If in another situation, Lotus would accept this win. He found the Harp- the one thing that would change everything, help him fix the past, make a new future; a better one then the one where he was weak and messed it up.
This was a chance at redemption. A restart.
But it didn't feel like one.
He didn't know how long he was there, sitting against the Throne of a once Queen of Prythian.
The stone cracked from years of time and vines winding. Lotus didn't feel comfortable sitting in it, it felt wrong in so many ways. Despite all his pain, his discomfort, he would not rest in it. So, he sat at its side.
Whatever laid ahead, whatever time frame he was kept in, a clock until his chance was over, Lotus simply held his eyes to the Harp.
He couldn't stop staring.
While his hands twitched to hold it in his palms, to feel the power of time itself and alternative realities- He couldn't bring himself to reach for it. He wants to say it was because of the monster inside of him, Or because of some moral right...But Lotus would be lying. He wasn't afraid, he wasn't nervous.
But he was deep in thought, lost in it. How could he do this?
Where would he even begin?
How would he know which string would bring him back to that night. What if he mistook one for the other and he erased something or... someone important.
He sighed, Resting his head against the throne, feeling defeated as though the ghost of Amarantha had clawed at his heart and tugged its strings until desire overcame him. Even in the grave she had power over him. Power over the nightmares that would creep in when no one was around.
Lotus imagined what he looked like at the moment.
Perhaps just like his father, beside the throne of Hyberns's Ex-General. Defeated and tired but that did not stop him from resting against it, practically siding with a woman of torture. A dead one that is but he could see his mother's memories flash in her eyes at the same scene his father once stood here. While she kneeled broken, bruised and human, at Amarantha's feet.
He glanced back at the Harp.
Maybe this reason alone was why Azriel hid the Harp here. Flashes or even the thought of getting near Amarantha's Mountain was enough to scare any soul away. But not Lotus.
Perhaps he lacked the soul his Mother always wanted him to have.
He might spend days, months even, debating over the right and wrong of the Harp. But he knew he was being hunted, so he couldn't wait.
Lotus stumbled over his feet, exhaustion pulling him down and he wobbled for a minute before collecting himself. And he tugged himself towards the Harp.
Gathering the details of gold and ethereal strings, How the Cauldron sculpted the frame with delicate hands like molding clay. It looked different then the one Nesta held, bigger, detailed, unworldly. As though it was changing its appearance just for him, what he wants, what he prefers, what he likes.
Lotus gently let his fingers run down its spine, hands craving to pull a shimmering string. The more contact he gave it, the more its strings glowed, some of starlight, day, or moonlight. Some silver, some white, some auburn. Each string shifting and changing for the worlds it held in it.
The Time.
He pulled away his eyes for a moment and glanced at the Throne behind him. The woman he always dreamed about sitting in the throne, destructive, dangerous.
"Maybe you were right," she said. "Maybe I am just made up in your head."
Lotus turned away, leaving her. Leaving the walls and cold atmosphere. The haunting memories and the desire of power in his hands, standing at the edge of the cliff. The snow biting his skin, the breeze sinking in his bones. For a moment, he wondered what the Harp would do if he threw himself off. Would it save him? Would instinct play a string before he fell first hand into Death's waiting arms. The same ones that have been following him for a while.
"Tempting, isn't it?"
He sighed, "Why are you here,"
The female sat near his feet, letting her legs dangle off the edge. Her hair grew with each whip of the wind blowing at her. When she turned up to him, her face blurred. As though even Lotus couldn't picture her anymore. "You're thinking of me, that's why I'm here."
"How can I think of something that doesn't even exist?"
She shrugged, "You tell me."
Lotus turned his attention back to the view before him. The trees bare and the snow covered everything. Maybe Death seems almost beautiful. Peaceful. He imagined children running through the forest, throwing snowballs and laughing with melodies echoing around them.
He blinked and for a moment he saw something.
He looked down at Harp, at one string in particular. How the sun's beams reflected off and it made a shadow, a girl. Young and scared, running desperately through these woods. Panic in her body language, fear in her eyes.
She looks like a corpse running from Death.
He blinked again and she was gone.
The woman beside him stared up at him. He fumbled with his words for a moment but recovered quickly, "What?"
Her blurred face tilted at him, quiet.
Something seemed wrong.
So wrong and he felt as though he should have noticed a while ago.
Lotus forgets he is losing his mind, losing track of time. It could have been weeks, months even since he left the Night Court. He could have been resting on the throne for hours, staring at the Harp for days. Standing on this ledge for weeks. Shit.
He needed to leave.
Lotus looked back down on the Harp, at his hands. What if he could teleport? His Father can do it, his Mother as well. Lotus has always struggled with his abilities. He needed to focus this time.
"You can't do it."
"Shut up."
She stood in front of him this time,
"Lotus, you can't."
"I can,"
"No, you can't."
"You're just in my head. What do you know?"
The woman blinked at him, looking out at the cliff behind her before back at him. Suddenly, there was this clawing pain. Lotus roared, skin tearing itself apart, horns forming from his bones and ripping his piece by piece as the monster in him tried to break free. He fell to his knees, the Harp slipping from his grip.
The woman stood before him, while he writhed at her feet. All she did was stare.
Crouching at his level so their eyes could meet, indigo and aqua colliding.
She stared him down with siren eyes, "You can't."
Shadows began to creep from under the earth itself, wrapping around him like rope and silk to trap him in. Lotus frantically tried to stop them, slashing and clawing at their appearance but like a snake, It slithered away. He quickly grabbed the Harp before Darkness completely overtook him, the woman gone; nowhere to be seen.
