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"It's pathetic really, how much I still hope it's you and I in the end."
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Rhysand
RHYSAND WAS undeniably and irrevocably lost. His mind was a scattered, broken place of cobwebs and shadows.
He panted, scrambling to his feet as he slammed onto the floor of the House of Wind. The House of Wind. She had winnowed them to Velaris. Cut through the wards he's so carefully placed as though they were nothing.
He turned in a circle. Searching for the white haired woman who should be right behind them. Who should be winnowing herself in any second.
Where was she? Where was she? Where was she?
Danika had asked that he trust her, and he had so where was she?
But his mate did come. Did not show up in the room full of pooling blood. She was not there.
She didn't intend to come at all.
"No." Rhys whispered, "No." he took in his surroundings. The panic set in then, roaring through his veins and taking his thoughts. No—no this couldn't be happening.
She had not done this. Had not let them leave while she stayed behind in enemy terrify. She didn't. She couldn't. She wouldn't.
Rhys was not with her. He had left her. Left her to the mercy of his enemies.
Amren and Feyre were instantly there with them, tending to both Cassian and Azriel's wounds on instinct.
Rhys didn't care. He couldn't care not as his lungs turned to ash, constricting and folding in on themselves. Everything—everything had gone wrong. Had been turned upside down.
No.
Amren's voice filtered through the air, swearing at the damage done to Cassian wings. Rhys knew he should care. Should be in agony for his brother, his friend, but...but his mate was in Hybern's hands.
Without him. Because she had made him leave her. Because he had left her there.
It was wrong. Everything about this was wrong and a part of him hoped he would wake up from this sick and twisted nightmare at any moment. Prayed he would and that this was a wicked dream.
But Rhys did not wake. Stuck in this reality of unending pain.
Gods. The Flame. Her friends. Her sisters. The Cauldron. All of it. It was unending, this agony.
"Where is she?" Amren demanded, and Feyre looked up. But Rhys was in a haze, his vision blurring as if was all he could do to keep himself standing and conscious.
Rhys said breathily, "Get the Book out of here." He tossed it onto the ground. He couldn't stand it. He hated the touch of them, their madness and despair and joy.
Amren ignored the order.
Mor was not yet there, likely with Danika's sisters wherever his mate had placed them.
"Where. is. She?" Amren growled, placing a hand to Cassian's ravaged back. Rhys knew she wasn't talking about Mor.
But—but Rhys didn't think he could even begin to fathom words. Didn't think he could do anything other than hyperventilate as he leaned his back against the wall.
He had left her. She had sacrificed her free will for them. Would bow to Hybern to keep them safe. Would...no...no that did not sound like her at all.
Danika Archeron was not one to kneel. Was not one simply give up...she was planning something. She had to be. Rhys chose to believe that rather than the nauseating alternative.
The High Lord of the Night Court surveyed those around him. His bloody, and tattered friends. Mor's panic, the way Feyre seemed to not be breathing. Amren's anger.
You are High Lord, he told himself, They depend on you. They depend on you.
Rhys forced his eyes open. He was High Lord. He had to act like it.
Steeling himself, Rhys peeled himself from the wall, trying his best to be what they needed. To be what they required in this moment as he always did.
He needed to be what they needed because he feared if he didn't...there would be no coming back from the ravaged pile of thoughts he would become.
He needed to find her. He needed to get to her. He needed her.
His cousin appeared not a second later—panting, haggard. She dropped to the floor before Azriel, her blood caked hands shaking as she ripped the arrow free of his chest, blood showering the carpet. She shoved her fingers over the wound, light flaring as her power knit bone and flesh and vein together.
"Where is my sister?" Feyre raised her voice, as she dropped to Mor's side with a shuddering breath. Her light blue eyes roaming over the blonde female as if it was every bit the relief he wished he felt.
He couldn't bring himself to say the words. Not to Feyre. Not to Amren. Not even to himself.
So Mor said them for him as she knelt over his spymaster, both of his brothers mercifully unconscious. "Tamlin offered passage through his lands and our heads on a platter in exchange for Feyre and Danika, breaking Dani and Rhys's bond, and bringing them both back to Spring Court. Ianthe betrayed Tamlin—told the king where to find their sisters. The King had already made soldiers from the Flame immortal, but...as living proof to the queens. He put the into the Cauldron. We could do nothing as they were turned. He had us by the balls. And then—" Mor choked, swallowing the words. Feyre became an unmoving statue.
