Chapter Text
I sat with my knee up on the arm of the chair and watched the crowd mince around each other. I hadn't been in a room this tense since Amarantha died but tradition was tradition and the Courts were holding to it because after fifty years underground, maybe we all needed a little bit of tradition to lean on. The Gathering was usually held once a decade and someone had done the math and realized that this year was due for one.
So we had delegations from all seven courts in the same space for the first time since Under the Mountain. It was an outdoor party with strung lanterns and floating balls of sunlight beneath a darkening sky. It was a beautiful party if nothing else. The wide dance floor was made of dark wood that shone beneath a globe of captured sunrise but it was still empty. A banquet had been laid out along one side covered in food that no one was going to eat just as no one could bring themselves to drink the wine.
The Dawn Court had done an admirable job of pretending that they wanted to hold a giant party on their lands barely six months after Amarantha's defeat, barely six months after they had started rebuilding.
I would have refused.
No. I wouldn’t have needed to refuse.
I could have offered them the Hewn City as the party site and they all would have refused to come because it meant going under another mountain which was as good as refusing.
I scanned the crowd. Day and Autumn hadn't arrived yet, neither had Spring but I was trying not to think too hard about that. I caught Amren's eye from across the dance floor. She stood along the fringes with a goblet in her hand that was probably full of wine that she was only pretending to drink from. Probably. She narrowed her eyes at me and I flashed her a smile that had as much venom in it as that glare.
“I have to be here, you volunteered for this,” that look reminded her.
I had wanted to just bring a few of the Court of Nightmares and put on a show of being particularly horrible for a few hours but the last time I'd gone to a party by myself hadn't gone well. They had refused to allow me out the door on my own this time.
Amren was here because bringing Azriel would have looked like I was here to spy and bringing Cassian would have sent a different message to the southern warmongers that I also didn't want. The other option was Mor but Amren looked scarier. So I got to spend a night in a room where my only friend was a pissy ancient creature in a very pretty body who might have been slaughtering little animals under tables for something to eat.
I rolled my shoulders and located my Courtiers circling. One of them had cornered the new High Lord of Summer and I slid off the chair to go and stop that conversation before it could start. Tarquin was one of the few High Lords who seemed to see any value in peaceful negotiation. I didn't need Lorrick to ruin any chances of an alliance before I'd even had a chance to be properly introduced to the man.
That was why I didn't see them enter the room. I was busy walking the line between the monster Lorrick knew me to be and the potential friend I wanted Tarquin to see me as. Some days it felt like it would be easier to just become a recluse. The Night Court territory was large enough to survive without trade. We could do away with diplomacy and politics. We could just close our borders and let the rest of Prythian burn.
Except I wasn't going to suggest that.
I caught sight of Tamlin as I turned back around. My goal had bee to return to lazing in my chair and counting down the hours until I didn't have to be there any more.
The Spring Court was a knot around Tamlin. Lucian was standing in his shadow because Lucian was always standing in his shadow. He was keeping all his people close. I almost didn't see her but she was there, just behind him, wearing a gown in the pinks and yellows of sunrise and long gloves. Thin. She hadn't been that thin when she'd been living in a cell under the mountain.
Don't.
Except I was already moving before my mind could send out that warning.
"Such a lovely party, it's always nice to honour the old traditions, isn't it?" I said as I came to stop in front of them.
I had worn all black and a part of me wanted to flare out the wings just to complete the look but here I was a High Lord and needed to be High Fae through and through. Tamlin and his little retinue in their cream and gold and little floral touches were the picture of goodness and I was not. I made sure my smile matched the rest of my outfit. If I was going to play the villain, I was going to play it well.
"I'm surprised they invited you," Tamlin said and he managed it in an admirably flat tone. I wondered how much it would take to make his temper crack, probably not much.
"Traditions are like that, all the High Lords means all the High Lords," I said.
I met Feyre's eye.
I wasn't really here to play verbal games with Tamlin and didn't care if they knew it. I suspected Lorrick of being related to mountain trolls somewhere in his lineage and even he was more stimulating conversation. Feyre held my gaze with wide eyes but didn't say anything. I hadn't realized how much I missed her until she was standing there. Here was the person I wanted more than air and couldn't have. I had spent six months convincing myself that she was far better off without me.
She didn't look better off unless the point of comparison was her worst moments of the fever under the mountain. Too thin, too uncomfortable, too unhappy and not just about having me leering at her. Pretty dress, fancy hair but there was something in her eyes that made me tense. A little trill of anger or defensiveness that I couldn't quite place.
