Autumn Court / Dawn Court / Lunar's Bridge
Autumn Court
Eris stepped through the corridor, towards his room, his movements were stiff, his body arched. There has been a attack to the Court in the morning, he needed to rest since in the next day there will be a military meeting, where the members of the high ranking soldiers would be redesigned by him, as most of his court members, who were new, he had also done some changes on the Court's system, but it was still a long way through.
Most of his father's loyals had been took care by him, part of them accepted the changes through negotiation, a considerable part needed the High Lord's Voice to accept, to not rebel, while a small one needed to be discarded since their refuse on the new High Lord was so strong that the Voice didn’t had the full effect, they struggled to do what was said, two of them even rejected.
The red haired walked in his room, locking the door behind him, body still for a few seconds looking at the place, two nightstands between the bed, both with glass table lamps, at the opposite wall from the door, a big glass window with the view of the East garden.
He stepped to the bathroom, where he took a shower and changed to a underwear, then went to his bed, covering himself with the wine colored blankets, placing his head in the white pillow and closing his eyes.
oOo
Something woke up Eris, he kept his eyes closed, hearing. Silence, couldn’t make himself sleep again, a instinct didn’t allowed him.
A few minutes passed, still silence, he was almost sleeping when he heard a click, a heartbeat, then footsteps, by the scent, it was his third brother.
The High Lord opened his eyes, almost instantly his long haired brother was close to bed, with a metallic knife on Eris's throat.
“Stop it.” The older used the Voice, the third's hand shook, as if struggling to disobey.
“No.” he said through teeth.
Eris snorted, “Why now?” he slowly moved his hands under the blankets close to his chest.
“You are messing the Court.” He lifted both brows, “Your changes…”
“Why exactly, do you think I am messing?” Eris’ hands were close to his collar bone but still covered by the blankets.
The long haired let escape a low chuckle, “Do I need to list–” he didn’t finished his sentence
Eris held his brother's wrists, placing his own torso close to the third's abdomen while putting his feet on the floor, pushing his brother away while standing.
“You should have killed me when you became High Lord.” The long haired said letting his knife ready.
“You weren’t a treat, until now.” Eris' body position ready to a fight.
The third snorted, stepping closer to the High Lord, transferring a few blows with the knife which were deflected.
“What did you wanted me to do? Keep Father's reign of dirty?” his eyes fixed on the other male's.
“I know what you did to him, to our fourth brother, to where you sent our mother.” The younger stepped closer.
“What? You wanted mother to get killed?” a few more deflected blows.
“She wouldn’t be killed, not if you had been ruling this court properly.” He transferred a blow against the older, which got defected in a way that the knife got removed from his hand and fell on the floor, the younger kicked the knife away, then transferred a punch against the short haired, receiving a knee on his abdomen.
They fought for awhile, in a certain point the third grabbed Eris by the neck, kneeling his abdomen several times while choking him, they were already close to the window, then the short haired pushed the older against the glass.
Several shards of glass fell in the floor, Eris kicked his brother's ankle, both of them fell on the floor, the older’s back right in the shards, the long haired male above him, choking him.
Eris' left hand tapped the shards at his side, his right one distracting the other, he found a sharp piece of glass, size similar to a small knife, he took it, held tightly on his palm, enough to slightly tear his skin open, then stabbed his brother's abdomen a couple times, until the younger released his neck.
The older pushed the long haired away, slowly got up, his body shaking, “Why just now?” his voice trembled, “Why?” he asked louder, he felt his face warmer, his eyes wet.
The third was fallen in the floor, had both hands on his bloody abdomen, “You are a shame to our bloodline.” His voice failing.
Eris dragged both hands through his hair, took a deep breath before stepping towards his brother, who took a piece of glass and cutted his own throat.
“No.” it escaped as a breath, the older knelt in the floor covered in shards, beside his dying brother, “You stupid.” His voice failed, he grabbed his brother's cold hands, “You couldn’t you see how this Court was about to fall anytime in a situation like this?” he held his hands tightly, “You could have been my most trusted person here.”, tears fell from his eyes as he watched his brother's live leaving his body.
