The Dark Flower (Azriel x OC)

25. Tithe (Persephone)

She'd gone over the exact details of every little thing she'd experienced in the Night Court until she was just about ready to collapse. How many people were there? Who did she encounter? Where was she kept? What did she hear? And each time, just when she thought that they were finally done, the questions would begin anew.

It was as if they thought that she was lying or blocking something out, but what she said was the truth. She'd spent her days sitting at the piano, playing whichever sad song came to mind. If she wasn't there, then she was seated beside Feyre, helping her friend learn to read, while also learning to shield her mind from Rhysand's rare ability to rip into the minds of others. 

She'd kept that last little bit of information to herself. Father didn't like when she "played around with magic" as he so delicately put it. It was his opinion that it put a target on her back, not that she could argue. Her mother and stepfather had been killed due to her inability to control even the simplest aspects of magic. 

It was a week later that the Tithe arrived. It was Percy's least favorite event of the year. She'd never been allowed to attend before, just like every other event of importance in the Spring Court, but this was one she'd rather stay far away from. Many couldn't afford to pay their taxes to completion, and the rates were higher than Percy felt necessary. 

This year was different though. Oh, Percy still hated it just as much as she had in years past, but this time she was meant to attend. It was all a part of her father's goal of making them appear as a unified front. 

So far, Percy wasn't sure which she hated more. The small wooden chair that she was forced to sit demurely and upright in for the entirety of the day, or the suffocating dress than Ianthe had forced her into. Both were becoming unbearably uncomfortable as the hours went on, but Percy remained perfectly still, hands clasped together and folded neatly in her lap. 

She focused on building up the shields in her mind as Rhysand had taught her. She might hate him for all that he'd done under Amarantha's reign, but his gift was a terrifying one, and Percy would rather have protection against it than to become victim of it out of spite. 

Emissaries and leaders  from every territory in the Spring Court made up the lengthy line. Each of them thanking Feyre profusely for freeing them of Amarantha, then a handful of them remembered that it had been Percy who had dealt Amarantha's killing blow, and so they'd come to bleat out praise and worship to her. 

Percy preferred the ones who forgot her entirely. She didn't want to be praised for the blood on her hands - not even the blood of Amarantha. Not when all it did was drag up memories of rotting in that little cell, waiting to finally die. 

Lucien shuffled forward to block Percy and Feyre, drawing Percy from the depths of her mind that she had retreated into. 

Percy paid close attention to the newest tenant stepping up to her father's dais. They smelled of lake that rested on the edge of the property - the one she'd been banned from touching due to the water wraiths that resided in it. Wraiths who were known to snatch small children and devour whole. Hunger was their curse, Percy recalled from her lessons. They could eat everything and everyone in the world and still they would hunger. 

"On behalf of the water-wraiths, I greet thee, High Lord." Her voice was strange to Percy's ears. Hissing and sharp. It sent a chill over her skin, a subtle reminder of the nearby threat.