Chapter Text
“Stop fussing. I’m all right,” Eris snapped irritably, waving his mother’s hand away from his neck. “He didn’t squeeze that hard.”
In the background, his brothers cackled, no doubt at his expense, and he almost turned around to shoot them a warning glare, shut their fucking faces up, when Beron barked, “Enough.” The room plunged into a chilly silence after that.
“That male could have killed you,” his mother fretted.
Eris shrugged. “What else do you expect from the Night Court? They’re vicious and savage.”
“If Rhysand is going to drag those beasts about with him, they should have the decency to act civilized, or he should leash them,” his father thundered, his face red with anger as he paced back and forth across the marble floor. “It makes me glad your marriage to that slut fell through. Imagine if we were stuck with them as allies.”
It took everything Eris had, all his centuries of self-control, to keep from grinning foolishly. His gambit had worked beyond his wildest imagination, had produced many useful revelations, accomplished all of his goals in spades. His primary objective had been to throw Beron off, convince him that there was no burgeoning alliance between Eris and the Night Court despite what his little spies had claimed, and that had succeeded spectacularly. Provoking that Illyrian brute into lashing out had been laughably easy.
Eris had expected posturing and insults, maybe even a brawl, when he’d fired off that quip about Morrigan’s skimpy clothing. He’d seen how the Shadowsinger and Morrigan interacted at the Hewn City meeting, how she’d snatched her hand away from him, and had bet the male would get riled up out of guilt alone. It was also blindingly obvious that the Shadowsinger desired Morrigan, had probably pined after her for ages. Eris found it odd, thought the spymaster would have been observant enough to figure out that it was impossible, that he wasn’t her type.
So he’d looked for the opening to insult Morrigan, and taken it, fully expecting to take a few hits for his trouble. But he had been unprepared for the Shadowsinger’s ferocity, the sheer overwhelming force of him. Eris had had no time to conjure a flame, or even get a punch in, before he was slammed to the ground, the Illyrian bastard’s hands squeezing the breath from him.
The sight of the Shadowsinger looming above him, all that glowing blue power, that brutally chiseled face like an angel of death, those wings blocking out everything except the two of them and the fierce grip on his throat and the weight pressing down on him — it was all Eris could do to stare up at him in abject wonder and terror.
And the way those roughly scarred hands rubbed deliciously against the smooth skin of his neck —
There are worse ways to die than that.
Eris knew he should be embarrassed at his total lack of fight, or the fact that he’d looked weak in front of the most important folk in all Prythian, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. Not when his father had blasted flame after flame at the Illyrian’s shield, and gotten nowhere. If even a High Lord couldn’t punch through, Eris would surely have no chance at all, so his immediate submission was only sensible.
Father’s fire was useless against the Shadowsinger’s shield.
Now that was information he could file away. It practically made him giddy. Eris had searched for decades, trying to find ways around his father’s superior firepower, which could sear and burn him despite his own considerable resistance to flames. Any knowledge on how to counteract Beron was a blessing, regardless of how he’d come by it.
And when Beron had been throttled by the Cursebreaker — Eris bit down on his bottom lip, suppressing his smirk. It had been glorious to observe, how Feyre wielded those considerable gifts, tormenting and humiliating his father, ensuring that the gossip would center fully around Beron’s weakness, and not Eris’s measly altercation.
If only Feyre hadn’t blasted his mother in the process.
Eris wanted to scold Rhysand about his mate’s impulsive nature, about the need to carefully target one’s power around innocents. He would consider approaching Feyre herself, but didn’t fancy getting blasted, and wouldn’t be responsible for the safety of whoever happened to be innocently wandering past.
He had to chuckle at the absurdity of it all, of how he’d turned that situation so fully to his advantage. He’d wrangled an alliance with both Keir and Rhysand in exchange for keeping her secret, and she’d gone and revealed it in front of everyone, relieving Eris of any obligation towards the Night Court at all, or any risk that Beron might discover and punish his deception. He almost couldn’t believe his good fortune.
