A Court of Heart and Fealty | Rhysand

Chapter 79: The Curse

Chapter 79: The Curse

When she did return, slipping quietly back into the crowd, nobody had noticed her disappearance. Because all eyes were at the head of the hall, on Amarantha and a defiant Tamlin. Even the musicians had stopped.

"I will not," Tamlin breathed, staring nowhere but Amarantha's black eyes. Lucien stood at the side of the gathered crowd, anxiously looking between the pair.

"What's happening?" Galadriel whispered to the female next to her who was also watching intently.

"Tamlin refused a dance," she hissed back. "Won't touch the queen at all."

Galadriel let out a shaky breath, biting the tender, inner flesh of her lip. This masquerade was meant to heal the burns between Spring and Amarantha's court. An act of Amarantha's good faith. She supposed that she shouldn't be surprised Amarantha had yet to give up on her attempt to acquire Tamlin for her own bed.

Amarantha raked those beastly eyes over Tamlin, examining every inch of him like the thick coat and tunic beneath were as thin enough to see through to the heart beating beneath. "You would find no one better than me," she said carefully, as both warning and opportunity for Tamlin to correct himself, to evaluate her offer. "I am High Queen of Prythian. You could share that."

Galadriel doubted the extent of that promise. He would share the image of power, but Tamlin would remain as much a slave as the rest of them.

Rhys had taken his spot next to Amarantha, his interest intent-which Galadriel only knew because he had a façade of boredom. He inspected his nails, a pink tongue slipping over red lips that had been on her mere minutes ago as if he could still taste her. She hoped he could. That he was thinking about her. As selfish as it was, she wanted him to think about her as much as she thought about him.

Tamlin lifted his chin. Memory echoed through Galadriel, a distant and hazy memory of him doing that same movement in his father's study. A movement of defiance. "I would rather put myself in bed with a human."

The crowd seemed to gasp as one. Even Galadriel put her fingers to her lips, understanding the severity of such a claim.

"I would rather lay naked and sweating next to some mere mortal," Tamlin went on, his voice rising like the notes of a symphony chorus. "I'd rather tie myself body and soul to a human, marry one, than touch you. Than love you."

Amarantha's face twisted in hot rage, stolen from the hall which had become so cold that Galadriel shivered. "How dare you."

"Even your sister preferred human company to yours."

It was almost comical, the jaws dropping. Most of the audience tensed, predicting the strike Amarantha would bring down upon them, a storm of her anger gathering into lightning. But like a wind suddenly blows in a new direction, she straightened, her expression calm. "If that is what you wish, then I am in the business of granting them."

There it was again, Galadriel mused to herself. Amarantha always found a way to control everything. She found twists in words, escapes like a rat in a sinking ship, nooks that only the shadows knew of. Cunning as a cat immune to the perils of curiosity.

Tamlin didn't move a muscle. Lucien held a bated breath, poised like he was preparing to jump between his High Lord and Amarantha. Galadriel shifted herself through the crowd as Amarantha went on, using her arms like the pointed tip of a ship breaking through the sea.

"If a human is what you desire, then a human is who you shall have. You will find yourself a human bride."

Tamlin stepped back. "A bride? A human girl to be the bride of an immortal fae?" he demanded.