It wasn't easy being Beron Vanserra's first born son. There were many reasons it wasn't easy. Until his first brother was born, he was the high fae to kill if someone wanted to remove the Vanserra's from the Autumn Court's throne. After his brothers were born, he was the high fae to kill to be first in line for that throne. He had already shown the signs of being Cauldron favored to take his father's place even if his brothers all survived to his succession. But it wasn't easy being Beron Vanserra's first born son because his father was simply Beron Vanserra, and Beron Vanserra was a certified sadist.
Ripped away from his mother's side at a young age, Eris learned the way of cruelty at his father's side before he was sent away to his father's war camps along the borders of their court. Away from his father he had to play the part, for when he didn't, it got back to the male and there was punishment. The males he commanded suffered more than he did until his brothers were born. Then Beron had made it clear that Eris was not necessarily needed, so punishment turned to him.
Spies followed him everywhere. He learned to pick them out. Know who was reporting his movements and where they were reporting to. His father, other courts, his brothers everyone had eyes on him. He had his own informants to tell him the movements of his father, his brothers, and other courts. He had spies on his mother, who told him of his mother's infidelity. He did not fault her for his father was as cruel to her as he was to anyone he believed beneath him, nor did he hate the son she bore that held no resemblance to Beron at all. He was no threat to Eris' claim on the throne and seemed to have no care of trying to claim it. Lucien was not his concern.
It was because spies followed him everywhere that he was forced to completely adopt the cruel demeanor his father desired of him. He had learned his lesson the hard way by taking a lover, a male sentry. They had only been together properly once before his father had summoned them both to his court. Had made him watch as his lover was ripped to shreds, because males fucked females not other males. And because he had valued his claim on the throne, he had denounced the male before the light had left his eyes.
It was not easy being Beron Vanserra's first born son because after the incident with his lover, his father had decided he needed to arrange a marriage for him to some Night Court female. She was beautiful and he admired Morrigan's fiery nature, but he knew in his heart she would be destroyed by his father's court. There would be no way for her to thrive while his father lived and the male was too well protected for any assassination attempt.
He had considered taking his father's life often enough from a young age that he knew every pitfall that every other assassination attempt had fallen into. He had watched plenty be executed by his father for their attempts in his life.
Worse for him, his fated wife seemed to have as little care for him as he had for her. He had no attraction to females. None. He desired males and he almost wondered if there was a chance she felt the same. He wanted to get her alone to ask, but he couldn't expose himself like that in case she reported him to her parents or some spy heard him and reported back to his father.
If anything, he reasoned, they would have freedom in their quarters. She could sneak in lovers and he hoped he could sneak in his own. Perhaps they could be friends behind the masks they would be forced to wear. He would make the best of this if he had to.
But Morrigan gave him an out. Her virginity had been a condition of the marriage insisted upon by his father and hers. Purity that he could care less about because he didn't want to touch her at all. He had gotten the details from his father, she had wandered into some Illyrian camp, had bared herself to some Illyrian bastard, and then had been rushed home where she had faced her parents. She clearly hadn't wanted to marry him so he had gone to his parents and had told them he wouldn't marry her now. It was his hope it would spare her the life she had risked herself to avoid.
But mere days later he was on border patrol, investigating a disturbance at their borders. Someone that didn't belong was sitting just on the edge inside of the border. He froze when he saw her, Morrigan, beaten practically to death with those iron nails spiked into her womb. She had been tortured. The note attached to those nails told him exactly who had done it.
"Don't touch her." He hissed at the sentry approaching her. It was a cruelty he would hate himself for. No part of him wanted to leave her like that. It seemed Keir was as cruel as Beron. "No one touches her," he told his sentries as he approached her. "The moment we do, she's our responsibility."
She would be too. It wouldn't be much to have her wounds seen to but it was after that that he had to think of. He wouldn't be forced to marry her now but she wouldn't have anywhere else to go. She would be trapped in the Autumn Court where her independence would attract the worst kind of males, the males his father encouraged. But he had to be sure of what she wanted.
