A Court of Blood and Glory

Infiltration

Rhysand

Another nightmare. The same nightmare, but Miryam and Drakon has joined the pile of bodies, Jurian smirking at me in Amarantha's bed.
Feyre had avoided harm, had managed to wake me up through the bond, but the Nightmares remained, and I couldn't get rid of them.
We walked into the dining room, dressed up in all our finery, and sat around the huge table, awaiting Eris's arrival. He had told us that he was to winnow in, but we'd given him nothing more than the location of the dining room. Midday approached, and as the sun was directly overhead we heard a crack, and Eris appeared in the middle of the room, a huge smirk on his face as he took us all in.
No one spoke as he stalked up to the table, sitting across from myself and Feyre. "Even if I am offering an alliance, I don't know whether I can trust you." He got straight to the point. Good. "Why can I trust the words of whores, bastards, sluts and monsters?" He looked to each of us in turn, and his eyes lingered on Feyre's tattoo, his lip curling in distaste as he took in the dark whorls that marked her as High Lady, and my mate.
"Because we are the only people standing in the way of Hybern and the continent. He wants to destroy us all, and control Prythian himself." I said firmly, holding eye contact. "You wouldn't be here if you didn't want an alliance, so if you truly want to protect your people, you will ally yourselves with us, otherwise you can go now, and we will see you on the battlefield." He was silent for a minute, his eyes darting between each of us, and then to my wings, but he didn't move.
"If we are to be allies, I want something in return for my armies." His voice betrayed no emotion. "I want you to kill my father, and I want you to do it before the war starts. I will not set foot on that battlefield as anything less than a High Lord."
Mor sucked in a breath, and the Illyrians straightened in their chairs, but it was to Amren that Eris looked to. "I know that any one of you could do it, and that you, Rhysand, could do it without lifting a finger, so that is my price." He picked up a concealed knife – clearly overlooking his rule of no weapons – and slit his palm open, the blood pooling in his palm. "If you kill my father, I, as well as my brothers, with ally ourselves with you, and the armies of the Autumn Court will be yours to command in this war." The blood spilled onto the table, sealing his words.
Eris stood up, and took a step away before winnowing out, not another word spoken.
"Could you do it? Could you kill Beron?" Feyre asked, not meaning whether I could kill him, because I was more than capable, but whether our alliances with the other courts would still stand if I killed another High Lord.
"I don't know, which is why we will need to make it seem like Hybern's doing." I said, and turned to Azriel. "Scope out the court, find out where Beron sleeps. We will have no choice, now, than to go to the Hybern camp, and get some of their weapons, probably their armour as well, and we can get hold of some of their plans whilst we are there." Time. We needed time. The fighting was about to start and we were still chasing allies, trying to find out who to trust. We were running on borrowed time, and we were about to run out of options soon.

Mor

I had bit my tongue throughout Eris's visit, avoided speaking to him, looking at him, because I knew that if I opened my mouth I would throw every piece of agony that I had gone through, every last piece of rage and sorrow that I had felt because of him, and I would do everything that he had done to me to him, only I would make Eris look like a child once I had finished with him. I would kill him, whether it was in a minute or a century, I would kill him.

Feyre

I put on a mask, the way that Rhys had, and I pretended that I wasn't affected by any of my own nightmares, that I was still the strong wolf that my family expected me to be, but I was nothing more than a sheep, and my nightmares had returned in full force. I was strong on the outside, but I was crumbling from within, and I didn't know how long I could keep going for. But until then I would wear the mask of a wolf. The wolf I was expected to be.