A court of ashes and ruins | A TOG x ACOTAR crossover

Chapter 4

Aelin

I closely inspected the room for the first time. From what I could see, it was just an ordinary room. There was a bed, a desk with drawers, an armchair, a closet, and of course; the door out. There was nothing out of the ordinary from what I could see, but what worried me was magic. In my human form, I could only sense the most obvious signs of magic. They must have put some kind of magical protection in my room, could they really trust only the chains to hold me back?

I tugged lightly at the chains. They behaved like any normal chains would, except of course, they were made out of wood. After a few feels and tugs on them, I could confidently say that there was no magic bound to them.

I have done this before I told myself. I took in a deep breath and got to work.

I had done this a million times before. First, I dislocated my shoulder. It hurt like shit, but I had to eat the pain up. Then I started slowly wriggling my arm. It took a few minutes, but I finally got one arm out, and pushed my shoulder back in place again.

For the next arm I used the free one to slightly bend the (surprisingly soft) wood chains. I couldn't make it too noticeable, because I needed to get back in the chains before someone came back.

Once both arms were out I could simply just slide under the chains over my stomach and ta-da, I was out!

Now came the tricky part. I knew that there were at least 3 fae in this building, and a minimum 2 of them had magic. I had to be really careful for what I step on.

I started with the desk. Sprawled all over it was lots of messy paintings. They all seemed to be unfinished pieces. Hopefully they wouldn't notice a paintbrush going missing. I opened the drawers one by one. Most of them were just filled with different types of papers, paints and inks. But in one of them, there were some fabric and needles. This was perfect!

But I was honestly a bit baffled that they had left all of this here. They really trusted their own abilities. I took out the hairs from the paintbrush, and used some glue I found to stick the needles to the shaft. This was a perfectly fine weapon. I could definitely take someone's eye out if I got close enough.

Suddenly an idea struck me. The chains. There must have been a reason for them to lock me up with wood. Maybe these people were some different kind of fae, maybe this was their weakness. They probably smelled the traces of magic on me and decided to make sure that I had no powers of my own.

If I was correct, then it would be an important piece of information.

I checked everything else in the room. Nothing was out of the ordinary. The closet was filled with beautiful dresses. Hopefully someone would come and help me change before the dinner.

I decided that it was best to just get back into the chains for now. I hid my self made weapon in a corner of the closet.

 It was nearly harder to get into the chains than it was get out of them. I had to dislocate my shoulder again, which probably wasn't healthy to do over such a short duration of time.

When I had regained my old position, I was very tired. It won't do any harm to just doze off for a moment I thought. They still need information from me, I am still important to them. I told myself as I drifted off to sleep.

I woke up again to a someone gently shaking my shoulder. I opened my eyes to see a young Fae girl.

"Hello miss, I am here to prepare you for dinner."

"Yes, right, thank you" I decided that it was best to be polite.

She put her hands on the chains and with a poof they were gone. She wasn't even close to radiating the same powers as the others she had met before, but she clearly had some magic in her blood.

I let her bath me, brush my hair and fix my makeup, but i didn't let her close to the wardrobe. I would never let someone pick my clothes, I didn't want to embarrass myself by wearing something too modest and old fashioned. 

I picked a loose, flowing Terrasen green dress. I can never represent my kingdom too much I thought to myself.

"Dinner is ready for you," the young servant girl told me. I probably should have asked for her name, but I had more important matters at hand.

I walked through the hallway, straightening my posture before I opened the door to the dining room. 

The dining room was big, and exquisitely decorated. In the middle of the room stood a big, long table. Seated were the 3 people from before, but also 3 others. 2 females and 1 male, all of them were fae. 

The first female was a blonde beauty. She wore a red dress that perfectly complemented her features and matched it with a plumb red lipstick. I was just a tiny bit jealous of her looks. 

The second female had short dark brown hair, and a slight grin on her face. While the others all had goof posture, she was slouched back in her chair, sipping on a glass of wine. She didn't seem to give a crap about looking intimidating, but she still had that dangerous look in her face. She certainly seemed like a challenge for me.

The male was best described as: Mysterious. The shadows in the room almost seemed to darken near him. His face was dead serious, not a trace in his face that would suggest he had ever smiled. His type was definitely my favorite to irritate. 

"Well hello everybody!" I exclaimed loudly, striding to the empty chair between dark haired and blonde fae girls. The dark haired one gave me a glare, which I met with a confident wink.

"I think we should introduce the rest of us" Rhysand said. He had a dark expression on his face. I almost wanted to laugh at their continued tries of intimidating me.

"This is Azriel, spymaster of the Night court. He is a shadowsinger". I assumed being a shadowsinger had something to do with controlling darkness, which wasn't really my favorite thing in the world after being locked up in an iron coffin for 2 months.

"And this is Morrigan, she is my third in command and the overseer of the Night court". I gave the woman a slight smile, she definitely seemed like my type in a friend.

"And finally , this is Amren, my second in command". She had the least fancy titles out of everyone, but I could sense that she was very different from the others. She seemed to bear a very ancient type of magic.

Well, this dinner was certainly going to be interesting.