#koschei x reader

[sarawritestories]

You're On Your Own Kid, You Always Have Been

Cassian X Fem Reader

Summary: Starting off your relationship when you were young, you and Cassian lived for centuries, in a happy, loving, relationship, that is until Nesta Archeron swept the General off his feet and left you abandoned his friends you thought were yours, following the new mated couple. You were utterly alone with nothing but a shattered heart to show for it.

Dedicated to @thelov3lybookworm, who encouraged me to write this! Buckle up! You're in for a treat!

Content Warning: Disordered eating, the IC being absolutely terrible, abandonment, feelings of worthlessness, feeling alone and lost, no happy ending for mentioned pairing. Let me know if I missed any.

If you see mistakes... no you didn't.

ACOTAR MASTERLIST

🖤🖤🖤

You looked at your reflection for the first time in months. You barely recognized yourself anymore. Your cheeks and eyes were sunken, your ribs were protruding, and your skin held an ashy undertone that wasn't there before.

This is what abandonment looked like.

Longing stares never returned, his hand adjusting to evade your touch. A bed is left cold on one side. Friends who once joined you in joyous laughter barely acknowledge you at dinner. You had become a disease that no one knew how to handle but would be relieved if you disappeared.

It hadn't always been this way.

Warm calloused hands holding you close the scent of leather and sandalwood surrounding you. Cassian nibbling your ear, or stealing you away during meetings to steal a kiss, maybe two. Dinners at the rainbow, watching a storm roll through Velaris in the comfort of your balcony and his arms.

The early days of your relationship consisted of stolen kisses, discussions of hopes and dreams, that as centuries went by, morphed into talks of building a future a family. He was your person, and you were his, and life seemed bright.

Until you weren't.

Nesta Archeron was not a female to compete with. And how could you? She was elegant and sharp, and she was beautiful. She also challenged Cassian, fighting back with that quick, sharp tongue of hers, ways you never did. Then you felt it before he did, the shift, the snap. He had found his mate.

It wasn't you.

And the heartbreak of that fact would have been fine had Cassian consoled you in any way. When you needed his comfort and touch most. He was gone. He first stopped coming to bed, and when he did, he turned and faced away from you. The action alone made you feel like he was doing it as a chore, not because he found comfort in your warmth. Maybe he even thought he was being kind. It just deepened the wound festering in your soul.

Next was his things, books went missing, then his weapons. It was when you walked in on the Illyrian packing his things that he confronted you. "She needs me, sweetheart. I can not abandon my mate."

But I can abandon you.

A hand on your shoulder was the only comfort you received. His face held no remorse for the pain he was putting you through. You cried in your bathroom it wasn't until the next morning when you were in the same position the cool tile kissing your skin that you realized you had fallen asleep. You didn't leave your room for days, and no one came in to check on you. Not a single knock. Turns out you were only worth loving so long as Cassian did.

And he didn't. He had Nesta.

You had no one.

You were beginning to sink to a dark, inky place, the wound in your heart growing with infection, and your heartbreak was turning into rage. The feeling scared you. You ran to the one person you thought would be able to help you.

The High Lord of the Night Court.

You knocked lightly on his door. "Come in." His tone short. You walked in, not letting yourself think too hard about how busy he must be. He didn't even raise his head when he said, "I've been wondering when you would come visit." He leaned back in his chair, violet eyes, meeting yours. "Please sit."

You sat at the seat in front of him and took a deep breath. "So you know why I'm here?"

"Cassian and Nesta?" He quirked a brow, and you nodded he sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. As if you were a hindrance in his life. Kind, loving, Rhysand, even found your presence as an inconvenience. "What would you like me to say, Darling? They are mates they are allowed to be together."

You dug your nails into your palms, trying to reign in the rage. "So you're okay with him not even saying two words to me since they met?" Your voice began to rise in volume, "He tried packing his things in times I wouldn't be home so he could avoid talking to me." Your rose from your seat and Rhysand stilled as lights flickered around you that you failed to notice. "You all act like I'm not apart of this family anymore. I could dissappear tomorrow and no one would care if you even noticed at all."

"So leave." The lights snuffed out completely. You thought it was Rhysand's power never once, considering it might be your own that had laid dormant for centuries. Or that said power stirred something deep in the realm where a manor resides on a lake. You could only focus on Rhysand's words and the cold tone he said them.

He was no longer your friend. He was your High Lord. Nothing more.

"Well. I won't stay where I'm not wanted. I would have thought a relationship that had lasted centuries deserved him, at least telling me he wanted to try with Nesta." Tears were falling and you didn't stop them, "I wouldn't have fucking stopped him. I would have been happy for him. He didn't say a word. He took the cowards way out. You all did."

"I'm sorry, Darling." Rhysand didn't mean it. The smirk on his face said it all.

You turned and walked away, pausing at the door. "No. You're not. But one day you will be." And you stormed out. Not bothering to grab your belongings, you didn't need the reminder of the court of dreamers casting you aside as if you were their personal nightmare. Not interested in speaking with anyone. They weren't interested in stopping you from leaving.

You. Were. Done.

🖤🖤🖤

You walked for hours, your feet were sore, back drenched in sweat the most you had done in months, since Cassian didn't care if you had shown up for training or not. Needing rest, you found a tree to lean against. The sun began to set, and you were ready to give up. Let the beast of the forest consume you whole. If you died, then maybe the ache in your chest would cease and you could be free again. Whole again.

You again.

You sipped from your canteen when you heard humming. Your pointed ears perked as a hunched over woman approached you. You recognized her from Rhysand, projecting Nesta's memories into your head. For extra torture, he had "accidentally sent a memory of Cassian pleasuring Nesta," You had sobbed profusely that night. "Briallyn." You whispered.

The crone stopped in her tracks. She turned to you, your eyes locked on one another, and you couldn't help but relate to her. She wanted a better life for herself, only to be thrown in the cauldron and spat back out. Both of you former shells of what you used to be. "My my, you look positively dreadful."

You snorted, "So do you."

She laughed, "What brings you out here alone? That brute finally get sick of you?"

You sharply inhaled a breath at the question. "He did, actually. I am doomed to wander these lands courtless," If you even lasted the night.

Briallyn waved her hand in dismissal, her now aged hand grabbing your too frail hand. "Not all who wander are lost, dear. I was asked by a friend to retrieve you."

"Who is your friend?"

"Someone who has a special interest in you my dear." And the Human Queen turned Crone led you from the forest further from the town you once called home and the only thing on your mind?

It was nice to be holding someone's hand.

🖤🖤🖤

The throne room was dark and cold, as if death itself resided here. The only vibrant color here was the Phoenix that was in her cage, pulling to break free.

Vassa was here.

Briallyn squeezed your hand, and you felt comfort by the warmth of her touch. As you approached the male on the dais. He looked young, and you gasped as his beauty was beyond compare. The most beautiful male you have ever seen. And then he grinned, and your heart fluttered. The General of the Night Court long forgotten as you stared in the males cold eyes. Briallyn bowed, tugging your hand as you made to do so too.

"No, need to bow, Pet." You paused, straightening your posture once more. "Do you know who I am?"

You swallowed the sudden lump in your throat. "You go by many names. Old god, death lord, most call you Koschei." Your voice held a tremor as you were in the presence of a powerful being. A being whose brother once went toe to toe with the Lord of Bloodshed and almost killed him.

Koschei nodded, "Come closer, let me take a look at you." You looked to the former Human Queen in panic, afraid to lose her touch. "I promise I don't bite." You approached the dais and couldn't help the trembling convulsing through your body. The death of the Lord's dark eyes roamed your body. He rubbed his angular jaw, and your eyes met his lips as he tucked the lower one behind his teeth.

Beautiful, he was absolutely breathtaking.

His voice broke you from the trance like state. "My dear, someone has hurt you? What did they do to you?" He leaned forward, grabbing your hand and placing a light kiss on your knuckles. Tears brimmed your eyes. When was the last time someone harbored any affection toward you. "Tell me, sweet girl." Another kiss and your composure broke. You fell to your knees, and a matter of hours went into painstaking detail of how the Night Court had abandoned you. When you finished, there was a lightness in your chest.

Maybe there was hope.

"Oh, you poor thing." Koschei cooed, tilting your chin to meet his cold eyes, "If I had you, I wouldn't let you go so easily." He wiped the stray tears from your face. "Be mine, and never feel that pain again."

You lip wobbled as the cries of the Phoenix caged beside the old god broke your attention, the shrieks louder than before. Koschei gripped your chin and had you facing him once more, his face inching forward. His lips pressed yours, gentle and promised warmth, love, power. You felt as though he was breathing life back into you, and you relished in his lips touching yours. He pulled away, "What do you say, Little One?" A voice in the back of your mind screamed:

Right

Right

Right

You smiled for the first time in well over a year,"I want to be yours, Koschei." Magic thrummed around you as his smile turned sinister, gold chains clamping to your wrist, a collar latched around your neck. Scantily clad in a black sheer tip, only covering your breast and a skirt that barely covered your ass.

Koschei smirked as he gripped your waist and placed you on his lap. "What a formidable pair we shall be, my pet." Making a onyx crown and a matching ring appear, he gently placed the crown atop of your head, sliding the ring on your finger. You admired the ring, a small smile on your face, and something pulled at your chest at the thought:

He was claiming you. And you loved it.

Looking at the beautiful face of death and pressing your lips to his, ignoring the rattling of the former human queen beside you. You adjusted yourself, so you were straddling his lap. You opened your mouth for him, and he accepted. His hand gripped your ass as your kisses became tongues and teeth clashing. You forgot what this felt like. To be held to be kissed with such passion.

To simply be wanted.

"My Queen of Darkness." He murmured, threading his fingers through your hair, "You don't even know how powerful you are." He yanked your hair, and you moaned. "I'll show you." He bit down on the tender flesh connecting your collar bone to your neck, and you moan as his hand gripped your breast. "You magnificent creature." You smiled at the sky.

This is what being worshipped felt like.

Snap

Koschei paused, removing his hand from your pert nipple he slide his hand to the back of your neck. Love and adoration in his eyes, lips swollen, "Tell me, as you are to me my bride. What gift shall I get you for our ceremony?"

What did you want?

You smiled Koschei, noticing the mischievous glint in your eye. "The General of the Night Court's Armies and his Little Lady of Death here chained like the dogs they are."

Koschei brought your face down to his. His mouth lingering over yours, "Anything for my Cruel, Beautiful, Mate." The gold thread wrapped around your heart tying you to him as he crashed your lips onto him.

Not even caring that Vassa had broken free from her cage and soared to the Human Realms.

To be continued?

[tadpolesonalgae]

Blurbs

Below, you will find:

Revelling + Amren Swimming + Koschei Overstimulation + Azriel* Bad Memories + Feyre

Revelling w/ Amren

I’m not sorry by DEAN

Her blood red lips split in a feline grin, “are you sure about that, lamb?”

A shiver of excitement thrills down your spine at the name—her preferred blood type. “I wouldn’t have said it were I not entirely sure, Amren.” You know your eyes are sparkling with playful challenge, but she makes no move to haul you from the ballroom. Instead, she leans back against the wall, watching you with those sharp silver eyes of hers.

“I think the wine is making you dumb,” she croons, making you frown. “I’m perfectly aware. Besides, you’ve had more than me,” you counter, flicking your eyes pointedly to the glass in her elegantly pointed hand, the red liquid reminding you of the blood she so used to adore.

Her smile is coy, and she raised the glass to her lips, taking a slow sip while you watch intently. “I don’t think I should need to remind you, but I am much older than you. I know how to handle my alcohol.” She gives you a look that says unlike you.

Your features twist into a frown and you make to push off the wall, “fine.”

Silver eyes flick to you over the rim of her wine. Your own lips fashion into a playful smile, “I’ll find me fun elsewhere, then.”

Swimming in Koschei’s lake

Leni by GoodBooks

Talons made of death wrap around your torso, and you freeze. He’s caught you.

Limbs tremble, muscles spasming as your very world is ripped out from beneath your feet.

“What are you?”

The voice is unlike anything you’ve ever heard: a deep, animalistic rasp, sounding like rock against rock and you can picture how sparks would fly.

“You’re not one of the fae. What’s a creature like you doing in my lake?”

Your breathing catches, words a distant thought as your vision blurs. “I’m sorry,” you raps, whimpering. “I’ll never come here again. Please just— let me go.”

He hums, and it sounds like he’s smiling. The claws tighten, dragging you deeper into the lake, your gills flapping as you fight to keep your breathing regular, even as you squirm in his grip. “Please. I had no idea this was your lake. I was trying to escape the hunters. Please, I’m sorry.”

He’s quiet for a little and you brace for the crushing impact of his grip but it never comes. Instead, “show me.”

You stiffen in his grip, warily opening your large, dark eyes—eyes made for darkness, yet that are unable to breech his. “Show you?” You ask softly, trying not to stammer or stumble.

A noise like leather stretching sounds, and you have the every feeling he’s smiling. “Show me your hunters.”

Overstimulation w/ Azriel

Damaged by Blood On The Dance Floor

Pleasure rolls across your skin, waves of heated sunlight cresting over you again and again.

Your toes curl as he doesn’t let up, head tipping back into the pillows as his cock touches that spot deep inside of you. His shadows build over your clit and your vision turns blinding white, colour fading as the darkness flicks and nips at the sensitive bud.

Words are stolen from your lips, dragged into his own mouth as he swallows your sounds greedily. In the back of your mind, you’re aware of his quiet whispers, saying you’re being so good, that you just need to give him a few more, that if you can manage to get up onto your hands and knees maybe he’ll go a little easier.

Of course they’re all sweet lies. He’ll be working on you until the sun is rising over the city, spilling into your room like how he’s spilled deep inside your heat again and again. So much that it’s dripping down your thighs, staining the sheets as he pumps you full.

But sunrise is still hours away, and you haven’t even reached double digits yet. He’s going to work you to your breaking point, and only then will he allow you a moment to rest. A few minutes if you’re really lucky.

Aching arousal warms your belly at the thought—knowing you’re free to yield to him entirely, and he’ll take care of you.

Memories of the Hewn City w/ Feyre

Rise by Skillet

Flame singes the hairs of your arms, and you bolt upright, breath curling in the cold Night air.

Vision goes blurry as the memories crush down on you.

The door flies open, and instantly she’s at your side, comforting you, holding you tight, hugging you against her. “Hey, it’s okay sweetness. You’re not there anymore. You’re with me.” She cups your cheeks, “look at me. Look at me, sweet thing.”

Your lower lip wobbles but you manage to look at her through teary eyes, skin still stinging with the phantom pain of a leather whip.

She smiles gently, stroking your skin with such aching reverence. “You’re out. You got out, remember. You’re with our court now,” she smiles, pressing a kiss to your forehead. “My Court.”

You cry more, but for a different set of reasons. Sobs wrack your body, ravaging your lungs as you remember the burning flame, the crack of a whip, the stink of blood and the acrid tang of urine in air. “It was so real…” you stammer quietly, sobbing into her arms as the nightmare lingers, skin aching with memories.

She can do nothing but hold you, keeping you wrapped in her warmth. You’ve made it clear you don’t want her to remove those memories, but it’s so difficult to watch you wake like this night after night.

Still, she won’t go against your wishes.

She’ll keep you close, and hold you until the sun comes up.

General Taglist: @myheartfollower @tcris2020 @mali22 @amygdtjhddzvb @sfhsgrad-blog @needylilgal022 @hannzoaks

Az Taglist: @azrielshadows1nger @jurdanpotter @positivewitch @nightcourt-daydreaming

[wincheskka]

Now I'm running with my dress unbuttoned Screaming "But Daddy (Doctor) I love him!" I'm having his baby No, I'm not, but you should see your faces I'm telling him to floor it through the fences No, I'm not coming to my senses I know he's crazy but he's the one I want

But Daddy I Love Him - Taylor Swift

[munsons-hellfire]

Discovery of Memories 1 | Helion

SUMMARY: You had no memories when you crash landed into the Night Court. The discovery of you would cause a lot of tension, but only one was after you. One you didn't remember.

PAIRINGS: Helion x Reader

CONTENT WARNING: SFW, angst, some fluff, lost memories, mentions of trauma (will be discussed more in later parts).

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Here is the first part in my multi-part series. I'm very excited for this and can not wait to get further into this series. This will probably be a slow burn between Helion and Reader. This will also get more mature as I progress through the parts.

WORD COUNT: 1.9K

You didn’t know who you were. You didn’t have a name, well, you didn’t remember it. A cough escaped your mouth as you picked yourself up. You looked around to see that you had landed in some kind of bakery. Eyes stared at you and it was making you uncomfortable. You swiped your hands down your clothes, the dust leaving the clothes as you did so. There were soft murmurs around the small building.

The doorbell rang, indicating that someone had entered the building. Panic was running through your body, your pulse had quickened. Where am I? You thought to yourself as you continued to look around until eventually your eyes landed on two sets of hazel eyes. They stepped closer, you noticed the Illyrian leathers that they wore. Someone had mentioned them to you, made you learn all their weaknesses.

You couldn’t remember their name either. The two males were in front of you, their eyes trained on you. One male had shoulder length hair, some of it was pulled back into a small bun at the top of his head while the rest laid on his shoulders. The other male had short hair, his wings were squeezed in tightly behind his shoulders just like the other male. He had shadows surrounding his body.

From where you stood it looked like they were whispering to him. One broke free and glided over to you, hoovering in front of your face. Then it moved back towards the male like it was reporting back to him. Probably telling him that you were a threat. Though you weren’t sure. Finally you took notice of 7 red and blue siphons that resided on both males. You were curious as to why they had so many siphons on their body.

“Who are you?” One asked gently, stepping towards you again.

You tilted your head slightly, a confused look resting on your face. You didn’t know how to answer that question. You didn’t know who you were, you couldn’t remember your name, where you were born, who your family was, where you came from. None of it was there. All memories had disappeared from your mind.

“I-I don’t know.” Your voice was soft and timid as you answered his question. You watched as the two males exchanged a look with each other.

“Can you come with us?” The other asked. You were hesitant to say the least, both males could see that. “We won’t hurt you, we just want to take you to our High Lord and Lady.” You gave a small nod of your head, for some reason you knew you could trust them. Wherever you’d come from before you couldn’t trust anyone. But the males in front of you seemed trustworthy.

They escorted you out of the barkery, promising to help rebuild the roof that you’d crashed into. You felt embarrassed that you’d crashed into the roof, and just before leaving you apologized to the owner for doing so.

“I’m Azriel, and that’s Cassian.” Azriel said softly, holding his hand out to you. You gave a nod of your head and accepted his hand.

“I wish I could tell you what my name is but I’m afraid I don’t remember it.” Cassian and Azriel gave you an odd look.

“Do you remember anything?” Cassian proceeded to ask.

“Just the memories from moment’s ago when I crashed into the barkery. I don’t remember anything before that.”

Azriel lifted you up into your arms causing you to release a squeak of surprise. Both males smirked at the noise. Then before you had a chance to ask what Azriel was doing his wings opened up and he shot into the sky, Cassian following right behind him. You held your head close to his chest, eyes closed tightly. You feared that at any moment you’d fall out of the sky. Though you supposed you had done exactly that.

“It’s okay.” Azriel whispered in your ear. You just shook your head, choosing to still keep your eyes closed. “We’re landing now.” You only opened your eyes when Azriel finally put you down on the ground.

When you pulled away from Azriel there was something attached to you. You noticed that you had a few of his shadows surrounding your body. A confused expression crossed your face.

“That’s not something you see every day, is it brother?” Cassian asked, eyes on Azriel.

“No, it’s not. How are you doing that?” Azriel proceeded to ask, his gaze on you.

You shrugged your shoulders. “I don’t know. Maybe I have the same powers as you.”

No. A voice whispered in your ear. We are not his, we are yours. Manipulation. You didn’t understand what was happening. Sure you didn’t remember anything before falling into the bakery, but this wasn’t something you could do.

“What are they whispering?”

“They're saying they’re mine, that it’s manipulation. But what does that even mean?”

“We’ll have to figure that out. We’ll talk to Rhys and Feyre about it.” You sent Azriel a nod. You didn’t understand what any of this meant but maybe they’d help you figure out what you were missing. You looked around a sparkle in your eyes as you stared at everything down below.

“Welcome to the House of Wind.” Cassian said loudly, causing you to pull your eyes over to him. “Everyone is inside. We do have a guest with us so please don’t mind the male.”

As you followed Azriel and Cassian into the home they explained that the High Lord of the Day court had stopped by to have a meeting with both Rhysand and Feyre who you learned were the High Lord and Lady they had mentioned before you left. As you walked into the room you were greeted with multiple sets of eyes. You scanned the room, there were two young children in the room, both had sets of wings on their bodies.

“That’s the one I’ve seen.” A voice said. You looked at where the voice came from to spot a female who looked very similar to two other females in the room. She was standing next to another male, her hand entangled with his. He had long red hair that complemented his golden-brown skin. He looked somewhat similar to another male that stood in the room.

That male was wearing a golden crown on top of his onyx hair, his skin was dark brown, and you had to admit that he looked very handsome. There was something about him that tugged you towards him. Two fae walked up to you, your eyes rested on their hands seeing what looked like wedding bands. You assumed that they were married.

“You assumed correctly.” The male said, shock ran through your eyes as you stared at him.

“This is my husband, Rhysand. I’m Feyre.” The female spoke, holding her hand out to you. You were afraid to shake her hand considering that you had touched Azriel and suddenly had his shadows. There were still swarming around your body. You wondered what you could do to get rid of them.

Safe. Can be trusted. Don’t touch.

Feyre looked at you with a concerned look on her face. “Sorry. It’s just that when I touched Azriel. His shadows became mine. I don’t know how that’s possible though.”

“We’ll figure it out.” Rhysand said calmly. “What’s your name?” He proceeded to question.

“I don’t know. I can’t remember.” Your voice was broken when you said those words out loud to all of them. It was more broken then when you had said it to Cassian and Azriel. You watched Feyre and Rhysand exchange silent looks with each other. Almost like they’d been having another conversation with each other.

“Do you mind if I take a look inside your mind?” Rhysand asked. You tilted your head.

“How? Why?” You asked, taking a step back from him. Cassian and Azriel were still near you but not close enough.

“To see if I can salvage any of your memories perhaps.”

“It won’t hurt?” You were afraid to learn what memories had been missing.

“It depends on what memory I can find and how good or bad it was.”

You looked back at Azriel and Cassian, already feeling attached to the two males. They’d been there after you had crashed landed through a roof, you trusted them. You knew when they both nodded their heads that you could trust everyone else in this room.

“Okay.” With your permission Rhysand entered your mind searching for something until he finally did find it.

“Mama, papa please, please don’t do this.” You cried out, tears stained your cheeks as you tried to pull away from your father’s strong grip. They didn’t want you anymore and it hurt. You were far too dangerous for a child so they had no choice but to give you up.

“Koschei is going to take better care of you then we ever could, my darling.” Your father spoke, sadness running through his voice.

“It’s for your own good, Y/N.” Your mother’s voice was cold. You knew why. She’d hated you ever since you were born. You scared her with the type of power you had. No one in the village was safe. Having the ability to absorb and use one’s power was not only dangerous to the other fae but dangerous to you as well. It could kill you if in the wrong hands. Yet they were sending you to a Death-god.

“I don’t want to be with Koschei. Please, he’s going to hurt me. I don’t like him.” Your sobs grew louder the closer you got to the border of your village in the Spring Court.

You knew Koschei himself wasn’t picking you up as he couldn’t leave his home. But you still feared what would happen when you were on that lake with him.

“It’s not in our hands anymore.”

Rhys pulled out of the memory, you collapsed to the ground. Tears rolling down your face. Cassian and Azriel tried to move towards you however another male made it over to you before you had a chance.

“My name is Y/N, and my parents gave me up to Koschei.” You whispered, a sob leaving your lips. You looked up to see a mixed reaction of confusion and distant faces. “Do you know who Koschei is?” You proceeded to ask.

“He’s a Death-god. He’s been trying to leave his lake for a very long time. And with you by his side he probably could.” Rhysand explained.

“Then how did I end up here?”

“That’s something we need to figure out.” Feyre said, blue-green eyes on you.

“Would you be willing to do more sessions like that where I or Feyre see if we can pull more memories out?”

“Please.” It was a broken cry but you needed to know who you were and what you could truly do.

“We’ll figure this out. In the meantime no one is to touch you. Y/N has the ability to absorb other powers. Which could be catastrophic if it’s not controlled or trained properly. Hence the shadows.”

You understood what that meant, that no one with powers could come near you. At least for now, you looked at the male that stood in front of you. He hadn’t touched you yet but you felt at ease with him so close. You wanted to know why that was the case, and you were determined to figure that out just like you were determined to get your memories back.

[autumnshighlady]

I've Always Liked to Play With Fire (part 28)

NESTA ARCHERON X ERIS VANSERRA X FEMALE!READER

summary: the wedding takes an interesting turn

warnings: rhys and mor getting dragged to shreds, major cassian slander, angst, pregnancy mentions

word count: 7.7k

DO NOT REPOST ANYWHERE

a/n: all i have to say is good luck with this chapter guys lmao

part 1 // part 2 / part 3 / part 4 / part 5 / part 6 / part 7 / part 8 / part 9 / part 10 / part 11 / part 12 / part 13 / part 14 / part 15 / part 16 / part 17 / part 18 / part 19 / part 20 / part 21 / part 22 / part 23 / part 24 / part 25 / part 26 /

read on ao3

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Your stomach dropped as you saw the fury on Rhys, Amren, and Cassian’s faces. They must have come in sooner than expected, catching the tail end of the wedding ceremony.

Which is exactly what you didn’t want.

Luckily, Eris and Nesta had not noticed yet. The Night Court did not take their seats by the other High Lords, instead choosing to stand in the back of the room. So you turned back to your husband and wife, relishing in their smiles as the cheers began to die down. A simple raise of a hand from Gwyn was all it took for the crowd to seat themselves again and go quiet.

“There is one more ceremony to perform,” Gwyn said, her bright eyes shining with glee. “Lady Nesta, Lady (Y/N), please step forth.”

Eris took a step back, pride gleaming on his sharp face as you and Nesta took a step towards the crowd. The orchestra began to play again. Two guards stepped forward, and with delight you recognized Saeros and Ivar. They bowed their heads and bent a knee, each presenting a pillow with a beautiful circlet atop the purple fabric. It was golden with a white jewel in the centre, branches with jewelled green leaves, red and brown flowers, and white jewels scattered throughout. Queenly crowns of pure autumn, handmade for you and Nesta by Eris’s finest craftsmen. Excitement rippled through you at the sight of such delicate items of power. 

“Do you, (Y/N) Vanserra, swear to protect the citizens of the court? To uphold justice and protect the peace? To care for the sick and healthy, the old and the young, the weak and the strong alike?”

“I do.” Your words rang with a conviction that surprised you. 

Gwyn turned towards Nesta. “And do you, Nesta Vanserra, swear to protect the citizens of the court? To uphold justice and protect the peace? To care for the sick and healthy, the old and the young, the weak and the strong alike?”

“I do.” Nesta replied.

Saeros stepped toward her, and Ivar to you. You bowed your head as the guard placed the circlet on your head with grace. At first, when planning the ceremony you thought it would be Eris who crowned you, as Rhys had with Feyre apparently. “I could easily do that, but it would be better for two of the people to crown you both,” he had explained. “Rhys granting his lovely Feyre the title in private was a poor choice, as it makes it seem like she is only the High Lady because he made it so. By having Saeros and Ivar crown you, and a priestess do the ceremony, the people will be more trusting when they see someone more like them granting you your power. Not me.”

When you raised your head, beams of sunlight reflected off the jewels of the crown. It cast across the crowd with a blinding shimmer. Ivar rose to his feet, unhooking the sword from his armour and presenting it to you. The blade was long and silver, a gleaming ruby in the handle amidst the intricate metalwork. It had a glow to it, as if singing its own type of power.

As practised, you took the sword and rested the tip on the floor, holding the handle in front of you with your hands clasped firmly around it. Nesta did the same. 

“With the blessing of the Mother,” Gwyn continued. “I, Gwyneth Berdara, now proclaim Nesta Vanserra and (Y/N) Vanserra, High Ladies of the Autumn Court. Long may they reign.”

The crowd echoed back. “Long may they reign.”

As the music began again and the cheers continued, you reached out and grabbed Nesta’s hand. She turned towards you, and your breath hitched at the sight of your wife in the crown. With a smirk, she nodded, and in a uniform motion the two of you hoisted your swords in the air proudly, right as Zorzimril and Athariel let out mighty roars. 

The cheers increased tenfold, and your chest swelled with pride. These were your people now, the people who would come to you with their problems for help. The people you would protect, whose lives you would change and bring them out from the lingering shadows of Beron. 

Eventually, Eris stepped forth once again and you and Nesta returned the swords to their positions as the various members of the other courts made their way to line up in the aisle to bend the knee. One by one, they knelt and gave the standard speech, swearing respect and acknowledging the official new High Lord and High Ladies. You couldn’t help but smile as Tamlin came forth, his blonde hair much better kept than last time you had seen him. He offered you a proud smile, bowing deeply to you, Nesta, and Eris.

Finally, the dreaded moment arrived. Rhys stepped forward, clad in a simple black tunic. His violet eyes were simmering with fury at the three of you. Amren stood beside him, disgust written plainly across her sneering face. You felt Nesta go utterly still as Cassian approached behind Rhys and Amren, his expression a mix of devastation and anger. His wings were tense, and Azriel was beside him, perhaps ready to spring into action and hold the general back. You saw Nesta’s eyes flick to Elain, who practically hid behind Azriel. She donned a black dress that seemed to suck the life from her. Her doe eyes were wide, avoiding Lucien who was sitting a few feet away from her. She also avoided eye contact with Nesta, choosing to stare at the floor in front of her instead.

For a moment, Rhys stared down the three of you and you wondered if he would even bend the knee. After a few heartbeats of tense silence, the High Lord of the Night Court took a knee with the others following suit. “I, Rhysand, High Lord of the Night Court,” He said through gritted teeth as if the words were being dragged out of him like blood from a knife. “Acknowledge Eris Vanserra as High Lord of the Autumn Court.”

Another heartbeat went by, and the words all the other High Lords had said did not come. A few of the guards shifted, and Eris spoke up icily. “Go on.”

With a sigh, Rhys’s jaw tensed but he continued nonetheless. “I acknowledge Nesta Vanserra, and (Y/N) Vanserra, as High Ladies of the Autumn Court. May their reign be long and prosperous. My court stands behind you and wishes you many blessings.”

You didn’t bother hiding the smugness on your face as he rose, turning his violet eyes towards you. You did not flinch as they tried to stare you down menacingly. This was your court. Your home. And you would not be afraid.

Finally, Rhys turned on his heel to leave, Amren and Elain scurrying after him. But Cassian remained frozen, his eyes locked on Nesta. She remained expressionless, a cool mask of boredom on her face as he looked at her pathetically. 

“Nesta…” The general whispered, taking a step forward. Instantly, the guards at the bottom of the dias stepped forward into a line, their hands going to the swords on their hips. The dragons also growled menacingly, creeping further forward into the throne room.

“Cassian.” Azriel put a hand on the general’s shoulder, his voice low and firm. The room was utterly quiet, the only noises being the growling of the dragons. After a moment, Cassian finally let himself get led out by Azriel, but not without one last longing look at Nesta. You let out a sigh of relief, but Nesta’s jaw was clenched with anger. You could feel her frustration seeping through the bond. It was Nesta’s coronation, and Cassian managed to make their interaction all about him. 

When the Night Court finally left, the room seemed to relax. “All hail the High Lord and Ladies!” Came Lucien’s cry, and the crowd went back to happy cheering. You shot him a grateful glance, hoping that was the last you’d see of the Inner Circle. As the nature of the music grew more lively, Eris took you and Nesta by the arm and the three of you headed to the banquet tables.

 *********************

Hours had passed and the celebration showed no signs of slowing down. Your stomach was full of the most delicious food you had tasted, rich wine flowing through your system and making you feel lighter. You sat with Eris and Nesta as dinner was served, taking the time to converse with your new husband and wife before after the meal where attendees were free to come up and pay their respects. At the table next to you, Lirilla, Lucien, and Helion’s party sat chatting amongst themselves. It warmed your heart to see Lirilla speaking so freely to the man she loved after all this time.

Almost immediately upon taking your seat at the elaborately decorated royal table, a familiar pair of wings peeked through the crowd and bounded over towards you. Nesta had nearly wept as Emerie bounded across the room and into her outstretched arms. She wore a midnight blue sparkling dress with no sleeves, and that white Valkyrie ribbon braided into her hair.

“Hey, High Ladies!” The Illyrian female had cheered as she hugged each of you.

“You came!” Nesta had exclaimed, blinking away happy tears.

Emerie snorted in response. “Of course I did. How could I possibly miss the wedding and coronation of two of my best friends? Besides, the look on your face when you realised Gwyn was the priestess was worth it in and of itself.”

You had baulked. “You knew?”

A mischievous glint shone in her brown eyes. Not even the bright flickering lights from the candles could outshine it as Emerie smirked. “Of course I knew. Eris swore Gwyn and I to secrecy. Who do you think helped her practise the big speech? She’s gone back to her room for the evening, but she told me to tell you we’ll celebrate tomorrow with just the four of us.”

As much as you wanted Gwyn to participate in the celebrations, you understood it was too much. She had already stepped up more than enough by hosting the ceremonies for you and Nesta in a court that had been known to treat females badly. It was a gift you could never repay. Ever the kind and doting female, Lirilla had escorted Emerie back to her shared room with Gwyn after several glasses of strong wine over an hour ago.

Despite the music and loud chatter at your table, a heavy set of footsteps caused you to turn your head, meeting the green eyes of Tamlin. He was dressed in his green robes, an elegant gold sash across his broad chest. He dipped his head respectfully as he approached, nodded to the three of you.

“Well, if you told me when you returned to my court temporarily that this would be the outcome of it all, I’m not sure I would have believed you.” Tamlin said to you with a playful whisper of a smile on his lips, large hands clasped behind his back.

“Well, I’m full of surprises.” You joked.

“That you are.” Tamlin agreed before turning to Nesta and Eris. “You’ve got yourselves an extraordinary female here. Do not take her for granted.”

Eris simply smirked, taking another swig of his red wine. “Fear not, she will be well taken care of and respected.”

Tamlin’s eyes then landed on Nesta, his shoulders tensing for a moment, perhaps anticipating a scathing comment about how he failed to respect Feyre. But Nesta simply nodded, “Thank you, Tamlin.” She said, without an ounce of contempt.

The High Lord discreetly breathed a sigh of relief before turning back towards you. “May I have a dance?”

“Of course.” You replied, pushing back your chair and standing up. Lucien, ever the gentleman, came up to Nesta and offered her his hand as well, which she accepted. With your dance partners in tow, you and Nesta were led to the large dance floor where the crowd parted ways for you. You smiled at those who offered you their blessings as you passed them, the warm reception much welcome.

As the tune changed into a waltz, you swayed side to side with Tamlin, his large hands respectfully holding you close. You glanced over at Nesta and Lucien, who were dancing as well – granted, much better than you and Tamlin. You chuckled, impressed at Lucien’s ability to keep up with Nesta. In the distance, Eris also looked rather amused, shooting you a wink that made you roll your eyes.

“So,” Tamlin said, his voice snapping you back to the present. “Are you happy?”

“Yes,” you replied without hesitation. “I am.”

He nodded, spinning you around once before bringing you back into the formal waltz position. “Good. I know this is your home now, but you are always welcome in Spring. Please do not forget that.”

Your heart ached at the thought of going back. “I’d love to visit, but I have nobody left there.” You admitted. “I do not think I can ever go back long term. Besides, I am High Lady now. I have duties to attend to.”

Tamlin chuckled. “Of course. If anyone can keep Eris and line and change this court around, I can think of nobody better than you. And Nesta, of course. But the moment you revealed your plan to me, I knew you could do anything you put your mind to.” He pulled away for a moment, his green eyes looking down at you seriously. “You will be a wonderful High Lady. You deserve it.”

You took a deep breath, emotion overcoming you. Tamlin was High Lord when you were born, protecting you and looking out for you when your father became ill temporarily. As a child, you had grown to view him more as an older brother than someone you bowed to. “That means a lot,” You whispered. “Thank you.”

Before he could reply, loud shouts came from the entrance, followed by several screams. In a flash, Eris was on the dance floor next to you and Nesta, and the guards drew their swords. Tamlin’s talons unsheathed themselves as he stood in front of you, while Lucien’s hand drifted towards the blade on his hip. The orchestra stopped playing, and the crowd scurried frantically to part ways, revealing two males – one with wings, and one with angry violet eyes. In the distance, two guards lay dead, blood oozing out of their chests.

Blood that dripped from Cassian’s sword.

Instantly, you reached out and grabbed Nesta’s arm. She had gone cold as ice, her body frozen as she stared with wide eyes at the Illyrian general. This was not the friendly, joking Cassian that the Valkyries had trained with. No, his face was twisted with fury, eyes so dark they were almost black as he snarled at anyone who looked at him. This was the Lord of Bloodshed, in all his glory. Behind him stood his master, the male who held his leash. Rhys had his hands casually in his pockets, as if Cassian hadn’t just killed two of your guards.

