Chapter 82: Bad Dreams
She didn't want to knock. She felt the need to but shoved it down. The wait would scare her and she'd just turn around. So, under the cover of darkness and the weak glamour she could manage to throw over herself, Galadriel turned the knob to Rhysand's bedroom.
Her eyes had already adjusted to the dark, but the darkness inside was so thick that she could barely make out the silhouettes of his furniture. His form was an almost indistinguishable lump beneath the sheets, completely still.
Galadriel edged towards him, her bare feet silent.
Gods, his scent was so powerful that her knees nearly wavered.
Reaching out, her fingers graced what she assumed was his shoulder.
He disappeared.
Galadriel yelped out as night enveloped her, cold and striking like the very steel of a blade pressed against her entire being. The force of magic bore down on her, forcing her to her hands and knees and then a real blade rested against her neck.
Rhysand's breath passed her ear as he yanked her head back, exposing her throat more to the plain dagger that had been on his bedside moments ago. The fear pumping through her lodged anything she could have said deep in her throat, the only thing coming out was a choked moan.
"Galadriel?"
The dagger clattered to the ground. Galadriel let out a dry sob but forced herself to heave in air and clenched her teeth together before she could break down entirely. "I'm sorry." She should have known better than to sneak into his bedroom. They slept amongst beasts, after all. "I'm sorry."
The hand in her hand softened as he sunk to his knees. A palm on her cheek turned her face towards his. He looked pale, his face sharper than it was last time she'd been this close to examine it. "I was dreaming about you," he said. "I think I still might be."
"I am very much awake," she uttered, glancing down at the dagger which had felt extremely real. The old wives' tale that nothing could hurt you in your dreams could not have been more wrong. She didn't tell him that she had been dreaming of him too. That it had woken her in a sweat racing for the toilet basin and breaking into his room. "I know I shouldn't be here." How long had it been since they'd spoken? Months. It could have been a year—time moved strangely when there was no sun to rise and fall with.
"No," he breathed. He sat on the ground and began guiding her between his legs, cradling her head. She clung to him, burying her nose in his neck, fingers raking through his hair. "If you hadn't tonight, I would have found you soon enough."
~
Rhysand thought he knew suffering. He thought he knew it as a child when his mother put him in Windhaven and left him to fend for himself. He thought he knew it during the war when Amarantha had tortured him in that cave. When he spent hours turning over dead bodies, praying none of them were his brother. He thought he knew suffering when his mother and sister were slain, then his father along with them.
He had suffered through those trials, but nothing had ever prepared him for the past ten years. For this moment. Ten years. He'd been refused his mate longer than he'd known her.
He took in her scent, the weight of her arms around his shoulders. The dream had been a half-truth. The part he hadn't told her was that it was a nightmare. Images that Amarantha had laced his head with, threats that caressed his ears in the privacy of her bedroom.
He let his traces of power wrap the room in darkness, hoping the familiarity of it would soothe the trembles he could feel beneath his hands. "I'm sorry," he murmured. "For scaring you. I don't sleep easy." He could faintly smell the lingering scent of vomit. He didn't want to ask.
"Neither do I. It's like she poisons the air."
She felt frighteningly frail, her ribs poking against his fingers through her nightclothes—which was lacking the silks and vibrant shades their shared wardrobe once hosted. He tried not to notice the dullness of her hair or the way she didn't really smell like herself.
That Amarantha was stealing his mate from him in more ways than one.
But she was alive.
He stroked her hair, feeling her weight sink further into him, the shaking beginning to ease. His thumb rubbed back and forward on the bare skin of her back beneath her grey shirt. He felt too dirty to place any more of himself bare against her. He'd spent the evening with Amarantha but she'd grown bored and sent him away where he fled right for the bathing tub, scraping his skin until his tattoos might very well peel off. Still, her touch stained.
"She doesn't ask about you," Rhysand said softly. "Barely ever thinks about you."
Galadriel lifted her head and he regretted speaking. "Is that supposed to make me feel better?"
"It makes me feel better." That not letting himself have these moments paid off. That not finding her in the crowds, not acknowledging her existence, denying his every instinct saved her as much as it gouged at his soul. "I know you hate me for this—"
"I don't hate you, Rhys." Well, that soothed him a little. Galadriel licked her lips, her throat bobbing as she let her hands fall down from his shoulders, down to his lap where she pulled his from her, lacing their fingers. "I hate what's happening to us. I feel like I don't know you. Helion asked about you and—and I couldn't even—" She broke off, shaking her head. "I couldn't even tell him you were alright. Or if you weren't. Ten years in this damned place."
