A.N.: It's summer holiday! To quote William Wallace, "FREEDOM!" I've now got six weeks to do exactly as I please – and I choose fanfiction!
Thank you so much for the reviews – they've kept me going the last few weeks of term, with my chaotic class!
I remembered that I don't have to follow canon storylines, so I won't be! I will also be replacing canon characters with OCs because I either dislike them or because they have no purpose for my retelling (or both) and will be minimising the importance (and appearance) of certain characters, specifically Elain. There will, however, be much more Azriel. In fact, I'd consider him one of the core characters in this story: I have plans which involve bringing my maasverse theories into reality!
Oh, for the sake of my own laziness, when it comes to describing food, for example cheese, I'll give it names like cheddar and parmesan, because a. I'm lazy and b. it's easy for everyone to visualise, rather than me trying to describe everything! I am a food person: if you've read my other fics you know I involve food heavily in my stories! This will continue, so be warned. Food is such a powerful thing, when you think about it. Sharing a meal brings characters closer: ingredients tell the story of wealth (or poverty).
A House of Flame and Flower
03
After the Storm
She ripped herself way from sleep, choking on terror. Panting, slick with sweat, she shuddered and bolted upright. Eyes darting wildly around the unfamiliar room, her heart thundered in her ears. She sucked down a breath and wiped at her burning eyes, bewildered by her surroundings, confused –
"It was a nightmare," said a soft voice in the dark, and Nesta's heart stuttered, her fear spiking further. Her eyes adjusted to the dark and she shivered as she gazed at Tamlin, who sat on the floor with his back against the velvet daybed on which she had bedded down for the night. Mouth dry, she tried to swallow and reached up a trembling hand to push her sweat-soaked hair from her face.
"No, it wasn't," she moaned softly, trying to breathe deeply as she slowed her heartbeats. She was tangled up in linen sheets and the heavy woollen blanket Tamlin had provided: they smelled of him, earthy and wholesome and grounding, with a hint of fresh rain and pollen.
"You were thrashing around," Tamlin said quietly, turning to gaze at her, "but you were dug in like a tick. I tried to wake you."
"I thought you'd gone hunting," Nesta accused dully, dropping her pounding head in her hands. Sleeping or awake, she could not escape her past.
Very quietly, Tamlin murmured, "I heard you screaming."
Shakily, Nesta hissed, "Not for the first time."
"No, not for the first time," Tamlin agreed, his tone grim. Azriel's hisses of pain, riddled with ash arrows: the stench of Cassian's quickly-cooling blood oozing across the floor: Elain in her sodden nightdress, her pointed ears poking through her drenched hair: and the Cauldron… She clamped a hand over her mouth, forcing the rising bile to stop, refusing to entertain the urge to vomit, as if purging her body would purge her mind along with it. She would have been free of nightmares by now if it had. She inhaled slowly through her nose and exhaled shakily through her mouth, focusing on nothing but her breathing, on the calm she forced herself to feel.
She would not humiliate herself further in front of Tamlin by spewing over his expensive carpets, however mucky they already were. Finally, she lowered her hand.
Tamlin's eyes glinted in the darkness. "You dream of it?"
"Some nights less than others," Nesta grumbled sourly.
Silence lingered for a while before Tamlin said, "It felt like only seconds that you were under."
Her breath hitched. No-one had ever mentioned what happened in that great hall. Not any of Feyre's family who had witnessed it and had experience to know what had been going on, to help her make sense of it all… No, they refused to acknowledge that they had messed up so horrifically that she and Elain had been ripped from their home, from their lives, from their own bodies… Nobody had asked her what she had endured.
They only cared what she could do for them with the power flowing through her veins.
"For you, perhaps," Nesta moaned, exhausted, and sank back onto the couch. She pummelled the misshapen pillow Tamlin had given her and curled up on her side, too exhausted to straighten the blankets. Nausea churned in her belly again, always a constant threat, and her heartbeat thumped at her temples. She yearned for nothing more than oblivion – for restful sleep. Would have wept at being denied it yet again, if Tamlin wasn't there.
That was her life recently. Terror and vomit and an exhaustion so profound it brought her to tears, delirious and oversensitive to any stimulus – and there were so many. Most days, she could barely tolerate stepping foot outside her flat, utterly overwhelmed by everything. The City of Starlight was a special kind of hell for her.
Seams of moonlight traced the edges of the high windows where the heavy curtains could not keep it out, and Tamlin's hair gleamed softly silver as the light played on it. His eyes glinted as he gazed at her, frowning. She might never get used to her new senses, to seeing in the dark with almost absolute clarity – everything in tones of velvety midnight, black and ever-changing shades of grey and silver. The darkness turned those vibrant emerald-green eyes into something deeper, richer.
"How long was it for you?" he asked quietly, and Nesta stilled. No-one had ever asked her.
She sighed. "An eternity," she said softly, tugging on her blankets and drawing them up to her chin. She closed her eyes, desperate for oblivion. She could feel it, the gentle tug…but slipping into sleep, falling, weightless…it reminded her too vividly of something else, and she flinched. She had never told anyone, yet she found herself whispering shakily in the dark, "It was…like being caught in a riptide. Just…darkness, and flashes of light, with no control over my own body, buffeted and snatched by the current. I couldn't see, I could only…feel…as I was pulled and drifted for…eons. It showed me things." Even to her own ears, her voice sounded devoid all life.
"The Cauldron did?" Tamlin prompted gently.
"Yes," Nesta grumbled, frowning, her eyes still closed. She tugged her blankets closer, shivering, and wished she could fall asleep. It used to be so easy – she used to be so busy in her days that sleep came without any coaxing almost as soon as the moon had risen. Now, the moment she relaxed and started to rest, she felt that jerking sensation, a visceral reaction to drifting, disembodied, and launched herself into consciousness for fear… For fear she would never breach the surface again.
She had fought so viciously to resurface that she had gouged part of the Cauldron out as she climbed.
Tamlin asked her, "What did it show you?"
"Things I don't understand and can't explain," Nesta said despondently. "I think it showed me the heart and soul of this world."
