Chapter 11

"Taking in the house, Diana?"

I felt Rhysand's presence before he spoke. After hundreds of years without his magic, it was a shock to feel his enveloping darkness. I had only realized the effect when I left, and had missed it dearly. Because while his darkness held a sinister promise for most, it cradled me in its whispering arms and vowed to keep me safe. Yet ultimately it had failed, and now here I was, shivering at it's unfamiliar touch.

"Not bad brother. Certainly more homey than the Mountain Palace. Though..." I paused, kicking my foot firmly against the floor, "I suspect you have charmed its walls to not echo." I turned, giving him a sinister smile. "Had I done this in the palace, the sound would have resounded off the walls so that it would feel as if you were entirely alone. Father's design, I'm sure." I sighed. "Frightening at the time, but a strong lesson to be taught, that the only person you can trust is yourself."

Rhysand did not match my smile. To my surprise, he didn't try to disguise the worry lashed across his face with his usual cool expression. He looked tired. As if he hadn't slept in days. "You are certainly one to get to the point, Diana. Is every conversation we have to start with recounting my mistakes?" His voice was low.

I shrugged. "So little time, so much to remember."

His brow furrowed. "So little time? How do you figure that?"

I ignored him. "There is no need to whisper. You and I both know everyone in this house is listening." I could hear the din of conversation coming from the dining room, but I could also sense their terse anticipation, as if we were actors and they, our eager audience.

"You're right, there's no point in this," Rhysand said, turning on his heel. "We may as well continue this conversation over some good food. Perhaps then this dinner will be somewhat enjoyable."

I turned with him, matching his steps to the dining room. "What, no longer offering your feigned act of brotherly devotion? You were doing so well, trying to come to my room everyday while I was unconscious under your command. You almost had me fooled." I smoothed the lilac silk of my mother's dress beneath me. My father used to love this dress.

Rhysand blew out a long stretch of air. "Just eat tonight, please. That's all I ask." His eyes were pleading. I wondered if he had thought I would have been perfectly complacent when I arrived here. Wishful thinking.

"Fine. Just as long as you respect what I ask you tonight." I said. Rhysand stopped before his chair beside Feyre, who was staring dagger eyes at me. "What?"

"I know this is a big ask, but maybe you can pause this sad attempt at a civil conversation until after our plates are full. I think the one thing we can all agree on here is hot food." A willowy female interjected drily from the head of the table. Her features were reminiscent of Feyre and Elain, but sharper and colder, especially in her gray eyes. Nesta, the third sister, I recounted.

"Oh great, another Feyre duplicate," I turned my eyes to Rhys's mate, "You really are just the gift that keeps on giving."

I could feel Nesta's icy gaze on me. "You wouldn't say that if you knew me." Her tone was just as frosty as her stare.

"Don't worry, I have no intention to." I responded shortly, flipping my napkin off the table and sitting in my lap as I sat. I kept my eye contact, so she would realize there was only room for one frigid bitch at the table.

"Is this usually how you introduce yourself where you come from? Insulting each person you meet?" Asked Feyre, a dark glint in her eye.

"Call it a cultural custom, darling."

"She's from Prythian, Feyre." Rhysand interrupted. "This is her home."

"I don't know, she seems foreign to me." Feyre leveled her eyes at me, "There are few in Prythian who would reject our hospitality."

"I suppose you would know what foreign is, wouldn't you? I can still smell the stink of mortality on you." I kept my tone easy, trusting my words to convey my feelings.

"Diana," Rhysand warned, his anger low yet clear in his voice.

"Is it not enough that we saved you from certain death? That we sheltered, clothed and fed you in our home? That Rhys has been beside himself these past few days with worry about you?" Feyre continued, standing up as her voice rose with each word.

I laughed humorlessly, keeping my eyes trained on the fury in hers. "Forgive me for insulting you in your home, girl. It's miraculous what living here for a few years can do to your self-entitlement." I could feel a rumble of power from Rhysand, a cautioning threat that assured me that in just a few words he would blow.

Good.

"While this is your home as much as it is mine," Feyre's rage seemed to singe off her tongue like hot embers, "I would remind you I'm the High Lady of this Court. I decide what happens within it, and just how much disrespect I can listen to. My words are true. You sit at my table, in my home. You will act accordingly."