"I take it you do not wish to live here, Morrigan," he spoke to her. He saw the thoughts flash in her eyes. She would rather burn Autumn to the ground than live in it. He didn't blame her. "I thought so."
"We can't just leave her to—" a sentry tried to defend her.
"We can, and we will," he kept his voice cold and his tone cruel. "She chose to sully herself; her family chose to deal with her like garbage. I have already told them my decision in this matter." He glanced at the sentry he knew reported to his father. At the sentry he knew had sold him and his lover out to his father only a couple years before. "And I am not in the habit of fucking Illyrian leftovers." The show was for him. Morrigan would hate him for the rest of her life and he regretted that. While his father lived, he would never be able to explain away his actions.
He would never be able to tell her that he went straight to his father to report what he had found, right in front of a Night Court spy. He would never be able to tell her that when he felt the presence of an Illyrian flying around the border of his court that he simply let the male in when he got close to where Morrigan was. He would never tell her that he offered to check on the disturbance to keep his father and other border patrols from interfering as the Illyrian warrior found her and took her away.
It wasn't easy being Beron Vanserra's first born son as centuries later he watched his father destroy his youngest brother's lover the way his had gone centuries before. As he wished he had had his brother's strength of renouncing the court rather than renouncing his lover. As he alerted the High Lord of Spring to Lucien's need for asylum on his borders from the brothers chasing him to kill him. As two of his cruel brothers died that night and he didn't shed a tear.
It wasn't easy being Beron Vanserra's first born son in Amarantha's court Under the Mountain because he was the first one threatened if his father stepped out of line. It was the first time he saw his father truly care about his children enough to want to keep them from being Amarantha's nightly entertainment. But he played his part well in Amarantha's court. He picked his victims, fae who would die anyway because they had already attracted Amarantha's wrath, and reported on them enough to hasten their deaths rather than let them rot in the dungeons. And for his services, a blind eye was turned to his string of male lovers he took. The first time he truly had freedom to be with males despite not allowing himself to have any sort of emotional connection with them.
But Amarantha's reign ended after fifty years and Prythian faced a new war. And it became not easy to be Beron Vanserra's first born son because he knew it was right to fight this war against Hybern alongside the Night Court and the rest of Prythian but his father was withholding his support because it was Rhysand. Rhysand who had also played a damned role Under the Mountain.
But it distracted his father enough, took away most of the spies on Eris enough, that he could take a serious lover for the first time. A High Fae male that he had admired from afar for far too long. A male that understood the struggle between the cruel mask he was forced to wear to protect his future and the male he wanted to be. A male that understood he had a vision for the Autumn Court that would change how it was run when his father was gone. A male that encouraged his vision of far less cruelty in the world. A male he could find peace with. A male that encouraged him to seek out help from the Night Court to remove his father from the throne when it was time in exchange for convincing his father to assist in the war effort.
He did his job well enough that his father had gone to the meeting Rhysand had called for the High Lords. But he had needed to put on a show for his father when Morrigan had made a quip at him that he easily could have let slide. He had made his own quip back and had found himself pinned under the Shadowsinger fighting for air as the male strangled him. The pure rage in those eyes had Eris sure he was going to die. But Feyre Cursebreaker had come to his rescue and suddenly he could breathe again as she made to draw him away. But Azriel looked down at him, with those cruel eyes and dropped his mouth to Eris' ear.
"If you so much as glance at her again, I will tell everyone all about your lover."
Eris blanched as he imagined what his father would do to his lover. As he imagined what it would do to him to see that torture. Would he have the strength to survive as Lucien had? He almost doubted it. So he did his best throughout the rest of the meeting to appease the Night Court without pushing his father too far, because he couldn't afford to put his lover in such danger.
And when they left the meetings, he wished, wished with everything that he had that Feyre Cursebreaker, High Lady of the Night Court, had ignored her mate and had killed his father. Had spared them all what a corrupted, joyless person his father was. Because it wasn't easy being Beron Vanserra's first born son.