Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

'You could have healed them.'

'The bruises are rather the-- the point,' Eris rasped. His head craned back, straining the vivid blues and purples in the shape of fingers circling his neck. 'Show every-- everyone the... the brute you are.'

'Does your father condone your political theatre?'

'Whose idea you think it was?'

Azriel reached Eris's navel, circling it with the razor-sharp tip of Truth-Teller, leaving a thread-thin line of blood beading in its wake. The flat belly shuddered, abdominals seizing tight, like every other muscle of the body splayed across the desk. Azriel dragged the edge of his blade down the two or three inches of bare skin to the waistband of Eris's trousers. 'I think,' he whispered, and ever so gently sawed the edge along the first knot of Eris's laces. 'I think all you showed everyone is what a piece of shit you still are, exactly as they already know you to be. Dragging an innocent female's name through the mud five centuries after you left her to die alone.' The lace snapped, sliced through. Truth-Teller descended to the next. 'Provoking an attack you clearly expected to result. Thesan didn't even expel us from the Council for breaking the vow against violence. So tell me what exactly you think you gained from that little farce.'

'I always imagined you were the silent type. Here you are babbling on instead of getting down to business.'

Another lace broke. The flies of Eris's trousers gaped, enough to reveal a bush of red curls. Another lace, and the bulge of rigid flesh began to finish Azriel's work for him, fighting to free itself from dwindling restraint. 'You're exactly how I imagined you,' Azriel said coolly, and grabbed Eris by the shoulder and hip to flip him face-down. He pushed himself between Eris's long legs before they could settle and ripped at the trousers, yanking them down to bare his lily-white ass, and he delivered a hard slap right across it, putting his shoulder into it, jerking Eris's entire body and leaving a bright red imprint of his palm behind. Eris only hissed, too disciplined still to groan, but he had to try twice to get his elbows under him, trying to find his balance before Azriel slapped him again just as hard.

'Fuck,' Eris grunted, cheek bowing to the red maple beneath him. 'Do this-- do this with all your prisoners?'

'The ones who deserve it.' A third blow, and Azriel stopped to grope between Eris's thighs, digging his thumb into the trapped bollocks and leaking cock until he could hear the grinding of Eris's perfect teeth. 'You're sick,' Azriel whispered against the shell of that pointed ear, and gooseflesh broke in a wave from the warmth of his breath. 'You want this. You crave this. No wonder you never cared for Morrigan. She could never have satisfied the monster in you.'

'If you think this satisfies me--' Azriel gave the delicate ballsack a cruel twist, and Eris panted into the desktop. 'Amateur,' he wheezed, nails digging into wood as he arched against Azriel's weight on his back.

'What was the point of it? What were you trying to gain?' He ran Truth-Teller down the sweat-soaked back of Eris's white shirt, snagging threads and raising the occasional splotch of red as he travelled down the line of Eris's spine. Past the tails of the shirt, past the dimpled small of his back, dipping tenderly between the globes of his buttocks. That much threat did still Eris, at last, shivering slightly as Azriel followed the crack to the small hidden knot within, the tip of his knife just grazing it. Eris gasped, smothered as it was, so Azriel did it again. 'You love to talk just to hear your own voice. Talk, Eris. Tell me how you'll explain this to your father.'

'Who do you think taught me how to take it?'

Just the slightest flick of his wrist, enough to raise a painful welt. 'Try again. Every High Lord's son has the same sad story. If your daddy beat you, you deserved it.'

'I've had worse than that up my cunnyhole.' Azriel wasn't ready for Eris to buck against him, and he didn't move in time. Blood smeared his knuckles as he pulled back the knife. 'Wet and ready for you, lover,' Eris sneered, before Azriel grabbed him by the back of the neck and slammed him down against the desk again.

'You should be so lucky,' he growled, but it shook him, that gush of gore he hadn't meant to inflict. Eris had always tested his control, always tested his limits. He'd opened a real cut, he could feel it when he rubbed a finger down Eris's crack, deep enough to streak his thigh and soak his crumpled trousers. He tumbled Eris again, face-up, caught at the leg that tried to kick and trapped it to his chest, the other forced out wide. Eris's bound hands were clenched fists, his jaw locked, his eyes wide and pupils blown as he stared up at Azriel, daring him on. Azriel held those eyes with his own as he caught Eris's rampant erection in the circle of his thumb and set Truth-Teller to the sensitive crown. It was just the flat of the blade, now, but the way it made Eris pant with something like actual fear was sufficient. 'Just the tip, to start. I should make you eat it. I'm sure you've had worse in your foul mouth, too. What were you trying to gain by provoking a fight with me.'

Eris dared to grin at him. It had a manic look, those split lips parting on sharp canines. 'Not you, dearie.'

'Who.' He rubbed his thumb through the oily pre-cum leaking from Eris's slit. Eris tried to turn his head when Azriel jammed his thumb between those pearly whites, but the scrape of the knife on his shaft stilled him. Azriel smeared his thumb across Eris's lying tongue. 'Tell me who, and I won't leave you trussed up and debauched like this on your father's doorstep.'

'Such... pretty pictures... you paint.'

Azriel overlaid the pattern of his own fingers on Eris's neck. The ball of his thumb dug into Eris's adam's apple, his palm pressing down on the trachea, fingertips crushing the two pulse points on either side, occluding oxygen and bloodflow both. Eris's breath came laboured as Azriel squeezed, and his eyes began to roll up in his head, the whites showing beneath fluttering eyelashes of rose gold. Just before he would have lost consciousness, Azriel released, and Eris gave a great involuntary gasp, cut off when Azriel dug in again. And again.

Again. And again.

It took a few less seconds every time, til Eris lay limp, quiescent, even, no longer fighting whenever Azriel relented. How long it went on, Azriel couldn't have said; it took on an almost meditative quality, his mind calm and drifting as Eris revived again, again, again, completely within his control, finally, accepting, finally, his powerlessness beneath Azriel's command. With great reluctance Azriel reminded himself the purpose of his interrogation, denying with no small difficulty the little voice inside that wondered just how far he could go. Five minutes? Ten? Long enough for Eris's body to cool, that Autumn fire too drained to sustain him, for his erection to flag. Azriel released the flaccid organ to smooth his palm up Eris's stomach. Velvet-soft, the vulnerable core of him.

'Who, Eris,' he asked again, and Eris yielded it up at last on a weak inhale, so soft Azriel had to lean in to hear. 'What?'

Eris's bitten lips formed two syllables. This time, Azriel was sure.

Feyre.

'Good,' he remembered to say, caressing Eris's chest, resting his palm warm over Eris's erratically slow heartbeat. 'Well done, Eris. Very well done.' He released his cramping hand from Eris's neck to stroke back the fireling's sodden hair, wipe the unwilling tears from his eyes. 'You did exactly as I asked, Eris, you did so very well. Tell me why.'

Dazed amber eyes sought his, skittered away. 'You can't guess?' Eris mumbled.

'I want you to tell me.'

Eris's blueish lips twitched in something too weak to be a smile. 'They'll never.' Shallow breath, as Azriel rubbed his breastbone soothingly. 'Trust her now. Cursebreaker.'

Azriel stilled. 'Who won't trust her?'

The grin was a little stronger now, triumph irrepressible even as the rest of him gave up all resistance. 'Arrogant,' he croaked. 'Ignorant. Vicious. Burnt... burnt my mother. With stolen power.'

His hand fell away from Eris's skin. 'Not stolen. Given freely.'

'Not to be used against them.'

Azriel took a step back. Eris's legs dangled off the desk, his exposed groin faintly obscene until he curled slowly, painfully onto his side. Hauled himself up by the rope binding his wrists above his head, corded muscle twitching as nerves resuscitated inch by inch. Eris folded himself awkwardly off the desk, not quite sticking the landing, slipping to one knee before he braced himself against the desk. 'Use that knife for something helpful, will you,' he said, and coughed harshly as his voice scraped out of his abused throat.

Azriel scraped his own sweaty curls back from his forehead. Stirred himself to assist, bending to slice through the rope, and back out of Eris's space as the faerie knelt there unmoving. Breathing as if it hurt, his face turned away.

'Mead,' Azriel said, selecting it for its soothing honeyed syrup, and poured a measure into a crystal glass from the bar cart. He nudged it against Eris's shoulder, and held it still until Eris could gather himself to take it. 'How do you feel?'

