Notes:
MULTIPLE TRIGGER WARNINGS-including but not limited to: domestic abuse, sexual abuse, child loss, suicide, murder, drugging, graphic violence.
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They all take their seats as Nuala and Cerridwen serve dinner. A large roasted chicken with sides. Feyre reaches out to Cerridwen's arm lightly and the wraith looks down at her, concerned.
"Thank you. Both of you. I-I realize I don't say that as often as I should—we should", she states, catching Rhysand's eye as well before looking back to her. "We do really appreciate everything you do for us, especially now with Nyx in the mix."
Cerridwen smiles gracefully. "You are very welcome, High Lady. Don't worry about the child, he is a treasure and a miracle."
Feyre smiles and nods. "He is, especially now that he sleeps during the night and takes pretty good naps", she chuckles.
Cerridwen nods and places some dishes in front of them. Elain grins up at Nuala.
"You two do so much for us. Is there anything we can do for you?"
"Oh, no. Just being able to live and serve here are our greatest pleasures", she responds.
Elain places a hand over the deep gray skin of the wraith. "I'm sure there is something you two desire. If you think of it, please let me or Feyre know. Don't be afraid to come to us. Especially after you helped me to heal. You were my friends first, and I will never forget that. Plus, I can make a pretty great Sheppard's pie and souffle now too", she giggles.
The twins smile happily, and Nuala squeezes her hand. "We were thrilled to teach you, Lady Elain."
With that, they retreat back into the kitchen, and she sighs softly, looking after them. Rhys and Feyre take their seats at each end of the table—the heads. Elain, Nesta, and Gwyn are sat to the right, and Lucien, Cassian, and Azriel are sat to the left.
It is fairly quiet for a while until Cassian pipes up. "Nessi—Nesta has an announcement to make." He grins brightly over at her and reaches his hand across the table, taking her fairer one in his.
Nesta takes a breath and smiles softly, her free hand going to her baby bump as she looks at her family and friends around the table. "I do. Um..." She then looks over at Gwyn, and Elain can't help the twinge of jealousy in her gut.
"It's a girl."
Gasps resound around the table and Feyre grins, looking over at Rhys who plasters a polite smile on his face.
Gwyn squeals and hugs her tightly. "Oh, Nes! A lil Valkyrie! I'm so excited, she's going to be so amazing like her Mom."
Nesta tears up and chuckles, hugging her back for the moment. "Thank you."
Elain smiles at the exchange despite herself, realizing why Nesta is so close with her. Not only had they nearly died together in the Blood Rite, another form of traumatic hell, but Gwyn has remained by her side since the day they had met, and has never wavered in her support of Nesta. Unlike she had. Her gut roils a bit at the guilt. Gwyn had—and continues to encourage her voracious older sister more than she ever has. Hopefully, they will all be good friends in however hundreds of years, but for now, tension still rules, unfortunately. Even if that situation with Azriel is no longer an issue.
Azriel's shadows swirl around him as he smiles joyously, leaning over to pat Nesta's hand as well. "Congratulations, Nesta", he says with his usual quiet grace. "I can't wait to meet her. Maybe I can help Cass teach her how to fly." Feyre groans and a mischievous twinkle appears in his eye.
"Oh come on, Feyre. I was a great teacher."
Rhys snorts and Cassian laughs. "Remember, you got your tactics from Rhys and me!"
"Oh yes, I remember. Both of you grabbing my arms and hauling me up a good couple hundred feet and then dropping me with no warning!"
They both bellow in laughter and Feyre giggles. Gwyn and Nesta look horrified for him.
"And you didn't even catch me when I could barely gain enough wind under my wings to make a soft landing. Darcy had to catch me because thank gods she realized what you two were doing and went after us! I would've died all over again because of you two."
"Again?", Nesta questions. Azriel's eyes shift weakly, and she holds his gaze for a moment before nodding, slowly understanding that he meant that he felt dead his entire childhood before that. Gwyn takes another bite of food then looks up at him with love.
"Luckily you are resilient. You've made it, Az."
"I have. Some days it seems surreal. But I have."
Rhys pops a bite of food in his mouth. "My mother was furious once we were all safely landed. She made me and Cassian do all of your chores for a month and help her with sewing."
