Watching Feyre enter the throne room for her final trial was… a challenge. As with the last trial, I had no idea what Amarantha had in store for her, only that it would be cruel and sneaky and very likely a trick. I still believed Feyre could do it, could beat her, but Amarantha would not go quietly nor without damage and that was what scared me. We would leave this room together today, but at what cost?
And then, there she stood, my Feyre, before our evil queen, chin held high and boldness in her stance. At long last, the end was here.
“Two trials lie behind you,” Amarantha said from her false throne, Tamlin sitting beside her ever the stone mute. “And only one more awaits. I wonder if it will be worse to fail now - when you are so close.”
I almost wondered if Amarantha was silently asking herself that very same question as few in the room laughed. Those gathered here today were not her minions hell bent on doing her biding to survive. No, today’s crowd were the faeries and High Fae of the courts who despised this wicked queen, who wanted nothing more than to see her fall. And Amarantha knew it. Realizing the jeers of her subjects were no longer available to her to torment Feyre, she pressed on with her mockery instead.
“Any words to say before you die?”
Feyre turned to Tamlin and my heart churned as she spoke, for though her words burned in my lungs, the song she sang in her heart for him threatening to poison me, I would not leave her body and soul until the end, not for one moment.
“I love you,” she said to Tamlin. “No matter what she says about it, no matter if it’s only with my insignificant human heart. Even when they burn my body, I’ll love you.”
Instantly, she cried and began to shake, and Amarantha swooped in with her despicable gallantry.
“You’ll be lucky, my darling, if we even have enough left of you to burn,” she said and again, no one called out. I felt Feyre’s spirit lift ever so slightly at the notice that the court was in her favor today. “You never figured out my riddle, did you? Pity. The answer is so lovely.”
“Get it over with,” Feyre spat.
Amarantha turned deliciously to Tamlin. “No final words to her?”
Feyre looked at him, her face hopeful and already broken by what she knew was inevitably coming. Now was his chance. He’d sat silently by all these weeks doing nothing more to help her than offering a few stolen kisses in a dingy hallway. But he could rectify that now, could give her the courage she needed to stand up and defeat Amarantha at last.
The bastard. Was. Silent.
Fury exploded in my chest as Amarantha grinned at Feyre knowing how disappointing this blow would be to her. “Very well, then,” she said before clapping her hands to commence the trial.
I would never forgive Tamlin for that. Another time, another place without Amarantha stealing our powers and i would have killed him for abandoning Feyre when she needed him most. Even after all I knew him capable of, all he had done, watching him stare with feigned interest at the woman who’d fought so viciously to save him through the very bowels of hell as if she were nothing to him shocked me to my core.
But I could not focus my fury for long. Three prisoners with bags to cover their faces were led out into the center of the room to stand in front of Feyre. A guard was given to each figure and accompanying them each was a pillow holding a cursed ash dagger.
My heart sank at the scene. I knew what was coming. Feyre did too, I could feel it. The crowds were dead on their feet waiting to see what the human girl from below the wall would do, the one who had hated faeries so passionately. Would she truly be the savior they hoped for?
“Your final task, Feyre,” Amarantha said pointing at the concealed victims. “Stab each of these unfortunate souls in the heart. They’re innocent - not that it should matter to you since it wasn’t a concern the day you killed Tamlin’s poor sentinel. And it wasn’t a concern for dear Jurian when he butchered my sister. But if it’s a problem… well, you can always refuse. Of course, I’ll take your life in exchange, but a bargain’s a bargain, is it not? If you ask me, though, given your history with murdering our kind, I do believe I’m offering you a gift.”
I felt Feyre’s heart sink further and further into that pit of despair with each new word of torture Amarantha gave. She couldn’t do it. She wasn’t going to. Her convictions would not let her and I could feel how much it crippled her very soul to even consider the possibility.
But then… she moved and she picked up the dagger with a heavy hand in front of the first victim, her mind full of Tamlin and what the sacrifice would be worth. The only way to convince herself it was worth it no matter what it might cost her later.
“Not so fast,” Amarantha clicked merrily and the guards unmasked the first faerie, a male with a crumpling face not ready to meet his death. “That’s better. Proceed, Feyre, dear. Enjoy it.”
My hands clenched with hatred. I hated her. I hated her so much for twisting the dagger into Feyre so much further than was necessary.
“Please,” the male faerie begged. “Please.” His voice was ragged, weak as he pleaded repeatedly while Feyre lifted the dagger trying to rationalize the death with thoughts of Tamlin and the faeries around her she would free. One life for the sake of many.