'The fuck do you care?' Eris grimaced as he swallowed with difficulty. He clawed himself upright on shaky legs, and staggered as far as the chair Azriel had pushed out of the way when they'd first begun this an hour ago. The cuts Azriel had left on his torso were already closing, fae healing at work, though there was a blurry red handprint over his right pectoral. He tried to button his shirt, fumbling the small horn buttons. He got three and gave up, letting his head fall back to the cushion behind him.

Azriel poured whisky for himself, nevermind the irony of its Autumn heritage. He shot the first double, and poured again to sip it down. He cleaned Truth-Teller with two quick swipes against his sleeve and sheathed it at his thigh, and crossed his guest suite to the bath. His room was hardly as grand as that housing Rhys and Feyre, but Dawn's High Lord had been generous with the view, and from his large cut-glass window Azriel could see all the city laid out between the palace and the bay. The faint blush of the sun that never fully rose in Dawn cast a glow on every tiled rooftop, street lamps like little gems speckled across the rolling hills. It had some similarity with Velaris, in that, though he supposed every city did. It lacked the dramatic mountains, the redstone cliffs, the deep blue glint of the Sidra cutting like a ribbon bisecting the valley. He would have preferred being home, just now. But he had his duty, and he always did his duty.

When he discovered his glass empty again, he set it aside with a sigh. From within his duffel he pulled the loose woollen sleeping pants he had planned to wear tonight, and tossed them into Eris's lap. 'You can't walk the halls like that.'

Eris looked in no shape to walk anywhere, but Eris had always done his duty, too. They were very alike in that respect; any and everything for their Court. Eris roused himself to toe at his boots, warning Azriel off with a bleary glare from helping. When he finally got them off, he stripped his ruined trousers, leaving them crumpled on the floor. He dragged on Azriel's much larger and longer pants, cinching the waist as tight as it would go. That much effort left him exhausted, and he laid where he landed in the crook of the chair, then, head at an odd angle and uncaring.

'Don't sleep,' Azriel warned him, crouching to pick up the abandoned trousers. He stayed there in a comfortable squat, wings spread for balance, contemplating the male who'd come knocking at his door as if they had an appointment and offered him a rope. 'Why do you always do this,' he sighed, fingers dragging through drying blood as he folded the trousers over his hands. 'You could dispense with this nonsense and just tell me.'

'I can't, and you know it.' Eris rubbed his nose, let his hand fall to his lap, palm up, his elegant long fingers loosely curled in what was not, had never been, could never be an invitation. 'He's my High Lord. If he tells me not to talk, I can't just waltz in with the news on a silver platter.'

'You could if you renounced him.'

'Now who's talking just to hear his own voice.'

Yes. Eris would never walk away from Autumn. From what he'd done, from what he'd earnt. From what he wanted with every fibre of his being. Prythian would be better off without Beron Vanserra, there was no question in Azriel's mind. Very much at question, though, was whether Eris would be better or worse than his father. Five hundred years in Autumn's twisted power plays and treacherous plotting had produced an heir even more devious than his sire. Very, very much at question, how much of Eris was going to survive to reign. If any of the good left in him, smothered and weakening every minute, would be left by the end. Azriel had never been one to waste his hope on lost causes.

'And you,' Eris said then, brogue grating rough in the dim, silent suite. 'Myrddin trained you better. Never threaten to cut if you don't plan on following through, Spymaster.'

Azriel thrust to his feet. 'High Lord Myrddin is dead,' he said shortly, and stuffed the soiled trousers into his bag, to dispose of when he was back in Velaris and wouldn't leave a trace of what they'd done here.

'I didn't say I missed him.' Eris lifted his glass when Azriel returned with the mead. 'He didn't offer Morrigan for my benefit.'

'Don't.'

'Or perhaps you think she'd have been better off in Autumn all these centuries. That could have been her today, sitting there meek and powerless when High Lady Feyre Cursebreaker played with fire.'

'I said don't,' Azriel snarled.

'Another seven sons from her, perhaps. I wonder how many of them would look more like my father than me.'

Azriel seized him by the jaw. Mead splashed as Eris's glass tumbled to the marble floor, scattering chipped crystal as it rolled. 'Ask me if I'm prepared to follow through now, you pathetic worm of a male.'

'All that valour defending the lady's honour,' Eris hissed, sparks dancing in his hair for the first time all night, all day, eyes flickering as Azriel hulked over him. 'And you never even got to fuck her.'

Azriel shoved hard enough to knock the chair and its occupant over, sending Eris spilling with a crash. 'You delivered your message. Get out.'

He didn't believe it, the weakness Eris showed, picking himself up. He steeled himself to feel nothing as Eris dragged himself upright, favouring one wrist that he tucked to his chest, the little stumble as if he'd knocked his head and saw stars a moment. Eris limped barefoot for the door, leaving behind a bloodstain on the cushion that at least didn't show on the black of his pants. Azriel threw his boots after him, and Eris stood leaning his forehead on the door, a long minute, as if summoning the strength to bend down for them. Azriel seethed behind him, clenching and releasing his fists, trying to summon the strength of his own to stop giving Eris the reaction he fucking wanted, and no more able to resist than ever.

'Hybern,' he said, as Eris tried to turn the latch with one hand useless and the other full of his shoes. 'Will Beron join us? That was the whole point of this council.'

Eris angled his pale eyes back. 'Not for him, it wasn't.'

'Fuck, Eris.'

'Pleasure doing business with you, Shadowsinger,' Eris answered, and let himself out into the dark.

Chapter Text

'You know you don't have to,' Mor said softly.

Azriel offered a small shrug in reply. 'I could say the same to you.'

'Fine pair we are.' Her lovely face was pensive, gazing at the tall carved doors beyond which awaited their evening assignments. The drape of red silk clinging to her every curve was nothing new, not after centuries of deliberate provocation of her original home and the family that had tormented her within it, but only Azriel was allowed to see the girl who quailed, every time, for just a moment, before thrusting back her shoulders and brazening it out. Her hand was damp in his, clutching him tight. 'I hate this place,' she whispered.

As much as Azriel hated what went on beneath it, and yet both of them would walk through those doors in a moment, her to rule from the dais by fiat, he to rule from the shadows by fear. Rhysand, their High Lord and master, bade them do it all in his name, and had long since stopped asking how they felt about it. Azriel tried not to think that treasonous thought. It had lain heavy on him, lately, since Feyre had joined their court especially; Rhys found more and more excuses to stay home in the paradise of Velaris's blue skies and open air, cocooned with his beautiful mate, untroubled beyond their bubble of happiness even by those who laboured to make that bubble possible. It wasn't just Feyre, of course-- fifty years without their brother and their leader had given Azriel plenty of time to contemplate choices and who got to make them-- who didn't. If he was honest, and in this he tried not to be, Amarantha hadn't been the start of that, either. Maybe it had been the mantle of power, Rhys ascending to his father's throne too young with all its untouchable power. Azriel knew it had its tribulations, its trials, knew how lonely Rhys looked, sometimes, when every word he issued was life or death for everyone else. But it was lonely, too, on the other side of those orders, and they had little comfort in carrying them out no matter their own feelings.

Mor stood on the tips of her heeled shoes to kiss his cheek. 'An hour,' she said.

'Make it two, probably,' Azriel answered reluctantly, and squeezed her hand. 'I'll come find you when it's done.'

She wiped away the smudge of her lip rouge on his jaw. 'I'll be waiting.'

The Court of Nightmares was in a hum of high humour tonight, from a people far more often inclined to sullen silence when assembled for the privilege of their High Lord's attendance. Mor sat with queenly hauteur to receive obeisance in her cousin's name, but his absence lent the gathering an air of frivolity, triviality that loosened lips and turned stern frowns into uninhibited laughter. The usual quintet of musicians struck a more festive tune than usual, and young couples broke from the sidelines to form a line dance in the centre of the throne room. Faelight frolicked merrily on the polished ebony walls that boxed them in, shining brighter without the Lord of Night to dampen it, almost, if not quite, a warm glow. Azriel moved slowly round the edges of the room, noting who noted him, exchanging wary nods with a few who dared to meet his eyes, but no-one lingered on him as the mood began to spread. It seemed the entire palace breathed, for once, and when a servant passed him by with a tray of sparkling wine, Azriel accepted a glass with a murmur of thanks. The bubbles tickled his nose as he sipped, picking his path with less care than he might have, any other night here.

