A Court of Heart and Fealty | Rhysand

Chapter 73: A New Routine

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Galadriel blinked, staring straight ahead as she stood in Amarantha's personal drawing room. Wine had been poured into two glasses, but she was smart enough not to take the bait. "I haven't been down to the market space today, so I don't have anything to report."

Amarantha drank boredly from her glass, lounging on a velvet chaise. "Have you heard anything interesting? Servants speak. Gossip is currency amongst your kind."

"I don't speak with them."

"It is your job to."

Closing her eyes, Galadriel nodded. It was a lie. She had been listening closely to the other servants talking amongst themselves. Most of it was blasphemous. Mutterings of threats they would probably never be brave enough to follow through with. Nothing they deserved to die for.

"I think there's a thief," Galadriel said. "Servants have been complaining that they've been accused of theft but swore they hadn't touched anything. At first I thought they were lying, but it's repeated itself among circles that don't overlap much."

"You think I find the work of a petty theft interesting?" That clipped voice was warning enough.

"One of the servants that complained worked for Beron's second eldest. He says that Beron's sons are talking about slaughtering any servant suspected of stealing."

Amarantha's eyes narrowed. "All matters of justice are to be put through me." Galadriel figured they had very different definitions of the word. "I'll have... a word or two with them." It might not save any lives, but it would reign in the sons of Autumn. Let them know their moves were being watched. And that could only do Galadriel good.

Amarantha shoved herself to her feet, slamming the glass down on the nearby table. Passing the mirror above the lit hearth in her bedroom, she smiled and touched the ginormous emerald necklace at her neck. Galadriel caught her eye in the reflection and quickly looked away. "You look so dull these days, Galadriel," she mused flittingly. "Are you sick?"

"It is being underground," Galadriel replied, both as honestly and kindly as she could. "Shade doesn't suit my skin."

Amarantha gave a little humph. "Like a flower, then. Little Flower."

"I've never considered the comparison."

Picking up a little silver box, the queen inspected the intricate engravings. No doubt a treasure of her conquest. Glancing over her shoulder, she surveyed Galadriel in a way that she couldn't read. "Tell me, Little Flower, what is Rhysand like?"

Galadriel stammered. "He... He is vindictive. Arrogant."

"No," Amarantha snipped. "I mean as a lover. Is he rough? Dominant? Does he like taking you from behind or having you on top?" Heat flooded Galadriel's cheeks. "I can always smell you on each other so don't try to lie about it."

Rounding her shoulders in discomfort, Galadriel managed to get out, "He likes watching things. Hearing me make noises."

"What else?"

"He—" she coughed, invisible hands strangling her throat "—he likes to be ridden."

A little smile told her that Amarantha was pleased with that information and a pit of dread had Galadriel wondering if Amarantha was noting it against her own pleasures. "You are dismissed."

The Attor, who had been waiting in the corner as silent as a spider, lunged forward. He snagged a clawed hand around her wrist, dragging her from the chamber like leaving Galadriel any longer inside would be the utmost insult to his master. Her wrist barked as he twisted it to throw her out and she hit the far wall of the corridor.

She walked back to her room cradling it. Then immediately dropped it back to her side when she opened her door.

"I'm sorry," Rhys murmured from where he sat against her desk. "I know you're tired, but I just wanted to see you." Guilt curdled in her stomach. She'd violated the privacy of their intimacy. Told Amarantha things he trusted her with that weren't meant to be shared. She didn't even have the mind to lie.

"What's wrong," she immediately asked.

He sighed. He was about to say Nothing, but he caught her expression. Taking the sign that this wasn't a standing sort of conversation, and truthfully her legs ached too much, she sat on the end of her bed, pulling her feet beneath her. "I just wanted a break," he said. "She brought in a prisoner this morning. Had me tear through his mind. The male was trying to find a secret exit he'd overhead someone talking about. Wanted to get some younglings from his court out." Bowing forward, he ran his fingers through his hair. "I had to kill him."

Galadriel folded her hands in her lap, thinking carefully. "He was dead the moment he tried. At least he died in the presence of someone who would bother to pray for him." Because that's what Rhys did every time he killed on her orders. Galadriel hadn't realised, because his lips never moved, but one day he'd opened the channel between their minds and she'd heard the prayer that helped guide souls back to the Mother.

The vein pushing against the skin on his neck informed her exactly of the way he was straining but trying not to show it. "Tamlin turned her away again," he said with an airy, empty chuckle. A notable turn in the topic. "Didn't realise the bastard had standards."

Galadriel had managed to avoid Tamlin. Not by choice, but their paths just never crossed. Amarantha kept him occupied most days. "It's not going to bode well when her temper snaps." Amarantha was like a pliable piece of wood. It would bend, where she'd play her little games that she loved so much. But too much and she would break. "But I don't blame him."

"Who do you think would take over the Spring Court if Amarantha killed him?"

Galadriel crossed her arms at the hint of true curiosity in his voice. "As much as you two hate each other, you're not against one another right now. If he died, he could be replaced with a lot worse."

Rhysand picked at his nail. "Maybe it would be the youngest Vanserra."

"Lucien," she corrected, but then thought on the possibility. Lucien was the son of a High Lord, the closest thing to one beyond Tamlin in Spring. Tamlin had no other family so the possibility that the power would shift to Lucien was certainly one that existed.

Rhys shrugged. "When her attention isn't on Tamlin, it's on me so for all intent and purposes, him being alive is very much something I want." He slid from the desk, wandering aimlessly around her chamber. His eyes fell to her wrist.

Shifting, she pulled the sleeve down but he'd already noticed and grabbed her hand. "I knocked it on the side of the hearth. I thought I saw a spider and freaked out," she explained. He stared at her bruised skin and she conjured the image in her mind, seeing a giant, hairy critter crawling from the ashes in the hearth she'd been cleaning, her jumping and squishing her wrist between the brick and herself.

"You haven't bothered to speed the healing?"

She smiled. "I've been busy and it doesn't hurt." He sighed in a way that informed her she was in trouble as he swiped his thumb over the tender spot. His magic combined with hers and the bruise disappeared. "Thank you."