Join me in night painted with crimson and black.

Lorian’s gaze followed his more and more carefree subjects, warmed up by the wine and influence of the moon. He sipped his wine slowly, his hand only sometimes picking up the goblet. His eyes delved in the depths of the ballroom, his mind catching delicious thoughts, filled with fire, awaiting fulfillment, which their heated bodies and souls craved for.

He felt the moon warm his own body too. Eternal lover for all the fae, which reflected all their needs. All their hidden desires.

He sensed as Nymre leaned to him, wine mixed with her feminine magic caused her to be less tensed, less restricted. And darker.

“Lorian…” her fingers landed on his chest and slowly traveled down, on his tight. “I allowed… the wine to work on me. I loosened my guard…” a small, vicious smile wandered on her lips.

Lorian felt her insistent body, as it started to press to him, latching to him like sticky honey. His eyes gleaming with something that would frightened all the others, human or fey. But not Nymre. She wanted it. She desired exactly this.

“I shall use it against you…” he whispered, a sultry caress for her ears. “Use all your weaknesses.”

Her eyes sparkled, her long talons closed over his tight, he felt them burying in the flesh. Such a rapture. Such a tamed, beautiful, tempting pain.

He will give her more of it.

His finger took a whitish lock of hair that fell on her forehead, brushing it behind her ear. Her eyes were now wild, deep like wells filled with thorns and black roses.

Painted with blue and white.

“But first… I want to spark that fire to unbearable heights” he purred into her exposed ear. “Painfully intense.”

Nymre sighed when he touched her neck. The other fae, who were sitting around him by the feasting table, were only partially aware of what was going on. Some of those who danced, following the delicate yet atonal sound of the forest music, played by the group of the lower fey, already started to disappear between the low arches, by the ornate doors which led to corridors, even outside, to taste cruel love of the frost and snow.

Lorian felt Nymre’s arousal. Her worries disappeared from her mind, leaving a place only for enjoyment, the moon filled her with another kind of strength. She was unquenchable now, untamed. She was everything he admired in her, ready to destroy whole nations with her magic and allure. Send all lesser beings on their knees. Just as they did in the past. Enjoying the pain of those who opposed them, carving their names on their skin…

“But first, I will give you… blood.”

His gaze landed on a human slave who now served Lord Trivan. The boy offered the goblet of moon-influenced wine with trembling hands. His scent was raw, blood pulsed in his veins, red, inviting.

Nymre followed his sight. Her smile twisted with false concern.

They were never tired of it. Hunter and prey. Wolf and maiden. God and sacrifice. It worked on her better than blood apples.

Lorian’s shadows amassed around the human like smoke with sharp talons and hungry teeth. The boy tossed before he felt them, his body reacting faster than thought. Mist slipped beneath his clothes, pressed against his lips, slid inside. He gasped, his breath stolen.

“After all,” Lorian said, his voice holding cold cruelty, “the most intense love is always bathed in crimson.”

Nymre’s hand clenched around his thigh, claws digging in. The human whimpered as the mist pulled him close. Closer.

Lorian smiled – divine, inhuman. His shadows dropped the slave at his feet. Real fear beamed from him, a most delightful treat. Lorian inhaled deeply, tasting the scent of it. To the oldest fae, human emotions were like a filling meal – love, lust, devotion – but fear…  Fear was the strongest.

And this one was full of it.

Lorian reached for him gently, as if offering grace.

“Come, little one,” he said. Shadows withdrew back to their master. “We’re enjoying. Let us enjoy more.”

The human’s mind screamed. He’d run, if he could. Lorian let him breathe – just to make the terror spread wider.

“Do you wish to please your lord?” he asked, hand resting over the boy’s chest  “To give yourself to his pleasure?”

“Y-yes… please…” The human’s voice broke. His lie was sweet.

Lorian’s hand slid lower, beneath thin linen.

“Your blood is hot. Let me make it hotter.”

His black eyes met the brown ones and the human with horror saw – and felt – how his own hand drifted to his face. He tried to back off, but his body refused to follow. His fingers formed talons and slowly, meticulously, started to dig into his eye socket.

Lorian took over his mind and had full control over him. A puppet on a string…

Blood poured from the mangled eyeball which the human slave pulled out. His second eye looked frantically at the round piece of meat.

