A Court of Light and Shadow

Chapter 30

THE HEIRESS

My mind was somewhere else. I stood out in the fields outside of the war camps, watching the sunset as I kept tugging on that feeling inside me. It almost felt like a gold, velvet ribbon. I tugged again and again, and again.

"Knock it off."

I looked to find Azriel glaring at me. Right–the bond. The mating bond.

"Sorry." I apologized to him. We weren't close to the camps, not tonight anyway. I needed to think of something else. Of something that wouldn't eat me alive.

I had fucked the Night Court's Shadowsinger, and consumated the mating bond. I was now mated to a male. A bond so sacred that some Faeries would kill for it. Centuries of forced isolation made me forget most things. But as time went on, and as I spent more time with this group. This family, I began to relearn all these things. Not everyone was as evil as my mother. She hid her Court for centuries, becoming a well hidden land among Prythian, that for centuries after century, people believed us to be dead. Extinct.

Now I'm sat here, freezing in the snow of Illyria. My mate standing behind me, his eyes boring into the back of my head. But I did not comment. Frankly, I did not care. But then I felt it. That thing I had been doing for the past 5 minutes. A tug at the bond.

I looked to him over my shoulder. His shadows were expanding. Tendrils of smoke crawling my way over the ice cold snow I was sat on. I did not move as they touched my skin, as they snaked their way up my arm. A strange form of intimacy, truly. But it was like a miracle, a medicine I never knew I needed until I met him.

The shadows turned lighter in color the longer they lingered, something they always seemed to do at my touch. I slowly looked up, finding his eyes still on me.

His lips parted, like he wanted to say something. But he never did, because Feyre was standing next to him so suddenly, it nearly scared me. Her face was laced with worry, with panic.

Her eyes locked on mine, "You." She said as she stomped over. She grabbed my wrists and pulled me up, causing each tendril of smoke to disappear. "Come." She was almost out of breath as she began to pull me.

"Feyre?" I asked, resisting against her. "Feyre, what's going on?"

Her finger pointed in the direction of the war camps, and my eyes widened at the sight. Smoke. Dark clouds of smoke rising up to the skies. A distant explosion sounded, and I nearly gasped at the realization.

Feyre grabbed me by the shoulders, shaking me to pull me back to reality.

"We have to go, Amaya." It was a near growl. Almost a command.

I wanted to turn to Azriel, but as I did, I realized he was gone. He most likely already winnowed to the camps to find his brothers. To help them fight.

I had never fought before. I acted all tough, but I knew for damn sure I could not throw a punch to save my own life. Though Feyre had grabbed my hands, and darkness enveloped us before I could protest.

My mother was coming for me. It's real.

It merely took a split second, and we were in the middle of it all. The yelling, the smoke.

Panic nearly enveloped me whole, but she was pulling me. Feyre pulled me next to one of the tents.

"Breathe." She told me, her voice calmer than it had been a second before. Would she force me to pick up a sword and swing? I couldn't even control my own magic yet. Cauldron damn me if I had to fight.

Though even as my mind swarmed with a million questions; I did as told. I breathed. In, and out. Feyre nodded her approval, giving me a weak smile for a reward.

The sound of clashing metal filled the air as we stood by this tent. Dusk was attacking our camps, and we were doing breathing exercises on the sidelines.

Everybody knew what the plan was, of Dusk at least. The capture of me, the Heiress to the throne of my mother. Queen Solana.

The thought of her alone filled my veins with rage. Feyre's eyes darted to my chest, where the siphon began to flare. I too looked down, finding that white crystal coming to life. Our eyes met, seemingly having the same idea.

"She's coming for you." Feyre told me, out of breath from fear. "She won't stop until she has you back."

I knew that, but it still angered my very soul to know she would slaughter innocent lives to shackle me to a throne I did not want.

It flared brighter, lighting up the space between us. Feyre's lips quirked up. "She won't hesitate to cut through our forces." She breathed to me. "Including Azriel."

My eyes widened at the mention of his name. She knew. But then the meaning of her words truly hit me. My mother would kill him, and not just to get to me, but for her own joy. If she knew what he meant to me now, what he was to me. She'd kill him, slowly.

Feyre had to blink against the light now. A guttural growl came from deep within me, an instinctual noise that I had never made before. My mind was focused on one thing, and one thing only. I was going to end this, once and for all.

The initial panic of my lack of battle skills had left me. Only instinct was leading me now.

My mind was blank, even as a flash of white enveloped me. Just me.

I left Feyre standing by that tent as I winnowed myself ahead of the front lines. Manslaughter; pure gore not meant for eyes of the young.

Battle raged all around me. Sound of iron clashing against iron. Screams of the injured and dying. I watched it happen right in front of me.

A blade–bigger than my torso–going clean through someone elses.

The world fell into slow motion, a sight I never wanted to see again.

But a voice, one that brought the anger back up from where it had started to dig itself in, brought me back to reality. I whirled to face it.

"Hello, Luna."

The world stopped altogether. My mother. She's here.

A smile curved her lips up, one I would more than gladly wipe clean off her face. She had no business here.

"Mother." I greeted coldly.

Maybe she would think I was happy to see her, but she would be mistaken.

Sure, I was not experienced in battle like the Illyrians that lived here. But I knew what she wanted, and she wasn't winning. Not this time.