Silence fell heavily, a shock running through the room. The only sound was Amren's quiet, rueful laughter. But his eyes were pinned on Eblis’s suddenly very pained violet eyes.
“How long have you known, Azriel?” she asked instead. The room fell away, and he didn’t quite care that his family watched him be picked apart.
He hardened himself, however. “When I found you this morning. I could smell myself in your scent.”
“So late,” she breathed, finally sitting forward as if she cared. “I knew from the moment you walked into the house; but I guess I was fresh from Hybern then. My senses were working in overdrive.”
He nearly choked on his own words, and he asked, almost in disbelief, “The moment I walked in?”
“The moment you walked in.” She braided her fingers together. “It scared me so bad I went and threw up because of what it meant for you to be my mate.” He remembered her returning, the scent of bile on her. He’d thought...no, he’d hardly thought of her at that time. He hadn’t cared that she’d thrown up. She bit the inside of her cheek—the movement so her it startled him for a moment. “It strengthened my resolve to destroy Prythian. I did not want you coming into my life and...changing everything.”
It felt like a spear to his stomach.
She sighed and turned to the rest of the room, who, each person slightly different, were still entirely too shocked to really say anything. “Next question?” she said, moving on too quickly for comfort. Later, the words implied. She wasn’t accepting their mating bond.
He scolded himself. He shouldn’t want her to.
“Who are you loyal to?” Rhysand asked, violet eyes sharp.
Eblis seemed to consider it. “I suppose my alliance is with myself.” A growl rent the room, and he only realized it was Cassian because of Eblis’s glance to him. Yet she said, “I am not allied with the Queen. But I am allied with Hybern. I want Princess Madalyn on the throne and the Queen dead. I realized too late that working with you rather than against you would work better in my favor. It’s one of the reasons I am sitting here.”
“What would defeating Prythian do to help you if that is what you wanted?” Nesta asked, frowning. Again; that glint of curiosity. She’d never actually grown close to the female and ever believed her to be a part of the court yet, so it seemed she wasn’t hit as hard as everyone else. Even Amren was relatively calm compared to the sharp eyes of everyone else.
He sighed, speaking before she could, “Less opposition.” Eblis nodded. “Two wars in a row from Hybern is too obvious to be a coincidence. The High Lords would deem the land unstable and want a person of their choice to rule over it instead of her princess.”
“And so, she tried to tear us apart.” Eblis flinched, turning to her brother.
“If you have a question, then ask it,” she said, rather coldly.
Rhysand folded his arms in a whisper of clothes. “What happened? Five centuries ago.”
Five centuries was too long. I broke within fifty years and never looked back.
Eblis sighed as if remembering her own words. “Long version or short version?”
Amren quirked a dark brow. “The believable one.”
“Long one it is.” She held her head in her hands, elbows resting on her knees. Her shoulders became tense. “Agh...so...I was...kidnapped. Everything that happened then was true. What I showed you, Rhysand, was not a lie. I endured—” she cut herself off with another groan. “I’m sorry, the army is being difficult.”
Azriel blinked. “How long have you been talking to them?” he asked curtly, with a barely restrained snarl. Good, he told himself. He was supposed to be angry.
“Only a few minutes.” She’d been having two conversations at once. “They saw you all gather. I need an excuse, quick.”
“Elain’s birthday,” Nesta supplied instantly.
“We did that yesterday.”
“Your birthday.” Eblis glanced up at her brother with a frown.
She nodded slowly. “Alright, thank you, Rhysand.” She sighed, her eyes not even going distant when using her daemati abilities that so often happened to his High Lord and Lady.
“Alright,” she said then, “to continue: I lasted about fifty years of torture, rape, and interrogation before I broke.” Her mouth pressed into a thin line, her glance going to Azriel. “I’ve always been disappointed about how quickly I gave in. That was when I got all these scars, and when I developed a trauma for touch. I trusted nobody, and I stayed that way for centuries. The King appreciated that, and that was when I began my work as a Naval commander in his army. I was there that day in the Summer waters when Hybern launched a surprise attack.” She winked with false bravado at her brother, even as her gaze was sad. “You were very close to killing me that day.