“Feast on it” purred Lorian, feeling Nymre shift next to him. Her aura’s caress erotic and so hot, like a burning gossamer.

The human pressed the eye to his lips, trying to not swallow, but Lorian’s mind was merciless, animating his body like a living doll. Soon, his teeth chewed on it, his throat gagging from pain and shock.

Around them, the Court watched with lustful attention. Even Lord Lon’s pale fingers tightened around his goblet. They needed this. Something dark to tear the mask of civility from their noble faces.

The slave twitched on the stone, panting, his limbs trembling, when he was finishing the eyeball. Moans filled the chamber.

Lorian’s smile widened, charming and lethal. His shadows lifted the boy once more, placed him upright; bleeding, trembling. He lifted the boy’s chin, looked into his eyes. And devoured him with his gaze.

“Delicious.”

He smeared a tear across the slave’s cheek with mocking care, then kissed him. Slow. Deep. So deep, the slave choked again. He kissed him, drawing fear from his soul like wine from a cup. It tasted of despair, of surrender.

It was perfect.

When he pulled away, blood already stained his lips. And then – his teeth found flesh.

The bite was brutal, tearing – not seductive. Blood sprayed, ran down his chin, soaked his collar. Lorian drank it down with slow satisfaction, his talons digging into hips, branding skin with dents.

The slave writhed – mute scream caught in his torn throat. Fear. Almost erotic in its purity.

Lorian parted from him, licking his lips, predator relishing on his catch. The slave’s body shivered, held tight in a grasp of shadows. His throat pulsed with the beating of his terrified heart.

“The Court loves you. So eager to be loved back. A sacrifice for moss and stone.”

The fey king turned to Lord Lon. Their eyes met, and Lon’s desire for death fluttered in him like a moth in a flaming lamp. It was awakening. The real nature of the winter fae. Composed manners tossed away, the teeth of night creatures forming from shadows and blood. The slave was thrown down again, the king’s power tossing him like a discarded toy.

“I might keep you,” Lorian mused, “but the Solstice is a season for sharing. Generosity, after all, is a common virtue.”

The boy met his gaze. What he saw there shattered him. A truth colder than winter. No escape. Not from Lorian. Not from what he’d ignited in the room. He crawled, stupid with pain, trying to flee, knowing it was useless. Fae eyes followed him, hungrily. Eyes burying into him like knives.

“Not beautiful enough” laughed Lorian, his laugh silent but cutting the air like blades. The fae around him slowly moved from their seats. An offering for the moon. Bleeding sacrifice for the forest. Their auras glimmering, darkened, when their powers amassed over the human slave.

All barriers broken, only pure lust left.

The other slaves, who circled around the lords and ladies, serving them… it started to dawn on them that they wouldn’t leave this chamber alive. Most of them never experienced Lunar New Year. For most – it will be their first and last.

Lorian leaned back in his seat, a smile, a cruel one, dancing on his bloodstained lips. Nymre was looking at him intensely, his depraved raven, feeding on the emotions of the court. Her fingers, mimicking his own trail over the human’s abdomen, slid down, down, just between his legs.

And pressed. Feeling he is more than ready to own her.

Lorian’s gaze pinned her to her seat, her body aflame.

“I need you, my lord…” she murmured, her eyes wandered off, at the fae and the humans, and the blood and pain. The Winter Court celebrated the New Lunar Year, causing the flesh to scream.

He pulled her on his lap, lifting her dress and allowing her to sit astride of him. He was hard already, and he knew that this act would push the court into more intense, sweet abandonment.

Her impatient hands pulled him from his trousers. They both were heated, powerful and free. Her kiss was hot like molten iron, and just as deadly. Her grasp on him, her breast flattening over his chest, her nipples erected, visible through her dress. She descended on him, he reached deep into her, his shadows entering through her skin, and traveling down, even more, to the point of no return. She moaned, her arms around his neck, her legs tightly pressing to him, like she didn’t want to let him slip from her and join the celebration.

“Fuck me” she grunted, such a low voice, enchanting. Like a distant storm. “Make me yours. Make me your moon bride.”

“I will enslave you” he grinned, his black eyes glimmering with danger. “So hard. Mercilessly.”

“Do it, my king… break me.”

