#he doesnt need to be in court | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

separatist-apologist · 1 year

Text

Still A Sunbeam

Summary: As a child, Elain Archeron is pushed into a pond by the heir to the Day Courts throne, Lucien Spell-Cleaver, and vows she'll never forgive him for it. But as an adult, Elain finds that if she wants out of an arranged marriage to a Spring Court prince, she will need Day Court's help. More is at stake than a decades-old rivalry, and when their home is threatened, Elain and Lucien will have to set aside old differences and work together

Chapter 1 | Read on AO3

Day Court was beautiful. Elain had barely slept the night before, too busy sneaking around the palace with wide-eyed wonder. She’d stumbled on a late night party in one of the grand halls which sent her skittering back to her room. She didn’t need the Day Court prince to realize she’d seen him sink to his knees before a rather beautiful female and duck his head beneath her dress.

That sort of thing wasn’t done in Spring. She’d been warned about Day and Rhodes in particular. Killian, who seemed to think he’d claimed her, had protested when Amera Spell-Cleaver finally agreed to let Elain join them at court.

They’ll corrupt her.

Elain understood what really bothered him, though. She might allow another male into her bed when he very much wanted to be the first. Elain had insinuated he might be, if he backed down, careful to make no promises or strike any deals that would hold her accountable. She merely needed him to stop long enough for her father to agree.

Now she was here, and had a year to figure out a way in which she didn’t have to return to Spring. Going back would all but cement the marriage rumbling between her family and the High Lord. Her father was pushing for it, hoping it would elevate his status at court. Killian, too, though Elain tried hard not to think about that. If she married him, he’d want her to join the other wives, sewing and party planning and gardening. And while there was nothing wrong with those things, Elain wanted to see the world. Killian was over a century old. Of course he was ready to settle down.

She wasn't. Not yet. And not with him.

Though, if she’d known Lucien Spell-Cleaver would be put in charge of her education, Elain might have begged to go to Summer, instead. Nowhere was better than Day…and yet Elain suspected she was better off with Killian than she was Lucien.

She’d heard the stories about the spoiled party prince. It seemed Lucien hadn’t changed much from the boy throwing a fit over his older brother's needling…though, no one had mentioned didn’t look like a boy anymore. In her mind, Lucien was still the gangly, awkward, angry boy that had shoved her in the pond.

Reality didn’t match any longer. Lucien was a man by every definition of the word. Tall, broad, and muscular, with the kind of face that likely brought both males and females to their knees. She’d been momentarily stunned—not that he seemed to notice. Which was for the best, as Elain didn’t need to give Lucien any more leverage than he already had. She’d come to work, not ogle him, and had no intention of being anything other than professional and polite.

A knock on Elain’s bedroom was meant to wake her. She’d been up for hours, carefully selecting an off-shoulder, lavender dress before curling her hair over and over. She wanted the rest of the Day Court to love her, and in Spring, the easiest way to do that was to be pleasing to look at.

Arina pushed into the room with sallow skin and her long, blonde hair pulled into a messy side braid.

“I’m so hungover,” she said by way of greeting, flopping onto a divan in Elain’s lounge. Elain had met her briefly the day before and wasn’t sure what to say.

“Should we reschedule?” Elain asked.

Arina groaned. “No. I said I’d show you the library and I meant it.”

Arina was, according to Amera, one of the best scholars in their court. Certainly one of the most knowledgeable. With a thousand libraries within the Day Court borders, Elain needed at least some instruction on how they worked and how to access information. Amera had shown her Helion’s personal library, which spanned six stories and boasted hundreds of thousands of texts.

“Are you sure?”

“The library is quiet,” Arina said with a sigh, forcing herself into a sitting position. “And I can sleep in a chair while you read.”

Elain was out of her depth. Arina stood, wearing loose fitting pants and a matching blue top that showed off the majority of her toned midriff. Elain knew not all courts were as traditional as her own. She’d been excited for it, even—Helion had no shortage of female’s advising him, guiding his policy, and otherwise a part of his inner circle.

