A Storm of Flames and Deceit

XXVII. Splitting

Eris
Why is it so much harder to part with her this morning than any other day?
I have been separated from her before on this trip, whether it be at night or when I part from her to speak in meetings. So why did this morning feel so much harder?
Maybe the mating bond changed everything. I'm not sure if that's right because, despite the overwhelm I feel by the realization, my feelings towards her haven't changed even a little.
I'm still crazy about her, and it was never the mating bond. It was always just... her.
It was always her.
I can't push the thought from my mind as I enter the meeting, how seeing her bruised and battered again made me deeply nauseous. I know it's a glamour, but I also know it has happened to her before the same way it has happened to me many times. Thinking about her receiving the sort of beatings I endured from my father makes my stomach turn altogether. At least she was safe from her father's wrath when he locked her away, but at what cost?
Stop thinking about her.
I force myself to listen to Rhysand drone on about things that I'm meant to pretend I don't already know. He does so love to pretend he has the latest intel available, but my spies are good at what they do. So good that no one knows I even have any.
The thunder can't come soon enough. I had been squirming in my seat for a half hour. Lucien gives me a discreet nod at the first strike of lighting, letting me know that he did indeed claim his suspicions to Feyre who has been glaring daggers at me the whole meeting.
I sit smug as the rain starts to fall, so slow it could almost be natural.
That is until she lets herself go, and I have to cover my smirk up with a cough. Trees thrash in the wind, the windows rattling, the sky breaking into black and white. Lightning strikes the mountain seven times, and I know the inner circle has finally figured out what has brewed the storm.
Who has brewed the storm.
"Is that your betrothed?" Cassian asks dumbly.
"What did you do to her?" Feyre demands, the set of her jaw, a shrill, protective hiss of her voice.
"I didn't do a thing," I shift my eyes nervously, playing my role. "She has nightmares sometimes."
"I'll go check on her then," Lucien challenges, narrowing his metallic eye, the Fox Prince coming out to play.
"No," I say quickly, nervously. "I'll do it myself, thanks."
"I don't think so," Rhysand spits, still trying to keep diplomacy, though his eyes doubt me. "Feyre and I will be able to help her sort out her nightmare through her mind. It will be safer than waking her up in the middle of a surge."
"You won't touch her mind," I seethe, actually feeling it a bit in my bones though I'm only acting. Lucien holds me back, Cassian stepping in front of his High Lord and High Lady, Azriel's shadows stewing so fiercely that I cannot see his face. I know them that I have done it.
"Go," Lucien tells Feyre and Rhysand. "Find her."
I battle against his grip, the inner circle filing after Rhysand and Feyre. The only one who spares me a glance is Mor, and on her face, I see confusion because she is the only one of them who knows I could never do something like this.
But she follows the High Pair, leaving me and Lucien alone. He loosens his grip. "It's discomforting how good you are at lying," he murmurs as I straighten my clothing.
A grin flicks onto my face. "Runs in the family," I pat him on the shoulder, the way a big brother might in another life. "You of all people should be fully aware that our childhood bred liars of all of us."
"The smart ones of us, anyway," Lucien replies as we slowly follow after the inner circle.
When we get to Neph, she is thrashing in bed, as bruised as I left her, crying out in pain. It's then I can tell she is not acting. She is in splitting agony, holding her head together with her hands.
"Nephele." Her name falls from my mouth as I try to go to her.
Cassian and Azriel tackle me to the ground before I can make it a step, and I let them. I let them because Rhysand and Feyre are in her mind. I let them because The High Pair are seeing what we wanted this whole time. I let them because this is the only way.
Nephele gasps awake, and I struggle against Cassian's broad knee on my spine, trying to claw my way to her. She shivers with the intrusion into her mind, and I immediately wish I could've been the one to take the brunt of it.
But I'd rather die than let Rhysand of all people know that Nephele is my mate. The world doesn't get to know now. Not when they could take her from me.
"Neph," I croak, worrying of her tremor, how she holds herself so delicately in that frail nightgown. She had only been pretending to sleep, so why did she look as though she just had a nightmare. What had happened when she let Rhysand and Feyre into her mind.
Her eyes dart to me, growing as wide as saucers. The world starts to go a bit dark, consciousness fading from me the slightest bit from the lack of oxygen. "Eris," she whispers, her eyes glossy and rimmed in the flashes of her that I can see through the darkness. She observes the position I'm in, crushed under the weight of two angry Illyrians. "Let him go," she demands, her glamour falling away of her own volition.