Til he found what he was looking for, at least. Azriel hung back behind the larger-than-life statue of a leering centaur, watching his target as he finished his drink, in no great rush to make his presence known. They occupied a small alcove beneath a typically gruesome tapestry depicting some battle or other, the tall male leaning over the petite girl who examined his palm in hers. She was a pretty thing, young, her wheat-coloured hair braided intricately to display her swan-like neck and childishly round cheeks. She had dimples on display, too, gazing up at her companion with impish delight.

'Long palms, you see,' she was saying, tracing the male's with the pink point of her varnished nail. 'And long fingers, but strong. Those are water hands.'

'Now you know we Autumn males have fire in the blood, not water,' Eris Vanserra chided her, pretending offence even as a smirk curled his lips up.

'I know you Autumn males take every opportunity to remind us so,' she fired back, and he laughed brightly. 'But it's true all the same. People with water hands are quite sensitive, intuitive, very in touch with their emotions and the emotions of those they care about. Compassionate and empathetic. See, your heart line here confirms it. See how it swoops up? And it's longer than average, and deep, which signifies your devotion and commitment.'

'Ah, now I'm sure you've quite mistaken me, my lady, for you make me sound much better than I am. The male you describe sounds like a very good person, though. I wish I could agree with your assessment.' Eris overturned his hand, enveloping hers to raise it to his lips. 'But I must wait for another time to hear more-- a prior commitment awaits, as it happens. Or is it fate?'

She giggled. 'I hope fate brings you back again soon, my lord,' she dared, quite boldly, even as a blush flushed her pale cheeks.

'I would not dare disappoint you, sweet witch, for fear you'd hex me with your wicked charms.' He bowed elegantly, matched by her curtsey, and left her gazing after him with longing.

'Laying it on a bit thick,' Azriel murmured, as the Autumn prince passed him by.

'I daresay she'll like it thick,' Eris retorted, snagging two flutes of wine from a servant and thrusting one to his side for Azriel to take as they fell into step together. 'Most ladies do. You're late.'

'Don't be vulgar. She's, what, fifteen at most?'

'And fresh as a blooming rose. I won't be the one to pluck her.' Eris drained his flute in three deep swallows, and left it on a pedestal beside a bust of some ancestor long forgotten. 'She'll be married by sixteen, one way or another, bedded and big with child by seventeen. Not that you care. Any female not named Morrigan gets paltry protection from you lot.'

Azriel bristled. 'What's that mean?'

Eris gave a flat look. 'Can we just get on with this? I haven't got all night, I'm needed back in my own court, thank you.'

They neared their destination, anyway. Azriel raised an arm, and Eris touched it lightly with those long narrow fingers. They ducked behind a tapestry, and vanished in the shadows. A fraction of a second later, the shadows deposited them in a dark hallway some two hundred feet below the throne room. Here there was no dancing, no merriment, no music-- not of instruments, anyway. A chorus of moans and the occasional scream accompanied the beat of their footsteps on damp, rough-carved stone, deep underground. The dungeons beneath the Hewn City were where Azriel conducted most of his grim work as the Night Court's spymaster. This was his domain, where he had reigned since before Rhys had become his High Lord, granted mastery of this clammy, lightless, airless metropolis of cells chiseled from the volcanic underbelly of the ancient mountain range. Eris shivered, wavered, for just a step, and Azriel waited for him to acclimate to the dim, his wide eyes blinking rapidly in Azriel's superior Illyrian vision. Or perhaps it wasn't just the darkness that caused Eris's skin to crawl. They didn't have such dungeons in Autumn. Autumn had given up their slaves happily enough, but only because Beron held the rights to a percentage of all prisoner labour profit. Any faerie guilty of anything in Autumn served their sentence in the mills, the quarries, or the mines, enriching the state that imprisoned them.

'Here,' Azriel said, when they had walked only a little farther down the oppressively claustrophobic corridor, he leading and Eris following close behind. He unlocked the rusting iron door with a key his shadows fetched for him, seemingly from nowhere. 'There's candles, let me get the flint--'

A snap of those long fingers, and flame appeared by magic, lighting the candelabra and the small brazier at once. Welcome heat pulsed from the coals, and a less welcome stench of burning dust. Eris watched expressionlessly as Azriel set the latch, locking them in.

'Your cloak,' Azriel offered politely. Eris shed his hip-length cape of deep red edged in gold thread, handing it over. Azriel hung it from a peg by the door, and turned back with a raised brow. 'What happened to you?' he asked, pointing at the linen sling that held Eris's right arm immobilised to his chest. The bulk of bandaging under his shirt was obvious without the pleats of the cloak disguising it.

Eris pulled a little grimace. 'Cai.'

It took a moment to process that. 'Your brother Cai?'

'He always was a vicious little back-stabber. Now I can say that quite literally.'

'Your brother stabbed you in the back?' Vanserras. Everything everyone thought them to be, and usually worse. 'When? Why haven't you healed it yet?'

'This morning, and Father was so pleased with the smug shit he spent the day parading us around for the amusement of the court.' Eris tugged at the knot of the sling, picking it apart to shed the cloth to the floor. 'I'll fix it tomorrow.'

'Did you kill him?' Azriel wanted to know.

Eris raised a brow of his own. 'Why would I do that? He was just taking his shots in a timely moment. Probably an impulse. If he'd been serious about it he'd have used a poisoned blade.'

'Your brother tried to murder you,' Azriel said again, not comprehending why Eris seemed to be genuinely dismissive of the crime. 'And he got damned close, it looks like. Sounds serious to me.'

'When there's six other brothers between you and the throne, you look for chances to trim the family tree. It wasn't personal.'

There were things in life Azriel was never going to understand, and Eris was a good lot of them. 'Never mind,' Azriel sighed, and cracked his knuckles, stretched his hands out, flexing them loose. 'Are you ready?'

'So sorry to keep you waiting with my distastefully personal details, Shadowsinger.'

'You're the one on a schedule.'

Eris performed another meticulous bow, hand over his heart. 'At your convenience, good sir.'

Eris was already bent over, so Azriel availed himself and caught the male in a headlock, dragging him to the wall where a single set of shackles hung waiting. He pressed Eris to the stone face-first, keeping him in place with one knee as he clasped the iron rings about Eris's wrist, the good side first and the injured side second, securing them high above his head. Eris's breath hitched, hissing between his teeth at the strain on his wound, but he said nothing as Azriel reached around his hips to unlace his trousers and pull them down to his knees. Azriel had chosen only one tool for the occasion, summoned to his hand by his shadows, and he ran it down the tender skin of Eris's backside, rolling it delicately, letting the shape of the crook be felt, the length of the rod, cool rattan wood warming quickly through contact. The cane whistled through the air as Azriel gave it a test swing, once, twice, a third time, Eris tenser with every swish. When Azriel finally used it for its purpose, laying a single stripe across the backs of Eris's thighs, Eris flinched.

'You can tell me to stop,' Azriel reminded him, caressing the welt the cane raised instantly.

'Why you feel the need to waste your breath every time--'

Azriel interrupted the answer he'd known he'd get with another blow. Another, and another. Eris was one clenched muscle by the fifth, seized up tight, knees and elbows scraping at the stone as if he'd crawl through it to escape if he could. His thighs were bright red already, striped from each strike, but he wasn't sweating yet, hadn't cried out, yet, and Azriel switched hands to come at him from the opposite side next. The slap of the cane on flesh was like lightning, and by the tenth there was precious little chance of Eris enjoying chairs tomorrow. By fifteen, Azriel was raising bruises, and Eris finally made a sound, the smallest whimper escaping him. Azriel paused, smoothing his palm down the furious heat of the swellling contusions, checking for blisters.

'Beron's been seeking terms with Hybern,' Eris gritted out.

'That's nothing we don't already know.' Azriel stepped back, and swung harder. The chains rattled as Eris swayed, yanking on them, a rosy line blooming on his left buttock. Azriel laid its twin next, and Eris jerked the other way. 'What terms?'

Not enough to break, not yet. Azriel bowed the cane a bit between his hands, testing its resilience. He flipped it to strike with the crook, not just the rod, and Eris yelled before clamming back up for the next three blows.

