The Prophecy - ACOTAR

Chapter 51 *

Dinner, after most of the inner court had sworn to serve and protect Feyre, had been mildly uneventful. Astrid had resisted the urge to murder Feyre for smiling at Az, and from the tense look on Rhys's face, he had resisted the urge to fight Az. Az threw a knife at Cass for bringing up Astrid straddling him naked. Mor lectured everyone on how to act at the dinner table, which resulted in a grumbling Astrid and Rhys until it was time to leave for the mortal realm.

Astrid had been unsure whether she wanted to go or not, but Az had admitted to her that he felt uncomfortable going without her. He told her about the last time he was there and the conversation he'd had with Elain. She was stuck between being happy with how he handled the situation and wanting to tear Elain a new asshole to spew her bullshit out of.

Az must have sensed the war that began forming in her mind because he had quickly pulled Wren and Mor over to talk her down from her violent and murderous tendencies. Mor had explained that there were more productive ways to work her anger out, that she could instead torment Elain similar to how she tormented Feyre instead of causing bodily harm. The big problem with that solution was that Astrid couldn't find worth in it, at least with Feyre it had been a lack of communication and they had a decent relationship before everything happened. With Elain, they had been sisters, but only barely. They had never done anything together or never really helped the other with something. There was also pretty clear communication happening that Az was off the market, not to mention Elain was still engaged. So, it didn't feel worth it to put in the effort to terrorize her.

Wren offered the idea that going and claiming Az as hers in front of Elain might dissuade Elain from further flirting. Mor had eagerly agreed with this idea as well, she even found it better than hers. What she really wanted was for Astrid to go the mature route and just not care, but they all knew that was the most unlikely scenario.

It didn't negate her anger, but it would be satisfying. The biggest bump in that plan would be Rhys, he would throw an absolute fit if he had to see exactly how Astrid wanted to stake her claim on Az. He's made it clear on a couple of occasions that he didn't want to hear or see the pair doing anything remotely sexual. He barely seemed to tolerate them kissing in front of him.

Once they had arrived in the human world, Astrid couldn't resist the smile that bloomed over her face when she watched Wren get excited about the spring flowers. It wasn't anything near what they had seen in the Spring Court, but it was Wren's first time getting to see springtime here.

Astrid broke off from the group to sneak her way into the room she had stayed in last time with Az and Cass. She wanted to make a statement, and there was no way she could make the kind of statement she wanted just walking in a front door or sitting on a couch. No, she needed stairs and for everyone to be surprised about what she was wearing.

While the others were downstairs talking with the mortal queens, Astrid slipped out of her Illyrian leathers and began to put on her dress. Rhys had given her the choice to be presented however she liked to the queens, and she was going to run with that choice.

If a dress didn't make a statement, she would never wear it, but this one was perfect. This dress was a deep black that left one arm uncovered and a flowered lace covering the other. The dress was held up by a thick silver chain around her neck that matched the silver bracelet that adorned her uncovered arm. The flowered lace not only covered her one arm but flowed down over the short plain black slip and mixed with less transparent black lace at the bottom. Extra black fabric from the slip wrapped around the chain and down the side of her lace covered arm. Astrid situated a black leather belt with a silver buckle around her waist before fishing the crown she had picked out of her bag.

She had been surprised when no one questioned the lumpy bag she had brought but that just meant they would probably be more surprised.

Astrid had debated going with her normal head piece, but the cold, otherworldly shadows that had surrounded her in that mystery world had followed her back, and they had demanded one very specific crown. They had wanted the black crown with fifteen points that was covered in smaller black gemstones.