A Court of Games and Fate

Crumpled Walls

          Rhysand had pierced and shifted through many minds, but never had he experienced the invasion on this end. Perhaps it was due to his magic being weakened in this place. Maybe it was because Andromeda was his daughter and the barriers were weaker between them. It had always been fairly easy to see into her mind, but Rhysand normally chalked it up to her being inexperienced. He didn't know, and that terrified him. What was she going to see? Would this be turned against him? He wants so badly for there to be hope for his daughter yet, but there is still no promise that she will not turn to her mother.

          Andromeda fired a blow to his mind that rendered him useless to the assault of his memories. It was if every doorway in his fortified mental palace opened up and rolled out a welcome mat for his daughter. Rhysand had no choice but to sit back in a repressed horror as his memories were laid out in the open to his child. To Amarantha's child.

          Scenes blurred by faster than he could comprehend. Him as a child with his mother and sister, the two faces that still haunted his dreams most. Mother above, Andromeda looked so much like his sister. The Illyrian camps. The Night Court. His chosen family. Starlight. Bloodshed. Betrayal. A thriving city along a river. Amarantha's face flashed through his memories. A meeting amongst the High Lords gone wrong. The prison that they now called home. Amarantha's treatment. It was all too much at once. Rhysand couldn't take it.

          Attempting to do anything at all to stop all the flowing memories, Rhysand grabbed for his daughter. That small, nimble arrow destroying his barriers and bringing down all the work he had done to keep everything hidden. With a snarl, he gripped the arrow in his midnight talons and threw it back to which it came. For a moment, everything went black.

          Being physically launched from a mind was far more painful than Andromeda expected. She let out a strangled shriek as she was hurled back into her own mind with a force that left her physical body reeling. Everything she had just seen, it was all things locked tight within her father. Faces she had never seen flashed in her mind, with the names spoken lovingly by her father in a tone she had never heard from him. She saw his home. His real home. She saw the creation of her court.

          Her disgusting, monstrous court.

          How could she be so blind? Was this the truth of her home? Of her life? Was this some nasty trick for her? Possibly a test of her loyalty to her court? No, Andromeda told herself. If this were a test, she wouldn't have had to break into her father's mind. These memories were raw. Real.

          Rhysand was hunched over in his position beside her bed, hands gripping his head as if he could forcibly grab out whatever trace of herself was left behind from her intrusion. After a few moments of silence filled only by the panicked pantings of the father and daughter, Rhysand finally lifted his head from his hands. A darkness brewing in his eyes that could only be seen in a predator's gaze. He was angry. Far angrier than she had ever seen. Andromeda went too far.

          "I'm sorry," she whispered, fear lacing through her words. Her mother's anger was terrible, but at least Andromeda knew what to expect. Her father though? Well, Andromeda had just seen the full extent of what he could do.

          "What did you do?" Rhysand softly questioned. Too soft for the storm brewing in his features. Andromeda was certain her room grew darker. Dark like the night. Like the home that was his true home. Not this prison everybody was forced into.

          "I- I didn't know. I had no idea," Andromeda rambled. She barely noticed as the tears began streaking down her face.

          All the whispers heard from the court this evening were right. Amarantha was a monster. Not that Andromeda did not know her mother's character beforehand, but at least she had thought her mother was just a harsh ruler. All her father's memories showed the truth though. Her mother was no ruler. She is a tyrant who destroyed the actual Fae kingdom. All this time, Andromeda had thought she was a princess who would one day rule the court of her people. All this time, Andromeda had been a fool. She was nothing more than a foolish and gullible child. She was no better than her mother. All the Fae that wanted to strike Amarantha down might as well strike herself down too.