Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
10 ESSENCE OF ANGUISH
—ANOTHER trial, another room, another pit as inescapable as the last. But it is no monster that dwells there; it is no monster the human girl must face. Only the crippling fear of losing a friend to her own weaknesses.
Her eyes see the words, the letters, the engraved strokes, but she does not know their meaning. It is a joke, a humiliating taunt. To give her a task she cannot possibly win. She will have to guess. She will have to leave their lives up to fate. It is a gamble of chance.
Above, the faeries watch, having all discovered the depth of the task laid before her. "The human cannot read," they whisper. "It is illiterate."
Many laugh, the courtiers finding humor in the idea of a silly commoner human dying this way. Because, of course, they have all cultivated an education across these many years. The privileged cannot fathom a life without such base knowledge. Cannot empathize with a life far different from their own.
There are the few, though, who frown at this show of unfairness.
Among them, the High Lord of the Night Court is not.
Inside, he is relieved. He is relieved that the human has such a fault to be exploited. He is relieved that he discovered it in time. He is relieved that the Traitor Queen listened to his ideas. He is relieved that this is a task easily won with only a small bit of his assistance. Behind his back, his thumb scrapes against the back of his hand casually, tracing invisible lines along the sensitive skin.
He smirks as Feyre Archeron blindly reaches for the wrong lever.
Not that one.
Not that one either.
That's the one.
And just like that, she has "won" the game of probability. Fate must be with her.
—KAZI knows her High Lord's work when she sees it. She knows the haze of a person's eyes when they are held captive in their own mind, knows the distinct scent of such mighty power, knows the exact swirl of a bargaining tattoo. She knows when her High Lord has manipulated a situation in his favor.
"That was extremely risky," she breathes, her mouth barely moving as faeries pass to the exit.
Rhysand does nothing but smirk. "I thought it was quite clever, was it not?"
"Why must all of your 'clever' ideas be dangerous?" Kazi huffs quietly.
"I can't resist courting disaster," he drawls. "It's far too tempting, testing the gods."
"I'd prefer it if you didn't."
Rhysand steps clear in front of her, the room mostly empty now. He suddenly nudges her chin up with a gentle finger and scrutinizes her scarring neck. A frown pulls at his lips when she sucks in a harsh breath. "You'd prefer it if I was swaddled up in spider silk and locked away in a tower for the rest of my life."
