise, sister,” she said, staring at Nuala, her voice thrumming with intensity.
“She said that she was a skimmer,” Elain squeezed the mug hard enough that the handle left an imprint on her thumb. “But what does that mean? Who is she?”
Cerridwen shook her head. “That’s not for me to say. Skimmers are secretive and many don’t understand their own powers. I’d be doing you a wrong to tell you rumor or hearsay. Just…just don’t go back, Elain. Promise me you won’t go back.” Her eyes also shone with tears.
Elain slammed the mug down onto the counter. Nuala and Cerridwen both flinched, and the mug began to leak hot tea from a long crack in its side. The silence that fell was thick as cream. Elain heard power in her own voice as she replied, “I don’t think I will. I’m not interested in dying. Not yet. I have too many things to find out,” and walked out, back up the stairs, her pulse racing but her head oddly, mercifully clear.
She slipped out through the concealed paneled door and turned to go up the grand staircase, her feet sinking into the thick pile of the carpet. The faint scent of winter roses hung in the air, and a clatter of activity came from the drawing room. Elain pulled her robe around her and hurried up the stairs, only to run headlong into Morrigan, dressed in her leathers and clearly about to leave. Everyone was at the River House today, and the sun wasn’t even yet above the horizon; the light of the dawn was still anemic, a watery, diluted blue.
Mor’s face moved fluidly from surprise to warmth, her lovely brown eyes crinkling in her characteristic bright smile. “Goodness, Elain, you gave me such a start. What are you doing up this early?”
“Might ask the same of you,” Elain replied.
Morrigan didn’t seem to be offended, though; she winked, and slipped past her and jogged briskly down the great stairs. “I’m going up to the House of Wind for some training with the Valkyries. Come join us if you’d like to watch, I don’t think it’ll last long. Most of the priestesses have Solstice duties today.”
“No thank you,” Elain said, pulling the velvet border of her robe closed over her nightgown. “Too cold. And it’s very busy here today, even this early. Lots to do.”
She caught the barest glimpse of an expression slip across Mor’s face. It was too quick to read, but Elain knew the truth of something when she saw it. Relief?
But it was gone as soon as it appeared, and Mor smiled indulgently. “What are you getting up to then? Helping with the flowers?”
Elain nodded, casting about for something that would take all morning. “And shopping…some more presents to buy.”
Mor laughed, loud and free, the sound bouncing off the walls. “I do my best shopping at the last minute too. Can’t get the most ridiculous present unless you’re waiting for the most ridiculous time. And Rhys and Feyre will be scarce today, so that’s a good time for wrapping.”
Elain frowned. Why would her sister not be home today? “Where are they going?”
Mor made a face. “Over to the Hewn MonstroCity, for the last week of the yearly tithe. They moved it over there after they gave the House of Wind to your sister. It’ll take hours, it’s very dull. If they know what’s good for them they’ll make the appearance and then leave.”
Elain thought of the lines of people that would stretch through the caverns, the dark malachite halls that sucked up sound and always seemed unsettlingly quiet, waiting to give their tribute. It seemed…ungrateful, somehow, for Rhysand and Feyre not to stay to witness the event. And also…her brain caught at a brief memory…“Don’t they need to stay to hear disputes and dispense justice at those?”
Mor shrugged. “Well, they can, but mostly it’s a ceremonial duty. The castellains will oversee the tithe and the exchequer will handle the majority of the complaints. Rhys hasn’t stayed at most of those things since he was first imbued with the High Lord magic. It’s a good thing really, because people do bring in the silliest disputes. And it is Feyre’s birthday, after all, so she’ll want to get back to her party, and to Nyx, and to you!” Mor adjusted her gloves and unfolded a long red cloak from a tiny pocket realm that she opened with a swish of her elegant fingers. “The celebrations must go on! I’ll see you at the party later, then.”
Elain wasn’t sure that that made much of a difference. Things didn’t stop just because it was a holiday. Or the High Lady’s birthday. The world kept turning. But she stepped aside as Mor waved merrily and bounced out the door with a spring in her step. Elain caught a glimpse of the decorators working in the living area as she continued upstairs. It did look beautiful, and once she would’ve joined in, artfully arranging the evergreen branches into a sweeping bower for her beautiful little sister. Maybe adding ribbons and holding them in place with those curious sparkles that generated no heat, that Nuala had shown her.