I raised my chin. "The only High Lady of the Night Court I recognize is my mother. I yield to her words, and hers alone. Regardless of how much power you think you hold, Feyre, you are not her. Sit. Down." A moment of silence passed, but my mind was louder than ever. I could feel my power simmering, hot anger raring to pour out of me. After so long without the feeling, I was struggling to hold it in. But-

"THAT IS ENOUGH!"

Rhys slammed his hands on the table so hard a crack ran like a rivulet down the middle of the solid oak, the thunderous sound of it punctuated by the dishes crashing to the floor. We all sprang back, screeching our chairs as we pulled them back hastily. Beside me, Azriel was as calm as he had been just a moment ago, slicing into a chicken thigh, as if he had anticipated the moment. I had anticipated it too. But not like this, not so soon. Even Feyre looked surprised, her imposing look of authority significantly less confident.

"I have...I have spent five hundred years cursing myself for what I did," Rhys breathed, low and angrily. "Not a night has gone by where I have fallen asleep without the thought of you, and not a morning has passed without me wishing I was the one they took. I know it is my fault, Diana. My fault, and mine alone. But you," he pointed a shaky, bloody finger at me as he crossed slowly over the wreckage of the dining table, "you place the blame on my family. On my mate, the mother of my child, who has done nothing to deserve this."

"You have a child?" I whispered. A chill rushed through me.

"Yes," Rhysand spoke, his voice unsteady. "A son. Nyx." He put his hand to his face, smearing blood carelessly across his brow. "The first person I wanted you to meet."

"Don't, Rhysand. Please, don't." I breathed in unsteadily, unsure of my next words. "You shouldn't have… You shouldn't say those things to me. You shouldn't have done any of this." My voice trailed off. I needed to leave. Now.

"But why? What is so wrong with wanting you to be my sister once again?" A tear fell onto Rhys's cheek, his eyes pleading and helpless. I vaguely registered the others around us. They seemed miles away.

"Because this isn't how things were supposed to happen. Because you should have just let me die, and buried me next to Mother. Because it is easier for you to hate me than to live through what I bring with me."

A hush fell over the room. Instant regret ran through me. Those words were never meant to be said. If only he had let go of me, I could have helped him, and his child. For once, I could have kept my family safe.

"You need to start explaining, girl."

Amren's voice came from a corner of the room. "Speak now, before there isn't a chance to. I have little patience for meaningless whinging." Her voice was steel. I supposed it should have scared me, but I could have sworn she had said the same words to me hundreds of years ago. Something within it reassured me.

"I… I stole something." I swallowed with uncertainty, not sure of what to say next. I couldn't risk them knowing too much. "Something precious, from a man who valued it very much." I turned to Amren, watching her furrowed brow. "I was supposed to die with it. For it to go with me. For this all to end. But I didn't."

"I saved you." Amren's voice was dry. I could still sense the emotion behind it. It cut at me deeply.

"You… kept me alive. And in doing so, you harbor this," I struggled for words, "this contraband within your walls. You risk all your lives for it, your mate, your son, for something that should mean nothing to you." I spoke to Rhysand now. I begged him.

"But why must this thing come along with you?" Rhysand's voice was on its knees before me. "Why can't we just get rid of it, and have this all be done with? I can help you, Diana. Let me, please."

"It's not that simple, Rhys. He has to have me. No one else can." I gritted the words out.

"What do you mean he has to have you…" Rhys's words trailed off. I trained my eyes on the floor, but I could sense the realisation in his voice.

His hands were on me. The heat of his breath beat down on my neck. The slickness of the blood he licked off my forehead, the way my body could not turn, not in disgust, nor in anger.

"You're the stolen thing, aren't you?" Amren's tone was hard and unflinching, but I could hardly hear the words through the rush of blood in my ears.

Silent and unmoving under him. Cold metal closing around my throat, tighter, tighter, tighter.

I tried to push a derisive laugh out of my throat, but even to me it was unconvincing. I couldn't shake the feeling of him. Even now, he was here. He always would be. And he would tear through the flesh and bone of Prythian till he had me in his hands again. Such was the will of the king of Iktidar. Such was the fate of his first concubine. Of his slave.