A Court of Heart and Fealty | Rhysand

Chapter 85: Little Thief

Little Flower.

Like she'd been trained to, Galadriel turned to the throne and the queen seated upon it, and bowed, eyes lowering right to the tops of her toes. The faeries that escorted her scurried back into the audience. When she lifted her head, she caught sight of a dark shadow just in the corner of her eye, a few paces to Amarantha's left.

Her stomach twisted on itself so intensely that it was a shock that she didn't taint the marble floor with last night's dinner. It took every ounce of Galadriel's will not to look, to not seek him out. It didn't become any easier when she felt nothing from him. No tug of acknowledgement on the quiet bond, no smooth talon gently scraping the walls of her mind. Nothing.

Amarantha, dressed in a lethally elegant dress of the deepest red smiled in a way that Galadriel imagined a cat does when it had caught its prey. "Good girl." For more than the curtsey, Galadriel assumed. "I have a present for you." Amarantha flicked a finger covered with a golden talon to something behind Galadriel.

Turning, Galadriel saw what she had somehow missed. Kneeling on the floor, gagged and blindfolded, was a High Fae male. No one stood near him. He looked young—something about him not yet deft with ancient experiences. It only took one glance at his ragged clothes, the dark soot smeared on his copper skin, to know that he'd come from the dungeons below the palace.

Galadriel went over Amarantha's words again. "Gift?" she asked, her voice a careless, hoarse whisper like a blade in need of sharpening. What need did she have for a prisoner? She took a step closer, but there was nothing recognisable about him and instead looked through the crowd, hunting for any hint of his court or family.

Her eyes landed on Helion. He was the only other High Lord amongst them, wearing no crown or jewels. Only the white tunic traditional to his court. But Galadriel recognised his tenseness—the purposely stoic features. She couldn't tell if Helion knew the High Fae or if the male only belonged to his court.

"For you," Amarantha said. "I hear that you once took pleasure in claiming the lives of those who wronged you. I offer you the opportunity to execute the ones who have wronged me."

Galadriel almost shook her head but didn't. There were always spies—herself included—sleuthing around in the shadows, crawling along the walls like spiders. But whatever spider whispering in the queen's ear heard wrong. Or lied.

And Galadriel didn't know why.

"Surely you wish for the pleasure yourself," Galadriel said. The painstaking moan of the male her back now faced only made her throat close tighter. The last tattoo on her back had barely healed.

Amarantha leant back in her throne, the spindles shooting from it glistening under the candlelight like bloodied stakes. "Execute him." Maybe it was Amarantha who was lying. That she'd somehow discovered Galadriel's ritual tattoos, read the loathing that she tried so hard to keep from her face and decided to turn it against her in the most horrendous way.

All the kills Galadriel had made were never by her hand. Her voice was the command, but she was not the true executioner. That gave her some morsel of peace at night. Now that would be taken from her too.

Galadriel looked at her hands. Her fingers were still mangled, even two years later. Never healed right. "I don't have any blade." Cauldron and the Mother what a stupid thing to say. As she looked back up to the Mountain Queen, her eyes managed to skim across Rhysand in all his elegant glory.

Physically there was nothing different about him. He was wearing a tunic she'd never seen before but was certainly something he'd wear. His blue-black hair was just ruffled enough to suggest he'd purposefully styled it to be dishevelled, as if he could just slide from Amarantha's bed looking like that.