Rhysand

I had to wait until twilight fell once again to get the girl - Elain, Feyre had called her - out. What I'd said to Feyre about Amarantha trusting me was true, and there was no guard or sentinel she could set that wouldn't let me through without question. But the issue was that in itself: she'd entrusted the guarding of Elain to none other than the Attor, whilst she turned her attention to Tamlin, and it wouldn't be likely to keep the secret that I had been the one to last see the prisoner before she disappeared. I had to make it seem like I was blameless if I wanted to continue to protect my court by playing Amarantha's whore.

So until then, I had to put up with the Faerie Queen's court, and the raucous, cruel laughter that sprung from it. We had set up quite a sufficient little camp from our spot deep in the woods, one that could potentially last us for weeks. It made me wonder what she was planning, and why on earth she felt the need to stay out here for so long, rather than simply returning home and coming back with more might, more power.

Home. I scoffed to myself. As though anywhere in the Spring Court, or Under the Mountain, could ever be home. But I couldn't return to Velaris. I wasn't sure if I ever would.

"Rhysand," Amarantha purred, and I snapped to attention out of my thoughts as a lesser faerie with vibrant purple wings was dragged forward before her. I moved slowly to her right and made sure to pay attention as my gut clenched. "Tamlin here has admitted that this Summer Court faerie helped him escape the manor. He refuses to admit to acting on orders from his High Lord." I glanced at Tarquin; his face was bloodless. "Find the truth."

I hated myself even as I gripped the faerie's mind and rooted through it. Memories of Tarquin and Tamlin colluding in a darkened hall, orders coming from his new High Lord's mouth shortly after Nostrus died, and the stench of guilt written all over him.

I surfaced, and shot a surreptitious glance at Tarquin. His lips were wan now.

"He's not lying," I said aloud, allowing my hands to drift into my pockets and a small, confident smirk to play about my lips. "He acted on his own, defying Tarquin's orders to stay out of trouble. His High Lord had nothing to do with it."

Tarquin's body relaxed, though it was still significantly tense. I smirked at him, and the expression he wore seemed to ask Why?

I didn't want to know why myself.

Amarantha smiled at the imprisoned faerie, and there was nothing but the promise of death in that gesture.

I was reminded of the feeling of holding a faerie's mind in my claws so tight I might snap it later on, when I made to fulfil the bargain I made with Feyre. I'd waited for the guards to change, and once the Attor was gone, I'd seized his replacement's thoughts and spoken softly, invitingly into his mind. Don't cry out, or I'll shatter it.

He remained perfectly motionless. Sweat began to bead at my brow.

Good. Now enter the tent, grab the girl, and winnow here. I sent a mental image at him of a random spot in the woods I'd chosen, far enough away that it would be difficult to track Elain's scent. The guard obeyed perfectly, and once he returned I put him to sleep, and delicately removed the memories from his skull. I set him gently against the tree and his head lolled to the side.

"What are you doing?"

My shoulders clenched to the point of physical discomfort at the sound of the voice, and I turned, already missing the power I'd once had to mist someone where they stood. But I was left with nothing as I looked at Tarquin, and met his wary stare.

I slipped my hands into my pockets and asked casually, "Why would it matter to you?" Tarquin opened his mouth, but I continued, "I did save your life after all. Or would you have preferred I told the truth?"

Tarquin's lips tightened, but his eyes flicked once to the tent where Elain had been kept, his nostrils flared, no doubt scenting her absence, then cut back to me.

I could already see the indecision over what to do next warring in him, but I leaned forwards and purred, very quietly, "I suppose she'd always be interested in whatever insight I have. She does trust me, you know."

That solidified it. The masked threat had him jerking a stiff nod at me, then walking away, as quickly as possible.

I winnowed to the point where the guard had taken Elain, and found her curled up on the ground, apparently in too much pain from the wounds she'd sustained under Amarantha's care to move. I picked her up, murmured a quick apology when she whimpered, and winnowed to Feyre's cottage.

The sisters were already packed up and waiting for her. Nesta was pacing the floor, Feyre was standing awkwardly off to the side, quiver over he shoulder, gaze fixed on the door, and Lucien was seated at the wooden table, with his left hand clenching the leg so hard his knuckles were white. He didn't turn as I stepped through the door, but Nesta shrieked "Elain!" and Feyre anxiously rushed forward at the same time as her.

Nesta took Elain into her own arms, glaring at me as she did so, and set her gently down on the floor. She was on her knees beside her in a heartbeat, arms round her shoulders, sobbing "Elain, Elain, Elain, Elain, Elain, Elain," over and over into her hair. Feyre hovered beside them, looking like she wanted to join, but feeling too afraid to do it.

She looked up at me briefly, and the sorrow in her eyes gave me a stab of pity and resentfulness over this girl.

