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Chapter Text

'Spymaster,' Eris greeted him with the usual sarcasm, though not without the smallest flicker of-- not warmth, surely. 'Welcome to my humble abode. Make yourself at home. Wine? I'm afraid your Court is deplorably short on whisky.'

'Rhys said he sent you a bottle of Illyrian malted.'

'Sorry, I should have been more specific-- drinkable brew, I meant, not your moonshine rotgut.' Eris threw himself backwards into the lone chair before the fire. That left only the bed as a surface fit for company, and the little smirk putting wicked light in Eris's eyes indicated that was fully intentional. Azriel stood instead, leaning one shoulder into the warm brick of the hearth. 'What brings you to me, Shadowsinger?'

'Any progress?' Azriel crossed his arms over his chest. 'You've been here three weeks now. Wondering if you have anything to show for it.'

'Rhysand's tolerance wearing thin so quickly? Deepest apologies to my dear benefactor. I'll try to wrangle a revolution from the other bloody side of the island with a little more alacrity.'

'That's not what he means.' A thin line on which to balance, and Eris was clearly in no mood to let any slip go unchallenged. Eris had been on edge since arriving in Night-- since fleeing Autumn, more accurately, escaping his father's rage by the skin of his teeth, and not without cost. Beron had sent Eris's own hounds after him, the smoke hounds with magic of their own, curbed but never fully tamed, and Eris had been forced to kill two-- damned lucky to kill them, truthfully, before they could drag him back to his father. Beron had torn a path of destruction across Autumn in Eris's wake, razing the woodlands through which Eris had run, torturing innocent villagers whose lands Eris had crossed, and issuing a royal bounty to any who could bring him Eris's head. Capturing alive was not desirable. Beron had been right quick, too, to send word to his fellow High Lords, warning them against aiding a would-be usurper, a murderer who had slain his own brother. No court could openly aid Eris. Most would not have risked doing it secretly. Night had been bound already by a bargain Eris had struck months earlier, but that didn't make Rhysand happy to have Eris lingering in his lands, a wanted exile whose very presence could explode the volatile and teetering balance of power in Prythian, already wounded by Amarantha and nearly brought to its knees by Hybern after.

Azriel knew Rhys preferred Eris to go anywhere else. Another court, the continent. Another planet, for all Rhys wanted to do with this albatross of a bargain. But Eris had fulfilled his promises, and had all the leverage he needed to force Rhys to fulfil his.

So here Eris sat, days accruing into weeks and weeks like to turn into months-- years, even. Alone in this rustic hunter's cabin high in the Illyrian wilds, much reduced from the handsome prince once clad in immaculate silks eating off plates of gold and sleeping on mattresses filled with the finest eiderdown. This Eris had lost weight, lost good muscle with it, a starved male with haunted eyes whose hands shook, still, when the dark came early this far north. The plain leather smock he wore hung too large on him, the reddish stubble of his hair growing in patchily, his sunken cheeks and the deep purple bags under his eyes eloquent of sleepless nights tossing and turning with new nightmares. Eris was a survivor. Whether he was a conqueror had yet to be proved.

'Give me something to pacify him,' Azriel said.

Eris cocked his head, following the shadows creeping towards the paper-strewn writing desk where frenzied correspondence, plans, promises lay in a whirlwind of disarray. 'I think not,' he answered flatly, and rose to toss a blanket over it all. 'Secrecy protects him as much as it does me and my allies. If he wants in on my plans, it'll cost him.'

'He's given you more than enough. No other High Lord has been generous enough to house you and feed you whilst you plot against your father protected by borders and wards.'

'Actions he can disclaim should Beron ever manage to locate me. Such extreme generosity, indeed.' Eris turned to face him, the fingertips of one hand resting still atop his work, never trusting. It wasn't paranoia if his suspicions of Rhys were correct, and Azriel had already pushed his Lord as far as he could without tipping his own hand. Not that there was any hand to tip. He'd done right by Eris, giving him just enough aid to get out of Autumn, not enough to do it for him. Azriel was not prepared to do more than that. Eris hadn't even asked.

Eris knew better than to ask.

'Some small sign of progress,' Azriel pushed. 'A hint of a timeline.'

'Or what? You'll beat it out of me?' Eris showed sharp teeth in a savage smile that mocked and invited in one. 'Miss our special times together, Spymaster?'

Azriel couldn't hold that piercing gaze. He shrugged stiff shoulders, scratched at the back of his neck. 'It was your kink, not mine.'

'But you were ever so good at it.' A breath went by, two. Silence, taut with uncertainty, a strange little hesitation as they both teetered on the edge of that line. 'It was need. Not want.'

Azriel dug his fingernails into his own skin, enough to feel the prickles of nascent pain. 'What do you want now?'

He heard the hitch in Eris's inhale, as if the words had caught him by surprise, off his guard. As if the words had come edged, and drew blood. 'You don't want what I want. You've been very clear about that.'

'You don't know what I want.' It wasn't free of effort, lifting his eyes up to Eris's. He expected them to already be waiting, and they were, ready to devour him. Awaiting some sign-- awaiting permission. All he had to do was give it.

'Don't tell me what I want,' Azriel whispered, and he crossed the small room. Eris gasped-- fear, anticipation-- craving-- as Azriel mashed their mouths together. The taste of blood was immediate, tender lips nicked by teeth or sheer force, he couldn't even tell whose. Hands on him, as had almost never happened-- almost never, but not never, dragging up his sides, clutching at his hips, pushing at his chest, closer like Eris was trying to climb into his skin and away a moment later as suspicion leaked back in. Azriel gave no quarter, wrenching back Eris's head by the ginger hair just long enough to make a fist in, wrenched his head back and attacked the column of his neck, raising more blood with each bruising bite. He dragged Eris with him, he shoved Eris backwards, boots dragging on the rough boards til Eris hit a wall. 'On your knees.'

Dazed, glazed, staring up at Azriel as he sank slowly, one awkward limb at a time. There wasn't enough room, Azriel didn't give him the room, pinning him in a crouch that bent his spine in a painful arch as Azriel straddled his legs, wings spread for balance as he loomed tall over Eris trapped helpless there, hands wrapped hot about his thighs.

'Laces,' Azriel hissed, and Eris swallowed. Azriel could hear it, could feel the catch in Eris's shallow panting breaths. 'Now, Eris.'

The left hand moved first. Clenched in a spasm, then began to pluck at the ties of Azriel's leathers. His palm flattened over the bulge of Azriel's crotch, tentative, braver when Azriel rocked into his touch. Eris massaged his cock through his trousers, seeking its full contours before he returned, eager now, to the laces, tearing at the knots and opening the placket. Eris pressed his nose to skin the very instant it was revealed, shoulders heaving as his lips skimmed the edge of dark curls.

'Take it out.'

Eris was careful, working the tight waistband down his hips, sliding it down the rounds of his buttocks, palms cupping worshipfully before coming back to the front to ease the parted halves off the mound of his cock, freeing it an inch at a time. Eris made a little noise when at last the trapped head sprang out, smacking against his cheek. Eris caught it in delicate fingers, stroking the length down to the base and back again, rubbing it against his stubbled skin as Azriel blew out a trembling breath.

'Suck it,' he whispered, and Eris obeyed before he'd even finished the words, opening his mouth wide and taking the head past his lips. His tongue roved wet and chaotic all about its circumference, lapping at the slit with dogged determination as his fists overlapped on the shaft and pumped. Azriel propped a fist of his own to the wall, leaning his head on it as nerves sprang to life all over his body, radiating from his centre like lightning sparking fires in every extremity. 'More,' he rasped, rocking his hips into Eris's face. Eris gave it a concerted effort, cheeks hollowing as he dropped his jaw wide and let Azriel in. Azriel stroked those flushed lips straining around his girth, tracing their seal around his cock as he pushed more, a tiny step with the right leg that thunked Eris's head back into the wall. Azriel wrapped a hand around the back of his head to cushion it, to hold it in place, rather, crowding Eris's body so tightly that his knees hammered at Eris's shoulders as he crammed his dick into Eris's mouth. 'Take it,' he said, as Eris's hands tried to shove him back; he used his free hand to grab one of those wrists and slam it to the wall. 'Take it,' he commanded, fucking Eris's throat even as it gagged around him and Eris thrashed helplessly. He thought he saw sparks at Eris's fingertips, for a moment, and forced Eris's head flush with his belly. He held Eris there, rocking involuntarily, helpless himself, as the tight tunnel of Eris's throat convulsed around him. Eris scrabbled at his chest, implored with an increasingly desperate grip as he smothered on Azriel's length, and Azriel-- it was building, it was cresting, it was right on the verge-- he yanked Eris back by the hair and slid his own scarred fist over the spit-slicked length of his cock, spurting gobs of white spunk over Eris's slack, stunned face.

'Fuck,' he sighed, as the world stopped spinning at last. He was sweating, sagging, upright more from habit than intention. His head was oddly light, his core muscles oddly weak. It took a moment to find his balance, as he stumbled back. His hand left white spots of pressure when he let go, fingers tingling as he swept them down the line of Eris's pointed ear. 'Good job,' he remembered to say. 'Eris. Well done. You did... you did very well.'

Eris slumped to sit on his heels as soon as he had the space for it. He sat there in a little hunch for a long minute, one hand flat on the floorboards, fingers spread wide, rubbing furrows, consciously or unconsciously, in the grit of dirt tracked into the cracks. He climbed to his feet at last, angling away from Azriel, hugging close to the wall as he headed for the wash basin beneath the window. Water spilled from the jug before he got it fully into the bowl, and he lost the cake of soap once before he got his hands fully lathered. He washed his face in silence, twice. Dried his skin on a ragged flannel that he flung backwards to land at Azriel's feet. Azriel bent to scoop it up, giving his front a quick scrub before tucking himself away and lacing up.

'I thought you liked it like that,' Azriel said. Question. Excuse. Apology. His voice seemed to fall flat in the fragile silence. Even the crackle of the fire had gone subliminal.

'I don't think anyone would like whatever that was,' Eris croaked. His next stop was the wine, swigging straight from the bottle. He spat into the washbin, first, and only then swallowed. A little grimace pulled his jaw tight before he controlled his face. The souring smell of sex disappeared in a freezing gust of air, when Eris thrust open the window. 'Helion.'

Azriel wiped at the damp on his upper lip. 'What?'

'Helion. Has responded to my feelers. There's room to negotiate there. You can tell your master I won't be languishing on his charity forever.'

It occurred to him to nod. It occurred to him to retreat out of Eris's space, that was more helpful, and Eris did relax, a little at least, when there were a few extra feet between them. Why it made him think of the night he'd spent with Eris locked in the ice house, shivering with cold and alert to any tiny noise that might have heralded their discovery, Eris's cheek resting on his chest--

'Was there anything else?' Eris asked coldly, seating himself again, long legs kicked out before him, and only the wine bottle in a white-knuckled fist to indicate any lingering disquiet.

