Chapter Text
The whiskey was Rhysand’s and Elain had used a stepstool to get it from the shelf. She wasn’t even sure when she’d wandered into the River House cellar, only that she’d felt like her lungs were collapsing, and her heart was two sizes too big and bruising her ribs from the inside out.
She’d been so sure.
So stupid.
Azriel had looked at her, Solstice lights soft in his hazel eyes, his scent of mist and cedar between them and when she’d leaned in, breath trembling…
“This is a mistake.”
He hadn’t even said it cruelly. Just quietly. Sadly.
Elain had nodded, smiled, pretended she understood. Because she did. Really.
And then she’d walked out of the room before he could see the devastation behind her smile.
Now she was three glasses in, bare feet cold on the wooden floor, and she couldn’t stop thinking about Lucien.
Lucien, who was upstairs, probably asleep. Hopefully asleep. Gods, let him be asleep. Lucien, who was her mate. Lucien, who she had avoided and pushed aside and maybe, just maybe, didn’t even deserve.
The house was quiet. Shadows whispered in the hallway. Her bottle sloshed in her hand as she crept upstairs, weaving slightly.
She paused in front of his door.
Her other hand hovered in the air for a long moment before she knocked. Softly. Then again, harder.
There was a long pause. Then a groggy voice: “Unless someone is dying or the roof is on fire, I swear to the Mother—”
He opened the door shirtless, blinking, ruby hair mussed and tousled from sleep.
“Elain?” he said, confused.
She held up the bottle. “Hi, mate.”
Lucien stared at her. Slowly took in the sight of her rumpled dress, flushed cheeks, and a very obvious tipsy sway.
“Well,” he said, rubbing his face, “this is either a dream or the beginning of a very complicated story.”
She giggled. Giggled. “Can I come in?”
He stepped aside instinctively. “Should I be concerned? Am I about to get stabbed?”
“No,” she said solemnly, walking past him. “I came to apologize…I mean… to talk,” she corrected with a hiccup.
Lucien closed the door behind her, glancing at the bottle. “I see you’ve come armed.”
“I am a disaster,” Elain announced, plopping down unceremoniously on the edge of his bed and pulling her knees to her chest. The whiskey sloshed recklessly. “I tried to seduce Azriel.”
Lucien arched a brow. “…Should I be pouring a drink?”
“You’re taking this very well,” she muttered and then passed him the bottle.
“I’m mostly asleep. And I suspect you’ll be horrified by all of this in the morning, so I’m soaking it in as well as I can,” he set the bottle to the side.
Elain groaned and buried her face in her arms. “He said it was a mistake.”
Lucien winced. “Oof.”
“I just…” Her voice wavered and she let out a deep sigh. “I didn’t know what I was doing. I mean, I did. I’ve been pushing you away for so long and trying not to feel anything and I thought maybe if I just… focused on someone else… maybe I’d stop dreaming about you.”
The room went silent.
Lucien’s voice, when it came, was very soft. “You dream about me?”
Elain peeked over her knees. “And they’re not always nice.”
“I don’t deserve nice ones,” he said with a wide smile, but something dark flickered across his face. “Especially not from you.”
"Sometimes they're scandalous." Her eyes went wide, surprised at her own words. She shook her head quickly as if to ground herself in this moment and forget the stupid thing she just uttered. "Oh gods! I can't believe I told you that," she giggled, then snorted, quickly covering her face. Lucien laughed, and Elain bit her lip. "I'm sorry I've been so cruel."
“You’ve been scared,” he replied, easing down to sit beside her on the bed. “I scare you. The bond scares you. That’s not cruelty. That’s… survival.”
“I don’t mean to be so standoffish. I’m just…” she laughed, a little helplessly, “I’m afraid I’m going to do something completely unladylike. Like…climb you like a tree.”
She clapped a hand over her mouth, eyes wide in disbelief at her own words then dissolved into giggles.
Lucien watched her laugh, cheeks flushed, hands covering her face in playful mortification, and he couldn’t help the slow grin that spread across his face.
This had to be the best dream of his entire life.
Because surely it was a dream. Elain Archeron, in front of him, albeit drunk and blushing but saying things that made his pulse thunder in his ears.
If he was asleep, he didn’t ever want to wake.