Azriel smirks. "Yes, she did. You two had so many pinpricks in your hands by the time you were done that your hands looked like strawberries."
Cassian shudders. "I hate needles."
"How come I didn't know that?", Nesta laughs.
Lucien smirks slyly. "Oh, I've heard a rumor that he's an Illyrian baby, that's why."
Feyre and Elain laugh, as Cassian feigns offense.
"You're coming into your own, Fireling", Cassian snarks back, sitting his mark and Lucien groans.
Elain giggles softly and pecks Lucien's cheek. "I don't think it's an insult that you are the youngest of the born fae at this table, love", she grins.
Lucien chuckles, and the rumbling of it flows through her and sends a pleasurable shudder down her spine.
"That's true, I am the youngest of all you bats."
Elain feeds him a bite of food across the table openly, watching as everyone looks at them in slight disbelief. Knowing they have accepted their bond and seeing it in person are different. Nobody says a word though, as he accepts it and winks at her, making her blush.
Rhys coughs, partially choking, then drinks some water quickly. Feyre presses her lips together to keep from laughing.
Damn daematis and their mindlinks.
Elain shakes her head and focuses on Nesta again, gently hugging her arm. "She is going to be a lucky little girl, Nesta. She will have a good life. A life that...that we didn't get to have. She won't know pain the way any of us did."
Nesta swallows hard and nods. "I hope so", she whispers.
"I know so", Elain tells her. "Nobody would let anything happen to her or to Nyx."
Her teary gray eyes meet Elain's brown ones, and she smiles weakly. "I know...it's just...the Queens and Koschei. Cassian and I barely survived when I fought Briallyn, and there are more of them. We don't know what magic they have, that Hybern gave them. We don't know what the Cauldron gifted them either."
"I have to have faith that if we defeated Hybern, we can defeat his cronies."
Nesta sighs and nods lightly. "I know. I'm just a lot more worried than I was before because I don't want anything to happen to anyone. My daughter deserves to know her family...no matter how dysfunctional it is", she smirks a little.
Feyre looks over at her. "We won't let anything happen if we can help it, you know that."
"I do."
Lucien smiles. "Cassian will have his hands full. A mini Nesta, eh?"
Cassian snorts and looks over at Nesta. "Delightfully full hands, Lucien."
Rhys snorts and Nesta throws him a glare that he balks ever so slightly from, before turning back to her mate and smirking. "Good answer."
Lucien laughs and looks over at Elain, a loving glint in his eye. She can't help but blush at the insinuation, and remembers the dream he had of their future with their daughter. A vision, he had told her, from a Spring Court babe with seer magic. A wonderful vision that leads her to believe everything will be okay if they all play their cards right.
Gwyn grins, her freckles seeming to dance upon her face as she does so. "One thing is for sure, she will be so loved, Nes. By all of us. No matter what she is like. Though, I have no doubt she will be as fierce and strong as her mother, and as amicable and friendly as her father."
"Thanks, Gwyn", she replies, patting her friend's hand.
As they finish clearing their plates, the wraith twins yet again make an appearance to clear them, and Elain watches as they do. Always such great spies. She wonders if they are a part of Azriel's secret spy network that nobody knows about. Not even Rhys knows all of the people and moving parts involved and since Az is great at his job, he never asks.
The twins clear everything and return with some pastries, cakes, and tea. She can feel Lucien's eyes on her still, even as she pushes her fork into the small slice of strawberry shortcake she was given. Lifting her head, she meets his gaze and smiles prettily. A smile that she knows makes him feel—certain ways. He had told her as much. She has to suppress a giggle when those eyes narrow at her and the corner of his mouth turns up in slight challenge.
Uh oh.
Lucien averts his gaze down to his slice of lemon cake and stabs at it a bit with his fork before abandoning it altogether to fiddle with his cufflinks.
'Lucien rarely fiddles, especially in public. What is going on?'
After a few seconds, she sees his chest rise as he takes a large breath, lightly tapping on his glass with his fork, the clinking noise resounding in the room.
Everyone looks up and for the first time, he looks...nervous. 'Pale. Too pale', she notes.
"Lu—"
He cuts her off. "Wait. Sunshine...just..." He looks around at her family, and at the two wraiths still in the corner filling cups with tea.
