A Court of Pain and Sorrow

Trauma

The next day, one of Dante's messengers interrupted Rhaella's breakfast.
He claimed that the King had ordered her to go to his private study immediately.

She was walked there and, not even a second after she had knocked on the door, it opened wide.

Dante was sitting behind his desk in a throne-like chair. His elbows were on the desk and he held his beautiful face in his hands. If it weren't because of the darkness, the evil, of his eyes, anyone would have thought he was just a middle aged business man.

He wasn't alone.
Marcel, his heir and Nick and Marylyn, his best friends were there too.
The three of them were sitting in the chairs in front of Dante's desk but, as soon as she walked in, the all turned around to look at her.

Rhaella stood there, awkwardly, waiting for someone to speak.

"Good morning, Rhaella." Dante said as he leaned back in his chair. "How's your day going?"

"They didn't let me finish my coffee, so not so good." She answered, looking at Dante and his little smile and trying as hard as she could not to look at the other three people in the room.

"Well, I apologise for that... I just needed to ask you something. We all did."

Marcel stood up and started to circle her while Marylyn and Nick kept looking at her.

She tried as hard as she could to look calm, to ease her heartbeat.

Dante stood up and placed his hand on Marcel's shoulder.
The man stopped his inspection and sat back down next to the other two.

Dante, on the other hand, didn't sit down. He bended down to stand at eye level with a much shorter Rhaella and asked, his voice cold and dangerous:

"Have you ever killed someone, Rhaella Archeron?"

Those few words were enough to trigger her.
Those few words were enough to make the memories of that night come by and drown her:

It was a cold night. A very cold one taking into account that it was the end of spring and the beginning of summer.

Eight-year-old Rhaella was sitting on the floor of the manor, hugging her knees and hiding her head between them.

The doctors had failed. They had advised them to say their goodbyes and to be quick because they didn't know how much longer she would be able to stay awake without going insane because of the pain.

So Rhaella waited.

Her mother wasn't her biggest fan. Rhaella could count with the fingers of one of her small hands the amount of times her mother had looked in her direction over the past eight years.
She, as everyone in the house except for her sisters, ignored little Rhaella.

When Feyre came out if the room, she had tears in her eyes. Rhae didn't have time to comfort her sister because she ran away before she could even step in her direction.

So she walked in the room instead.

Her mother was there, pale and coughing like crazy. She looked so... weak. So fragile.