If She Had Known

Break

My second task arrived.

The Attor grinned at me with sickeningly gleaming teeth as I stood before Amarantha. I had found myself surrounded by jeering fae in some sort of entertaining area, smaller than the throne room, but large enough to hold the horrors I already knew were waiting for me. It had no decorations, save for its gilded walls, and no furniture; the queen herself only sat on a carved wooden chair, Tamlin standing behind her. I didn't gaze long at the Attor, who lingered on the other side of the queens chair, its long, slender tail slashing across the floor. It only smiled to unnerve me.

It didn't work this time. I remembered the look on its face when I killed it, how it was shocked a broken little thing like me could burn so brightly and kill with such tenacity. I forced the half formed grin from my face and clenched my hands at my sides as Amarantha smiled.

"Well, Feyre. Your second trial has come." She sounded so smug— so certain that my death hovered nearby. She crossed her arms and propped her chin on a hand. Jurian's eye turned to face me, it's pupil dilating in the dim light. If we were to continue to repeat our story, we would have to remember that this human man was on our side. For the most part. I still wasn't too sure about him.

Tamlin's stony gaze was hard on me, but my eyes were locked on the false queen. It was a staring contest that Prythian would remember for years to come. "Begin," she snapped.

The floor shuddered beneath me, but I didn't tremble. Pride rose in my chest at the small feat of staying upright as the floor descended, lowering me into a large, rectangular pit. Some faeries cackled, but my stare never left Amarantha's until her face was blocked over the edge of the pit.

I scanned the walls around me, and the wall that was iron bars— separating me from Lucien. He lay chained to the center of the floor on the other side of the chamber, his remaining russet eye so wide that it was surrounded with white. The metal one spun as it took in our surroundings.

I knew there were no doors, no route of escape, but still I looked around and braced myself for danger. The faeries began murmuring, and gold clinked. I scanned the crowd. I was sure Rhys had bet on me again, and would damn any punishment but I still could not find him in the crowd. If I could just see him, I might be able to keep my mind from spinning out of control. I would hear his voice in my head, the gentle caress of his mental talons. But there was no time for wishing now. There was only Amarantha, standing with Tamlin at the edge of the pit, peering in. She bowed her head to me and gestured with an elegant hand to the wall beneath her feet.

"Here, Feyre darling, you shall find your task," I cringed at her use of my mates nickname for me. "Simply answer the question be selecting the correct lever and you'll win. Select the wrong one to your doom. As there are only three options I think I gave you an unfair advantage." She snapped her fingers, and metallic groaned. "That is," she added, "if you solve the puzzle in time."

And there above me were the two giant, spike-encrusted grates that had crushed, impaled and burned me a million times in my nightmares. Even from a distance, they burned red hot with heat rippling off them. Lucien wrenched at his his chains.

And then I turned to the wall that Amarantha had gestured to. A lengthy inscription was carved into its smooth surface. The words that had killed me over and over again in my recurring nightmares. I would wake up with tears streaming down my face, still hearing Lucien's terrified screaming still echoing in my ears. My mate would rock me and wipe the tears from my face and whisper sweet nothings in my hear as I cried if only I could read.

But after many lessons, and years of reading and writing different compliments about the High Lord of Night, reading was as easy as breathing. But I wasn't the High Lady who had had time and peace for years of playful lessons with my mate. In that moment, I was a tortured girl who had lived her short and pitiful life in a deadly forest with no trace of love to be found. My legs trembled and my hands shook as I took in the nonsense markings that held my life in the balance.