'No.' Fuck. 'Thank you,' he added lamely, knowing it was a mistake the minute it formed on his lips and unable to stopper it up in time. Eris's hand smeared over his lips, and if it was shaking, that was what the wine was for, wasn't it. 'I'll... I'll see you soon, probably.'

'Good night, then, Spymaster. And take your fucking shadows with you.'

The one slipping up the leg of Eris's chair came swiftly at Azriel's call. Eris didn't look to confirm. Didn't look up from the fire at all, as Azriel let himself out the door and plunged into the winter chill outside. Azriel thrust out his wings and was airborne almost before the door swung closed and locked behind him. Almost.

'Fuck,' Azriel snarled, his voice stolen away by the wind, and he beat the air with furious strokes til he rose high above the treeline and the howling winter night.

**

The High Lord of Night Court had heard more than his share of unwelcome news, since the night Eris Vanserra had murdered a brother, fled a father's wrath, and arrived at the Hewn City a fugitive, a renegade, a rebel in need of an army. And the first person Eris chose to fill those ranks was Night Court's still newly minted Emissary. The younger brother who had paved the path of an exile centuries earlier, who had violent reasons of his own to want to see Beron ousted, and who happened to have just secured a close alliance with another exile of excellent pedigree: the human Queen Vassa and the legendary General Jurian.

That this was the news that sent Rhys spiralling over the edge was understandable. That Eris knew exactly what he was doing-- well, that was most of the problem with Eris, wasn't it.

'Leaving yet another Court, Lucien?' Rhys's tone was cool, cutting, but so far controlled. 'Once was perhaps a forgiveable sin, but twice was pushing it. Thrice in as many years is unnatural.'

'Unnatural,' Lucien repeated flatly. His brother's hand on his shoulder had him biting back any more, but Rhys, watching hawklike, only smirked at that evidence of exactly his argument.

'If you leave Night now, how can he ever trust you?' Rhys flicked a finger, no more, pointing first at the eldest, then the youngest, but that finger accused and it warned. 'Such fickle loyalty. How long before you find another High Lord you fancy more? Or perhaps it's even worse-- perhaps you're incapable of such loyalty. You, alone in all Prythian, in all the world, beholden to no-one but yourself-- unnatural. Dangerous.'

'He's my brother,' Lucien said stubbornly. 'I've seen what you would do for yours. Why should we be any different? A bond of blood outweighs--'

'But not when it was your sire? Beware these telling little hypocrisies, Lucien, they reveal more than you think.'

Lucien paled at this. Azriel noted it, and wondered at it, that seemingly outsized reaction to an innocuous enough insult. Eris, however, gave even more away, stepping in front of Lucien, unsubtle in placing himself between the High Lord and his prey. 'Enough,' Eris said. 'He's made his choice. Which means he's no longer yours to punish. The gentlemanly thing would be to let him go and collect the favour from me another day.'

Azriel shifted on his feet. The cold rage coming off Rhys in waves now seemed to weigh the very air so that it couldn't nourish the lungs, dimming the sunlight from the windows. His shadows were agitated, their sibilant murmurs raising an anxious pitch. Cassian, at the door, unwove his arms where they crossed over his big chest, clasping them behind him instead at parade rest, a move that seemed deliberately designed to lower the tension. Instead, Rhys's jaws tightened. Feyre, standing beside him, laid a hand on his arm and whispered something. He didn't respond at all, not even a blink.

'What about Elain?' Feyre asked Lucien. 'You came all this way to be with her.'

Lucien hadn't been allowed alone with her, much less in any position to romance his mate, having been sent immediately to the continent to seek the cursed human Queen. That he'd returned from an impossible, even suicidal assignment triumphant, and with an army, three ships, and the sisters' father in tow should have rated a hero's welcome. So far as Azriel knew, no-one had even said thank you. Had Hybern not killed their father, maybe. Had Elain and Nesta not nearly died killing Hybern in vengeance. Had Rhys not died channeling power to Feyre to defeat the Cauldron, and Amren with him. Lucien had gone overshadowed once again, no-one's fault, no-one's intent. And yet. It had been months. This was the first time Rhys had even bothered to make time to meet with his Emissary. No wonder Lucien was sceptical at finding his presence suddenly so critical to Night's leaders.

'I can't imagine this changes anything,' Eris answered for Lucien, who bit back whatever comment he'd been about to make. That was most telling of all. He truly had accepted Eris as his High Lord, and whatever word he spoke was law. 'If the young lady would like to see or correspond with Lucien, I'm sure you'd be willing to facilitate that.'

'I'm afraid that would be quite irresponsible,' Rhys countered. 'Miss Elain has a very delicate constitution and abandonment by her mate is sure to devastate her. I refuse to subject her to the indignity and distress of this male's capricious rejection.'

'It's not rejection, I would never--' Lucien protested.

'Not to mention the security risk. If Beron were to extend his animus to Miss Elain in retaliation--'

'So you'd keep her here,' Eris murmured, 'away from her mate-- purely for her own protection?'

'Of course.'

'Feyre.' Lucien appealed to her, fists clenched and trembling at his sides. 'That's exactly what had you leaving Tamlin and tearing his Court to shreds on the way out, but it's all right when he does it?'

Feyre flushed. 'It's not the same!'

'It's exactly the same.'

'How dare you,' Rhys snapped, and it seemed stormclouds rolled in, threatening the very existence of the sun. 'I will not stand here and be compared to that beast in Spring. Apologise, if you want any chance of access to anyone in this Court, assuming the High Lady ever sees fit to forgive your faithlessness.'

Lucien's head tipped back, as Eris glanced back warily. 'Thank you,' Lucien added then, flat and defeated. 'For making that decision a lot easier.'

Eris's eyes flickered. Fell low. He stepped aside, preparing to go. But Lucien didn't cross the room towards the High Lord and High Lady of Night. He retreated, instead, to the door. Azriel shifted aside, and Lucien nodded tightly to him as he pressed the latch, opening and closing the door behind him with a soft snick of finality.

'Well, as hissy fits go, I'd rate that a seven and a half,' Eris drawled. 'Enjoy playing with your toys all by your lonesome, Rhysand.' He bowed mockingly, in that way every Vanserra seemed to instinctively know set everyone's teeth on edge. 'Oh, and if the young lady ever does want to see her mate again, the High Lord of Autumn will of course advocate for the happy couple. And you can decide then just how valuable my alliance is to you.'

'You have to take the throne first, Eris.'

'Never you fret, Rhysand.' Insult to injury, Eris casually hooked his thumbs into his swordbelt, confidently turning his back on the fuming High Lord. He caught Azriel's eyes, just briefly, as he passed, but that second between one blink and the next was searing hot. Eris didn't bother to close the door behind him. Rhys gestured, and the wood slammed into the jamb with a thunderous crash all the same.

Go, Azriel directed a shadow, and it slipped out to follow in Eris's wake, dogging his ankles as he descended the stairs. Eris looked down on it from his comparatively great height, and it seemed he winked. Azriel bit back a small smile that threatened.

'Fuck!' Rhys aimed a kick at his desk, knocking the ancient, and very heavy, block of mahogany an inch out of alignment with the force of his blow. 'Fuck the day Beron ever shat out that cretin and his brothers.'

'I really thought he cared about her,' Feyre sighed, sinking into the cushions at the window seat. 'I thought he cared about us?'

'Why,' Cassian muttered, and Rhys raised his head to glare. Cassian tried to dodge it for a minute, but Rhys was looking for a target, and with a little shrug of his broad shoulders Cassian provided it. 'Why would he? He barely knows us. And that's on our side, not just his. Eris is his brother.'

'I thought they hated each other, though,' Feyre complained, and Rhys flapped a hand as if to emphasise her point.

'Someone had to have warned Tamlin to be on the border the day Lucien fled Autumn,' Azriel said, not quite wisely, as it drew Rhys's dark scowl to him next. 'Eris defied his father in the killing of Lucien's fiancée. We know Beron punished him for that at the time. But even if Lucien didn't feel he owed it to Eris, why wouldn't he be invested in bringing Beron down?' Better, Azriel thought privately, if they'd anticipated it and got ahead of it-- they could have made Lucien some kind of special liaison, kept him on side as they navigated their bargain with Eris.

That thought wasn't private enough. He felt the scrape of Rhys's daemati powers prowling at the edges of his awareness. Rhys stalked the room to stand directly in front of Azriel, stabbing a finger into Azriel's chest.

'You're the Eris expert,' he said. Accused. 'He's your problem, now.'

'What?'

'He's your problem.' Rhys shoved off just a little harder than he really had to. 'I want eyes on him every minute of the day and night. I want to know what every letter he writes says and who he's saying it to. I want to know his plans, his hopes, his dreams even.'

'It's not going to be the same as before,' Azriel objected. 'He was motivated to share intell on his father. He'll keep his own secrets closer to his vest, especially if he thinks we might interfere with or undermine his campaign--'

'Get it however you have to. I don't care what you do, but we can't afford ignorance whilst that snake steals my courtiers from under my nose and subverting my court's security and stability--'

'That's not what he's doing.'

'Yet,' Rhys countered scathingly. 'And since when are you a Vanserra apologist? You of all people!'

'I'm not excusing anything he's done,' Azriel retorted, cold as ice himself. 'I'm doing my job. High Lord.'

'You had better be.'

'Rhys.' Feyre slipped an arm about her mate's waist, and Rhys made a visible effort to calm himself. Feyre grimaced a soundless 'sorry' at Azriel as she drew Rhys down for a kiss, stroking his clenched jaw til he finally relaxed his temper. 'Everyone's doing their best,' she coaxed him. 'Even Eris. It'll still be a good thing, overthrowing Beron. Prythian will be better off with Eris on the throne.'

'Trading an intractible traditionalist for a headstrong trickster.' Rhys heaved a heavy sighs, closing his eyes and resting his chin on Feyre's hair. 'Forgive me, Az.'

He nodded, because of course he did. They'd had worse fights, and probably would again. But he couldn't help noting that Rhys didn't countermand his order, either.

'It cannot come to war again,' Rhys whispered. His hand slid from Feyre's back to her belly, but barely rested there a moment before he resumed stroking her spine. 'If it comes to breaking the bargain with Eris, we may have to.'

'I think we're getting ahead of ourselves,' Cassian tried.

'Breaking the bargain could kill you,' Azriel pointed out.

'Not if Eris dies first.'

'We're not there yet,' Cassian said firmly, and Rhys subsided. 'Let's watch-- carefully, and closely-- but just watch for now. We can figure out how to react when we know what Eris is up to. All right?'