"The Cauldron created all that is and ever will be," Tamlin said softly. "Perhaps it shared its secrets with you."
Nesta sniffed and said more sharply than she intended, "I forced it to. It wished to take all that I am… I wouldn't let it. I took from it. I became…this."
After a long moment, Tamlin said, "What you are doesn't change who you are."
Nesta opened her eyes. What you are doesn't change who you are.
No-one had ever said that to her. They treated her transformation into a High Fae as extraordinary, and it was. But it was as if they all expected her to be a different person because her ears were now pointed. She hated them: the delicate points were so sensitive, she had given up trying to conceal them with her hair. She almost wanted… She almost wanted the others to be forced to see them, every day, and acknowledge what their failure had cost her, what it had done to her. It had taken her weeks to get used to her fangs, dainty as they were in comparison to other Fae: she couldn't eat properly for the first month, biting her tongue – and that was just logistics. Her sense of taste had been overwhelming, so overwhelming she could barely stand to eat anything at all. Everything was too much.
"I don't know how she did it," Nesta said dully.
"Who?"
"Feyre," Nesta said, and Tamlin stilled. "How she adapted so quickly to becoming Fae."
Tamlin didn't answer for a long while. "She adapted quickly enough to life here…and to life in the Night Court."
"Yes. If she moved on to Helion, she'd likely be engaging in orgies by the end of her first week," Nesta said harshly. "She adapts to survive…but who is she without all that? Who is she without someone to parrot?" She raised her hand and kneaded her brow. "That's what worries me… She went from you to Rhysand and made herself exactly what he demanded of her… What happens when he has no more use for her? Or when the truth of what that use is becomes known?"
"You distrust him?" Tamlin said simply.
"I've never distrusted anyone more in my life – except perhaps his proxy at the Hewn City. Morrigan." Her lip curled. Everything about that female felt off to her. Even when Nesta had been human, her instincts had warned her to stay away from the blonde beauty who gave off such an aura of sunny warmth yet whose eyes never seemed to match, whose smiles always seemed so contemptuous, even toward her friends. She had always looked, Nesta thought, as if she alone was aware of some private joke – a joke told at the expense of all the others. As a Fae, with her heightened sense of smell, there was something off about Morrigan's scent – to Nesta's nose, at least.
"That's why you left," Tamlin said, first time he had asked her outright why she had forsaken her ties to the Night Court, exiling herself from her sisters.
"One of the reasons," Nesta said honestly. "I… I'm struggling. And they refused to listen." Her words were barely more than a whisper, choked with emotion. Her eyes stung. Remembering the ambush Feyre and her family had all planned, to deal with her, fury and hurt lashed through Nesta, and she flinched.
They would deal with her rather than offer to help her, or even try to understand – and help her to understand – what help she needed.
After a long time, Tamlin asked her, his tone curious yet brittle, "Do you see him?"
She knew he didn't mean Rhysand. Of all the things she was afraid of, he wasn't one of them.
She swallowed the icy rage threatening to choke her. "Yes."
The King of Hybern lurked, waiting for the perfect moment to accost her, sending her spiralling back to the battlefield, to the stench of copper, the warm rain splattering her face, the ash making her sneeze – the ash of dead Illyrians wiped out with one wave of undiluted power vomited from the Cauldron, the wave of power she had saved Cassian from.
He would never forgive her for that: for making him the sole survivor while those males he had led into battle had perished against an undefeatable power.
He would never forgive her for saving his life: she would never forgive him for failing to protect hers.
Nesta started drifting, her ears twitching delicately at the sound of a nightingale singing somewhere in the gardens. It was so still here, so peaceful, nothing but the sounds of birds chirping and things growing – she could hear them all, if she chose, but she focused on the nightingale, sighing and letting it soothe her.
Tamlin's deep voice made her start: she had forgotten she was inside, wrapped up in tangled blankets, lying on a velvet daybed inside a stuffy library that had seen better days. The rich tenor of his voice seemed to fill the room despite the softness of his tone, and for a moment, listening to him, Nesta wondered if he realised he spoke aloud.
"I see her everywhere. In my dreams…when I am awake…she is always there, watching me out of the corner of my eye," he said distantly. "I know that she is dead. I ripped her throat out; I felt her last heartbeat on my tongue." Nesta shivered. "Yet she is here. She haunts my dreams; I find no relief in waking. My mind is wounded. It refuses to let me heal."
Nesta opened her eyes, gazing at him. He had put into words what she could never explain, and had no-one to listen. But she had never felt more seen than when Tamlin gazed back at her.
"I can't take a bath," she admitted. She had never told anyone that, either.
Tamlin said hoarsely, "I can't breathe."
"Well, at least you can't smell me," Nesta said miserably, and Tamlin laughed unexpectedly.
"Small mercies," he said softly, and she smiled. It faded too quickly.
"I can't sleep. The moment I start drifting off, my mind tells me that I am – that I'm there, again, that the weightlessness, drifting…I'm afraid of drifting away, of being snatched by the current again," Nesta whispered.
"I'm afraid that I'll wake up," Tamlin told her. She frowned. "As bad as things are, I… I dread that I'll wake up and I'll be there again, with her, inside her, with her doing – I'm afraid this isn't real. That it's a dream…that everything from the moment I went under the Mountain has been a dream."
"Tamlin…this is real," Nesta said quietly.
"How do you know?"
"Because no-one ever struggles in their dreams," Nesta sighed miserably. "That's how I know this is real: because I'm in constant pain."
Tamlin whispered, "Me too."
"See. Real," she muttered glumly.
"I hope you're right," he murmured, and Nesta sighed. He wondered whether he could help her, gift her with a magical slumber to revive her energy…but he had learned the hard way to let people take care of themselves. Nothing he ever did was the right thing, though he tried. He tried so hard.
That made the blows harder to stomach when they struck out of nowhere.
