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Over the next two days, Lucien refused to attend a single meeting without Elain at his side. And, Mother bless her, she did not seem to mind in the slightest. In fact, despite the gloom brought on by the reminder of the lost younglings, the negotiations became more amiable with Elain present, as though none could hold a grim demeanor around her. She never ceased to amaze Lucien with her skill in dialogue and he could swear that he fell more and more in love with her every moment and probably would for the rest of eternity.
Bit by bit, they began to inch toward an agreement. Kallias eventually agreed that he would not support Hybern’s alliance. And, though he did not want to move his own forces outside of his territory, he agreed to fight against Dawn’s forces as they moved through his territory, which would happen any day now.
When Elain had heard that the Dawn Court was moving to attack the Night Court, she had been worried sick, and Lucien had let her fuss for a time before taking her out across the frozen lake to throw snowballs at Masaru, who, they had found heading toward the massive stables through the pine trees.
This had proved to be a mistake, as Masaru had been able to summon up dozens of snowballs with his magic and chuck them at Elain and Lucien all at once, sending the two diving behind tree trunks and hollering, attempting to avoid becoming Masaru’s targets.
When their clothes had been soaked through, a grinning Masaru gestured them into the stables, the melting snow in his black hair causing it to glisten and stick up at odd angles. “I can’t believe I have been such an abysmal host,” he said to Elain. “I haven’t even shown you our mighty steeds.”
“You’ve been wonderful,” Elain demurred, but her eyes searched the stables in excited anticipation. Lucien took her cold, wet hand in his and rubbed it between his palms, kissing her fingertips.
“Never thought I’d see the day,” Masaru teased, looking at Elain and Lucien with warm silver eyes. “Prince Lucien of the Autumn Court . . . domestic.”
Lucien rolled his eyes and Elain laughed. “Don’t be jealous, Masaru,” Elain said as Lucien draped his arm across her shoulders. “It’s unbecoming of a prince.”
“Oh, I’m not,” Masaru assured her. “I’m not sure you’ve noticed, but he has terrible morning breath. It’s been two hundred years and I still can’t forget it.”
Elain’s giggles filled the towering stables as Masaru led them further inside. But her laughs drifted into alarmed pause as she heard a low grumbling coming from within one of the stalls. “What . . . what mighty steeds?” she asked nervously.
Masaru unlocked one of the massive wooden doors and slid it aside, revealing a massive white bear within, prowling back and forth with what indeed seemed to be a saddle on its back. The bear looked up and huffed at Masaru once before continuing its prowling. There was a door at the back of its stall that led outdoors to an enclosed space with water and ground to move on, but the bear seemed inclined to stay indoors right now.
Elain’s blonde head only came as high as the bear’s shoulder, and she looked at it with actual panic in her eyes. She snatched Lucien hand in hers.
“It’s all right, pea,” he murmured, kissing her temple.
“This is Ayumi,” Masaru said affectionately. “She is mine, but unlike Sumiko she is very even-tempered. She would give you a ride, if you wished.” His crystalline eyes sparkled as he looked at Elain.
“Oh, I . . . with all due respect, I’d rather not just now,” Elain said, her cheeks turning pink.
Masaru nodded respectfully. “I had forgotten. Bears are not a welcome sight to humans, are they?”
“No,” Elain whispered.
Masaru smiled good-naturedly. “We shall escort you back to the palace, then.”
“No need,” came a clear voice from the other end of the stable. Lucien looked up to see Cresseida approaching with Thalia. “Elain can join us on our stroll,” she said.
Elain looked from Lucien to Cresseida. “I’m sorry, it’s just . . . ever since we lost our home and moved near the woods, I’ve been terrified of bears.”
Lucien’s heart clenched. He wished he’d known, or else he would have warned her. “Of course, pea,” he said. “I’ll go with Masaru and I’ll see you back in our rooms before dinner.”