Feyre squeezed Azriel's wrist. He didn't have time to return the gesture as Rhys winnowed her away.

'Theia's tits,' Cassian sighed, rubbing a hand through his tangled hair. 'That could have gone better.'

It could have gone worse, too, if Feyre hadn't been able to calm her agitated mate. Rhys had been on edge for months, inching ever closer to an implosion. Explosion. He hadn't come back altogether the same, after the battle. Clinging with all his considerable might to what was his, and feral in his attack on anything that seemed to threaten it. Eris didn't know what fire he was playing with. Or, hell, probably he did, actually. Beron's court didn't look all that different from the scene Rhys had just caused.

Azriel told himself he felt guilty, thinking that, even in the silence of his own head. But he didn't, and he didn't know when that had changed.

'Let's go home,' Cassian said. 'Stand you a drink at Rita's?'

'Not tonight,' Azriel declined, forcing a small smile to his lips. 'Work to do.'

'Just a couple of hours, come on, Az, it'll do you good to let your hair down--'

'Try Mor. She'll want to go dancing.' Mor. One of her beautiful flowing dresses, her toned bare arms waving above her head as she whirled light as a feather in graceful circles. That transported look on her face, eyes half closed, cheeks flushed pink with life. The thought of seeing that was almost enough to tempt him. 'Drink one for me,' Azriel said, and summoned his shadows to transport him away before Cassian could talk him into it.

**

The cabin Rhys had reluctantly given over to Eris's secret use was old and dreary, which described most every structure in Illyria. Made of rough-hewn logs, the roof hanging low enough to be a challenge for tall warriors with considerable wingspan, half buried in snow that never melted this far north. Footprints tracked back and forth from the single door to the outhouse, the shrinking stack of firewood, and the well with an ice-rimmed winch supporting a rotting bucket. Smoke drifted from the chimney, with a faint scent of cold-hardy larch and spruce. Azriel's breath puffed white in the few seconds it took for him to approach the door and knock.

It took a moment-- and it took another moment, when Eris cracked the door warily but an inch, a dagger glinting in the space before he let it fall. 'Spymaster,' Eris greeted him with the usual sarcasm, though not without the smallest flicker of-- not warmth, surely. 'What brings you my way?'

'Is it safe to talk?'

'Meaning, is Lucien here? No. He's gone south, to do whatever humans do this time of night.' Eris stood back, and let the door open wide. 'Get in, you're letting out all the warmth.' Azriel obeyed, stamping slush from his boots on the mat. 'Welcome to my humble abode,' Eris added grandly. 'Make yourself at home. Wine? I'm afraid your Court is deplorably short on whisky.'

'Rhys said he sent you a bottle of Illyrian malted.'

'Sorry, I should have been more specific-- drinkable brew, I meant, not your moonshine rotgut.' Eris threw himself backwards into the lone chair before the fire. That left only the bed as a surface fit for company, and the little smirk putting wicked light in Eris's eyes indicated that was fully intentional. Azriel stood instead, leaning one shoulder into the warm brick of the hearth. 'So, what brings you to me, Shadowsinger?'

'Any progress?' Azriel crossed his arms over his chest. 'You've been here three weeks now. Wondering if you have anything to show for it.'

'Rhysand's tolerance wearing thin so quickly? Deepest apologies to my dear benefactor. I'll try to wrangle a revolution from the other bloody side of the island with a little more alacrity.'

Azriel's stomach was unhappy. Rita's would have been far pleasanter than this. But he had the strangest feeling, meeting the pale amber eyes angled up to his. Like watching Mor when she abandoned herself to the music, the one time she truly let herself go, let herself be free.

Azriel had never known freedom. Not as a boy locked in the cellar alone with his shadows, not as Prythian's only Shadowsinger, indentured to the High Lord of Night and reared in the dungeons with the worst the fae could inflict on each other. Not in service even to his brother, who was kinder in the ask, but wanted much the same things from Azriel that his father had.

Eris understood that. Azriel knew it.

And would understand why Azriel did what he was about to do.

'What do you want now?' he asked Eris, and prepared himself to give it.

Chapter Text

'He's closed the borders,' Helion reported, finger dragging along the map of Autumn's outer margins. 'Kallias confirmed the garrison at the Khyber Pass has been actively patrolling, harassing merchants and repairing fortifications.'

'And my contacts in Summer Court confirmed that there's been reports of troops mustering in the Beacons,' Lucien added, pointing to Autumn's border with Summer. 'Add that to the visit we know Beron paid Tamlin threatening him not to entertain any notion of an alliance with you, Eris, and that's Autumn on a war footing again.'

'A defence against invasion is better than a war of aggression,' Eris said. He rested his weight on his knuckles, frowning down at the map. 'Spring is still the best place to try. There no real land or water obstacles along that border, just villages that can't be up and abandoned without causing economic upset. Especially if we can pull off an invasion during the harvest.' Lucien shook his head slightly, not wanting to contradict, clearly, but grimacing when Eris caught him anyway. 'Speak,' Eris challenged him. 'If I didn't want your opinion, you wouldn't be here.'

'Ruining the harvest is a bad idea for everyone, not just Beron,' Lucien answered, bluntly enough. 'All the deprivation under Amarantha's hoarding and crippling taxes, Hybern burning fields and salting croplands after-- Prythian has hovered on the verge of starvation going on fifty years. More suffering is not how you want to announce yourself as a contender for Autumn's throne. Even if you win, you'll own that problem immediately, and your allies will sour on you for disrupting trade, too.'

'He's right.' Helion laid a hand on Lucien's shoulder with a rather avuncular pride, a small smile on his face that he cleared with a cough before folding his arms over his broad chest instead. Lucien was slightly red-cheeked as he reset the figurines on the map that represented Eris and his promised forces. Eris stood scowling into the middle distance, eyes skipping blindly over the map's contents as he contemplated his few good choices. 'I've said it before and I'll say it again now-- you don't want a military confrontation, Eris.'

'Beron's not stupid,' Eris muttered grudgingly. 'He's already digging in, and he might never leave again if he thinks it'll keep his arse on the throne. Without an invasion, I haven't any way to flush him out. Even if the seasonal courts all stand firm with me, and that's a big if, the only way to force Beron out into the open is to attack something he'll be called on to personally defend.'

The drip of the water clock measured the silence that fell then. 'It's late,' Helion said at last. 'I have a state visit to appear at, and, to be frank, I don't think we're getting anywhere. Let's take a few days. See if any new ideas shake loose. I'll send word when I can meet again.'

'Another fucking delay,' Eris hissed, when Helion had gone and his outburst wouldn't harm relations with his one outrightly professed accomplice. A shove of his hand knocked the maps askew, a few fluttering to the floor, and he strode angrily for the window to stare out over the bleak sprawl of the Hewn City. 'How entrenched does he think Beron can get if we keep holding back another year? A decade, a century?'

Azriel bent to rescue the fallen maps. 'You don't have an army,' he murmured. 'The answer isn't going to be an invasion.'

'So says the Emissary of Night,' Eris retorted. 'Is this how Rhysand intends to avoid fulfilling our bargain now? Poking holes in every plan so he never has to commit to anything.'

'He fulfils the bargain by sending his spymaster to inform you of the very obvious holes in your so-called plans,' Azriel retorted evenly. 'You don't have an army.'

'I would if Rhysand would free up the Darkbringers and Illyrians!'

'They'd still have to get to the south, and even for the sake of regime change, the other courts would find an invasion by Night Court alarming.' Lucien said it, sparing Azriel the sin, and earning a dark glare from his brother for the effort. 'Supporting a coup is one thing. Stirring up war is another.' Lucien rolled his head on his shoulders, stretching wearily. 'Let me take another run at Tarquin. He still resents Father for not sending aid when Amarantha and Hybern struck Adriata. He just needs a little push. Autumn nibbling at his border ought to do it.'

'Remind Tarquin that Father's never taken an inch when a mile's available. Cauldron spare us the appeasers.' Eris scrubbed a hand through his short hair. 'Fuck me.'

'I'll pass, thanks,' Lucien said, with a little smile, and Eris snorted. 'Oh. Before I forget again.' He withdrew a small pouch from his doublet, and gave it a toss. Eris caught it neatly. 'They're nothing special, but you might feel more like you.'

'You know I hate it when you do kind things, dear brother. It makes me suspicious.'

'A good deed stands for itself. But I don't mind it knocking you for a spin, either, brother dear.' Lucien grinned as he gave Eris a jaunty bow. 'Stay safe.'

'You, too.' Eris smiled. It was a rare sight, that, an expression so sincere and freely given. Perhaps a little more frequent, as relations with his youngest brother thawed, as the freedom to shed his Vanserra persona sank in a little more firmly every month he spent outside his court. Azriel wondered, suddenly, if Eris would hold onto any of those subtle little changes, should he ever manage to defeat his father and take Autumn's throne. Would returning to that cutthroat court drag him back to the faerie he'd been, five centuries of survival soon outweighing the dim memory of a few weeks of freedom to be someone else.

A question with, Azriel feared, only one answer.

The little pouch produced a sharp 'ha!' of satisfaction from Eris, who immediately took himself to the en suite. He left the door open after it banged into the wall, so Azriel followed, enough to angle a line of sight into the small closet where Eris now stood before the wall mirror, head tilted and both hands busy at his ear.

'Jewellery?'

'My bastard father probably gave mine to his mistresses.' Eris left a small topaz dangling from his lobe, and shook out a palmful of studs and hoops, cuffs and drops. 'Where on earth did Lucien buy these, a second-hand shop?'

Azriel tucked the maps away in the leather dossier he'd brought them in, rolling it tightly and binding it. His shadows whisked it away, leaving the room barren but for the sheeting that would have to be replaced on the table and chairs they'd used for an hour to plot their conspiracy. Servants would take care of that, never knowing who had been there and why. Hopefully. Keir had plenty of spies of his own, but Rhys had warded the room himself, aeons ago when the conspiracy had been nothing more than a few adolescent fae gathering with a stolen wineskin and a ham nicked from the kitchens to while away a few hours as their betters ruled the City below. Those had been better times, but Azriel didn't let himself think of better times very much. It was unproductive.

'Why do Autumn fae have such a yen for jewels and gold?'

'Better to ask why the rest of you haven't.' Eris scowled at his blurry reflection in the polished bronze sheet of the mirror. No matter how he angled it, he couldn't get the small gold hoop through the barely visible hole in his brow. 'Fuck,' he sighed at last, tossing the little earring away in his frustration.

