the three of us

There was a time when Elea Vellane believed the world was made of blossoms.

Back when she had thrown herself across the Wall, terrified and desperate to pull Feyre from the claws of the immortal monsters, she had expected death. Instead, she had found the Spring Court. For months, it had felt like an awakening. Elea had discarded the woolen rags of her mortal misery, walking barefoot across dew-slick meadows in dresses of peach and gossamer silk. She had braided buttercups and jasmine into her long dirty-blonde hair, laughed around midsummer bonfires, and traded sharp, dazzling banter with Lucien Vanserra beneath the gilded arbor. For the first time in her short, shivering human life, she had been happy.

Then came Calanmai. Then came the shadows that dragged her into the bowels of the earth.

Tamlin had told Feyre she was dead. A merciful lie for Feyre, perhaps, but a death sentence for Elea. Under the Mountain, Amarantha had not merely killed her; she had dismantled her. Elea became the queen’s wretched plaything, kept on a silken leash, pulled into the royal bed whenever the tyrant grew weary of torturing Rhysand. The laughter was torn from Elea’s throat, replaced by a hollow alienation so deep she ceased to feel the skin on her own bones. And when her mortal body finally gave out, bleeding into the filth of a dungeon floor, Amarantha had refused to let her rest.

The queen had breathed life back into her cold lips, drowning her in dark, stolen magic. Elea had awakened with the pointed ears and immortal blood of a High Fae, but beneath her skin burned a curse masquerading as a gift: the Queen’s own cold will. Elea could silence magic itself. With a single pulse of thought, she could choke out a High Lord’s flame, unravel an ancient ward, or force a surging spell to fall dead and limp for precious, suffocating seconds.

When Feyre broke the curse and they returned to the Spring Court, Elea thought the nightmare had ended.

It had only evolved.

Tamlin’s guilt had twisted into madness. Feyre was locked away in a gilded cage, but Elea was kept in the dark beneath it. When Feyre vanished once a month to fulfill her bargain with the Night Court, Tamlin’s feral rage turned entirely upon Elea. If you hadn't been caught, Tamlin had snarled into her face, slamming her against the marble walls until her newly Fae bones cracked, she would never have come Under the Mountain. She would never belong to Rhysand.

And then, the day came when the golden girl with sunlit hair—Morrigan—ripped through the sky, shattered Tamlin’s wards, and took Feyre away.

Elea had stood at the top of the grand staircase, watching the burst of light. She had begged, her voice raw, screaming for them not to leave her behind. But the blonde female had not even spared her a second glance. The light vanished. Feyre was saved.

And Elea was left alone with a beast who had lost his prize.

She had endured three more months of hell before she finally broke through the estate’s perimeter, running until her lungs bled, hunted like a deer. She had reached the border of the forest, torn to shreds by ravenous border beasts, collapsing into the mud awaiting the sweet relief of actual death.

Instead, she had woken up here.

Velaris. The City of Starlight.

Elea stood by the arched window of her guest room in the river house, her icy blue eyes tracing the glittering ribbon of the Sidra below. It was beautiful. Nauseatingly, pristinely beautiful. She wore a gown of midnight blue silk, but to her, it felt no different than Amarantha’s chains or Tamlin’s velvet cages.

She raised her hand. A faint, smokeless distortion rippled through the air around her fingers. The ambient wards woven into the room flickered, dying out like extinguished candles before snapping back into place as she exhaled. Raw, volatile, and terrifying. Her magic was still a feral creature clawing at her ribs, and every second she spent in this city, she wanted nothing more than to tear down the sky.

A knock sounded at the mahogany door.

Elea did not turn. A shadow pooled at the base of the sill, coiling gently around her bare ankle like a loyal hound. For the past month, while she had locked herself away from the world, refusing to eat the food Feyre brought, refusing to speak, it was Azriel’s shadows that had kept vigil. They were silent. They did not ask her to smile. They did not apologize for sins they had no hand in. They simply kept her company in the dark.

The door creaked open.

"Elea?"

Feyre’s voice was hesitant, laced with a fragile gentleness that made Elea’s jaw ache with the force of her clenched teeth.

