𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟏𝟎

𝘚𝘩𝘦 𝘵𝘰𝘰𝘬 𝘮𝘺 𝘸𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴 

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╰┈˚ · ° .  THE FIRST THING THAT I DID AFTER taking a long bath to clean myself from the residue of the Nagas, was looking for my sister. I knew, deep within myself, that she was not in a good mental state after the event in the afternoon.

When I arrived in front of her room, which was directly in front of mine, I knocked on the door— once, twice— waiting for her voice to invite me in. But it never came.

So I slowly opened the door of her room, calling my sister's name as softly as I could. Looking around her flower themed room— everything was flower themed here in the Spring Court— I found her on the floor at the end of the bed, her body trembling, still covered in blood, with her arms wrapped around her legs curling herself in a ball trying to let herself be as small as possible.

"Fey." I whispered, approaching her slowly and with steady steps trying not to spooky her even more than she already was. Feyre never answered, but her shaking increased.

I closed my eyes for a second. My own emotion still muffled by the thick walls that I had created to prevent them from entering, but I knew that my sister needed me. If there was one thing that would succeed in slightly melting my heart in any type of way, were my sisters. All of them.

I kneeled next to her, taking her hands in mine, her fingers curling around mine until her nails were almost piercing my skin. Her gaze snapped to meet me, her cheeks red and stained with her tears, her eyes puffy from the excessive crying.

"It's okay, you are safe now." I whispered calmly, trying to soothe my twin.

My voice could have been described in many ways, but soothing wasn't one. It was too rough and deep, my vocal cords had been too strained once and now damaged beyond repair.

I sat next to her, letting out a small breath before bringing my twin into my arms, hugging her as tightly as possible to me.

Feyre's body shook with sobs as she started to cry with more intensity. I could only thred my fingers through her golden-brown locks, stroking her hair trying to soothe her with my touch and presence.

It took her a while for her crying to decrease enough for her to be able to talk.

"I'm sorry." She said quietly trying to swallow another round of sobs trying to break free,

"For what? You have nothing to be sorry for, Fey." I replied with a soft tone and a softer smile.

"I left you. You could have died."

At her response, I took her face between my scarred hands. "I told you to run. If it makes you feel better, you would have been a distraction." I said in a teasing way trying to lighten up the dark mood that dampened the walls of the room. "You did nothing wrong, Feyre. Understood?" I continued with a more firm tone. Feyre just nodded her head, even if the conflicting emotion on her face spoke loudly about her unsureness.

"C'mon you need a bath. You stink of those creatures and it is not very pleasant." I said, earning a weak chuckle from my sister.

We spent the couple hours before dinner together. I helped her bathe, then I braided her hair as she talked to me about Tamlin. The way she was starting to feel towards him. And then, we layed in her bed continuing to talk about everything and nothing, just like we often had done back in the cottage, when the sun had gone down to a dark sky and our sisters were sleeping on the other side.

Eventually, dinner hour came, and we both made our way down into the dining room. Lucien and Tamlin were already there, waiting for us to join them at the table.

"Good evening." I said, moving to my usual seat.

Lucien cocked his head in a silent inquiry, I gave him a subtle nod as I sat down. His secret was still safe.

Lucien slouched a bit in his chair, relaxed by that. "I heard you three had a rather exciting afternoon. I wish I could have been there to help. Well, you two still look lovely, regardless of your Hell-sent afternoon."

"I thought faeries couldn't lie." Feyre said, looking at the red haired fae.

Tamlin choked on his wine, but Lucien grinned, the scar on his face stark and brutal. "Who told you that?"

"Everyone in the mortal lands knows it." I said, piling food on my plate with a nonchalant look "Not that it is true anyways. " Feyre looked at me with a frown. "I forgot to mention it, didn't I? Sorry. They can lie."

Lucien leaned back in his chair, smiling with feline delight. "Of course we can lie. We find lying to be an art. And we lied when we told those ancient mortals that we couldn't speak an untruth. How else would we get them to trust us and do our bidding?"

"Iron?" She managed to say.

"Doesn't do us a lick of harm. Only ash, as you well know."

"Even though Lucien revealed some of our closely guarded secrets," Tamlin said, throwing the last word at his companion with a growl, "we've never used your misinformation against you." His gaze met hers. "We never willingly lied to you." He then turned to me "But you already knew. How did you know?"

"It's a closely guarded secret. I apologize, High Lord." I answered in a mocking way.

"Can you stop doing that?" He growled

"Doing what, High Lord." I replied faking innocence.

He closed his eyes for a second trying to calm his blooming anger before reopening them and deciding to completely ignore me by turning towards Feyre.

