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Beron Vanserra regarded him with a smirk. He could see it in those shining amber eyes. His father had won. The study had shrunken at his causal reveal of Eris’s long held secret. The pit of anger boiling in him was burning him alive as he swallowed it down. Bastard. Eris hardly wanted to even think the thought lest his father somehow reveal himself to be a daemati. The fireplace crackled behind Beron, illuminated him like he was wraithlike and unreal. Unfortunately for him, he very much was real. Trying for calm, to appear less affected than his thundering heartbeat was showing, Eris relaxed his shoulders down.
“I do not know what you’re talking about, father.” His body wanted to wince and shrink in on itself from his answer. It was a gamble to take but he wouldn’t submit just yet. Eris wanted to be sure.
Beron let out a laugh more for himself. “You’re still foolish enough to hold onto faith?”
Eris said nothing.
“You are so naïve Eris,” Beron said and sighed, pouting now like a disappointed parent. It only remained such for a moment before that slow grin spread across his face, stretching the skin like he truly wore a mask. “If you’d been smarter, you’d know that things like hope and love can you make careless.” Beron shrugged, turning his gaze to the window, staring out of it. “It’s why I told your mother that it was better for us to arrange for the future lady of the court instead of leaving it to you. Now look at the mess your poor heart has made.”
“I…” where was his voice? Trembling like the rest of him. Clearing his throat, Eris tried again. “Any actions you take could violate—”
“You already violated those agreements, Eris. And for what? A few secret visits a year to that village?” Beron settled his hands behind his back. Even in the comfort of his house, he still donned the attire of a regal king. Drenched in furs, gold jewellery and a thick dyed red coat, he appeared larger than he was, towering over Eris despite the negligible difference in height. He’d been near his father in stature since he’d matured into an adult and yet, he still felt the need to hunch his shoulders a bit more to create further distance between them. It was all he could do since he had his father’s face. Other than his status as first born, it was probably the reason his brothers gave him wide breadth in the house. Why servants and guards regarded him with a twinge of fear behind their eyes. They all knew who he was and the master that sired him. Except for her.
“If there’s a beating you want me to take then I’ll do it.” It was best to offer up a suggestion rather than leave it open to his father’s maniacal imaginations.
Beron hummed. “A beating? That would be too kind to you. I should have your head severed off your shoulders for your foolishness.” His father’s voice never rose nor sped up past the calm drawl he used. He’d never been much a yeller. His preferred method had been to seep fear into your bones. So Eris paid attention to each word his father was saying, looking for where he could find salvation from this crushing trap. “Disrespecting our neighbour and our most sacred times of the year to go galivanting in the mortal lands, threatening the tentative peace amongst the courts by interacting and revealing yourself to the humans, humiliating me by showing the other courts that I cannot control my own son, my house.” He kissed his teeth. Those brown eyes sank deeper into Beron’s skull. They darkened until they made him look nightmarish, devoid of any semblance of emotion beyond revulsion. Eris stared at what might be a version of his own future face. He tried not to shudder and bit his tongue.
All these years, all this time, he’d always evaded the worst of his father. Eris had held onto the shreds of himself that were wholly his. The joy of exchanging stories by a hearth, teaching tricks to his hounds, living life in the most mundane ways he could imagine. How his father had found his secret when he’d been so careful seemed like a useless question. The better question was why had he even bothered to hide when this was always the inevitable. Eris was never meant to be far from his father. He was meant to trudge down the same dark miserable path that had made Beron Vanserra high lord of the Autumn Court. All the anger flittered out of him, leaving the despair to rise and fill his chest. Eris stared hard at the floor. The plush rug woven with triangles and squares interlaced to form the frame. Inside was a lone dark blue star outlined in white with smaller etches surrounding it. Something beautiful yet lonesome. He should’ve remained like that. He should’ve never continued seeing her. Eris would’ve kissed her longer if he’d known—never mind that. It was useless to regret what had been. There was only one thing that he was being given now. A bargain.
“What do you want?” The words scratched their way up his throat and he almost choke on them.
Beron let out a long breath and Eris felt his father’s hand on his shoulder. “What any good father would want. For my son to make smart choices for his future.” He laughed patting him on the shoulder with three hard hits. Eris tried not to splutter at the final knock that landed between his shoulder blades where his gifted bruise was still healing. Beron’s steps were muffled on the plush floors of the study. He listened to his father settle at his desk but he couldn’t turn around yet. Still, he searched for a way out. There had to be a way out. If he could send a letter of apology for their abrupt end, would he? If he winnowed to see her one final time, tell her everything he’d measured too risky to say before, would he? If he could run…would he? “I’m giving you an out. Eris.” The command in his name forced him to turn around and face his father. He stood with curling fists and smoke leaking out his mouth. Burning. The room was thick with heat and his clothes were one step from falling off him in ashes. He studied the barren desk surface, polished clean.
