A Delicate Darkness | AZRIEL (ACOTAR)

x. oh, brother

So Auroria sat quietly, ate daintily, and spoke cordially as if nothing was amiss, painted the perfect portrait of a High Lord's daughter, supporting her father's endeavour to erase any semblance of these tyrannical thoughts from the minds of Autumn's High Fae.

Rows and rows of High Fae bowed their heads in reverence as the High Lord Beron stood, the floor rumbling beneath him as his heavy-set chair slid back.

The gentry was much of the same — the same stiff-upper-lipped people that she'd known all her life, those who she formed a cosmetic bond with Under the Mountain out of sheer survival, those who bowed and curtsied before her but reverted back to sneering once Auroria turned.

A nudge to her side tore her out of a daze.

It was Malachi, of course, as tradition dictated the youngest-born son be positioned beside the eldest-born daughter. Malachi warmed that place ever since Lucien fell out of the picture.

He sat straight-backed in his chair, a sort of princely easiness in his posture, with his eyes forward and head held high. But the corner of his mouth moved as he hissed, "Pay attention, Sister."

She sipped on the goblet of wine. "I am," she said simply, swallowing the liquid whose every sip chilled her throat and brought her the shortest buzz of happiness that might mute the bubbling anxiety in her system.

She hadn't had a good night's rest since stumbling across Feyre and Lucien — worried that they might be caught, that somehow her glamours and wards failed and that their father and brothers hunted them down. Worried about the trouble brewing south, with their borders definitively shut now, rendering Autumn wholly blind to Spring's ordeals.

"You weren't," he pushed. "Lady Napier's eyeing you down like a vulture."

Auroria cast her gaze down at the ballroom in search of the female. Her heart skipped as she locked eyes with the weathered lady, whose tight-lipped smile gave no reprieve for the icy glare that came Auroria's way. To Lady Napier's immediate left was Calix, with his chin resting on his hands, and his sister Marjorie beside him. He shot her an apologetic look whilst Marjorie was utterly immersed in Father's words. She wore a magnificent, court-appropriate dress tonight, seemingly not wanting to push any buttons where the waters were already testy. Where Auroria looked the perfect High Lord's daughter, Marjorie looked the perfect handmaiden of the princess, carefully selected from a crop of well-bred ladies.

"When isn't she eyeing one of us down?" she muttered, but paid closer attention nonetheless.

Beron's voice carried throughout the grand ballroom with ease, throwing every soul in attendance into an earnest silence. The medals attached to his chest, gleaned from his days as a revered War General, clinked together as he spoke, mixing like oil and water against his rough voice.

"Without fealty, there is no civilised society. Without order, we are no better than the savages that reside on the Mortal Lands. Shudder not, my dear friends, for that is a future that will never touch the Autumn Court. I make sure of it. Our sister court may have fallen into turmoil last week but we will help them rebuild, help the High Lord Tamlin reinstate his control and cast out the foreign infidels, and in so doing show that we, the Autumn, are infallible.

And whilst we house some of our fellow brothers and sisters from Spring, know now that I will not tolerate a breath of dissent. For Autumn is as mighty as it is old — and one does not achieve millennia of rich harvest by allowing weeds to spread aplenty in the garden. I say this only once: stay good and true to me, your High Lord, and you will always have a seat at my table."

Each face in the audience was as beguiled — as loyalist — as the next. Auroria stole a side glance at her eldest brother, who sat on Father's right hand. Eris' face was still.