Author's Note: I know everyone has their own idea for the song mentioned in this chapter, but for me it's To The Stars from Dragonheart.
Hours passed. Eventually I drowsed, clinging to the bond between us, though it remained dim and closed down.
Something woke me and I opened my eyes to see Rhys, slumped against the wall nearby, watching me. I jolted upright. How long have you been there?
"You were drooling," he deadpanned.
I swiped at my mouth self-consciously, then glared at him. I wasn't!
He chuckled, then sighed. "No more games, Feyre."
I only nodded, sliding to the floor across from him, my back against the pallet, our knees almost touching.
His eyes glinted in the dim light. "Did you plan it? Tonight? All of it?"
I chose my words carefully. I thought Tamlin might try something. I took advantage of the moment.
"Took advantage of it?" he growled. "Took advantage how? What exactly was your plan? If I hadn't interrupted you—"
I knew you would, I cut in, silencing him. I knew you would come. I reached out, touching his knee tentatively. I knew you would come for me.
He snorted, tipping his head back against the wall. "You really do think I'm wrapped around your mortal fingers, don't you?"
I made a vulgar gesture, showing him exactly what my mortal fingers were good for, and then, since he wasn't really looking, I sent the image down the bond as well. His lips twitched but he did not smile.
"One wrong move tomorrow, Feyre, and we're all doomed."
I swallowed. Or one wrong word. One missing word.
"And if you fail," Rhys mused dismally, "then Amarantha will rule forever."
I reached out again, not physically this time, but with my thoughts. Have hope, Rhys. Believe in me. You have to believe in me.
He looked at me then, something softening in his eyes, and he sighed, giving me a small smile. "Impossibly enough, I do. If I believe in nothing else anymore, I believe in you, Feyre." The way he said my name was an intimate purr and my breath caught, but then he dropped his head back against the wall tiredly.
"Sometimes it feels like everything outside Amarantha's court is just a dream and the only reality is down here in the darkness."
Poor High Lord of the Night Court, bothered by a little darkness, I teased. He didn't react so I jabbed his leg. Rhys. He opened one eye lazily, but I could see the weariness that he tried to hide.
I plucked at the bond between us, letting down my shields more than I ever had before. Letting him see some small measure of my true emotions, of all the hopes and dreams that filled my heart. The darkest nights reveal the brightest stars, I said gently. He gave me his full attention then, something like wonder entering his eyes.
I had spent so much time agonizing over what I needed to do, but now that I was here, in this moment all I felt was love. This male before me, my mate, who didn't yet know all of the beautiful things that were in his future. I scooted forward so that our knees were touching.
I have one more dream to show you …
I let the thought trail off, hesitating, waiting for his permission. Only at his thoughtful nod did I slide into his lap, cupping his face in my hands. I rested my forehead against his, mimicking the gesture he had made earlier. I stroked the bond between us. Let me in, I whispered along it. Let me show you.
It took him a long moment. I got the impression he had planned to stay buried deeply behind his shields until after this was all over, but for me—he would open for me.
I slipped inside fearlessly, no thoughts within my head but those of love. I felt his awe at the depth of my emotions, but I was distracted by realizing how much he already cared for me, how much he had cared even before I stumbled with such reckless determination into Amarantha's grasp. I could have done absolutely nothing differently and he still would have loved me long before now. Tears pricked at my eyes and I felt a mixture of concern, curiosity and confusion from him as he sensed my muddled thoughts.
Focus, I told myself. I breathed deeply, filling my nose with citrus and the sea.
And then I thought of music.
He went still beneath me, so very still. I knew the instant he recognized what he was hearing. Once upon a time, when I had needed it most, he had given me a song.
And now I was giving it back to him.
It started quietly, rising like mist to paint a dreamscape. The cell around us faded into darkness, but not the darkness of Under the Mountain. It was the vast endless darkness of the night sky, peppered with glittering constellations and swirling galaxies. It was the scent of snow on the wind. It was the feeling of soaring through the brisk air and of being a tiny speck swimming in an inky sea of brilliant lights.
