A Court of Mist and Fury (67 page)

His eyes lifted to mine. Haunted, bleak.

“She slaughtered half the Court of Nightmares right then and there. To prove to me that she could. As vengeance for Tamlin’s father. And I knew … I knew in that moment there was nothing I wouldn’t do to keep her from looking at my court again. From looking too long at who I was and what I loved. So I told myself that it was a new war, a different sort of battle. And that night, when she kept turning her attention to me, I knew what she wanted. I knew it wasn’t about fucking me so much as it was about getting revenge at my father’s ghost. But if that was what she wanted, then that was what she would get. I made her beg, and scream, and used my lingering powers to make it so good for her that she wanted more. Craved more.”

I gripped the counter to keep from sliding to the ground.

“Then she cursed Tamlin. And my other great enemy became the one loophole that might free us all. Every night that I spent with Amarantha, I knew that she was half wondering if I’d try to kill her. I couldn’t use my powers to harm her, and she had shielded herself against physical attacks. But for fifty years—whenever I was inside her, I’d think about killing her. She had no idea. None. Because I was so good at
my job that she thought I enjoyed it, too. So she began to trust me—more than the others. Especially when I proved what I could do to her enemies. But I was glad to do it. I hated myself, but I was glad to do it. After a decade, I stopped expecting to see my friends or my people again. I forgot what their faces looked like. And I stopped hoping.”

Silver gleamed in his eyes, and he blinked it away. “Three years ago,” he said quietly, “I began to have these … dreams. At first, they were glimpses, as if I were staring through someone else’s eyes. A crackling hearth in a dark home. A bale of hay in a barn. A warren of rabbits. The images were foggy, like looking through cloudy glass. They were brief—a flash here and there, every few months. I thought nothing of them, until one of the images was of a hand … This beautiful, human hand. Holding a brush. Painting—flowers on a table.”

My heart stopped beating.

“And that time, I pushed a thought back. Of the night sky—of the image that brought me joy when I needed it most. Open night sky, stars, and the moon. I didn’t know if it was received, but I tried, anyway.”

I wasn’t sure I was breathing.

“Those dreams—the flashes of that person, that woman … I treasured them. They were a reminder that there was some peace out there in the world, some light. That there was a place, and a person, who had enough safety to paint flowers on a table. They went on for years, until … a year ago. I was sleeping next to Amarantha, and I jolted awake from this dream … this dream that was clearer and brighter, like that fog had been wiped away. She—you were dreaming. I was in your dream, watching as you had a nightmare about some woman slitting your throat, while you were chased by the Bogge … I couldn’t reach you, speak to you. But you were seeing our kind. And I realized that the fog had probably been the wall, and that you … you were now in Prythian.

“I saw you through your dreams—and I hoarded the images, sorting through them over and over again, trying to place where you were, who
you were. But you had such horrible nightmares, and the creatures belonged to all courts. I’d wake up with your scent in my nose, and it would haunt me all day, every step. But then one night, you dreamed of standing amongst green hills, seeing unlit bonfires for Calanmai.”

There was such silence in my head.

“I knew there was only one celebration that large; I knew those hills—and I knew you’d probably be there. So I told Amarantha … ” Rhys swallowed. “I told her that I wanted to go to the Spring Court for the celebration, to spy on Tamlin and see if anyone showed up wishing to conspire with him. We were so close to the deadline for the curse that she was paranoid—restless. She told me to bring back traitors. I promised her I would.”

His eyes lifted to mine again.

“I got there, and I could smell you. So I tracked that scent, and … And there you were. Human—utterly human, and being dragged away by those piece-of-shit picts, who wanted to … ” He shook his head. “I debated slaughtering them then and there, but then they shoved you, and I just … moved. I started speaking without knowing what I was saying, only that you were there, and I was touching you, and … ” He loosed a shuddering breath.

There you are. I’ve been looking for you.

His first words to me—not a lie at all, not a threat to keep those faeries away.

Thank you for finding her for me.

I had the vague feeling of the world slipping out from under my feet like sand washing away from the shore.

