**Inspired by Chapters 117 & 119, "Incense Burner" of 'The Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation' by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu.
Part 1
"Elain?" Lucien wandered through the dark underbelly of the Hewn City. His voice echoed forwards and back down the rough stone halls, twisting and distorting his words until it sounded like the wordless screams of the dead.
Maybe he'd accidentally stepped into Hell while looking for his wife.
No, if any female lured her mate into the fires of Hell it would be Nesta- and Cassian would happily follow all the way down.
Besides, if Elain somehow did find the underworld she was well equipped to get herself out again. Amren and Nuala both disappeared along with the middle Archeron.
A tremor shook the mountain and Lucien quickly reached out to touch the walls of the tunnel. It was a narrow space, he couldn't even extend his arms out fully. Mercifully the ceiling was high enough for him to walk upright, but Azriel and Cassian had to send Lucien on alone without them. Even folded, Illyrian wings were simply too tall. The males would have to walk with their top halves bowed almost parallel to the floor to fit, and tucking them tight enough to walk down the narrow hallway without scraping against sharp rock would be too much of a hassle.
The females went first. That was nearly ten hours ago.
Lucien could feel Rhys and Feyre's power winding through the stone of the Hewn City, holding the buildings as the ground shook. Blasting for a mine shaft had collapsed several previously unknown smuggler holds beneath the city, destabilizing the base of the mountain, destroying a large section of the slums, and crumbling the foundations of the Hewn Palace, destabilizing the entire western wing.
The High Lord and Lady had winnowed from Velaris just in time to stop the palace from burying the survivors below. Rhys focused on bracing the most critical foundations while Feyre convinced the stone to bind and heal.
There was no longer danger of collapse- and many of those buried in the rubble had been saved- but as members of the Inner Circle turned their attention from the structures to the injured or trapped, a glint of gold caught Amren's eye.
A simple, perfectly normal gold coin- with the face of the first High Lord of Night upon it. A treasure so ancient and rare that even Rhysand had never seen its like before. There was no telling where it came from or how it got there. It was Elain who finally noticed it- a flicker of light high above.
The original collapse ripped the ground out from beneath the lowest dungeons of the Hewn Palace- ancient cells that had been sealed off long ago when renovations blocked the ventilation shafts. What Elain noticed was a space behind the exposed base of a wall- the barest hint of a tunnel that had itself been sealed away.
Amren, Nuala, Elain, Cassian, and Azriel all made their way up into the Hewn Palace and wound their way back down into the dungeons- where Azriel surrounded the group with his blackest shadows to hide whatever it was that lurked in the prisons. The Court of Nightmares was well enough known in Prythian- it was what Amarantha tried her best to recreate Under the Mountain. Lucien had no interest in seeing what a Court like that would consider a monster worthy of being caged.
Down several levels more and they arrived at a black door. Azriel produced the lone key and with a scream of un-oiled metal he opened the old wing of the dungeon.
The air was thick with the stench of mildew and rot, but there was no denying the breeze from the missing sections of floor. Feyre and Rhysand both were supporting the floor beneath them as the group walked over towards the edge of the chasm and found the wall Elain had seen from below.
Lucien formed the shield while Cassian's siphons flashed and the wall exploded. A bit of stone rained down into the debris below, but Lucien deflected most of it to the far side of the dungeon, where it pulverized the mummified remains of some poor bastard who'd been sealed in (in fact, it appeared most of the prisoners were still inside when this wing of the dungeon closed).
Sure enough, there was a tunnel hidden behind the stone.
A very awkward one.
It was Amren who, upon seeing the endless curving darkness, suddenly remembered what was there fifteen thousand years ago:
A vault, where the High Lords of Old secreted away what she described as 'sensitive treasures'.
Rhys and Feyre were too busy holding up half the city to search for themselves, so Azriel begrudgingly appointed Nuala to accompany Amren. She pulled along Elain and when Lucien tried to follow as well he was barred from entry by a crackling white wall of power.
"I want to ask her about your sex life!" Amren called warmly as she led the two other females into the black.
Feyre and Rhys repaired most of the floor of the dungeon, only leaving a single cell exposed in order to give the males air as they waited. Every now and then a tremor would shake the city as some deep pillar of stone was raised, but there was no further risk of damage.
An hour passed.
Four.