"Traditions are a little like a well made bargain, inescapable but not always unpleasant," I said and flashed her a smile and then walked away. A stupid conversation. I was needling things that I should not have been needling. I caught Amren's eyes again but she wasn't glaring now. Her chin was tilted as she swirled her cup and watched the Spring Court with a considering look on her face.
Fuck.
That was going to be an excellent conversation to have later.
I felt a little tendril of power from Tamlin before he clamped down on his temper. I almost let mine slip its leash as well but Amren's expression had distracted me. She didn't look at me or give me any clue as to what she was thinking. I left the Spring Court to enjoy the party and dropped back down into my chair and played with the stem of an empty wine glass. I wasn't the only one not drinking but I was one of the few who wasn't even bothering to pretend.
I didn't look at Feyre or Tamlin or anyone else.
I let my shields against the bond slip a little bit. I had built them up and up and up until they almost kept her all the way out even without shielding on her side. I had blocked out her nightmares and her grief and trusted that keeping out of her life would be an improvement. She didn’t need me lurking at the fringes of her mind and pulling her down with my own nightmares.
Now, I let myself be aware of her but there was very little there. Maybe she was shielding. Good. Tamlin wasn't as dumb as I thought he was if he was making sure she was getting lessons.
"Will the High Lord be dancing?" someone interrupted my thoughts some indeterminate amount of time later. Not the end of the party yet was the only measure of time that I really cared about.
There had been a speech about the honour and unity of the Courts and the future of Prythian that sounded exactly like the speech that had been given at the last one of these stupid parties I had attended before Amarantha. I tilted my head up to see Tamira standing over me. She was here with her father and I'd let her slip into the delegation because I hadn't really cared about who came from the Court of Nightmares as long as they were capable of not utterly embarrassing the Night Court.
I glanced past her at her father who was sitting at a lower table along the edge of the dance floor and he pretended he hadn't been watching. It had been 300 years since anyone had made this particular bid for power. Tamira probably hadn't been born the last time someone tried to convince me to marry their daughter and elevate the family name.
I was stalling in hopes she would give up out of fear before I had to say anything. Once I started dancing, I would have to dance with other people and glaring from a distance was so much more pleasant. Tamira didn't waver. Her brown hair was twisted up in a pile of curls and she had worn a purple dress that showed off more than it covered.
And she was almost palpably afraid of me. I let my powers loose enough to get that much but she seemed to be more afraid of her father. She smiled as I stood but it was a forced thing. There was sometimes a certain joy in being the most terrifying thing in the room. Other times it was just exhausting.
I did not want to dance but I also didn't want to have to send her back to her horrible family having utterly failed. She was going to fail if her ultimate goal was to convince me to marry her but at least she would be able to say she had given it her best shot. She attempted conversation as we turned around the dance floor. I made sure nothing I did was encouraging and her discomfort got worse the longer the song dragged on.
When the song ended my hopes of sneaking back to my brooding were immediately ruined. The dance floor shifted into something organized and partnered that I knew the steps to but wished I didn't. Tamira stepped into position and getting out of it would now require being noticeable. It would be a slight. A minor one and no one thought better of me but somewhere out of the depth of my memories my mother's voice chided me.
I let myself become part of the pattern. I smiled and while I wasn't exactly friendly, I also wasn't exactly unfriendly as the dance swirled around. The courts had largely come dressed to colour schemes and most of them had chosen light and bright colours in honour of the hosts. Beige and cream, soft greens and blues, even the Autumn court had come in a fawn colour. I was probably as easy to pick out as the wolf among the sheep in the unrelenting black. Even my court hadn't dressed to match. I stood out. Which had been the intention, I could have worn blue or gray or pink if I'd wanted but I had wanted to be the wolf among the pretty flowers.
Still as the dance twirled new people through the pattern and into my arms, I felt almost guilty for it. I scared people and while that had kept me and the people who mattered to me alive, it was a little unsettling to see the same look repeated. Each one met my eye like they were going to refuse to continue the pattern and try and skip me altogether.
The dance brought me Feyre just before the music was set to run out. She had looked thin from a distance but as I looked down at her, I could feel her spine under my hand through the fabric of the dress. She tilted her chin up and that she was shorter than I was was not a surprise but she looked small and that was. She had never looked small. This did not look like the same woman who had flung a bone spear at Amarantha's head only a few months before.
"Hello, Feyre," I said.
I was leading the steps and she let me push her through them. Her attention strayed from my face and she looked over her shoulder and then back. Her eyes were wide as saucers and her mouth had fallen open a little in shock or surprise before she snapped it shut and closed down her expression.
"Is our bargain still there? I can't feel it anymore," she said.
"I have not felt the need to call it in but yes, it is still there," I said.
"Would you?" she asked.