He took her, wild and free, to the sound of the screams and under the moonlight, which hung over the castle, bigger than the sky, pulling all the right strings in their nerves. The Winter Fae knew how to celebrate. And they knew how to drown in the purest wine of freedom.

“Bathe me in blood” she purred, biting his ear and drawing a small droplet from it. His shadows coiled around her neck, pressing, hard.

And he laughed.

And he did it.

The court abandoned itself. In pleasure and violence. In pain and lust.

Freedom.

And the light entering the arched windows, eating them alive.

Alnam observed the ceremony with a bitter air. His chest heaved, when Lorian stepped into the sacred circle, ready to become one with the woods; only for a small while, but it was enough for the protective forest to anoint him again. To give him all power again. Allow him to hold all the reins – again and again.

Alnam didn’t understand it, the only explanation was that the woods… liked Lorian’s nature. His hidden crimes. His reign that perhaps – only perhaps – was giving them enjoyment of a more twisted kind.

His eyes drifted at Nymre.

In long gone times he thought she was the most clever woman in this court. But at the same time, he thought that Lorian may be the perfect choice, a perfect king  – after all.

Now, he thought of Nymre either as a fool, who takes a monster to her bed. Or someone who simply enjoys it. The court changed so much through last years… and he… he stayed an autumnal lord, with all bad and good it was bringing. Winter was alien to him, too harsh and too cruel.

Autumnal lord in the palace of frozen dreams and nightmares covered with a thick pillow of snow.

Nymre… poor soul or a twisted creature that fed on his lover’s darkness? He would lean to both. She was more than meets the eye.

Lorian was always so beautiful… and under it, maws filled with blood. How could they not see it? His hatred, dull like old pain, drilled his soul through so many years that he didn’t recognize it anymore. It blended with him so tightly that it became him.

Making him hollow.

Lorian, smiling, took Nymre by the hand and led her to the ballroom, to start the celebration, which will end for many deep in the woods, in bedrooms, in corridors, hungrily relishing on each other, tasting the pleasures. And as always he will spend this time of freedom, with his memories.

Corvel.

Narlia.

Leira.

When he met her in the corridor, some time ago… she was not the same woman he tried to ease during the same celebration. Who he wanted to love. No, who he loved; her strength, her innocent boldness, her resistance… and who he wanted to respect… all these feelings didn’t fade during last thirty years. Perhaps became even stronger, as he observed as she changed. From Lorian’s slave, she went through a long path. And he didn’t know anymore who she hated now. Who she wanted now. To whom she was leaning.

But not to him. And he wouldn’t dare to even talk to her about this, after the betray she offered him, when he was vulnerable.

This was over, a fast, fleeting moment of pain and joy. Lorian did it masterfully, throwing him again into another pit filled with shadows.

“Alnam, my friend…”

The familiar voice. Alnam turned to it, to see a tan face of one of his strongest allies, Lord Kolerial Vern’ese. They fought together in two wars and both relied on each other for so long that he would never consider him less than a friend. In the court filled with deception and cruel games, Kolerial was an exception. He never plotted against anyone, planning their demise.

Which could not be said about his wife, whom Alnam didn’t trust from the beginning. A poor choice of usually very rational Vern’ese. Dark heart, hidden behind sharp beauty, she held the household in her talons like a wild shuldra.

“The ceremony was quite the sight, ” mused Kolerial, looking back at the disappearing court. They followed Lorian to the ballroom, among laughs and eager conversations; a promise of pure pleasure above them, like a heavy cloud, their auras shivering.

“I wonder how much of what the priests share with us, is truly the woods’ will,” said Alnam with a calm smile. He pondered about it for years already. Perhaps only he minded the blood on Lorian’s hands…

Kolerial gazed at him, then at the disappearing crowd. His face an undeciphered mask, showing pleased content, a mask, which Alnam knew very well.

Kolerial knew about Corvel. The only time he lowered his guard and – to not suffer alone – he shared his pain with someone from the outside.

Sometimes Alnam wondered if it was a good choice. But Kolerial never even tried to use it against him. Never played on his memories… like not a winter fae.

He was stoic like an autumnal child and that made Alnam like him. It was rare, in this castle of dark.

“Woods are a god,” said Vern’ese, with a slight amusement. “Maybe they love us, but it’s a twisted love.”