“After about two centuries, I had gathered a group of good shipmates and workers who I trusted. I was relatively close to all of them, and I knew they wouldn’t betray me,” she continued. Her gaze grew very haunted, the violet drowning with sadness. Azriel had to stop himself from reaching forward, from trying to take that sadness away from her. Eblis, not seeming to notice, said, voice softening inexplicably, “The King of Hybern did not like that. They were butchered within days of him figuring it out right in front of me, on my ship. It wasn’t long after that when I was moved to his army.” Surprise glinted across his senses. She’d had everyone near her slaughtered. “I think I did that only for ten years before becoming Captain—I only rose to General rank after Amarantha died. During all this, I experienced...a mental strain. It was how I achieved my daemati skill. It was around that time that the Queen had been created, and Madalyn born. She took me into her guard and I came to...babysit Madalyn.”
He cursed in his mind. He hadn’t thought of that; that as a daemati she might’ve been part of the Daemati Council she’d warned them of. But he also realized that it meant she had vital information she could give them; even if it had been at the cost of her hope that it’d come to be. He had to stop himself again, for he seemed far too inclined to worry about her then he should be.
“You said Madalyn was around two centuries of age, but you pair her and the Queen’s timelines so closely,” Feyre posed with a frown, her brown-gold hair glistening.
Eblis smiled slightly. “I know I made it sound like the Queen had been there the entire time, but yes. The Queen is only about two centuries of age and Madalyn was born shortly after her creation. You didn’t even try causing disruption within the court because of that slight word play,” she said. She shook the smile from her face, sobering up once more. “Madalyn was who taught me to not fear touch anymore. It is kind of difficult to care for a child if you do not want to hold them.” She continued, “I still...dislike it, but it doesn’t make me clam up or vomit or run away anymore. Just like the feeling of an unwanted bug on my skin at this point.” Azriel’s hand slackened. She’d been so good at pretending to hate their touch, making a show of slowly healing because of their care and trust. Just another tactic to her, he realized.
Eblis sighed. “To summarize all of that: I am General of Hybern’s armies, and also the Spymaster.”
“You said that—”
“That the Spymaster is the leader of the Daemati Council? Yes,” she said, interrupting Cassian. Azriel’s breath caught. “The army has been in place since two weeks before I arrived. It has been much easier to control them actually being in Prythian, but doing it from Hybern is not that extraneous. I have become...incredibly strong with my skills. I didn’t have much else to do in Hybern with no companions and at least three pairs of eyes watching me at all times.”
Just about every person in the room straightened, and Eblis watched the movement. She raised a brow. “If you really think I’ve tampered with your minds, then this conversation is entirely useless.”
Cassian shook his head, wings shifting with the movement. “How did the army gather so quickly?”
She bit the inside of her cheek. “I forced them to.” Mor gasped, Rhysand’s eyes going so, so cold. “Not all of them; but most of them. Their minds are altered to be loyal to the Queen. It took several weeks for me to gather them, even with the help of my Council. Because of it, however, all I have to do is move them, check for ones who broke the hold of my...glamour of sorts, and make sure they don’t do anything stupid.”
Cassian seemed disgusted, but also intrigued by it. “You’re not ruling them through fear, but neither are you ruling them with loyalty—not really.” She nodded. “How well has it worked?”
“Well the Queen has an army within weeks of the last King’s army being slaughtered, doesn’t she?”
“And you want this army to change loyalties to Madalyn?” Mor asked.
“Essentially,” Eblis said, “yes.”
Rhysand folded his arms. “How long would that take?”
“Too long. It’s not an option.” She raised a brow at her brother. “It almost seems like you are going along with this, Rhys.” Azriel glanced at his High Lord, suddenly realizing the same thing. It sounded as if he was willing to work with her after what she’d done.
He sighed with relief as the male shook his head. “Let me into your mind, prove it to me, and we’ll see.”
“Or,” she said, head tilting to the side, “I could bargain with you. Way more reliable.” Indeed, she would be forced to follow the bargain or risk death, by faerie terms. And she would forever be marked by the bargain until she fulfilled it.
