A Court of Blood and Glory

We all fall down

Feyre

We warmed up and I spent five hours 'learning' the 'self-defence' manoeuvres that were so basic it actually hurt my pride to realise that he thought I was that weak. Poor Tamlin, he would have a huge surprise coming his way soon enough.
It was when we reached my powers that he began to take it more seriously. "Feyre, I need to know what you can do." He said, clearly less than pleased that he was training me in using my power, as opposed to suppressing it.
"I can't do anything. Not really. I don't remember my training." I said, believing that it would be better if I pretended I could do nothing at all and see what he needed me to be able to do.
"Ok, that's fine. Let's start with shapeshifting, my power." He said, a small grin on his face. "When I shift I see it like another skin hidden behind a curtain that I need to step through. For me, that skin is a beast, but yours can be anything. Smaller animals are easier, so let's begin with something little. Try shifting into a mouse." He said, and sat down, pulling me to the floor with him.
I closed my eyes, but instead of shifting I began to try and talk to Rhys through the mating bond, ensuring that I scrunched my face up in concentration so that I looked like I was trying to shift. I stayed that way for a few minutes, still trying to talk to Rhys, but he was in a deep sleep, and I knew that I couldn't reach him.
"I can't do it." I said at last, and began to pull up blades of grass, pretending to be frustrated. "I only see – I can only see the wings that, that he made me have." I said, making sure that tears lined my eyes. I was sick of crying.
Tamlin pulled me close and kissed me slowly, using every chance he could to touch me. "It's ok, it's ok. Why don't I try to make you shift, and you can see how it feels to shift into something other than a lesser fae's skin." And before I could do anything I felt my body change, becoming smaller and smaller until I was a little mouse amongst the torn up grass.
I felt so wrong, so, so wrong. I had just been forced into a different body, a different species' body, and it was wrong. What made it worse was that Tamlin scooped me up, holding me in his cupped hands, and began to stroke my furry head. I tried to run away from him, a sense of unnatural fear coming over me, but he caught me before I could move and set me back on the floor, shifting me back to fae.
I sat there for a few minutes, trying to grasp how he'd done that, how I could stop him from doing it to me again. I held my knees, trying to get rid of the fear that held every nerve in a firm grasp. I felt like a mouse still, felt like a weak little mouse that needed to hide. But I wasn't a mouse, I was a wolf, and I couldn't be caged.
Tamlin grabbed my shoulders once more. "Feyre. Feyre, my love, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have done that so soon. I should've waited for you to tell me to do it. I'm sorry." He shouldn't have done it. He'd invaded my very being, made me become something else against my will.
"We're done for today." Was all I said before getting up and walking back the way we came, not waiting for Tamlin. He caught up with me easily, as I was going quite slowly, but he didn't try to touch me, seeming to realise that I wasn't happy with him.
We cleared the forest, the sun having risen over our heads, signalling noon, and walked into the house, my hand in Tamlin's once more. What I wouldn't give to shift in front of him and claw his eyes out. But I couldn't. Not yet.
I didn't say anything to Tamlin, but I could smell something familiar, but out of place. It was someone's scent. Tamlin stiffened besides me and halted our walk. He knew the scent. We soon began walking again, albeit slightly faster, and were soon entering the dining room to find the King of Hybern seated at the head of the table.

