A Storm of Flames and Deceit

XXXXII. Home

Nephele
Kissing Eris is addictive as all hell, and when my lips met his, I could tell with all my heart that he wanted me too.
I wonder why his touch has gone so cold now.
I suppose it doesn't matter much. We're on business right now, and staying focused is for the better. Still, I miss that warmth he had at the beginning of the night, even when it started burning hot with rage. I'll take anything but the cold.
The cold is precisely what I felt when he suggested that we split up though, to cover more ground. I find Cressida and Tarquin first- rather they find me.
I smile broadly outside of my own volition, giving both of them discreet hugs while my family is turned away.
"There's Prynthian's newest Princess," Tarquin teases, tugging one of my curls. "You look good, Neph."
"I feel good," I sigh, letting Cressida nudge me smugly.
"Really? We couldn't tell," she snorts, and I give her a short shove, rolling my eyes. "Out of curiosity, would you have stopped kissing him if not for the room practically dying from cuteness? Or would have you just kept on going until you birthed some little curly red heads?"
"I'd love to shove you again, but if I'm being honest," I chuckle, shaking my head a bit. "The world goes a bit dark when I kiss him sometimes." Actually, all three times my lips met his, I lost my sense of what was up and what was down.
"I feel sick like how you get from eating too much sugar," Tarquin complains, and I chuckle.
"You guys brought it up," I point out before dropping my voice. "I was actually looking for Tamlin. I know he can be a bit of a... proverbial lone wolf these days. I worried that he might not be having a good time." That and I want to see what he knows.
"He was civil with us," Tarquin says, dropping his voice. "I think he appreciates us offering refuge to his people during the war."
"And I believe he went to have a smoke on the balcony," Cressida tells me. "Go. Be a diplomat if you must. You'll see us soon enough. We must go sailing after your honeymoon."
"Oh absolutely," I agree, knowing that my honeymoon- if there ever had been one- is completely canceled on account that Eris and I have an urgent meeting with Helion tomorrow. "I will write to you both if I don't see you later. I absolutely am going to take you up on that offer, and I don't care if I'm imposing."
Cressida chuckles, hugging me again. "Like you could ever impose on us," she rolls her eyes. "And have a good honeymoon." She whispers that last but in my ear quietly, a teasing look in her eye as her and her cousin slip away to go home. I think they honestly had just stayed for my benefit.
Rolling my shoulders back, I sweep over to the balcony, cautiously approaching Tamlin, making sure he hears me so that I don't spook him. "You know those things are awful for your lungs," I inform him, and his head swivels, his eyes catching on my smile. "Sure, they won't kill you unless you're mortal, but they can make you sound like you swallow rocks for fun after forming a habit."
"Habits are so rarely good for anyone," he says, his deep voice surprising me. "But everyone has them."
I chuckle, leaning against the railing. "It's good to finally meet you in the flesh, though," I smirk over at him. "I'll take the stench of cigars over the stench of wet dog any day."
He chuckles quietly. "You know why you're not like the others?"
I tilt my head, curious. "Why?"
"You don't treat me like loose canon," he smiles at me. "You aren't afraid of me."
I shrug. "I've been around enough loose canons in my life to know the difference," I reply.
"Yes," he says solemnly, looking over at me, sizing me up. "That's what I hear."
I swallow. "So you know?" He nods. "We can't speak of it here."
"We don't have to speak of it at all if you don't wish," he says. "I just wanted to thank you for three weeks ago."
"It was nothing," I say quietly. "Lucien was the one who stuck with you so. I was just glad to help in anyway I can."
"To Lucien, I owe my life in more ways than I even can know," he replies. "But even he stopped looking at me the way you did after a while. You were the first person in forever that looked beyond the beast. Who looked at me like I was still a person. I think I just needed to believe that not everyone hated me. Even if it was just a stranger."