But today it didn’t seem like it would be enjoyable. She just felt irritable. Tense. Perhaps it was the full knowledge of her own ignorance, she thought sourly. Everyone seemed to know something more than she did.
Or perhaps it was the weight of keeping a secret.
She had gone with Gwyn to the library the morning after her terrible experience in the Palace of Ships and Shadows, but despite tedious hours searching the towering stacks, they hadn’t found much. Elain wasn’t sure how much she could trust Gwyn, who did seem to have a sharp and observant nature, and had been kind in offering to assist her — though how much of that had been at Lucien’s behest, Elain didn’t know. But that intelligence made it difficult to keep things from her. When she had seen a reference book called Tribes of the Lesser Fae, a thick volume gathering dust between two reference series on Prythian history, and attempted to sneak it into her pile to research what on earth skimmers might be, Gwyn had immediately noticed and demurred. “There won’t be any information about seers in there,” she’d said, tapping the spine. “The only ones known to history have been High Fae.” She’d moved down the stacks with a sure, soft gait, the faelight glinting in her copper hair. “But it is a fascinating book. The dryads and sirens and nymphs and urisk and even the demifae, whose powers are so amorphous depending on their surroundings and the species they’re mated with. It’ll make you marvel, really.”
“At what?” Elain had asked.
Gwyn turned her head away to look at a different title, and Elain almost wondered if she was embarrassed to have shown her excitement. “Oh. Just…that there are so many ways that magic can exist in the world.”
Elain looked down at the page she had open — some dry biography of a known fortune-teller — and thought, I know nothing about magic. Nothing about this world, which is enough to fill this and a thousand other libraries in the Day Court. She felt despondency creep cold fingers up her neck. And I never will.
Gwyn had pulled another thin volume off the shelf and blew lightly on it to clear the dust, but cast a worried look at her under her eyelids. Remarkable eyes, Elain thought. I wonder if she shoots arrows as accurately as she shoots glances. “Should we take a break?”
“No,” Elain said stubbornly. “I want to find out about…” she trailed off.
“You got hit with a distraction, didn’t you,” Gwyn said with a bright, rakish smile.
“A what?”
Gwyn smiled and closed the book with a snap. “When you find something interesting enough to distract you from your original research question. It happens to me all the time, it’s why I’ll never be as good a scholar as Merrill, for example. I haven’t the discipline. I find things interesting all the time, and it steals my attention like a thief in the night.”
Elain cast her eyes down, consumed with shame and irritation. So now Gwyn also thought her weak and undisciplined.
“Elain?” Gwyn approached her, and extended a hand. A hand with a book: Tribes of the Lesser Fae. “Here. Take it.”
“But —“
“We’re not finding anything on our original research question,” Gwyn spoke lightly, but there was weight behind the words. “So maybe your distraction will be more productive. Who knows, after all. Merrill is a tyrant, but she keeps saying that true knowledge has no road map, and in all honesty, I think she might be right.” She smiled and gestured toward the book that now sat clutched in Elain’s cold hands. “You should read about the Ashkeloni, and the Nereids. When I first read that book, I wished I could draw, or paint like the High Lady. I would’ve drawn them like characters in a story. I could see them, even though I’ve never actually laid eyes on one.”
Elain opened the book, whose covers were stained and parchment pages smelled faintly of mildew. “Is this book old?”
Gwyn shrugged. “Not terribly, a few hundred years at most. But the Lesser Fae are a sort of boondoggle of a research topic. Antynus— the author of that book — was ridiculed by his fellows for his interest in them. Not many write about them.”
“Why?”
With a short little trill of a laugh, Gwyn opened her own book and pulled her quill from the inkwell. “Several reasons, I think. Lesser Fae tend to guard their lore carefully, lest it be used against them as it has in the past. Which means much of their magic is mysterious, or secret. But also because High Fae number most of the scholars, and their studies of magic concern their own magic, however shortsighted that might be; academics often are just as prejudiced as those who aren’t as well educated. They just hide it better.” Her voice darkened ever so slightly. Bitterness?