Eris’s mother peered anxiously into his face, her warm russet eyes brimming over with such concern that he felt guilty for it. He was always making her worry, and with how miserable his father made her —
“What about you? Let me see your arm,” he said gruffly, beckoning to her, hissing when he saw the raw, singed area. “You need a healer.”
“She’ll be fine,” his father spat.
“This is Dawn, they have the best healers anywhere,” Callan spoke up, and Eris shifted around so he could give him a look of gratitude. He can mock me all he wants, if he’s willing to stand up for mother like that.
Beron threw Callan a murderous glare that had the younger male shrinking back. “We are not letting any of that filth in here. She’ll see Iaso when we get home.”
Eris turned back to his mother, wincing apologetically, but her face had gone pale and blank, submissive to her husband’s will. He hated that look, and hated that he couldn’t do anything about it. The sooner he could formulate his plan, and get that fucking asshole’s boot off their necks, the better.
How he might actually kill Beron, and when, was still to be determined. But he knew that, somehow, he would be victorious.
Eris rubbed his neck, imagining the phantom hands of the Shadowsinger and frowning at the way his skin tingled. He quickly shoved it out of his mind, refused to picture that beautiful face, those sharp hazel eyes glaring down at him, the strong muscles —
Stop it.
Eris quickly got up, patting his mother on her slumped shoulder, then strode purposefully towards the bathing chamber. He had to get the male’s scent out of his nose, the feel of those brutal hands off his skin, before his imagination spiraled any further.
“Leave some hot water for the rest of us,” Callan called after him, and Eris entertained them all with a vulgar gesture before slamming the door behind him.
* * * *
Eris sighed and let his reports flop onto the desk, rubbing a hand over his face, and frowning at how his other hand had wandered up to his neck, as if searching for some long-distant echo of that moment that kept replaying in his mind, no matter how much he tried to shove it away. Those thirty seconds, a minute at most, had come to loom in his imagination in a way that profoundly disturbed him. Years had passed, eventful years at that, and yet he still couldn’t get the feel of those rough fingers out of his mind, or those pesky intrusive thoughts about what those hands might feel like elsewhere on his body.
He’d never felt anything like those hands before, and never would again.
Eris was too busy to entertain such thoughts, far too busy for fantasies. He was working almost around the clock, trying to catch up with all of the initiatives and projects that Beron had let languish during the War, and determine the areas of Autumn in greatest need of economic relief. This was why he’d wanted to be High Lord, aside from revenge for Beron’s centuries of cruelty -- the opportunity to do something, to make Autumn into a court worthy of the Vanserra name, a place where the folk could live prosperously.
A timid knock sounded on his study door, and he rolled his eyes, already knowing who it was, but called, “Come in, Neikos.”
Neikos poked his head in, his close-cropped white hair glinting in the soft fae lights, then slipped in the rest of the way, shutting the door firmly behind him. “Can’t be too careful in these dark corridors,” he murmured, hurrying to Eris’s desk and sliding into the empty chair across from the High Lord. “It’s like the shadows have a mind of their own.”
Eris gave the older male what he hoped was a patient smile. Neikos had served the Vanserras starting with his grandfather, had weathered Beron’s rages and whims like Eris and his brothers, and kept waiting for Eris to erupt with fury or threaten his family, as the previous High Lords were fond of doing. Eris was careful to speak softly so as to not unduly frighten or startle the family’s oldest advisor, though the older male was often startled by what he had to say, muttering “That’s how it was always done,” like a litany to the Cauldron.
So Eris steeled himself, knowing poor Neikos was liable to find his answers scandalous indeed, for word had reached him already of the scroll crumpled into the advisor’s hand. “What news, Neikos?” he asked, fingering the side of his neck absent-mindedly, then letting his hand drop to his desk when he realized what he was doing. I’ve got to get more sleep, my control is slipping.
“It’s Lord Young,” Neikos stammered, proffering the scroll. “He requests tax relief, on behalf of himself and the Twenty-Five Families.”