Watching Nesta in the faintest glow of moonlight, he frowned. She had been more vulnerable, more open with him in the last few hours than Feyre had ever been. They were strangers and yet they had spoken so easily of such devastating things. He had truly wondered whether he alone was haunted, and felt relieved beyond imagining that Nesta also saw the ghosts of their horrific pasts… Saddened that she suffered them, too, but relieved he was not alone.
She was infinitely more magnificent than Feyre. Cleverer, stronger, fiercer. Though perhaps the ferocity was an act, something she forced herself to be. Perhaps she was so used to having to be fierce that now she could no longer be any other way. He wondered what her life had been like, what details Feyre had missed out – or embellished, or withheld – when she had told him stories of her family.
Unforgiving and imperious, she had described Nesta as: she certainly was. But she was also cautious, bright, sharp-tongued, cunning and insightful. He knew that just from their few conversations. And it was strange: he had opened up more to Nesta in the last few hours than he had anyone in years.
It drove home just how lonely he had truly been. Was.
It was easy to ignore that ache in the pit of his stomach when the Gardens were isolated. But when he was in company…how it gnawed at him, that desperate loneliness so profound it made him weep, made him want to climb into bed and never climb out. What was the point?
Nesta…she had been here hours yet her presence had chased away that horrendous emptiness that had sucked on his insides for months now, a dreadful weight that kept pulling him forever downwards, the walls closing in above him, ever threatening to bury him alive, until he could not breathe through his panic.
He had even managed to stay in his Fae form all day. She had… Without even realising it, she had pulled him from another precipice, the kind he knew his Triumvar dreaded, were constantly on the watch for. He tried to hide it, didn't want them to worry, but he was no fool; he knew they observed more than he realised. That precipice… Last night had been bad. Thank the Mother that Nesta had not arrived then – he shuddered and shoved the thought away, going hollow, the taste of copper on his tongue as his belly flipped over. No, she had not arrived last night… She had appeared just as he was questioning whether to let the kikimore kill him, mildly curious whether it would allow him a gentle drowning, drifting off into the water's embrace, before it took his head and feasted on his brain-matter and bone-marrow. It was then that he had scented her, and curiosity and alarm had blazed through him – curiosity about why she was here, alarm that if he did allow the kikimore to end his struggle, she would be next. He could not allow that to happen.
Tamlin could not allow…could not afford to die. What would become of his Court? He was the last of his line: the magic would choose a new bloodline to follow. All the work he had put in the last centuries may be eradicated overnight.
The world he wanted to build would not happen overnight: but its destruction could.
He couldn't afford to die: he was too exhausted to keep fighting. Every day felt like he was waging war.
Except for today. Alarm, curiosity and the tiniest scraps of genuine delight had defined his day. All because Nesta had appeared out of nowhere. She had still given him no straight answer about why she had left the Night Court; and he knew better than to push a fierce female when she was wounded. That was always when they were at their most vicious. And he couldn't handle an emotional flaying, the kind he imagined Nesta Archeron highly capable of unleashing if she felt threatened.
Again, he wondered what had happened to make her leave the Night Court. She hadn't just left – she had renounced all ties… She had exiled herself from the Night Court and from her sisters… Why? Did she understand the severity of what she had done? What had happened to provoke it?
And just how delicious was the irony that Nesta had fled the Night Court to come here?
He should have found it more amusing. Should have felt smug that Nesta had fled Rhysand. All he could feel was concern.
What had happened?
I didn't come here to put you between myself and Rhysand, she had said. Yet wasn't it implied that Rhysand was part of the reason why she was here. Tamlin hadn't mentioned him, only promised his protection: her first thought had been Rhysand.
Nesta, so shrewd and discerning at the High Lords' summit, imperious, undaunted… Tamlin could imagine that Rhysand had no idea what to do with someone he could neither bully, manipulate nor beguile into doing what he wanted.
Feyre had once mentioned to Tamlin that Nesta, a human, had seen through his glamour. Someone as self-possessed and strong-minded as that was a rare thing, even among the Fae, but amongst humans it was unheard of. As a human, Nesta had been exceptional.
He wondered at her potential, now that she was Fae.
Tamlin glanced at Nesta, wanting to ask her – but her eyes were closed, and she seemed to have finally dozed off. Her breathing was sharp and shallow, like any prey animal that slept lightly for fear of predators. Her eyes were restless beneath her eyelids, her eyelashes fluttering, and though she slept, her fingers gripped the blankets tightly, as if afraid to let go…because she was. She was afraid to slip too deeply into sleep, to be swept away.
It had felt like mere seconds that first Elain and then Nesta were dunked beneath the spelled waters of the Cauldron. Elain had tumbled out, all loveliness and light, unremarkable in her prettiness, no more and no less than any other attractive High Fae female. Yet when it had been Nesta's turn… Half Hybern's court had taken a step back, holding their breath, as Nesta rose from the waterlogged floor, magnificent and terrible, Death's beloved bride, the Mother's avenging daughter who stirred the Cauldron and ensnared the world, bringing it to its knees only to raise it once again.
Something had come into the world when Nesta was Made: something that had never before ever existed or ever would again. In the Making of her, Nesta had broken the Cauldron. She was utterly unique to the world.
And she was hurting.
He recognised her pain; he saw his own reflected in her.
Part of him yearned to march into the Night Court and thrash Rhysand. But then he'd be no better than that smirking whoreson, sauntering about and enjoying bringing everyone to their knees before him. Yes, Tamlin ached to go and demand answers, to put Rhysand in his place, to finally have something he could hold over the male who had once professed himself to be Tamlin's friend then abandoned him, believed the absolute…the absolute worst about him.
That still stung, to this day.
That Rhysand believed it, believed Tamlin capable –
It did no good to dwell on the past. It would do no-one any good to give Rhysand the thrashing he so deserved, least of all Nesta.
What had happened in the Night Court that Tamlin's lands were her best option? With everything between them… No. Between him and Feyre. Between him and Rhysand.
He and Nesta had no history between them.
He could not even claim to have had any part in the betrayal that had turned her High Fae, though many seemed quite happy to place all the blame for that on him, just as they blamed him for a great many other things beyond his or indeed anyone else's control. He was beyond trying to convince anyone of his innocence, of his integrity.
