A Court of Heart and Fealty | Rhysand

Chapter 75: Please

Mouth agape, Galadriel glanced around the High Lords. Rhysand sent the gentlest caress down her mind. 'Answer her,' he told her softly.

"Two hundred and eight," she said.

"Young," Amarantha commented with a hefty sigh, signalling it wasn't the answer she wanted. "Too young." Her long, pointed nail traced the rim of a silver goblet. "What do you know of her, Rhysand?"

Rhysand smiled. "What does any male know of the female he beds?"

Amarantha was unimpressed, a sharp brow arched. "She was your spy."

"My spymaster's," Rhysand corrected smoothly, dipping his head as though the gesture of respect took the place of an apology. "I did not meet Galadriel in person until this past year. I didn't care to know much beyond her pretty hair and eyes. Or her mouth."

Beron, with a temper as hot as his hair was red, lunged forward. "That is a lie. He must have known. Your Majesty," he added half-heartedly. "She is not of my court. Nobody has features like hers. Yet she bares the power of my line."

Galadriel let out a short, ragged breath. That was what this was about. She had shown his son her fire magic. She had been so careful up until that night, releasing her magic in the privacy of her bathing chamber. But it might have saved both her and Lucien's lives and she could not find it in herself to regret it entirely.

Amarantha motioned to Galadriel's sunken position. "It is your belief that she stole your magic? The magic of one of your kin."

"She is more powerful than she looks. A predator in the guise of a meek mouse."

A crackling laughter filled the throne room. Amarantha placed a hand on her shaking chest.

"It is not that curious of a spectacle," said the High Lord of Summer, his dark skin dull in the low light. "If your sons are telling the truth, then she must have the blood of one of your kin in her. Unless you prefer your line stays inside itself." One of the other High Lords—Helion's father—snorted. "Or there are more bastards than you can keep count."

Amarantha's smile was cunning and devastatingly devious. Slipping from her throne in one fluid motion, she stalked down the steps until she stood right before Galadriel. "Stand," she commanded. Galadriel took another breath and pushed to her feet, chin high but eyes down. Her pale fingers clutched Galadriel's neck and it took all her concentration to not flinch or fight her way out of the hold, phantom winds of the butcher's breath brushing against her cheeks. From beside them, Rhysand took half a step forward.

The sharp nail on Amarantha's thumb dragged along Galadriel's jawline, stretching her neck up like she wanted Galadriel's veins exposed. Every weakness on display. Something tugged at the well of power sitting inside her. Called it, poked at it. "I called an audience because I wanted the other High Lords to know how unsteady your mind is, Beron," murmured Amarantha, though she was intently staring at Galadriel who was wincing as the nail pierced the skin on her cheek. "I thought you were more foolish than I anticipated but..." She stepped back. "But I think you were right about this. I can feel it in her. More than what should belong to a common High Fae."

It was Beron who looked the most surprised.

"Then she is not common," another High Lord said, his hair a winter white. He sent a sidelong look towards the Autumn ruler. "She is a bastard. Everybody knows that his line breeds with anything that breathes."

"Watch your mouth, Pollux," Beron snarled. "She is not one of ours. Galadriel belongs to Spring. I had someone look into the name." His amber eyes turned on her, hot wrath burning through them. Galadriel clamped her jaw. Then he smiled at Rhys, but he spoke to her. "I heard what happened two hundred years ago. Ironic that you now serve the male who slaughtered your family."

Rhys's face was dark—truly dark, no mask in place. He avoided her gaze and when she reached for his mind, there was nothing to find of it in hers. Retreated and sealed.

Amarantha said, "She serves me now. But now I am curious." Turning, the queen took long and slow steps back up the dais, sinking into her thrown like it was made of cloud rather than metal. "You were loyal to Rhysand?"

A careful, tricky question. Galadriel glanced at Rhys but he did not say anything. "I did as his spymaster asked."

"Why?"

"He... He saved me," she admitted, conscious of the powerful eyes leering on her. Examining her. Breaking her apart like a puzzle put together wrong.

Amarantha flitted a hand towards Rhysand. "And you were willing to serve the monster that killed everybody you loved?" The word monster didn't seem so horrid coming from her. "Do you go to his bed willingly?"

Rhys cocked his head, hands resting in his pockets. "Are my sexual habits of such interest, Amarantha?"

Galadriel stammered. Answering truthfully led to more questions. Ones that she couldn't give, like pulling a loose thread and unravelling an entire sweater. If Rhys was to wear the mask of a monster, she would have to play along. "You cannot deny a High Lord."

"We are forgetting why she is here," Beron snapped. "I don't care she whores herself out to—she has power that doesn't belong to her."

"Is it not just your revered fire magic," Amarantha said, then leaned forward, her gaze narrowed and sharp. "Tell me how you came to possess your power, Galadriel."

The only lie she could figure out swiftly enough was, "I was born with it."

"It is stolen!" Beron bellowed, but Amarantha snapped her fingers, cutting the end of his voice off.

"She is too young to have mastered that type of spell." Even Amarantha had not been able to do that. She had subdued the High Lords' magic, kept it in a cage that only she could unlock, but she did not possess it entirely for herself. Magic was a beast she just happened to tame. The idea that Galadriel had stolen magic for herself—oh, that would be a threat worth killing Galadriel for. Amarantha wanted to believe Galadriel's lie, for her own sake. "Maybe it was given to her, maybe she was born with it. I find a lack of care in the difference."

Galadriel looked at the queen through her lashes. "So I am free to go?"

The sharp tapers of Amarantha's blood-coloured lips lifted. "Yes, Galadriel. You are free to go—after you taste my wine." Picking up that silver goblet from the arm of her chair, Amarantha held it before her.

Staring at it, she felt the magic in her thrashing like a warning. Like it was trying to escape her. Glancing at Rhys, his eyes were on her, but there was an empty quality about them. As if he had sent his mind elsewhere. "No," she said hoarsely. She refused to have her magic taken from her. The spell on the wine wouldn't take it all, but it would take enough that Beron's sons might find a sudden thrust to their confidence to act against her. With Rhys's powers diminished, her own might be their only way of escaping. "Amarantha, please. I have done everything you have asked of me."

Cocking her head, Amarantha said as though Galadriel could not see the obvious, "You lied."

Her foot went to step behind her but she found that her muscles would not obey. Rather, her foot took her forward. One step after the other, she walked towards the throne, her body no longer her own. Her hand shook as it rose to take the goblet.

'Please, Rhys.'

He did not answer.

The goblet was cold against her lips, the wine even more. It slid down her throat and though she could taste nothing amiss, everything inside of her fought to throw it back up. The last dregs trickled onto her tongue and the phantom hand seizing hers finally let go. The goblet clanged against the marble floor beside her feet, ringing throughout the still throne room.

Amarantha stood, eyes turned towards the exit. "Rhysand." He turned and followed her out.