Elain turned the first page to the preface.
Prythian is a land of magic.
This may seem obvious. Books on the subject are long and varied, after all, covering topics from the tilt of the planetary axis to the sub-ecosystems of the seasonal courts, protected by atmospheric bubbles penetrating down into the topography and up into the realms of the upper air, to the emotional psychology between the rulers of those courts, the natural processes maintained within them, and the powers that can and cannot transcend their borders.
But significantly less well-documented are the details of the inhabitants of the land itself. The land is distinct from its people, but also a part of them; and the magic it possesses may well be the same.
The High Fae populate these realms, but they form a privileged minority within them. Even including the powerful warriors and magicians of the High Fae rulers and cities, there is as much magic — possibly more — contained within the land itself, and belonging to its indigenous inhabitants. It is these for whom I compiled this volume, in admiration of their survival and in deference to their plight, which is as varied as the species that exist but inevitably tends toward violence and oppression. Many, like the Demifae Pegasus herds, have been hunted close to extinction; the Urisk tribes at the borders of the Summer Court have been indentured into magical servitude at the behest of High Fae masters. The Lotusae, whose blood induces deep sleep and amnesia in their prey, have endured centuries of being bred and slaughtered to use their blood as a weapon; the few remaining wild ones have been slowly pushed out of their natural habitats and homelands. Some groups have adapted well to the political realities of the High Fae rule, like the Illyrians, whose warrior traditions and warlord-ruled tribal social structure dovetailed neatly with the historical military isolationism of the Night Court. Some, like the kelpies or the witch-bred ilken, whose natural behaviors were predatory, were deemed monsters and forcibly relocated to the desolation of the Middle. Still others attempt to live apart and hold on to their lives, traditions, languages, and folkways, even when conquered, assimilated, or summarily neglected.
This work is by no means comprehensive. It is intended as a beginning. I dedicate it to them, whom the High Fae call Lesser. I have chosen a different term for them: Iriadeni, after the ancient name for this land.
The Ashkeloni of the Western Sea worship a goddess named Mezumiiru, whose cosmology is loosely analogous to the goddess the High Fae call the Mother, though they believe she drifted to earth as celestial dust when the moon cracked open in the chaos of creation. They have a proverb that says “intilit ead loroto ni Mezumiiru, bakairat ead voluridad.” It roughly translates to “marvelous are the ways of all Mezumiiru’s children; endless is their variety.”
It is my hope that that variety will someday be appreciated.
Elain looked up from the page toward Gwyn, who was assiduously scribbling in the margin of one of the pages, her copper hair draped in a wall over her face. “Gwyn?”
“Hmm?”
“How did the High Fae come to rule Prythian?”
Gwyn looked up, eyebrows jutting into an expression of surprise. Elain’s ears rapidly went hot with embarrassment. “Is that a stupid question?”
Her eyebrows relaxed, and her remarkable eyes glowed. “No, no, of course not. I just sometimes forget…”
“That I’m newly Fae, and ignorant as a summer fawn?” Elain tried to make her tone light and amused, but couldn’t be sure her shame didn’t seep through at the edges. It was so frustrating to always have to ask. To reveal the gaps in her knowledge. To never be confident in her own mind, because there were always so many incessant, important questions…
Gwyn turned toward her with an emphatic bounce. “Elain, you are not. How could you know any of this, unless it was taught to you?”
Elain didn’t know what to say.
Gwyn continued, “The history of this world is something scholars have studied for millennia and still haven’t found exact answers to, because so much of it occurred before written texts existed, when oral tradition was the only method of passing things forward, and is bound up with legend and myth.” She leaned forward and put her hand on Elain’s, meeting her eyes in a direct, challenging stare. “So without any basic instruction, there’s no way you’d have a grasp of it. Honestly, I’ve been doing historical research with Merrill for a few years now and I still come across inconsistencies in accounts that make cohesive narratives impossible. It’s maddening.”
Elain managed a watery smile. I see why Nesta likes her, she thought, shamefaced at her own initial reaction to Gwyn. She’s strong. But kind.
