Fiona blinked twice in the gathering darkness.

"You know who I am?"

"Of course." The Suriel's voice had the tenor of a rasp, as though each word had taken centuries to crawl out of its ancient throat. "It has been some time since one of my kind was called upon for answers. But it is only fitting that it should be you, Fiona, to tempt us back to the fates of fae."

It looked up, exposing a set of sallow cheekbones to the weak starlight. "And yet you are early," the Suriel mused, gazing up at the patches of sky visible beyond the trees. "There is some time yet before what must come to pass will do so."

Fiona wasn't sure what to say to that. In fact, the longer she sat opposite the Suriel, listening to its quiet cacophony of clicks and rattles, she became less and less sure of anything, least of all her own safety. Perhaps this odd, unsettling omniscience was just the way the Suriel caught its prey, a clever tactic trained to ensnare the proud and arrogant - and she was tonight's catch.

Fiona shifted further from the stream, trying to judge the distance at which it might be able to lunge across the water. The creature watched her with its bony fingers folded in its lap. 

Something like a smile appeared on its face as it asked, "You came for answers, no? Ask your questions."

She remained quiet, trying to settle her thoughts into some kind of a coherent order. 

"Elain's prophecy. Is it true?"

"Of course it is true. Prophecies always come to pass- it is only their interpretations that may be false." The Suriel cocked its head. "But you knew this already."

Fiona couldn't tell if it was toying with her or encouraging her. But the noises of distant creatures prowling through the forest gave her little time to dally. She took a deep breath.

"Xander and I are mates?"

The Suriel nodded absentmindedly. "Fire and Night are bound together always. It is only in the shadows cast by flame that we find truth-" It cut off suddenly, listening for something on the wind. "But you knew this also." Cartilage tapped out a disjointed rhythm on its fingers. "Why must you dance around your desires? Why seek out a Suriel to affirm what you already know?" 

Its empty eyes locked her in place with a weighted look - the weight of a creature that had seen empires rise and fall to ash, that had stalked the moon across the earth since before the stars were born. "Ask me what you want," it said. "What you truly want."

Flexing her fingers, Fiona forced herself to look the Suriel in its glassy eyes. "A friend of mine," she began. "Helion's son, suggested-"

"Lucien's son," it interrupted.

"What?"

"Riordan. Born of Elain Archeron and of Lucien, son of Helion. Lucien's son," the Suriel clarified. That hooded head tipped sideways once more. "You did not know? Interesting."

Fiona's mind was reeling but she pushed on, tucking away this sliver of information to be scrutinised later - at a time when she wasn't alone with an ancient and wicked being in the middle of the woods.

"Right," she cleared her throat. "Lucien's son suggested that...that Xander and I claim a throne over Prythian. Could such a thing be done? Would Prythian's magic even allow for a King and Queen?"

"There was once a similar arrangement," the Suriel began. "The land has always emulated the courts somewhat - but before they were founded, Prythian was ruled by a Queen of the Seasons, who presided over what you now know as Winter, Spring, Summer and Autumn. By her side, there sat a King of the Skies, who ruled the subjects of your Dawn, Day and Night."

Fiona frowned. "I've never heard of this."

"They ruled from the Middle - from the mountain you fae hold sacred." The Suriel swayed a little as the breeze around them fluttered the hem of its new cloak. "The ruins of their palace still remain, shrouded in mist and ruin."

"What happened to them?"

"It was the greed of fae that usurped their throne and raised up the seven High Rulers you have today." It jerked its hooded head at a rather sharp angle suddenly. "Though I think you did not mean to ask me if this can be done, but if it will."

"Will it be done?"

"It has long been foretold that a time will come when Prythian will bow to a King and Queen once again. Their crowns lay dormant on their thrones, awaiting a worthy bearer."

A non-answer. Fiona swallowed the lump in her throat, feeling bare under the Suriel's gaze - she hoped it couldn't hear the blood roaring in her ears the way she could now. 