It was one thing to want those things, and wholly another to see how it played out. No one paid Arina any mind as they plodded through the airy, bright corridors of the palace. She was hardly the most scandalous—more than a few females sauntered through in mere scraps clearly meant for swimming.

“There is a pool,” Arina explained, catching Elain staring for the hundredth time. “Would you like to see it?”

“I don’t have anything to wear,” Elain said, thinking of how carefully her mother had been, packing up her things. All of it had to be modest and appropriate for a lady of her stature. Elain wondered if her parents had known what Elain was walking into and hoped to spare her all but the educational parts to it.

“I have enough to spare,” Arina replied breezily. Elain believed that, and didn’t know if she was brave enough to try on anything that came from Arina’s closet. “You can borrow one.” Elain offered a tight smile, spared a response by two sentries pulling open heavy oak doors with twin suns carved into the wood. Arina blinked, temporarily stunned by the darkness.

Elain was stunned herself, though by the sheer size. The open atrium spiraled upward, trailing stairs that led up all six stories of stacks.

It was hard to imagine Arina in that place, given how she was swaying on her feet. Elain cleared her throat. “Did uh…did you go to the party last night?”

Arina glanced over, eyebrows pulled toward her hair. “Were you there? Because that’s not how I normally ah…I just mean it was unusual for me to um…what did you see, exactly?”

“The prince,” Elain admitted, cheeks flaming at the memory. “I wasn’t there, I just um…I saw him in the hall and I heard the music.”

Arina exhaled. “Oh, right. Don’t judge all of us based on Lucien’s behavior.”

“What were you doing?” Elain asked curiously.

“Dancing,” Arina said firmly, though her golden cheeks flamed pink. Elain didn’t push it, if only to preserve her own feelings. It had been ingrained in her since birth that ladies behaved a certain way, and common fae another. Ladies didn’t sleep around, they didn’t drink, they just barely danced. They were elevated, special. Delicate creatures in need of care.

Though, neither Nesta or Feyre had never been described as any of those things. Still, Elain wanted to embody that and have at least one Day Court ally, and so she didn’t press on Arina any harder. Not when it was obvious Arina was embarrassed.

Eain was a little curious.

“Everything is arranged by topic, and then alphabetically,” Arina began, striding across the open floor, weaving through tables and chairs in order to show Elain. “And then by year. The higher up you go, the older things become, all the way to the first recorded words of our people. A lot of other courts send scholars to study mating bonds and how the magic of Prythian works—or even their own family lines. But if you just wanted, say, a history of our most current system, that’s just on the second floor, ten stacks back, middle section.”

Elain took a breath. She’d never seen anything like this, and for one moment allowed herself to appreciate just how small she was in the world. Thousands of people had come before her, had left their mark in the pages of the books now sitting before her.

Elain felt overwhelmed. Braced against the back of a chair, Arina looked at Elain with bright, pine green eyes. “What are you looking for?”

It was only ever supposed to be politics and history. Nothing more.

But Elain had a secret.

“Seers,” she breathed, looking up ahead. “Where would I find information about Seers?”

Arina blinked, straightening to her full height. This was the part where the scholar asked why she was asking such questions. Why she wanted to know. When she realized Elain’s father was from Hybern, and the magic was different there.

Strange.

Old.

Feyre, Elain, and Nesta were, in appearance, no different from the High Fae of Prythian. Just beneath their skin, though, lay magic that had long vanished from the shores of the seven courts, marking the three of them with magic not bound to Spring—or any court, truly. Though, Elain had heard Seers once fell within the domains of Day before that magic vanished.

Elain’s father knew, and her mother, too. Her sisters, by virtue of witnessing her fall to visions. No one else, though, could know. Her parents had been quite clear to all of them that their magic was to remain a secret. Courts would fight wars if they knew what was hidden in Spring.

Nesta, with her icy fire and Feyre, a daemati and elemental magic that made Elain think her youngest sister had been born from the very Mother herself.

And Elain, a Seer.

Forbidden from speaking about it, Elain was left to the whims of the strange, unpredictable visions that forced their way through. She wanted control—wanted to know how to search those visions for truth and peer into the future without waiting for them to crash into her.