My heart warms a bit to think of it. Sometimes, you can mean absolutely nothing to someone, but you can do something that means absolutely everything. I think it's easy to forget that we're all people beneath whatever we arm ourselves with, but we can't subtract ourselves from empathy.
"Allies are important, but I don't have many friends," I tell him, chuckling bitterly. "I don't suppose you're looking for any more of those?"
He laughs darkly. "In all my years of court drama and affairs, I don't think a courtier has ever asked to be my friend."
"Well, you're one of the few people who knows my true story," I shrug. "I might ask you what you make of it someday."
"And I might welcome that," he says, staring at the setting sun beyond the trees. "The next time you visit Spring, you needn't worry about announcing yourself, and I promise I won't attempt to intimidate you by remaining in my beast form. Tell your husband the same is only true of him if he brings you."
I snort despite myself. "His likability is something we're working on," I smile. "I have hope that he might one day even be pleasant!"
"Feyre showed me your memories," he admits. "He is different with you than he is with the rest of us, isn't he?"
I shrug. "He has a good heart," I tell Tamlin. "That's another thing I know when I see. He isn't kind or polite or easy, but he is the best person I've ever met. That is something I sincerely believe with all of me, and my heart hasn't had a chance to steer me wrong yet."
"Let me know when it does- I know a thing or two about that."
I chuckle, my laugh dying a bit. "Tamlin, why did you come here?" I ask it so suddenly that I startle. "Not that I'm not glad to have you, I just wonder what did it. Even if you think me kind, I wouldn't blame you for not thinking that sufficient enough reason to abandon your isolation."
He smirks, looking at the western horizon as if he's looking for something. "Creagach," he answers simply, that which I forgot. "But that's a conversation for another time."
I blink, steadying myself against the railing. "I might need to reconsider my loose canon judgement," I mumble. I suppose he if he knows of the word Creagach, he's been put on to that dust pan theory to put me on the throne despite the pulsing fact that I'm unqualified for such responsibilities.
Yeah, I haven't wanted to think of the theory thus far.
He laughs, pushing off of the railing, depositing his cigar in the ash tray stationed outside the balcony. "I will be writing you and your husband soon," he declares, fixing his golden hair. "I think the world has much to discuss about you, Nephele Vansera."
He winnows away an instant later, and I feel completely robbed of breath as I stumble back inside.
I don't even make it inside three steps before I'm intercepted by my mother. Cauldron, why is she everywhere? She's like a walking jump scare.
"There you are," she says as if I had wandered off the edge of the island. "You need to get changed."
"Get changed?" I echo, noticing the party has just dwindled to quiet conversation and drunk guests of the court, the wedding festivities officially over.
Or at least I thought.
"For the consummation," she elaborates and I miss a step, gripping the wall to keep upright.
"Consummation?" I swallow, frantic. "You never mentioned-"
"Did I forget to tell you?" She smirks savagely, and I realize what is being done to me. "Silly me. It's alright. You know what to do. It's nothing you haven't been doing for weeks."
I swallow as she shoves me into a small dressing room where a quarter dozen maids wait. Their freezing hands immediately strip me of my gown until I'm standing naked in the middle of a freezing room.
I cross my arms over my chest in vain, panicking as they strip my underwear off with their lifeless fingers. "You know the tradition," Mother muses, relaxing in her arm chair, casual as a Wednesday. "The royal family must bare witness to you and Eris performing intercourse for what would- in theory- be the first time- give or take in your case. But you lucked out- Eris insisted on curtains to obstruct the view. We can hear you and see your silhouettes, but Eris insisted that only he see you fully naked."
My breath catches in my throat. Eris... knew.
Don't jump to conclusions Neph. You trust Eris more than anyone. He wouldn't hurt you.
I repeat these affirmations as the ladies dress my in a bralette and panties of sheer white lace that hardly obstructs a thing, but my breathing begins to catch. I think I'm having a panic attack.