He blinked. Once. Twice.
Then inhaled, deeply like he’d forgotten how to breathe for a moment.
Her drunken thoughts twisted around her words like vines. “And You’re always so kind to me.”
"Well..." he began. His heart pounding in his chest. "You clearly haven't heard the things I say about you to Jurian."
She laughed again, sudden and bright. “Such as?”
“I say you’re dangerous,” he added. “A sweet little menace with eyes full of judgment.”
Elain gave him a faux gasp of outrage. “I am not a menace.”
“You just wandered into my room in the middle of the night holding a bottle of whiskey and trauma. If that’s not a menace, I don’t know what is.”
She couldn’t stop smiling. “I didn’t know you were funny.”
“I’m hilarious,” Lucien said, placing a hand dramatically over his heart, his russet eye gleaming with mischief. “You just never give me a chance to dazzle you. And honestly, my brain doesn’t know how to work when you’re around.”
Elain blinked up at him, swaying slightly as she tried to focus. Her lips parted in a dazed smile, cheeks flushed, eyes shining with tipsy wonder.
“You’re dazzling me now,” she said, voice soft and utterly sincere.
Lucien went still. Again.
She could feel his breath. The heat of him, too close and not close enough.
He didn’t move, didn’t lean away or toward her. Just let her rest there, the quiet settling around them like a blanket.
“I don’t love him,” she whispered. “Azriel.”
Lucien was quiet for a long moment. “I know.”
“You know?”
“You wouldn’t be here if you did.”
A silent moment passed before she spoke, her brow furrowed in thought, “I knew you. In the throne room.”
He met her gaze, a flicker of surprise in his eyes.
“I had seen you before," she continued, a wistful smile playing on her lips. "In my dreams when I was a girl. So many times.”
Shock washed over him, his expression a mix of disbelief and dawning understanding as he tried to process her revelation.
She leaned in toward him, both of him, apparently, and tried to focus, breathing in his scent deeply. She sniffed loudly. Almost comically.
He watched her, still shocked but clearly amused. “Are you all right, Lady?”
“You smell like a cinnamon roll,” she murmured, eyes slightly glazed. “A giant, gorgeous, cinnamon roll.”
Lucien chuckled under his breath. “You’re ridiculous.”
“Don’t touch me,” she said suddenly.
Lucien froze, startled. He met her gaze, eyes searching.
“I wasn’t going to,” he said quietly. “You’re safe here.”
She shook her head, biting her lip. “We’re not, though.”
His brow furrowed. “What do you mean?”
“I think we’re… carra, carra, carranum,” she blurted, fumbling over the word.
Lucien’s eyes widened. “Carranam?“
She nodded, looking both deadly serious and completely overwhelmed. “I’ve seen you in my visions. Not like… seeing you, exactly. Well, that too. But us. Together. Inside the vision. Watching it together. I’ve had visions of my visions.” She frowned, then groaned. “Ugh, that didn’t make any sense, did it? I’m really drunk.”
Then she laughed helpless and tipsy and beautiful. “Cauldron, this is insane.”
Lucien just stared at her, as if the ground had shifted beneath his feet.
“I just wanted a normal, quiet life and now look,” she gestured dramatically to everything.
“Carranum? Who told you that?” he asked again still trying to process.
“I loved celebrating Solstice when I was a girl,” she said softly completely disregarding his worry. “We’d hang cinnamon sticks on the mantel and leave little bundles of herbs for good luck. My mother would make spiced cider, and Nesta would pretend to hate it, but she always drank three mugs.” A pause. “And I used to knit scarves for my father and my sisters. I wasn’t very good then. In fact, I was horrible. One end was always twice as wide as the other.”
Lucien decided having a discussion about the Carranum bond when she was drunk wasn’t wise. He decided to stick to the current topic of conversation. “I would’ve worn it.”
Elain looked up at him, surprised. “Even the lumpy end?”
“Especially the lumpy end.” He smiled with a flirtatious shrug. “Gives it character.”
She stared at him a moment, something warm and unnameable twisting in her chest.
Then perhaps to deflect the feeling she blurted, “Have you ever seen a rainbow eel?”
Lucien blinked. “A what?”