As Blodeuwedd had once told Tamlin, The bee doesn't waste time convincing the fly that honey is sweeter than shit.
He clung to those words, more than she could ever know, especially when he was at his darkest, when despair gripped him like a barbed vice of ash.
He knew his reasons for doing what he had done: as Illidan had told him, that was more than enough. Tamlin had made his choices and he stuck by them: he could tolerate the rest of Prythian's disdain as long as his own people knew the truth. And they did.
His people were safe: nothing else mattered.
He glanced back at Nesta, frowning.
How safe was the Night Court if Nesta had fled those lands, rejected any claim to them as her home? Had fled her family – her brother-by-bond?
If he had mistreated her, then…
Then what did it say for the state of the Night Court? If even the High Lord's own sister-by-bond did not feel safe there?
What was happening in the north?
He itched to discuss it with Nesta.
But he also knew there was very little he could do to change it. Not without going to war, taking control of Rhysand's territories. And that would be an utterly foolish and unsustainable war, with the entirety of Prythian between them. And he had no interest in conquest.
He frowned in the dark, creeping over to his desk and found his journal. His glass pen scratched lightly against the expensive paper as he summarised his day: Tracked down and killed last kikimore. Had a bad turn when fighting. Thought about letting go. Nesta Archeron appeared. I offered her guest-right.
He was sporadic about updating his journals, but Nathyrha had suggested that journaling might help him. Words were not his area of expertise and never had been, at least not speaking them aloud. She had been coaxing him to keep a journal for centuries, telling him that by writing things down it might help him sort through his thoughts and make decisions. And doing that might help him explain his thoughts to others, something he had always struggled with, and was constantly working on improving. Now he was inconsistent with updating his journal but he did make notes of things he had to do, keeping an eye on dates, starting to read the patterns: he knew when he was bad, and was becoming more and more aware of what led up to his worst moments.
He added one last note: What does Thesan know about NC?
No matter what the Night Court believed, Tamlin had always maintained excellent bonds with some of the other courts, especially Dawn: together they had worked on plans… Well, it didn't matter now. But their bond was such that Tamlin could ask a favour and Thesan would share what his little birds had overheard in the northernmost court.
Tamlin picked up his pen and dipped it in the inkwell before adding another thought: Emissary needed for NC – Ilrohir (?) or Visenna (?) Ilrohir to be offered Triumvar position. Illidan will be nettled. Send invitation to Tarquin.
He pinched his eyes and sighed. The night chorus drifting in through the open windows and shattered doors throughout the wrecked palace went silent and the fine hairs on the back of his neck stood up as awareness seized him, a heartbeat before the first fork of lightning lashed through the sky. The storm had been building all day, unseasonably hot, muggy and breathless: he tiptoed to the far end of the library and slipped behind the curtains, watching. But for the storms in the Summer Court, there was nothing like a lightning storm in his lands. The way the lightning hurled itself so violently through the billowing clouds, blankets of rain sweeping over the hills and forests, rejuvenating rivers and lakes, the gales that tore down ancient trees to make way for new growth.
Tamlin stood enraptured by the storm. People mistook spring for fields of perpetual daffodils and frolicking lambs and eternal balmy sunshine – pastel colours and frivolous, dainty things. He almost smiled, remembering the various refugees' reactions when they experienced their first Spring snows and thunderstorms and blistering hot days. This was spring. The constant struggle: the give-and-take. Destruction enforcing rebirth. Spring was constantly at war.
Small wonder he was so tired.
In the midst of the storm, Nesta rose. She padded through the library, wrapped in the heavy crocheted blanket. He heard her approach but was still surprised when she ducked behind the curtain, standing by his side, watching silently. Only her eyes betrayed her awe as lightning continued to lash through the sky like dozens of whips of pure light and power. Her eyes glowed, and Tamlin wondered whether the lightning – all that raw power – called to her, as it did to him.
Gradually, the thunderclouds tumbled on, the lightning became more and more sporadic and the rain abated. Tamlin seized the sash window and pulled it up and open, and it seemed like the library gasped for air as he did so. The pungent scent of the lightning-storm swept into the room on a cold, wet gust of air, bringing with it the tang of lightning and the fresh scent of parched earth rejuvenated by rainwater – it was a complicated scent: fresh and sharp from the wet grass and battered petals yet rich and decadent from the wet earth. All of Spring seemed to settle down, sighing with relief, as it drank up the water it so needed, and as the thrashing rain stopped, the melodic drip-drip-drop of residual raindrops created a harmony to which the birds and insects started to sing their post-storm praise. He sank onto the deep windowsill, damp from the raindrops still pitter-pattering down, and inhaled.
The release…and the relief after. He had always loved storms, understood them – appreciated them for the destructive power they had, balanced by the rejuvenation that came after. Spring was always so much more vibrant after a storm. The birds and insects – and many of the Fae – would be celebrating after the storm, if they hadn't been out luxuriating in the primal, destructive force, worshiping it for what it was. He wished he could join them. Instead, he breathed deep of the scent of the land – of his land – as it relaxed, settling after the storm, soaking up the much-needed water to revitalise itself, ready for the next struggle.
"Was that you?" Nesta asked quietly, and Tamlin glanced at her.
"No. Nature is far more magnificent than anything I could ever create," he said honestly. A faint silver glow had appeared on the horizon to the east, and he watched as the sky started to fade, as if the night itself had gone pale, afraid of the encroaching sunlight, fleeing as fast as it could. As the sun peeked over the tips of the trees, it cast everything in a silvery glow. The lawns turned into endless carpets of diamonds, glittering and sparkling.
"I can hear it," Nesta breathed, as the sun continued to rise, painting the sky lilac and lavender and forget-me-not, gilding the tips of the trees, turning the gravel pathways into rivers of gold winding through the carpets of diamonds. The songbirds were waking, the first insects starting to chirp and creek and chip and somewhere in the woods a barn-owl hooted its goodnight.