Eris stepped forward, his tone nonchalant but laced with undoubted threat. “Rhysand, I thought you and your pack of dogs had gone home to your pregnant lady-wife by now.” 

“Enough is enough, Eris.” Rhys growled in response, the dark mist that had once lashed through your skin slowly ebbing from his palms, making the crowd back away even further. You tensed at the memory, stomach churning in fear. “Too long have you played your games. You are High Lord now, and have finally found a female who is willing to shackle herself to you.”

“Two, actually.” Eris quipped. “Your observation skills are quite poor.”

“You can keep (Y/N), if you truly wish. We are here for Nesta, not her.”

You sucked in a breath, grabbing Nesta’s arm even tighter. Although it seemed she barely felt your ironclad grip. She just stared at Cassian, frozen with a look of horror on her face. The tension in the air was so thick it could be cut with a knife. That horror increased as more footsteps sounded from the entrance. Amren, Elain, Mor, and Feyre approached, coming to stand behind Rhys. Feyre was clinging onto Mor and Elain for support, her pregnant belly weighing her down. Her face was pale and thin, and she looked so miserable you almost felt bad. Tamlin growled lowly at the sight of Feyre, who shrunk back a little at the sight of him. Elain made eye contact with Lucien for the first time that evening, her eyes widening at his close proximity to Nesta.

“Nesta is the High Lady of this court,” Eris said calmly but menacingly at the new arrivals. “She belongs here now. Not with you. You have no claim to her.”

“You’re wrong.” Cassian finally spoke up, his voice grated like stones being dragged across each other. “Nesta is my mate. I invoke the right to a blood duel. Come and face me, Eris. Prove you are not a coward for once in your goddamn life.”

Surprised gasps rippled throughout the crowd. The guests were safely behind the guards, but with the Night Court so close to the entrance they had nowhere to go. You were pretty sure you were going to be sick all over Tamlin’s expensive breeches. This could not be happening. After everything, you thought this day would bring a new beginning, one free from the shackles of the Night Court.

“I am not an object to be claimed at your will.” Nesta said sternly, eyes glowing silver ever so slightly.

Feyre took a wobbly step forward. “Please, Nesta.” She begged. “Come back with us. We can work things out. You belong with us, with Cassian. There’s no need for a blood duel. Just come.”

“Please, Nesta.” Elain added, although her voice seemed strained as if she were trying to remember a script. You glanced at Lucien, who was looking at his mate with surprise. But there was no affection behind his gaze, no longing or desire for once.

“This is ridiculous,” Eris scoffed. “You are embarrassing yourself. By killing my guards and demanding a blood duel, you are declaring war on my court. But I am a generous male. Leave, now. And do not return and I will forget this happened. You have my word.” Morgoth’s deep growl sounded, followed by Athariel and Zorzimril’s. The three dragons creepy back through their spot in the open wall, their large talons scraping against the floor menacingly.

“You are bound by law to participate,” Cassian growled, ignoring the beasts. “I am Nesta’s mate–”

Eris interrupted him, raising an eyebrow. “Are you though?”

The room went still, even Cassian’s sneering came to a pause. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” He asked quietly.

Beside you, Nesta’s heart was racing. She grabbed your hand and squeezed it, snapped out of her trance. You could feel her confusion through the bond, adding to your own. But Eris continued. “Well, I found it a bit of a coincidence that the High Lord’s adopted brother was conveniently mated to the High Lady’s sister. How nice would that be? To have the brute was a way of keeping Nesta in line and by your side. It all seemed a little too convenient for me, so I consulted with Helion about certain spells that give similar effects to a mating bond.”

Ever so slightly, Rhysand’s smugness faltered as the High Lord of the Day Court stepped forward. His white robes shone in the candlelight as he spoke. “Eris is right,” Helion said, giving a glare at the party from the Night Court. “There are certain spells designed to mimic a mating bond. But there is always a flaw, for no spell can truly replicate such a bond.” He snapped his fingers, summoning a ball of white light. With a sweep of his arm, the light spread throughout the room and for a moment, you were blinded. But when your vision returned, you gasped.

Coming from your chest was a string of golden light. It sparkled, floating like a feather in the wind. It was connected to Nesta’s chest, and Eris’s. You gasped at the unmistakable warmth of the mating bond, now manifested in physical form before you. As you looked around, several others had gold light attaching them to another person, including Feyre and Rhys as well as Elain and Lucien.

But your gaze quickly turned to Nesta, who was staring down in awe. Instead of having two strands connected to her chest, there was a third leading to Cassian. But it was dimmer, the glow not as bright. 

“As you can see, the mating bond manifests strongly,” Helion said, walking up to the line that went from Nesta’s chest to Cassian’s. “Except here. This bond is weak, frail, held together by very little. It has almost no life to it, almost as if it is not meant to be there. Which it isn’t. This is a fake bond, cast in a spell that can only be found in one book.” Helion then turned to face the Night Court, his angry gaze landing on Rhys as he spoke to him. “I offered you unlimited access to my library to search for ways to save Feyre and the babe. And you took advantage of that to find a spell that would convince Nesta and Cassian that they were mates so you had an excuse to drag her back to your court. That is a violation of something sacred we all hold dear, and I am ashamed to have ever called you a friend.”

Mor scoffed, rolling her eyes. “That’s bullshit.”

“Really?” Helion turned to Nesta. “My lady, have you ever felt what Cassian was feeling? Been going about your day and suddenly felt a rush of his emotions as if they were your own? Have you ever felt like you were being pulled to him with the force of a current?”

Nesta shook her head, the silver fire now gone from her eyes and replaced with disgust. “No.” She said simply. “I’ve felt… tugged to him. But not like with Eris or (Y/N).” 

“That is because the bond is fake. It cannot properly simulate the feelings that a mating bond invokes. It is a spell cast by Rhys meant to control you.”

Even Eris was silent, but you could tell by the look on his face that he knew Helion was right, and had suspected it all along. You felt his rage inside of you, blazing like a thousand wildfires at this violation Rhys had committed. 

“Rhys,” Feyre said quietly in horror. “Tell me this isn’t true.” But her mate said nothing. He merely stared ahead, violet eyes simmering at you, Eris, Nesta, and Helion. She grabbed his hand, wobbling as she broke away from Elain’s grip. “Please, Rhys.” Tears streamed down Feyre’s face as she begged.

But he remained quiet.

“Break it.” Nesta said to Helion, her voice clear as day.

“What?” Cassian finally spoke up, his eyes snapping back to the present. He flared his wings angrily. 

“You are Helion Spell-Cleaver, are you not?” Nesta asked the High Lord of the Day Court, hands clenched into fists as she spoke through gritted teeth. “I said break it.”

“No!” Cassian cried out desperately, taking a step towards Nesta. Instantly, a line of Eris’s fire shot up in front of him, blocking his path. Through the flames, Cassian’s face was shattered, like a male who was about to get his heart ripped out of his chest.

“What do you mean, no?” Eris snapped, his composed image of seething patience finally gone as he shot a fiery glare at the Illyrian general. “Your bond is fake. Best get rid of it anyway so you can go back to whatever it is you brutes do.”

Cassian ignored Eris’s jibe, falling to his knees before the flames and staring up at Nesta. “Please, don’t do this.” He begged. “Even if it isn’t a real bond, it’s something. I’ve fucked up, Nes. I have treated you like shit and I should have done more. But we can work through it together. Just give us a chance, remember how you felt for me during the war? Don’t throw it all away. Please.”

Nesta simply stared blankly at Cassian’s blubbering form. There was no pity in her eyes as she spoke. “No. I do not want to be shackled to you in any way shape or form. Not because you are a bastard, or an Illyrian brute. But because I deserve better than the way I’ve been treated by you. I hope you find happiness one day, but it will not be with me.” Cassian let out a sob, but Nesta simply turned towards Helion and nodded, ignoring him. Feyre had gone silent, her eyes vacant and teary as she clearly fought mind to mind with her mate. Elain watched in horror, rubbing her sister’s back as the High Lord of the Day Court raised his arms, summoning a mighty blade of celestial light. It glowed with the strength of a thousand suns, making everyone in the room stare up in awe.

With a mighty stroke, Helion brought down the blade of light onto the rope between Nesta and Cassian, cleaving it in two.

Like a tidal wave had crashed through the room, everyone staggered back as blinding light erupted. Nesta cried out, Eris catching her as she lost her footing. Cassian screamed, hands clawing at his chest as if he could cling onto the shards of the false bond and hold them close. Tamlin grabbed you by the shoulders, steading you as you swayed from the eruption of the magic. But while Cassian continued screaming and sobbing, Nesta was silent. Her eyes were wide as her chest heaved for breaths, but she was not in agony.

In fact, it was like she was finally free.

The flames between your group and the Night Court dissipated, and the magic that revealed the mating bonds was gone. Where the false bond was between Cassian and Nesta, grey ashes now lay on the floor, the wind coming in through the windows gently blowing it away.

“It is done.” Helion said, inhaling deeply albeit slightly pale. Lucien came to his father’s side, ready to steady him if needed.

“Wonderful.” Eris quipped as he helped Nesta back on her feet. “Now that that’s dealt with, there is no need for a blood duel. Or for you to be here, Night Court. Leave my palace this instant.”

“What have you done, boy…” Amren said quietly to Rhysand. She had been silent up until now, her eyes simmering as she stared up at her high lord. “And why did you not tell me?”

Rhys spoke for the first time since Helion stepped forward, his jaw tense. “I needed Nesta back in Night.”

“Why?” Amren snapped. “If the girl wants to flounce about in autumn so be it, she’s not our problem any more. I thought you’d be happy about that. Cassian would have gotten over her eventually, so don’t say it was for him. Or for your mate, who existed with us happily without that wench. What aren’t you telling us?”

“There’s a lot he’s not telling you.” A familiar, deep voice came. From the shadows, Azriel appeared in the corner, hazel eyes narrowed as he stalked up to his High Lord. “Go on, Rhys. Will you tell them why you wanted Nesta back so badly, or should I?”

Rhys at least had the sense to look uneasy. His gaze shifted from Azriel to Feyre, who was looking at him with teary eyes. “Az… what are you doing? I thought you’d gone home…” Mor asked from beside her, wariness lacing her voice.

Azriel ignored her, twirling Truth-teller casually in his hands as he maintained eye contact with Rhys. “I did some digging of my own while you sent me to keep an eye on the mortal queens and seek out Koschei,” He said coldly. “One last chance, Rhysand. You tell them what you’ve done, or I will.”

“Azriel, if you do this you will be banished from my court.” Rhys growled, fingers curling into fists. But he was unable to hide the rising panic in his voice.

The shadowsinger merely laughed hoarsely. “I don’t care. I have no plans on going back anyways. You can kill me after this for all I care, but everyone deserves to know the truth.”

You exchanged an uneasy look with Eris, who appeared just as confused. You hadn’t heard much from Azriel since Beron’s death, only that he was making sure your friends were safe. Truthfully, you had no idea where his allegiances had been the last few weeks. But for him to confront Rhysand so boldly like this… you shuddered. Whatever it was, it had to be bad. Almost instantly after you shuddered, Eris’s warm hand found your waist, pulling you closer to him and Nesta. Tamlin shifted slightly, keeping his position in front of you with his talons out. Cassian had stopped sobbing and returned to his feet, eyes darting frantically back and forth between his two brothers.

“Rhys,” Feyre’s voice was weak, as if she had no strength left in her. “Please. Just tell us what’s going on.”

The High Lord of the Night Court turned to face his wife, teeth gritted. “Everything I’ve done, I’ve done for you.” His voice reminded you of a snake, sly and menacing enough to make Feyre flinch back.

“And what is it that you’ve done?” Amren asked incredulously.

“He sent me to keep an eye on Koschei,” Azriel spoke up again, voice lethally quiet. Nesta froze at the mention of the Death-God. “To figure out what he was planning and how he was able to bind a spell to Vassa so tightly that none of us could break it. But I found something else in my search.”

“What did you find, spymaster?” Eris asked. His attempt to come across as nonchalant failed, for his face went paler at the name of the old god.

“Rhys made a bargain with him, one that found a way to save Feyre and the baby.”

“Azriel.” Rhys barked. “Stand down.” Dark power filled the room, the kind that brought his subjects to their knees. People cried out in pure terror at the sensation.

But Azriel did not yield, did not move a muscle as he continued. “A bargain that traded one life for another. Nesta’s life, in exchange for Feyre’s.”

There was not a single sound in the room for several moments. Until a loud sob broke from Feyre, the sound echoing throughout the vast chamber. Beside you, Eris was utterly still. Too still. You grabbed his hand, squeezing it. As much as you hated Rhys, the last thing you needed was Eris annihilating him on the spot.

“You did what?” Feyre practically screeched.

But there was no guilt in Rhys’s expression as he faced her. “I said I would do whatever it took to save you. I found a way, didn’t I?”

“Not if it means killing my sister! What the fuck is wrong with you?” Feyre sobbed, and Rhys stepped towards her but she backed away, eyes wide. “How could you?”

“Tell me this isn’t true.” Cassian begged, then whirled on Azriel. “This is some fucked up lie you made up to tear us apart, isn’t it?”

“That’s not all.” Azriel said evenly, ignoring Cassian. “Go on, Rhys. Tell everyone what else you promised Koschei in return for the life of your mate and her baby.”

Nobody was moving. Nesta swayed beside you, holding onto Eris for support. Her grey eyes were vacant, as if she were far away. Even Cassian seemed to forget about Nesta and his intentions on having a blood duel, his attention focused on Rhys.

“I promised him I would ensure his safe passage into Prythian,” Rhys began, voice quiet as if he hoped the room wouldn’t hear him. “As long as he spared Velaris from his path.”

Your heart dropped. Rhysand made a deal with the death god in the lake, and would have allowed him to kill Nesta and destroy Prythian as long as his precious city was safe. Sickness churned in your stomach. He was ready to let hundreds and thousands die, many of whom were in his own court.

“You intended to let a death god of the Old World destroy our courts and slaughter us all?” Kallias stood up from his seat at the High Lords table. The others and their parties joined him, unable to hide their shock and betrayal.

“And yet you still wanted the benefits of having us as allies?” Tarquin chimed in with disgust. “My court has already suffered enough, thanks to you. How could you do this?”

Eris laughed horsley. “Am I the only one not surprised by this? Of course he would do this. Frankly, I would almost admire the dedication… if you were sparing more than a singular city.” His amber gaze landed on Rhys, pinning him to the spot. “But no. You are willing to let two thirds of your own court get slaughtered in the process. This isn’t the actions of a leader, it’s the actions of a coward who doesn’t give a shit about his people.”

“Velaris is the only good city. Illyria is a backwards and vile place,” Mor protested weakly. “And the Hewn City–”

“Has hundreds of other females like you waiting to be rescued.” Eris interrupted her, anger dripping from his words. “Do you deem yourself the only dreamer in the Court of Nightmares, Morrigan? Is it only you who was innocent? Only you who deserved to be saved?”

Mor opened her mouth to respond, but closed it quickly. She turned her attention to stabilising Feyre, who had stopped crying and was staring at Rhys as if she had no idea who he was. 

“Rhys wanted Nesta back so he had her ready to hand her over to Koschei when the time came.” Azriel said. “That, Amren, is what he wasn’t telling you.”

“I don’t believe this!” Cassian insisted. “Did you speak with Koschei himself, Az? How could you possibly know this? What proof do you have?��

“Helion, there is a glamour placed on Rhysand’s left palm.” Azriel said coolly. “Unveil it.”

The High Lord of the Day Court waved his hand, and a ripple of magic went down Rhys’s arm from his elbow to his fingertips. You sucked in a deep breath as a mark was revealed, one of striking back ink like the vague outline of an eye with three prongs trickling down the bottom. The room went cold, as if death itself was somehow engraved in the tattoo.

“Mother above…” Tamlin muttered.

Feyre spoke after a moment. “So, what, you were going to just have Nesta kidnapped and shipped off to Koschei when the time was right? And expect me to not search for her and just accept that she is gone? I mean what was the plan here, Rhys? How did you think you could just do this? And let over half our court die along the way?”

“I don’t care!” Rhys shouted, causing the crowd to flinch. Fury rippled off of him as he spewed his words. “I don’t fucking care about Illyria or the Hewn City. I don’t care about the other courts, I don’t care about Nesta. All I care about is saving you, and our baby. Because I cannot live without you, Feyre!” 

Feyre’s throat bobbed, and for a moment your heart ached for the High Lady. Even after everything she had done, you felt pity for her. Pity that she had been so easily manipulated by this male, and was only now seeing him for his true self. “Let me get one thing clear,” Feyre said through tears. “My life is not worth more than my sister’s. I will not have her life traded for mine.”

“It’s already done,” Rhys said, grabbing Feyre’s hand firmly. “And it’s the only way to save the baby. And you. So I’m doing it.”

“Actually,” Eris piped up. “It’s not the only way.”

Rhys’s head snapped around towards him. “What did you just say?”

Eris rolled his eyes. “Did you not get my letter inviting you to a meeting to discuss a way to potentially save the baby and your mate?”

“What letter?” Feyre asked, brows furrowed.

“We ignored it, obviously.” Amren snorted. “A viper like you cannot be trusted, how were we to know it wasn’t a trap?”

Feyre turned on the small female. “You guys got a letter saying there was a potential way to save the baby and you failed to tell me?”

“We didn’t want to give you hope.” Amren snapped back.

Before the High Lady could protest further, you decided you had enough. “Do you want to hear it, or not?” You asked sharply. Thankfully, the Night Court went silent. Even Rhys had bit his tongue.

“As I was saying,” Eris continued with annoyance. “The healers in my court have had success removing babies surgically. It has been done for centuries, and we have the best of the best. The recovery time is a bit more painful, but it would be the safest way. And we were prepared to offer that to you.”

“For a price.” Nesta interjected coldly. Elain’s eyes widened, tears evident even from where she was standing behind Mor, who was looking at her with disgust.

“You would put conditions on saving your sister’s life?” Mor baulked. “You’re vile, Nesta Vanserra.” She spat out the name like venom.

But Nesta did not falter. “Just as you have put conditions on mine. ‘Scry for us, or Elain does it. Die in the human lands, or train in the House of Wind. Have dinner with us, or we will withhold your money’. Those are some of the few ‘choices’ you have given me. It seems only fair that I extend the same courtesy in return.” 

Shocked gaps filled the room, with looks of astonishment from the High Lords. Nesta was known across all of Prythian – the Kingslayer, the Cauldron-made Death Queen. You hadn’t even realised that most of the world probably thought she was living a life of peace and luxury as the esteemed sister of the High Lady. But the facade of illusion had been ripped down like curtains from an old house, and you couldn’t be happier.

“Spare me the lecture about how it was for my own good. I have no interest in rehashing everything again.” Was all Nesta said before landing her gaze on Rhys. “We will save you and the baby, but in return I want the Mask and the Harp, as well as my Made weapons you so kindly voted for me not to have. You will also leave my court alone for good, and end this incessant pursuit of bringing me back. Those are my terms, take it or leave it.”

“I’ve already sworn the bargain,” Rhys protested. “It cannot be undone.”

“Find a way.” Nesta replied coldly.

“It’s not possible.”

“That’s your problem, not mine.”

Rhys let out a low growl. “It will be your problem when he comes for you and your new court.”

Nesta laughed dryly. “Between my abilities, my mates’ abilities, our dragons and armies, and the Troves and the Made weapons, I am confident in our abilities to take care of it. Break the bargain, Rhysand. Find a way, I do not care what the consequences are. If you want Feyre to be saved, you will agree to my terms.”

A few minutes of silence followed. You waited with bated breath, watching as the wheels turned in Rhysand’s brain. Azriel only stared at his brother with disgust, arms crossed. You could feel Zorzimril’s presence in the background, practically begging you to let her roast the Night Court prick alive. 

But this was not your life to claim.

“Done.” Rhys said through gritted teeth. “Just save Feyre and the baby. I will find a way to deal with Koschei.”

Eris clapped his hands together. “Wonderful. And to think this all could have been avoided if you had just listened to my letter. Pity.”

Rhys ignored him, turning on his heel to leave. “We should go, we have business in the Hewn City.” He spat with frustration at his party.

“I wouldn’t do that.” Azriel said nonchalantly from the corner.

Rhys froze, turning slowly to face the shadowsinger. “What do you mean, traitor?”

“I mean the people in the Hewn City already know you planned to sacrifice them to Koschei,” Azriel said dryly. “And Illyria. I don’t think you’d be very welcome. Let’s hope the wards outside Velaris are as strong as they used to be.”

“Holy shit…” You heard Helion mutter under his breath.

Holy shit was right. Cassian had gone white as a ghost, and Mor looked like she was going to pass out. Even amidst your shock, you chuckled, earning a snort from Nesta beside you. There was no need for you to try and destroy the Night Court further. It seems they would do that on their own soon enough.

“You told the lords and generals?” Fear seeped through the facade of sternness in Rhys’s voice, palpable in the air.

“No.” Was all Azriel said.

“Then who did you tell? The fucking birds?” Cassian yelped furiously.

The shadowsinger merely cocked his head. “Funny. Little birds often whisper the strangest stories.”

“You are done with my court.” Rhys said. “Don’t even bother getting your things. If you step foot in my borders again, you will be dead. Do you understand me?”

“Clear as day.”

Eris groaned. “Well, now that this is all settled, I think I’ve had enough of the Night Court airing out their dirty laundry at my wedding. Get out, now. I will send my healers to deliver the baby in three days time, at which I expect my wife’s belongings, Troves and all, to be returned.”

As the Night Court scurried out like rats, you breathed a sigh of relief. “Holy shit.” You muttered.

“Holy shit indeed.” Tamlin replied. “What just happened?”

“Koschei is coming for me…” Nesta muttered, more to herself than anyone. You grabbed her waist, pulling her close and resting your head on her shoulder. Despite her calm demeanour, you could feel the tremble in her bones. 

“We won’t let that happen.” You said quietly.

“None of us will.” Came Tarquin’s voice. Him, Thesan, Helion, and Kallias all made their way over to where you and Eris stood holding Nesta. 

“That’s right,” Tamlin agreed, turning to face you. “If Koschei comes for any of you, me and my armies will be there to help.”

“And mine.” Kallias spoke up, Tarquin and Helion following in agreement.

“I do not wish for open war against the Night Court,” Thesan said, a look of pity in his eyes. “But what he was willing to do to you, to all of us, is unacceptable. No longer is Rhysand considered an ally or friend. Eris, Nesta, (Y/N), you have the support of me and my court.”

“With five courts behind you, Koschei doesn’t stand a chance.” Helion insisted, coming to stand next to Nesta and playfully putting a hand on her shoulders. “Besides, I think Lady Death here could take on a Death God all by herself. We likely will just be there as cheerleaders.”

Nesta let out a laugh – a genuine laugh. It echoed like a song from the heavens, spreading a huge grin across your face. Helion, delighted with himself, laughed too. Soldiers began putting away their swords, easing the tense atmosphere.

You couldn’t help but notice how scared some of the crowd still looked. After all, the beautiful wedding had been derailed so fast and so easily they were left rattled. So you let go of Nesta, pushing past Tamlin and stepping towards the crowd. “My friends,” You began, letting your voice ring strong. “I know this evening did not go how you thought it would. Mother knows I didn’t anticipate this. And I understand the revelations tonight were shocking and unsettling, there is no denying that. But trust me when I say this: the death god will not destroy us. He will not take this court, or the lives of its people. As long as we are united, it will be Koschei who learns to fear us, not the other way around.”

Applause erupted from the crowd, and cheers began to echo in the air once again. With a wave from Eris, the music and festivities slowly resumed. With a smirk on his face, he sauntered over and pulled you in by the waist, pressing a kiss to your temple. “My, my, what a lovely speech.” He purred in your ear. “I must say I love seeing you like this. High Lady looks good on you, wife.”

“Thank you, husband.” You melted into his touch, letting his warm scent envelop you.

“I might have to reward you for such bravery later.” He said.

You turned to face him, lifting your chin to meet his gaze. “I remember you saying such proclivities had to wait until after the wedding…”

Eris hummed, stroking your waist with his thumb. The act alone sent sparks through your system, igniting every nerve. “I did, didn’t I? It looks like things here are wrapping up anyways, so technically the wedding is over…” He grabbed your hand, and after saying a polite goodbye to the guests who required it, the two of you sought out Nesta, pulling her away from her conversation with some courtiers. 

Irritated at first, she huffed. “What are you–”

“It’s time.” Was all Eris said. Those two words made Nesta shift instantly, the annoyance in her posture relaxing into something else.

“Really?” She said incredulously, excitement creeping into her voice.

“I don’t think I can wait a second longer.” Was all Eris replied with, making your stomach do a flip. You had fantasised about this moment for weeks, it almost didn’t feel real. Within minutes of weaving through the corridors, the noise of the party was drowned out, and Eris took out a key you hadn’t seen before to a room you didn’t recognize.

He unlocked the strange door and gently pushed you inside.

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[jungoonights]

My following is relatively small if not non existent and this blog is mainly a self indulgent treasure box for fanfics but if anyone could pay attention to ONE post let me please guide you over to my best friend Vittoria ( @jaevie ), who just started her writing blog with the absolutely gut wrenching "The Peace in Her Arms" , a jaehyun x reader piece.

I've known V since 2018 and had the pleasure to witness her writing talent first hand through roleplaying equally as long, and I couldn't be happier she's finally putting it out there for the whole fanbase. Reading her pieces will be no waste of time, let me tell you that.

Break that pen and good luck, lovely 🫶🏼

* The Peace in Her Arms is inspired by Catherine M. Valente's Deathless, so if you're a fan of the book, extra reasons to check out the fic!

[sunshineofmoon]

hmm, what? a bone carver x reader fanfic inspired by hades and persephone/grumpy x sunshine???

(I just remembered that Sarah once said – actually, I don't even remember where I saw that – that acomaf/Rhysand and Feyre were inspired by Hades and Persephone-)

[stormhearty]

Paring: former Azriel x Reader

Triggers: mentions of cheating, mentions of death, cursing, a lot of bold and italicize

Word Count: 3K+

Summary: The High Lords called a meeting to discuss the Death-God’s resurrection. However, with the death of their Seer, tensions run high between Day and Night Court, Helion outraged by the loss of your life. Truths are revealed and lies are exposed. And what happens when the High Lords realize that they have all been too late?

Note: I thank you all for all the love you have given to my one shot!! I had never thought it would have been so well received by fans and writers! I am very amused by everyone's reactions and thoughts on the one shot — everyone is wanting blood and redemption for our poor reader. And she will! This chapter is a segway/filler chapter — but still important. It's still angsty, don't worry. This one shot will probably become a 3 part series. I know in that voting poll I had done asked if you guys wanted a 5k chapter, rather than a 2- 2k chapters, but I wanted to leave you guys with one more chapter to look forward to! Please look forward to it!

Part One | Part Three | Epilogue

<Pushed to the Edge> Masterlist

“You had abandoned my emissary, disregarded her sight and had her take her own life in your Court… And for what? Your mate’s sister’s powers?!” Helion was fuming, amber eyes staring the High Lord of Night down, “And that her mate — - “a growl escaped his lips, as he glanced at the Spymaster next to Rhysand, “Had cheated on her for said sister?!”

The High Lord of Day’s voice echoed throughout the throne room, shaking its very walls at the allegation of what had happen within the wards of the Night Court. Helion’s fingers gripped the edge of the large round table, his claws causing the wood to splint underneath his fingertips.

“And now… you are telling me that her body disappeared?” his voice deathly low, “That your Spymaster’s shadows had whisked her body away to — God-knows-where… That, that child, never had never had a proper burial?!”

Rhysand couldn’t utter a single word against the claims placed against him and his Court — he couldn’t when everything that Helion had roared was true.

“… Show me…” Helion hissed, focusing at his old friend, “Show us what had happened that day…”

Rhysand gulped, staring at Helion before glancing around the table towards the High Lords of Pyrthian. All of them staring him down before all felt the claws of Rhysand's power creeping in their minds, images of that day of your death playing in their minds — all of them watching the confrontation between the Inner Circle and you — on how you were cornered and betrayed, leading up to your very death.

He hated it. Rhysand not only relived that that multiple times during his dreams — where he had failed you. He now had to relieve it while he was awake. Hearing your pleads and cries for him to listen to your visions, and seeing your body dying on that marble floor — to watch it be taken away by tendrils of shadow.

Once the memory came to pass, sobs echoed throughout the room. Helion being the loudest as he ran a hand down his face, his form shaking in his seat. Rhysand glanced towards his Inner Circle, watching his family relive that moment as well; eyes focusing on Azriel, who gripped the arms of his chair as his face wrinkled in anguish at the memory.

It had been a month ever since your death, a month since the sliver of shadows that once served the Spymaster had taken your body away — unknown to even Azriel on where they had brought your body to. And a month ever since more and more whispers of Koschei’s resurrection echoed throughout the Courts. The Death-God’s power vibrating throughout all of Pyrthian — it was difficult to not miss.

The High Lords gathered in Day Court to strategize on the impending danger of the Death-God. However, it was no secret on what had happened in the wards of Night Court. The loss of your light present throughout all of Pyrthian — every High Lord felt it.

Especially Helion.

He wanted nothing more to hurt and maim every member of the Inner Circle; but that wasn’t the purpose of this meeting — though he wanted it to be.

Helion reigned in his emotions, trying to calm the rage that boiled in his blood. Trying to clam the sadness he felt for the loss of you. He straightened up in his chair, letting out a shaky breath, looking back at the Night Court High Lord.

“… I regret that I ever had sent (Y/N) to your Court, Rhysand,” his tone small and disappointed, “Her powers were wasted on you and your Court. A Seer taking their life, being betrayed by the people she called her family,” His head shaking, a laugh, one so loud and so sarcastic escaping his chest that it echoed in throne room, startling the other High Lords, making Rhysand flinch in his seat. “What a damn found family you made. Betraying one’s mate, betraying a person who had served you for five-hundred fucking years over a female who barely has control over her own powers.”

Amber eyes darted to Elain, as he watched her flinch back, hiding behind the eldest Archeron sister, “What prophecy have you seen now?” the sarcasm very evident in his tone, “Have you seen what (Y/N) has seen? Have you seen the resurrection of Kosechi, as well? Your powers are nothing compared to (Y/N)’s.”

“How dare you talk to someone in my Court like — -” Rhysand started.

“You have no right to challenge me in my own Court, Rhysand!” Helion bellowed, hands slamming on the table, standing up as he glared at his once-called friend, “Do you realize what you have done?! Do you realize why there hasn’t been a Seer in millennials? Why (Y/N) has been the only recorded Seer in the history of Pyrthian? Because Seers have been hunted — by Fae, humans and Gods alike. They are so sought after, for their power, for the knowledge, for their sight. Seers have the power to uncover what is hidden, lurking in the darkness. They are the very light that unveils the darkness. They have been hunted to be exterminated for that very power…”

It had been the very reason why Helion had taken you in when you were a child, guarded carefully in the Day Court. To ensure the prosper of your power, the prosper of your light.

Amber eyes darted around the table, eyes staring at the High Lords that had situated themselves in this very room, listening to his tale before they stared back at Rhysand, “You, being the powerfullest High Lord if all of Pyrthian should have known that. And now, her body, one filled with Unknown-God-and Cauldron bound powers is missing…”

A huff escaped his lips in exasperation as he sat down back into his seat, “Her body should be buried here, in my Court, where she rightfully belongs to. But, no. And none of us could properly pray respects for the loss of her light…”

It was no secret that Helion had a soft spot for you. You were like his child, raising you since you were small, watching you grow and become a bright light within the Day Court. He knew how your light felt, how he basked in it as if it was the sun that radiated overhead.

And so when he had woken up that night in cold sweat, feeling the vanishing of your light — he knew something had gone terribly wrong.

“… — Helion…” Feyre tentatively called out to him, “You said her body is Cauldron bound? What do you mean by that?”

The Day High Lord glanced at the High Lady, staring her down before he nodded his head once. Leaning forward to rest his chin on his hand, “That’s what both myself and (Y/N) believe. (Y/N) is one the strongest Seers I have met in my life, those few Seers that I have encountered, ones that have wanted to remain hidden, are no match to (Y/N)’s powers. Your little Cauldon-Made Seer is no match for her either,” he sneered at the middle Archeron sister.

"There has been little records of Seers in Prythian, we all know that. Not even my libraries had enough information about them and their powers. But, despite that, (Y/N) was able to hone into her powers with little instructions… You know that she doesn’t just see the future, she was able to see what was happening now. She was able to focus on parts of Pyrthian and tell me what is and what will happen.

“But during the war with Hybern, much like when Nesta felt the Cauldron, (Y/N) felt it too. We didn’t know why, but we realized she and the Cauldron were somewhat connected. Whether it be the Cauldron was reason why she has her visions or if the Cauldron was the source of her power, they were bound. A natural connection between the two of them. And when the Cauldron broke, (Y/N) had told me she felt the Cauldron’s power sought refuge with her, as if the Cauldron sought her light.

“After the war, she had asked for my opinion — she felt the remnants of the Cauldron’s power tingling through her. She told me she saw more visions, visions of the far off future that she had no idea when would happen, and that her powers were starting to become out of her control. She was starting to lose herself in her powers, lose her mind to it… I didn’t know how to help her…”

The Inner Circle remembered, weeks after the end of the war, (Y/N) had asked if she could return to Day Court for a few weeks. Rhysand had let her, thinking it was not important. Azriel, too, didn’t question on her reason why she wanted to leave.

It was when they started to not care. When they started to focus their attention to Elain — the Seer that had defeated the King of Hybern.

Helion let out a broken laugh, staring at the Inner Circle, “I’m sure you never knew, did you? On how broken she started to be after the war. You never knew how her sleep was plagued with visions, that she couldn’t even close her eyes without images flashing behind them. Of how she sobbed in bed, wondering if she was in a dream or reality. She couldn’t differentiate anymore… And you…” eyes focusing on Azriel, “You never felt her pain because you put up a wall between your mating bond. Did you know, Azriel…”

The Day High Lord’s tone was seething, remembering those day.

“Did you know, how she cried for you? She begged down the bond for you to come and help. Wanting your protection, wanting to help sooth the pain she had felt? Wanting you just to be there? But all she could feel was the wall you placed, ignoring her… abandoning her when she needed all of you the most…

“I sent her back, hoping that all of you would help. I sent her back with sleeping tonics, hoping to help her with her sleep. Hoping that her family and mate would help her through her toughest time. Hoping that you all would see her. But I can see that never happened. That no matter how much she begged for you all to listen to her visions, to see her in pain, you ignored,” his voice was laced with anger, disappointment.

No one said a word. The air in the room tense and dense at the revelation that Helion lamented. No one knew of what you had gone through.

Azriel felt his his heart burn in his chest, as if his siphons were burning his skin — he felt the remnants of the broken mating bond in his chest, aching more at Helion’s words.

He didn’t know, he didn’t see, he didn’t feel the pain you were going through. He had ignored the tug of the bond when he had that wall up. He had been too infatuated with the middle Archeron sister, wanting her to feel belonged in their Court — all the while alienating the person who had been with him through thick and thin.

And, yet, he couldn’t do the same for you.

Bright blue eyes closed as Feyre silently mourned and apologized to the Heavens, to the night sky where you might have been.

But she realized on the implications of what had Helion had told them — that you might have been the Cauldron-bound object that Koschei needed to escape that lake.

She looked up at Rhysand, and he to her as they communicated down the bond. Both of them realizing what could happen.

The gesture wasn’t missed by Helion as he watched them, waiting for them to explain what they might have discovered. However, when they did not say anything, a growl escaped his chest.

“What is it?”

Feyre and Rhysand looked at the Day High Lord, hesitance shown in their features, “… It’s about what (Y/N) had told us. You all saw it in that memory…”

Helion thought, playing the memory back as he watched remembered your face, the anguish of your features shining through his head, listening to your words — your vision of what might pass.

“… That Koschei needed something from the Cauldron to be released from the lake,” Lucien pointed out from his spot next to Helion, the russete eye looking at Elain before back to Feyre.

“What if…” Tarquin mumbled, “…Koschei found (Y/N)’s body? If you and (Y/N) knew of the connection to the Cauldron, that the Cauldron sought her power. He could use her body to be freed from that lake.”

Helion looked at the Summer High Lord, amber eyes wide at the realization, “… If that were to come to pass, we would be doomed. (Y/N)’s body is probably soaked in Cauldron powers. It would be so easy for Koschei to be freed, and no one would ever notice. It is not impossible, but since (Y/N)’s body has disappeared, it is possible for her to have fallen into his clutches.”

Kallias, in the mist of the conversation, was watching, observing, the only remaining Seer in the room. He leaned forward, bright blue hues staring the Made-Fae, as he rested both arms on the table, “Have you had any visions?”