“You know,” she said airily. “They shimmer in the sun. Little fangs. Tails like ribbons. I dreamed about one once.”
Lucien raised a brow. “That’s either a hallucination or a myth from a children’s story.”
“It’s real,” she insisted. “I know it is. Somewhere in Prythian there’s a rainbow eel and it’s waiting to be discovered. By me. I need this .”
“Well, now I have to find it,” Lucien declared solemnly. “I’ll go on a harrowing quest. Brave deadly waters. Battle cranky kelpies and spiteful sprites. And when I return, I’ll present it to you in a bucket like a true romantic.”
Elain grinned, warm and wide. “That might be the strangest proposal I’ve ever heard.”
“I didn’t say anything about a proposal,” he replied smoothly. “I’m just wooing you with aquatic oddities. It’s a very specific courting tradition. Rare. Exclusive.”
She laughed again freely, fully.
Lucien watched her for a moment, the glow of her eyes, the easy joy in her expression. And even though she was still nestled too close for comfort if they really did share the Carranum bond,
He didn’t move.
Because this, this quiet, meandering conversation in the dark was the closest he’d ever been to hope.
And he didn’t dare break it.
And sometime later , her breathing slowed.
Lucien turned just enough to see her eyes flutter closed, her head slowly tipping as sleep overtook her. With a quiet sigh, she stretched out and burrowed into his blankets, curling up like she belonged there.
He stood, watching her for a moment, then whispered with a faint smile,
“Sleep, menace.”
__
Elain woke to the unmistakable scent of him. For one blissful second, she wished she could melt into the bed and never leave.
Then realization hit.
She was in his bed.
And she’d made a complete ass of herself the night before.
Slowly, carefully, she glanced around the room. Lucien was dozing in a nearby chair, feet propped on the edge of the bed, arms crossed, head tipped back. Peaceful. Infuriatingly handsome. She reminded herself not to stare .
She slipped off the mattress as quietly as possible, trying not to wake him. But her foot clipped a small table and a bottle of whiskey crashed to the floor.
“Heavens!” she spat way too loudly and flung herself toward the bottle now emptying itself out on the rug.
Lucien stirred, then opened his eyes, his mouth already curling into a smirk.
She scrunched her nose. “So , so sorry. I was trying to leave without waking you. And I just spilled Rhysand’s obscenely overpriced whiskey. There’s some still left in the bottle if you want it. For a souvenir?” She shrugged and waved a hand with a dramatic little flourish, clearly exasperated with herself.
Lucien huffed a laugh, the sound low and sleepy and way too attractive for this hour.
“Also,” she added, brushing hair out of her face, “sorry for waking you in the middle of the night and for being… a bit tipsy.”
“A bit?” he echoed, grinning wide now. Again. He chuckled. “It’s fine. Honestly, it’s the most fun I’ve had in a while.”
Elain’s fingers fumbled on the doorknob like it was some ancient riddle only a sober mind could solve and she was pretty sure she was still a little drunk. Her cheeks were already burning from the string of awkward mishaps this morning.
Solstice whiskey. Never again.
Lucien, still lounging and still shirtless, looked like he was enjoying every second of her unraveling.
She finally got the door open, but paused, something sticking in her chest like thorns in a rose stem. She turned around.
Lucien’s mismatched eyes met hers.
“I…” she began, voice wobbling and quickly said, “do you want to have dinner sometime?”
There was a beat. His brows lifted, stunned. Then a slow smile curved over his mouth real, soft, and utterly sincere.
“I would love to,” he said.
Her brain fizzled like soda water. “Oh. Okay. Well. Good night!”
His smile widened just as the confusion set into her own words. She froze.
“It’s morning,” he offered gently, amused.
She visibly winced. “Right. Good. Morning.”
She didn’t wait for a response. Just bolted through the door like a spooked deer, nearly tripping on the threshold in her rush. She yelped as the door clicked shut behind her with finality.
Inside, Lucien stared at the door a moment longer, then laughed softly to himself.
He had been sure this had been the worst Solstice of his life feeling her with Azriel like a phantom pain he couldn’t shake. But then she’d stumbled into his room, whiskey-sweet and blushing. And then the shocking realization that they shared Carranum bond.
He was still shocked she had suggested dinner. And just like that, it became the best night of his existence. So far.