"It's alive," Tamlin shrugged.
Nesta sighed softly, her expression full of yearning as she gazed out of the window. "How do they do it?"
"Do what?"
"Sing after a storm."
For a long time, Tamlin didn't answer. Then he said quietly, "Storms provoke rebirth. During the destruction, they endure; after, the storm has provided everything they need. They celebrate."
"Oh, to be a songbird," Nesta said.
"What a magnificent opera you'd sing," Tamlin mused, and her lips twitched toward a smile. He sighed and gazed out of the window. "I'm due to the west today. I'll show you the kitchen and larders."
He noticed Nesta shiver as she dumped the heavy blanket on the daybed, but she followed him out of the library and through the battered corridors and halls, down plain wooden stairs descending into the domestic storeys of the palace: a sprawling labyrinth of storage-halls and pantries, larders, skilled craftsmen's workshops and subterranean cellars full of eye-wateringly expensive wines from the Day Court, barrels of Spring's finest ciders, ales and stouts, liqueurs from Summer and Dawn. Storerooms were filled with grains and legumes, nuts, sugar and spices, barrels of different flours and honey; cured meats were hung by their thousands in one hall where there were adjoining smoking chambers; hundreds of different cheeses from across the Spring Court had been left to mature in a vast, dim stone chamber. One entire store-room was devoted to the drying and storing of herbs and another for fungi, which grew in profusion in a carefully controlled chamber. The Gardens had always been self-sufficient: it had to provide for thousands. Everything in his storerooms had been grown or produced on his private lands. Tamlin cast a cursory eye over the contents of the storerooms as he showed Nesta through the maze of passages, keeping in mind that Solstice drew near. Not long after that, the Tithe would be upon them again.
Tamlin made a mental note to check with his stewards about the progress of the full accounting of the contents of his larders and storerooms in preparation for Solstice. The stores were not what they should have been, since the war, but still had enough to give freely.
"I didn't realise the cellars were so vast here," Nesta murmured.
"In ancient times, all the faeries of the Spring Court would gather here in times of great peril," Tamlin said quietly, the soft scuffing of his leather boots on the time-polished flagstone floors the only sound that accompanied Nesta's gentle breathing. "These lands have always been harvested for their produce, prepared and stored to provide for those who live and work here, and anyone else who comes along."
Nesta frowned faintly, following Tamlin. They had descended from the once-splendid halls above, with cracked marble floors and grand frescoes now fractured, down into the basement levels of the palace, going from floors of marble to polished wood and finally to ancient flagstones that seemed polished because they were so worn. The frescoed walls hung with portraits and adorned with busts, statues, vases and objects of art had given way to simple panelling, concealing cupboards to hold all the linens the palace could ever need, and then smooth stone the colour of whipped honey, and even further into the bowels of the palace, via ancient spiral stairs made of roughhewn grey stone, what appeared to be natural caverns where mushrooms grew in profusion and cheeses aged to perfection.
What interested Nesta was that none of the lower levels, where the domestic workers would be found, had been touched.
"The foundations seem very strong," Nesta observed, and Tamlin paused. He glanced over his shoulder at her.
"Yes." He reached out, and Nesta noticed his long, clever fingers, tanned but webbed with faint silver scars. She had never noticed a male's hands before but if hands could be attractive, his were. He gently traced his fingertips over the honey-coloured stone. "The foundations were dug deep. Nothing but time can alter them."
Indeed, to Nesta, they felt untouched – eternal. The feeling she got in the lower levels of the palace was not what she felt upstairs. In the elaborate ceremonial rooms of the High Lord of Spring, everything had been ruined. Smashed, torn, shattered, and left to crumble to dust over time. Tamlin didn't care to repair anything. But down in the lower levels, the beating heart of the place, everything was neat, orderly – cared for. Everything was clean and polished, it even smelled pleasant – drying herbs and spices and cool stone, honey and the faintest traces of drying fungi and curing meats, sun-warmed linens and lavender, bread dough and polish.
It smelled like the cottage. Stone and ancient wood and herbs, fresh linen and dough, leather polish and wood-shavings, honey and wood-smoke. Her stomach hurt: it smelled like home.
"Why are the ceremonial rooms wrecked, but these cellars remain immaculate?" Nesta asked.
"A few reasons. Hybern placed no value in the Fae they refer to as lesser," Tamlin said. "In Hybern, they are enslaved now, as humans once were. The High Fae from Hybern who came here would never have given a thought to the wealth that lay beneath the marble under their feet."
"But you said you ruined what Hybern left," Nesta pointed out, frowning. "If you have such hatred for this place, why leave these chambers untouched?"
"No-one needed the other rooms," Tamlin said plainly, shrugging slightly, and Nesta's eyebrows rose. No-one needed the other rooms. She vaguely remembered Feyre telling her that Tamlin had been a soldier. Was he pragmatic by nature? "Like you said, they were ceremonial rooms. And I hate ceremony. This is the true heart of the Spring Court: these cellars, the faeries who work in them."
"Where are they all?" Nesta asked.
"They come and go. Fewer than usually would work here – since the war, many have been called home to help their families," Tamlin said quietly, striding ahead. "And those who do work here, those who cannot afford to leave, I've sent to live in the villages, rather than the servants' quarters."
"Why?"
Tamlin frowned and glanced at Nesta. She could see him thinking, his emerald eyes scrutinising her face. "Because I do not want them here if I am not around to protect them. And I am rarely here."
"It's true, then?" she said, her lips parting.
"What is?"
Nesta frowned. "There was gossip among Rhysand's people," Nesta said, her tone waspish, "that there were no wards around this palace when Rhsyand came last Solstice." Tamlin went still.
He frowned, sighing heavily. "You heard about his visit."
"Rhysand likes to crow about his victories. Abusing a person who is already visibly suffering is another victory in and of itself," Nesta said, her eyes sharp and dangerous as she assessed him carefully. He could scent her anger, was careful not to absorb it as his own even as he appreciated her reaction. He noticed her choice of words, too
"A person?" he said quietly. "Any person in particular?"