Feyre stares wide-eyed at him, a bright grin crossing her face before she covers her mouth with a hand.
Lucien stands up and comes over to her side of the table, holding his hand out for her. Always the gentlemanly emissary. She places her hand in his and scoots out of her chair, standing up in front of him, staying silent per his request, the confusion in her chocolate gaze.
"Elain", he clears his throat. "My mate—my sunshine, my saving grace, and my love."
Her cheeks pinken and she smiles shyly, slightly embarrassed.
"I have...gone over and over about how to do this and I figured that since you hold your family above all else that you'd want them to bear witness. So..." He takes another shuddering breath as he drags the pad of his thumb over her warmed cheek, then her lips.
Swallowing hard, he slowly sinks down to one knee and her eyes widen. Her heart pounds in her chest and she can hear his doing the very same, matching each other for beats. "L-Lu...Lucien...", she murmurs breathily.
He looks up at her, his ruby hair hanging low and framing his handsome face, that golden eye whirring with anxiety and glinting from the light from the chandelier. The scar is pulled tight on his cheek with a terrified yet happy grin on his face and his russet eyes are filled with pure adoration as he stares up at her, slowly slipping something from the pocket of his emerald trousers, and lifting it up to present to her.
A silver-gray velvet box. For a moment, it reminds her of the moment nearly nine months ago now, when she first allowed a full conversation with him. How he had come upstairs and she had permitted him to sit in that gray velvet chair to explain things to her. To explain himself to her.
She can't help the tears from pooling in her eye as he lifts the lid, the most gorgeous ring she has ever seen, laying inside of it.
"Elain Archeron. My heart and my soul. Will you marry me, and do me the honor of being your husband as well as your mate?"
The room is dead silent as everyone waits with bated breath. Elain feels the tears making their way down her face and her hands over her mouth, before she removes them and sobs out her very enthusiastic answer.
"Yes! Oh, Lucien, Oh, gods. Yes. Yes yes yes. I love you."
The room erupts in cheers and she tosses her arms around him tightly. He chuckles softly and tries to hide his own sob in her shoulder, to no avail.
"I know that you missed your mortal traditions. So I asked around. And...I wanted to do something for you so you know that I love all of you. The mortal heart and the immortal soul."
Elain cries and smiles brightly, her face hurting from how wide her smile is.
'The sun personified', Lucien thinks to himself. 'How bright and beautiful she is.'
"You are the perfect male, and I love you will all of me. Whatever I am, Lucien Vanserra, all I know is that I am yours."
He grins and takes the ring out of the box, taking her left hand tenderly, and kissing the knuckles before slipping it on her ring finger. One that had once been adorned with dark iron and ugliness. One that had caused her so much heartache when it was no longer weighted.
"It's beautiful", she breathes.
Indeed it was. Just like her.
The twining rose gold band shimmers, a symbol of their connected souls, and in the middle lies a large, round diamond surrounded by little marquis diamonds. Simple, yet elegant and beautiful. Just what Elain would have chosen for herself.
She stares at it for a moment and sniffles. "It's perfect, Lucien. Absolutely perfect."
He hugs her tightly and spins her around gently as her family claps and cheers again. Elain cups his face. "Much more gorgeous than iron", she murmurs, her lips quirking into a teasing smirk. "I'm glad. Now. For...everything that happened. I realize that everything with Graysen was for the greater glory of Graysen. That he didn't love me, but I was a pretty trophy to show off; a part I had once been willing to play, believing that I had to fulfill that duty, that it was what I was meant for. But it wasn't. It never was. I was meant for you, for Prythian. I was meant to have a voice, a choice, and unending love that I didn't believe truly existed until you showed it to me. I love you. Thank you for showing me that I can be whatever I choose to be, as an individual person who matters", she chokes out.
Lucien dips his head and captures her lips and Feyre lets out a celebratory whooping sound, Nesta letting out a soft chuckle.
"You always will be. Bound to me or not, you are still you and I am still me. We make the choice to be one another's, but we are still our own people too. Thank you for showing me that everything I survived wasn't for naught. You gave me true happiness back, Elain. You are my sunshine. The light in the dark, and the brightness among the stormy gray."
Elain grins brightly and kisses him softly as well. "Coming from the male who literally glows in pleasure", she whispers in his ear, eliciting a shudder from him.
