Cursebreaker and Fireheart

Chapter 23: The Stories

Aelin liked the Night Court. It felt so familiar, the dynamics between all of them as they interacted, the squabbling and light teasing. It made her ache for home, for her terrible cousin and her friends and her dog. Even Lorcan would have been a welcome sight at this point. 

Lord Lorcan Lochan. She smiled to herself, remembering his stupid married name. It really was quite hilarious. 

"What are you smirking at?" Feyre asked, sitting down next to her. 

"Oh, just thinking of home," Aelin said breezily, sitting up and meeting the High Lady's eyes. Feyre tilted her head, a knowing smile on her face. 

"I know the risks you must have taken to be here." She said. "I can tell how much your home means to you. I can't imagine what I would do if anything happened to Velaris. So I wanted to thank you, for coming here when you didn't have to." 

Aelin waved off the thank-you. "Any decent human being would have done the same."

A wry smile formed on Feyre's lips. "Yes, but we aren't human, as you might recall."

Aelin mirrored Feyre's smile. "True, I suppose." 

"Do you ever miss being human?" Feyre asked. Aelin felt her eyebrows go up, and Feyre laughed. "I can tell by the way you talk, the way you hold yourself differently than Rowan. You were human once, too, weren't you?" 

"Too?" Aelin echoed. Feyre shrugged. 

"I'll tell you my story if you tell me yours." She offered. Aelin pondered that for a moment or two. She hadn't really expected Feyre to be so... easygoing. The few times they'd met, it had been to trade what they'd learned or outrun danger. She realized she actually knew next to nothing about the High Lady. 

"Your name isn't actually Cursebreaker, is it?" Aelin asked. Feyre rolled her eyes, smiling slightly. 

"No. That's part of my story, too, if you'd care to hear it." Aelin understood what Feyre was offering. Feyre didn't know what to make of Aelin either. To trade stories, to swap the tales of what they'd gone through to get where they were now... it was a peace offering, of sorts. 

It had been a very long time since Aelin had told the whole story to anyone. She supposed the last time she'd talked for this long, uninterrupted, was when she'd told her story to Rowan. But Feyre was a good listener. So Aelin told her about the fall of Terrasen, how she'd come to the Assassin's Keep, and then to the Glass Palace. She told Feyre about losing Nehemia and meeting Rowan, and their quest to defeat the Valg King Erawan. 

When Aelin explained why Nehemia had died, Feyre seemed to understand. She didn't apologize or give her a pitying look. She didn't even try to say it was alright. She just took Aelin's hand and squeezed it lightly when Aelin's voice broke. 

"She made her decision for your sake, and the sake of her world," Feyre told her. "She died a hero." 

Aelin didn't know how to thank her, so she just continued her story. She told Feyre about being kidnapped by Maeve, then sealing the Lock and losing her mortal body in the process. Finally, she told Feyre about defeating Maeve and earning her throne back. 

Feyre didn't interrupt her very often, but the questions she did ask weren't rude. She wanted to know more about Lysandra's shape-shifting, and told Aelin she herself was a shape-shifter. She proved it by promptly taking on Aelin's golden hair, which made Aelin laugh. She also seemed very interested in Fleetfoot, and was laughing when Aelin explained how she'd set up an entire room just for the spoiled creature. 

When Aelin was done, Feyre began. Whatever Aelin had been expecting, it hadn't been this. Feyre told her about being taken away from her home because she killed a Fae wolf, and then falling in love with Tamlin, the High Lord of Spring. She told her how she'd broken Amarantha's curse, earning her Cursebreaker title and her High Fae body.