He felt the air shift as Shadows enveloped him, voices echoing all around him, echoing and jumbled all together. The Harp felt warm in his grasp, the only thing that reminded him he was alive as the world fell around him. The darkness seemed to fill him, carrying him somewhere, biting at him with every retaliation he pulled, before it vanished. Lotus groaned when his feet hit the ground, the beast inside alert and wary when he took in his surroundings.
His Mother's face was hard with anger, Rhysand standing stoic beside her. The rest of the Night Court's family surround them, all eyes filled with pity or disappointment. He glanced away from them, only to see Calian and Talia standing behind him. "You too?"
Calian looked down, afraid to meet his eyes. Talia hesitantly stepped forward, "We only want what's best for you Lotus,"
"By tracking me down like an animal? Capturing me like a wild beast?"
"You left and you didn't leave any warning." His father spoke.
Tamlin's empty eyes staring straight at him, As though he was looking at nothing. "You disappeared out of nowhere. You were gone, Lotus. We didn't know if you were alive. You're sick and even if you left on your own, it's our job as parents to keep you safe. Even if that means we have to hunt you down."
The air tensed at their stare down; Lotus wanted his Father to look at him- really look at him. To take him in, head to toe. He gestured to himself, "Sick? I'm not sick." He turned to his Mother, noticing her body stand straighter at his gaze. "I'm dying."
Lotus looked all around him, looking at each and every one of their eyes. "Don't I look familiar? My symptoms, don't they take you a trip down memory lane,"
Staring at Feyre, "Mother?"
At Tamlin, "Father?
At the one who knew exactly who Lotus resembled, "Rhysand?"
The High Lord of the Night softened his gaze at his wife's son. Those purple eyes alone on him made him rage. He wanted the male to avoid his eyes, to cower away. But all he did was gaze at him softly. How his Mother's eyes filled with tears, his Father stoic.
Calian's own saddening at the sight of him, Talia already shedding tears.
Lotus roared at them, teeth sharpening and tusks at his forearms.
He was so tired from them, exhausted at their views of how he should play out this game of running from Death. Escaping the truth that Lotus is losing his mind. Power overflowing in him, trapped in a body that cannot contain it. Lotus was tired of these fights, these arguments that ended nowhere except with hurt parents and a rebellious son.
The 'stepson' of the Night Court, the future High lord of Spring.
Lotus wished every morning to end, everytime he slept to be the last time he would close his eyes. To rid himself of shadows that follow him everyday, hid from the Moon's watching gaze, the taunting stars. He hated the reflection of himself, of his Father's features and even his Mother's at times.
He hated the beast inside him, the animal they gave him. The title they made him bore, the pain they caused him because they believed what they had was love and decided to make a child out of it.
Lotus wanted the pain to stop. For the voices to quiet, the ache to fade away. The emptiness to fill.
When did he ask for this? To be born, to be the Son of the two Courts who hated each other more than anything.
They were the ones who gave him pain and suffering. They were the ones who try to push him into something he isn't. To put a mask over his face and simply accept that this is the way things are now and he must accept it. And now this, the one thing he was born to do and failed at it will now cost him his life. A life he has never really lived. A life he never really wanted.
Couldn't they understand what he was trying to do?
Couldn't just this once, Lotus be selfish...?
The air chilled when he took the Harp out, glowing and yet dull in his hands.
From the corner of his eye, he saw his Aunt Nesta step forward, her lips moving in what he could guess was an attempt to make him rethink his decision. But the Harp blocked them out, from simply the look alone, he couldn't hear him. He couldn't even hear himself but he heard it. The melody. The song.
Then there was that string again.
Shining like a thousand suns, maybe the Harp knew what Lotus was trying to do, what he would use it for.
The notes felt like they were coming out of the strings, into the air around him, swirling like waves and soft breezes. But darkness followed where he stood. Coming to his feet, to where Lotus stood and he saw them dripping out of Azriel's hands. Out of Rhysands, out of Feyre's...
Lotus stood there betrayed.
Her eyes shook with sobs but Lotus could not, for once, feel the tear of his heart when seeing them.
'Please don't do this,' she mouthed.
Lotus strung a cord.
Then there was Light, and the shadows burned away.
A force pulled them to their feet, the Harp glowed like fire.
A song played with a sort of sadness and agony, painfully ripped away from an ending that only existed in a fantasy. He saw worlds, stories, moments. He saw the little girl running through the snow woods; Her terrified face, blurring into nothing. And then nothing.
The atmosphere suddenly tensed.
Like a battle of lava and lighting, the sound of heels clicking against the stone echoed the silenced room. Light faded away to reveal a woman.
Her hair like eternal fire, long and burning over her shoulders. Skin like carved stone, pale like the moon.
When she gazed her eyes on him, he saw she had the same ones as the Male Lotus always loathed. Except hers was dull and empty. No spark or star like they shone in his.
It was only for a moment, that one simple blink- and she then had a knife to her throat.
"Amarantha," Rhysand hissed. Venom dripping from his mouth, wings exposed and everyone in the room had their magic ready on her. "You should be dead."
To kill the Queen.
No, Lotus thought. Not the Queen.
"She will be soon." Tamlin growled.
The woman from his dreams....
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Guess who's back!
(I would recommend reading "My Darling Katherina" to have a better understanding for the next few chapters but I don't believe it to be necessary. Anyways, thank you all for reading this,
For the Harps song, I thought of "Luminary" by Joel Sunny