Heads turned towards the High Lord of Winter at his question. It did not phase him, as he continued, ”I heard from your High Lady that you rarely said anything about your visions, since the Cauldron broke. So do tell us, what have you seen about the Death-God?” If she had her powers still, a Seer would be still useful in this situation.

Elain visibly swallowed, as all attention was on her once more. Brown eyes frantically glanced around the table, over to her sisters and then to Azriel who both looked at her expectedly.

A heartbeat later, and the Middle Archeron sister knew that she couldn't lie.

She shook her head, “I have not seen anything… since the Cauldron broke…” her words nothing but a whisper in the wind.

It was as if a pin dropped on marble floors, the silence in the room was penetrating.

A laugh broke the silence. Eris’ shook his in disbelief on the drama they were hearing, “So you’re telling us, you have been lying about having your powers. And that (Y/N), who has actually seen those visions had taken her life?” he glared at the middle Archeron sister, “For what? Because you needed a position in the Night Court? So that you can gain the Spymaster’s affection? To bed him?”

Elain shook her head again, brown eyes desperate as she tried to catch eye with her family, with Nesta, who just looked away, brows furrowed with anguish, “… I just wanted to be useful…” she whispered in fear, slumping down in her chair, “My powers… were the only thing that made me feel like I belonged… But I didn’t have them, and… I just, didn’t want to lose my family.”

“And yet, you were willing to let (Y/N) lose her family, her mate… and her life. Just to keep your own,” Thesan expressed, "That selfishness will be the downfall of Pyrthian."

Elain flinched at the truth thrown onto her face, eyes down-casting, silence taking over her form.

Before anyone could reprimand Elain for her actions, the grand doors slammed open, a dark mist blowing throughout the room. Frightened and confused screams echoed through the room.

Helion stood up, using his power of light to dissipate the darkness that tried to cover the room. Amber eyes glowed as he watched as a cloaked figure float into the room.

Eyes watched the cloaked figure as it settled its form onto the floor, bare pale feet touching the marble.

“… I would think… that if the Pyrthian High Lords would gather… they would invite a God to their meeting. But I guess, manners do not exist in this world…” the voice was grating and brittle.

The hood swept, as if eyes inside were looking at all the High Lords that were now standing up, all attention to him.

A eerie chuckle escaped the hooded figure, spiny fingers grasping the edge before slipping it down. White hair and black eyes were revealed, pale, sickly skin glowed underneath the darkness that had surrounded him.

The figure bowed, a mocking gesture to the High Lords.

“It seems, that you are unaware of who you are being greeted by…” a boney finger raised up and pointed towards Nesta, the eldest sister stiffening, “Though I’m quite sure you do, dearest sister…” he grinned at her.

Nesta gulped and looked at the uninvited guest. She knew who would greet her like that — only the Death Caver has echoed the same words, “You’re Koschei… aren’t you…”

Koschei grinned wider, head tilting to the side as he stepped forward, laughing as the High Lords ready themselves for a battle with the Death-God.

“Oh don’t be so tense, my High Lords…” he mockingly commented, sweeping a hand, “Please sit… Do not stop your meeting for dear little old me. Though it is such an honor for you to do so.”

He rounded the table, eyes making contact with each of the High Lord, black eyes sweeping over their forms before he stopped before Rhysand.

Violet hues and black sockets stared at each other.

“Though I do have to thank you, High Lord of the Night… You have gifted me the precious gift of life. Though, it was through the loss of one of your own… You might have known her. Cared for her… Loved her…” Koschei looked at Azriel whose hazel eyes burned at the Death-God.

He let out a low laugh.

Tarquin’s assumption was right — the Death-God had used your body to free himself from the lake, right underneath their noses. No one felt it, no one knew. And it had been too late to do anything about it; months too late to prevent the resurrection, months too late to find your missing body, months too late of not listening to you.

Koschei looked behind him, far past the grand windows, the familiar cry of the bird of fire and ash echoing through the lands of Day Court, heading towards them — Vassa had come to stop the sorcerer-lord from his destruction.

However, before she landed on the balcony, an arrow, made of shadow and darkness struck her, causing the great bird to plummet to the land beneath her.

Lucien gasped and ran towards the balcony, peering down to see if the mortal queen had survived the fall; but there was no sign of the cursed queen anywhere below.

“What a dramatic entry by Vassa, as always…” Koschei said with a sigh, before another chuckle escaped his lips, dark eyes boring into the empty spot beside him, “Don’t you think… (Y/N)?”

All heads snapped towards the Deathless God, your name slipping from his lips, as they watched a swirl of darkness materialized a familiar figure. Azriel watched, hazel eyes wide as he took in your form, whisps of shadows that had whirled around you — his shadows, one that had abandoned him ever since your death.

“…(Y/N)…” Azriel whispered in disbelief, his voice shaking.

There you stood, next to the Death-God, very much alive.

Very much like a Death-God yourself.

And it echoed in your outfit — tendrils of shadow made up your dress, covering you from head to toe, fluttering near your feet as if a gown swayed by the wind. In your hands, a bow and arrow made of those shadows — the very bow that had struck Vassa down from her flight.

That was where Azriel’s shadows had gone to — leaving him, following you to your death, and making you someone completely different.

Someone that was going to be the downfall of Pyrthian itself.

Tagging: @cleverzonkwombatsludge, @setayeshmohseni, @kindasleepycryptid, @f4iry-bell, @woodland-mist, @kalulakunundrum, @topaz125, @thelov3lybookworm, @hnyclover, @harrystylesfan2686, @anuttellaa, @ithan-holstroms-girl, @judig92, @venuseuripedis, @fairywriter-oracle, @thehighlordishere, @acourtofbatboydreams, @willowpains, @historygreekqueen, @dr4g0ngirl, @ayme301, @kemillyfreitas, @crazylokonugget, @abysshaven, @michaelharrypotter, @naturakaashi, @kittenbi, @namelesssav, @guiltyreader, @awkardnerd, @je-suis-prest-rachel, @quackitysdrugdealer, @thesunloveschips, @brieflyclassymortal, @justdreamstars, @isa1b2h3, @himesuedi, @fxckmiup, @starswholistenanddreamsanswered, @t0uch-starved-h0e, @mybestfriendmademe

[serpentandlily]

Untouchable VIII - Azriel x Reader

Untouchable - Azriel x Rhysand'sSister!Reader

Summary: For as long as you can remember, you have always had feelings for Azriel, your court’s spymaster. But after centuries of watching him pine after your own cousin, hoping he’d eventually move on, your wish came true. He moved on—with Elain, your brother’s mate’s sister. Unable to watch him fall in love with someone else again, you flee from Velaris, from him. But things are a lot more complicated than that—more complicated than you ever imagined.

Warnings: angst angst angst

a/n: Hey guys! Sorry I took so long to update this story. I got major writer's block for it :(( This chapter is short but I wanted to get something out to you guys. We're almost at the end though! One more part after this and then an epilogue <3 Thank you guys for all the kind words/support! I don't have a lot of free time so I'm shit at replying to your comments/asks but I promise I read them all and they make me so happy! Hope you enjoy!

➻❥ Part I ➻❥ Part II ➻❥ Part III ➻❥ Part IV ➻❥ Part V

➻❥ Part VI ➻❥ Part VII ➻❥ Part VIII ➻❥ Part IX ➻❥ Part X

─── ⋅ ∙ ∘ ☽ ༓ ☾ ∘ ⋅ ⋅ ───

Part VIII

─── ⋅ ∙ ∘ ☽ ༓ ☾ ∘ ⋅ ⋅ ───

You stumbled backwards, away from the evil sorcerer who was hovering above the lake. You frantically looked at Cedric. “Please, Cedric, what is this?”

He didn’t even look your way. You kept stumbling back until you knocked into the hard chest of one of the guards. He grabbed you by the upper arms, locking you in place despite your attempts to wiggle free.

“I brought you the girl,” Cedric said to Koschei. “Now it’s time to uphold your part of the deal.”

You twisted to look up at the guard. “Deal? What deal is he talking about?”

But the guard ignored you too. 

Koschei waved a dismissive hand at Cedric, his eyes still lingering on you as if you were the most fascinating thing he'd ever seen. "Yes, yes. You will have my support to overthrow your father."

"I need more than just your word," Cedric grumbled. "I'm not handing over the girl until you make a bargain with me." 

Koschei laughed under his breath. "You wish to make a bargain with me?" 

While the sorcerer's attention was elsewhere, you realized this might be your one and only chance to break free. 

You threw your cuffed arms up around the head of the guard holding you in place and bucked forward as hard as you could, effectively tossing him over you and onto the muddy ground. A move Azriel had taught you once. 

You ignored the shouts and yells as you darted off towards the wooded area that surrounded the lake. You couldn't winnow away, not while the faebane handcuffs were still on you. But maybe you could run and hide, buying yourself some time to think of an actual plan to escape. 

You darted into the trees, forcing yourself to run as fast as you could. The air was cold, making it hard to breathe but you pushed yourself forward. You could hear the pounding of feet running behind you. You chanced a glance over your shoulder to see the three guards chasing you but no Cedric or Koschei. 

One of the guards winnowed into the clearing in front of you, causing you to scream as you ran straight into him, knocking both of you on the ground. You rolled off him before he could grab you and winnow you away, pushing yourself to your feet. The guard snarled, getting off the ground faster than you considering his hands were free. 

"Don't you run," he growled at you. 

You took a step back. Another.

Rhysand! Help!

You screamed and screamed for your brother in your head, even though you knew he wouldn't be able to hear you from this distance. You were fucked. 

"My brother will come for you if you don't let me go," you hissed at the guards, keeping out of their reach. They were circling you like they were predators who had just found dinner. 

One of the guards scoffed. "With Koschei on our side, your brother won't be able to do anything to us."

"Koschei is offering his support to Cedric to kill the King," you shouted back. "Not to help Vallahan fight against the Night Court and its allies once my brother has realized what you've done!" 

That seemed to make the guards pause for a second, the three of them exchanging glances as if now just realizing how stupid the Prince's plan was. Mor knew you were going to visit Cedric. That's where they'd look for you first once they didn't hear from you. And you knew your brother would rain hellfire down on the Prince's territory to get you back. 

Suddenly a loud noise cracked in the air like two boulders smashing against each other, causing the ground to rumble. You fell, your legs collapsing, as three people winnowed into the clearing. You let out a cry of relief. Your brother stood in his fighting leathers, looking ready to murder with Cassian by his side. But it was Azriel who made you falter.

You had never seen him look as angry as he did now—it almost spiked fear in you despite knowing none of it was directed in your way. He looked feral, unhinged. 

The three guards around you were misted by your brother before you could even blink. Their blood rained down on you, still slightly warm. You gagged, rolling over and trying to push yourself to your feet.

“Y/N!”

You heard your brother shout but his warning came too late. 

You felt someone grab you by your hair, lifting you off the floor. You let out a cry of pain, your cuffed hands rising to grab the attacker by their wrist to get some of the pressure off your scalp. You were turned forward to face your brother and the two Illyrians just as the cold metal of a dagger was placed against your throat.

“Don’t move,” Cedric ordered and you realized it was him who had you in his grasp. 

“Get your hands off of her,” Azriel growled. It was dark and full of primal rage. You knew Cedric felt it by the way his body shuddered in response but he held his ground. 

“I don’t think so, shadowsinger,” Cedric hissed.

Azriel’s shadows poised around him like venomous snakes ready to attack. Your heart was pounding in your chest, your nerves on fire. But still, the pain of seeing Azriel fought its way through despite the dire circumstances. The image of him and Elain together was enough to almost fold you into Cedric’s embrace. 

Perhaps death would be a mercy compared to the anguish building in your chest. 

You focused on your brother instead. His violet eyes were hardened with rage, his entire body tense. “Let my sister go, you bastard, and I’ll consider making your death swift and painless.”

Cedric chuckled, his hand in your hair tightening causing you to whimper at the sharp pain. Azriel took a step forward at the noise but came to a halt, his eyes drifting to the area above your head. 

You felt it then, that dark presence. The foreboding. You knew Koshcei was in the clearing now. Could feel his horrid magic in the air. This was a powerful death god sorcerer and despite your brother being the most powerful High Lord, he was no match with a God. None of them would be. 

“Kill them,” Cedric demanded as he too realized Koschei was here.

But the death god did no such thing. Instead, you felt his darkness wrap around you, encompassing you into its hold. You let out a cry of fear, calling out for your brother. 

“The girl belongs to me now,” Koschei said. “Leave and never return or I will do more than just keep her as a little pet.”

“Why do you want her?” Rhysand switched into his diplomatic role, realizing a fight would not be won here today. “Whatever you need her for, I’m certain I can do it all the same. Better, even.” 

He was…He was offering himself over to the sorcerer in place of you?

“No, Rhys,” you cried out. “Just go!”

But you were ignored. 

“Unfortunately,” Koschei drawled. “I do not have a taste for males otherwise I would take you up on your offer. But your sister will do just fine. There is nothing you can give me for her. I don’t think you even realized what a prize she was—what sort of power she holds.” 

“Anything,” Rhys begged. “Please, I will give you anything. You want my armies, you can have them. You want my court, take it! Just give her back. Please.”  

You couldn’t believe the words coming from his mouth. Rhys would never give up his power, would never give away his court and his people. But here he was, offering up all he had for you. You had caused this. You had made the mistake of running away to Cedric. This was all your fault.

“Get him out of here!” you shouted to Cassian and Azriel. 

All you could think about was your brother’s lovesick bargain with Feyre, of his death leading to hers, of Nyx left with no parents. No…Rhys needed to get out of here before things got worse. You tried to convey your thoughts to the other two Illyrians with a single look. Cassian gave you a dip of the head in understanding, evidently having the same thoughts.

Azriel wouldn’t look at you, his rage filled eyes focused on the sorcerer that held you. 

“Anything,” Rhys pleaded again, surging forward. But Cassian gripped him by the shoulders, holding him back. “I’ll give you anything.”

Your eyes darted between the three of them. At Cassian’s look of despair and uncertainty, Rhy’s pleading face and Azriel….Azriel who was shrouded in his shadows, who circled him in a frenzy—his eyes darkened, his lips twisted in a snarl. He took another step forward. 

“Let her go,” he growled. You swore the birds in the clearing took off fluttering, as if they knew the sort of darkness that was coming. But Koschei let out a small noise of understanding before he chuckled—an awful noise. 

“What an interesting turn of events,” Koschei purred, his grip on you tightening. 

“Kill them,” Cedric hissed, slight panic in his eyes. If Koschei left him behind, you knew your brother would tear him to pieces. 

Koschei chuckled again, as if realizing the same thing. In the end, he would get what he wanted without having to follow through on his half of the bargain, not if Cedric was dead. 

“Say goodbye to your brother,” Koschei laughed in your ear. “And your lover and friend. You’ll never see them again.” 

“I’m sorry, Rhys,” you cried. “I’m so, so sorry.” 

Rhys fell to his knees, Cassian still holding him back with his lips pressed in a thin line. You felt Koschei’s shadows wrapping you up, spreading up your legs. Time was running out. Azriel stepped closer with another growl.

“I will kill you for this,” he promised, his eyes shifting from Cedric to the sorcerer. “Let her go!”

Your voice caught in your throat. All the words you wished to say to him with it. You loved him, still, even after knowing these past few months had all been a lie. Your heart was broken, stomped on, discarded by the only one you had ever given it to—but you loved him. You always would. 

He finally looked at you, his hazel eyes so full of rage but you saw it then, the fear. 

“Take me,” Azriel shouted. “Take me instead!”

Koschei laughed again. “Oh, but it is much more fun this way, shadowsinger.” 

His shadows spread over your torso, up your neck, nearly choking you. Tears ran down your face; you were gasping for air. You took one more look at Azriel. One more look at the male you loved with all your heart. One last look because you knew you’d never see him again.

Azriel met your gaze—fear and anguish written all over his face. And just as the shadows began to darken your vision, something snapped into place. Something gold and bright. A thread that extended from your chest and speared right into the shadowsinger. A mating bond. 

Azriel’s grip his chest, his eyes wide, as he stumbled back a step. You watched him realize it at the same time as you. Something burned on your hip and you realized you were feeling Azriel’s bargain tattoo dissipating. He screamed your name as Koschei laughed one more time, swallowing you in his shadows.

Azriel’s pained roar shook the trees of the forest around them and echoed all the way to the small cabin on the lake, where you were thrown to the hard flooring, still shackled and trembling. 

Koschei stood over you, his face a painted picture of glee and lust. He tsked, circling around your weeping form. Your thoughts were filled with Azriel. With your mate. You could feel his horror, his rage, his anguish, all through the bond. 

“Did you know,” Koschei purred, “that Cedric and his family are quite exceptional at illusions? The magic runs in their family.”

You were crying, panting—barely able to hear his words. 

“No, I suppose you didn’t,” Koschei laughed. “Those images of you walking in on your mate with that little fawn were never real, my dear. You fell for Cedric’s tricks and now you’re here. You’ll never see your mate again.”

Those images of you walking in on your mate with that little fawn were never real, my dear.

You hunched over, falling limp against the floor as sobs racked your body. You had lost everything, everything, tricked by that stupid Prince. You couldn’t breath, couldn’t think, couldn’t feel anything except the crushing weight of your despair.

 And all you could hear were those final words. 

Over and over and over again.

You’ll never see your mate again.

You’ll never see your mate again.

You’ll never see your mate again.

─── ⋅ ∙ ∘ ☽ ༓ ☾ ∘ ⋅ ⋅ ───

Tag List:

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(if you don't see your name and you asked to be on the taglist, I probably couldn't tag you for some reason)

[florencemtrash]

Heads Will Roll | Azriel x Reader Oneshot

Warnings: Violence (aka Reader kills some fae and Rhysand and Azriel are 100% cool with it), fluff

One of Koschei's followers turns up to the Court of Nightmares prepared to make a bargain: your life in exchange for Ataraxia. But he'll soon learn that you are not to be underestimated, and you are always exactly where you want to be.

Azriel bristled from behind Feyre’s shoulder when the male winnowed into the Court of Nightmares in a dramatic display of power that had everyone beneath the dais falling back.

He was all sharp lines, emboldened by the pure black silhouette of his cape that flared out behind him, teasingly parting to reveal the bone white sword strapped to his right hip that seemed to whisper with horrible power. The only piece of him that didn’t look like it was cut from death and destruction were his bright blue eyes - startlingly innocent and all the more unnerving for it. He fit in well with the violence the Court of Nightmares naturally radiated. 

Rhysand’s eyebrow curled up in a look of carefully crafted boredom from atop his obsidian throne. The only one who looked more nonchalant than him was Feyre. She tilted her head up, staring down the slant of her nose to the unknown male as he extended his arms and bowed as prettily as a bird. 

“Greetings.” Even his voice was sharp and cutting. “To the Lord and Lady.” 

Cassian frowned from behind Rhysand’s back at the omission of their proper title. To the outside, Rhysand was anything if not bored. Inside, he was ready to blow the male to bits. He wore Koschei’s stamp on his forehead, red and dripping like a fresh wound.

Neither the High Lord nor the High Lady deigned to reply.

The male only smiled. All teeth. 

“I come to you on behalf of my master.” His smile grew. More teeth. “You may have heard his name.” 

“Koschei.” The name rolled off Feyre’s lips as easily as if she were ordering a meal - blasé and unimportant. But the name shifted the energy in the room, stirring up hornet's nests of gossip. Heads bowed towards one another like grass stalks in the wind, whispering.

Feyre tapped one finger on her forehead, “He has a fondness for marking his followers.”

“Like a collar on a dog.” Rhysand finished. He stroked the bond, grounded by the feeling of Feyre’s very soul on the other side. She had always been - and always would be - his calm.

“My name is Darwynn.” The male tipped his white head, “And I bring news from my master. News you may find worthy of your time.” 

Azriel’s heart picked up in his chest. 

He knew what was coming - the words that would soon slip out of Darwynn’s mouth. You’d been gone for over a week and he felt your absence from his side as intensely as if someone had ripped the wings from his back. Empty, cold, and unbalanced.

For the first three days he hadn’t worried, even as the bond lay dormant in his chest. It wasn’t uncommon for you to hunt after secrets, unraveling mysteries like threads in a coat or diving into the unknown with an insatiable appetite.

Three days were nothing. But nine days was getting to be concerning.

“Go on.” Feyre said with a wave of her hand, looking more interested in the glass of wine in her hand than anything else. 

Darwynn reached into his pocket and pulled out a thin string of silver stained with blood - a necklace crafted from unbreakable metal with a deep blue pendant swaying like a pendulum. It was a piece of one of Azriel’s siphons, imbued with a small measure of his power and given to you as a Solstice gift after you’d accepted the bond. In the twenty years you’d been together, you’d never once taken it off. It was unnatural to see it swinging in the cruel male's hands.

Cassian growled. Azriel’s jaw clenched, beautiful brows lifting only ever so slightly in surprise. It was the only expression the Shadowsinger had shown all night.

Rhysand mirrored his expression. “Ahhhh yes, my sister. How long has she been missing for now, Az?” Rhysand looked back at him, some unspoken agreement passing through that brief glance. If this male had truly captured you, he would not be leaving this room with his head still on his shoulders.

“Nine days.” The Shadowsinger said, his mouth twitching to the side in a cryptic mix of a smirk and a snarl.

“You have her.” Feyre said. It wasn’t a question.

Darwynn’s eyes lit up with glee and he nodded, clapping his hands together like a child opening birthday presents.

“And what do you want for her? That is why you are here, is it not?” Feyre said once his “applause” ended.

Darwynn shook his finger at her, “It is comforting to know that since Amarantha’s trials, you’ve learned to - how shall I say this? Read between the lines.” 

“Careful.” Rhysand said, a warning trapped within that honey-laced word. Feyre’s illiteracy was hardly a concern for anyone anymore - Rhysand had seen to that - but that didn’t mean it wasn’t a subject that smarted and burned when prodded. 

Feyre’s dark red lips only turned up in a small smirk. Her mate would not allow any harm to befall her - even insults from pathetic creatures such as Darwynn.

"But I digress." Darwynn said silkily, “You should know she is uninjured-” 

“Obviously,” Cassian huffed under his breath, stealing a glance at his brother beside him. Azriel was handling this surprisingly well. If it were Nesta who’d been kidnapped and held for ransom, Cassian would not be able to school his emotions so readily. 

“And my master would like to make a trade.”

“A trade?” Rhysand said, displaying more interest in the subject than ever before. This was an opportunity to play Koschei’s hand. To gain whatever knowledge they could from the slippery sorcerer who was gaining more momentum each passing day. Koschei was still confined to his lake on the continent, but that didn’t mean he was powerless. No, not at all. 

Darwynn pointed a knowing finger at Rhysand’s belt where Ataraxia rested as silent as the death that hung over a deep winter’s night. 

“I see.” Rhysand said. 

So that’s what he wants. Feyre spoke to him through the bond, Some trace of Nesta’s power.

Y/n was right. He wants to leave the lake.

And he needs whatever power Nesta took from the Cauldron to do it.

Rhys hummed in thought, one finger lazily tracing the edge of his drink. He knew his sister, knew the power that raced through her veins, and she was not one to be trifled with. But people loved to underestimate her - the poor second child too weak and damaged to fight after losing her wings to the old High Lord of Spring. The female who rested on her brother’s strength and crown like a sapling tied to a stake. She wielded those assumptions carefully. It was perhaps one of her greatest weapons. 

Nine days. She’d been gone for nine days. Nine days since he’d sent her on a mission to the continent to spy on Koschei’s followers. Six days since anyone had heard from her. Three days since her scheduled return. 

Azriel stiffened and blinked - a movement so subtle that only Rhys, Cass, and Feyre noticed. All at once the tension left Rhysand's shoulders. Such a reaction from Az could only mean one thing - you'd arrived.

Rhysand clicked his tongue disapprovingly, taking a deep draught of his wine and muttered, “She’s late.” 

“She likes to be thorough.” Azriel said with the smallest of smiles.

“Even so. I don’t like to be kept waiting. She could’ve been captured sooner. Escaped earlier. Given us notice that she was coming.” He shook his raven black hair.

Azriel smirked, feeling the strength of the bond in his chest. Never wavering, “Maybe she finally decided to adopt your flair for the dramatic.” His golden hazel eyes flickered upward for the briefest of moments and you flashed him a quick smile from where you hid in the mountain rock above.

You’d only just opened your side of the bond, love and reassurance rolling over him like a flood. You were safe. You were whole. And you had carried out your plan beautifully.

Sorry to keep you waiting, my love. I had business to attend to. You spoke to your mate and only him.

I'd wait forever for you. You know that.

He felt your laughter through the bond like the fresh rain.

Who would've guessed the Spymaster's such a romantic.

Only for you. Only for you.

Darwynn narrowed his eyes, lips flattening into a thin line as pale as the moon. Something had changed in the air and he couldn't put his finger on it. This wasn’t the reaction he’d been expecting. He knew the Inner Circle were practiced in hiding their emotions but this… they almost looked pleased. Cassian especially was grinning like a madman, suppressing his laughter as Rhysand sent his thoughts to his mind.

“My master keeps good on his promises. But until you give me the bade, I can’t promise you what pieces of your wife there will be left to bring back.” Darwynn snarled, even as that feeling of dread grew in his stomach. He’d walked in here so confident. He needed to regain that confidence. He relaxed his shoulders. Stood up taller.

A wet thud echoed throughout the hall. Someone screamed - a female with blue-gray skin reeled backward, one hand clamped over her mouth in horror as she tripped over her blood-splattered silks. 

A decapitated head - warm, oozing, and less than a day old - lolled on the floor. Its eyes were frozen in a look of surprised horror. 

Darwynn’s heart stuttered to a stop when he recognized the bloated and bruised face. The face of one of his strongest males, left behind on the continent to watch over Koschei’s prison. 

Rhysand smirked and raised his wine glass towards Darwynn. The High Lord’s power flooded out over the room, knitting together a powerful web of magic that made it impossible for anyone to winnow in or out. Except for you of course - his darling sister who never failed to find the weak points in his magic and slip through as slyly as a cat. 

“There’s something you should know about my dear sister.” Rhysand’s voice boomed over the near-silent room without even trying.

A second head dropped from the ceiling. Then a third. Then a fourth. Laid out in a neat little arc around Darwynn.

“She never gets caught. She is always precisely where she wants to be.” 

Azriel’s eyes were trained on the slate gray arches overheard where he could just barely make out your form as you winnowed around the room, hiding in the shadows and dropping your gruesome packages in a neat circle around Darwynn’s shaking form.

The male unsheathed his sword, spinning around madly and counting every thud until all twelve of your guards were accounted for. 

All dead. 

All of them.

He growled dangerously, eyes beginning to glow a brilliant, icy blue as he aimed his power at the dais, right towards Rhysand. Azriel smiled with cruel satisfaction when you slipped out from behind Darwynn’s silhouette, bloodied and menacing. The knife glinted in the faelight, catching the curve of your arm as you spun around and drove the weapon through Darwynn’s eye. The light wrapping around him fizzled out into anything.

The male rocked on his feet, arms going slack and dropping the sword with a clatter on the ground. His legs gave out soon after, his body crumpling in on itself as easily as paper. 

You calmly rolled down the sleeves of your blood-soaked shirt, flicking a piece of gore off your shoulder in a manner so similar to Rhysand that your brother couldn't help but chuckle. 

You flashed him a grin - a stroke of white brushed across a red splattered canvas. 

“Brother.” You said, tipping your chin up in a show of greeting. 

“A bit dramatic, don’t you think, sister?” Rhysand gestured out to the Court of Nightmares. You spared them a look. Everyone looked positively sinful in their scraps of silk and exposed skin, silent and trembling as their dinners burned their way up from their stomachs to their throats.

You shrugged and winked at Rhys, “I learned from the best.” 

“Go get cleaned up.” He said. It was a clear and direct command, but you didn’t miss the warmth and hint of pride in his voice.

“As my High Lord commands.” You said, bowing deeply. 

At home. Rhysand spoke in your mind as you straightened. Get some rest. You did well.

You sighed in relief, happy that you would be free from whatever Court of Nightmare business left to attend to.

Thank you.

There was a brief pause before Rhysand continued, But next time you plan to get kidnapped, let me know. I was actually starting to worry and I’m not sure my old heart can take it.

You snorted, I’ll keep your elderly constitution in mind next time.

You dipped your head once more before winnowing to the River House. The smell of home nearly knocked you off your feet.

There would be more time to joke around with your brother - more time to tell him everything you’d learned - but right now you were in desperate need of a bath.

______________

You sank into your third bath of the night, groaning in pleasure as the hot water rolled over your aching muscles. The first two baths had purely functioned to scrub off the dried blood from your hair and skin. The majority of it wasn’t yours. But this bath, with all the fragrant oils and scents, was for enjoyment and relaxation.

It was no easy business getting kidnapped, and no easy business escaping. But like every other mission, you’d made away like a bandit in the night, carrying with you priceless pieces of knowledge and enough secrets to demolish an entire court. 

Your eyes flickered open at the feeling of shadows lacing around your arms, soothing your skin with a cool touch that was no replacement for the hands that followed. 

Finally your mate had decided to join you.

You sighed in happiness as Azriel trailed his fingers up your arms, scarred hands landing at your neck and gently tilting your head back so he could plant a firm kiss on your lips.

The bond sang within your chest more joyfully than a songbird. You didn’t like silencing this connection, you didn’t like shutting Azriel out, but sometimes your work necessitated it. It was for your safety as much as his. But no one understood that more than the Spymaster of the Night Court.

“Hello, my love.” Azriel’s voice vibrated through the air, warming your chest and shaking your bones. 

“Hello, Azriel.” You murmured, soapy hands trailing through his raven black hair so that he was completely surrounded by your scent.

“Gods, I missed you.” He said. He knelt on the tiled floor behind you, wrapping his arms around your bare chest as he buried his face in your neck and breathed you in. “I missed you so much." A kiss on your neck, "So, so much.”

“I missed you too.” You murmured, pulling him around to the side of the tub so that you could see him better. You traced the faint purple bruises beneath his eyes. Not an unfamiliar sight. Azriel had never been a restful sleeper, but since mating and marrying you, he’d been spoiled rotten and now could barely sleep a wink without you curled up in his arms. 

“Sorry I messed up your hair.” You apologized, twirling the now damp strands of his hair so they curled around your fingers. 

He smiled. It was a rare sight to anyone other than you, but seeing him happy never ceased to warm your bones.

“You did well, darling.” He said, smoothing back your hair before saying more seriously, “But next time could you tell me your plans before you shut me out?” 

You winced. “I’m sorry. There wasn’t time.”

“I figured as much.” Azriel said, kissing your cheeks to show that he wasn’t upset. You leaned into his touch as he traced your cheekbones with his thumbs. 

You were the most precious thing in the world to him. More precious than his wings. More precious than his freedom. More precious than the 500 hundred years it had taken him to finally realize what you were to him. The thought of losing you was more painful than a knife to the stomach.

“You can trust me.” You said, “I know how to handle myself.” 

Azriel chuckled and shook his head, “I am very well aware of both those things,” He tilted his head in thought, “And I’m fairly certain everyone else also knows now.” 

You blushed, “Maybe it was a bit much.” 

Azriel shrugged, “Maybe. Maybe not. All I know is one thing.”

“And what is this one thing?” You asked, leaning forward and capturing his lips in another kiss. He tasted like cedar and rain. He tasted like home.

“That you should never be afraid of showing your power. Never. No matter what happens. No matter what people say.” 

His hand that had been cradling the back of your neck moved down, tracing the scars on your shoulder blades where your wings had once been. You shivered under his touch, but didn’t recoil. He understood. He was perhaps the only person who understood what it meant to have such a physical piece of yourself taken away. 

You kissed his hands, taking care to feel every valley beneath your lips and worship them. They were a part of him now, tied to him as much as his shadows were, and so how could you not love them? How could you not love him? This male who was your equal in every way imaginable and who made you feel happier and safer than you ever thought possible. 

He helped you out of the bathtub, drying your skin and hair before carefully brushing through all the tangles and knots. 

“I should go report to Rhys.” You said with little determination as Azriel laid you out on the bed and then crawled under the covers beside you, pulling you against his chest and wrapping you both under the protective cover of his wings.

“Let it wait until tomorrow. Let me have you tonight.” 

You smiled, “I’ve only been gone nine days.” 

His hazel eyes melted into yours. “Nine days too long, Y/n.” 

You could never deny him anything when he looked at you like that, so full of feeling and a rawness too intense for words. And it wasn’t like you were dying to leave this bed and chase after your brother. Like Azriel had said - it could wait until tomorrow. So you melted into his arms and watched as Azriel slowly fell into a deep sleep for the first time in nine days.

______________

Author's note:

A woman covered in the blood of her enemies is *chef's kisses*

That's it. That's the note.

[shadowdaddies]

Hi! Can you do an Azriel x fem!Illyrian!tall!reader where they are mates and the bond snapped for her but not for him yet and she doesn’t say anything because of his thing with Elain. They just stay friends. They are spies together and go on a mission and something happens where they have a fight and he leaves her to do the mission alone and she ends up getting kidnapped and tortured. By the time the bat boys find her, her wings had been burned and healed over so they are covered in scars and she was clipped so she can never fly again. And maybe the reader never says Azriel’s name even after centuries of being friends. Just calls him by nicknames but when she’s being tortured that all she’s calling. Ugh my heart. Long request, very angsty with hurt and comfort but a happy ending

I teared up a little bit writing this. What a beautiful request, thank you for sending it in and for being patient through the holidays as I got to it. 💜

In Every Lifetime

Azriel x Reader angst to fluff

Warnings: explicit torture, blood, mentions of death, etc

Your shriek pierced through the air, drowning out the sound of Hybern’s naga-hound as its claws shredded Azriel’s wings. Tears brimming in your eyes, an unknown force propelled you towards him as you cut the hound down with your sword, looking up in search of hazel eyes, only to find them locked on the beautiful Archeron sister in his arms. 

The snap in your chest felt nothing like the electric warmth you’d heard of from others. Instead, it was as though someone tore each chord of your heartstrings from your chest as you watched Azriel - your mate - leave Hybern’s camp with Elain in his arms. 

Caught up in the stresses and planning of battle, no one paid mind to your solemn mood. No one saw the single tear that tracked down your cheek when you watched Azriel give Truth-Teller to Elain. 

When the war ended, your family assumed that your depression was a result of trauma from the battle, and you let them. Months passed in a daze as you forced your body to ignore the call it felt towards Azriel. Your name on his lips, the feel of his hand on your shoulder - any interaction with Azriel was too much for you to bear.

What your family did not miss was how you became a shell of your former self. Nearly a year had passed since the war ended, and you could not look Azriel in the eyes anymore. Couldn’t forget how they looked at Elain, her hand brushing his at family dinners. Your reclusion expanded to the rest of your family, unable to lift your eyes or meet them in conversation at dinners, the pure fear of what you might unleash if you saw Elain’s hand on your mate. You knew that you had no claim over Azriel. He was not even aware of the mating bond, and you couldn’t tell him so long as he cared for Elain. 

Heart sinking exceptionally low in your chest, you pushed the food around on your plate as thoughts eddied in your mind, only to be interrupted by Rhysand clearing his throat.

You looked up, violet eyes watching you with poorly veiled concern as he addressed you again. “I said that I need you to join Azriel on a trip to the Autumn Court. Eris believes that Beron may be considering an alliance with Koschei. The two of you will travel there tomorrow night while Eris helps you sneak into Beron’s office for any intel.”

Teeth bit down harshly on your lip, fingers clenching around the fork in your hand as you fought the urge to look at Azriel. With a deep sigh, you managed to meet Rhys’s gaze as you gave him a curt nod. 

“Tomorrow night. See you then, shadowsinger,” you nodded to Azriel, shooting up from your seat at the table and excusing yourself without another word.

The next day was spent preparing, mentally and physically, for your trip. You packed your bag with your regular weapons, arming your body for a stealth mission, arming your mind for mental torture. Azriel’s knock sounded on your door right on time, a shaky exhale leaving your lips before you turned the handle.

“Are you ready?” Azriel spoke, voice low and shaky as though he were afraid of your response. You simply nodded, eyes only able to meet the lower half of his face as you attempted a weak smile. With a small sigh, Azriel placed a hand on your arm. You flinched at the touch, missing the silver lining his hazel eyes at your reaction.

Darkness swirled around you, familiar shadows encompassing your forms as Azriel spirited you both away to the Autumn Court. You landed just outside the Forest House, following Azriel as he directed you behind him against the stone wall. 

“We should receive a signal from Eris once it’s safe to enter. Just stay close to me, please,” he whispered, pleading in his tone as you once again refused to meet his gaze. With a silent nod, you trailed quietly behind Azriel in the grass, both of you keeping your wings tucked in tight as the shadows covered you from sight of the guards.

An odd, unfamiliar bird call sounded in the distance and you froze, instantly on alert. Azriel, though, visibly relaxed as a small smile graced his full lips. “That’s the signal,” he said, holding out his hand once more as you forced yourself to take it. The warmth of his touch sent your reeling, your only salvation being the onslaught of cold shadows whirling around you once more, carrying you directly to Beron’s office.