The music rose and carried us with it. We followed it over glittering snow-capped mountains and through clouds prickling with water vapor. Hand in hand in that strange dreamspace that I had created, we flew over evergreen forests and fields full of wildflowers, until at last we came to a city. I didn't need to think the name before Rhys was breathing it through my mind like a blessing. Velaris.
We streaked over the city, faster than wings could ever carry us, comets leaving trails of stardust in our wake, but somehow there was still time to take in everything. Brightly lit buildings, music that mixed and blended with the tune that now sang in our hearts, people who were colorful, cheerful blurs in the night. They were happy. Safe. As we blew past, the music was a living, pulsing thing and the city around us danced to its beat.
Time slowed to a crawl and I didn't have to point out one particular rooftop to Rhys as we approached it. His attention zeroed in on it, on the people who were dancing atop it.
It was one of my favorite memories from my first year in Velaris. Mor, Azriel and Cassian, all three of them dancing together. Their arms reached for each other and for the sky, and they moved as if this was their first, last and only dance together and they meant to savor every second of it. There was joy in that dance, and peace, and life, and hope. Above them on a balcony, Amren smiled and sipped from a silver goblet that matched her eyes, radiating confidence and security, promising protection for all that had been left under her care.
Somewhere back in reality, Rhys was rigid beneath me, as if any movement, any breath, might tear this away from him. I could feel his yearning, how he ached to reach for them, to join them.
But he knew even here in this place of dreams, that was impossible.
Tell me again about impossible things, I whispered to him, and then I spun us in place, the earth and sky blurring before us until we were facing back the way we'd come, the glittering city laid out before us. Look up, and tell me.
Because it was Starfall. And we were the stars.
He looked, and I felt something break inside of him. Some well of misery that had been slowly drowning him was shattered and began to drain away as he stared at those streamers of endless glittering light, a sight that had been denied him for decades. The music crescendoed, crashing over us with a tidal wave of joy and heartbreak, a brilliant rainbow of sound and emotion that carried us up into the star-streaked night.
There was nothing in that sky but us and the stars and the music and the joyous revelry of the night. We danced and spun and sparkled and twirled and glittered. There was no Amarantha, no Under the Mountain, no sorrow—only blissful dreams where everything was lovely and kind and filled with light.
Rhys shuddered beneath me. His face was wet with tears, as I knew mine was. It felt so close, just barely out of reach, that beautiful dream full of happiness and love. He was thrumming with the need for it, the overwhelming desire to have it, have all of it, everything he had lost. Everything that I assured him was still out there.
And it was worth it. All that we had endured, everything we had faced, it was all worth it.
I would do it again, I whispered to him, deep within that dream. This is what we're fighting for and I would do it all again a hundred times over if it led me to you.
He took over the dreamscape so easily and naturally that I was momentarily adrift, floating aimlessly in his mind, before he swept me up again into a song that built and built. I was barely aware that his lips had covered mine and my hands had tangled in his hair, that our bodies had slid even closer together as if to mirror the intertwining of our minds.
The sudden softness of silk sheets beneath my legs jostled me back into myself. He had brought us to his bed, pressing me down into the thick pillows, the heat of his body like a brand against mine. Music still filled my soul and my pulse thrummed to the rising beat.
The bond between us was a steady golden glow, pulsing with that phantom melody that echoed over us and through us, repeated back until it was a never-ending cycle, a blissful hymn.
As the music rose between us, I was tearing at his clothes, pressing kisses to his face, his chin, his neck, anything I could reach. I bit his shoulder and he groaned against me, his clothing suddenly vanishing, along with the tattered remains of my dress.
The music was changing, building, the wild joy transforming into passion that crashed over and over us, waves breaking through our entwined bodies. His touches were tenderly at odds with his fervent movements, stroking my hair, cupping my face, caressing my sides, teasing my breasts until I was writhing helplessly beneath him.