Eris almost laughed. The Twenty-Five Families were the richest, most spoiled fae in all of Autumn, if not all of Prythian, jealous hoarders of gold, disdainful of lesser fae to a ludicrous extreme, and constant pains in the ass to any High Lord or official unlucky enough to deal with them. Humbling the Twenty-Five, if not outright reducing their number, was one of Eris’s goals, particularly since it was rumored that many of them supported his brother Killian over him for High Lord.
Lord Young, in particular, was marked out in Eris’s mind, for he had almost gotten Áine killed by ratting her out to Beron. His two daughters had been spies planted in his mother’s household, reporting all her doings, and Eris had no intention of letting Lord Young get away with making Áine’s life miserable through his children. He only waited for the proper moment to strike, suspecting that Lord Young would get himself mixed up in some sordid business or other, and then Eris could make a proper example of him.
Eris made a pretense of reading the scroll, though he already knew precisely what it said — his spy network employed actual spies, and not spoiled little girls — and fixed Neikos with a shrewd expression. “None of the Twenty-Five produced a harvest this year?”
“Unfortunately, that is correct. They lack the workers,” Neikos said.
Eris pretended to be surprised. “Is that so? Why would that be?”
“The War, sire,” Neikos explained, waving one of his wrinkled hands. “The workers were slain by Hybern’s forces.”
“I see,” Eris said. Indeed, he saw all too well. “Why were the workers not sheltered behind the defensive walls?”
Neikos squinted, as though he’d not considered this before, so Eris went on, sparing the advisor the necessity of stammering an incoherent response. “It seems to me the Twenty-Five have only themselves to blame for their lack of workers. If they had extended their protection to their people, they would have plenty of help in the fields. And be hailed as heroes, rather than complicit in the deaths of hundreds of my subjects.” He tapped the scroll with a long finger, then smiled wickedly at Neikos. “Shall I prosecute them, do you think?”
“Oh, Sire,” Neikos protested, “that simply isn’t done. The Twenty-Five —“
“— are powerful, yes,” Eris finished for him, twirling his pen around his fingers. “Though it seems to me that if they cannot afford to pay my very reasonable taxes, they are not as powerful as they think.”
Neikos’s mouth opened and closed several times, reminding Eris of a fish flopping about in the air, gasping for breath, and he said smoothly, “I have no interest in antagonizing the Twenty-Five.” Just eliminating them. “So I’m prepared to make them a very generous offer.”
Neikos straightened, eyebrows raising. “They’ll be relieved to hear it, Sire.”
Probably not. Eris suppressed the smirk that was most unbecoming in a High Lord, instead leaning back, drawling, “What’s the going rate for an Autumn estate these days?”
Neikos quoted an absurdly low number, startling Eris. Had land values really fallen so low? Father let everything go to shit, didn’t he. Eris sighed, then said, “I’m prepared to offer them triple that.”
The older male leaped up, startled. “You’re going to buy out the Twenty-Five?”
“That’s right,” Eris said pleasantly, “since they can’t afford to run their own affairs, I would think it would be a relief.”
“They’ll lose their seats on the council,” Neikos pointed out, hastily snagging his own seat and sitting back down in it.
Eris shrugged. “They might have thought about that when they were allowing their workers to be slaughtered.”
“They were only lesser fae, my Lord,” the advisor protested.
Eris bristled at that. Such attitudes were common in Autumn, had been actively encouraged by Beron and certain of their brothers, but he thought of Lucien’s Jesminda, of what had been done to her, and snapped, “And yet they grew the food, and their labor paid the taxes, and these powerful High Fae families are apparently helpless without them.”
Neikos had no answer for that.
“The Twenty-Five can pay the taxes owed, or I’ll pay them myself, as the new owner,” Eris said firmly, snagging a blank piece of parchment from his desk drawer and beginning to draw up his official response to Lord Young’s ridiculous letter.
“Would it not be easier to simply offer a year of tax relief?” Neikos suggested, his voice high and thin. Placating. He still thinks I’m going to strike him for disagreeing. “That’s how it was always done.”