Arina jerked her head toward the stairs. “Fourth floor. All the way in the back. Cassandra’s journals are still back there. You can’t take them out, but you can read them while you’re here.”

Arina took a seat in the chair, closing her eyes. Elain left her there without a glance backward. She’d start history tomorrow, she swore she would. She’d do everything she’d promised when she left. Today was for her.

Elain was careful, walking up the stairs like she had nowhere important to be. No one paid her any mind, which was just as well. In a palace as large and busy as Day’s, foreigners were hardly out of place. It was so strange not to find someone waiting around a corner, demanding to know what she was up to.

The people here simply did not care. Elain went all the way back to the very last row, inhaling the smell of parchment and ink. In a case along the wall were, just as Arina promised, Cassandra’s journals.

And just behind her, lined up neatly alphabetically, were books and notes and compiled research on Seers. Elain swallowed, reaching for a fraying book of peeling leather. It was a first hand account of a female who lived right after the first age. She flipped open that first page, fingers tracing the words with reverence.

Father says I am an abomination.

Elain might have laughed.

“My mother thinks the same thing.”

LUCIEN:

Lucien exhaled a breath, drumming his fingers on the wood grain table before him. He could be in the sauna, sweating out the alcohol from the night before. He could have still been in bed while a female with a name he didn’t remember rode his face into oblivion.

Instead, Lucien was dressed and waiting on Elain Archeron, who was half an hour late. Lucien ran his tongue over his teeth, his irritation mounting with each passing second. Fuck her, and fuck this, he thought angrily. He was still a prince—his time was still worth something.

Lucien stood just as the door to the study swung open. Elain stepped inside, red-faced and sweaty. She clutched a book beneath her arm, which Lucien supposed was the cause of her lateness.

He didn’t return to his chair, even when Elain took a seat. She was so obviously trying to catch her breath. Lucien took a breath of air, his heart pounding at the scent of sweat mingled with the floral sweetness wafting off her. Instinctively, Lucien took a step back to try and clear some of the air.

I didn’t help.

“You’re late,” he said, wanting to punish her not just for keeping him waiting, but for the way his body was reacting. It was as if he’d never seen a flushed female before.

“I know, I—”

“I don’t care,” he said flatly, laying his hands on the table. Elain looked up with big, wide eyes. He wished she wouldn’t look at him. Wished she would leave entirely. Little hairs stood on end against his forearms and the back of his neck, offering a prickling awareness that Lucien didn’t like. She was no one.

She was beautiful.

Elain blinked, hands fidgeting in her lap. “Oh.”

“I promised two hours. If you want to waste thirty of those minutes doing…whatever it was you were doing, it’s nothing to me. I won’t be the one humiliated in front of Summer Court dignitaries.”

He’d shamed her. Color crept up her neck as fire danced in those soft, brown eyes. Lucien continued. “I told mother you weren’t serious about any of this. Tell me, princess—is this just a little diversion before your pretty little Spring wedding?”

“No, I—”

“A distraction before motherhood?” he pressed, disdain dripping from every word. It was as if he could rid himself of his cursed attraction by hurting her feelings.

“Your palace is large,” Elain said flatly, though her rapidly rising and falling chest betrayed her own anger. “I got lost.”

“Fascinating,” Lucien said sarcastically. “How long are you staying with us?”

“A year,” she gritted out.

“Lucky me,” he grumbled, running through all the places he was likely to be over the course of a year. “In two weeks, I’m supposed to bring you to Summer.”

Elain bit her bottom lip.

“Tell me about their trade deal with Autumn,” he said, well aware she couldn’t. Lucien knew, by virtue of being his court's emissary, what Spring thought about females. Very little, if anything at all. Females were delicate and soft, in need of protection—creatures better suited to be wives and mothers. The fact that Elain had managed to end up in his court ought to have been a testament to her tenacity.

Elain’s cheeks darkened further.

Lucien nodded his head. “Why, exactly, is this even important to you?”

Defiance blazed from her features. “Is that part of your tutelage? Asking me about my personal motivations so you can mock them?”

The kitty had claws. Lucien raised his brows. “It would be nice to know this isn’t all wasted, but if you want to keep your secrets, be my guest. It makes no difference to me. Father will see how utterly inept you are and send you straight back home.”