Elain kissed him. “I’m looking forward to it.” She smiled at him and Masaru before joining Thalia and Cresseida and exiting the stables.
Lucien watched until her golden head had disappeared before turning to Masaru. “Do you have another amiable steed?” he asked. Masaru grinned.
Masaru ordered a second bear, Chiyo, saddled for Lucien, and soon they were meandering down the well worn paths.
“It’s been a while since I’ve done this,” Lucien remarked as he adjusted to the swaying motion of the bear.
“I’m glad you’re here, Lucien,” Masaru said. “I haven’t gotten a chance to tell you that properly.”
“I’m glad to be here,” Lucien agreed. “It’s like . . . coming home, in a way, though I’ve told you many times this place is far too cold for my liking.” He winked at his friend. “I was worried, I’ll admit, about coming back here mated.”
Masaru shook his head. “I never expected things to be the same. And we’ve seen and heard from each other plenty since the last time you spent any time here. I hope I didn’t say or do anything to make you worry.”
“No, no,” Lucien assured him, raising a hand. “I’m just prone to worry. More so now than before.”
“With good reason.” Masaru’s expression darkened for a fraction. “How are you, Lucien?”
Lucien raised his eyebrow, pretending he didn’t hear the meaningful inflection in Masaru’s tone. “Chiyo is behaving perfectly.”
Masaru actually growled. “You know very well that’s not what I meant, Lucien.”
Lucien’s lips parted. He swallowed and looked away from his friend, down the glistening snowy path that Chiyo and Ayumi tread. He took deep, subtle breaths to keep his heart rate down. He didn’t want--didn’t need this conversation right now. “Why should I be any different than I’ve always been?” he asked.
“Don’t be such a prick,” Masaru snapped. Lucien looked back at him in surprise and Masaru’s expression softened. “What happened down there--before, after--changed all of us. There’s no way it didn’t. I wanted to pretend it hadn’t changed me. Thankfully my uncles kicked my ass and didn’t let me drink myself to oblivion. If it was bad for me, Lucien . . .”
“Can we not?” Lucien whispered, gripping Chiyo’s harness tighter, turning his knuckles white.
Masaru went quiet and looked Lucien up and down. “No one . . . no one has talked to you about this, have they?”
Lucien scoffed. “Why should anyone have? I haven’t had it any worse than--”
“That’s bearshit, Lucien,” Masaru interrupted. “We all saw you Under the Mountain. We know she targeted you because of your ties to Tamlin and Feyre. She did terrible things to the rest of us, it’s true, but that doesn’t make what you went through matter any less.”
Lucien grit his teeth and fought past the nausea that was roiling in his gut. “I know you still call me a prince, Masaru, but that doesn’t make me one. I’m an emissary, and a shit one, it turns out. What happened to me doesn’t matter. I don’t matter.”
Masaru swore. He jerked on Ayumi’s harness and the bear stopped, grumbling in protest. Lucien bade Chiyo stop as well. Masaru fixed his dagger gaze on Lucien and said, “I don’t think your mate has the same opinion.” Lucien blanched and Masaru swallowed. “I sure as hell don’t.”
Lucien leaned back as though Masaru had tried to punch him. “Ru,” he breathed. “You know I didn’t mean--”
“Lucien, you’ve always said exactly what you mean,” Masaru said, his mouth a thin line. He ran his hand through his silken black hair. “It’s what I liked about you. My question is, who on earth made you think that you don’t matter?”
Lucien frowned and looked down at his hands. It was not--this was not a question he felt he could properly answer. He had never mattered, not the way people like Feyre or Tamlin or Rhysand did. He’d had a target on his back since the day he was born, with so many older brothers seeing him as a threat. He remembered when he was young, before reaching maturity, wondering why he’d even been born at all, when his parents had enough sons and didn’t need to add another to the brutal competition for the High Lord’s crown.
