A Court of Bastards [ACOTAR]

Chapter 27

AN: Apologies friends, this was supposed to go up yesterday but someone got a little drunk on Christmas....anyways, enjoy :)

Eris' office was at once both sophisticated and stifling in its antiquity. Where some books had well-worn and fraying spines, others didn't appear to have been touched in centuries. Trails of dust swirled through the air, and although the office was at one of the highest points of the house, it might as well have been underground for all the light it let in.

Every surface in the office was polished mahogany, and though it reeked more of mildew than class, Fiona couldn't help but be impressed as she eased the creaky door open.

Records, she reminded herself - you're here for birth records.

Her eyes slid to a cabinet set into the farthest wall. She strode across the room, yanking it open a tad too hard - the wood slammed against a bookshelf as it swung and she winced. Rifling through book after book, reams of paper flew left and right as Fiona scanned each document for names, or any sign of the lost boy from decades past. 

Dechlan. Bethan. Some...lady of the court.

She wasn't sure why it mattered so much. In fact, she supposed it didn't really. After all, most of her cousins had likely come from the same humble beginnings, as Bethan had so frankly reminded her. But perhaps that was precisely what bothered Fiona - that they had all, at one point, been some nameless child snatched from their mother's arms and replaced with a sack of coin. It could have been any of them; it could have been her.

It wasn't long before a docket of papers with Eris' seal caught her eye. The title was smudged and most of the ink was faded, but Fiona managed to catch snippets of scrawled text.

"Rumoured that the child was taken by a High Fae male with...

"Search and retrieve order given: babe has a birthmark behind the left ear in the shape of a curved sickle.."

Fiona sucked in a quiet breath. A birthmark - she could spot a birthmark easily, she thought. As long as it isn't hidden by hair...But what happened to the boy? Bethan had said the mother was a lady of the court, but gods only knew how high up she was. What if she'd been the daughter of a minor lord? If that was the case then the boy could be working as a footman, if he was even still living at the Forest House.

She read on, hurriedly flipping pages and squinting at the browning ink.

"Child found, spoken to the male responsible, accepted the bribe offered..

"some reluctance-"

Turning to the back of the docket, Fiona found an order sheet stamped with Eris' seal. The ink here was easier to read, written neatly and darker - it hadn't been kept with the others, hadn't sat out of the cabinet where it could be sun-stained over time. Fiona's eyes widened as she read the title.

ORDER for EXECUTION

by order of the High Lord Eris the Lord's guard is commanded to seek out and execute a High Fae carpenter known as Dechlan MacArgylle.

Description of him to be executed: ...

Fiona lowered the papers in her hand, her knuckles bumping softly against the mahogany shelf. So it had been Eris. She ran a finger over the red wax seal bearing his insignia: a red fox beneath the oak tree. Had she been hoping that somehow he hadn't been involved? That these things had gone unnoticed by the High Lord, who commanded even the birds to sing in the forests? Fiona wasn't sure what she'd expected, but her head was racing with questions.