Eris Vanserra Fanfiction-A Land Of Lavender And Thistle-Book One

CHAPTER XXVIII

Eris

The spacious chamber of the Hewn City palace was gloomy – too gloomy for me to feel comfortable.

Then again, even with the very sun hanging above the wicked mouth of the pit crowded with hungry, bloodthirsty monsters at the bottom, I doubted I would feel well. After all, it took years of experience of hiding my true emotions for me to school my face into something bored and uninterested as Rhysand, Feyre, Cassian and Helion stood around me, all five of us leering down at the infested High Fae kneeling in front of the pit.

His hands, strewn with black lines enhancing the path of his veins, were bound behind him, his short hair uncovering the sunk in features of his too-pale face as his black eyes darted from Rhysand to Helion, from Cassian to me. When they landed on Feyre, his mouth curled into something I supposed was a crooked smile. Rhysand and Cassian frowned, dark power curling toward the diseased male, but the young High Lady, clad in a simple dress of midnight-blue, simply glared at him.

He was found careening around the foot of the Illyrian mountains. Apparently, according to the Illyrians who'd reported the situation to Cassian, the male had been murmuring something to himself as he scratched at his face. He would double over himself every few moments in agony before shaking his head, as though he wanted to chase away the invisible flies buzzing around him.

In the end, Cassian and Azriel found him, then tackled him before bringing him here for his High Lord and Lady to question him.

Helion and I were summoned here additionally. Helion, because the High Lord of the Day Court could investigate if there was some sort of cruel spell at hand, and me since the cases of this plague began in the Autumn Court.

I was not pleased to find one of those magical notes Rhysand liked to send on my nightstand when I woke up. At first, when it appeared in a cluster of violet sparks, I planned to ignore it, too caught up in watching Ruth sleeping in my embrace.

I had never seen anyone so peaceful and lovely, so at ease as her body rose and fell in deep, even breaths while she kept her lean arms curled around me.

Then, when I considered a bit more about the note beside me, I began to feel anxious.

I couldn't help but think of how something might have happened, how there must've something urgent for the arrogant High Lord to magic a message to me in the morning, past the view of his own sleeping mate beside him, without a doubt.

So, with a stifled groan, I'd unfolded the note, then began to dress moments later. As much as it pained me to leave Ruth in my bed alone, especially when she looked so divine among my sheets, I had to see what the bastard boy and his shadow friend fished out from their woods.

I couldn't say I regretted it, but so far, nothing useful came up.

Whatever the infested male spoke to himself in those mountains, he did not utter a word in the past ten minutes I stood here, leaning against a pillar and watching him with my hands in my pockets. Helion had checked him, and though he claimed to feel some sort of ornery power resting about the Fae, he couldn't identify what it was. When Rhysand and Feyre tried to search the male's mind, they found only silence, thick and dead within.

Now, we just had to wait for the shadowsinger and the Night Court's second in command to arrive. Among the ill subjects of any court so far, none of them showed the signs of that odd behavior Cassian and I came across with that female fairy near the inn. Not when they first received the illness, or near their final moment; nobody revealed to have that sort of mindset, to whisper things without reason. Until now, that was.