Masaru, he realized with a clenching pain in his chest, was the first person who had ever made him feel important. Like he was happy to have Lucien around. Lucien had craved the freedom he’d had here in the Winter Court, getting up to mischief and damning the world, but smiling, laughing--having someone who cared about him. It had been little surprise when the lines between him and Masaru had blurred. With so many centuries separating him from those days, he wondered if he had loved Masaru. He knew for certain he hadn’t loved the prince like he loved Elain, or even like he’d loved Elspeth. There had been no inkling of a mate bond between them. But Masaru had always been there, and he’d never asked for anything more than Lucien was able to give. Time and circumstances led them to drift apart in the end, but Lucien had never stopped caring about Masaru, never stopped staying in touch.
And even after Elspeth, after Tamlin had taken him in and protected him from his brothers, it had been Masaru to write him and comfort him--not just then, but afterward. Every year, on the anniversary of Elspeth’s death, Masaru had sent a note. Never anything dramatic or poetic, but something to let Lucien know his friend and former lover was thinking about him. Masaru also convinced his uncle to make it exceedingly difficult for Autumn to trade with Winter for a few decades afterward, and Lucien had enjoyed the grim vengeance.
It had been Lucien to let the letters fade, at Tamlin’s prompting. Tamlin had said, and Lucien had agreed, that it sent a poor message for Lucien to have such close ties to the heir of another court when he was serving in Spring Court. Lucien had never stopped writing altogether, and his continued correspondence with Masaru had helped in the decades of Amarantha, but . . . Lucien knew he’d made a mistake in letting the chasm open between them.
“I have heard rumors,” Masaru said carefully, “about Lord Tamlin’s temper. And his style of leadership. One can quibble on such things, but . . . he really made you go back to Autumn Court. After all that.” Masaru grimaced. “I wish I’d been able to help you directly then. Wished I’d been able to take you in, but that wasn’t my decision. I’m glad he helped you. But he changed you, too.”
“I promise I’m still an asshole,” Lucien said, attempting to break the heaviness of Masaru’s demeanor.
Masaru’s mouth twitched up. “Perhaps. But there is a shadow in your eye, Lucien. One that wasn’t there even after Elspeth. It’s . . . new. Has anyone noticed?”
Lucien’s throat was tight and his shoulders tense. “People have better things to do than to worry about me.”
“Well, I don’t,” Masaru said, his eyes distressed, “and I worry about you. Your mate--that delightful girl--I can tell she has helped. But you have shadows following you, Lucien, and I cannot fathom that no one has ever offered to take that burden from you. You’re not all right, Luc, and there’s nothing wrong with that.”
Lucien swore under his breath as he squeezed his eye shut. The metal of his prosthetic eye stung with the cold, but it wasn’t chilly enough to keep fat, hot tears from sliding down one cheek. “I have to be all right,” he muttered. “Everyone counts on me to be all right. Then they can worry about the more important things. And honestly, with the hell I’ve seen in my life, I figure it can’t really get worse. So I might as well grin and bear it.”
Masaru reached across the gap between their bears and squeezed Lucien’s hand. “Your resilience got you out of a lot of trouble when we were younger. But it’s all right to need help, Lucien--not just be the help.” Lucien choked and shuddered, then took a long deep breath, staring at the sky to calm himself. Masaru continued, “I was the same when I came back from Under the Mountain. I locked myself away and drank until I couldn’t see straight--and you know I can hold my liquor. Uncle Aki literally dragged me by the ankles out of my room one day and threw me in the frozen lake to knock some sense into me.”
Lucien coughed out a laugh. “Sounds like him.”
“Don’t make me use that technique on you,” Masaru teased with a wink. “I don’t think your mate would take kindly to it. I heard about what she did to Princess Cresseida for just talking improperly about you.”
Lucien laughed, his heart warming at the thought of Elain. “You would have to watch your back,” he agreed. He peered at the sky to mark the time. “I’d like to get back to her.”
“Of course,” Masaru said. “Though, if I might, she seems like just the sort of person whose ear would be open to you. Talk to her. Talk to me--I’m not bothered. But don’t keep it all locked up. I learned the hard way that this is the wrong way to go.”