Seven.
That was when Amren's barrier flashed and vanished. After several minutes Lucien heard the faintest of screeches echoing down the tunnel- a whistle or a scream he couldn't say.
But no matter how much Cassian and Azriel wanted to run down the tunnel and see what happened, it was simply not suited for Illyrians. So Lucien entered alone.
Now, two hours later, he wasn't even sure he'd walked very far at all.
There was no discernible curve to the tunnel- which made sense considering that the dungeons sat below ground level. The stone never changed, the tunnel never widened or narrowed further, and the only sound was the endless echo of his own footsteps.
A steady wind blew at his back- one of the Illyrians had been pushing air into the tunnel ever since they found it, but even the ground was free of dust in the strange place.
Lucien wished he had Rhysand or Feyre with him- with every step his conviction grew that whatever treasure the ancient Lords hid at the end of this tunnel was probably something only a High Lord (or Lady) could hope to contain.
"If they were dead, Cerridwen would have come already," Azriel said after they heard the distorted screech. He'd assured Lucien that- trapped, injured, or deceased- Cerridwen would know if her twin was in trouble.
'Unless whatever the High Lords locked away was so dangerous that even a dead soul can't escape it.'
"Elain?" Lucien cupped his hands around his mouth and called again, with just a hint of fear in his voice this time.
"I'm not answering if he's going to be rude and only call her," a low, snippy voice finally echoed back to him.
Amren.
"Amren?" Lucien called out as loudly as he could. His tone was much the same, but he had a relieved smile on his face. He hurried forward a bit faster.
"That's more like it!" her voice snapped back.
The echo was difficult to understand, but after only a few minutes of hurried walking Lucien was finally able to see a light on the walls that didn't belong to his own faelight. At long last the tunnel turned sharply, revealing a black door that was held ajar only an inch- wedged with what had to be a priceless scepter.
Lucien pulled the door open and breathed a relieved sigh to see Elain with her hair tied back in a messy braid sorting through a chest of scrolls.
"He's only happy to see her," Amren yanked him into the room, snatched the scepter from his hand, and jammed it back into the doorway. "Nuala doesn't like the dark hallway," she said by way of explanation.
"Something is watching us," Nuala was half hidden behind a large armoir with a pile of books.
"Did one of you- did someone scream a couple hours ago?" Lucien asked hesitantly. The matter-of-fact way Nuala spoke worried him.
"I whistled so you boys could be useful for a change," Amren said. A moment later she sighed and looked Lucien up and down, "but they sent… you."
Lucien had years to get used to Amren's ribbing. She knew damn well that only Lucien would fit in the tunnel, she was just teasing in her own way. Her reputation still terrified him, but he was no longer intimidated. "How can I make myself useful?"
"I don't know, explore," Amren waved a hand.
The entryway to the vault was no larger than that of the manor in Prythian that the Archeron sisters once owned. It was filled with rich furniture piled high with crates or scrolls. To be honest, it looked as if someone were stopped as they prepared to move from one home to the other.
Lucien walked carefully through the maze the females had cleared among the stacks- past the skeleton of a chaise lounge and around a suit of scaled armor. He reached out and gently stroked Elain's ear as he walked by. As she always did, Elain tipped ever so slightly to nuzzle his palm with her cheek, never looking away from the scrolls.
While the structure of the entryway consisted of the same hollowed-out black stone as the hall, the space further back- hidden from the door- was the opposite.
White marble stretched into an area larger than the throne room of the Hewn Palace, and a massive white column rose from the center to hold up a vaulted ceiling. Mosaics covered the walls in place of paint- perfect recreations of the first seven High Lords of Night. Stern, moon-white faces, they held not a scrap of resemblance to Rhysand. Their eyes were over-large and round as well, giving them the look of some species of faerie rather than High.
"The original High Lords were Dark Fae," Amren said. Lucien nearly jumped out of his skin- he didn't know she'd followed. "They all looked kind of like bugs, too used to scampering about in the dark. Back then the Woodland Fae were a merchant class, but as they became more powerful they began interbreeding with the Dark Fae and the High Fae were created. Night was the slowest to adapt. Rhys' father and that little snot Kier were only four or five generations removed from the last pureblood Dark Fae."