"I seem to remember you having that talent too", he murmurs back and she blushes deeply, biting her lip.
"Gods, get a room!", Cassian howls, laughing.
Feyre giggles. "Congratulations, you two."
Nesta looks at Lucien, a steely look in her eye. Lucien simply grins and inclines her head. "Nesta, let me guess, break her heart, and you will disembowel me and chop off my limbs with your sword...or something like that?"
"I can promise you that here would be much more missing than your eye", she says ominously.
"Well don't worry, I have no desire whatsoever to see her hurt again", he tells her, holding his hands up in surrender.
Elain rolls her eyes and hugs him again, laying her head on his chest. "I love him, Nes. He wouldn't hurt me. He isn't Graysen."
"That's another prick who should've been lost to the war", he grumbles.
"That I agree with", Lucien says, a low growl to his voice.
Cassian nudges Lucien as they take their seats again. "What do ya say we make a quick trip to the mortal lands? I'm sure Graysen and Tomas would love to see us."
Lucien smirks and their teeth both flash in feral grins as the females look at them in horror.
"Cass—"
"Luc—"
"We know", they reply in unison, sighing.
"They deserve it though", Cassian says. "Nes, you have no idea how many dreams I have had of ripping his hands off for doing what he did to you."
"I know", she says quietly. "But can we please change the subject?"
He takes her hand and nods, squeezing it gently.
The baby monitor goes off and babbling noises are heard through it. Feyre goes to get up but Rhys stops her. "I'll get him. I'm sure he would love some sugary cake", he smirks.
Feyre groans and wipes her mouth with her napkin. "Yeah, that's all he needs. Sugar."
Rhys chuckles darkly and winnows upstairs to Nyx.
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The loud crackle of flames surrounds the Lady of the Autumn Court, and the heat of them burns through the wet tears falling down her face. Aurelia kneels in the woods near the Autumn Court Forest House, hollow and empty. Her anger burns brightly around her, her flames tearing down trees and brush, and anything else in its path. Useless, since these woods are magicked to restore themselves from fire.
She had screamed her voice hoarse and drained all of her energy the last week and a half, realizing that this fight she was invested in was worth nothing. It was all for naught. She had prayed and raised her eldest to the best of her ability. He had grown up kind, strong, and resilient as he had to be, only to be cut down in the end by her despicable husband. He had so many plans and was going to change Autumn for the better one day.
As she shifts on the ground, her bones ache and her lungs sting as they heave in cursed air she no longer has use for. She knew she was thin—too thin—and her features had become gaunter recently. As Lady, however, she was forcibly covered up with exquisite beauty powder and creams, and kohl to accent the sharp russet of her eyes to take all the attention off of her withering frame.
She doesn't want it. Not then, not now, never again. She doesn't want it. Any of it, any of this. Not with Eris dead and the rest of Beron's sons being as vile as their father. Not with never being able to see Lucien again without punishment and harm for them both of them. Not when there is nothing left to live for. Nothing left to survive for.
The only thing she knows is that if she is going out, she is sure as shit taking him with her. She is still the Lady of this Court. If her final act shall be taking her dreadful husband down to the pits of Hell with her to liberate it, then so be it.
Hauling herself onto her unsteady feet, she stumbles forward, her body sweating and sticky, covered in ash and dirt from the forest ground. Beron never allows her to have so much as a hair out of place, but fuck him. Especially now.
Her rage builds from that well of magic inside of her again and her veins glow under her skin, that potent fire ready to demolish, destroy, burn. After all, it was this firepower that Beron wanted for his heirs. Their families knew that hers burned much stronger and brighter than his ever did.
If he wants it, he can have it. All of it. Straight to his fucking face.
Shuffling her way back to the home—'house, not home' she mentally corrects herself—she tries to calm herself down and steel her mind. Strategically, she cannot actually go in with her flames blazing and burn him to death. That would not serve her well and there are too many consequences, plus Tristan would simply take over and despite him being as horrible as his father, she wouldn't be able to bring herself to hurt him...they are still her children.
She has to think of a plan. Beron does a lot of shady deals. He has one with those horrid Hybern-turned-Cauldron-queens, most likely so he can become the new King. But he is too easily distracted by anything that bothers him personally. It can be something as irritating as his collar scratching at him the wrong way and he needs it immediately taken care of, which leads him to be distracted by any task at hand. It's an all too common vulnerability she has seen over and over again.
