Chapter 4: Blood in the Water
The Seelie Court after dark tasted like honeysuckle and sin.
The revel had ended, but the air still shimmered like a dying spell. Petals floated mid-fall. Glamours clung to the trees like stage makeup after curtain call—fragile, lingering, too proud to drop.
It was all very pretty.
Very fragile.
Very… burnable.
Atreus stepped into the glade like a secret wearing a smile.
The shadows curled around his boots like loyal pets, peeling away only when he flicked them off with a smirk. His coat trailed smoke and the memory of war. Lanterns dimmed. The moss wilted. Fey nobles vanished into the trees like rabbits catching the scent of a wolf.
He didn't walk in.
He arrived.
And when he smiled, it was all teeth.
The charming kind.
The devouring kind.
"Ah, my dear Seelie Queen," he drawled, voice like velvet on a dagger. "Still weaving moonlight and menace like it's fashion. I do admire the consistency."
Solana didn't flinch.
Of course she didn't.
She never did—at first.
Lounging on her throne like sin mid-bloom, she twirled her goblet with a lazy grace. "You missed the revel, Pride. A pity. You always did love an audience."
Atreus gave an elegant little spin, the kind you could mistake for courtesy if you didn't know him better.
"Alas, I was otherwise engaged," he said lightly, "Namely, watching you throw my favorite mortal into the jaws of the Circle. Beautifully wrapped. No exit strategy. Very on brand."
He dropped the grin.
Just a hair.
"Which, you understand, piqued my curiosity."
Solana sipped her mead, feigning laziness. "Worried, Hell Prince? You sound almost… paternal."
"Oh, please," he drawled. "I am far too pretty to be anyone's father. But Jada?"
His tone dipped, just slightly.
"Well, she is my favorite exception."
He strolled forward, boots quiet, moss curling grey beneath his feet like it had heard rumors.
"And you, my radiant, poisonous queen, wrapped her in a riddle, kissed her like a promise, and threw her into the Circle's lair with a wink."
The air cooled.
His smile didn't.
"She wanted the truth," Solana said smoothly.
"She wanted her father, you glitter-drenched viper," Atreus snapped.
Still smiling.
But the edges were glass.
"You think you're the first to manipulate her? Please. Jada is a kaleidoscope of trauma responses held together by duct tape and rage. But she is Riccardo's daughter. And my promise to keep."
Solana rose now—slow, fluid, too regal to be rattled. "You disapprove of the mission."
Atreus's voice dropped, quiet and molten. "Oh, no, darling. I loathe the mission."
He stepped closer.
The vines shriveled.
"You want to know what I was doing the day Riccardo Buonavento found me?"
Solana blinked.
He didn't wait for permission.
"I was skinning a high priest in Prague. Just the hands. He liked to write things."
Something in her expression twitched.
Atreus's smile softened.
Almost human.
Almost sweet.
"Riccardo found me bleeding behind his clinic. Didn't flinch at the curse my mother carved into my flesh. Didn't threaten. Just handed me espresso and a stele and said, 'You don't have to be what made you.'"
He looked up.
And his eyes—those sick, bright, glowing eyes—flared like judgment.
"For the first time in ten thousand years, I believed him."
He took another step.
"Three weeks later, that man placed his newborn daughter in my arms and said: 'You'll take care of her, won't you?'"
He laughed, bitter and low.
"And now you've sent her to the lion's mouth—just to see if Valentine still remembers how to bite."
"Valentine Morgenstern is a relic," Solana snapped. "A mortal man. The ghost of a fallen rebellion."
Atreus's smile vanished.
Gone.
Completely.
And the grove noticed.
The air thickened.
The light dimmed.
Time pulled taut like a string ready to snap.
"Oh, no, sweetheart," Atreus said, voice low and lethal. "Valentine Morgenstern is a monster who went to sleep."
"And you—"
He raised one hand.
"—just dropped blood in the water, hoping he won't wake up."
And the Court burned.
Not truly.
Not yet.
But the illusion hit like a prophecy fulfilled.
Trees ignited. Banners wailed. Fey masks melted. Solana's throne cracked down the middle with a sound like a war horn splitting the sky. Screams rang like music. The glamours peeled back, revealing rot beneath.
And in the center—
Atreus.
Unmoving.
Smiling.
Eyes twin voids of Edom, glowing with ruin.
The flames curled around him like they remembered their maker. Smoke recoiled. Even the illusion feared touching him.
He looked like the end of stories.
And then—
It snapped.
Gone.
But the scent of smoke lingered.
Solana gasped. Soft. Sharp. Involuntary.
Her goblet trembled in her hand.
Atreus's smile returned. Small. Too gentle.
"That was a gift," he said. "A teaser, if you will. So, you'll remember what it looks like when I stop pretending diplomacy matters."
Solana's mask cracked. Barely. But enough.
"You forget yourself, demon."
"No," he said. "I remember myself perfectly, Solana. It's everyone else who keeps mistaking my humor for patience."
He turned. Casually. Indifferently.
The shadows clung to his coat like children too scared to let go.
"Jada is not yours to keep," Solana called after him.