“Look around, see if there’s anything in or on Beron’s desk that might show he’s been in communication with Koschei or his allies. I’m going to stand watch outside, see if Eris is able to show with any new information,” Azriel spoke softly, his body tense as he shifted between you and the door.

You nodded dutifully, wasting no time in moving to the desk as you sifted through letters and ledgers. You froze, one parchment catching your eye. “Az, this mentions meeting on a lake-“ 

The cold steel of a blade at your throat took you by surprise, blood running cold as you took note of the three males surrounding you. The one with his blade to your throat gripped your wing harshly, crumpling the sensitive appendage as you crumpled in his hold with a whimper. 

Azriel turned from where he stood in the doorway, jaw going slack as cobalt siphons glared in preparation to fight your captors. A dark laugh sounded behind you as the fragile bones of your wing snapped, shocking pain searing through you as your eyes shot to Azriel’s.

Your world tipped on its axis as you looked into your mate’s hazel eyes for the first time since the bond snapped for you, helplessly watching as Azriel stumbled back in shock and you vanished into thin air in front of him.

You awoke in a dark cellar, the stench of blood and excrement muddying your thoughts as you came to. Cold metal encircled your wrists, a slight tug confirming the heavy iron shackles that held your arms taught above your head.

The taste of iron filled your mouth, red blood coating your tongue as you swiped it along the gash on your busted lip. With a groan, you instinctively moved to stretch your wings, only to feel an excruciating pull against them.

You dared to look up, bile rising in your throat as you took in the sight of your wings nailed to the wall. Spread out on display for your enemies, bleeding from the holes in which iron pierced through them.

“Ah, it’s awake,” a male rumbled as he strode into the room with preternatural grace. You immediately recognized him as one of Lucien and Eris’s brothers - a Lord of the Autumn Court. The two other males you recognized from before flanked him on either side as they stalked towards your limp, bleeding form. “Now we begin.”

Days passed, questions you couldn’t possibly know the answers to being strung at you like arrows to a target. With each failed answer, a slash was delivered to your wings, the once beautiful source of pride for you now a tattered, mangled mess, blood trailing and staining the floor around you.

“I will ask you one last time, where is Gwydion?” the Autumn Lord asked, dagger flipping in his pale hand as amber eyes assessed you. 

“Fuck you,” you spat, blood spewing from your mouth at the venomous male. His nostrils flared, anger rolling from him in waves as the hilt of his dagger clanged against the stone above your wing. Gripping your chin, a wicked smile spread across the male’s face as his arm dragged the blade down.

It cut through your wing like butter, your screams only slightly muffled by the tight grip he held on your chin. Azriel’s face flashed in your mind, your bond subconsciously reaching out to your mate as you realized you would never be together in this life.

Vision turned red, thoughts incoherent from the pain as words were uttered in your ear. You could hear the sick satisfaction in his voice as your torturer dragged the blade down your other wing, fully severing it from your body.

With a sickening sound, your wings slumped to the ground beside you only so briefly before they were lifted up and tossed like sacks of flour to the other males. “Pin them up, so it can have a view while it dies,” the red-haired male ordered before leaving the room.

You were soon alone, vision fading into your old wings in front of you, and out as you pictured Azriel’s face. Leaning back against the jagged stumps where your wings once were, you finally allowed the tears to fall. Perhaps it was selfish when your mate loved another, but all you wanted in your last moments was to feel those hands you’d avoided for months, to look in the depths of golden and green eyes and feel comforted knowing you would find him in the next life.

Your eyes drifted shut, the scent of cedar and mist filling your senses as you thanked the Mother for one last moment of comfort before your life ended. 

Of course, you wouldn’t find peace in the afterlife either. Bright sun filtered into whatever room you were in, the space horribly similar to your home in Prythian as your head pounded in pain. You dared to open your eyes, and for the first time in nearly a year, smile.

Dark curls fell in front of hazel eyes as they focused on you, chilled mist and cedar giving you a dizzying satisfaction.

“I knew I’d find you in  the next life,” you whispered, voice rasp in pain as you looked to Azriel sitting on the bed in front of you.

His brows dipped in confusion, head tilting as a scarred thumb caressed your cheek. “What next life?” he murmured, pain lacing his tone.

Your eyes fluttered shut once more, already tired from the effort of speaking. “In the last life, you loved Elain. But I knew I would find you in the next. I’m your mate in every world, and I’ll wait until you love me back, Az,” you admitted, half-asleep as you melted into the soft cushion under your head.

You heard a gasp, your eyes straining to open as Azriel looked down at you. Tears fell freely down his flushed cheeks, lip wobbling as his hands cupped your face. “I love you. In this life, and every other. I am so, so sorry that I failed you.”

Reaching a hand up to hold his, you savored the warmth against your cheek and smiled. “I will find you in every lifetime, Azriel. Be whatever you need.”

Leaning down, Azriel pressed his forehead to yours as he breathed, “You are all I need. In every lifetime.” 

Patting the bed, you urged Azriel into the space next to you, falling asleep in your mate’s arms, filled with a deep peace unlike that which you had ever known.

Part Two

[fieldofdaisiies]

Whispers of the Forgotten | pt. 3

pairing: azriel x reader | type: angst | words: 2,8k words | masterlist

"She is waking up."

Someone is talking, but you don’t know who it is, have never heard that voice before. 

"Is she?" But that voice, you have heard before. And it makes your heart race, panic surging through you and gripping your insides with its invisible claws of fire and ice.

"Yes, Cassian," the female voice states. "She is waking. Thank the Mother."

You shudder — both from feeling cold and the mention of his name. 

"Don‘t worry. Nothing will happen to you, you are safe." The female close to you must have felt your slight tremor, trying to soothe you. Under different circumstances you would have been grateful for this act — now, you can’t really accept it. You don’t know what to do with it. Can you trust her? The stranger? She is so close and it scares you, your eyes not yet opening. But you need to see, to know where you are, and what is going on. 

You ponder over her words, the mention of the word safe…

Nowhere is safe, you think. Not while Cassian and Azriel exist. With them in your life you are nowhere safe. And why the hell did you allow yourself to fall asleep?

You can’t allow yourself to let that happen again. You can't allow yourself such reckless mistakes. You always need to be focused, one step ahead of your enemies. 

Ignoring the voices, you struggle to rise, but your throbbing head spins you off balance.

"Where am I?" you breathe, not recognising your own voice. It sounds weaker than usual, hoarse and ragged. "What do you want from me?"

Blinking against harsh light, only shadows greet your blurred vision. You can only make out silhouettes, no faces, no bodies. Some people stand close to you, some a little further away and one lone figure at the door. You don’t have to see them to know who they are. 

You would always recognise him. Azriel. You start to tremble, your knees feeling wobbly despite sitting down. Blinking rapidly, slowly the haze starts to fade, and everything becomes clearer.

"We regret what occurred. Regret the measures we had to take."

The voice, oddly familiar, leaves you unsettled and cold sweat builds up on the back of your neck. 

"You…" Your breath catches as a large, towering figure appears. Imposing, graceful, powerful.

His hands are shoved into the pockets of his trousers, his violet eyes trained on you. His features are sharp, but his expression is oddly soft.

"Are you…?" Your voice breaks before you can finish your question. 

"Rhysand, High Lord of the Night Court." The male's voice is loud and strong. "Lady Y/N, I am sorry for what my father—"

"Gods!"

Rhysand. He looks different. Older. More mature. Like his father. You had only seen him a few times back then, never really talked to him, but you knew what he looked like. Everyone did.

You lift your hand. "Don‘t. Don’t apologise. I don’t want to hear that. It was centuries ago and...I don't want to hear it." You can't hear it. Not some silly apologies for things no apologising would ever be enough for.

You don’t want to talk about it — about what happened to you, about what has been done to you. You don’t want the memories to turn up again. You can't let them reach the surface ever again. And most definitely, not now.

Not with Azriel present.

There is unresolved business with everyone in this room, but in this moment it can’t be dealt with. You are not strong enough, your powers still haven’t returned, and there are too many people protecting each other in this moment. 

Rhysand dips his chin, slowly assessing you. "You may wonder why we freed you?" he changes the topic. 

The High Lord surrounds the couch and claims a seat on the couch table in front of you, but you remain silent.

"We need your help." Again, you offer no response.

"It concerns Koschei, the—"

"Death God." Your lips part, meeting his violet gaze. "Why me?"

And so they explain. Everything and in great detail and you listen. To everything that is said until your head feels heavy and starts to spin. It is too much, too many people, too many noises, too much information. 

Azriel stays at the door, and you fight the urge to look at him, not trusting yourself to not lunge at him again and try to claw his eyes out. Your hands are still shackled and telling by the scent of it, the High Lord of Night definitely put a protective shield around you — not to protect you, but rather the others from you.  

You listen carefully to every word that is said, but sometimes your thoughts stray. To Azriel. To the Prison. To what has been done to you and to the betrayal. And to what you know of Koschei. It is so much, your brain nearly breaks your through skull. 

"The bone carver, his—"

"Brother." Another female appears in your vision, she looks beautiful and young and there is a child on her arm. "He is dead. Gave his life for the sake of Prythian."

You speak a silent prayer to the Mother for another old friend you lost. Whispers of Stryga‘s death reached you some time ago and it sent a pang of hurt to your heart. Slowly, everyone is fading from this world, also Lanthys whose charm and lethality you truly came to love in the Prison and mist desperately when he no longer was.

"Meet my wife, my mate and High Lady of the Night Court." Rhysand’s reaches his arm out, curling it around the young female. "Feyre Archeron and our son, Nyx." Rhysand also introduces all the other people in the room, but your mind catches on the High Lady part and for one moment you can ignore Azriel and what the mention of his name and title does to you. 

You furrow your brows when he is done. "A High Lady?"

There had not once been a High Lady when you— Your thoughts are cut off rapidly…that was centuries ago. Obviously things would change — have changed.

You give your head a little shake, chest heaving with a deep inhale. You've missed so much, it hurts. It is a sharp pain, almost like a dagger cutting into your chest, shredding it apart. You have missed centuries in this world. Only because of him. Because of the male who promised you the world. The male who you gave everything to you. Your soul. Your heart. Your body. You loved him and he broke you. Azriel… Your head whips into his direction, grinding your teeth so hard your jaw starts to ache. He is already looking at you, nothing but pain his eyes, his shadows nervously swirling around him. You don't even want to kill him anymore. In all honesty, you never really wanted to. But you want him to hurt. As much as you hurt. 

Inhaling deeply, you clear your mind, ignore your vendetta for a moment, and blow out a long breath.

"What do you need me for? I can’t fight Koschei. I don’t have my powers back, the amulet—"

"In our possession." He hadn’t got ridden of it. Your head whips to Azriel and then to the short, black-haired female standing next to him. She was the one speaking and now her lips are pursed, eyes narrowed into slits through which she assess you. She takes a few steps forward, gaze not once straying from you. 

"My amulet." You almost want to lunge at her, grasping the family heirloom in your hands, never letting go of it again. "I want it back…"

The amulet of Oorid had once been your most treasured possession, the only thing you could keep of your mother, and it will bring your powers back. It is right there. So close and yet so far away. Never will they give it to you just like this. Your hands lift a little and you are reminded of something else — something else that restricts you from being in full control of powers. 

"And apart from that I still have those. I want them removed." With a frown on your face you lift your hands, making the handcuffs and chains clatter. "Even with the amulet back, I can’t do much if I have to keep wearing those." You avoid Azriel’s gaze, but you give Rhysand a reproachful look. 

They want your help, then they must do something for it.

The High Lord once again shoves his hands into the pockets of his pants. "If we have your trust, you will have your freedom back."

This sounds good...and fishy. You can’t trust them. And it won’t be freedom like you are used to. Freedom meant riding with them. Hunting and haunting with them. Travelling from one court to another in the dead of night. Freedom—

"Forever?"

His eyes crinkle, and you feel a talon scratch against your mental shields. Did he truly think you would let him roam around in your mind? You had no idea he was a deamati but your wits made you react within mere seconds when you felt his power. Obviously you won't let him in.

"What do you mean…forever?" Cassian is the one asking and you bristle at him. 

"That I am allowed to be free after he is defeated. That you won’t put me in the Prison or in shackles ever again. That I am allowed to lead a life on my own."

"If you can defeat him." 

A female who resembles the High Lady jabs him in the ribs so quickly the general has no time to react, and you almost want to laugh. Serves him right. 

"Yes." The short-haired female says.

"I once was a Prison inmate as well. If you earn our trust, you shall roam freely."

"And how do I earn your trust?" you spit and each word is punctuated. You rise to your feet, suddenly towering a little over the black-haired female. Your gazes lock, power clashing with power. You flash your teeth, fangs showing. 

She has the audacity to smile. "I like her fire," she says to no one in particular. "When you prove yourself useful in destroying the Death Lord and don't spoil our loyalty towards you, then you shall have our trust."

You nearly grimace at the word loyalty because no one in this place, safe for the people you don't know, has ever been loyal to you. 

"But I can't defeat him if I don't have my powers back."

"A bargain it is then."

The black-haired female reaches out her hand and you raise a brow. You have made many bargains in the past, mostly over not that important things. Never over your freedom. 

"You regain your powers, and have your amulet back and you shall have freedom and for that you will help us with Koschei, starting with one special task now and then aiding us in ultimately defeating him."

The thin, loose nightgown suddenly feels so tight, too tight, making it hard to breathe. This decision is grand and should not be made on a whim, but you haven't got time. 

You hold her gaze…She used to be a Prison inmate too. Why would she lie about it? You think you can trust her…or at least partly. There is no one you can fully trust in this world. 

But this bargain will remove the shackles and give you your powers back. And your freedom. 

And so you accept. There is no other option anyway. You bow your hand and reach out both shackled hands, sliding one cold palm against hers. Lightning zips between your bodies and only mere moments after, a tattoo adorns the marred skin of your upper arm. Your gaze lingers on it for a long moment until—

"So shall be it," Rhysand bows his head and fetches you back to the moment. "Follow me into my office."

"First, I want these removed. We made a bargain!" You bare your teeth, holding his gaze while lifting your arms. 

His answer unsettles you.

"Az, remove them." The High Lord tilts his chin at his shadowsinger. You almost want to tell Rhysand that you are actually quite fine with keeping them only to avoid having Azriel touch you, but it is too late. And you won't ever be weak again. You hate him, and he should have any effect on you. He has touched you before, he can also touch you now. 

With the raise of one brow, you turn to Azriel and wave your handcuffed hands into his direction. "Now?"

He says nothing as he pushes off the wall, and slowly makes his way over to you, nothing but grace in his walk. Once again you clench your jaw, worried you'll grind down your teeth to nothing. 

And it doesn't get better. Not when his scarred hands carefully reach for your arms, broad fingers accidentally brushing your skin. It tingles, little sparks flying from his fingertips to your skin. 

Your breath catches.  

Using his shadowsinger powers or whatever, he opens the shackles, catching them before they fall to the ground. "Y/N—"

You step away from him, not giving him a chance to say anything. "Let's go to the office."

"Y/N, please," he tries again and seemingly he doesn't care that his family hears it.

Do they know?

Rhys and Cass didn't know about your relationship back then. Do they know now.

Slowly, you tip your chin up and meet his gaze. It is all in the look you give him, the hurt, the pain, the anger, the hate. You let him see it all and it is answer enough. You don't need to say anything.

He steps away and bows his head.

───── ⋆⋅ ☽☾ ⋅⋆ ─────

You almost shriek when your sharpened nails brush the onyx box, it’s power strong, electric, radiant, stretching out like a dark force that makes your lungs coil. It feels like death itself. 

Your breath catches in your throat, the power the little box holds so similar to your own. Death. 

You analyse the box, assessing it. How can such a little box, hold so much power? You don't even allow yourself to imagine what could be in it. 

"I think I need some books," you breathe after a moment. "And time. As much as I can have."

"We thought so," Feyre says and in the corner of your eye you see how she curls her hand around Rhysand's elbow, their little babe now peacefully asleep in another room. "Hence why we thought it will be a good idea for you to start looking for all the necessary books in our big library. You can work with all of them, whatever you need shall be yours."

You dip your chin at her, once again focusing on the box. It could be opened with old runes…maybe. Or some spells. Witches spells? You are not really acquainted with them, but maybe you need to have a look into those as well. 

"And speaking of the Library…" You turn to Feyre and Rhysand, an expectant look on your face, waiting for the High Lord to continue. 

"After a conversation with the priestesses living in the Library, you are allowed to have a room there. The Library is beneath the House and can only be accessed through the House of Wind.“

How kind, you think. You are allowed to. You almost bristle at the way the High Lord phrased it, but you veil your face in indifference and merely shrug. 

Freedom…right. Being locked into a Library. Underneath this house. That is what freedom looks like. Not. 

"Am I allowed to roam freely there."

The High Lord bows his head. "You are to stay away from the priestesses living there, but you are allowed to roam freely. The females who live in this place have experienced terrible things, we won't allow anything to happen to them again. As long as you don't cause any trouble, you have all the freedom you want to have in there, but if you do something, consequences will follow." 

You almost want to laugh. Consequences…They need your help. And why the hell should you cause any of the priestesses living there trouble? You are deadly, but you are not heartless. Not cruel in that sense of the word. 

You want to say something, to retort something, but the High Lord beats you to it. 

"I think it is a good idea for us to call it a day. You shall rest, you have been through a lot, and getting you out of the Prison and to Velaris most definitely wasn't easy for you."

Velaris…Velara. The High Lord's daughter. Rhysand's sister. Where is she? Why isn't she present. You haven't known her that well, but…you will ask about her another time. Another day. 

"I assume you want to bath and then sleep?"

You do, you really do. Today has been too much and you only want to fall into a bed, now that there is the possibility of actually having a bed again. And warm water to wash. 

Instead of answering, you only hold Rhysand's gaze and then slowly dip your chin. 

"Alright. Then end it here for today. Nesta will escort you to the Library."

You are so very tired. So exhausted. It is all draining. All too much after the century-long imprisonment. And you want to get away from them. From him. You no longer want to be in a room with Azriel. You can't stand to be near him. You can't stand his closeness.

So you find yourself following after Nesta into the Library without saying another word to anyone. And most definitely without deigning Azriel another look. 

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[jaevie]

The Peace in Her Arms

Pairing: god!Jaehyun (koschei!Jaehyun) x priestess!reader

Genre: Dark romance, fantasy, slow burn, smut.

Word count: 30.1k

Summary: After winning the war against Death, Jaehyun, the Lord of Life, finds himself a lovely wife to enjoy peace, but is soon met with a violent rematch that forces him to send his wife away. Two years later, after carrying his victory with him on the way back home, he finds out that the mournings and havocs of conflict don’t even compare to the pain of his wife not taking him back.

Warnings: this fic contains detailed descriptions of sex (involving praise and breeding kinks), mentions of violence, as well as references to religions and divinities. 

N/A: Hi there! This plot was solemnly based on Deathless, by Catherynne M. Valente (highly recommend the book if you like the plot!) and the entire Russian mythology towards Koschei, the Deathless. Basically, Jaehyun will suffer a lot for his wife and will be on full husband material. 

© This fic is an original work by jaevie, 2023.

The night was starry as though the moon had kissed the darkest of dusks to light up the ceremony. The breeze was fresh and gentle enough not to blow out the uncountable candles decorating the garden in front of the manor. White tents were set for the guests to comfortably sit. Women wore their most elegant dresses, and men had that respectful look on their faces, one that unconsciously mixed with relief now that another war was over. Roses impregnated the atmosphere with their red warmth, attracting the tiniest bees and other adorable bugs, all invited to witness the Lord of Life getting married.

Both you and Jaehyun had considered a small and intimate ceremony, but the guest list was not going to be cut shorter. You were too known for your own good: you for being a popular priestess, with healing hands and a brain graced with mythical knowledge; and your soon to be husband for creating life and everything it owned.

“You look stunning,” Vasilisa whispered under her honest breath, looking at your image in the mirror. The servant had been your faithful confidant all the time you stood in Koschei’s manor. “White really suits you, m’Lady.”

You looked over your shoulder, face covered by a lace hood.

“We’ve talked about the m’Lady thing before, Val. That is not necessary,” you hummed, meeting a wicked grin.

“You’re too humble for your own good, m’Lady.”

You took a deep, cool breath, turning your face to the tall mirror in front of you. Vasilisa was right. You felt stunning, the white dress smoothly hugging your silhouette, outlining the shape of your waist and breasts. Even your thighs could be guessed under the silky fabric. The hood was part of an entire cape that touched the floor, with the delicate work of seamstresses on its length.

“Come, it’s time,” Vasilisa offered you her dainty hand as the other passed you a small bouquet of white lilies.

With a quickened heartbeat, you followed her down the manor, to the garden. Everyone awaited you. On the other hand, you only had eyes for the tall figure waiting for you on the other side, under the mesmerizing night sky.

While you were cladded in vibrant white, Jaehyun wore pitch black, with red details on his suit. The Lord of Life had a romantic and dark figure, with hair as dark as the eye holes of one’s skull, winter skin and long lashes that caught your attention the first time you landed your eyes on him. He had the appearance of a young man even though he had seen more years than everyone in that garden combined — a detail everyone forgot the second he smiled, sharp teeth adding charm to his face. A lonely dimple popped out too, adorably.

The man who breathed life into every little being, who saw it all, who tasted it all — that man was bare to his soul in front of you, surrendered to love. Tears glistened in his eyes while you walked down the pathway to the altar. “I couldn’t begin to tell you how breathtaking you are,” Jaehyun mouthed, tangling your arms.

You wiped his tears away and kissed his cheek. “So are you, my love.”

The High Priestess cleared her throat before initiating her speech. Not only she knew the secrets of the heart, but how to seal Jaehyun’s soul to yours with the blessing of all divinities. Not that Jaehyun actually needed permission from others: Koschei the Deathless created every little being, including other gods. But he respected you and your religion, and it was both polite and symbolic to follow the script.

“Time to make your vows,” the High Priestess breathed.

“A marriage is a very private thing,” Jaehyun started, his large eyes soft and frank. “I don’t intend on making my vows comprehensive and reasonable to others, just you. You, my light in the dark. My beautiful priestess. A husband is not a husband if he can’t be his wife’s best friend and her most ardent lover. If he can’t be at her feet, begging for her love, as I am now. As I will always be. I will feed you when you’re hungry. I’ll make the world go silent when you’re tired. Build a hole in the world just for you when you wish to escape, and wait until you’re comfortable enough to come out. Because a husband is not to confine, a husband is to free. My love for you desires nothing but to let you dare. Let you be. I am as cruel and demanding as a god can be, but for you, and only you, I will be your faithful husband.”

And like that, you were lost forever.

“You met me at the battlefields.” You still remembered how you had been that day: dress stained with blood and mud, face sweaty from the rush, two strands of oily hair escaping your ponytail. The agony screams were background music as you made the soldiers swallow potions and worked on bandages that smelled like mauve, aloe and rue. “I had always thought love itself was a battlefield in which women had no freedom at all. To me, marriage had never been for lovers, but for the heartless and the selfish. Today, I take those words back. I couldn’t be happier to be your dear wife, your confidant, your partner. I give myself to you in love and anger, in peace and chaos, in light and dark. I am yours, Koschei. Yours truly. And for you I keep fighting. And for you I put my weapons down.”

The both of you slid the thin silver rings on each other’s finger, looking at each other with overflowing adoration. Jaehyun’s hand cupped your jawline, his thumb rubbed your cheek and he smiled when your lips touched.

“I love you,” Jaehyun whispered. “Eagerly.”

You smiled, grabbing his chin with assertiveness and placing a loud kiss to his dimple. “I love you,” you repeated. “Restlessly.”

As husband and wife, you followed to the reception. You saw many familiar faces amongst the crowd: Taeyong the Lord of Word; the oldest of the old witches, Baba Yaga; the poor and terrifying Bauk, and the otherworldly Lord of Beauty, Ten. Jaehyun’s second in command, John the Knight, was there too, making good use of his politeness to charm the village girls.

Bliss and wonder filled the atmosphere. The guests ate and drank, relishing in food so colorful and luscious one could eat it with their eyes and be satiated. Traditional music was played by a local girl band you knew from your tavern adventures, and a collective delight was felt.

Jaehyun slid his hand under the table, intertwining his fingers with yours. Your gazes locked right with such fulfillment it made you chuckle out of joy.

It was what everyone deserved after the war. After Koschei, the Lord of Life, defeated Yuta, the Lord of Death.

Except peace was a very dangerous thing to believe in.

The candles were the first signal, suddenly blown out, even if there was no wind. Only the moon and the stars lit the tents now. A cold shiver ran down your spine.

Jaehyun tightened his grip on your hand. He looked away from your face into the deep darkness ahead of the manor, where the oak trees shook with the piercingly cold breeze.

The night got darker. The guests went silent. The world took a deep breath. And then, the shadows of Death came out to play, laughing like sharp icicles falling from the sky. They moved so fast you lost track of their localization. When you blinked an eye, one of them was by your side, right after Vasilisa.

You remember looking down to your shoes, stained in lively red blood, blood that didn’t belong to you, but to Vasilisa’s slaughtered throat. The sound of her body meeting the floor would haunt you until the last of your days.

You looked over at Jaehyun. A cruel stillness shielded him like armory, and you knew your husband was once again a general. He was not Jaehyun. He was Koschei. The Lord of Life, never scared, unbroken. Deathless.

His eyes were cold when he met yours.

Before you could stop it, Koschei had made one single command to John. John, who put you on the horse and rode you back to the mortal realms. John, whose chest you hurt with your fists, commanding that he rode you back to your husband. In vain, of course.

-

The war had ended.

Confident, the sun shone twice as bright between the orange clouds, like water mixing with streams of blood. The birds sang graceful melodies, children ran freely on the cobblestone streets, flowers bloomed in silent laughter, and mothers welcomed their daughters and sons for a warm afternoon that smelled like cakes and coffee. Everything felt alive with pleasure.

You looked over the street through sunglasses slipping down your nose, carefully watching the euphoria as the newspaper boy screamed with full lungs that THE WAR IS OVER! PEACE IS FINALLY HERE! THE WAR IS OVER!

Everything about that day… Everything reminded you of him. Jaehyun.

Forcing yourself to distract your mind, you turned on your heels to keep walking. It was a perfect day to lock up inside the coziness of your home, where nothing would disturb your heart. No news about life, no news about death.

At the corner of your street, you overheard a little girl praying with her fists together, so concentrated in her genuine words that perhaps she didn’t notice how loud she sounded.

“Dear Koschei, I thank you, loving Father, for this day. Thank you for putting an end to this horrible war,” she repeated like a mantra. Behind her back, the ruins of a school stood still, silent and absolute.

“Hey, girl,” you called curtly.

She opened her eyes, caramel and expecting.

You held her gaze. “What exactly are you doing?”

“I’m thanking the Lord of Life, our darling Papa Koschei, for winning the war,” she readily replied. “I know the war was fought by humans, but at the Holy Land of the Lords, Koschei fought for us, and we won, so I am grateful to him.”

The Holy Land of the Lords. The immortal realm. The details of that place remained in your every fiber. Every oak tree, every rook, every crystal river making rocks roll softly under their flows.

A bitter chuckle left your lips. “Is that what you believe in?”

“I know it!” The girl passionately replied, her lower lip nearly pouty. “I know Papa Koschei takes good care of us and would never ever let us die! He is the strongest god out there!”

Now that the girl so fiercely defended her Lord, you understood why you’d stopped in front of her in the first place. You still wanted to hear about him; still thrived on seeing people indulge into having faith in him, because Koschei the Deathless brought them hope.

What killed you inside was that he had not been as generous to you.

Jaehyun had given you up in the name of war.

The little girl was right. He wouldn’t let her die.

Even if it cost him his marriage.

Once you stepped into the small apartment you now called home, removing your red scarf, it wasn’t particularly hard to notice the old lady sitting by the kitchen table, her nose buried in the newspaper.

“The war is over,” Baba Yaga hummed. Her face was wrinkled by years and magic, her spine curved into itself, making her look shorter than average people. Still, her presence was loud and tragic, like a strident mischievous laugh in the depths of the world. Her cat eyes as young as a newborn’s. “Jaehyun won. Now he will come for you, to finally be your husband.”

“Koschei stopped being my husband the moment he sent me here,” your reply was blunt and definitive.

Baba Yaga rolled her eyes. “Two years later, you’re still the same stubborn, spoiled bride. Don’t you understand he did that to keep you safe?”

“The war was his as much as it was mine,” you retorted, all your emotional scars bleeding and flooding the old rug on the kitchen floor. “I was his wife.”

“You are human,” the oldest of the old witches corrected you, her lips hard in a thin line. “Too precious for Jaehyun to risk. He had sent you here, to the mortal realm, to keep you safe with me. Or do you think I spent the last two years happy that my obligation was to look after someone as rebellious as you?”

Her gaze pierced you like a needle that knew precisely where to stitch.

“Plus, he did send you letters,” she remembered.

Up to some point, you agreed with Baba Yaga’s reasoning: once the Lord of Death made his bloody rematch known at your wedding, both the immortal and mortal realms went into war. A war between Life and Death had a direct impact on the mortal realm: diseases that spread fast, countries that devastated others in the name of progress, genocides motivated by greed and power.

That was the way of the world.

Koschei had sent you back into the mortal realm, where the civil war took place, because even if humans battled and killed each other, you would be safer there, with Baba Yaga, the most powerful of witches, right by your side, keeping death away from you.

His letters, though, were burned after you read them. Jaehyun promised a lot, but delivered nothing. No empty words were going to make you feel like a wife.

Taking a deep breath, you looked over the window. Now, the sky was a deep violet, like the first flower to blossom after winter.

“Did you ever understand me, granny?” you asked, even if Baba Yaga hated being called that. “You were there. You listened to our vows. He promised to let me be, that I was going to have as much freedom as a woman could, and I promised to fight for him, because it was the wish of my heart. The first thing he did when Yuta was back was to send me back here. Koschei didn’t give me the tiniest chance to help, to be by his side when he needed me the most. He acted exactly like the husbands I always despised. Koschei confined me.”

Baba Yaga looked over at you with those firm, impossible to intimidate eyes, much similar to rocks, dark amethysts that saw through your spirit. You felt both acceptance and opposition, refuge and danger, understanding and disdain. That woman held the world in the palm of her calloused hands. She forgave no one.

“Dead wives can’t do anything, child. I respect your hate, and your pride, but stupidity has never made me pity anyone. Love is way more complex than you wish to comprehend.”

You were about to open your mouth to defend yourself when a knock was heard on the door.

Your heart jumped in your chest, as if it desired to climb up your throat and run out into the world. You exchanged a gaze with the old witch, registering how a smirk was formed in her almost non-existing lips.

“As I said, Papa Koschei is coming for you.”

A tall silhouette stood behind the door, seen through the blurred glass decoration. A shadow you could recognize amongst millions; one whose body you knew like a patriot knew the map of her country, like a gypsy intimately knew the meaning of each tarot card.

You could even feel his scent: amburana notes filling your nostrils with the many memories you kept buried in the deepest coffin of your reminiscence. The same perfume you so welcomed inside your lungs that fateful night, before the shadows came.

Jaehyun.

He had come personally to see you.

Breath got stuck in your throat. Your stomach trembled. You were going to vomit. You were going to panic. You were going to die.

Gathering every fragile piece of fiber, you breathed deeply before staring into Baga Yaga’s stone eyes again.

“Tell him there is nothing he can possibly do to ever make me want to see him again,” you determined before cowardly walking to your room, your legs melting like butter in a frying pan.

-

Death came to everyone. It wasn’t a secret, nor a surprise. It was simply the way of the world. Every creature, once born, had no choice but to perish. Some did it very quickly, while others had a long life before being embraced by the numbing hug of death.

There was only one creature that couldn’t die: Koschei, the Deathless, who hid his Death.

It was said that it was hidden inside a needle, which was in an egg, which was in a duck, which was in a black hound, which was in an iron chest, which was buried under an oak tree, in the distant immortal realm, in the island of Buyan.

Only someone who possessed Koschei’s hound could have him in their power.

You knew the legend. Everyone did. Life and Death fought endlessly, and their continuous conflict inflicted rivalries in the mortal realms just the same. Life had never been peaceful. You remembered it well.

You always knew you would grow up to become a priestess. It was in your blood: you learned from your grandmother how to make potions and to summon spiritual guides; your mother, in addition, was more than proud to teach you how to heal people through the sharpest use of herbs. You studied their methods and absorbed their knowledge eagerly, burying your tiny nose in books and devouring every little thing you could learn about magic.

Plants needed to be activated with mantras, candles needed to be lightened with intention, incense burning to keep the energy level, and your spirit needed to be taken care of. Your altar must be kept clean and holy, fed with prayers and meditation, as the holy images of saints watched for you.

You worshiped many saints: the Holy Lady of Apparition, Yemojá mother of the seas, Ọ̀ṣun mother of the river, Ọ̀ṣọ́ọ̀sì the king of the forests, and the Holy Sara Kali. It was as though they all knew you, tending to your knees like parents to a child.

You felt so comfortable when connecting with your spirituality there was nothing else you could choose as an occupation than being a priestess with a temple inherited from your ancestors. A temple in which people would step into, searching for healing — a temple so cozy and nice people would walk out feeling their feet in the clouds, their hearts lighter with the feather weight of hope.

Yes, that was what you wished for!

Except war got in the way. It was not in the temple that people needed your help, but in the battlefields. Instead of aiding people with spiritual problems — such as insomnia, haunting, chronic headaches, loneliness and such —, you were needed to nurse those after a battle. Men and women who screamed and bled, burned and cried, and closed their eyes right in front of you, never to open them again.

When you volunteered for war, you thought you were doing something noble, but as the bombs fell from the sky and families were forever destroyed… When young men witnessed their friends and lovers covered in blood and death, you wish that type of nobleness was never necessary in the first place.

Perhaps, if the Lord of Life and the Lord of Death stopped fighting… If they only could live at peace, others could too.

Not that you expected to ever find out. Few were the people sent to the immortal realm that returned to tell the story. It wasn’t usual for a human to face a Lord or Lady and make their wishes in person.

But you had your chance.

“You’re recruiting nurses for the immortal realm?” Your eyes widened as you grabbed the flier, looking over at the young boy who just had handed it to you.

“Not nurses. Priestesses,” he corrected. “As one, you’ll assist Koschei’s army personally.”

“But aren’t his soldiers immortal?” you voiced your ignorance.

“No. Only Koschei can’t be killed. His soldiers can. That’s why we need priests and priestesses, not nurses. To stitch them up.”

It wasn’t hard to make your decision. Your grandmother had passed away years ago, and your mother disappeared in the North, raising suspicions that she was caught by wicked witch hunters. You had no one.

You had nothing but the hope to stop that pointless war.

You grabbed an old, crumbly leather suitcase, and put your clothes and personal items there. The boy had not specified how the trip to the immortal realm was going to take place, but you still met him at the park two days later, under an oak tree, as he had told you to do.

“His death is hidden inside a needle, which is in an egg, which is in a duck, which is in a black hound, which is in an iron chest, which is buried under an oak tree…” you whispered to yourself, watching as the leaves danced the choreography of the wind.

The boy that recruited you showed up in a war truck and motioned for you to come inside. At the back, six people were already in, including a young man with a soft appearance, whose side you sat at.

The boy started driving, causing the truck to shake on the paving stones. “How can a boy drive?” You asked, not low enough to keep the question private.

“He’s not an ordinary boy,” the man by your side murmured politely. “That’s Jisung, the Lord of Choices.”

Your eyes widened. “A Lord? Have I just met a Lord?”

“You have,” the man chuckled, then offered his hand. “I’m Mark, by the way.”

“Y/N,” you shook his hand.

“First time being recruited?”

“Yes. What about you?”

“Third time.”

“But you’re so young!”

“Well, my mother served Koschei her entire life. She occasionally came to the mortal realm for some fun, that’s how she met my dad… And the rest is history.”

“So you know him?” you hummed. “Koschei?”

“I’ve seen him, yes. You’ll see him quite a lot on the battlefield, commanding the army.”

You wondered what Koschei’s army looked like. Poor souls that wandered the fields in shining armor, fighting against the lethal shadows of Death.

The truck continued to bounce: its sway had you drowning in your own thoughts. How would Koschei be? Was he an old wizard with a long white beard and protuberant bones, as the fairytales presumed? Or was he the handsome man that stole girls from villages to satisfy his needs? Was he capable of happiness, or after so many wars and losses, he was blind to anything else? Was he kind? Stern? Did he regret hiding his death? Was he lonely?

You didn’t know how much time had passed as you occupied yourself with your imagination, but you suddenly noticed the road was now smooth and the sky outside darker. In your heart, magic surrounded you.

You looked at Mark, searching for answers.

“It’s just like that. Magic,” he nodded, confirming that you were now in the immortal realm.

