Lucien arrived Under the Mountain to discover everything was chaos.

He looked around, metal and good eyes both widened slightly in surprise, at what he saw. There were soldiers in every nook and cranny, servants hurrying along with boxes of weapons, supplies, food and drink. He felt a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach, a sense of unease, and pushed himself further into the tunnels, deeper down into the dark, nonetheless.

No one bothered him as he walked, the soldiers simply ignoring his presence entirely. As he swung through the private areas for a couple of the different Courts, he could see them in their rooms, talking in hushed voices, going quiet as he passed. He even saw Kallias, briefly, who only shook his head and closed his door in Lucien's face.

Something was very, very wrong.

Where had this army come from?

He had everything he needed. He'd go back for Cassian, since the Azriel had continued to insist that it was really Cas who was the answer to the Night Court's riddle. Otherwise, he needed to come down here:

Fox watch heart of midnight break

Under the Mountain is where it begins

Truth reads while love's ghost wakes

Open the gates to let her in

And after here, he supposed, to visit Feyre again, in her grave. To… wake her up.

Love's ghost wakes.

You know by now it's not her you're waking up, the sword murmured, with affection. Lucien swallowed against the lump in his throat.

"Yeah," he said, hoping he just looked like he was talking to himself, as he walked past a group of servants busily taking apart a large four-poster bed inside someone's bedroom. "I know it's not going to be her. Do… you know who it is I'm waking up?"

I don't even know how to begin answering that question, Lucien.

He frowned, wondering what the hell that was supposed to mean. He rounded a bend, nearly to the throne room, and saw-

"Tamlin!"

Tamlin, who was actually leaving Amarantha's throne room, turned to look at him. Lucien's heart leapt to see his friend by himself, then dropped as he watched Tamlin glance back and forth, furtively, as though looking to see if he'd be punished if they spoke. There were people in the throne room behind him, more groups of hushed conversation, but Amarantha was not on her throne. He couldn't see Rhysand either, which was… actually sort of a relief.

"Lucien." Tamlin smiled at him, really smiled. Even though he seemed thinner and faded and pale, that smile was Tamlin, through and through. After a year and a half, Tamlin seemed… smaller, than when he'd left. Diminished. But something shone in his eyes, still, and Lucien thought, no matter how many times he gets hit, Tamlin always gets back up, sooner or later. Sometimes later, and after he's destroyed half his house again, but he gets back up.

"What's going on?" Lucien asked. "I just returned from the Autumn Court and no one is… here? And the soldiers... It looks like she's going somewhere."

"She is," Tamlin murmured, cutting his eyes to the side as a servant passed them. What, is he not allowed to speak to his friends any longer?

No, the sword replied. He had undergone something. I can feel fear at the edges of his mind, worry that she will hurt you. I think, blood-mate, you are being held over him as a threat.

Lucien swallowed back his distaste and tried to ignore it.

Tamlin relaxed again, when the servant had gone. "She's… decided on her invasion."

"Oh. The Spring Court?" Lucien asked, staring at all the boxes with a new understanding. "It's the closest to the Wall and she already has troops there, but no one's been able to figure out how to bring the Wall down, so I don't-"

"I don't actually know," Tamlin said, shrugging slightly. He actually didn't have so many bruises this time, and Lucien caught that gleam in his eyes again. The spirit underneath everything he'd been through in nearly a year and a half. "She won't tell anyone. Rhys has been trying to learn, but… I think only she and the Attor know for sure."

"I wouldn't want to ask the Attor," Lucien muttered, shuddering. "I came back to see her. Because I agreed to, and I think it's probably faster to do what she says the first time and not make her think of me as something to capture." Tamlin flinched. "I… sorry. Also, he's Rhys now?"

Tamlin grinned, a little shamefaced, and there - there was that look on his face again. "He's been Rhys for a while. He used to be Rhys when we were young, too, you know. He and I were friends for a long time when we were younger."

"Sure. Right." There was a change to the way Tamlin had always smelled, a bit of darkness and starlight and cold, clear nights underneath his usual green plants and renewal. If she was making them go to bed together, that made sense, but… this was different than what he would have expected.

Lucien could almost understand it. Almost...

"Now's a good time to come back," Tamlin said thoughtfully, arms crossed. "She's hardly even touched Rhys and I for days, she's so busy with this invasion. She hasn't even made us stay in our room, we've been pretty free to just wander around under here."

If they hadn't been touched, why did Tamlin smell like Rhys?

