A Court of Heart and Fealty | Rhysand

Chapter 83: Shattered

*Please note that this could be a rough chapter to read if you have triggers with darker themes*

Chapter 83: Shattered

By the time that Galadriel was awake, she was already being dragged along the floor.

She screamed, thrashing as the leathery hands grabbed at her arm and shirt, catching knotted strands of her hand that yanked on her scalp. Her ears filled with the harsh chittering of some dark faerie, the sound of her bare legs scraping against the flat stone ground then—then Rhysand's voice.

"Galadr—Let her go." It was commanding, deep. A voice that called upon the power of his entire line of High Lord ancestors. He had shot from the large bed, moving through the corner post like it was nothing more than a mirage of mist and shadow.

Galadriel screamed again, grasping at the solid frame of his bedroom threshold, hearing the fabric of her shirt rip. "Rhys!" In hindsight, calling him that, a name with such familiarity and comfort, was one of her biggest mistakes.

One of them.

Rhysand took one step over her, his feet on either side of her hips and took the dark faerie that had torn her from his bedsheets by the neck, forcing him to let go of her. The faerie shrieked and squirmed. It did not bother Rhys, who leant in close. "You do not touch what is mine."

Galadriel stammered out a sob, struggling to piece the scene together. Tendrils of loose hair fell into her lap, the front of her shirt dotted with blood from a wound she couldn't source.

"My queen!" the faerie squealed. "My queen's orders!"

Rhys shook him, eyes dark and wide. "What does she order?" he demanded. The faerie didn't seem to be able to get a word out, shrinking and crying under Rhysand's fierce glare. Galadriel panted beneath him, crawling back into his room on her hands and knees. She looked back in time to see Rhysand enter the faerie's mind, the notable dilation of the faerie's pupils.

There was a moment of nothing, silence beyond Galadriel's blabbering, trying to pull herself up by his bedframe. Then the faerie began gasping, the sound empty. Choking. Rhysand's face twisted in a fury she didn't recognise as he drew the faerie forward, then slammed him against the wooden frame of his door. The resounding crack could have been heard by the entire mountain. The wood split almost in half.

The faerie stared forward, but there was no life in his eyes when Rhys dropped him, the back of his head caved in. Galadriel shakily stood on her feet, stepping away from the growing pool of blood. "Rhys," she whispered.

The vein in his neck bulged. He refused to meet her eye. "I'm sorry," he rasped. "I'm sorry—fuck—I'm sorry. There's another one. He's gone. Go back to your room. Run, winnow. Whatever you can." Those jagged words were enough of an indication to the condition of his mind. "I'm sorry," he said again, then disappeared.

Galadriel stared at the empty space he'd been, then glanced around his room. She could still see the imprint of where her body had been laying, the valley of where his arm had been, underneath her neck just where she always found most comfortable. Then his order hit her and she left, half walking, half jogging back to her chamber only a few corridors away, heart hammering against her chest. Where had Rhysand gone? Another one, he had said. Another faerie?

Another faerie had seen them.

Rhys was going to chase after it. Hunt it down before it reached Amarantha.

Galadriel barged through a crowd of servants, ignoring their incensed cries as they toppled and tripped. She twisted around as soon as she reached her room, slamming the door shut and locking it. The sudden emptiness left a long and loud ringing in her ears as she stared at the wood, waiting for something to break it down from the other side.