Lucien had only heard of Dark Fae in rumors. The so-called Lesser Fae would whisper that the High Fae never emerged from the Cauldron but rather were hybrid spawn of two faerie species. If those whispers ever reached his father's ear, the High Lord of Autumn would round up entire families and put them to death for blasphemy.
But now, looking at those careful tile portraits of the first Lords, it would seem the stories held some air of truth.
Though a sea of neatly stacked crates filled the floor of the white room, Lucien wanted a closer look at the portraits. He made to take a step across the threshold between white and black when Amren yanked him back.
"Cauldron," Lucien swore as the little one kicked the back of his knee and he fell. She hooked two fingers into his nose and pulled up, trapping him in place. Amren grabbed his red braid and yanked it around to hold against the white stone that rose through the door frame.
A moment later, Lucien was released.
"WHAT WAS THAT ABOUT?!" he rounded on Amren, furiously wiping his nose.
She reached out and wiped her hand on his green tunic with a grimace, "Just making sure you are your father's child." Amren pointed to a series of twisting, winding figures inlaid upon the threshold in gold.
Lucien couldn't even begin to decipher whatever ancient fae tongue the writing was in. Nor was he particularly keen to try- for the moment he was still focused on the little she-demon that stuck her fingers into his nose.
"It says that only the blood of a Lord of Night can cross the threshold. Otherwise your little braid would have been incinerated," Amren finished wiping her fingers and wandered back towards the door to a chest of jewels.
"I'm not-"
"Look at the third one on the left," Amren didn't even look at the wall. Lucien counted over. A younger Lord than the others, but still vaguely… bug-like.
"You're a descendant through his fourth daughter. That's Helion's great-great-great- you get the picture- grandfather."
Lucien balked and stared harder at the portrait, trying to see some family resemblance. It was a few years since Beron finally died and Lady Vanserra revealed Lucien's parentage to him. Helion- as it turned out- suspected all along that Beron's youngest was different from the others. Lucien's mother now resided in Day, waiting for the appropriate mourning period to expire before announcing her mating with Helion.
Though Lucien's relationship with his real father had been strained at the start, they had recently managed to achieve simple awkwardness at the last Solstice dinner.
Even so, it was hard to break 400 years of habit. Lucien had to remind himself to look for Helion's face in the High Lord, not Beron's.
Before he realized it, Lucien had stepped across the threshold and into the white room. He felt a tingling in his bones, but no flame. No matter how many generations came between Lucien and this male, evidently there was just enough of a mark left in his blood.
"Want to get a close up look of the portraits?" Amren asked.
"Yes," Lucien was mystified by the strange looking Dark Fae.
"Then start passing boxes out here, we'll stack them in the hallway. Everything is wrapped in spelled cloth, a little jostling won't activate it."
Naturally, Amren had been waiting for Lucien to get access to the room and help with manual labor. He took a step down towards the base of the stairs and then froze.
Elain had been looking in a chest of scrolls. Nuala a pile of books. Amren a chest of jewels. There were boxes and crates in the entryway, yes, but nothing was open.
And Lucien walked for two hours down an empty tunnel to reach this hidden place.
"Amren?" Lucien turned to scowl at the little demon, "Did you drop the coin?" There were no loose piles of ancient moneys sitting around the room, and not a single coin on the long walk here.
"Elain, you're married to a suspicious little one, aren't you?" Amren reached into a pocket and flipped a gold coin across the threshold to Lucien, "I picked them up as we walked you moron."
"Then how do you know how things are wrapped?" Lucien caught the coin but wouldn't let the subject go.
Amren snorted, "Because I watched them seal this room. Who do you think laid the wards in the wall?" she pointed at the gold lettering.
Lucien felt his face redden, "Oh…"
Over the millennia many High Lords had sought Amren out. For the right price- and if she was in the right mood- she could be convinced to help with traps and spells. She was as likely to kill you as she was to help, but there were rare occasions where she walked away without drawing blood.
Elain leaned back far enough to see Lucien from her position and offered a warm smile. Lucien rolled his eyes- an insult Amren magnanimously let slide- and turned back to pick up the first box.
"Should we really be moving these? We could just wait for Rhys and Feyre."
"They'll want to go through everything as well," Amren said, accepting a deceptively heavy crate from the male. She passed it over a pile of scrolls to Nuala, who wove her way towards the door. "Knowing Feyre, she'll sit in here for a few days and paint copies of the portraits."
