A Court of Starfall & Deception - An ACOMAF Rewrite

Chapter 11

The following night, the nightmares that pulled me from sleep weren't from Under the Mountain; they were from Spring.

Sitting in that study as Tamlin pulled information out of me after my first week with Rhysand I watched, an unseen bystander to the events as they unfolded. He was drilling me with questions, making me turn over every word I'd overheard while I'd been a guest in Rhys's home.

Information I willing handed over.

"You're the only one I trust," Rhys had told me, his voice echoing in my head, reverberating with the weight of my betrayal as my traitorous mouth continued to speak. I screamed at myself to stop. To think about what I was doing, what I was saying. Each word I uttered was another crack in that fragile trust, until a vast chasm so distant and deep there was no hope of ever crossing separated him from me.

Isolated.

Alone.

Looking at Tamlin's face from the prison of my own mind, I didn't see the impatient concern I remembered. No, what stared back at me was calculation - someone relishing the information being fed to him about his enemy; savoring every moment of it like a wolf with fresh prey.

I shot up in the soft, fluffy bed - the sanctuary that was my room in the Night Court.

Safe, I reminded myself. 

But not at peace.

The guilt swelled in me, choking me like a noose around my throat. Shame followed, hot and suffocating, a bitter reminder that I wasn't worthy of the opportunities Rhys offered me, the trust— the comfort.

How had I forgotten, I wondered to myself. Was I truly that far gone from who I had been? Had turning High Fae truly warped me so completely?

It was only normal, wasn't it? I thought, For Tamlin and Lucien to grill me for the information on Rhysand? He was High Lord of the Night Court, their enemy, a threat. But Rhys...

Rhys had never asked me for information on Tamlin. The Spring Court. Even though they were his enemies.

As I ran through my memories I realized he had never asked me anything even close to resembling the interrogation Tamlin and Lucien had subjected me to that first day back. He'd only ever asked for information in regards to... me. My well-being. Sure he made jabs and insinuations that didn't hide his malice toward Tamlin and the Spring Court as a whole, but he'd never pressed me for information.

Rhysand had been more of a friend to me the last few weeks than Tamlin and Lucien had in the last four months, I realized as I looked around at the open space, the brightness of the stars saturating the room and chasing away any sign of darkness. It made my room back at the manor seem cramped and dark in comparison, especially when Tamlin infiltrated the space - when he shifted into that beast form and took up any free space that may have remained.

That hot, suffocating feeling of shame washed over me again.

Rhysand was my friend. Or at least tried to be my friend. And I'd repaid his kindness with betrayal. Shut him out. Pushed him away.

I'd been as beastly as Tamlin...

The thought made me recoil, and for the first time in months, my mind felt clear. And with this new clarity, when I looked at myself - my thoughts, my actions since becoming High Fae - I wasn't sure I liked who I'd begun to turn into.

Maybe Rhys had been right and I was allowing that bitch to win by not talking about it. And in staying silent I had allowed it to warp me into someone lesser.