Mountains howled at the moonlight. Red birds cut the night. Witches rode the sky in their brooms. Flowers blossomed nonstop — roses, lilies, tulips, dahlias, buttercups, orchids, begonias —, filling the air with the richness of their perfume. Children were born. Women and men loved women and men. Dogs barked, cats purred, butterflies batted their colorful wings, rabbits hid from foxes. Sailors arrived wandering drunkenly at the harbor, and merchants came to inspect the ships. A circus had just arrived and planned their first night of intense presentations, with lion tamers, tightrope walkers and magicians. Food barracks were set to feed the city, as the steam of the cooking ascended to the vivid atmosphere. Everywhere you went, there was laughter and… And life.

“I thought I was coming for war…” you only managed to murmur.

“You are, don’t be mistaken. But this is the land of Koschei. Life has no boundaries, does it?”

The truck came to a stop and two of the people in the back jumped out. Then, the trip continued as you distanced from the city, diving into a road adorned by trees and silence.

“Koschei keeps the city safe. It is where citizens live,” Mark added.

“Does he live there too?”

“Oh, no. He lives in Buyan, the island.”

You let the answer sink in before making another question.

“Why did you volunteer again, Mark, if I may ask?”

He turned his face to the side, as though he didn’t want you to see the sparkle in his eye. “I’m coming for the woman I love.”

It nearly made you sigh, how honestly he said it. “That’s lovely. What’s her name?”

“Vasilisa. She is one of Koschei’s personal servants.”

You stood silent for a while. “Isn’t it hard, loving someone that lives in a different dimension? I mean, don’t you miss her?”

Mark grinned, looking down at the way his nervous hands played with each other. “We miss each other all the time, yes. But that’s love. And that’s life. We care about nothing else when we’re together, and respect each other when life gets rough.”

You had no idea how many hours it took for the truck to reach its final destination, but it felt like it would never end. The atmosphere got tight as though a hand wrapped around its throat, suffocating. Your sharp sensibility skills perceived the pain, the sadness, the fear that hung in the air like a portrait on a wall, impossible to ignore.

“We arrived,” the Lord of Choices announced.

You jumped out of the truck after Mark, taking an honest look around. The sky was gray and red, its colors mixed with the extension of the open field, smoke and dust contrasting with the artillery fire. Soldiers, men and women alike, slept and ate at a tent nearby, all wore in camouflage. You outlined the trenches and barriers ahead, as well as a line of covered bodies that had to be evacuated.

Your stomach stilled. You felt like a knot was being tightly tied in your guts.

It came to your knowledge that the Lord of Choices was speaking to you. “Come to the infirmary. Your work is immediately needed.”

You followed obediently, carrying your old suitcase. The infirmary was improvised in what seemed like a warehouse. Many hammocks were distributed in the length of the room, where priests and priestesses previously recruited transitioned from one to the other, as people grunted and cried, their sobs echoing through the walls.

Instinctively, you knew what to do. You had brought healing potions, as well as candles to evoke the power of your saints. Much to your luck, the infirmary was equipped with many herbs, more than you have seen your entire life. It made you feel confident that you were going to give your best and save as many souls as you could.

But as you first came to lock eyes with a man whose leg was cut off… When he held your hand so tight it could have been broken, begging for the Lord of Life to give him more time… When his aching eyes lost their shine, you sobbed, desperately wishing to go back to the mortal realm.

-

Jaehyun came for you every day, for an entire month, but you never opened the door for him. It was like playing a role in a theater: whenever he knocked on the door, your body shock circuited, your pride burned in deadly flames, and you locked yourself in your room, only daring to come out once he was long gone.

Every day, Jaehyun left small things on the kitchen table. Sometimes, it was a white lily. Other times, it was a peach, a firebird feather, a wild flower from the immortal realm.

You never touched his presents. You didn’t even allow yourself to stare at them for too long.

Sometimes, you could listen to his voice in the kitchen, as he freely spoke with Baba Yaga. Deep velvet dripping from his tongue, crowning the world with the grace of his tone.

You boiled with how violently your body desired to come out and join the conversation. Deep inside, all you wanted was to tell Baba Yaga to go for a walk and stay alone with Jaehyun in the humble apartment, so different from his manor, to face him properly, looking into those dark eyes, demanding that he begged for your forgiveness. But you were not only a coward, but thrived on the thought of revenge. Let him suffer. Why not? Whenever you thought about opening the door and letting him see you, talk to you, touch you, you remembered the woman that was sent to this world two years ago, still in her wedding dress, desperately crying, punching and kicking the door and the walls, screaming for Jaehyun to come take her back.

You remembered her sorrow, her despair, her loss, her desolation. And because you still carried that woman inside you, you decided to continue locked.

Unconsciously, you confined yourself.

Jaehyun was too respectful to force you to come out. He knew you well enough to tell any attempt to drag you to the kitchen would infuriate you. Plus, Baba Yaga had already updated him on your tantrums, the uncontrolled outbursts of extreme frustration and helplessness that took over you and made you seem like a little girl.

“So many women you could choose, and you decided you wanted the most stubborn one,” she grunted lowly.

Jaehyun almost smiled. “A rose without a thorn is the most boring thing. We both know that,” he concluded calmly. “I am aware that I caused her too much pain. I can imagine her suffering.”

“I’m afraid that’s a lie,” Baba Yaga retorted, catching Koschei’s confused gaze. “You’re a Lord, Jaehyun. Someone with power beyond reason, the visceral combination of everything that exists: the excess and the lack, creation and destruction, father and son. Nonetheless, you’re still a man. You had never been in a woman’s shoes. You might think you know women well enough, but that would be the first time you’re mistaken.”

She leaned over towards his face as they sat at the kitchen, having some tea. Her warm breath got to his face when she spoke. It smelled like the past.

“You have never witnessed such suffering. War and starvation, disaster and death, treachery and deceit. Only a fool would say you’re not an expert on those things. But suffering as a woman is an entire different thing. A suffering that makes you blind and numb. It takes your breath away, and plays with your silliness, and makes you feel inferior, forever imprinted with the mark of mediocrity and weakness. That suffering laughs at your face. I know you suffered too, my boy, but you were the one to make a choice. Your wife didn’t have that privilege. You turned her biggest fear into reality. To save her, I know. We all do. Still, she suffered. And to get her back, you’ll suffer twice as much.”

-

You had no rest. There was always way too much work to be done, so you hardly gave yourself the chance to fall asleep. Mark and you did a really good job together, though. He was taught a different kind of magic, but one that worked just as fine. You took shifts sometimes, covering each other when you needed a few minutes to eat and breathe.

It was Mark’s company that made those first days tolerable, as well as those you managed to save and heal. People in the immortal realm were built differently from humans, even if they, too, had a human appearance: their constitution was almost entirely soul, and the rest was body. When healing them, you dealt with their soul: by healing their essence, the small part that represented the matter recovered as well. Some of them, on the other hand… Some of them were too far into the darkness to have their souls saved.

“Sometimes I think this is a metaphor,” Mark admitted one day, with a painfully sleepy voice. “Only the death of the soul matters.”

“Go to sleep, Mark,” you instructed, putting a wet cloth on his forehead.

Oftenly, you and Mark listened to the noises in the battlefield, meaning a battle was taking place. The Death shadows stood away from the infirmary, but you could always tell when they were there: like sadness was closer, its lips whispering dangerous, hopeless words into your ear.

After one of those occasions, the Lord of Choices came back. “We suffered a severe attack. Many of the soldiers need your assistance, but can’t be moved. You ought to go to the battlefield.”

Your legs hurt all the way, but you resisted even when your lungs were filled with the aroma of death. Mark was right by your side — even if you had not known each other for long, he was already a dear friend to you, someone that gave you strength as you stepped into the open, deadly field, rushing to tend to those whose chest moved even the slightest bit, signaling that they were merely alive.

For the very first time, you didn’t feel the sobs climbing up your throat, because you simply had no time to surrender to the minimum sign of weakness.

War was a restless, wicked and cruel thing. Like an emptiness in the world, like a soul sucked out of one’s body never to return. Like someone that forgets how to laugh. Even time was uncertain, as the thickness of the dark sky almost didn’t shift when the sun rose. All that existed was the nonstop exercise to jump from soldier to soldier, stitching their wounds, removing body parts that were too damaged to be saved, and paying respects as you closed the eyes of the soulless.

Nine hours passed after you and Mark arrived when you two had the chance to climb up a timid hill to rest before going back to the infirmary. Mark offered himself to grab some water for you to drink on your way back. You stood back, watching the heavy sky.

Your mind was in a state foreign to you, one that played with the limits of tiredness and doubt. You often thought about going back to the mortal realm, swallowing guilty at the influence of your selfishness, but only a liar would say the battlefields and the work at the infirmary was never to be questioned. Still, as hard as it was, you held onto the expectations of your childhood with tooth and nail. “That’s a job for a priestess. A very good one,” you sighed, resting your back against the dirty grass.

As you stared into the tragic shades of the sky, your line of thinking wandered through the heavy clouds with possibilities of peace. As a child, you had witnessed a war that lasted five years, You remember how unfair you judged life to be back then. How it revolted you. As time went by, you seemed to get to the conclusion that the world was like that, and there was nothing you could possibly do to change it. Your role would be forever a healer’s. But now, as your exhaustion mixed with consciousness, you really wondered if the world had to be the way it was.

What if you could change it? What if you could make your voice heard, provoking the Lords and Ladies to change their minds? To actually embrace the idea of a different way of living, where men experienced less violence, where women were happy and not raped, where children had more smiles than sorrow?

Your right ear captured the sound of heavy boots standing close to you, and you got up completely startled, scared that a shadow was after you.

It was not a shadow. It was a man one head taller than you, whose composure immediately turned him in as someone of power. His brown eyes reflected brighter under the white thundering of the sky, and thick eyebrows gifted his face with the privilege of a deep expression. His hair was as dark as the clothing we wore: a velvet suit so rich in details he looked like a noble. A strand of hair fell like a comma onto his small and pale forehead. Even if he was human, he reminded you of a lonely hunting wolf.

“You scared me, sir,” you placed one hand to your chest. The tip of your fingers told you exactly how dirty you and your clothes were after those exhausting hours. Two oily strands of hair fell in front of your face, too rebellious to stay kept in your ponytail.

“I apologize,” the man leaned forward for a moment, respectfully. “I assume you’re one of the new priestesses?”

“Yes. I arrived last week.”

His eyes carefully examined you, his plump lips pressed to each other. There was something in those irises, a mystery hidden in the confines of time and space. “What’s your name?”

“Y/N. What is yours?”

“They call me Koschei, but I only tell my real name to those who are dear to me.”

You nearly choked on your own tongue, as your mouth was too dry to have saliva in it. “My Lord,” you grabbed the skirt of your dress to kneel, but he stopped you with a single move of his hand.

“That’s not necessary. If anyone should bend, it is me, as you might have given up many things to come here and save my army.”

His words surprised you as much as his face. Koschei was young in appearance, gentle voiced, and seemed like he was considerate. He was nothing like some books defined: a tall, thin, old man with a long beard and livid eyes, covered by a black cape, a creature so worn out by time and circumstance that he didn’t ever resemble the life he carried in his title.

“How many people have we lost today?” he then inquired.

“Around a hundred.”

You had the impression that the number physically hurt him, as Koschei hissed lowly. “I wish it didn’t have to be this way,” it was what he said, looking down at his hand. An open wound was closing, deathless. “But we had to let them get very close. It was the only way to get some advantage.”

“Do you think you’ll defeat the Lord of Death one more time?”

Koschei lifted his gaze to meet yours. “I don’t wish to defeat him. I only wish to end the war.”

Your eyebrows clenched. “By defeating Death, wouldn’t you end the war for all?” You fought not to call him lord again. “Wouldn’t it be better for people if you and Death stopped fighting?”

Your question nearly had him smiling at the corner of his lips. “Life without death would be unbearable. Things need to die, Y/N, so others can be born. I created Death before creating anything else. Even before Time. Yuta is my oldest brother. He is also my oldest enemy. Life and Death will never stop fighting.”

Yuta. The Lord of Death had a real name.

“Then, the mortal and immortal realms will always be fighting too,” you stated.

“Indeed. Think about a baby. It starts its way to death as soon as it is born.”

You breathed deeply, trying to make your next question as polite as you could. “Isn’t it unfair that people are destined to always be at conflict? Don’t you think it would be better for everyone if they could just have some peace?”

Koschei the Deathless scanned your eyes with admiration — so beautiful, alive and pure, he thought — and shook his head shortly.

“In loneliness, we act in the name of love. In war, we act in the name of survival. I love my brother dearly, so I can’t kill him. And he can’t kill me, because no one can,” he replied firmly. “Plus, I am not to blame alone. I created the mortal realm, and the human souls that thrive there. Your books only tell how the Lords influence human life, but never how you mortals influence us.” His eyes didn’t leave yours. “Humans start wars. They kill, deceive and make mischievous plans to conquer power and prestige, no matter how many have to perish for them to succeed.”

Koschei took one step closer. You merely registered the red lightning that cut the sky like the blade of a knife behind his back.

“But they also love and aid,” he continued. “They have passions, and a wild, fertile imagination. Art, music, food, traditions, religions, family, sex, redemption… Humans are so beautifully alive. As a loving father, I can only fight for them.”

“You’re the Lord that created everything. You could as well create a Lord or Lady of Peace,” you retorted, fighting not to stumble in front of his grandiosity. “Isn’t the pain enough reason to spare the ones you love?”

His eyes allured you like flames. “Pain and death are part of life too, priestess.”

The closer he got, the more you felt blood rushing in your veins, your heart so fast as though it had a race to win. Your body screamed that it was alive, that it wanted to seize eternity with possibilities, love, happiness and euphoria.

That was Koschei’s first effect on you.

“But you only know pain,” you boldly stated, determined to offer him a new point of view. “Even if you do witness the death of others, as I did here everyday since I arrived, you don’t know your own.”

The Lord of Life was so close by now that his shadow circled you like the wings of an angel.

“You do wish to change the world, don’t you?” he inquired.

“I am not opposed to contradictions, but I do believe a loving father would do anything to keep his children safe and happy,” you replied, holding the intensity of his gaze. “Happiness is as important to Life as Death.”

Koschei allowed your opinion to sink in. After a few seconds, that seemed to last longer, he offered you a gentle smile. “Join me for dinner, miss. I’ll be more than content to take a deeper dive into your thoughts.”

-

The failed visits Jaehyun paid to your apartment kept going for a few more days until Baba Yaga came to knock on your room’s door.

“Tell him I am not coming out,” you warned.

“It is not your husband who came this time,” she announced.

You lifted your chin from the bed.

“Who is it, then? One of his servants?”

Your heart ached at that. What had happened to Vasilisa remained a mystery to you. You could only guess she’d been buried with the rest of the wedding’s victims.

“Not one of his servants, definitely. Why don’t you come out and see?” It was Baba Yaga’s reply before her steps distanced from the door.

Driven by curiosity, you complied. It rained outside, the droplets making a calm melody at the ceiling, muffling the volume of your breath when you opened the door. One turn right at the end of the hall, and you were face to face with a thin man in red clothes, his heavy boots wet with rain, his eyes like blood.

The Lord of Death.

“What a nerve you have coming here after ruining my wedding,” you calmly observed. Even if you were in front of Koschei’s fatal enemy, the person who was guilty of slaughtering Vasilisa, you knew the rules of the world well enough to act otherwise. Yuta was dangerous, like a tiger to a rabbit. Killing was in his nature. Nothing you said and did was going to change that.

Yuta bent softly to you, causing the attentive Baba Yaga to snort.

“I wish I could apologize, m’Lady, but one can only be what faith reserved. I agree your wedding perhaps wasn’t the best choice, but I love a little family drama.”

“I almost didn’t notice,” you breathed, eyeing him carefully. “What do you want?”

“As you might have noticed, I lost the war. Your husband came out victorious, and some of our brothers and sisters gathered to put me on trial. I came to personally invite you to be one of the witnesses.”

“A witness against your war crimes?” you clenched an eyebrow.

“A witness against my crimes on your wedding,” Yuta specified. “Koschei sued me. Not for my war crimes — he knows I would never be punished for that. He sued me for ruining your ceremony, and what followed.”

Oh, you could so clearly see it. How mad Jaehyun had gotten, exactly? What was the size of his fury to be once again involved in war strategies, and not in a bed you kept warm, lustful, never ending?

A war he could forgive. But what happened at your wedding was a different story.

Your eyes nearly softened at the news, but you were quick to clear your throat and recompose yourself. “When?”

“Tomorrow.”

“And I suppose you’ll be taking me back to the immortal realm?”

Yuta’s eyes sparkled, cunning. “I would love to, m’Lady, but Koschei would never allow that. The old witch can help you with that.”

You turned to Baba Yaga with the speed of sunlight, your eyes tight and your tone accusing. “You could have taken me back! All this time!”

“Not a fight worth buying against your husband,” she simply replied. “Koschei’s trust is too dear to me to lose it.”

You hated it. How much power Jaehyun had. How everyone adored him. How little girls prayed to him and thanked him for his kindness. How he had left your wedding ring at the table the previous day: the same wedding ring you threw at the river, one year ago, in a tantrum so strong you got a fever and Baba Yaga made you soup for a whole week.

If you really intended on never seeing Jaehyun again, you would have turned to Yuta and declined. But your heart was bleeding to have justice made, and your poor emotional state considered that Jaehyun deserved the revenge of seeing the version of you that hated him. He deserved to suffer too, didn’t he?

You turned your face to the Lord of Death.

“I’ll be there.”

-

“If you can take me to the immortal realm, then you’re a Lady,” you risked as Baba Yaga made you jump inside a small carriage, one that already felt inadequate compared to the first few cars that ran the city’s streets.

“Lady of Nunnery,” she replied ironically.

“Don’t be so mean, granny,” you cooed, arranging your light blue gown that you so carefully chose for the trial, one with long sleeves and a tight skirt. “Aren’t you happy that you might return to your own life and catch up on whatever else you wish to do, instead of watching me?”

“I’m too old and wise to allow myself to have hope,” Baba Yaga concluded. With a small, mostly inaudible hiss of her lips, she commanded the two black horses to ride, and with that the carriage began to move.

The trip to the immortal realm was as smooth as the first time. In the blink of an eye, the pavement the sun shone brighter, music filled the air, and the food barracks set an abundant diversity of colors and smells, so much your mouth watered. Everything tasted better in the immortal realm.

Now that you were back, you realized how badly you had missed it. It felt like being home after the longest of journeys. Like coming back to the arms of a mother. You were too drawn in your thoughts to speak for the rest of the trip as the carriage took you to the Palace of Justice. You had only been there once, to accompany Koschei in the judgment of a failed attempt of robbery in Buyan, when a very talented robber tried breaking in to search for his death.

It was a marvelous construction, as palaces are. Everything was clean and immaculate, the marble on the walls, the tall windows and the solemn ambience of silence and wisdom. You and Baba Yaga handed the carriage to a young girl and walked inside calmly. She limped on one foot, so you kept yourself close to her, even if the old witch wouldn’t ever ask for help.

“You know what to do, right?” she spoke.

“Be honest and merciless,” you mocked.

“Be clever, girl. You have cried for this day to come, to be reunited with Koschei, and have some peace. Enjoy it now that you have the chance.”

You took a closer look at the surroundings, at the spotless carpet, the vivid and dramatic paintings, the employees… The life you wish you could have right there. “I don’t think it is that simple, granny,” you replied, as you came to face a tall door that was opened for both of you.

The courtroom was wide as everything in the immortal realm. That land belonged to Koschei, meaning it was a full expression of everything life could be: the chairs gracefully decorated with silver flowers, the ceiling made of glass in a garden of multiple colors, the judge bench imponent and high, where the gorgeous Lady of Justice sat. She looked like an angel, tall and firm, her white gown contrasting with the holy blackness of her skin.

As you walked in, familiar faces turned to look at you. You caught how Ten the Lord of Beauty offered you a friendly smile, and how Taeyong the Lord of Word tilted his head in respect. John the Knight was there too, with the same apologetic look he gave you the last time you met, as you ordained he brought you back. They were at your wedding, as well as other Lords and Ladies that had already found their seats. The Lord of Death was there too, clad in his deep red clothes and cunning gaze. Jaehyun had not arrived yet.

You and Baba Yaga made your way to the first row of seats, in front of the Lady of Justice. It instantly came to your mind how it was said that the Lord of Beauty was entirely enamored with her, and with one look you knew it was true. Ten had always been smitten for beautiful things, and the Lady of Justice was easily one of the most dazzling creatures you had ever put your eyes on. As Justice itself, she was severe and rigid, but also welcoming, strong, and undeniable.

Each person that walked inside the courtroom had your heart throbbing in your chest. Unconsciously, you waited for Jaehyun to arrive, and your body knew it, making you wish to pick at your nails, bounce your feet to the floor and look at your back, searching for him. Your body never failed to betray you. Both you and Jaehyun knew it well. The moment you felt your heart racing, your veins blooming, your head spinning with the force of a tornado, you knew he had arrived.

His effects on you never failed.

Your head started a war with your heart, as you forced yourself not to look over your shoulder. You sensed your husband approaching you with every step, until his silhouette stood right in front of your eyes. Without further choices, you lifted your gaze to meet his.

How absolutely cruel life was to you, giving you such a handsome, perfect man, and making him so irresistible your heart weighed twice its weight in your chest, nearly pulling you to stay on your knees and kiss his hands, his thighs, beg for him to let you in, to invade you, to love and fuck you, to utterly and gutturally ravish you, to take you home and make you his wife again and again.

But you refrained. You refrained even though your eyes tried their hardest to delight him with your weakness.

“Y/N, my wife,” Jaehyun said, his voice almost like a plea, eyes frankly in love, wanting and admiring.

“I can hardly be called that, Koschei.”

“Jaehyun,” he interfered, eyes tightened, as though you calling him Koschei physically stung. “That’s how I told you to call me.”

“Please, take your seat. Trial is about to start,” you calmly enunciated.

His austere reaction was successful in hiding precisely how much pain you brought him with your coldness, but you both knew two things: you loved Jaehyun, and Jaehyun loved you.

You were expecting he would find a seat somewhere else, but much to your surprise, the Lord of Life locked a meaningful gaze with Baba Yaga.

“An old lady has got no peace in this fucking world,” she complained, getting up for Koschei to sit down by your side.

You quickly grabbed her wrist. “Don’t go, gran-”

“Shut up, child. I don’t take orders from you,” she hissed like a fox, slipping from your touch and stonily finding herself another seat at the third row.

Jaehyun, then, sat by your side. Those excruciatingly dear amburana notes filled your lungs, and you had to clench your thighs to keep still. Thankfully, the Lady of Justice spoke next, opening the session.

“You haven’t replied to my letters,” Jaehyun murmured.

“You haven’t kept your vows,” you returned just as lowly. “You confined me.”

“For your own fucking good. Did you wish to be killed?”

“I wished to be with you.”

“It was too dangerous here. I thankfully had time to rebuild the city before you arrived, to spare you the chaos.”

So the city, the place he always did his best to keep safe, was attacked.

“You didn’t have to do that all by yourself.”

“I wouldn’t risk losing you, Y/N,” he looked over at you, discreetly at the corner of his eye. “You’re too loved by me.”

Everytime his mouth spoke of love, you shuddered.

“Yuta wouldn’t dare kill me,” you risked. Only a guess.

“You know nothing about Lords and Ladies,” Jaehyun nearly rubbed his face in frustration. “Yuta doesn’t have a trustworthy sense of morals, Y/N. If he had the chance to take your death with him, he would.”

“Wouldn’t you be capable of rescuing me?” Your question let him know that, time after time, as you had been away in the mortal realm, you had thought about the possibilities over and over. “To breathe life into me after I was gone?”

“For that, you’d have to be born again.”

“So be it.”

You immediately noticed how his hand, placed on his thigh, clenched into a fist.

“You think too little of my love for you,” Jaehyun growled. “If you were born again, you wouldn’t be as you are now. And as you are now is how I want you. Every day and every night. I can’t tolerate a world emptied of you, Y/N… I hav-”

“Koschei, the Lord of Life, will contribute as our first witness,” the Lady of Justice announced in a voice two volumes louder, breaking your conversation. Jaehyun smoothly got up, looking over at you dearly before he moved over to the front of the judge's bench.

“Can you tell us what happened that night?” the Lady of Justice asked.

“It was the night of my wedding. As you all know, I had never been married before, but fell in love with a priestess. She’s right there,” he pointed at you with pride in his eyes, and even a smile to his lips, making you want to shrink until you disappeared. He was so in love. Fuck, he still was so in love… “We had just won the war against Death, but Death then decided to strike back that same night, causing sixty of our guests to find a violent end on our dinner table. I had to send my wife to the mortal realm, for her own sake, and since that day we didn’t get to properly live as husband and wife. That’s why I sued Death. If he had had the decency of waiting, then perhaps my first wedding days would have been happier.”

You looked over at Yuta, and how his face was soft and calm, relaxed even, with a mocking grin to his lips, and you couldn’t help but feel the trial regarded the wrong subject. Yes, he should be addressed for what he did to your wedding. But shouldn’t he be addressed for way more crimes than that?

Without further thinking, you stood up. “Permission to speak, my Lady,” your voice politely asked.

The Lady of Justice complied with a nod.

“Permission granted, priestess. Please, come closer.”

You obeyed, readily standing by Jaehyun’s side. “I do believe the Lord of Death did us wrong by ruining our wedding, and as Koschei told you, I did suffer a lot, being sent to the mortal realm. I have belonged here since I first stepped into this realm, to aid during the war. Death’s revenge on my wedding will perhaps be something I will never entirely get over, but…” your eyes tightened a little, “but I believe we are addressing the wrong thing. My suffering was not individual. Many suffered from the effects of the war. Families were taken apart, destroyed, many kids never had the chance to grow up. My dear friend Vasilisa was murdered in front of my own eyes,” at that, you looked over at Yuta. “Life was assaulted and humiliated in several ways, and it would be selfish of me to stand here to defend myself against a single tragedy when so many lost their lives and hopes. Their souls.”

The entire room looked at you amusedly.

“So what you mean is that this trial should be against war itself?” the Lady of Justice asked to clarify.

“I’m not sure a trial is going to entirely solve the issue,” you replied calmly. “I suggest that, instead, we discuss peace.”

You caught the way Jaehyun looked at you. How enamored he was. How he could have put you on a pedestal.

“Peace?” Ten the Lord of Beauty tasted the word in his tongue.

“Peace is at a state of mind, at its best,” Taeyong the Lord of Words hummed. His pure and big eyes stared into the air as if he was reading the word over and over.

“It could be a state of reality too,” you added. “Peace and war are opposites: as death exists to balance life, peace should exist to balance war. There’s where Koschei comes in,” you presented your idea smoothly. It wasn’t the first time you discussed such matters with Jaehyun. When he first invited you over to dinner, you had mentioned the idea. “As Lord of Life he can create someone to manage peace as he did to each of you.”

You and Jaehyun eyed each other. You couldn’t tell if he was more proud or challenged: he had never agreed on creating peace in the first place, but if you could bargain with him, that was your request.

“I think it is fair,” Justice agreed. “But it is my job to make sure we reach the final goal of this trial. Koschei, do you wish to continue with it?”

Jaehyun slowly averted his eyes from you to her. “Let’s do as my wife says,” he decided. “But I have a condition for the trial on Death to be canceled.”

“We are all ears, Life,” Yuta cooed.

“Let me rescue Vasilisa from the realms of Death and make her be born again,” Jaehyun breathed. “And Mark too.”

-

You could say you and Koschei were getting closer. After the first dinner in the manor, where he carefully listened to your ideas — to your surprise, without ever mocking you or lowering your reasoning —, it was frequent that the Lord of Life searched for you. Once together, you never stopped talking about diverse subjects. Sometimes, you even had the impression he consciously wanted your point of view and advice, like he treasured your way of thinking, so rich in complexity and imagination.

“It’s like the first day of spring,” Koschei explained while you took a walk at the manor’s garden a few weeks after your first encounter. War continued, but the battlefields were calmer: Death had a lot of work to do with a new local disease that was taking many lives away in the mortal realm. Even Mark had a moment to travel to Buyan and meet Vasilisa. “Not spring itself, but the first day, when the weather is warmer and the flowers stretch, blossoming…”

“What?” you asked with interest.

“Talking to you.”

Your cheeks burned. “Oh, we humans just have smart ideas,” you humbled, unaware that you were reducing yourself because of your shyness. “The majority of us are very smart. We even have artists such as Frida Kahlo and Remedios Varo. Are you familiar with them?”

“I know everything my kids do, miss,” Koschei chuckled.

“So…” you bit your cheek,“did you know me before I arrived?”

“Not like that,” he admitted, his expression going slightly serious as he stopped to admire the white roses. Big and with rich, thick perfume. “I personally made the first men and women, and let them be, so I didn’t have the time to catch up on them individually, but I know what goes on. Humans are free to make their choices and populate the mortal realm, mate with whoever they want to. I’d say the Lady of Desire plays a huge role in that.”

“Never heard of her. What is she like?” you tilted your head, focusing on the big lilies that smelled like heaven. Life really flourished differently in Koschei’s land.

“Entirely convincing. Dangerous, even. Once in her presence, your head is easily messed up with,” his voice was like a song as you slipped down the garden, unable that, everywhere you went on the obsidian pathway, Koschei followed, attracted to your natural scent like a bee to a flower.

“She might be very alluring,” you commented. “I sometimes wonder if desire could be a law.”

“How so?”

“One could only have another if there was any desire,” you clarified. “It would certainly avoid women from getting raped.”

Koschei stopped in awe. “You can’t help but care about others, can you?”

“As you should,” your tone was light, but sincere. “Thinking the world is the way it is leaves no imagination for creation and improvement. I was kind of disappointed to know you’re a bit selfish.”

He swallowed. “Selfish?”

“Yes. You know, children pray for you. And still they mourn their families in war. The idea of an omnipresent, benevolent Lord isn’t exactly real.”

“That’s a version humans created of me. To have hope, perhaps. It is like saying that every woman was born to be a tender mother,” Koschei reasoned, and when he passed you by, his side brushed yours, leaving soft goosebumps under the fabric of your dress.

He smelled like the loveliest amburana tree.

“I am not immune to desire,” he continued, holding your gaze as though it was needed in such an exposure. “I can’t ignore the wishes of my heart, and by nature I am cruel, demanding, and utterly unforgiving. But I can also be gentle, loving, and nurturing. Just like life is, sometimes.”

If you said you were not attracted by the contradiction he held at the tip of his tongue, and at every fiber of his being, you would be shamelessly lying.

You stopped underneath a gazebo, near a black water fountain, where water was continuously spilled from the mouth of a hound. Symbolic. “Is it true that you had many lovers?” you felt bold in asking.

Koschei picked a deep red apple from the nearest tree, supporting his weight on the gazebo before replying. “I was a lover countless times,” he removed a knife from the pocket of his suit — the blade had delicate decorated eggs imprinted on it — and cut a slice out of the fruit. “And I have loved too, more than anyone.”

“Did you really steal girls from villages to make them yours?”

“That sounds like rape to me.”

“Did you?” you insisted.

“No,” Koschei handed you the apple slice. You easily accepted it. “I didn’t have to.”

With all his looks and conversation skills, you trusted he was speaking the truth. You bit down on the apple, enjoying the sugar on your tongue.

“By the way, the boys searched for me as well. And I loved them all,” Koschei added, and at that you chuckled, placing your hand on your lips. You still had food in your mouth.

Smoothly, Koschei grabbed your fist and put it down. “Don’t hide your smile,” he hummed with such chivalry and admiration you went silent, your pupils widening. “It is one of the most beautiful things in you.”

Sometimes, in the deepest secrets of the night, you wondered if Koschei the Deathless meant the way he looked at you. Could he really be interested in what you had to offer? Your ideas, your mind, your beauty? You liked yourself quite right, and saw yourself as pretty in your own way.

Lately, with the way Koschei gazed at you, so tenderly, so happy even, when you caught him looking, well… It felt like he was attracted to you.

Now he was just admitting that he found your smile to be beautiful.

Automatically, you looked away, unsure. Understanding, Koschei removed his hand and returned to cutting a slice for himself. “What about you, miss? Did you have many lovers?”

“A few,” you hummed, staring at the effortless moves of his hands. “I had a school sweetheart, but we didn’t last. After him, it was all fun.” You considered whether you shared extra information. “By the way, I have loved girls too.”

At your reveal, Koschei nearly cut his thumb.

As if to save you from further embarrassment, one of Koschei’s servants approached you, bending to him in respect before speaking. “My Lord, I’ve got news from the city.”

“Go ahead.”

“One of our priests was murdered by shadows. His girlfriend came all the way from the City to report the crime herself.”

That was how you lost Mark. That was how you met Vasilisa.

-

“Vasilisa and Mark will be born again,” Baba Yaga concluded after the trial was over, as you waited for the carriage. “Take them as apprentices. Teach them your magic.”

“For that to happen, I will have to stay in the immortal realm.”

“Wasn’t that your plan all along? Or do you wish to return?”

“Well, granny, we are waiting for the carriage to take us back.”

The old witch frowned. “I have never said that I was going to take you back! Papa Koschei’s orders were to bring you here. The carriage will take me back to my realm. You go back to Buyan, where you belong.”

You couldn’t say you were surprised, but the slightest stubborn hope of your heart wished you could punish Koschei for longer.

The boy came with the carriage and Baba Yaga was so eager to leave she nearly kicked him away.

“Cruel woman,” you teased.

“After spending so much time with you? Absolutely!” She jumped in, her hand on the door. “Be safe, child.”

And with that, Baba Yaga left. The last thing you registered was how the yellow and brown leaves danced with the cold wind as the night approached and her carriage disappeared into the blooming horizon.

“She is the Lady of Luck,” Koschei’s voice right behind your back startled you, making your shoulders jump. “I’m sorry, love. Didn’t intend on scaring you.”

“Don’t call me that,” you growled.

Noticing the goosebumps on your skin, Koschei immediately removed his coat and landed it on your shoulders. You felt instantly warmer. “What else is a poor husband to call his wife? No matter how hard I had it, my vows were made. You’re mine as much as I am yours.”

“You already know my opinion on the effectiveness of your vows.”

“Not even you kept them fully,” his tone wasn’t accusing, but it made you frown, offended. “You promised to let your weapons down for me.”

“I did!”

“Not freely.”

“You forced me, Koschei.”

“And you’re mad about it. I understand it,” he searched for your hand, and this time you couldn’t pull away. His slender fingers had always felt magical on yours: long digits compared to tiny ones. Jaehyun placed your hand on his chest, right where his deathless heart beat. “All I ask is for you to let me be who I wanted to, two years ago. Give me the chance to be your loving, faithful husband, and I’ll make it up to you. Every little punch on the wall, every scream of my name… I’ll make up to you, wife.”

You were still angry, fuming, and hurt. But as life’s contradictions itself, you were eager, desperate to love, and ready to make the Lord of Life fall to his knees in front of you, begging, crying, sobbing.

“Take me to Buyan.”

-

The loss of a close friend felt like a knife transpassing your heart. Not only you got deeply affected by the news, but surrendered to the strongest fever you ever had, so devastating Koschei insisted you were taken to Buyan, where he could keep a close eye on you.

You insisted Vasilisa joined you: the sweet girl was already like a little sister, so loyal she stood by your side all the time you were treated in the luxurious manor Koschei the Deathless resided in.

At least, you had someone to mourn with.

The doctors said the fever was closely related to the state of your soul: in the immortal realm, your soul commanded, and your body obeyed. You were so sad and broken at the loss of Mark, so young, lively and willing, that your body simply couldn’t take it.

Koschei constantly came to visit, sometimes staying by your bed when Vasilisa needed to rest or to tend to her own pain.

Three weeks after Mark’s passing, Life and Death came to an agreement and the war was over. You were already fully recovered, but still mourning, when the news came in like the sun at the beginning of a fresh morning. With it, you considered your options.

Going back to the mortal realm was your original plan. But did it make any sense? What awaited you on the other side? Your job as a priestess would certainly help people, but it wasn’t like you were going to be useless in the immortal realm. Souls there were way more sensitive, and perhaps the healing touch of your hand would bring them some comfort.

In the immortal realms, at least, you had Vasilisa.

And Koschei.

You couldn’t deny your heart had grown affectionate towards him. The Lord of Life was thrilling, alluring and simple, as a man should be. He listened carefully to your thoughts and took you seriously. He protected you. He shared the wonderfulness of his mind and creations, and you liked that, more and more, he took your opinions into consideration before making a move.

If love ever bloomed in you, then you wished it was for and with someone like him.

Obviously, your limited human brain went skeptical: Koschei, the Lord of Life, didn’t need you. With the end of the war, he would return to his own interests, and you were going to be dismissed, to carry on with your own matters too.

You grabbed your old, crumbly suitcase, and started putting your few belongings inside.

“Are you really making a decision before talking to him?” Vasilisa crossed her arms, her gaze piercing as she stood by the doorframe of your temporary room. You understood why Mark fell in love with her. She was one of a brave kind.

Koschei was going to know. But, you were sure, nothing would change. “I’ll talk to him at dinner.”