Then, as if matters couldn't get worse, a needle is jammed into my arm so harshly that I cry out in pain, sucking on the prick of blood as the ladies pull my hair up and away from my face. "Just a precaution," mother sings, tucking the needle back into the drawer. "So you don't accidentally fry your new husband on the night of your wedding."
It's then I taste the faebane in my bloodstream, the familiar and numb and dull sensation. I've stopped hyperventilating now.
Now, I shut my eyes, and I think my body just shuts down, reverting to hopelessness. I'm back in that cellar. Powerless, starving, trapped in my own withering body. I want to claw my skin off, but I can't move. All I can do is stumble forward when my mother shoves me through the opening door.
This door opens to another chamber, much larger than the one before. In it is only a big white bed, covered by curtains of white. So much white, symbolic of some sort of twisted sense of purity that has been projected onto me. These people get off on the theft of what they perceive as innocent.
And by these people, I mean the roughly fifteen people in the room. Some were palace guards. Some were important people, high up in government. I only recognize five: my mother and father stood beside Eris' father and his brothers. I'm pushed to the foot of the bed, my arms still crossed fearfully over my chest as I try to call to my lightning.
It doesn't answer.
Numbing silence.
No escape.
I swallow my fate. I can do this. I want Eris. I want to have sex with Eris. Sure, this isn't how I would have it, but I can do this. I can relax because if I don't, this is going to hurt much worse than it already was going to.
I feel eyes baring into my skin, my backside. Eris' father and brothers stare at me, and all I can do is keep my arms crossed over my chest. I wonder if it matters. They still stare at me with that fiery want that is so different from how it looks on Eris. There is only cruelty and perverted thirst in their eyes, no adoration or respect or protective flame.
His mother isn't here, and I say a silent prayer of thanks. I'm not sure if she could look at me after seeing me like this. I'm positive I look like the weak, frail girl they fished from that cellar a month ago.
And just like that, the best day of my life becomes the worst.
From another chamber, the door clicks open, and my eyes fly to the source, finding Eris stalking through. He had shed his blazer, sleeves rolled up to his elbows, his hair rumpled like he had been running his fingers through it. His amber gaze wasn't warm.
I stiffly a shiver as he decisively approaches me, taking my face in his freezing hands, kissing me hard. That's all it takes for me to lose myself in his lips. What happens next dissolves, those who watch disappear, my body wakes up, and I throw my arms around him.
Then, too suddenly, he pushes me back onto the bed, and reality comes crashing back as he crawls on top of me. "Eris?" I whisper quietly, my voice shaking as he straddles my hips.
I can't do this.
I can't-
He takes off his belt with a snap, and I flinch, trying to buck my hips out from under him. "Eris, please."
He ignores me, eyes still cold and staring through me as he unbuttons his shirt. The curtain behind us gives way, the bed finally covered on all sides, but Eris' facade doesn't slip as he finishes unbuttoning his shirt.
I thought I could trust him, but I trust only instinct now, so I shove his chest hard. He hardly moves. I'm too weak. When he finishes with his shirt, I can't even admire his muscles chest. I'm too terrified as he pulls it off. His hand falls behind my throat, pulling my back up off the bed and towards him, and I begin to struggle more until I realize he is slipping my arms through the sleeves.
Until I realize he's putting the shirt on me.
"Eris?" I whisper quietly, my arms falling back to my side a bit. He clamps his hand over my mouth, shaking his head. His eyes change then. They aren't warm still, but at least they aren't frozen and emotionless. They closer resemble objective urgency.
I decide to trust him.
Maybe I never stopped trusting him.
His eyes flutter shut as he straddles me, but he doesn't move at all, even though his erection pokes at my stomach, a muscle ticking in his jaw. That's when I realize he isn't going to have sex with me. No, he's weaving a fucking glamour.
He's weaving a fucking glamour around us, and he's fooling everyone.