“What do you want from me?”
“Tell me, is Lucien seeing someone?”
Eris swallowed the stone in his throat. A part of his mind, fearful of the worst, leapt to answer immediately. He had to save himself and if Lucien had been careless, why was he to sacrifice himself for that? But he’d been careless too. Not like Lucien though. Eris had seen it. The subconscious smiles his brother wore more often. The lightness that he walked with. The rushed excuses day after day where he disappeared then reappeared, looking alive. Unlike him. Eris had to wait until the dead of night to even write letters to her. He had to wear his steely mask around everyone, hold his fluttering heart still at all times. When the days were hardest, he’d still debate about opening his hidden drawer and just glancing at her letters as form of comfort. They were always months old, given to him from his last departure and he’d read them a hundred times over. Eris would still read them again. But he longed to know her now. To only have a few short hours be the time passed and not the months he was forced to endure. He’d had to wait for a Solstice or an Equinox to have the mere chance of slipping through the cracks in the wall and seeing her again. And for what? A few days at best. Once it had been only for the night before he’d left again. So was it fair for him to give up those miniscule bits of himself all for his callous brother? Would Lucien even think to do the same? No, Eris liked to think his brother to be just as selfish as him. They were all Beron’s children after all. It was within their birthright to be such.
“He…” Was Lucien truly selfish? The thought would not leave him nor would the excited look on Lucien’s face as he dashed out the house. “He might be…there’s a chance…” Wait. This can’t be right. Something would be lost in this exchange. For the life of him, Eris with those bits and pieces of himself, struggled to force a confession through. “He seems happier these days,” Eris murmured. Maybe he looked the same to Beron. He only saw his brother’s delight because he kept his so tightly wound up. Perhaps his father, further down the road in apathy, could see flecks of Eris’s. He looked up to see his father’s eyes watching him. It was a miracle that she never cowered if that’s the face he could make.
“You know that’s not the answer I care for.”
“If I don’t answer—”
“Then I am within my right to kill you for your disrespect.”
Eris closed his eyes and wished he hadn’t told her he’d see her soon again. Even in the next number of decades when her life came to end, would they even go to the same place? There’s no mention of humans in the after life of the scriptures. But that had been also the draw of seeing her, watching her age over even just ten years. She laughed about it, mourned her own mortality but Eris was in love. To be centuries upon centuries old, life becomes dull. You see everything you want and then stop wanting to see anything else. The colours within his magical home going grey and his own soul dimming from the painful waiting for his father’s demise. There was so much more colour in her world. An odd newness that shone behind those hazel eyes. Eris’s heart squeezed, her face a picture that calmed some of his fears then.
“Ah, I almost forgot. Your mother knows too.”
Those words sent Eris to his knees immediately because he knew then. He knew what Beron would say next.
“And you know she could never bear to witness her own beloved son dead before her. She’d had to see her elder sisters massacred during the war. I cannot imagine what your death would to her, Eris.” Beron’s voice bounced off the walls of the study, hitting him at every angle. “She wants to take your punishment for you. Whatever that may be. I do not want to do that to her, my son. I cannot possibly harm the mother of my children. What an awful thing you’re making me do.” Beron sighed like his voice was breaking. Then he chuckled. “So, I may not be able to cross the borders and hunt down that human you’re so enamoured with but someone will pay for your insolence. Oh, but what will the people think when the rumours break out that the future high lord chose a human’s life over his own mother’s? Tsk, tsk, tsk.”
“Please, father. Please, don’t—”
“She has no idea of Lucien though. I did not want to break her poor heart further. It aches to know that you’ve failed your children like that, Eris. Perhaps one day, you’ll understand.”
“I will take it.” Eris crawled to the end of the desk, clutching it’s ends with nothing. He had no tricks nor avenue for escape. He was truly trapped under his father’s foot. “Whatever the punishment needs to be. Whatever it needs to be. I’ll stop going over the wall. I won’t see her again. I can be shackled in the dungeons for however long you wish. I’ll take the whip how many times you want. Anything, please.”
Beron looked down at Eris from where he sat, smirking. “Be what I need you to be, Eris. That is all.”
Eris swallowed and nodded.
His father got to his feet, walking away from the desk. He thought he might come near him but he didn’t. He heard his father open the door instead. “Give me a name, Eris”
She was so much further away now and he longed to lie his head in her lap. He wanted to listen to her stories. Some he knew like he’d been there, lived through it with her. If only he could. He wanted to hear her say his name with that tender voice, give him hope again that he could be beyond his father’s shadows. That he wasn’t the monster he was being sharpened to become.
“Jesminda.”
“Good. Now you understand.”