“You looked at me,” Rhys said, “and I knew you had no idea who I was. That I might have seen your dreams, but you hadn’t seen mine. And you were just … human. You were so young, and breakable, and had no interest in me whatsoever, and I knew that if I stayed too long, someone would see and report back, and she’d find you. So I started walking away, thinking you’d be glad to get rid of me. But then you
called after me, like you couldn’t let go of me just yet, whether you knew it or not. And I knew … I knew we were on dangerous ground, somehow. I knew that I could never speak to you, or see you, or think of you again.

“I didn’t want to know why you were in Prythian; I didn’t even want to know your name. Because seeing you in my dreams had been one thing, but in person … Right then, deep down, I think I knew what you were. And I didn’t let myself admit it, because if there was the slightest chance that you were my mate … They would have done such unspeakable things to you, Feyre.

“So I let you walk away. I told myself after you were gone that maybe … maybe the Cauldron had been kind, and not cruel, for letting me see you. Just once. A gift for what I was enduring. And when you were gone, I found those three picts. I broke into their minds, reshaping their lives, their histories, and dragged them before Amarantha. I made them confess to conspiring to find other rebels that night. I made them lie and claim that they hated her. I watched her carve them up while they were still alive, protesting their innocence. I enjoyed it—because I knew what they had wanted to do to you. And knew that it would have paled in comparison to what Amarantha would have done if she’d found you.”

I wrapped a hand around my throat.
I had my reasons to be out then
, he’d once said to me Under the Mountain.
Do not think, Feyre, that it did not cost me
.

Rhys kept staring at the table as he said, “I didn’t know. That you were with Tamlin. That you were staying at the Spring Court. Amarantha sent me that day after the Summer Solstice because I’d been so successful on Calanmai. I was prepared to mock him, maybe pick a fight. But then I got into that room, and the scent was familiar, but hidden … And then I saw the plate, and felt the glamour, and … There you were. Living in my second-most enemy’s house. Dining with him. Reeking of his scent. Looking at him like … Like you loved him.”

The whites of his knuckles showed.

“And I decided that I had to scare Tamlin. I had to scare you, and Lucien, but mostly Tamlin. Because I saw how he looked at you, too. So what I did that day … ” His lips were pale, tight. “I broke into your mind and held it enough that you felt it, that it terrified you, hurt you. I made Tamlin beg—as Amarantha had made me beg, to show him how powerless he was to save you. And I prayed my performance was enough to get him to send you away. Back to the human realm, away from Amarantha. Because she was going to find you. If you broke that curse, she was going to find you and kill you.

“But I was so selfish—I was so stupidly selfish that I couldn’t walk away without knowing your name. And you were looking at me like I was a monster, so I told myself it didn’t matter, anyway. But you lied when I asked. I knew you did. I had your mind in my hands, and you had the defiance and foresight to lie to my face. So I walked away from you again. I vomited my guts up as soon as I left.”

My lips wobbled, and I pressed them together.

“I checked back once. To ensure you were gone. I went with them the day they sacked the manor—to make my performance complete. I told Amarantha the name of that girl, thinking you’d invented it. I had no idea … I had no idea she’d send her cronies to retrieve Clare. But if I admitted my lie … ” He swallowed hard. “I broke into Clare’s head when they brought her Under the Mountain. I took away her pain, and told her to scream when expected to. So they … they did those things to her, and I tried to make it right, but … After a week, I couldn’t let them do it. Hurt her like that anymore. So while they tortured her, I slipped into her mind again and ended it. She didn’t feel any pain. She felt none of what they did to her, even at the end. But … But I still see her. And my men. And the others that I killed for Amarantha.”

Two tears slid down his cheeks, swift and cold.

He didn’t wipe them away as he said, “I thought it was done after that. With Clare’s death, Amarantha believed you were dead. So you were safe, and far away, and my people were safe, and Tamlin had lost, so … it
was done. We were done. But then … I was in the back of the throne room that day the Attor brought you in. And I have never known such horror, Feyre, as I did when I watched you make that bargain. Irrational, stupid terror—I didn’t know you. I didn’t even know your name. But I thought of those painter’s hands, the flowers I’d seen you create. And how she’d delight in breaking your fingers apart. I had to stand and watch as the Attor and its cronies beat you. I had to watch the disgust and hatred on your face as you looked at me, watched me threaten to shatter Lucien’s mind. And then—then I learned your name. Hearing you say it … it was like an answer to a question I’d been asking for five hundred years.