Elain looked as if he’d slapped her. She looked him dead in the eye, and in a soft whisper, said, “I will tell your mother you said that.”

Lucien snarled softly. “You wouldn’t dare.”

“She swore you were a consummate gentleman. That you’d take good care of me. I’ll tell her everything you said, Lucien—”

“With tears in your eyes? Will you tell her I shoved you, too? Cry for your daddy—”

“You did shove me!” Elain retorted hotly, rising from her chair. “I almost drowned, you weren’t even sorry!”

“Oh, I was sorry alright. Sorry that–”

“Your brother intervened?” she demanded, lips curling over two rows of gleaming, sharp teeth. Lucien felt tight, like he needed to climb over that table, wrap his hand around her throat and—

“Get out,” he whispered, just barely restrained. “Get the fuck out of my sight.”

He regretted his words the second Elain fled, throwing him the most furious look he’d ever seen. He didn’t doubt she wasn’t going to tell on him, nor did he think he was in the right. He’d taken it too far–-had suggested he wished she’d drowned.

Lucien’s guilt gnawed at him well into the night, keeping him from his usual crowd, even when he heard the thudding music in the distance.

A knock on his door told him his mother had come.

Only, it wasn’t his mother—but his father, his face a mask of disappointment. Lucien’s leg bounced up and down as he gestured for his father to take a seat in the lounge attached to Lucien’s bedroom.

“Rough day?” his father asked after a long pause. Elbows braced on his knees, his chest bare and Helion Spell-Cleaver didn’t look like a High Lord. He looked like Lucien’s father.

“I can’t help her,” Lucien said with a heavy sigh.

“All I ever hear is how charming my son is. How kind he is to the females at court. Perhaps,” Helion added with a twinkling expression, “too kind, even, for my liking. You can’t be your usual, friendly self with one Spring Court female?”

“I dislike her.”

“Yes, so she said. Loudly, as she pleaded with your mother for a different tutor.”

“Give her what she’s asked for.”

Helion regarded his son for a moment. “I could. There are plenty of people at court I trust with this task.”

Lucien exhaled, his relief short lived.

“None of them are my son. You know what the High Lord of Spring is like—this is all a novelty for him. A detour for Elain before she marries his son who is a century her senior and watched her grow up. No one is looking out for her—”

“Why am I supposed to?”

“Because I am interested in her,” Helion said gently. “Because I think Elain Archeron could be more than what her parents imagine for her. And more importantly, because she wants that. She believes you tried to drown her and yet she still met with you today. What offense has she committed against you, Lucien?”

Lucien looked at his hands, feeling like a child. He had the feeling his father understood entirely what it was that vexed him about Elain. “She’s difficult.”

His father suppressed a smile. “Your mother accused me of that, once.”

“Don’t,” Lucien replied, irritated that his father would dare. “You and Elain are nothing alike.”

“Will you do this for me, son? Can I trust you to sharpen her just as your mother once sharpened you?”

“And then what? Are you going to unleash her on Spring?”

His father smiled. “Maybe. Just—do this for me. Please?”

Lucien sighed. “She’s not cut out for this.”

“She is.”

His father stood, gold eyes pleading for Lucien to be agreeable when it came to Elain. Lucien could have said no—his father would have foisted her upon someone else. He could have had his nights back, could avoid her entirely.

“I can’t promise to make her sharp…but I can promise to keep her from embarrassing herself.”

His father smiled. “Your mother will be relieved to hear this is all a misunderstanding.”

“I’m not apologizing,” he said sullenly. Helion paused, causing Lucien to groan.

“Don—”

“I raised you better than that.”

Lucien looked up at the ceiling, exhaling hard. “Fine. Fine. Anything else? Should I marry her while I’m at it?”

“Only if you feel so inclined,” his father chuckled, pausing at the door. “Another thing—your brothers will be joining us next week for your mother's birthday—”

Lucien groaned. “All of them?”

“All of them. For three days, at your mother's insistence. You know how badly she misses them. I expect you to be on your best behavior so not to ruin this for her.”