Her breaths become ragged from the exertion as the crash comes, her entire body feeling weary and exhausted. As she nears the house, Kellon comes around the corner—Beron's youngest. Not that he can prove that Lucien isn't. His shoulder-length ruby hair glows in the sun as he spots her. For a moment she catches his eye and thinks she sees a split second of worry there for her, but just as quickly as it came, it was gone.
"Mother", he says, jaw clenched. "You look like a peasant lesser from a lower village swamp. Where the fuck were you?"
Aurelia staggers a bit but hikes up the remaining dirty skirts of her dress and walks into the house, ignoring him. He follows and grabs her thin arm hard enough to cause a ripple of pain through her, and she lets out a grunt. "Unhand me, Kellon. I am still your mother and Lady of this Court. You do what I tell you to when I tell you to, when your father isn't around", she snaps.
He blinks and lets go of her, slightly taken aback. "Father is going to want to know what you were doing."
"Then he can speak to me himself. I am not some dog he can call upon. I am his wife. And you are my son. You are of lower ranking and lower authority. Do I make myself clear?"
"Yes."
"Yes, what?", she glares at him and he almost balks.
"Yes, Mother."
"Good. Now you had better remind Arrick and, yes, even Tristan, of their place. Even though Tristan is the alleged new heir, is still of lower authority than me. You boys would all do best to remember that."
"Yes, Mother", he bites out slightly.
"Now, I am going to soak in the bath, I do not want to be interrupted."
He nods sharply and turns, heading back out the door. She looses a breath and half-crawls up the stairs to her chambers. One of the housemaids spots her and gasps, helping her to the washroom and into the bath so she can soak.
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Once cleaned and dressed, she brushes out her hair and twists it into an updo per usual. She pretties herself for dinner as is expected and then returns to the bedroom. The dreaded, disgusting bedroom that Beron had completely renovated after she had burned it to cinders from her blow-up when she found out Eris died.
It is torture; sleeping next to him every single night, feeling his breath on her skin, his lips on her body, his degrading words in her ear while his cock is inside her—
She shudders and shakes the thoughts away, opening her closet and taking out a small diary filled with Beron's treachery and secrets she had kept of her anguished life since their marriage. Flipping to a bookmarked page, anger flares in her chest, but she ignores it as she stares down at a row of dates. So many—too many. Dates and times that she has felt groggy and sick yet light and obedient at the same time. All the dates that she had argued with Beron, and all the times she had found out the effects of a potion that he poisoned her food with to make her subservient under the guise of "steadying her moods".
It was a pattern she was beginning to put together and something she had found out for certain when she had used her own coin, money she had kept well-hidden from Beron in case of emergency, to hire a spy to see what was happening to her. She had even gone so far as to purposefully flare a fight between them. She came out of it with a black eye and some burn marks, but it was worth it for her contact to follow her husband and get her the information she needed. Of course, she can never let her 'treason' become known, but at least she knows for herself. Nobody would ever betray the High Lord by listening to her or refusing to do what he said to her food. They would find themselves at the wrong end of his guard's favorite swords, or even worse than beheading, tortured the way her sweet eldest son had been.
She feels a trickling feeling down her face and comes out of her thoughts, realizing that she is crying again. She may not have her full autonomy, but she has her mind. That is something he can't take away unless he kills her. Something he has always tried to stifle. She was smart, and she knew it. But even smart women can make very bad choices in times of abuse and trauma in order to survive.
She married. She bred. She stayed. She served. She supported.
She still does. To the detriment of herself. To the detriment of her sons. To the detriment of her Court. To the detriment of everything that could have been; the happiness she could have had, the life she could have led, and the love she could have been given with Helion.
But she will never be a person here. She will never be someone that is truly respected or admired. She is pitied throughout all the Courts, and her story is most likely a 'what not to do' rulebook for young fae in all of Prythian. The mother who stayed silent. A pathetic excuse for a parent. One who watched on the sidelines as her boys either become monsters like their father or were broken down like her if they didn't.
She is everything yet nothing all at once.
Mother. Lover. Consort. Plaything. Punching Bag. Pretty Face.