I felt him push inside me as the music peaked and all I could do was gasp and shudder, arching into him as his name rolled through my mind in a beautiful counterpoint. Rhys rhys rhys rhys rhys rhys …
I locked my legs around his back, pulling him deeper. I was drowning—in Rhys, in music, in the marvel that was the bond between us. Deep as I was in his mind, it was as if we were making love for the very first time. I could feel everything he felt, spiraling upward as he lost his hold on the music and on the remains of the dreamscape, and it jangled out of control and chaotic.
It broke over me and my back bowed as my climax shattered over me with those discordant notes. Rhys shuddered as he felt me fall apart around him and a moment later he buried his face in the pillows at my neck as he slammed into me one last time, his own release thundering through him as he muffled his roar.
I was left quivering, exultant, and completely wrecked. I clung to Rhys, panting, heart racing, as I felt him slowly begin to untangle our minds. But even as he disappeared behind his walls once more, there was still something there, something more than that feeble bargain that we'd been hiding behind.
He lifted his head and in the darkness his eyes glowed, a violet sea of stars. I smiled and traced the shape of his face with trembling fingers. He kissed each one and then I drew his face to mine, and my lips found his, softly, gently. A kiss that promised forever in a place without time. I stroked his face, his hair, his shoulders. In my mind, a gentle melody played, soothing and comforting, and he laid his head down on my breast and slept.
When I woke hours later, I was warm and comfortable, in a bed that smelled right, like us, and I opened my eyes to see Rhys watching me with a lazy smile. I stretched, enjoying how his eyes traced my body, and reached for him.
At the sight of my right arm, devoid of anything but the remnants of smeared blue paint, it was as if someone had plunged my heart into a bucket of ice. I jolted up, staring at my arm, and the nightmare that was reality came crashing back.
I was Under the Mountain. Again.
And in just a few hours, I was going to die.
With a tug on my elbow, Rhys pulled me back to his side. "You are not going to die," he murmured.
I cursed soundlessly and checked my shields. And then—I froze. My hands clutched my throat as I tried again. Still nothing. Then, much to Rhys's amusement and concern, I began silently mouthing every single curse I knew.
It hadn't worked. The curse hadn't broken. Sleeping with Rhys hadn't been the answer.
An array of emotion rippled down the bond, which was now glowing stronger than ever. I realized that was probably why my shields were next to useless. No human mind could account for being linked with that of a High Fae daemati. But it seemed to work both ways, as I could sense Rhys being torn between incredulous anger and stunned hilarity.
"You thought sleeping with me would break your curse?" he managed, and I knew I had seconds before his anger won out.
Wriggling out his arms, I rolled over until I was straddling his hips, gripping his shoulders with my hands to pin him in place. It doesn't matter anymore. Listen to me! This is important. I gave him a little shake. I am going to die today.
His eyes narrowed. "I don't appreciate being used, Feyre darling." His voice was a deadly purr and his hands gripped my hips, fingers digging into my skin so tightly that I knew I would have bruises.
I hissed at him. Hate me later. Right now, you have to listen. I knew he could send me back to my cell at any second, so I hurried on quickly. When I beat the third task— He stilled beneath me, and I knew I had his attention at last. We both know the bargain has no timeframe and there's no way Amarantha will let us go immediately. In fact, why would she let me go at all when she can kill me?
"The bargain requires her to set you free, eventually if not immediately," Rhys murmured, his expression unchanged.
I pursed my lips. Death is a kind of freedom. I shook my head. It doesn't matter. The point is, I beat her three tasks and nothing changes.
"Pity you never figured out that riddle," he drawled.
I gulped and just looked at him.
His eyes widened and he pushed himself up on his elbows. "You—Feyre, why—you could end all of this!"
It's complicated, I snapped before I caught myself. It's—I can't exactly say the answer, can I?
I steeled myself and threw back my shoulders, heedless of my nudity or his, and faced him as proudly as the High Lady I was, or would one day become. That's where you come in. Rhys, I need your help.