“I still want to have access to your memories, make sure this is true first. Then we’ll create a deal to ensure your loyalty,” Rhys counter offered.
Nesta stepped forward. “If she is so strong, what’s stopping her from altering her own memories to share them with you so that you’ll think she is telling the truth?”
“Altering my own memories is permanent,” Eblis said. “I rather like my brain the way it currently is, broken and worm-eaten as it is. The real question would be why I don’t make him think that I’ve shown him everything and told the truth.” Nesta stiffened at the condescending addition. “And the answer to that one is it would be very counterproductive to gaining his trust.”
She turned to Rhysand. “Anyway, brother, I don’t think I can’t agree to those terms given my circumstances.” Even though Nesta seemed near to bursting, his High Lord nodded.
***
Rhysand swept into her mind.
But it was not a wall he met; rather an entire length of icy ocean that swirled and swayed and hissed at him. Cold battered together on all sides, and he almost thought that this was the inside of her mind. But there were no memories, nothing for him to grab onto.
Rhys stepped to the edge of the roaring waves, and found that the ground beneath was not just sand. It was shattered bone shards, locks of black hair, shreds of wing membrane, crushed shells, and rips of fabric swirled together endlessly under a lull of waves.
"Do you like it? My mind is so spectacularly guarded, is it not?" The female's smile turned strained. "I spent a very long time in here, so I had to make it special."
He turned to the pitch-black horizon. "How is this possible?" he breathed. He'd always thought of his mind as something that needed a wall built around it to protect. But Eblis…
"Eventually, the waves do calm and segue into my memory," she admitted. "But until then, all sorts of nasty walls of air will stop you." Violet eyes turned to him. "Hurricanes. Monsoons. Tornadoes. Everything I could think of. It is my proudest work. It is impenetrable."
Rhys frowned down at her physical form, sitting on the stairs and staring at him seriously. She sighed, scraped forward, and settled onto her legs. She pressed her forehead to the floor.
"Why are you kneeling?" he questioned aloud, voice hard. He tried not to let curiosity show from being unable to pierce her mind.
The female swallowed. The first sign of discomfort since she'd revealed herself.
"This is the apology part of my original entry. I know it is not much to say considering all I've done, but all my attempts to tear apart the Night Court have failed because I forgot how strong your bonds are. The first week after arrival where nothing happened was just pure shock on my part." She chewed on the inside of her cheek like she always had. "It led into a feeling of...betrayal—that all of you had managed so well without me here while I suffered. It bolstered my resolve and that was when I decided to reveal Mor's secret."
The blonde female made no emotion or move.
"But you all...you seemed utterly unfazed—slightly surprised of course—but mostly unfazed as a whole. You loved Mor for more than just herself and accepted her preferences whole-heartedly. Azriel more-so than others. That was the first time I felt jealous in years.”
She turned to Azriel. “But when the jealousy came, I slowly decided that the best way I could have that relationship and feel that safety was to pull at the strings of your heart like a fiddle. I knew you'd always wanted a mate—someone you could undoubtedly call your own without any worry of them being someone else's. But you—" she laughed "—you won me over the same time I did you.”
Rhysand picked through her mind, which she had to offer for him to even be able to touch it. She told the truth, and only the truth. Something like relief poured through him; he had not wanted to believe she’d lied to all of them through cold blood, but he had been fully prepared to treat her like she had, even if she was family. And the bargain...it was the perfect way to work together without fear of her turning around and attacking them in the end. With a bargain binding her, they could trust her again for however short of a period it would last.
Eblis, aloud, said, “I am sorry for what I’ve done, and only believing in you and your strength for fifty years before giving up. Since I’ve arrived here, you’ve become so much more than that, and know I am not the same weak female I used to be. I do not trust easily; but I trust you. All of you.”
He heard the words and digested them. “She is still telling the truth.” A small sigh through the room. “And everything she said before was true as well. She came with bad intentions, but they are no longer present.” He left her mind with only a small, awed glance at it one last time.
She stood from her kneeling position and said, “So, what’s next?”
***
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