It had been 48 years of being in this hell hole. I'm still doing weekly fights but Amaratha's through in a twist a couple of years after people stopped wanting to fight me. I have to fight monsters. It is truly like the gladiator stories Bellamy told me. I prefer the monsters. Though they are harder to kill and I get more injured, I felt a lot less guilty. But eventually, the monsters stopped and I was the only monster left in the arena. She started sending in innocents. Anyone who upset her at the wrong time.
I had become her executioner. I could barely stomach it. I don't know how much longer I can do this. I'm in the arena fighting for my life but is my life really worth it?
I start unclipping my weapons from their various holsters as I approach my room and push open the heavy-set doors. I glance over to the small settee in the room and sure enough, Rhysand is lying on his back, one leg crossed over the other, tossing a ball of starlight above his head and catching it repeatedly.
I just continue in with a slight smile starting to form on the edges of my lips. I am happy he is here. Not for his charming presence as he would insist but because I know where he'd be if he wasn't. And honestly, he was the only thing holding me together these days. He doesn't look over as he asks "Did I win my bet?"
I scoff, "You always win your bet and you better be setting some aside for me asshole." Rhysand just chuckles and keeps tossing. I walk past him to the wardrobe and start to unbuckle the Illyrian leathers Rhysand had secured for me.
"Of course darling, we can't have you living off me forever" he drawls. I just roll my eyes at him glancing down at a deep cut I received that lay across the burn scar from decades ago. Rhysand's eyes follow my own and he winces before asking "How bad?"
"I've had worse" I grumble. "This is right overtop of where I had an old scar. Oddly enough I kind of hate how I lost my scars and tattoos when my body changed into...this." I gesture to the wings at my back. That has been the oddest adjustment thus far. I thought after A.I. trying to kill me and meeting whatever the hell the judges were that nothing could surprise me anymore. But fae, magic, it was incomprehensible at first.
"Scars can tell a story" Rhysand mused. "What story did yours tell?" The question took me for a pause. It feels like a lifetime ago now.
I chuckle under my breath as I continue to change. "That would be the first time I went swimming." It's Rhysand's turn to laugh.
"How did you pull that off?" he questions his voice a smooth purr. I walk back over to the bed now. Where do I even begin?
"Well, it was my first day on the ground. A couple of hours after our pod crash-landed and it was the first time I wasn't a prisoner of some form." I remember it so clearly the wind in my face as I was the first to step off the pod. The first taste of freedom I ever had.
"I wanted to do something reckless just anything that I chose for myself solely because I wanted to. So when a group was going to look for supplies I took the chance. We came across this river and I jumped in before anyone even realized what I was doing. Luckily it was shallow enough for me to stand considering I'd never been in water before I doubt I would have been able to swim." Rhysand nods along patiently as I tell the story.
"It was wonderful for a minute or so and then my friend Jasper shouted for me to get out. I turned and something was swimming for me before I knew it I had been dragged under. Jasper jumped in after me. I had known him less than a day at this point and he risked his life with no hesitation just to save me." I shake my head still disbelieving over that but that's who Jasper was. Grief fills me thinking about him but I push myself to continue. "He saved my life that day." I lower my eyes to the wine-red duvet with a sad smile on my face just thinking about him.
Rhysand senses the shift in my mood and comes over to sit next to me on the bed. "I wish my brother could meet you. See how accepting you are of your scars."
I look up meeting his violet eyes and I can see just how much it pains him to be separated from his brothers. It pains me now to be separated from Bellamy but he isn't out there waiting for me. I don't think I ever have let myself grieve him but I'm not going to start now. Not here.
"Cassian or Azriel" I ask laying back and looking up a the stone ceiling of my quarters. Rhysand lays back too.
"Azriel," he says with a small smile on his face. "You remind me of him in some ways."
I shift slightly closer to him appreciating the company. It reminded me of nights on the arc laying next to Bellamy listening to his stories. "Tell me about him," my voice comes out softly cautious of breaking the little bit of peace I've found in this moment.
Rhysand has a grin as he turns and looks at me but as I face him his eyes still hold the weight of being down here.
"Let me tell you about the drunkest I've ever seen Azzy," Rhysand says his eyes finally lighting up with the memory. "Now Az is pretty serious around most people though if he lets you in he can be snarky and has a great sense of humor. Rarely ever does he get truly shitfaced. He's so protective he can't handle not being in the right state to protect us no matter how many times I tell him to take a break. He'll drink more at home though. I've even offered to stay sober when we go out but he's stubborn. As stubborn as you." I chuckle at Rhysand's little dig.