Gwyn sat back with a thoughtful expression. “But I think I can condense the little that I know into a brief story for you, if you want…”
“Yes,” Elain said eagerly.
Gwyn let out a little huff of air. “Where to begin,” she murmured, half to herself.
“At the beginning?” Elain knew it was facetious of her to say that, but she couldn’t help wanting to make her laugh.
Gwyn stretched her hands in a helpless gesture. “But…no one really knows what that is. The legends talk of the Daglan, who were godlike creatures that crafted the Fae like sculptures, from mixing the waters and the elements of the air, the earth, and the stone into a clay that transfigured into flesh. They were hugely powerful, and beautiful; but in their power they were careless and damaged the land until their own shadowy echoes came forth that were more monster than god. In those stories, the Fae were innocent and were created as willing servants to the masters they’d eventually overthrow. But that’s a myth from religious texts,” she said, leaning her head against her hand and squinting into the middle distance. “Did you want legend, or history?”
Elain sat up and shifted so her back was braced against the bookshelves. “History, I think,” she said, thoughtful. “Legend is lovely but…it’s mostly what the storytellers want you to hear.”
Gwyn nodded. “It’s not that it doesn’t have truth in it —“
“— but it’s not verifiable.”
Gwyn grinned, her eyes aqua and alight. “Why, Elain Archeron, you’re nothing but an untrained scholar. How have you hidden it all this time?” She drew back from her own book, carefully marking the page before she closed it. “There may very well have been sentient creatures here before the Daglan arrived, when Prythian was as new and unsullied as a forest brook. But the High Fae did not come from these lands. Whether they originated from other continents on the planet, or from somewhere else altogether is not understood, although a few theories exist. The only certainty is that they arrived as conquerors; they’ve found preserved longships buried along the coastline. We do know that the Lesser Fae did come from these lands and the surrounding islands. Their blood and their magic is tied to the land and the environment inextricably; some so closely that if they leave their homelands, their magical abilities disappear. There was a very sad story about the conquering of the Sithmaril, a race from the Western Oceans, who were amphibious and gifted fighters. They refused to accept the terms of surrender crafted by the Hybern fae, who claimed to speak for all the oceanic tribes. The High Fae warrior king Lidior took his warriors out on boats and lured them into battle. He detected somehow that if their feet were not touching the lands or waters of their birth, their strength could be depleted. So he captured the warriors in snares that sprung backward when engaged, and drew them up into the air; he then drained their blood and slowly killed them.” Her face looked blasted, and she swallowed hard before continuing. “The worst part isn’t that; the worst is that he tied the civilians of their settlements to the masts of his ships, even the women and children and elders, hanging them in the open air, and sailed around the open sea until they died in agony. The entire tribe was wiped out in the space of a few days.”
Elain couldn’t keep her mouth from falling open in horror. “That was recent?”
“No,” Gwyn said, shaking her head, averting her eyes to contain her emotion. “That was in the First Age, which is the first written evidence we have of High Fae in the territory that we call Prythian. Back then it was called…”
“Iriadeni?” Elain asked, thinking of the passage from the book she still clutched in her lap.
“Iriaden,” Gwyn corrected. “Yes. We don’t know if that referred to a region or was interchangeable with the word for ‘homeland,’ but it appears often enough in different languages of text to know that it was commonly used.”
Elain was quiet for a moment, thinking. “So that king…Lidior…”
“Yes,” Gwyn said. “He was one of four.”
“Four warriors?”
“Four Kings of the First Age,” Gwyn said. “Lidior, Armenton, Carteret, and Melchiades. But yes, they were warriors. There’s not much difference between war and kingship in those early days. They were charismatic and zealous and violent. They believed the Mother had blessed them enough to make their every decision holy. And as long as they kept winning, they felt they were vindicated and safe in her esteem.”
“So where in Prythian did they all rule?”