"Are you feeling ... better?" Though he had his chin propped on a fist, concern—and perhaps surprise at that concern—shone in his eyes.

Feyre swallowed hard at the question "If I never encounter a naga again, I'll consider myself fortunate."

"What were you doing out in the western woods?"

"I heard a legend once about a creature who answers your questions, if you can catch it."

Tamlin flinched as his claws shot out, slicing his face. But the wounds closed as soon as they opened, leaving only a smear of blood running down his golden skin—which he wiped away with the back of his sleeve. "You went to catch the Suriel."

"We caught the Suriel." She corrected.

"And did it tell you what you wanted to know?"

Yes, apparently I have to die— I thought bitterly.

"We were interrupted by the naga before it could tell me anything worthwhile."

His mouth tightened. "I'd start shouting, but I think today was punishment enough." He shook his head. "You actually snared the Suriel. A human girl."

"Human girls. I was there too, you know." I mumbled under her breath already knowing that the two present fae could have heard me clearly.

"Is it supposed to be hard?" Feyre asked

Tamlin chuckled, then fished something out of his pocket. "Well, if I'm lucky, I won't have to trap the Suriel to learn what this is about." He lifted a piece of paper "Unusual? Queue? Slaying? Conflagration? " He listed

"Good night," Feyre said, barely more than a whisper.

I furrowed my eyebrows at my sister's sudden departure, not understanding what exactly was going on.

Feyre was nearly at the door when he spoke again. "You love them very much, don't you?" He rose from his chair to walk to her. He stopped a respectable distance away. "I wonder if your family realizes it," he murmured, glazing for a second towards me. "That everything you've done wasn't about that promise to your mother, or for your sake, but for theirs."

Of course that damn promise.

I clenched my jaw, not listening anymore to what they were talking about as I stared at my left hand that rested on her lap. At the thick scar in the center of the palm. That is what love does.

My eyes clouded for a second before I quickly shook it away returning to my dinner. For a second the wall around my heart, around my mind, shook by the force of my emotion, but I held them together. Hardening them even more if possible.

"How did you do it?" Lucien asked in almost a whisper "How did you kill those three nagas and how do you know things about faeries that your sister doesn't." He asked. He was confused. Very confused by the look on his face

I looked at him contemplating how much I should reveal to him or if I should reveal anything at all.

"I would like to know that too," Tamlin said, sitting down in his chair. I glanced back towards the dining room entrance to see if my sister was still there, but she wasn't.

"I didn't always live with my family." I replied coldly, distancing myself from the memories that threatened to arise.

"When we left your house I glamoured your family." Tamlin revealed "And I discovered something interesting. There was already a glamour on them."

I looked back at him with a raised eyebrow. I already knew why there was already a glamour on them. But my face showed nothing other than defiance.

"It seems that you went to your aunt Ripleigh 9 years ago. For four years, actually." The High Lord revealed.

"Yes I know." I replied unbothered. Calm and collected as if we were discussing about the weather.

"Would you like to explain?"

"No" She simply answered.

"Why?"

"Because it is none of your business. And if you are questioning yourself if Feyre knows about this, the answer is yes. All you need to know is that I am here for Feyre and I'll protect her with any means." I spoke. Carefully lacing the words with the coldness that radiated from my heart.

He was really getting on my nerves.

"Feyre is not in any danger." Tamplin replied

"Then we should not have any problem." I answered, raising from the seat at the table "Good night Lucien." I added before walking out of the dining room and to my room

────༺☽༓☾༻────

╰┈˚ · ° .  My body yelled in pain, pleading with me to stop as I laid there on the cold stone floor, while my mind screamed at me the opposite thing, that I need to get up and fight or I would die.

I was covered in blood, my own blood, from head to toes. Bruises were already forming on at least half of my body.

I counted to three in the back of my mind before taking a big breath and standing up ungracefully with a groan that I couldn't contain.

"Never show your pain." Braken said with deadly calm as he circled me like I was a prey.

He never yelled. His voice was always the same, calm, collected, strong, cold and deadly.

I clenched my jaw and regained my fighting position as Braken gave a nod to the man in front of me to begin once again.

He was older. Probably in his mid thirties. Decades older than my 12 year old self. Twice as big.

The man fought against me, landing another punch to my already swollen cheek.

I fought back the tears and groans of pain threatening to escape as I found myself on the ground once again. And another time I rose from the cold floor attacking my opponent with the last few drops of energy that I had left.

It was in vain as he easily threw me down to the floor with a quick succession of a punch to my face and a kick to my stomach. I was exhausted. I could not move anymore, not even to lift a finger, and black spots started to appear in my vision. But that was what this training session was about.

