Chapter Text
It was not the first time they had met here. It likely would not be the last.
Lucien was not above a dive tavern. He had spent too many years crossing Prythian, trading whispers with mercenaries, smugglers, exiles, and males with knives tucked into their boots to dismiss a place simply because the floor stuck beneath his shoes and the ale tasted like regret. Some of the roughest corners of the world served the strongest drinks and hid the richest gossip.
Still, he was more accustomed to finer rooms. To polished wood, crystal decanters, measured smiles, and conversations dressed in silk before the claws came out. As an emissary, he moved easily through halls built for spectacle and power. He knew how to wear elegance as well as dust.
This one, however, made his skin itch. Perhaps because of its proximity to Autumn.
At least it sat on the Spring Court side of the border, though only just. Far enough to avoid wandering eyes from Eris’s more ambitious courtiers. Close enough to keep this little game of secret meetings convenient.
The tavern crouched at the edge of a muddy road like a thing too mean to die. Its sign hung crooked over the door, one chain half broken, swaying with each gust of chill night wind. Inside, the place was all dust, old wood, and the stale rot of too many bad choices steeped into the walls.
A recent row had clearly left its mark.
One chair near the hearth sat with only three legs, propped against the wall like it had been shamed. Another had splintered outright, its remains shoved beneath a table sticky with drink. Hopefully drink, anyway. The floor bore scratches and dark stains Lucien had no interest in identifying. Stale ale soaked the air. Cheap wine soured it further. Beneath that lingered sweat, damp walls, old smoke, and a few scents he refused to think about too closely.
Still, the room was full. Places like this always were.
Here, everyone was running from something. Or someone. Hiding from ever-lingering shadows. Drowning unspoken fears in whatever foul liquid the barkeep could slosh into a cup. The music was too loud, the laughter even louder.
Lucien stepped inside and drew his hood lower.
Not for modesty. It was to hide the telltale gleam of his golden eye in the dim faelights, which were strung crooked along the walls.
The barkeep noticed him at once.
A saucy female, broad-hipped and sharp-eyed, stood behind the warped bar polishing a glass. One that had long since surrendered any hope of true cleanliness long ago, from the looks of it. Her bodice plunged low enough to put every asset she possessed to work. And judging by the male patrons pretending not to stare, it did excellent business.
Her gaze skimmed over him and sharpened.
“Well,” she drawled, voice roughened by smoke and sarcasm. “You buyin’, or broodin’?”
Lucien tipped his head just enough to be polite. “I’m meeting a friend.”
His voice came out smooth as honey and steeped in confidence he never actually felt in this place.
The female jerked her chin toward a narrow hallway to the right of the bar.
“Oy, yeah, that one. You want the back room, then.” A grin touched her painted mouth. “He be waitin’ on you.”
Lucien offered her a faint smile that revealed nothing and headed that way at once.
The floorboards along the hall were sticky beneath his boots. They creaked with every step, old wood protesting his weight and the many weights before it. The music from the main room dulled as he moved farther from it, though raucous laughter still leaked through the walls in bursts. Close enough to remind him where he was. Not loud enough to drown out thought.
At the end of the short hall stood a closed door.
Lucien paused before it, then lifted his hand and gave three knocks.
Silence met him for a beat. Then a deep masculine voice, so close to his own in timbre that it might have belonged to some darker echo of him, called from the other side.
“Enter.”
Lucien went in on swift feet.
The room was small. Not elegant, but at least a touch better than the tavern proper. A table stood in the center, scarred by years of hard use, with two chairs opposite each other. A single faelight burned from a hook on the wall, casting the chamber in low amber gold. No windows. No decorations. No charm to it beyond the privacy.
And standing beside the table, cloaked and hooded in dark red, was Eris Vanserra.
Lucien shut the door behind him.
For a moment, neither of them spoke.
