Her footsteps echoed in the empty hallway. Soon, everyone would be awake and she could say her goodbyes and take her leave. Then she could go home and sleep for three days straight. For some reason, she hadn’t been able to say goodbye to Eris. On the contrary, she’d gone ahead and made all things worse. Tangling with a High Lord’s heir would only lead to blood down the line. She had to stay neutral and she had to stay far far away from Eris Vanserra.

As Vel abruptly turned the corner she almost knocked down Nyoka.

“I was just looking for you, my lady. The High Lord has summoned you.”

“Right now? Dawn hasn’t even broken.”

Nyoka’s nose wrinkled in what Vel perceived to be disgust and she suddenly realised she hadn’t bathed after they’d come back from the hunt. The faerie quickly schooled her face into neutrality.

“He has sent a message much earlier but I could not find you. Please don’t keep him waiting or it will be on my skin.” Nyoka seemed frantic at the prospect.

“Of course, please lead the way Nyoka.”

The Forest House was eerily empty, no hurried servants or somber sentries. They reached the High Lord’s study and Nyoka knocked. Unusually but wisely, she also waited until Beron invited them in.

She’d been here before, on her previous visits to the Autumn Court, and every time she found it suffocating. The room was stuffy and smelled of ash and old books. It had been built into the mountain, likely for the natural defense it provided. There were no windows, only grey stone, mahogany beams, and three ornate doors other than the one they’d just walked through. The walls were lined with bookshelves, laden with leather-bound tomes and old-yellowing parchments – Beron’s personal library, away from prying eyes and inquisitive sons. In the middle of the room stood the High Lord’s massive desk covered in more books and scrolls. Behind the desk was a large fireplace with a granite mantle. How the room had not caught on fire yet was a miracle only made possible by Autumn Court magic.

Vel took her usual spot, on the elegant leather couch across the desk. The couch and the small mahogany side table were the only pieces of furniture not covered in paper and neither of them seemed to have seen much use. The room was sweltering hot as usual. She took the wolf pelt off her shoulders and placed it on the back of the couch,

The High Lord himself sat at his desk reading a scroll that seemed to be as old as Vel herself. The high-backed chair that he was sitting in had once had some kind of beast heads carved into the handles, now the armrests were polished and cracked from use.

“Thank you for finally deigning to join me, Oracle,” Beron said without looking up from his lecture. Vel felt Nyoka tense behind her.

“How kind of you to finally summon me,” Vel replied icily. She tried to not provoke the High Lords if she could help it but she did not appreciate being kept in the dark. Beron looked up at her with furrowed brows.

“I assumed you would have been pleased to spend some time in the Autumn Court since you’re always leaving in a hurry. Were you not happy with the arrangements I have made for you? Did my sons displease you?”

“The sightseeing was fine and your sons played good hosts, but I would have liked to sort out our business first ... or at least be provided any information at all when you called for me in the first place.”

Beron hummed thoughtfully. “Would you like some tea? You seem irritable.” Beron still seemed to be in his strangely good mood, no flare of fiery temper to be felt. They had been friends once. Vel almost felt bad for her rudeness. She sighed, trying to ease the tension in her body.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

“I haven’t been sleeping well. Some tea would be perfect.” She saw Nyoka disappear through one of the doors behind Beron.

“I apologize if your accommodations have been unsuitable.” Beron paused and rolled up the worn-out scroll he’d been reading from. “Or have your visions been keeping you awake?” Vel shook her head dejectedly.

Nyoka returned carrying a silver tray – a dainty, gold-brimmed teacup on a matching saucer and a pot of richly-colored honey. She placed the teacup and the honey on the mahogany side table and looked to Beron for her next orders. When he dismissed her she curtsied low and exited through the door behind Vel. She wondered if it was nowadays customary for servants in Autumn to have multiple masters.

Beron waited a moment as if to make sure Nyoka was not within earshot and Vel sipped from her tea. The hot liquid burned her mouth but soothed her nerves – lemon balm, chamomile, orange peel, coriander, and something else she couldn’t identify, something earthy. The deep amber color of the honey reminded her of someone.