When the guards came early that morning, I was back in my cell and ready. They chucked my old, rotting clothes at me and refused to turn away while I dressed. I was beyond caring.
As they escorted me to the throne room, I felt that I had become like Nuala and Cerridwen, a wraith made up only of shadows. I wasn't Feyre Cursebreaker or Feyre, High Lady of the Night Court, or even Feyre Archeron. I was Feyre Deathbringer, and today people would die at my hand.
I didn't want to think about what I was going to do. My head was a void, empty of everything, even the comfort of darkness. My bond with Rhys that had been so brilliant and strong only a few hours ago was now silent, from both sides.
I stepped into the throne room and strode solemnly for Amarantha. The crowd drew back on either side of me but I paid no attention to them. I had eyes only for the queen. I felt a bizarre moment of kinship with her. Death waited for both of us this day, but I was the only one who saw it coming.
Amarantha was smiling at me and I smiled back, a terrible smile that was both a promise and a threat. She chose to ignore it.
"Two trials lie behind you," she said with idle confidence. "And only one more awaits. I wonder if it will be worse to fail now—when you are so close." She pouted in mock sympathy but my grin only grew wider, almost a leer. She would find out for herself firsthand, very soon.
Amarantha gave me a sweet smile. "Any words to say before you die? Oh—my mistake." She tittered, though the only ones who joined in her laughter were my prison guards. I didn't react. Get it over with, I wanted to shout at her.
With nothing to work with, either from me or from her audience, she was growing bored. "Very well, then." She clapped her hands twice, and I steeled myself for what I knew was to come.
Some parts of my experience Under the Mountain were no more than an indistinct blur in my memories, but this—this I remembered with perfect, haunting clarity.
As before, three bound and hooded figures were prodded out, kneeling in a line before me. As before, a black-clad servant with a black velvet pillow appeared beside each figure. I stared at those ash daggers and felt the empty void tremble around me.
"Your final task, Feyre," Amarantha drawled, her words dripping with poison. "Stab each of these unfortunate souls in the heart."
Amarantha kept talking but I didn't hear her. Everything else she was saying was just a game, her way of trying to break me before her. As if killing three innocents wouldn't have been enough by itself. I wondered what she would do if I took that first dagger and turned it on myself instead. The thought clanged inside of me, stealing my breath.
I could do it. Could I do it? I had to die today. Killing these three fairies—or two fairies since the third was Tamlin—changed nothing. Completing the tasks only enraged Amarantha enough to kill me, but if the end goal was just for me to die—why couldn't someone else live?
Amarantha had finished her pretty speech and all eyes in the room were on me, waiting to see if I would break.
I picked up the first dagger. It was a slender weight in my hand, cool and almost reassuring in its solidness. I stared at that dagger and imagined it, plunging it into my breast, how the warm blood would pump out, coating my hands. I had died before, and though Amarantha's attacks had been painful, at the actual moment of death—when she had shattered my spine, I had felt nothing. It had been so quick, that death. Would bleeding out from a chest wound be as easy?
"Not so fast," Amarantha interrupted my thoughts and I jerked my head up to stare at her, wide-eyed. But no, she had no idea what I'd just been considering.
At her words, the hood was yanked off the head of the first figure, revealing the High Fae youth whose face would haunt me for all my days. "That's better," Amarantha mused. "Proceed, Feyre, dear. Enjoy it."
Yes, she had no idea where my thoughts had been. But the youth stared up at me with wide-eyed panic and I knew that he saw death written on my face, even if he didn't realize it was my own, not his, that I was contemplating. I stepped closer as he begged, knowing that Amarantha—that everyone—watching me and would see any hesitation as a sign that I was going to fall apart before their eyes. But still—I paused.
My thoughts raced, and the youth's pleas became more fervent. I couldn't think, between his desperation and all the eyes in the room upon me and the weight of the world on my shoulders. My fingers clenched around the dagger. Change nothing, the Tail's words roared through me, drowning out everything else. Change nothing!
