A Court of Blood & Mercy || Elriel Dual POV

Chapter 9 - No More Champagne

Elain paused outside the ballroom, tugging her caramel silk sleeves with the pads of her fingers as she felt her ribs swell and shrink, her breathing unsteady.

She wondered if her daughter was reading by the fire tonight, or if Penelope was baking cinnamon rolls for her dadyshkua's birthday breakfast for tomorrow with Oxana and a watchful Dunya perching on a moonlit windowsill. Elain sighed, wishing she was in the kitchens with her daughter and cat instead of in this enormous ballroom with a tiara weighing down her scalp.

But this would be the last party Penelope would be sitting out for.

After her seventeenth birthday debut, she would be welcomed into the folds of High Autumn Society, a courtier in her own right, invited to dance at every party... no doubt the center of all male attention. What most of the Imperial generals wouldn't give to be mated to the High Lord's heir.

She felt an uneasy prickle travel down her slender arms as she smoothed her sleeves again. Elain didn't mind putting off that part of their lives for a little while longer.

But her anxiety and unease were not totally owed to the intimidating party waiting on the other side of the oaken-carved doors.

It had truly been the strangest of days in Autumn.

Elain felt the invitation to visit Velaris twirling in the wheels of her mind as she found herself digging and mining through the memories of her sacred past. It was as if she had pulled an old treasure chest from under her bed, thumbing through the memories like stolen and lost treasures, wiping the dust away with her fingers as her heart swelled and heated.

The Shadowsinger had come.

To Autumn.

And Elain was smart enough to know that she would not even glimpse his wing unless he wanted her to.

And he hadn't wanted to, it seemed.

But the thought didn't bother her.

She had always felt a little silly, for how her heart flipped and squeezed when her thoughts fell back to him. But truly, he was nothing but a balm and a salve to her. A symbol, of hope and regrowth after her birth as a High-Fae. Realizing how much she liked him... it was as if it proved to her that there was life after the Cauldron. Life after Grayson.

She still felt warm toward him, all these years later.

Hoped he was doing well.

But of course, there was always something holding her back from asking or learning of his fate... as if it would be too painful to hear with whom he had moved on with or what his life looked like in her absence. Was he a father by now? Or perhaps moved on with a female Elain had never met? She somewhat dreaded the answer.

Because she never knew what had happened, that Solstice, but for some reason, she didn't hate him for it. She simply couldn't. Because he was too pure. To her at least.

It was Azriel who had come to her in that wretched camp, risking his immortal existence to save a fool of a girl. And again, it was Azriel who came to save her soul in the gardens, all those hours spent listening to her chat and babble. It was Azriel who paid attention when she spoke or tried to tell a story at the intimidating dinner table in Velaris, and it was Azriel who liked her baked pear scones and who once told her she smelled like honey and jasmine.

It was Azriel who, for a time, had held her heart.

So no.

She could never hate him.

Since her conversation with Lucien, Elain felt caught. Could she return to Velaris to assuage the concerns of her sisters? Or was it too late? If Azriel had come to Autumn and reported back what he saw, of the veils and the law, Elain knew her sisters would have simply appeared in the clouds above the House of Vanserra, Nesta riding a pegasi and piercing Artaraxia into the sunrise as Feyre shrieked beside her, probably riding a dragon of fire or a wolf pack of water as her eyes glowed golden.