“Now that we are all alone, did any of my sons catch your eye?” Vel almost choked on her tea, it was not the direction she’d expected the conversation to take.

The question had thrown her off so profoundly that her thoughts scattered like leaves in a gust of wind. “Excuse me, my Lord?” She never addressed the High Lords by their titles, but somehow Beron always caught her off guard, as if she were a child stealing cookies from a jar.

Beron watched her for a long moment and sighed. “Can you blame me for trying? If I could get you to ally with the Autumn Court, through marriage, for example, many of my problems would be solved.”

“My Lord.” A pause to reorganize her thoughts. “You know I have no allegiance to any court. Any word otherwise may very well start a war.” Beron leaned back in his seat disappointed, his brown eyes scrutinizing her every breath.

“I have heard some whispers that you have been spending quite some time with my oldest, outside of the sightseeing. So you can understand why I’d had my hopes up.” Vel blushed furiously and she was once again grateful for the face cover. She took another sip from the tea, an excuse to gather herself. He’d been watching their every move, she shouldn’t have been surprised and somehow she was. She had become too complacent.

“I would have assumed you knew Eris better than this. It was nothing serious, only more political maneuvering.” Vel straightened herself, chin forward. She couldn’t show any hesitation, any weakness to Beron. “And I entertained it because I have been bored for too long.”

Beron sighed again and got up from his seat heavily. He stood by the fireplace, hands clasped behind his back. The flames painted his face orange, red, and yellow. They made his brown hair glow around his head, like a crown. She drank the rest of the tea and put the cup away, something nudged at the back of her mind.

“We’ve had this same conversation more than five hundred years ago. Do you remember, Vel?” Her blood ran cold. She remembered yes, but he wasn’t supposed to. Something had gone very very wrong. “I wanted you to be my ally back then as well. I did so much to win you over, to please you. And you never returned my kindness.”

“Real relationships are not transactional, Beron.” She kept her tone even, despite the dread that was spreading in her veins like ice.

Beron completely disregarded her words. “I realized later – it was because you never meant for me to become High Lord. That’s why you were so cross with me when I didn’t save my dear brothers during the attack.” He turned back towards her, a cruel smile on his face. “Who would you have given the power to?”

“Why does that even matter, Beron? You’ve seriously held this grudge for half a millennium?”

In the blink of an eye, he was on the other side of the room, towering over her, hate burning in his eyes. “It matters to me because I trusted you – even after your rejection, even when you told me to split up my family and hide them, even when my wife got attacked. Do you know how shameful it was when another male had to step in and save her? Do you even know the repercussions I’m dealing with all these years later? All because I was on the other side of the Autumn Court following your prophecies. I trusted you through all of that.” His voice was low, dangerous. Vel flexed her fingers in her lap, she couldn’t let him rattle her, but her lack of response only seemed to antagonize Beron further. He ripped the hood away from her face.

“Don’t you dare preach about real relationships. I trusted you because we were friends and you never once looked into my eyes and said you’re sorry, for all the misery that your decisions caused.” He grabbed her by the neck then and lifted her. In a panic, she felt for that thread of power inside of her. Her power, their power - that coiled creature with its own mind that would lash out at any danger. There was nothing. A quiet void where there had once been a roiling ocean.

“Finally, when you begged me to go save my useless, hateful brethren I understood – nothing had mattered to you because I was just a pawn in your game, a lamb to be sacrificed. So I went against your wishes for the first time, out of spite.” His fingers tightened on her windpipe and her breaths became labored, each gulp of air a struggle against an unyielding force. Her feeble attempt to scratch at him might as well have been a gentle breeze against a towering mountain.

“Was it so vile of me to want better for myself, for my family, than to live under my brother’s thumb? You know damn well that family is seen as a threat in the Autumn Court. At the first sign of disobedience, they would have killed my sons. You wouldn’t understand. You’ve never had a family.” No. She wouldn’t. She had killed what Beron would have considered her family. Long ago.

“All I did … For the good of Prythian.” The edges of her vision were starting to blur and she tried once again to muster her powers but there was nothing to grasp – no fire, no wind, no water, no ice, no light, no shadows. There was only darkness.