"That's good news, at least," Lucien said, but he was distracted, hardly listening. Trying to figure out that change in scent, the way Tamlin smelled like the middle of the night in late spring, just after the final frost. When it was finally warm enough to go out at night and lay on your back, looking up at the stars in all their brilliance while dew settled onto the newly green grass-

"Oh, fuck," Lucien said out loud.

Oh, fun, his sword murmured.

"What?"

"You aren't, Tam. Tell me you aren't. Not with him."

"I'm not… what?" But Tamlin knew what he was asking, his face went red and he looked away, staring down the hall. After a long pause where Lucien simply fixed his stare on him, he sighed and threw his hands up in the air. "It's not like we wanted to."

"You're both High Lords, Tamlin. You are supposed to be the literal embodiment of… fertility, or something. No one ever fully explained that to me." Lucien narrowed his eyes; as always, his good eye narrowed as far as he wanted, while his metal eye couldn't quite match it. He knew that it mostly just made him look like he felt very skeptical, rather than the intimidating expression he tried for. "I'm not sure how fertility works with two male High Lords. What happens if you-... get free, and he goes back to being what he was at the Night Court?"

Tamlin set his jaw and looked away, staring fixedly at a spot on the wall. "I am not ever leaving her," Tamlin said very carefully, "and neither is my… is Rhys." Lucien felt a stab of guilt as he remembered that Tamlin couldn't even think about escape without pain and fear any longer.

"You know what I mean, Tam. This... you and Rhysand... it's not going to have a happy ending. It didn't have a happy ending the first time, either, did it?"

"I will not be thinking about that," Tamlin said with gritted teeth.

"I think you just don't want to think about consequences or the future... again. You never want to think about the consequences, Tamlin!"

"I don't have a future," Tamlin growled. "I don't have one, Lucien."

"Yes," Lucien said coldly. "You do. You said that fifty years ago, too, Tamlin, and we ran out of time because of it. Because you didn't… you didn't even want to try."

Tamlin did not look at him, keeping his eyes on a spot on the wall. "That was different."

"Was it?"

"Yes! I…" Tamlin trailed off, frowning, a look on his face Lucien knew well. Can't think of what to say. Tamlin never has the words. "I take it day by day," He said, finally. "I just try to adjust, get used to it."

"What, is that what Rhysand told you to do?"

"How else do you survive it, Luce?" Tamlin's voice cracked, just a little. "I don't know what else to do any longer. Every time I stand up to her she finds out, and it's worse. Every single thing she does to me gets worse. Do you have another idea for me?"

Yes. But I can't tell you what it is.

"No. You're right. I'm sorry, Tam. I'm just… with Rhysand?"

Could you have possibly thought of anyone worse to get a mating bond with?

People find things in the dark they can't in the light, his sword murmured lovingly at his hip.

"Yes," Tamlin said flatly. "With him. He's different than we thought."

"That's what they say about you, too, you know."

Tamlin finally quirked a smile. It was faint, there and then gone, but a smile anyway. "I know. Maybe they're right about us both."

Lucien sighed. "We can deal with this later, Tam. I just think… no. We'll deal with it later. I need to go… present myself to the queen. Get it over with. If she's not in court, then where is she?"

"Remember when we never called her that?" Tamlin asked faintly. "You and I. When we swore we'd never call her queen." He gestured vaguely down a hallway. "I'll lead you to her. I think she's talking to Rhys right now."

Tamlin knew Under the Mountain by now as well as he knew all his own lands. Lucien followed him, trying to think. Obviously he wasn't an idiot. He'd heard the rumors, and seen for himself how Rhys had kept Tamlin from being executed. Knew he'd given up his own people.

He'd seen the way Tamlin and Rhys looked at each other the day Tamlin had nearly been executed, had seen the way Rhys put an arm around Tamlin at the end. It wasn't the idea that they had found something in each other that bothered him. He had sort of expected that - Tamlin had treated going to bed with someone like a validation of his worth as a person since long before he and Lucien had ever become friends.

But… the scent underneath Tamlin's, the cold, clear starlight that seemed to almost line his skin, the sense of it shining out of his eyes, should have been impossible. Two High Lords shouldn't be able to mate. They'd throw the others off balance, unsettle them. There wasn't a court in Prythian that didn't have it out for Rhys after one thing or another. Tamlin as a potential weakness would only put a target on both their backs.

Lucien would have to be four steps ahead of every other court, because Cauldron knew Tamlin had no idea how to scheme effectively. He was an open book; they'd read what he felt for Rhys all over his face. There was a reason Tamlin mostly kept to himself down here in the south, and it wasn't just that he was uncomfortable with the protocol of the other High Lords. Tamlin struggled to be anything other than honest.

And he'd gotten himself mated to Prythian's most famous inveterate liar.