"Now? I thought you were enjoying your freedom," I said and tilted her hand towards us so that the ring she'd slid on the outside of the silk gloves was clearly visible. She twisted her hand without actually pulling away from me so that the ring was out of her view and I almost faltered in the dance as I realized what she had meant.
She hadn’t asked the question out of fear, at least not entirely. I let my voice soften when I said, "Is that a request, Feyre?"
She was tense and scared. We'd lost the steps of the dance and I pulled her out of the pattern. Tamlin would notice that in about twenty seconds but she was scared. Of me, yes, but she was also scared of something else but I couldn't figure it out without pushing right into her mind and that was a violation that I wasn't willing to subject her to. Her terror when I had done it that day in the Spring Court so long ago still crawled up my spine sometimes and left me drowning in nausea.
"Yes," she said.
Without further explanation, she pulled away from me and headed Tamlin off before he could make it to where we stood on the edge of the dance floor. She took him by the hand and tucked herself in at his side and let him guide her away with his arm wrapped around her shoulder like he was protecting her. Cream and sunset golds and a wreath of flowers in her hair that matched the one in his jacket. A beautifully matched pair but I could still feel the anxiety through the fog of her imperfect shields. I stared after her with my thoughts in tatters.
I needed out of the dancing before tradition and the chains of polite behaviour pulled me back in.
I went to lean against the wall beside Amren.
I had avoided this. Either one of us set people on edge, when we stood together people made a wide berth around us and sometimes stare in panic. Just a pair of monsters. I was on edge after the conversation with Feyre and sinking into being a monster was like putting on a comfortable mask.
Amren tapped against my mental shields and I pushed the chaos down off the surface and opened a channel to the strange landscape that was Amren's mind. Minds were similar, there were touches of personality but it was like a bedroom in that there were things to expect. A bed, a place to store clothing, someplace to dress. Amren's mind was a dense forest and subterranean caves, not like anyone else. She was something utterly different and I didn't really like being this close to it if I could avoid it. I hid that thought as I opened the channel.
"The Spring Court girl, she's the one from Under the Mountain," Amren into that space between our minds and her voice didn't sound like her speaking voice either. Heavier, darker, something that went beyond sound. Instinct reminded me she was something else. Powerful and other.
I nodded.
"I want to talk to her, call her bargain in," Amren said.
"Are you giving me an order, Amren?"
"When you were twelve, your father brought you to me because in spite of all the training his advisers could offer you, you were starting to slip. You would sit on the floor and laugh or sob and then hop back up and go back to combat training for fifteen hours in a row until you collapsed and had to dragged home."
"And worse things, I remember."
"She is slipping and slipping faster than you did."
"Since when are you charitable with your time or your training?"
"She is your mate, I can smell it even if the rest of this rabble cannot. I would offer it on your behalf but she is one thing reborn into the body of another. We are few and far between and she is dying."
I looked at Amren but she didn't look back. She was staring out at the crowd. Individuals in the crowd looked back at us and I clamped my dampers back down on my power. I had let it slip when she had said the word 'dying' and the pair of us were definitely the most terrifying thing in the room now. Amren who was quiet and considering but so very not one of them no matter what her appearance might say otherwise. Me with my power leaking and a look like thunder on my face.
"Dying."
"Do it, Rhysand. She cannot have more than a few months before she is lost entirely and when she is lost, she will let all that power go and we may not have a Prythian to defend against Hybern once the storm is over."
I looked back at Feyre and her attention immediately jumped away from me. She sat beside Ianthe of all people and the priestess was holding her hand and talking in her ear. Lucian was still watching us. I tried to imagine what those people would do if Feyre slipped.
Amren’s warning rattled in my thoughts.
Slipped made it sound like an accident or a little passing thing.
I had slipped twice.
I had tried to control the power by ignoring it and only using as much as my teachers expected me to have. I did it for years before I started training with Amren. My moments of manic energy were not the worst part. The first time my control had slipped, I had blotted out the sun for three days. The second time I had turned nineteen people into slack jawed empty shells.
In both cases, I had been a child. Feyre had been reborn into a body fully formed. Her powers would be manifesting not developing and whatever slipped from her would be the full power of her adult body. Maybe Amren’s fear that she could cripple Prythian wasn’t completely unfounded. It sounded absurd. None of us had that kind of power but then, none of us carried the power of seven courts.
I tightened my power dampers and left Amren to lurk in the shadows while I went back to lounging until the last few hours of the event had drained away. I did not watch Feyre but I kept my shields against the bond as low as I could safely tolerate them and let myself wallow in the presence of her even if her imperfect fogged shield kept the details back.
She knew she was in trouble and she had come to me for help. She had asked me and that meant more to me than maybe it should have.