#Az: killed the man who conquered the steppes and his whole family at a dinner party yep

[flowerflamestars]

Effloresce snippet

“I do not understand.”   Kali- Kali who was the only Commander in the room who didn’t lean away from the weapon of that voice in true horror- Kali, who’d helped raise Cassian, who’d punched tattoos into his skin with her scarred, steady hands- Kali, the only woman in the room, and only person who could even think of coming near, ducked her head.   “Lady Archeron,” Kali said, warm accent a balm to twisting shame lodged into Cassian’s own throat, “We will fly wherever you wish, but we cannot enter the city and live.”   Pale- she’d ripped off her gloves again, Cassian was probably lucky the sleeves of her dress hadn’t followed- Nesta jabbed at the map again. “No one needs to enter the city. I certainly would prefer not to. But the children and their keepers go here.”   The plan was insane.   The plan was brilliant- Archeron vassals would come by sea, tides bribed true and swift by a blood sacrifice the Archeron ships had been tithing toward since they’d come into the sisters hands. Anyone else, and most especially, the children from the orphanage, would be borne by Illyrians, all the way to another on of Nesta Archeron’s secrets.   It was illegal for humans to cross the Wall.   To speak to faeries. To keep their company.   It was not illegal to conduct business in faerie countries, nor own property. Some enterprising Archeron ancestor had taken advantage of both that and the lowlands rendered empty by centuries of war. A clean shot: from the Steppes in the North to Velaris, shining on the coast.   “On Night Court soil,” Zaphael intoned, the eldest living of the bastard legion, “We are restrained by magic to inhabit only the Steppes.”   That imperious hand, again. “Where?”   Spread across a table Lucien had carried into the vast, echoing ballroom, was the most articulate map of the Night Court Cassian had ever seen. The mountains were not reduced to their usual muddle. Individual peaks marked in a jagged hand Cassian recognized as Azriel’s, old Illyrian names transliterated into human speech rather than use the Night Court appellations.   Zaphael touched each of the seven sisters, reverent, before resting his palm on the gate of the mountains- the rocky, torn apart valley where so many of their blood had died and died and died.   A scent, a sound, Nesta’s furious disbelief was so strong Cassian felt as through it echoed straight into his body, lighting along muscle and bone, demanding satisfaction.   “That is,” Nesta shook her head. “That is less than a fifth of the territory. Where are your farms? Where is the Stormhold?”   Where was the kingdom Illyria?   In dreams, spent. In stories, whispered.   Lost for so long even longing lapsed, so many Camp Lords and so many camps, the yoke of the High Fae authority taken on and traded for every last shred of Illyrian honor.