'You'll lose it if you keep doing that.' Azriel retrieved it from the knot of the floorboard on which it had landed, examining it curiously. Rhys wore a diamond stud in the left ear, the only male of Azriel's race he'd ever known to do so-- but Rhys was only half Illyrian, after all, and a rather flamboyant half, at that, especially compared to the very traditional, very conservative males who lived solely amongst their own kind not so much out of preference for each other as rejection of everyone else. The first time Azriel had seen Eris, presented with great pomp to the Night Court as Mor's intended, he'd scoffed at the many decorative ornaments dangling from those long pointed ears, chains about his preening neck, gemstones glittering on every finger. 'Feminine' had been the least insult he and Cassian had muttered to each other, snickering in this very room as Morrigan, more appropriately bedecked with jewels of her own, had accepted one of the rings the young Vanserra drew from his own finger and slid onto hers, to rapturous applause from the Court of Nightmares avidly watching. In the centuries since, the styles had changed a few times, but Eris had never showed up anywhere without a treasury's worth of precious gold and silver. Til Beron had stripped him of his title and his fine clothes and his luxurious length of pampered silky hair and very nearly his life with it, all in punishment for a failed rebellion.

'Faerie healing. A blessing and a curse. I'll probably need to do most of them again.'

'How do you do it?' Azriel asked curiously, turning the little hoop between his blunt fingers. It was a delicate little knot of gold wire braided together. Elegant, despite its small size. He thought he recalled the old one had been twisted, not braided, but similar.

'Needles. Any female with a sewing kit can manage it.'

'I could help.' Eris blinked at this. Azriel blinked at this, not having intended to say it. He shrugged jaggedly. 'It's not as though I haven't plenty of experience with blood.'

'They're not meant to bleed, if you do them well.' The tip of Eris's tongue swept over his upper lip, but it was his scent that Azriel noticed, sudden and blooming. Arousal. Edged, as it always had been between them, with the faintest tinge of fear. What Eris found so titillating about the thought of Azriel poised over him ready to cut him open, Azriel would never understand. Nor why the thought had become so oddly appealing to himself.

No, not why. He very well knew why. There was a little flood of saliva in his mouth, necessitating a hard swallow.

'You've nowhere better to be?'

Yes. Many places better. With friends and family and a thousand tasks other than riding herd on a male going nought for two on patricide. 'Not really,' Azriel said, and followed him into the en suite.

Very carefully, Azriel pinched Eris's brow til a tiny roll of skin bulged between his fingertips. Eris's long lashes fluttered, brushing the side of his hand soft as a gnat's wing, as Azriel set the point of the needle. 'Ready,' he warned, and he felt Eris swallow. 'One. Two. Three.' On the final count, he pushed the needle in. It went in smooth, only a tiny bit of resistance, emerging immediately a few millimetres beneath, leaving just the smallest spot of red. He carefully twisted the needle in the fresh hole, sawing it in and out and in and out to be sure it moved without snagging at all, and then he pulled it free. The tip of the hoop slid into its place readily, and Azriel screwed on the tiny bead that secured it. When he let go the pinch of Eris's skin, it showed momentarily white from the pressure of his fingers before it flushed fever-bright. 'All done,' he said, and Eris tilted back his head to look up at him.

'Show me?' Eris murmured, eyes locked on his.

Azriel scrubbed his fingers on his trousers. He wondered if he only imagined that they tingled. He backed away enough that Eris could turn away from the sink cabinet, face the mirror. Eris held his gaze until finally he had to turn his head, just long enough to check the placement. Azriel wondered, too, if he only imagined that odd surge of gladness, when Eris gave an approving nod.

'Good,' Eris allowed, and caught his eyes again in the mirror, giving Azriel a jolt. 'Thank you.'

'Yeah.' Azriel rinsed the needle in the basin. The tip of it scratched his fingerpad, ever so lightly, before he made himself stop. 'I... I, er, I should...'

'There's-- there's one I always wanted. Father wouldn't have approved.'

'Where's even left?' The brows, the tiny stud in the nostril, the hoop in the septum of his long narrow nose, the gold bead that sat centred just beneath the plump lower lip. Azriel had never counted them before, never examined them so closely. Six little marks in the helix alone, the tragus, the daith, the conch, double rows in the lobe, and the same on the other side. Azriel had seen females from the humid jungles of Day Court who pierced their third eye, but so far as he knew that was religion, or mysticism anyway, not fashion.

But it wasn't his face that Eris touched. His finger travelled down from the collar of his shirt, coming to rest over his heart. Then a few inches lower. His nipple.

Azriel swallowed again. 'No wonder you haven't made any progress against your father, always thinking with your cock.'

'A blessing and a curse,' Eris said again. 'That's a no, then.'

'No.' He cleared his throat. 'No, not a-- no. Yes. Now?'

This time Eris's teeth scraped the lower lip, brushing the newly reinstalled stud. 'Now. Before I-- loose my nerve.'

If Eris Vanserra had ever misplaced a nerve, there'd been plenty of others to take its place. It was... endearing. Azriel touched the sore-looking piercing at Eris's brow, finger coming away just slightly damp. 'Take off your shirt, then.'

There were flecks of brown in Eris's amber eyes, the same colour as the topaz in his ear. Lit from behind, like the sun. They were focused, unblinking, wide. The pupils grew larger, blacker, as Eris fed the first button through its hole. The second. They were trembling, those long delicate fingers, and Azriel reached to help them, taking the fourth and fifth buttons. He brushed back the halves of the soft woollen weave, the rich brown dye that parted to reveal pale flesh, freckled down the throat to a thin scattering of ginger hair between the pectorals. There was a dark mole, darker than the reddish freckles, than all that ivory white skin so different than Azriel's dusky brown. There was another mole almost exactly the same shade on the perfectly straight collarbone, another to one side of his navel, and a third under the left breast, where the top two ribs showed prominently. Azriel had seen flesh of all sorts, male and female, High Fae and Lesser, even human, had bared his own so often he thought nothing of it, whether it was to wrestle shirtless in the mud of an Illyrian training camp or lounge in the sauna with his brothers. But he only bared his hands for his work. The work that required knowing exactly the pressure of his touch, the sweat-slicked texture of skin beneath his fingers, the shiver of nerves in anticipation, dread, elation. He watched his own scarred hands spread wide on Eris's ribcage, framing the vulnerable heart hidden within.

'Which side?'

Eris's throat bobbed in a swallow. 'Right. I think. No-- left. Left?'

Azriel raised his thumbs to cover each nipple. Small and pink and satiny smooth, the exact size of his fingerpads. 'Right, I think.'

'Right, then.' Scrape of teeth on the lower lip, leaving it wet and parted on words not yet spoken, not yet formed.

The right one, then. Decided. Chosen. Not at all different than the eyebrow, he told himself. Just anatomy, just skin. Soft skin, warm to the touch, pebbling at his touch-- at the hard exhale Azriel accidentally released onto it, Eris's chest rising and falling faster and faster. Azriel plucked with great care at the nipple til it rose in a small peak, rolling it gently til it stood proud and he could he clamp it tight. He picked up the needle from the sink and set the wicked point in place, and glanced up for confirmation.

'Do it,' Eris whispered.

He forgot to count, this time. The hiss of Eris's breath as the needle penetrated filled Azriel with remorse, and something far less guilty, too. He only discovered he'd been biting his lip when the needle pushed through virgin skin to the free air again, neatly bisecting the pink little nub. Azriel let go of both skin and weapon at once, swaying back, and Eris blew out a shaking sigh.

Azriel had seen any number of terrible things-- had done a great number of them, in filthy dungeons, in throne rooms alike, even in bedrooms as intimate as this. In his youth, especially, still discovering what deprivations a body could endure, he'd sometimes found himself staring in sick fascination, unable to tear his gaze away at the inner workings of the miracle, the heavenly complexity of flesh. The pulse of blood, the pores of skin, the follicles of hair, every tiny cell of life so complete and so defenceless. He'd never seen a sight like a needle perfectly piercing a male's nipple. This male's nipple.

The sound Eris made, when Azriel reached out and brushed his thumb over that perfectly pierced nipple. The sound Eris made was incredible.

Their mouths met with a crash. Azriel had done it, Azriel had done it without even thinking of it, only needing it desperately. Teeth and lips and tongue, tongues clashing, warring, and he rolled Eris's nipple under his thumb firmly, Eris groaning into his throat. Fists dragged at his tunic, hips pushed needily into his. Azriel rolled the tortured nipple back and forth over the thin length of steel trapped inside it, pinched it, pulled it, and Eris tipped his head back with abandon, shuddering. Azriel let go only long enough to slide his hands down under Eris's backside and haul him up to perch on the sink cupboard. Thighs spread for him, ankles hooking around his legs trying to hug him in close. There was too much space between them. Any pressure at all was too much and too little, grinding his crotch against the yielding hardness that answered his torment. They rocked their hips in tandem, finding an uneven rhythm that was not enough, was not enough, and he was sucking at Eris's neck, dragging his tongue along salty skin, seeking more, more. Eris wrestled furiously with the buckle of Azriel's belt. Then there was a hand wrapped around his length, a tight fist forming a tunnel into which he thrust frantically.

'You,' he gasped, separating with tremendous reluctance so he could rip at Eris's laces. He spat in his scarred palm, and pulled Eris's cock from the folds of his clothes, dragging up hot skin to the leaking tip, smearing the oily beads that greeted him so eagerly. Eris's arm wound about his shoulders, balance for the limber act of rolling his hips into Azriel's grip. They masturbated each other, rough jerks with no mercy to spare, Eris yanking at the curls at the back of his head and panting in his ear as Azriel squeezed again and again at Eris's prick, milking those pearly spurts out with each pull. Then Eris knocked his hand away and got both their cocks in one hand, everything slick and slippery and overheated as Azriel used his freed hands to rub his palms over Eris's chest, flicking at that needle, scratching his nails across Eris's nipples til Eris-- oh-- oh, fuck, yes, the curl of pleasure in his bollocks, in his gut, a fire that flamed to life in his-- he latched his teeth into the curve of Eris's shoulder, bit down til he tasted blood, and everything hazed out but the taste of iron grounding him.

'There's some...' His voice was froggy. His limbs seemed to weigh a hundred pounds each as he raised a hand, managing to brush a knuckle into the smear of jizz on Eris's jaw. 'I'm sorry, I didn't mean--'

Eris found the spot, and wiped it away. Then stuck the finger in his mouth, releasing it clean. 'That wasn't the part I minded so much, last time.'

The marks of his teeth in Eris's shoulder were a dark angry red. He kissed them gently, this time, contrite. Eris raised him by the chin, and kissed his mouth instead, licking away the blood from his lips.

'You'll be sore.' He didn't quite touch, the needle that now hung slightly askew, half pulled out of Eris's nipple. There was blood, swelling. 'Probably you should let it heal first. We can try again, if you still want it.'