Quicksilver eyes shot to Rhys, "Rhysand."
He managed to say, "One of the queens wished to know whether they could be turned mortal again. And they king offered to prove it. He..." Rhys swallowed, "He offered to prove it by turning Danika into a human."
"But she cannot be turned mortal." Amren reasoned, voice raising. Feyre's mouth dropped open, horror on her features.
Rhys didn't bother processing her words as he pushed on, feeling as though if he didn't get the words out at once he wouldn't be able to at all. "She went into the Cauldron." he breathed, "And...it exploded, it felt like a living star was in the room. Hot and blinding. Danika crawled out and she–she kneeled before the King of Hybern even as she talked to me mind to mind. Telling me to get to Azriel and Cassian."
Mor forced out, "She did the same to me with Elain and Nesta."
Rhys's eyes glazed over with tears he forced himself to blink away, "She pretended that because the Cauldron had given her her power, she was now under the King's command. That the Cauldron wanted her to serve him. And then she gave us the signal and we ran." he shook his head, clenching his jaw, "And then she winnowed us here and left herself alone in Hybern."
Rhysand thought he might be dying—thought his chest might actually be cleaved in two.
He cleared his head, his shattering heart—breaking for what his mate had done, sacrificed for him and his family. For her sisters. She had given all of it. All she had.
"And now my mate is in our enemy's hands." Rhys breathed.
"Go get her," Amren hissed, "Right now."
"No." his voice broke, hating the word.
They gaped at Rhys, and he wanted to scream at the sight of the blood coating them, at his unconscious and suffering brothers on the floor before them.
But he managed to say to his cousin, "She has a plan. She always has a plan." it struck a chord in his mind, those words. "Did you not hear what she said? She wants to destroy them. Ruin the Flame and Hybern—from within."
Mor's face paled, her magic flaring on Azriel's chest. Feyre stopped moving, and Rhys was fairly sure she was not breathing. Mor whispered, "She's going to take them down. Take them all down."
Rhys nodded. "What the King of Hybern does, where he and the Flame go, what their plans are, she will know. And tell me." Hopefully. He hoped that was what she was doing. Begged the gods, the Mother, even the Cauldron. The very thing that ruined them.
He felt it within him. A whisper of color, and joy, of light and shadow—a whisper of her. Their bond.
"She's your mate," Amren bit out, "Not your spy. Go get her."
Even if Rhys wanted to—and by the Mother did he want to—she would bite his head off.
It didn't hurt any less. Didn't make him feel like less of a walking corpse.
"She is my mate, and my spy," Rhys said too quietly, "And she is the High Lady of the Night Court."
"What?" Mor whispered.
He was in pain. Such unending pain that wouldn't stop. Would not stop until he knew she was alright. Until she was back with him. Back in the Night Court.
He choked, "If they had seen through the glamor she had so carefully placed, they would have seen a second tattoo on her other arm. Twin to the other. Inked last night, inked last night when we crept out, found a priestess, and I swore her in as my High Lady." another swallow. "And wife."
His wife. His mate. His everything.
Married in secret. Crowned in secret while it was just them. They way they both wanted it. Just them. Always them.
"Not—not consort." Amren blurted, blinking. He hadn't seen her surprised since...that first dinner with Danika and Feyre when his wife had spoken the Holy Tongue.
"Not consort. Danika is High Lady of the Night Court." His equal in every way; she would wear his crown, sit on a throne beside his own. Never sidelined.
His queen.
As if in answer, a glimmer rushed down their bond. Rhysand clamped down on the relief that threatened to shatter whatever calm he feigned having.
"You mean to tell me," Mor breathed, "that my High Lady is now surrounded by enemies?" a lethal sort of calm crept over her tear-stained face.
"I mean to tell you," he said, watching the blood clot on Cassian's wings with Amren's tending. Beneath Mor's own hands, Azriel's bleeding had eased. Enough to keep them alive until the healer got here. "I mean to tell you," Rhys said again, "that your High Lady made a sacrifice for her court—her family. And we will move as she commands."
"Until then?" Amren demanded, "what of the Cauldron? Of the Book?"
"Until then," Rhysand said, staring toward the hall as if he might see her walking toward him. Emerge from the music room vibrant and beautiful and strong, "we go to war."
A/N: Dw, dw, there will be a Rhysika/Danisand wedding scene in the next book, lovelies.