YOUNG GOD | RHYSAND [ON HOLD]

1.03 | DECEIVING TACTICS

♚✭♛

Feyre pretended to meander through the exquisite and silent gardens, mentally marking the paths and clever places for hiding if she ever needed them.

She didn't doubt Tamlin's claim that the rest of Prythain was deadly for a human--as she remembered her talk with Tamlin yesterday about the blight on these lands... She was beter off here for the time being.

Now she had to find someone who might plead her case to Tamlin. Though Lucien-- he could do with someone snapping at him, someone other than Aadya, if you have the courage for it but tread very slightly with Aadya, you do not want to tempt her fury, Alis had said to her yesterday.

She stole a knife from dinner that night. Her heart thrummed against it's cage throughout dinner. But neither of the males seemed to care as they rambled on about the blight and how it infected their magic and people. She would have felt pity for them had a pair of grey eyes not strained on her the entire evening.

Feyre for the first time took in the women before her. Her brown waves of hair not a single strand out of place and her toned physique. But it was her ever so cold eyes and always pursing lips that captured Feyre's attention. The sudden urge to kiss Aadya overwhelmed Feyre before she turned her sight towards Lucien who was already smirking at her.

"Were you admiring my sword, or just contemplating killing me, Feyre?"

"Of course not," Feyre said softly and glanced at Tamlin. She suddenly became vulnerable under his forest green eyes as she wondered whether he had heard her take the knife. She forced herself to act civilized, behave and possibly win him to her side.

Tamlin broke the silence. "Feyre like to hunt."

"I don't like to hunt." She harshly corrected him, "I hunted out of necessity. And how do you know that?"

Tamlin's stare was bald, assessing. "Why is were you in the woods that day? You had a bow and arrows in your house. When I saw your father's hands, I know he wasn't the one using them." He gestured to her scarred, calloused hands. "You told him about the relations and money from pelts. Faeries might be many things, but we're not stupid. Unless your ridiculous legends claim that about us, too."

Lucien cleared his throat. "How old are you, anyway?"

"Nineteen."

Aadya tsked mockingly. "So young, and so grave. And a skilled killer already."

Feyre restrained her words of fury as she turned to the males, "So is this what you do with your lives? Spare humans from the Treaty and have fine meals?"she said as she gave a pointed glance towards Tamlin and Aadya's baldric, the warrior's clothes, Lucien's sword.

Lucien smirked. "We also dance with the spirits under the full moon and snatch human babies from their cradles to replace them with changelings---"

"Didn't...," Tamlin interrupted, his deep voice surprisingly gentle, "didn't your mother tell you anything about us?"

"My mother didn't have the time to tell me stories."

Aadya suddenly stood up pushing her chair back before disappearing without a trace to anywhere other than here. She didn't want to hear Feyre talk about her mother when all it reminded her was of a past that she swore she would never have to relive again. But here she was.

♚✭♛

Aadya sat above the mountains from where Amarantha ruled Prythain. She wanted to see the stars as she felt cold wind ripple through her hair and this was the only place she knew she could do it with solitude. Her safe haven.