Of High Lords and Heirs

11

The Lady of the Autumn Court smiled grimly as she watched her husband prepare to depart for the day. Really, the window from her room proved to be a good vantage point over the estate grounds. She wondered if her husband knew. Likely not, she decided as she turned away finally away from the window. Beron rarely deigned to visit her rooms anymore. These days Beron was more likely to find his pleasure with a willing – or sometimes not so willing – servant girl than with her.

Not that she minded, she much preferred it when he left her well enough alone. Not that Beron gave her much of a leash – she was still subject to her husband's will. Still had to do exactly what he told her to do exactly when he told her to do it.

But if all went as it was meant to today, that glimpse from the window would be the last time that she ever saw Beron alive. In a way, it seemed as though her husband and sons thought she was blind as well as deaf. She often saw and heard much more than they ever gave her credit for. She sometimes wondered if they thought her to be invisible. If they thought she was a statue, if they thought that she wasn't there at all.

She knew full well that her eldest son, Eris, was unaware that she knew of the unholy alliance he had struck with Rhysand, High Lord of the Night Court. Beron's support in the War for Rhysand's support when Eris took his father's life and claimed his throne as High Lord of the Autumn Court. Beron was going to die in a hunting accident sometime today. An accident that wasn't quite so accidental. Eris thought that he had been so clever, so secretive, in all his scheming, that he thought no one possibly knew his plans. But she knew. A mother always knew her children. And for all his faults, Eris was the best of the six sons she had borne Beron.

She had been married to Beron for so long now that she could no longer remember if she had ever loved him. If she had ever felt love for Beron, it had died long since in the wake of the humiliation and degradation he treated her with on an almost daily basis.

Despite herself, she couldn't help but smile at the thought of the reason behind the disdain. At the thought of her seventh son, Lucien, the only son of hers not to be sired by Beron. Smiled at the mere thought of her only son to have been sired by the male she truly loved. Her only regret was that Lucien did not know the truth about who had sired him, even after almost four hundred years. Lamented that Helion did not know that she had borne him a son. Lamented the fact that Helion, the male that she truly loved, did not know that he had given her one of the greatest gifts of her life – her seventh and most beloved son.

For she had been both elated and terrified when she had discovered that she was pregnant with Lucien. Elated at the chance to give the male she so desperately loved a child, yet terrified at what Beron would do upon discovering her affair. And she had been right to be afraid – Beron had discovered the affair soon after she found out about the pregnancy. Had never stopped punishing her for the infidelity. Knew that her other sons resented Lucien for the favouritism she had constantly displayed.

She was aware that Beron hated and despised her beloved Lucien, simply because he was not his son. Not his flesh and blood like the other boys were. Knew that Beron hated her even more than Lucien, if it was even possible. Was able to ignore and brush aside the constant flood of hate and disdain simply because somwere out there, there was a male who had once loved her for who she was. Hoped that Helion still loved her the way she still loved him. She prayed that she would have the chance to find out herself one day, whether Helion still loved her or not.

Suddenly, she became aware that someone was gently shaking her shoulder, calling her name. Not her real name of course, no one called her by her real name anymore, but one of her sons calling for his mother. In that moment, she felt angry at herself for some reason. What was her name? It was as though her name had simply gone missing. But that couldn't have been possible, could it? With a jolt of surprise, she realised that she had been lost in her thoughts for several hours.