"Has that time come?" she asked in a small voice. "Will Xander and I be King and Queen of Prythian?"

The Suriel shifted on its bony behind, and a glimmer of something like discomfort crossed its gaze. "I cannot say."

Fiona had been holding her breath, but let it out a sudden, sullen exhale. "A Suriel must answer any question asked by their captor," she frowned. 

A truly horrid smile spread across its maw, revealing a set of blackened and broken teeth. "And yet you have not entrapped me."

She cursed herself silently.

Every instinct in her roared at that smile, at the sudden realisation that she was sat before a predator with a mind far more cunning than her own. Though her feet told her to run run run run, Fiona reached for her bow.

The Suriel sighed as she knocked an arrow into place. "Do not make me answer this question, Daughter of Flame. If you are told what will happen then it will not come to pass."

The fletching brushed against her cheek as Fiona stared at the creature down the end of her aim, her bow strung taught. An unseasonably cold wind gusted through the clearing and set the pines around them rustling madly. The Suriel too rattled beneath its cloak as it fixed her with an urgent but steady gaze.

"I don't know what to do." She admitted, not sure if she meant the prophecy or the shadows gathering around them, the faint snarling of a beast beyond the boundary of the treeline.

The Suriel seemed to hear it too, and shifted to its knees. "Much blood has yet to be spilled girl," it said, its eyes flashing. "There will be a time when your people will need you more than the High Lord, but one must not come before the other. Follow your heart."

And with that it fled, scurrying into the shadows with surprising speed, and leaving Fiona breathing heavily in the moonlight, her arrow quivering against her bow.

*

On her return to Athelwood, Fiona felt defeated. The Suriel had posed her more questions than it had answered, and the prospect of sorting through all the pieces she had gleaned made her head swim.

But when she rode up to the iron gates of the estate, her despondence quickly turned sour as she picked up on a familiar scent trailing the path. Hastily uncoupling her steed from her saddle, Fiona practically stomped through the grand oak doors, utterly unsurprised when she emerged to find Xander standing in the dining room.

She slammed her riding cloak on the kitchen table, and a part of her enjoyed the way he flinched when he turned.

"Has not one person respected my request for privacy?" she snapped.

Xander looked bewildered. "You tugged on the bond."

Fiona breathed out an irritated sigh. "I wasn't calling for you," she explained, rubbing the back of her neck. "I was..I was just feeling what it was. How a person might go about..."

Alarm flashed in several shades of violet as Xander cleared the distance between them. He wore a loose shirt and riding trousers, and tucked his wings out of sight as he reached for her, momentarily speechless. 

"I will support whatever you wish to do," he said slowly, choosing his words with the caution of a surgeon. His eyes were rimmed with genuine fear, an expression Fiona was very unused to seeing on his face. "But please don't do it yet. Not before we've won Velaris back, and certainly not when I'm not with you. Neither of us can fight without the bond - you know that."

Firm hands slid along her forearms and sought an answer in her gaze. "I'll do whatever you want," he repeated. "But don't do it alone. Not without me here."

"Xander-"

She was surprised to find her throat closing, and fought to keep her voice steady as she resisted the instinctual urge to fold into him - to collapse against the planes of his chest, to explore the trails of tattoos she could see peaking out from beneath the hem of his shirt. 

"We can't win without Eris." She said firmly, convincing herself as much as him. "I don't have a choice - it doesn't matter what I want."

He was already shaking his head. "It always matters what you want. We can find other allies, another advantage. Don't let Eris make this decision for you."

"But Elain's prophecy-"

Xander's growl startled her. "Fuck the prophecy. With all respect to my aunt, I'm done chasing fate."

Fiona's expression was pained. "Xander, you can't say that. After everything that happened...we would be stupid not to listen twice."

His eyes shuttered. She could almost see him slamming a door, refusing to let the shadows spill out. She felt it, felt him fighting all that pain he'd worked to shove so very deep within himself. It made her all the more certain this decision rested on her. 

