A Storm of Flames and Deceit

XII. Sunnier

Eris

She handled a blade quite well, despite her inexperience. I hate to think some of it might have been inherited from her horrendous father. Sometimes, I catch some similarities between them, and it's an effort not to be angered.
But where his grit and ambition and cunning have made him vile, they make her good.
It's so very frustrating.
She had been quite frustrated earlier herself. I hadn't grasped why the sky was churning angrily until she huffed a breath, and I understood.
She doesn't like to be reliant.
I know the feeling.
For as long as I can remember, I have never  allowed myself to fall into the trap of relying on anyone- even my mother. Reliance breeds helplessness, and it would seem that neither me nor Nephele likes to feel helpless.
On the way home from the woods, when Lucien had bid us farewell so that he could go off and patrol the grounds, she had inquired me about Tamlin. She wondered why we hadn't met the High Lord. Why he roams these woods as a beast.
I had explained it all to her as best I could.
From the family feud between Spring and Night, to Amarantha's reign, to Feyre choosing Rhysand. From Tamlin's betrayal, to his court's destruction at the hands of Feyre, to the war and his eventual redemption. I told her all I knew. I told her why the spring court was in shambles.
She didn't look pleased.
"I pity him," she says quietly, looking genuinely sad. "I understand why the woman- Feyre- did what she did, but I pity Tamlin."
I scoff indignantly. "I don't." Tamlin is a rotten High Lord. He made himself vulnerable and lost his love. It is entirely his own fault.
Nephele looks around at the land, the scape overgrown and neglected, thorned and poisoned. "He's clearly not in a good place," she says empathetically, looking down.
"Who gives a shit?" I say as our mare enters the stables. "He's a High Lord. He doesn't have the luxury of sulking." I swing myself off the horse, offering her a hand. She doesn't take it, getting off herself, turning her cheek from me.
Fine. She wants to be an empath? She's a fool if she thinks that it makes a difference. She's a fool if she think that won't get her killed.
I stalk after her as we silently walk towards the manor. Though her arms are crossed in irritation, the sky doesn't so much as cloud.
It's strangely disappointing.
The bushes beside us tussle, and I find all temper forgotten as I pull her behind me. I'm a bit alarmed at the instinct considering my first instinct is always to protect myself, but logic tells me I'm only doing this to conserve our marriage alliance to her father, to save myself the embarrassment of how it might look if I was unable to protect my fiancé.
I'm sure that's it.
My hands heat as I scan the forest, Nephele's delicate fingers on my back where I have tucked her, her breath quiet and alert. Another rustle and I look through the leaves, catching a flash of fur, the blink of an ice green eye. A growl rips from his throat.
Tamlin.
He had been following us.
My hand covers itself in flame, burning protectively. As it is, I only hesitate because I am not supposed to kill a high lord- it reflects poorly on my court, I suppose. But if he tries to hurt us, I won't hesitate to defend her and I.
"Is that...?" She whispers, trailing off.
I nod swiftly, not daring glance away from him. She swallows, her hand still bracing the fabric of my shirt.
"I know why you follow us," she speaks up, and I nearly gasp in surprise. What in fresh hell is she doing? I glance between her and Tamlin- who looks just as confused as me. She smiles softly, encouragingly. "They say you've abandoned your land, but I don't think that's true."
"Nephele," I whisper sharply. She's going to rile him. Our best bet is telling him that we are sacrificed guests of his court and will be on our way. "What are you-"
"That's why you followed us," she speaks to the beast, all but ignoring me save for her hand on my back. "You didn't know who I was. You wanted to make sure I didn't come to harm your land."
I blink dumbly. I hadn't quite thought of that. Still, despite the sense it makes, I'm not sure if I believe it. Was that really why he followed us? Because he was trying to ensure that Nephele wasn't here to conquer Spring? Surely, he felt her power. It enters a room five minutes before she does, the skies rumbling as a foreshadowing. Maybe, he thought...
It's not implausible. Nephele could take Spring with the quirk of her brow if she felt so motivated. Her power rivals every High Lord I've ever met.
And it hasn't even returned in full yet.
"They say you let your land become overgrown," she continues on, staring the beast in the eye. "But I see your land as a rose bush. It looks as if you've stopped pruning the thorns. It's as if you let it grow wild and unruly to protect itself."
When she says it like that, I can almost see it. He let his land become terrible and wild so that the humans below wouldn't dare venture north. So that the fae above would see it as a patch of ruin and refrain from conquering. He patrolled the land as a beast every night to strike fear in fo who might dare enter unpermitted.
He let his land become as sharp as those beastly canines, a true reflection of himself.
Was it all in the name of protection? Maybe he figured that he had failed his land as he had been, so he became the beast everyone thought he was. Maybe that's the only way he knew how to protect his land now.
Or maybe Nephele is good at making things seem a lot sunnier than they actually are.
It's no matter. "We should be going," I tell them both, interrupting their staring match. I turn to Nephele who has the most smug expression on her face, like she just cracked a riddle that others before couldn't even begin to solve, but there's a softness in her eyes, passing between her in the High Lord. She truly does feel bad.
I take her arm and pull her away, keeping a keen awareness on where Tamlin stays, mystified. I don't blame him. For when I look back and see the wide eyes of the beast, I see a man who just got struck by lightning.
And I know the feeling well enough.