'It's fine. Get a hoop.' Eris fumbled about him for the pouch, and Azriel dumped it into his palm, sorting the remaining jewellery for the hoops. There were three left to choose from, two gold, one silver. Azriel chose the silver, plain, one. Eris neither agreed nor disagreed, leaving it up to him. Letting Azriel remove the needle and set the ring, trying as best he could to do it painlessly, though Eris savaged his lip again, eyes fluttering closed. Azriel bent to soothe the poor bruised nub with his tongue, and Eris cradled his head tenderly, thumbs stroking his bare rounded ears.

**

'There's strange activity in Forest House,' Azriel reported. 'Beron hardly leaves his War Council. They're with him all hours of the night, and there's a flood of messengers by morning. My people have intercepted a few letters, but it's all in cipher. We're working on it.'

'I want to see those,' Eris said. 'I could recognise it.'

'It's not the same cipher you used, Beron changed it after you-- left.'

'But there will be patterns. Certain ways different commanders write. I could know enough to start breaking the code.' Eris drummed his fingers on the table. 'Unless there's some reason Night Court prefers not to share.'

'Of course not.'

'Hmm.' Eris's lips curled in a smirk. 'My brothers? Their movements would be even more telling than Father's.'

'Neither of them have been in court for weeks,' Helion answered. 'If they're in Prythian at all, they're staying low to ground.'

'What would they be after on the Continent?' Eris frowned down at the maps. 'Brogán is trustworthy enough for a diplomatic mission, but Cai's liable to put his foot in his mouth and win eternal enmity as fast as an alliance. Has he declared either of them heir yet?'

'No, and don't think that's gone unnoticed,' Helion confirmed, with a smirk of his own. 'Three sons dead, two exiled, and the ones left aren't hardly worth the Vanserra name.'

'I hadn't considered destroying his legacy as well as his rule,' Eris mused. 'How unlike me, not to be so ambitious.'

'Extremely,' Azriel said dryly. 'I'm sure you can rectify it, now it's been brought to your attention.'

'Disgusting,' Lucien muttered through clenched teeth.

'Pardon the fuck out of me, brother.'

'Not you.' Lucien had been silent all hour, and silently fuming. Eris had shrugged when Helion, picking up on the frosty reception, had looked askance. But whatever Lucien had been holding back now bubbled to the surface, and the face he raised was flat and set. 'You,' he said directly to Azriel. 'You're disgusting.'

Azriel removed the hand he'd been brushing against Eris's under the table, a flirtation of fingertips. 'Do we have a problem I don't know about, Lucien?'

'I don't need a champion to defend my honour, Lucien.'

'If Elain wants someone else, that's her decision,' Lucien hissed. 'But if you're also here with Eris, that means Rhysand has put you up to it, doesn't it.'

Helion intervened, or tried to, hand on Lucien's shoulder and bending to murmur in his ear. But Eris had gone pale, still, and Azriel found his mouth too dry to speak.

'Explain,' Eris said, and he said it to Azriel, and it was a plea, not a command, begging, not ordering. But it was Lucien, refusing to be pacified who answered, and the moment in which Azriel might just possibly have got ahead of it slipped through his fingers insubstantial as air.

'Solstice,' Lucien spat at Azriel. 'He kissed Elain. Gave her a necklace. A rose charm, wasn't it. She wrote to tell me. The only letter I've ever had from my mate, confessing she kissed someone else. A mistake, but she wasn't sorry. And neither is he, is he? Because she's who he really wants, whatever ploy he's playing at with you, Eris.'

'It's not,' Azriel said, croaked, and coughed to clear his throat. 'Not a ploy.'

'Is it not? Because Rhys has run this exact scheme before. Did the spymaster tell you about inviting Beron to the Hewn City for a dance with his mate's Made sister? Rhysand isn't even pretending not to play us all off each other.'

'I think an explanation is in order, Azriel,' Helion prompted him, neutral, for now, but his body language was wary. 'Rhys invited Beron to the Hewn City, start with that. Is that true?'

He'd spent most of his life in small rooms with High Lords and their outsize power, their outsize emotions. The oppressive weight of it. It hung about the three faeries facing Azriel, Lucien's rage, Helion's doubt, Eris's humiliation. It pressed on Azriel, hemming him in, queasy and clammy. Even the shadows shrank away from it.

'It's true,' he managed.

'Beron's been sniffing around Keir,' Lucien said. 'Looking for friends wherever they can be found. I'm sure Rhysand finds that worrisome. So he invited Beron to attend a Solstice ball. The whole family, but Beron came alone. Out of curiosity, was Nesta intended for Brogán? The appearance of an offer, that might have worked. But Beron came alone, and Rhysand still threw a twenty-five year old girl who's only been fae a few years at a High Lord more than nine centuries old who's murdered, by the way, vulnerable females, all but chained our mother to the birthing bed and forced her through riskier and riskier pregnancies, but Rhysand wants to play both sides and so he goes reaching for the nearest resource, a sister he's been all year confining to a house she can't fucking leave til she's broken enough to dance with Beron fucking Vanserra--'

'Azriel,' Helion said. 'I hope this isn't true.'

'What's the intention even?' Lucien demanded. 'Because if you play it out, if you actually play it all the way out, Beron is facing a war that could drag on decades with neither side strong enough to win, and on top of that the only sons he has left are wholly inadequate to succeed him if he drops dead of indigestion and a wife too old to bear him more. Rhysand throws a child in his path to tempt him-- a powerful, Made fae who'd bind him to the Night Court forever, young enough to give him a dozen new sons if he can just find a way to put our mother aside-- maybe she'll be the one to drop dead of indigestion, and after a suitable period of mourning no-one would have an unkind word to say when he marries again. But there's already a bargain with Eris, so it makes no sense at all for Rhysand to flirt with a public alliance unless he wants it to get out. He wants you to go storming up to Velaris, Eris, he wants you to go in screaming and renouncing him, freeing him from this bargain he hates owing you so very much. And if you don't do it for Mother's sake you'll do it when this one betrays you--'

'Enough.' Eris put his knuckles to the table, leaning over them with his head hung low. For a moment, anyway, for then he sighed and straightened wearily. 'I know, Lucien.'

'You know?' The younger Vanserra looked flummoxed, then slowly he flushed. 'You... you're not...?'

'I may act the fool, but trust me not to be one.' Eris grasped his brother's elbow with a grateful squeeze. 'There's too many schemes afoot, and we're all stressed. I should have shared more with you, it's not for lack of trust. Just too used to keeping it all close to the vest. I'll do better.'

'No, I-- I apologise. I'm sorry. That's not what--' Lucien rubbed at the bags under his eyes. 'Of course you know what you're doing, Eris. I would never suggest otherwise.'

'Since when?' Eris gave his brother a crooked grin. 'We're in it together, Luce. That means everything to me. We'll deal with Rhysand and Beron both, that I swear. Together.'

'Yes.' Lucien flashed a sullen glance at Azriel, but didn't pursue it. 'I should go,' he said haltingly. 'I've a meeting with Lord Graysen and Queen Vassa tonight, in the human lands. At least that alliance we can trust to remain loyal.'

'Pass on my greetings, and my thanks.'

'I should be on my way, as well,' Helion murmured. He avoided Azriel's eyes as he clasped hands with Eris. 'We'll talk soon. In the meanwhile--'

'Of course.' Eris's smile was perfunctory, dimmed. It had long faded by the time he and Azriel were alone in the suite.

'I don't know wh...' Azriel's throat was tight, hoarse. 'Where to start. What to say.'

'I don't give a flying fuck for anything coming out of your lying mouth.' Eris snapped his fingers, and the maps on the table ignited, burning to ash within seconds as Azriel flinched back. 'Here's where I'll start. You can tell Rhysand I'm never giving up our bargain, no matter how he thrashes to free himself.'

'Eris.'

'He made promises. If he was unprepared to keep them, that's his problem. I will have what I'm owed.' Eris raised his hand to snap again, and stopped. 'Elain fucking Archeron? That milquetoast, weepy mannequin of a female-- bad enough she was paired with my brother. What you see in her.' He closed his eyes, steadying himself. 'Fuck. Fuck you. I can't believe I have to deal with jealousy on top of a fucking coup.'

'I...' Azriel closed his own eyes. 'You didn't know.'

'No. You're a superlative whore, just like your master.' Eris laughed. It was an ugly sound. 'At a certain point, I have to acknowledge it. I deserve this. Father was right after all. What a ridiculously easy weakness to exploit.'

'It wasn't like that.'

'I'm really quite done listening to anything from your lying lips, Spymaster.' Eris's face was haggard and drawn, for just a moment. Just a single second of truth, before he finally snapped his fingers. And then he was gone, and Azriel was alone with everything he'd thoroughly wrecked.

'Fuck,' he whispered, his breath stirring the ashes floating dreamily through the air. 'Fuck,' he said, and summoned the shadows to whisk him away from his failure.

Chapter Text

'How did it go?'

'Want to let me dry off before you interrogate me, Az?' Cassian kicked his boots in the vague direction of the mat and pulled a flannel at random from the laundry basket to rub at his dripping hair. 'It's bucketing down out there. Any of that masala chai left? I could do with something warm.'

Azriel peeled himself off the couch where he'd spent anxious hours worrying over something he couldn't fix for himself. If Cassian was going to put him off another five minutes, stubbornly insisting on a debrief would only see Cassian digging in; they'd been brothers far too long not to know each other's faults. Better to work around it by going through Cassian's stomach, instead. 'I'll get it,' he said, and Cassian snapped his wings, spraying Azriel with wet as he passed. Azriel set his jaws.

By the time Cassian joined him in the kitchen of their townhome, shed of his leathers and wrapped in a nubby terrycloth housecoat that fell short of hairy calves and Cassian's big bare feet, Azriel had brought the tea back to the boil and enriched it with good fresh milk. When he added a generous splash of Illyrian vodka, however, Cass broke into a grin, all forgiven. He served himself plain tea as Cassian slurped happily.

'Went well,' his brother finally answered, just when Az might have had cause to crush his mug between clenched fingers if he'd had to wait for it any longer.

'Do I have to beat the details out of you, for Cauldron's sake?'

Cassian grinned, sprawling back in one of the chairs at their small table, legs spread and at danger of showing more than he meant to-- although, probably he did mean to, that was a game as old as their race, as old as the existence of males anywhere, probably. Azriel did not sit. Azriel did not climb out of his own skin, but only through centuries of practising patience in the face of far more fraught interviews than this. Even if Cassian did make him want to rip out some fingernails sometimes.

'Kallias, Helion, and Tarquin have all agreed to the plan. Lucien still thinks he can get Tamlin on side, although I'd say if it hasn't happened yet it's not going to, and the humans aren't much use if they can't cross Spring. We had some debate about sailing them up the coast to Autumn or winnowing them in a few at a time, but neither's an ideal option.'