'What terms, Eris? This is your last warning.'

'Fucking get on with it.'

He'd been holding back the strength he was more than capable of delivering. He didn't, for the next swing. Eris writhed, cheek scraping the rough wall as he tried to lean away. Azriel didn't relent, striking in the exact same spot with the exact same force, again and again and again until Eris finally broke, howling just like those prisoners in the cells arrayed dozens deep in the cells to either side of them. Azriel gave him three more for making him wait for it so long, and then he pushed up against Eris's rigid body, knee nudging between those flaming thighs, the straps and buckles of his leather harness scratching against tender abrasions til Eris moaned in garbled protest.

'Terms, Eris. Now.'

'Territory,' Eris gasped. 'Old borders. Before the Wall. The hill country of Spring, cropland in Summer.'

'He's been singing that tune for five hundred years. What else?'

Sweat now dripped liberally down Eris's neck, staining the collar of his shirt, soaking the locks of wine red hair that tangled in it. 'Gold, silver, tin-- our land is mined out. He'll support Hybern against the north, first, and the continental courts, next.'

'Nothing new. All of Prythian is mined out. That's not enough, Eris.' He brought the crook up between Eris's heaving belly and the wall, sliding the rod against Eris's cock and bollocks like a bow on the string of a violin. 'Don't make me turn you around.'

Eris's breath hitched. It might have been equal parts eager and afraid he'd follow through on that threat. Immaterial to wonder whether Eris had been born such a sick bugger or just learnt to cope the only way he could, but it never failed to drag this out, and abruptly Azriel was exhausted to the bone. He just wanted to go home. He just wanted a quiet night in the library, perhaps, reading a book alone with a glass of wine, far away from war and all the crass, ugly things it demanded of them.

'You asked for it,' he said, warned, and pulled back to wind up his arm. Then--

It was an impulse. An opportunity, not premeditated, Eris's heaving back slick against his chest and vulnerable. Azriel didn't stop to think on it before he jammed his thumb into the meat of Eris's trapezius, right where the bandage was. Eris let out an explosive 'Fuck!' as he thrashed, Azriel digging into his wound til blood answered, flowering under his assault to a palm-sized splotch of sopping red when Azriel finally relented. Eris sagged immediately, breathing in shaky bursts, wracked with shudders that Azriel could feel, pressed up against him, holding him up.

He had to no more than raise the crook, then. Eris's eyes squeezed tightly shut at the sight of it, wet escaping down his cheeks. 'Use of the Cauldron,' he croaked. 'Turn all of Prythian into Autumn. All Prythian's magic would respond to Beron alone. True immortality, sustained forever by endless power. He won't have to be High King. There won't be any High Lords left to subjugate.'

That was worse than their worst guesses. 'What's stopping Hybern from accepting?'

Eris's head fell forward against the wall with no strength left to hold it up. 'Same problem as the rest of us, I'd imagine. You can't trust my father farther than you can spit.'

That the fragile balance of millions of lives depended on Beron Vanserra's principles should worry any reasonable male. Rhys was not going to have a reasonable reaction to that.

Azriel let out a shaking breath of his own. 'Well done, Eris. Very well done.' He eased away, a bit at a time, stroking now at Eris's shoulders, his waist, skirting the edges of the livid bruises on his hindquarters to rub soothing circles on his hips. 'Can you stand on your own?'

Eris gave a tiny uncertain nod, and with that Azriel backed away, letting him collect himself. Support himself. When Azriel reached up to release the shackles, Eris let his arms fall, but not completely limp, leaning on the wall for support. Azriel took the chance of leaving him there, momentarily, to hide the crop away with his shadows and summon instead a wash basin and soft cotton flannel. When he went to his knees behind Eris, the male shuffled on his feet, but allowed it. Azriel gently pressed the wet cloth to the burning welts on Eris's thighs, waiting out the involuntary twitches of pain.

'I hope you sleep on your stomach,' he said. 'I can get ice, instead.'

'Can think of better things for you to do whilst you're down there,' Eris rumbled, hand dropping down to cover his. Water hands, mimicking the little circles Azriel had drawn, up and down the mounds of his scarred knuckles. Drawing his hand back around the hip towards the half-hard flesh in front, instead.

'Is there anything you don't get off on?' Azriel pushed back to his feet. He wet the rag once more, and draped it about Eris's neck, using one corner to wipe his face. The dregs of a hot flush left his pale cheeks splotchy, and his long eyelashes were laced with moisture that Azriel carefully blotted away. Eris let him, lower lip caught between his teeth. 'What are you needed for, back in Autumn? That had you in such a rush.'

'Price of admission already paid, dearie. You want another go, that's another toll.' Eris pushed his hand away, and bent to haul up his trousers. He ground his teeth as he gingerly shimmied them on and laced them. 'Cauldron, that stings.'

Cauldron. It was going to take a century or two for Azriel to get over the sour surge of resentment that word raised in him, not to mention the phantom throb in his chest, Jurian's ash arrow that left no physical mark beyond the memory. 'Turn around,' he said, thinking on that, and brushed a strangely remorseful finger over the dislodged bandage hanging from Eris's wound. 'I'll set a fresh one. Take off your shirt.'

'And here's me thinking you weren't in the mood.' Eris shed his sleeve with a little cringe, and Azriel peeled away the soiled linen, using it to mop carefully at the fresh blood and pus leaking from the narrow, clearly deep puncture. Whatever weapon used had gone in and come out cleanly, at least. He supposed they had plenty of practise in Autumn. His shadows produced a roll of new winding cloth, a frequently required supply in the Hewn City, and he began to wrap Eris's shoulder, securing the strip around his chest twice before tying it off.

'I was her age.'

'Whose age?'

'Ophelea,' Eris said. Azriel lowered the sling over Eris's head and helped him settle his arm in its hold. 'The girl whose virtue you were so concerned with.'

'You were her age,' Azriel repeated. 'All right. I was her age, once, too. Everyone was her age once.'

Eris turned to face him fully. The air of haughty arrogance suited him more naturally than it did Morrigan, so Azriel had always thought, as it did any High Fae with the unlimited privilege of birth and wealth and power. The complete and total lack of consequences for everything from attempted murder to-- well. Not total.

'You all act like I was some ancient lech preying on an innocent girl. I was her age when my father promised me to Morrigan, the price of an alliance with Night. A boy who'd never even been kissed.'

Enough consequences to leave those phantom scars for centuries, yes. Just never suffered by the right people.

Azriel met amber eyes squarely. 'Were you too young to know right from wrong?'

Eris's lips flickered in a grim smile, gone almost before it registered. 'Tell Rhysand I wished him good luck finding a better bribe to win my father back over. He'll have to reach for more than a betrothal, these days.' He plucked his cloak from the peg, and draped it over his shoulder. 'I look forward to that conversation. Next time we can try the rack or the iron maiden, eh? I've always been partial to thumbscrews, personally. The old ways are the best, although I appreciate your creativity, Spymaster.'

Azriel sneered. 'Do you never tire of this farce, Eris?'

'You have no idea how very fucking tired I am,' Eris answered wearily, and with a snap of his fingers he was gone.

The party was still in swing when Azriel rejoined it. The dancing had taken over more of the throne room, half the attendees now, all ages joined together in clapping and whirling and leaping at the flourish of the music. Mor slumped on the throne, now, her little chin propped up on one fist, twirling the stem of a half-empty flute in the other. Azriel stopped to bow, and climbed the dais to her side.

'Can we go now?' she asked, tilting her head up to him, her bright hair curling about her cheek as sweetly as a girl's. Azriel's fingers twitched at his side, instinctively wanting to reach to tuck a stray lock behind her pointed ear. He refrained.

Ophelea had found herself a dance partner. A youth closer to her own age, eyes adoring as he held her hand and slim waist as if it were the most delicate porcelain, a tentative grin on his lips as she said something breathless and free. They vanished into the throng, and Azriel turned away.

'Let's go,' he agreed, and stood back rather than offer her a hand to rise. Mor hardly noticed, gathering her long skirts and striding down the steps unaided, unaccompanied. And that was how Azriel followed her, alone in a crowd.

Chapter Text

Darkness.