When night fell, you took your last chance to wander through the manor. It was twice as luxurious as the one described in school books, filled with colorful windows, flowers, paintings, plants, stairs, libraries, and secret rooms. Koschei lived there by himself, with a dozen servants that kept the place neat. You couldn’t help but imagine how lonely it must have been for him, living in such a huge place, without a family or a pet. Perhaps you could write him letters, to help him pass the time, now that peace was made.

You took your time admiring the paintings on the walls and facing the loving garden through the windows as the sky got darker with each second. Birds sang the softest melody; tree tops swayed with the warm wind coming from the South.

You were going to miss that place. But you have made your decision.

You wore a plain soft pink dress that squeezed your waist just right. You weren’t used to how expensive you looked in silk, but the options in the manor were just as elegant. Vasilisa insisted you wore a pair of garnet gem earrings, which made you feel the closest to a princess, but still you.

Usually, you and Koschei had dinner at his particular office, where the cozy atmosphere suited your conversations. And, as always, when you lifted your hand to knock on the door, just right before you did it, he opened it for you.

But this time, Koschei didn’t hide how marvelous you looked. “Holy shit,” he whispered under his breath, eyes traveling from your face to your cleavage to your waist.

You heard how hard your heartbeat was in your own ears.

“Fuck, I’m sorry,” Koschei nervously looked back into your eyes. “You look… You look so insanely beautiful I couldn’t hold back.”

Even if with burning cheeks, you managed to laugh it off. “That's very human of you, Koschei.”

There was a simple meal for you two, a stew so delicious it reminded you of your granny, and wine to swallow it down. You took a sip before gathering courage to introduce the subject you had to discuss.

“What are your plans now that war is over?”

“Keeping things alive,” he replied shortly. “Making sure the population is multiplied. I already contacted Desire.”

“It’s time you create the Lady of Consent.”

“I already have, miss.”

“Really?” You merely could hide your surprise.

“Really. One day you’ll meet her.”

You were expecting him to ask what you would do, but the question didn’t come, so spoke. “I was expecting to return to the mortal realm now that my work here is done.”

Koschei put the fork down and stared into your eyes as if you were speaking another language. Slowly, you could see his face was hiding its own expression. He didn’t want to seem offended. “Why do you say that? Aren’t you happy here?”

“On the c-contrary, I am!” you stuttered, realizing his question made you think harder about what you truly wanted. “But I guessed that, with the end of the war, the recruits were going to be sent back to their homes.”

Koschei leaned back on the chair. His eyes were still on yours, analyzing what seemed to be a secret enigma. “Have I failed in showing my affection for you so badly that you think of yourself as an ordinary recruit?”

Your jaw nearly dropped. “I mean, I am!” Your gaze faltered until you, finally, stared down at your lap, embarrassed.

Koschei nodded, carefully choosing his words.

“I don’t want you to go back.”

You looked back up. Such beautiful eyes he had.

“I want you to stay. Have been for a while now. I was going to ask you tonight.”

Your words escaped your mouth without a filter, and you sounded demanding, but also eager. “Then ask me.”

You almost gasped with how Koschei slowly stood up only to kneel in front of you, grabbing your anxious hands in his.

“Y/N, the time we spent together brought me much joy, and I believe I’ve made you happy too. It’d be a torture to watch you leave my realm, and twice a torture to watch you leave me,” he spoke every word out loud and honest. “I am not on my knees to beg only as Lord of Life. I am on my knees to beg as a man. Please, consider the possibility of staying.” Koschei brought your hand to his lips and planted a chaste kiss on your skin. The sincerity of his eyes reflected the flames on the fireplace. “Consider the possibility of being mine.”

He handed the power right into your hold, a decision for you to make.

You felt so wanted, so dear, so scandalously beautiful, and your heart for once relaxed, your blood warm on your veins, your lips itchy. “Koschei, I-“

“Call me Jaehyun. That’s my name.”

Your eyes sparkled.

Gently, your hand reached for his face, brushing his hair back before cupping his cheek. You didn’t say a word. All you did was lean over and press your lips to his.

-

The manor was very much like it had been committed to your memory, with the piercing difference that all the servants you once knew were dead.

The war, you started to notice, had been crueler than the previous. So many deaths, so many changes. Jaehyun himself had an older look on his face, even though a certain new joy was keeping it alight.

His eyes sparkled in content whenever he saw you at the manor, where you were expected since the day of your wedding. He had the servants prepare your favorite foods. Had gotten the most beautiful lilies to decorate your room — your, not his, not yours, as you insisted on sleeping alone. Even before your marriage, he had built you a temple at the manor, a broad and dark room with an altar for your saints, with all the materials you needed for your rituals and magic, and the temple was at your full disposal. You spent most of your time there, and quickly opened the temple to the public, so people could come in and be healed by your talented hands.

It brought you tremendous joy to help those souls, so much your days were filled with work. Which meant Jaehyun’s dinner invitations were politely refused. You kept a collected composure in front of him, even if it hurt as much as having a needle pushed inside your eyeball.

Deep inside, you were tremendously scared of your feelings. Both you and Jaehyun knew it.

The only further interaction you had was about how much progress he had with creating Peace. All the times you had asked, Jaehyun simply said he was working on it. Just like that, your conversations were over.

It was a rainy day outside when you started your day, making your prayers and opening the temple. Everything was made by your own hands, so no servants helped you around. Usually, a line was formed into the manor’s main hall, and you came to personally pick your patients and take them inside. That day, as thunder echoed in the sky, and violent rain hit the ceiling, you came to find out there was no one to attend.

“Oh, that’s sad,” you breathed, turning around to return to your refuge when you bumped into a very familiar chest.

The expression on Jaehyun’s face explained why the weather was so bad.

Eventually, when Koschei was not able to control his own emotions, the weather in Buyan could feel it. Sunny days meant a visceral happiness that made his face smiley; springy weather meant he was especially romantic, with his head on the clouds and his heart where his brain should be; and heavy rainy days meant he was frustrated and angry, sad and way too deep into his defense mechanism.

“Dear saints, you’re going to make it snow!” you brought your hand to your heart.

“You’re being mean to me. I am hurt,” Jaehyun admitted, his lower lip nearly jumping out in a pout. Cute.

“Not my problem,” you lifted your shoulders quickly, passing him by. Jaehyun started following you. “What are you doing?” you asked without turning around.

“I’m heading to my appointment.”

“I don’t think you are. I’m busy today.”

“Well, I am a soul too. I deserve healing,” Jaehyun retorted. “Even if my wife wishes to torture me forever in the name of revenge.”

His childish, spoiled tone almost made you laugh. You knew better than to make fun of him, though. Plus, you were not proud to make him suffer. You just preferred he got hurt than allowing yourself such pain again.

Sincerity was surely one of your biggest qualities. And a defect too, depending on the situation.

After a deep sigh, you agreed with a nod. “Fine.”

Jaehyun had not been in your temple since you started working there, simply because you really had been busy and because you didn’t give him the friendliest of looks whenever he came to check on you. So, when he first walked inside, his lovely jawline dropped a little.

Every priestess and priest had the freedom to decide what gods and saints they were going to worship. You had decorated your altar with their images and elements that somehow represented their power: two small and crossed wood hammers for Ṣàngó, a beautifully crafted bronze mirror for Ọ̀ṣun, a dark seashell for Yemọja and cowries for Èsù, the Lord of Discipline, Communication and Order. Candles burned for them all the time, as you closely committed to lighting up new ones when the old have blown out. Incense burned too, filling the air with the scent of black surinam cherries. Fresh flowers brightened up the dark altar with vivid colors. The atmosphere was dense but friendly, full of mystery between the cold stone walls.

There was a simple table with two chairs on each of its sides, reserved for the appointments. You signaled for Jaehyun to sit on one chair, taking the other in front of him.

“I think I’ve got a severe spiritual problem,” he announced, so dramatic it amused you.

You hummed in reply, lighting up a cinnamon incense with a lighter, moving it around Jaehyun’s sides before placing it in a set of small stones you kept on the table. Next, you grabbed the set of your favorite and most loyal gypsy cards. “I’ll check what the oracle tells me.”

Your hands worked on spreading fourteen cards so smoothly it felt as though you spent your entire life doing that.

Jaehyun observed quietly, noticing how your hand seemed empty without your wedding ring. He still wore his, not even taking it off when he slept.

You turned the cards around slowly, analyzing the entire context they were telling you. For the sake of suspense, it took a while for you to speak. “I don’t see anything spiritual. You’re probably too powerful for ghosts or any type of enemy to try something on you. But you do have a heartache.”

“How can I solve it?” His voice came out impatient.

You puckered your lips in thought before replying. Everything related to Jaehyun’s heart involved his feelings for you, and there was no way to speak about it without taking the entire context in consideration. “I see you might be frustrated because you’re being denied. Perhaps you’re not used to disappointment, but,” you pointed at the book card, “it is the perfect opportunity to use your repertory and learn.”

Jaehyun crossed his arms. You pretended not to notice his biceps slightly bulking within his shirt. “I am trying, but the more you deny me, the more I find it difficult to deal with what we have become,” he confessed. “I understand you’re upset, and I respect your opinion. You know that, if I had any safer options, I would have kept you by my side. But I did what I thought best to keep you safe and be with you later. I won the war. For you.”

You believed it: Jaehyun fighting battle after battle, motivated by the idea of being back with you… It was highly probable, and that you could respect. For that, your heart melted.

“I know. I know you’re being sincere as much as I know your love for me is real. I hope you understand I still have true feelings for you just as I did back then,” you mustered all of your maturity to evoke those words, resisting the urge to close your eyes and hide from the bleeding truth. “But I need to get over how powerless you made me feel.”

“I thought there was no space in love for power,” Jaehyun frowned.

“But you still had power over me, didn’t you?” your tone was a lot calmer now. That was not a confrontation, but simply a statement of how things went. “My main issue is that I could not choose. You interfered directly into my free will, and I will not tolerate that in marriage. If I am your wife, then let me have the same choices you do.”

His eyes analyzed you closely. “That would make you tremendously powerful.”

“I don’t seek to be powerful, I seek to be equal. Until I don’t have such a guarantee, I will continue to fight against the position of being your helpless wife.”

Your gazes burned in orange flames, heated by how he just got what you meant. Jaehyun always did.

“What do the cards recommend I do?” he asked.

You placed your finger on the mountain card. “Your journey might be long and rough, but you have to push yourself towards your goal.”

“So I should continue to be unconditionally faithful to my wife. Let her aspire to all the things she desires. Learn how to deal with my frustration alone, as I make sure she can trust me,” he perfectly wrapped up.

“Those are my conditions,” you nodded.

One second later, Jaehyun extended his hand over to you. “Deal.”

Accepting his hand in yours came naturally, the feeling of his skin extremely familiar, the little shivers of your touch making you squeeze his hand a little tighter than needed.

“Can I ask for something in return?”

“You can.”

“Have dinner with me.”

“If we openly discuss how you’re making progress with my request on peace, I might.”

Jaehyun nearly chuckled. “Have dinner with me everyday.”

“Will you update me everyday?”

“I will.”

“Deal,” you smiled.

At the sight, Jaehyun brought one hand to his face, flustered as he rubbed his cheeks. “You still have the most beautiful smile,” he praised. “Fuck, how I missed it while you were gone…”

You were going to tease him when a ray of sunshine walked through the window right on your deck of cards. It wasn’t raining anymore.

-

Jaehyun’s hand eagerly slid from your breasts up to your neck as you lied down on his bed. Hungrily, his eyes fed from the gorgeous shape of your body, the innocent white lace bra you wore alluring him into his deepest fantasies.

“You have the most beautiful breasts,” he grunted. “So round and firm and beautiful…”

“You speak like it’s the first time you see them,” you teased, your cheeks and the tip of your nose warm from arousal.

Ever since you decided to stay, Jaehyun loved on you passionately almost every day. He never allowed anything to go missing. By now, after intense weeks of love making, you had grown accustomed to his dedication, and how your body resembled a volcano every time he touched you.

“Not my fault you are so scandalously sublime,” Jaehyun bit his lip before pushing your bra aside, exposing your nipples. He dove in, warm tongue drawing slow circles around each, eventually brushing and biting the hard peaks. When he lifted his face, the cold air left shivers on the wet evidence of where his mouth had been. He easily got rid of your bra, freeing your round, perky breasts, so deliciously voluptuous and busty his mouth salivated. “Have I told you how I made women?”

“Not yet.” You rested your head on the pillow, admiring his bare chest. The defined muscles on his shoulders, arms, and abdomen turned his bareness so attractive to you your toes curled whenever he was naked.

“I created a woman before I created a man,” Jaehyun revealed, moving to pull your skirts down your legs. He kissed the big scar on your right knee, the one you were graced with after falling from a tree when you were only a little girl. “I knew I had to make something unique, intense, intelligent and breathtaking. It was how I wanted life to be at first. Understanding but full of rage, resting but full of ideas, lovely but with the highest ability to deprivation.”

You engaged in his words, sitting down to hover over him. The tips of your fingers caressed his chest in random moves until your hand moved along his trousers, where the volume of his erection was evident. You were turned on too, your white panties transparent where your pussy lips damped with scented juices. “So you made them alluring,” you guessed.

“So fucking tempting,” Jaehyun’s eyes darkened as he watched you. “With a heart to love, tits to bear milk, a womb to carry children…” as he spoke, his hands traveled on said parts, exploring you fervently. “Hips and ass… Those I made for my personal delight,” he admitted, making you smile playfully, shamelessly enjoying how his hands roamed up and down your cheeks.

“No wonder…” teasing, you pulled his pants down, now rubbing your clothed core on his bare dick.

Jaehyun grunted lowly. You loved your effect on him. You loved seeing Koschei going breathless for pussy, moaning heavily and clenching his eyes with pleasure and lust.

With one strategic move, Jaehyun snaked his arm on your waist and effortlessly turned you around. As he now hovered over you, the Lord of Life grabbed the side of your panties. “But my most favorite thing…” he continued, pulling the last piece of fabric that separated you down your legs. Fuck, you were so wet. So hotly soaked your juices stuck to the bottom of your panties in a crystal string, “is right here.”

Your cunt was perfect for him. Big puffy lips that glistened with arousal surrounding a clit swollen in expectation. Folds so inviting his cock ached at the mere sight. Your lips also hid a tiny little hole that felt so right and tight around his cock, as though Jaehyun had personally made it to fit his proportions.

You registered the famine in his eyes. And it made you tremble.

“You did so good,” you praised him, brushing his black hair rewardingly. Every person had preferences that made them weak at the knees. Jaehyun, you figured, liked being praised. “You did so fucking good giving us such beautiful cunts.”

“And clits,” he added, rubbing yours softly with the pad of his thumb. His eyes were on you all the time, swallowing the erotic sight. “The only human organ with the purpose to provide pleasure.”

One of your dainty hands slid down your body and separated your lips to help him have both a better access and view to your cunt.

At your every little action, Jaehyun fell harder for you.

“What did you intend by making it?” you fed the conversation with your curiosity.

He responded by giving a broad and firm lick to your clit, making you moan in sweet pleasure. You were lucky enough to see how his tongue moved on you, his plump lips wrapping around your clit and sucking.

“H-holy shit,” you cursed, back arching on the mattress where he had been fucking you out of your mind for the last three weeks.

Jaehyun smirked, slurping on your soaking folds. He took his time, alternating the long sucks with gentle licks, repeating them countless times until you were breathing fast, grabbing the sheets and getting flustered at the needy sound of your affected voice.

To him, you were perfect from head to toe. All the extension of your skin so soft and smooth, every mark and scar composing the excellence of your being. You even had the proportions he liked, curvy and fertile. By now, Jaehyun had had you in different positions that allowed him nearly pornographic sights, and he was crazy for each one of them. Now, especially, he liked how your face contorted in pleasure, and how your hand held on his nape as he devoured you.

“So beautiful, my lady…The most beautiful I’ve fucked.” His nose brushed your vulva, taking your scent in deep. The signs of your orgasm were pretty clear: your hands clenched into fists, your hole pulsating in vibrations, your ever sober eyes lusty, almost unable to focus…

He could easily make you cum like that, but Jaehyun decided he wanted to prolong the fun. He leaned over you, lips finding yours in a slow and sensual pace, shivering at the needy touch of your hands and nails on his back. You kissed back hungrily — a kiss broken by a wanton moan as you felt the tip of his cock rub your entrance.

“Say I can, my lady,” Jaehyun searched for consent.

You locked eyes with him, once more witnessing how the world resumed to only the both of you. “Jaehyun…” you breathed his name, just because you loved it. “My love… Take me.”

The room was filled with a melodic combination of moans — yours, high and sensual; his, guttural and relieved — as your bodies became one. Your walls wrapped around him, suffocating his girth and clenching so sweetly Jaehyun saw stars at the back of his skull when his eyes closed shut for only a moment, because not to look at you would be the most unforgiving of sins. His hips rolled in a way he got deeper inside you, testing the waters not to hurt you, his most precious being. Your nails carved crescent moons on his shoulders, your mind blurred with desire, barely registering the devoted kisses Jaehyun planed on your shoulderblades as he started a loving, thrusting pace between your legs.

“S-so full,” you sighed in approval. “My pussy is so full.”

“If I knew you’d feel this good, miss, I would have fucking stolen you,” he grunted in your ear, speeding up the pace. “Would have broken into your temple and made your gods witness my love for you… Would have fucked you until you became a saint yourself…”

As twisted as that sounded, you liked it. There was no judgment between the both of you. With lewd, obscene eyes on his, you smirked. “I bet they’re watching now. Why don’t you show them exactly how much you love me?”

Fuck. He did. So deep and fast your hand had to reach for the luxurious headboard to steady yourself against it. Instinctively, Jaehyun placed one hand on the back of your head so you wouldn’t hit it, pushing his girthy member in and out of you with such expertise your breasts bounced right at his face, your sweet pliable body giving in so beautifully Koschei the Deathless could crown you his queen. Seeking to make you feel good, he reached low, rubbing circles on your little clit as his abdomen tensed with the strength of his hips.

“I love how you handle me,” you moaned lewdly, liking how goosebumps raised in the skin of his arms.

“You’re so fertile,” he returned the praise, his breath fast and wanton. “So perfect to breed, my love… I wanna fill you up with my seed.”

You came with a loud cry, that to Jaehyun sounded like an angel singing, your cunt gushing with juices that mixed with his seed. He couldn’t hold it back once you so eagerly gave yourself to him, lost in bliss and cock, your tempting little body trembling into his hold, features so lovely the Lord of Life felt as though he knew nothing about beauty.

When the Lord of Life came inside you, you felt as though the entirety of the world belonged to your womb. Like you carried every possibility of creation in your belly, too fucked out to properly think, only able to smile as you took in the freckles on his face, the foxy shape of his eyes, and the expressiveness of his frowned eyebrows as you gave him one last squeeze.

You never forgot how genuinely happy those days and nights were, how your tender hands played with his hair as Jaehyun listened to your heartbeat.

Those weeks with you were the closest he felt to peace.

-

“I see some sort of spiritual obsession related to her past life,” you announced to the mother whose child waited outside the room. It was your last appointment of the day, and even though you were tired, you tried to be welcoming when breaking such news. “That’s why she’s been having frequent nightmares.”

The mother looked at you with confused blue eyes. “I don’t understand…”

“Some spirits continue to feel the anger they felt in life, after they made the passage through the realms of Death. They become slaves to their own emotions, and might haunt the living until they decide to heal their own pain. I detected a spirit that is angry with your daughter, and it is highly probable that it is giving her nightmares.”

“How do you know that?”

“A priestess never works alone. A spiritual friend told me.”

“A spiritual friend?”

“Yes. I work with souls that decided not to reincarnate, and instead watch over us, guiding our journey.”

“That’s unusual,” her tone was skeptical. You did not blame her.

“In the immortal realm, indeed, but quite common in the mortal realm, if you’d like to know. I bet on the low level of soul acknowledgment.”

“I thought the Lady of Reincarnation and Chances took care of that.”

“Her job is to keep the wheel, not to teach on how to solve spiritual problems, although I admit that would make the world a much more lovely place.”

“What should I do, then?”

“Give your daughter a rue and camomile bath,” you picked up a bit of said herbs and handed it over to her. “I see you’re still skeptical about my methods, but I recommend you come back with her tomorrow. I’ll make contact with one of my friends and open a ritual to weaken the obsession. You will be here at all times, with your daughter. She won’t feel any pain.”

The mother was still unsure, but considering when you opened the door for her to leave. Much to your surprise, Jaehyun was outside with the little girl, clad in black clothing, singing her a song as she clapped her hands.

“My Lord,” the mother respectfully bent.

“Please, that’s not necessary,” Koschei spoke, smiling. He had always loved children. “I was having fun with this smart one,” he hummed, letting the girl jump from his thigh and join her mother. “I hope to see you again soon.”

The mother nodded weakly, keeping her gaze low as she intertwined her daughter’s hand in hers. “Thank you, my Lady. My Lord,” she bowed once again before heading outside, carrying her daughter with her. The lovely girl waved you goodbye.

Jaehyun then turned to you. “What was the diagnosis?”

“Heavy spiritual obsession related to reincarnation.”

“Ouch,” he hissed. “Who will you be calling?”

“Granny Isobel,” you informed. Granny Isobel was one of your closest spiritual guides. Her image was of an ancient black woman, sitting on a low bench and smoking a pipe. Besides from knowing a bunch of complex magics to disassociate spiritual obsessions, her personality was the kindest, the most humble, and even angry spirits got calmer in her presence.

“I love Granny Isobel,” Jaehyun cooed.

He knew the majority of your spiritual guides. You had told him everything when you were still working during the war. Back then, it wasn’t rare to call your guides when you needed extra assistance. They were always working by your side, and sometimes through you. Each of them had unique personalities and skills. They were your spiritual family.

“And I love Gravedigger, and Mary of Roses, and our dear, clever Little Bee…” Jaehyun continued, making you chuckle.

“You’re so flattering.”

“I’m genuine,” he assured, keeping his hands behind his back in a way he looked like a gentleman. “I came to personally escort you to dinner.”

Anxious, you noticed.

“Let me finish my prayers and we can go.”

After you did as you said, you closed the temple’s door, accepting Jaehyun’s arm and letting him guide you through the familiar manor.

“I have dreamed of this day,” he admitted.

“You’ve dreamed about having dinner with me?”

“As your husband?” He tilted his head towards you. “Definitely.”

So had you. Countless times.

Soon, you arrived at the corridor that led to Jaehyun’s office, where you usually had dinner. To your surprise, Jaehyun turned left and not right, pulling you to his side. “We’re not having dinner at the office anymore,” he calmly explained, leading you to the door that anticipated the garden.

Your eyes shone at the splendid sight: the delicate round lights hanging above the table for two, the white lilies breathing perfume through the night, the modest table setting made just for the both of you. Nothing too luxurious, nothing too much. Just a simple dinner outside, to enjoy the stars and the fresh nightly air that caressed your heated cheeks.

“This is beautiful,” you hummed in approval, sitting on the chair Jaehyun pulled for you.

“That’s how I wanted our nights to be after our honeymoon,” he admitted, taking the seat in front of you. His wedding ring shone brighter under the lights. “I know we didn’t have one, but we can. Anytime, any day.”

He was so flirty, so true and so damn smitten you could have smashed his cheeks in your hands and kissed him hard.

“I’ll think about it,” you breathed, intentionally eyeing the table. The growl in your stomach was heard at the smell of freshly baked bread, butter, meat and vegetables.

Some small talk proceeded as you served the food and ate, enjoying the captivating, sweet atmosphere of your encounter, as bees landed on the lilies and cicadas sang in the distance. Life. Everything was so full of life, again.

“I’ve been thinking about your peace proposal,” Jaehyun broke it to you.

“What have you decided?”

“Not much, I admit. Creating a new Lord or Lady is a complex thing, even more in the dynamics we are used to. Peace should be about controlling violence, and we’re too used to how violence tastes.”

“I agree. It has to be someone above life and death.”

“See? Complex.”

“Achievable?”

“In a way, yes. I’m still considering the possibilities.”

“Wanna share?”

“You’ll know eventually. I don’t wish to scare you now.”

“Few things scare me, Koschei.”

The name made Jaehyun’s eyes clench. He hated being called Koschei when you knew his layers a lot deeper, intimately.

“Love, as much as you’re dear to me, I must remind you that you’re not familiar with the dangerous limits between life and death.”

You hummed almost inaudibly, munching on some bread. “I don’t disagree.”

“Good girl,” a smirk blossomed on his kissable lips, just for the sake of fun, and for the sake of fun, too, you decided to tease him back while slicing the bread.

“If I remember correctly, sweet boy, I was not the one who liked being praised,” you noted, eyes sparkling with devilry.”

The way Jaehyun’s hand stilled on the fork had you smiling widely. It was impossible resisting how amazing you felt that you had such an effect on him. The hard swallow of his throat didn’t go unnoticed.

“I suggest you stop teasing me if you have no intentions of ending up on my bed tonight,” his warning was a delectable, adorable mix of danger and fluster that only made you chuckle in amusement. Jaehyun hardened his gaze. “You would not be laughing if you knew how I’ve suffered for the past two years. My hand is nothing compared to your warmth.”

You shouldn’t like it so much when he openly expressed his needs like that, but you still did and there was nothing to do about that.

“Sounds like you think you suffered exclusively,” you analyzed.

“Not what I meant,” Jaehyun took a sip of wine. “But good to know I was not alone.”

Oh, if he only knew. If your lovely husband was aware of the battles you fought against your own body in his absence, with hands whose control didn’t seem to belong to your own mind…

“We both suffered enough, I guess,” you brought a bit of sobriety to the dialogue. You still needed reassurance.

Jaehyun acquiesced, stealing the bread you had just sliced.

“By the way,” he grinned, “Mark and Vasilisa will be reincarnated tomorrow. I’ll make sure to tell you where, so you’re the first to know.”

The news lit up your face, your heart calm and content. They deserved a second chance.

“Thank you, Jaehyun. That means a lot to me.”

Jaehyun. Not Koschei.

-

“Your death… Did you really hide it?”

Your question echoed in the room’s darkness, so silent Jaehyun was able to listen to your heartbeat, as his ear rested on your bare chest, your hand gently caressing his hair.

“Yes,” was his forthright answer. “I hid it inside a needle, which is in an egg, which is in a duck, which is in a black hound, which is in an iron chest, which is buried under an oak tree, in the island we are at now.”

The amburana scent made company to your many thoughts as you hummed, tilting your head to look into his eyes.

“Do you regret it? Making yourself Deathless?”

Jaehyun turned his head, now supporting his chin above your breasts. His hand started drawing random patterns on your left hip, like he was testing your softness at the tip of his fingers. The same fingers who just had explored every inch of you.

“I don’t. Deathless is what I am,” he murmured.

“Doesn’t it mean that you’re destined to watch people die time after time? It must be hard…”

“It is,” he agreed. “I admit I’ve been thinking more about it now that I have you.”

His confession felt like he was carved in your heart like bullets in the flesh, like stars in the clear sky. “Time is passing for you, but it’s stopped for me” Jaehyun caressed your cheek with the back of his hand. “One day, eventually, you’ll get old…”

“You don’t have to think about that now, love” you interfered, because you, yourself, did not want to face the truth.

“If I don’t, then there will come the day you’re gone, and I’ll be suddenly on my own again.” His eyes were filled with tenderness as he uttered every word. Gently, Jaehyun grabbed your hands in his, intertwining your fingers. “I’ll love you until you’re old and need my aid in walking…”

“Why are you saying those things?” you chuckled, wishing both to laugh and cry.

“Because I have to be ready to breathe Life into you after Death takes you away. I can have you reincarnated. Then, I’ll just have to patiently wait a few years until you’re grown enough to be courted.”

The intensity of what he was telling you made your heart skip a beat. What Jaehyun was proposing was living through the thorns of time and pain to be with you, keeping his love for you alive until your last days, and waiting until you were available for his love and care. It overwhelmed you so deeply your eyes watered, and you moved quickly to hide your face in the pillow.

“Don’t,” he chuckled, grabbing your chin lovingly.

“You’re making me cry!” you protested, closing your eyes.

“Silly girl,” Jaehyun sighed, replacing his hand with his lips in an attempt to ease you. “Allow yourself to feel. Love is a beautiful thing.”

“You’re promising me an eternity of love… What if I get so old and senile you won’t ever try going after me again? What if our love wears out?” You placed your insecurities in your mouth.

Jaehyun’s kiss turned into a sudden, slightly painful punishment bite in your lower lip. You opened your mouth to confront him, but he kissed you hard, passionately, hovering over you, his body pressing yours, his scent in your lungs, his hardness against your soaked folds… What he said next echoed in your bones like an earthquake, shaking your every fiber before you melted in his arms once again, like you were always going to. “If that day ever comes, then I’ll be truly dead.”

-

The mother returned with her daughter: their sessions kept you occupied for most of your time, as Granny Isobel demanded. Obsessions demanded more than simply communicating with a guide: you had to incorporate the spirits so they could use your body — it was nothing like a possession, as you were conscious at all moments, sharing your mind with the guides you were so devoted to.

After five sessions, Granny Isobel had it all solved, and the girl could go back home to sleep peacefully.

Jaehyun had asked the mother if he could observe the rituals, and with her approval, he stood inside the temple watching you work. It was truly amazing, how your entire face changed after Granny had arrived, and how you sounded like someone else as Granny smoked her pipe.

When the last session was over, Jaehyun approached her.

“Granny, is there anything else you need? A cup of coffee? Another smoking pipe?” he politely checked, bending to be on your eye level.

“Thank you, my child. I’ve had enough,” Granny replied with a gentle smile that made your eyes tiny under the straw hat. She always called others ‘child’, and Koschei the Deathless was not an exception. “I only wished to talk to you in private.”

“Sure, what is it you want to talk about?”

Speaking as another spirit was in your head was an arduous thing to explain. It felt as though someone else put the words in your brain so you could pronounce them. So, when Granny spoke, you wondered what she meant:

“You’ve been worrying your head over bad news, and I wanted to tell you to share the weight, child. Tell my girl about what’s making you lose your sleep.”

You stood there, in your body, without having a single idea of what Granny Isobel knew. Still, the immediate recognition in Jaehyun’s face told you that he did. “Alright, Granny,” he nodded. “Thank you for your advice..”

“Not at all, my child. You can call me anytime. Granny is always here to help her children.” In slow, trembling movements, Granny removed the hat from your head and placed it on Jaehyun’s. She took a last puff on her pipe and then allowed your head to be still, intertwining your hands and closing your eyes. After long breaths, you noticed the control over your fingers, the saliva in your mouth, your free toes touching the stone ground. Your eyes opened, taking in the worried face in front of you.

“What is it?” was your natural, obvious question.

Jaehyun breathed, removing the hat from his head. “I have to show you something.”

Twenty minutes later, you were on a horse as Jaehyun rode, his chest to your back, to the mortal realm. Magic once again made the passage smooth and almost imperceptible, but you swiftly sensed the difference.

Jaehyun took you to a foreign country with beautiful landscapes. He rode until you reached a bounteous city, where people excitedly talked and interacted over barracks of food, fabric, souvenirs and witchcraft. As you passed them by, Jaehyun held your hand, guiding you through the feverish crowd until you arrived at a square where a middle-aged man dressed in red made a speech so ardent spit escaped from his mouth. Even if the language sounded completely strange to your ears, you understood he was angry and greedy. People around you agreed with him — mostly men, shaking their heads in agreement.

At the middle of his speech, the man pointed to a table where a young boy, dressed as a soldier, waited for new recruits.

You squeezed Jaehyun’s hand, your saliva suddenly too hard to swallow. “Jae, they’re-”

“Preparing for war,” Jaehyun nodded somberly.

You stood back to witness how quickly a line was formed in front of the table, how eagerly men filled their information on paper, how young boys joined their fathers, and how children looked at the future soldiers with adoration widening their pupils. Some even pretended to be carrying guns and shooting around.

There was nothing you and Jaehyun could do about them, as free-will had always been something holy, even to the Lords and the Ladies. You looked around, your gaze ending up on Jaehyun’s grave face. The frown in his complexion turned his apprehension in.

“What now?” you asked.

“Let’s go back,” he decided. “I don’t want others listening.”

The ride back to Buyan seemed to go by slower than the other way around, or maybe it was just your heart’s anxiety. How long until the Lord of Death was knocking on the manor’s door? How long until he striked first, and murdered the servants? How long until he got to you?

You shook those sinister questions away for as long as you could, following Jaehyun inside the manor, up to his office, close to bouncing on your feet out of concern.

It was hard for Jaehyun to face you and speak, to finally share something both occult within his shadows and faithful to his nature. But you deserved to know. You deserved to understand.

Jaehyun circled the table, looking at the maps of the immortal realm before speaking.

“It starts by affecting me,” he confessed. “Whenever humans, made by my own doing, fight, I feel. I sense their despair, their anger, their urgency for revenge and destruction. It cuts me so deep as though a knife is carved in my chest, and the more I try to ignore it, the more I bleed,” as he spoke, both Jaehyun and Koschei the Deathless poured their truths to you. “My only power is to create and take care of life, and when war breaks, the need of survival forces me to act. Therefore, the war starts with me, Y/N. I strike first.”

You held his gaze, then took a step forward, and another one. “Have you started feeling anything already?” you demanded.

“Anger. Just a shot.”

“Do you think it will happen again? For real?”

His smile was sad. “It always does, Y/N.”

Shit.

You reached for Jaehyun’s hands, bringing them to your lips. At that moment, you thanked Granny Isobel for seeing through him, for encouraging him to tell you.

“You have to create Peace, Jae,” a severe seriousness was found in both your voice and eyes.

“It’s compl-”

“I know, but it has to be done. You must come up with something that eases your pain when humans fight. You’re not in control of their actions, but you’re in control of yours. If you strike first, the immortal realm is in danger.”

“It still won’t keep Yuta from striking if he has a chance,” he murmured, and you sensed some hesitation in his tone, as if Jaehyun feared your creative brain.

“Use something he is scared of. Something Yuta cherishes so much he will refuse to fight. Tell me,” you lowered your hands, “what does Death fear?”

The silence between you seemed to last hours before Jaehyun spoke again. You were so smart. Too smart for your own good.

“He fears having nothing to fight against. Death fears the lack of life.”

The knowledge left a bitter taste on your tongue. “So Yuta fears your death,” you concluded.

A small, harmless nod, confirmed your theory.

“You were right when you said peace should be above all things. By controlling my death, they will have power over me, and over Yuta.” Never before had you witnessed such a strong glare on Jaehyun’s eyes. Never before such sinister sincerity had clouded his lovely irises.

And even before he said it, you got it. You immediately understood what made the creation of peace so complicated.

“I’ll show you where I hid it, and then you’ll possess my death,” Jaehyun smiled confidently, brushing one hair strand behind your ear. “After it is done, you can be her. You can be the Lady of Peace.”

-

Breathlessly, his hands dug into the humid, cold earth as the night sky glowled with red lightning. The duck was still alive, moving inside the black hound, her long ears up inside the heavy iron chest.

It was Koschei, alone, at the beginning of times, hiding his death.

Because of his loneliness, he breathed life into a deadly brother. Because of life, he was always going to fight him. But Koschei himself could not be killed, as his death meant the end of every kind of life, the eternal termination of humanity itself. And so he dug.

-

The night was dark as if crafted by the solitude of an angel; the cicadas sang their monotony and it echoed through the endless Buyan trees. Jaehyun had you by the hand, confidently walking among the forest shadows, as moonlight only peeked through the few empty holes in the treetops.

“That was not what I asked for,” you breathed so hard it resembled an angry bull, your nostrils swollen. Becoming a Lady, someone with holy powers and immortality, was not on your list, and the mere idea that you would have Jaehyun’s death in your hands, to own him… It overwhelmed you in ways you couldn’t define as inviting or just fucking terrifying. “I can’t- Jaehyun, I can’t be a Lady-”

He laughed your refusal off, canine teeth sharp against his lower lip when he looked over his shoulder. “You’re perfect for the role, sweetheart. I would never hand my death to anyone else.”

It was his docility against your rage.

You finally arrived at a stream in which clear water musically flowed down small rocks, and a few stony, muddy steps took to an old oak tree, with branches so tortured by time and circumstance they were wry.

Rebel goosebumps assaulted your skin, delating the mystery hidden under the heavy, old earth.

“Let’s suppose Death strikes against you, and I have to keep you from fighting back. What if you fail? Will I have to…” The following words felt like a crime, so you did not pronounce them.

“Kill me?” Jaehyun dared, frowning playfully as he stood in front of you. “It won’t come to that, love.”

“How can you be so sure?” you demanded.

“Because of you. You’ll have the ability of peace: it will be anywhere with you. That’s what Ladies and Lords do. Baba Yaga, she controls luck: wherever she is, luck is with her. Why do you think I sent her to protect you? Plus,” your husband hummed, caressing your lower lip with his thumb, “the least thing that would make you is a helpless wife. You’ll be an equal.”

“I’ll be powerful,” you retorted. Jaehyun’s proposal amused and frightened you symmetrically. He was offering you more than just peace. Jaehyun was offering Himself, as the myth promised. You felt the need to remind him: “Only someone who possesses Koschei’s hound can have him in their power.”