Lucien smiled softly. “Thanks, Ru,” he murmured.
“Let’s head back.” Then Lucien and Masaru turned Ayumi and Chiyo around to return to the palace on the frozen lake.
-
Elain sighed a deep breath of relief when she left the stables beside Thalia and Cresseida. She was so embarrassed, but she hadn’t exactly expected bears to be the steeds Masaru was so proud of. It truly had been the one thing that had terrified her when they’d moved to the country. She’d feared bears even more than she’d feared the fae, and she could still remember Nesta making her bear-repellent bracelets and charms out of random things she found lying around the yard, claiming, for example, that bears were particularly disgusted by thistles. Elain had believed her and had stopped fearing the monstrous figures coming up to her window at night. But the fear had still slumbered deep within her, and seeing Masaru’s bears . . . it had disarmed her.
She hadn’t thought she’d ever be thankful to see the princess of Adriata, but Cresseida and Thalia were both welcome distractions. Elain liked Thalia. The ebony-haired priestess had been kind and gentle throughout all the negotiations. Thalia frustrated Lucien and Elain understood why, but under different circumstances she might be inclined to consider Thalia a friend. The priestess smile sweetly and without guile, and it was no surprise that High Lord Kallias was fond of her as well. She had given Elain a tour of the palace and the grounds and had even taught her how to skate across the surface of the ever-frozen lake on blades attached to her shoes.
“I wasn’t aware Lucien knew Prince Masaru,” Thalia said as they walked, “though I suppose it shouldn’t surprise me. Lucien was always very well connected.” She looked at Elain thoughtfully with her deep green eyes. “Is it odd for you, I wonder, joining in so recently on a history centuries old?”
Elain had felt her cheeks color slightly, but she knew Thalia had not meant anything by it. “It doesn’t,” she said. “It is . . . hard to wrap my head around at times. But I don’t trouble myself over it.” She sensed the next question and said, “And yes, I have heard about the nature of Lucien’s past with Masaru, and that does not bother me either.”
It was Thalia’s turn to blush. “I’m so sorry. How very untoward of me.”
“They’re fair questions,” Cresseida interjected. “You’re so New. I can’t imagine being mated with someone so much more experienced than me.”
Elain read beneath Cresseida’s words with little trouble at all, and her brown eyes fixed on the princess. “Then it seems you don’t quite know how a mate bond works.”
Cresseida’s eyes widened a fraction, but her mouth twisted in a smirk. “Indeed I don’t.”
“Well, being High Fae certainly suits you,” Thalia said sincerely, “as does being Lucien’s mate.”
“Thank you,” Elain said with a smile.
Thalia cocked her head and then lifted her chin with a gasp. “My word, I’m running terribly late for my duties. I apologize, princesses. I look forward to seeing you again at dinner.” She curtsied to both of them and then took off with quick steps back toward the palace.
Elain smiled absently as she plucked a snowdrop from behind her ear and cast it on the ground. “How is Winter treating you, Princess?” she asked.
Cresseida lifted her eyebrows. “Terribly,” she said frankly. “It is far too cold for my liking. I’m not sure why I agreed to come at all.”
“It has been good to have you,” Elain said, not entirely untruthfully. Cresseida had brought several good points and ideas to the table. Sumiko didn’t like her, which worked against her during negotiations--Masaru had not been joking when they said that Sumiko rarely liked anyone. But the cat nevertheless spent long lengths of time on Elain’s lap, to the point where she’d often risen from the table looking like a cat herself due to all the hair clinging to her clothing. But Elain appreciated the sense of normalcy that came with having a cat on her lap. She’d never dare reveal to the fae that keeping house cats was a tradition in the mortal realm as well, though.
