Acotar retelling

Heart of Stone

For my final task, I was given my old tunic and pants—stained and torn and reeking—but despite my stench, I kept my chin high as I was escorted to the throne room.

The doors were flung open, and the silence of the room assaulted me. I waited for the jeers and shouts, waited to see gold flash as the onlookers placed their bets, but this time the faeries just stared at me, the masked ones especially intently.

Their world rested on my shoulders, Rhys had said. But I didn't think it was worry alone that was spread across their features. I had to swallow hard as a few of them touched their fingers to their lips, then extended their hands to me—a gesture for the fallen, a farewell to the honoured dead. There was nothing malicious about it. Most of these faeries belonged to the courts of the High Lords—had belonged to those courts long before Amarantha seized their lands, their lives. And if Tamlin and Rhysand were playing games to keep us alive...

I strode up the path they'd cleared—straight for Amarantha. The queen smiled when I stopped in front of her throne. Tamlin was in his usual place beside her, but I wouldn't look at him.

"Two trials lie behind you," Amarantha said, picking at a fleck of dust on her blood-red gown. Her black hair shone, a gleaming darkness that threatened to swallow up her golden crown. "And only one more awaits. I wonder if it will be worse to fail now—when you are so close." She gave me a pout, and we both awaited the laughter of the faeries.

But only a few laughs hissed from the red-skinned guards. Everyone else remained silent. Even Lucien's miserable brothers. Even Rhysand, wherever he was in the crowd.

I blinked to clear my burning eyes. Perhaps, like Rhysand's, their oaths of allegiance and betting on my life and nastiness had been a show. And perhaps now—now that the end was imminent—they, too, would face my potential death with whatever dignity they had left.

Amarantha glared at them, but when her gaze fell upon me, she smiled broadly, sweetly. "Any words to say before you die?"

I came up with a plethora of curses, but I instead looked at Tamlin. He didn't react—his features were like stone. I wished that I could glimpse his face—if only for a moment.

The silence of the crowd was a gift that gave me courage, that made me bunch my fists, that made me embrace the tattoo on my arm. I had beaten her until now, and I would not feel alone when I died. I would not die alone. It was all I could ask for.

Amarantha propped her chin on a hand. "You never figured out my riddle, did you?" I didn't respond, and she smiled. "Pity. The answer is so lovely."

"Get it over with," I growled.

Amarantha looked at Tamlin. "No final words to her?" she said, quirking an eyebrow. When he didn't respond, she grinned at me. "Very well, then." She clapped her hands twice.

A door swung open, and three figures—two male and one female—with brown sacks tied over their heads were dragged in by the guards. Their concealed faces turned this way and that as they tried to discern the whispers that rippled across the throne room. My knees bent slightly as they approached.

With sharp jabs and blunt shoves, the red-skinned guards forced the three faeries to their knees at the foot of the dais, but facing me. Their bodies and clothes revealed nothing of who they were.

Amarantha clapped her hands again, and three servants clad in black appeared at the side of each of the kneeling faeries. In their long, pale hands, they each carried a dark velvet pillow. And on each pillow lay a single polished wooden dagger. Not metal for a blade, but ash. Ash, 

because—

"Your final task, Feyre," Amarantha drawled, gesturing to the kneeling faeries. "Stab each of these unfortunate souls in the heart."