In the light the ink was actually blue - such a dark blue it appeared black. I swore when I moved I could see flecks of tiny stars within the magic pigment. I couldn't help but meet the gaze of the eye in my palm any chance I got. But for now that eye was blind as I scrubbed the floors of the hallway. I dunked the large brush into the bucket the red-skinned guards had thrown into my arms. I could barely comprehend through their mouths full of long yellow teeth, but when they gave me the brush and bucket and shoved me into a long hallway of white marble, I understood.
"If it's not washed and shining by super," one of them had said, its teeth clicking as it grinned, "we're to tie you to the spit and give you a few good turns over the fire."
With that, they left. I had no idea when supper was, and so I frantically began washing, though I couldn't help contemplating throwing the brush in their faces and letting them do their worst.
Maybe this was what Rhysand meant by the bargain strengthening our bond. I felt strange... powerful.
But I scrubbed anyway, my back already aching like fire despite less than thirty minutes having gone by. The water they'd given me was filthy, and the more I scrubbed the floor, the dirtier it became. When I went to the door to ask for a bucket of clean water, I found it locked. There would be no asking for help.
It was an impossible task - a task to torment me.
I twitched at the thought. I was trash to them. They were only toying with me, taking pleasure from my suffering. Laughing at my pain. I brought the brush back to the floor, but couldn't bring myself to scrub. I couldn't help the thought of my sisters. I thought of them waiting for me to come home with food, with money. I thought of them waiting for me to finish my work so they could reap the benefits.
I threw the brush across the room where I'd last moved the bucket. It slammed into the rim, sloshing water before it tipped, spilling its brown contents across the pale marble.
I thought of that wolf in the woods - Tamlin's soldier and once friend - waiting for me to kill him. Setting me up for this fate. I watched as muddy water spread across the floor like the wolf's blood in the snow.
I gripped myself with a foreign, self righteous rage just as the familiar warmth grew against my chest, rising up the chain around my neck.
Before I could remember the bizarre dream, or the Amulet of Storms, I followed an unseen impulse and placed my eyeless hand in the water on the floor.
The dirty water burned with soft, sweet steam. It boiled into burning tar at my fingertips, spreading like wildfire around the room. I yanked my hand away and rose to my feet, taking a few steps back through the muk. The steam became smoke and heat filled the room, the thick sweetness choking me.
Then smoke became fire.
Black fire.
It engulfed the room and I flung a hand to my mouth, swallowing my scream. I was surrounded by black flames that lit the room, as tall as the regal ceilings. The heat pressed against my skin, but I did not burn. My knees quaked beneath me as I stepped farther and farther away from where I'd started this, until I felt my back against the wall and I dropped to the floor.
As soon as I hit the ground the flames went out.
The bucket and brush were gone, not a drop of wood or bristle left behind - not even ashes.
And the floor was spotless, shining a brighter white than I was sure it had ever been.
The guards had said nothing about my completion of their impossible task, nor about the lingering sweet smell. If they were aware that I'd somehow managed to set the room on fire, they didn't tell me about it.
Not somehow, I thought. I knew exactly how it happened - or at least what caused it.
Use it wisely, echoed through my mind. I wasn't sure house cleaning was its best talent, but oh well. I'd assumed the figure from my dreams was Amren. She was apart of the Inner Circle, so she was either Rhysand's cousin, Mor, or the creature than inhabited the body of Amren. I hoped that was Amren, because if those eyes belonged to the bubbly Mor, I wasn't sure I would ever be able to come face to face with the real Amren.
It was almost funny when I thought about it. This gem held a curse within it for hundred, possibly thousands of years waiting for someone chosen to wield it. Waiting for someone as cursed as the amulet itself. I could have laughed out loud. Of course I would be the one for the curse to call out to. It sought me out because we were one and the same - cursed.
At least I would only have to live one short, mortal life with this demon around my neck.
I'd considered taking off the cursed stone, but the idea of leaving myself powerless while being trapped beneath the earth with hundreds of immortal faeries who could all kill me in less time it took me to crawl out of bed in the morning wasn't exactly comforting.
So the next day, when the guards led me to my next task, I still had on the Amulet of Storms beneath my meager tunic. They smiled at me as they shoved me into a massive, dark bedroom, lit only by a few candles, and pointed to the looming fireplace. "Servant spilled lentils in the ash," one of the guards grunted, tossing me a new wooden bucket. I wondered if they'd noticed I hadn't returned the first one. "Clean it up before the occupant returns, or he'll peel off your skin in strips."
A slammed door, the click of a lock, and I was alone.
Sorting lentils from ash and embers - ridiculous, wasteful, and -
I approached the darkened fireplace and cringed.
Impossible.
I cast a glance at the bedroom. No windows, no exits save the one I'd just been chucked through. The bed was enormous and neatly made, its black sheets of - of silk. There was nothing else in the room beyond basic furniture; not even discarded clothes or books or weapons. As if its occupant never slept here.