And she could not do it. It was too much, too heavy on her heart.
I winnowed on the spot re-appearing to the side of the dias where the throne sat so that she could see me. Tamlin wouldn’t help her, perhaps ever, that much he’d made clear even if it made no sense to me. So once more, just as I had at her second trial, I would be her shelter, her guide. The only difference was that this time, I didn’t wait to see if Tamlin would even try first.
I tugged on the bond between us forcing my thoughts into her mind. Do it, I said sternly just as the male faerie begged, “Don’t… Please!”
Feyre plunged the dagger into his heart and I cracked into his mind, taking away the pain so that only shock and a forced scream were left before he fell to the floor. The knife fell from Feyre’s hand with a soul-shattering crash. Blood dripped from her hand as she wept and somewhere in the crowd, a woman wailed.
I swallowed. It was nothing like the Middengard Wyrm or the puzzle on the wall, but it was by far the worst punishment Feyre would have to endure of them all.
“Very good,” Amarantha said. “Now the next. Oh, don’t look so miserable, Feyre. Aren’t you having fun?”
As the second victim - a female this time - was unmasked, I finally felt what I had prayed and begged and bargained with the Cauldron never to let me feel: I felt Feyre break.
Her heart tore and with every rip, mine went with it. The female faerie chanted a prayer to the gods that erased the last traces of Feyre’s spirit, the spirit I loved to watch fight and sting. It was dying. Tears spilled freely onto her face, each one an icy slap where the sting would never disappear. “I’m sorry,” she sobbed to the girl still wrestling with her thoughts as to whether or not she could do it.
And still, Tamlin said nothing.
It wasn’t right. How could he sit there even now and offer her nothing? How many who barely knew her, had no reason to trust her, had given her aid at some point in the last three months so she could save him? I knew he loved her. It was plain as day when I’d visited his manor in the Spring Court and found her glamoured from sight. His actions to have me spare her proved his ardent love for Feyre. There was no way that the Tamlin I knew who felt so much love for Feyre could sit idly by and watch, could merely sit…
A weight fell into the pit of my stomach and I broke my promise to stay with Feyre’s thoughts as my gaze turned towards Tamlin and the throne. Instead of watching Feyre as she plunged the dagger into the heart of the female fae, my mind tracked Amarantha, how happy she looked. Even as the crowd began to stir seeming to realize they were mere seconds from freedom, Amarantha looked giddy with delight. Only one more victim to go…
And I knew.
I knew what was about to happen. It would crush Feyre. The one thing in all of Prythian that might have been the downfall in my beautiful plan and she had figured it out, the clever whore.
The third guard raised his hand. The mask came off. And Feyre stumbled back looking wide-eyed with shock into the eyes of Tamlin - the real Tamlin, kneeling before her waiting for the dagger at his side. Next to Amarantha, the Attor unwrapped himself from his disguise with glee.
Just a few more minutes and I could release myself. I only had to hold on to my charade for mere minutes. I had done so for fifty years, what were five more minutes? And then I would know if Feyre was strong enough to figure it out. She was the only person in the room who didn’t know that she could kill Tamlin and it wouldn’t matter, that his heart was made of stone. But would she realize? Or even if she didn’t, would she do it anyway? Kill him for all our sakes despite not knowing any of us or loving us the way she did him.
“Something wrong?” Amarantha asked sweetly, feigning confusion.
“Not… Not fair,” Feyre choked out, her heart utterly in ruins. It was all I could do not to run and hold her when she looked at me then, so much pain in her eyes. My own heart was broken for her, the despair I felt drowning out Amarantha’s words as she teased Feyre further with her dilemma. I didn’t care that it was Tamlin whom Feyre loved. I didn’t care if he was my enemy, a friend who’d betrayed me. It could have been a demon out of hell itself and had Feyre loved him, even then my heart would have broken from having to watch her kill what she loved most in the world. Whatever she wanted, whomever it was, if that was what she desired, then I wanted her to have it too.
“So,” I vaguely heard Amarantha say. “What will it be, Feyre?”
At first, it was agonizing. The room stilled. I could feel every single heart beating as we waited for Feyre to make her decision, the one that would decide our collective fates. And then, just when I thought she had nothing left to give, her heart was so mangled and glazed over with disease and death, the most wonderful thing happened.
Slowly, piece by piece, Feyre’s mind recalled scenes of her past, little details flitting to the surface stitching themselves together like a tapestry, full of complexity and riddle. And when the last of the fibers were woven together, the answer stood before her fully formed and joy sprang into my heart.
