Chapter 98: Amarantha's Curse
Rhysand felt the ground beneath his feet collapse the moment that the sack was torn off her head. He hadn't sensed her near, hadn't recognised the frail body or picked up her scent from his spot on the edge of the crowd. He whipped his head to Amarantha and for once, she let him in enough to pry at her intention. Kill his mate. Shatter him with her.
He physically stumbled, hand reaching for something to clasp onto but finding nothing more than air. His breath felt like ice against his lips, each one a wasted second as he drove his mind in circles to find something to do. His magic was out of the question. He wouldn't make it to Feyre in time to tackle her or take the knife unless he winnowed. Amarantha would kill him for it and then kill Galadriel herself right after.
He barely registered making the decision when Feyre lifted the dagger, hovering the tip over his mate's chest. He launched himself into her unsealed mind as easily as cracking through a sheet of thin ice and seized.
Feyre, the mortal girl Tamlin had found wasting away in the southern lands. A mortal girl that had already beaten not one but two of Amarantha's challenges, so close to securing freedom for all Prythian. And Rhysand was going to stop her.
The moment the steel moved forward, he gripped the mortal's mind so tightly that he feared he destroyed it all together when Feyre tremored. The dagger pressed into Galadriel's breast, a slight blossom of red flowering but no deeper than the tissue of her skin. Rhysand held Feyre there. It wasn't difficult. The mortal girl fought him but she had no power to overthrow his presence. Especially not when the threat to his mate's life fed his every movement.
This was larger than them. Thousands of faeries had suffered. Hundreds were stuffed into this room at that very moment, practically begging Feyre to push that knife through the heart of a female they'd never seen before. Prythian was suffering. Yet no matter how hard he fought to tell himself that all he had to do was release Feyre's body, let her drive that knife into his mate then encourage her to shove it into the third and final chest and they would be free, he couldn't convince himself to pay the price. What was freedom without her? Galadriel had been right, all those years ago. He would choose her every single time.
So he became what the world made him to be. A monster.
Feyre's hand turned the dagger around. She cried out, muscles shaking as she placed the tip of the blade to her sternum against her own will. The crowd roused. Rhysand couldn't look into their faces, the hope leaking from them, knowing that he was the one damning them to an eternity in this hell.
He clenched the muscles in his arm as if he held the dagger in his own palm, lifted his eyes to the ceiling then back down to his mate, and gave the urge in his mind for the girl to drive it in.
Rhysand forced himself to watch his mate as Lucien screamed from the other side of the hall. Amarantha sat so forward that she threatened to tip from her throne, eyes bright and blood-red lips curving upwards and letting out a manic laugh.
Then, as the faerie third in line ripped his own hood off, even Rhysand blanched when Tamlin's face appeared. The figure that had been Tamlin at Amarantha's side dissolved to reveal the Attor.
Tamlin tore from his restraints and Rhysand finally saw a glimpse of that anger he'd been trying to build in the male he once considered a friend. The anger he hoped to turn on Amarantha. He grappled for Feyre's body as she fell. Rhysand gave himself the smallest of solaces to know that he aimed the knife to give her the best chance to live, if only her High Lord of a lover was smart enough to get her out and staunch the bleeding.
Galadriel only stared, her expression a little too vacant, her eyes a little too dull. The only thing she bothered to look at was Lucien who had bolted from his spot to be at Tamlin's side. But Tamlin was already on his feet, passing the girl's body to him. The rage that seeped from him, into the air which fizzled with the tang of his magic, was incredible. He summoned more than Rhysand had touched in years even with the curse still in place. And it was all turned on Amarantha.
"I knew," Amarantha declared. "I knew she couldn't do it. Just another mortal barely able to hold herself upright. Though I was hoping to see what she would have done when she saw you there."
This was it, Rhysand thought. He made it this moment. Damned them all. Some faeries had started to scatter, edging out of the throne room, grabbing loved ones by their hands.