Lucien studied the rigid line of Eris’s shoulders, the hands clasped neatly behind his back, the way he held himself with that effortless cold command that had only sharpened since the day Beron died and Autumn finally bent to a worthier ruler.
“Well,” Lucien said at last, voice dry. “Don't you look ominous.”
Eris snorted softly. “And you look late.”
“I did have to cross half the continent to meet you.”
Eris glanced around the rundown room with open disdain. “Why you always choose this cesspool is beyond me. I did lift your ban from Autumn, you know.”
"I'm not ready to step foot in Autumn," Lucien said with an annoyed grunt. And then he smirked. “Besides, maybe I find this place charming.”
“I’ve never had much use for this kind of charm.”
“No,” Lucien murmured. “Only for personal style.”
That earned the slightest twitch at the corner of Eris’s mouth.
Interesting.
Lucien’s gaze narrowed.
There was something in his brother’s posture tonight. A quiet tension, as if he were bracing for impact.
Lucien moved farther into the room, loosening his cloak but leaving the hood up for now. “Is this about what I asked for, or do you intend to terrify me with politics first?”
Eris did not answer.
Instead, his brother reached up and pushed back his hood.
Lucien stared.
And stared.
And stared just a bit more.
No.
No, not the hair.
Not that hair.
Not Eris’s rich, glossy, absurdly well-kept mane that had been known across Prythian nearly as well as the male himself. It had always been one of his brother’s most obnoxious features, all fullness and shine and impossible Autumn splendor.
Only second to mine, of course, Lucien thought automatically.
But still.
That hair had status. Presence. Prestige. It belonged in portraits and reflected in polished windows as Eris passed by, looking smug about both his beauty and his bloodline.
And now it was…Short.
Not butchered, thank the Mother. Trimmed in around the face and neck, shaped into something cleaner and sharper. And, honestly, at least to Lucien, deeply and personally offensive. It exposed more of Eris’s features in a way Lucien did not care for at all. Worse, though he would die before saying it aloud, the style did nothing for his brother’s nose. Had it always been so...sizeable?
Lucien felt the first treacherous twitch at the corner of his mouth.
Eris saw it instantly.
“Don’t.”
That only made it worse.
Lucien lifted a hand to cover his mouth, shoulders going tight with the effort of control.
“Oh,” he said faintly. “Oh, dear brother.”
Eris’s eyes narrowed.
“Not you.”
Lucien looked at him again and had to look away just as fast, because the reality of it was too much.
“Not your hair,” he said, voice thinning with disbelief. “Your fabulous hair.”
Eris’s expression flattened into pure disdain. “Get a grip.”
Lucien pressed his lips together so hard they nearly vanished. “I’m trying. Truly, I am.”
He was not succeeding.
A tiny sound slipped out anyway, half snort, half strangled cough.
Eris folded his arms. “You little prick. You’re enjoying this.”
“No, I’m devastated.”
“You’re delighted.”
Lucien put a hand over his heart. “I am mourning for your loss.”
Eris gave him a look that would have wilted lesser creatures. “You’re one tic away from laughing.”
Lucien’s russet eye had begun to water from holding it all in. He swiped quickly beneath it and took a steadying breath.
“What happened?”
“Nothing happened.”
“That’s the answer you’re going with?”
The Autumn Court is changing now that I’m finally in charge.”
Lucien’s mouth spasmed again. “By attacking your head?”
Eris exhaled sharply through his nose. “I hired a stylist.”
Lucien blinked.
“A what?”
Eris sighed.
The sigh of a male who had expected Lucien, of all people, to somehow already know this nonsense by rumor alone.
“A stylist,” he repeated slowly, carefully enunciating every syllable.
Lucien waited. When Eris said nothing more, he prompted, “And that is…?”
Eris looked offended to have to explain it.
“It’s someone who…” He paused, already irritated. “They advise on presentation.”
Lucien stared.
“Presentation?”
“Yes.”
“What kind of presentation?”