Gwyn stood and reached above her head to pull down another volume, which she opened to a detailed map of Prythian and the surrounding islands. “It seems as though their borders weren’t as absolute as we experience them today, which must mean that thousands of years ago, even the seasonal courts didn’t have the same sorts of magical environments as they do now. They’ve found artifacts from the First Age naming all the kings in Hybern and all over the Prythian courts. But it seems that Lidior took the west country and Hybern, which likely included dominion over the Western Sea; Carteret took the south, Armenton the east and the islands and the Channels, dominating trade routes from the continents; and Melchiades took the Northern territories. He was the most cruel of the First Age kings, with the largest army, and he had proved he could vanquish the remaining Daglan, who took the forms of monsters throughout the lands. He sold the chances for that to his lieutenants, and would supply them for quests against the populations of monsters and indigenous Fae. He wanted a realm he could rule without interference; so he took the lands north of the Amu Darya — the Dark Hills. That was where the Daglan amassed to reconquer, and they threw most of the land back into chaos as the Fae fought them for centuries, but none could band together with enough strength to rout them entirely. Not until Fionn, who became High King under an alliance with a southern general and an unnamed but powerful queen.” She sighed. “Every High Fae child knows that legend. But as far as the end of the First Age, Melchiades’ original realm was almost unchanged, and later became the Night Court, after the dissolution of Fionn’s high kingdom.”
She paused, her finger tracing the border of the northernmost part of the great island. “In all the ages that followed — some fifteen to twenty thousand years, I think is the most accurate estimate — the Night Court is the one whose borders have changed the least. Maybe in other ways too. There are still fewer permanent settlements and cities than in any of the other courts, and less reliable means of transportation, and ways of tracking the population. The lesser Fae in the Night Court are also much more transient in their lifestyles, so it’s harder to tell how many of them there are. It’s helped keep invaders away, I suppose, but it means there’s still very little structure beyond Velaris and the Hewn City. And very little unity, outside of the times that war poses an overwhelming threat.” She grimaced: rueful, regretful, sad. “Sometimes history doesn’t even repeat itself. It doesn’t have to. It just doesn’t change.”
In the back of her brain, stirring like echoes, Elain could almost hear the slash of iron spears through flesh, the screams and coughs and gags of dying soldiers. No, she thought, clenching her fists, no visions now. Please, no. She clenched her fists, digging her nails into her palm, relishing the pain, focusing on it. She felt soaked in it, sticky with blood and heat, the taste of iron in her mouth, the ebbing away of life, the loss of vital energy as it screamed back into the darkness of death. She squinted her eyes tight-shut and concentrated, inhaling the scent of the millions of books, the cool smooth parchment under her fingers. Her heartbeat slowly returned to normal. The tang of battle faded from her tongue. She opened her eyes and saw Gwyn watching her intently.
“Are you able to keep your visions away?” she asked, half keen interest, half wariness.
Elain wasn’t sure how to answer her, but in her weariness and confusion, she chose the truth, if only because it was the easiest thing to remember. “I can sometimes.” She stretched her fingers and rubbed her palm, where a vicious cramp had set in. “But the more intense it is, the less I can manage it.”
“Was that an intense one?”
“I think it might have been. If I didn’t realize it was coming.” Elain hesitated; she had lied to Nesta about this, had avoided telling Feyre or Rhysand, but somehow it was aching to come out, and once she decided, the pressure eased ever so slightly. “I was attacked last night and…well. Can I tell you a secret? Since then I think I’ve been more anxious. Edgier. It’s like it gives the visions a way out, like a drain opened in a tub.”
“Attacked?” Gwyn’s eyes went round with horror. “When you came back to the house with Lucien?”
“Yes.” Elain couldn’t stop the flow of words once they started in a tiny uncontrollable avalanche. “We’d only just gotten away. I went down to the docks to talk to someone, looking for answers about my dreams and visions and the person I asked — she tried to attack me. I don’t know if she could see what I saw, but she pulled my power toward her and…and I think she took some of it.”
“How?!” Gwyn’s voice was hushed, horrified.
Elain shook her head. “I don’t know. Perhaps it was her sort of magic. She was a Lesser Fae. Maybe she has magic that isn’t understood. But Lucien; he saved me. He felt me through the…the bond…” - she pressed her chest hard, feeling it stir again - “and he came to get me.”
She looked over at Gwyn and reached out, covering the pale freckled skin with her own. “Please don’t tell anyone,” she said in a rush of worry. “My sister won’t understand and she’ll tell Rhys…”
“Nesta would never,” Gwyn insisted.
