ACOMAF (Rhys's POV)

We Got Out (Chapter 17)

Feyre was quiet through the remainder of dinner, though she tracked the conversation with steady discipline. When the others had finished fighting over plans for the following day (which was mostly just a power play between Azriel and Amren that Cassian and Mor had little pleasure moderating), I looked at Feyre and saw the droop of her eyelids, the sinking of her shoulders.

One look and she nodded. We promptly said our goodbyes and the night sky welcomed us into its fold.

She was quiet, softer than the velvet blankets that cradled the stars. I focused on the currents of wind that guided us down into the city where music ushered us home to keep from obsessing over what she might be thinking. Her thoughts and impressions of my family were dear to me, and I hated not knowing them, but even more than that I hated not knowing if she was okay, if this was too much or if she was ready to face the challenges that staying here would carry to her feet.

Thank the Mother for flying. In the silence between us, it almost felt normal to take to the skies and feel the wind lick my cheeks whilst Feyre was tucked safely in my arms. I could almost imagine for a moment that we weren't just going back to a lodging with four walls and a roof, that it could be something more one day. A home, if she ever wanted it. And that when her hands clutched my tunic tighter, it was for warmth and love, not necessity.

It was a nice dream while it lasted.

We flew over the first of the four markets and snaked up the Sidra, music from the Rainbow sneaking down every street and alleyway to dance from one city corner to the next. I counted the measures to each song and when Feyre spoke, it startled me.

"Tonight - I felt you again," she said. "Through the bond. Did I get past your shields?"

I couldn't quite meet her gaze. Not yet. There was such a softness in the way she asked that I treaded carefully in my words.

"No," I said. "This bond is... a living thing. An open channel between us, shaped by my powers, shaped... by what you needed when we made the bargain."

When the Cauldron made us .

"I needed not to be dead when I agreed," she said flatly.

"You needed not to be alone."

Finally, I looked at her and Feyre appeared almost as broken by the honesty of my statement as I felt by how it horribly it damned me. She stared almost immediately at the oncoming cobblestone streets after our eyes met.

"I'm still learning how and why we can sometimes feel things the other doesn't want known," I said, and it was true. Bond or bargain, so much had become muddled. "So I don't have an explanation for what you felt tonight."

Silence, and then - an awful truth that was louder than any music or dance or light on any street in the city.

"You let Amarantha and the entire world think you rule and delight in a Court of Nightmares. It's all a front - to keep what matters most safe."

Finally. Such a small piece of quiet understanding I never thought she would gift me. It broke me to pieces to hear that much alone from her.

"I love my people, and my family. Do not thinking I wouldn't become a monster to keep them protected."

"You already did that Under the Mountain."

A monster.

Not trapped in a prison, as Amren. Not chained and misconstrued by choice deep inside, as Azriel. Not truly evil either as those I'd defended against for centuries.