As the oak tree top danced freely to the wind, moonlight slid in and reflected the tender, calm brown shade in his eyes.

“Only power can make us equal,” Jaehyun kissed your forehead, arms wrapping around you in a comforting hug. His chest to yours soothed your urge to protest, and you allowed yourself to focus on the simple task of breathing his scent in. “This will satisfy you more than you think, Y/N. And if you believe you’ll be ready to be my wife after that, I’ll be waiting in body and soul.”

Silenced by your own ignorance, you came face to face with the consequences of your desires, clutching to Jaehyun’s embrace not to fall. He trusted you like that, to be the one holding the only thing that could risk not only his life, but the life of everything that existed.

Gently, you parted from his arms, gazing both the sincerity and vulnerability in his eyes. Only power could make you equal.

A slow nod came from your face, and at that Jaehyun grinned. Then, he started digging up, hands dirty with mud, reaching lower and lower until his digits came across the iron chest. He opened it with a key he kept secret in his coat. Inside, you glimpsed a black hound with the longest ears, with eyes as brown as Koschei’s. You returned to the manor with the hound following you closely.

-

Everyone knew Koschei breathed life into the first humans, as he did to the first trees, mountains, seas, and the animals that inhabited the earth. On the other hand, even if the story was familiar, passed from generation to generation, from parents to children, no one had ever witnessed how it was done. How life was created.

Part of you rationally expected Jaehyun to take you to his office, where he spent restless nights scheming war strategies and daydreaming about possibilities. Much to your surprise, he took you to your bedroom. Not his bedroom, not yours, but the room that once belonged to the both of you. Where you made love for the first time. Where you felt the most loved, adored, worshiped.

Jaehyun closed the door and approached you slowly. The hound stood calmly by your side, blinking her eyes without a worry in the world. “She’s been trained to only obey her master,” the Lord of Life’s grave voice caressed the skin of your ear, making you notice exactly how close he stood. Daring and determined, his hands landed on your hips. “She will do anything you want.”

Inside the hound, a duck breathed. Inside the duck, there was an egg, and inside the egg, there was a needle. You could already feel it. The power. And once again, magic never failed to impress you, because it was nothing like you imagined. Everytime you pictured someone powerful, your imagination created images of virility and strength; crowns and servants; realms and governments. But what you now felt was a calm so intricate within your bones nothing could disturb it, a root tangled in the end of the world with its eyes closed in great superiority, as though all problems had a solution.

You felt complete, filled up, unbothered. Soothing.

Suddenly, the hound moved to rest on the armchair by the window, where the curtains swayed with the cool night breeze. You let her be. She was not going to run away from you.

“From this day on, you will always feel her,” Jaehyun murmured, unable to resist the urge to pull your hair from your neck and gently lean over, intoxicated by the ever lovely spring you brought to his lungs. “She’s yours to take care of now.”

You breathed solemnly, your body euphoric, the tip of your fingers numb in sweet expectation.

“How do you do it, Jaehyun?”

He knew exactly what you referred to.

Effortlessly, Jaehyun turned you to him with a swift move of his hands. You had been avoiding your proximity for so long, torturing yourself for weeks, too driven by your stubbornness, only to melt into his arms.

“With a kiss,” he answered, each word punctuated slowly and delicate against the skin of your neck. The sniff Jaehyun took made you tremble. He straightened himself, purposefully looking into your eyes. “But for you, my wife, and only for you, we can do it differently. I can breed life into you.”

You moaned. A low, barely there moan that betrayed you and your untrained instincts.

Fuck.

Quickly, you cleared your throat. “That’s a drastic change I have yet to consider,” you hurried yourself in explaining, looking away to the window in fear desire would take the lead and betray your reasoning.

Jaehyun took a deep breath.

“You’re still mad at me,” he concluded. The way he sounded disappointed made you frown.

“I haven’t, but now that you sound so frustrated, I might. What were you expecting, that I immediately accepted your proposal?” Your voice grew in anger the more you spoke. “Did you bring me here to fuck me and get it done?”

“No!” Jaehyun immediately defended himself, although there was guilt in his eyes. “It’s not like you’re putting in.”

You hummed in disdain.

Jaehyun protested. “I thought this was what you wanted!”

“Jaehyun, I am human! Whatever you thought I wanted is not such a sudden change that will make me live young and long like you gods do!” You could rub your temples, as a headache started growing. “Please, give me time to process things.”

You noticed how the thoughts ran through his head, and how quickly he accepted the idea of taking it easy on you, so when he offered you his arms, you stepped closer. Comforting, his embrace soothed your worries as quickly as a blow in a candle.

“I’m sorry, love. I genuinely thought it was what your heart desired.”

“It’s fine,” you rested your cheek on his chest, gaze crossing the hound’s. “I just need time.”

-

The hound followed you around like a magnet. Wherever you were, she followed religiously, her distant gaze always on what you were doing, as though she had fully understood who her true guardian would be. To say she was always around would imply in admitting the hound spent her time with you in the temple, hidden by the table not to call any attention as people were allowed in and you worked normally. Or so you liked to think, because sincerely, you couldn’t stop thinking about Jaehyun’s proposal.

Your mind was in a constant spiral towards whether you were going to accept it or not, and the consequences. It got to a point where you caught yourself staring into the hound’s eyes time and time again, losing the track of time and space.

A sudden knock on the door made your shoulders jump. You were not expecting anyone, but opened nonetheless.

“Granny!” You cheered at the sight of the old woman with the usual non-pleased look on her face.

“You know I hate it when you call me that,” Baba Yaga walked in without further ceremony, her pointy nose crossing the door before the rest of her body did. She took a careful look around, smelling the room as if to analyze it. “I see you got your temple. Are you finally happy?”

“Yes,” you nodded, making the old witch glare at you.

“But not fully. Why haven’t you accepted Papa Koschei’s offer yet?”

You clenched an eyebrow at her. “Did he send you?”

“No, selfish girl,” she growled, circling the temple until she stopped near the altar. “I came because the luck of the world is about to change. For the first time, we can witness a plain state of peace. No more terrible wars. Wars, as you’re familiar, are unlucky things. You only had what to eat and where to shield because I was there, paying my endless doubt to Koschei, but the rest of the world didn’t have such a blessing. With you as Lady of Peace, I will have to work twice as hard, and I must prepare.”

“So you came to make sure I accept Jaehyun’s offer?”

“You have to,” Baba Yaga simply replied.

“It’s a lot to consider, granny…”

Her cat eyes could have cut you in two like a sharp knife. “Why demand power if you can’t take it, child?” she hissed. “You have the upper hand: you’re finally able to make a choice and bring peace to others. Why hesitate?”

You decided to be sincere. “I guess it’s because I never thought I was going to be the one in charge. The one providing peace. Jaehyun’s offer challenges me. If I accept it, everything will change, even my human nature.”

“It’s not that different, trust me.”

Penetrating, your eyes scanned her. “Have you been human?”

“Human, homeless, broken, abandoned,” Baba Yaga breathed, but her words did not hold any pain or misfortune. “It was a kiss from a young man who saved me.”

Jaehyun.

She kept talking: “You can still be surrounded by humans if you’d like. Eat their food, listen to their music, and help them. In fact, child, you’ll be more of use to humanity if you become something else than human. It has always been like that.”

“The audacity and the nerve of the gods,” playfully, you rolled your eyes. “That’s what I am truly scared of.”

“War is about to start and you’re making everyone lose their time, stupid girl,” Baba Yaga advised. “After everything Papa Koschei has done for you… He won the war, brought you back and offered you a new life, a life full of peace and riches, with endless flavors, and here you are, thinking about it!” she spat, about to open her mouth again, certainly to put you to shame, when the hound walked away from the table, making her eyes widen in surprise. “Oh, my! Is it…?”

You only nodded, petting the top of the hound’s head.

-

The smell of black coffee filled the kitchen in the first morning hours when the explosions shook the ground. Baba Yaga stared at the open window, taking in the details of the ceilings, the beautiful clear, bluest sky, and the absolutely lack of birds. If she closed her eyes, she would be able to see the shotguns and bayonets, the blood running from the uniforms, the broken men wandering the fields, walking towards their death.

Even if she wasn’t human anymore, Baba Yaga despised the inhumanity of war. Her old heart ached when she put her feet outside and saw children all dirty and starving, young mothers with babies in their laps considering selling their bodies for money, and crippled men who returned all fucked up, unsure of how to deal with the pain and the haunting memories. The old witch hated what Koschei had done to her, sending her to the mortal realm to witness the terrible things people did to each other, but her loyalty knew no limits, and so she stayed.

You came into the kitchen all startled. Having woken up with the grave noises outside, you jumped from the bed with a swollen face and your hair all messed up, eyes red from how much you had been silently crying in your room at night.

“Is it t-them? Are the soldiers coming?” you stuttered, taking a look at the same window Baba Yaga had been staring at for long minutes.

“Yes, but don’t you worry,” she responded as though war was nothing but a storm. Heavy and temporary. “They’re not getting to this street.”

You tilted your face to hers. “What do you mean, granny?”

It was so simple you would never believe it, how easily Baba Yaga managed Luck. It took one move of her wrinkled hand for the entire army to ignore there was a certain street, in which lived a young beautiful lady, with a very old woman. There were so many things you didn’t understand, things it was not the time for you to know, so Baba Yaga simply moved her hand and lifted her shoulders.

“Just a guess.”

-

If war was coming, you kept a careful note to watch over Jaehyun.

You did not quite understand how his emotions shifted, but the first sign was as clear as water: his company was as pleasant as ever, but Jaehyun often looked at a specific, invisible spot on the wall and disappeared into his own thoughts, hands clenched into fists on the table. He looked so distant even after he assured you everything was fine, because he didn’t want to influence your decision by showing you how he had already started being affected. Still, you thought it was a bad moment to tell him you had finally made your decision.

You came across the second sign one night, as you and the hound stopped at a very unusual sight: Jaehyun, sat at the stairs to your shared bedroom, sobbing lowly.

“What’s wrong, Jae?” you sat in front of him, your tone worried and assisting as you patted his shaking shoulders.

He lifted his expressive eyes, and by the surprise in them, he had not heard you approaching. “I suddenly felt emotional.”

“What a terrible liar,” you gently wiped his tears with your thumbs. “Is it the war? Has it started?”

He nodded. “I can feel the loss. Mothers crying all day, girls and boys losing their childhood, lovers that won’t ever return...”

Your gaze lowered in time to capture your hand intertwining with his. Slowly, you brought it to your mouth, placing a kiss at the back of it. It amazed him, how you weren’t Lady of Peace, but managed to calm his mind and heart effortlessly with a single touch.

When you spoke again, your tone was definitive. “I’ve made my decision.”

Jaehyun swallowed, suddenly nervous by the determination in your voice. Mercifully, you didn’t wait for him to ask what your decision was, pronouncing every word clearly. “I accept your proposal.”

The only times you had watched Jaehyun’s face light up with such delight was when he asked for your hand in marriage and when he saw you in your impeccable wedding dress. As if in slow motion, his eyes squinted slightly, his cheeks raised, and the soft wrinkles at the corners of his eyes matched the sweet smile blooming in his lips. And just like that, looking very similar to a boy in front of a candy factory, he hugged you.

“Thank you!” Jaehyun poured his gratitude in his voice, pulling you to him with his arms around your neck. “Thank you, my love, for making my life better! For being you, my lovely wife…” He cried and reached for your face, kissing your forehead, then the space between your eyebrows, your nose — oh, he loved your nose —, your cheeks, your chin, and all the way up to your forehead again.

You smiled, amused by another side of the man that created the entirety of the world. It stopped your breath, how much of a loved child he became when he was happy.

“I’ll prepare everything slowly, so you don’t need to hurry,” Jaehyun pulled away, but continued to cup your face, so holy to him. “We can do it tomorrow, in a week or whenever you want. One kiss and it will be done.”

You squeezed your eyes, trying not to smirk. “I beg your pardon, husband, but you promised me way more than a kiss.”

Your words had an instant effect. Jaehyun was not like a boy anymore, as his eyes widened with clouds of lust.

“Would you like that?” he searched for consent. “Being bred?”

“Yes.”

“Have me fill you up, make you drip with my seed, make you my Lady?”

A shiver ran down your belly, warm where it landed. Your pride, which took you two years to build, was nothing compared to the absolute bliss of being once again desired by him, the man you freely gave your heart to. Your pride could never top the realization that Jaehyun, in the solemn act of gifting you his death, trusted you entirely, and you were going to assure, love and care for him. At that moment, even if you tried gathering every little attempt to resist him, it was going to be in vain, because pride was nothing compared to love.

“Yes, my love” you grinned adorably before pressing a peck to his lips, breathing in the manly scent of amburana. “Now.”

As quick and determined as your request, Jaehyun grabbed your hand and took you inside the room. You didn’t have the time to register the orange intensity of the flames in the fireplace, the flowers on the bedside tables — small details Jaehyun arranged last minute, with a breath in the world, to set up the mood. The only thing you could focus on was his desireful eyes after he pushed you flush to him, making you lightheaded with arousal.

Your chests heaved in unison while his hands slid to the strings of your dress. Skilled, long hands that had your thighs clenching in sweet anticipation. The sensation of your breasts inside the loosened fabric nearly made you squirm. To help, you untangled yourself from the sleeves and moved your hips to pull the skirt down to your feet, along with your undies, standing beautifully naked in front of your husband, your heart skipping several beats as he eyed you with so much need it made him look drunk, as if he was consuming you.

The force in which your lips smashed could not be described.

Only now, with his velvety lips on yours, you understood how badly you had missed Jaehyun. How flavorless life had been when he was not around, how incomplete the days were without his love and his arms to hold you.

He lifted you up, allowing you to snake your legs around his waist, while your tongues danced sensually, moans colliding in the lovely mess of lips and saliva. Then, he placed you on the mattress, taking a look at your body in a way it felt like he was committing your image to his memory for eternity.

“You have no idea how I’ve missed you,” he growled, with a line of crystal water flooding his eyes, before burying his face in your chest, kissing your voluminous breasts.

Eagerly, your hands removed his coat and unbuttoned his shirt, touching every inch of skin exposed. “I’ve missed you just the same,” you confessed, cheeks flushing with pleasure at the long sucks of his mouth on your nipples.

Driven by need, Jaehyun proceeded to take off his pants himself while his mouth continued its worship on your tits. The flex of his muscles was divine to you, his broad shoulders perfect for the delicacy of your hands, his hips tailor-made to fit between the warmth of your legs. There was no way you could resist how your gaze fixated on his lower body, heated by what you saw.

“You’re so huge…” You had almost forgotten, the praise making your husband bite his lower lip.

“You can take it. Gotta make sure you’re wet and ready, wife” Jaehyun kissed your jawline, now using his hands to explore your skin. He was a slave to your perfectly crafted body, its godly curves, divine folds, small and strategically located moles he knew by heart. For your body alone he would be on his knees begging, lips devoted to every inch of your skin, and the lovely way you responded to him driving him all kinds of insane.

“I want to take it slow,” he swiftly spread your thighs. The visceral grunt that left his lips at the sight of your soaked entrance reverberated on your bones.

“We have time,” you grinned, lowering your hand to your folds and running two digits against the warm, velvety juices, only to smear them on Jaehyun’s lower lip. “We have all night to make a baby.”

With a growl, Jaehyun’s hands were on the back of your knees, keeping your thighs separated, which meant you were fully spread and exposed for him. He leaned towards your cunt, readily using his wet and hot tongue on you. You moaned his name like both a curse and a prayer.

“Missed this beautiful pussy so much,” he whispered. “My gorgeous girl, my lovely priestess… I’m going to ruin you.”

Shit. You had never been so turned on, dripping right at his tongue. Jaehyun ate you out so well, tongue circling your clit, alternating long and broad licks with quicker ones.

“You’re such a dream,” you complimented breathly, back arching at the slurp on your swollen clit. “I love you so much, Jaehyun. Gonna breed me good, pump me full of c-“ a high-pitched moan cut you off when he sucked on your clit, the heated, sinful sensations between your legs so good you squirted a little.

“Holy shit,” he cursed, only more determined to make you cum in his mouth. “That’s it, baby. Let go.” It didn’t surprise you that his slender finger slid inside you so easily, considering how wet you were. Jaehyun expertly combined the long suction of his mouth with sharp pumps of his fingers, massaging a sensitive spot inside you that made your thighs shake. You came hard and long, closing your eyes shut as your sweet body convulsed.

When you opened your eyes, you noticed the bed was wet, and Jaehyun’s chin dripped with crystal squirt.

You had to touch him.

In no time, you were on your knees with your hands wrapped around his cock, pumping him tortuously firm and slow. Your heart fluttered, because Jaehyun looked at you as if you had personally put the stars in the sky, when you both knew who blew the glow in them in the first place. The way he looked at you… It was just healing, making you feel like the most alluring woman in the world.

“Please,” he begged, balls tense with how much cum he had for you. Your dainty hands on him had always been too much for his sanity to take. “Please, let me in.”

Mercifully, you aligned his cock with your entrance and swiftly took all of his girth at once. The burning stretch, after so long, pulled a pornographic moan out of your throat, one that mixed with the grave groan Jaehyun let out. Your eyes locked with pleasure before you lifted your hips and sank down on him again, aware of how tight your walls gripped his length, like a vice.

“I love you,” Jaehyun threw his head back with a hiss, exposing his neck for your lips. As you kissed him there, his calloused hands grabbed your hips in adoration, helping the firm pace you set. “I love you madly, my dear, my wife- so pretty bouncing on my cock, ready to be filled.”

You thrived on the praise, speeding your hips and drinking from the bliss on his face. “I’m yours, Jae,” your foreheads touched, lips brushing in passion. “I’m yours, my husband.”

Jaehyun was easily the luckiest man alive, graced with such words combined to the tightness of your heavenly walls. The image of you on top of him, calling him husband, the scent of your arousal soaking the bed, your lovely breasts bouncing, the spasms of your cunt nearly milking him dry… It was all driving him crazy to breed you full and not let any drip of cum escape.

Impulsively, he rolled your bodies on the bed and lifted your hips before he was pounding you hard and fast, your calves resting above his shoulders as he reached deep inside, repeatedly hitting your cervix. You took the chance to admire him, aroused by how his muscles clenched, black hair falling onto his forehead, his beautiful face contorted in the pleasure of taking you to himself. The position also allowed a constant friction against your clit, and you could already feel another orgasm lurking.

“You’ll be mine forever,” Jaehyun grinned with delight, keeping your legs against his chest as his hips met yours. Differently from all the times you had sex before, you sensed he was deeper this time, as though his own cells mixed with yours, as if you shared the same blood… Like he was making you fertile, full of life. “My Lady of Peace, above everything, above everyone. Mine to love, mine to rule me..”

You nodded, absolutely in love with how it sounded. You were so lucky, so damn lucky it was hard to believe. A needy moan escaped your mouth right into his when his cock reached all the right places. You tensed, closing your eyes as the pleasure grew beyond measure.

“Eyes on me,” Jaehyun commanded, and you obeyed, taking every thrust as your body rocked underneath his. “I want you to look at me when I breed life into you.”

It felt so desperately good, so out of any world and realm, that you sank your nails in the skin of his shoulders, a victim of how your pussy clenched and pulsated around his cock until you were cumming hard, trembling, holding his gaze as yours faltered, full of ecstasy and pleasure.

The alluring sight of your orgasm edged Jaehyun on, and you thanked that your eyes were open, blessed with the image of your husband cumming inside you: with pupils so blown out his irises were almost black, a furrow in his lovely brows, and a moan so deep in his throat your own orgasm lasted a little longer, squirting juices mixing with thick, pearly seed that coated your cunt.

You remained tied with each other, your forehead on his shoulder and one of his arms supporting your weight, until your breaths calmed down and the aftershocks smoothened. There was nothing but happiness in your eyes, nothing but fulfillment as you laughed, high on love. Buried in your warmth, Jaehyun took his time feeling you, caressing your face with the back of his hand with shooting stars in his eyes. He had waited so long for the day where he could be with you like that, silent on a bed, just taking in every detail of your face — and now, not only you were where he’d dreamed of, but you were his Lady: someone who possessed his death as much as his life, someone that belonged to eternity as every other Lord and Lady he had created.

No words were needed. You just had to enjoy every second, allowing yourselves to be allured, to surrender to the love you were promised to. And to give into the peace that started flourishing in your chest like a white lily.

-

It was past noon when your eyes opened. Your body woke up slowly, muscles growing aware of small aches left by love making, that unconsciously spread your lips in a blooming smile. Stretching on the mattress, you got aware of the toned arms on your waist, and the heavy breath on your neck.

Much to your delight, the face you landed your eyes on belonged to the only person you ever wished to share your mornings with. Jaehyun slept peacefully, with a glimpse of satisfaction on his undisturbed complexion. It made you smile, how happy he seemed, how gentle and warm his aura was while you caressed his face, brushing his hair back.

Shortly after, he opened his eyes, immediately surrendering to a wide smile. “Am I dreaming?” your husband hummed in a sleepy tone.

“Not this time,” you nested yourself in his bare chest. “I’m right here.”

“Yes,” he cheered lowly and secured the grip of his arms around you. “Did my wife sleep well?”

“Perfectly. What about my husband?”

“Better than the Lord of Sleep himself.”

You chuckled together, Jaehyun’s dimples showing up in a sweet display. “Does it mean you feel better?”

“I feel…” Jaehyun chose the right words, “I feel comfortably peaceful.”

You felt it too. A state of calm, quiet and amity: a delicate reflex of the purest easiness.

“So no loss, no rage, no need to strike first?” you asked to make sure.

Jaehyun shook his head. Calm flooded his eyes — you wondered if it had anything to do with you. As if he could read your mind, he grinned, running his hand through your hair. “Even your aura is different now. Clearer. You’ve got a power that belongs to you only, and you’ll learn how to use it. So far, though, you’re doing amazing.”

“I think I have to try with someone else. You’re too smitten not to be influenced by me,” you teased, instantly rewarded with a slap on your ass cheek.

“I’m sure Yuta or Baba Yaga will offer you a much greater challenge.”

Indeed. Tougher minds for you to easy, but you were confident you would manage.

Your side sank slightly on the mattress when Jaehyun reached for the bedside table, where his coat had landed. You watched his hand slip inside the pocket and return with a familiar silver wedding ring on his palm. “Can I put it back?” Jaehyun carefully asked, his tender and big eyes asking for the sweetest of permissions.

A genuine smile blossomed on your lips. You softly lifted your hand, keeping it in place for him to put the ring back on. The metal was warm as though Jaehyun had been wearing it for you. As if his love guarded the ring with flames.

-

My name is Baba Yaga and this story belongs to me, so I will tell it.

Lucky times, those were, when at the dawn of war, men pulled their bayonets down and went back home, to the arms of their parents and loved ones. Graceful days, with once compromised by rage politicians calmly negotiating with their deadly enemies — men, usually so built up in the narrative of rage, became reasonable and easier to deal with. Fewer people died. The world was a tranquil, welcoming place.

They said it was because of a Lady, crafted in serenity, whose kiss soothed the heart of humans and gods. A woman dressed in white, crowned with sunlight, her hair free and wild with the wind, her eyes alluring, and a smile so contagious it reminded people of their own joy. Peace was nothing but a great state of self satisfaction, and the Lady understood it well, working peace with her fingers as spiders weaved webs.

The Lady of Peace had a black hound, people said. They also said that she had Koschei the Deathless eating right from her hand, like a dog. That he stood in front of her on his knees, black hair like a rook's wings on his face, as the Lady of Peace went through her maps, always aware of where she needed to strike first. That Koschei, the Lord of Life, stood as a servant at her disposal, his shadows submitting to her holy light. She had a sharp eye, a sharper mind, and a fatal way to slide into people’s bloodstream with the calmest of touches.

Obviously, the ones who thrived on violent games were against her existence, but the Lady of Peace was not an ordinary opponent: every attempt to fight her was met with sweet carelessness, and soon enough those who tried taking her down moved on with their lives as though they had not been angry in the first place.

“I have never been so bored,” confessed Death once, when I invited him over for tea. “Can’t even do my job properly.”

“Hush,” I spat. “You still have the accidented, the sick and the old. Good thing that ambitious woman let you have them too.”

“Love makes a fool of us all.”

“It does,” I agreed, “but it also brings out the best of us.”

Never before have I had so much work to get done. Luck and peace walked hand in hand, like sisters. If I had to be completely honest, seeing people happy pleased me, so much so that I did not complain about the workload. Perhaps I was more peaceful myself.

Until that day, of course. The day the black hound was stolen.

-

“Magic doesn’t happen when you light a candle simply,” you explained as the attentive eyes of Mark and Vasilisa watched. “You have to activate the flame, using your words and intentions. The spiritual guides are always by your side to help, but you have to do your part and be specific about what you want.”

You had taken Baba Yaga’s advice and accepted both children as your apprentices. Six years had passed from the day you were crowned Lady of Peace, which gave the reincarnated souls — that were so dear to you — time to grow and be able to understand a few principles of magic. What you did was a serious job, and thankfully they were pretty much interested in everything you had to say.

“Can I try?” Mark politely lifted his hand.

With a short nod, you complied. “Sure.”

The little boy gathered his hands in front of his face, palms against each other, and closed his eyes. “Please, Granny Isobel, let us have a good harvest of watermelons so I can eat them everyday for breakfast.”

You had to retain the chuckle on your lips, instead keeping a serious expression.

“Good! Anything else you want, Mark?”

He opened his eyes. “Pudding for dessert.”

“Anything besides food, perhaps?”

“Oh, intelligence. And health.”

“Go ahead, ask granny. What about you, Val?”

Vasilisa hummed, placing the tip of her finger against her lips. “I just wish to grow up and become an independent, strong woman.”

Your heart fluttered. “That’s a very reasonable wish. Go on, make your wish.”

Both children stood in front of white candles, one for each, and made their prayers. Through the silence in the temple, you sensed two different presences: the black hound, always so close if felt as though she was part of you, and your husband, by the door.

“Papa Koschei!” Both Mark and Vasilisa yelled joyously, running to Jaehyun. As if the children weighted nothing, he picked them up on his sides.

God, he was going to make such a lovely father.

“I came in to check how your classes are going. Are you learning a lot?”

“Yes!” Vasilisa replied. “We’re learning to activate candles!”

“And earlier this week, miss Y/N taught us how to summon the light spirits!” Mark added.

“Wow, that’s huge!” Jaehyun praised, brown eyes glowing with content. “I bet you have an amazing teacher.”

“We do!” The kids hummed in unison before they were put down on the ground. Your husband approached you, placing a kiss on your lips. You kissed him back, a grin blooming where your mouths touched.

“Kids, you’re free to go,” you cooed without looking away.

“Any homework, miss?” Mark asked.

“Activate your candles and talk to your spiritual guides. Then tell me what you felt when you did it,” you instructed.

“Got it! Goodbye, miss! Goodbye, Papa Koschei!”

Soon, you and Jaehyun were alone in the temple. “Did I ever tell you…” he started, forming a trail of kisses from your hand to your arm, “that you look absolutely attractive when teaching?”

“In the past year I might have heard that enough to use it as a weapon,” you shamelessly admitted, palming his chest with the hand that was free. Slowly, said hand started slipping lower.

Jaehyun’s breath got caught in his throat, and he had to remind himself to inhale when your hand reached the volume between his legs.

“Your dick seems tight inside your pants,” you noted with a soft whisper. “Poor boy… Do you want relief?”

His fists clenched around the fabric of your skirt. “That’s the only thing in my mind.”

You smiled peacefully. “Just as I thought.”

Minutes later, you were on your knees with one of your hands at the base of his cock, while your mouth sucked him nice and long, as if in a display of how much of him you could swallow. Jaehyun held onto the table, moving his hips only slightly, his pupils wide at the perfect sight of your mouth taking him whole, lush lips brushing the entirety of his length.

“Fuck, you’re so perfect taking my dick like that,” he groaned, lost in your velvet tongue while trying his best to control his hips from going further. “Let me finish inside you, wife.”

That was a request you never felt like saying no, readily sitting at the edge of the table and removing your — ruined — panties. Jaehyun didn’t take long to spread your legs and bury himself in you, his moan making you tremble in awe as his fingers sank in the meat of your thighs.

You loved that position, how destined your bodies were in each deeper encounter, how Jaehyun’s breath caressed your throat, how his black hair lifted a little after you had brushed it back, a demanding hand on his nape as you kissed him hard, so hard your teeth hurt. It was the only type of violence and excitement you allowed yourself: being fucked with love and care, being filled up with seed that ran from your thighs to the floor, taking your husband’s every facade, whether he was Jaehyun or Koschei the Deathless.

You held the moment of your chests pressed together like it was made of glass, offering your husband an open smile after you were done.

He placed a gentle kiss to the tip of your nose, still inside you even when the aftershocks had passed. It was Jaehyun’s favorite place to be. “Look at us, sinning in your temple,” he chuckled.

“I don’t believe in sins,” you retorted sweetly. “I believe in love.” It was not the first time Jaehyun heard you say those words, and he loved the sound of them a little more every time you pronounced them.

“Are you ready for dinner tonight?” he asked.

“To face all the Lords and Ladies you created when bored?” you teased like a cat. “To listen to their complaints on how dull their routines are now that I reign? To once again patiently listen to their proposal of creating a Lord of War?”

“Life is full of contradictions, wife,” Jaehyun cooed, studying your gaze. “My brothers and sisters seek nothing but to be faithful to their nature.”

“As I will be to mine, brother,” you made sure to add, clenching your muscles. Almost instantly, his girth hardened again.

This time, when he looked at you, Jaehyun’s eyes were frank, like life on a deathbed. “Do you understand, right, love? You are smart enough…” he breathed, rubbing his cheek softly against yours, the firmness of his hand on your jawline. “Nothing will ever be permanent. Life has always been about conflict. And you’re part of it now.”

You understood. It just didn’t mean that you agreed with it.

-

I’ll tell you just how it happened.

The Lord of Life and the Lady of Peace threw a dinner party to welcome all the Lords and Ladies, including me. I joined them at the main table, right next to the Lady, and I was proud at how much she had evolved, although I did not say a word. It has always been hard for me to display affection. I did not yet know words of affirmation tasted good on my tongue.

I anticipated something was going to happen, because of the look on Koschei’s face. Life was never permanent, it was never a thin line, and he knew it. But did his wife know? Did she understand after years used to power, after years maintaining the peace?

The hound was stolen during dinner by the Lord of Inconvenience, who fooled the animal with sweet gestures, as Jungwoo himself looked innocent and harmless, causing Papa Koschei’s death to fall into the embrace of a young Lord that only wished to mess up with order.

And once again, with Koschei’s death in the power of such a trickster, the immortal realms face the possibility of war. Not because people were fighting, not because soldiers were being recruited in the front lines at the mortal realms, but because life was a treacherous thing.

The Lady of Peace stood taller than everyone when John the Knight announced the robbery. She had something new with her. Something small, that I sensed too, because I loved her.

-

“I beg you, wife. Let it be,” Jaehyun whispered.

“Get off your knees.” You felt old, perhaps as old as Baba Yaga. A part of you was stolen, violently taken away from you. You loved the hound. You loved Jaehyun’s death as much as you loved his life, and it was your obligation to take care of both.

Jaehyun continued where he was. “Don’t chase the hound,” he insisted. “Don’t try solving things. Don’t bleed for my death. Jungwoo will keep it safe, I know he will. But war may come, and when it does I will build a shelter for you. I will keep you safe and sound. You will never go hungry. You will not suffer. You will not die. Let it be.”

“I refuse,” you replied hoarsely. Now, you had a choice.

“No one can refuse inconvenience.”

“I’ll face it with peace.”

“I wish you meant what you said,” Jaehyun held your gaze, like a needle piercing your heart. “But we both know you’re not peaceful now, wife.” His eyes were soft and welcoming; yours, dark and imperial. “I know,” Jaehyun murmured, romantic eyes slowly sliding from your face to your belly. “I know there is life inside you.”

You could have looked away, but you did not. Of course he knew. The Lord of Life would always be aware of his creations, even more if his child, flesh and bone, grew inside your womb.

“Get off your knees,” you repeated. “I am not a saint for you to kneel.”

As much as you were a saint to him, this time Jaehyun obeyed. He stood way taller than you, his shadow like a cape. At a blink of an eye, you were inside his embrace, inside his destiny, inside his deathless faith. “I love you, Y/N.” A confession so true, a love so genuine, a father speaking to the woman who bore his child. “I love you and I don’t mind where my death is as long as I have you.”

You chuckled dryly and without a drop of humor, ignoring the knot in your throat. “If anyone else but you had my death, would you be in peace?” You asked the most honest, the bloodiest question you were able to muster.

Jaehyun did not think twice before replying. “No.”

You nodded. Now he understood: it didn’t matter what Jaehyun thought Jungwoo would or wouldn’t do with his death. You wouldn’t rest until you had the hound back, because it was the only way to ensure the life of the man that you loved. The man that was, too, the father of your child. And a child deserved to have a full, complete family.

“I love you, Jaehyun,” you closed your eyes, two sister tears running down your cheeks, “and I will get your death back.”

You commanded the servants to prepare your horses. The trip to the realm of Jungwoo would take nearly a whole day, and you had no time to waste.

“Are you sure it’s a good time to ride, my love?” your husband hesitated.

“I am pregnant, not ill,” you spat. Those were exactly the words your grandmother said to the pregnant ladies who walked inside your childhood home, afraid anything they tried would result in losing their babies. You looked over at Jaehyun’s face, and the surprise in it made you quickly apologize. “I didn’t mean to sound that rough.”

“You’re right, though. I am just unused to your rage.”

“So am I,” you admitted. It felt as though something was horribly wrong with you, like a party dress destined for a fox. “When we arrive, let me speak. Don’t interrupt me.”

Jaehyun clenched an eyebrow at you.

“That’s new, isn’t it? Taking my orders,” you simply commented.

“I promised to do so years ago,” Jaehyun spoke just as ordinarily. “A husband is not to confine. A husband is to free. That’s what I said when we got married.”

You gazed at him stunningly, your chest warm where your heart beat.

“I am giving you choices, my Lady,” he continued. “Both because I love and believe you. And also because I am a fool, but I still have my judgment and priorities. Whatever your plan is, all I ask is for you to be careful. If you’re not, I will be. I would already burn the world down for you alone, but now you’re carrying my child. I’ll be as violent as I should.”

Even the conflict between the two of you tasted sweet now.

Jaehyun gave you his hand for you to jump on your horse. You traveled side by side, only stopping for water and a bit of shadow under an apple tree.

Jungwoo’s land was different from everything you had seen so far, filled with a huge diversity of expressions: museums, open antique fairs, circuses and amusement parks; theaters, brothels and taverns so full they seemed like anthills. Every inch of the floor was covered with wine, spit, piss and cum. Not even the weather could decide, as the hottest sun fought against windy storms, causing an enormous rainbow to light up the sky.

The Lord of Inconvenience was already waiting for your arrival, sitting on a throne in his manor, so loud and disorganized as his realm itself, with several crooked paintings on the walls, and a mix of patterns and colors that was too much for the eye. The hound sat by his side, her ears turning to the door when you were announced.

She ran to you immediately, long ears up, her tails wiggling and her wet, cold snout smelling your tummy.

“Brother, sister!” Jungwoo clapped excitedly. Whoever put their eyes on him would never say he was responsible for the trickiest of tricks: the lovely innocence on his face combined to his excellent manners could easily deceive anyone. “You’re twenty minutes late!” he whined.

“Sorry for the inconvenience,” Jaehyun politely stated, making Jungwoo laugh.

“I guess you’re here for your death,” he hummed, indicating the hound with his chin. “Well, there she is. She’s yours.”

You lifted your face, your white cape falling down your shoulders.

“The hound is here indeed, but the rest isn’t,” you observed. The duck, the egg and the needle were missing. You had spent too much time with the hound to know every inch of her.

Jungwoo’s eyes glimmered with adrenaline.

“I genuinely expected to fool you,” he pouted again. “Don’t take it personally, sister. It’s my nature.”

Years ago, you would have blamed him. But now, all you could do was to accept that life had its own ways of expression. Jaehyun had quite an imagination, and you loved him whole: the good and the bad creations equally.

“I can forgive you if you show me where the rest is,” you calmly argumented.

Jungwoo tapped his lower lip with his finger in thought, considering.

“But that would end the fun, wouldn’t it?” he relaxed back on his throne, patting the pad of his bare feet against the ground. “Ah, whatever, you might find out soon!” he leaned over again, putting his hand secretly at the side of his mouth. “It is with Yuta.”

“Yuta?” Jaehyun repeated.

You sensed the Lord of Death as he walked the manor’s hall, his straightforward presence spreading over the room like fire in the forest.

It made sense. Only Death would know how to separate the hound from the rest.

“I told you she was going to know, brother,” he said to Jungwoo. “Now, you owe me some of your citizens.”

Jungwoo rolled his eyes.

Gods.

“What do you want with Jaehyun’s death?” you asked, even though you already knew the answer.

“War,” Yuta was as sincere as he could be. “You had your fair share of peace, and it was dull. Now it is time for some fun.”

