A Delicate Darkness | AZRIEL (ACOTAR)

xiii. can you feel the heat?

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I hate, as a reader, reading OC/SI fanfics that are just a copy-and-paste of the canon work. Which is why I absolutely despised the idea of doing these scenes parallel to ACOWAR, and debating scrapping these chapters altogether, but I find they are vital to display relationships and to sprinkle in plot points. Hopefully, I've made the High Lord meeting scene original enough to be interesting, to be a new read, especially with the narrative view switching to the quote-unquote antagonists.

So there was supposedly a spell to ensure a ceasefire, and that breaking it would be at a steep cost. But... Azriel and Feyre attacked in the meeting and yet, no follow through? I don't know, I think there were more than a few perceptive and intelligent court denizens at that meeting not to have it questioned at least. warning: v self-indulgent.
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CAN YOU FEEL THE HEAT?

AURORIA STOOD ON THE HIGHEST HILL OF FALL'S END, overlooking the luscious green pastures of the neighbouring court, Spring. Through the blooming fields, the palette of colours, and the rain of cherry blossom petals, were tents scattered around. Tents and smoke from fires and lines upon lines of refugees flattened the vibrant grass beneath their feet.

The wind swept past her hair and her skirts, whispering a tale of desperation that she'd already heard too many times from those who managed to cross the borders into Autumn.

Day by day, tree nymphs and water dwellers and stablehands and humble commonfolk spun a story of savagery and lawlessness at the hands of Hybernese soldiers. Auroria believed them at once. She did not need to see their tear-stained cheeks or their bloodied faces or their torn clothes, for she spent half a century witnessing first-hand just what the Hybernese people were capable of.

Hybern was once a land of military and conquest, ruled by a ruthless king. But even though their glory days had faded long ago, they still clung onto this frigid ethos, worsened only by the lust for that power once again. Amarantha had come close to it, once. The King of Hybern neither seemed deterred from climbing the rungs back to the top.

And day by day, as she welcomed each desperate family, stomachs growling with nary a crumb in them for the invading soldiers had harvested every crop to ration amongst their own numbers, Auroria's blood curdled as she thought of the idle hands from those at the top.

Tamlin, who opened his borders to these godless people, who watched on as the Hybern soldiers lay edict after edict, demanding every ounce of grain and liberal hectares of land for their numbers - matter not that that grain was stolen away from labourers or that families lost their homes.

And whilst the southern territories saw this influx of commonfolk, the Forest House was forced to take in fleeing Spring nobles, who were either banished or escaped punishment for openly defying Tamlin. There were also Tamlin's trained guards, who abandoned their stations when they lost their love for their beast of a High Lord. And with this migration of High Fae, Father discerned one thing:

Their disillusionment of the High Lord.

They no longer believed in him.

And they all pointed to Feyre as a reason why; their once-beloved once-future Lady of Spring, who fled as soon as Tamlin turned his cloak.

But Auroria had been on the ice that day. She'd seen how Feyre interacted with those Night Illyrians. There was a respect between them that did not grow overnight.

Feyre played a bigger role in this, of that Auroria was sure.

"But, would Rhysand let his mate — figuratively and literally — slink into Tamlin's bed, even if it was to gather intel?" she'd wondered to Eris, when she voiced these suspicions. It turned out that Eris shared a similar mind.