After a few minutes the older released his brother, slowly standing, he stepped to the bathroom, turned on the light, looked at the mirror while putting himself together, stared at his hands, then face, removed the shards on his back, knees and feet, cleaned the blood, the wore something, he needed to call the servants to clean the mess, and to prepare his brother’s body to cremation.
oOo
Most of the meeting was neutral, there wasn’t too many objections, the opposite to what Eris expected, at the moment he was choosing the generals, almost the end, when he finally choose the General of the Autumn's Armies, the meeting was over.
The soldiers started to leave the military meeting room, then the high rankings, except for one in specific, the new general of the Northen armies, a Lesser Fae, green-bluish skinned, long silk white hair, black eyes with yellow spots and a vertical scar on his left cheek.
The Fae waited until only him and the High Lord were alone in the room to say: “I can’t stay on this position.” His eyes did not lowed as the High Lord's gaze meet him.
Eris placed both elbow in the table, “Why can’t you?”
“They will kill my family.” The Fae said putting the general's brooch in the table.
“If I remember properly, your entire family got inside a ship to the South Continent.”
“When they come back.” He blinked, “I was able to sent them as a exchange to my services in the army.”
“You swore loyalty to my father.” Eris revived a nod, “Yet you didn’t showed any…”
“My brother got killed by one of the old high ranking soldiers. I know just like everyone else do, what your father did to people like me, what his high rankings soldiers are allowed to do.” A pause, the Fae held the High Lord's stare.
“I am not my father.” His face grave.
“You are also not a saint.” The Fae had his spine straight, his body still.
A low chuckle came from the High Lord, “I won’t deny or excuse any of my past actions.”
A pause.
“Why me?” the Fae asked, his face unreadable.
Eris dragged a hand through his hair, “You were present in The War on your early twenties, the war against Hybern, and other wars between those two.” He tilted his head to the side, “I see your experience, you are more than qualified to this role.”
“My family –” he got cut.
“I secure you that they will be safe.” Eris lifted a brow
The Fae's lips pressed in a thin line, “If I die in battle?”
“They will still be safe.” Eris watched the Fae's eyes narrowing, “So?”
The Fae took the brooch, his face still had disbelief, but he stood, slightly bowed, then walked out the room.
oOoOo
Dawn Court
The High Lord walked through the small city close to his Palace, he needed fresh air, someone had reminded him how much time had passed since the ships left Prythian during a military planning, how many years since he have seen his mate and his nephews and niece.
He walked close to a sparkling river, glancing at the empty red-roofed houses, his entire population had moved to the Underground, including his alchemists and tinkers, it was safer in there to live and produce what they needed, and had low risk to a enemy enter in.
The male brushed a lock of his shoulder length hair to behind his ear as the wind came on his direction, straighten his tight tunic, then glanced at his hands, as if he could see the missing power.
Healing was his Court's gift, a power that many of the Dawn had as the main one, and by consequence the stronger, not a secondary power as many of the other Courts' people possess. Now, they couldn’t heal others as everyone else in Pryrhian, but they were lucky to have their natural healing superior if compared to others.
The alchemists were working in a healing tonic, as the only people who still possessed magic were the High Lords – which could only be used to change into their bestial forms, for a short period of time – it would take time to be finished, and still wouldn’t be as effective as the healing powers, it would certain increase the speed of the natural healing, but not at the point were someone with serious injuries could be walking again in the next day.
“Thes!” Nuan's voice calling him far away, his gaze ran to her as his steps become faster at the point he could hear the sounds it made in the dry grass. She had came from his Palace direction, had a white envelope with pale blue details in hands, “It is from Kallias.” She said as they were close enough to each other, holding up her metallic hand to him.
The High Lord took the still sealed envelope, opened it, then read, “Are the new outfits ready?” the new armors, to give the soldiers a better protection and mobility, a project made by Dawn, Day and Winter Courts' searches and craft masters.
“We have enough for the few first lines.” The female answered disappointed to herself and her group of tinkers, she couldn’t stop this feeling even with the fact that since magic was unavailable, there wasn’t much that could be done to produce their equipments faster, “Why?” she asked without formalities as they were close friends for a long time.
“I will need it soon.” He answered steeping towards his Palace, the master of alchemy followed him, “In a few days to be more precisely,” he walked while telling her the details about what he was about to do, then showing her the letter from the Winter Court.
oOoOo
Lunar's Bridge
Cassian had his arms around Nesta in a tight hug, they were in the end of one of the corridors in the East side of the Moon Palace, close to the open glass door that leaded to a small veranda. Feyre was standing in front of the gray door behind the winged male.