His shadows needed at least a little light, to cast the darkness in which they lived. There was none here, the darkness absolute. They muttered and they resisted, cringing back from it, til he had to order them on, something he'd rarely had to do. Usually they were eager to help, insatiably curious-- gossipy things, his shadows, with a quenchless appetite for scandal and secrets and sin, all things the Forest House and its crafty Vanserra occupants provided on the regular. But the Forest House had been especially dark, of late, its denizens scuttling about, eyes too low to look at anything, an oppressive silence blanketing even the servant areas far from its moody nobles. The only sound in the kitchens was knives on cutting boards, the occasional clang of pots and spoons. Even the horses in the stables, the hounds in their kennels, the hawks in the mews hunkered low, drawing no attention to themselves. And at the centre of it all, Beron Vanserra stalked the halls, hand never far from the sword in his belt, sparks dripping from his fingers at the slightest provocation. The stench of fear was so strong even the shadows stank of it.

'Anything, Az?'

Yet no matter where they looked, and Azriel had spent hour upon hour directing them into every nook and cranny, they hadn't found what he sought. Not in the family quarters in the western ell. Not in the throne room or war room or the office of the seneschal or the treasury or the armoury. Not in the training yard with the Autumn Guard, and that was odd, for the soldiers trained daily and all the Vanserra brothers joined them when they could, and so far as Azriel could tell from his intelligence at the other Courts, there was no reason the brothers couldn't be present for the morning practises. And, accordingly, three of them appeared like clockwork, Cai the youngest bar his exiled brother Lucien, cocky and usually put on his ass within the hour by the Captain of the Guard, Brogán the middle brother who mainly kept his head down and did the minimum asked of him, and Artur the eldest after Eris, who seemed especially arrogant of late, stalking about snapping orders and challenging any who dallied even the slightest in obeying. Eris would have been the one to put Artur in his place, any other time.

But that was the problem. Eris wasn't there. Eris hadn't been there in weeks. Eris hadn't been anywhere in weeks, since the morning after the battle with Hybern.

'This is starting to feel a fool's errand,' Cassian muttered. 'Good riddance, I say.'

'We need to know,' Amren snapped. 'If only to know which way Beron will jump now that Eris has challenged him.'

Darkness.

Inky black, thicker than night. Impenetrable.

But for the tiniest crack. The shadow flattened, stretched, thin as a pin to squeeze through. Something was blocking the other end. A torn fingernail, scraping at it, a desperate scratch, scented iron with blood. It fell away, useless against the impregnable stone, and--

'I have him,' Azriel said, hearing his voice as it from far away, only the smallest part of his consciousness still in the room with his brothers in Velaris. The rest he recalled from dozens of other shadows, concentrating everything on the one that had found the missing Autumn heir.

Fuck. Not missing. Very much where he'd been deliberately placed.

'It's the mausoleum,' he reported, stomach giving a sick lurch. 'He's in one of the tombs. They've buried him alive.'

Too dark to see any gleam of skin, even the whites of Eris's eyes. But the shadow quickly expanded to the cramped dimensions of the tomb, barely high enough for Eris to lift his head. Barely enough oxygen from that tiny crack in the granite sarcophagus for Eris to breathe. What little air there was rank with rotting flesh-- they'd locked him in with a body still decomposing, and its noxious liquids stained his clothes, slicked his skin, soaked his hair. And his own filth, too, vomit, urine and excrement-- blood. The smothering tang of blood overlaid it all, his hands scraped raw from clawing at the underside of the impossibly heavy lid, his wrists blistered and burning from the faebane manacles that wrapped them, preventing the healing of the seeping wounds in his gut, his shoulder, his knee, the crushed cheekbone and orbital socket, the broken nose. Eris's bare foot scraped along the bones of the tomb's original occupant, panicked kicks with no-where to go. He sucked in precious air to scream, and only the faintest croak emerged. He'd been there long enough to lose his voice begging for release.

Rhys was a shade paler than usual, the sense of his presence alongside Azriel's fading as Azriel opened his eyes. 'But he's alive.'

'For now.'

The High Lord of Night stood to face the window, not his counselors. The House of Wind overlooked the city as it came alive with twilight, gold glowing from every household as families lit their lamps against the coming dusk, the rich oranges and lavenders of the setting sun stretching far as the eye could see, all that open sky for those lucky enough to breathe it in.

Those who hadn't lost their freedom to do so because they'd believed Night Court would back them, and it hadn't.

'I can get in alone,' Azriel said. 'I've done it before. I'll wait for midnight--'

'Forest House is one of the most guarded places in Prythian. Beron's paranoia is legendary. Justifiable paranoia, if we encroach on his lands to steal away one of his sons.'

'We can't just leave him there,' Azriel said, leaning over Rhys's desk, palms flat on map of Prythian spread across it. 'We swore to help him. We sealed the bargain.'

'I sealed it,' Rhys corrected without turning. 'And I promised to back his coup, not to launch it for him. If he failed, it's over. We can't risk another war so soon after the last one.' At last he moved, but only to follow the launch of a flock of birds, wheeling wildly through the air like a living cloud. 'Eris of all people would understand.'

'Stop wasting your energy on the boy and focus on finding out what he let slip during interrogation,' Amren advised. 'Let's not rely on hope that he hasn't spilled too much about us.'

'He wouldn't,' Azriel began.

'His entire relationship with us for a hundred years running has been sharing intelligence only when he's in so much pain he can break past Beron's compulsion,' Cassian pointed out, in the reasonable tone he took whenever he and Azriel argued, whenever he and Rhys were ganging up on Azriel, particularly, and it grated on his nerves like no other. 'You really think Beron couldn't find his breaking point?'

'If Beron's already moved on to execution, then Eris has said everything there was to say.' Amren finished her glass of wine and pushed it aside with a moue of distaste, still coming to terms with her unMaking. Her foul mood was not improved by the experience, and Azriel for one wished her to take her attitude elsewhere, where she couldn't infect Rhys with her nihilism.

'Eris is still alive,' he argued one more time. 'And we have the means to keep him that way. We have the obligation to. He came through for us.'

If he lives through today, Eris had said, the hot coastal wind blowing back his red hair as they stood on the highest point of the hill overlooking the armies below, the Autumn troops Eris had brought against Beron's wishes, because he had their loyalty, not the High Lord, he'd spent centuries fighting in their ranks, and he'd seen reality when Beron saw only personal gain. If my father lives, I probably won't, Eris said. This is the best chance I'm going to have for decades. Maybe the only chance. Are you with me?

His memory of the battle was patchy. Going with Feyre to rescue Elain and the human girl. Tamlin breaking ties with Hybern to get them out. He'd stayed with the High Lord, wings shredded, not yet useless-- not accepting, yet, that he'd been crippled, not when he could still hold a blade and keep his feet. Holding Cassian's guts in his hands, hot and stinking as they spilled from the gaping slash in his belly. Losing Tamlin some time later, plunging into a knot of Hybern fae and emerging, apparently, alive, but that trailed off into a blank space he couldn't fill.

The aftermath was even patchier than that. Waking in a medical tent, the dead and the dying crammed together all the way out the front into the churned mud outside, more arriving every minute as exhausted crews searched the enormous battlefield for friends and allies. Staggering across that charnelhouse horror himself, tattered wings dragging painfully behind him-- he'd seen Lucien out there, a bloody bandage wrapped around his head, using his fire magic to light pyres of Hybernian dead piled like cordwood taller than a male's head. He'd seen the High Lords congregate a few at a time, hands clapping shoulders, wrist grasped to wrist in agreements that might turn into lasting treaties. Humans, largely staying to themselves close to shore and the ships they'd arrived on, but accepting supplies offered by grateful fae. Jurian, who'd had the audacity to give Azriel a jaunty wave as if their last encounter hadn't nearly been a deadly one, talking stiltedly with Miryam and Drakon, five hundred years of history at last reaching closure. He'd heard the story of Rhys's resurrection by the other High Lords and Feyre-- heard the sounds coming from Rhys and Feyre's tent, and hurried onward-- heard endless tales of this or that heroic rescue, noble sacrifice, pointless death-- and seen the empty stretch of ground where Autumn's troops had been stationed, and were already vanished, leaving their dead behind to be buried by others. He'd never seen Eris again.

No-one had done it on purpose, and yet all the same it had happened. None of them had been in position to help Eris when he struck. He might never see Eris again, now.

