Hands snatched the clothes around my body, pawing and tugging at my limbs. I woke up from a dead sleep in a full panic, gasping for air and eyes wild as I tried to understand what was happening to me. My hands were pressed behind my back, sitting them at an angle that would break my arm if I struggled too hard. My hands were bound together with a coarse rope. A blindfold was slipped over my eyes. One hand yanked my hair hard enough to nearly tear it all out while another forcibly gripped me under my armpits, lifting me into the air simultaneously with the hands seizing my ankles.
I thrashed and kicked, desperately trying to break free, but their grips were much too strong. I gulped down air, turning my head sporadically as I tried to understand where I was being taken. The air seemed colder down this hallway, wetter. It smelled thick and humid, like water, mildew, and limestone. It took me a second before I fully registered the sound.
Rushing water. I hadn't even known there was a water source down this deep. Or that there even could be. There was so much of this Court of underground tunnels I knew nothing about, and that put me at a nearly unconquerable disadvantage. She had the element of surprise on her side every time, and oh how she loved to watch me struggle.
Instead of sitting me down, the hands just dropped me entirely. The water was a roar in my ears now. I was dangerously close to it. Every now and then I felt small droplets of water touch my skin. I got up to my knees and the blindfold was yanked off of my eyes, unknotting my hands from my back as well. I immediately felt dizzy.
Below me on both sides was a raging river of dark water. It came from and disappeared through lower cave tunnels. I was on a stone bridge, with nothing on either side of me except a freefall into death by drowning. Once I was inevitably yanked under the rocks, there would be no saving me, and no air. The stone bridge was only a foot wide. Just enough for me to kneel on and no more. The bridge extended 50 feet in front of me, and each inch was covered in jagged glass, the tiny, shattered shards sticking up from the ground like a premeditated death trap.
Time stood still when my eyes finally caught what awaited at the other side of the bridge. Tamlin was strapped to a chair, ropes around his chest and legs, and tape over his mouth. Amarantha lurked behind him, pacing as she surveyed me, a wicked smile carved into her porcelain cheeks. My heartbeat stuttered in my chest.
"Nice of you to make it," Amarantha cooed condescendingly. "And just in time for all the fun!" She was theatrical tonight, it seemed. I wondered where Rhysand had staggered off to. I couldn't have been asleep more than an hour. He was not with his Queen. So, where had he gone when he stormed off?
Tamlin sat as still as a corpse in his chair. Its legs were bolted into the ground, making it untippable. Why was he being tied up like a hostage? Was he not one of them now?
"What is this?" I cried in horror, fighting the urge to look down at what might await me if I lost my balance. The current was much too strong. I'd never make it back up. I'd give myself no more than seconds before I was trapped in the water beneath the rock on the other side, choking and inhaling water into my lungs. Who even knew how deep it was? The water was dense. You could see nothing below the crashing rush of the waves sliding back between the beds of rock.
"A game!" She shouted with glee, clapping her hands together. "You know how I love my games." She walked over to stand behind Tamlin, resting a hand on either of his shoulders as she watched me panic. "The game is simple, Feyre. All you have to do is decide whether or not it's worth it to you to cross this bridge to Tamlin."
Amarantha cranked a handle in the stone and my breath whooshed from my lungs as a giant blade swung down from the ceiling, slicing the air to one side and consequently slashing back to the other. The blade was shaped like a hammer and was freshly sharpened and polished. She'd been excited about this plan of torture she'd concocted. Like had the weapon installed just for this purpose. With every swing, the blade dropped a bit lower. I felt like I couldn't breathe.
"Tamlin!" I shouted, attempting to urge him into action. Couldn't he break free of the ropes? I'd seen examples of his strength many times before. These ropes should have been child's play for him, and yet he didn't move. Why the hell was he not moving?
"Oh!" Amarantha cheered, laughing an obnoxiously loud laugh. "I forgot to tell you. I've taken away his motor functioning." My eyes blew wide as I looked at him again, his features undetailed from this distance, but I could still see the fear in his eyes. This wasn't a game. This was the difference between life and death.
"Why would you kill him?" I said, trying to reason with her, my bare feet at the edge of where the broken glass began. "Don't you want him all to yourself?" She chuckled, walking to Tamlin and brushing a stray hair behind his ear as she spoke to me.
"I do," she admitted. "But with you in the picture, he's not very cooperative. But I can't just kill you, that won't do. So now, I'll have double the fun watching the two of you desperately scramble to save one another. Either you'll fail and I'll be a play toy short, or I get to watch you drag yourself over broken glass for someone who'd never do the same. Either way I win, and with quite the entertainment. I was growing quite bored."
"You won't kill him," I shook my head, trying to convince myself as much as her.