Alnam never tried to pull Kolerial on his side, to make him hate Lorian, just as he did. He knew that he preferred silent existence and hatred, real, blood-boiling hatred is alien to him. He had no reason to hate Lorian, he could not trust him, fear him, after all which he knew about him, but Alnam didn’t expect anything from him.

And it proved to work between them. His brother in arms stayed away from any court scheme, but was true enough to understand Alnam’s desperate pain.

Which still blossomed in him, after all these years.

Alnam didn’t expect him to bathe in it, and change his calm demeanor into a creature of vengeance. His own vengeance died a long time ago after all, with his not less desperate act in one of the New Lunar Years, thirty years ago. Lorian killed even that. And took Leira from him.

He breathed in air and exhaled loss.

“Will you again travel to Devlonmere tonight?” Kolerial’s eyes beamed with slight worry. He seemed to know his tendency to tear up the old wounds. In Devlomere, where it all started.

“No, not tonight. I still have duties to do, in Dal’coler” Alnam suddenly felt very tired. Duties of battles that were not his own. Duties connected with nations which already bowed before Lorian. He tried to perform them with as much strict finesse as he could.

“You should allow your subordinates to take some from your shoulders.”

“I can’t,” Alnam laughed bitterly. “I am too grown into the procedure. Devlonmere will wait. It always waits, after all.”

With its white walls, pallid sky and cruel mountains. Beautiful, raw and wild, a real winter tale, happening just before his eyes. He was its autumn lord, even before it took the white color, a copper and vermilion home of his youth, of his best memories… and his first love. Narlia, who loved autumn, but even more loved winter. Her lilac lips, a contrast for the white, either in autumn and in winter. Beautiful. Cruel in their truth-speaking way. Honest.

“Why are you tormenting yourself, traveling there? Here, you at least don’t see ghosts.”

“And here, I can at least do what soothes me the most” Alnam’s lips curved into a perfect smile.

Kolerial lifted his well-shaped brow.

“Play this charade. Isn’t it all we love most, me and Lorian?”

Play the charade. Something overwhelming. But taking his soul into place, where white walls were a safe harbor of good memories, and the bitter ones…

… were just perishing.

And he knew Lorian loved it too.

How could it not be a perfect end for himself? Losing in the charade, which he played for forty years. But he knew he would lose it one day. The thing was, how much he will take with him and how much it will belong to Lorian.

Maybe nothing.

Maybe all.

“The gates are open once again.”

“To let the moon in.”

“To swallow the sunlight and replace it with frozen darkness.”

The voices of the forest priests resounded in the vast chamber, filled with fey nobility. Their susurring tones – repressed and dull, more whisper than speech – were loud enough to fill the hall; loud even in silence. The thick veils on their faces seemed to swallow all light around them. As if they were made of night – and there could be truth in that. Tales claimed they were woven from nocturnal silk, crafted by creatures that had never seen the sun. Lorian knew the truth, though it was far less pleasant – and far more interesting.

During New Lunar Year, his own fate was counted. If the woods decided he needed an heir, he would have to oblige. Produce the child and allow the future to decide whether his offspring would take his throne… and his life. But he knew that wouldn’t happen. The ancient forest loved him.

And he knew such love could bring only one thing.

Eternity.

He felt the mind of Nymre. Her light aura gleamed around her. He suddenly felt a strong urge to grasp her. Pull her away, even by force. Bury her in truth. But he knew he couldn’t. Perhaps the life his lies would give her would be enough for her to forgive him. He wanted her eternity as much as his own.

What have you become, tormenting those you love?

But Nymre wouldn’t be herself if she let her worries be an open book – even to him. She hid her face beneath her raven mask, which seemed to swallow her inner turmoil as well. She feared weakness as much as he despised the very idea of it.

They were good at wearing masks. Hidden places no one could reach. When they should truly… scream.

And when she let him inside – into her mind – he felt everything she stored, even though she believed he saw only the surface.

She would never understand that he had to suffer to live. That he had to pay the price – for himself and for her – to feed the hunger that never ceased to burn his entrails. The hunger she once admired when he loved her, but which also scorched him from within.

The hunger that made him – eventually – fight creatures as old as time.

He wondered if he was ever ready to free himself from the overpowering pleasure of gods’ blood. Even if he killed them. Even if he devoured them whole, bone by bone, string by string.

