A Court of Tears and Starlight

An unlikely alliance

I arrived in Spring at the front of the manor. I bounded up to the entrance and banged on the door. A dark faerie with skin like bark opened the door and looked up at me in shock.

"Tamlin" I gasped.

"Please get him now."

She looked at me wide eyed in fear and turned and ran. I hoped she was getting Tamlin but she may have known of me and just run out of fear. I was left waiting and pacing in the front of the lobby.

I heard his growl before I saw him. He managed to maintain his form and not shift despite his obvious rage at my presence in his home. His claws were out and his face was stony.

"RHYSAND" he cursed loudly.

I stood very still as he approached, trying and failing to gather my thoughts for this confrontation.

He stopped a few feet from me. Angry and clearly in a bad mood. Or maybe he was always like this nowadays. I shook my head and tried hard to concentrate on the reason I was here.

"You and your kind are not welcome here" he spat at me.

Despite myself I rose to the bate.

"Oh, and what kind would that be exactaly?" I reply cooly.

"Traitorous murdering whores" he spat.

I raised an eyebrow at him in mock surprise.

"Well daddy and your big brothers didn't set a very good example then, did they" I retort.

His eyes seem to glow a florescent green as the rage builds within them and then he shifts into his giant beast form and roars.

Damn it Rhys. I silently curse my sarcastic flippant tongue.

I drop to my knees as he charges, holding up both hands to ward him off.

"Tamlin, please " I plead, all mockery and scorn stripped from my voice.

He pulls out of his charge, stumbling in shock and looks down at me warily.

"Feyre needs us" I say in a small defeated voice.

"There is no time to explain."

"Please"

That word sits awkwardly in the air between us. I can tell it has rocked him to his core. Both by the danger to Feyre and the fact that I, The Lord of Night, just pleaded on my knees for him to save her. The irony of the situation isn't lost on me.

I reach out my hand for him and he hesitates and then takes it.

We materialise on the marshlands at the perimeter of the blast zone. Tamlin's jaw drops as he takes in the devastation that the blasts of power have left in their wake.

"She's this way" I gesture he follows towards the mountain. As we walk the final mile I explain to him the situation with the chamber and the protective cocoon.

We make our way through the damp tunnel that my people have excavated to get to the wall of the chamber. Tamlin places his hands on the wall of the chamber and staggers back as he experiences the surging of infinite power within.

He looks up at me.

"Surely she cannot have survived this..."

I swallow hard.

"She is in there and alive, in some shape or form" I reply.

"How do you know?" he says quietly shaking his head in despair.