Xxx

"I see that you have been training her, Tamlin. That's good. I would have needed you to have her ready to go in two weeks, but Feyre here seems to have other plans." I knew what he was referring to, and I knew that my time in the court was up. I had to come up with something, and fast. But I wanted to kill him then and there. I could have ended the whole war where I stood. I could have killed him. My powers rose, threatening to attack. "Don't attack me, Feyre, you won't win. No one can beat me, not alone." I tried to feign confusion but he held a hand up before I could say anything. "Don't try to deny that you don't know how to control your power. I've been tracking your power ever since I last saw you. I know everything you've done. I know about your healing gifts from dawn, which you used every night to heal your shredded mating bond. I know that you placed a shield of air around your darling sister's room, and I know about how you used your daemati abilities to brush the mind of every sentry last night, and I know that you have not used any power today." Tamlin stepped away from me, going to the King's side, his eyes lined with silver as he realised that I didn't love him, that I was still in love with Rhys. "And I know that you glamour your arm every day."
I saw a blinding flash of light as the King shot me with his power. But his intent was not to kill me, it was to stun me enough that I dropped the glamour, and it worked. Tamlin stared at me in horror as the swirls of ink became visible, marking me as Rhys's mate, and as High Lady of the Night Court.
"After everything I went through to save you, you never truly loved me, never meant what you said, what you did." His claws came free, his temper rising. "You are his mate, and his High Lady." He spat at my feet. "There is no such thing."
I found my voice, and claws lengthened from my fingers as wings began to take shape on my back. Huge, black Illyrian wings. Darkness radiates out of me, filling the room. The king thought he knew my power. He was deeply mistaken, shown through the fear in his eyes. Fear that mirrored Tamlin's, but only briefly.
The King stood, his chair scraping loudly over the floor, and nodded to one of his men that stood guard at the door, which they closed behind them as they left. I heard many footsteps head up the stairs, but I knew not where they went to after that. But I did know that more people were coming into the room, a lot more people.
I didn't know what to do. I could have taken Tamlin alone, as was the plan, but the King was another matter, another huge power, to contend with. Rhys, the most powerful High Lord ever, was unable to defeat him, and he'd had centuries of training.
Tamlin got over the shock of my appearance and my betrayal once the King stood, and he growled at me, his features becoming more and more animalistic each second. "I should have ripped those wings from your back the first time I saw them. You were never under his control, were you?"
"No." I said, my voice surprisingly emotionless. I expected it to betray my fear.
"I will rip them from you now, though." He said, launching himself at me as he fully shifted into his beast form, his claws aimed for my throat. But as he closed the distance between us I threw my darkness out at him, and it blocked him from coming any closer. Even as he tried to get to me, tried to attack me he was unable to break my shield.
I saw the King winnow out of the room, and I was unsure whether I should have been pleased that I wouldn't have to face him, or annoyed that I had let him escape once more. No matter, I still had Tamlin in front of me, and I clamped my darkness around him, forcing him to follow me out of the room and into the main hall.
"These wings were never yours to begin with." I said as I touched the delicate membrane, winnowing it back to Velaris, back to Rhys, where they deserved to be. I took him over to his study, where I burnt all of his possessions, all of his letters and notes, books and money left out, as Tamlin watched, trying to escape my power to save his work, but I held firm, determined to make him watch as I ruined his manor whilst he was unable to stop me.
When he realised he couldn't save his study he tried to run away, run from the room and flee the flames, but they were under my control, and wouldn't spread without my command. But I wanted them to spread, to burn the manor to the ground, so I pulled the High Lord out of the room taking him back into the main hall as the flames spread out behind me. I set fire to the library, sad to burn the books but necessary. I destroyed the dining room, and blasted the artwork off the walls lining the stairs. Every time I destroyed another room I checked for anyone lurking within them, using the shadows to tell me as Azriel did, but all of them were empty, so they all had to go, bringing tears to Tamlin's eyes as he watched.
I finally released him at the doors to the manor, only to knock him out on the steps. I couldn't kill him, as that would turn all the other High Lords from siding with the Night Court, but I vowed I was going to kill him before the war was over.
Certain that he wasn't going to wake anytime soon I went back into the burning manor and down into the servants quarters, needing to ensure that everyone got out safely, but there was no one in there.
No one alive.
Because all of the servants were dead, and lying in a sea of blood. Their blood. I knelt down, needing to process what I was seeing. All of them. Dead. The boy I'd seen with the laundry, lying with his throat ripped out. The cook, their head smashed in.
Alis. My friend that had helped me whenever possible, that had told me of Amarantha, who had aided me in destroying the court, was dead, her neck at an unnatural angle. I cried. I cried for the fae lying around me, dead because I'd used them to hurt Tamlin, to destroy Tamlin. No matter how much he deserved it, these fae didn't deserve to die because he needed to be punished. I cried and cried for my fallen friends, unaware of how much time passed. I let my flames run free and rip apart the manor, let them destroy the building around me.
I burnt through every painting and curtain, wall and floor, bedroom and -
Nesta.
In my pain I'd forgotten my sister. My mortal sister.
I tried to regain control of the flames, tried to hold their path, but I'd let them run free for too long, and lost my grip on them. I tried to summon air and water to put them out as I ran through the burning building, determined to reach my sister, but I couldn't stop the flames, couldn't do anything to stop the manor from falling down.
I reached the staircase just as it collapsed, so I winnowed to the top and began to run again, attempting to find any sign of life, trying to beat the flames to her room, trying to halt their path. Finally, I rushed into her room.
And found the Hybern guard that left the dining room standing over Nesta's corpse, a bloody knife in his hand. The guard welcomed his death as I threw myself at him, using fists to hurt him instead of flames and darkness. I felt raw, unending rage and pain course through me as I killed the male, as I threw him from the window and winnowed down to continue to hit him. I knew he had died long before I finished ruining his corpse, but I couldn't stop myself from ripping him apart.
Eventually I stopped, and sat down on the ground, crying and screaming.
"You deserved it. You deserve every piece of pain you receive you traitorous whore." A voice said behind me. Tamlin. I whirled to face him as he launched himself at me once more, but I did nothing to stop him as his claws shredded my wings. I didn't fight him, because he was right.
I'd killed my sister. I'd killed Alis and the servants. I knew not what had happened to the sentries, but I assumed they were dead too. And I added their names to my list of dead.
And I was ready to add my own, but Tamlin didn't give it to me. He stopped once my wings were beyond repair, once he ripped my claws out and beat me until I was a bloodied mess. He left me there, lying in the grass, and walked into the forest. I didn't know where he went, and I didn't care. I lay there as the sun made its way across the sky, feeling nothing, doing nothing, until the moon came out, darkness creeping over the world.
I looked to my blood covered tattoo and thought of my mate, my beautiful mate that awaited me in Velaris. If I died he would rip the world apart and destroy everything in pain and grief. He would die himself, and I couldn't do that. If I wouldn't live for myself then I would live for him.
I stood up slowly, my destroyed wings sagging behind me, and winnowed to Velaris, the blood of my friends and sister covering me, and felt nothing but grief as my mate came into view.

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