“Thalia is right, that being High Fae suits you,” Cresseida said as they walked near a copse of trees by the edge of the lake. “I never knew you as a human, of course, but I do remember your sister when she was mortal Under the Mountain. The transformation seemed to have suited all of you well. Almost like you were born to be fae.”
Elain paused her steps, and then disguised her hesitation by pretending to enjoy the scenery of the lake. “We were,” she murmured. The revelation, so new to her still, that her mother had been part fae . . . she still hadn’t quite gotten used to it.
“I heard you singing the fae song the other day,” Cresseida said quietly, “when you were walking with Lucien. It sounded . . . so pure. It’s true you have the gift.”
“I don’t know what to do with it,” Elain admitted. “Something about being a key . . . but to what? And how do I use it? I don’t have any answers.”
“Perhaps Thalia knows something,” Cresseida said helpfully. Just then, Elain’s stomach growled in anticipation for dinner. Cresseida’s keen ears heard it. “You’re hungry,” she said. “Here, I have something you can eat.”
“Oh, no, I can wait,” Elain said with a grateful smile.
“I was meaning to give it to you anyway,” Cresseida protested. “Lucien found it at the market last evening and said it reminded him of you, but you were with Thalia.” Elain nodded at the recollection. “He was called off and asked me to give it to you, but I completely forgot.” Cresseida rifled in the small pouch at her side and retrieved a bright red apple, whose skin was stark against the pale whites and silvers of their environment and their clothing.
“Thank you,” Elain said, accepting the apple from her. She couldn’t keep the smile from her face. An apple--just like the one she had grown for him and offered to him as a sign that she accepted the mate bond. Her body grew warm at the thought of her mate, and she wondered if he was waiting for her in their rooms yet. She made to tuck the apple into her own pouch.
“No, you should have a bite now!” Cresseida urged with a playful grin. “Otherwise he’ll know I forgot and being even more cross with me than usual.”
Elain laughed and finally gave a shrug. She was hungry, and it would tide her over for dinner at the very least. And she needed sustenance if Lucien was going to be waiting for her--she didn’t want to pass any opportunity with him up. “Very well then,” she said with a smile.
She sank her teeth into the skin and flesh of the apple and drew her lips back, savoring the sweet juices that spilled over her teeth. But when she made to swallow, she find that she couldn’t quite get it down. She coughed, but the apple just slid farther down her throat, blocking her air. She coughed again, reaching out for Cresseida and gesturing frantically to her neck.
She couldn’t breathe.
She hacked and coughed, but nothing seemed to move the apple in one direction or another. She clutched her throat, dropping the blood red apple onto the white snow. Her brown eyes went wide and pleading, begging the princess to help her, but Cresseida just looked at her with a sneer. “You and your mate want to bring war back to my lands,” Cresseida said, “but I will not have it. The sooner Hybern gets what he wants, the sooner he’ll leave us alone.”
Elain let out a tiny squeak as she understood. This wasn’t--Cresseida had planned this.
Her shortness of breath choked her thoughts also, and she was unable to piece together more than that before she collapsed onto the snow. The last thing she saw before the darkness swept in was a torch burning at the top of one of the castle’s towers, signaling the end of the day.
-
Lucien paced. And paced. And paced.
Where was she?
He had expected Elain to be back long before he and Masaru returned from their trek on the white bears, but their rooms had been empty when he’d returned. He hadn’t worried at first, reasoning that she had probably gotten tied up with Thalia and Cresseida and would be back soon. But an hour had passed. And not so much as a word from his mate.
He had been just preparing to leave his rooms to go search for her when a sense of panic profound and unprompted surged through him, stealing his breath and making him dizzy. This--the bond. That was the mating bond.
Something had happened.
Lucien charged out of his rooms and stormed through the halls. “Elain!” he called. “Elain!” He reached the corridor that held Masaru’s rooms and almost beat down the door.
Masaru opened the door and beheld Lucien in alarm. “Luc?” he asked.
“Something’s happened to her,” he cried, gripped the side of his head, his heart racing at a gallop. “She didn’t come back, and I just--I felt something.”
