A Court of Heart and Fealty | Rhysand

Chapter 26: A Tale

She watched as he let his thoughts drift, trying to catch onto where they moved to.

"Can I ask you something?" The words had jumped into her mouth before she could properly assess them.

Rhysand straightened. "Anything."

"Azriel." She swallowed. "And Mor." His eyes glinted with knowing. "There's something between them, isn't there?"

He parted his lips, but didn't speak immediately. He knew the answer, she could tell, but he was figuring out the best way to say it. Eventually, he smiled weakly and said, "If that's what you can call it. Azriel... Nothing has ever happened between them as far as I'm aware, but Azriel... Yes, he's drawn to her. Mor has never reciprocated anything."

Galadriel only nodded, letting the affirmation of her suspicions sink in. "Do you think they're mates? I know that with some pairs, the males often feel it first. That its stronger for them."

But Rhysand shook his head before she had even finished speaking. "No. They've known each other for over four hundred years. I've never heard of a bond that didn't snap for so long. And if Azriel suspected there was a bond, he'd act differently. He'd respect her wishes, but you would know. I would know."

She leant back into the seat, enjoying the mild breeze with all her extremities warmly clothed.

"Does it upset you?" he asked, the words chipped as if he couldn't quite get them out properly. "I know that you—"

"Don't even finish that." But as he had, she shook her head without much thought needed. "I enjoy what I feel when I'm around him." She couldn't look him in the eye, instead watching a small ship glide silently past them. "I like being around him, but I never wanted—hoped—for something more. Besides, my baking involves more chemistry than we have."

Rhysand snorted though he tried to choke it down, evolving it into a cough behind his fist. Sliding her eyes towards him, she smirked over a pout and dug her elbow into his ribs. Shaking out his mirth, he dropped his hand from his lips. "I'm sorry," he said.

"Don't be. Azriel has just been one of the only males in my life who... Was available. I didn't let myself get distracted at the Autumn Court—I considered everyone a potential threat. My only friends were Amoise, Lucien, and Dariel who was one of the guards. And he had a mate already."

"Had?"

She nodded solemnly. "She died a few years ago. He's been a wreck ever since. I'm not sure how's been doing since I left, but he wasn't good when I did."

"Is that..." Rhysand shifted, moving forward, closer to her. "Is that what you meant that day in the garden? That having a mate isn't always for the better?"

Dragging her eyes from the grass around her feet, she bit the inside of her cheek to hold the sting of tears as memories of Dariel's spiral crashed through her. "How was your father, after your mother was slaughtered?"

He flinched at the brazen, harsh question. A deep line formed between his brows and he seemed to sink even lower into the seat. Part of her wished she hadn't asked it and didn't expect him to answer. "He went off and killed the High Lord of another court. And himself along the way."

She knew the story too well—remembered the spray of blood, hot and red, dripping down the floral walls. "Everybody forgets what losing a mate would mean. The lifetime of pain it would bring."

Gazing out across the park, she searched through the dimness for the nocturnal bird she could hear chittering in a tree.

"You were there, weren't you?"