One Night in Spring

Chapter 2

Tamra

I was sitting in my room, staring out of the window. Was it possible that I made a mistake? But Tamlin would have never done anything to save Prythian. A knock at my door brought me back into reality.
“Come in, please.”
Lucien opened the door and came in. “My High Lady, you called for me” he said and bowed with a smile.
“Yes. I need your advice. A danger is coming and we need allies.”
“Do you mean the other Courts? Don’t worry about them, we will find a solution, and...”
“No,” I interrupted him, “it’s not about the other Courts. I need them as allies against the danger from behind the wall.”
“From behind the wall? Do you mean the Mortal Lands? You must be kidding. What should the humans could do to harm us?” he said with a laugh. As I didn’t start laughing, he stopped and looked into my face.
“You’re not kidding. You are sure about that.” He was shocked. “Where did you hear this? What do you know?”
“Sit down” I said and pointed to the chair across from my own. “You know that eighty years ago, the King of Hybern offered the Mortal Queens to turn them into Fae. After the war was stopped, they went back into the Mortal Lands and continued their reign. About five years ago, the human started to revolt against them and killed them. The new Mortal Queens are hating us and wanting to wipe us out. I know, it’s much for the moment, but you have to know this.”
“How do you know this?” Lucien asked warily.
“I may be a woman, but I’m not stupid. Tamlin wanted to ally with the Queens, but they refused. I had to take care of this. It’s our all life, we are talking about. Now I need your advice, which courts will help us and which we should avoid.”
Lucien looked like he would still not believe me, but a few seconds later he shook his head and asked, “Wait, what do you mean with ‘you had to take care about that’?”
I straightened up and took my shoulders back, then I looked him straight in the eye and waited for him to count all together.
“You killed him. You killed Tamlin” he whispered with horror in his voice and stood up.
“Lucien, sit down and listen to me. Don’t do anything before you haven’t heard the whole story.”
He made a step to the door. “Lucien!”
Before he could made his way out, the door opened and Alis came in, stood before it and blocked the way.
“Alis? Don’t tell me, you knew about that. She killed him!” he shouted and pointed into my direction.
“She did it for all of us. Who do you think will suffer more than she for what she did? It has to be done. You knew Tamlin for so long now, you know exactly how he was. The Mortal Queens would have killed us all if Tamra had done nothing. Tamlin would have never told the other High Lords and the Spring Court would have been the first to fall.”
“That is not True!” Lucien shouted with tears in his voice. He took a sobbing breath then he fell down on his knees and sobbed again. I made a step to him and went down on the ground, Alis on his other side did the same. I put my hand on his shoulder and said quietly, “Lucien, I’m so sorry, but you know, there was no other way to have it done. You have to believe me, I thought of so many other ways and it always ended in one or thousands of deaths; so I picked the one death.”
With every breath, Lucien calmed more and more down until he was breathing normal again. Then I lifted his head and locked his eyes with mine.
“I don’t like what I say now, but you are right. I know him... I knew him. Why didn’t you come to me?  I could have helped you?”
“Are you sure about that? If I would have told you that Tamlin has planned to let us all be killed, what would have you done? When you would have talked to him and he would have ignored you?”
“I don’t know. It’s to late anyway. He is already dead.” After a short break he said, “If you want me to help you, you have to swear me something.”
This time, it was my part to ask warily, “What do you want?”
“Never ever lie to me again or have any secrets.”
“I swear” I said with a small smile.