Claws poked from Tamlin's knuckles, a hint of the beast prowling beneath his skin ready to be let free. Rhysand's own magic rumbled inside of him in response and he wondered if the other High Lords felt the same—if this was some intrinsic connection between them all, designed to help protect Prythian under united command.
"I will kill you." Tamlin unleashed himself.
The crowd that had not been moving before certainly did now, cries or horror and fear drowning out the raging thoughts pummelling through Rhysand's mind. They fled, barging and tripping over one another, trying to squeeze through the doors. Even Lucien, glancing at Tamlin who had his beast's jaws snapping at Amarantha's neck had moved to his feet, Feyre in his arms.
Rhysand winnowed. He was barely there for a second, wrapping his arms around her body and winnowing back to a spot far from the dais. He kept Galadriel's face pressed to his front, eyeing the battle by the throne. Amarantha had thrown Tamlin off, a thick lesion slicing through his muscled hind, but it didn't slow him from launching at her again, swiping with claws the size of Rhysand's face. Some of the other High Lords had fled with the crowd, Helion and Thesan remaining.
Tamlin crashed into the stone wall which cracked like thunder, fractures spidering out. He pawed at the ground, trying to push to his feet but failing.
The guilt started to gouge at Rhysand. Closing his eyes, he turned his head, pressing his lips to her hair, feeling the faintest touch of her hands on his sides. He reaped all of her in. He wasn't a fool. He knew he was only delaying the inevitable if Tamlin did not win. That it would have all been for nothing. He wanted to pretend that he was doing it for them, but he wasn't. He wasn't a fool and he couldn't fool himself.
Over her hunched body, he caught sight of Beron's eldest son. Their gazes locked, Eris' eyes sharp and pointed.
He cursed Eris's name, the information Beron's son whispered to him just a few months ago that he wanted to be a fable. Beron's son was cunning enough to conduct such a plan. Galadriel had been collecting magic from dozens of faeries over the past fifty years. Enough to rival his own. He had tossed the information over in his head too many times to count, pondering every angle, every possibility.
But the answer he didn't want to believe was an option was now their only one. It was easier than he thought it was going to be.
He summoned a dagger, new and untainted, and pressed it into Galadriel's hand.
~
Galadriel felt the cool blade in her palm much clearer than she felt anything else. It was heavy and familiar. Rhysand curled her fingers over the hilt, holding them in place. He drew back to look her right in the eye. She knew he was there. She could smell and feel and touch him.
"You need to kill me."
His voice—was that what it always sounded like? Had Atticus spent enough time around him to memorise the fluctuations in his questions and the deep rolls of his vowels? If she asked him whether he loved her, how would he say it? Would she remember if it was real or not?
"Galadriel," he said, grasping the curve of her neck and shoulder with the hand not wrapped around hers tightly. "Do you hear me?"
She touched his face. Rhysand stilled. Her finger drifted from his jaw to his cheek, feeling the way it dipped then rose again with the sharp bone below his eye. His eyes—they were not how she remembered. Tracing down, her finger fell onto his lip, following the curve of the pout all the way to the other side.
"Galadriel," he said again, this time hoarsely. Tiredly. Desperately. "Please listen to me." He lifted his hand from her neck to her face, wiping like he was trying to clear her hair and the dirt away. "You're only going to have one chance."
She looked down at the dagger. "Rhysand."
"Tamlin is going to fail," he uttered, glancing over her shoulder to where she could hear something crashing. "He's not powerful enough to take her." Gripping her chin, he kept her face steady and focused on him, a pulse from his mind willing hers to soak in his every word. "When you kill someone, you open the door to your magic to take in theirs. A door so powerful that even Amarantha's power can't contain it immediately. You'll have access to it for just a few minutes. My magic is enough to kill her. My full power along with everything else you have."
His first order came crashing through her and her body physically revolted. Kill him. She tried to drop the dagger, to push away but he held her tight, keeping them in their cloaked spot against a wall. They were shielded from sight by a tall, grey statue of a creature between a serpent and a dragon. "No."