'Why is Tamlin still holding out?'

'My opinion?' Cassian finished his drink, and thrust his mug out for more. Azriel set his own aside to ladle more of the chai for him, and resisted the urge to chuck it at his head. Cassian grinned provocatively, all teeth, but his laugh was soft and yielding as he accepted back his cup. 'Eris is still tied to Night, and Tamlin's never going to accept that. Probably for the rest of time.'

'Eris has to know that.' Azriel frowned as he took up his own tea again, wishing the murky depths would reveal the future he sought. 'Is there room to push, there? We might finally get Eris to cut ties if he thinks Tamlin's backing is on the table.'

'Bird in the hand worth two in the bush, and all that. Why should Eris give up a sure thing? And what's Tamlin got that Eris needs more than an army? Proximity and permission to cross his border doesn't outweigh Illyrian troops.'

Troops Rhys had managed to withhold this long on the demand for a better plan that would be throwing lives away on nothing. The Illyrians had lost critical numbers against Hybern. They would be generations recovering. Their High Lord might see fit-- might be forced, eventually-- to send a battalion, but that could, probably would, tip their people into open rebellion. Azriel had little enough sympathy for Illyrians who insisted on clipping females who were perfectly capable of learning to fight, Cassian and he had been proving that with Nesta and her friend Emerie and the priestesses who trained far more dedicatedly than most Illyrian boys, who preferred to bleat arrogantly about pure blood and assumed they knew all they had to and blustered about refusing to follow a bastard General, no matter how many of them Cassian obliterated in the training ring year after year after gods-damned year. Why and how Cassian maintained any hope for their people, Azriel would never understand. Why Eris didn't give a damn about Night's slow-boiling race war and just wanted what he was promised, that at least made sense.

'How did he seem?'

Cassian tipped his head back for the dregs of his drink, and abandoned his mug as he stood. 'I suggest, if you really want to know, that you find out for yourself.'

'I can't do that so long as he's refusing to see me, that's the whole bloody problem, you ass.'

'That's a solvable problem,' Cassian pointed out, casually flipping him off in reply. 'Apologise and eat a little crow. I wouldn't at all mind not having to cover your job as well as mine, brother.' He cracked his neck in both directions as Azriel scowled. 'I'm for bed. Try to catch a few hours before dawn. You look like you need it.'

That left Azriel alone in the kitchen with rapidly cooling tea and a headache that wouldn't be chased away, no matter how many cups he drank. He switched to wine, instead, and sat himself in Cassian's abandoned chair, just a single candle lit at the table to hold the darkness at bay. His shadows were eager to have him, at least, when he would normally be sleeping; they coiled about his shoulders, oozed down his arms, played happily between his blunt fingers with loving caresses. Much as he appreciated them, his lifelong companions were no substitute for the touch of warm skin, knowing eyes, the body of another who had chosen to be with him, too. Not for the first time in his long life, Azriel wished otherwise. How very much simpler things would be if he could only be content with what he had.

A home. Brothers who accepted him, would die for him, as he would for them. Friends like Mor, who loved him, in her way, and who had never said a word about the imbalance of that love between them, knowing he needed it more than he actually needed her, a place to put all that longing he didn't know how to squash. He'd thought, for a few ill-conceived minutes, that Elain might actually welcome his advances, and perhaps she would, if he truly meant to pursue her; but he hadn't, not since his foolish misfire with the necklace at Solstice had blown through his life in an Eris-shaped tornado, wreaking destruction on the apparently rather fragile edifices of things he'd assumed rock-solid. His role as Spymaster of Night Court-- he had so rarely failed there, guarded himself against any misstep for five full centuries, until he misjudged the terrain he'd walked a thousand times before. His role in his found family, that was the one that hurt the most. Three brothers, three sisters. When exactly that ridiculous conception had crept in, he wasn't even sure. Just that suddenly he'd believed it, made himself believe it, and then he'd been standing on the stairs with Elain, a little tipsy, high on the elation of-- of what, he couldn't even say. Something going right, maybe, as simple and as damning as that. That sweet and gentle girl who had been through so much and still smiled, her eyes lighting up when she saw him. When he'd handed her the little box, inexpertly wrapped-- he never wrapped any of his gifts, at best he had the shopkeepers do it for him, because of the one time Mor had turned away something he'd tried to give her when she was no older than Elain and he'd carried that rejection like a talisman all these years-- and he'd known in the act, in the reacting of giving that gift it was going to go wrong, it was wrong, it was so very wrong, but momentum had carried him forwards anyway and he'd got within a hair's breadth of her lips before conscience had dragged him to a stop.

Conscience. That was a laugh. That was a liability, in his business, and one he'd wrestled with for the length of his entire life. It was the one way in which he was closer to Rhys than Cassian, really. The weight of conscience, when they had to do terrible things because they were right, even when they were wrong. The weight they bore on behalf of others, so they wouldn't be stained by it. Elain should never bear that stain. He would do anything to keep her innocence in tact. Didn't that have to include keeping himself from her? There was no greater stain in all of Night than the Shadowsinger himself, who carried the blood of numberless fae on his scarred hands. Even if he allowed himself to darken Elain's light, he could never tell her even the smallest crumbs of what he did for fear of harming her gentle spirit. At best, he would be a leech, sucking at her goodness in hopes it would drain off just a little of his own poison.

A twinge of that damned conscience. No, even that was dishonest. He didn't fear dimming her light. He only feared her seeing him truly in its glow. Even Eris had turned away, when he'd seen Azriel for who he really was.

Superlative whore.

He'd really thought Eris understood the game. But he'd also known when it began to change. He'd been the one to change it. Just not the one to acknowledge it first.

Like he hadn't acknowledged his jealousy. Why should Rhys get everything he wanted, a mate, an equal, a bright beacon of fierce warmth who loved him with every iota-- completed him? Why should Cassian have Nesta, so intelligent and untamed and spilling over with loyalty? Especially when he'd had Mor first and any other female who'd caught his eye for centuries, with that easy laugh and handsome face that charmed so readily and even maintained friendships with half those females-- for shit's sake, Cassian had stood in more than a dozen weddings of his former lovers, beaming with joy for them, not the smallest hint of resentment. Why should they get everything and Azriel nothing?

Azriel scrubbed his palm over his face, rubbing at the grit in his tired eyes. It did no good to sit stewing in his circular self-loathing. He needed sleep. It had been hard coming, the last few weeks. He hated the winter, the ache it put into his scars and the bleak long nights that left him restless and obsessive with no outlet.

He could have had an outlet, if he'd managed to keep Eris in his confidence. He hadn't quite realised, before. How much the regular-- activity-- with Eris kept that edgy agitation at bay. His hands itched, and he knew already that no amount of masturbatory fantasising would alleviate it.

He tried, all the same, standing over the toilet in his en suite and jerking himself to an unsatisfying completion. He flushed away the evidence of his battered conscience resisting all comfort, and went to bed to stare at the walls for a few more hours.

**

Even when he finally did right in his spying, it very nearly ended in disaster.

He sat alone in his small office in the dungeons below the Hewn City, cleaning Truth Teller with a rag. The blood in the slender crevices between the blade and its hilt were always the hardest to get out. He worked slowly, diligently by candlelight, letting the chill seep into his shoulders, his stiff muscles, turn his fingers clumsy. When he cut himself on the edge of the blade, he stuck his finger between his lips, tasting iron. He found a bit of rag in his desk to wrap it, but found himself just staring at the welling blood instead. It dripped down his knuckle, the webbing of his thumb.

His hands looked like that more often than not. Splattered red. Not rare, that it would be his own. But far more frequently, the blood of someone he'd chosen. Inflicting suffering. Leaving scars behind, if he chose them again to live. Leaving no evidence, if he didn't, because their bodies went to the beasts below the dungeon, but that was a choice, too, wasn't it. Sending them off into the starving maws of mindless eaters where he'd never have to think about them again, because he couldn't keep doing what he was doing if he carried them with him. Or could he? Maybe once, when he was young, before he'd become jaded to it. Now, he knew better. It was just easier to leave the clean-up to someone else.

The silence was broken only by the whisper of his shadows, reporting nonsense nothings, as they liked to do when bereft of an actual task. Playacting spy, like children whacking each other with sticks in mimicry of adults in their deadly earnest. They knew nothing of conscience, his shadows. It was all just-- information, to them. All equal in importance. In consequence. In weight.

He had tortured two males who couldn't have told him anything if they'd wanted to. Rhys had seen nothing in their minds but fog and mist. Violence. A seething violence-- weapons waiting for any opportunity to serve their purpose. What, Azriel wondered, strange and remote inside himself, would a daemati find within him?

Warm fingers landed on his nape. They stroked, softly, then thumbs dug into tense muscles, spreading relief. Azriel rolled his head, let it droop low. He pushed back with his wing, and Eris took a step away obediently. Enough space for Azriel to sheathe his blade and rise. There was wine and whiskey on the sideboard. Vodka. He chose that, for the raw burn it left, searing all the way down his gullet.

'What's happened?' Eris asked quietly. 'I got your note. Azriel. Won't you look at me?'

He looked. It wasn't hard. Five hundred years to perfect that face, after all, devoid of expression, as ungiving as the blackest night.

'Azriel?'

Had Eris ever said his name before? He said it so familiarly, like he knew Azriel. Like he wanted to be here, despite everything. He'd come immediately when Azriel asked. Even the way they'd left things. Shameful, if Azriel were capable of shame, to be outdone by a Vanserra in kindness.

But he could put paid to that unearnt solace with just a few words, and he didn't dissemble. 'We came across a troop of Autumn soldiers in the Bog of Oorid,' he said, flat to his own ears. 'We think they were the missing troop we were tracking.'

Eris seemed very still, in the flickering candlelight. Shoulders back, in the black leather jerkin he wore, the flame catching on his long lashes, his short hair, shining blood red.

'Were,' he echoed, at some length.

Azriel nodded. 'Were.'

Eris's jaw moved, lips parting. He looked away, for a long minute, jaw clenched. 'I've known some of those males since I was a boy riding his first pony,' he rasped. 'The Bog. What a fuckin' way to go.'

He could imagine that. A slender little boy, a head of wild red hair, stubbornly getting back on the horse no matter how many times it bucked him. And maybe those males Azriel had wrung so much blood from had been the ones to shape his hands about the reins, to tighten the stirrups for short legs, to pat the boy's shoulder encouragingly, like a father should.

'This would seem to confirm that Beron and Briallyn are in league.' He rustled his wing again, still sore from the ash arrow even after Madja's attention. 'We have the Mask. Nesta found it.'

'Were they searching for it? Is that why they were in the Bog?' Eris drummed his fingers on the back of Azriel's chair. 'The Dread Trove. If my father gets hold of it, or even just the use of it from Briallyn... Mother save the rest of us, much less any attempt to get him off his throne.'

