Acotar retelling

A Hoe Never Gets Cold

From that point on, each morning and evening, a fresh, hot meal appeared in my cell.

Days passed, and I didn't see Lucien or Rhys, who never even came to taunt me. I was alone—utterly alone, locked in silence—though the screaming in the dungeons still continued day and night. When that screaming became too unbearable and I couldn't shut it out, I would look at the eye tattooed on my palm.

Every once in a while, I'd say a few words to the tattoo—as I dozed off one night, it blinked.

If I was counting the schedule of my meals correctly, about four days after I'd seen Rhysand in his room, two High Fae females arrived in my cell.

They appeared through the cracks from slivers of darkness, just as Rhysand had. But while he'd solidified into a tangible form, the familiar faeries remained mostly made of shadow, their features barely discernible, save for their loose, flowing cobweb gowns. They remained silent when they reached for me. I didn't fight them—there was nothing to fight them with, and nowhere to run. The hands they clasped around my forearms were cool but solid—as if the shadows were a coating, a second skin.

They had been sent by Rhysand—my hand maids from the Night Court. Nualla and Cerridwem. They pressed close to my body and we stepped—physically stepped—through the closed door, as if it wasn't even there. As if I had become a shadow, too. My knees buckled at the sensation, like spiders crawling down my spine, my arms, as we walked through the dark, shrieking dungeons. None of the guards stopped us—they didn't even look in our direction. We were glamoured; no more than flickering darkness to the passing eye.

The twins brought me down forgotten halls until we reached a nondescript room where they stripped me naked, bathed me roughly, and then began to paint my body.

Their brushes were unbearably cold and ticklish, and their shadowy grips were firm when I wriggled. Things only worsened when they painted more intimate parts of me, and it was an effort to keep from accidentally kicking one of them in the face.

From the neck up, I was regal: my face was adorned with cosmetics—rouge on my lips, a smearing of gold dust on my eyelids, kohl lining my eyes—and my hair was coiled around a small golden diadem imbedded with lapis lazuli. But from the neck down, I was a heathen god's plaything. They had continued the pattern of the tattoo on my arm, and once the blue-black paint had dried, they placed on me the same old gauzy white dress.

If you could call it a dress. It was little more than two long shafts of gossamer, just wide enough to cover my breasts, pinned at each shoulder with gold brooches. The sections flowed down to a jewelled belt slung low across my hips, where they joined into a single piece of fabric that hung between my legs and to the floor. It barely covered me, and from the cold air on my skin, I knew that most of my backside was left exposed.

Queen I looked over to the doorway Rhysand was leaning against the wall, his arms crossed over his chest.

"Our bargain hasn't started yet," I snapped. The instincts that had once told me to be quiet around Tamlin and Lucien utterly failed me when Rhysand was near.

"Ah, but I need an escort for the party." His violet eyes glittered with stars. "And when I thought of you squatting in that cell all night, alone ..." He waved a hand, and the faerie servants vanished through the door behind him. I flinched as they walked through the wood—no doubt an ability everyone in the Night Court possessed—and Rhysand chuckled. "You look just as I hoped you would."

From the cobwebs of my memory, I recalled similar words spoken in another life. "Is this necessary?" I said, gesturing to the paint and clothing.

"Of course," he said coolly. "How else would I know if anyone touches you?"