To breed, to raise, to love, to serve, to attend, to take, to give, to be.
Not for herself, but for him. For Beron. Only for him. That's all she was allowed from the moment she had vowed. The High Lord's prized appendage from a prominent family said to have highly sought-after flame power in their daughters. A political trade. A bargaining chip. Her father would be an advisor in exchange for his eldest. Unlucky for her that she was born a few minutes before Lucilia, but she would have taken this pain for her bright and happy sister anyway, to spare her from a life where she would never smile again. She thanks the Mother every day that her sister and Tilion are together again for eternity in the land of eternal milk and honey.
'Happy. They are happy on the other side. As they always were when together.'
Before she could even decide for herself whether to make her parents proud and choose Beron, or be disowned by them and choose Helion, her father had already made the agreement with Beron's father at the time. The wedding had happened the day after she had left from visiting her sister in the Day Court. A day after she had left her heart with Helion.
Beron had become High Lord shortly after, his father had been slaughtered by the King of Hybern when he had taken it upon himself to cross him alone. Fools and wicked demons, both of them.
Her father, however, was not a wicked male; he had truly wanted the best for her as well as himself. His vice was prominence and wealth, however, which blinded him much of the time. Having twin daughters married to two High Lords—rather, a High Lord and High Lord's heir— was unheard of at the time, so of course he wanted the fame of being known as the male who gave them good wives in the form of his daughters.
Putting the diary of treachery away, she thinks of Tilion and Lucilia. How they had naturally fallen in love and accepted one another. How Tilion was kind and respectful of females, despite having been a bit of a rake like Helion at first.
As gleeful as she is that her sister got to live happily for the short time she had lived, that hard ball of jealousy in the pit of her stomach never goes away. Asking herself why she couldn't have had that life with her chosen...with her mate. Then the jealousy gets swallowed with guilt when she remembers that her husband's grand plans for the bloodline are what got both of her younger sisters slaughtered by Hybern soldiers. Most days she had wished she died with them, but then she would not have had that time with Helion and she would not have gotten to see Eris, and eventually Lucien, grow up. Oh, how she wishes she could have lived with her sons and Helion. He would have been the best father to them both. Not to mention her other boys, long before they had turned devious and deranged like Beron.
Despite herself, she couldn't bring herself to shed a tear when her own father died. He had promised her things would get better. That Beron would love her and that with children, things would change. He was wrong. Her mother had realized what she had been going through with Beron after her father's death, and being a female as well, had no standing to confront him or get her out. She had begged Aurelia for her forgiveness and told her that she loved her, then took her life the next morning.
Aurelia hugs herself and slinks down in the large closet, drawing her knees to her chest. She had promised that she would never be like her mother, yet that is what she became. The loving, dutiful, silent, subservient wife. Raising the children and speaking when spoken to.
Her gut roils and more tears fall as she remembers her own daughter, Eris's twin, Caris—so beautiful and bright-eyed, even hours after being outside the womb. The difficult labor and exhaustion had rendered her fairly weak, and of course, Beron had chosen to miss the delivery.
Aurelia had awoken to see her husband denying their daughter breath above her cot. She was purple. He had blocked her button nose and pink mouth with one large hand, and closed her small eyes with the fingers of his other as Aurelia screamed and begged him to stop—as she tried to stagger out of that bed to make him, grasping at his arm. He had only shoved her away roughly with his elbow and glared at her with hate in his eyes, calling her a failure for delivering a female; saying he was righting her wrong.
She remembers the moment her tiny son, laying in the cot next to them, had begun to glow softly once his sister was gone. A sign that he was chosen by the lands as heir. Something Beron had told her was meant to be and would not have been if he remained a twin. She had sobbed and raged and grieved between nursing Eris and praying to the Mother to protect her little girl.
Leaning her head against the wall, she grabs a shirt she never wears from the hanger and blots her face with it. At the very least, through her grief, she is glad that the twins are reunited once again. She hopes one day she will be so too, with Lucilia.
It may not be today, but she knows one thing with absolute certainty: Beron would pay for their pain with his own life. For her, for Eris, for Lucien, for her daughter, and for their twisted Court. He would suffer and die. Slowly, tormentedly, and knowing exactly who was killing him and why.