Rhys thickened the darkness, swallowing up the sound of her rising voice, her head tipped back as though she was cursing the mountain, but her expression was anything but anger. It was tire. It sickened him with worry. Anger was alive—it breathed and had a beating heart. Tire did not. "I could see if there's a way to get you out. To another court."
"Amarantha just killed three High Lords for planning something," she hissed at him. "And I wouldn't go, anyway. I'd have no way to know if you were alive."
"You'd know," he replied bitterly.
"I wouldn't know if you were on the brink of death," she countered. "You keep the mating bond locked down that some days I don't even feel your existence."
He took her anger, her spite, and soaked in it. It was true. The only times he ever opened it was in those moments when he had nothing else. No hope to feed him, no memories of his family that would motivate him enough to smile as Amarantha kissed him, made him beg for her. The distinct tug on his being, the traces of her existence trickling to him were always enough.
Part of him was glad she refused to leave so adamantly. He didn't have to fight to send her away if there was no room to push her. Sighing, he pulled his knees up, watching as she played with his hands hanging between his knees, the corners of his lips lifting in a way they hadn't for too long. He didn't want anything more than this with her, not tonight. The simplicity of having her sitting there, touching him so innocently, would break his resolve if it went on for too long.
"Is anyone hurting you?" he asked.
Sniffing, she shook her head. "Nothing beyond a few bumps and bruises. What everybody here gets."
"Then how come you winced earlier?" When he'd realised who he held a knife to, she'd wrinkled her nose as her back straightened.
As if unconsciously, Galadriel let one of his hands go to touch her spine. "It's nothing. Nobody has done anything to me."
"Not that male I see you with?" Oh, that was dangerous territory.
Her silver eyes latched onto his, calm and a little empty. "You've never asked about him before."
No, he hadn't. In the times he'd slipped away through the darkness, crept through the halls behind her until she chose a vacant length, in the nights he'd snuck into her room, he'd never once asked about that High Fae so often by her side. "I didn't want to know the answers to the questions I had," he said, blunt and flatly. "But I need to know if he's hurting you in any way. I could do with a deserving playtoy."
She didn't answer immediately, her focus going back to his hand, lightly tracing the natural lines in his skin. "No, he doesn't."
"Be careful with him," he said, watching as she took intent interest in his hand. "He has shields around his mind. Strong ones. He's been trained against daemati specifically."
"I am."
He turned his palm to her and when she smoothed hers over it, pulled her fingers to his lips. He kissed each knuckle, then her palm, her wrist. "Who are you?" he asked gently.
She stared low at his chest. "Galadriel."
"Who am I?"
"Rhys."
"Where is home?"
She looked up at him. "The Night Court. We're going to go home one day, aren't we?"
It didn't sound entirely like a question—and it shouldn't have been—but he nodded, nevertheless. "Of course. If I didn't think we were, I wouldn't have done—" he inhaled sharply "— there's a lot of things I wouldn't have done. Things that I only live with because I know what the payoff is."
He pulled her back into his arms, angling himself to rest against the wooden side of the bed. His heart thumped wildly against her resting temple, as it always did with her around. The constant threat of being found only heightened that. She lay there long enough that he thought she might be asleep when she whispered, "I hate her."
"Hide your anger." He rolled his jaw, glaring at the closed door. "It will kill you."
"This place breeds death."
"So survive."
She turned her back to his front, resting her folded knees against his thigh. "I hate what she makes you do." For as long as he hadn't asked about that male, she had never asked him about Amarantha. "I hate seeing her touch you." He couldn't see her face, but he could hear her tears. "I hate the mask. I hate what you become. I hate it all."
He didn't know what else to say beyond, "So do I."
"You don't want to talk, do you?"
"I don't want our time together to be wasted on things we can't change." On her. He bent his chin to his neck, finding her eyes in the darkness. "I want you to sleep. I'll make sure your dreams are good ones."
"I don't want our time together to be wasted—" she yawned "—not being awake." But he was already in her mind, guiding her eyes to close, for her breaths to even. True to his promise, he stayed inside her head, manipulating her dreams to be of spring fields and the shimmering surface of the Sidra. Every once in a while, he'd have to fend off the blackness lurking in the corners, thick smoke that had loose forms resembling the Attor or something that didn't belong to this world.
Lifting his mate, Rhysand placed her on his bed, climbing in behind her. A few hours, he promised himself. He'd stay awake, watch over her and give her a few hours of peace. His fingers drifted up and down her stomach like he was lethargically plucking an instrument. It had been so long since they shared a bed that he couldn't remember how she liked to be held; if he should dig his arm beneath her neck or lay it above her head across the pillows.
Eventually, he too fell asleep, and he did not dream at all.