A Court of Heart and Fealty | Rhysand

Chapter 35: Reaper

Chapter 35: Reaper

The stone was softer than she expected, giving way to the pressure of her jaw. Tossing her head back, Galadriel let it sink down to her molars where she ground it into a powder. It fizzled, reacting with her saliva, burning her tongue like acid. A sound began to erupt from her—a cough maybe, or a gag. She'd never know because that sap-colour haired guard shot forward and clasped his hands around her throat, trapping it.

Her skull banged against the wall and in her pained daze, they somehow slipped to the ground. She hadn't taken a breath to prepare, her lungs already empty and crying for air. The male's face hovered over her, hair curtaining down either side, teeth bared as his hands wrung tighter around her neck.

But this wasn't an act of rageful revenge; to choke her to death. He was stopping her from killing herself. The poison had completely disintegrated by now, bubbling in the back of her mouth but she couldn't move the muscles enough in her throat to swallow. He'd knock her out long enough to remove the poison before this entire thing just started again, and she'd have no escape.

In a fit of panic, she grabbed at his hands, scraping her nails along his skin, entrenching them in his forearm hard enough to draw drizzling lines of blood. His fingers only cinched tighter. The pressure in her head swelled, building behind her eyes. Her feet kicked wildly, scrambling for some sort of footing to knock him off or switch their positions but his weight sunk onto her stomach, trapping her against the ground. She couldn't even scream.

Blackness pulsed in the sides of her vision, threatening to steal more with each resounding thump of her heartbeat. Galadriel reached up, scratching his face, his eyes. She tried to pry each finger off her neck one by one. To turn just enough to swallow the poison down but her movements had grown too lethargic. She couldn't even make out the male's face staring down at her, inches away.

'driel..."

Her hand flopped away from the guard's, knuckles hitting the floor beside her shoulder. The muscles in her legs had already given out. Blackness overwhelmed colour.

'Galadriel.' She heard the call, knew the voice. But it sounded so far away, like there was an entire mountain between them, his voice echoing off the cavernous space. The wards. He was outside them. Couldn't winnow in.

But that wasn't Rhys's plan.

A shadow, darker and more elegant than the ones claiming her, thickened in the corner of the room where her face had fallen to angle. And out of it, came Azriel.

The shortest guard she'd all but forgotten faltered but leapt forward, a weapon from the rack brandished. It might as well have been a toothpick as Azriel's blade knocked it from hand with a single manoeuvre. Galadriel tried to call out to him, to tell him that she was here, but her lashes fluttered closer together and it became too hard to think, her mouth to dry to move.

Something great knocked into her—no, pulling her. The force rolled her onto the side and the relief was immediate. The hoarse, grating sound of her gasps for air filled the chamber. Her back arched, trying to expand her lungs to take more than they could hold as she choked down every minuscule of breath suddenly available to her. Clarity returned first, her vision turning back to blurred colours then distinct shapes.

Azriel hunched over a fallen, limp form just feet from her. He pulled his knife from it with a wet squelch, blood staining the beautiful silver steel of his dagger. Galadriel tried to clamber to her feet but they were still disconnected from her brain, her fingers just only now beginning to curl at command.

Azriel's hands were under her, lifting her up. Hazel eyes darted over her, and she could have melted at the concern that drowned them. Could have, but didn't. Today there was only a shame that made her want to crawl away, to hide in those shadows that always hovered around him.