A Court of Heart and Fealty | Rhysand

Chapter 28: Deviance

Chapter 28: Deviance

Thain had finally let her into the kitchen. His father had needed to take the day off to barter with merchants since something had happened to their usual stock so when he asked her if she was willing to handle replenishing a few of the sweets while he focused on some of the more complicated pastries, she tied the apron on fast enough to get fabric burn.

Her arms felt like they were on fire, having spent the morning training in her own backyard. She thought that with not having Cassian there, she would be too lax on herself, but it proved to be the opposite. His hypothetical disappointment in her became enough of a motivator that she'd been shaking when she dropped into the bath, slick with sweat.

"Good," Thain praised, braiding a length of uncooked pastry. How he could do that and watch her at the same time was a miracle. "Could add a little more butter."

Galadriel nodded to the extra slab she'd cut off moments before he glanced over, melting in a small water bath. "Ahead of you."

Thain grinned. "Don't get too cocky."

"I have been baking longer than you've been alive," she pointed out with her own teasing grin, using the side of her arm to wick away the sweat on her neck from the ovens. "Just focus on your fancy pastry, young boy."

"Cauldron," he muttered, hands moving faster than she could keep up with. "You sound like my sister."

On her walk home, a handful of copper pieces in her pocket for her efforts, she spied three Illyrian forms flying overhead in the direction of the House of Wind. A week and a day it had been. And it would be another day before she spoke with any of them.

~

Galadriel stood at the end of the pier. They poked out into the Sidra like stubby brown fingers. The dark water lapped at the shell-choked wood, roughened into hatching swells, a storm from the east blowing in. The first winter storm—though they still had a week left until Autumn faded out completely.

Her hand curled around the raised pike when a gust pushed through the city. Bumps gloved her arms, the product of both the day's chill and memory. Occasionally, a larger surge in the high tide would come through, spraying her face with the icy water. Rhysand told her the Sidra fluctuated between salt and fresh depending on rainfall, and today it was as fresh as that lake she had fallen into.

So used to his shadows, Galadriel didn't flinch when the dark form appeared at her side. Azriel didn't greet her, only looking ahead. The air ruffled the short waves of his hair, the only thing about him other than his shadows that moved. "How was it?" she asked. "The camps?"

"Same as always." The tone was too recognisable—he didn't want to speak of it. Still, he must have come down here for something, so she waited. "Have you changed your mind?"

"No." Another spray drenched her left foot. Her knuckles whitened around the pike, bones in her fingers aching, splinters digging into her skin.

During her youth, Azriel had taken her from her cottage home at the edge of the Winter Court and to a secluded stream running through Summer Court territory. She was to learn how to swim, he told her. It had been impossible then, and impossible since, for Galadriel to brave any body of water beyond her bathtub or a shallow creek. It was the only endeavour Azriel had ever given up on her with.

But some days she came here—just to look it in the face. To stand right where the water could scrape at her feet but not claim her. One day, she told herself, she would learn. She would stand on that pier with her legs hanging over, toes skimming the water.

"Rhys has asked me to give you instruction to remove the ring. Dispose of it."

She twisted the jewellery around. "Is it an order?"