That was about the long and short of it, yes. 'They seemed to be ensorcelled,' he said. 'I think we have to assume she has the Crown. That just leaves the Harp, and now at least we know it's possible to locate it, even retrieve it.'

'That's good,' Eris said, but there was a cautious note in that seeming agreement. Eris's next words confirmed the observation. 'And I suppose Rhysand will be keeping these wondrous objects for himself.'

Not a question. Not a bad guess, either. 'For the good of all Prythian.'

'Pff.' Eris took Azriel's chair. 'Maybe I really am missing something in the male, if he inspires this level of adoration. Think, Azriel. He never gave Tarquin back the Book of Breathings, did he? You really think Tarquin, shining of eye and pure of heart, wouldn't have given it for the asking? Used it for the good of all Prythian? But that's not Rhysand's way, is it.'

'I know what you would do if you got your slimy hands on the Trove. Like father, like son, isn't it?'

Eris's mouth opened, but no hot retort emerged. Instead he lowered his eyes to his hands, twisting a ring on his forefinger til he breathed evenly. 'Well, that deteriorated about as fast as I thought it would. Thank you for the update, Shadowsinger. I'll see myself out.'

'Eris-- wait.' He dragged a hand through his hair, dragged his nails down his neck hard enough to sting. 'I'm sorry. Reflex.'

'Do you even realise any more that you started it?' Eris asked him quite seriously. 'This isn't something I did to you. All the way back to the beginning, even. I'm not the one who hurt your precious Morrigan, do you even remember that? I saved Morrigan, and at no small cost to my own hide, I can tell you that. That trick with the mausoleum, Beron's been going to that well the length of my life, and who knows how far back-- they never did find my uncle's body, did they? I'm only lucky he always needed me more than he wanted me dead. I spared her that, and look at the life she's had since. Power and influence and friends she can love as she pleases. And here I am doing my damnedest to rid the world of the murdering psychopath who did inflict all that pain, and all I get from you lot is this endless rage you never tire of spitting in my face.' Eris stood, tugging the hem of his jerkin into place. 'You can tell your Lord and master I want access to the Mask. Not possession. He can provide it to me however he likes, even, I'll leave that choice with him. And I'll stop asking for Illyrians or Darkbringers. If I have an army of the undead, I don't need living soldiers.'

Azriel's stomach turned over. 'He'll never agree to that, you know that.'

'He should. It's the best deal he can hope for.' Eris raised his fingers to snap, then stopped. 'You remember asking me if I ever get tired of this farce? Same question to you, Azriel. You're a fucking Shadowsinger and he has you carving flesh like any hack. You could rule. If you don't want to, fine, it's not everyone's ambition. But you shouldn't let these people rule you. They take you for granted and they twist you into knots, don't they? They've twisted you all out of yourself and that's why you have all that rage inside you, isn't it. That's why you direct all that rage at me, because they're your "brothers" and they'd never knowingly hurt you, right? So you find someone to pour all that hate into, some convenient straw man who must be responsible for all the hurt you feel that you can't put on the people who actually earnt it. Aren't you fucking tired of it, Azriel?'

And then he was gone, and Azriel rubbed at his throat, stranglingly tight.

**

'And how exactly did he know about the mask, Az?' Rhys demanded, fist thumping on the desk.

'I slipped up,' Azriel repeated. 'I know that. I was recounting what happened to his soldiers--'

'Beron's soldiers.'

'His, when he's High Lord. That's the point, isn't it?'

'That may be his point. Our point is to keep our court in tact whatever antics he gets up to. And since when do you slip with vital information!'

Azriel squared off with his brother. His shadows quailed at the darkness that hovered close about Rhys's shoulders. 'Are you accusing me of something?' Azriel asked flatly.

'Do I have to?' Rhys returned, equally deadly.

'No.'

Rhys's nostrils flared. He flattened his hand on the desk, curled it slowly back into a fist. 'Tell me again what he said about the mask.'

'Access. Not possession.'

Rhys slumped back in his chair. 'And how exactly are we to accomplish that? Nesta's the only one who can wear it without succumbing to it. I'm not sending her to Eris.'

Azriel shifted out of the defencive stance he'd just realised he stood in. Only a step. 'Why not?'

'She's Feyre's sister, for Cauldron's sake.'

'She was Feyre's sister when you made her dance with Beron. While her mate watched, for that matter.'

'Careful,' Rhys said, low and very, very quiet. 'You're verging on something I don't think you want to.'

Some other time, any other time, Azriel might have backed down. But in the space of a day he'd been shot, fought his way through an entire troop of possessed soldiers and killed the survivors by inches in cold blood. All that before he'd had to hear a lot of unpleasant things spoken by unpleasant people, and that apparently wasn't yet done.

'It's treasonous to question you now, High Lord?'

Rhys actually bared his teeth. Azriel stood impassive, knowing the moment would pass, curious only how long it would take, and what show of remorse Rhys might make after. It took longer than it would have, once, when they were young and dreamers still. Slowly, Rhys eased out of his stance, too, slowly. Then at last Rhys dropped his eyes, and the oppressive weight of his great magic faded. Drawn and vulnerable, his brother looked up at him.

'I'm sorry,' Rhys said. 'Is that what you want to hear from me? I'm sorry. It doesn't change anything, Az. We are under constant assault. Amarantha, Hybern, now a Death Lord. It's all we can do to hold the seams together and you want me to give a shit about Eris and Nesta? They're chaff in the wheat. I have to care about the entire silo. I have to care about all the people who will need that wheat to live.'

'Then give Eris what he wants. You'd have another ally to help you.'

'An "ally" who will never stop fighting me for control! An "ally" who won't listen to anyone else's opinion, who will always have to do it his way or not at all--'

'Sounds familiar,' Azriel muttered acidly.

'Damn it, Az, everything is hanging by a thread!'

'No, Rhys, not everything. Just us.'

Rhys sat back in his chair as if Azriel had struck him. He stayed that way, stiff as a board, hands clenched, whole body clenched as he struggled to breathe through it. When Azriel circled the desk to his side, he did as Eris had instinctively tried to do for him, hoping it worked better this time. He placed his hands on Rhys's rigid shoulders, squeezing gently until Rhys-- far more stubborn than Azriel, but that was a High Lord for you-- relaxed into it just the tiniest bit. Azriel looped an arm about Rhys's chest, loosely, not trapping, but giving Rhys somewhere to rest if he would only let himself. He felt the tremble in Rhys's core, bunched muscles shivering from the sheer effort of holding himself apart. When he finally raised a hand to grip Azriel's wrist, he squeezed hard enough to hurt, like a drowning man who doesn't know his own frenzied strength. Azriel weathered it silently, until Rhys finally tipped his head back to lean against Azriel's chest.

'At least you didn't drag me up to the rooftop to beat the shit out of me,' Rhys said froggily. He coughed to clear his throat, and released Azriel, who stepped back immediately, respecting that clear desire-- not order-- for space. But he sat on the edge of the desk, this time, beside his brother, angling his wings to avoid a stack of paperwork.

'We can, if you like,' he offered. 'If you're going to tell me no again.'

Rhys dug his own hands into his taut neck, stretching painfully. 'Giving Eris access-- even managed, sideways access-- to the Trove has bad idea writ all over it, you have to see that.'

'And you have to see that it's now or never. It's not just that Beron's in a stronger position, it's that he's actively searching for ways to stay that way eternally. Do you really want to see what he'd do with the Trove? We've already seen what he's done with the Crown, and to his own people. Imagine what he'd do to everyone else.'

'We don't know for sure...'

'If we wait long enough to be sure, that's too late.'

'Nesta might find the Harp.'

'But Beron and Briallyn are looking, too. Rhys. Why are you holding back so hard?'

Rhys sighed, eyes drooping closed. 'Fear of the unknown, I suppose. It seems so much bigger these days. The unknown. Or perhaps it's that I know too much about what it might bring me. Too much about myself and... and what I'd do to survive, if it came to that. I don't need the Ouroboros to see that.'

Azriel gnawed at the inside of his cheek. 'I'm not saying Eris will be perfect. Far from it. But he will be better for Prythian, even if he isn't always better for us. That has to matter, doesn't it?'

'Of course it matters.' But it still took Rhys another minute to admit defeat. Surrender. 'I want an actual plan, and I want to know he has the seasonal courts behind him.'

Azriel squeezed his brother's shoulder.

**

Azriel had finally succeeded at something he would have said was impossible. Eris stared at him, mouth open, no sound at all emerging. Silence, pure as the falling snow outside the cabin deep in the Illyrian mountains. It was, Azriel decided, rather pleasant.

'I...' Eris sat in his lone chair. 'I didn't think...'

'That I could actually do it?'

A slight shrug of the shoulder admitted it. 'That he'd allow it,' Eris extemporised, but there was a strange confusion in his gaze, brows frowning slightly, lips forming words he didn't speak. He diverted to the wine bottle, overturning it into his glass. Only a few swallows emerged, and he issued a short, impatient sigh, thrusting to his feet to get another from the cupboard. Then he discarded the wine in favour of a crystal decanter of what appeared to be fine Winter Court akvavit, discarding the diamond-cut stopper to slop a few fingers of liquor into a glass.

'Are you-- happy?'

Eris turned to face him again, shooting back the liquor in a large swallow. 'Of course,' he said, but it sounded reflexive, not real, and now Azriel was frowning in confusion, too.

'It's exactly what you asked for,' he pointed out. 'It's the commitment you've been waiting for, the resource you've needed. Eris, you could actually win.'

Eris took a deep pull straight from the decanter, then, throat bobbing as he gulped. He offered the bottle, and Azriel took it, just to increase the chances of Eris saying something that made any sense. Eris ran both hands into his short hair, spiking it unevenly. Sucked at the ring in his lower lip, sharp teeth digging white into his skin, a new tell. A vulnerability. And one he allowed Azriel to see.

'I really-- I really thought.' Eris trailed off. He reached for the akvavit, but Azriel didn't let it go; tugging at it only pulled Eris a step closer to him. 'Don't fucking lie to me,' Eris whispered, staring into his eyes. 'Why did you do it?'

For you. That was the answer Eris wanted, maybe needed. Maybe it was true. Maybe it had been more for himself, though, and that was a harder thing to explain. To prove-- something, at the end of a long and difficult day-- year-- life. He didn't know. He wasn't a thinker, like Rhys, a care-giver like Cassian. Neither was he a soldier or a leader. He was apart, and always had been, an uneasy third in their triumvirate who never quite fit a role, even as he threw himself into it for the sake of the court they gave so much to defend. The court that they could be, would be, wanted to be, at least, some day. A court where a person like Azriel wouldn't be needed. Would be repudiated, even, exiled for his loathsome skills and grim tally of sins those skills had made possible.