"It’s time," Feyre whispered, stepping into the room. She was glowing, healthy, adorned in fine gems and soft fabrics, looking every bit the High Lady she was becoming. "Everyone is waiting downstairs. Please. Just come down. We need to talk. We need you to understand."

Elea slowly turned her head. Her dirty-blonde hair fell over her shoulders in a cascade of cold silk, framing a face so ethereal and sharp it looked carved from glass. Her blue eyes were devoid of the warmth Feyre had known in their youth.

"Understand what, Feyre?" Elea’s voice was smooth, stripped of inflection. "Understand how a feast tastes when you aren't choking on your own blood?"

Feyre flinched as if struck. "Elea, please. Just let us explain. Don't fight me on this. Just one dinner."

Elea looked at her for a long, agonizing moment. The shadows at her feet whispered against her hem, urging a calmness she did not feel.

"Fine," Elea said softly. "Let us have dinner."

---

The dining room was illuminated by floating globes of pearlescent light. The scent of roasted lamb, spiced wine, and warm bread filled the air, rich enough to make a starving person weep.

Around the long, polished table sat the inner circle of the Night Court. Rhysand sat at the head, lounging with a casual grace that barely concealed the apex predator beneath. Beside him was an ancient-looking female with eyes of flat silver—Amren. A mountain of an Illyrian warrior with hazel eyes and wings sat across from a woman whose presence made Elea’s vision flare red.

Morrigan.

Mor sat bathed in the glow of the room, her crimson dress vibrant, laughing quietly at something the winged male had said. But the laughter died the moment the heavy doors swung open.

Elea entered the room with slow, deliberate steps. Behind her, Feyre followed like an anxious shadow.

Every eye at the table snapped to Elea. The winged warrior, Cassian, straightened slightly, his soldier’s instincts recognizing a threat. Amren tilted her head, her silver gaze narrowing as if sizing up an anomaly. Rhysand’s violet eyes remained calm, but a muscle twitched in his jaw.

In the farthest corner of the room, half-submerged in the gloom, stood Azriel. His hazel eyes met Elea’s. The shadows clinging to his broad shoulders reached out toward her, a silent, soothing gesture that she felt like a cool breeze against her feverish skin. He was the only one in the room who did not look at her with pity.

"Elea," Rhysand greeted smoothly, gesturing to the empty chair near the center of the table. "Thank you for joining us."

Elea did not return the pleasantry. She pulled out the high-backed chair, the wooden legs screeching harshly against the marble floor, and sat down. She did not touch the silver cutlery. She did not pour wine. She simply folded her hands in her lap and stared directly across the table.

At Morrigan.

Mor shifted uncomfortably, the easy bravado draining from her face. She cleared her throat, her golden hair catching the light.

"Elea," Mor began, her voice unusually tight. "I... I know you are angry. You have every right to be. But you must believe me when I tell you that I didn't know."

The air in the room seemed to drop ten degrees.

"You didn't know," Elea repeated. Her voice was terrifyingly calm, like the surface of a frozen lake beneath which monsters swam.

"When I went into the Spring Court to retrieve Feyre," Mor said, leaning forward, her hands splayed on the table in an appeal for mercy, "it was a targeted extraction. The wards Tamlin erected were volatile. Every second I stayed, the risk of being collapsed upon grew tenfold. My orders—my only priority—was to get Feyre out before she wasted away."

"I was standing at the top of the stairs," Elea said. Her voice did not shake. It cut. "I was screaming your name. I was begging you."

Mor swallowed hard, her golden skin paling. "I thought you were one of his sentries at first. The glamour, the chaos—I didn't realize who you were until we had already winnowed. By the time Feyre told me you were still alive, Tamlin had sealed the entire estate. Blood wards. King of Hybern wards. Even Rhys couldn't pierce them without starting a full-scale war that would have resulted in your immediate execution."

"So you left me."

"We didn't abandon you carelessly!" Feyre interjected, leaning across the table, her hazel-blue eyes pleading. "Elea, I swear to the Mother, not a day went by that I didn't try to find a way to get you out. Rhys sent shadows, he sent scouts—"

"Tamlin beat me, Feyre," Elea interrupted, her tone flat, lethal.

Silence smothered the room. Cassian’s jaw dropped. Rhysand’s gaze darkened into a terrifying, obsidian stillness.

