A Court of Lies and Terror

Chapter Twenty

A room had been prepared in the lower parts of the House of Wind, we had invited the Lady of Autumn to come along but she had refused, I don't think she had any particular wish to see her son or Helion at this particular moment.

The room was by no means as magnificent as the one in the palace but then again this meeting was not about showing off. I bought Kai along, not wanting to leave him with Nuala and Cerridwen again. He had gained some semblance of control over when his wings appeared but it was going to take a good few years for him to have some sort of basic control of his powers, we didn't even fully know what they were although Rhys suspected mainly night with small parts from each court, no where near as much as I had but the night more than made up for it. Madja agreed but it would be a while before we could be certain.

Luckily we weren't kept waiting and they all arrived around the same time. Viviane came first and took a seat beside Mor. She looked absolutely exhausted and incredibly upset, now was not a good time to have a falling out, if you could call it that, with your mate. Helion and Lucien arrived together looking very uncomfortable but at least they weren't trying to murder each other, in reality Lucien was probably slightly relieved that his father wasn't the man who had murdered his lover. Tarquin came in last, closely followed by Varian and Cresseida, the former making sure to sit next to Amren.

Rhys spoke first, "We must avoid a war at all costs, we already lost too much in the last war, we cannot afford to lose thousands more lives to settle a dispute that should be easily solvable," He leaned back in his chair, "If they start a war we will be vulnerable, there are other kingdoms out there, kingdoms who are scared for the moment but as soon as we show a sign of weakness they will come swooping in and we will not stand a chance. We keep our armies ready but we will not start a fight, not with this much at stake."
"I agree wholeheartedly but what happens when the public executions start? What happens when they start to massacre their own people? Do we stand by and watch as three courts crumble in on themselves? Because people will die if we don't." Viviane stared straight into our souls, her gaze so fierce it was a wonder we didn't all catch fire. Or freeze.
"It seems innocent people will be killed whatever path we choose but we cannot let a path be chosen for us because if it is then it is certain that countless people will die, on both sides." I'm not sure what I was trying to say and everyone remained silent, thinking.
"Couldn't we just?" Lucien imitated slitting his throat and we all stared at him in shock, "What? It would stop the threat before it even became a threat."
"First of all it is already a threat, second that is evil and third the only one that has an heir is Beron, we cannot afford to lose two courts, that could cause a whole other war just by itself and Beron's children aren't much better than he is." Lucien glared at me but ultimately conceded, "What if we try and stop the rebels? Or move people who could be in danger into a safer court?" I was going to say more but we were interrupted by a messenger running over to Az and whispering something in his ear and then quickly leaving and Az in turn leaned over to whisper something into Rhys's ear who relayed the message to me. We looked at each other and then back at the people gathered around us and I stood up,
"I am so incredibly sorry about this but we have an... issue, not concerning this particular matter but we have to leave. We should hopefully be back with you soon." I smiled slightly and the entire Inner Circle stood up and we left the room and winnowed into the depths of the mountains.

Mor handed us all thick coats and had the time of her life putting a mini one on Kai and we began trekking up the mountain, the... anomaly had created some kind of barrier that prevented anyone from winnowing within three miles of it. We walked for maybe an hour and the second we saw it we stopped dead in our tracks. There was a tear, not in the mountain, or the trees. No a tear in the middle of an open clearing, just hanging there and if that wasn't enough, on the other side lay a forest, green and full of life and another clearing and in the distance, just visible through the trees lay a city, standing proud and tall and at it's center stood a gorgeous castle, so wholly different from the kind that stood in our own lands.
"This isn't our world." It wasn't a question but Rhys answered anyway,
"No, but I know which world it is."

I know this is short and I am so sorry that it has taken me such a long time to get this chapter out but after seeing that ACOTAR is being turned into a tv show I got a sudden spark of inspiration and this is probably not the direction a lot of you wanted this story to go in and I know I'm changing the plot but honestly I wrote myself into a corner, I couldn't see how the rest of the story was going to play out and hopefully with this I can move on and actually update on a vaguely regular basis. It has just been a mix of focusing on my Star Wars fic which has been requiring a lot of research and re watching stuff and school and honestly very little motivation but please please feel free to yell at me in the comments just to remind me to get moving and get writing and I sincerely apologize for the lack of updates. I promise I'm trying. Xx