I blinked, fighting against the need to succumb to the darkness with the little energy that I had left.

"You did good, my little creature." He said crouching next to me limp body on the ground. A smile bloomed on his lips, his fingers brushing away a piece of hair that had fallen out from my braids. And then, he nodded at the man his command.

I let out a last breath knowing what would come next. It wasn't easy but I relaxed a bit knowing that when I would wake up, I would already be healed almost completely by whatever magic the Fae possessed or from one of the healing potions and tints that he seemed to have a stock off.

The man gave me one last look, his eyes were so dark and unfeeling that almost looked inhuman, and then, he landed his last blow leaving my 12 years-old unconscious on the ground with a kick to my head.

────༺☽༓☾༻────

╰┈˚ · ° .  I woke up with a gasp, shaking. The memory was from when I was 12 in one of his training sessions. Those were always the worst. Meant to enhance endurance and raise the pain tolerance. To fight until you were only a mass on broken bones, aching muscles and a bloody mess.

I ran my hands through my sweat-damp hair, as the panting eased and a different sound filled the air, creeping in from the front hall through the crack beneath the door. Shouts, and someone's screams of agony.

I was out of the bed in a heartbeat.

I quickly changed from my nightwear, styling my hair in the quickest braid to keep my hair away from my face if a fight was imminent. And soon, I was quickly walking out of the room. I glanced towards Feyre's room once to be certain that no attack was coming her way before I blended myself with the shadows of the hallways. With silent steps I reached the top of the grand staircase in time to see the front doors of the manor bang open and Tamlin rush in, a screaming faerie slung over his shoulder.

The faerie was almost as big as Tamlin, and yet the High Lord carried him as if he were no more than a sack of grain. Another species of the lesser faeries, with his blue skin, gangly limbs, pointed ears, and long onyx hair. But even from atop the stairs, I could see the blood gushing down the faerie's back—blood from the black stumps protruding from his shoulder blades.

"Oh my god." From my side Feyre gasped as she too saw the faerie all bleeding and with one foot already in death's door.

"Stay behind me." I whispered to my twin making sure to make the suggestion more a command.

Lucien rushed into the foyer below just as Tamlin shouted, "The table—clear it off!" Lucien shoved the vase of flowers off the long table in the center of the hall. Either Tamlin wasn't thinking straight, or he'd been afraid to waste the extra minutes bringing the faerie to the infirmary. Shattering glass set my feet moving, and Feyre and I were halfway down the stairs before Tamlin eased the shrieking faerie face-first onto the table. The faerie wasn't wearing a mask; there was nothing to hide the agony contorting his long, unearthly features. He wasn't from Spring Court, then.

"Scouts found him dumped just over the borderline," Tamlin explained to Lucien "He's Summer Court."

"By the Cauldron," Lucien said, surveying the damage with wide eyes. Even his metal eye somehow managed to display his emotions.

"My wings," the faerie choked out, his glossy black eyes wide and staring at nothing. "She took my wings." said the faerie. "She took my wings." he repeated, clutching the edge of the table with spindly blue fingers.

Whoever she was, she hadn't just taken his wings. She'd ripped them off. Without any blade or any type of precision, just bare strengths. Blood oozed from the black velvety stumps on the faerie's back.

"She took my wings." the faerie said again, his voice breaking. As he trembled, shock taking over, his skin shimmered with veins of pure gold—iridescent, like a blue butterfly.

"Keep still," Tamlin ordered, wringing the rag. "You'll bleed out faster."

"N-n-no," the faerie started, and began to twist onto his back, away from Tamlin, from the pain that was surely coming when that rag touched those raw stumps.

I rushed into the foyer pinning the faerie to the table with a firm grip.

I looked to Lucien, but the color had blanched from his face, leaving a sickly white-green in its wake.

"Lucien," Tamlin said—a quiet command. But Lucien kept gaping at the faerie's ruined back, at the stumps, his metal eye narrowing and widening, narrowing and widening. He backed up a step. And another. And then vomited in a potted plant before sprinting from the room.

The faerie twisted again but I held tight. His injuries must have weakened him greatly if I could keep him pinned down like this. I was strong, but not as much as any of them.

"Hold still."I said, trying to mask my normal tone with something softer to ease the faerie's fear.

"Let us help you." Feyre said in a pleading tone as she helped me keep the boy down. She for sure was much better at comforting someone than me.

"She took my wings," the faerie sobbed. "She took them."

"I know," Feyre murmured. "I know."

Tamlin touched the rag to one of the stumps making the faerie scream loudly.