'Amren's right,' Rhys said heavily. 'We need to worry about Beron. Concentrate your spies on him. And it might not hurt to try to meet with him. Find some excuse to parlay. If he accepts, that would tell us a great deal.'

'That he's just desperate now Hybern's dead,' Cassian said cynically. Probably realistically.

'That's to our advantage, too, then,' Rhys answered. 'If he needs a friend, he'll come cheap, and any business we might have had with Eris will be water under the bridge.' He turned at last, and met Azriel's stubborn stare. 'If you need an order, it's an order.'

Azriel swallowed back whatever words rose in his throat. He didn't even know what he would have said, if he'd allowed them out. He'd lived with plenty of terrible things in his time. The sound of Eris sobbing in the dark would tuck away into that mental box with the rest of them, never to be looked at again, and he could live with it. He would live with it.

'Understood,' he said, just a little hoarse, and he stood back with his hands clasped behind his back, under the shelter of his wings. His palms were a little damp, when he dug his fingernails into them hard enough to feel it through his scars. Leave, he instructed the shadow in the tomb with Eris, and it obeyed, slipping out through the crack. At least Eris would never know he'd been abandoned twice.

**

Beron accepted their request for a meeting. And countered it with an invitation to hold that meeting on his own ground in Autumn. Not ideal, Rhys assessed it. Not without its upside, Feyre countered. Let him show off. Let him show us what he's got, so we know better what to do about it. And so the invitation was accepted, and a date was agreed upon, three weeks out.

Azriel allowed himself to think nothing of that date, and how long a faerie might survive without food or drink or magic. It wasn't three weeks, and that was all he needed to know.

They formed up in the foyer of the House of Wind to make the jump. Formal uniforms for Cassian and Azriel, no weapons-- visible weapons, anyway-- only two siphons each, the greatest profession of peaceful intention they could make. Feyre wore a gown with a modest neckline and long sleeves in deference to Autumn's conservative nature, though in deference to her own reputation as a warrior those sleeves were leather and the bodice too, more reminiscent of armour even than the Illyrians in their fitted black tunics. Rhys matched his mate in a midnight blue that complimented his brown skin and inky hair, silver stars embroidered on the high collar and tails of the coat. Mor had declined to join them, and Amren, it was decided, was too likely to say something provocative at the wrong moment. Their Autumn Emissary might have made a useful addition, but that, too, Rhys worried, would be read as a provocation. Azriel had been hours debriefing Lucien on any useful details, and, under orders he'd been insulted to receive, had said nothing about Lucien's eldest brother.

Rhys winnowed them to the coordinates provided, and in the blink of an eye they stood in the courtyard of the Forest House. Azriel had been there many times, never by invitation, and instead of taking in the impressive facade of the ancient sprawling compound that was most definitely not just a house, he scanned the perimetre, noting the Autumn Guard surrounding them, the lack of any activity one might expect in a busy palace, the presence of a waiting pair of lesser fae in the red and gold uniform of the court bowing to greet them. They hastily stood back as Beron himself came bursting through the intricately styled glass doors to their verandah. The High Lord of Autumn stood a little taller, his presence a little more weighted in his own lands, as Rhys's was in his; his power was like a physical sensation prickling the skin of any before him, and Azriel's siphons glowed in challenge. He hid them as he joined Cassian in bowing. Rhys and Feyre, of course, did not bow, greeting Beron as equals, pressing hands.

'Ah, that familiar spark,' Beron said, as he kissed Feyre's knuckles. 'And now in you as well, Rhysand. Tell me, do you enjoy the taste of my Autumn magic?'

'A warmth and a sweetness both,' Rhys answered, courteous even at this jab. 'I never knew the allure of it. I thank you again, my Lord, for your sacrifice on my behalf, and my mate's.'

'Gifts given between friends,' Beron said, his smile sharp enough to cut. 'Come, come. Mulled wine awaits you inside, it helps with the chill. Watch those wings of yours,' he directed at Cassian and Azriel. 'We're not built for such specimens, here-- their height, I mean. Wouldn't want to injure them on the door jamb.'

'Thanks for the warning,' Cassian answered neutrally, even as he snapped his wings, just enough to show their breadth and heft, before tucking them in. Azriel didn't smile, on the outside at least.

The verandah led directly to what appeared to be a private dining room, a long table set with sumptuous Autumnal treats. A large cauldron of that mulled wine steamed gently, and the air was thick with cinnamon and tart ginger and earthy cardamom from the sweets arrayed to the left, and aromatic rosemary and sage and pepper to the right where a whole roast suckling pig lay surrounded by squashes swimming in butter, swedes and cabbage and parsnips stewed with honey, the famous smoked salmon from Autumn's royal rivers dotted with roe and crème fraîche. 'Eat, eat,' Beron directed them, grabbing a perfect red apple from the bowl, 'we don't stand on ceremony here. I hope you brought your appetites.'

'Everything looks wonderful,' Feyre complimented the spread on behalf of her court. 'You shouldn't have gone to such trouble.'

'Nonsense, there's nothing like breaking bread amongst friends and family to satisfy the soul.' Beron looked up as a door on the far side of the room opened, and beckoned. 'Excellent, yes, come in, my love. My wife Mairéad, you know,' he said, enclosing the ever-elegant Lady of Autumn within the circle of his arm. She bent her knees in a slight curtesy, outranked in her own home by Feyre the High Lady who smiled rather queasily in return. 'Ah, and my sons. Come in, boys, greet our guests. These rogues are Cai and Brogán, and of course you're familiar with Artur, my heir.'

Rhys never blinked. 'Artur,' he greeted the male who came to stand self-importantly beside his father. Big-boned, like his father, bulky with muscle and a little extra flesh as well, with the same arrogant smile all Vanserras perfected from the cradle. 'I heard you fought with great valour against Hybern's men.'

'Left a pile of bodies yea high,' Beron said proudly, ruffling his son's hair. 'Sit, everyone, take your ease. Ah, the wine-- no, out with you,' he told the servant who shuffled forwards in the crowd to reach for the goblets. 'Servants, always listening,' he confided in Rhys, who smiled affably in reply. 'My father only employed the deaf for that very reason. But we no longer condone maiming the staff so cruelly, do we, in these modern times. Far better to have someone you trust absolutely with your secrets, isn't it. Eris! Drinks for our guests.'

Feyre froze, ever so slightly, in the act of seating herself in the chair Brogán held for her. Her eyes darted sidelong at her mate as Rhys, more practised at remaining visibly unmoved, settled himself, shaking out a napkin in his lap and reaching for the nearest platter of roast pheasant. Cassian caught Azriel's eyes, or tried to. Azriel made no bones about staring. Beron wanted a reaction, and there was no way not to react to this.

Eris. Alive. Thin, gaunt, even, as he bowed from the door. Eyes never raising to meet anyone's as he ladled wine into goblets, one by one, and delivered them around the table, Beron and then his mother, whose stiff shoulders and downcast eyes resisted recognition. Then Rhys and Feyre, Eris bowing to each of them, and his brothers next. Artur deliberately sloshed the goblet, splashing hot liquid on Eris's hand and leaving a burn mark, but Eris reacted not at all, even as Artur chortled as if it were a great joke. Cassian got his next, and he made an awkward thanks to which Eris responded as little as he had his brother's insult. Azriel was served last, and he found himself holding his breath. No visible injuries, though there were still faint rings of white skin about the bony wrists that placed the goblet at his plate. No scent of the crypt, no open wounds, only soap, a little strong on the lye. The pointed ears that had once bore several gold piercings and rings were bare, now, his thick ginger hair shorn to mere stubble close to the skull, and his rough clothing was drab, even severe, unlike his peacocking brothers shining in silks and rich colours, but there didn't appear to be any other mark on him. Still, he was not at all the same male. When he retreated, it was to stand against the wall, hands folded before him, head down, exactly like the servants waiting to be called.

And having made his showing, Beron paid no more attention at all to his eldest son. He piled his plate high with pork and vegetables, even joking jovially that his wife was always after him to eat more roughage, flirtatiously stealing a bite of kale from her plate. Rhys began to eat, as well, and Feyre recovered herself to join in, sharing small talk with the Autumn lord. Cassian, too, ate his share, and that was remarkable enough, two lesser fae sat at table with Beron Vanserra, sharing his food; Azriel knew better than to make a scene, not needing the scrape of Rhys's claws against his mind to warn him. He ate, but couldn't make himself do more than pick at his food, all of it dry as sawdust in his mouth.