It was Amarantha's bedroom Tamlin led him to, and Lucien felt an instinctive twist of revulsion, knowing what he knew about what went on in this room. He was startled by the way it didn't look like a torture chamber, beyond some hooks he could see up in the ceiling that he recognized from what his own family had done to Jesminda.

It just looked like a room. An enormous room, full of gorgeous warm wood furniture, but still just a room. Lucien felt his jaw drop as he looked towards her bed and saw an iron bar with silver shackles hanging off of it fixed just above the headboard. "By the Cauldron," He whispered, not even aware he had spoken.

Tamlin's eyes followed to where Lucien had looked, and then he flushed bright red, shifting uncomfortably, a strange look coming over his face. He moved slightly away from Lucien.

Amarantha had indeed been speaking with Rhys, sitting at a small table across from him, her head tilted to the side flirtatiously, while Rhys only stared at her with that same maddening empty smile. "Had them custom ordered," She was saying as they entered. "I think you'll love seeing them on him."

Rhys's eyes went to them, and the curve of his smile widened, just slightly, seeing Lucien. "Oh thank the Cauldron, someone else for her to talk at," He said smoothly. "And here I thought I'd be trapped with her aggressively inappropriate conversational topics forever."

Amarantha turned around.

"Your Majesty?" Tamlin said, in a softer, weaker voice than he had spoken to Lucien with. "Lucien Vanserra has returned, as planned."

Lucien wondered which part was the act - the stronger Tamlin in the halls, or the broken one here.

Amarantha's eyes lit up. Lucien felt his own metal eye whirring. Through it, he could see that Rhys was different, too. Underneath the darkness and starlight, Lucien could see a sense of things growing, renewal and hope, wisteria letting off its sweet scent in the middle of the night. The return of the world to life. If he got any closer, he thought, he'd smell Tamlin on the Night Lord, too.

Whether or not she has them in her bed has nothing to do with what they're doing together by this point, he thought, and fought back a repeat of his earlier distaste. What he thought about Rhys didn't matter. This was his lord's mate, and that was how it was. Now he needed to start figuring out how to keep them both alive.

"Lucien Vanserra! Regent of my Spring Lands," Amarantha said brightly. "Come in!" Tamlin's eyes narrowed and his jaw tightened. My Spring Lands.

What a bitch, the sword muttered, and Lucien put a hand on the hilt to quiet it down.

"Your Majesty," Lucien said, bowing low the way she liked them to, his eyes flickering over to Rhys, who only casually raised one hand in return.

"To what do I owe this immense physical pleasure, Lucien?" Amarantha stood, Jurian's eye swivelling to look right at Lucien, to look right through him. He thought he saw it narrow in thought and fought back nausea.

"I gave my word I would return after my visit to the Autumn Court," Lucien said in a carefully controlled diplomat's voice. "And so I am here. But I find your court… changed, and full of soldiers."

"How was your visit to the Autumn Court? Your meeting with your dear, dear mother? Did you spend much time there? Make any other visits?" Amarantha spoke with a throaty triumph that told him she already knew how the Autumn Court visit had gone. Eris must have told her.

What. a. bitch, the sword hissed. Promise me we'll kill her one day.

We'd end up at the back of a very long line if we wanted to try.

"My mother refused to see me," He said out loud, ignoring a twinge of the old pain in his chest. Honestly, he didn't know why it even still bothered him any longer. Tamlin put a hand on his shoulder and he shook it off, shaking his head at his friend. "She is still grieving my father's loss and chose to respect his wishes."

Eris had enjoyed that too much. He'd enjoyed it so much he'd insisted Lucien stay for dinner, and then spent the whole time gloating at him where the two of them ate alone at Beron's large dining room table. Except that, once or twice, Lucien had caught Eris's expression change into something softer. Once or twice, his questions had been more personal, less insulting. Once or twice, Lucien had wondered if he hadn't insisted he stay just to... see him, his littlest brother, again.

They'd even laughed together once, at some old joke from childhood. Eris had caught himself then, and the rest of the meal had been cold and uncaring. But Lucien had seen his expression change, for just that moment, into the Eris he remembered when he was young.

"Isn't that lovely. And yet you must have stayed for some time. Renewing your knowledge of your old stomping grounds? And yes, things are terribly busy here. We are preparing a raid."

"You're always raiding," Lucien said, wondering why this conversation felt like a trap.

"I've decided to personally attend this one," Amarantha said cheerfully, stepping towards him. Tamlin moved, just a little, placing himself between Lucien and Amarantha. Her eyes slowly slid over to meet Tamlin's, the smile dropping off her face. Behind her, Lucien saw Rhys push his chair back and stand up.