“No. No, I mean Feyre.” Elain pushed her hand against her forehead, the headache that had vaguely threatened her since dawn beginning to throb in her temples. “And what if she…what if they…didn’t like that I was searching around? Snooping for answers? Maybe they’d put me in a house by myself? Without anyone around me? I’m not sure I could survive it.”
Gwyn’s eyes filled with tears, and she wiped the back of her hand across her face. “Do you really think they would do that to you?”
Elain opened and closed her hands, the weight of her uncertainty making her feel like a butterfly pinned to a page. Maybe she was beautiful, maybe she was decorative, but she was also always under scrutiny. Did it feel better to tell Gwyn about it, or worse? Was it a liability, or a freedom?
“I don’t know,” she said finally. “I think…sometimes I think they believe they do things for the right reason. But they don’t take the time to see if that’s really true?”
Gwyn reached into her pocket, coming up with a crumpled handkerchief. She blew her nose and laughed, a short, bitter sound. “It makes me think of…how I came here. It felt safe, especially after…” her voice faltered, and Elain could sense bright sparks of pain like needles at the edges of her voice. “…but maybe in the end a safe haven is only temporary. Maybe we’re meant for other things, you and I.”
Elain took a breath in and squeezed Gwyn’s hand. They were quiet for a moment. Elain thought she could feel the massive bookshelves holding their breath, the collective weight of knowledge around them waiting for their living brains and hearts to take it. To use it. To turn it into something breathing.
“Can I borrow this?” Elain asked, smoothing her hand over the book in her lap.
Gwyn laughed, a real laugh this time, merry and buoyant. Listening to that sound, Elain felt like she could see what she had been like before she arrived here — bright, persistent, unbowed, brave, her intellect incisive, her heart unhurt — and also that those things were still there. Damage had not eliminated them, for all it had buried them beneath rubble.
“Yes,” Gwyn said, “and if you need any other references — or help of any kind — you let me know, do you understand? You can send word with Nesta, or have Lucien tell me or Clotho, or even just come up here yourself. You’re always welcome.”
Elain felt a warmth in her chest. It wasn’t like the bond. It was gentle, like a tight hug. Like how Cerridwen had held her after she was turned Fae.
“Thank you,” she whispered, and it felt like too much and not enough at the same time.
——————————
Elain returned to her room in the River House and lit a faelight before reopening Tribes of the Lesser Fae. The table of contents showed it was organized by region. She flipped quickly through it to the Night Court, which was broken down further into regions: the southern mountains along the Day Court border, the Eastern and Western Islands, the midcountry, the Eastern Steppes, and the Illyrian mountains. Each tribe had a brief chapter describing their physical characteristics, their powers, and the way they connected to the land. She bent her head over the page and read.
The southern reaches of the Night Court are primarily dominated by mountains that form a near-impenetrable barrier between it and the Day Court. They are not as sheer or forbidding as the Illyrian Mountains to the north, but their innumerable ravines and lack of formal roadways make them impassable without a guide. Since the First Age and the vanquishing of the Daglan, these mountains have been called the Amu Darya: the Dark Hills. They are full of secrets and powers. Paracelsus, the early Day Court metaphysical scholar, identified light within the very stones of these mountains, trapped within pyrite ore.
Here dwell several tribes of Iriadeni. The primary group is the Vættir, who live a seasonally nomadic life between farming the upper grasslands that they call the Zeimastan (which translates to Windswept) and living off their stores downmountain in winter, in the stone caves that they have cut into extensive tunnels and houses at the bases of the mountains. The light from the pyrite in the stone appears to have affected their powers; they can glow, mimicking the dark stone shot through with light, and giving themselves perfect camouflage. They can also manipulate shadow for concealment. These talents, along with a superb knowledge of navigation in the hills of their birth and great strength cultivated by living along the cliffs, made them indispensable to the High Fae conquerors at first, who used the caves to make a stand against the remaining Daglan. Melchiades, the first Night Court king, passed through the Amu Darya on his way north to the mountain that would become the Hewn City, his first military outpost and greatest fortress. It is impossible that he would have reached his goal without assistance from many groups of Iriadeni, including the Vættir.
