A Court of Heart and Fealty | Rhysand

Chapter 34: The Ring

Chapter 34: The Ring

There was no telling how long she sat there for, cold and miserable, waiting to die. But she wouldn't die immediately. No, there was no point in shackling her if that is what they intended. Galadriel stared down at the ring on her right hand, which seemed to glow under the pale moonlight that managed to reach inside the cell, as if it were calling to her in the only way it knew how.

Azriel's order no longer bound her. The wording of the command had been specific—take it only if she was trapped and knew with certainty that there was no way out. That she was at a breaking point. Galadriel understood Cassian and Rhysand's distaste for it, but she also knew that it was more than just a swift and easy way to dismantle a threat. It was also a mercy.

The Autumn Court was almost as notorious as the Night Court for its brutality. But where the Night Court used that as protection, veiling the true heart of the court, cruelty was at the Autumn Court's heart. Ita High Lord's heart. What was coming for her—this ring protected her from it. Azriel's orders were the last resort, but it wouldn't have stopped her from taking it before that moment, if she chose.

She'd always thought it would be easy, that her fealty to him was strong enough that her desire to protect him would overrule any instinct she had towards self-preservation. Now that she had heard not only Cassian but Rhys's wishes for her to not wear it, that once-unyielding promise wavered.

But once they took her to whatever chamber they intended to rip answers from her in, it wouldn't matter what Rhys or Cassian wanted anymore. All Galadriel knew was that she had no intention to endure, to outlast, whatever they had planned.

It was so quiet, deep below the Forest House, that she could hear the footsteps headed her way before they had stepped off the spiralling stairwell at the far end of the corridor. Three pairs.

Galadriel sank back against the corner she had buried herself in, shadowed enough that the first male fae to approach had to scan the cell before finding her. He was unremarkable in the most Autumn Court way: brown hair, tawny eyes, pale skin. The two with him were something of the same, though one had hair closer to the colour of tree sap and the other was notably shorter.

"You had a lot of nerve coming back here," the first one said, his wicked grin gleaming on the other side of the bars that he gripped. "Nobody touches the High Lord's wife. Especially not spying scum."

At least Amoise was safe. That split-second decision completely rewrote the scene, orientating the Lady of Autumn as the unfortunate victim of Galadriel's vengeance. Not a traitor to her husband, harbouring a wanted criminal.

She had to come and see what she did all this for—to know that it was worth it. That it didn't matter what she faced on the other side. Eternity in a prison or in a grand gallery of a manor. It wasn't punishment or reward, but simply the price she paid for her friend's safety. 

The one with sap-coloured hair held the keys which jangled as he unlocked the cell door. Galadriel rose to her feet silently, unthreateningly. She hadn't decided what to do and acting without a plan was a fool's mission. One that had more than likely gotten her into this position in the first place. Her meek appearance, pale and slender, now covered in the rotting filth of this place, seemed to put them at enough ease that they moved with a slackness.

The male that entered the cell yanked on the short chain connecting the shackles together as well as to the chain linking her to the wall. Stumbling forward, she hissed behind her teeth as the metal bit into the cuts. It amused him, the corners of his thin lips tilting up as he turned the key in each cuff, letting them nearly fall right onto her feet.

"Get on with it," he growled, shoving her towards the cell door.

Keeping her hands by her side, she obeyed. Two beside, one behind her, there was nowhere to go but forward and ahead... They led her through parts of the dungeon that even she hadn't explored in all her years of prying. Prisoners were kept in more permanent cages, most with shredded skin, as though claws had torn through them, their ribs pressing against the threadbare shirts.