A dark thought struck me and I wished for fae senses. I wished I could scent the room. I wished I could make sure there wasn't a trace of that snow and winter spice smell anywhere in this empty room. Recklessly, I crawled onto the bed, plopping my face into the first pillow and pulled in the biggest whiff I could to catch any lingering smell.
No.
No.
No.
I withdrew from the silken sheets and knelt before the fireplace trying to calm my breathing.
Amarantha's whore, Lucien had once said.
He'd shown me his memories once, memories of when Tamlin had the curse placed upon him. He'd walked through that crowd of faeries nearly fifty years ago and even then they all whispered vulgar names to him, reached to grope him, to touch him without his permission...
And he'd been trapped here for forty nine years since then.
My hands were shaking fists, soot already staining where I'd dropped them to the ground.
I wished I could summon the black fire again. I wished I could summon enough black fire to burn this entire mountain to the ground. I would burn Amarantha. I would burn her, I vowed. I would watch her immortal flesh melt by my hands.
I lashed out, slamming my fist into the hearth sending ashes flying.
As if on cue, black steam shot from my hands, pooling around the mess I'd made.. It grew denser and denser, sliding beneath each spec of char until it formed a black liner of metallic tar, rounding out into a perfect circle.
It was a black plate of ash.
Then flecks of ash started to drop into the abyss of my magic saucer. It sucked in every last dot and drop of lentil and ash until the black fireplace was as shiny and sweet as the white marble floor from yesterday before it disappeared, leaving only a lingering sweet scent.
"Not quite the task, but I think I'll accept."
I lept to my feet and spun on the intruder. How had I not heard the door opening? But when I saw him, I knew my answer.
He hadn't used the door. He'd winnowed in.
"Rhysand," I gasped.
His darkness entered the room behind him, guttering the candles with a snow-kissed breeze. He was sprawled on the bed, a feline smile on his face.
He waited for me to move, but I didn't. I couldn't look at him, not in that unused bed. The rage that came with it...
I'd understand if you didn't want to pursue... these kinds of things with me, Feyre. I wouldn't blame you.
"Shit, Rhys, no," I mumbled, instantly removing the distance between us. I sat next to him, making sure I could feel his leg touching my own.
He sat up in a fluid movement and braced his forearms on his thighs. Such grace contained in such a powerful form. I was slaughtering on the battlefield before you were even born, he'd once said to Lucien. I didn't doubt it.
"Rhysand," I said, and reached out my tattooed hand to grab his own feeling my pulse pounding through the bond. I gave it a soft pull and traced the eye in his palm with inky fingers. "I am going to kill her. I'm not leaving this mountain until I have killed her."
His violet eyes met mine. I waited for him to tell me no, maybe he wanted to be the one to do it - he deserved to be. But he just nodded once. There would be no greater honor than to have my mate exact my revenge.
Pride poured through my skin. Neither of us mentioned how the mortal girl would be the one to finally end the immortal queen who had enslaved a continent of other immortal beings. I wasn't even a blip on the radar, but something told me this onyx steam was only just beginning to show itself to me. Rhysand knew my human limitations, and he knew my breaking point, felt it that morning after the party... After my last night in the Spring Court.
He must have truly known of the stone filled with roaring winds and a raging black sea around my neck. He must have known it gave me a chance.
Reclining, he watched me - his eyes moving up and down my body where I sat still touching his leg, his hand in my grip. They came to a stop beneath my collarbone.
I couldn't bring myself to speak the words, so I dared send them through the bond, Do you know what this-
"No," he whispered with a harshness I hadn't expected. Warmth spilled through the bond and he gave me an apologetic look. Could he really not even talk about this thing?
I tried not to think of the weight behind that. The most powerful High Fae in all of Prythian couldn't even speak of the curse around my neck.
I gulped.
His tattooed hand reached up from where mine still lay tangled with it to brush a mangled rope of hair behind my ear. What I wouldn't give for a warm bath.
"I can arrange that," he said. "But you have to come to dinner with... a friend of mine."
"A friend of yours?" I asked, terrified of a creature like the Attor trying to feed me a cooked insect.
A smile grew on my mate's face. "The Dark Lord of the Night Court."
"People might start to get the wrong idea if you keep referring to yourself in the third person."
A laugh burst through his lips and I smiled in return. "Well, I'll admit I'm quite different here than I'd like to be, and though I'm sure you've gathered as much, there is still much of this... persona that I haven't wanted to show you. I wish I never had to."
"Alright," I said.
"Alright?"
"I'll do it."
He watched me steadily, as if he was expecting me to suddenly change my mind. "There will be faerie wine that will make you forget, make you oblivious to the night so you don't have to witness me in that element, or anyone else. It won't be the most pleasant environment for you."
"No wine," I said, my voice cold as ice. The amulet throbbed at my chest.
He waited a few heartbeats before nodding.
"When?" I asked him.
He twirled the ends of my matted hair around a tattooed finger.
"Tonight."