Eris made a vague, annoyed gesture at himself. “This sort.”
That nearly did Lucien in.
He bit the inside of his cheek and forced the snicker back down, his eye watering harder now from the strain.
Eris noticed and growled. Low. Warning. Annoyed enough to sizzle.
Lucien held up a placating hand. “No, keep going. I want to understand this.”
“I’m sure you do,” Eris said in a tone that could freeze a volcano.
Lucien nodded with infuriating sincerity.
Eris looked like he hated every word already waiting in his throat.
“It’s… someone who evaluates the image a court projects,” he said. “Clothing. Hair. Color. Tailoring. The general effect.”
Lucien blinked again. “The general effect.”
“Yes.”
“So, they look at you and decide what sort of…effect you should have?”
“Essentially.”
“And this is a real profession now.”
“It’s becoming one.”
“In Autumn.”
“In Prythian,” Eris snapped. “Probably. Once the word is out.”
Lucien had to turn away for a moment, pressing two fingers to his mouth as his shoulders tightened again.
Behind him, Eris said, “If you laugh, I’m fucking leaving.”
“I’m not laughing,” Lucien said into his hand.
“You’re practically vibrating.”
That made a traitorous little noise escape him.
Eris swore under his breath.
Lucien dragged a hand over his face and tried to compose himself. “All right. All right. Why?”
Eris looked at him as if the answer should have been obvious.
“Because the old court looked like decay wrapped in silk and velvet,” he said. “Because the ladies at court suggested Autumn needed revamping. Presentation matters now that Beron is dead and I’m cleaning out the rot he left behind. Image is a large part of rule.”
That, at least, sounded like Eris. Practical and vain in equal measure, with ambition stitched into every seam.
Lucien even understood it.
He understood wanting to reshape Autumn from the roots up. For wanting every visual reminder of Beron’s reign stripped away and replaced with something unmistakably Eris’s own.
He just thought this particular choice was a disaster.
“The ladies suggested this?” Lucien asked, still trying for solemnity.
“They suggested I take one on.”
“And the stylist,” he said carefully, “looked upon the most famous hair in the whole of Prythian and thought, 'yes, let’s cut that.'”
“It was decidedly too informal.”
“It was glorious.”
“It was excessive.”
“It was the epitome Autumn.”
“It was old-fashioned.”
Lucien stared at him in disbelief. “Brother, that hair was practically an Autumn treasure.”
Eris’s jaw flexed. He went still.
Very still.
“That,” he said, “is enough.”
Lucien tried to smooth his face. Failed. “I’m sorry. Really. I am. It’s just…”
“It’s just what?”
Lucien made the mistake of looking directly at him again.
No.
The shorter style really did not suit his face. It sharpened the wrong things. Flattened the wrong things. And yes, Mother, save him, made his nose look just a touch overlarge.
He swallowed another snicker so hard it nearly hurt.
Naturally, Eris saw every bit of it.
His growl deepened. “What?”
“Nothing.”
“Lucien...”
“It’s nothing.”
“Liar.”
Lucien spread his hands helplessly. “I’m trying not to say something unforgivable.”
“That would be wise.”
A beat passed.
Then Lucien said, unable to help himself, “I just think your hair used to enter the room before you did.”
Eris stared at him.
“And now?”
Lucien winced. “Now your nose does.”
That was absolutely the wrong answer.
Eris turned at once, cloak snapping behind him as he headed for the door.
Lucien straightened. “Eris--”
“I came because you asked for this meeting,” Eris said over his shoulder, voice sharp as broken glass. “You needed something from me. If you’d rather stand there and mock me over a decision that does not concern you, I can go.”
Lucien bit the inside of his cheek.
Another doomed little sound escaped him anyway—something between a wheeze and a snort. Not quite a laugh. But enough.
Eris whipped his head around and glared.
“Are you finished?”
Lucien stepped forward at once. “I’m sorry. Let’s sit down and talk about what I asked for.”