“I decided, then and there, that I was going to fight. And I would fight dirty, and kill and torture and manipulate, but I was going to fight. If there was a shot of freeing us from Amarantha, you were it. I thought … I thought the Cauldron had been sending me these dreams to tell me that you would be the one to save us. Save my people.

“So I watched your first trial. Pretending—always pretending to be that person you hated. When you were hurt so badly against the Wyrm … I found my way in with you. A way to defy Amarantha, to spread the seeds of hope to those who knew how to read the message, and a way to keep you alive without seeming too suspicious. And a way to get back at Tamlin … To use him against Amarantha, yes, but … To get back at him for my mother and sister, and for … having you. When we made that bargain, you were so hateful that I knew I’d done my job well.

“So we endured it. I made you dress like that so Amarantha wouldn’t suspect, and made you drink the wine so you would not remember the nightly horrors in that mountain. And that last night, when I found you two in the hall … I was jealous. I was jealous of him, and pissed off that he’d used that one shot of being unnoticed not to get you out, but to be with you, and … Amarantha saw that jealousy. She saw me kissing you to hide the evidence, but she saw why. For the first time, she saw why. So that night, after I left you, I had to … service her. She kept me there longer than usual, trying to squeeze the answers out of me. But I gave her what
she wanted to hear: that you were nothing, that you were human garbage, that I’d use and discard you. Afterward … I wanted to see you. One last time. Alone. I thought about telling you everything—but who I’d become, who you thought I was … I didn’t dare shatter that deception.

“But your final trial came, and … When she started torturing you, something snapped in a way I couldn’t explain, only that seeing you bleeding and screaming undid me. It broke me at last. And I knew as I picked up that knife to kill her … I knew right then what you were. I knew that you were my mate, and you were in love with another male, and had destroyed yourself to save him, and that … that I didn’t care. If you were going to die, I was going to die with you. I couldn’t stop thinking it over and over as you screamed, as I tried to kill her: you were my mate, my mate, my mate.

“But then she snapped your neck.”

Tears rolled down his face.

“And I felt you die,” he whispered.

Tears were sliding down my own cheeks.

“And this beautiful, wonderful thing that had come into my life, this gift from the Cauldron … It was gone. In my desperation, I clung to that bond. Not the bargain—the bargain was nothing, the bargain was like a cobweb. But I grabbed that bond between us and I
tugged
, I willed you to hold on, to stay with me, because if we could get free … If we could get free, then all seven of us were there. We could bring you back. And I didn’t care if I had to slice into all of their minds to do it. I’d
make
them save you.” His hands were shaking. “You’d freed us with your last breath, and my power—I wrapped my power around the bond. The mating bond. I could feel you flickering there, holding on.”

Home. Home had been at the end of the bond, I’d told the Bone Carver. Not Tamlin, not the Spring Court, but … Rhysand.

“So Amarantha died, and I spoke to the High Lords mind to mind, convincing them to come forward, to offer that spark of power. None of them disagreed. I think they were too stunned to think of saying no.
And … I again had to watch as Tamlin held you. Kissed you. I wanted to go home, to Velaris, but I had to stay, to make sure things were set in motion, that you were all right. So I waited as long as I could, then I sent a tug through the bond. Then you came to find me.

“I almost told you then, but … You were so sad. And tired. And for once, you looked at me like … like I was worth something. So I promised myself that the next time I saw you, I’d free you of the bargain. Because I was selfish, and knew that if I let go right then, he’d lock you up and I’d never get to see you again. When I went to leave you … I think transforming you into Fae made the bond lock into place permanently. I’d known it existed, but it
hit
me then—hit me so strong that I panicked. I knew if I stayed a second longer, I’d damn the consequences and take you with me. And you’d hate me forever.