'You're not a dreamer,' he said, covering Eris's hand on the decanter, and slowly peeling his fingers away to hold in his own. He raised the liquor to his own lips, and took a goodly swallow. It numbed the tongue immediately, leaving a strong flavour of caraway and a discordant note of citrus, burning down his gullet. He took another swallow for good measure. 'I don't know what kind of court you want to build. But I know you'll really build it. That matters, I think.'

Eris shook his head ever so slightly, that frown deepening to a wrinkle between his thin brows. 'If it takes the rest of my fucking life.'

'I know.' One more swallow, and he leant forward. Eris met him halfway, bruising force that was raw and cutting as the liquor, and Azriel let him in.

'Tell me what you want,' Azriel gasped, coming up for air.

The Illyrian-made bed was most definitely not robust enough for their activity in it. Its wooden joints creaked and the woven rope supporting the mattress whinged with their weight. Azriel feared for the joinery; carpentry wasn't a prized trade in Illyria, where many had no beds at all, much less proper houses in which to put them. Eris's lips were red and swollen, as Azriel's surely were as well. There were bite marks in a perfect circle about Eris's nipple, its piercing thoroughly plucked and nibbled, gleaming wet from Azriel's tongue. It was entirely possible his neck looked the same, the way Eris had been going at it. Not to mention the scratch marks dug into his shoulders.

Eris's grin was all razor-edged teeth. 'Don't ask my permission.'

'I want your permission.' Not quite the right word, not quite the right feeling. 'I want your... I want you to want what I do.'

Eris's knuckle trailed soft as silk down his cheek. 'That's what I want, too.'

'That's not very helpful,' Azriel complained, and Eris's lips parted in a little grin, delight real and feral in his eyes. 'You couldn't just tell me.'

'It never occurred to you that I liked what we were doing, all these years?' Eris dragged Azriel's hand from his waist to his groin. Azriel had been grinding against it for several very engaging minutes, and was well aware of the erection to be found there.

'I know-- that,' Azriel rolled his eyes, giving the familiar shape of Eris's cock straining against his trousers a squeeze. He'd touched Eris intimately, more than intimately, a hundred times, but only ever to inflict pain. At best, holding out a promise of pleasure he'd never intended to keep, not really. 'That time we... when I-- made you--'

'Under the right circumstances, I might have liked that, too. It wasn't the act. It wasn't the violence. It was-- it wasn't you and me. You could have done that with anyone. All these years, say whatever you like about what we did, what you thought we were doing, but it was always you and me.' Eris dragged the edges of his nails down Azriel's neck, dipping between his collar bones. 'It was always a journey together,' he explained, thumbs framing Azriel's cheeks, brushing back the curls at his round ears. It was maybe the most honest thing they'd ever said to each other. 'A journey of trust. I always believed you wouldn't go too far-- but you followed me far enough. There can be give, there can be take-- but we go together. That's what I want.' His lips parted, hesitated. 'You're what I want,' he dared, bracing himself even as he admitted it.

Azriel had thought it before. Who Eris would be, if Eris had choice in the matter. What would be left of that choice, even if Eris unseated his father and seized Autumn. There were no guarantees. Look at Rhys-- everything he had, wealth and power, a mate who loved him unconditionally, family and friends who supported his every move, the utopia of Velaris to comfort him after the darkness of the Court of Nightmares, a balm to any pricks of conscience. And still Rhys teetered on the edge in unguarded moments. Eris had none of those guardrails. Anything he said now, in the brief gasp of freedom between being an heir and being a High Lord-- it could vanish into memory, a delusion swiftly forgotten under the weight of reality. And Azriel would be no different than before, except a little more alone for having dared to reach back, and been, inevitably, left behind. There was no future where he followed Eris to Autumn, after all. If he even wanted that, and he was by no means sure, throat tight, heart pounding, eyes burning, that he did, or if he just wanted to want it, and wanted to want it that badly.

When he rose from the bed, frame whinging in relief as his weight lifted, Eris propped himself up on his elbows to watch him go. Shutting down, eyes falling away, retreating into himself. That evaporated in a shaking breath of relief when Azriel only returned a moment later with the akvavit. A swallow for himself, and then Azriel held the bottle to Eris's lips, tilting it carefully for Eris to sip. And then he went on tilting it, splashing it down Eris's bare chest, the rounds of his ribcage, the sharp angles of his hip bones, the valley of his navel, dripping last into the loose laces of his trousers. Azriel chased it with his tongue, lapping it up til Eris was wriggling, bucking under him, eagerly lifting his hips to allow those trousers to come sliding off when Azriel pulled. Boots, stockings, and pants all tumbled away into the dark edges of the world beyond the bed. Azriel revisited his path with another dribble of the liquor, taking his time tasting his way down Eris's nude body. He'd stripped this male a hundred times, but never fully, and never to admire as he did now. Scraping his tongue on the trail of hair that circled Eris's belly and pointed straight down to his rigid member. Soft and scruffy bollocks, and sensitive, apparently, when Azriel brushed them with his lips. Pale thighs, freckles few and far between where the sun so rarely visited, bony knees that bent back obediently to the pressure of Azriel's palms. Eris's head tipped back, a sharp 'Ahh' escaping him as Azriel brought the crystal stopper from the decanter to press against the tight nub between his ass cheeks. His erection bobbed, a bead of pearly pre-cum forming at the reddened tip.

That, Azriel decided, was permission enough.

The stopper had a thick base, slightly tapered, a blunt end. Eris arched, savaging his own lip as Azriel played with him. It took patience and effort, to press the stopper through the ring of resistant muscle, til Azriel spat on it and finally eased it in. It didn't go very deep, but the faceted ball the size of his palm that decorated the end now decorated Eris, nestled beneath his bollocks like a hidden treasure. Eris moaned into Azriel's mouth as they kissed again, tongues tangling, Azriel tapping that ball, pressing on it, twisting it as whim took him. When he rose, this time, Eris curled after him, fingers dragging at his neck. Azriel caught both wrists in one hand, and pulled his belt-- slowly, making a bit of a show of it, admittedly-- from his belt loops. Eris watched with avid interest, and Azriel preened, just a little, under his burning gaze. Why had he made Eris face a hundred walls over the years when he could have had this? But then this wouldn't be this, and this was something he'd never felt before, a desperate need and a simmering purpose to make it everything it could be. Eris was pliant, if not eager, as Azriel wound the belt about his wrists, figure eights that wove between the two just loose enough to give.

'Oh the floor,' Azriel instructed him. 'On your knees. Spread wide.'

Eris slid from the mattress, graceful even without use of his hands. There was an inviting flush on his chest, which rose and fell rapidly, shallowly, mouth open for air-- for what he surely suspected, expected, was next. Azriel didn't mean to disappoint.

'Undress me,' he ordered. 'Ah-- I didn't say you could use your hands. That's a penalty.' He allowed Eris's fingers to curl about his for just a moment, twining together, before he lifted Eris's arms high and guided them back behind his head. Elbows jutting high, neck a little bent at the pressure, perched on those spread knees that Azriel kicked back apart when they fumbled for balance, Eris was quite a sight. It was even better from behind, as Azriel circled him slowly. He dragged the toe of his boot up between Eris's legs, catching his dangling knackers and pausing to nudge at the crystal ball. 'Don't lose that,' he warned, rubbing at it, testing how secure it nestled inside of Eris's hole. 'That's another penalty if you do.' He completed his circle, stopping in front of Eris again, and lifted Eris by the chin. 'Undress me. With your teeth.'

It was a test designed to fail. That had always been the first stage of any encounter between them. A task Azriel, the one in control, set for the Eris, bound and at his mercy. He'd thought there was something important in that, something merciful, maybe, always giving Eris a chance to avoid the mess and the drama and the pain. It had always been a false choice, though. Eris had been bound far tighter by the duty owed to a High Lord, even one he wished dead. Azriel wasted no mercy tonight. Eris's eyes simmered a liquid gold in the candlelight as he made every attempt to obey, but when the knot in Azriel's laces foiled him, Azriel didn't leave him struggling for too long. He stepped back, catching Eris's arm to keep him steady when he swayed after. He stroked tenderly at the lean muscle of Eris's biceps, then let him go to remove the laces himself. Pulling them free of their slots, til he had a good length of rawhide leather string in hand.

'That's two penalties,' he said, and Eris's reddened lips curled in a little grin. 'I think that earns a punishment. Stay absolutely still. Don't test me for a third. Say "yes, Azriel".'

That smirk was irrepressible, now. 'Yes, Azriel.'

'Absolutely still.' He circled Eris again, going to a crouch behind him, wings spread for balance. He smoothed his palms along Eris's hips, checking the security of that crystal ball still clenched tight, then slid his hands to Eris's front. He rubbed the head of the leaking cock, massaged the length of it, tickling Eris's bollocks til Eris gave a shiver, shoulders shifting just slightly under the strain of maintaining his motionlessness. Azriel tsked, and Eris shivered again. 'Penalty,' Azriel chided him, and gathered cock and bollocks together in one hand, squeezing them cruelly to hear Eris hiss. And then he wrapped them both in the string of his laces, tight enough to wring a smothered groan from their owner. When Azriel stood to admire his handiwork, Eris was panting, shuddering, the purpling bulge of his bollocks trapped securely against his demanding, now denied erection jutting out before him. When Azriel gave it a negligent nudge with his boot, Eris squeezed his eyes shut, sweat pebbling on his upper lip and temples.

'You had a job to do,' Azriel reminded him. 'Let's see if you can earn your way back to a reward.'

Eris laughed softly, just a breathy exhale. 'I knew you'd be good at this if you ever put your mind to it.'

Azriel found himself grinning back. Oddly enough, he felt lighter than he had in years. Centuries, maybe. He bent low, angling his head for it, and kissed those smug lips. Then left a gentle slap on Eris's cheek as he withdrew. 'Penalty for talking,' he whispered, and Eris's smile widened into dimples.

All the same, he fully expected it when he dug his hand into Eris's short, silky hair and cradled his head in place for Eris to lap and suck at his cock, and felt the smallest resistance. He tugged at the gold hoops in Eris's pointed ear as Eris craned his head up.

'Just so you know,' Eris said. 'Turn-about's fair play.'

He guided his prick into Eris's mouth, stopping any other sound than the filthy moans he was waiting for, but he laughed all the way to the brilliant lightning flash of his orgasm, and let Eris tackle him to the scratchy woollen rug for his turn. Fair was fair, after all. And if he pocketed the crystal stopper that morning as he crept quietly for the door, Eris was asleep and there was no-one to know he'd done it but his shadows, and they wouldn't tell anyone.