To those showing up because "Wait what? It's updating? I thought it was finished?" :
The story has been edited, and the entire ending rewritten. I would love it if you reread the entire story (the beginning is close to the same as before but with little new snip-bits that connect the story together) and enjoyed it all over again. But that is up to you.
Let's get reading 😁
***
Feyre had yet to return.
She tried not to worry, carefully bathing Lilith in her adjoined bathing chambers, but it did not stop her from summoning one of her spies to her room. There was a small knock, and Requeza entered, alone.
The olive-skinned female found her way to the bathroom without prompting and stopped on the threshold. Eblis blocked Lilith from sight as she toweled the girl off, inspecting the small cuts and too-pale skin. She could see the girl's ribs, but not too prominently to make her think she had been horribly starved. The girl's soft, curious eyes were on the person behind her.
Without turning, she told Requeza, "I need you to look for someone."
"Yes, Spymaster."
She paused. "No need to be so formal, Requeza," she then said, helping the girl dress into night clothes more fitting to her size-ones she'd gotten from Imillion as asked for by Madalyn. A fine dress of soft cotton the color of poppies, loose and free so she could move easily. Finally, she turned to her spy.
Requeza watched her, brown eyes carefully bland yet still holding a tinge of warmth for her. Like the majority of her Daemati Council, she'd raised the female when she was younger, taking her off the hands of a harried couple who could not stand the girl's ability to read their minds. They were frightened of their own daughter, and couldn't even trust her to not be forcing them to do things. It had deeply ruined Requeza as a girl, but Eblis, lonely and fed on blood and despair, had turned the female's sadness into anger so she would not care what her parents thought. She'd then whipped her into fine shape with training and practicing her skills, making her think that if she were to become a great daemati, she would be spiting her parents.
But the couple had been killed not long after handing their daughter off. By Eblis herself.
Now, Requeza offered only a flicker of curiosity at her stare.
Eblis sighed. "Are you loyal to me, Requeza?" She knew the answer, but she needed to hear it-needed to truly believe it before she took a leap off a precipice there would be no going back on.
Without even a moment of thought, her spy said, "Of course, Eblis."
She took a deep breath, nodding at the words. Relief curled around her, but with the harsh whip of memory. The last time someone trusted you, she told herself, they all got killed.
Eblis stood and faced her spy, fighting the fear and dread in her gut. As if sensing the gaze for what it was, Requeza stood taller, giving her a fierce look. Her previous crew had been strong, but it hadn't stopped them from being taken away from her.
She refused to think that way. They were strong and they would stay by her side. Together, they could withstand anything.
Eblis pushed the dark thoughts away, and stared straight into Requeza's brown eyes as she said, utterly void of emotion, "I'm betraying the Queen."
Requeza's gaze narrowed, back straightening the same time a small hand came to clutch the back of her leg. Eblis watched her closely, but the female said nothing, as if waiting for more. And, like a fool, she continued. "I'm also harboring the High Lady of Night so she can help me kill her Majesty and crown Madalyn as the new Queen of Hybern."
Blasphemy. She was saying blasphemy, and she could almost feel a cool stroke of torture along her skin. Mentally, she checked the room, but it was only her, Lilith, and her spy. Still-she felt irked by saying those words aloud in the castle.
Requeza, on the other hand, only offered a rare smile. "I know."
She froze. "What do you mean you know?"
"I mean," the spy continued, brown eyes softening inexplicably, "that I know. Both me and Imillion do-we were waiting for you to come to us." Lilith settled herself on the lip of the tub, a shadow feline brushing against her legs. Her tiny hands started to braid her own hair, watching the altercation curiously.
"How?" Eblis could hardly think of any other question.
Requeza's head tilted to the side just slightly, her hands folded behind her back. "You think we wouldn't notice the change in you, Eblis? You raised us. We are as much alike to you as you are to us."
She barely managed to contain her shudder, the words a lick of truth along her mind. Instead, she sighed and sent a scant glance to the child. Lilith glanced up with her beautiful violet eyes, that kiss of night magic muted within her. Before she could understand that gaze, be drawn into the depth of understanding that shouldn't have been there for a ten-year-old, she confronted Requeza again.
"The person I want you to find is the High Lady. She disappeared a few hours earlier and has yet to return."
The spy nodded. "Imillion followed her to town, but he has yet to return either." Eblis's blood ran cold. Before she could ask why he had done that, Requeza said, "He felt something strange and wanted to find it before you did. He was trying to impress you."
She didn't get the chance to react to those lethally sweet words, the sound of knocking reaching their ears from her bedroom. Eblis glanced down at Lilith, silently telling her to stay put before entering her room and opening the door, her shadow felines on her heel.
Imillion stood there, panting, massive white-gold wings utterly drenched until the white was a wet pewter gray. His dawn-colored hair dripped across his face, a puddle forming beneath him.
She pulled him into her room without a word, peering a head into the hallway as she searched for any onlookers. The castle was eerily silent, weak sunset light filtering in from the rainy sky. Eblis closed the door and turned to the Peregryn.