“They’ll ruin it,” Lucien snapped, thinking of how awful the Vanserra’s were. Their behavior simply couldn’t be helped, given who their terrible father was.

“So long as you don’t. Let's remind your mother why leaving was a good choice, hm? By proving we’re the better males?”

“Yes, fine,” Lucien grumbled. “I can do that.”

“I know you can.”

Lucien waited until he was alone, thinking he ought to go to bed. In the morning he could track down Elain, mumble out an apology he was certain she’d accept smugly, and begin her lessons.

But he knew he couldn't. Not after everything his father had said and how, more than anything, Lucien hated disappointing his mother.

He couldn’t remember, exactly, when he’d become aware of his brothers. Eris, Connall, Tanwen and Cadmus. All far older than him, all left to Autumn. What Lucien did remember from his earliest moments, was the misery that occasionally overtook her—how he’d hear her weeping in the bedchamber she shared with his father. Lucien had crept in when no one was around, snuggling beneath the blanket so she could hold him.

She used to whisper, my sweet, lovely boy.

How often had she spoken the words before him? To boys who hated her now, and made it known at every gathering they attended. What had their poisonous father whispered when she’d left with her mate, unable to have both Helion and her sons—and unable to keep her husband from killing her if she remained?

Lucien had swore he wouldn't be like them. He wouldn’t disappoint her, wouldn’t be the reason she felt a moment's misery.

He ignored the thudding sounds of music and the way his body pulled, wanting to forget his disastrous night and all his failings. He wanted to lose himself in pleasure until he was little more than a mindless beast. Still, Lucien walked until he found his parents' bedchamber. Praying his father was presiding over the evening's festivities—or working—Lucien knocked.

A moment later, his mother answered. She had a thin robe wrapped around her figure, and her thick, auburn hair was braided over her shoulder. When she saw him, her eyes softened ever so slightly.

“Are you well?”

It was unusual for him to seek her out so late. Lucien had been a neglectful son as of late. “No. I disappointed you.”

Standing in the hall, his mother reached out one of her delicate hands to caress his cheek. “You have never once disappointed me.”

His heart ached. “I will do better with Elain.”

“I know you will,” she said, those russet eyes sparkling. Lucien nodded, taking a step back down the hall.

“You know,” his mother called, stopping him before he could act on his desires. “You might like her, if you ever forgave her for humiliating you in front of Eris.”

Lucien whirled, eyes wide. “I—”

His mother only shook her head. She knew. All those years of insisting he hated Elain for the lie, and his mother had known the truth of it. Eris, goading him into exploding like he always did, and Lucien, furious and desperate to escape the magic leaking out of him, had knocked into Elain. Had sent her into the pond, which would have been excusable had a starving water wraith not decided to make a meal of her.

Lucien had never forgotten the look of disgust on Eris’s face. His words, just before he dived in after her. Foolish baby Lucien.

And for Lucien, who had always wanted Eris to like him—who wanted to be Eris, it had been a step too far. Elain had come up spluttering and sobbing, clinging to Eris like her savior and Eris had let her. He’d smoothed the curls from Elain’s face and saved her satin ribbon when it trailed out of her hair. He’d taken her straight inside to her father, handing her over with gentle care.

What was so special about her, then? And not Lucien, who was heir to his fathers court, just as Eris was? Eris, who wanted to see that magic but still hated Lucien all the same? Eris, who thought he was foolish.

Eris, who had been born first—the son his mother still mourned, despite all her happiness. Lucien wanted his attention and he’d gotten it, just not how he hoped. He couldn’t hate his brother.

But he could hate Elain.

His mother turned, a sad smile on her face, and closed the door. Lucien took a breath, eyes closed. He ought to go to bed. Ought to deal with the messy emotions roiling through him, if only to keep him from truly exploding one of these days.

He exhaled his breath.

And turned for the thudding music, and the company he knew he’d find waiting.

#elucien #elucien fanfic #elain x lucien #long fic means we have time to tease shit out #if you were hoping he was gonna start being nice i have some bad news #lucien needs a come to jesus moment and unfortunately that doesnt happen until the summer court in chapter 9

117 notes · View notes