Business waited til after everyone had had their fill, and Beron moved briskly to separate his guests from each other, sending the ladies off on a tour of the House as he dragged Rhys and Artur back to the verandah, fresh goblets of wine in hand. 'Now bring your male with you, I want to know his opinion on our prospects,' Beron suggested, demanded without so much as a twitch of his smile, and Rhys gestured Azriel to join them, Cassian to follow after the ladies and other brothers instead, when it would have suited them better to switch. Still, it was to be expected that Beron wouldn't just happily send Night's renowned spymaster on a wander through his home, and so Azriel found himself standing deferentially to one side as the High Lords stood at the rail overlooking the spread of the great valley beyond. And, too, it didn't matter where Azriel stood physically, though it was a common misconception and one he encouraged: it gave him cover for the individuality and independence of his shadows, each one a single entity capable of their own reconnaisance. They were already hard at work, had been since they arrived, and they raced through Forest House on a mission to gather any intelligence they could find. But it was the one he'd set to follow Eris that he concentrated on, listening with only half an ear to the High Lords as the little creature trailed its quarry.

Eris had helped the servants clear the table when the dining room was abandoned, carrying the tray with the half-eaten pig through long hallways and down many stairs to be delivered at last to the kitchens. There he was set to scrubbing pots in the sink, and he accepted the assignment without protest, without any sound at all, as the other servants gave him a wide and wary berth. There was a Guardsman sat at one of the worktables, eating a plate of leftovers and watching vigilantly as Eris finished his assignments, next taking the rubbish to be composted in the garden, dragging out heavy buckets of dirtied water to be drained into the sewer, even going to hands and knees to scrub at the floor when all others were dismissed. Eris performed each task diligently, uncomplaining, even going back over a spot when the spitboy inadvertantly tracked in muddy footprints returning from the garden. The cook inspected his work, and deemed it well enough. For his trouble Eris was given the heel of a loaf smeared with congealed drippings from the roast, the cook looking rather ashamed with the paltry offering, but Eris ate it so quickly Azriel was sure it was all that was allowed, maybe all he'd been given all day.

The Guardsman rose, at that, and directed Eris to walk before him, and out of the kitchen, Azriel's shadow dogging their feet as they crossed briefly outside-- Eris's head didn't rise, but his eyes did, looking with painful longing at the distant warmth of the setting sun-- but rounding a corner to a new door, low enough they both had to duck, yielding immediate stairs spiralling down into torch-lit darkness. The cellars. Apples and pickled things in jars and thousands of vegetables all stored for the royal family's use, then another level lower still, the wine cellar, thousands of bottles all neatly racked, barrel upon barrel of whisky stacked to the ceiling. Next level down, now low enough to feel the pervading chill of earth that never warmed in this seasonal court, skinned and butchered animals hung from hooks, everything from little pheasants to badger and rabbit to huge boars and stags, all dressed and waiting. And, through a door just beyond that, the ice house. The Guardsman unlocked it, and Eris went in without pausing, or would have if the Guard had not stopped him. Quickly, silently, he pressed something into Eris's hand. Then let him go, and locked him in. He took up a stance outside the door, huddling in his long cloak as he settled in for-- for the entire night? Quite probably.

Go in, Azriel directed his shadow, but it was already anticipating that order, slipping under the door. There was little enough to observe through its gaze, being dark as a cave inside the little room. Most of the space was taken up by a huge block of ice packed about with straw for insulation. Eris sat cramped against the wall, the secret gift from the Guardsman at his lips-- a bit of dried venison, tearing at it with his teeth and hardly chewing as he gobbled it. When it was gone, all too soon, Eris turned to press his side to the wall, Azriel thought to get himself more space to stretch out, but instead Eris curled into a tight huddle, knees to his chest, one arm tucked in, head bowed wearily. But with the other hand he felt continuously about him-- the dirt floor, the open space beyond, stretching up as if reaching for the low ceiling--

Reminding himself he wasn't still trapped in that tomb, Azriel realised. Again, and again, compulsively checking. Alone in the dark and cold, but at least not still in that tomb.

'Truly spectacular,' Rhys was saying, 'Don't you think so, Azriel? We have such forests in the far north, but they're barely habitable. By fae, at least. I grew up hearing stories of enormous bears big as two Illyrians stood atop each other, their fur as white as snow. I've never seen one for myself, alas.'

'Now that would be a hunt,' Beron mused. 'I used to join Greorgy on hunts in Winter. They have to cull the wolves every year. Sly things, wolves, and they can run for days without tiring. Seals are good hunting, too, though there's so many of them it's more a game than a test of wits.'

'My father enjoyed those hunts as well.' Rhys smiled, and Beron smiled back, neither expression reaching the canny eyes that watched each other like hawks. 'I wonder if we could impose on Kallias to resume them. It would be a great thing, all the High Lords to join each other once a year. Keep relations strong.'

'Aye, it would,' Beron agreed. 'I worked out many a treaty on a hunt.'

'Pity to have to wait.'

Beron finished his wine. 'Well, perhaps we need not wait for Kallias. After all, we're already talking, aren't we?'

'Do you want to talk?' Rhys asked him quietly, hours later.

Once more in the House of Wind, rain pattering lightly on the skylights. There was a chill in the air despite the roaring fires in the hearth-- perhaps it was only Azriel who could feel it, though, for everyone else shed their cloaks and gloves and went sprawling in the chairs in the sitting room, heads tipping back to the cushions with heavy sighs as they let down their guards at last. Amren and Mor, even Lucien all awaited them, eager for the news, though Amren was the only one impatient enough to demand it before everyone had settled in.

'Not really,' Azriel replied. 'There's nothing new to say, is there?'

'Not really.' Rhys's lips hesitated all the same, parted as if he would speak, but he didn't. At last, all he did was nod, as if to confirm what hadn't been spoken, and he clapped Azriel on the shoulder, giving a firm squeeze.

'Let's debrief,' he gathered the others, and Azriel followed, because it was his duty.

But, alone at last as the water clock dripped on past midnight, Azriel rose from the bed in which he was very much not sleeping. He rifled through drawers in the bureau until he found something appropriate-- a black woollen jumper suitable for faeries with wings, worn maybe once or twice in the decades since it had been gifted him some Solstice he didn't even recall. He donned thick woollen stockings on his bare feet, then stuffed them into his regular boots, scuffed and worn at the soles, quieter than the crisp shined leather of the smarter ones he'd worn for a formal visit between courts. And a hat, though he rarely wore one, and mittens, stuffed into a pocket. Then he left his room, creeping silently as possible down the stairs.

Lucien answered at the first soft knock. He'd clearly been awake still; a candle burnt at his desk, many papers piled there, books in stacks and several open midway. Azriel made a note to do some proper snooping there, another time, but for now he ignored it. Instead, he lifted the blanket he held in one hand, the mittens and hat in the other.

'Can you glamour these?' he asked.

Lucien didn't particularly resemble his brother. The tight curls of his dark red hair hung riotous about a strong-boned face, his skin closer in tone to Azriel's own than to Eris's ivory pallor. His eyes were dark, too, where Eris's were so light they shone amber, almost like a cat's. They shared a scattering of freckles across the bridge of the nose, and the mouth was maybe the same, at least in the stubborn set of it.

But the way Lucien assessed him frankly and finally acted only when he was satisfied with what he saw, clearly of his own choice in full consideration of every alternative, that was Eris to the bone. The Vanserra touched an obliging finger to the soft fleece, and the blanket vanished, to all appearances. Only the weight of it in his hand, the weave catching on the calluses of his palm, was proof it was still there.

'Thank you,' Azriel said, and left him there, no questions asked, none answered, and yet an understanding between them all the same. As good as a bargain.

His shadows brought him straight inside the ice house. Illyrian sight did better with night conditions than other fae, and he could pick out Eris's form immediately. He slept, fitfully and shivering with cold, his head pillowed on his knees. Azriel manoeuvred as best he could about the ice block, having to crouch under the low ceiling and scraping his wings in all directions, but he finally got close, sitting awkwardly with his back to the wall. Eris was awake by the time Azriel looked up, his eyes wide, one hand outstretched but trembling just shy of contact.

'Am I dreaming?' he whispered.

