Chapter 85: Little Thief
For two years she was forbidden to see him.
It had been two years since she looked upon his face, into his eyes. Only in her dreams did he ever appear, barely a shadow of his Illyrian form. He talked to her, but she'd forgotten everything he said.
Amarantha held a tighter rope than ever before when it came to Galadriel, restricting her to a few halls and rooms. Even her bedroom had been moved. All she did every day was clean and serve at those horrendous parties. Every meal was eaten at the wonky table in her bedroom, usually alone but sometimes with Atticus. Atticus was a difficult companion, veering through phases where he barely left her side to not seeing her for weeks at a time. It drove Galadriel insane trying to figure him out, but no matter how adept he was at it, her skill set in observation and deductions had waned plentiful.
Sometimes a letter would be waiting for her, tucked beneath her pillow. It took her weeks to realise they were there, hearing the crinkle beneath the padding when she laid down her head. A handful of those folded notes had been placed there. When she opened the first, she almost couldn't bring herself to touch the rest. The elegant scrawl hurt too much to read.
The messages themselves were nothing of significance, as if they were mere ramblings of his consciousness, and only pieces, as if half the thoughts were missing. Some urged a response—a question or something he knew she would find humorous. But she could never bring herself to pick up an ink pen and write back.
She burned each one in the small hearth her new bedroom had.
Since that night when she felt the mating bond open, became overwhelmed by his agony, she hadn't felt the barest hint of his existence other than the eternal tether tied to her being. It reminded her those months before she admitted its existence to herself. Before he roared it in her face and forced her to acknowledge it.
Galadriel heard enough about what he did for Amarantha's court. Horrendous things that made her the insides of her stomach curdle.
But every day, she reminded herself of three things, and she remembered who she was, who he was, and her home.
~
Galadriel wasn't exactly being dragged out in chains, but she may as well have been with the three dark faeries surrounding her. Amarantha's cronies. They broke through her bedroom door and dragged her out before she even had a chance to put on shoes. The cold stone stung her bare feet.
"Where are we going?" If someone was going to kill her, they would have done it by now. Boldness had become brazenness. Amarantha liked Galadriel alive, and the faeries inside the Mountain seemed to know it.
"Throne room," one replied, its voice hoarse like hissing stone. Galadriel regarded the faerie—it looked like an insect. Its long wings were translucent and thin, certainly not strong enough for flight. Perhaps a defensive mechanism. His eyes were beady and jarring too.
Indeed, they led her along the familiar path. Galadriel hadn't been to the throne room in months, and only then for a small audience that she was required to tend to. Perfect and silently.
Only the slightest thread of dread wove through her. Emotion, she'd come to realise, saved itself now. She barely felt anything at all unless her barriers were being pushed. And those days were rare. But the further these faeries led her, the more she could hear the buzzing of a stuffed throne room, the harder her worn heart started to beat.
When Galadriel entered, even with her bare feet silent against the polished marble floor, the throne room went still and quiet. Something inside her withered with so many eyes upon her, like a flower curling up when the sun left.
Little Flower.
Like she'd been trained to, Galadriel turned to the throne and the queen seated upon it, and bowed, eyes lowering right to the tops of her toes. The faeries that escorted her scurried back into the audience. When she lifted her head, she caught sight of a dark shadow just in the corner of her eye, a few paces to Amarantha's left.
Her stomach twisted on itself so intensely that it was a shock that she didn't taint the marble floor with last night's dinner. It took every ounce of Galadriel's will not to look, to not seek him out. It didn't become any easier when she felt nothing from him. No tug of acknowledgement on the quiet bond, no smooth talon gently scraping the walls of her mind. Nothing.
Amarantha, dressed in a lethally elegant dress of the deepest red smiled in a way that Galadriel imagined a cat does when it had caught its prey. "Good girl." For more than the curtsey, Galadriel assumed. "I have a present for you." Amarantha flicked a finger covered with a golden talon to something behind Galadriel.
Turning, Galadriel saw what she had somehow missed. Kneeling on the floor, gagged and blindfolded, was a High Fae male. No one stood near him. He looked young—something about him not yet deft with ancient experiences. It only took one glance at his ragged clothes, the dark soot smeared on his copper skin, to know that he'd come from the dungeons below the palace.
Galadriel went over Amarantha's words again. "Gift?" she asked, her voice a careless, hoarse whisper like a blade in need of sharpening. What need did she have for a prisoner? She took a step closer, but there was nothing recognisable about him and instead looked through the crowd, hunting for any hint of his court or family.
Her eyes landed on Helion. He was the only other High Lord amongst them, wearing no crown or jewels. Only the white tunic traditional to his court. But Galadriel recognised his tenseness—the purposely stoic features. She couldn't tell if Helion knew the High Fae or if the male only belonged to his court.
"For you," Amarantha said. "I hear that you once took pleasure in claiming the lives of those who wronged you. I offer you the opportunity to execute the ones who have wronged me."
Galadriel almost shook her head but didn't. There were always spies—herself included—sleuthing around in the shadows, crawling along the walls like spiders. But whatever spider whispering in the queen's ear heard wrong. Or lied.
And Galadriel didn't know why.
"Surely you wish for the pleasure yourself," Galadriel said. The painstaking moan of the male her back now faced only made her throat close tighter. The last tattoo on her back had barely healed.
