"Her wings are made of starlight."
In which a mortal girl and an immortal Illyrian
are gifted neighboring cells Under The Mountain
and change each other's lives forever.
𝑨𝑪𝑶𝑻𝑨𝑹 -
...
𝐒𝐓𝐎𝐑𝐌 𝐎𝐅 𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐑𝐋𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓. chapter two; Turning in The Trials " I cage you like the monster that you are. "
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NIXIE'S EYES TUGGED open, the woman herself attempting to force her body to awaken along with her mind. Her feet drug against the rough floor, arms hooked into her own, chains rattling against her bones trapped inside paper-thin skin.
The woman tried to catch herself as this support disappeared in an instant, though all Nixie managed was to avoid her face harshly greeting the flooring. She heard a chuckle-- the hair on her arms standing up as she froze in place.
"What a pitiful thing. . . Rhysand, aren't you thankful I hide this creature from your sight?"
Rhys's throat bobbed, his eyes daring to shift down to the woman at the foot of Amarantha's throne.
He hadn't seen her clearly in just over twenty years. The dim lighting could cloak what Nixie had become, but here, nothing was hidden.
Her hair had matted tightly to her scalp, a pain she'd grown accustomed to. Her skin was pale, bones shining through, and those deep dark wings, caked with dirt and blood, withered harshly from the pain they'd been subjected to.
She was an oddity. A rare piece from Amarantha's collection, that she scarcely pulled out. But today, it was working. Nixie might as well have been boxed in glass, on exhibit for all to see, a breathing reminder of the cruelty Amarantha embodied.
"Yes," Rhys spoke evenly, a tone of indifference as he peered down at her. "I can hardly stand to look at her."
Even after years of being forced to pull out the dark cloak of High Lord, the words he spoke against Nixie still stung like fresh wounds. He still struggled sometimes to find the right words, to force them out of the attic of his throat, spit them at Amarantha's feet and only hope for her approval.
He loathed it.
"Even at my worst," Nixie croaked, lifting her eyes through pitch-black hair, "I'm still a better sight than you."
Nixie screamed before she could register what had cut at her wing. She let out a breath, almost smiling at the clear chord she'd struck.
She basked in the hatred of it all. Her own anger boiling up, Amarantha's rage re-igniting the dying embers— to Nixie, it would always be better to live off of wrath than to die in peace.
"That's why you have me hidden away, anyways, isn't it?"
Amarantha straightened, flocked by two High Lords who were nothing short of horrified at Nixie's words.
"I cage you like the monster that you are."
Nixie fell silent, her shoulders slumping. She could feel Rhys's eyes on her, even as a girl approached the platform the four of them perched upon.
