A Court of Chaos and Confusion - An ACOTAR Rewrite

Chapter 17

The next morning my paint and supplies arrived from wherever Tamlin or the servants had dug them up. Before Tamlin let me see them, though, he brought me down hall after hall until we were in a wing of the house I'd never been to, even in my nocturnal explorings. Even so, I knew where we were going without his having to say. The marble floors shone so brightly that they had to have been freshly mopped, and that rose-scented breeze floated in through the opened windows. All this – he'd done this for me. As if I would have cared about cobwebs or dust. How odd, this High Lord of Spring.

When he paused before a set of wooden doors, the slight smile he gave me was enough to make me blurt, "Why do anything – anything this kind?"

The smile faltered. "It's been a long time since there was anyone here who appreciated these things. I like seeing them used again." Was he being... sincere?

He opened the gallery doors and the breath was knocked from me.

The pale wooden floors gleamed in the clean, bright light pouring in from the windows. The room was empty save for a few large chairs and benches for viewing the... the...

I barely registered moving into the long gallery, one hand absentmindedly wrapping around my throat as I looked up at the paintings in awe.

So many, so different, yet all arranged to flow together seamlessly... Such different views and snippets and angles of the world. Pastorals, portraits, still lifes... each a story and an experience, each a voice shouting, whispering, or singing about what that moment, that feeling, had been like, each a cry into the void of time that they had been here, had existed. Some had been painted through eyes like mine, artists who saw in colors and shapes I understood. Some showcased colors I had not considered; these had a bend to the world that told me a different set of eyes painted them. A portal into the mind of a creature so unlike me, and yet... and yet I looked at its work and understood, felt, and cared.

"I never knew," Tamlin said from behind me, "that humans were capable of..." He trailed off as I turned, the hand I'd put on my throat sliding down to my chest where my heart roared with a fierce sort of joy and grief and overwhelming humility – humility before that magnificent art.

He stood by the doors, head cocked in that animalistic way of his, the words still lost on his tongue.

I wiped at my damp cheeks. "It's..." Perfect, wonderful, beyond my wildest imaginings didn't cover it. I kept my hand over my heart. "Thank you," I said. It was all I could find to show him what these paintings – to be allowed into this room – meant.

"Come here whenever you want."

I smiled at him, hardly able to contain the brightness in my heart. His returning smile was tentative as he left me to admire the gallery at my own leisure.

I stayed for hours – stayed until I was drunk on the art, until I was dizzy with hunger and wandered out to find food.

After lunch, Alis showed me to an empty room on the first floor with a table full of canvases of various sizes, brushes whose wooden handles gleamed in the perfect, clear light, and paints – so, so many paints, beyond the four basic ones I'd hoped for, that the breath was knocked from me again.

And when Alis was gone and the room was quiet and utterly mine I began to paint.

***

Weeks passed, the days melting together. I painted and painted, most of it awful and useless.

I never let anyone see my work, no matter how much Tamlin prodded and Lucien smirked at my paint-splattered clothes; the images burning in my mind never seemed to match what I put on canvas. I often painted from dawn until dusk, sometimes in that room, sometimes out in the garden. Occasionally I'd take a break to explore the Spring lands with Tamlin or Lucien as my guide, coming back with fresh ideas that had me leaping out of bed the next morning to sketch or scribble down the scenes or colors as I'd glimpsed them. I also spent hours in the gallery, finding new details I hadn't seen before in the beautiful pieces that were displayed there.