However, the Vættir’s use to the High Fae ran dry when the Daglan dwindled in number and became less of a threat. The other large group of mountain Iriadeni, the Illyrians, joined in a military alliance with the High Fae and used it as an excuse to purge the mountains of all but their own tribes. It was a bloody civil war that lasted at least two centuries. The enmity between the groups has never faded. [There are limited works about this conflict, but some historians have hinted that the slaughter bordered on genocide.]
But despite their storied military might and the wings that bear them aloft, the Illyrians were never able to dispatch the Vættir completely. The Amu Darya are dangerous territory, full of predators, abrupt weather changes that do not conform to known mountain climate patterns, and difficult terrain; and their native Fae have the great strength of knowing their land like it is an extension of their own flesh. They are able to melt from place to place like the shadows they can pull around themselves like cloaks. Their settlements, which are easy to dismantle and move in a migratory pattern, are impossible to track from place to place; and in the event of true peril, they can fade into the caves among the pyrite ore, where no one will ever find them. This is not to discount their physical strength. All Vættir adult fae are well-trained in hunting, tracking, and guarding, and can be singularly ferocious in defending their homes.
They share the southern mountains with at least four other distinct Iriadeni tribes, identified later in this volume (see: Croaden the Dwarrow, “Ancient Songs of the Stone”) with whom they have generally positive and peaceful relationships; but it is not known if there are more extensive peoples living in the Amu Darya. The hills and valleys are pockmarked with tunnels and it is entirely possible that there are earth- or stone-fae whose existence has yet to be discovered…
Elain looked up, pondering. That tribe didn’t sound like the skimmers, although she couldn’t truly be sure, but they did sound formidable, and she could understand defending your home with singular ferocity.
And it sounded like a beautiful home, too. She let her fingers smooth over the lines of text, imagining the ripples of grass sweeping up the mountainsides, and the dark sky over the darker silhouettes of the hills, and sparkles gleaming inside the mountain, so bright in some places that you might not even need a torch to walk through the tunnels…
I want to see it, she thought, and was surprised when her throat choked up a little. I want to see all these beautiful places.
Lucien has seen many of them…maybe he’d tell me about them. What it was like to be there, what it smelled like, how the air stirred, what the people were like, what it felt like…
The thought of the Autumn prince sent a thrill over her skin, followed by warmth. There hadn’t been any vivid dreams in the past two days that he’d been back in Velaris, but now, all she had to do was think of her decision to feel her cheeks grow warm, and the tiny hairs at the back of her neck prickle. That had always annoyed her, how easily even the thought of him could fluster her; it almost still did, although now it was tinged with excitement. But maybe now, she didn’t have to be afraid of him any longer. He had blithely gone along with her lie to Nesta and Cassian, born of panic in the House of Wind, and even used it to try to get her more information. After trying to save her life.
He still unsettled her. He knew too much. Saw too much. It wasn’t fair, when he was such a mystery to her.
But he had saved her…
She glanced back at the book, and in a moment of inspiration, flicked through the pages to a chapter on the Autumn Court, then bent to read again.
The Autumn Court is home to the greatest variety of Iriadeni in all of Prythian. Magical creatures abound in its rich, layered forests, where the temperatures can vary from an almost-Summer warmth to massive hardwood groves whose branches drape with snow. The classic presentation of High Fae magical powers in this court — epitomized by their High Lords — is the use and manipulation of fire. As a destructive force, it is perhaps unmatched. The High Fae lords extend an iron grip over their subjects and demand absolute loyalty and obedience.
But fire is far from the only presentation of magic here.
There are spirits of the air and earth and water who reside in the great forests. Many of them are insular or solitary — a protective strategy, as they have been hunted and persecuted. But many are also deeply powerful. And in this court, more than any other, the powers are mutable when the Iriadeni who own them are in diaspora. They seem to morph and adapt to their surroundings with more agility than Iriadeni from other courts; though of course the powers are in full bloom when they are in their natural habitats. Magic is as much an ecosystem as physical environment and climate. Nowhere is that as easily visible as in the Autumn Court, where seemingly every niche has a power uniquely adapted thereto.