Feyre was very popular among historians in Night for her dedication to preserving ancient works. She'd restored a few paintings for them and recently took some of her more accomplished students to a set of ruins discovered in the lowlands of Night, thoroughly sketching and documenting the site from every angle.
Lucien shrugged and picked up another box to pass to Amren. There was still a lot of damage to be repaired in the Hewn City- it would be several hours before Feyre and Rhysand made their way into the tunnel. Lucien just hoped the next step wouldn't be carrying all of the crates on the long haul back to the dungeons…
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Several Hours Later
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"Careful!"
It was the last thing Lucien heard before he was buried alive. His arms were jelly and he'd nearly emptied the white marble space. A large crate stacked just a bit over his head should have been light- all the rest on the top tier were- but he realized too late that it could very well be the heaviest in the room.
Also, the wood at the front had rotted.
They'd come across a dozen or so crates like it- ones where the bottom fell out or the sides exploded inwards as Lucien tried to carry them. Cleaning up the wreckage (while trying desperately to keep things wrapped in shredding spell cloth) made the process far slower than it should have been.
As Lucien caught the heavy crate- or tried to- the front wall of it burst, sending things flying into his face.
Now he was lost, buried in darkness with a sharp ringing in his ears. His head was pounding, his entire face felt thick and swollen, and he couldn't move more than his fingers or toes. He was laying on something cold and smooth, but the darkness was complete.
Also, either something was crawling across his cheek, or that was blood.
The ringing began to thin somewhat and he could hear a female voice shouting. Lucien tried to look around, but all he could find were bare specks of light in the darkness.
A deeper rumble cut through the female's voice and it grew increasingly frantic. Something heavy hit the floor, and a moment later light exploded in Lucien's vision. A blurry form knelt over him- one made up of black, tan, and bronze. The dark spots in his vision vanished as the form shoved aside heavy debris and grabbed either side of his face.
Lucien groaned. Healing magic poured through him. Bones in his nose and cheeks popped back into place as the bone knit itself. His ears stopped ringing and he could hear Nuala's voice murmuring comforting words to a whimpering Elain.
The colors in front of him solidified into faces- Feyre (the one holding his face), and Rhysand.
"You're alright," Feyre said. She quickly looked back at Elain, "He'll be fine, he was just dazed."
"I'm okay," Lucien's voice was slurred. Feyre's healing magic was still working on his teeth and tongue. His teeth had been cracked by something heavy, and in the crash he'd nearly bitten his own tongue in half.
Lucien rotated his eyes up so that he could see Elain. She was clinging to Amren and bouncing on the tips of her toes, trying to get the best view of her mate possible. Amren's knuckles were white as she held Elain back. Nuala was beside her, trying to calm the female.
It was killing Elain that she couldn't cross onto the white marble to reach him.
"What even is this junk?" Rhys picked up a heavy golden paperweight, "Desk supplies?" He was carefully removing the debris from around Lucien's head, but as he held it up Lucien counted among the clutter figurines and even something vaguely resembling a compass.
Rhys' analysis might be right- junk. Lucien had his teeth knocked in and his face broken by a box of heavy junk.
"Come on, let's get you up," Feyre's magic repaired the worst of the damage, but she and Rhys had just finished bracing the Hewn City itself. There wasn't enough magic in her for more than basic-level healing. She was as pale as Lucien had ever seen, and dark bags hung under her eyes. Her hair was a mess and her Illyrian armor was coated in thick layers of rock and dust.
Rhys and Feyre both helped hoist Lucien to his feet. A handful of treasures fell out from among the folds of his tunic. Rhys helped knock away what caught on him. Once he was vertical, Lucien brushed them both off and took a few tentative steps on his own. His back was fine, even though he was willing to bet he'd ache by the end of the day.
While Rhys and Feyre stayed behind to look through the debris on the floor (Rhys misted Lucien's spilled blood just in case it activated anything), he made his way across the room and up into his wife's arms. Elain practically shoved Amren across the room in her haste to grab onto her mate, and she gently touched every patch of red skin, "Are you alright?"
"I'm fine, I promise," Lucien pulled Elain close, both to comfort her and so that she would stop poking at sore spots.
