A Court of Heart and Fealty | Rhysand

Chapter 98: Amarantha's Curse

Chapter 98: Amarantha's Curse

Rhysand felt the ground beneath his feet collapse the moment that the sack was torn off her head. He hadn't sensed her near, hadn't recognised the frail body or picked up her scent from his spot on the edge of the crowd. He whipped his head to Amarantha and for once, she let him in enough to pry at her intention. Kill his mate. Shatter him with her.

He physically stumbled, hand reaching for something to clasp onto but finding nothing more than air. His breath felt like ice against his lips, each one a wasted second as he drove his mind in circles to find something to do. His magic was out of the question. He wouldn't make it to Feyre in time to tackle her or take the knife unless he winnowed. Amarantha would kill him for it and then kill Galadriel herself right after.

He barely registered making the decision when Feyre lifted the dagger, hovering the tip over his mate's chest. He launched himself into her unsealed mind as easily as cracking through a sheet of thin ice and seized.

Feyre, the mortal girl Tamlin had found wasting away in the southern lands. A mortal girl that had already beaten not one but two of Amarantha's challenges, so close to securing freedom for all Prythian. And Rhysand was going to stop her.

The moment the steel moved forward, he gripped the mortal's mind so tightly that he feared he destroyed it all together when Feyre tremored. The dagger pressed into Galadriel's breast, a slight blossom of red flowering but no deeper than the tissue of her skin. Rhysand held Feyre there. It wasn't difficult. The mortal girl fought him but she had no power to overthrow his presence. Especially not when the threat to his mate's life fed his every movement.

This was larger than them. Thousands of faeries had suffered. Hundreds were stuffed into this room at that very moment, practically begging Feyre to push that knife through the heart of a female they'd never seen before. Prythian was suffering. Yet no matter how hard he fought to tell himself that all he had to do was release Feyre's body, let her drive that knife into his mate then encourage her to shove it into the third and final chest and they would be free, he couldn't convince himself to pay the price. What was freedom without her? Galadriel had been right, all those years ago. He would choose her every single time.

So he became what the world made him to be. A monster.

Feyre's hand turned the dagger around. She cried out, muscles shaking as she placed the tip of the blade to her sternum against her own will. The crowd roused. Rhysand couldn't look into their faces, the hope leaking from them, knowing that he was the one damning them to an eternity in this hell.

He clenched the muscles in his arm as if he held the dagger in his own palm, lifted his eyes to the ceiling then back down to his mate, and gave the urge in his mind for the girl to drive it in.

Rhysand forced himself to watch his mate as Lucien screamed from the other side of the hall. Amarantha sat so forward that she threatened to tip from her throne, eyes bright and blood-red lips curving upwards and letting out a manic laugh.

Then, as the faerie third in line ripped his own hood off, even Rhysand blanched when Tamlin's face appeared. The figure that had been Tamlin at Amarantha's side dissolved to reveal the Attor.

Tamlin tore from his restraints and Rhysand finally saw a glimpse of that anger he'd been trying to build in the male he once considered a friend. The anger he hoped to turn on Amarantha. He grappled for Feyre's body as she fell. Rhysand gave himself the smallest of solaces to know that he aimed the knife to give her the best chance to live, if only her High Lord of a lover was smart enough to get her out and staunch the bleeding.

Galadriel only stared, her expression a little too vacant, her eyes a little too dull. The only thing she bothered to look at was Lucien who had bolted from his spot to be at Tamlin's side. But Tamlin was already on his feet, passing the girl's body to him. The rage that seeped from him, into the air which fizzled with the tang of his magic, was incredible. He summoned more than Rhysand had touched in years even with the curse still in place. And it was all turned on Amarantha.