Amarantha leant back in her throne, the spindles shooting from it glistening under the candlelight like bloodied stakes. "Execute him." Maybe it was Amarantha who was lying. That she'd somehow discovered Galadriel's ritual tattoos, read the loathing that she tried so hard to keep from her face and decided to turn it against her in the most horrendous way.
All the kills Galadriel had made were never by her hand. Her voice was the command, but she was not the true executioner. That gave her some morsel of peace at night. Now that would be taken from her too.
Galadriel looked at her hands. Her fingers were still mangled, even two years later. Never healed right. "I don't have any blade." Cauldron and the Mother what a stupid thing to say. As she looked back up to the Mountain Queen, her eyes managed to skim across Rhysand in all his elegant glory.
Physically there was nothing different about him. He was wearing a tunic she'd never seen before but was certainly something he'd wear. His blue-black hair was just ruffled enough to suggest he'd purposefully styled it to be dishevelled, as if he could just slide from Amarantha's bed looking like that.
But beyond his clothes, his hair, there was absolutely nothing familiar about him.
Galadriel had never seen him look so tired before. Like he'd been drained of all his magic, his body barely a husk of her mate. Seeing him felt like she suddenly found the blade she'd been missing, stuck in her chest, piercing her heart.
"I don't think you need one," Amarantha said, practically yanking Galadriel from her stupor. The queen's eyes darkened, a tremble of warning moving through Galadriel. "I've seen what the sons of Autumn are capable of. Burn him."
Galadriel's spine went rigid. "Burn him?" she uttered in horror. Even the crowd began to murmur lowly.
"Burn him," Amarantha repeated. Though her blood-red lips stopped moving, her orders certainly did not. Galadriel could hear her voice in her mind, detailing all the ways Amarantha could and would torture her for disobeying. Her hands clenched into fists at her side. She looked to Rhysand again.
He smiled coldly. Latching his hands behind his back, he strode down the short set of stairs leading to the dais. "It's easy," he said, his voice as hard as a fist to her ears. Rhysand didn't take those star-flecked eyes off of her as he circled around her. A show, she gathered, of a predator. "It's fun."
Swallowing the thick lump in her throat, Galadriel turned, Rhysand still walking around her. She watched the male prisoners thrash, but his ankles and wrists were tied, the gag trapping any true sound. How could she do it?
She didn't think she could.
Last time... Last time they had attacked her. She had put a knife into the chest of a male intent on killing her. Her actions were defensive, and it had been painful enough then.
Hot breath brushed the shell of her ear as Rhysand leant over her shoulder from behind. "You'll enjoy it as much as I do," he whispered, though she knew everybody would hear it.
Galadriel choked on a whimper, eyes shuddering close. She could almost feel the touch of his arm against the back of her hand, the press of his lips against her skin. She wanted to lean into the heat of his body hovering over hers, listen to his voice. She wanted to do everything that would get her killed in an instant. It might even be worth it.
'My affections are not worth your life.'
Even in her mind, for the first time in years, his voice was cold. And it was enough to snap her out of her longing, moping head.
The heat of her magic flickered up inside her, aroused by the tug of his own magic sifting through her mind and body. An invisible flame licked at the base of her neck and inside her naval, the start of a small burn.
"I—" I can't she went to say, but the words were clawed back down into her throat. How much heat would it take to kill the male? How much of his agony would she be forced to endure? It wouldn't be easier, but she might be able to do it if she had a blade. If it was a sudden and sure strike. The Illyrian magic inside of her roared in response but she smothered it back down. Amarantha didn't know about that and it was something Galadriel wouldn't be able to explain away. "Please," Rhysand let her whisper, loud enough for only him to hear.
In response, he pulled at her mind, and she allowed him to guide her away.
It took her somewhere she couldn't quite remember, only faintly recalling the soft music that lulled her onto a dark, stone street. She had danced, but whether it was slow or fast, there was no memory other than the aching soles of her feet. There was a comfortable warmth in her hands, like they were being held by someone. Though her cheeks felt flushed, her neck was cool, wrapped in an autumn breeze.
When she left that blissful world, waiting at the door back to reality, was pain.
Galadriel gasped, hunching over. Her palms smacked the cold floor but it did nothing to soothe the burning in her hands like she'd been holding them over a bonfire. But it wasn't the burn of her magic that made her stomach heave—it was the smell.
She gagged, panting and heaving as the sick stench of burnt flesh burrowed into her nose.
He was dead. There was no questioning even when she couldn't bring herself to look. The price of her magic was pain and it tore through her now worse than after she had brought down that Wendigo all those years ago.
"Interesting."
Galadriel clenched her eyes at Amarantha's call. Sucking in three deep breaths, she forced herself to open them again and shakily rise to her feet. Her head thumped heavily, her skin prickled and tightened. She was alone.
Many within the crowd had hands to their stomachs or noses, some sneering in disgust or so rigid they may as well have been stone. Helion was looking away, gaze locked on an empty space of floor before the queen's feet.
Rhysand had retaken his spot on the dais, hands in his pockets, face sharp and cool. He betrayed nothing—not a hint of what he had just done for her.
"My leave?" Galadriel rasped, unable to bring herself for courteous pleasantries.
Amarantha sighed. "Granted."
She hobbled out, puking the moment she knew she wouldn't be heard.