Masaru did not hesitate before snatching his cloak and running with Lucien down the corridor. “You haven’t seen her since this afternoon?” Masaru asked.
“No,” Lucien said. “She was supposed to meet me back, I didn’t think to worry . . .”
Masaru led them to his uncles’ study, where Kallias stood at the panicked look on the young mens’ faces. “I need Sumiko,” Masaru said in a clipped tone.
“What’s happened?” Kallias asked.
“Princess Elain has gone missing.”
Akihiro shooed Sumiko from his lap and the cat seemed to instantly set to work. “That would explain why she got so crabby just now,” Akihiro muttered, though his face was drawn.
“Forgive me, but just how is the cat supposed to help?” Lucien demanded.
“Sumiko can always find people she likes,” Masaru explained. “We used her to communicate Under the Mountain. If she can get past Amarantha’s cronies, she can find Elain.”
Lucien nodded shakily and took off as the cat burst into a run down the hall. She led them out of doors, and the lake was lit only by the torchlight that had sprung up. The days were so much shorter here. As Lucien passed the torches, they flared, and he swallowed, clenching his fists to stymie the magic that was pounding through his blood. Sumiko darted across the lake on a red bridge toward one of the walking paths that looped around the lake.
Please, Mother, Lucien prayed as he ran. Let her be all right.
Sumiko mewed as she came to a curve in the path near a clutch of pine trees, and Lucien’s heart dropped to the center of the earth as he beheld disturbed snow, as though someone had fallen. There were three sets of footprints, and one had belonged to whomever had fallen. Just beside those markings was a bright red apple. Lucien snatched it up, and he knew the moment his fingers touched it that Elain had touched it, that these were her teeth marks in the skin. He couldn’t even say how he knew it. He just did.
Moreover, he recognized the scent of the magic on it. Dawn Court magic--corrupt Dawn Court magic. Not a deadly toxin, but . . . one to subdue.
And Elain had bitten it.
Lucien dropped the apple into the snow again and cupped his hands around his mouth. “Elain!” he called into the trees. “Elain!” His breath became shuddering sobs and a single word ran through his mind.
No no no no no no no no no
“Elain, please answer me!” he cried, shouting not just with his voice but with his bond to her. It hadn’t--it hadn’t vanished. He still felt it there within him. She hadn’t died. But she had been hurt--poisoned--and taken somewhere. And he didn’t know where. “Elain! Elain! Elain!”
Over and over he screamed her name, preparing to launch himself into the trees to look for her until he collapsed from exhaustion. But Masaru seized his shoulder. “Lucien, we’ll find her. I swear it.”
“Did you know about this?” Lucien snarled, whirling to face his friend.
Masaru stood back. “Cauldron, no,” he spat. “But I promise that whoever did know--if it was any member of my court--they will be punished with a quick and cold death.” The prince’s eyes flashed with the solemnity of his promise.
This did nothing to comfort Lucien, who whirled back to shout into the trees again. “Elain! Please, Elain, come back to me!”
It couldn’t get worse. Those were the words he’d said to Masaru earlier.
How very, very wrong he’d been.
This--this agony caused by the absence of his mate, by his helplessness . . . he had never known pain like this before. Not when Amarantha had carved out his eye. Not when he’d been whipped by his lord and friend. Not when he’d been nearly crushed beneath a burning iron grate. Not one of those things--nor the sum of them together--was enough to measure what he felt now.
He’d sworn upon Elspeth’s memory that he would never let this happen again.
He had failed.
He screamed his mate’s name through the trees one more time before his voice broke, and as he dropped to his knees beside where Elain had fallen, the magic that had been flooding his veins burst from his skin, and he was cocooned with it, until those around him leapt back and cried out. For only this, only the threat against his mate, was enough to unleash the magic that Lucien had been suppressing for centuries.
In the quickly growing dark, Lucien sobbed and wrapped himself in a cloak of fire.