Allowing herself a small indulgence, Fiona reached for his strong bronze hands, running her fingers along the lines of his palm. "Even if Eris wasn't the key to beating Keir...he still needs me, they need me."

Indigo turned to black in his eyes. "You don't owe those snakes a fucking thing."

"No, I don't. Not them," she agreed. "But I owe you-" 

He shook his head, lifting her hands to his lips as he brushed a kiss along her knuckles. Fiona ignored the sparks that trailed in their wake, ignored the breath that caught in her throat. 

"I owe your people," she went on. "I owe Velaris...and I owe my people too. If Aidan takes over...if anyone else takes over they will kill Eris and destroy the Autumn Court. We'll be fighting this war from both sides, and we'll be fighting it for generations." Her eyes glimmered with longing, trying to make him see. "There's only one answer."

Xander stilled, lowering their interlaced hands. "Do you really think you can dedicate yourself to that court?" His voice was barely a murmur. "Can you throw everything away for them?"

The unspoken question floated between them in the quiet. Can you throw me away? his eyes were asking. For the people you hate most in the world?

Fiona felt her resolve crumble as she smiled, a tear spilling down her cheek. Xander watched it fall, and she knew they both felt the same ache threatening to consume them. "No," she admitted with a shaky sigh. "But I can do it for you."

He stood before her, silent and still. If she didn't have that bridge, that direct line to his mind and heart, she might think he hadn't heard her, his face was so blank. Only his lack of breathing betrayed any of the turmoil behind those solemn, silent eyes.

"We can find a way to make it work." She could see the cogs whirring in his mind, though she knew they'd both already run through every possible alternative. "We could align our courts, put our people first despite all of this-"

Fiona's pulse jumped at that. They were so entwined, in body and soul, that she feared to even think in passing about what Riordan had proposed today, in case he heard it.

"You don't believe that," she laughed, a salty tear sliding between her lips. 

Even so, the words her cousin and the Suriel had spoken tapped against the boundaries of her mind as she gazed at her loving mate.

Queenqueenqueenqueen-

                          Kingkingkingkingkingking-

Xander shook his head fervently. "Don't do it yet. I can't lead them without you, not yet."

For some reason, the look in his eyes made her feel guilty. Though she had already dismissed the idea, and knew that Xander would have done the same in an instant, she felt wrong and rotten to be keeping something from him. To be hiding a solution in her heart, no matter how unfeasible...

"You couldn't do without the bond either," he reminded her, pulling her back to the present. "All those months we spent in Velaris, all that time we were apart...we've always been tethered together."

Xander was nuzzling her neck, his fingers tracing absentminded circles up her back beneath her tunic. "There were so many sleepless nights when I knew you were lying awake, listening for Aidan. I wanted to come to you so badly - to cross every ward in Prythian, even if it was just to let you sleep for an hour or two." Though his words were soft and gentle, the caress of his breath was maddening on her neck, making it harder to concentrate with each whispered word.

Xander's fingers moved like spiders up her back, the movement so subtle, so completely at odds with the trail of blazing sparks Fiona felt in their wake. "When you used to give me that look- as though you were trying to see through me...it terrified me." His hand travelled further until it was brushing the nape of her neck. Another appeared suddenly around her waist and pulled her flush against him. 

Fiona sucked in a sharp breath as his cold fingers made contact. 

Xander raised his head from where it had been resting against her shoulder, his eyes darkened with lust. When he spoke it was with little more than a growl, as though his throat was constricted.

"Do you have any idea, Fiona," he murmured, his gaze like a brand. "Any idea at all how hard it was to resist you that night?" 

Fiona didn't have to ask which night he meant. She had seen it in his eyes. She could feel now what he had felt then, the ache of paralysis at the slightest brush of skin, the puddle that only Xander could reduce her to.