“Fun?” you frowned. “Do you still think like that? I see you’re still selfish.”

“Oh, but I am not,” Yuta retorted. “I embrace the ones in pain. I serve glory for young women and men who are nothing, and die defending their countries. I provide a long, endless sleep for the ones who decide life isn’t worth it. I am not the bad guy, Y/N. In fact, we are pretty equal sometimes.”

You did not disagree.

Silence was made before Yuta spoke again. “I have a proposal for you, my Lady. Let’s share the world. Pick up the countries you want and make them peaceful before Life and I carve war their way, then restore the ones we have just ravished.”

“It is fair, sister,” Jungwoo agreed, even if his opinion was not required.

You only glared at them, looking less like a peacemaker and more like a pregnant woman with boiling hormones.

“Come on, that will even please your husband,” Yuta argumented. “Admit it, brother. You miss a good fight, don’t you?”

The sound of Jaehyun’s throat swallowing was like a low agreement.

“War is in my nature too,” Jaehyun admitted, turning his gaze to you, “but I am more than the Lord of Life now. I am her husband.”

I am as cruel and demanding as a god can be, but for you, and only you, I will be your faithful husband.

Both the Lords breathed in frustration. There was little your magic could do now, as nature was superior to influence, instincts spoke louder than wishing. You tried analyzing the options coldly: at every diplomatic suggestion your mind came with, there was a counterpoint.

You could not protect the world only. Now, you had to protect your child too.

“What if I tell you I can’t accept your offer?” you asked, chin firmly up. “What if I tell you to return Koschei’s death to me, and accept the way life is now? That I won’t surrender to tricks and violence?”

“Then,” Yuta breathed, “I will tell you that there are two lovely apprentices playing in the garden in Buyan. Two lovely old souls, trapped in children’s bodies, that I will love to bring to my realm.”

Oh, to be vulnerable.

It hurt so fucking much.

“If we share the world, I want Jaehyun’s death back,” you offered. The sacrifice of many instead of the sacrifice of the few you held dear in your heart.

It was the way of the world.

“Let’s share it. You’ll have the hen, and I will have the egg with the needle in it.”

“I want his death back entirely,” you made yourself clearer now.

Yuta blinked, impervious.

Jaehyun stepped forward. “Brother, my death is mine to give.”

“It is death, and death belongs to me.”

“As your life belongs to me,” Jaehyun hardened his tone. “We will fight again as you’d like, but my death shall not submit to you. I am deathless.”

Yuta, impatient, quick, and sudden, made his final requirement known: “I will give it back to you only if we can fight. Let’s start today.”

You boiled like water in a pan.

When you walked out of Jungwoo’s manor, you and Jaehyun looked at each other knowing a blank space was approaching, one that too quickly assaulted your way back home. The shadows of Death chased you to Buyan. Thankfully, you came back safe. Thankfully, Mark, Vasilisa were all alive when you did. Baba Yaga was already there.

-

“What will you call her?” the Lady of Luck asked.

“Who?” you breathed, with battlefield dust on your face. You were at the manor after a long battle that left you covered in smoke, and with slight cuts on your knuckles. Since it was Jaehyun’s turn to command the army, he stood to realign the strategy, and you came back to rest before you were needed again.

“Your daughter.”

Buyan’s night sky shone in brutal shades of red and gray, as it did when you first arrived. All wars had the same color, hysterical, uncontrollable and passionate. That did not change.

“How do you know it is a girl?”

“Papa Koschei has been lucky. He had always wanted a little girl.”

“It feels so wrong… Thinking about a baby name in the middle of the war.”

“Maybe you need some help sharing your attention between battling and being pregnant,” the old woman cooed. “Even Jaehyun is thinking more about your child than about war strategies.”

“That’s why we are losing,” you concluded, petting the hound’s head gently. Ever since you returned, she did not leave your side for a moment, twice as a protector now that you were pregnant. You even gave her a name. Ravan.

“Wars are not for winning or losing, child. They are for surviving.”

Whatever wars served for, Jaehyun and you were losing. The hiatus carved by your peace was now dirty with the blood Death was so thirsty for, and for the first time Yuta did not battle alone. Inconvenience, Revenge, Justice… They all faced Life with their teeth and nails, claiming the realms with the intemperance of the world’s setting. With Baba Yaga on your side, you were luckier, but luckier did not mean invincible. Mostly, it meant alive.

“Will it always be like that, granny?” you asked lowly. So low Baba Yaga almost didn’t hear you.

“It will.”

Your eyes weighed like a dozen ships when you closed them. Your mouth was so dry it hurt when you spoke. “I think… I think I am getting used to it.”

Naturally, you adapted, discovering how peace fit best in war. How the puzzles came together. You could not keep the soldiers from battling, and much less negotiate with the Lords — your husband included — that thrived as blood flooded the earth. But with you on the battlefields, death and despair felt easier. You soothed the helpless souls, numbing their minds, anesthetizing their bodies and closing their eyes as the limbs of Death cradled their destinies.

It was your fighting style. Meanwhile, the others used real weapons, they aimed and shot straight, in the endless battle between Life and Death.

“Your priorities are changing,” Baba Yaga noted cleverly. “I was young and revolutionary once. Then, I had kids. Then, I got old. Aging makes you smarter, child. You learn that you can not control everything.”

“Oh, there are many things I can’t control,” you chuckled bitterly, placing a hand on your belly. Your child had just started kicking, her moves excited and strong, filled with vitality. “I pity men, granny. I pity women. I mostly pity the children. All I wish is to offer them a little calmness.”

“No one blames you for that. Not even Death.” Baba Yaga got up and, at the rarest of occurrences, placed a motherly kiss on your forehead. “You fought bravely. Now it is your time to flow with the world’s contradictions. Help those you can, but feel more for you and less for others. She needs you, m’Lady.”

You took a breath so long your lungs wouldn’t fit it in, letting it go as if you were also allowing your shoulders to carry no weight at all.

When Baba Yaga turned to leave the room, you hummed. “Nina. We will call her Nina.”

-

“My opinion on war, my child?” Granny Isobel pulled the pipe away from her mouth. “That’s no good thing. No good thing,” she shook her head, face hidden by the quality of the thick, undeniable smoke. “But God, our Good Lord, allowed it. I am not saying that it is acceptable because God made it, but… But people like me can only help in a few ways. I welcome the hurt spirits. Sometimes they still feel the bullet in their eye, the lack of a leg or a thumb, and wonder where their friends are. I think it is no good, child. But there is nothing I can do, because my power is of another kind.”

-

When Jaehyun arrived at the manor, his armor was covered in black blood, his face dirty with dust, his knuckles raw from punching. By the marks of war he carried, and with how often you fought together, you guessed every punch, hit, cut and blow thrown his way, that he defended with his sword. He looked paler under all the mud, a deep tiredness imprinted in his features with the black holes under his eyes.

Without a word, you took him to your room, where you helped him out of the armor. The bathtub had water so hot in it the steam drew random curls in the air, but you did not complain, silently pressed to each other, praying for some magic that would remove the tiredness off of you.

The war was going badly. But when was it not?

“You’re doing so good, my love,” your husband managed to murmur, caressing your round belly with the same hands he used to strangle the shadows. “Bearing our child so well…”

“Just like she’s bearing me.” You rested the back of your head on his shoulder. “I think I get it now. Life is at its highest when it is the closest to death. You like the war, for it is where you feel more like yourself.”

Jaehyun could never lie to you. “I do. Don’t you now, too, just a little?”

You shook your head with a tired grin. “I feel needed. Necessary. I still prefer the calm and the quiet, though. I will fight for peace when my time comes again.”

“I will be right by your side when you do” he hummed in your ear, accepting and open. “I hope it takes a few years, though.”

“Inconvenience is a tough, irritating thing. We can’t have any hope.”

Jaehyun tasted the words in his mouth. His hands roamed on your stomach, down your navel. “What if we could?” He sounded like a new idea flourishing.

“It’s too early to give her an occupation,” you protested reasonably, reaching up to caress his face. “Let her choose, when she’s grown enough: Lady of Hope, of Faith, of Nothing… First, Nina will only be our baby.”

He agreed with a kiss on your shoulder. Taking her part into the conversation, Nina kicked right where his hand was.

“Ouch,” Jaehyun chuckled, enamored as he was whenever his daughter interacted with him, making her presence as loud as her will. “I already agreed with mama, you don’t have to kick me that hard…”

Savoring the moment, you nested closer to him. Through the window, the gust of wind carried the red aroma of blood and rain. “Jae, what did you do with your death?”

Already expecting your question, Jaehyun smiled. “I’ll show you where I hid it.”

-

I made this for you, wife. It is yours to run away whenever you want. I created this land from scratch. The Realm of Peace, where we can reside. Since I know you like company, I allowed others to come inside: children, florists, teachers, the butcher and his wife, and the servants — which we know are not servants only, but souls as complete as ours. You and I are the only ones who can allow them inside, but the final word is yours to give.

Open your eyes, look at it.

Do you like it, wife? The greenest sunflower fields, the deepest, shadowy forests that smell like oak and ambunara trees, the clouds dancing in the sky… What about the village? I made it just for you, colorful and thriving up the cobblestone streets, with temples, churches, libraries, bars and a playground for the children. It is safe and hidden, as you can see.

I keep my death here too, but it is not born yet. You understand, right, wife? Where I hid it.

You’re carrying her on your belly. Nina is my death now, because in both you and her, I feel the most alive.

I remain deathless because my death can only be reached here, and you’re the one with the key. A knife in my chest won’t kill me anywhere else. We are only vulnerable here, wife, where you crafted your peace, your nature.

I created your death, and Nina’s, and I hid them too. Here. Where no one else can reach us. Where even the cobblestones breathe peacefully.

[utterlyotterlyx]

The Fox and The Fawn

High Lord Eris x Rhys!Sister!Reader x Azriel

Part Seven

Summary - Your feelings for Eris are confronted and you make a choice that is sure to break you.

Warnings - angst, fluff, depression, betrayal, sadness, more angst

Part One Part Two Part Three Part Four Part Five Part Six

Velaris hadn't been the same since you had left.

The entire population was scrutinizing the Inner Circle and the beast they called their High Lord who was doing his best to convince his people that you weren't well and had chosen to heal in the company of the realms best healers in Dawn.

No one believed it.

Rhys was pacing about the study, walking the length of it before turning on his heels and following the wall back to the other side whilst Cassian and Azriel stood before him, clammy palms and pale faces as the throbbing power of Rhys threatened to consume them.

It had been a back and forth conflict that had lasted for days, the words thrown had become so intense that Feyre had deigned to move herself and Nyx to the House of Wind. The main consensus was that a war with Autumn would be devastating to all involved, but Rhys had lost his mind for long enough to be void of the capability to see any reason.

All he wanted was his sister back in his court, safe and warm and protected, where her power wouldn't threaten anyone into daring to know more.

"She'll come back," Azriel's voice cut through the haze, his voice was sure but quaking, and Rhys halted his movements, approaching the desk and taking a seat.

Their High Lord was a shell of himself, a wild glare had consumed his dark eyes, none of them could remember the last time he had smiled or joked, all he did was speak of you, of how to get you back.

"Did your shadows tell you something?"

Azriel shuffled in his seat, dreading what he had to say, for his brother didn't know the exact details of what occurred with you at the boarder of Winter and Autumn, "No," he cleared his throat, "You threatened Elain, Lucien, and Eris," he gulped, "And Nesta."

Cassian hadn't been doing well without her, he hardly slept or ate, and he flinched with pain more often than not due to the bond being so weak and brittle, close to extinction. Their shared brother snapped his head in their direction, his gaze wide as it moved between Rhys and Azriel, both of which kept some vital information from him.

The Shadowsinger continued, "You know that y/n would never put anyone in harms way, she would never risk the lives of the people she loves most," he wasn't sure if he was included in that list anymore, "She just wants to be free. I beg you to think of a different way to establish peace."

Rhys rolled his eyes, bored of the same words, "You saw what she can do now," he leaned forward in the chair and the stars panicked in response, blinking quickly, some even vanished from the sky entirely.

Neither of them could escape the image of those licks of blame flame curling up your fingers and forearm, they couldn't escape the coldness in your glare, and Azriel in particular couldn't escape the flash of pain that shot through your face when he had taken a step back from you.

"Even then, does it mean that we need to go to war? We've barely recovered from Hybern and Koschei as it is, our armies will perish-"

"You can both leave," Rhys drawled, uninterested, bored even, as he picked a threat from his suit jacket and let it float to the floor, "Start preparing our armies, Cass." A stiff nod from Cassian acted as his reply, he rose from his seat, eyes still wide and white knuckles gleaming in the moonlight.

Come home, or I will make sure that you are left with nothing.

Nothing.

The faint scent of cinnamon kissed the air, meaning that Eris was home, and the more intense it grew the more it became clear that he was searching for you as he always did when he returned to the manor. All he had to do was follow the aroma of you, the one scent that he would bottle up if he could just so your scent could drown his clothes and senses.

“Hello Fawn,” he called to you, his voice purred with adoration, and your spine tingled at the sensation of it. As quickly as he spoke the words, Eris frowned, noting the blank stare you held at whatever held your attention beyond the window.

Night had fallen upon Autumn, the sky held the last few flickers of light as dark purple licked the sky and faded to black.

The exhaustion was clear on your face as he fell to your side, his arm brushing against your own as though he was reminding you of where you were. Not Night. Autumn.

Eris had believed that he was making some headway with you, but after Rhys, it felt like you had constructed a dam of steel around your mind. Cold and unimpeachable. It was warranted, but dangerous, and Eris noticed you retreating into yourself more every passing moment.

“What’s wrong?”

Turning to face him, you etched his face to memory, whisky amber eyes full of worry, tight lips, messy red hair that fell past his ears; he had left in a rush that morning, negating to properly style his hair which meant that it was messy but too alluring to pay attention to. He was dressed in ivory briefs and a white shirt, a red waistcoat and jacket both adorned with vines of gold.

A High Lord if you ever did see one.

All you wanted to do was reach out and push a strand behind his ear, to graze his cheekbone with your fingers. But you couldn’t. If there was any chance of Rhys finding out of how much Eris meant to you then he would surely ensure the most brutal punishment possible.

A serene but forced smile consumed your lips, lips that were chapped and broken from the bouts of anxiety that crashed down on you, “Nothing,” you told him, eyes flickering. Shaking your head, you explained, “Nesta was a bit brutal with training today but it’s fine.”

That’s right. Eris had been too busy that day to train with you, you had both been enjoying your sessions grappling with the carranam powers you had discovered, but Eris hadn’t had the time, which meant that Nesta was keeping her eye on you.

The stare didn’t relent but you didn’t shrink under it, you’d never shrink yourself for anyone ever again, so you turned back to peer out of the cloudy glass, “How can I make it better?”

Tension fizzled, Eris took your hands in his, stroking his thumb over the soft surface and resting on your pulse, “Train with me tomorrow.”

Eris smirked, “Done.”

Faint cricket song creaked through the open window, the low beating glow of the fireflies allowed you to see the pond rippling beyond the glass panes that were doing their best to keep the cold from seeping into your bones. Moments had flickered where you seemed unsure, moments where your mind was reeling, trying to figure out what was the next best step not only for you, but your people.

For Eris.

Oddly enough, it had been Elain who would come to your room at night, or Lucien; Nesta knew when to leave you alone and Eris didn't like imposing on your space, but Elain and Lucien, together or separate, seemed to know what you needed more than yourself.

Elain would bring an assortment of baked goods, she'd perch them on the edge of the bed and climb atop the comforter to wedge herself beside you; she wouldn't talk, she would simply listen and occasionally chirp soft advise whilst those pastries loosened your lips. Lucien however was much more straightforward, he would burst into your room no matter the time, he knew you'd be awake regardless, he'd say that he could feel your thoughts pulsing about the manor, uneasy and painful, and he would come to you to make you smile.

Much like how Cassian used to.

The soft patter of rain sounded beyond the threshold, the scent of it made you close your eyes and smile, inhaling the newly damp earth of Autumn, "Talk to me," Eris' fingers reached for you, curling a strand of your hair around them and pushing it behind your pointed ear; his fingers continued to travel, hooking beneath your chin and gently tugging your gaze to his, "You haven't been yourself."

Eris towered over you, his breath crept along your cheeks as thunder cracked in the distance, a flash of lightening snapped across the sky, "How can I be?"

It wasn't supposed to be painful, pushing people away, but it was tearing your soul apart. In some way, you'd much rather be alone for the rest of your long life than risk anything ever happening to anyone you loved. Rhys was determined to take you, Eris was determined to not allow it, and you were determined to save them from ruin.

Sighing, you unwound the blockade around your heart, feeling it strain and groan as you gave it space to breathe, "I don't know what I'm supposed to do," Eris watched your eyes glaze over, he watched that ring of fire dim, he watched as your bottom lip wobbled as you spoke, "I'm tired, Eris."

The High Lord figured as much, the bags that clung to your undereye grew larger each day, he had asked you multiple times if you wanted to talk, but you had denied it, you had been too focused in removing yourself physically so that if you really did then it wouldn't hurt as much.

I'm tired, Eris.

Those three words told him everything he needed to know. You were tired of life, you were tired of the betrayal and the lies, you were tired of the small voices in your mind telling you that you weren't worthy of anything good because how could any good being be used by the people who was meant to love and protect them?

Cracking walls allowed the storm to seep in, and Eris had been expecting it for awhile, he had monitored your anxious actions and sleuthing, he knew that the walls were due to collapse.

"Oh gods," your hand pressed on your stomach, leaving his own palm suddenly cold, you were trying to alleviate the pain dwelling inside of you like a demon, "How could they do this?"

The mere image of your face crumpling had Eris wrapping you into his arms as the last few weeks tore through the abyss toward you, clawing at the confinements you had locked them in. Sobs bubbled through your lips and Eris felt your tears soak through the cotton of his shirt, and all he could do was allow you to go through the motions. It was better to be held in your darkest hour than battle it alone. If all Eris could offer you was his shoulder and gentle caresses, then he would spend the rest of his life making sure he was there to lend them to you.

You had spent the last couple of days playing the memories of your life in your mind, ignoring the blank spots hidden within them, you were trying to figure out what exactly had been a lie, or what you could have done to deserve a life of chains and steel.

"My entire life is tainted now, I don't know what was real anymore. The bargain with Azriel, the shopping trips with Mor, researching with Amren and training with Cassian, painting with Feyre," you paused, "Even Rhys, when did he decide that I was better off locked away? When did he decide that it was best to spread stories of the monster of Velaris rather than the stories of his sister?"

The fond memories of dancing in Rita's until sunrise with Mor and Cassian had turned to ash alongside the moments you had spent with every member of your false family.

Eris ran his fingers through your hair, his fingertips grazing across your scalp, he knew you loved the feeling, and his chest rumbled as he spoke, "Do not fear the storm, y/n," his lips lingered just by your ear and you could faintly feel the parting as he spoke against the shell, "You are learning how to sail your ship. You will get through this, we'll get through it all, together," he pulled away from you but still held you in his arms, the flash of lightening slicing across his face, moulding with the light of the dancing flames dotted about the space in the form of tealights and lanterns hanging from the ceiling, "Just for now. Find a corner of your soul that feels good. And rest there."

Feeling seen and heard felt so foreign to you, but in Autumn, with Eris, you felt alive. Autumn had wrapped her doting arms around you and used her embrace to will you back to life, she willed you to find joy and passion, and perhaps even love.

Perhaps the Mother had sent Autumn to you to lead you to a life that would be worth all of the pain and loneliness. Peering up at Eris, you admired his beauty, the sharp but rugged look, the amber whisky eyes that reminded you of molten bronze, his stupidly perfect hair that Nesta told you constantly was something from novels, "Thank you, for making me feel alive."

Eris sucked in a breath and the candles burned brighter, their light covering the ceiling, "Thank you for making me believe that I'm worthy of being happy."

Extending your fingers over his chest, right above his heart, you frowned and asked, "You aren't happy?"

"I wasn't, but then you came, and now I am."

The smile on your face was radiant, soft and gentle, full of understanding, "We only have one life in this world, Eris. That's reason enough to stop holding back," silent permission sang to him and he rested his hands on the curve of your hips.

The demon within you didn't scare him, what Nesta had told him didn't scare him, nothing about you brought him any form of discomfort or doubt.

"I didn't stop thinking about you after I saw you Under The Mountain, you were humming a song that felt so familiar, your voice was so weak but so enchanting," he recounted, "I remember the light finding you like it always has, I remember the vacant look in your eye and the scuffle of your bare and bloody feet on the ground," Eris cupped your face in his hands, and your fingers drifted around his wrists, "That image haunts me, but that song, that beautifully awful thing has been the only thing to bring me any sort of peace since that place." Since Amarantha and Under The Mountain, "I saw you like I do now, wounded and hurting in so many ways, and I swore to myself that if I ever had the chance, that I would make sure it never happened again."

"The war against Hybern was won because of you, I saw you on that battlefield wielding that sword like it was an extension of yourself, you had rose from the ashes of Amarantha herself and tilted the scales in our favour," a gentle amused huff passed through your lips, "Then you aided me, you risked everything for my vision because you believed in it, because you believe in a better world for everyone, not just your own people. And then you came to me for help, because somewhere deep inside of you, you knew you'd be safe here, with me. And that night, on that balcony of the Day Court, for the first time, I saw you and I didn't just want to have you, but I wanted to deserve you. I asked the Mother for you, despite feeling undeserving, feeling disrespectful for ever thinking of it. Instead, I prayed to her to make me worthy of you."

Eris' molten bronze gaze was trying to tell you something, but you couldn't quite figure it out, not when he was looking at your lips like that, not when every fibre of your being was needing to mould itself inside of him.

"Do you know what the song is?"

Shaking his head, Eris muttered a small 'no', so you told him, "It's the song of your ancestors, the Symphony of Ash. I knew that it must have been awful to see me like that and you always used to say that you liked my voice, and I just thought that you could use a lullaby."

All air rushed from his lungs. You knew that he was watching you that night, and that song, that beautifully horrid thing, was for him. So that even if his nightmares kept him awake, you voice would lull him back to slumber, a song from his court that you had learned.

Even in the moments when you were worlds apart, strangers almost, you had still cared enough to spare him a thought of comfort in the days that weren't so bright for him either despite your own torture.

"That was for me?"

A delicate hum sounded from your throat, "Take it as a gift from one former betrothed to another."

"Former betrothed?"

Frowning, you pulled back slightly, but that frown soon turned to wonder, "You don't remember?" The blank look in his eye confirmed it, "We were supposed to get married before, well, I was locked away and you were directed to Mor. It was meant to be me and you."

"I remember our parents talking of it when we were children, but I didn't realise that it was ever real."

"It was very real."

Eris felt his soul burn, he felt your fingers curl around it, he felt your darkness kiss his fire, and he shuddered at the singing of his essence, "Me and you?"

"Us."

"Can I kiss you?"

You shouldn't. You couldn't. It would make what you had to do even harder. But it was Eris, it was his eyes and lips, his softness and adoration, it was the small boy you had grown up looking out for always without him even knowing it.

Swallowing hard, you moved closer to him, feeling electric as his fingers curled around the curve of your jaw, "Yes."

Eris lowered his lips to yours an he hovered there for a moment, preparing himself for the moment he had always desired, with the woman he couldn't get out of his mind. His lips were soft against yours, it was like kissing the sun, it was soul-consuming and scorching; his lips moved with yours as his hands ran down your spine to rest on the small of your back, pressing you further into him and slipping his tongue into your mouth when you broke for a moment to breathe.

It was a feeling you wanted to bask in forever, you felt light curl around you, you felt his warmth wrap you up in its embrace, you felt his lips on yours and his nose brushing against the tip of your own.

Fisting your fingers through his hair, you used his shoulders for leverage as he placed you on the countertop, your hands delved into his jacket and ran down his chest, and his gripped the skin of your thighs. Reluctantly, Eris paused before it went any further, exhaling deeply whilst resting his forehead against your own, "As much as I want to make you mine," his eyes delved into your own, "Our first time together deserves to be magical, and alone."

"Too right."

Freezing in position, you turned your head to find Lucien stood in the doorway, shirtless with his hand covering his eyes, peeking at you through his fingers. Eris threw his head back and groaned, cradling your head to his chest to hide your clear embarrassment from Lucien finding you both in a compromising position.

"I'm not judging," Lucien teased, "I just didn't expect to come in here to see you two with your tongues down each other's throats."

"Stop talking," you squeaked, cringing at his booming laugh, you blocked out the words from Eris, and instead waited until he scooped you into his arms, continuing to hide you from Lucien as he carried you upstairs and nestled into the bed with you.

Eris was bare bar his undergarments, his scarred chest shone in the firelight and you found yourself tracing the swirls idly whilst he pressed kisses into your hairline, allowing his thumb to stroke against your cheek.

"Tomorrow we'll figure out how to put a stop to this," he sounded so sure, but you knew he was scared, he held you a touch tighter as he spoke, "And then we'll live the life that we want to live."

His optimism was wounding.

Rhys was never going to stop, you knew him well enough to know that once he wanted something he would never halt his efforts to claim it.

After hours of serene chatter, you kissed Eris and told him to rest. As the firelight flickered to lifeless ash, when you knew that Eris was sound asleep and dreaming of you, you slipped from the bed.

Elain stood before the oven with a faint smile on her lips, excited to prod you with questions after what Lucien had so luckily found the night before.

Simmering sun poured through the windows, the storm had broke and the sun shone overhead, cascading her heavenly glow across the grass, caressing her animals as her light spread over Autumn. Birdsong chirped through the slightly ajar window, but Elain's smile had drifted, and her eyes had turned a milky white.

Night. Stars. Snow-capped mountains. A grey dress fit for a princess floating along the Sidra.

Gasping, Elain inhaled, she engulfed the air in her lungs, trying to locate you within it. But there was nothing there.

The shatter of the glass bowl in her hands was enough to cause both Nesta and Lucien to rush into the room, poised to attack, but faltering when they saw the wild look in Elain's eye, "Have you seen y/n? I had a vision."

"What vision, Elain?" Nesta approached Elain tentatively, her palms outstretched to connect with her sisters arms.

Elain gripped onto Nesta, "Of snow-capped mountains and a sky full of stars, of the dress she wore to Helion's party the day she denounced the Night Court drifting along the Sidra. I heard her crying."

Nesta snapped her gaze to Lucien, gasping when she saw Eris stood behind him, his gaze low and pulsating with fire as his chest rose and fell so fast that Nesta thought his heart would stop beating entirely. The room became hot, too hot, swelteringly so, and Eris brushed against Lucien as he approached the two Archeron sisters.

Placing his palms on the countertop, the same one where only hours before he was holding you and meeting your confessions with his own, Eris growled, low, and possessive, "Where is my mate?"

Author's Note

I am burning rn.

Taglist

@mybestfriendmademe @jesskidding3 @rosewood-cafe @fandomarchiveilyd @brujitafantomatico @crazylokonugget @mai-adaptive-dreams @magicstrengthandcourage @acourtofmoonlightandstars @ysmttty @lilah-asteria @circe143 @xyzmeh @paleidiot @namelesssav @amberlynn98 @acourtofbatboydreams @azrielsmate3 @ivy-34 @mp-littlebit @honeysuckle-daydreams13 @ifonlyiwerefiction @pirana10 @donttellthecats @padbaeamidla @oucereeng @andreperez11 @demonicbusiness @megscabinetofcurios @superspideyparker

[glittergelpensblog]

Tired (Cassian x Reader)

Request: cassian x pregnant reader???

Word Count: 655

Just a little Cassian fluff!

You yawned as you flipped another page of your book, slumping at your desk. You were working while you waited for Cassian to arrive home from a day visit to Windhaven, your eyes tired from studying and researching ancient magic, trying to help Rhysand find a way to defeat Koschei.

But the day had long past, and it was nearing Midnight. You briefly thought of studying on your couch, then disregarded it, knowing the cozy cushions and the warmth of the fireplace would lull you to sleep. You wanted to be awake when Cassian got home, itching to see your mate.

It had been a while since he had gotten home this late. When you had told your family that you were pregnant, Rhysand had cut a lot of Cassian's trips, sending Azriel instead. He knew what it was like to have a pregnant mate, the overprotectiveness and the constant need to be near them.

And overprotective Cassian was. You were rarely left alone, even while he was gone. You spent most days studying with Amren in the River House, or in the garden while Elain worked, sometimes you would even sprawl your books on the day bed in Feyre's studio while she painted.

While it could be suffocating sometimes, you never fought Cassian. You knew he was worried, especially with what happened to Feyre while she was pregnant with Nyx.

You took another sip of your tea, grabbing your pen as you scribbled some notes about the dark magic, shuddering at the illustrations on the page.

You were brought from your thoughts as you heard the creaking of the floorboards, looking up from your desk to see your mate, leaning against the doorframe with his arms crossed.

"Why are you up so late?"

You stood, adjusting your blanket on your shoulders as you made your way across the room. "I was waiting for you," you reached him, wrapping your arms around him, cocooning the both of you in the blanket.

Cassian smiled, warmth spreading across his chest from the bond as he gently rubbed circles into your lower back. "C'mon, lets get to bed," He murmured, placing a gentle kiss on the top your head.

"I'm not tired," You pulled away, frown on your face.

"Why don't I believe you?"

"I don't know, I'm actually kind of hurt," You teased, "My own mate doesn't trust me,"

Cassian laughed, grabbing your hand and guiding you towards your room. "You need rest, you've been working too much lately. I feel like you're stressing yourself."

"Maybe, but what else am I supposed to do? I can't sit aside and do nothing while Koschei is out there, doing Cauldron knows what."

"I know, I know," You were in the bedroom now, Cassian gently helping you climb into the bed. It was a tall bed, and getting into it was a slight struggle before, but with your bump, it had become a fight to do it by yourself.

You laid on your back as he snuggled against you, laying his head on your chest and rubbing his hand over your belly. "How is she?"

"She's been kicking all day," You two had decided that you were having a girl a few weeks after you had found out about the pregnancy, "And she's playing this fun little game where she jumps on my bladder. I almost pissed myself in a meeting with Rhys."

"Are you giving mommy a hard time already?" Cassian chuckled at your stomach.

"She's gonna be a little fighter, just like her dad."

"Hell yeah she will be, she'll be training with Daddy and Uncle Az all the time, she's gonna be a little baddass,"

You hummed in agreement, smiling as you closed your eyes in content. Cassian was going to be an amazing father, you could see it in the way he treats you, in the way he plays with Nyx. He was so gentle, so caring for you and your family.

You slowly drifted to sleep, breathing slowing down into sync with the circles Cassian was gently massaging into your abdomen.

" 'I'm not tired' my ass." Cassian mocked your sleeping form, conjuring the soft fae lights to dim.

______________________________________________________________

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I'm sorry, I don't know why it won't let me take some of you :(

[florence-end]

May I have this dance?

Azriel x fem!reader Part 2

Request: Could you write a shy reader × Azriel story? Thank you!

Warnings: none

Summary: Azriel’s new mate is painfully shy, despite his efforts to get closer to her. Something shifts between them when Mor needs help with Cassian’s dance lessons.

You heard Mor calling for you all the way from the dining room, which definitely meant she was up to no good if she hadn’t come to your office to talk to you directly. You set aside the book you were combing through, adding it to the pile of discarded volumes that you and Amren had been scouring for clues on how to beat Koschei. As the recently appointed head scholar of the night court, quietly reading in your office took up most of your time and was exactly how you liked it. Groups of people, social occasions, too much noise, it all made you nervous and you retreated even further into yourself than usual.

Preparing yourself for the whirlwind of energy that was the high lord and lady’s third in command, you made your way to the large dining room at the other end of the corridor. Music was playing inside, and as you pushed open the large wooden door, you were met with the sight of Mor dragging Cassian around in a waltz as he tried desperately to keep up with her speed. Rhysand and Feyre were also stumbling through the steps, looking only slightly more proficient than the clumsy warlord. Off to the side, leaning against the large table that had been pushed against the wall and looking far too amused, was Azriel.

His eyes moved to you immediately as though he couldn’t help himself, and he gave you a small smile and wave. You felt the muted rush of affection flood the bond before he could clamp down on it to avoid overwhelming you, and you gave a small smile back to let him know it was okay.

You and Azriel had met on your first day in the night court a month ago, and the bond had snapped right away. Although you were happy to finally meet your soulmate, your shy demeanour and nervousness when it came to interacting with strangers had caused you to panic a little and you kept your distance at first. He respected your feelings and had committed himself to gently courting you ever since.

Mugs of your favourite tea were waiting for you on your desk every time you left your office to search the library. Little trinkets and decorations for your bedroom were left neatly wrapped for you to find, always hailing from whatever court or country Azriel had most recently visited on his missions. He had taken to spending any downtime he had in your office, settled quietly in the armchair across from your desk and helping you work through the never-ending pile of research in comfortable silence. Once, when you were feeling particularly relaxed after a few glasses of wine at dinner in the river house, he dared to take you on an aerial tour of Velaris as he flew you back to the House of Wind. Just the memory of his secure arms holding you close to the warmth of his body while the chilly breeze whipped around you made your cheeks heat up.

The music came to an end and Mor turned to see you lingering in the doorway. “Perfect, you’re here! Please don’t hate me but I really need your help,” she pleaded. Mor explained that Cassian needed to learn to dance in order to impress Nesta on the next trip to the Court of Nightmares. She had asked Rhys and Feyre to attend the lesson so Cassian could see what the steps were supposed to look as Mor taught him the routines but it turns out dancing was not a talent possessed by the high lord nor the high lady.

“In my defence, I have never needed to dance at the court of nightmares, my role is to sit on the throne and look intimidatingly handsome. And I am fantastic at it,” Rhys protested as Mor continued to criticise his two left feet. Feyre had a better excuse, given she had mostly grown up poor in the human lands.

You giggled as Mor and Rhys bickered for a few more moments before she dismissed her cousin and his wife. They quickly bade their goodbyes and left the dining room hand in hand.

“If you’re going to ask me to dance, Mor, I should say now that I don’t know any of the night court routines,” you warned, knowing where this conversation was going and not liking it one bit.

“That’s alright! Luckily for us all, Azriel possesses all the grace that his brothers do not and he knows them all. He’ll lead and all you need to do is follow,” Mor declared, giving you no time to object as she grabbed your wrist and pulled you over to your mate who was watching your face for any signs of serious discomfort. “Az, show her the hold for the waltz and I’ll run over the steps with Cassian again,” she instructed and left you both on your side of the makeshift dance floor.

“You don’t need to do this, just say the word and I’ll winnow you back to your office before she notices,” Azriel offered kindly.

“No no it’s okay, I want to help plus Nesta is my friend and it’ll make her happy. But I really don’t know what I’m doing,” you murmured back quietly, twisting your hands in front of you.

Azriel offered you his hand in a silent question, letting you make the move to touch him. You know he’s sensitive about his scars and would never want to make him feel any more self conscious by hesitating so you slipped your fingers over his palm to link with his and looked up into his warm hazel eyes.

Although he’s flown with you a few times and you eat most of your meals sat next to each other, the proximity and intimacy of the moment flustered you immediately and you broke eye contact. You missed the flash of pride on Azriel’s face at the evidence of how much his presence affected you.

“Now put your other hand on my shoulder and I’ll place mine on your waist,” he explained and you obeyed his instructions without delay.

“A little closer,” he urged, using the hand on your waist to curl around your lower back and press you further into his chest. You were so close now that his scent hovered all around you, you could feel his warm breath brush across your cheek, and his shadows caressed the hand that lay on his broad shoulder as though wanting to prevent you from withdrawing your touch.

“Perfect,” he whispered, his lips inches from your ear. Mother above, this male was going to be the death of you. Your face couldn’t be any hotter if you were actually ablaze. “When the music starts, all you need to do is close your eyes and trust me.”

The reminder of why you were here burst your bubble as you felt your nerves return. “What if I trip or step on your feet?” You questioned anxiously, beginning it pull back from him.

His hands remained firm, keeping you in place. Once again, his whispers sent shivers along every inch of your skin. “I would never let you trip. And it would be an honour to have you step on my feet,” he teased, helping you relax.

“Okay are we ready to try this from the top?” Mor called from across the room. Azriel nodded on behalf of you both, and reminded you to close your eyes.

As the music began, you quickly started to wonder if the Illyrians gave as much dance training as they did for combat because Azriel was flawless. He moved with a quiet grace and certainty, leading you with such confidence that you didn’t have a chance to feel shy or anxious. Cassian’s cursing and stomping footsteps nearby told you that Azriel’s skills may not have been Illyrian-taught after all but you were feeling too giddy to give it much more thought.

One dance turned into two which turned into five. When the music came to an end half an hour later, Azriel released his hold on your waist and leaned back slightly to take in your dazed expression as your eyes fluttered open, chuckling lowly.

You hadn’t noticed that Mor and Cassian had left sometime while you were dancing, and for once in your life you weren't worrying about looking foolish or trying to find the right thing to say. All of your thoughts were consumed by this miraculous male in front of you who had quite literally whisked you off your feet. And to make it even better, he was looking at you as if you were miraculous too.