The girl who'd killed and fought and bargained to keep her sisters alive, but didn't feel welcome to share an embrace with them.

"Nesta," she said softly. "We need to-"

"You traitorous whore," spat a voice I dreaded.

The muscles in my back tensed up.

My heart stopped beating for an instant.

Nesta looked up from her sister and froze, eyes widening in something like horror.

I turned, begging with the Mother, with the Cauldron, with whatever fates would listen, that it wasn't true. But there stood Amarantha, with the Attor and a High Fae armed with a bow and arrow floating behind her, in all her wicked glory.

She surveyed the room. Me, with my clenched fists and trembling frame. Feyre, standing stock still, a faint snarl contorting her features. Nesta and Elain, whose grips on each other had tightened to what looked painful. Even Lucien in the background, who was watching the proceedings with a face as white as a sheet, from what I could see behind the mask. His metal eye seemed to stand out, especially, in his terror.

Her eyes returned to the Archerons. "The human filth who stopped my attack," she mused. A smile graced her face, but not for a second did I believe it was real.

Feyre stepped in front of her sisters. "Feyre," hissed Elain, eyes as wide as saucers.

The Faerie Queen halted for an instant, lifted her nose, and sniffed the air, her nostrils flaring. She glanced from Feyre to me and back again, a small smile playing about her lips.

It scared me shitless.

"Feyre?" Amarantha asked. She took a few steps forward, each one clacking loudly against the floor. "Fay-ruh." She seemed to enjoy the dance of the syllables across her tongue. "An old name, from our earliest dialects." I didn't now she bothered to make the observation, but that look she'd just donned was terrifying. "You were the one who heeded Tamlin and Lucien's warning?"

I wished she had the sense to deny it, but Feyre knew that Amarantha knew it was either her or her sisters, and there was no way she would sell them out, whether they loved her or not. "I was."

Amarantha reached out, and touched Feyre's cheekbone. The girl's jaw trembled. "Well then I suppose I was punishing the wrong bitch then, wasn't I?" was all the Faerie Queen said, but the threat in her words was enough.

Feyre just lifted her chin and stared her down.

She was willing to accept her fate.

I wasn't.

Nor was I the only one, thank the Cauldron.

"Don't you touch her!"

There was a blur of brown and white, and a shriek and then everything happened at once.

Nesta lunged at the Faerie Queen and she was screaming incoherent things as they fell to the ground, grappling and punching and biting. Amarantha didn't dare use her stolen magic against an opponent who was so close but she was a faerie and faeries are significantly stronger than humans so soon enough she was on top of Nesta, and was gleefully snapping her bones one by one, and then she wrapped her hands round her neck and made to snap that too-

But Feyre wasn't having any of that, and she reached over her shoulder to tear two of those ash arrows out of her quiver, and she dived at the two girls-

My attention whipped to the two faeries still in the doorway, seized the Attor's mind in my grip and shattered it, quickly and quietly, before I turned to the High Fae, but he'd already shot his arrow, and I could see the poison gleaming on it, and I could see the path it would take to pierce Feyre's long exposed neck, and I felt my wings flare behind me in response to an instinct to protect that roared from the depths of my soul to block its path even as I reached out and shattered that faerie's mind too-

But its wielder's death didn't stop the path of the missile, which burrowed into the membrane of my wing, and stuck there. I screamed and fell to my knees, and through the haze of pain I only managed to make out the sight of Feyre shoving Nesta out of the way and colliding with Amarantha and driving the arrow in her left hand into the soft white skin of her throat.

The Queen's eyes bulged. She reached up to pull the arrow out in an attempt to get her body to heal, but Feyre wouldn't move her hands. Even as the female squeezed tighter and tighter until I could hear the sound of bones breaking, she wouldn't yield. Then Feyre calmly took the arrow in her other hand, and drove it into Amarantha's heart.

I couldn't tear my eyes away from the scene.

Not because the Faerie Queen's body went limp and fell to the ground, motionless.

Not because I felt my power barrel into me again after fifty years, like someone had finally opened a rusty old door and let it fly in.

Not even because the wound in my wing was burning a hole in my mind and heart.

But because I knew that hand, knew it even as it was wrapped around an arrow shaft, the closeness a grotesque illusion of intimacy, and blood flowed down it in a savage parody of the paint that once had. That hand that I saw fully ungloved for the first time since I'd met the owner in person.

My eyes tracked up to meet Feyre's which were scrunched in pain, but she found the energy to open them and reach out her good hand to gently shake Nesta's shoulder. She looked up then, and our gazes clashed. Exhaustion - such exhaustion I saw there.

There was no triumph whatsoever. In all honesty, I couldn't bring myself to feel it either.

But I looked at her, and a word flashed through my mind before I collapsed, the pain in my wing too much to bear.

All I heard was someone calling my name before the world went dark.