A Court of Flame & Shadow - Eris x OC

The Cauldron I

Nesta's power was a harmony to the Cauldron's song. It was a distraction. To draw the king away while Feyre and Amren would get to the Cauldron. Yet Vel was faltering, even as that hill loomed closer.

Hybern's army was as relentless as the waves of the sea, and she was the rock they were battering against, over and over again. What had once been an endless ocean of magic was now only a shallow pool, which she attempted to conserve, at least to maintain her healing. The maimed wing had stopped growing back. Each Faebane arrow that buried between her scales could prove deadly if she wasn't careful.

Vel could see it now, the black mass atop the hill. And suddenly, as Feyre placed her hand on the Cauldron, everything went quiet. A silence like deafness, because she could still see the soldiers around her swinging their weapons, clashing shields, and screaming unheard words.

Then there was darkness. Thick and cold.

Something stirred.

A fissure appeared and beyond it was the field that she had been on mere moments before. Vel beheld the battlefield. Pristine. Unmarred. Long grass swaying in the breeze.

Something shifted.

The grass turned to bodies, and the soil beneath them to bloodied mud. Bodies belonging to both Hybern and Prythian. It was impossible to tell who had won.

Something changed.

A dragon with scales like gems thrashed on the field, all claws and fangs and spikes, its barbed tail whipping around in a frenzy to clear the space around it. But where soldiers fell, many more took their place.

Whatever Feyre was doing to the Cauldron— it was lifting the spell that had been blocking her foresight. Past, present, and future mingled together.

The scenery changed. The King of Hybern, dark power wafting from his fingertips like smoke from a doused flame. Behind him, two lifeless bodies, scorched and blistered beyond recognition by something that did not resemble fire but rot. The smaller body covered the larger, winged one. One had tried to protect the other.

"Is it inevitable?" A small voice asked.

Vel had not noticed Elain. Had she been present all along, or had she been called by the lifting of the veil?

"Anything we see we can attempt to change."

Elain's fingers wrapped more tightly around the hilt of the dagger. Truth-Teller. Vel would have recognized the obsidian blade out of a million, she had once wielded it herself all those years ago.

"You must find it within yourself, to make the choices that change the course of the river."

Vel reached out to touch the fracture in time and the image rippled and changed.

The King of Hybern was towering over Nesta and Cassian. The former snarled up in defiance. The latter was bloodied and bruised. Both of them still alive. The king raised his hand, power whirling like a dark galaxy in his palm.

"Go," Vel urged.

Elain's knuckles were white from how hard she was clenching her fists. But her spine was ramrod straight, no hesiation in her stride as she stepped through the gaping fissure.

The king's hand began to drop.

And then halted. A choking noise came out of him.

Something tugged softly at her core. It may have been the Cauldron trying to stop her intrusion, trying to pull her out of this space between worlds.

Vel could only watch in awe as a black blade broke through the king's throat, spraying blood. Elain stepped out of a shadow behind him, and rammed Truth-Teller deeper, all the way to the hilt through the back of the king's neck as she snarled in his ear, "Don't you touch my sister."

The last piece of the puzzle had fallen into place. A seer who could alter the future.

The darkness around her bubbled and fizzed.

Snippets of the war-torn battlefield flashed by. The High Lords who had given themselves wholly to the monsters that lurked under their skins. What remained of the creatures that had followed her into this hell. The humans still somehow holding the lines in the north, shielded by a black cloud made of nightmares.

The tug was stronger now. It wrapped around her heart like a string, slicing into the muscle. Her breath hitched.

Her fingers were trembling as they reached out towards that window into the battlefield. The image rippled again. It changed, but slower as if whatever magic controlled this space was slowly being drained.

And then Vel saw him. Eris. His once silver armor was dented in places and covered in mud and blood. The red cape that spilled from his shoulders had been torn. He was panting but his guard was still up, still strong. Even as Hybern's commander, a hulking beast of a male, sneered at him, a cache of Faebane wreathed in golden-red flames behind him.

Yet, they circled each other. The commander didn't dare engage Eris, even drained as the prince was. He only sent jolts of magic, and Eris's shield trembled under the assault. Some hits he dodged, some hits he blocked.

The commotion would attract attention and he was behind enemy lines. He didn't have enough magic left to winnow out of there, Vel realized, as his shield buckled under the weight of the assault. The understanding came a breath too late.

She touched the fracture, willing it to go back. The image trembled but didn't change.

No.

The darkness around her started to cleave in three. The light in the cracks blinded her.

No. It had to go back.

Everything happened at once. A figure materialized behind Eris, through the curtain of blue smoke of what used to be the Faebane cart. The tip of a sword came out through the front of Eris's abdomen.

No.

Vel's fingers were clawing at the image and still, it refused to change. The cracks around her were becoming larger. The din of battle was becoming louder once again. The smell of blood – stronger.

The commander had been prowling around the prince, sending surges of magic from different angles, to position him just right, for that footsolider in the shadows to strike. The wound might not have brought Eris down by itself. But when he turned to strike the second attacker, the commander seized the opportunity.

No.

Vel gave up on trying to unwind the spool of time and instead stepped through the fracture just as Elain had done mere moments ago. But fate was not as kind to her. For just as her feet touched the scorched grass of that clearing, the commander grabbed the pommel of the sword that was jutting out of Eris's back and sliced upwards with savage strength, cleaving his back in two.

Through some grotesque twist of fate, the sword got stuck on the thick shoulder plate, even though it had just sliced through the rest of the armor as if it had been paper. The commander placed his foot on Eris's back and heaved the sword, freeing it through the side of the prince's neck. His body crumpled to the floor.

no ...

NO.

She must have screamed it, but even as the commander and whatever remained of his legion turned towards her, the last of her magic exploded out of her. The wind carried the red mist and metal shavings away as if they'd never existed.