Atreus paused.
"Jada," he said, soft and smiling, "belongs to no one but herself."
A laugh.
Cold. Quiet. Cruel.
"But I am the Original Sin. The son Lilith cast out. The weapon Lucifer carved from his own fall. And I don't bow for queens who gamble with fire."
He turned—almost gone.
"And if Jada cries because of you?"
The smile sharpened.
"I'll rip the truth from your bones and feed your name to the void."
Then—
He vanished.
No flash. No flare.
Just absence.
And Solana stood alone.
Goblet cracked in her hand.
Mead dripping down her wrist like gold bleeding from a wound.
And deep beneath her ribs—
She hated that she believed him.
Pangborn hated this place.
Not for its defenses.
Not even for what it was.
But for what it meant.
Valentine's safehouse crouched near the Brocelind Forest, buried in Wards so dense the trees bowed to them. A stone manor, still and silent. No guards. No whispers. Just the weight of things meant to stay buried.
It smelled like firewood and failure.
He stepped through the outer ward with practiced ease, cloak damp from Idris rain, boots soft on marble. The door clicked shut behind him—too loud in the hush.
Inside Valentine's study, the hearth flickered low.
Valentine sat beside it.
Reading.
Not looking up.
Not blinking.
As if he'd been waiting—but not for Pangborn.
Just for something to break.
He looked the same: pale, immaculate, black-clad. Like something carved from grief and conviction, haunting the tomb of his own legacy.
Pangborn crossed the threshold in silence.
Didn't clear his throat.
You didn't startle a caged thing—especially not one that once preached revolution over half of Idris.
Pangborn remembered the old days.
The speeches in war rooms. The fire behind every word. The way Valentine could look at ruin and make it sound like resurrection.
Now he just sat there. Pale and hollow, like the echo of a storm that had already passed.
But Pangborn felt it.
That shift beneath the stillness.
The faint hum of something waiting to breathe.
"You weren't informed about the hunt," Pangborn said quietly.
Valentine didn't look up.
"It wasn't my call," he added. "Malachi took initiative."
Still silence.
Valentine turned a page. Slowly. Pointedly.
"He's barking orders like it's a coronation," Pangborn muttered, bitterness slipping in.
Nothing.
The fire cracked. Wind pressed gently at the shutters, as if even the air wasn't sure it was welcome.
Pangborn adjusted his gloves.
"There was a girl. Already there when we arrived. Said she killed the wolves herself."
Another page turned.
His voice dropped lower.
Quieter.
More careful.
"She walked out of a clearing of corpses like it was a stage. Blood on her boots. Smirk like a goddamn provocation."
Valentine blinked.
Once.
Pangborn watched him.
Measured him.
"She gave us a name."
The firelight pulled inward.
Like it, too, recognized the turning of the tide.
"Jada Buonavento."
Valentine stilled.
Subtle. Barely-there.
But Pangborn saw it.
No page turned.
No breath shifted.
Just—
Stillness.
Not absence.
Not shock.
Recognition.
Like a drop of blood in a dead lake—
And the ripples had already started.
Then, slowly—Valentine looked up.
His eyes were too dark for the firelight.
Black. Bottomless.
Rimmed in something sharp.
Something ancient.
And Pangborn's stomach twisted.
Because for the first time in seven years—
Valentine looked alive.
"Riccardo Buonavento's daughter," he said softly.
Not surprised.
Not angry.
Just… calculating.
"She's sharp," Pangborn offered. "Riccardo's mind. None of his softness."
"She claimed his name?"
"Wore it like a blade."
Valentine didn't move.
But the temperature shifted.
The shadows coiled.
Like the bones of the world were remembering war.
"She'll be at Ashguard Manor. Ten tomorrow."
Pangborn watched him.
Watched the tilt of his head.
The faint flicker of muscle beneath one eye.
"I think you should meet her."
Silence.
The firelight caught the Morgenstern ring on his hand.
The crest glinted—less like a symbol.
More like a weapon waiting to speak.
Valentine moved. Just once.
Tapped the ring against his thumb.
Slow.
Deliberate.
A sound like a verdict being loaded into place.
Then, without looking at Pangborn, he murmured:
"Jada Buonavento…"
The name hung in the air like blood in the water.
And Pangborn felt it.
That wasn't curiosity.
That was instinct sharpening.
That was fire waking beneath glass.
And the scent of blood had finally reached the predator.
💌 Love Letters from Fishie
Oh hello. You made it to the end of this chapter?
After Atreus threatened to incinerate a faerie court in a velvet-coated dad-rage, and Valentine caught a whiff of the blood in the water like a goddamn apocalypse?
Drop a comment if this chapter made you:
A) Fall in love with Atreus
B) Scream-whisper "oh no" with giddy dread
C) Just scream "WHAT THE HELL" into the void
—I'll understand.
Next chapter: Jada walks into the lion's den. In daylight.
Expect sharp smiles, political games, and maybe—just maybe—a blade under the table.
Until then—
With prophecy, peril, and perfectly sharp eyeliner,
Love, Fishie 🐟