"No?" She grinned. "I suppose you'll just have to watch and find out, won't you dear?" Amarantha turned and walked to a chair several feet back from Tamlin and to the side, giving herself the perfect view of my torture. The heavy blade swung lower, now only two feet above his head. His hair jostled with the wind the pendulum swing created in its swoop.
I looked at Amarantha and she grinned. My heart sank into my stomach. Terror overtook me as I looked at the vicious angles of the glass bits, all poking upwards like she'd staged them that way. Another swoop of the blade had my stomach in knots as I looked down at the black water. If I wanted Tamlin alive, I had no choice. I'd have to cross and untie his bindings, yanking him away from Amarantha's relentless blade.
Deciding I had no choice, I gritted my teeth, searching for the place with the least glass that I could put my foot on. I hissed as I felt the first one sink into the ball of my foot. On the next step, I cried out. By the fourth and fifth, I was wondering why I had even bothered. This piercing, overwhelming pain, and I'd likely still not get there in time to save him.
Tears streamed down my cheeks as I maneuvered, trying to keep my balance and cut my feet as little as possible while also trying to quicken my pace. My stomach roiled as I took another step, trying to make each gait as long as possible to experience as little pain as I could. Which right now was aching and debilitating. I wasn't made to accept this much pain. My body didn't know what to do with itself.
Another low swipe of the blade, now only a foot above Tamlin's head, sent a breeze, nearly knocking me off kilter. When I accidentally stepped on a shard too steep, it impaled the bottom of my foot, right in the arch. I shouted in pain, wobbling on my feet and nearly tipping off into the black water. Sobbing, I overcorrected and ended up slamming my palms and knee down onto the glass shards. I was dry heaving, unable to breathe, and feeling hopeless.
I wasn't even sure why I did it, but my brain screeched out internally, reaching for Rhysand. He nearly always lingered in my mind, and I prayed to all the gods that he was now. He likely wouldn't even help me or show up, but I held on to the hope like a life raft. I stood back up, repeating Rhysand's name over and over in my head, begging for him to hear me somehow.
"Time's nearly up, Feyre," Amarantha taunted. I was a little over halfway across. I stood, wincing at the glass re-entering my feet with the added pressure of my body weight. I bared my teeth as hard as I could, my jaw shaking. I focused on the pain there, needed it to distract me from the agony radiating through my feet. I forced one foot in front of the other, determined to make it to the other side. Three steps left. With a shout that likely resembled a battle cry, I hurled my body as far as I could, landing on barren stone. Relief washed over me like salve to a burn, but I didn't get to enjoy it long.
I was back up on my feet, yanking a huge glass piece from the ground, limping over to Tamlin as fast as I could. I flinched as the pendulum blade cut through the air with malice, nearly skinning the top of my head. I cut the ropes, no longer even concerned with the way the glass shredded my palms and as I watched the blade headed back straight towards me, I tackled Tamlin out of the chair and onto the ground, mere seconds before he'd have been dead, skull parted and crushed down the middle.
Amarantha was cackling. The sound was heinous, a horrible noise that grated my ears. She clapped, heading toward the lever that would stop her torturous blade from coming back down. While her back was turned, my nostrils flared, a blazing fury tearing through my chest as I gripped the glass, blood trickling to the floor to mix with the bloody footprints I'd been tracking. She was distracted, beginning to speak.
I raised the glass high in the air, rearing back my hand and poised to strike. I was going to gut the bitch and laugh as she had watching me suffer, while I watched her insides spill out of her. I began my attack, but before I could make contact. My wrist was snatched from the air, and wrenched behind my back at such an awful angle that I nearly went to my knees as I whimpered. The glass dropped from my hand and a polished black shoe scraped it back across the stone and sent it hurling into the murky black depths below.
I growled, trying to twist out of their hold, but failing miserably. Tamlin still lay immobilized just behind me. Amarantha turned back to me, assessing my captor and then me in turn, a slight curl forming in her upper lip before she could mask it. I strained my neck to see a recently showered Rhysand standing behind me. He held my hand in an angry iron grip, but his face revealed nothing but boredom and a hint of irritation at being woken up.
"Darling," Amarantha purred, and I might have imagined the momentary almost nonexistent way Rhys winced. "Nice of you to join us." She looked at me as she reached forward, gripping Rhys's jaw in her hand, nails slightly piercing his skin as she pulled his face down to hers, kissing him passionately, but her eyes were open and on me. She was warning me. While I may be his property, he was still hers. A nauseous roil in my stomach made me look away.
"I woke and thought this one had escaped," he mocked with a nasty, haughty tone. "Went out looking for her and stumbled upon you here. I'm assuming you're done playing? I'd like to get at least an hour of sleep tonight." I opened my mouth to let him know that he wouldn't be so tired if he hadn't drowned himself in a whiskey bottle, but before I could so much as utter a syllable, he twisted my arm harder. I gritted my teeth, hissing as I sucked in air between them, my entire body a container for pain.
