A Court of Fire and Shadows -ON BREAK!!!-

Feyre

Mor and I were sitting in the war-tent at the northern border of the Winter Court, the Illyrian Army was settling down for the night. Waiting for the attack tomorrow. They'd flown all day, the location remote enough to keep even an army of our size hidden, at least, until tomorrow.

We had already warned Tarquin, and dispatched messages to Helion and Kallias to join if they could make it in time. The hour before dawn, the Illyrian legion would take to the skies and fly hard for the battlefield. They would, hopefully, land before it began. Right as Keir and his commanders winnowed in the Darkbringer legion from the Court of Nightmares. Then the slaughter would start, on both sides.

If what Jurian said was true, that is.

Cassian had choked when we'd told him Jurian's battle advice. A milder reaction, Azriel said, than his initial response.

I looked at Mor, "You never suspected that Jurian might be... good?"

She swigged from her wine and leaned back, my sisters in a different tent, flanked by Azriel's and Cassian's tents, with Mor's before it and the Erileans' tents in a row behind it.

I was still trying to figure out what had happened these past few days, there were people from another world here, Jurian was good, the Wall was gone, and Elain's closest friends are a witch queen, and an assassin-queen from another world.

"I don't know," Mor replied, snapping me out of my thoughts as she hauled a wool throw blanket over her legs, "I was never as close to Jurian as I was to some of the other, but we did fight together. Saved each other. I just assumed Amarantha broke him."

"Parts of him are broken," I shuddered as I remembered the memories and feelings that I'd seen.

"We're all broken. In our own ways, in places no one might see."

I was about to inquire, but she asked, "Is Elain all right?"

"No." Elain was not all right. As we winnowed her, she had quietly cried. In the hours afterwards, she only lay on the cot in her tent, nestled among the furs and the blankets, staring at nothing.

Any bit of advancement in her... condition. Gone. I wanted to go back and smash every bone in his body, if only because it would give Nesta, the assassin and the witch permission to unleash themselves on him.

So Elain silently cried, the tears so unending that I wondered if it was some sign of her heart bleeding out. Some sliver of hope that had shattered today. That Graysen would still love her, still marry her, and that love would trump even a mating bond.

A final tether had been snapped to her life in the human lands.

Mor set down her wine, "We should sleep. I don't even know why I'm drinking."

"Today was.... unexpected." 

"It's so much harder when enemies turn into friends. And the opposite, I suppose. What didn't I see? What did I overlook or dismiss? It always makes me reassess myself more then them."

"Another joy of war?" 

She snorted as she walked towards the tent flaps, "No, of life."

_____LINE BREAK_____

Hours later and I couldn't sleep, I decided to go check on Elain. I walked over to her tent, and she was gone. I started to panic, but forced myself to think rationally. I found her scent and followed it to,

To the Aelin and Rowan's tent. She was sitting on the floor with all of the Erileans, and Azriel.

They were all sitting together, and seemed to have been talking and fell asleep. Aelin was sitting in Rowan's lap, Elide and Lorcan next to them. Aedion, Lysandra, Manon and Dorian were sitting next to each other across from them. Elain was curling up into Azriel's side, passed out on his shoulder, Az's arm wrapped around her.

This just confused me further. She was crushed over Graysen, she wouldn't even get out of bed. How did they manage to get her to sit and talk with them, and look... happy.

Another thing that they could help Elain with that I, her sister, couldn't.

Then Azriel woke up. He didn't look at me, in fact, I wasn't sure if he had even seen me. He looked at Elain and winnowed them both into her tent. Obviously, I followed. I peered through the tent flaps and saw Azriel laying Elain down on her bed with heart-breaking gentleness. He was starting to fade into the shadows when Nesta called to him. 

"Azriel."

He turned to face her.

"Thank you. For helping Elain I mean."

He merely inclined his head before disappearing.

I walked back to my tent. Lay down on the blankets and furs. And stared at the ceiling, adding one more item to the list of crazy things that had happened in the last few days.

I will continue