"What in the hell are you doing?"
"I tried to catch onto your minds, but you weren't responding."
She frowned, but Requeza was already speaking for her. "We didn't feel anything, Imillion. Just tell us."
The male sighed, catching his breath, before he finally said, "I caught the person I felt lurking around and traced her into the village. But at some point, I finally caught onto her scent"-his gaze darted to the bed nestled in the corner of her room, beneath the window-"and it smelt the same as the one there." That is not Madalyn's scent. The words he'd said upon noticing the bedding.
"Yes. Her name is Feyre. She is working with me," Eblis explained curtly, urging him forward with his story.
"Right. Well she was caught nay-saying the Queen."
Requeza's breath caught, and Eblis found herself going very, very still again. "And what," she said, voice entirely too cold, "happened to her?" She'd promised her brother to protect his mate with her life. Not only that, but she wanted to protect the female for herself-for everything she'd done for her brother and the family she'd left behind. She owed it to her.
"She was about to be beheaded by one the guards," Imillion continued, breaths finally calming, "but I used your name and told the guards that she had to be brought in for questioning. This happened about an hour ago, outside one of the taverns on the docks."
"Why are you only coming to us now, you stupid bird?" Requeza said in a rare hiss of heat. But she was already checking her weapons as Eblis did; strapping on more in preparation for a battle.
"I was only just sent to get you, Eblis. She's in the dungeon and Reneau wants you to question her."
***
Rhysand was a pulse in her mind, sending weak wave after weak wave of comfort as he sensed her absolute terror.
Her throat hadn't been slit.
No, the guards had been stopped by Eblis's Peregryn spy, sunlight countenance washed out with rain. The female guard had pulled the blade from her throat, where a small nick had already been created, but did not release her hair as the male-Imillion, she remembered-and her argued, the crowd watching silently. Ivik stepped in to help her, claiming she was drunk and didn't know what she was saying even though Malade hissed behind him. She'd then been dragged away-roughly enough to bruise and small cuts to appear-from the scene, heart pounding in her throat where she had bled, her eyes never leaving the form flying over them in the sky, monitoring her capture.
She hadn't been sure who to trust, but she decided to bet on Imillion in that moment.
She shivered with wet cold despite her cloak, the peasant garb thick for Hybern conditions yet not thick enough. The walls closed around her, threatening to choke her of breath, of room, of feeling. She'd thought she'd gotten over the fear-but Feyre supposed she hadn't been put in a cell beneath the ground since her time in Under the Mountain, her mortal heart shriveled and broken.
She felt weak like that again; as if she were brittle, about to break once more. But Rhysand, over leagues of ocean and land, washed her clean and reminded her. Of everything.
She'd won against the Wyrm, she'd cheated her way through death and riddles and arose triumphant and shattered. She'd beat Amarantha. She'd overcome Tamlin. She'd been pieced back together, by herself and Rhysand and Cassian and Azriel and Mor and Amren and everyone. She was not alone, and never would be. Feyre was not weak; she was the High Lady of Night, the mate of Rhysand.
She'd sat in stygian darkness for what felt like forever, not a single torch or faelight lit in the underground cellar of the Hybern castle. She didn't dare to burn her flames or kiss the darkness with night-she didn't know who was watching her, or who in the many many cells she'd passed that would give anything to be set free again. It stunk, it was cold, and it was dark.
A bright white figure had arrived in the absolute black of the quietly murmuring dungeon on silent feet, not even a rustle of feather to be heard. Imillion had warned her to stay put, that he was handling the situation. She was told that if she left right then, it would make things a lot worse.
So she'd sat and waited, and laid across old hay, the scratching of it on her face and thousand memories in one single poke that she crested over and stomped down. Rhysand went silent in her head, the distance too great even for him. But the mental bond was there, shining and bright with their mating.
Steps clipped down the single pathway that led past iron bars and cells, deliberately loud. There were several, and the pale, flickering light of promise along with them. The light grew stronger as an even deeper silence stretched through the dungeon, and then they were before her.
Eblis, and three other people.
Three other people that glared at her.
Feyre forced herself not to react, even as a sudden, shuddering wave of silence swept over her and nearly choked her. She reached for Rhysand, but her mental hands grasped nothing. Her magic was gone. She was weaponless.
Eblis glared down at her coldly. "The Queen has Drained her," she said, and the handsome male at her side nodded. She recognized him. Reneau. Eblis was not there to free her.
"What are you going to do?" she hissed, pushing herself to a stand. Her lithe limbs obeyed with flickering anger.
The male gave her a lethal gaze down his nose, height towering over her. His eyes were entirely remote, as if he couldn't be bothered to make an expression. "I told the General-Spymaster to fetch, and she has fetched. She is getting her reward now." The male turned to Eblis, whose nose had curled with a snarl not too far from an animal's, shadow cats yowling at her feet. Reneau ignored them. "Shatter her mind."