The hall shuddered, dust cascading down. Rhys pulled her closer, shielding her head in his arm. He buried his face down with hers, pushing their noses so close together she thought they might break. He was crying. So was she.
He sucked in a long breath as the hall trembled again. A pillar across the room collapsed, thick dust and stone washing over the floor. Rhysand straightened and pulled their interlocked hands between them. Galadriel shook her head, using her bare feet to shove him off but even the mortal girl would have shown more strength than she had. He held her gaze, held her hand in place. "No," she hissed. "No, you can't make me. You can't make me!"
She could tell her resistance pained him. That he barely kept himself from giving in to what she wanted. So she didn't give up. She wasn't killing him. She wasn't she wasn't.
"You don't have a choice." He said it with a High Lord's voice that made every bone in her body go cold, to quiver and sink in submission. Rhysand let go of her hand and she pulled the dagger from his skin. He said again, calmly. "We don't have a choice." He tipped his forehead against hers. "It is going to hurt you a lot more than it will hurt me." Like that was supposed to be some sort of comfort.
Her lip wavered as another blast shocked the mountain. This was their end. She remembered the pain she'd felt the night the bond opened after he broke her fingers, the agony it would cause her to do worse.
"Go home," he whispered. "They'll take care of you. I know they will."
He gently held her wrist. She refused to look down as he manoeuvred it to his heart just as the girl had held one to Galadriel's. A sob cleaved its way through her chest, pouring out her lips. "Find another way," she pled. Why did she have to give up everything for Prythian? Why couldn't Prythian fight for her?
"My magic is strong," he told her firmly. "It'll want to move on its own. Just let it. It's destructive by nature and will feed into your other magic. It'll know where you want it to go. Amren can help you tame it just like she helped me. I love you."
She could barely see him through her blurry sight.
He guided her hand, not letting her release even as she wailed, his teeth gritted. Together, they plunged the dagger into his chest.
She felt it cut through flesh and the muscled wall of his heart.
Galadriel's throat opened to scream, but nothing came out. Rhysand kept his eyes on her as he wavered, hand slipping from her wrist. He slumped, sliding from the dagger still in her hand. By the time his head slammed against the floor, he was dead.
Galadriel couldn't feel the mate bond cracking. She knew it was happening, a distant sensation but the hurricane of grief overwhelmed everything else. The dagger clattered by her feet and then the magic hit her.
It felt like nothing else she had ever experienced. It ripped through her, burning cold like blue wildfire. It was precise and lethal yet bigger than she could contain. It leaked from her body like she was an overfilled vat, dripping around her, clawing to get back to him. Violet eyes stared emptily at the ceiling.
She stood.
Flame danced around her, spurting like dragon's breath. Where foreign magic usually wrestled with her, his magic used her. It felt her, knew her. Its master's desires imprinted into it.
Tamlin lay motionless at the foot of a collapsed column, his beast form buried beneath rubble. Amarantha didn't look at Galadriel until she stood in the very middle of the throne room, practically a torch. The tears in Galadriel's eyes never made it past her cheeks, burning and sizzling into steam. Magic roared through her veins, thrashing for a way out.
"I took down one High Lord," Amarantha growled, spitting blood from her mouth. "Don't think I can't handle you."
"You did," Galadriel said, glancing at Tamlin. A slight shift in his paw gave away the life still residing in him. Lucien would be glad. "But I'm not just one High Lord." She had the power of dozens of faeries from all courts. High and Lesser, ancient bloodlines and new ones. Rhysand's magic flowing through her rattled all of it. And it was dying to be let free.
It came out in a burst so powerful that the entire hall seemed to become aflame. The ball of fire, entwined with wisps of darkness engulfed everything, so hot that her lashes singed, expanded until it couldn't then sucked back in on itself, concentrated on one target. Amarantha didn't stand a chance. The fire ate at her and when Galadriel let it release, there was nothing. No bones, not even ash.
It happened all too quickly. "Usually villains get a speech in books," she croaked. "And last much longer in a fight."