"Hey Elain? Why don't you take Lucien up to the palace for a bit," Feyre said. Lucien was about to protest when she raised her hand, "I fixed the broken bits, but you're going to be black and blue in an hour. You should start the hike back now. Even we can't winnow in here."
"But-"
"I promise we won't re-seal the vault without you," Rhysand called. His dark power was dancing across the surface of the golden cup, trying to read whatever ancient spells wound through it.
Elain tugged Lucien's arm- which was actually starting to hurt, truth be told. He didn't want to leave, this might be the most interesting place in all of Night! Still, they did have a point. The journey back would be even harder later, once his wounds had time to swell and bruises formed.
"I want to know everything!" Lucien called out.
Feyre waved him off, "Yeah, yeah. I promise, I'll tell you. This will take days to go through, Lucien. You'll be helping again before it's done."
Dejected, Lucien let Elain pull him into the hall- which was already narrow BEFORE they started stacking crates in it. His wife immediately summoned a faelight and rounded on him, tugging at the collar of his shirt to inspect every red mark, "Are you really okay?"
"I'm fine, I'm fine. My pride is hurt more than anything," he brushed her off and gave her a light push down the hall.
"I was so scared," Elain said. Lucien reached forward and wrapped his arms around her shoulders from behind. She reached up to clutch his forearm, and they walked- somewhat awkwardly- down the tunnel. "You were laying there and I couldn't do anything to help."
Lucien huffed a laugh, "It was only for a few seconds, Rhys and Feyre arrived right on time. I'll tie a rope around my belt next time, if it makes you feel better."
"It does," she pouted. "And it wasn't 'a few seconds', Lucien. You were like that for fifteen minutes."
He blinked and stopped walking, "What?"
When Elain turned around there were tears in her eyes, "You were laying there with that box over your head for fifteen minutes, and none of us could get to you. Nuala went for help and she found Rhys and Feyre on their way."
He blinked. The crate- and its contents- had to weigh over a hundred stone. He'd felt multiple bones pop back into place…
"I had no idea," Lucien kissed Elain's forehead, then pulled her into another hug, "I'm sorry." He didn't know what else to say. For him the danger passed quickly, but if it were Elain laying there on the floor bleeding and alone-
He couldn't imagine what he'd do if the roles were reversed. He might have been stupid enough to throw Amren off and run into the room.
A shudder went through Lucien's body. To wake up from that only to find out Elain was-
No, his mate was smarter than he was. She wouldn't let her emotions make her irrational enough to run to her death.
Lucien let Elain guide him down the endless tunnel, holding her hands all the way. He had to reach forward and she back, but Elain wasn't willing to lose contact with him (and as she'd entered the narrow space first, they couldn't switch places). He locked his eyes onto her shining hair and followed. When his bones grew heavy he pushed the weight aside. When his back began to ache, he ignored it.
When Elain's form grew fuzzy and he realized his eyes were swelling shut, he just focused on the bit of her he could still make out. Lucien was already used to letting his mate guide him out of dark places.
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"Well hello beautiful, how was your trip?" Cassian was sitting in an armchair just outside the tunnel. Over half a day had passed since Elain first entered it, and in that time Cassian had both showered and moved his favorite chair from the palace atop of the Hewn City down into the cell. A low table with some books on top sat beside him.
"Are you moving in?" Lucien said. His words were thick, muffled, and slurred. He'd regained a bit of sight in one eye as his fae healing worked on the injuries, but he knew he had to look horrific. The sounds Elain made whenever she glanced back at him in the tunnel told him as much.
Cassian stretched in his chair, "Jealous?"
"I know what's at the end of that tunnel, jealous?" Lucien was pretty sure he managed to stick out his tongue.
"I don't know, it certainly made you uglier," Cassian snickered. "Elain, will you take me down later and protect me?"
"It's a two and a half hour walk," she said.
Cassian made a face at the thought of walking bent in half for so long, "Nevermind, I prefer the narrative that only Luci came out of there looking like shit."
"I'm sure I won't hear the end of it this century," Lucien rolled his eyes (if Cassian could see that). He tried and failed to lift his arm high enough to wrap around Elain. His shoulders were aching. Instead, Lucien took her hand and unleashed a small burst of power.
Free of the tunnel, he was able to winnow them the short distance up to the House atop the mountain.