"Oh, he's indiscriminate," Nesta said airily, but her eyes were as sharp as his Illyrian daggers – the ones Feyre had stolen from him. "I heard about Solstice. Is it true? You don't maintain magical wards around this palace?"
"It's true," Tamlin said, shrugging. He raised a hand and shoved his hair out of his face. It fell, straight but slightly tousled, to his shoulders. Longer now than it had been during the War, when he had hacked it off for practicality's sake, but shorter than he had worn it in centuries. It was strange how accustomed he had become to the short hair, now that he had to contend with its length.
Nesta stared at him. "Why?"
"Many reasons," Tamlin said dully. He frowned. "I purposely made sure there are few here left to protect. The wards use a lot of concentrated magic that is better used elsewhere." He sighed and frowned at Nesta. "Have you ever seen predators hunt?"
"No," Nesta answered, "but I've read about lions and that sort of thing."
"Well, in the faerie realms, as in the animal kingdom, when you want to take power from another dominant Fae, you don't prey on the weak and vulnerable, the powerless. You target the strongest, the most monstrous – the most powerful. Usually, breaking them makes it easier for someone new to usurp authority during a period of chaos," Tamlin said softly.
"You want other faeries to target you?" Nesta asked.
"I want to know who is desperate or bold enough to tempt fate," Tamlin said, his fangs flashing, eyes glinting with predatory purpose. "I want to know who will take advantage when they sense weakness."
"A long list," Nesta said coolly. And at the top of it, she knew, was Rhysand. She didn't know why the two High Lords despised each other so passionately, but instinctively knew it went far deeper than competition over Feyre – a competition Nesta thought Tamlin was wise to have abandoned. "If I remain here, am I likely to be in danger?"
Tamlin frowned at her, his handsome face turning deeply serious. Earnestness shone from his eyes. "You've been in danger since you came out of the Cauldron, Nesta. The moment you start using your powers, the sooner people will realise you have power – and no matter what you do, there will always be someone who views you as a threat. I'm assuming they've been teaching you to channel your power. They lost no time turning Feyre into a weapon."
"No."
"No?"
"No. They didn't teach me."
"They didn't teach you?"
"Are you hard of hearing? Shall I mime?" Nesta snapped, irritated. Tamlin stared at her.
"They haven't taught you –"
"No. They haven't. They – Amren taught me only what they needed to track the Cauldron," Nesta said, her tone crisp. Her eyes glinted with a quiet fury. Tamlin stared at her. Then he smirked.
"All that grief I got for refusing to teach Feyre?" he scoffed.
"You didn't want to draw attention to her," Nesta said simply, and Tamlin blinked, frowning.
"I – How do you know that?"
"She has power from the seven High Lords. Men are fragile enough about political power: I can't imagine Fae males are less delicate about having their magic snatched from them, especially given the implications of Feyre being connected to their courts, potentially able to usurp authority from the current High Lords," Nesta said coolly.
"The magic was freely given."
"Really? Feyre was held in such high regard by all the High Lords that they volunteered a drop of their essence to revive her?" Nesta said, her eyes glinting. "Curious, isn't it, that the seven High Lords, who can't agree that the sky is blue, came together to breathe life into the human female who happened to turn out to be Rhysand's mate? Rhysand, who taught her how to wield the powers she got from those High Lords to lie and steal and manipulate to get what he wants?"
Tamlin sighed heavily. "I meant…freely given by me," he said softly. Nesta watched him shrewdly. He had given no reaction to her comments about Rhysand, the implications of what she had said: that Rhysand had manipulated them in their moment of weakness, the moment Tamlin had snatched Amarantha's throat from her body, the moment they regained their powers, the moment all of Prythian's assembled courtiers were in chaos… That Rhysand had entered their minds and controlled their actions to gift Feyre something so precious – life – and that he had done so to ultimately benefit no-one but himself.
"You've nothing to say about Rhysand?"
"Do you think I haven't spent decades dreading what Rhysand is capable of, second-guessing everything I do for fear he's behind the decisions that appear to be mine? To say nothing of his treatment of Feyre," Tamlin bit back, his eyes flashing. A fury he seemed to have been holding in for far too long burst from him as he snarled, "He is distrusted by every other High Lord through no-one's fault but his own. His behaviour. He can try to excuse it all he likes, weep siren's tears enough to fill lakes over the children whose minds he shattered. That display at that summit meant nothing. His actions continue to show him for what he is."
Nesta stared at him: Tamlin became aware that his chest was heaving with emotion, that fury sluiced through his veins like fire, and he had spoken more harshly than he meant to. He also remembered that Nesta was Rhysand's sister-by-bond.
And she fled him, he thought.
Nesta gave him an appraising look and her eyes glinted with something almost like approval.
"We are what we pretend to be," she said softly, and Tamlin exhaled with a soft grunt.
"I often pretend that I am a capable and decent leader," Tamlin said, and Nesta smiled softly. "Come – these are the kitchens."
They entered a great hall made of honey-coloured stone, with a high hammer-beam ceiling, an enormous hearth dominating one end with stoves and ovens suitable to cater to armies. And Nesta realised that it was very likely that armies were an apt description for the kind of workforce required to maintain this palace. A palace now emptied because its master had baited a trap.
Not because he was incompetent.
But because others believed him to be, and he was ready to take full advantage of that fact.
Thus far, the Tamlin she had met contradicted everything Feyre and Rhysand and the others had ever said about him.
Nesta glanced appraisingly at Tamlin as he stalked into the kitchens. Soaring windows filled the hall with bright sunlight, glinting off of copper pans. Along the centre of the hall was an enormous oak table, ancient and enduring, scarred with burn-marks and gouges from knives, which were neatly arranged on hooks along one wall, gleaming in the sunlight splashing across the room.
At one end of the table, closest to the hearth, was a ceramic bowl draped with a muslin cloth.
It was such a normal thing to see, as if the ceramic bowl had been lifted from the table in the cottage and set down while the dough continued to rise. She remembered the little roll Tamlin had offered her and frowned curiously at the bowl.