Feyre's breath whooshed out of her.
Eblis paused, ignoring the quiet sound even as the two extra guards stiffened. "I thought you wanted me to question her." Not a question, just a soft, dangerous warning.
"We have you, don't we? We don't need her. Now shatter her mind."
Feyre went still, defiance setting her shoulders. Eblis wouldn't do it. Couldn't, not with the bargain between her and her mate. Then that defiance drifted away, fear settling in its place.
But if she could not do it, then she would be found out, and both of them would be killed.
Eblis could not deny her Queen without consequences.
She cursed foully in her mind, trying to reach for her magic. She felt nothing, like an empty void that she screamed into for help. There was no response but for that same, shuddering feeling of her senses being stuffed with cotton. She nearly groaned, but forced herself to grip the cell doors and hiss at the Loyal Guard.
"You can't shatter my mind. It is protected." She attempted to strengthen her mental boundary, to push it back as Eblis had advised.
Reneau smiled cruelly, the expression not reaching his eyes, as he watched her slacken with shock. "Being daemati is also a type of magic, High Lady," he taunted. They know who I am. The thought sent shivers of fear down her spine. "You can build up your walls however much you want, but you won't be able to stop us from entering and stealing all that you are."
Eblis turned an empty violet glance to her, the gaze a mockery of her mate's in such an emotionless state. Nothing in her stance or expression belied a hidden plan-as if the female knew there was no correct answer to this situation, no way to get out of it. Feyre's hope itched away from her the longer Rhysand's sister stared at her soullessly. What is she going to do?
"Go along, General-Spymaster. Take back what was taken from you," Reneau said to Eblis, voice deepening into a lethal pur as he provoked her. This was more than a reward, as he'd called it. It was a test, and Eblis was going to fail it miserably.
She choked. Mental talons wrapped around her barriers, and Eblis refused to meet her gaze. She could tell the female looked at an infinitesimal spot between her eyes as she forced her to her knees. Her mind quivered as those talons began to sink in without hesitation.
No. No no no no no.
Eblis couldn't do that.
She couldn't-
She choked beneath the feeling, struggling weakly.
And then her mind was crushed, memory splintering beneath Eblis's grip until she was utterly broken.
***
She released a gasp she didn't know had caught in the back of her throat, looking away from Feyre. She couldn't meet the female's empty blue-gray eyes as she released her mind. Could not, for fear of bursting into furious tears.
Rhysand would kill her for what she'd done.
Her hand subconsciously rubbed the spot between her breasts where the bargain marking sat. It had burned. But it no longer did, as if it knew what she had done. Why she had done it.
Eblis had no other choice. If she denied breaking Feyre's mind, then both of them would've been killed, and all for nothing. So it was either shatter Feyre, and she lives, or refuse to, and both of them die.
"It is done." She forced her emotions away and down, glaring at Botto and Josine, the guards who'd accompanied them. She marked their faces, the fear in them as they faced their General. She'd trained them. They knew her, what she was, and what she could do. They'd just never had to watch it before. This, in itself, was a reminder of her prowess.
She forced herself to focus on that, and only that.
Reneau checked her work, and nodded after a terse moment of silence. Feyre collapsed to the floor, body utterly still even though her chest moved with breaths. Her eyes were too vacant for comfort. Her miniature movements were mindless and weak, no thought or purpose behind them. Without another word, the Queen's Loyal Guard daemati and the two other guards clipped away from her, but not before handing her one of the two torches they'd brought with them.
It was almost as if they expected her to stay down there, to gloat over her deed.
As soon as they left, Eblis fell to her knees before the cell door, hands gripping the cold iron bars as she forced her mind onto Feyre's. She'd made a mess of her mind, but in a very specific way. She held her breath, unsure if it would work.
Instead of smashing her mind into pulp, as she usually would've done, she'd simply pieces like parchment. Parchment she now tried to piece together. She struggled, and she wasn't sure how long she kneeled there, staring intensely at her High Lady as their breathing evened out and settled into a matching rhythm. It had to work. It had to work. It had to work.
Otherwise, she'd just killed her brother's mate.
It has to work, she vowed to herself.
Murmurs arose behind her, the torch in it's bracket above her flickering with every-weakening light as it burned down. Still, she worked.
And, with a single, hard jerk through Feyre's chest with her ability, the female coughed into life.
She nearly collapsed with relief, watching as her High Lady launched into sitting, a hand on her chest as she struggled to breath. Her gaze was frightened as it found Eblis's, but it was emotion when there had been nothing moments before, and a swell of joy rose in her chest. She did it.
She'd unshattered someone's mind.
"If I didn't know you were bound by a bargain to protect us, I would've thought you'd just killed me," Feyre croaked, that fear drowning away.
She couldn't laugh. She simply put every single person and guard within the dungeons to sleep and stood. She unlocked the cell with a jingle of keys. "Let's get you out of here."
***
Loving the story? Help me publish it as an original work by contacting H.M.Q.uincy05@gmail.com!