A Court of Lichen and Twilight / An ACOTAR Fanfiction

Chapter Eight: Damage Control

"Hey, hey, come back to us."

I was dreamy again, lulled to keep my eyes closed by the blissful blackness that beckoned for me to stay and sleep from behind them. Only sound penetrated my brainwaves to prevent me from fulling falling and kept me tethered to reality. I couldn't make out who it was talking to me exactly: Tamlin, Lucien, or even someone else depending on who scraped my body up this time when it hit the velveteen grass.

"Tamlin," I murmured, barely audible in a whisper thinking of my High Lord. The green eyes. The blonde hair with a wheat field of colors raging through it. The clawed hand that had brought me down from the sky in a sinful slash to my foot and a head injury to from the impact.

A warm touched hand was tapping me on the cheek, bringing more awareness back into my prone form. A cold compress pressed to my forehead, draped over the sides of my hairline in a sweet cooling sensation. My body was splayed back on a chilly marble floor below me. A pulse was running from every injury I had sustained weeks ago, including the new one that savaged my ankle. A new and already bloodied bandage was compressing it.

Sunlight from the open oaken door burned my eyes. It was still day time, it told me. Hopefully the same day. That last time I succumbed to black weeks had passed. I couldn't bear it if I had repeated my coma. A foul taste filled my mouth at the thought of Silas.

"Thank Cauldron. You could have killed her," Lucien's voice cut through the foggy memory of myself trying to liftoff earlier. He directed his pointed tone to the male across from him. A sort of anxiety twinged his words.

"Maybe I should have. Only guilty people run."

Tamlin snarled his input from where he propped himself inside the open door. His muscled back leaned into the wood of the molding, his arms crossed his chest. Claws still punched from his fingers and when I glanced at his face, his canines were more elongated than normal in his half shifted form he held. He was readied if I tried to make an exit again.

He actually sort of frightened me. I wouldn't let him see it and allow him to win.

"Tresspasser. You're awake." The High Lord rumbled condescendingly. His teeth were bared and stayed that way once he had finished. He gripped his hands into fists when I acknowledged him by direct eye contact and more anger flushed his haunted face.

I groaned in response, pushing up to my elbows while being mindful of my feathered wings behind me, crumpled beneath my weight. Painful jolts of lingering hurt were felt at their joints from when they were smashed under me. My hair clung to my forehead in strings from night sweat that still lingered mixed with the condensation from the compress. I tried to adjust it out of my eyes and pin it behind my ears in a slicked motion.

"What brought you here?" The gorgeous red haired emissary studied me, removing the cold rag from my head. He assisted me into a seated position off of my elbows and totally upright again. The metal eye situated in the scar running down the length of his face whirled as it focused on every inch of me. Looking for something - anything - that might give him answers beyond what I decided to tell him. Sneaky like the fox faced masquerade mask he partied in.

"Three weeks," I muttered, still dazed from my recent wakening and probably concussion brewing in my skull.

"What's your name? Where did you come from?" Lucien asked me more pressed.

It was the strangest feeling to know who he was and him have not a trace of memory of me. This still meant the blood wards held on my home land despite my absence. Why would Silas still upkeep them if his plan was to undermine my court? Did my family fight back? Were they okay? Had they gotten the lichen tea to my mother to save her in time?