It was a miserable morning in the Spring Court. The sun was shining and the birds were chirping, and all that nonsense. The beautiful halls of the manor were just as perfect as ever. The roses outside were still blooming and spreading their delicate fragrance.
Tamlin hated it. All of it.
Especially the roses. Their perfume choked him as he swept through the empty halls, every blossom and bud a cruel reminder of her.
He saw her everywhere. She shone in every painting adorning the walls of the manor. He could smell her whenever he saw the roses outside. Every time he walked into his study, he remembered the look in her eyes as the table slammed into her. Fear, anger-and something else. Why hadn't he seen it? Why hadn't he seen Rhysand's spark of malice inside of her? Had he truly been so blind?
He ripped the paintings from the walls one morning. He shoved them into a closet somewhere, claws out and shredding a few of the canvases. He couldn't care less what happened to them-every single one of them was a reminder of her betrayal.
He couldn't stand the color red. It reminded him too much of his old friend-of Lucien. It reminded him too much of Amarantha. It reminded him too much of the blood streaking down her face from the cut on her cheek-the cut he had given her. The cut she'd wanted him to give her.
Manipulative, conniving, ruthless. Truly, he thought bitterly, Rhysand's equal in every way.
Tamlin sat alone at his table, forcing food down his throat. There was no one else at the table. There was no one left.
His sentries-the few still serving him-kept out of his way. They knew his temper all too well, a temper that had driven out the love of his life and his best friend.
Because Lucien had chosen Feyre over him. Because Feyre had chosen the High Lord of the Night Court over him.
He had given so much for the two of them, only for them to leave him all alone.
He knew, deep down, that ambition hadn't been the reason she left him to wander his now-empty halls. She had never been ambitious, not one of the snakes that tried to worm their way higher in his court. No, once upon a time, she had been content with love.
Had she?
Tamlin had his doubts. He didn't know her anymore. He still loved her, of course, and would likely always love her, given how his heart would twinge painfully whenever he saw her. He hated himself for every insult he threw her way, pretending that the female in front of him was not Feyre. It was a twisted and corrupted beyond repair version of the female he'd fallen in love with. She couldn't be Feyre-Feyre was the woman who had sold her soul Under the Mountain to save him. Who had loved him and sacrificed so damn much for him. Feyre didn't use water to almost drown High Lords. Feyre didn't bring down courts from within.
Feyre didn't love Rhysand.
No. Only this shadow of her did.
Damn you, Rhysand. Damn you to hell. He slammed his fist down onto his study desk, sending papers flying.
But had it really been all Rhys? his traitorous mind whispered. Maybe, when Amarantha snapped her neck, something else had snapped. Had made her cruel, cold. Had made her Rhys's mate.
Sometimes, Tamlin wondered if he hated her. If he hated her for leaving him for another male, for stealing away his best friend. For killing his priestess (even though he couldn't really fault her there).
He wondered if he hated her for leaving him alone to his house full of ghosts.
On the bad days, he did. He cursed her name and ripped things to shreds with his claws. He was left alone to his tantrums, to tear apart his manor and himself.
It hurt like hell to be alone, he realized.
Tamlin often looked over his shoulder, searching for the red-haired lord. Lucien had been the crutch he leaned on when his duties threatened to topple him.
Lucien had always been Tamlin's check, keeping his temper from clouding everything he saw. Now that he was gone...
The few remaining residents of the Spring Court had usually one of two opinions about their ruler. Either they were contemptuous and disdainful, or they lived in fear of his volatile temper.
Feyre had left the Spring Court devastated in her wake. Lucien would have found a way to fix that.
Then, one day, he stumbled across one of her old paintings in a storage closet. It was a painting of roses, serene and quiet and perfect. He remembered it well. He remembered her painting it, not too long after Hybern.
It was a pretty lie, he thought.
But deeper in the closet, he found more paintings. Paintings that made so much more sense. Dust swirled around him as he uncovered painting after painting.
There was another canvas depicting a rose garden, like the first. In this one, the roses were rotting and decayed, the petals slashed and torn. A shadowy figure in the distance stood triumphantly over the destruction that they had presumably wrought.
Another showed...her. She was striding away from the study, piercing eyes blank and blood running down her cheek. She leaned on Lucien, gazing up at him. He was there, too, behind them. His own face was devastated and sad.
Tamlin remembered that day, too.
Feyre had painted the shadow of the Bogge as it battled Dagdan and Brannagh.
She has painted her and Lucien, tangled up the night he had stormed into Lucien's room to find the two of them in each other's arms.
His breath caught as he stared at the last painting in the pile. It was a painting of a beautiful city, full of light and life. A river wound through the middle of the city. Mountains framed the scene.
And in the corner, vaguely drawn, was the silhouette of two figures. The taller of the two had their wings wrapped around the second figure, a shorter silhouette with female curves. He flipped it over gently, almost reverently. There was a note pinned to the back.