A Court of Heart and Fealty | Rhysand

Chapter 76: The Last of Him

Chapter 76: The Last of Him

Galadriel never thought she would miss the sensation of the stolen magic swimming around inside her. Really, she didn't miss it. She loathed who held the key to the shackles keeping it trapped from her. The knowing that Amarantha held another leash on her.

Hours passed as she lay in bed, staring at a blank space on the stone wall, waiting for someone to storm through her room and slaughter her. She didn't bother trying to test the limits of the scraps she had left, if the fire and Illyrian magic was gone entirely. Galadriel heard no word from Rhysand in the time that she spent curled up on the bed but she could imagine him in Amarantha's chambers.

It made her stomach curdle—seeing him smiling, bowing, acting like her little slave.

Rhysand should not be where her anger deflected, but it did. He couldn't have stopped it, but her mind couldn't shake the knowledge that it had been his power to make her move. His hand that guided the goblet to her lips.

Shoving the blankets off her feet, Galadriel sat up. Her face was hot, something unsettled crawling around between her chest and throat. Hunger for something other than food. On her feet, she was out the door in an instant.

The walk to Rhysand's chambers wasn't long by any means but somehow it went by in a blink. Standing in front of the ebony door, she raised her hand to knock but before her knuckles touched the wood, it clicked open.

"I was hoping you would come," Rhysand said quietly from the side of the bed. He sat on the edge, his jacket gone, leaving him in a loose cotton shirt. "I was also hoping you wouldn't."

Galadriel took in the expanse of his room, as she always did. It would never fit right in her mind that he lived in them. Those weren't his sheets, that wasn't his dresser. Where were her things? "I wasn't sure you would be back," she answered half-truthfully. Less and less she'd come here. Less and less they'd touched and kissed and said sweet things. Her anger dissipated as soon as she took in his expression. Wrecked. Utterly wrecked. He hated himself for it more than she could bear to see. "Are you alright?"

Rhysand gave a broken chuckle. "I feel like that's all we ask about each other these days."

An avoiding answer. Entering, she took her time to look around the room again before sitting on the mattress next to him, her feet just scraping the floor. "It was my fault," she said blankly. It felt like a mask sat on her face, as cold and solid as iron. "You've spent so much time protecting me and I just went ahead and showcased stolen magic to the family I had stolen it from."

"You need to stop calling it stolen. In battles we take pieces of armour or weapons from enemies we slay. They are rightfully ours to claim. The magic is yours."

"I wasn't in battle."

"They don't have to be fought between armies. Or even another person."

"Cassian told me that once." She didn't remember exactly when, only that they had been training. The air shifted as soon as Galadriel said his name, though Rhysand tried to hide any sign that his brother's name affected him. "Don't pretend to not miss him. Them. There's no point lying to yourself or me." She might be the only one he didn't lie to, as he was for her.

Rhysand smiled at her and for the first time since the throne room, their gazes met. "I miss them every day."

"Good," she replied, her steel mask beginning to crack at the sign of her mate's true self. "I refuse to forget them." Others Under the Mountain had already begun disposing of their past lives, memories of before becoming trinkets lost in dusty attics. Had begun to accept Amarantha's rule. "What do you think they're doing?"