"I thought you said you were due elsewhere today," Nesta said.
"I am."
"Then why make bread-dough?" Nesta asked.
"Well, you'll be hungry," Tamlin blinked at her, as if she was quite slow. "I can delay leaving until it's in the oven –"
"I can bake bread," Nesta said, with a whisper of asperity. She glanced at Tamlin, her features softening. "That was very considerate of you. Thank you."
"You're my guest," Tamlin said quietly. "You're free to go about the house and gardens as you like. The gardeners will be working but it's unlikely you'll see many people. Alis isn't due to visit for another few days. But…"
"But what?"
"If you wouldn't mind… There's a tree-stump by the door to one of the stables in the sentry's courtyard," Tamlin said. "Once you've baked the bread, please could you take some out on a trencher, with some cheese and fruit and nuts? Just…leave the trencher on the stump."
Nesta went still. "Is there something in the stables?"
"Nothing you need worry about," Tamlin said quietly. "They're just…incredibly skittish: you won't see them, and they won't want to be anywhere near you. Your scent is unfamiliar. But when you put the trencher down, just…let them know who you are, and that I asked you to bring the food out. Otherwise they won't eat the food."
"Alright," Nesta said quietly, frowning to herself. Tamlin showed her the pantries leading off of the kitchen, which were constantly refilled from the stores in the cellars, fresh produce brought in from the orchards and the kitchen gardens, which Tamlin showed her next. Acres of raised beds spread out as far as the eye could see, every single one of them using imaginative ways to cultivate and display the produce, with arbours overgrown with beans and squashes and living tunnels of espaliered trees exploding with fruits. To not only make it easy to harvest the fruit but to show it off, like Solstice trees decorated with candles and garlands. She could see beehives, already protected against the cold of an encroaching autumn she had not expected to be felt here in the Spring Court, and bantam chickens pecking about, ridding the raised beds of pests, while in a sheltered area sectioned off near a greenhouse she could hear tiny quails.
It was the only space she had yet seen in the Spring Court that was as functional as it was beautiful.
"The orchards are bare now but the kitchen gardens still have crops," Tamlin explained.
"I thought it was warm sunshine all year round here," Nesta said, aware of a chill in the air that had lingered past dawn.
"A common misconception," Tamlin said quietly. "Our crops still obey nature's laws. The harvest has already been gathered. But magic ensures there is always enough to provide for anyone living here. There is always ripe produce ready for plucking. And the hens are still laying. Oh, and if the goats get in, you have to be stern with them or they'll wreak havoc. Help yourself to whatever you need."
"How long will you be gone?" Nesta asked.
"Hopefully only today," Tamlin said, sighing heavily. "Don't take it for granted that I will return until the early hours, though." She nodded. "Do you need anything else?"
"No," Nesta answered honestly. "Thank you."
"You're welcome," Tamlin said, giving her a strange look. He excused himself, needing to prepare for the day, and Nesta pottered about the kitchen-gardens, surprising herself by picking fresh vegetable and eating them raw as she meandered under the espaliers groaning with stone-fruits – the scent of ripe cherries, nectarines and figs was heavy on the air – and noticed that flowers had been planted among the vegetables to deter pests, bright pops of colour amid the green. She sampled her way through the kitchen-gardens, a dozen chickens growing curious and trailing her.
She surprised herself, hours later, realising she had been awake and out-of-doors without once needing to retreat inside, to flee, to hastily raise mental blockades against the stimuli that drove her closer toward insanity with every passing day. She focused on the taste of raw carrots and beans, radishes, tiny orange tomatoes, figs and the sensation of nectarine juice running down her chin as she bit into it, the scent of it delicious and mouth-watering rather than gagging, the twitter and chirp of birds an ongoing chorus punctuated by the clucking of the hens and harmonised by the gentle sighs of the breeze rustling the leaves of the trees, carrying the scent of ripe fruit and the pervasive perfume of flowers to her from the acres of gardens beyond the distant redbrick walls tumbling over with climbing vines of vegetables and berries.
In the calm and the quiet of the kitchen-gardens, Nesta found she was able to sharpen her focus onto one thing at a time, to luxuriate in them without fear of being taken by surprise, overwhelmed in the open of the streets of Velaris, victim to whatever might happen while she was vulnerable: to enjoy the scent of a ripe nectarine, feel the breeze on her face, taste fresh cherries, listen to the sighing leaves of distant trees.
It was momentous to her. And she stood in the kitchen gardens, realising for the first time how truly hungry she was as her stomach groaned and gurgled, aching for more. She meandered through the raised beds, picking more vegetables, eating the fresh fruit where she plucked it free, and noticed the herbs scattered throughout the beds, deterring pests, igniting her desire, long squashed…to cook.
She remembered the dough, then – and Tamlin. He had not returned: she had not wondered about it. He had invited her to do as she pleased, take what she needed and advised her not to wait for him. She glanced up, assessing where the sun was and was surprised to find the sun had climbed almost directly overhead. In the dappled shade of the tunnels created by the espaliered fruit-trees, she had not felt the rise in temperature or the harshness of the sun, yet it shone hotly, glaring down, encouraging the insects to creek and tick merrily while the fruit and vegetables ripened and the hens retreated to the shade.
Nesta didn't know when Tamlin had left – and felt a slight prickle of unease that he had disappeared without her noticing, when she was so hypersensitive to everything around her – but knew it had been an hour or so past dawn that she had come outside. Hours. She had been outside for hours, relishing the quiet and the calm, nibbling at fresh vegetables, allowing ripe fruit to tempt her, feeding her neglected body. Now it demanded more. And she remembered the dough – and the promise she had made to Tamlin. Bake the bread. Fill a trencher.