They were in there thanks to the enemies who finally advanced their limits in the occupation, they had a few battles some kilometers away, soon they would lost Lunar's Bridge City, after years holding their lines.
Rhysand was inside in the room of the door that Feyre was standing in front of, searching for their relatives. He hadn’t done it in a couple weeks, and needed a empty room and focus to do it properly, as he would have to use his Daemati powers for such a long distance.
“Anything?” Amren asked, she had just arrived in the corridor, approached to Feyre in slow steps.
“Shh.” The High Lady placed her index finger on her own lips for a second, taking a silent step closer to the door.
The female with red lips clicked her tongue, “The walls and door here are sound proof as in the Hewn City.” She placed a hand on her hip, “He has been there for how long?”
“Two hours.” Cassian answered turning his face to her, Nesta didn’t took her eyes from the sky.
“He will be out there soon.” Amren crossed her arms, leaning her back in the closest wall.
Feyre shrugged, remembering about the last time her mate was searching for their relatives and he ended up finding another daemanti who noticed the intruder on her mind.
Rhysand has always started his search by looking for others daemantis first, as he realized that the ones who had no mental shields – who were mostly young and powerful children, as the Daemati power is usually showed earlier than the regular ones – worked as a lightening conductor, from that, he would look into a big area, mind by mind, or he would end up coming back to Prythian. He had to stay for a few minutes inside each people's mind until realizing who was the mind's owner, where place he was, sometimes he would astral project so he wouldn’t be depend of the host's eyes, but the daemati he used as a conductor would be able to see him.
It was already something complicated to do, thanks to the distance since vision got blurred and sounds hard to distinguish, and got worse after the blood spell's wall around Prythian, and some kind of wall around the South Continent.
A click in the knob, indicating that the door was unlocked, Nesta took a step way from Cassian as he released her from his hug, kissed his chin and walked away from the corridor as she didn’t wanted to look at her lover's brother.
Rhysand walked out the room, slightly limping on his right knee, his wings ticked tightly against his back.
“Have you find them?” Amren asked, but Rhysand's eyes fell on Cassian, who had that look of hope.
“I am sorry.” He pressed his lips in a thin line as he saw how his brother's face went grave, the taller male passed by him, walking through the corridor, to the same direction that Nesta had gone.
The red lips female glanced, at Feyre, then Rhysand, she walked away as well since she knew what was going to be said.
“They might be death now.” Feyre wrapped her arms around herself, walking towards the veranda
“They aren’t.” the violet eyed said following her.
“That is what Nesta says.” She rested both hands in the rail.
Rhysand dragged a hand through his hair, “Then I am going to have to agree with your sister.”
His mate shook her head, “It has been too many years since it happened, we didn’t received one single magical letter from them, we didn’t heard one single rumor from the enemies Azriel had interrogated.”
“It means they are safe –”
“And you can’t find them.” She turned her head to him.
“I can’t find them because their population is extremely big and their fertility is the same as the humans even to those who are mixed with Faes of High Faes, which also made them immortals as us.” He said, had figured out after all those years looking for his children and nephew, “Imagine the entire Continent population, humans and faes, now think about a three times bigger number of people.” The number of births was so big that every year there were a average of 5 new daematis being born, until this month he had found only 3, if compared to Prythian or even the Continent, this number was extremely large as daematis are rare.
Feyre shook her head, staring at the view, her mate did the same, they stayed in there, in a couple minutes of silence.
“I want to change my relationship with our daughter,” he said low, hoarsely, “Apologize for the mistakes I did.”
“We did.” She said without taking her eyes out of the view
“Do you think she might forgive me? For that day?” the blue-black haired placed both hands on his pockets, slightly stretching his wings.
“It has been years, and you never apologized about it while she was here, I also didn’t when I banned her…” Feyre didn’t need to finish her sentence.
The violet eyed leaned both forearms in the rail, he kept in silence, staring at the sky, Feyre walked out, he didn’t followed her, stayed in there, staring at the view.
The High Lord wasn’t sure how much time he spent in there, rubbed his temples, then eyes before lowering his gaze to the ground, where he saw a small army marching in their direction, a heartbeat later, the warning belts rang.