Thousands of years before Feyre Cursebreaker was so much as a whisper of thought on the breeze, there was another girl in another forest - Carbhan, a half fae girl eking out a living in the largest and most vicious court in Prythian, the Dusk Court...
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A twitch of her thin white wrist.
A faux innocent 'oops, I lost my grip' expression.
The blade of the fan flashed through the air end over end. Quickly, but not too quickly for me to avoid.
But I couldn't. Because if I wanted to survive, I couldn't be anything more than a 'wildling.' Fierce and savage, skilled with a bow for hunting but untrained with a blade, only able to hit people with a stick in close quarters. I couldn't be faster than the leathphóri they were used to. I couldn't fight better than their guards. If what was coming at me wouldn't be fatal, I would have to grit my teeth and hope that Caer would let me request the appropriate poultices and treatments, even though I probably wouldn't have access to any proper medics. And the fan? It was far to fast for an untrained leathphór to follow with their eyes, much less dodge. If it had been slicing toward my face, my neck, I would have had the excuse to expose my training. But in the way of the Dusk Court, Ailleacht hadn't aimed for a fatal cut. The blade was aimed at my shoulder. At worst, it could damage the nerves enough that I wouldn't have full use of it until I could get it looked at by Samyani. Just before I flashed my eyes closed to brace for the pain, I caught a momentary ripple of emotion over Ashe's face as he came to the same conclusion that I had.
The pain didn't come. I felt the prickle of magic in the air as I let my eyes creep back open. The fan was still coming towards me, red stitching beside a thin line of silvery blade. The fan had opened again as she released it from her grip, to expose the full crescent of the edge as it flew to slice open my skin and spill even more of my blood. Illogical punishment, seeing as she was scolding me for bloodying the collar in the first place. Then again, that was her fault to. She just liked pain. That was the only explanation for having such a sharp blade on her fancy accessory. The reason I had time to observe all of this was because the fan, while still spinning forward, was moving so slowly it seemed the air had turned to water around it. I reached out a hand, trying very hard not show how confused I was by this turn of events, and caught the fan carefully around the base. I refolded it and glance around. I held the fan up questioningly, but none of the courtiers were looking at either it or me anymore. I glance to my side and saw that Ashe, like all the rest, was staring at Ailleacht. I looked at her too, saw that her face had become paper white under her makeup. She turned slowly, her movements so carefully controlled that you could tell it was taking everything she had to maintain her composure. She focused her eyes on her shoes, which appeared to be panels of lace, folded and stitched together with satin ribbons. Part of me wanted to focus on them too, now that their full ridiculousness was visible thanks to her lifting her skirts in a curtsy. Instead I followed the direction of her curtsy with my eyes, and saw, standing at the wide doorway, the figure of a tall man dressed all in shades of dusk-gray, his hair hanging loose around his shoulders. His arms were crossed over his chest, and his posture screamed complete boredom as he walked slowly across the now-silent hall, stopping in front of the golden haired woman. I saw a sheen of sweat across her forehead as he stood there, time stretching out interminably. The slight prickling in the air grew heavier, and I resisted the urge to shudder. From this angle, I could see the panicked expression in her eyes.
It was terrifying to see the courtiers. These incredibly powerful fae who could crush a human with a single wave of their hands, all standing stiff with fear at the pressure of their High Lord's magic. Some people claim that the Dusk Court became so very sadistic because the magic of dusk is less violent than the choking dark of night or the raging fires of autumn, because they somehow felt the need to make up for it. Those people are wrong. Dusk is the power of the fading of day, slow and creeping, able to sneak up on you when you least expect it. The Bringer of Sleep did not earn his title without cause. Everyone raised in these lands knows that with a single look from their High Lord, they could collapse to the ground, insensible to the world, trapped in an eternal slumber until their body gives out. A person can run from the monsters of the dark. They can fight a fire with chill winds and buckets of water. But sleep—sleep is already a part of us all. It is inevitable. And from the High Lord's hands, it is inescapable, even for the most powerful of the high fae.
Objectively, I'd always known that. But seeing them cringing before him with my own eyes was entirely different.
Caer sighed and looked up. "Lady Ailleacht. What is the law concerning the artisans I bring to the court?" His voice was a thousand times worse than what I remembered from that clearing in the woods. That voice was pure, unregulated power. It held every bit of his authority, impossible to ignore or mistake for another, but without hostility. This? This was ice, colder than anything you would find in the winter court. Not true chill, rather a total and complete absence of heat.
A quick shiver slipped past Ailleacht's control, just the slightest wobbling of her hands. "My Lord, I can explai—"
"What is the law?" His voice cracked through hers, breaking the desperation seeping into her words.
She swallowed, wrung her hands, swallowed again. She took a deep breath, trying to find her voice in the face of a nightmare come to sharp-edged life.
"What is it?" He repeated once more, his voice going low. A new tingle of magic whispered around me like the current of a shallow stream, and suddenly Ailleacht was on her knees, her dress a spill of blood on the floor around her, the ends of her hair sweeping the smooth stones. Ashe jerked and stiffened beside me, followed by all the courtier in the room, rippling out from the epicenter of the scene taking place before me. I couldn't tear my gaze away from Ailleacht. She looked so weak now, a pitiful young woman unable to restrain a sob when her knees crashed to the tile with no more protection than a thin layer of silk. Bowed over like this, she could have been one of the young girls in Codlata Siorai who chose a less brutal path than garda or scabhta—though not even the softest flower of Codlata Siorai would be found wearing such impractical footwear.
Finally, almost a minute later, came the reply. "They are not to be touched without my Lord's permission," she gasped through another sob.
The tingle of magic retreated as quickly as it had come, and Ailleacht collapsed to her elbows, still sobbing softly behind the curtain of her hair. Everyone else in the room relaxed infinitesimally except Ashe, who stiffened further as Caer approached us. He held out a hand and I glanced around before offering up the fan hesitantly. As soon as it hit his palm, he closed his fist around it, crushing it into dust and splinters. He looked down. It took me a moment to realize that he was looking at my clothes. His eyes rose to meet mine and his eyebrow went up infinitesimally. I tipped my chin up an iota, little enough that the courtiers wouldn't notice but enough to make clear to Caer that I would not be his dress-up doll. He glanced at Ashe. "Escort her to her workplace," he said and then brushed past me toward the throne, so close that his sleeve whispered against mine, once again the bored dusk lord. §§§§§ See? Still updating! People who abandon projects and don't even bother to take them down or write dropped are the bane of my existence. So have no fear, ACOBAT is still updating! I hope to get out at least one more chapter by the end of September. Don't forget to vote!
