It's me, and I am still alive! Shocking, I know. I was gone for a week, and I didn't have my computer, and therefore I couldn't write. Sorry. But I am here now, and teeming with inspiration, so I'm going to get this ball rolling again! Enjoy!
Feyre:
While I waited for Rhysand to show up after I told him that I had caught the Suriel I tried to look anywhere but at my catch. It was too painful.
I had known that the Suriel were a species of creatures but I had only ever met one, so I suppose it had never sunk in that there were multiple. And that they all looked the same.
Exactly like the Suriel who had become my friend. Like the Suriel who Ianthe had murdered.
I was spared the memories being dredged up though, as my mate winnowed into the clearing where the Suriel hung suspended from the rope that I had baited her into with a new cloak. "That didn't take you very long," Rhys noted, his mouth quirking up in a half smirk.
I looked away, ashamed. "The Suriels trust me," I murmured. It was true. The Suriel hadn't put up any fight since being trapped, only attempting to get me to let her go once.
"Yes! We do! I will help if the High Lord and Lady let me down!" The Suriel screeched from the center of the clearing. Rhysand looked at me, asking me silently what I wanted to do.
I sighed and nocked an arrow in the bow that I had brought, and shot it through the rope, like I had done for my old friend. "Help the High Lord for me," I requested of the Suriel before winnowing away, unable to look at the replica of my friend any longer.
Rhysand would ask his questions, and hopefully get some useful answers, but I would be no part of it. That had been the deal.
Meanwhile, Rhys had used the mating bond to tell me he had caught one of the dreamers after they ran from his questions. So, since I had been the one to allow them into our court, I would be the first one to question her.
I snapped my wings out when I appeared in the open air above the house of wind, gliding down to the terrace. Rhys had given me vague directions of where she was being held, so I followed them around for a bit, only having to turn back once or twice before I got there. I would have to spend more time getting to know the layout of this place once everything had settled down.
The young woman in the room stood up as I entered, leering at me. So no playing nice anymore, I thought as I let my magic slide over my skin, only working because I was the High Lady.
"Your name," I demand, leaping right into my questions. I had no time for beating around the bush with this 'dreamer' if she even was. Not after I had given her and her group my trust by letting them stay in my court.
"Rheniya."
Good. This girl, Rheniya, wasn't going to waste my time either.
"Your purpose here?" I continue, spearing the young woman with a steely glare. Yes, it was important to know why she was here, but to me, it didn't matter. She had betrayed me and put the country I had fought and bled for in danger.
Silence stared back at me.
I smiled, a bloodthirsty thing. If Rheniya wanted to do things the hard way, I would oblige.
From the sheath on my thigh, I drew Whisper, the knife that Azriel had gifted me with on the last solstice. I could still remember his awkward embrace as I had hugged him.
"Your purpose here?" I repeated, my face going still as stone.
Rheniya glanced at Whisper, and immediately started fidgeting. She was sucking on her teeth, and playing with her fingers. But it wasn't quite right. Her face was still hard and unflinching.
"Your purpose here?" I asked for the final time before I would begin getting information another way.
"Long live Hybern," was all Rheniya said before she bit down on something. White foam began frothing from her lips, and her body started shaking.
Poison. The damn girl had poisoned herself. She hadn't been sucking on her teeth, she had been freeing some kind of powder from her tooth.
Once Rheniya stopped moving, I used Whisper to slit her throat, making sure she was dead. Azriel or someone else would dispose of the body in a way that I did not know how to do, but I had had too much of people coming back from the dead to leave anything to chance.
Then I resheathed Whisper, still coated in Rheniya's blood, and stalked from the room.
The girl may not have meant to, but she had told us something very important. 'Long live Hybern' had been her exact words. Which meant that she was from Hybern, and that Hybern was still trying to hurt us.
The pieces were falling into place in my head. The 'dreamers' must have been Hybern diplomats or spies that were in the Hewn City at the time of Hybern's fall. That would give them a way into the city, and knowing that I would want to help artists and those like me, they put on a pretense to fool me into giving them a way to stay long enough to cause strife in the courts.
Which meant that Tarquin's rubies killing people, and the machine revolt at the Dawn Court, along with the Spring Courts mask dilemma. It was all their fault. And my fault for letting them into Velaris.
But for once I wasn't going to doubt myself. I wasn't going to let myself fall into that hole of self pity and blame. The dreamers had done all of those things. This was on them.
And I would be the one to make them pay.
That chapter took me longer than I had planned to write, since I kept procrastinating. You know how it is, you stop writing for a week or so and then it's hard to get back into the rhythm of it? Either way, I am looking for a new book to read, so send in suggestions! Till next time! Bye!