“We give our blood to the sacred forest.”

“We offer our flesh to the branches.”

“We sacrifice our hearts in the name of the woods.”

The priests pretended to be above it all. They drank fear from his court, intoxicated by the admiration and dread they inspired. But Lorian knew they were bending beneath the spores the gods released – under a power they couldn’t bear. Guardians of a prison, faint-hearted, afraid, ready to feed on his night just to find peace. Just to avoid collapsing under the pressure of the gods’ awakening rage.

And only he knew the truth. Which, unknown to others, remained no less tasty. No less… pleasing.

“It seems your subjects enjoy the rite,” he heard Nymre’s voice – beautifully mocking.

“In New Lunar Year, the woods drag us closer to them,” he smiled at her, sparks in his black eyes. “Drink from us, and allow us to drink from them. At least… that’s what the priests tend to say.”

Nymre’s eyes widened… and she laughed. Her aura shivered slightly. Anticipating.

“You do not share the sentiment of your court.”

“Not at all. I share it – reluctantly. I know the forest loves to test us, though. It’s an unpredictable, cruel god. They think they explain its wishes to us. While the forest toys with them… just as it does with you or me.”

Nymre’s eyes drilled into him. Her mind almost begged him to read her thoughts, to become one with her… so he slipped into her.

Shallow thoughts. Pleased elation. Curiosity. And deeper… doubt, worry. So much of it. His eyes closed as he spoke inside her head.

They are fools, Nymre.

Don’t you worry the woods might ask for your heir?

That is always a possibility. But I don’t tend to fear, Nymre. I act.

Her mind latched onto his in a possessive grip. He allowed her to become one with him. It was another kind of union – more intimate than sex, and far more painful in its purity.

He was becoming Nymre, with all of her. With her desire. With her inner strength. With the untamed wilderness of her nature.

With her fear.

And with her love.

“Our king.”

“Lorian Ain’Dal, hundredth king of Ain’asel.”

He parted from her mind, slowly, so as not to harm her.

He raised his black eyes to the gathering beneath the portal to the sacred woods – the heart of the chamber. The cathedral was built around it, to honor the god of moss, who allowed Dal’coler to sprout from the mountain. The fact that the fae themselves built it, biting into stone with their magic, had been forgotten through the ages.

The priests, clad in thick black, looked like ominous ravens, their silky capes dragging behind them in a parody of wings. Nymre would be offended by the comparison. Ravens were graceful – harbingers of the eternal storm. While they… were decomposing alive, eaten by the power they were sworn to guard.

Lorian offered the court his most perfect smile. He didn’t fear the end of his reign. He knew it wouldn’t come. The forest loved him. Craved him. Wanted him in the most perverse way. If someone were to replace him – if he ever chose to have a child – the woods would remove them. Swiftly. Without remorse.

The priests stared at him from beneath the dried-out flesh of their veils, and he felt their thoughts – chaotic, pained, terrified. They hoped – no, they needed him on the throne. Only he could stop their anguish. Take the burden from their backs.

Kill the First Ones.

End their misery.

They would prefer death over becoming like him – filled with fire and pain. They weren’t ready for the flames. But he was more than eager to take that from them, as long as he could drink the heat from holy veins and fill himself with delicious power.

Stop them. Kill them. Swallow them whole – like a treat hanging from the tallest tree. A reward worthy of all the effort.

The priests opened before him, letting him into their circle. He stepped into it, allowing the dark and dim energy of the woods to enter his body.

He was never fully ready for it. But he welcomed it eagerly. The power of the woods entwined with him, and he felt the rapture – not even slightly like the one that washed over him when he ate blood apples. That was strong like a hammer, overwhelming like a snowstorm. The touch of the woods was pure tranquility. A smile bloomed on his lips, and his aura pulled the dark energy in… taking it inside.

Pleasure instead of pain.

The soothing calm of moss and rippling stream, instead of the cruel sun’s rays.

He could almost smell the forest – the old bark, the resin, the leaves murmuring in the darkness, stirred by wind…

He didn’t know how long it lasted – how long the woods claimed him as theirs, letting him rest in the protective peace of enchanted overgrowth. He surrendered to it, catching each tendril of soothing delight. His often-pained body relaxed and drifted in familiar darkness which was merging with his shadows. Just as he had merged with Nymre.

