A Court of Heart and Fealty | Rhysand

Chapter 73: A New Routine

Chapter 73: A New Routine

A sickly bright, blue-skinned faerie shoved Galadriel inside the massive chamber and she barely caught her footing before collapsing along the wooden floor. The room looked to be a drawing room but in the state it was, barely resembled anything other than a place to store whatever trash this damned mountain acquired. There were broken bits of furniture, splinters of wood under her feet, ash from the hearth smeared across the ground, paper confetti—which Galadriel was sure had come from one of the books tossed from the decorative shelves. A putrid smell hung in the air, thick and clogging her nostrils. Perhaps it belonged to the unidentifiable puddle she could see on the other side of the room.

Some of the population living Under the Mountain had taken rather well to their new ruler.

"Clean this up," the blue-skinned faerie hissed. "We have guests coming in an hour."

"An hour?" Her jaw fell open. "That's impossible. I'll need one of the other servants to help me. Three if you want it sparkling."

The pig-like nose of the faerie managed to shrivel it even more. "Not my problem," he sneered. "Or should I tell our Queen that you're not keeping up with the work?"

Amarantha had bigger problems to deal with than Galadriel's insistence that she was being given too much work, but the idea of this faerie bothering her... Gritting her teeth, she said, "I'll get it done."

With a righteous noise popping out from the back of his throat, the faerie slammed the door behind him, sending dust billowing through the air. For a minute, all she could was stare at the mess, half wondering what she needed to do first, half wondering what would happen if she simply didn't. Amarantha wouldn't kill her. Probably. Galadriel had become a little trophy to the queen, a prize that she showed off especially whenever Beron was around, which had become too often for Galadriel's liking. His sons were just as bad, sneering at her whenever they passed, tripping her over, blaming things she had no idea even happened on her.

Her back ached as she scrubbed the floor where the vile liquid—not vomit, she deduced, not that it made it any better—had once been. The broken furniture would need to be replaced and she sent the shards away with magic but had to hunt and haul in pieces from other rooms to fill the space. They could tell when she did too much with magic. Feel the residue of dust even when it wasn't there. It earnt her a strike across the back with a whip. The single slash had been enough that Galadriel only used magic when there was no possible alternative.

She missed home. Missed it with all her being. It wasn't even the work that made her miserable—it was that after it, when she went to her room. Ate alone. Slept alone. Some nights Rhysand would creep into the bed with her, but he'd be gone by the time she woke in the mornings. Galadriel couldn't count how many times she laid there, eyes closed, waiting for Cassian's warning yell downstairs that he was coming to tear her from the bed. Or the times when she'd waited, staring ahead in the silence in anticipation, for Azriel to emerge from the shadows and scare her even when she expected it. Or to hear Mor and Amren bickering over dinner.

She managed to get most of it done within the hour, other than a proper clean of the hearth and a thorough clean of the shelves and furniture legs. The blue-skinned faerie returned, muttering something about her poor job but she went for the door before he could order anything more of her.

"Whore," she heard as another gaggle of more faeries pushed past her to get into the chamber that had turned into a pleasure room. All she could do was glare.

Spying, it turned out, wasn't the hardest part of her life Under the Mountain. People talked and when they didn't, she learned to listen to the silence. What wasn't being said was just as important as what was. In three months, only one of the events she retold had ended in a public execution. That was the hardest part—not knowing whether Amarantha would dismiss the small details, or whether a little spill if she pushed Galadriel would mean watching the heads of a family be spiked in the throne room.