Tamlin hurriedly moved away, eyes down to the floor. Maybe the stronger Tamlin in the hallway was the false one, Lucien thought. "The mortal lands?"

"Later. I'm still working on bringing down that damned wall. No, this invasion will be different. I've just discovered an ideal location to build my new and permanent court," Amarantha said, her voice dropping a bit, into a husky, seductive purr. "However, the residents there are likely to approve of it less than I'd like and I believe a show of force is in order, if I'm to bring them under my heel."

"What place isn't already under your heel?" Lucien asked, hesitantly. He thought of Viviane, the hidden city even he hadn't seen around that mountain the Winter Court, and shivered.

"I've tired of living in the dark," Amarantha continued as though he hadn't spoken. "I've decided to go somewhere with fresh air, and maybe a bit of sun on occasion. Rhys is in dear need of some color to his skin, after all, isn't he?" She reached out, running her fingers down the side of Lucien's face, tracing the scars she'd made when she'd dug out his eye. "My soldiers are already beginning to winnow their way there, the bulk will already be in place when we arrive."

He held himself very, very still. His heart pounded in his chest, a rush of fear, the need to get her hands away from his face before she took the other eye. He had to physically force his hands into fists to keep them down at his sides.

He had screamed, screamed until his throat was raw, hands clasped over the empty socket where his eye had been. He remembered, only vaguely, wordless sobbing animal sounds as he flailed. What most people did not know is that he had not scarred so badly because of Amarantha - it had been his own fingernails that dragged the wound open nearly to his jaw, the desperate clawing to try and somehow undo it that had made the whole thing so much worse. They'd beaten him nearly to death, too, and had to drag him away when he couldn't walk under his own power.

He'd been dumped unceremoniously in Tamlin's entryway, still sobbing at the pain and the loss, to be found by servants who had called to Tamlin for help.

Tamlin had sent for a healer. Amarantha had declared she would keep his eye and Lucien knew it was gone. He was begging, pleading, and Tamlin spoke to him in a constant slow monotone, the way you calm down frightened horses. Tamlin had held his hands in his hands, gripped onto them so tightly Lucien could almost focus on that pain instead. His voice was calming, reassuring, but behind his own misery and agony Lucien had heard the way Tamlin's voice had rung with panic and rage and power. He'd pulled Lucien's hands away from his face, finally, to see how bad the wound really was. It had been a struggle, but one Tamlin had eventually won.

Tamlin had stumbled away, thrown up all over the path, and then come back to him and simply picked him up to carry him inside.

It had been Tamlin who had held him down while the healer worked, taken Lucien's desperate clawing in stride, ignored the scratches he'd left all over his arms, told the healer to worry about Lucien first. It had been Tamlin who had slept on the floor next to his bed while he recovered, Tamlin who had worked with him as he learned a new way to move through the world.

And it had been Tamlin who had brought him to the Dawn Court, still needing a hand at his elbow to keep him from accidentally walking into things on his blind side, to meet an old acquaintance who had made for him a new eye.

"My victory is done," Amarantha said softly, tracing the scars like Lucien was simply a curiosity. "Prythian is mine. I will never let loose those High Lords' powers. I have won." Rhys snorted in response somewhere behind her, but Lucien couldn't take his eyes off the mad delight in hers. "This land is mine. Mine. And I want to see what I am ruling."

"Stop touching him," Tamlin said quietly. "You've hurt Lucien enough."

"Have I?" She asked, looking back at him with that sudden drop in cheer. "Is your protection going to save his life, this time, the way you saved his eye?"

"When I tore Lucien's brothers apart, nothing was left but blood and bones," Tamlin said evenly, and there was a hint of light around the edges of his skin, warm sunshine breaking through a canopy of leaves, still touched with starlight from the night before. His voice was calm, but there was a rage underneath. "And all they did was threaten Rhys." Lucien saw, from behind them, Rhys's head jerk slightly in surprise, eyes on Tamlin's back. "Would you like to see if I can break it again for my best friend?"

Lucien's eyes dropped to Tamlin's hands, which flexed in and out of fists. He saw the ripple under his skin as he pushed against Amarantha's magic. Saw the way Tamlin ground his teeth against the resulting pain and simply ignored it. There was a hint of claws at his fingertips.

Amarantha's smile became brittle, and she let her hand fall. "Perhaps I have hurt him enough," She said thoughtfully. Tamlin let his hands relax. "Not you, though."

"No." His voice was softer, and he smiled slightly, but the hint of light did not fade. "You'll never hurt me enough, will you?"

