A Court of Heart and Fealty | Rhysand

Chapter 71: What Is To Be

Chapter 71: What Is To Be

It was chaos.

Faeries attempted to flee, but they were rounded up by the small legion of dark faeries that Amarantha had brought with her from Hybern. Galadriel watched some make it out of the throne room, disappearing down the length of winding corridors but where they went from there, if they made it out, she would never know.

She didn't know what to do, letting the bulk of the crowd shift her around like a leaf on a river current. Rhysand asked her to hide, but there was nowhere to run but the halls and they promised no escape.

Hide.

He'd said hide, not run. Not to go home.

Hide. Because he knew that was all she'd be able to do. That those fleeing faeries were just as trapped as the frightened male in the clutches of a blue, scaled creature. Galadriel looked around as bodies shoved against her, stepping on her feet, her hair catching on buttons and latches, tearing and snapping. Amarantha sat on her throne, watching with great pleasure.

The High Lords had scattered. Beron was with his Autumn soldiers, Helion's father with member of his court, speaking into his ear that was cuffed in gold. Rhys stood still, the Hewn City lordlings nowhere to be seen.

"Take them out." Amarantha flourished her hand dismissively. "I have no need for them here anymore."

A petite faerie with pale green skin cried out over the cacophony of distraught calls, "Where are you taking us?"

Amarantha angled her head to her shoulder, wine-red hair spilling down her chest. "To your new homes of course. I won't have members of my city sleeping on stone. No." She adoringly clucked her tongue. "Not unless you decide that you don't wish to belong to my court."

An older High Fae—who must be well over a millennium old—broke from the crowd, his face fierce. "I do not. I belong to the Winter Court, where my wife resides. Name your price for my freedom."

Amarantha softened her features and rose to her feet. The dress swayed around her legs like thick water. "Do you have children?"

He swallowed. "Yes. Three."

She smiled. "They will miss you." A flash of a silver dagger and the male was dead, his body a heap on the floor, blood pooling around his neck. The warmth drained from her face, cold as steel eyes grazing over the crowd that had silenced. "Death is the price of freedom. I am happy to grant it."

The stench of blood soon soaked the chamber, the screams making her head pound. She wondered why Amarantha had let others flee but realised soon enough that their cries—it entertained her. A game. One that nobody could win but her. Galadriel put a hand to her stomach and it was all she could to not keel over, letting herself be guided out of the throne room.

~

It was a hovel of a room she'd been shoved into with three other faeries—two Lesser, one High Fae. They were down somewhere deep below the mountain. A city had truly been carved into this place and it reminded her too much of the Court of Nightmares, with the tall columns engraved with beasts and the gargoyles standing watch in alcoves carved high in the walls. One of the others in the room kept rambling.

"We'll get out within the week," she said. "Nobody has ever trapped seven High Lords and succeeded. Or tried."

Galadriel didn't listen to the rest, watching through the silver between the door and the wall for any sign of her mate. She worried her bottom lip between her fingers, sitting on a cot, the mattress thinner than her hand laid flat. The room smelt of mildew and there were only two narrow wardrobes. Well, that would be a problem if she had brought any clothes.