Gasping, half-sobbing, I closed the short distance and plunged the dagger into his heart in one smooth motion. As he screamed and fell to the floor, writhing, I held up the bloody dagger and stared at it. I forced my sticky fingers to uncurl from it, one by one, until the blade clattered to the floor just as the youth's cries fell silent.
"Very good," said Amarantha. She still sounded pleased. She still thought I would break before I could finish this. I ignored her and picked up the second dagger. I had lived this before and this time it was easier, not harder, and part of me hated myself even more for that.
The guards pulled off the next faerie's hood and the female quailed at the sight of me. I could only imagine what I looked like, dressed in filthy rags, face as still as death, hands covered in blood. I stepped up to her, placing the tip of the dagger against her breast—and waited as she finished her prayer. I didn't realize I was mouthing the words along with her until her tear-filled eyes dropped to my lips. At the end, she met my gaze and didn't look away as I slid the dagger home to pierce her heart. I watched the light fade from her eyes as she fell bonelessly to the floor.
A shudder went through me. It was done. It was done. The worst of it was done. Stabbing Tamlin in the heart didn't bother me, especially when I knew it wouldn't kill him, and then Amarantha would take matters into her own hands and Rhys would play his part and everything would be well after that. Blessed Mother let everything be well.
I picked up the last dagger and the guard ripped the hood away from the last faerie—and the empty silence I had wrapped myself in shrieked and shattered like shards of glass.
Because it wasn't Tamlin who knelt before me.
It was Rhys.
I stared at him, frozen, hardly remembering to breathe. My hands dropped to my sides, the dagger dangling from limp fingers.
"Something wrong?" Amarantha asked coyly.
I scanned Rhys's face. Something was definitely wrong. He was blinking repeatedly as if the light bothered his eyes, or maybe he was having trouble focusing. Those violet orbs that had glowed so brilliantly for me only a few hours earlier were now dull and clouded. He'd always been pale here Under the Mountain, but now his skin was chalky white, and his hair was dishevelled—no, matted on one side.
I snarled at the queen. What did you do, knock him out and then stop him from healing? She couldn't hear me, so I added a few choice curses as well.
My plan relied on Rhys—if he was out of commission then we were all doomed. I focused on the bond, tugging on it, chasing down it to claw uselessly at the wall I found at the other end. RHYS! There was no response to my mental scream, not even a flicker.
Amarantha's lips curled into a smile. "Rhysand," she said, "thinks he's entirely too cunning. Perhaps this will even the playing field for the rest of us." Her voice was mocking. "It's time he realized he was just a pawn in this game, not a player." Out of the corner of my eyes, I could see the other High Lords glancing at each other uneasily. Even if they didn't like to admit it, they knew Rhys was the most powerful of them. If Amarantha was willing to sacrifice him like this, what did that mean for the rest of them?
"Come on, Feyre," Amarantha continued. "This should be easy for you. After all, it's Tamlin you love, is it not? Unless," her long nails tapped on the arm of her throne, "there's something more between you two than the bargain written on your arm." She leaned forward, grinning savagely. "What other bargains did you make in those long, lonely nights?" I stiffened at the insinuation but couldn't stop the blush that crept up my neck.
My eyes darted at last to Tamlin, seated beside Amarantha's throne. The expressionless mask he had worn for months was beginning to crack, his eyes wide at what he read in my reaction.
Amarantha laughed, loud and triumphant. "So, what will it be, Feyre?"
It was too late to choose a different path. My fingers tightened on the dagger, but still I hesitated. I called to Rhys over and over, begging him to let me in, to answer, to give me any kind of sign that he was there. Slowly, slowly I lifted the dagger. The watching crowd stilled in anticipation. My hand shook as I pressed the tip of it against his heart. I knew it wouldn't kill him. I knew he suffered the same fate that Tamlin and all the High Lord's had under Amarantha's spell, but all the logic in the world didn't make it any easier.
I stared into his unfocused eyes. Rhys. I love you.
