Wind Wielder

Prologue

Trigger warning; this story  involves mature themes such as sexual slavery, sexual assault, harassment, grief, and trauma. Please read at your own discretion.

*Don't need to read the prologue, but it is helpful to provide some insight for later on in the story!*

*40 years prior, Under the Mountain*

Zara Aphelion closed her eyes and prayed to the Mother for mercy she would not bestow. 

She walked past the guards, their eyes leering down at her as Zara kept her chin downcast. They stared at her like a starving wolf stared at prey, eyes lined with more sinister thoughts than just disdain as Zara entered the private quarters of the High Lord of the Night Court.

Rhysand stood pacing in his room. It had not changed much since the last time Zara had been forced here, mere weeks ago. The large ornate fireplace was lit this time, the fire turning the golden mantle above it a disturbing sinister red. The High Lord turned to Zara, hands in his black pockets, not a hair out of place.

He had no power here Under the Mountain, barely a slim sliver of the might he had once possessed. Having been born merely a decade before Amarnatha's rule, Zara had been educated on the state of Pyrinthian by the priestesses growing up at Edecerys, a temple in Dawn. They had informed her of the power from each of the High Lords Amarantha had stolen, leaving them powerless. But it was hard to believe Rhysand was powerless now. Not when Zara could still feel it coating her tongue, the tangy metallic taste of raw power. His power. Zara's trembling knees threatened to buckle.

"Come here" Rhysand instructed, gesturing to the bed he now sat on, leaning back on his hands like he had no care in the world. It was the bed he had pinned Zara to as he viciously attacked her neck, the one she had been sick on. Zara swallowed hard.

"Do I have to?" Zara said, voice cracking. And She prayed to the Mother that he might just strike her down for daring to question him. Put an early end to her misery.

Thesan had promised her protection, and yet had allowed her to be sold as a whore anyways.

The High Lord considered the young female, as if just realizing how bad she trembled. Rhysand frowned. "No, but I do need your scent on my bed."

Zara swallowed. It seemed the Mother would not be granting her wish. Not that she had ever granted Zara any. "After. Just... please."

Rhysand's eyes flickered. They weren't black, she realized. Not now, not like their first encounter. Now, they were such a deep blue they were nearly violet. Rhysand stood, watching Zara's unsteady stance and short panicked gasps with unfeeling eyes as he sauntered closer, adjusting the lapels of his fine pressed black jacket as he did so. He watched Zara's breathing quicken, and approached like a hunter would approach a cornered animal. Zara tried not to think about the way this male could crush her in a heartbeat, with not even a half thought. How he could literally mist her out of existence if she so much as pissed him off. Rhysand had done it today, to a poor Spring Court sentinel. She had seen him do it.

Zara's eyes were level with just under his collarbone as Rhysand approached. Her hands were tightly balled fists. The smell of sea salt and citrus washed over Zara, something she had been too panicked to realize last time.

Last time, when she had been thrust on her knees in front of him mere house after being pulled from the collapsed wreckage of Edecerys, bruised and bloody as a gift from Amarnatha to her whore. Last time, where he had kissed her in front of the Queen of Pyrinthian and winnowed Zara to his room, where she was sure she would lose a piece of herself she would never recover, and her life shortly after. Instead, he had offered her mercy.