A Court of Heart and Fealty | Rhysand

Chapter 86: Dreams

Galadriel stayed in her room for four days, only leaving it when Atticus forced her out to stretch her legs. They didn't go far. She saw his bedroom for the first time in years when they made a stop there for his coat. It was still absurdly beautiful. Everything was crafted from the finest Maplewood, polished enough that her reflection glared back at her in every direction. His bed was enormous. She didn't want to think about the idea that it needed to be. Why everything had to be so magnificent. Atticus didn't want to stay in there longer than he had to either, placing a leading hand on the small of her back.

"She does it because she's scared of you," he said one night over dinner.

Galadriel poked around her pathetic cuts of chicken. "Who?"

He rolled his eyes. "Who do you think? It's the talk of the city at the moment—how you have fire magic. Beron's sons are practically tearing their hair out." He snorted and waved his goblet at her in a gesture. "But you—she doesn't like you at all. It's a wonder you're still alive."

Galadriel managed a dry smile. "Thanks." Chewing slowly, she thought again on the same question that she had tossed around for only a decade. "I'm worth something to her." A puzzle that Amarantha would never figure out if she killed Galadriel. A trophy to Beron and Rhysand.

Atticus sighed. It was a strangely heavy sound from someone like him and the movement drew all of Galadriel's interest. Noticing, he smiled at her and went back to eating. "How do you have fire magic?"

She sat back but tried to not make a show of her sudden retreat, easing the tension in her shoulders. "I was born with it," she answered, the same one she'd given Amarantha all those years ago. "Probably a secret illegitimate birth somewhere in my family line."

"Makes sense."

They ate for another period of silence.

Galadriel placed her fork down. "I need something from you," she said. He met her eye, wary but ready. "Your help."

He sipped at his wine and placed the goblet aside steadily, a precise curve in his lips deepening. "I've been waiting for you to ask." She shot him a glare, not in the mood for taunts and goads. Atticus took stock of her expression and sobered. "What do you need?"

She folded her hands in her lap. "I have a tradition. I used to see someone to do it for me, but I'm practically locked inside the palace and I don't trust anybody else." She went to explain more, but found herself without words, stammering. Instead, she rose from her seat and turned her back to him.

Reaching behind, she heard him shift to his feet as she started on the button hooks of her dress.

"Here," he murmured, brushing her fingers away and doing it himself. Her skin hurt from twisting her arms so she happily obliged. When the fabric was loose, she pulled the top of the dress from her shoulders, holding the front to her chest. His intake of breath was sharp. The cool tip of his finger traced those black lines mapped across her back. They started near the base of her spine with precision but the ones closer to her shoulder blades, wrapping around to the side of her ribcage were ragged. "What are these?" he breathed.

"Tallys."

His touch stilled, the weight of his eyes boring into the back of her head. "Deaths," he said.

Galadriel crossed her arms tighter over her chest, turning to him. "I...I have the things to do it myself, but I hate that I can't get them perfect." Those faeries deserved tribute, even if it was only a black mark on her pale skin. "My skin is healed enough for it now."

It wasn't often that she saw true sadness on his face, but today was one of those times. "I know somebody who—"

"You," she cut in. "I don't want anybody else seeing this. Touching me."

He leant forward, pressing a kiss to her hairline. He'd never done something like that before, never been an intimate sort of fae. "Alright," he whispered.

She set about gathering the ink and the knife and mallet. He had her lay stomach down on the bed, the sheets pulled to the bottom of her bare torso. It was almost sensual the way he folded the sheet, how he moved her hair from her back and cleaned her skin. She instructed him on the most efficient way to get it done, how deep he would need to strike the ink in for it to stay.

It didn't take long, but it was as excruciating as the last fifty. The pain never lessened. You only grew used to its company.

Galadriel's fists curled around the bedsheet, her tears leaving dotted patches on her pillow. Even when he stopped she kept crying. He tried to pry her from the bed but she tossed her head and burrowed deeper, curling her knees and moving onto her side. Blood dripped down her back in hot beads. Her cries were empty. Soundless. A mere process her body deigned to move through.

Atticus also seemed to be moving through the motions, using a rag to clean her back and sealing the new tattoo in a balm. He sat on the floor, leaning against the wall that faced her bed, ink-stained hands hanging between his knees. "I know," he said, almost inaudible. "I know how it feels. I keep thinking—what if I just give up? Wouldn't it be so much easier? But then I remember her."

Galadriel poured her focus into him. Her. He'd never spoken of any lover before. The thing that Amarantha held over him.

"I do this because I need to get back," he went on, looking straight at Galadriel. "She needs me. And I will do anything, give every part of myself to hold her again." His throat moved and he straightened, setting his shoulders. "There's someone who keeps you going. I think I know who it is. If I'm right—if I'm right, then you have no idea how sorry I am."

He understood. It was all she could think. He understood. She knew that from the moment she met him, a strange but kindred spirit lost wandering a mountain like a trapped ghost. But until tonight, she hadn't fully appreciated his own battles. They rarely let each other see the wounds of the other. "I'm sorry too."

He left her to sleep and despite the emptiness of her room, she didn't feel entirely alone. Her mind was empty, refusing to dream, and for hours she tossed and turned in her bed, tangling her legs in the sheets. The few times that she did close her eyes, she opened them again in darkness. Exhaustion and sleep were not friends tonight, even when her mind begged the latter for mercy.

She was lying with her head sunken deep into the pillow. The shadows had come out to play with her, wrapping around her fingers. They moved with silken grace, twisting and dancing in the night. She could almost hear Azriel's voice, a low hum as if he were speaking through the shadows. She knew it was impossible. He couldn't command them to travel so far.

But when an Illyrian form appeared before her, moving right through her wall, she thought that maybe she hadn't gone entirely mad after all.

Galadriel turned on her back and smiled when she realised.

She was dreaming. Finally.

She knew it had to be because of the weightlessness in her body. The way her limbs tingled like they weren't her own.

Rhysand strode forward without a sound, leaning over her. His wings were nothing more than shapes of pure black. They made him look like an angel of death. Galadriel lifted a hand. He leant into it, capturing it with his own and placing it against his cheek. Her eyes started to flutter closed, lulled by a heaviness she now didn't want.

Rhysand knelt at her bedside. The backs of his nails on his other hand drifted over her cheek and across her temple, tucking her hair behind her ear.

She moved her hand upwards, fingertips gracing over the long arches of his ear. Rhysand tucked his lip to his teeth, smiling into her wrist as she threaded her fingers through his dark hair. Mirroring her, his hand followed the same path, thumb gliding along the upper side of her pointed ear.

He pulled her hand back to his face, pressing his lips firmly to the bowl of her palm. He laid it down beside the pillow, stroking his thumb one last time before letting her go. With his other, he held her face still as he moved closer.

He stopped about two inches from her, noses almost brushing, those violet eyes nearly black. He smiled again and kissed her. By the time she dragged her eyes back open, he was gone.