She had been outside all morning. She hadn't had to retreat, her head splitting, hands shaking, nausea roiling in her stomach, slumping into a heap on the dirty floor as memories lashed her more viciously than any whip. The usual triggers she suffered in the City of Starlight were absent: sea-salt, wet stone, even the most benign clashes of metal, light glinting off armour, the scent of copper, squelching mud and puddles of murky water, no matter how shallow. Even the shriek of children playing caught her off guard and threw her back to the battlefield, the screams of the dying shattering in her ears. The wet crunch of a butcher's knife had had her hurling her guts in a back-alley when she had inadvertently wandered into the Palace of Bone and Salt: she had stood at her sink and scrubbed her hands and face until they were raw, still able to feel the hot blood sprayed on her skin, burning her as she sucked agonising breaths into lungs that felt too small for her body.
There was none of that here.
She had enjoyed as many as six glorious hours wandering in the gardens, without even realising it.
Time no longer had the same power over her that it once did: it had ceased to matter. What were a few hours compared to eternity?
She thought of the dough, though, and, curious about who Tamlin's rare dependent was, Nesta wandered back toward the entrance to the kitchens, which was a great double-wide doorway with sunken honey-stone steps and a studded oak door left ajar. It was pleasantly warm inside the kitchen, thanks to the high windows allowing in all the sunlight they could snare. She went to the long swathe of porcelain sinks under the windows and deposited her handfuls of fresh vegetables and fruit to wash and prepare – she had no idea into what, yet, but the idea of cooking something had seize her imagination, as it hadn't in years – before washing her hands and turning to the porcelain bowl at the end of the long table.
The dough had risen, malty and tangy and silken to the touch. After investigating the pantries leading off the kitchens, Nesta sourced smaller, more manageable ceramic jars filled with seeds, nuts, different flours, grains and dried fruits and a small collection of glass jars full of preserves, mustards, relishes and chutneys, all labelled with a clear and concise hand. One shelf in the cool larder held a row of cheeses, from the freshest buffalo strachiatella, herbed goat's cheese, wheels of brie, truckles of gruyere, another of rich Cheddar, and one enormous wheel of ancient parmesan that had been partially hollowed out. She remembered the roll Tamlin had given her yesterday: the dough had a slightly sour tang, decorated with handfuls of seeds – sunflower seeds and white sesame and poppy.
For the first time in years, Nesta baked bread. She separated the dough and worked it into small rolls, yielding eighteen of them: she relied on her muscle memory, more than her physical strength, shaping the dough with circular motions, her hand cupped over each ball of dough. Her arms ached by the end of it but she carefully decorated the rolls, half with a topping of mixed seeds and the other with a grating of the deliciously creamy Cheddar that had the faintest traces of coarse salt, and a whisper of cayenne pepper from a ceramic jar in the pantry. Spices were a thing of her distant past, elegant, flavoursome meals with her parents – slim as she had always been, her mother had always loved food – whether it was a simple soup for supper or a splendid banquet or an elegant, intimate meal with her closest friends: her nausea, lack of taste and inability to eat anything but the blandest bread soaked in warm broth or milk by the end of her life was a cruel side-effect of her debilitating sickness. Slowly but relentlessly, it had taken all that she had loved and stripped it from her. Nesta could only watch.
Nesta frowned and approached the ovens. By whatever magic imbued into the foundations of this ancient palace, the ovens and stoves did not use wood as fuel but rather magic: she had simply to turn a few knobs and the ovens had roared to life. No firewood required: no snapping and crackling sounds. She watched the rolls carefully, admiring them as they rose in the oven, forming golden crusts, the cheese on half the rolls melting and bubbling. The scent of roasted seeds, melting cheese and that whisper of pepper sang to her, making her mouth water.
While she waited for the rolls to cool, the crusts crackling and hissing softly as they cooled, she set about filling a trencher, as per Tamlin's request. Two bread rolls, chunks of cheese carved from the wheels in the larder, fresh nectarine, strawberries, figs, cashews, almonds and pecans. Balancing everything on the trencher, Nesta made her way outside – she had enjoyed her time out there too much, the sun was too warm not to go about the long way – and meandered around the great palace to the sentries' barracks and the adjoining stables, which were in close proximity to the kitchen-gardens. Nesta thought she spied a familiar trellis of figs past the battered oak door set into a flint-and-redbrick wall on the way into the courtyard of the stables.
She spied the upturned tree-trunk Tamlin had mentioned, set just outside one of the wide doors of the stables. She could smell horses, and hear them, stamping and snorting idly, and wondered how many horses Tamlin owned – and why he kept them, if he could winnow, and kept no sentries to protect his property.
Nesta cleared her throat as she set the trencher of food down on the tree-stump. Brushing her hands on the thighs of her trousers, she glanced into the shade of the stables. Inside, she could hear several horses softly snorting, swishing their tables, and the subtle rustle of hay. "I am Nesta. Tamlin asked me to bring you something to eat."
Whoever was in the stables kept quiet. She remembered Tamlin saying that they were skittish: that they wouldn't eat if she didn't tell them the food had come from him.
He had sent his sentries away, refused to expend his own magic to maintain wards and kept only a skeleton staff of servants to maintain the palace yet he went out of his way to ensure Nesta brought food to whoever lurked in the shadows of the stable.
If Nesta had cared more, she would have been more curious. As it was…she was curious. Tamlin had told her specifically that he had allowed only those who could not afford to leave to remain in the servants' quarters.
Whoever's heart thrummed swiftly beside the steady thump-thump-thump of a healthy horse's strong heart was someone who could go nowhere else. And more than that, they were unable to provide for themselves: the trencher of food was proof of that.
"I'll…return at sunset with a hot meal," she promised, startling herself. She had gathered vegetables, yes, but she hadn't cooked in months – she could honestly praise the street vendors of Velaris for their unique, cheap and flavoursome offerings: she hadn't needed to light a fire to use the stove, not when she could buy all her meals fresh and consume them where she stood.
But Tamlin provided for whoever hid in the straw: he wouldn't be returning 'til well after dark. What would his dependent do for food without him? Would they wait until the morning, or until she brought them another trencher?
Tamlin had provided her a place to stay: putting her skills to use was the least she could do to show her gratitude.
A.N.: Showing (sometimes not-so-subtle) hints that what Feyre/the IC perceive about Tamlin is nowhere near the truth.