"I suppose," she snarked. "It's a rare day a human's bravery impresses me. I'll let her live another night and decide what to do with her come sunrise." Amarantha said with a dismissive wave of her hand, walking over to fully unbind Tamlin and return life to his body. We didn't stay to watch because Rhysand marched me down the hallway with brutish speed and force. We twisted down more unmarked hallways I'd never seen. This place was like a maze, and I suppose that made me the rat. If only I had a button to reward me with treats. Instead, I had a burly, sullen fae yanking me about.
Rhys opened the door to his bedroom, slinging me forward and releasing my arm, but that by no means meant he intended to let me go. He closed the door and then walked toward me so filled with blind fury that he looked like a charging bull. And I was wearing red. I accidentally backed myself into a corner, letting him tower over and intimidate me by consequence.
"Are you fucking daft?" He spit down at me. "Have you fallen and hit your fucking head?" He was yelling. I had yet to hear him yell. But he was yelling at me now.
"Rhys-"
"Because there must be a logical explanation for why you made such idiotic choices," he snarled. "I tell you and show you how lethal Amarantha is hoping it would somehow sink in for you, and you go and challenge her? For what? For him? For the male who's sat upon a throne and dined like a king watching every form of torture imaginable, all while he knew you rotted and starved in a cell. That's who you were willing to lose your life for?" His chest was rising and falling rapidly, and he was so close that on his inhales, it nearly touched my own chest.
"I couldn't watch him die," I croaked, tears welling again as the pain in my body registered all at once, I mindlessly went to wipe my tears, but whined as I realized how bloody my hands were and how much I'd just smeared across my cheeks. I couldn't do this. I wasn't strong enough for this. I'd once believed myself a hunter, but now while being hunted, I realize I knew nothing. Amarantha was the greatest predator I'd ever seen. She induced so much fear and chaos into her subjects that they would never dare cross her. She played her sick games, and no one stopped her because no one could.
"He would not extend you the same kindness," Rhys sighed. "Don't you get that? Don't you see it? What you did tonight was utterly idiotic. You're a fool if you think she genuinely would have killed him. She just wanted to see how far you'd go to save him, even after everything." My shoulders shook with sobs as I looked up at him. Couldn't he see this is not what I needed right now? Could I not be scolded once I wasn't drenched in my own blood? "She wanted to test you for weaknesses, and you handed them to her on a silver platter."
"I think you hurt my shoulder," I whimpered, and he sighed, running a hand down his face roughly. He leaned forward, hands on the wall behind me, one on each side of my head.
"Just what did you think you were going to do with a piece of fucking glass, little lion? Applaud the bravery, but if I couldn't do it, what makes you think you could?" His pupils flared like he'd just registered what he'd said, allowing it to tumble past his lips in the heat of the moment and not being able to be taken back. He'd tried to kill her?
"What do you me-"
He scooped me up in his arms, carrying me to the bathroom. He sat me on the counter, grumbling angrily under his breath about me. He glared at me with leveled seriousness.
"Do not fucking move," he commanded. I nodded. It wasn't like I was going to get up and walk out of here given the shape of my feet. Rhys disappeared and I heard the door to his bedroom open and close quietly.
Was he right? Was I a fool for brutalizing myself if it meant Tamlin was okay? It certainly made me pathetic, that much was sure. He'd so clearly moved past me, but my mind always snagged on the night he'd visited me in the dungeons. The only other visitors I'd gotten down there were Rhys, Nuala, and Cerridwen, and neither of them ever came empty-handed. They'd always brought clothes, food, and water. Tamlin brought nothing and made me swear to not trust the man who did. I was nowhere near trusting Rhysand, but was it fair to go by Tamlin's word?
My mind flicked to the moment I'd seen him slitting a man's throat in an empty room, the rest of his victims crumpled on the floor already. And to the way he kissed Amarantha, knowing she had rotting bodies strung up like decor in her Great Hall. He kissed the woman who'd had me crawling over glass in the first place. He slept in her bed.
But he'd also kept me from starving or dehydrating countless times. He'd gotten me out of my cell and given me a safe and clean place to sleep. He'd stopped me from being a moron and trying to take on Amarantha all by myself. He regularly found excuses to let me bathe, even when I was still kept in the cell. It was impossible to ignore either side of him. It just made my head hurt.
The bedroom door opened and shut again, and Rhysand re-entered a few moments later, his plain white tee shirt hugging his body in a way that was quite distracting. He sat down a bowl of clear liquid, a packet of gauze, a few clean cloths, and something blue and shimmery in a small bottle. My eyes flicked up to search his face, but he wouldn't look at me.
He knelt on one knee in front of where I sat up on the counter, pulling one of my feet into his lap. He looked at the damage, flinching as he noted just how deep some of the gashes went. He picked up a cloth and dipped it in the clear liquid, looking back up at me.