I settle my hand over his then, letting him know I understand as he concentrates. If I had any power in my bones, I'd give it to him, but he seems to swell up a bit anyway, his breathing haggard as he weaves sounds of pleasure into the ears of the people all over the room. As he sculpts our shadows into a performance.
His bare chest puffs with each breath, and he flips his hand over for me, threading his fingers through mine. I kiss his knuckles gently, pulling our hands over my heart, hoping some bit of my power still beats for him to use.
I glance over at the curtains, and to my shock, the shadows are painted in forms that are us but not. Eris points into me from over top, my back arching off the bed. Despite my fear, I feel the arrousal then. I feel the arousal to have him over top of me, hard and warm and protective. And as I watch Eris' shadow pound into mine, I can't help but feel the erotic desire to hear whatever sounds he weaves for the others, the sound of his haggard breaths, his skin hitting mine, how he thinks I would moan in return.
After I can't say how long, he has gotten a bit pale from the effort of such deception that I'm not sure anyone else is capable of, but he breathes one sharp breath before falling onto his back, pulling me over him as he winnows us away. When we reach wherever we were going, he groans heavily, rubbing his head, his eyes squinted shut from what I can see from where I fell on top of his chest.
"Are you okay?" I put my hand to his face, which burns in a cool sweat.
"Fine," he manages, swallowing. At last, he opens his eyes, and I find them to be warm again. I could nearly cry with relief. "Sorry, that took a bit of concentration, and now my head feels like like it has been juiced."
I laugh, rolling off of him onto my back. He has winnowed us onto some sort of bed, but I'll certainly take this one over the last. I'm just glad to be gone since the ceremony is "complete". In the eyes of our families, we're on our honeymoon right now.
He wasn't supposed to be able to do that... to fool such powerful people in such a way. To glamour the curtains into silhouettes that didn't exist. To weave sounds that weren't happening. To convince a High Lord and a High General, both soaked to the teeth in power, that we were having sex when that wasn't even close to what happened.
He really was born to be a liar. I'm positive that I've never met someone with such an aptitude for glamouring. He was good with armor and fire, but his real strength had always been deception.
"No one told you about it, did they?" He asks quietly, tipping his head to look at me. I shake my head, and he swears under his breath. "Neph, I'm so sorry. I had gotten so focused on the rest of the ceremony that I completely forgot the conversation I had with my father last month about consumption. I had assumed then that your mother told you about it then as well, and I had held off talking to you about it until I knew how to get out of it-"
"When did you figure out how to get out of it?" I interrupt quietly, and he shivers.
"Thirty minutes ago," he answers. "When I remembered this thing existed. I never should've let myself push it to the back burner. I had been so distracted by so many other things, and I didn't mean to scare you like that."
"I'm not mad at you- if that's what you think," I face him, rolling onto my side. "I know that wasn't your idea. I'm sorry I didn't trust you for an instant there. I know you would never hurt me."
He scoffs. "That may be true," he replies, turning over to face me. "But you should've fried me for how I approached you."
I laugh dryly. "Believe me, I would've if I could've," I roll up my shirt sleeves, showing him my scarred veins, glowing with intrusion. "But my mother shot me up with faebane."
He takes my arm, eyes wide as he inspects the scars. "They wanted me to hurt you," he says softly, running a gentle finger up the trace of lighting.
"Yes," I answer quietly. "They told me not to fight back."
His skin heats with rage, but I touch his face in my hands, rubbing away the anger. "I'm sorry Sweetheart," he whispers again, kissing my scars. "I'm sorry I scared you."
"And I'm sorry I doubted you," I reply, running my finger over the wedding band I slipped on his finger only hours ago. "Where are we?" I finally ask, looking around.
We seem to be in a bedroom, but the lighting is poor. It's dark outside, but the room is made of massive windows, and the bed we lay on is comprised of purple and silver bedding, so comfy that I could fall asleep if not for my dissolving terror.
Then, a crooked grin breaks across his face, and he squeezes my hand. "Home," he answers, kissing my ring finger. "We're home."