'I'm real.' He took Eris's hand in his. It was frozen to the touch. 'I brought you something. Here.' Fumbling without sight of it, he got one of the mittens onto Eris's hands, the hat pulled low over his ears. 'I brought a blanket too.'

'I can't. If my father--'

'Bewitched. No-one will see it. As long as you're careful where you put them, no-one else should even know they're here.' He unfurled the fleece, and stretched to drape it about Eris's shoulders, guiding the corners into Eris's palms. 'There.'

'Who are you?'

'I'm Azriel. Do you... you remember me?'

'Serve you right if I didn't.' Eris packed considerable acerbity into words no louder than breath. 'The fuck are you doing here?'

The right thing. The only thing he could do, under the circumstances. 'Why haven't you tried to run? If you could get to Summer or even Spring--'

Eris's hand moved his, this time. Brought his fingers up to a cold bare throat, to a strip of metal hidden beneath the high collar of his tunic. At first Azriel took it to be a torque, but as he travelled the curve of it he realised it was a perfect circle, no gaps, not even a lock. 'Faebane,' Eris murmured. 'I wouldn't get very far.'

Azriel could still feel the cold iron when he sat back, and rubbed his fingertips together, wondering if he only imagined the tingle. 'Feyre and your brother managed to get through all of Autumn with faebane in the blood.'

'No they didn't, actually. I just faffed around until they could cross the border. You're welcome, by the way.' Eris clutched the blanket closer, looking rather odd with his fists buried under his chin. 'Don't suppose you brought anything to eat.'

'Oatcakes and dried fruit and nuts. It won't smell and it will keep well enough, though it might get a little stale. You can hide it under the blanket or bury it if you need to.'

'Thoughtful of you.' Eris bit into an oatcake as soon as Azriel handed it over, but he only ate half, reluctantly tucking the rest away against the wall. 'I'm presuming all of this comes as a paltry apology for the lack of rescue.'

Azriel's guilty silence was answer enough. Eris didn't accuse, didn't lash out, didn't cry. He only sighed softly, and rested his head back down on his bony knees.

'You won't sleep well like that. You need rest to regain your strength.' Or to keep what little he could have, deliberately starved and worked beyond those few calories. Azriel tugged, and Eris resisted, because of course he did. Til Azriel cupped his cheek, and his eyes dipped closed, his head tilting into Azriel's warmth. This time, he allowed Azriel to pull him in, settling between Azriel's legs and tucking his head to Azriel's chest. Azriel wrapped both arms about him, sharing his body heat. Illyrians ran hot, but Autumn fae were meant to do, too, and Eris was dangerously cold. It was a long time before he finally stopped trembling.

'You know you could have done this any time the last few hundred years and I'd have told you anything you wanted,' Eris whispered then.

His cheeks warmed faintly. 'Why-- why did you-- why that endless show, then? Making us go through-- all that.'

'You'd never have touched me without an actual reason. You aren't even really here now.'

'You're not dreaming, Eris.'

'Aren't I? This isn't the real you. The you you are with other people, your friends. The people you really care about. This is the you taking pity on a weakling.'

Azriel rested his chin atop Eris's stubbled head. 'My father locked me away, once, too, when I was just a little boy. In a cold little room just like this one. It's not pity.'

'That's even worse,' Eris huffed, but he curled just a little more into Azriel's hold. Even like this, reduced-- defeated-- there was nothing dulled or blunted in all his jagged edges, bony shoulder digging into Azriel's breastbone, over his heart. 'I'm not a child who's done nothing wrong. I failed. I've failed over and over and over again, my whole life. I deserve this. And you've always had the guts to say that to my face, before. Don't go soft on me now.'

Try as he did, Azriel couldn't think of anything to say. The right thing to say. In the end, he fell back on action, not feeling. 'If you can get to Summer or Spring, get them to send for me. Tell them this exactly. I'm going to kill Beron.'

'So they can boot me right back out? No thank you.'

'The terms of your bargain with Rhys. He agreed to back you when you move on your father. So tell them you're moving on him.'

Eris was silent a moment, only the slight rise and fall of his shoulders proof he was still breathing. 'It's my job, to be the cynical one.'

Cynical. Traitorous, that was closer to the truth. Dangerously close to the line. But in this Azriel felt no guilt at all. Rhys had set the terms, and it was Eris's right to call it in. It was only fair.

All the same, holding Eris as he dozed a troubled, fragile few hours, Azriel allowed himself to think-- fair had never thrived in Prythian, not in the five hundred years since Azriel had been a boy too young to defend himself and too old to weep at the futility. It was a hollow dream, a plaything for the Court of Dreamers who dreamt exactly as far as the boundaries of one small city, and Azriel wasn't going to turn any tides with this one small, ultimately insignificant rebellion. He wasn't sure he even wanted to. But it was an itch deep in his chest that didn't go away, those long dark hours crawling by towards a morning that would be no different than any other morning, no better than any before or after this one. It wasn't fair.

Maybe there were things to be done about that. If he wanted to try.

'They let me out at dawn,' Eris whispered groggily, only half awake. 'You can't be here when--'

'I won't be. Don't worry.'

'Good,' Eris said, but it wasn't, and it wasn't only vigilance that kept Azriel sleepless, as the world crawled relentlessly onward.

**

'Az?'

'Busy,' he answered, only partially aware of Cassian's hand on his shoulder. His brother was used to finding him like this, consciousness divided and attention elsewhere, no matter the hour, and took no offence. Cassian moved off to begin his stretches, wings spread wide to catch the early morning sunlight on the roof of the House of Wind. Some time later, Feyre emerged, rubbing her eyes and yawning as she joined in. Rhys was even later, the sun well over the horizon and Feyre and Cassian already engaged in a light spar by the time he put in an appearance, hair tousled and coffee clutched in hand.

'Az?' he asked the others, and they only shrugged. With no more worry than that, Rhys rolled out a mat to sit on, touching his toes, arms stretched high, twisting this way and that.

The rest of Azriel was far away, nearly fully across Prythian. His shadows congregated in the cellars of the Forest House, recounting the strange sight of Eris Vanserra seeming to conduct an invisible orchestra in his dark, dank cell. Over and over again he raised his hands and pulled them sharply apart, sometimes finding them stuck together and raising them to his mouth so he could bite the empty air with his teeth. And then his fingers wove strange patterns, over and over and over each other, and then he put his fists out in front of him about arms length apart, jerking slightly as if testing something. Satisfied. And ready. When a key turned in the lock of the ice house, he rose, dusting his knees, head bowed over his clasped hands.

His brother Artur pushed the Guardsman aside to stand jeering in the door. Eris answered mildly, subservient, subdued, but his eyes glinted amber as he angled his gaze upward, a little smirk of challenge curling his pale lips. Artur strode in to grab him by the front of his tunic, shaking him.

Eris moved very swiftly, then. With a yank at his brother's wrist, a foot stuck between his brother's legs to trip him, Artur was suddenly sprawled on his stomach in the dirt, his arm twisted up behind his back as Eris knelt on him. The Guardsman came bursting in, but stood hesitating, hand on his sword but not drawing it, as Eris did something strange with his hands again. He wrapped something invisible about Artur's neck and strained back with all his might, fists white-knuckled and shaking in the air as Artur's face turned red, then purple, his feet kicking, arms flailing as Eris's weight kept him pinned. Slowly, painfully, Artur fell limp. When Eris finally let him slump back into the dirt, Artur lay face-down, unmoving. Eris stood, coiling his invisible rope of torn blanket strips about one arm, eyeing the Guardsman who eyed him back.

The Guardsman folded first. He stepped aside, inclining his head in a bow. Eris squeezed his shoulder before he slipped through the open door, sprinting for the stairs. The Guardsman took a long look at the murdered heir, and bent to tuck the key into one still hand. Then he closed Artur in, and took up his stance outside the door as if nothing had happened. A bead of sweat worked its way down his cheek, but he never looked aside, stony-faced in his duty.

Azriel had lived with plenty of terrible things in his time. This wasn't one of them. Away he tucked it, in that mental box with the rest of his nightmares, never to be looked at again. He could live with it.

He would live with it.

'Finally, lazy bones,' Cass teased, as Azriel finally joined in. 'Have a good nap?'

'Not bad,' Azriel shrugged, and greeted the new day ready for whatever was to come.