Thunder boomed and air rushed past them. When the world settled back into place he and Elain stood on the large patio that the Illyrians used as a main entrance. He sagged against her, exhausted. A sharp pain rippled through his right side- Lucien had been ignoring that one for hours. Elain adjusted quickly so that she was helping hold him up.
"Just a little further," Elain said as she pulled him forward. Lucien put his entire life force into his legs, making them set one foot in front of the other. It was up to his mate to steer, he'd just provide the forward momentum.
Elain helped him all the way down the airy hall until they reached the door to their chambers. Lucien tried to aim for the bed, but his wife instead forced him towards the door to their spacious bathroom.
"I want to lay down," he groaned.
"You're going to soak for a bit first, it'll help," Elain pushed him forward. Lucien tripped on the top step of the sunken tub. He hissed in pain as his back violently protested stairs. White hot flame rippled from his thighs up through his lower back with every step down into the tub.
Once inside, Elain helped undo the laces of Lucien's tunic and strip away the various layers of his clothing. As his undershirt lifted he felt something in the painful area of his ribcage pull, then the pressure abruptly vanished. Lucien breathed a sigh of relief at the easing- but a loud clatter came from the bottom of the tub.
"What's this?" Elain bent down to pick up the object.
It was a small, squat round dish. Black in color, but inlaid with swirling silver designs and delicate script she could not make out. The dish was about as wide in diameter as her palm, but only perhaps as deep as the width of a finger. A small raised portion in the center had a hole burrowed into it, like it was meant to hold something. Lucien looked down at his skin and saw a deep, angry circle bruise where it had been pinned to his torso.
"It must have fallen in when the box broke," he said, then immediately regretted it. Of course it had fallen in then, Lucien wasn't in the habit of putting hard metal dishes beneath his shirt.
Elain was turning the thing over in her hands. It spoke more to Lucien's pain than anything that he hadn't even noticed it was under his shirt. When Rhys and Feyre helped him stand it must have slid down, only to be pinned in hard enough by his tunic that it wasn't immediately visible.
"I think it's a very basic incense holder," she said.
Lucien sighed, "I'll give it to Rhys when I see him next. I'm not walking all the way back down there today." He bent to untie his boots and winced in pain.
"Let me-" Elain set the burner on the edge of the tub and knelt to help Lucien finish stripping. Once he was fully nude she gathered his clothes and stepped up out of the tub. "You just relax, I'm going to see if I can find some medicine." With a tap she activated the faucet. Lucien groaned as blissfully hot water swirled around his feet.
She returned only briefly to sprinkle salts in the tub that filled the air with the soft scent of lavender and eucalyptus.
Lucien sighed appreciatively as the heat slid up his legs, over his lap, and rose across his torso. The water shut off naturally once it had reached his neck. Heat soaked into his muscles. Combined with the salts in the water, he felt the throbbing stiffness gradually ease back.
"How do you feel?" Elain's voice was soft. She set a tray down beside Lucien's head and shed her own clothes so that she could slip into the massive tub beside her husband.
"Better," he breathed. He was half-asleep already.
Elain knelt on the seat of the tub and reached back for the tray. "Drink," she passed him a steaming mug of chamomile tea. He obeyed, even though his jaw was still aching. "Keep your eyes closed."
Lucien waited as his wife straddled his hips and began dabbing medicine over the worst of the swelling in his jaw, nose, and eyes. His own healing ability would take care of the injuries completely within a couple days, but he was not going to object to anything that shortened the timeline.
She finished around the same time he swallowed the last mouthful of tea.
"Is it alright if I take a nap, physician?" Lucien smiled with his eyes still closed.
"You may," she kissed his forehead and slid back.
Lucien's muscles were sore as he slid from the bench, opened his eyes, and forced himself out of the tub, but the bath certainly took the edge off. He toweled dry (avoiding the medicine on his face) and combed Elain's hair loose from her braid. She returned the favor, then led Lucien out and into the world of soft sheets and warm blankets that was their bed.
As Lucien pulled Elain close and loosed a long, tired breath, the last scraps of consciousness left to him snagged on something. A scent in the air, and a coil of smoke rising from Elain's side of the bed.
Before Lucien's mind could comprehend what he'd seen, sleep was dragging him down and smothering him in its warm embrace.
Behind Elain, the High Lord's incense burner began to glow.