Fireless

Chapter 1: The Weight

The acrid tang of blood cut through the familiar, sweetly earthen scent of the Forest.

Eris Vanserra felt a warm brush of fur against his hand. His blue-grey smokehound, Cinder, looked up at him with round, black eyes and whined quietly.

"Shh," he soothed under his breath, hoping the guards following closely behind him did not hear over the crunch of their steps on leaves. His mother's voice echoed in his head. The best way to keep them from finding your cracks is to not have any.

He heard the Morrigan before he saw her. Heard the slow trickle of thick liquid following each labored, wet breath.

He almost could not bear to look at her, broken and beaten and bloody, heaped on the roots of a great red oak. But Eris forced himself to behold the consequences of his actions. Forced himself to scorch every detail into his memory.

Her golden hair, matted with blood. Her brown eyes, unfocused with pain as they stared up at the jewel-colored canopy. The way the blood bubbled with each shuddering breath at the corners of her red lips, and the note on her shredded abdomen... Gods, they had nailed it to her. Right through her womb, the one part of her that Beron had cared about—had wanted Eris to use for an heir who would someday rival the Night Court in power.

One of his soldiers rushed past him, to aid the broken body before them. He was a good one, acting on well-intentioned instinct, and like all of his soldiers was well-trained in aid.

"Don't touch her," Eris commanded, grateful for the recent weeks of practicing to keep his recently-broken voice deep and smooth so that it would not crack and reveal his emotions or remind anyone of his age.

He needed it now.

If he allowed his men to touch her, if anyone did anything to indicate the Autumn Court claimed her, all of her suffering would be for nothing.

She had chosen this.

Chosen this over marrying him.

Or she could have exposed his darkest secret and destroyed his entire court.

And yet, she had chosen this. So it had to mean something.

"But—but they nailed a—"

"No one touches her."

The soldier looked at Eris in clear horror, but he obeyed, frozen in place.

Gods, what had he done?

If his mother had taught him to mask the soft parts of his heart, his father had taught him how to rip open that soft part, rub salt in it, and hone that guilt and horror and self-loathing into a weapon. The sort of weapon to only be used against his own soul, to burn away his weakness and ensure that he learned and remembered enough that he would never repeat any mistake. A true leader bears the full weight of his actions. There is no excuse, no apology, no forgiveness to lighten a High Lord's load. There is only the weight of the lives he has saved or ruined.

He had known exactly, better than his own father, what Kier was capable of. It was his own gods-damned fault for not considering that Morrigan could become Kier's next target.

Hot tears pricked his own eyes, and he used carefully controlled, invisible flames to evaporate them before they fell. It was one of the first tricks he had learned from his mother.

She had taught it to him after the first time his father burned him for crying.

Eris walked toward Morrigan and squatted to look her in the face. Cinder followed him, sniffing at Morrigan, though she heeded her master's order to not touch the female on the ground. "I take it you do not want wish to live here, Morrigan."