"This is going to hurt," he warned. "Squeeze my shoulder as hard as you need to." I bit my lip, closing my eyes and bracing myself for the pain. He rubbed the cloth down the soles of my feet, and I whimpered, biting my fist in my mouth. Rhysand stopped, taking the hand still limp in my lap, and placed it on his shoulder, giving me a warning look.
He returned to his work on my foot, cleaning them delicately. He seemed like he'd had quite a bit of practice in cleaning and bandaging wounds. I wondered who he'd needed to patch up so much before. I knew nothing about him.
"So, what's the deal with you and the Queen of blood and torture?" I scoffed. He froze momentarily, then immediately continued his work and still refused to look at me. Knowing he wouldn't answer me, I continued musing aloud to myself. "You tend to her needs and remain loyally by her side, and yet you help me. It makes no sense. Why do you give a shit what happens to me?" His eyes flicked up to meet mine but immediately decided against it.
"Can't you learn to leave well enough alone?" He murmured, reaching for the gauze. He began skillfully wrapping it around my feet, keeping the wound sites safe and clean from infection.
"I don't understand why it upsets you so much. The two of you are quite public about your affection for one another," I shrugged. Why flaunt a relationship you didn't want anyone talking about? It was nonsensical.
"We're not going to talk about her," he gruffed, beginning to clean the other foot. I yelped and reflexively pulled back, but he gave no reaction, just softly pulled it back within his reach.
"Why not?" I pestered him. I knew there was something he wasn't telling me, something I wasn't understanding. So many pieces of the puzzle hadn't come in the box, leaving vacant holes in my understanding of the entire scene.
"We're not fucking friends, Feyre," he criticized. "Just because I bandage your foot because I don't want you bleeding on my floors does not mean we mean anything to each other. I don't want to talk to you about her. Leave it be." He was tense. I'd felt the tightening of his muscles in his shoulders as the conversation progressed.
"Why do you care if she kills me? It seems to be something you're quite concerned about," I questioned. Nothing made sense. He was so hot and cold.
"I see enough death already," he said under his breath. He got to the particularly deep cut in the arch of my foot, and I dug my nails into his shoulder, whimpering and whining as he cleaned it thoroughly.
"Why me, though?" I said, exasperated with his evasiveness.
"Does there need to be a reason?"
"With you, yes!" I yelled. He scoffed, shaking his head. He wrapped the second foot in gauze, falling into a rhythm. Then he set to work on my knee. He'd nearly finished cleaning it when I opened my mouth again. "Why did you essentially tell me you've tried to kill her?"
"You have no idea what you're talking about," he retorted.
"Then tell me!"
"Ask again and you can bandage your own damn wounds," he snapped. I was silenced immediately. I hadn't understood that it was that serious. I'd thought with a little probing he'd confess his dirty secrets about his love affair. That was not what happened. He was even more closed off now, yet another wall built between us that I had no idea how to break. Why did I even want to break it?
He wrapped my knee with haste, trying to be rid of me as soon as he could. Guilt kicked me in the stomach, and I realized what a brat I'd been. Not that he deserved my kindness, but he certainly didn't deserve to be treated as though he were Amarantha himself. He was cruel when he needed to be, sure. But the same emotional vacancy wasn't in him. He cared too much whether he'd admit it or not.
"I'm sorry," I murmured. He gestured for me to hold out a hand and I let him disinfect my palms. "I hadn't realized how serious you were. We just always joke with each other and-"
"I know, Feyre," he said quietly. "It's okay. I'm a big boy. Other hand, please," he instructed once he'd finished wrapping the first one. He repeated his motions on the last gashed part of my body. "I'll do what I can to keep her occupied and her attentions focused elsewhere and if we're lucky, she'll forget her declaration to decide your fate at sunrise." He was incredibly somber.
"Thank you for stopping me from making a big mistake," I mumbled. He nodded in acceptance, still not looking at me. Why the hell would he not look at me?
"Drink this," he instructed, handing me the small bottle of shimmery blue liquid. "It'll help with the pain and help you get some sleep. Before you even ask, I didn't fucking poison it. Now if you don't mind, I'd like to end this hellscape of a day." I drank it all, handing the bottle back to him and gently getting off the counter. I winced as I limped over to the bed, freezing.
"You can have the bed if you want," I offered.
"Don't be ridiculous," he rolled his eyes.
"Where will you sleep?"
"In the bed next to you, as long as you can keep your hands to yourself," he jested, but it came out a little harsher than a joke should. Feeling more than a little bit defeated, I crawled into the bed, pressing myself as close to the wall and far away from where he'd be as I could manage. I felt him climb in behind me and blow out the candle, leaving us in darkness. It was barely minutes until the sleep aid kicked in and I slept.