"Every time you spent a week in the Night Court," Elea continued, staring unblinkingly at Mor, "he dragged me into the lower halls. He told me it was my fault. He said that if I had died like a good little human Under the Mountain, you wouldn't have had to play hero. You wouldn't have sold your soul to Rhysand. He made me pay for every hour you spent breathing free air."

"Elea, stop..." Feyre sobbed, burying her face in her hands. "Please..."

"No," Elea whispered. "You forced me out of my room to hear an explanation. Now you will listen."

She rose from her chair.

The magic inside her, dark and suffocating, finally snapped its leash.

A pulse of absolute nullification exploded from her chest. It wasn't fire, and it wasn't wind—it was an overwhelming, terrifying silence.

Instantly, the pearlescent globes of light hovering near the ceiling went dark, plunging the room into twilight. The ambient shields shielding the townhouse dissolved with a sickening glass-like shatter. Rhysand gasped, a sharp intake of air as the fathomless darkness of his High Lord power was violently suppressed, smothered beneath her iron will. Feyre dropped to her knees, clutching her head as the ambient magic singing in her veins went dead, suffocated.

Cassian was on his feet in an instant, reaching for the Illyrian blades at his back, but the raw pressure in the room made his limbs feel leaden, his warrior's magic deadened in his blood.

"Cassian, don't!" Rhysand commanded, his voice strained as he fought to summon even an ounce of his starlight against the absolute vacuum Elea was projecting. "Don't touch her!"

Elea took a step toward Mor.

Mor was frozen in her chair, her Truth-teller magic suffocating in her throat, her chest heaving as Elea’s presence pressed down upon her like a mountain.

"You pride yourself on saving women, don't you?" Elea’s blue eyes were wild, burning with a cold, terrifying luminescence that mirrored the late Queen Under the Mountain. "You are the Morrigan. The great rescuer. But when the time came, you left a girl to be torn apart by a beast, all because she wasn't the savior of Prythian."

"I am sorry," Mor choked out, tears finally spilling over her lashes, genuine agony in her voice. "I am so, so sorry, Elea."

"Your sorrow means nothing to my scars," Elea snarled, her hand rising, the oppressive silence thickening until the very air felt too dense to breathe. The furniture groaned under the strain.

Then, a cool, calloused hand gently wrapped around her wrist.

Elea froze.

The magic wavered, sputtering like an open flame caught in the rain.

She looked to her side. Azriel stood there. He had not drawn a weapon. He had not attempted to summon magic that she could crush. He merely stood beside her, his dark wings flared slightly to block the rest of the table from her sight. His hazel eyes were steady, calm, and utterly unafraid.

Wisps of his shadows rose from the floor, twining gently up her arm, wrapping around her trembling fingers, absorbing the bitter chill of her fury.

"That's enough, Elea," Azriel murmured, his voice a low, gravelly baritone that cut through the roaring in her ears. "Breathe."

"They left me," she whispered, her voice finally cracking, the iron facade fracturing down the middle.

"I know," Azriel said gently, his grip on her wrist never tightening into a restraint, merely offering an anchor. "I know they did. But you are not in his hall anymore. And you are not Under the Mountain."

Elea stared at him, her chest heaving. The shadows curled over her knuckles, cool and grounding, reminding her of the long, silent nights when they had guarded her door while the rest of the world slept.

Slowly, agonizingly, the suffocating pressure in the room receded.

The floating globes of pearlescent light flared back to life, flickering weakly before stabilizing. Rhysand let out a deep, ragged breath, his shadows snapping back to his command, though his eyes remained wide with shock at the sheer impossibility of what she had just done. Feyre was weeping openly into her hands, Cassian stood frozen in awe, and Mor sat bowed, shattered by the weight of the truth.

Elea pulled her wrist away from Azriel’s grasp, though she did not step away from him.

She looked around the table one last time at the powerful, glittering court that thought they ruled the world.

"Do not pretend we are a family," Elea said, her voice dropping into a deadly whisper that resonated in the quiet room. "And do not ever ask me to forgive you."

Turning on her bare heel, she walked out of the dining room, her head held high, leaving the rulers of the Night Court sitting in the quiet wreckage of her silence.