"Well, we were out celebrating. Though I was mainly drinking in sorrow over the fact that no one killed Amanrantha during the war and no one was going to then either," Rhysand says a grimace on his face at the thought.
I huff looking back up at the ceiling as I lean my head on his shoulder. "Who stopped you" I say exasperated. That could have solved a lot of problems.
"My father" answers Rhysand as he gives me a look that says 'I know right.'
"Dickhead" I growl out.
Rhysand laughs in agreement."The embodiment. Anyway, we were out at my cousin's favorite club Rita's. Now Azriel can hold his liquor as well as any Illyrian but he probably had the worst assignment out of any of us during the war. So he was throwing back whisky like hangovers didn't exist. During the war, he was my father's personal spy, torturer, assassin, minion whatever you want to call it." Rhysand explains.
"Spy, how'd he end up as that?" I ask curiosity blooming inside me. I couldn't figure out why his name drew her in so. He was just Rhysand's brother like Cassian but she didn't have the same curiosity with Cassian as I do with him.
Rhysand leans over resting his head against the top of mine as I lay on his shoulder. I don't know how we got so close but it feels nice. It's like being with Bellamy again.
Rhys continues, "Az is a shadow singer. It's a very rare gift in fae and he's the only one to have existed in centuries as far as any records show. His gift allows him to communicate with the shadows. They tell him secrets and keep him hidden. It makes him the perfect spy. He's masterful at what he does so I couldn't resist offering him the position of Spymaster when I took over for my father but unlike then he can refuse any assignment if he doesn't want."
I hum nodding taking in the information. I try to picture the scene in my head. Rhys and his brothers three grown warriors at a club? "What exactly is a club?" I ask. I know they existed on Earth before the war but Bellamy's stories were mainly Roman legends not of clubs.
Rhysand has the most bewildered look on his face. I shrug "What, my time on earth was mainly survive one thing and then face the next."
Rhysand's face falls, "and now you're here onto the next. How did you get here? Did you get a choice to come here? You don't seem very intent on finding a way back to your world just a way out of the mountain like the rest of us." Curiosity lines his tone and after these past months, I can't help but tell him the truth.
I take a deep breath before starting, "In a way. I was offered by this being in my world. They promised me happiness if you can believe it." I laugh humourlessly how the situation I've found myself in. Amarantha was not the happiness I had pictured when I accepted said offer.
Rhys has a look of disbelief on his face. "If that was the promise then someone lied or left out some key steps before said happiness."
I shut my eyes and voice the thought that's been in my head the past couple of months. Amaratha having me fight her 'criminals' has felt too close to the Dark Year. The lives lost under my reign. My voice cracks, "I beginning to think this is all some cruel joke. I was offered happiness but instead, I was gifted a life of atoning for my sins." Octavia grimaces. I should have known I didn't deserve happiness after everything.
Rhysand didn't question me on my sins. I'm thankful for it. I don't think I could handle losing him right now. "Maybe one day when we get out of here your happiness will come," Rhysand says.
"Maybe." Desperate to shift the conversation back to his story I ask "So Azzy was drunk?"
Rhys grins "Azzy was shitfaced. We were at the club which is like a giant hall with a dance floor and bar and tables with booth seating all around. Az was on his second bottle of whisky and he insisted he was going to go sing. I was quite excited Azriel is a phenomenal singer but refuses to do so unless alone. I've only ever heard him sing a couple of times in our five hundred years together." Makes sense I suppose shadow singer after all.
Rhys looks up as he counts the memory laughing as he continues "he goes to get up from the booth and walks right into a server spilling drinks everywhere. Now Azriel's shadows warn him of everything I hadn't seen him run into anyone since we were children." Rhys keeps laughing between words as he continues "He's on the floor with the funniest look on his face as he looks at his shadows like they betrayed him. But somehow he had gotten so drunk it was as if his shadows were intoxicated. They were swaying all around him and dancing away from him. At one point he even tried to grab at them like he could force them physically. Cassian, Mor, and I were in such disbelief we were hysterical as he kept grabbing at his shadows."
I start chuckling along with Rhys too at the mental image of this tough Illyrian warrior trying to catch shadows. I grin "What happened next?"
A roaring laugh rumbles through Rhys' chest "he tripped trying to catch one, hit his head on the table, and knocked himself out." I break out into full laughter too.
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Not as long as some of my others but I hope y'all enjoy!