“I love you,” she said to Tamlin and never had I thought I’d be so glad to hear those words on her lips directed at the High Lord of the Spring Court, but I was then as I watched Feyre plunge the dagger into his stone heart and a grin overwhelmed my face. The spell would be broken.
I was happier than I’d been in years. I hadn’t even remembered what real happiness felt like until I saw the blade fall from Feyre’s hand and defeat swept over Amarantha, it’d been so long since I’d enjoyed that luxury.
“She won,” someone said from the crowd, the crowd that was now abuzz with murmurs and squeals and delight. “Free them!” called a second voice.
“I’ll free them whenever I see fit,” Amarantha balked. Gone was the mockery, the teasing. In its place was the true cunning, unrelenting beast she really was. “Feyre didn’t specify when I had to free them - just that I had to. At some point. Perhaps when you’re dead. You assumed that when I said instantaneous freedom regarding the riddle, it applied to the trials, too, didn’t you? Foolish, stupid human.”
Amarantha moved toward Feyre and fear crippled my heart rendering my happiness null and void as she pointed to Feyre and spoke with venom, “And you. You. I’m going to kill you.”
My scream shattered the air as I watched lightning reach out from Amarantha and strike Feyre down, my happiness going with it. It was incredible really. One moment, I had been so free, so high on victory at what this woman had done for us all and the next, I was shattered. Pain consumed me as I watched Amarantha torture her. I didn’t hear the words she spoke to Feyre. All I knew, I felt, could see, could breath, could consume was Feyre.
My mate.
My match. My love. My life, my court, my every hope and dream wrapped up into this one perfect person. And she was going to die.
I roared her name, anger and grief tearing at my chest as the taste of salt stung my lips. I clung to her and felt each bone as Amarantha broke them one by one. It was beyond torture.
My mate, my mate, my mate, began a chant deep inside my bones, urging me on like a drum beat to a death march.
“Feyre!” I screamed once more, picking myself up and running to Tamlin where the ash knife had fallen. I grabbed it, just as Amarantha’s foot connected with the broken bones of Feyre’s crumpled body and she screamed in pain.
“Your mortal heart is nothing to us,” Amarantha said. Feyre’s cries sent me charging. If Feyre was going to die, I would die with her and I would take down Amarantha in the process. Anything to ensure Feyre wouldn’t die alone, would never have to feel such torment again. I flew at Amarantha and was met with her shields, blown back by such force of her power. She hadn’t even bothered to turn around to face me. Again I charged, talons rippling from my hands, my feet, blind with rage knowing she would likely stop me again, but I didn’t care.
She was going to take my mate.
“You traitorous piece of filth,” Amarantha bellowed at me and I wondered if she was really so surprised at my “betrayal.” Pain sliced my fingers as she wielded her magic - my magic - to shove the talons back in place inside my skin. A curse sprang from my mouth. “You’re just as bad as these human beasts. You were planning this all along.”
And then I went flying, my body nothing more than dust on air until I hit the marble floor with a loud crack. I went in and out of the blackness in my mind as she struck me over and over and over again, the darkness my only friend. It curled and caressed my mind from deep within, but I was quickly drowning losing hold of it as pain wracked my body in Amarantha’s wake. And just as I was about to give in, to drown in my distress, a voice broke the spell and the blows ceased.
“Stop,” Feyre said, her voice hoarse and strained from some distance away. “Please.”
I wept at the sound of her, pushing myself up desperately to get to her, but my arms gave out. I pushed again and it was useless, my body betraying me at every move. My nose bled, my head cracked, my stomach caved in. But she had fought for me. No, not fought, but begged. Feyre had begged for me. Had asked for my pain to stop. She had chosen a small piece of me and I clung to it, my only salvation in death.
So I pulled on the bond, the only way I could reach her, and our minds melded together, visions of the other flashing in and out of our shared consciousness. And never once did our gaze break in those few seconds as I knew I loved her more than anything.
My mate. My mate. My mate.
“Stop?” Amarantha sneered. “Stop? Don’t pretend you care, human. Say that you don’t love him!”
“Amarantha, stop this,” Tamlin said, speaking at long last. He crawled slowly towards the evil queen, ready to plead and give her what she wanted. Anything to make the madness end and I was so thankful to hear him finally try. “Stop. I’m sorry - I’m sorry for what I said about Clythia all those years ago. Please.”