"You don't have to defend him-"
"He didn't hurt me," her voice shakes as she kneels down beside me, placing a hand on my cheek as the Shadowsinger's knee digs into my neck. She turns to Rhysand and Feyre desperately. "Tell them!" She demands. "Tell them to let him go."
"It's true," Lucien says. "It's just a glamour."
The world continues to fade, but Azriel's knee doesn't ease up until Rhysand shakes his head. "Do as she says," Rhysand tells them, raking his fingers through his hair, clearly shocked that we tricked him. Clearly shocked that war is upon us.
"Release him," Feyre swallows, sharing a grim look with her mate. "And we'll show you all."
Reluctantly, the brutes let me go, a wheeze breaking from my throat. "Eris," she whispers, placing a soothing hand on my back as I try to sit up, looking over her tear streaked face as my vision comes back, my head pounding.
"Are you alright?" I manage between breaths. She chokes on a laugh, her eyes watering as she throws her arms around me, smiling.
"I'm alright," she whispers, threading her fingers through my hair, her breath shuddering and light against my neck. "I'm okay."
A breath of relief falls from me as I hold her back, bunching my fingers in her nightgown, my other hand stroking the smooth skin of her shoulder. "I gotta hand it to you, Fireling," Amren laughs, the High Pair having shown the inner circle what Nephele showed them. "That was clever."
"It was Neph's idea," Lucien says as Nephele pulls away from me a bit. I help her to her feet, but I don't retract my arm from around her. I can't bring myself to.
"It was the only way," Nephele says apologetically. "Believe me, I don't delight in deception, but there was no other way to inform you of our conspiring fathers than to trick you."
"I- for one- delighted in deceiving you all, by the way," I murmur, Neph swatting at my chest but wrapping her arms around my waist immediately after. That's my girl. Sour and sweet all at once.
"So it's true," Feyre says quietly. "Hybern hasn't fallen yet."
Nephele shakes her head. "My father's army still remains," she says quietly.
"It's also not as though the land has fallen off the face of the world," Lucien adds. "There are still people over there who once aligned themselves with Hybern and Amarantha."
"But there are just as many who denounced their tyranny," Nephele adds. "If not more."
"And you want our help?" Cassian blinks. He might hate me even more than the Shadowsinger these days. "Why would we help you?"
I shrug. "I thought you might be interested in truly finishing the war," I reply. "But if you're more interested in being proud-"
"I think we should take this back to the meeting room," Lucien interrupts, ever the diplomat.
"Yes, I agree." Feyre chimes in.
"I should get dressed," Nephele says to me quietly, her grey eyes haunted even as she tries to conceal it.
"We'll meet you all there in a minute," I tell them directly, not so much as sparing them a glance as they leave, only looking at Neph. The door clicks shut.
"You didn't have to stay with me," she mumbles, adverting her eyes. I take her hand before she can walk away.
"Are you alright?" I ask her quietly. "What happened when they went in there?" I touch her cheek as if I can find the exact point of her head that Rhysand and Feyre hollowed into.
She shivers a bit, letting me slide my jacket over her shoulders. "I'm not quite sure," she admits, sitting on the rumpled sheets, staring at the floor. "I was trying to focus on the situation with our fathers when they arrived so that they wouldn't miss it, but..." she shakes her head. "I don't know. Maybe because they suspected I was having a nightmare, they targeted the trauma part of my brain, and I swear..."
"What?" I ask her quietly, sitting down beside her, taking her hand.
She shakes her head again, biting her lip. "It's like I relived two centuries worth of abuse and neglect in less than ten seconds," she swallows, meeting my eyes as I run my thumb over her knuckles. "It felt like it was happening again. It was so jarring and splitting and intense. Then I woke up and they were suffocating you," her voice breaks. "I just thought we had failed somewhere along the way. I thought I was still in hell."
"I'm fine," I promise her, flattered that she even cared that I couldn't breathe. "Rhysand and Feyre are going to pay for-"
"I don't think they meant to," she interrupts. "I think they just knew I was having a nightmare, and thought that part of my head was a good place to start. Don't go getting revenge on our allies, Hot Stuff."
"Maybe I got revenge enough to see the look of shock on Rhysand's face when he realized we tricked him," I smirk at the memory, and she rolls her eyes.
"I'm just happy it worked," she laughs gratefully. "I suppose I should get dressed before they do any scheming without us."
I swallow, nodding. "I'll be in the hall," I tell her, kissing her cheek before I think better of it.