He tried to rise but his arms buckled, and he collapsed face- first onto the table again.

Blood gushed—so fast and bright that it took me a heartbeat to realize that a wound like this required a tourniquet—and that the faerie had lost far too much blood for it to even make a difference. It poured down his back and onto the table, where it ran to the edge and drip-drip-dripped to the floor near her feet.

I found Tamlin's eyes on me. "The wounds aren't clotting," he said under his breath as the faerie panted.

"Can't you use your magic?" Feyre asked

Tamlin swallowed hard. "No. Not for major damage. Once, but not any longer."

The faerie on the table whimpered, his panting slowing. "She took my wings." he whispered. Tamlin's green eyes flickered, and I knew that the faerie was going to die. Death wasn't just hovering in this hall; it was counting down the faerie's remaining heartbeats.

I exhaled before taking one of the faerie's hands in hers. The skin there was almost leathery, and, perhaps more out of reflex than anything, his long fingers wrapped around mine, covering them completely. "She took my wings." he said again, his shaking subsiding a bit.

I brushed the long, damp hair from the faerie's half-turned face, revealing a pointed nose and a mouth full of sharp teeth. His dark eyes shifted to mine, beseeching, pleading.

"I know," I said, stroking his limp hair, its texture like liquid night. "It will be alright." The faerie closed his eyes, and I tightened my grip on his hand.

I didn't really know what to do. I never did things like this. Emotions were not something that I knew how to deal with. My years as an assassin made my heart cold because that was what I needed to do to survive. But as I heard the pained screams of the faerie, my head became heavy under the weight of my memories. Of screams, death, pain.

"My wings." the faerie whispered.

"You'll get them back." I whispered

The faerie struggled to open his eyes. "You swear?"

"I swear."

The faerie managed a slight smile and closed his eyes.

Tamlin began speaking, and I glanced up to see him take the faerie's other hand.

"Cauldron save you," he said, reciting the words of a prayer that was probably older than the mortal realm. "Mother hold you. Pass through the gates, and smell that immortal land of milk and honey. Fear no evil. Feel no pain." Tamlin's voice wavered, but he finished. "Go, and enter eternity."

The faerie managed to open his eyes, even if only half way and a last whisper passed through his lips "You'll get your wings back too." And with one final sigh, his hand went limp and death took him with it.

I took a step back swallowing the lump in my throat that had formed at his last words. They felt too real. So I just buried them with everything else, masking my features before turning to my sister, who was silently crying on the side. I placed my hand on her shoulder before looking at the blond masked fae.

"Are you alright?" I asked to the High Lord whose eyes were fixed on his hands stained with the now dead Summer Court faerie.

He whipped his head towards me, probably surprised that I had actually uttered a word to him that wasn't for mockery or threatening him and full of dislike.

"Why?" He asked confused, his brows lowering behind his intricate mask.

"Why what?"

"You don't care about me and you don't care about my people, so why did you hold his hand, talk to him while he was suffering, while he was dying?" His face was so contorted in confusion that it was almost comical. But everything I could feel in that moment, everything that I could think of was that I too had died. Long time ago. And I was alone.

"Because no one did it for me." I answered before taking a step back and distancing myself from my sister, who fortunately had stopped crying. "I'll see you tomorrow. Good night." With silent steps that even in that silence weren't heard, I walked back to my room.

As soon as I entered, I closed the door behind me and I quickly noticed the open window. There was a bottle with a green looking liquid inside and paper folded on the coffee table in front of the chair that I had used whenever I wanted to read. I opened the paper, the words written with perfect calligraphy.

East of the front gate towards the woods. Drink the potion to uncover their glamour.

Payement: Your family's life.

And so, once again, I was not Maiven Archeron, but just another assassin of The League.

✎

˗ˏˋ 𝐀𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫'𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐞 ˊˎ˗

Hello everyone!

Heavy chapter, I know, but there are still some cute moments between Feyre and Maiven.

Mai would do anything for her sisters, I love her.

"You'll get your wings back too." EXCUSE ME?! Lmaooo I don't know how I came out with it but, hey, I'm sure it had a lot of impact. Definitely it had it for Mai.

Anyways, thank you for reading this chapter, I'll see you on Saturday!

˚ · ° . 𝐔𝐩𝐝𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐬𝐜𝐡𝐞𝐝𝐮𝐥𝐞 . ° · ˚

𝐖𝐞𝐝𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐝𝐚𝐲

𝐒𝐚𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐝𝐚𝐲

𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐲 𝐬𝐚𝐟𝐞 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲𝐨𝐧𝐞!

– 𝐋𝐨𝐥𝐚 ☾