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"The girl who cheated death."
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THE WIND roared around Rhys and I as winnowed through the dark folds of the world. The calming wind whipping my hair every which way as I tilted my head back.
I had used to hate winnowing—it had made me sick and it twisted my stomach into knots. But once that subsided...I found it rather...resetting. As though the dark wisps cleared my mind and forged a new path for clearer thoughts.
When I finally opened my eyes, I expected to see the welcoming interior of the townhouse or the restless streets beyond the windows. And yet we were not in Velaris.
Rather, we were standing by a moonlit mountain, the stars casting a gray hue over the lake beyond us. The pool of water was ringed with pine trees towering high above the world. A mix of viridian and silver.
We'd left the court as we'd come in, swagger and menace. Where Cassian, Azriel, and Mor had one with the orb, I hadn't a clue. Here it was just Rhys and I, the other three not in sight.
Confusion laced my features as I looked around, wondering why we'd come here.
Alone at the edge of the lake, Rhys said hoarsely, "I'm sorry."
I blinked, coming further to his side as small rippled waves crested against the small shore. "Would do you possibly have to be sorry for?"
His hands were shaking and I felt something inside me wake up.
Rhys just stared beyond us, to the crystal waters of the lake. Perhaps he'd brought us here before heading home in order to have some privacy before his friends could interrupt. "I shouldn't have let you go. Let you see that part of us. Of me." I'd never seen him so raw, so...stumbling.
I spared him a long look, watching him inspect everything around us other than me. "I knew what to expect tonight, Rhys. I knew what I signed up for. You have nothing to apologize for."
He stayed silent and I watched the soft and labored rise and fall of his chest. I could see it in his eyes. The regret for showing me that part of him. The way he was contemplating what he could do to keep me from seeing him that way again.
I grabbed his arm, the touch gentle yet firm. He turned to me finally, the shadows in his eyes more present than I had ever seen. Some deep and distant part of me fractured at the sight. "We knew what tonight would require of us." I stared into those violet depths. "I do not want you to protect me." I told him softly, "Not like that."
He knew what I meant.
Rhys rasped, "I will never—never lock you up, force you to stay behind. But when he threatened you tonight, when he called you..." Whore. That's what they'd called him. For fifty years he bore that title, they'd hissed it at him. I'd listened to Lucien spit those words in his face. "It's hard to shut down my instincts."
I arched a brow, "You do realize I was the one who strangled him first, right?" When he didn't respond I sighed, speaking again in a softer voice. "I'm not scared, Rhys. I know how to separate you from the part you play." I paused, "You seemed fine until Keir said—"
"I will kill anyone who harms you." Rhys snarled, "I will kill them, and take a damn long time doing it." he panted. "Go ahead. Hate me—despise me for it."
My mouth dropped open, "Are you even aware of who you're talking to? I've been an assassin from the time I was ten years old. You think I'll hate you for a little gore?" I spared him a long, hard look. "I understand that you are High Lord. I understand that you will defend your true court and punish threats against it. All I ask is that you let me make those choices for myself regarding what I see of it." I paused, "I don't want you to stop telling me things, inviting me to things because of the threats against me."
Darkness rippled and wings tore from his back. My hand still rested on his arm as I watched. "I am not him." Rhys breathed, "I will never be him, act like him. He locked you up and let you wither, and die."
"That's not what I–"
"Don't compare us. Don't compare me to him."
The words cut me short. I blinked.
That had not been what I meant in the slightest. Not in the least. Rhys was not Tamlin, I had known that from the beginning. There was nothing to even compare.
"You think I don't know how the stories get written—how this story will be written?" Rhys put a hand to his chest, his face more open, more anguished than I'd ever seen it. "I am the dark lord who stole away the bride of spring and her sister. I am a demon, and a nightmare, and I will meet a bad end. He is the golden prince—the hero who will keep you both as his reward for not dying of stupidity and arrogance."
The things I love have a tendency to be taken from me. He'd admitted Under the Mountain.
"That is not true." I said sternly. That was not Rhys and anyone who had eyes could see that was not how it would be written.
"Isn't it?"
I breathed, "What about my story?" he would not be written as the villain in that one. Never. "What about what I want?"
Selfish, Feyre and called me. And she was right.
But I didn't want to be selfish anymore.
"What is it that you want, Danika?" Rhys asked, a flare of his temper rising within his shadowed eyes.
I didn't answer. Wouldn't answer. In part because I wasn't sure I knew at all, but a part of me also didn't want to reply. Not when he was like this. Angry. Irritated. Sad. Broken. Scared.
People did things they regretted when in ways like this, and I did not want him to bear more guilt than he did.
His laugh was bitter, soft, "I thought so. Perhaps—"
"Don't—" I said.
"You should figure that out before you run along condemning me for your shortcomings." he shook his head. "You hide behind a mask. You let no one in. How could you? What if they saw everything, and still walked away? Who could blame them—who would want to bother with that sort of mess?"
Pain flashed in my eyes and I knew he saw it. His eyes widened almost imperceptibly, as if surprised by his own words.
My chest had been slashed open. My blood spilled onto the ground as he cut me with his harsh words.
He was angry. Angry people did things they regretted, I knew that.
Yet I also knew the words were true. And I didn't know if I could forget them.
I pulled my hand away from where it had been placed on his arm, taking a step back as I steeled my impression into one void. Revealing nothing of the hurt in my chest. The wounds his words had opened. I took a breath, raising my chin and pulling my shoulders back as I turned away from him, facing the lake he had been staring at mere moments ago.
I would not say anything back. Would not repeat the cycle I had seen so many times.
Would not return the pain he had just caused me.
"Take me home." I said, my voice monotonous. Nothing more than a shadow.
"Dani—"
"Take me home." I said again, my voice more commanding this time.
Regret lay in the gaze I refused to meet as he reached out a hand, grabbing my arm as he winnowed us back to the townhouse without another word.
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As expected, Cassian, Azriel, and Mor were waiting at the townhouse. I quickly brushed out of Rhys's hold and bid them goodnight while they ambushed the High Lord for answers about what Keir had said to provoke him.
I found myself heading to the garden rather than to my room—seeking solace in the moonlight and chill breeze as though it would blow my thoughts away.
If I was being honest, maybe I was waiting for him...waiting for an apology while also hoping he wouldn't come. To give me time.
I had told him those vulnerabilities—those secrets seeking understanding and confidence. And he had thrown them in my face.
Minutes passed, the soft breeze tickling my skin and singing it's whispers to me as I bathed in the moonlight; in the silence.
My thoughts ran rampant, ones of Rhysand's words, some of truths, some of lies. I was forced to face it all.
I had been jealous—of Cresseida. A fact I had escaped and denied in my mind. Had been so profoundly unhappy on that barge because I'd wanted to be the one he smiled at like that.
I knew it was wrong—to need him. To want him. And yet tonight I found that Rhys had become something important to me. Had snuck up on me without my knowledge.
And then a gaping hole had been placed in my chest. And I no longer knew how to feel.
When he had asked that question: What did I want? I suppose I knew. A part of me always knew.
Him.
Not the High Lord, not the most powerful male in Prythian's history.
Just...him. The person who had sent music into that cell; who had been the first one to realize I had died in the ruckus of Amarantha's throne room, who had kept fighting for me everyday since, refusing to let me crumble and disappear into nothing.
And I truly hated that. That way Rhys had wormed his way into my mind, body, and soul.
And tonight merely served as a reminder as to why I didn't let people in—I supposed his words were right in that aspect.
A/N: For anyone that's pissy about what Rhysies Piecies said to Dani, those are partly Feyre's words and what she said to Rhys in this part of the book.