My muscles tensed to plunge the dagger home and then—just before I committed to the action, I felt it. The gentlest caress against my mind. One of his eyelid's fluttered, a barely perceptible wink. My knees went weak with relief, but I didn't have time to wonder if he was playing a tangled, dangerous game or if he had just managed to pull himself together enough for that tiny sign. I closed my eyes and drove the dagger deep with all my strength.
The shock of it hitting that cold stone in his chest thrummed up my arm and I yanked it back, bile rising at the sight of his blood on my hands. Rhys swayed, sagging to the floor with a muffled groan, and I tossed the bloody dagger away, reaching for him. He had slumped forward so the wound was mostly hidden from sight. I prayed that it had been a deliberate motion because he didn't want anyone to notice if he was healing.
The crowd around us rippled, finally realizing that I had indeed completed the third task. "She won," someone said, sounding stunned. "Free them," came another voice, this one hopeful.
Amarantha's voice cracked through the murmurs like a whip, silencing them once more. "I'll free them whenever I see fit. Feyre didn't specify when I had to free them—just that I had to. At some point. Perhaps when you're dead." My fingers tightened on Rhys's shoulders. He didn't move.
Amarantha said more, but I didn't hear her. My heart was racing and there was a rushing sound in my ears. Everything that happened after this was out of my hands.
She was coming for me. She was coming for me. She was coming for me.
It was like my worst nightmares come to life as I looked up and saw her stepping down from her dais, her features twisted with hatred as she hissed at me. "You." She bared her teeth at me, no longer a pristine queen but something dark and feral. "I'm going to kill you."
I was ripped away from Rhys as a bolt of pure agony crashed into me, throwing me across the room. The pain that tore through me was so much worse than the phantom pains of my old nightmares. My mouth gaped open and my throat clenched, a gasping gurgle the only sound I could make. My body cracked against the hard floor again and again, waves of agony pounding into me until I only knew my bones were breaking from the sound of them cracking, horribly loud without my tortured screaming to drown out everything else.
"Cowardly, lying, inconstant bit of human garbage," Amarantha sneered. "You came here claiming to love Tamlin, yet how easily your head was turned when another match was more advantageous."
She was close enough to kick me then, again and again. I gasped, struggling for each painful breath as I heard my ribs snap.
"You're not worthy of him," she hissed, and through the haze of pain I wondered if she meant Tamlin or Rhys, or perhaps both.
The crowd rallied, more faeries shouting in protest. As Amarantha turned away to scream at them, I could see Rhys. He was still on the floor, but his hands were free. His eyes, half hidden behind a shock of blue-black hair, gleamed at me. My fingers twitched toward him and I felt that familiar brush against my mind again. Feyre …
His thoughts were weak, but steady. Help me, I begged.
Then Amarantha turned back to me, making a curled gesture at me as if bending something and my back arched involuntarily, my spine on fire as it stretched and stretched and—
I heard it. I heard the sound of my own spine snapping. Now, was my last half-coherent thought to Rhys, and then I followed that thought down the bond to nestle inside the warm safety of my mate's mind.
I stared out at my own dying body. The light had gone out of my eyes and they stared blankly, but my chest still heaved, a final few breaths before my body began to realize that there was nothing prompting it to function anymore. It was unnerving, but nothing compared to what happened next.
I sat up. The crowd that had fallen silent at my death, now drew back with gasps of horror. My head lolled unnaturally on a neck that no longer supported it. My dead eyes stared at Amarantha, whose face was bloodless with shock. My chest heaved with another breath and my mouth opened.
"Love." My voice, unused for months and powered by a force that wasn't quite sure how everything worked, was a horrible croak. But the words were understandable, which was all that mattered. "The answer to the riddle … is love."
And with that final exhale, my eyes closed and my body went slack, crumpling bonelessly to the ground.
I sank with it, my mind slipping out of Rhys's grasp and falling, falling, falling.
No, not falling. Drowning. I was deep underneath a swirling vortex of water.