Back and forth Tamlin and Amarantha argued, Tamlin trying to steer her off course and away from Feyre, Amarantha having none of it. He was trying and I didn’t care. All I could see and feel was Feyre. Feyre and her beautiful mind holding on to the love she felt for him. I wanted her to feel it, to have some semblance of a beautiful thought to give her hope. There had to be a way out of this. I loved her. And she loved him. Surely that had to count for something?
Blood spilled from Feyre’s lips. She was trying to talk, Amarantha hot in her face with rage.
“Love,” Feyre choked. Amarantha paused, but I couldn’t see her face clearly. “The answer to the riddle… is… love.”
A stillness swept over me, like a lock clicking into place as the depths of my magic replenished. She’d done it. Cauldron damn us all, she’d done it! She’d solved the riddle. We were free. And I reached for her in my hideous joy knowing I was far away and Tamlin was closer, but I didn’t care. And then like a snake striking at its prey, Amarantha’s hands wrapped around Feyre’s neck and twisted and Feyre’s eyes went blank. My soul emptied out onto the marble floor where it mixed with her death and I felt her thoughts disappear causing me to roar and thrash.
To say the grief was devastating was an understatement.
My mate.
I yanked on the bond, desperate for anything - something with which to save her. And mercifully, she was there. A small flickering light offering the faintest trace of hope. I pulled.
My mate.
The painter’s hands in her tiny cabin home swirling scenes of starlight.
My mate.
The huntress in the woods aching to save the family who resented her.
My mate.
The human running wild with daring on Fire Night to enjoy the taste of the faerie world.
The girl who had saved my soul when I had nothing left to keep me dreaming.
My mate. My mate. My mate. My mate. My mate. My mate. My mate. My mate. My mate. My mate. My mate. My mate. My mate. My mate. My mate. My mate. My mate. My mate. My mate. My mate. My mate. My mate. My mate. My mate. My mate. My mate. My mate. My mate. My mate. My mate. My mate. My mate. My mate. My mate. My mate. My mate. My mate. My mate. My mate. My mate.
I clung to our bond, to the potential for life and love between us. As Tamlin shredded Amarantha to pieces, a sword blasted through her skull and her throat ripped out in a bloody heap, I broke into the minds of the five remaining High Lords, dragging them to the center of the room. They needed little-to-no coercing. Their minds were already blank with shock, mine for the taking. I felt Feyre inside of me so broken and confused and mangled as together we watched each High Lord step forward once Tamlin had finished his work and offer a piece of themselves to Feyre’s body that Tamlin now clutched dearly in the silent room.
Lucien stood feet away, mourning rewriting itself into hope as he cried for Feyre’s life. When I’d released my grip on the last High Lord and only I remained to give of myself before Tamlin, I stepped forward, carrying Feyre gingerly in my soul as I went.
“For what she gave,” I said. “We’ll bestow what our predecessors have granted to few before.” Tamlin looked up at me not knowing Feyre looked back at him. His was the one mind I hadn’t needed to break into to persuade and he looked at me with such awe that I didn’t know if it was due to shock that I would be so willing to help him, my enemy, even in this darkest hour, or if it was because he understood the full extent of what I’d just done, how far I would go, how many rules I would break, how much of my own life I had tried to sacrifice for her.
“This makes us even,” I said.
Darkness rippled within me breaking off a piece of my essence and carrying Feyre with it into her body where it belonged. A small, but powerful fragment of my heart wholly devoted to her. If ever she was ready, she could come looking and I would give her the rest.
My mate. My mate. My mate.
When Tamlin gave his share and Feyre’s shape changed - her fingers lengthening, her ears growing pointed, her skin glowing with color and light once more - it was like watching the world turn right side up after years of forgetting it had ever been turned askew in the first place. And when she drew breath, I inhaled with her, relief flooding me that she was returned.
An eruption of celebration burst in the room as the faeries from all seven courts rejoiced. We were free at long last never to be hurt by Amarantha again. And all I could think was here stood my powerful, strong, beautiful mate in the arms of another male.
No longer could I bear my mask. Another day when court politics inevitably returned and I was called to bear my cruel, wretched persona once more for the good of my court. But not today. I couldn’t wield that power any longer as I watched Tamlin scoop Feyre up and hold her. Touch her. Taste her.
She would be okay. Her body and mind were in pieces, but Tamlin would be the glue to hold her together. She’d broken the curse on us all. She’d defeated Amarantha, survived Under the Mountain. She’d won and it was all I could ever ask for for her.
And so it was with one last lingering look to ensure I wasn’t dreaming, to see she was indeed alive and would be okay, that I took a step back and disappeared for the night, allowing every manner of emotion from the last fifty years until now to consume me.