“No heir. The woods decided.”

The words pulled him violently from the pond of green stillness.

He heard Nymre’s sigh – relieved. Her aura glimmered through her, her features no longer tense. Her body slowly relaxed.

And he had plans that would surely allow her to relax even more.

His mind entered the heads of the entire court. The cacophony of voices, thoughts, hidden dreams and cravings hit him with pure, deafening force.

Blossoming hatred – well hidden, yet so obvious.

Just as well-hidden approval – the silent keen of his loyal ones.

The fear. The delicacy he never had enough of.

And one thought that repressed them all.

Leira’s bold and powerful core, beaming with well-tamed but potent hope, in the far distance.

You became this, the pained carved you into a statue. A beloved monster. An idea more than person, a night that fills the restless dreams. A darkness incarnate.

And you love it.

Just like her.

Before him – a vast sky, painted with rays of a faint sun, which fought for survival with the frozen aura of this place. Under him – a void, deep and disappearing in the thick mist, which shouldn’t be present in such cold.

And far away… a cold forest, dark and harsh with its sharp edges.

If Qhal told the truth – and Tiyan knew he did – this was the first passage leading to Dal’coler, the place of wonders and death. Even Qhal seemed to be aware that Dal’coler is dangerous, not only for humans, but for the fae too. The court was a vicious hungry thing, feeding on weakness.

On human hope and blood.

The wind was almost non-existent, like the even more potent cold in Lesser Realm was petrifying it, not allowing it to dance above the land.

Qhal was looking at him all the time, even if he… didn’t look. If the fey had some power that allowed it to have an eye on him, even without turning his eyes… it was well hidden, but Tiyan always felt his gaze on himself. Following him. Guarding him. Spying.

The incident with the portal made him reluctant, an old fear creeping in. Perhaps the fae could fight the gods… but he was not ready. Few days ago, he was indifferent to them, they didn’t seem even half as real as now. The Goddess, the creation itself, always seemed distant to him, even if he believed she watched him for most of his life. He would never imagine that he could meet her, face to face. She was… absent but ever present, she was in nature; leaves, flowers, the water he drank… even in snow, when winter didn’t mean death. But god… a god having a body, who was able to turn his attention on him, who could do as he pleases with him, by mere whim… it was disturbing.

But he knew the fey could do the same, with the same means. For humans, they were gods. It was only a matter of perception.

How he ended between two blades of these sharp scissors?

“We are in a dangerous place. The cold in this region is especially intense.”

Tiyan stopped grinding his thoughts, which were taking him to nowhere. He will mull them over and over again, meeting dead ends.

“Trapped between two mountain ranges” continued the fey. “The magic here is less intense than in Dal’coler. But it affects the weather more than the minds of living beings.”

“So… would I lose another finger?” a bitter, dark joke, but Tiyan couldn’t stop himself.

“No, if you will do what I say” replied Qhal with a small smile wandering on his lips. “After all, my king wants you whole. With as many lost parts as possible.”

Tiyan couldn’t not use the chance of Qhal speaking freely of the king. He wanted to know who awaits him. Wanted to know what he can expect and what fate may possibly he meet. Even if Qhal will again react with animosity, he can’t harm him, even if he presses on him. He had his orders.

“Why don’t you want to talk about him?”

Qhal’s face tensed. As Tiyan expected. But he decided to take risks and push forth.

“He took my sister. He killed my family. And you serve him. I will not bargain. If you need me to go with you, tell me what I can expect. Why? Why don’t you allow me to speak his name?”

Qhal ‘s throat slowly pulsed with light, which his body started to emit. Light… darker than usually. Muted light which would not enlighten the dark night hours.

But Tiyan wanted to at least try. And trying – pull as much information as he can. Going into maw of the beast not knowing practically anything was a reason why his god-induced worries were intensifying through the last days.

“Qhal… I need to know. I will probably die. What do you risk?”

The fey seemed petrified. His brows narrowed in displeasure, but his face stayed cold, like sculpted in marble.

“You won’t die” Qhal’s light became a tone darker. It looked like his throat shone with absence of the sun. “If he needs you, you won’t. But do not expect not to suffer. Lorian is my savior, I owe him my life, but he is not merciful. Not to humans. Not to anyone he doesn’t deem worthy.”