Rhys made another sound, this one an almost-stifled noise of pure jealousy. Lucien could have smiled - if the way their scent had changed hadn't given it away, that would have. Jealous someone else is looking at him.

"Where are you invading?" Lucien asked, even though he didn't want to know the answer.

"North," Amarantha said.

"How far north?" Rhysand's voice was carefully controlled, but he couldn't quite hold back the surprise in his face. "The Solar Courts?"

"Just about as north as I can go," She said, shooting him her most seductive, wicked smile. Lucien fought the urge to vomit.

"Hewn City?" Rhysand asked, and his voice was low, worried. "The Court of Nightmares? You built this place after that, it makes sense… But Keir is the Steward there, he-"

"No," Amarantha interrupted, and Lucien watched a shiver of pleasure go through her and stepped back. She'd wanted an audience for this, for whatever she was about to say. She'd waited to tell them until he was here, hadn't she?

Eris must have sent word I was coming. She knew I was coming here.

Can I call Eris a bitch, too? The sword asked.

N-... you know what, yes. Yes you can.

"No, Rhys, not Hewn City. I've had a lovely conversation with a couple of new friends of mine."

"Then where?" Tamlin asked. "What friends?" Lucien watched him move to Rhys, putting a hand on his arm. The two shared an expression, and, Lucien thought, probably thoughts, too.

High Lords as mates. This would end up the world's biggest fucking mess, if they ever got away from Amarantha.

"I hope you miss home, Rhys." Amarantha's eyes were locked on his. Lucien took a few steps back towards the door. None of them seemed to notice. This toxic atmosphere was only between the three of them, this absurd mockery of a relationship between three people. "Because I know your secret. That little Illyrian I kept? I know his real name is Cassian. I know he is your friend. And I know exactly where he is right now."

Rhys's face went white.

Lucien saw something he'd never seen in Rhys's face before, in all the time they'd been spitting insults at each other.

Lucien had come along after what had happened between Tamlin and Rhys's families and the hate had already been there. He'd only known Rhys as an endless parade of one-liners and his own over-inflated ego, vague hostility and constant schemes. A High Lord so certain of his own immense power that nothing and no one was even the slightest bit of a threat. More two-faced in his friendship with other High Lords than the entire Autumn Court combined.

What he saw, now, though, was Rhys quake in unshakeable terror. Centuries dropped off his face, and Lucien could see where there had been a child once, a frightened child. The whites showed around those violet eyes. Lucien had a sense of shadows and darkness and a cold, cold wind finding its way into the room.

This time it was Rhys that Tamlin moved in front of, stood himself between his mate and the threat.

"We're going to your home, Rhys my love," Amarantha purred.

"Home," Rhys echoed. Tamlin shifted, gradually, until he was almost totally blocking Rhys from Amarantha's view, the brilliance in his skin shining brighter, pressing against Amarantha's magic. He saw Rhys's head drop forward slowly, until his forehead rested against Tamlin's back, between his shoulder blades. Rhys's eyes slowly closed. He saw the Night Lord's knees start to buckle, then brace themselves back up.

Fox watch heart of midnight break

"Yes, my darling. Velaris."

Darkness grew in the corners of the room, stars about to fall and crush them all, sucking away the air. That cold wind picked up, and Lucien took a few more steps back as it whipped his hair around his face. If Amarantha understood that Rhys's fear might be more dangerous than his fury ever had been, she did not show it.

"Oh, Lucien," Amarantha purred. "Don't go yet. I have one more thing to say to you. I know you've been to Velaris, too."

Lucien froze.

The fire, the sword whispered. You have to get back and warn them. Warn the pretty angel. Warn the Morrigan. Warn my cousin. You have to go, you have to go, you have to go you have to GO-

"You can't go to Velaris," Rhys said, in a strangely distant voice, without raising his head. "You don't know where it is. I… I made sure…"

"I do now," Amarantha replied, sweetly. "Thanks to your friend. So much for loyalty, hm?"

"You can't get in." Rhys's voice was still empty of emotion.

"Don't worry, Rhys darling, I've got that covered."

The whirlwind around them picked up speed, the pressure of the darkness felt like it would push Lucien into the floor. He was almost to the door. Still, none of them looked at him. The light limning Tamlin 's skin was the only brightness in the room now.

"Go back to Spring, fox," Amarantha continued, her eyes still on Rhys, the wind whipping her multitude of braids around her head. "Go back to Rosehall. I'll recall you to my court in Velaris when I have it ready."

Lucien did not even try to answer, or bow, or pretend at normalcy. The darkness had nearly overtaken the room, the wind blew so hard he could barely stand, and Lucien ran.