In the great oak and rowan forest at the center of the court, dryads have the greatest numbers. They are divided into Root and Bough, creatures who inhabit the tree limbs and forest floor, and Wind and Whisper, who inhabit the leaves and plants that depend on the trees for shade and sustenance: moss, ferns, lichens, fungiforms. Fire is deeply harmful to all of these fae, so the fear of the High Lords is pervasive. But there are Guardians of the forests as well, who keep natural wellsprings of power safe and concealed, and protect the vulnerable trees and their spirits from harm. Most of the Guardians are air and water fae, far less vulnerable to fire damage, and even in some indirect ways, capable of vanquishing it.
Elain bit her lip. Guardians of the forest? That sounded noble, beautiful. She turned the page to find a list of air and water sprites.
The air sprites of the evergreen Vilderavian Groves guard and tend the Wind and Whisper creatures who somehow are able to cross the border between Autumn and Summer. One of the largest migrations on the planet occurs here: hyraeths, butterflies with wings of condensed light, fly from their hatching grounds in Summer to their mating groves in Autumn. It is an arduous journey to cross the seasonal borders, especially for creatures so small. They mostly travel at night, illuminating the sky in a stream of tiny wings, and descend upon the great hemlocks in a gently glowing mass. Their Guardians, who have wings resembling butterflies and move effortlessly between ground and air, remove moss and buildup from the bark to give the hyraeths enough grip to perch; and when the swarm becomes too numerous for space on the trunks and branches, they spin silken strands into massive tents around the tree trunks to make perches for the exhausted creatures. Thus they have kept the trees and their occupants healthy for millennia. Their lore states that the hyraeths carry lost memories within their tiny bodies, and when their bodies die, the memories are released into the air, to be captured again by those seeking a home. Is it any wonder, then, that these forest Guardians are accomplished in storytelling and myth, and when the hyraeth caterpillars are sleeping in Summer, and they are not acutely occupied with their well-being, they write devastatingly beautiful books of song and poetry?
Elain’s vision blurred with tears, picturing the beauty of such a sight. Living stars, fluttering through the sky, alighting on the trees until they themselves looked made to be made of light, with strains of songs lilting in the background…she wasn’t sure it would ever let go of her imagination.
And it didn’t, even as she dressed in her warmest cloak with the rabbit fur lining, and politely declined the offer of company from Nuala, who gave her a guilty stare as she closed the kitchen door and set off through the beautiful gardens she had helped to grow. In summer the hedge walls would be an impenetrable maze of green, the only light coming from above. She noted a few gardeners, slight in stature with limbs the grey-brown of bark, weaving the limbs of the hedges together. More Lesser Fae servants — Iriadeni, she scolded herself silently — that she had never noticed before. She wondered what tribe they belonged to; if they were natives of the Night Court, or from another place. Had her brother-in-law taken in any refugees from the recent war? She’d never asked. But then, she mostly avoided him, preferring to talk to Feyre if she needed anything. She shuddered, thinking of him. He had given her a place to stay, it was true…but he was never anything but cold, like the stars above the mountains he called home. Even when he was pleasant or accommodating, if she were truly honest, she feared him. How he never stopped probing into her mind with strokes like claws along the edges, even in casual conversation. How he seemed bored with her, like a cat with a mouse, and might just dispatch her at any moment when he tired of the game. She preferred him distant.
She wandered around the bustling Palace of Bone and Salt, feeling disconnected and unsettled. She bought Nesta a set of small but viciously-sharp knives that could tuck into a sleeve or a pocket, hoping that such a gift would lessen the strain between them; a set of magical bubbles for Nyx that could be filled with light or water or smoke, and then, hesitating only briefly, climbed the steps of the jeweler’s shop she heard Amren liked to frequent.
When she left two hours later, a small blue box clutched in her hand, her cheeks were pink, but she kept her eyes up, looking around her in determination. She was going to notice everything she could from now on. Everything. If she wasn’t educated or knowledgeable, she at least could be observant.
There are many ways to be strong, she heard echo inside her head, and resolved to read more of Antynus when she got back to her room, just to have more to talk about when…if…he came to the party.