Savior.

He was Qhal’s savior.

Now, Tiyan slowly started to understand. Qhal admired his king. Cold fear closed its talons over his heart.

“Have you seen her? My sister?” the words barely were leaving his throat. Qhal couldn’t lie. He was walking truth and Tiyan was afraid of what he could hear.

Qhal silently, noiselessly, turned to the sun. Reached with his hand to it. And… smiled. He really smiled.

“I saw her, yes. She was not harmed. And won’t be. Unless… you decided to disobey him.”

He slowly looked at Tiyan, lazily. His features perfect and dangerous, beautiful and stern at the same time. A scultpure of a calm god, who’s indifference can lead him to stepping on small bugs that were humans.

“What do you expect to hear from me, poor soul? That Lorian Ain’Dal kills you as soon as you stop being useful? That your sister suffers terrible pain in the palace and you will come in vain, just to share her fate?” he chuckled. “I can assure you that nothing can prepare you for Dal’coler. But as much as I like you, I am not here to warn you or to save you from what awaits you. I am here to keep you alive. And I will do it, even against your will. Even if you refuse to go with me, I will keep you alive and deliver you to Dal’coler. Even if that meant your hurt feelings… or your pain.”

Tiyan swallowed a thick ball of saliva. He felt like he could expect such an answer. Qhal was dutiful soldier of of the throne and loved Lorian, with whatever grateful love he sprouted in him.

He loved the shadow that forced under his clothes, craving him voraciously.

And Tiyan was afraid of this love. Afraid how it can affect him.

This was pointless. Qhal was a fae and will remain one, no matter how much he liked Tiyan or how much he despised him. He would really harm him, just to fulfill his mission. He saw it in his soft eyes, which always promised rain and in his smile, which held mysteries. He was a fae. Nothing changes that.

The croaking was heard in the distance. Loud and piercing, like intensified by the cold, empty air. Tiyan, angry at himself and at Qhal – at all fae – looked up, to see the flock of black birds, feathers darker than night. Their voices, sharp as stone edges, somehow… reminded him of home… and the dead bodies of his family. Carnivors. When he woke up, he heard bird voices too. Just as sharp. Just as hungry.

Dirt in his mother’s mouth. Tangles of vines going straight through her flesh. Cruel laughter of a fairy messenger, her empty eyes.

One of the ravens parted with the group and flew just in their direction. A small shape on the pale sky became bigger, until it was so close and Tiyan saw that the bird had strange eyes.

Blue, large, perfectly round. Like the eyes of the heavens itself. Like paint that was used to color the sky, and later was poured just into those eyes, to add stellar, unearthly magic to them.

Qhal smiled and stretched his arm, so the raven could sit on it. His throat beaming now with a familiar soft light, like its intensity and shade depended on his mood.

Probably it did.

The raven indeed had huge eyes. Bigger than Qhal’s, strangely intelligent, wells filled with wisdom of many ages. His wings wide and thickly feathered, dark, so dark, glistening with obsidian. And now, the bird was looking at him, intensely, like wanting to see into his head and pull all his thoughts out.

“Dal’coler watches us,” Qhal touched the head of the raven, softly rubbing it. The black bird made a single croak, silent and dry.

“Was it sent… by the king?” tried cautiously Tiyan.

“Yes” chuckled Qhal again. “And by Lady Nymre.”

And that was all. Lady Nymre. Qhal didn’t even try to explain that, the raven looked at Tiyan like it was engraving his features in his mind. It seemed to look like that forever, eons passed, years crumbled, and Tiyan couldn’t stop gazing in those electrifying, round eyes; they grounded him completely.  There was magic in them, not completely cruel. Just… alien, like this whole realm.

When the bird broke the contact, Tiyan felt as he was ravaged by the winter itself. Cold tendrils of sweat slowly stroking his skin. It was unplesant, like a freezing and suffocating water after a warm bath in the sun.

The raven took flight as unexpectedly as it arrived and doing a few circles above Tiyan’s head, croaking loudly, it flew to join the flock in the distance.

Qhal of course would not explain. That would be too easy.

Ravens.

And he was left in ignorance, still knowing as little as before.

Or maybe… knowing even less.