"Your touch was the sweetest agony." He whispered, his stare piercing as he brushed a lock of hair behind her ear. "If I wasn't already High Lord, if my parents.."

A hand shot up to cup his cheek - the best comfort Fiona could give where she did not dare to speak. Xander's eyes closed and he leaned into her touch. "I want you to know that if my parents were alive, I would have followed you in a heartbeat," he whispered, eyes opening and glowing with sincerity. "I would have left it all to Nyx and been yours completely, consort to the Lady of the Autumn Court."

Fiona's eyes widened as he dropped to one knee, lifting her foot atop on his bent leg. All thought abandoned her as he moved her dress aside, exposing pale skin to the lamplight and planting gentle kisses along her calf. 

"I would have sworn my life to you," he mumbled against her shin, sending shivers up her spine. "And given my every waking breath to your service."

His lips moved higher, past her knee. 

Some more sensible part of her, the part that wasn't begging him higher mumbled, "We can't do this Xander. It will only make things harder."

As though he could hear her thoughts - and maybe he could - Xander shifted. 

I don't care. 

He lowered her foot to the floor and pressed a kiss to her thigh, tantalisingly close to the ache building between her legs.

Her breathing was heavy and erratic as she repeated, "Xander-"

He stopped then, his teeth just grazing her undergarments. He looked up at her and the image he presented - a High Lord on his knees between her legs, dark curls brushing her bare thighs, violet eyes rounded innocently - it was almost her undoing.

Those eyes were trained on her as he moved back ever-so-slightly, his breath hot between her thighs when he asked-

"Do you want me to stop, my Lady?"

Fiona didn't have the words to answer. She knew it would ruin her, could already feel him pulling at the last thread of her self-control, and knew everything would only be harder after this. And yet all the words that could mean no or stop died at her lips.

Xander rose to his full height, though he did not move back an inch.

"If we do it. If we break the bond, and give up everything for our people," His eyes blazed so fiercely she was scared to look away. "Then don't we deserve to burn just once for each other?"

Fiona huffed a quiet laugh as her pulse pounded and roared in her ears. "You don't believe that." She dared to glance up at him with a wry, mournful smile. "I can see the lie in your eyes. You're the most dutiful person I've ever met, Xander. You could resist anything for your people."

Xander's eyes darkened, his jaw tensed. "Not you, Fiona Vanserra." 

He lowered so that they were nose to nose, his thumb stroking the corner of her mouth. "By you, I am utterly undone."

He was waiting, hovering at the precipice of so much as though awaiting permission, tugging her hand but pausing before he pulled her over the cliff face with him.

Fiona had nothing left with which to resist him. She let out the last of her resolve in a sigh, waving it goodbye as reason screamed at her from behind the blazing boundaries of passion.

"Show me your wings," she murmured against his lips.

Xander's eyes darkened. He discarded his riding shirt in one smooth motion and stepped back to allow her to admire him as those wicked wings burst from his shoulders. 

Fiona resisted the urge to weep as she took in the fallen angel before her - this god of night with his perfect black locks and his perfect bronze chest, the tattoos spiralling around his collarbones and hips like night-wrought vines. Every detail felt as familiar to her as her own; the sloping angle of his crooked jaw, the distance of his dimple from the corner of his lips. Even his wings she had now committed to memory, a map of every vein and wrinkle of membrane. She couldn't believe he was hers, that the world would give her this lord of shadow and force them to cut their binding ties.

The steps she took toward him were unsteady, as though the sight of a High Lord who radiated such power and twisted beauty convinced her legs they should be kneeling. 

"Fate is so cruel," Fiona breathed, reaching a hand to caress his jaw, her palm sliding against his stubble. "My Prince of Velaris...my Lord."

Xander waited, watching, his body rigid with the effort of restraining himself. 

"I'll go mad," he warned her.

Fiona looked into those violet eyes, ready to jump, willing to be drowned in them. 

"Then take me with you."