If She Had Known

The Attor

I did eventually ask for paint.

I painted the gardens, the woods I had hunted in. I painted anything and everything. Everything but Rhys. The one thing I wanted to paint more than anything. I saw his face forever in my mind. But my hands itched to paint his face. I would never do him justice, but still I longed to paint him.

I did once. It hurt to look at more than I thought it would. I couldn't risk anyone seeing the painting. I wasn't supposed to know him yet. I painted over it almost as soon as I got the chance. It felt like a crime, but I couldn't risk it.

Looking around at my paintings, I saw him everywhere. How the lights filtered through rose petals, the way it only shone through Illyrian wings. The precise violet of his eyes in the irises. I knew irises were more blue than the violet I had chosen. It looked like I had just mixed the colors wrong, but I was no amateur. I hadn't done it purposefully, but the color had come out of my subconscious.

I spent most of my time painting now, when I wasn't reading in the study. I felt like I was in a haze, painting and reading, while my love was being raped and forced to live behind a mask for the past fifty years. The hopelessness grew with every passing day. I could only hope he was still getting my dreams, the visions.

One night, I woke from a particularly bad nightmare I could only assume was Rhysand's. Amarantha was there, dragging her nails across my throat, slicing me open. It could have been mine, I wasn't quite sure. I ran my hands through sweat damp hair. As my panting eased, a different sound filled the air, creeping in from the front hall through the crack beneath the door. Shouts, and someone's screams.

I was out of my bed in a heartbeat. Every hair on my body stood upright as I flung open the door. This was a scream of suffering, and I couldn't stand it. I reached the top of the grand staircase in time to see the front doors of the manor bang open and Tamlin rush in, a screaming faerie slung over his shoulder.

This faerie had blue skin, gangly limbs, pointed ears, and long onyx hair. But even from atop the stairs, I could see the blood gushing down the faerie's back— blood from the black stumps protruding from his shoulder blades. Blood that now soaked into Tamlin's green tunic in deep, shining splotches. One of the knives from the baldric was missing.

Lucien rushed into the foyer just as Tamlin shouted, "The table— clear it off!" Lucien shoved the vase of flowers off the long table in the center of the hall. Shattering glass sent my feet moving, and I was halfway down the stairs before Tamlin eased the shrieking faerie face-first onto the table. The faerie wasn't wearing a mask; there was nothing to hide the agony contorting his long, unearthly features.

"Scouts found him dumped just over the borderline," Tamlin explained to Lucien, but his eyes darted to me. They flashed with warning, but I couldn't care less. He said to Lucien, "He's summer court."

"By the cauldron," Lucien said, surveying the damage.

"My wings," the faerie choked out, his glossy black eyes wide and staring at nothing, "She took my wings."

I made it to the table, thinking what might have happened to inspire her to rip out the wings of a faerie. Perhaps the Summer court rebellion had just happened. Tarquin would be receiving the power of the High Lord of Summer. Tamlin waved a hand, and conjured water and bandages.

"She took my wings," said the faerie. "She took my wings," he repeated, clutching the edge of the table with spindly blue fingers.

Tamlin murmured a soft, wordless sound, and picked up a rag to dunk in the water. I took up a spot across the table from Tamlin, and the breath whooshed from my chest as I beheld the damage.