A Court of Tears and Starlight

Queen for a night

RHYSAND

I quietly clicked the door shut behind me.

I was nervous and that was a feeling that didn't sit well with me. For centuries I had been feared and respected and I had no need to question or doubt myself. How things had changed I thought as a stared down at the delicate figure curled up on the bed. She looked so vulnerable as her shoulders rose and fell in her restless slumber. I could see from her face that she had been crying for some time before she finally fell asleep. My heart ached in my chest knowing that I hadn't come sooner to dry those tears. I swallowed and stepped forward tentatively as I walked over to the edge of the bed and looked down at that beautiful face. It dazzled me. I hadn't realised how beautiful she was at first but from the very first time I had dressed her up as my escort to Amaranths's party her lovely face had haunted me every night after, as I lay awake longing to have her next to me.

I sat down softy on the edge of her bed and drew her shaking form into my lap and cradled her against my chest. My heart felt like it was going to burst. So this was love? Never would I have guessed that it was a sweet torture worse than any other suffering that I had ever had to endure. My lips moved of their own accord, softly planting butterfly kisses along her forehead, then eyes and finally on her mouth. I felt like I might shatter as her arms wrapped around me and her face pressed in against my chest, breathing me in contentedly.

"Rhysand?" She asked in a confused sleepy murmur.

"Shhhhh. I'm here now," I crooned as I stroked her soothingly.

She looked up at me with her big beautiful eyes brimming with tears.

"It hurt so much to have you be that angry at me," she whimpered as tears spilt onto her lovely flushed cheeks.

"I'm sorry that you think I'm S-s-stupid," she sobbed.

'You're too stupid to live.'

I cursed inwardly as I recalled the terrible anger filled words that I had thrown at her in my fear stricken state.

My hand reached up and cupped her face as I looked into her hurt-filled eyes.

"Please don't cry, it breaks me inside," I pleaded.

"You're not the stupid one. I am."

More tears trickled down her cheeks and my thumb gently swiped them away.

"I just love you so much that it drives me crazy sometimes." I confessed in a quiet voice.

"I should have listened to you..."

"Should have known that this was somthing you had to do because it's who you are..."

"Should have know because that is one of the many reasons that I love you..."

She was staring up at me with a look of such absolute love that I felt a tear trickled down my own cheek. How did I ever deserve this kind of adoration? I was a monster and she was everything good in this world.

Her eyes fluttered over to the tear on my cheek and then back at my eyes. She could see it in my eyes that I was retreating in on myself. Walling myself away in that internal darkness that I had known before she came and lit everything up so bright.

"Rhys?" she murmured softly. I looked down, unable to meet her gaze. I was so ashamed of the things I had said, ashamed of my hands shaking her violently and my cold heart letting her weep alone in her room. I didn't deserve her. I'd never hated myself as much as I did at that moment.

To my shock she leaned in and just when I thought her lips were going to brush against my own she turned her head and I felt the soft warm feeling of her tongue licking the tear off my cheek.