“It would be easier in the short term, but we can’t afford more years with no harvests, or the price of food will rise out of control,” Eris mused. Probably what these stupid assholes want — they think to turn an extra profit and not pay their fair share. “And they’ve had a whole year since the War ended to find new workers. Perhaps they should try paying fair market rate.”
Neikos objected, “Your father the High Lord never cared how much the folks were paid, long as he got his produce.”
Eris smiled tightly, a hint of his Autumn fire sparking in his eyes. “My father the High Lord isn’t here.”
Neikos shrank back, apparently having gotten the message.
“The Twenty-Five should be glad I’m not my father. I’m willing to compensate them, instead of simply seizing their estates. I’m even willing to take them on as paying tenants,” Eris went on, letting little flames spark at each of his fingertips.
Neikos’s mouth dropped open. “Tenants? They would be offended.”
Good.
Eris signed his name with a flourish, then stamped the official seal of the High Lord in the bottom right hand corner, and handed the parchment to Neikos. “What they choose to take offense at is not my concern.” Neikos opened his mouth to object, and Eris added, “Thank you, Neikos.” A firm dismissal.
Neikos looked as though he were about to argue, or protest about how things were always done, but he saw the determined set of Eris’s jaw, and thought better of it. He rose and bowed, then turned and fled the room.
Eris gave in to the smirk that had been tugging at his lips during the entire conversation, then sighed and leaned back again.
With Áine in Day, preparing for her mating ceremony, and his brothers scattered across Autumn and beyond — two on their own estates, one sitting in a cell awaiting execution, and one in the human lands or Night or Spring or wherever the hell Lucien was on any given day — the Forest House was quiet. Eris cherished the settled feeling of having a home without a fucking abusive bastard stomping through it, ruining everyone’s peace, but he couldn’t deny that it felt empty.
Eris was used to loneliness, but he was used to it in a crowd. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been properly alone, when he wasn’t surrounded by any number of Vanserra brothers, or sycophants and hangers-on, or his father’s hateful courtiers, ready to report any misdeed back to his father. Two of those courtiers had met with unfortunate accidents in the days since Eris’s rise to power, and the rest had wisely fled. Though they had unwisely fled south, to the Spring Court border, where they got exactly the welcome they should have expected.
Eris shoved back loose strands of hair that had fallen into his eyes, and checked tomorrow’s calendar, sighing when he saw the formal luncheon that had been scheduled smack between two council meetings. He didn’t know if he could stomach the gaggle of eligible females all aiming to snag his eye, their powerful parents hovering at the edges of the party trading snide compliments with each other and watching every time he turned his head or asked their insipid daughters a question.
He idly wondered if he should save them all the trouble, and just marry the most scheming female in attendance, who’d be both an asset and a security risk. Or or the least scheming one, who was probably the most scheming one, but discreet and savvy enough to hide it. He was exhausted just thinking about it.
He wouldn’t marry any of them. He couldn’t afford to elevate one family over any other, create a rival to the Vanserras, a pathway for spoiled courtiers to have access to him through his wife, or a way for unscrupulous folk to sabotage him.
The fact that Eris didn’t want any female didn’t even enter into it.
Such things were not to be hinted at, much less admitted to. Males desired females, and that was that. Anything else was just not done. Such desires as Eris had were not to become known, for they were thought to be unnatural, shameful, a perversion of the will of the Cauldron.
Eris had convinced his father to allow couples to register, regardless of who the partners were — two males, two females, one of each — for they needed the extra tax revenue for the War effort, and their own private healer, Apollon, had discovered a mating bond with another male. Beron had held his nose, but agreed. But the thought of a Vanserra engaging in such a union, much less a High Lord —
Eris slid from his desk chair and strode towards the door, heading to his bedroom just down the hall. It was late, and he was tired, that was all. He was not feeling sorry for himself, or lonely, or envious of Apollon.
And if he lay in bed at night, imagining rough hands around his throat, it meant nothing. Nothing at all.